Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep. 5: Long-Term Care Solutions (What Most Families & Investors Don't Know) LTCareNav/CareBloom
Transcript
- Joe Abreu: Long-term care isn't just emotional, it's financial and most families get it all wrong. Today's guest is tackling one of the most emotional, complex, and financially overwhelming challenges families face, long-term care. She's the founder of LTCareNav.com and Keerbloom.com. Let's welcome Lindsay Friedman. Lindsay Friedman: Thank you so much for having me. Joe Abreu: great, I've been so excited ever since I searched through your websites and ⁓ I said I have to find out Lindsay Friedman: No, I mean, it really is. It's a problem that affects every person on the planet, right? We're all gonna get older. We're all gonna have to take care of our aging loved ones. So really glad to connect and be able to kind of talk to your audience about what that looks like. Joe Abreu: Great. All right. So my first question is, what problem did you see in a care space that made you say, ⁓ has to change? Lindsay Friedman: So the biggest problem I saw was that families weren't prepared. That there was, they were under the false pretenses that Medicare was gonna pay for this, there was something that was gonna help them cover this and they weren't aware that it was completely out of pocket. ⁓ typically were planning in crisis and that's when they were like, no, now we can't afford it, now it's gonna land on us. And it was really, overwhelming arching thing we saw across almost every family we Joe Abreu: Wow. ⁓ is navigating long-term care so for families? Lindsay Friedman: because we don't talk about it enough. a population in general, we don't want to discuss aging. We don't want to talk about what that looks like, right? We don't want to think we're ever going to need care. So I think the lack of communication, both within families and within our communities just isn't there yet. Joe Abreu: So not having that conversation really makes an impact long-term. how big is that financial impact for poor long-term planning? Lindsay Friedman: the impact can be huge. mean, we could be talking anywhere, obviously, from a couple thousand dollars a month up ⁓ to $15,000 a month in cases, which is just for the care. Joe Abreu: Well, so what makes the difference between a $2,000 and a $15,000 amount? Lindsay Friedman: The level of care you need, are you staying at home? Do you just need a couple hours of home care? people are completely two person assist, right? Nursing homes get pretty expensive and really where you end up, you know, there assisted livings that are far less expensive and then there's some that are really beautiful and extravagant that just get really costly. But nursing homes in general, they're costly when you require a lot of care. Joe Abreu: So do you get to choose? that how it works? Lindsay Friedman: planning, if you you have choices. ⁓ When you prepared ⁓ and you up in situations unable to afford things, their choices are limited. that's really where it down to is there's lots of choices when you're ready, when you've prepared and you really understand what you're doing. Joe Abreu: So it's not just a financial problem, it's almost also a logistical, figuring it out and putting it all together. Lindsay Friedman: and finding the right person. If you can find some great caregivers and can stay at home and you can afford that, I think that's really ideal for families. But we have a caregiver shortage going and staffing is going to get harder and harder as the years go on. So that's gonna play into it as well. So might not just be a financial decision, it might just be you can't find people to care for you. Joe Abreu: All right, so now I see the challenge. Now let's talk a little bit about some of the solutions that you're providing. ⁓ What does LT-CARE-NAV ⁓ do and who it built for? Lindsay Friedman: It was built for families, every family, no matter where you are in your care journey. We allow families to come under a platform for free and create a long-term care plan. It is both ⁓ plan for the actual physical care and the financial planning for care. And in some cases, that means understanding financial tools. Other cases, it means what does Medicaid look like? How can I have a nice soft landing? and keep assets safe. And from there, helped you to understand what care is available in your area that works for you. And lastly, we help you figure out who the best person to help you with. We are not a mass lead generation. We really try to understand what that family needs and matches them with the person that they need to help them accomplish their goals, be it somebody who is in the care space doing home care, or is it somebody who you need assisted living? We of assess that and we make recommendations for care, but we also make recommendations based off of financial planning as well. And they're really curated, vetted one-on-one matches. And when I say vetted, I've literally talked to every single one of the people on these sites ⁓ the point where we're ready to launch a podcast series so you can see my interviews. with each of these providers so you know that these are really trusted people that we recommend either care or financially. Joe Abreu: ⁓ that's great. You could really get to connect and find out what they're who they really are. Yeah, that sounds