Leading the Charge in Employee Health and Wellness Innovation
Archetype Solutions Group and the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) hosted the first-ever Pitch Well event on April 20, 2020 in search of the top innovator in the employee health and wellness space.
Applications for Pitch Well began in January 2020 and hundreds of companies applied. Due to the large amount of applications, we weren’t able to showcase all of the incredible businesses. So we decided to award one exceptional early-stage organization, Employee Cycle, $25,000 prior to the event.
Narrowing down the remaining applicants, six finalists in the “accelerated business” category were chosen to present their innovations in health and wellness at the event. At Pitch Well 2020, an esteemed panel of judges heard from the six businesses as they vied for a $100,000 grand prize investment.
Founders or CEOs from each company engaged with the judges to share their vision after screening a pre-recorded pitch. Panels were hosted after pitches concluded, and the day ended with the announcement of the winner of the $100,000 investment.
Jump Ahead:
COMPANY PITCHES
The six companies chosen to present at Pitch Well all had innovative employee health and wellness solutions to share. But on the day of the event, the current national lockdown and coronavirus pandemic underscored the importance of providing health-focused resources for employees.
GENNEV
About Gennev: Only 7% of women get the help they need to manage menopause symptoms. Gennev’s CEO and Co-Founder Jill Angelo plans to change that with direct-to-consumer telehealth services and formulated products for women focused on menopause.
Early on, Gennev surveyed 1,500 women to understand what information they needed and how they were accessing it. This led Gennev to put an emphasis on creating content and educational resources for women.
Current Efforts: Gennev continues to grow its educational content with its menopause assessment, which helps women understand if they’re in menopause and where they are in that journey. So far, 35,000 women have taken the assessment, providing Gennev with valuable information to create better resources for women.
Looking to the Future: The company’s telehealth services have expanded to primary care as women seek help for a number of symptoms in the aftermath of the global pandemic.
GOMO HEALTH
About GoMo Health: GoMo Health is a behavioral therapeutics platform for healthcare providers, health plans and payers, and pharmaceutical and life sciences companies designed to increase patient engagement.
Those with chronic or serious diseases often go off medication as they battle anxiety, depression and fatigue. This causes more health problems. GoMo Health uses its behavioral therapeutics platform to increase patient activation and decrease healthcare costs.
Current Efforts: 80% of GoMo Health’s sales currently come from direct channels, but Founder and Chief Behavioral Technologist Bob Gold aims to scale distribution and increase sales the company sees from resellers and partners.
Looking to the Future: GoMo Health plans to collaborate with patient advocacy groups, patient centers, and healthcare plans operating in the oncology market to expand its current client base.
HEALTHNEXT
About HealthNEXT: HealthNEXT wants to lower healthcare inflation. After researching trendsetting companies that successfully reduced healthcare costs, HealthNEXT developed evidence-based, peer-reviewed processes for other companies to be just as successful.
Current Efforts: The research also identified a critical component to success: access to physician executives. HealthNEXT helps employers navigate healthcare strategy, policy, and troubleshooting through a telemedicine service that connects human resources and benefits managers to qualified individuals
Looking to the Future: Utilizing the networks of its physician executives, HealthNEXT has access to an extensive physician network and plans to leverage that as part of its growth model.
LIFEGUIDES
About LifeGuides: LifeGuides helps individuals going through difficult life challenges such as disease or a new role as caretaker by matching them with guides who have gone through similar experiences.
Current Efforts: LifeGuides recruits, trains, and employs guides to pair people with qualified resources. As an organizational benefit, they ensure a high level of advice and care with intensive training, rating features, and incentives for guides who continually maintain a high standard of service.
Looking to the Future: LifeGuides’ CEO and President Derek Lundsten is looking to scale by increasing the company’s customer base through direct and broker channels.
MYTONOMY
About Mytonomy: Mytonomy is a solution to healthcare engagement. Mytonomy combines enterprise SaaS solutions with machine learning to enable employers to deliver healthcare content to workers.
Current Efforts: Mytonomy is a CRM platform that improves employee health and increases productivity with health training and engaging communications. Thanks to the power of machine learning, Mytonomy is able to provide workers with tailored instructions to address their individual health learning gaps.
CEO and Co-Founder Anjali Kataria shared that Mytonomy currently does multi-year deals and brings in revenue from licensing agreements.
Looking to the Future: Mytonony hopes to break into the employer and insurer markets to expand its consumer base.
