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How Avanlee Care Is Teaming Up with Retailers to Address the Caregiver Crisis · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  When you download the app as a family, you're able to immediately start to manage an aging parent's medications, doctor's appointments, coordinate on care, get them food, um, health and wellness products, be alerted if certain heart like metrics like heart rate go out of a certain range.
• 0:20
  You're able to essentially do all things related to tech in virtual monitoring in one solution.
• 0:26
  [upbeat music] Welcome back to Startup Health Now, the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health. I'm your host, Logan Plaster.
• 0:38
  My guest today is Avonley Christine, CEO and co-founder at Avonley Care. A few years ago, Avonley found herself helping to coordinate care for her grandmother.
• 0:48
  Everyone in her family wanted to help, but she lived far away, and there just wasn't a great way to check in on her health and be the kind of support system that the family wanted to be.
• 0:58
  As many entrepreneurs do, Avonley said to herself, "There must be a better way."
• 1:03
  So she raised some funds, that's a story in itself, built a team, and set out to design a platform that eases the burden on unpaid caregivers. Oh, and she did it all while having her first child.
• 1:15
  I'll let her explain the details of the Avonley product as it stands today, and tell us about how she's finding eager partners in some of the country's largest retailers and employers.
• 1:25
  Turns out, easing the caregiver burden isn't just a moral good, it's also good for a company's bottom line. [upbeat music] Avonley Christine from Avonley Care, thank you so much for joining me for Startup Health Now. Hi.
• 1:40
  Good to be here. Nice to see you again.
• 1:43
  It has been awesome to watch your journey since you joined Startup Health, and we did our initial story about you, and, and, and see you grow your company there in Montana, which I wanna talk about, and, uh, embark on some awesome partnerships.
• 1:57
  But I really wanna just introduce you to the audience by doing a bit of your story. So could you take me back to... Let's start with the challenge.
• 2:05
  Let's start with identifying something that was broken in healthcare that would cause you to wanna step out and create a company and create a solution. Yeah. It's a great question.
• 2:17
  So I think, you know, when you ask somebody, "Have you ever been a caregiver?" Um, they would probably say yes, or someone in their family comes to mind, or at some point they will become a caregiver for somebody.
• 2:32
  And, um, when we last spoke, I believe I was out in New York City, and I was in the position of becoming a caregiver for my grandmother, who was in Montana. My mom was her primary caregiver.
• 2:48
  And over and over again, just seeing the same story. How are we gonna all rally together and care for grandma or an aging parent?
• 2:57
  And, and that's when I decided, okay, I think that there has to be a better platform for families to remotely care for an aging parent. Life Alert shouldn't be the only available product for families.
• 3:10
  And that's usually what would come to mind when I would talk to people. And so we, we, we raised capital, we built the company in Montana. Um, it's been incredible to build the team out here.
• 3:23
  It's been incredible to get some of our investors, um, and board members from New York City out to Montana.
• 3:30
  Um, and we just put our heads together and thought, "If we're going to build the best product for families to remotely care for an aging parent, what do we have to do differently to win?" Mm-hmm.
• 3:42
  And we spent the last, you know, really 18 months, um, heads down on product. And what we were able to do really early on was get conversations with big organizations who gave us the ability to get,
• 3:58
  you know, something we wouldn't typically get-- be able to do, like groceries to a senior's home, um, allow for full biometric tracking in our app, so something like, um, we're integrated in with Fitbit, and allow for these caregivers, if you and I were siblings on this call, and let's say Mom was in Iowa, we would have the ability to see her heart rate, her blood pressure, her sleep, where she was, and then get her groceries that would be delivered to her via our integration with Walmart.
• 4:34
  So groceries, health and wellness products, and, um, we wanted to take that, but also go from the family caregiver space to health plans and employers. Because what we're seeing over the last year is
• 4:50
  it's a problem for the family caregiver, the unpaid family caregiver, but it's also a massive problem for large employers who have people who are needing to leave work to go care for an aging parent.
• 5:03
  So how do you get the employers on board to offer solutions like this to better su- to, to better support their workforce? And so in the last 18 months, we, we focused on building a product that would really, I think,
• 5:19
  be unique in the market and allow us to win in terms of differentiation and, um, how we could save people money and time and make the caregiver's life easier. My mom, she is the caregiver.