great. OK, so now you mentioned something about that they can go to the website and it'll be a ⁓ that's free. But some of our listeners and watchers are business owners, so they're wondering is there a subscription or referral fee and enterprise contracts? How do you monetize this aspect? Lindsay Friedman: you Yes. So it is completely free for families and it's really important to me that we keep it that way because families who need care and need planning have a lot of decisions to make. They're most likely right now pretty overwhelmed and all of the providers who help to action the plan are going to need paid because that's just how our world works, right? So we want it to be a really light lift for the families. And because of that, the providers are actually paying to be on the site. And what we really want to assure families is that does not mean we're selling them your information. You're not going to get 150 phone calls like you will with some of the other lead generation sites that are out there to match you with care. That's not what we're doing. But that's who's paying for it. And it makes it a nice, easy way for families to come on and really get the care they need. Joe Abreu: That's great. So now move on to CareBloom How is CareBloom from the LTCareNav.com Lindsay Friedman: So LT Care Nav helps you create a plan and find the people who can help service you. Care Bloom would be something that could help service you. But ⁓ is a technology product and it is a virtual caregiving system. So family caregivers who are struggling, they're at home, they can't leave mom or dad very long because it's not safe, or don't live in the same place as mom and dad. They don't live in the same city, but they know there's decline and they need to be able to keep an eye on them. Care Bloom is a system that we can tell you all the behaviors your parents have in the home. Did they get out of bed? Did they take their medication? Did they take a shower? Have they been stuck in the bathroom? All of these really kind of details to know how well a person is doing in their home. we do it without cameras. So it still gives the ability for dignity and privacy for your parents. And really a beautiful solution to help people age in place long. Joe Abreu: So now, does your family member click on something, like maybe a watch? mean, how is it processed, the information? How can I see that? Lindsay Friedman: So you as a family member get to see it through an app. it was really important to us that the loved one wearing the smartwatch, it is a smartwatch, ⁓ has to touch anything to create the data. There is a help request button, kind of like I fall in and I can't get up, they press the button ⁓ there's an emergency alert that gets put out because of that press. But everything else is really just sensors in the house, realizing what the family member's doing. and the family member has an app and you get alerts when things change and everything is 100 % customizable to what you want to be alerted on. So say the big thing is you don't want mom going into the basement because the laundry room's there and you go over on Thursdays to do laundry, it's dangerous. You can actually say like, send me an alert when mom goes in the basement so I can remind her not to go in the basement. I want an alert if she did go in the basement that she got up safely. So things are very customizable because everybody's life is really different and everybody's needs are really different. Joe Abreu: how did come across in your mind and say, look, I have to make this happen today? Let us know a little bit more about that. Lindsay Friedman: So Care Bloom came around first and I actually go back to being a caregiver. I was 18 years old right out of high school and I went into memory care a nursing assistant. ⁓ it really made a profound effect on me. Like I wanted to care for people, but it wasn't until ⁓ became my grandma's family caregiver. And that's where people don't realize there's a really different dynamic of doing this professionally and doing it personally. really take it in in a different way. And we were fortunate enough, my grandma had somewhat of a plan in place so she had long-term care insurance. So we were able to get people to help us at night. the only thing they had to do, ⁓ aides had to do was sleep in the room with her. And my grandma would tell me this one lady's not sleeping in the room with me. And then I would say to the lady, like, hey, I know we got issues. Are you in the room? Like we put a big comfy chair in there. And she's like, oh, I'm there. Your grandma's confused during the night. Well, one night, my grandma got up to go to the bathroom and the woman was sleeping down the hallway in guest bedroom. And my grandma fell in broke femur. And that really, she had a few months left after that. It was really kind of a really traumatic end to her life. That didn't have to happen. And so when I started Care of the Bloom it was really about like, If I could have known my grandma got out of bed, if I could have known the caregiver wasn't there, those were two things that could have prolonged her life drastically. So I set out initially to really create something that monitor caregivers as well. And we do have that feature. You can add that in to monitor home health aides. But I really wanted to understand the things like that, like if I would have known