Welcome back to Startup health now. I'm logan plaster. Remember that older people. Myself included 1 a vision of the future, not a memory of the past. When the boomers are in their eighties is just ripe with opportunity. That's Mary Fur long. Arguably the most influential name in age tech or senior innovation over the last 3 decades. Today's podcast it's an excerpt from a master class featuring Mary Fur long that was held for members of the Startup health community.
Mary's reputation as a trail blazer in the age tech market didn't come overnight. She's been in the space for 30 years. Raised more than 300000000 dollars and helm 3 companies. She was named 1 of the top 100 women in Silicon Valley. And received the first ever lifetime achieving award from aging 2. In our conversation, Mary gives us a glimpse into what has made her so successful over the years. She's all about go to market strategies that are creative, holistic and practical.
Understanding the true needs of a senior population doesn't have to start with an expensive complicated pilot she plans, it could start with putting out a table at a Y or hosting a happy hour for neighbors in their eighties. Trust me they'll come. They'll give you all their advice. You they'll be your lobby to pilot. This is 1 of our most actionable and inspiring master classes so you're gonna wanna notes. Let's dive right in. I wanna start with just the category.
In my intro, I used the term Age tech? I you've senior innovation, how do you think about defining this market that you've known so well. And how much do categories and names matter? Oh, gee. Well, when I when I started, I I went to see the head of the Venture Capital Association. And I think this is relevant to your audience, Dick K, and I said, I want you to judge our business plan competition It was 21 years ago. And he said, well, we really don't... We have health tech companies
we don't really focus on aging. But then he said, wait a minute. When I look at what our health tech portfolio companies do, most of them are serving the needs of older adults. So through the years, you know, I was the founder of senior net. I was the founder of third age media, there was some controversy about being called seniors. There were some controversy about being called third. And globally, it's different, like seniors okay in Europe, whereas third age is viewed as the fourth age.
At the time we created third age, seniors didn't wanna be called seniors. So now we evolve from saying the boomer summit to the longevity summit. So I like to use the longevity market, and I like to size that market as 9600000000000.0 as does Arp and age tac. And then say there are riches in the niches in the market, and that seems to be the most quota quote around that. But what makes me excited about the market is that I'm 75 in a year and a half the boomers are going to be 80 at the top end.
So the longevity market around health, when the boomers are in their eighties is just ripe with opportunity. Yeah. So I I think like to think of it as the longevity market, it's a global marketplace. How do you draw boundaries around the longevity market, given how multifaceted it is to how huge it is, and is it helpful to kind of know what's what it is and what it is? Most of the innovations, and we just had our sold out venture summit in San Francisco with more investors
and more participants than ever before. And we looked at the that we did analysis of the business plan, competition submissions, health care was probably 85 percent. So I would say, Yes, Fintech is a big market. Yes, travel is a big market. Housing is a big market. But health care and care giving are gonna dominate the market. A quote I heard at the conferences that care giving today is where Ai was 5 years ago. So you can't go to a cafe that you
don't hear a conversation about care giving. And so as that the different generations cope with the challenge of opportunity of programming. That's just another big market inside an already big market. I also think travel and passion and play, are also things. I think dating is a big market. So Romance, this is a group that changed brands their whole life. They bought the mustang. They bought the Hula hoop, they're gonna change
their marital brand too. And so you're about to see a whole bunch of new innovations around playing adventure and aging and dating and music. Interesting. Very interesting. So on this call, we've got dozens of problem solve, health care problem solve. So I wanna hear from you directly and maybe there's some learnings directly from the summit that you just had in June about what you think are the biggest challenges in the health on the healthcare side that need to be solved for today's seniors.
The biggest challenges that that seniors face are, there's no holistic solution. Mh. And there's a lot of health equity. And it's sort of like they forgot to take care of themselves. The boomers were raising kids. They traveled. They navigated adopting new technologies. And now they get to a point where, oh, it's time to go to water aerobic rollback, after you go to physical therapy, after you have a senior fitness class. So it's sort of like staying healthy as they age is is a big opportunity.
