How Sherpaa Survived Venture Capital's Unrealistic Expectations - Fast Company

Why tech investors often fail to understand that highly regulated health care startups don’t grow at internet-company pace. Photo Illustration: Joel Arbaje for Fast Company BY CHRISTINA FARR Jay Parkinson’s star was rising in 2009. Hailed in the media as the “doctor of the future,” Parkinson had created a transformational Facebook-style application for doctor-patient conversations called Hello Health. Then he was brought in by a fast-growing startup called Tumblr to devise a strategy for their employees’ health care needs. That conversation, in which Parkinson advocated for a shift to digital methods (like SMS) of communicating with clinicians, inspired him to start his own company, Sherpaa. Through Sherpaa, employees at companies like Tumblr were given an email address and phone number, which they could use to reach a doctor at any time. After a segment aired on national television in 2012 about the company’s simple but effective approach, Parkinson says Sherpaa was able to hire its

Why tech investors often fail to understand that highly regulated health care startups don’t grow at internet-company pace. Photo Illustration: Joel Arbaje for Fast Company BY CHRISTINA FARR Jay Parkinson’s star was rising in 2009. Hailed in the media as the “doctor of the future,” Parkinson had created a transformational Facebook-style application for doctor-patient conversations called Hello Health. Then he was brought in by a fast-growing startup called Tumblr to devise a strategy for their employees’ health care needs. That conversation, in which Parkinson advocated for a shift to digital