my grandma got out of bed, I could have done something quickly. I could have notified the caregiver quickly, because that would have been something I would have set for her. And so that's something that you can do now. So it was really my personal experience of loss that led to creating CareBloom Joe Abreu: so one of the interesting things here is ⁓ do you know grandma got out of bed? I mean, how does that work? How did you come up with this? Lindsay Friedman: So I would love to take credit for all the beautiful development of the hardware and firmware, but I can't. I did a lot of the designing of what I wanted to see the product do, I've got a CTO whose name is Andy and he is amazing. So we'll give Andy his shout out who actually really designed the hardware and the firmware. I did a lot of like the front end software development, like what family saw. I really was like, these are what I want to see the features in there. That's where my strength is. That's why LT Care Nav was an easier thing. It's very software based. But hardware and firmware, I hired somebody who was amazing and had lots of experience with product development. And in this space of hardware and firmware, you really need someone who's an expert in it. Joe Abreu: And how long did that process take Lindsay Friedman: in 2017 is when I came up with the idea of the company. And we had our working that could be put on people right before COVID. So ⁓ it was almost two years get a first working prototype, which also, if you want to talk about bad timing for something, because we were really focused on assisted living and testing there. So we had gotten into our tests and we were getting ready. ⁓ had great test results, we really understood stuff, and we were getting ready to go from product testing to selling to the same marketplace. Like here, you loved your test, let's do this. And they were like, we don't want anything to do with anybody right now, we have COVID. So it was definitely hard transition for us, because now we had our products, so we really kind of switched gears and started hitting homes, because we saw that really big transition of like, people are gonna wanna be in assisted living less and they're gonna wanna be home. ⁓ the time of COVID, we created our home market and going into homes right at the end of COVID. Joe Abreu: Two years sounds like a pretty good timing. I mean, I know that you hit the COVID side, but I mean, the first two years where you developed, I mean, that's pretty record time for some products. Lindsay Friedman: Yeah. Yes. And I guess some cases, yes, but it did take us the full two years. I mean, they were not pretty. We have like really pretty watches now. These were more like tags that we were putting on people. ⁓ definitely a much more robust product. And I would say to get to where we have like watches and stuff, what ⁓ are we? We're 2026, probably 2024 to have a really beautiful product in boxes that we could ship like off of a line coming QC'd in China and all that. It took a long time, I guess, to get to that point. Joe Abreu: Now, are there different boxes that you're sending? Can people upgrade to different watches, different, I guess, units? Can you explain to us what they're receiving when they order from you? Lindsay Friedman: Yeah. So we do three and five room kits. So that's the only difference in our size is how big is your house? How much room do you have to monitor? so we have one watch right now. We're getting ready actually to come out with a fall detection that will go on your hip. Fall detection on a lanyard or on a watch is pretty poor. You're gonna miss falls. You're gonna get a lot of false positives and that's something we really didn't want. So we don't do fault detection on our watch. We were not getting the results we wanted. That's why there's a help request. But that will be our next feature that our next piece of hardware that you can buy separately will be the fault detection. Joe Abreu: So seems like there's a lot of R and D that goes into this. Lindsay Friedman: yeah, we tried with the fall detection on a watch forever, for years. even the highest product like Apple Watch, their fall detection isn't great. make sure you don't a fall, you're getting a lot of false negatives, false positives, which can get really frustrating. And the last thing we want to happen is for families to become immune to our alerts. ⁓ that was a mistake, that was a mistake. When we get a help request, we really want you to know you have to act on some of these alerts. Joe Abreu: Now is this connected to, a home health care employee or ⁓ organization or hospital? Lindsay Friedman: So we are getting ready to start working with home care companies. have several the country right now that you can actually get a Care Bloom, put your Care Bloom on your loved one, and then hire a home care company to monitor it. Because we understand families are busy. We don't have a monitoring company as part of what we do. But we would really recommend you try to find a home care company close to you. who is willing to monitor your care bloom. So if mom falls during the night and the alert goes out, the home care company that you're having monitored could potentially send somebody out. And so we're really working on markets can kind of do that. And I think be a really great thing because home care is expensive. You could pay up to 40 