• 5:35
  And so it's just like little simple things that you can implement feature-wise in an app that really do reduce burden, burnout, and save time. So that's what the last couple years have been.
• 5:47
  We've grown, um, pretty dr-drastically in Montana.
• 5:52
  And yeah, we're- Before, before, but before we get into growth, I wanna dial it back a little bit and talk about you, 'cause you said that you were on the cusp of being a caregiver, you were in New York, and then you saw this problem, and then you jumped toRaising funds, raising capital, and building a company as a CEO.
• 6:10
  And not everybody in that situation, you know, very, very few people who find themselves caregivers make that leap. So what was it about you or your, your past experience that set you up for that? Yeah.
• 6:24
  I, I never really thought that I would probably get to, to this point. Um, [laughs]
• 6:29
  I wanted to help my grandma and I wanted to build an app, and now this app is helping many grandmas, [laughs] m- many moms and dads, uh, and now very large corporations, uh, manage the care of an aging parent.
• 6:44
  So, you know, I met a woman, who's our chairman, named Esther Dyson really early on, and Esther and I were complete opposites. And I remember I pitched her my idea and she said, "Well, that's a great idea."
• 6:58
  How'd, how- "You better go do it." [laughs] How did you, how did you meet her?
• 7:01
  'Cause a l- lot of, lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, you know, struggle to be, make, make the first great relationship with a good potential investor.
• 7:11
  I don't know if she remembers this, but we kinda got introduced by accident, and this was when she had an office on Broadway in SoHo in the Meetup building and I went and met her.
• 7:24
  And I remember, I'll never forget, she... It was on a Sunday afternoon. She answered the elevator with no shoes on, and I
• 7:33
  walked in and we sat and had a conversation and we didn't actually initially hit it off because we were just so different. She just said, "App, what do you wanna do with your life?" I love it. I love it.
• 7:44
  I, I, I love that I have a mental picture of this because I have actually met her in that building as well. Yeah. Uh, and so I can imagine her without the shoes, and also being a straight shooter.
• 7:54
  I think she was a little skeptical of me when I first met her as well. So maybe that's just her MO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And she just took a shot.
• 8:03
  I mean, sh- you know, early on she was the first one who encouraged me to do this.
• 8:08
  Um, and she was the first one who I think downloaded our app once my co-founder and I built it and got it on the App Store, and then she wrote us our first check. S- so, never forget that.
• 8:21
  She wrote us our first check on a park bench in Washington Square Park, and- Beautiful... that's the story. [laughs] Talk to me more about being in Montana. Uh, why Montana?
• 8:33
  What are some of the special, um, benefits of, of being out there? Yeah. So, you know- Or, or, or challenges, not just benefits. Well, yeah.
• 8:44
  [laughs] Well, there need to be more direct flights coming in from the East Coast to Montana. [laughs] Yeah. That would make my life a lot easier. But, um,
• 8:51
  you know, [laughs] I think if you've read Rise of the Rest, the former CE- um, CEO, CEO of AOL, Steve Case, he wrote, uh, Rise of the Rest, and there's been a lot of talk about people getting off, you know, getting out of Silicon Valley, getting out of, um, New York City and coming to kinda the heartland of America or the Midwest to start companies.
• 9:14
  Um, I think why that's great, one, is you're able to keep your, your burn drastically lower than if you were to be hiring 10 people in New York City.
• 9:26
  Um, there's also an incredible amount of talent coming out of Montana State, uh, in the computer science department, and so we're able to, you know, hire developers coming out of college, which has been great.
• 9:39
  But also, [laughs] everyone always says, "Have you seen Yellowstone?" I think Kevin Costner has really blown Montana up.
• 9:46
  [laughs] Uh, but from a tech perspective and starting a company, you know, people wanna move here because you can buy... You can get out of a tiny apartment, you can buy a big home, your kids can run around.
• 9:56
  Um, there's skiing, biking, hiking, fishing. So it's been a good culture to build, um, a company in.
• 10:04
  And the people that we've been able to find here, y- you know, Esther came out for a board meeting, and, uh, Esther is a New York girl. She is a subway woman. Um, and she just said, "Your, your team is so high caliber.
• 10:19
  You have such an amazing team." And I really wanted to keep the company based here because I wanted to give people the, um, opportunity to kinda feel like you're building something in New York. There's a tie to New York.