And also, the health systems and the reimbursement are really a challenge. So the biggest challenge I see entrepreneurs phase is how to figure out how to reach the customer. And and that changes all the time. So the rockstar at our conference in June was Greg Olsen from the strait of New York who runs aging and 2 weeks after our conference, he had 22 startups, pitch 40 different county leaders in New York. And many of our companies are getting
traction in state governments. Sometimes 12 state governments. But some of you might have seen the new news that Gina Bike was at Cd, and then at Amazon is the new head of Aol. 28000000 people on Aol. So I know companies going direct to consumer through Aol through Earth link through Yahoo as the pattern of Older out spending time online is large. So you need a 7 part strategy to go to market. To reach this consumer. Like, maybe maybe you could give us a
snapshot of... You said there was a that pitch competition reaching, folks in New York. What was sort of rising to the top at the summit and in that pitch competition? What were you seeing that really kinda stood out? Well, the people of choice word went to carry aya, which is a brilliant company that's using p Pt and Ot and medical students from around the country to service as caregivers. What what what what did you like about
that of their approach? Well, I love their approach because the people that are doing care giving are dedicated, people who wanna learn about health care, plus his business models rather unique. They've got champions with angel investors all around the country who are doctors and others who believe in the cause and are investing in the company. So he's really got an interesting investment strategy.
I mean, 1 of the things that came out of our conference There's more investment going into this market than ever before, and it's coming from different segments. The nonprofit sector for profit sector, the growth stage sector, the angel sector. And so I've never... I like can the moment we are today as when the Internet came about in 19 97. Mh That is the long... Where the longevity. We're at that critical moment for longevity today as we were... When... When 1 of the
things I thought was really interesting. I saw an article that said, Mba is coming out of graduate school want to go and buy boomer startup up companies rather than go work for somebody else. So they're looking through these exit strategies of the boomers. Of the companies that they've built. And so there's just a tremendous amount of innovation and entrepreneurship, but building a company is hard.
Really hard. And I think what I see with the leaders in the space, pos science, just innovation, victor, care coach and others. You know, they've had to try a lot of different ways to go to market. So if you look at positive science, I spoke to them yesterday, they're in market, through health plans, they're in market through Y mca and they're end market through the military. So at our conference in December at the National Press club, we're going to have the military
partners there at the table. So a lot of the innovations that help with aging also help with people in the military. What I'm hearing, you say is that the innovation needs to be as much in the business model and the go to market strategy as it does in the tech itself. Any recommendations for a founder who maybe is a little stuck. It's 1 thing to hear, Oh, you need to be more creative in your go to market strategy, but thoughts on how to get on stock, how to how to accomplish that in the market?
Well, you need to have a strategy that is c designed, a, so you get validation from the top people that are willing to help you pilot? How do you think about the go to market when there's an adoption curve? You know, I've been doing this for 35 years. So when I started senior net in 19 86. We did it with Come 20 computers and 300 bond modems. And when you can match the customer with the need. So if people needed to have word processing skills to get a job,
they were gonna learn that. You know? If you look at... I was looking at the business wave, work at home vintage entrepreneurs this morning. She spoke at our conference. She's created a 30000000 dollar business by figuring out that people in the insurance industry were retiring. But if we could give them part time jobs at home so they can have a flexible schedule. Then they would want to work at need to
work. So I do think if the technology is complicated it's not gonna get used, but if the use case is there because you wanna buy your granddaughter a t set. Or because you wanna meet someone online or because you can find out benefits that you can use that as incremental revenue for you as a consumer, then it's fine. But if it's... You cannot take a complicated technology. I mean, boomers hate portals,
health portals. If somebody could create the 1 portal, so we don't have to go to all the ports goals that would be so great. I mean, it's still very hard and complicated. You've mentioned the idea now twice the idea of a a roll up, a holistic approach, a 1 stop shop. That can be challenging for a start up. We've got, you know, small, scrappy, smart companies, trying to solve pieces of the challenge. So what are your thoughts about the role startups ups can play in a world where.
You're right. There needs to be a rollout. There needs to be a holistic solution. Or you need to plug into other players. You know? So my podcast, it gets distributed through the Spy network, which is already in senior housing. So I wanna I wanna go back and say what are the 7 areas where I think startups in health care need to know a strategy to go to market, because that kind
of answers the question. So if you can figure out how to go into home care, Now there's 5 or 6 major home care agencies and the rest mom and pop, but you need that strategy. You need a non nonprofit strategy. Because now there are now funds like volunteers of America as a fund that will fund you but also apply their network to your distribution.