bucks an hour for somebody to be in your home and that is not always affordable. So really creating models where they can monitor and run out in an emergency, I think is going to be part of what has to change as we move forward in this industry. Joe Abreu: So I order my box with the five room setup. Is that something that I can set up on my own? Do I need an installer to come in and help me? Lindsay Friedman: Mm-hmm. No, it's a really easy, beautiful kind of Lego installation. It takes less than 20 minutes for a five-room kit. If you've ever set up something like a ring doorbell, ⁓ some those things you can do on your own where you just scan the QR code, it loads in there and you place it, we're the same way. It's really ⁓ easy do and we walk you through step-by-step both with an app and we have a lot of videos available. Joe Abreu: Excellent. All right, so now we're going to get into a little bit of the market and the opportunities of the business side of it. How large is the long-term market in the US? Lindsay Friedman: ⁓ it's massive. And we really look at about aging 10,000 people are turning 65 every single day right now. 70 % of people over 65 are going to need long term care. So it's a massive industry that is getting bigger, especially with these baby boomers aging. Joe Abreu: So I would imagine you consider this to be a recession-proof type of business. Lindsay Friedman: At least for the next, what is it, 15 years? For the next 15 years, it's sort of recession proof because there's one thing we're never going to stop is aging. Joe Abreu: Yeah. ⁓ That's correct, yeah, unfortunately. that should be your next project, how to slow that process down. Lindsay Friedman: I think there are people who are working on that. And then if you stop the aging process, then what happens with the amount of population, there's all these other things that are gonna throw it into it. Joe Abreu: All right, don't ruin it for me. I was so excited there for a minute. was going to get Andy on this job. Lindsay Friedman: Yeah, Andy, you're going to fix aging. think he would love that because I think he's going deaf because you're getting old. And I love you, Andy. So I say that with love. Joe Abreu: That's right. Ha Okay. So let us know what stage is the company in right now. And I guess, well, you have two companies. let's say each one of those. Lindsay Friedman: So, yeah. So, Care Bloom is a market-ready product. can go to the site right now and as a family buy that. What we're really working on as company ⁓ is B2B partnerships. What does it look like for us to go back to assisted livings and have this installed in assisted livings? Because families, what a way to know that mom's safe somewhere that you're unsure about. So those B2B partnerships with assisted livings and with home care, like figuring out how we can work and provide additional revenue for them as well, because that caregiver crisis, the home health aid crisis is real and it's profound. And so what does it look like to give them a way to increase their revenue as well? Joe Abreu: So again, so which would be your ideal partners? Lindsay Friedman: Assisted Living's. Joe Abreu: So these are existing living businesses that they would coordinate with your company to take care of the loved one in their home. Lindsay Friedman: Yes. ⁓ yet. So they would actually be able to install the systems and give the family access to see mom is doing okay here. Prove like that they are providing the care they say they're providing. And then the other B2B partners really home healthcare companies who are looking to expand their service base. Joe Abreu: So they would do the installation as well. Lindsay Friedman: Yes, we would recommend for home care companies that as long as you're going in, as long as you're checking on them, make it part of your service package to install it. Joe Abreu: what would scale look like in three to five years from now for your companies? Lindsay Friedman: So Scale for Care Bloom, are scaling now. And I will tell you for listeners who are thinking about hardware companies or what that looks like, value chain's hard. Understanding what that looks like, understanding manufacturing, before you jump into it, really have a solid partner. Really your value chain. Have a backup plan if that value chain's gonna fail. And it's really hard to do. And we got really lucky. have a great manufacturing partner that has been ⁓ these kinds of things since like the eighties. So have someone like that. Find someone you can partner with. can really help you along. Scale for LT CareNav is really educational approach for, least in my mind. We need families to understand that it's not if you need care, most likely it's when you need care. And what does that look like? And what really happens when you don't have a plan? And so over the next several years, I wanna educate families of importance of planning, even if it's not with us. Make sure you have a plan in place, make sure your family knows what your plan is. By having a plan, you're going to ease your family burden, you're gonna ensure you can get the care you want, you'll be more financially secure. And I think the thing most people want more than anything is you're going to keep your autonomy. You are going to have independence longer and you are going to have control over your choices the earlier you plan. Joe Abreu: So can it