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Who doesn't love seeing all of the amazing innovation happening in Canada's Startup world? We connect with Canada's best startups to learn about their business and the amazing people behind it. Follow along and hear some of the most interesting ideas and top elevator pitches from across Canada!
00:01.24
mike_flywheel
What's up everybody welcome back to the pitch please podcast today. We're talking to Julia from treehouse. We talked to Julia about a year ago so today we're going to be doing an update learning a little bit more about treehouse about a bunch of different elements of the journey from Mvp to. You know a year in market making revenue growing the business I think there's a whole bunch of great insights that Julia's going to share with us today. But before we go anywhere I think what's most important is to learn what treehouse does so Julia if you want to introduce yourself, give us a little background on what treehouse does and then we'll start talking about you know what's been up. And happening in the last year since we last chatted.
00:33.59
Julia Slanina
Absolutely well Thanks Mike for for inviting me on today I'm excited to to give you that 1 year update and with that I'll kick things off for everyone who doesn't know me my name is Julia Julius Lenniina I'm the Ceo and founder of Treehouse Treehouse offers a comprehensive virtual platform to transform really the way maternal care is delivered ultimately improving those health outcomes of women mothers and families now what does that really mean exactly That's our overarching statement. But what we do is we really offer a practice management solution for allied healthcare providers that enables them to not only efficiently manage their entire business but they do it all on 1 single interface. And then similarly our wraparound maternal healthcare and wellness hub is focused for those clients of those allied healthcare providers and that's designed really to help support families, build care circles and stay connected to their circle of care. So that's tree has in a nutshell. Mike.
01:41.98
mike_flywheel
I Love it. Well I think one of the things that's going to be most important to understand when we first talked you had done this and you were starting to seek out. Um, care providers and and actually maybe it'd be good to you know for for listeners What are Allied. Health Professionals What are some of the health professionals that you might find using or through treehouse who who's this ultimately for that.
01:59.46
Julia Slanina
You know? Yeah, so these are professionals who work in healthcare settings but they are not doctors or nurses that work in a clinical settings so they support patient health and well-being to deliver comprehensive healthcare so we look at. Folks like mental health providers. We look at psychologists psychotherapists pelvic floor physiotherapists doulas lactation consultants midwives dieticians nutritionists occupational therapists. Um. There's a whole slew of them. But really what we're seeing that a lot of folks that are using treehouse are typically mental health providers from prenatal to postpartum or early childhood sleep consultants doulas and and those folks that really have like a private practice a fee for service practice. In Canada and in the Us.
02:59.99
mike_flywheel
And so where were you when we last chatted a year ago like where would you say you were in your journey as ah as a startup and what has changed and where are you at today will give us a little bit of that recap.
03:09.20
Julia Slanina
So when we last spoke Mike we were just freshly starting in the market and we were still actively selling to clinics across Canada we have recently expanded to not only accepting canadian. Ah, providers and customers. But also american and so our technology at the time didn't have all the bells and whistles and the feature enhancements that we have today. It was very much focused on what the provider needed from like a clinical tool. But now we've not only expanded that but also have grown out. Kind of the experience of the client or the patient so that they can really stay connected to their practitioner and then those practitioners can collaborate on that on that common patient as well. So that's been pretty exciting.
03:59.25
mike_flywheel
You've gone. There's some massive tech improvements. It sounds like you've scaled to a lot more people not just providers but also everyday users. Ah you know that need this access to care. Um, what were like some of the major milestones over the last year as part of that you know evolution from.
04:09.38
Julia Slanina
Affluent.
04:16.70
mike_flywheel
You know, an early stage platform a little bit past an idea where you had some tech and you're starting to get your first users of the platform. What has changed the most for you. So.
