Robert Rodriguez, founder of Helix VM, dives into his journey as an entrepreneur in the healthcare sector, focusing on how telemedicine and asynchronous care are reshaping the patient experience. He sheds light on the inefficiencies of traditional healthcare interactions and explains how Helix VM is using innovative technology to improve patient care. Robert also discusses Helix VM’s unique approach and shares his vision for the company's future growth and impact.
Key Takeaways
🕰️Patience in Entrepreneurship
Robert emphasizes the importance of patience, especially when navigating challenges and fostering effective team communication.
🧑💻Hands-On Leadership
Shifting from medicine to tech, Robert immersed himself in every aspect of Helix VM, which helps him lead and make informed decisions.
💡Revolutionizing Patient Care
Helix VM’s focus on asynchronous medicine streamlines interactions, making healthcare more efficient and accessible.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Helix VM and Robert Rodriguez
02:54 The Challenges of Telemedicine
06:52 Building a New Medical Platform
11:28 The Unique Features of Helix VM
14:24 Personal Growth as a Tech Founder
19:46 The Rewards of Innovating in Healthcare
25:43 Challenges and 'Oh Shit' Moments
28:16 Navigating Patient Payment Challenges
31:34 Debunking Myths of Entrepreneurship
36:47 Aha Moments in Asynchronous Medicine
41:05 Reflections on Leadership and Responsibility
44:30 Goals for Future Growth
46:19 The Power of Persistence
48:47 Daily Routines and Productivity
Connect with Robert:
Website: https://helixvm.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-rodriguez-ab555b4/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helixvmvirtualcare/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HELIXVM
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:13)
Welcome to Hello Chaos, the weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Today we have Robert Rodriguez, founder of Helix VM. And Helix developed a revolutionary, can't wait to talk to you about this, but it's a revolutionary patent-pending medical platform that leverages AI to deliver fast and seamless healthcare. Welcome Robert, welcome to Hello Chaos.
Robert Rodriguez (00:43)
Good afternoon, how are you?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:45)
I am fantastic. So thank you for coming on and chatting. I'm really interested in hearing about your founder journey. So just start us out. How did you get involved, whether it's Helix VM was your first one or what, just tell me about your founder journey.
Robert Rodriguez (01:05)
Sure. long story short, in 2003, I became an entrepreneur and it was in the outpatient medical space, kind of the dock-in-the-box urgent care world. And so, spent a great deal of time, last 20 years in that space as an owner and operator. So my background as an entrepreneur has always been in healthcare.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:16)
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (01:30)
and in sort of the messy part of healthcare, which is servicing patients in a very chaotic retail driven environment. that's the start of it. And a whole series of challenges there as an entrepreneur and being a of a sole owner slash founder of that company.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:35)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's changed.
Robert Rodriguez (01:56)
And the journey really, you know, for Helix VM in particular, it starts really with COVID. And, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm in this space. I'm, you know, busy. You know, I've been at this for a while already. And, you know, we sort of hit a little bit of a problem, which is that we had this environment where we had patients who didn't want to physically see doctors and doctors who didn't want to physically see patients. And obviously in the traditional world of medicine,
If those two don't get together in some capacity, you have a problem. Okay. And so it was was a bit of a head scratcher and even more of a head scratcher because obviously you had the telemedicine concept, which is something similar to what we're experiencing, you what we're doing here, which is you get somebody on the phone and or or in the on a video and they talk to each other. so but but again, you know, the the effectiveness of it relative to to to the practice of medicine.
was difficult and telemedicine still has that problem. You have patients who are scheduled, they don't show up. If they show up, they show up late, then the doctor's late or the doctor doesn't get there. And so it really is an inefficient exchange mechanism.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:07)
hard to develop that like trust factor and yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (03:11)
That too. trust is definitely a part of it. But even before you trust, it's just the logistics of getting two people to meet at the same time in the same place. And to do so using a video camera is hard. It's not easy. And I don't think people appreciate it until you actually start to do it. so we said, OK, we
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:26)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (03:38)
Patients don't want to see doctors. Doctors don't want to see patients. Let's do telemedicine. And it's like, OK, well, this kind of sucks because, you know, I can't I can't turn I can't make money in this business, you know, when half the patients don't show up, the other half show up late, the doctor shows up late. You know, when you're in a doctor's office, in essence, the patient takes the effort of going into the office and the doctor takes the effort of showing up and being in the office.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:02)
All
Robert Rodriguez (04:07)
So as a result, meeting supply and demand at a point in time is relatively easy because of the investment each party makes. But in telemedicine, you've got people sitting in there, you know, we've got patients walking around Walmart, we've got patients in their underwear at home, we've got doctors who are, you know, God knows, you know, they're sort of, you know, they got a shirt on and they've got their running shoes on underneath the table. So it's just a much more informal process. really
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:14)
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (04:36)
And it's a challenge. really is a challenge of meeting supply and demand at a point in time.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:42)
Just to start, like just that's fascinating. I've never heard that side of the, you know, you hear telemedicine, it's more access, especially with people that don't have a doctor in their just geographic location. So the whole telemedicine was like, now healthcare is more accessible than ever before. But you're right, you're dealing with like just pure logistical retail challenges. Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (05:07)
Yeah, I mean, imagine you have a Walmart and your patients have to show up by appointment. Imagine that. And then now imagine it for something maybe in many of the eyes of a consumer not as important, correct? Which is a doctor's visit. And you know, what do I care if I'm late? What do I care if I'm 50? So see, it really is a very, very messy process.