possibly be in about five years, maybe some licensing deals, maybe some enterprise, maybe acquisitions? Lindsay Friedman: So I think with LTCareNav there's probably a lot of acquisition plays that make sense. I really want to make sure we're doing everything right by the family. so for me, while that would financially make more sense, I really want to make sure whoever that kind of play looks like long term has the same values for the families that I do. I don't want it to become something that they start charging families. I really want to take care of this community. So I guess really that would be a hard one. At some point it might be in better hands with somebody else. I'm not going to deny that growth wise, but we'll see. I just want to make sure that families are really being taken care of. Joe Abreu: Sounds to me like we're going to do a follow up episode on this in the future. That's right. But all right. So one thing that you brought up that I found very interesting is the supply chain. manufacturer and supplier, and I've coached businesses where they've had warehouses of storage and they're storing all of their products. How are you handling this? Are you bringing in and storing some of it or are you just Lindsay Friedman: Okay. And see where we really fall. Joe Abreu: drop shipping directly from the manufacturer. How does that work? Lindsay Friedman: So our manufacturing partner is here in Cleveland, which is where I'm located. our got beyond lucky, is really what I'm going to say with this partner that we had, because they're manufacturing a lot of different things. They actually do displays. They do electronic displays, so smart displays, where when you walk by, they gather that kind of information. And it was just an interesting partnership, right time, right place. The people who own that manufacturing company are incredible people. And so we made them to deal to build this product, part of what we got was they already have a line. They already have a warehouse. They already have shipping in place. And are ⁓ one our lead investors. So when ⁓ they and invested in it, one of the things that we got beyond the financial investment was access to everything they already had in place. So they bring everything in from China. They have a line that they already use that is designated. We have a Care Bloom line there. And then we do, my partner and I still go in and did all the last QCs for the last round of them. Our next order might be too big for us to just do on our own. But then they're palleted and they are drop shipped from there. ⁓ got really lucky and that's why networking Beautiful partnership, especially for new startup wanting to do anything manufacturing. I would just tell you to search for something like that. Joe Abreu: All right, so let's venture into the founder mindset. Let's look in there a little bit more. What the hardest part of building in the healthcare space? Lindsay Friedman: Trust, the trust you have to build with your customers. They are vulnerable, they are already not trusting, they're already frustrated, they most likely have already been kind of screwed over by somebody. And really building trust and what does that look like in every case? Care Bloom, like what do those kind of warranties look like? How does customer service come? really being able to know, we tell families, if you have an issue, you're gonna call us and we're gonna answer. You're not gonna get a ticket, it's gonna be a phone call, we're gonna walk you through it. So you think really having things in place that make them feel comfortable, oddly enough, when we first started LT CareNav, being free to them was like the scariest thing in the entire world. they were like, whoa, well, what are you taking if it's free? What's the catch? And that was a big thing we had to work through and really try to teach families like there's no catch. Like we promise there's no catch. We have a business model in place. We understand why you're worried, but they're even worried about like products that are free because of that lack of trust in this industry. So doing everything you can to be reputable would be really important. Joe Abreu: Yeah, I can definitely see that. Every time we see free, we know there's something somewhere. We know that. So what have you learned about leading in a mission-driven space? Lindsay Friedman: Yeah. that while you keep your customers first, really try to a plan where they know ⁓ your mission is and make sure your whole team knows what your mission is, right? So when you're a founder and you have goals, make sure that's laid out really clearly in everything you build so that you don't lose track of that mission. So your customers who you do get ⁓ that while they stay with you, ⁓ are guaranteed to like, that mission will be fulfilled. So don't lose track of what you're doing. Joe Abreu: if someone wanted to enter the aging healthcare tech space, what you tell them? Lindsay Friedman: Know your market. Don't say, wow, this looks like a really big market and there's a lot of opportunities, I'll do something. Talk to your potential customers not just the families. Really understand what it's like to live as an elder in our country. What does that really look like? Because if you don't understand what it's like to be a senior and you don't have a lot of time spent with them, you're going to miss something. So