04:23.95
Julia Slanina
Yeah I think what's changed the most is that the platforms that user experience has become a lot more seamless at the beginning when we spoke Mike we were you know. There's a lot of kinks that startups go through and we still are working through that we're not at that that stage where everything is finessed and everything is working perfectly. Um, but at the time there were a lot of like that user experience wasn't. Where it is today and the reason being was that we didn't have as many users that were giving us that active feedback as to what that onboarding should look like what that customer journey should look like for them when they connect with their providers. So we've taken that feedback we've taken customer feedback from providers and their. End users and we've made that a lot better. We've added other types of features for the clinical documentation and we've also started looking at different distribution channels as to how we acquire those customers those providers. And then how do we help? folks, get access to care on on the other side of that community. So that's something that we've worked through over the course of the last twelve months
05:34.30
mike_flywheel
So How would you say you know for others that are in a similar space where they're testing and trying to get feedback I think we broadly bucket feedback into oh we want feedback to make our product better. How. Do you do that? has it just been organic. Do you have a systematic way of soliciting feedback both from the end users and from the providers is it built into the platform. What does that look like and what have you found to be the best way to do it. I'm sure you've had a few iterations at this.
06:00.54
Julia Slanina
Yeah there's been a lot of iterations and you're constantly iterating even to this day we're still iterating. We still get feedback on a regular basis. So first what I will say is that as a founder you need to be completely aware of the market trends that consistently take place. On a quarterly bi- quarterly basis annual basis. You cannot be oblivious to what is going on in the market in in amongst your competitors first and foremost I'll start with that but specific to your product. What I would say is you need to think about how do you want to build that feedback model. Because there's a lot of models out there and um, you know I had to really think about how will people actually give me that feedback the type of Target consumer that we have the type of provider is a very busy provider. They're writing their own business time is of the essence. They are not going to give me a survey monkey or a survey that takes them more than 10 minutes to complete I'm not going to get any of it and the reason I know that is because I've tried I've tried many many times I've incentivized them with Starbucks Gift Cards no one cares no one wants to do a survey for for saas. In digital health like it's it's just not going to work so what works what works is finding people that really believe in your mission. So those are those early adopters those early users that are not only committed to what your mission is.
07:34.14
Julia Slanina
Where you spend the time when you're onboarding them or giving them information to to say to them would you like to be part of like our referral program where if you give us feedback. We'll give you one month free on your subscription. If you give us feedback or if you introduce us to 5 more providers. We'll give you five months free or what have you so building these type of referral or ambassador programs allows for you to connect with these people on a regular cadence and then just being I would say flexible mike.
07:59.66
mike_flywheel
Um.
08:06.37
Julia Slanina
Um, some people love to give me feedback in an email other providers give me feedback on voice notes and they have direct access to my personal cell and I don't love it because it's my personal cell phone but I make it work because I need it and I think that's really key for founders When. There's so many different models out there find things that even if you're a little uncomfortable with try them out for a period and see if it works.
08:29.10
mike_flywheel
Um.
08:32.10
mike_flywheel
Yeah, like what you you talked to it there I think you you hit it right on the head a lot of people might assume structured survey is the best way to go but to your point like you just might not get the feedback and it might sound like oh no, 1 ne's answering the questionnaire. Everything's great. But you you know you embraced accessibility around this you know I'm the founder here's myself feel free to reach out to me. Whatever way is best and email a voice note and you were sort of all embracing of those different forms of feedback and and weaving them into the product and I think that's super valuable which is just like take it organically.
09:07.40
Julia Slanina
Yeah I think what's important is you said the word structure and yes, a survey is structured and what I will say though is as much as I give the flexibility to the customer to give me that feedback in a voice note or in a text message or what have you.
09:09.36
mike_flywheel
Um, but but it's an important piece.
09:26.50
Julia Slanina
I have a very systematic way that I ask them questions I I'm asking them to give me feedback on their onboarding like I have a structure so you need to be structured because you have your goal. My goal is to understand what you've done in the last sixty days or what you've done in the last two weeks as a provider.
09:36.52
mike_flywheel
Got it.