And traditionally, if you go into your doctor's office, one of the ways they solve that messy process, you know what it is, by making you wait in the waiting room. Like, I'm going to tell you to show up at three, but I'm not going to see you at 345. And I know I'm not going see you at 345. But yeah, yes. But it's way for them to better the doctor, in this case, the supply side of the equation, to really utilize its time. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:41)
Yeah, so it's strategic.
Robert Rodriguez (05:54)
So you've got all of these dynamics in terms of you had COVID, they don't want to see each other. Then you get this telemedicine and it's really inefficient. And so it was a head scratcher. And what we started to do to play with, particularly on the Urgent Care side, was the concept of, in essence, asynchronous medicine, where what you try to do is basically gather as much information from the patient and then try to match them up with a treatment plan and then give them the treatment plan.
And when we started to do that, what we realized is that our entire infrastructure, our workflow and our software didn't work. Right. So you could create all of these standing orders with all these protocols, but at the end of the day, it didn't work within context of today's medicine, which is very computer driven. And in the, again, the workflows around the actual usage of asynchronous medicine did not exist. Okay.
So at that point in time, May of 2021, it's like, OK, let's start a company and let's build, in essence, a platform that will be able to bring patients and doctors together asynchronously as well as synchronously, synchronous being like this, right? Me and you talking. But be able to bring both of them, both of these parties together in whatever method they so choose. OK?
And that would allow us to, essence, be able to see patients without touching them, but also without actually having all of these logistics issues of matching a person and a provider at a point in time. And that's where we started. So was May of 2021. We had a ton of ups and downs during that period of time, people getting sick, people going to hospitals, being very, very small.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:45)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (07:47)
not having a really developed engineering team starting our work in software that was.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:55)
I was like, you had to move from being like retail, bricks and mortar, like legit to now you're a tech company. Whoa, yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (08:03)
Correct. And that was a very, very messy process. But again, while you're not familiar with the technology per se when you start the journey, you are very, very embedded in the problem, knowing the problem. And I think that in the long run, that's a strategic advantage that we have, is that I know the problem. My team knows the problem. And so as a result,
Again, we started that journey and basically in May of 2021, we launched in essence a minimum viable platform or minimum viable product. And then we said to ourselves, okay, you know, we're ready to see patients asynchronously. We're ready to see patients synchronously. We got some AI in here. We got some RPA in here. We've got technology here. We got software. And we basically went to market. And the way we went to market was basically direct to consumer because
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:41)
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (09:03)
We didn't want to sit around and wait for, you know, to go and convince them some practice somewhere to use what we were doing because it was kind of different. So so what we did was we said, you know what, let's go to let's go direct to consumer. Not that that's the ideal way of going to market, but it is one of the ways of going to market. And so we started that process and, you know, was sluggish at first. And then we started to pick up. And right now we're doing about last month, we did about
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:10)
Great, do a pull through, absolutely.
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (09:33)
7,000 patients on the platform, is a fairly, if you look at it from the perspective of a doctor, a pretty robust practice, 7,000 patient visits in a month. And we're hoping to continue growing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:41)
Right.
That's unbelievable. So are you limited to your geography? Yeah, was like, you can serve doctor's practices anywhere, because it's just operating on your platform. OK.
Robert Rodriguez (09:52)
No, no, no, we, we actually... Go ahead.
We have positions across all 50 states. Obviously we're configured from a legal perspective to service the U.S. market, also happens to be the U.S. market. And so what we have done is we've partnered with a provider team to be able to provide coverage to patient care in all 50 states plus D.C. So we are able to go to market and bring a patient in on one end into this marketplace exchange, a clearing and settlement platform.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:09)
Okay.
Robert Rodriguez (10:30)
and then we're able to put that patient from a note perspective in front of a doctor. And then that doctor is able to treat that patient all on our platform. With the exception that the patient's medical note and the billing of that, right, because there was insurance bill and all that stuff tends to happen inside the doctor's system. But what we're looking, what we do is, again, we take a patient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:47)
Right.
Okay.
Robert Rodriguez (10:56)
You know, we have in essence a marketplace, a clearing and settlement platform, lot of big pieces of software. And what it does is it does intake on the patient, including triage. It then takes all of that information and turns it into a record for billing for the doctor, and then also a record for medicine, which is in essence a soap note, right? And so we make that process so much more efficient. So think of it as...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:17)
Okay.
Robert Rodriguez (11:22)
It would be the equivalent of you going from your bedroom right into the exam room of the doctor just by basically self-servicing yourself.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:28)
Yeah.
That's amazing. And because I saw that you're like, so it almost is like you're the first to market with this concept.
Robert Rodriguez (11:42)
I would say the following. I would say we are very early in going to market with what I consider to be a full range solution that does a few really key things. First of all, it does intake all the way through. We do all of the intake. not like, like their companies like ZocDoc, for example. ZocDoc basically just gives you a patient name, gives you the insurance, your insurance is probably wrong.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:05)
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (12:11)
And God knows the information they give you, right? And then they say, this patient wants an appointment at 10, right? That's cool. It's good stuff. But from a doctor's perspective, I can't do anything with that, right? What am I going to do with that? Right? I need somebody to take the information. I to put it in the system. I need to verify the insurance. I need to get the credit card. need to do, and then I need to get them in front of a nurse and then I need to figure out what they're here for. then like, so there's a ton of stuff. We picked all of that up. So we do the digital intake.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:38)
wow.