• 10:35
  It's exciting. We get to go there. But the base is here in Montana, so it's been fun to do that.
• 10:43
  It occurs to me that the things you mentioned as benefits, of being able to, uh, own a larger house, have your kids run around, are just sort of nice-to-haves, but they actually contribute to the mental health of your team, and you actually have a, like, mentally stronger team that people are taking a deep breath and feeling good at the end of the day because they have a little bit of space to breathe.
• 11:06
  Yeah. Actually, um, my co-fi- founder just got his pilot's license again, and so he's now flying planes. He's... That's not what I am doing to [laughs]... I just, I have a one-year-old now, so, um, [laughs]
• 11:22
  I don't know if I'll ever get a breath for [laughs] probably 18 years. But, uh, you know, you can get out and ski. Um- Mm. And that has been one thing that we push.
• 11:32
  You know, a very wise mentor of mine said, "When you're at work, be 100% at work, and when you're being, when you're at home, be 100% a mom." Mm. And that's kind of our MO here.
• 11:43
  There's gonna be 25 hours of work to do in a day. Too much work, not a, not enough hours in the day, so when we're here, we're dedicated. When we're off, we're off. I gotta ask. Do you ha- That's so hard.
• 11:55
  Do you have any tricks for turning off? I mean, you got the phone there. I don't know if you use Slack. It's like the notifications are coming through. It doesn't matter what time of day. Turn off- You know?...
• 12:06
  your phone. T- do, do you turn in, turn it off entirely? I, I turn off my phoneYeah. Also too, I'm, you know, raising a child now, a little boy, and, um,
• 12:19
  I, I think that kids who just see their parents constantly on their phone, there's just a disconnect. I want my son to, you know, go play in dirt and run around wild, not be connected to a device. So,
• 12:36
  trying to lead by example here. Yep. Well, you're in the right state for that. I think you're- Yeah... Montana is the right state of mind for raising a child like that.
• 12:43
  Okay, let's talk more about, uh, Avonlea Care, uh, kind of where it stands today. You described some of the aspects of the platform, but kind of walk me through a typical user experience right now. Yeah.
• 12:57
  So, um, you know, we are... When you download the app as a family, you're able to immediately start to manage an aging parent's medications,
• 13:09
  doctor's appointments, coordinate on care, get them food, um, health and wellness products, um, be alerted if certain heart like metrics like heart rate go out of a certain range.
• 13:22
  You're able to essentially do all things related to tech in virtual monitoring in one solution.
• 13:29
  Um, one interesting thing, um, over the last year is we pulled a lot of our data, and as I said earlier, we sat down, we got our heads together, how do we make this better?
• 13:41
  And what we noticed in the last year is we delivered over a hundred and twenty-five thousand medication adherence reminders. So essentially,
• 13:49
  family caregiver is, is notified throughout the day, the number one feature of the app that mom took her meds, or she didn't take her meds, or something was missed, or something was changed.
• 14:00
  Uh, second to that, we had about eighty-six thousand hours of logged health information, so that's between caregivers and care receivers essentially using the app, a senior using the app to communicate with their family members that, um, on their health.
• 14:16
  Um, and then about a third of that, we saw the, um, we give family caregivers the ability to set, um, metrics.
• 14:24
  So if heart, if, if, if mom's heart rate goes out of a certain range, think we had about fifteen thousand, um, logged, uh, alerts for heart rate going out of a certain range in the app.
• 14:35
  And so we took that, and we, we said, "Okay, so medication is number one." It it-- How do we then provide medications at a lower cost to the family caregiver?
• 14:50
  How do we improve the medication management system in this? And so, you know, this is crazy to even be saying, but y- you know, I reached out to Esther, and we were able to talk to, um, a tech billionaire here soon.
• 15:04
  We have a press release coming out with him. We've partnered with his company.
• 15:08
  But what he is doing is he has built a, a company based on he cares about the everyday consumer like we do, and getting them affordable drugs.
• 15:17
  And so we now have integrated in with his company in launching this partnership in the next week or two- Mm...
• 15:24
  where families who are actually purchasing, you know, getting mom and dad, uh, medications can get 'em at a discounted price now. And so it was...
• 15:34
  It, it's cool that we're living in a world where, you know, the tech billionaires actually care about the everyday mom, mom and pa, family caregiver. Mm.