You need a senior housing strategy, and that's been difficult times in terms of how to get into senior housing, You need a Gp strategy, group purchasing, you need retail strategy. You need a digital strategy, and you need a global strategy. And I don't know if that's 7 or 8. But what I see happening Covid or during Covid, government funding, we're saving these nonprofit. Saving the startup up companies. And the the government funds move faster than
the other funds. And so... And you have to have an eye on the reimbursement you have to know about that, and you have to know what the reimbursement... And whether you should be chasing that money or not. There's 1 sing fit, some of you may knew, but they have been very successful in the Uk. And then another company, I knew balance wear that had a solution for mobility, which is a huge category. You know, everyone could just start in creating companies around mobility.
But they were able to get counties in Denmark because if if people didn't fall, then you know, that was less money to the government system if they didn't fall. So they were able to get contracts for their innovation at the county level. So 1 of the things you have to really be aware of is the demographics. So if you go to Alt track in the Netherlands, it's a community that has a very high proportion of older adults. Same thing in Japan and Korea.
And so you really have to think about, are there government programs in other parts of the world that would under write your innovation. We work very closely with Ka in Canada, the Canadian break. In health association. That's a great place to launch and test and fund your business. In fact, I'm now on the investment committee. You've... In this call so far, you've mentioned things like the Y mca and county governments
and the Va. I mean, the theme I'm hearing here is get creative about your go to market strategy, get creative about how you reach customers. Absolutely. And places that you would say, let's not go to Florida in July because it's hot and humid. But if all of the area agencies on aging, our meeting in July in Florida. I bet I have 10 clients in Florida, walking around because what happened is everybody got the
memo about innovation. So now they're thinking about how can our organization leverage these technology. So a lot of it is local. Libraries are a great way to reach older people. Vivid picks, does a lot of work in libraries. And I think libraries are gonna be more and more important in the future as a place to dis innovation. I used to be in the Clinton administration. We often said Clinton won. Right? Right. But I was in the clinton administration I as
an adviser on Internet and libraries. And now that I'm older, I see how many people use the resources of the library as a public information resource, you know? Let's talk a little bit about the N nia, the National Institute on aging. I think in our conversation, you mentioned that there's a strong percentage of funding coming out of Nia that has your fingerprint on it at some level or another. And so you know it very well.
Can you give us a little bit of a primer on the N nia head of startups, what they need to know how they can be better positioned to raise funding there? Oh, it's been a brilliant initiative led by Todd He. We've been working with them about 4 years. They are funding, evidence based solutions, and they're not just funding them. They have a hundred and 60000000 dollar fund, 60 percent of that is for dementia related
innovation. So they've got this fund. They also have people like John Rein, and Joy To and others who coach you on the commercialization of your business. So it used to be that people got funding as an academic in a university, and then went out to think about building a business.
Now when you have our entrepreneurs who are building businesses, finding research partners through different universities like Hopkins or brown or Illinois, and then that combination of the research efficacy and knowledge combined with the entrepreneur and the the talents of those teams and investors is pure magic. So we must have 6 clients that are Nia funded. And, they told me that, 20 percent of my client base.
We asked at a party. We said everyone who is funded by the Nia and the line was very, very long of people that came up, but it's it's a brilliant thing to do as part of your road roadmap for your business, you should have, come to the conferences where we showcase how to get Nia funding and the... And I expect that to be just incredibly important in the future too. What are you seeing... What are you excited
about in terms of Alzheimer's innovation? Maybe something came up at the recent summit that you hosted. That, and also I judged the international competition in the Uk last week. So I saw the top 24 plans and initiatives. So we've seeing Ai infused innovation. We're seeing lighting hearing, c creation, and I don't think we have seen we're seeing mobile solutions, but I think we have a long way to go to to reach that moonshot around dementia. And we're seeing solutions for wander
and things like that. Deposits science has done extremely well over the last 21 years. They now are a preferred partner of the military for cognitive fitness. Great with their brain Hq, but it's a great place to innovate in, and I don't think we've seen enough. I once saw the Philip Home in the future in Ein Home, and I know that lighting was a big part of it. I don't think we've seen enough of the... Holistic home and the way in which that could make a difference in someone's life.
I know you host events and that's part of the strategy. How can startups be smarter about meeting the right types of fund? Yeah that's that's really the key question you wanna ask... Has you don't wanna meet the wrong type. And I've I've known both, and I've had the privilege of working with the best, and I've also had the challenge working with ones that are difficult. And I... More than that, I've seen other founders go through hell really when they've got the wrong person around the table.