Robert Rodriguez (12:40)
that people are think are accustomed to if they use web apps. Then we add a whole bunch of medicine and a whole bunch of financial steps that are necessary for a doctor to see a patient. So that's the first unique thing. Not everybody can do what we do. There are some folks that do some of it, but not all of it. Not the full workflow. Not that I know of. Now, with that stated, there are also companies that in essence do a
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:43)
Right?
but not the full workflow. Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (13:08)
part of what we do, which is the triage piece, right? And they have an AI and they, you know, so it's kind of a lot of the same thing, but it's sort of a point solution that in essence, typically they try to fit within the context of a larger system, like an Epic system or e-clinical works or whatever software system the doctors happen to use. Well, we're, our objective is to basically give you everything you need to
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:11)
Okay.
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (13:35)
to literally start seeing the patient immediately and then you have all of the information necessary to bill it both to the insurance company as well as also then later to the patient account. Okay, that's unique. Okay, that I know is unique.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:49)
That's the revolutionary part. It's just the full workflow and then having the billing and all that, all just all the way through.
Robert Rodriguez (13:54)
Yeah. It's kind of like what Uber did for a cab driver, right? They have a cab or they have a car and they have time. And if you can put the if you can put the customer in the car and in essence, then give them their money at the end of the day or the end of the week. What you know, why like do I need to spend all of this time and all this effort and all this money on, you know, setting up a phone? Like I don't need to do that. I just basically partner with Uber. I see patients. I make money.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:58)
Yeah. Right.
again.
Robert Rodriguez (14:24)
That's good.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:24)
That's good. That's amazing. So what have you discovered about yourself through this entire journey going from more of that doctor practice, retail, brick and mortar into becoming a tech founder in the healthcare space? What have you discovered about yourself?
Robert Rodriguez (14:45)
I well, what have I discovered about myself? well, anyway, I'm more patient than I was before I started the journey. That's for sure. There's a lot of frustration being a, you know, being a founder, there's a lot of uncertainty that comes along with that frustration. And you do have to develop a certain degree of patience because I think what happens as a founder at times like, yeah, it makes sense to me.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:55)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (15:15)
But that doesn't matter that it makes sense to you unless you plan on doing all the work. It's got to make sense to other people. And it's not always easy when you have time constraints and you got family and you got children and you got a wife and you got vacations and you've got travel to sort of be able to fully articulate everything in a way that it makes sense. That's number one. And I think that that's very, very important. It's just to have the patience to talk to folks because usually founders
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:19)
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (15:45)
are the product visionary, right? They may not do the financing, they may not do the marketing, they may not do the sales, they may not do the technology, but you gotta have the product vision and communicating that product vision is hard. So I think that that's one of the things that I think I've gotten better at in terms of being a founder. It's just patience, I think is most important. I think the second piece, particularly with the technology component, which is very, very different.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:10)
Yeah. That was like your time out like night and day of where you came and then where you're going. Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (16:17)
Yeah, It's definitely, it's a different world. And then the second thing, Rich, which I think is different is, you know, one thing is coming at it from the perspective of that you have a lot of operating experience managing quote unquote, a medical practice. Okay. But when you're managing a medical practice, at the end of the day, most of the times, you're using other people's tools. So for example, using other people's practice management software, and you're using people's medical note taking system and using other people's right. So
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:40)
Right.
All these off the shelf things that you're, that's just built, the industry is built around.
Robert Rodriguez (16:50)
Correct. So you are given in essence a choice of your menu. But when you're a tech entrepreneur, you get to define that menu. And that's different. Because when you start to define the menu, you start getting into all of the little itty bitty things that it takes in order for that piece of software to work. And that's part of the patience part, because you don't know what you don't know a lot of times and mistakes happen.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
right.
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (17:19)
But just getting into the nitty gritty, like I can honestly say today that I absolutely know every nook and cranny of the business, starting not just with at a high level, you know, the strategic, you know, issues, the staffing issues, the people issues. But I also understand that a nitty gritty kind of how all the little pieces work even at a database level. So, I mean, I like technology. I like software.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:33)
Right.
The components weren't, yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (17:47)
but I had no reason to learn all of this. I've had reason to learn it. And it's imperative because it really, again, it helps with that patience piece. As you're asking people to do something, it's good to know what the struggles are gonna go through.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:50)
Right.
Yeah. Right. Ordered what I call you because you got to communicate because it's like you might not have been a developer or coder but you're the architect of that product design or that workflow and you've got to be able to oversee and and really and maybe even push because we've seen this on you know other tech companies of and founders who were either come from the space not a coder developer just as like the visionary.
Robert Rodriguez (18:13)
Absolutely.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:30)
And sometimes they're like, I'm getting snowed, or I'm getting, I don't know, false information from their developers of like, that can't be done, or that's gonna take six months and 300 hours. And as they've learned over time, they're like, that's only like an hour's worth of work, or we work with some founders that are software engineers. that's...