• 15:45
  And, you know, the Biden administration, which is really great that this finally happened, re- recently signed an executive order for the unpaid family caregiver, essentially saying we need to have a national strategy for the unpaid family care- caregiver.
• 16:02
  And so we're excited to be entering into this new era where we've got the government and massive corporations and health plans who are saying, "Yes, we actually need to find a way to engage the unpaid caregiver into the senior's life so they can age in place at home."
• 16:22
  One thing I find fascinating about this is that in my work, talk to a lot of founders of health tech companies, and there are a lot of different examples of companies that think, um, if I can get in
• 16:34
  using this vertical in health, then I can build out and in- integrate, and I can kind of own the patient experience.
• 16:40
  Um, not exactly a Trojan horse strategy, but a, you know, open the door, crack the door open, and then, and then have more, uh, ways to vertically integrate.
• 16:49
  And it's really interesting to think of unpaid caregivers as such a universal entry point for other health services. You talk about affordable, uh, pharmaceuticals. Yeah.
• 17:02
  And, a- and here you have found a, you know, an entry point that I think a lot of other people, is it fair to say, haven't appreciated in the past? Oh, yeah.
• 17:11
  I, I mean, I don't think that, uh, family caregiving is sexy, [laughs] you know. I- it's just never been, um, uh- But it touches so many people. Ye- yeah. I mean, we are all gonna die.
• 17:25
  Uh, it's, it's something we all have in common, and we are all gonna age, and i- it's a, you know, I've, I've never heard such a cry from this group of people of, "How do we make this better for our aging parent?
• 17:41
  We care about them." What's hard is when you have, um, you know, what's happening in essentially Montana is nursing homes are shutting down because they can't find people to work, and people can't afford to go. Yeah.
• 17:54
  And so there is a large population of seniors with literally nowhere to go, and their families don't live near them. And so
• 18:04
  the uptick of how do we use, uh, tech to remotely care for an aging parent to keep them at home longerUm, it, it's been a huge need that we've seen over the last year, and it's only going to go up and up and up.
• 18:20
  I listened to a woman, um, gosh, I forgot her name. She wrote a book. It was on-- It was, like, Pivotal and Magnify, um, did this-- had this speaker, and she said that
• 18:31
  the people being born now will live to be past well into their hundreds. And so if people are living longer, we have to find a way to, to, to support them at an affordable cost. Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:47
  I, since-- I know this is important to you b- from our other conversations, how do-- are you making sure that your tech platform isn't, um, removing the human touch?
• 18:57
  Obviously, we wanna care for our elders and not just send them automated alerts. Uh, we wanna, you know- Yeah... continue to ha-have that human touch. So how are you thinking through that challenge?
• 19:08
  Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I remember in 2017, I was in Spain and I saw, you know, some big tech corporations trying to put robots in the home to dispense medications, and I just...
• 19:25
  You know, my great-grandfather is a hundred. He's alive. And I thought, "You know, I just can't see him..." I can't even see my grandpa using a robot to dispense his medication in the home. Yeah. And
• 19:39
  I, you know, came back, and what we've always said in this is how do we, how do we use the tech, use the algorithms to encourage the family to schedule a walk, to encourage the family to go over and actually see Ma? Um,
• 19:58
  redu- simple, simple problem.
• 20:02
  Allowing a f- a caregiver to get groceries ordered and delivered while they're at work so they don't have to stop at the grocery store, stop at the pharmacy on their way home and spend two hours doing that.
• 20:16
  When they get to their parents' house, they're stressed. But just eliminate that so when they do leave work, they're just going over and seeing their ma.
• 20:25
  And so we're always going to find a way to personalize the technology, especially based off of the information and data we can gather on the family, uh, to help them be engaged in, in a senior's life. Yeah.
• 20:39
  That makes sense. Let's talk about engagement strategies that you're employing to get into homes, 'cause I'm imagining with a business like that, this, that's no small hurdle. Yeah. No, it's not.
• 20:51
  [laughs] I mean, it, it's, it's a, it's hard. Um, you know, what we-- where we are seeing a lot of traction is going, you know, working with health plans, working with employers, and then really working with retailers.