really try to dive in to not just what the family's needs are, but what the seniors needs are and don't forget them in the product you're building. Joe Abreu: if you ⁓ are an or like me, that every single day I have an idea and I'm like, you know, I should invent that. What would be the first step now that you're on the other side of this? What is like your very first step? Lindsay Friedman: Take a step back from your really good idea. And of all, see if anyone else is doing it. Because I feel like we're living in a time where really good ideas really dive in to see what everyone else is doing. How are solving the problem? And if you haven't experienced that problem firsthand and it's a problem you're seeing like, this would be a great product, really try to understand who you're building for. So understand your market thoroughly inside and out. Who is every stakeholder along the continuum of what you're going to build for? See what your competition is and then really understand what the process is to build the thing you're thinking of. Because the one thing that they told me early on in Care Bloom was that it's going to take a lot longer and cost a lot more. than I'm ever guessing. was like, no, no, it won't. The one thing I will tell you is it took a lot longer and it cost way more. ⁓ were right. I'm going to guess in general that is just a universal thing because I heard it 100 times and I'll just throw that in there. ⁓ didn't listen either. Joe Abreu: Yeah. you Okay, now we know, we think it's a great market. So what do we do? We draw it and we send it to a manufacturer and they'll tell us what it costs to make. How does that work if you're an inventor? Lindsay Friedman: So if you've decided it's great market, there's nothing out there, really hire right people. I would if you find somebody who's local, I would ask for like four or five referrals because definitely early on in, not with these two companies as much, but I had two other startups. I definitely ran into software developers that couldn't deliver ⁓ on the you are not going to get away for anything for cheap if you want a quality product. So find the right engineer and figure out what it's going to cost and then like multiply that by like five and that's what it's going to cost or maybe even 10. ⁓ so we prepared for that budget and really make a wise choice because you can spend a lot of money with the wrong engineer. Joe Abreu: Can you give us like a red flag situation that you saw and now in hindsight, you should have probably pivoted at that moment. Lindsay Friedman: Probably, I think it's going to really be specific. I'm to go back to if they don't want to give you a lot of referrals they're not showing you a lot of products and not, don't let them say, ⁓ I built this in this space, so I'll be able to do it in that space. Really see if they understand your market, because especially if you're building in long-term care or seniors, it's a really specific mind frame and ⁓ who you're for. So you really want someone who understands what that looks like. Because if you don't understand how hard caregiving is or how the challenges that people are going to face getting older, they're not the right person to build for you. Joe Abreu: as a founder, what is your favorite part of the day, the things that you do, and the least favorite parts of the day? Lindsay Friedman: So my favorite part when I get to do this and it's more for Care Bloom is I love to go and actually deal with the elders. If I can install a kit and like talk to them, that is my absolute favorite thing to do. That's where my passion lies with senior care. I don't get to do it as much. So I do volunteer a lot to get that experience. When it comes to actually like working the company, I really love to create. I love workflows, I love really creating software, and what does that look like in user experience? Joe Abreu: Okay, so if someone's listening today and has aging parents and feels overwhelmed, the first step they should take? Lindsay Friedman: The first step I would say would be to come and get a plan. Understand where you are today, understand what you need and what tomorrow looks like, because having a plan, talking through stuff with your family is going to be key to kind of how overwhelmed you are. Really sit down with your family, come up with a plan, understand what the future looks like, and able to take it one step at the time. Joe Abreu: That's fine. Lindsay where would you like to visit you, to explore the two companies? Lindsay Friedman: So if you go to LTCareNav.com backslash podcasts, we are actually giving away a free book that starts the conversation about planning, what that looks like in steps for families. And we're also giving 25 % a month off of Care Bloom. Joe Abreu: there a special code? Lindsay Friedman: When you go to it, so it's the backslash podcast, you'll be able to say like, thanks for listening and here are your two things and you can just grab them right there. Joe Abreu: That's excellent. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for all the information. I'm sure this is extremely helpful for me and something to think about in the future. So I really appreciate you spending the time today. Lindsay Friedman: Thank you so much for having me on and I hope we help some families figure out some stuff. Joe Abreu: Absolutely. All right, till the next one.