They were the developer and the coders and then trying to build out their team so they can run the company and dealing with the patients of training, development, communicating and playing oversight. So yeah, I can relate to some of those challenges.
Robert Rodriguez (19:17)
yeah. So getting into the nitty gritty, which I never had to, and to some degree I always prided myself on not getting into the nitty gritty. But in this case, it's get into the nitty gritty and be patient. think the two things that are definitely different about my day-to-day experience is going into this, building this crazy sort of marketplace clearing and settlement system for medical trades.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:25)
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fantastic. So what's been the most rewarding part?
Robert Rodriguez (19:52)
I like to say it's the money, but that hasn't been the case yet. Yeah, you know, look, I've always had a bug for doing things a little differently. And so from my perspective, the ability to put my thumbprint on how medicine is done. why is that important to me? It has nothing to with money. It has nothing to do with starting a company. It has to do with kind of the impact.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:54)
Hey!
it.
Robert Rodriguez (20:21)
And I, you take the lumps, but you also take the praise. And so from my perspective, being able to go and speak to doctors who I'm not a doctor, I don't have a license, I don't practice medicine on the side and I don't do any of stuff. But being able to go into a doctor and talk to them at a practical level about how what we're doing is the best way to move forward to get past their
you know, to get past their their their negative assumptions, to accept the uncertainty and to basically do something different that at the end of the day is going to be better for them. Is exciting, right? Because you're dealing with people who are typically highly motivated, very well educated, beaten down by the system. But but fundamentally, folks who I think if you show them the way they're on board.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (21:17)
The physicians who work with us, what they like about what they're doing with us is I don't have to quit my day job. I don't have to deal with annoying patients. I get to actually do medicine and I can actually, given how this technology works, I can do medicine in about one to two minutes. And that is a step change difference for the physician versus even if you're doing telemedicine, you got to spend 15 minutes on the camera with the patient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:26)
Right.
And that's my end.
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (21:46)
taking this and we're just collapsing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:48)
But also just the expediency of the operations of which we know from working with practices, that's a headache for a lot of of like running the business. Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (22:01)
yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. But, you know, but yes, I think that if you were to look at what we do as an enterprise type solution, there's opportunity for us to do it. The thing is that right now I'd like I don't I don't think that from a platform perspective, we're necessarily ready to do the totality of the enterprise solution for a doctor. OK, because there's a lot of the medicine that we do that sort of catered to a certain
type of medicine, which tends to be low acuity, simple repeat business, episodic care, gap care and stuff like that. if you try to take what we do and try to move it, like, for example, into one of the medical practices that I work in, you'll find that not everything is sort of buttoned up in terms of selling pure software. We're getting there, but we're not there yet. I think that what really gets the doctors excited is, again, is the fact that I'm sitting in my office
I'm seeing patients just like I always have. But what you're doing is you're putting caseload onto my scheduler. I don't have to do much more. All I got to do is read and approve, read and edit. And then you take everything from there. I don't have to hire more staff. I don't have to get another front desk. I don't have to get another nurse. I don't need another checkout person. And then you're giving me a check to see the patients. Like, I like that because it's in essence, it's kind of like the uberization of the medical practice.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:15)
Great.
Robert Rodriguez (23:28)
And the physicians are very grateful for it. And again, because it really does reduce the burden that they have from a day to day basis seeing patient after patient after patient, many of which the medicine's relatively easy. It's pretty straightforward and you don't need to spend, you you'll spend the time if you have to, but at the end of the day, you don't want to. It's like, I already know what the patient needs. Why do I need to spend five minutes with the patient talking about their hair color and how they're doing and the kids and this and that. And they're like,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:44)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (23:57)
You know, I got other things I want to do. So, you know, so I think for that liberty, that freedom we give the provider to see patients do medicine, earn income without sort of investing that synchronous time is a really big deal. the patient side, you know, would say for them, it's just sort of the ease of use. It looks like an e-commerce transaction, which is to say, I can log in right now and I can be done in 15 minutes and I'm done.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:19)
Okay.
Robert Rodriguez (24:26)
Like I don't have to get up. I don't have to address and I have to go to the doctor's office. I don't have to schedule. I don't have to do. I'm done. Right. And in that 15 minutes I'm going to get the output that I'm expecting on the other end in the form of a treatment plan in the form of a prescription in the form of a refill in the form of a suggestion as to what to do next that I would normally have to invest an hour two hours three hours of my day. What you're what we're basically doing is collapsing that into an essence of 15 minute time window. And it's basically 15 minutes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:54)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (24:56)
you know, on their phone, right? It's not 15 minutes running around the house. It's 15 minutes on their phone. They could be watching Netflix and they can just, in essence, go through the entire intake process off a phone and be done. it's tremendously convenient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:08)
convenient and like it elevates them just overall promotes healthy like go get your checkups do those things that are you know someone is is checking your vitals just versus not
Robert Rodriguez (25:26)
Yeah, it's highly complementary to the traditional way that a patient obtains medicine. But it does do one very important thing, which is it increases access for patients.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:43)
So it's been the most challenging part.
of this. Like I would call it your biggest like shit like what have I done the big the big challenge. Okay okay.
Robert Rodriguez (25:49)
Well, you know.