• 21:08
  I remember reading in 2000, early 2000s when, uh, Walmart was announcing they were gonna put one of the first Walmart Health clinics in Alpharetta, Georgia, and I thought, "Wow, retailers are going to essentially be, have the potential to become one of the largest home health organizations, or essentially get people into the homes of seniors."
• 21:30
  And so I, I am very, uh, curious and have been pushing working with retailers for a number of reasons.
• 21:42
  Um, when you can have the digital almost, um, health footprint on someone, uh, and see what they're eating, uh, see how it matches up with if they have a chronic c-condition, a poor morbidity,
• 21:57
  and be able to get people healthier food, I'm a big fan of, you know, food as medicine. Um, I, I think that we'll see a massive change in what retailers are doing to actually ensure that their shoppers are healthy.
• 22:14
  So that's what we're doing. We're going B to B to C, um, and we're hoping in the next, uh, couple years to really prove out, I should say not years, uh, probably six months, uh, uh,
• 22:29
  that our savings is there and that we can replicate that model. And, I don't know, maybe on-one day we'll be international. I can't imagine that because having a company and a one-year-old, [laughs] that's just nuts.
• 22:42
  But who knows? Nope. Maybe we'll be international. He won't, he won't, he won't be one forever. [laughs] Yeah, I know. You'll, you'll...
• 22:49
  We'll be doing an interview three years from now, and it'll be a whole different set of parenting challenges. [laughs] Yeah, probably. Um, I understand the pitch to Walmart.
• 22:57
  They get to sell more, uh, groceries and, and, and vertically integrate, you know, sell a lot of things. What's the pitch to an employer? Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, we've found that virtually, um,
• 23:14
  we can save an employee about 50 minutes a day of caregiving tasks through our app. And so it, it becomes a cost savings in terms of, um... You know, Morgan Stanley, for example, rolled out, um... This was great.
• 23:31
  We spoke to Morgan Stanley. They're not, uh, offering us as a benefit, hopefully one day.
• 23:35
  But we spoke to Morgan Stanley last week, and they have a whole, um, program they rolled out where essentially they give paid leave to, uh, their employees who are caregivers, which is incredible.
• 23:48
  Um, I have not heard of-- They have an incredible benefits program that they offer. And, um, you know, if we can work with employers through tech to essentially save time, they can do their job more efficiently.
• 24:01
  They don't have to take so much time off, the burnout, the worry, the stress is reduced dramatically. There is a huge savings there from an employee perspective of having employees- Got it... in at work. Got it.
• 24:13
  And you've been able to prove that ROI. Okay, so that makes sense. Uh, last question for you. What are you most excited about as you look at this, the second half of 2023? [sighs] What am I most excited about?
• 24:26
  Um, you know, we, we have so many that will come out in the press in the next couple of months, um, opportunities at our fingertips to really expand on and execute on.
• 24:43
  Um, I'm really looking forward to watching this team who's taken the crazy ideas in my head and, uh, makes them a reality. I'm really looking forward to watching them get to see what they've built help people.
• 24:58
  That's awesome. Yeah. What's the best way that you get to see that? Uh, do you get testimonials on the site? Do you get to see success stories through the app? Like, uh, uh, what's the feedback loop? Yeah.
• 25:12
  We've been working a lot with our customer base. We're pretty close to our customers, um, our users. Um, we have a great customer support team.
• 25:21
  I think what makes us so incredibly different is how thoughtful we built that out. You know, you're building something out for somebody who never grew up with tech- Yep... um, and how we've been able to support them.
• 25:34
  So we're pretty close with them. We're also, um... you know, I think as a company, we're ready to fly. We've spent...
• 25:43
  well, my co-founder and I have, feel like been doing this forever, but really, you know, him and I, from the time we raised capital, everyone's been really heads down. And- Mm...
• 25:53
  we're excited to see the new product we're launching in the next couple of weeks really take flight and change the world. That's our goal. That's awesome. That's awesome.
• 26:05
  Well, by the time this reaches people's ears, uh, they can, they can log on, they can check out what this is, and they can see what is coming next. So EvanLee, thank you so much for taking the time with me today.
• 26:16
  Love what you're building, love that you are able to start to fly with this and kind of l- lift your eyes up, you said, you said you've been heads down for a while, and start running an awesome company. So congrats.
• 26:27
  Yeah. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. Be well. [outro music] Thanks for listening to Starter Health Now. We'll be back again with another episode next week. [outro music]