I like strategic investors. I I like profit investor groups. Got and I like angels that have a desire not to find a second job through your company, but can add value through their connections or can add value through their resources
and their willingness to listen. So, you know, I'm not trying to plug my consulting, but that's essentially what we what we do is try to facilitate that match, but there are also groups like anu Shu who's has had 2 exits at 400000000, and as part of the Indian entrepreneur group, anu invest only in women and minorities. And so you've got find the right match with the right group if they if you fit into that category, that's that's great.
But also, you can look locally. Like, I never knew how many wealthy people there were in Nashville, Tennessee. Well, they're all retired in the Zip code right around Nashville. So I had a c entrepreneur that was there and explained that economics of Nashville Tennessee to me. And so now I just sent an entrepreneur to meet with someone in Nashville today because there are a lot of people understand health care and want to invest in something they know about.
Most people don't wanna invest and think they don't know anything about. Yeah. I love your approach, Barry. It's like if if your first strategy, your second strategy isn't working, guess what? There's 8 more things you can try, including, finding out where the wealthy people live in your in your town. And making something happen on the ground. Let's talk about pilots. I've talked to so many founders that, in the senior care space who feel like they just need to score, that
1 pilot, the perfect pilot. And if they can get in, improve the benefit, and then they'll be they'll be made. They'll be able to scale up and everyone will will get what they're doing. What are your thoughts about what you've seen work in terms of pilots when people are are scaling up products in the market. So we have a couple of entrepreneurs that we work with very strong. The number 1 skill you need is an entrepreneur 10. So that has to be part of your mix in the morning.
Is that you have that to an. But I... So very talented entrepreneurs who listen well actually like the people. They're in the pilots with support the staff in different ways. And then sometimes it just doesn't work out, even though they've done everything I. What you have to find is the carry olsen of the world. The front porch where she cares about in aviation entrepreneurship. She wants to pilot or Michael Hughes. We just sent 1 to him was willing to take the call and listen.
But, I've increasingly been less sang on pilots as I am and getting the word out and just building that customer base. So there was an entrepreneur that came to our conference from Japan. He got, 45 seconds to pitch. He was hosting a Lunch table. And and he got in people invited to see his demo, but it's a It's a tool that helps increase the sound on your television, which I think a lot of fights in America happened because the sound is way up with my
person who can't hear. You know, by joke that hearing loss is saving marriages all over. But anyway, so his device is gonna help with this problem. Well, he's already got 60000 in sales by direct to consumer sales. So nothing better than getting pre orders for your product. If you have the right product, you're gonna sell out with the customer. So I almost think a pilot can be informative, but I wouldn't I would be...
You know, when I go to the horse races, I go win place and show on my friend's horse. So I wouldn't put all my chips down on the win for the pilot. I would diversify my my You know, I would diversify right from the beginning. So if you take a look at prostate cancer, and you look at the number of men with prostate cancer in this country.
And the kinds of side effects they have, and you look at, some of the innovations like, Joe Bella have a product that can help with some of these incontinence issues. Most of the media that cover aging don't cover the dis is. But they have this great aspirational product that's a very good solution.
And so if you take a look at Journey health and wellness this website and just see how they market products, these are pretty educated consumers, I would just get the product out in as many channels as I could and watch the numbers and watch what happens. You know, that reminds me of a question that I had for you about being in the right rooms. And you talk about really, having a flash point moment where people really get what's doing and it catches on. There's
certain events. It's such a multifaceted industry that it can probably be hard for a founder to know where should I be to be in the right room to sort of share my vision with the right people. So obviously, you've got your summit but help us under help founder understand how to prioritize where it to be. Well, yes. Because it's frustrating when you... See how much budget money gets spent on travel and how hard it is to know what to do. You just mentioned the guy who
got 45 seconds. After traveling from Japan. You know, you really have to prioritize attack. I'm committed to helping him now because I'm not gonna let him face. It was worth it. So it was worth. So I believed in his product. Right? So we're we're gonna make sure. But but, you know, when he came, it gave me an idea. I have a marketplace in my website. I wanna build out my mark a place more to show other people's
innovations. But I think look for marketplaces and other places you could be listed even at the local level, to know where to go. So who would have thought you should go to Washington and August after being in Florida and July. Right? But the the conference with all the state governments is in July now. I mean it's in August and
why washington. I'm not going to that, but I am going to the Zig Conference in Chicago with their portfolio companies and I never miss that conference, not only because Dan Herman throws a great party on the rooftop, but I use it to have a medium my clients in Chicago the day before. So I find piggyback on other people's meetings and seeing what's there, and regional often works, you know, So you don't necessarily need to go to the national, but you need to go where the money is.