Well, that's those are two separate questions. The challenge in the Oshed. So I think that from a challenge perspective, know, it's, you know, what we're building is extremely unique. And the biggest challenge we have is given the enormity of the components in the in sort of clearing and settling a medical trade, as we call it internally.
is that there are a lot of components to putting together medicine and you can't address everything all at the same time. And sometimes, you know, we'll roll out one of the components and we're not quite happy with it. Like we got to put more time into it. you know, an example, an example is, you know, one of the components in the system that we have is the ability to in essence verify the insurance.
hopefully before the patient ever even gets past sort of giving me their home address. So it's great when it works, but there's a lot of challenges technologically to it and learning that just takes time. So you have an idea, the idea works, but there's a lot more technical sophistication in terms of figuring out how do you match a name to a name in a database and they use different names. So you have a lot of complexity there. And so what ends up happening is
you start to build and you have in essence a car, but the car has a 1920s engine and you really want to have a 2024 engine. And getting from a 2020 engine, excuse me, getting from a 1920 engine, I used the wrong date, getting from a 1920 engine to a 2020 engine takes time and it takes patience and it takes an understanding of how to continuously improve that, in essence, that component.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:27)
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (27:48)
Still a car, still takes you from point A to point B, but the difference between going point A to point B in a 1920s car versus a car in 2020 is very different. So we would like to have that 2020 car, but it's gonna take a lot of work across all of these sub-assemblies, these systems that are part of the clearing and the settlement of a medical trade.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:50)
Right.
Right, right.
Right.
So what's been the biggest then shit moment?
Robert Rodriguez (28:16)
yeah, the biggest shit moment, yeah, this one's easy actually. The biggest shit moment is when we started, one of the things we were doing is we didn't have a lot of experience with one of the components in the system, which is sort of a guarantor process. And guarantor processing in our business is in essence, you get insurance and then you get the patient credit card, right? But these are two fundamentally different processes, okay?
And so you have to do one before you do the other. And how you do one depends on a lot of factors. Is it in network? Is it out of network? Do they have covers? And then you have the credit card. What's the day? What's this? Right. So we're fine with the insurance piece, but where we ran into a ton of trouble was in essence on the patient side. And the issue on the patient side was we were basically collecting the information and the data from the patient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:51)
yeah, yeah. What's the code?
Robert Rodriguez (29:13)
And it was quote unquote, you know, systems were telling us, everything is good to go. The problem is everything wasn't good to go because what was happening is we were collecting a ton of information. Okay. We were then billing that information two, three months later. And what we were finding out two, three months later was, well, that's not really a credit card. That was a Walmart prepaid card. So they bought their potato chips two, months ago and there's no more money left. So we're like, shit, we got to get money.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:39)
Yeah
Robert Rodriguez (29:43)
and this patient gave us a credit card and the credit card wasn't a credit card, it was a prepaid card and not only was it a prepaid card, the patient allegedly lives in Arkansas but we went and we found out that they really live in Kansas and then we submit, it was just a disaster.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:01)
I can't imagine. Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (30:03)
So anyway, but but it but again, but it launched it sort of launched a self reflection, right? shit, you know, be patient. Get into the details, right? Getting into the details. How do we solve this problem? And so, you know, one of the things in fact, we were having discussions today specifically to it is we're rolling out a new sort of patient patient settlement module, you know, with a new algorithm to help patients basically when you know, give us your insurance, we got it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:13)
Right. How do we solve this problem?
Robert Rodriguez (30:33)
But, you know, there's going to be something you have to pay and we can give you now two options. There's a pay now and a pay later. Right. You want to pay now? It's going to be probably a little bit cheaper. No surprises. Everything's out of the way or you can pay later. Right. And that's, again, something that's unique within our platform that nobody else does. So, you know, the ability to bill the insurance company and then be able to either bill you today or tomorrow and then offer you different options for service levels is something that's unique.
in terms of what we're doing and we're not quite live with it but we're getting pretty close. So that's the biggest of shit was my god we you know we're not quite how we were expected.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:09)
What have we done? We're not getting our revenue.
Robert Rodriguez (31:13)
We're not getting paid. And I mean, trust me, it's still a challenge. And I think that, you if you talk to other e-commerce companies that deal with consumer credit related issues, they're experiencing a lot of these similar problems. And I know every doctor's practice is. They may not know it, but every doctor's practice is dealing with the same exact issue that we're tackling.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:24)
Yeah.
That's right. That's right. So do you think, you know, we hear all these myths and misperceptions out there of what it means or what it takes to be a founder or, you know, or to run a company. What is the biggest kind of misconception that you've heard out there that you're like, I need to debunk this?
Robert Rodriguez (31:57)
That's interesting question. Look, I would say the following. I think that people do think that if you're a founder or the CEO or some version of those two, that somehow or another you have the freedom to do kind of whatever you want to do.
And I would say the following. think that you do have some freedom in terms of your day-to-day schedule. Like, you you want to take a Friday off, you can. It's not a big deal. Nobody's going to scream at you. But you're a slave to the business. You are obsessed with it. It's a quirkiness about you. You know, I hate to say could talk more about my business than my kids, but there's a certain element of truth to that. I could talk about this.
all day and all night.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:45)
Well, and I always like and compare our businesses when you, it's like you've birthed them. I mean, I've got four kids and I feel just as responsible. I get the worry, I have the headaches, and I work probably harder on the business and in the business than I have at times, yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (33:06)
At times, at times, at times it feels that way. At times it does feel this way that you're sort of cheating your loved ones of some of the bandwidth that you should be applying to them and giving them. so I think that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:11)
Yeah.