09:44.65
Julia Slanina
I Don't just willy nilly tell them to send me a boy note about their day they can do that if they feel like it. But I really ask them questions as well and I think you being prepared with what you want or what you may need for product. You know enhancement or the gold is really critical too.
10:02.66
mike_flywheel
Got it so be be structured in what you're trying to achieve ah but offer flexibility and and have a more organic way of how you capture that feedback and I I think that's a great insight now.
10:04.51
Julia Slanina
Um, yeah.
10:13.40
Julia Slanina
Um, yeah, exactly.
10:17.80
mike_flywheel
Through that did any of those insights guide the evolution of how you've gone to market and acquired new providers on the platform and.
10:26.41
Julia Slanina
Yeah, great question 100% um, we realized very quickly I'd say in like the first the end of the first quarter early q two of 2023 that our acquisition strategy was slow. Was slow because we were building rapport. It was taking far too much time to close a sale that sales cycle was constantly getting longer and longer and it's just not a sustainable model even if you were to throw cash at it and so how do we find a way to attract providers to learn more about treehouse. But how that software can help their practice. Um and grow grow essentially our customer base right? and then in de facto have those end users using it and and getting access to resources and what have you and we started realizing that going directly to them was just not was not okay it was not quick enough is what I'm trying to say so.
11:18.54
mike_flywheel
And what did that look like like what were you were you just physically calling up and emailing different health professionals 1 to 1 at that time and.
11:30.28
Julia Slanina
So we had ah we had ah a model of how we would do that acquisition using social media using digital marketing solutions but we started realizing that even if we had a target. So for example in a month we had to close you know 10 accounts. We were not closing 10 accounts. We were closing you know 15 to 20% of those accounts and that is it wasn't making me happy and I was just not I said we there's got to be a better way like we need to think about this and we need to find a way of how we can if we have a target of 50 or 20 or what have you clinics. How do we get as close as possible to those numbers. Um, it's not resonating with them. What do we need to do to resonate with them is it because they need greater exposure is it because they don't trust us should we should we be working part of me with a partner. And who should that partner be um so we tossed around a few ideas we thought like oh should we go to associations should we give a lot the discounts like what should it be and then we realized what we really need to do is understand how people digest. Care in Canada specifically we were focusing first in Canada and like how do I even as ah as a mom as a parent I'm a millennial how did gen z digest this and so we realized very quickly that more and more canadians don't have access to family doctors.
12:58.50
Julia Slanina
And the place that they go to access care more and more are pharmacies and pharmacies become really that gateway. Where would you go and you ask your pharmacist about a psychologist. Do you know a psychologist. Do you know nutritionist hey my sister is pregnant but sure her iron's really low. Do you know nutritionist by the way. And every pharmacist no matter where you are whether you're in Northern Saskatchewan in a tiny community or you're in downtown Vancouver they all have a rolodex for the lack of a better war that's very 90 s a rolodex so ah they all have a roll at egg sitting on their desk of people that they refer to. So that gives providers the ability to be almost showcased in a pharmacy because the pharmacy kind of says. Well you know treehouse has access to providers and so consumers can then access those providers but those providers want to be on treehouse or using treehouse as a pharmacy in. So. Is essentially advocating for them. So we said let's test it out and we did and after sixty days we started seeing just ah, an exponential growth in closing clinics. We went from closing you know, 2 to 3 in a month to 17 to twenty five and a month so huge huge growth
14:16.30
mike_flywheel
So Wow So you've effectively become the the rolodexer the directory if you will um for pharmacists the trusted directory where pharmacists can say hey I know some but to find a.
14:20.20
Julia Slanina
You know.
14:30.51
mike_flywheel
The best list of ones nearby use this directory. They've got a bunch of amazing providers on it. Go to treehouse it'll answer a whole bunch of that. You've become the the directory of Authority for pharmacists to help kind of help their patients that are coming in seek alternative care that they themselves cannot provide.
14:45.50
Julia Slanina
Um, now precisely.