So if the money is in the state budgets. And some of these area agencies on aging, you need to get into those places. And even your local aging 2 chapters that are still around or some of these new chapters like in in Atlanta. And of course, like, can't say enough with the Tech collaborative, and they have 600 companies now in the Tech Collaborative. So that's a great place to network in, and they did a great job at Ces in Vegas guess, I did a podcast from
there this year. But, you know, if you went to the leading age of your state conference and you got traction in leading age there, that would be fine. You know? How should startups think about their strategy with the Va. There's so many health issues facing our veteran population, and their startups in this space who maybe don't even have a Va strategy yet. So how should they be thinking about it? Yes. That's my fall learning curriculum And I'm gonna learn more
about that. You know, we worked with a company called... Button helper. He so... He buttons that came off very easily. Sold that into the Va and his name is Robert Bo, He's 25 years old, I think. He had advisors that were from the the military. And recently sold his company to to the Smithsonian. But blues star, I think is another company we work with, Robert Ray, who knows how you know, you could pitch it to him and then see where it... Where it goes. But I think,
I... I've had 2 clients speak extraordinarily successful with the Va. And it's often either an adviser who knows that ecosystem well, but there's gonna be more and more interest and programming, I think about Va solutions. Even your local Va, you know, but Absolutely that should be part of your strategy. Very nice nice. I can't answer the how to, Robert Wrote a 40 page guide for 1 of my other clients on how to go to market with the Va that will feature in
December. Oli but it's clearly something we have to learn about. See, it I don't know if it was shark tank or your work at start up health. Somebody has told everybody that they need to be innovative. And so companies that you wouldn't expect to be innovative before now are more willing to innovate, But it's do you get it into the whole system? That's the challenge. Just given your 30000 foot view of the market, given your experience.
Any thoughts on kind of what's next? What should we be looking forward to 12 months from now? What are we on the cusp of in terms of trends versus versus what you're seeing at the moment. What's next? So what I would say, I have to quote Ken Die well, of Age wave. You know, if you wanna catch an elephant, dig a big hole where they're going. So if you looked if it takes 7 years to build a business, and you looked at the boomers at 80 in 16 months. I would find out everything I could about the 85
to 87 year old. And then I would design for that, and I'd roll back from there on building the business. Mh. And that might be travel on cruises with a assisted mobility devices. It's just truly understanding the customer. You can never go wrong when you understand your customer. And the customer, a hundred million people have arthritis customer it isn't fun. And so now, we should have a whole line of products
that are around that. Topic. You know? I thought I was in high school when I went to a lot of Aerobic on Sunday, found out everybody in the class has some kind of Pt. So if you know that at 75, They've got this, What are they gonna have at 85? And so we have a client in in England, who wants to build warm water swimming pools inside senior Living. That is on my wish list to get funded this year. Yes because I think every...
You have to drive 30 new miles to get to 1 water or Aerobic rollback class with Pt. So nobody's connecting the dots on those kinds of things. We we talk and startups up so much about metaphor pinpoint to solve, and you're just saying, like, there are these very obvious physical pain points, the the arthritis, the these challenges that that people want to solve today. And and the need is pressing. Yeah. Here's what I... My last advice, we love to go to happy hour. So just
host a happy hour. For all the 80 year olds in your community. Trust me, they'll come. They'll give you all their advice. They'll be your lobby to pilot. Yeah. I love it. Fun. Make it fun. Mary, you've given us, like, 25 creative solutions, and I love that. Mary, thank you so much for taking time with us. I learned so much. It wasn't so much the specific solutions. It was just this overwhelming sense of getting creative.
Thinking beyond your your typical mental barriers of what you think is possible and get it done. There are opportunities, There's riches in the niches, there's opportunities everywhere, whether it's your local library, the county government, the Y c. You really got my mind going. And so thanks for the inspiration. Mary, thanks for the work that you do, and for taking time with us today. I don't know if you have just 1 the last, Any last world I'll give it to you.
Remember that older people, myself included want a vision of the future, not a memory of. Passed. That's the only line that got a standing ovation at the White House conference on aging. And this week we've really passed take an aging and really given it a bad name if really. And so to the extent that we can rein renegotiate the role of older people as role models as mentors as leaders as friends That's what we wanna do. Love it, Mary.
Beautiful note to end on. Thank you everyone for joining us, and hope to see you all soon. Thanks for... Listening to start health. Be back again with another episode next week.