But it's like, but you're still, like you gotta nurture it. They go through these different stages and ages and phases and, but you're there.
Robert Rodriguez (33:23)
Yeah. And at the end of the day, do have a you do have a in my opinion, I think you do have an ethical responsibility to the people that work with you to put that effort in because they need your leadership. They're looking for your leadership. And if you're not providing it, think that that you're doing everybody to some degree, you're doing everybody a disservice. I think that that the sort of, you you're free to do whatever you want. And not really, because you have these considerations for the people that
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:36)
That's right.
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (33:53)
you work with, you want them to work hard obviously and you want them to work smart obviously, but you know they're their own human beings with their own motivation functions and you have to be in tune with it and not all of them in essence are working off the same script. So you have to, you know again it's not sort of you know I'm just gonna do this and that's that. It happens but it's only a part of it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:08)
Right.
Right, no, and that's fine. We hear that I think most, that's the most common myth I think that we've heard from like almost a thousand founders that we've interviewed and talked to. think it's the, people think this is a, you can work wherever you want. You can only work four hours a day. You get all this freedom and I think that's the biggest like, no, not when you're.
building something and you're taking risk, you're hiring people, you're accountable to other people. We talked to a founder who said, gave some great advice and put it in a perspective for me that was kind of an aha for me was, he said, look, when you start having a team of it goes from five people to 20 people to 50 people, 200 people, like, you're responsible.
You know, when you're running that business, you're now making decisions that will affect 200 individuals, but their families and how their lifestyles and their, you know, circle of influences. it's, you know, how do you want to show up? How do you want to present? How do you want to lead? Because you are responsible for that.
Robert Rodriguez (35:37)
Well, yeah, luckily, you know, luckily like, you know, I started early in terms of, the idea of making a payroll and being responsible for other people. So, you know, 20 years ago. So so coming into Helix VM, I, know, I already had sort of, I think, you know, you know, the gravitas, the understanding of the importance of it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:51)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (35:59)
But I can certainly understand where you're a first time founder or a young founder and maybe you went to a company and you were lucky enough to raise $100 million and you didn't have any of these concerns that these things probably don't mean much to you. But when you're bootstrapping, when you're starting from nothing, when people are looking at you, hey, is your paycheck gonna bounce? Like, what's going on here? I think it gives you a certain seriousness that...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:03)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (36:27)
and hopefully an appreciation again for the ethical responsibility you have to these individuals to really put in the right effort, your best effort and the right effort.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:37)
right effort. I like that. So what do you think is your your greatest aha moment? That breakthrough moment or decision? That kind of...
Robert Rodriguez (36:47)
Well, for us, the aha moment, I have to say, was taking this concept of using these standing orders and saying, wait a second, this idea that you don't have to see or touch the patient, like, not only can we use it for COVID, we can use it for this and we can use it for this and we can use it for this and we can use it this and we can use it for this. So the aha moment was in understanding that the applicability to asynchronous medicine, which is fundamentally at the heart of what we're trying to do as much of.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:04)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (37:16)
this asynchronous medicine is applicable not just.
in a few settings, but across a tremendous amount of medicine going from as something as obvious as a primary care, urgent care environment to emergency room medicine all the way through to oncology care. There is asynchronous medicine and oncology care. You just have to know how to do it. You have to know how to put it together. You have to know how to medically clear and settle that kind of trade in an oncology environment. And doing so I think was the biggest aha moment because
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:43)
clear.
Robert Rodriguez (37:51)
When you start talking synchronous versus asynchronous, you totally bend the profit curve for physicians practice. It's completely different. And all of a sudden, practices that are losing money or barely, you know, the physicians may be struggling. All of a sudden, it's like, you know, my income just went up 50, 60%. And it's just by doing things differently. Again,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:09)
Right, wow.
Robert Rodriguez (38:13)
I have to change as a physician. The patient has to change in terms of how much self-service that patient is responsible for. But if I can change how I practice and work with the patient to get them to self-service themselves, I have a much better life, which is, you know, less problems, less headaches, more income. And at the end of the day, the people that work around the physician benefit from that also.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:40)
Right, that's good. So is there something that you like about yourself that you wish more people recognized?
Robert Rodriguez (38:54)
Something that I like about myself that I wish other people recognized. wow. Well, honestly, that I have a pretty serious demeanor to most folks and most people who don't know me. I'm a lot like my father. He's passed, but he was he always looked very serious. So, you know, and I don't know if it's like the facial muscles or the beard or whatever. But I think that most people who know me, I think, realize I have a wicked sense of humor.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:58)
Yes.
Robert Rodriguez (39:23)
and a very quick one. I'm quick witted and funny, but you don't always get that, appreciation for that I think in an environment such as this or in a more professional environment because same token, don't want to people bashing you for your bad humor either too.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:33)
unexpected.
Right. Well, OK.
That's right. So what would be something that our listeners would be surprised to learn about you? Or people would be surprised to learn about you? That's not on your bio, your LinkedIn, you know. What's something?