14:50.39
mike_flywheel
So can I I want to learn a little bit about that first phase though. So when you were going direct to providers. Ah, you know there's some digital marketing some organic some direct outreach did that you know like looking back did that work.
14:57.72
Julia Slanina
Um, or.
15:06.73
mike_flywheel
Your first twenty five to 50 like would you have changed the strategy and jumped right to where you are now or was it actually okay because you were you were learning in that process because ah, you know so many founders start. They've got the idea they've got maybe 1 or 2 people in that network and. You know there's always this notion of like what is the way to get your first 10 or 20 customers and then that might have to change for your next one hundred or one thousand it sounds like you went through some of that would you have still kind of done it the same way or would you have changed your approach from day zero. So.
15:31.84
Julia Slanina
15:38.17
Julia Slanina
I would have done it the same way and the reason for that is because I built a very good rapport with those initial customers. They are my trusted network of ambassadors that can give me product feedback. That give me information about the way that they operate as certain types of providers whether they be nutritionists Doulas lactation consultants. They tell me about their industry and so they become really part of my feedback like at my um, my Beta group or my user group that's giving me. Like you at right that user acceptance testing and so that is a critical piece is to have that group of people that you can lean on and reach out to is really valuable. Um, it's a slower model. Definitely especially if you're not pumping. Tons of money behind it but is it something that is scalable and sustainable. No. It is not but if it's something that you have to do because you don't have money I say that it's a good one because you build connections in the community and they know who you are and that's really valuable. In those early stages because if you have feedback from one customer. Well, that's great. But if you have it from 20. It's even better and that really helps you for your next step when you're trying to get that bigger bigger group of people so I would say it's um.
17:10.52
Julia Slanina
It's ah it's a slower step but it's ah it's a good one and I think being patient is important as well.
17:14.46
mike_flywheel
And what's that what was that um pivot moment for you like when was the realization that this not scalable high quality approach to getting the product into hands needed to change was there. Maybe it was one day he woke up and you're like this needs to change or or maybe it is more fluid than that. But you know is there a magic number for you or was it a moment in the evolution of the product that made you realize okay now is the next chapter in how we go to market and how we acquire stuff.
17:48.78
Julia Slanina
Well, the way that I looked at it was the product itself had had enough bells and whistles in terms of competing with what was already in market and I thought well surely there must be an uptick at this point and what. Why not? It's not like we have a bare product that has like 1 feature in it and nobody wants to use it. There's got to be a better way to get this in the hands of people because the initial feedback that we're getting is very positive and it is. Helping them and it is helping their clinic and it is helping their patients. So more people need to get access to it. It comes down at the end of the day in those early days because you're trying to convince investors and you're trying to convince people to invest in your product. Um that you need to hit certain targets. And whether that's a revenue target or it's a usage target I'm a very practical person and I want to see growth and I want to see the success of this company in the product. So if I look at a target and we're not hitting it consistently thirty days forty five days sixty days well then let's go back down to that drawing board and make sure that it happens. Because if not, we're going to be a dead fish in the water within you know three months so that's that was my wake up.
19:03.58
mike_flywheel
Got it so sort of on that like the moment of scale and you you let it play out for some days 30 or 60 days but don't let that play out for a year struggling like come back to the drawing board. Definitely so you know what? I'd love to even learn about you know over the last year
19:14.10
Julia Slanina
Um, don't fall in love with that move on.
19:23.60
mike_flywheel
Um, the fact that you are now maybe what two plus years into this journey. That's that's quite impressive like a lot of startups. It's very hard to make it and continue to thrive and survive for that long. What's the ecosystem been like whether it be from like funding I know the health that i.
19:24.16
Julia Slanina
Um, it. So.
19:26.46
Julia Slanina
Or.
