Miriam Allred (00:10)
Welcome to the lab. are in studio in downtown Dallas. ⁓ I am joined by three home care tech founders and CEOs. We've got Alex Oosterveen, the co-founder and CEO at Caribou. We've got Todd Allen, the co-owner and CEO of AxisCare And we've also got James Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of Nevvon. Gentlemen, welcome to Texas and welcome to the studio.
Miriam Allred (00:38)
This is a real treat I am a local here to DFW but capitalizing on you guys being in town for a conference And so this is my first time in the studio I think this is all your first time in a studio setting like this so I think we're all a little nervous but mostly excited to have this conversation and I know bits and pieces about each of you I think you all know each other pretty well so I might be the odd man out here a little bit but excited to get to know you each a little bit better and to have this conversation about entrepreneurship and
and founding and leading the businesses that you do. ⁓ I'm a new entrepreneur as of this year. I think I caught the bug being in home care because home care is powered by entrepreneurs. Basically all of these owners, operators come to it ⁓ as entrepreneurs. And so that's what I wanted to focus this conversation on is the journey that all of you had, the decisions that you've made, the pivots that you've made along the way, some of the skills that you have or you have learned. I think it's going to be a useful conversation for the
owners, operators, entrepreneurs to hear from all of you. So let's just start out of the gate with ⁓ starting these businesses. You've all been at it for various amounts of years, ⁓ but the first thing I want to talk about is there's typically three reasons why people start businesses. Pain, passion, or profession. Pain meaning you personally overcame something, went through something, and it led you to founding this business. ⁓ Passion, you had a hobby or something that you were interested in.
and were able to turn it into a business or the last one profession you were already doing this in some form likely working for someone else and you thought I can do it too or I can do it better or I should go this route and start a business as well so I want to hear from each of you of those three pain passion or profession what led you to the business that you're in today James why don't we go ahead and start with you
James Cohen (02:29)
Sure. And again, thank you for having us over here. Excited to get going. ⁓ For me, it was definitely pain. I've been in health care, both in the owner operator facilities and home care for now 23 years. So I sat in the role of being a scheduler, a an executive, working with nursing staff, and I knew the pain points of training caregivers for their compliance requirements.
Most recently, I had a home care agency that I founded that served three states and the US and Canada. And it was really difficult to train all the caregivers in a high quality way and a scalable way. So when I sold the company about seven years ago, I decided I wanted to solve that pain point by creating Nevvon and ⁓ creating a high value learning management system for the caregiver workforce.
Miriam Allred (03:31)
Amazing. Perfect example of pain. went through it yourself and that led to you, coming up with the solution, being a part of the solution. Todd, let's jump over to you. What about you? Pain, passion, profession?
Todd Allen (03:41)
So as we were talking about beforehand, my journey is a little bit different. I took over AxisCare in day two, call it, and it was early on, but I didn't found it. And so I think for me, it was kind of combination of all three. I was working with the co-founders before they started. And so I got to learn home care from that perspective. But buried down years prior was my mom received home care. And I, at the time, I just thought, wow, what a great service, you know, and
this particular company in Tennessee did a great job. so that was kind of like buried for later. So then when, my partners now approached me about taking over AxisCare, that kind of registered that buried kind of passion registered. They explained to me the pain that they were experiencing with software companies in the arena. And so obviously it was good profession. So for me, it was kind of like a mix of all three. But I would say right now, what drives me is more the passion.
than anything else. We're seeing, the fact that people are using folks like AxisCare and experiencing tremendous growth because of the efficiencies that software companies are providing. It's stirring, and it's if we can do our job, we're empowering home care agencies and helping their operations to provide better care to people. So that is a passion point for me.
Miriam Allred (04:59)
Yeah, I'm glad you bring that up, but I want you to lean into this conversation today of you aren't a founder, but you were on since day two. And that's a really interesting perspective of you were there since the beginning, but you don't wear the founder title, but you've been the CEO for a decade now. so I want you to lead into that because I think, again, a lot of people at Home Care can relate to that being a part of something from the beginning and that role evolving as well.
Todd Allen (05:24)
Yeah. Well, so not literally day two, but figuratively day two. So it had been around for maybe a year and then I picked it up when it was going to market, so to speak. so, the founders and then talking with the agency owners, you pick up the passion. So if they're, you're like me, you didn't actually start your company, but you came on early on, I would recommend like having conversations as many as possible with the people that you're serving. And then you will pick up the pain. will pick up that passion. ⁓ And of course, the profession will come along as you learn how to scale your company.
Miriam Allred (05:57)
Yeah, the thought that comes to mind is home care is extremely difficult and you all being technology companies serving these home care businesses, you're all still in it. You've been doing this for years and years. It's not easy. Like this business, this industry is not for the faint of heart. And that trickles over to all of us, know, providers, vendors, consultants that are serving these businesses. It is not for the faint of heart. And we'll talk about challenges and pivots and lessons learned in that regard as well. ⁓ Alex, what about you? What, what led you to starting Caribou?
Alex Oosterveen (06:26)
Yeah, I'd say a mix for me as well, but the biggest one, definitely passion. From a young age, my dream was to start a business, become an entrepreneur. And what motivated me the most was trying to work on a big problem, one that kept me up at night. And I also wanted to work with people that I just love working with. Then it doesn't really feel like you're working. And I guess from a professional sense, you don't really know what problem is going to keep you up at night. But I was working in investment banking
my early 20s and I decided to go work in the senior care sector so mergers and acquisitions of senior living and home care businesses and for me it was just the senior and his care industry was just quite interesting you know it's like a big growing industry and thought hey I'm young you might as well align yourself with an industry that's got some tailwinds and from a personal level my mom was a home care worker so I got to learn about you know some of the trials and tribulations and also the great stuff from her you know the deep connection she had with
their clients and purpose from the work. And ⁓ it was literally my first week on the job. I got staffed on the sale of one of Canada's largest home care companies. And I saw right away that the labor shortage was the biggest challenge for these home care companies. And, you know, this was only going to get worse and worse. And then you look at all the knock on effects that this has on, you know, families not getting the care they need. They stressed out like work is impacted. You know, the businesses suffer.
care systems become overwhelmed. All these things kind of stem from this core of how do we create a really stable and robust workforce in this industry. I'd say that's where from that light bulb moment my life changed and sleepless nights were really out of passion trying to figure something out. And then after two years of banking I decided to quit, jump in full steam and I actually became a scheduler to try to learn the realities of the
from the ground floor. And from a pain perspective, also early on in the journey, I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And my first attack was pretty rough, and it took some time just to adjust and adapt. And I'd say kind of going through the healthcare system as a recipient was pretty eye-opening. And I'd say that further fuels the motivation behind the problems we solve.