Robert Rodriguez (39:57)
you know surprised you know that would require me to to project I try try not to do that too much of that anymore I would say that you know again you know that sort of taking that serious angle that I think people would be you know probably surprised with how
passionate not just that I am about what I'm doing but also you know about my kids the amount of time that I invest in them. I think I'm a pretty good husband even though my wife would tell me otherwise. I don't know if she does that strategically or she means I don't know if she means it or she just does it because you know it's good positioning but I am very passionate about them very passionate about my family and it's very important to me to
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:42)
you
Robert Rodriguez (40:52)
continue that legacy. because that's something I got from my parents.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:56)
right. Okay, so is there anything that you would do differently if you had to hit rewind?
Robert Rodriguez (41:05)
Cool. Hmm.
Well, look, I think there's certain things that you do because you don't have a choice at the moment and you wish you could do them differently. But I would say probably from my perspective inside the company.
the, you know, I probably should have brought in a CTO and somebody to manage our engineering resources sooner than I did. I think we kind of did things a little bit, you know, a little bit more so from a, you know, we thought that, you know, with very little coding expertise, we could build things and we had technical people. But I think bringing in somebody who could manage an engineering organization, manage an engineering organization, not just stateside, but overseas, because it's cost efficient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:32)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (41:53)
and bringing in some of the technical expertise and I've been blessed to bring in a CTO who's probably overqualified for the job and smarter than me, whose name is Santi, comes in CTO with AI and machine learning background and he's really, really helped us, particularly moving us past that sort of minimum viable platform into something that really starts to look and feel
exciting from a pure technology perspective. So I would say that that's probably my, know, I should have done that faster and I didn't do it fast enough. I should have tried to find somebody like him or him sooner rather than later. But life is the way it is. You know, when I found him, I found him, he was leaving one company and he wanted to go do something at a smaller company and we just managed to meet. Yeah, it was meant to be. He also went to the University of Michigan. I went to the University of Michigan, I think it popped, you know, when he saw the job description.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:27)
Yeah.
It was meant to be.
Robert Rodriguez (42:50)
And he hustled me and that was awesome. I mean, wasn't me trying to sell him on the company. It was him selling himself to us. And that was refreshing. That's refreshing because it doesn't always work that
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:01)
That's a great position to be in, Yeah.
Now, and that means that he believes in the cause and the impact.
Robert Rodriguez (43:13)
I believe so. Yes, I agree. think he, I mean, he obviously didn't have the depth of knowledge in terms of the vision, the product vision, but I think he understood that the problem we were trying to solve was complicated, one. Two, that there weren't people looking to solve a systematic assembly problem in the medical office visit space. And that, you know, that the vision, generically speaking, was something that was substantive.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:13)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (43:43)
for him given his kind of advanced sort of scientific view of things like coding and software and stuff like that. Because the use of AI, use of machine learning, the use of a robot, how you apply it, where you apply it, how you use it, where do we get the data, what kind of data, like all of that type of stuff I think is intellectually challenging to him. think good engineers are genuinely, regardless of income, how much they make or how much they don't make, want to be challenged.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:49)
Right.
Robert Rodriguez (44:11)
and they want to be pushed. And I think he sought the opportunity to do something big.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:19)
So if we met a year from now to celebrate something, what would we be celebrating?
Robert Rodriguez (44:30)
Well, interesting. Well, I think there's really only two things that I measure from a celebratory perspective. First of all, I don't think there's I think when you're in a startup and you're as small as we are because we are small, you know, celebration is is is temporal, which is to say because you're never you're not done. But yeah, yeah, baby steps. But I think that there's two baby steps that I'd like to see us to get to. First of all.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:50)
All right, little baby steps.
Robert Rodriguez (44:58)
I'd like us to be able to double our business volume between now and next year. you know, we're basically a 5 million net revenue. We grew it pretty fast. And I'd like to continue to grow it fast. So I'd like to be sort of on course to hit that that metric because that shows that we're having traction in the marketplace. That's number one. The second piece that, you know, from my perspective is that we have some really novel system components that we have sketched out.
that would really make us a real kind of Uber-like partner for doctors that hopefully we can at least have kind of an early version out in the marketplace and really learning from it. So again, novel concept, very novel way of working with doctors, exposing them to our system while at the same time not burdening them with our system. Getting volume from that relationship.
and then building some trust with the doctor that if we were ever to go back in there and say, listen, you know, could use this for a lot more than just our patients. I think that that would be a real step change and a way of getting even faster growth for the company 2026, 2027, 2028.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:03)
Right.
we're going to pin that and hopefully we'll be able to celebrate that with you a year from now. right. All right. So can you sum up your entrepreneurial, your founder journey in just one word? And what would that word be and why?
Robert Rodriguez (46:19)
Absolutely.
persistent.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:36)
That's a good word.
Robert Rodriguez (46:38)
Yes, very, very persistent. The word no doesn't, I don't like the word no. Not when it comes to what I wanna do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:44)
Yeah, it's like just solve the problem. We see a berry, just let's get around it. Let's figure out the solution.
Robert Rodriguez (46:52)
Yeah, I saw actually a quote by one of the founders of Netflix and it was sort of the same exact sentiment which is, know, hey, we're at a dead end, we had nowhere to go, so we just went through. And it's kind of the same concept.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:04)
That's That's right. Love it. So what's the best piece of advice that you've received as a founder, business owner, that you really took to heart that's kind of become, hey, you share that with others? Can you share something along those lines?