19:41.10
mike_flywheel
And maybe you can speak to it because I know now you're a candidate in the Us. Maybe you can speak to differences. You're seeing across the 2 but what has it been like to be a health tech startup knowing that you know there's a lot of different categories. There's physical product innovation I think we see a lot of money going to the r and d of of that. There's pharmaceuticals and I think we see a lot of money and funding go into that. But what is it like as a health tech startup and ah a saas provider in this space.
19:58.57
Julia Slanina
Um.
20:05.17
Julia Slanina
Yeah I think what? I'd like to see kind of changing in the market as well is just kind of that knowledge about women's health industry right? We we play in this sort of like the femtech market space and femtech opportunities that exist that not only help. Um, women's health but they help families' health treehouse in itself 85% of our customer whether they be provider or end user are women but you know 20% almost is really male as well. 85% of all. Spending dollars in healthcare that decision is made by the woman in the household. So it's still very much. We're focusing on that women's health industry and so what I often find myself is is really educating folks about that industry of what it's going to look like over the course of the next several years we've seen a lot of investment specifically in the Us market in this space where we see you know companies like Maven um, you know, clearing billion dollar status they're way past their unicorn phase and I think what is important for folks to to know is that this is an industry that's projected. You know at a growth rate of over 13% and um, we see that it's over 1000000000000 by 2027? Um, what we also know is that investing in women's health shows consistent positive returns on investment.
21:37.39
Julia Slanina
For every one us dollar Invested. There's projected of $3 in economic growth because of the impact that it has. It's not specifically just in that care but really different aspects of life so that includes child and health services. That includes productivity investing in women's health investing in family care allows for folks to not only go back to work companies will see an increase in economic productivity and we will also see just better outcomes. Not only for those parents. But for those children from from a health care standpoint.
22:21.15
mike_flywheel
And now talk to me ah is it to feel like there's a challenge in terms of investors seeing this as a high growth high profitability is there just a lack of understanding maybe about. Elements of of women's health like what do you think are the things that are most often overlooked misunderstood or not understood well enough that people should be paying more attention to in this Space. So.
22:44.90
Julia Slanina
Yeah I think they need to understand that improving women's health unleashes a very strong powerful engine for change. Um, you know Bill and Melinda gates pushed out a very intricate report on how this helps not only. Economies in North America globally but also in low income areas of the world where there's a lot of poverty and struggle and what we've seen traditionally is that we try to just capture all health care and not focus it on how we can help women specifically or families in in growing. And so I think um spending the time to educate yourself whether it be. You know you're if you're part of a fund or you're at the head of a fund to understand the impact that that can give you as a return is is really critical.
23:40.56
mike_flywheel
Yeah, and no, no I think I think that's valuable and are there are there elements that you know maybe trios is putting out or things that you'd guide people to go look at to to start to become more knowledgeable on this space or maybe they're just going to have to come see you in action.
23:41.38
Julia Slanina
Ah, pause there.
23:57.29
mike_flywheel
The next pitch competition but where how can people start getting more educated on the value of investing in Health tech in women's health um and and things like what you're trying to solve. So.
24:09.70
Julia Slanina
Yeah I think just being open to the fact that there's a lot of market trends that have already been proven right? where there are a lot of companies that are far more advanced than treehouse that have done this very successfully There's a lot of data elements that can help and it's it's whether or not. It's just 1 piece of technology treehouse is one piece of technology but the opportunities in the suite of that technology are so vast that it's not just ah, we're building one saas solution for 1 type of provider the way that we have architected. Our company is so that we grow. And that there are a suite of technologies that can not only help as the family grows. For example I think just seeing the opportunity. Um is is really important I sit on. Um, the advisory board for femtech canada where there's a lot of different types of technology in life sciences specifically in women's health and part of that is just you know educating that type of investor or the individual that's interested in this space about. What has been proven. What are the market trends and what is it showing us in terms of the impact of our economy and everything looks very positive. It just needs more funding and more backing from capital markets.