WISDOM LABS
About Wisdom Labs: Wisdom Labs builds solutions to improve mental, emotional, and social health at work. Wisdom Labs’ suite of products includes Wise@Work Communities and access to their app to help employers and employees navigate stress and build deeper social connections.
Current Efforts: The company’s community-based solution, Wise@Work Communities, is a program led by employees within an organization. Using science-based lessons, the Community Leaders established within each organization can guide their teams through a mindful practice and discussion on a given topic. Through this practice, employees build their resiliency to stress and can increase their ability to be productive, all while improving their mental health and wellbeing.
Looking to the Future: CEO Cory Smith is aiming to raise $1.5 million in the pre-seed stage for the business. He hopes to utilize marketing to reach greater numbers of human resources and benefits managers to grow the business in the near term.
UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES FROM FEMALE FOUNDERS
Pitch Well also featured two panels discussing important topics for entrepreneurs and small businesses alike.
First was a panel about the importance of regional ecosystems. Viewers were greeted by a panel of female leaders eager to share their unique perspectives.
These women included Jane Allen, the CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, Leslie Smith, Founding President and CEO of Epicenter, and Margeret Dolan, President and CEO of Launch Tennessee.
The panelists conversed about a variety of topics, including how their entrepreneurial-focused businesses service clients and build communities, how the recent growth of investments in the digital health community has changed the regional ecosystem and their organizations, and how attendees can grow their partnership networks.
Support and giving back were the constant themes. The panelists shared their passions for giving entrepreneurs and small businesses access to capital, connecting them to resources that are available, and sharing advice from previous experiences.
When asked about the collaboration between the organizations represented, Epicenter CEO and Founding President Leslie Smith shared, “if every decision you make is centered around what [the entrepreneur] needs to be successful, collaboration is the only answer. And your concern for control or credit really fade quite quickly…We think collaboration is the best path.”
LESSONS IN GROWTH FROM THOSE WHO ACHIEVED IT
A second panel commenced featuring a new group of panelists ready to share their insights on how to scale a business.
The panelists, Shawn Orenstein and Stephen Kaye, discussed how they scaled their businesses, their guiding parameters for growth, what the risks are of not being aligned with the rest of your leadership team, and what their success has taught them about the importance of hiring for culture fit.
Kaye was especially poised to share his advice in the wake of coronavirus, as he successfully grew and scaled a business through the 2008 recession to the mid-2010s.
Listeners walked away learning a firm decision making ability, forward thinking, acceptance of missing out on trends, and building a reliable team are essential principles for leaders to consider when thinking about growth.
For example, in response to the moderator’s question about the risk of not being aligned with your leadership team, Kaye shared, “my number one point is around values. Because nothing detracts from an organization [like] if somebody on that leadership team is not going in the same direction.” He continued, “move early. If somebody’s not aligned with what you’re trying to achieve…you have to address it.”
WINNER ANNOUNCED
With the conclusion of the six pitches and the afternoon’s panels, Archetype Solutions Group and WELCOA announced Mytonomy as the winner of the event and the recipient of the $100,000 investment.
Thank you to all who participated and our amazing sponsors:
- BenefitPitch: The leading platform connecting benefit professionals with world-class vendors.
- RCCB Law: The lawyers who accelerate business from Fortune 0 to Fortune 500.
- Barrel: The agency designing meaningful customer experiences for wellness brands.
All sponsorship proceeds were donated to the New Orleans Business Alliance COVID-19 Relief Fund. You can watch the full recording of the event here. If you want to know how we put together this event, you can download our Pitch Well Virtual Event Playbook here.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Archetype Solutions Group
At Archetype Solutions Group, we empower growth in companies in the workplace health, wealth, and performance sectors with a unique strategy, divided into two arms: consulting and venture. Our consulting work specializes in bringing start-up like agility to enterprises in the middle market. Our ventures leverage shared services through Archetype and capital via the Arc Alpha fund. To date, we have invested in 10+ ventures in the workplace health, wealth, and performance industries.
The Wellness Council of America (WELCOA)
WELCOA (The Wellness Council of America) is the nation’s most-respected resources for building high-performing, healthy workplaces. Throughout its 30+ year history, WELCOA has perfected its patented Well Workplace protocol which is the key to developing, delivering, and sustaining a healthy corporate culture. Today, thousands of workplace wellness practitioners, human resources professionals, business leaders and consultants rely on WELCOA for tools, trainings and its Premier Provider Network (PPN) partners to move their wellness programs forward.