Robert Rodriguez (47:21)
Well, I would say that as a CEO and founder,
You know if I were to talk to somebody else about you know kind of their their job and their role I think that the freedom issue is certainly a part of it, which is to say yes You know you're the big boss, but at the same time you have tremendous responsibilities but I also think that the end of the the other part of the responsibility is just You know to some degree you're alone And you you know because you're making decisions and sometimes it benefits a person sometimes a prejudiced a person sometimes to help certain groups of people sometimes it hurts other groups of people sometimes
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:55)
It's very lonely, very lonely.
Robert Rodriguez (47:56)
So it is in many ways a lonely job, but again that's one of the reasons why if you have family, if you have kids, and if you have at least good relationships with the people that you work with, it's manageable. Correct? You don't feel under siege. And sometimes I do get the sense that people who are in these roles feel under siege. I don't feel under siege. I feel I've got folks who are helping.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:17)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (48:21)
And then I feel I also have a pretty good support system at home with the kids and my wife and my family. So I don't, but it is in a sense you have to be able to make decisions in a little bit of an emotional vacuum. And it's not always easy.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:35)
No, it's not. How do you stay focused and disciplined to be persistent, to be patient? Do you have any routines or discipline or journal, anything like that?
Robert Rodriguez (48:47)
Well, am, I am, well, I do have routines. I'm very, yeah, I'm very regimented in what I do. And I've always believed that that regiment allows you to get more things done. So my days, you know, it's when I get up, my days are identical, you know, in terms of what I do.
you know, I try to do pretty much my task work early in the morning, making sure that, you know, the things that I can work on by myself, that I don't have to interrupt and bother people. Then I start taking typically calls and meetings late morning. I always take time out for lunch and a break. If I get back from lunch and I'm tired, I will take a nap.
Last name is Rodriguez, so we got that siesta thing going. No shame in it. It really does help refresh me. then usually around 2, 2.30 in the afternoon, I get back on the horse, try to do more meetings. And then late evening, around sort of that dinnertime area, plus or minus, I will definitely do things like contracts or any legal related stuff. Since again, small company, so it's not like I have an army of people to help me. But I tend to go get...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:34)
Hahaha
That's right.
Right.
the heavy brain sweat stuff.
Robert Rodriguez (50:01)
Yeah, sorry, you the stuff that, know, at the end of the day. So, you know, so I try to do the same thing every day in the same exact order. And I think that at the end of the day, makes you more productive. And it also helps you with context switching, right? Because you kind of know, okay, what's next as opposed to, now I'm going to do this. And then I change it the next day and then I do that. And then, and I think that that sort of tax, the is the mind.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:22)
Yeah.
Robert Rodriguez (50:30)
And so I context switching, know, people, know, multitasking, some people call it, but I find that for me personally, think multitasking, I mean, I do it, but it's very, it doesn't allow for deep thought for me. So, and it taxes me, right? Cause I know, cause I'm thinking to myself, I know that I'm missing something. I'm not spending the time on it. So, because I'm busy sort of distracted with five other things, that's, don't, it doesn't work for me. So I'm not.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:35)
Right.
Right. Yeah.
Right. And we've talked to other founders and stuff and we hear kind of same concept. call it the calendar blocking kind of strategy where you are grouping things like that. Because I'm the same way. like, I try to block that time, but I need time to reflect. I need time to think and review things. But yeah, trying to block that into, you know,
Robert Rodriguez (51:05)
Yes.
Yeah, look, for example, when I take my afternoon meetings, I'm not above taking my afternoon meeting outside in the backyard smoking a cigar. And, you know, I can go through the phone calls, focus perfectly well, address all of the issues, you know, while at the same time sort of taking a little bit of the edge off the day. not that I recommend people smoke, but anyway. But it's no.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:22)
Microtime.
It's your stress reliever, that's what it is.
Robert Rodriguez (51:49)
It's an outlet. It's an outlet. some people might say, you're not working. But at end of the day, yeah, you are working. yeah, I'm not averse to that sort of psychology of blocking out time and focusing exclusively on that. So that way you can give it the intellectual bandwidth necessary in order to satisfactorily provide answers to the questions that you're trying to answer.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:18)
I'm always knowing how fast this stuff goes and I've enjoyed this conversation. I love what you're doing. The impact that you're having in the medical community is amazing. And I'm excited to watch you guys grow and hopefully we'll be a part. We'll at least ping you next year to go, can we celebrate with you? Celebration coming up. So where can people?
Robert Rodriguez (52:25)
Thank you.
Okay, all right, so celebration next year.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:45)
get a hold of you or find more information about Helix VM. Where do you want to direct people?
Robert Rodriguez (52:51)
Okay, well, mean, the easiest place that folks seem to do this nowadays is LinkedIn. So you could easily find my LinkedIn profile. And it's Robert Rodriguez, not Roberto. So my dad named me after Robert Kennedy. So it's a simple, simple Robert.
Rodriguez is R-O-D-R-I-T-U-E-Z. You can find me on LinkedIn under HelixVM. Alternatively, if folks want to send me an email for whatever reason, I'm happy to take those. And that would be my first initial first name with my last name at helixvm.com. And that's probably the two best ways of reaching me through email or through a DM on LinkedIn.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:27)
will definitely include that.
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