25:25.87
mike_flywheel
So maybe let's come back to I'd love to get your perspective because I think you started your canadian started a canadian company I'm Canadian but I know you've expanded also into the us and I think you're seeing investment decisions.
25:32.91
Julia Slanina
Been.
25:43.53
mike_flywheel
Adoption integration of care now on both sides of the border. What are like some of the differences that you're seeing and where are you seeing more adoption traction and and support and like if you're open to being super candid. But I think it's just an interesting. Dialogue to have which is like where how does the canadian economy and investors support canadian startups and where and how are canadian startups possibly succeeding or failing in the in the Us.
26:09.27
Julia Slanina
So fundamentally across the board people acknowledge that our healthcare care system pre pandemic post pandemic. However, you want to call it isn in tatters. Okay, whether you're in the us or you're in Canada or it's it's really in tatters. Specifically even in our vertical if we're looking at Maternal Health care supporting families and that growth of families is abysmal. We don't we just don't and so how do we do that better? Well I've seen. Um, is that now that we've started making some traction in the us market the adoption in the us market is a lot a lot easier. It's a lot faster. It's less education and it's not because we're not educated in Canada. I think we have been used to a certain system and even though we want to make change. There's behavioral changes that need to take place and that's where we focus a lot of our you know strategy for for this year and next year is how do we target that. How do we look at that behavior change. Us market that we've entered specifically has been the southeastern part of the us market so we look at states like Florida Georgia North Carolina South Carolina and the reason for that is because there are kind of what we call maternal deserts there folks have money to spend providers need.
27:35.59
Julia Slanina
Better technologies and tools. It's not as crowded as something like so you know San Francisco or New York um and people are willing to um, try different different solutions to help improve care.
27:51.60
mike_flywheel
Well I I I think congrats I think it's amazing to see that you are able to very quickly within a year since we last chatted already breach into growth in the in Canada in the Us. Um I am hopeful that canadians will continue to adopt this and. Maybe put. Ah you know the americans to our south a little bit of shame. We should be proud of amazing canadian innovation like what you're building um and support it and we know that our healthcare system is equally challenged and so our ability to adopt better solutions like treehouse is important I know we're coming up to time.
28:19.17
Julia Slanina
About better. You should fight.
28:27.20
mike_flywheel
I want to make sure that we close out on letting people know where they can find out more about treehouse and see if there's anything else. You know now you've got an additional year of wisdom in this space for other founders that need to hear it or any investors or people that are practitioners potentially that need to hear it that are listening in today to make sure they hear kind of some. So closing words from from you and the treehouse team.
28:45.36
Julia Slanina
Absolutely if they're willing to to learn more about what it is that we're doing and the impact we're making across Canada and into the us I'm very keen to to continue the conversation similarly help founders also talk about the kinks that they're going through in their product development. Ah, they can connect with us and with me specifically through our website grow with treehouse ca or they can find me on Linkedin my name and happy to connect with them. There.
29:15.70
mike_flywheel
So I love it so we'll we'll make sure that's all in the in the show notes and when we post this, we're going to make sure that everyone shares posts or tags at least 1 additional Pharmacy Or Healthcare provider especially if they're in the canadian ecosystem to help get that word out. So maybe that'll be part of our mission when we release this episode.
29:25.46
Julia Slanina
1 from the first.
29:34.40
mike_flywheel
They can listen in understand what's going on and hopefully reach out to treehouse to figure out where it can fit into how they're thinking about providing care better care to canadians in our in our health care ecosystem americans too I'm not going to shy away but I want to create a bit of a canadian rally around as I think it's important. Um, yeah, thank you so much for coming on today. Julie I appreciate.
29:48.98
Julia Slanina
Um, thank you no open dollars.
29:53.00
mike_flywheel
You know all the knowledge and insight you've shared of your 1 year journey I look forward to hopefully connecting again soon and seeing the continued progress and you know we're always rooting for you. So thank you thanks to everyone that tuned in and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks.
30:06.30
Julia Slanina
Likewise.