A Female CEO’s Playbook | Beth Houck

Natasha Nuytten: Beth Houck, welcome to Human Side Up. I'm very interested in this conversation we're going to have today and you've just already shown up with such sweet and grounded energy, so I'm here for it. So thank you for making time to chat with me today. 

Beth Houck: Of course. Thank you for having me. 

Natasha Nuytten: Absolutely. We kick off every episode with a question for our guest that tries to help me get grounded in who you are and how you show up. And it's really given the idea that like we are a lot of different things, right? And this comes from my dream, frankly, about blowing up the resume, which is an entirely different conversation. But it started there. And so we're so much more than that. And so I am curious to you to answer the question, what are maybe two or three words that you would use to describe yourself that we might not see on a CV or a resume or your LinkedIn page, but they've been core to who you are and how you've arrived here. And also, when did you start to own them as true about yourself? 

Beth Houck: OK, wow. That's a good way to start. And I would say it's you know what? It's really interesting. You ask the question and I immediately am in my head editing a little bit, which I think is going to help give my answer, which is, I feel like anybody that knows me knows I'm incredibly authentic. But I don't think that shows up on a resume. I think that's something that you have to earn over time. I also think it is your second part of your question that made me answer it that way, because I think it was really hard to be authentic at lots of early parts in my career because I felt like I was supposed to be a certain way. So authentic is for sure the first word I would use. I really like to own that I'm also pretty fun and funny. Actually, is that sort of obnoxious? No, that's awesome. Call yourself funny, right? I love it. Good comedians do that, right? But I try to bring humor into my management style, my leadership. And that's also like the other flip side of that authenticity. I didn't know that was OK for a while, too. So when you say like, when did I know that it was OK to bring that? I actually almost have an exact memory of it. Would you be willing to share it? Sure, why not? So I worked at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which has been renamed the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. It was next door to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where I also worked. So I worked at Northwestern and I wasn't there long, although it was really impactful in lots of ways. But I was really not the right culture fit in there. If you have me on here, like I have a very entrepreneurial background. That's most of my career. So I was so back, in the 90s when I was at Northwestern Hospital, they had a requirement that when you did a PowerPoint presentation, that the font size be of a certain height. And I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. Like the entrepreneurial kind of rule breaker part of me was like, are you joking? We have to worry about the freaking font size, right? So I just remember thinking like, again, like I was supposed to be a certain way. I was supposed to be a little bit more polished, a little bit more proper. This was a time when we dressed a certain way, right? All of the things. So I left, when I left Northwestern, I remember consciously telling myself like I was going to try my new place at the Rehab Institute to be a little bit more authentic. And I remember being in a meeting and it was with some senior leaders. And I don't know that this is actually all that funny, but I said, I feel like it's like the United States and Canada here, like you guys worry all the time or you guys worry all the time about what Northwestern Hospital is doing. I was like, and Northwestern Hospital just thinks you're Canada like they don't care what you're doing. So it was like, bringing that, that to the table. And I got a good reaction and people understood it. And I was like, wow, like you can say these things and it's actually okay. So yeah, so that I wouldn't say I've been perfect about my authenticity and all the time after that. But that was like, that was a moment when I got that positive reinforcement that I could be myself and it would still be actually okay.  

Natasha Nuytten: I love that. A, I am not funny. Like me, I have no funny bones in my body, but I am a really good audience. Like I appreciate a joke. I appreciate humor. I'm just not funny. Like I'm too, I think I'm too earnest is the problem. And so I, yeah, I think I'm too earnest to actually be funny, but I love that. That to me is like a perfect example of two things that wouldn't show up on paper about you that really impact the way that you're going to engage with other people and how you're going to lead. And I love that. That's a great, that's a great story. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. It makes me wonder, because you are this funny and rule breaker entrepreneurial sort of spirit, how in the world did you end up in medicine? That is not, this is not a world where we think of rule breakers, except maybe in research, right? Like research or particular specialties, maybe like emergency room docs and like there are these folks who we like, we think of that have, they're like the motorcycle riding doctors that show up, they're like, they're George Clooney, they're ER, right? So I'm curious, like, how did you land in that world? 

Beth Houck: Yeah, it's a great question, I don't know that I've ever thought about it that way, although I think it relates to how do we ever pick what we're going to do or pick our careers? We, I have college aged kids, and, I always say, we don't, you don't know what you're gonna do you don't, other than if you're a trade or a teacher, or somebody that's learning a specific thing that exactly relates to a career, I was an engineer, but would somebody say, hey if you study engineering, you're going to be the CEO of a healthcare technology company someday no you don't, there's not an exact line. And so I think it was as simple as I was very interested in healthcare I was both interested in the science of it, and what's possible, I remember being very interested at one point in biomedical engineering, which is basically like medical devices, like the artificial heart, or how do you make I was at the rehab Institute how do you do limbs, artificial limbs, that, that can be operated by your brain, like that was incredibly fascinating to me. And I also really liked kind of the business of healthcare, meaning like, how do you like, how do you make this better? How is this? How can you make things more efficient? Or how can you change the processes to optimize something? And I think really, where this the entrepreneurial, maybe other part comes in is just it felt like there were lots of creative problems to lots of problems to solve creatively. And that's the way that I think it has fit in. I sometimes think a lot about it's too bad I didn't come of age with my interest in healthcare at a point when technology is what it is today. Because the possibilities of things you can create and do and fix is just exponential what it was 20 years ago. So I think maybe my ideas were maybe ahead of what could actually happen. But it's evolved and gotten there. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah you still have many years ahead of you, here's hoping so, maybe fourth career. Yeah no, I really appreciate that. Because I was actually going to ask you about that. I'm a, as I fondly refer to it as a zigger and a zagger. I have done many different things in my life. And I was not one of those people who I wanted to be when I grew up. No, I did go through, I did go through a moment. And anyone who's listened to podcasts, I did want to be either a lawyer or a doctor, because I loved the Cosby show. The huxtables were like, where I wanted to be, right? This is how you choose things. Yes, this is how you choose things like there is a saying, if you can't see it, you can't be it. And I like that representation being so important. And other than that, I felt I wanted to be an actor, because then I get paid to do all the things. And I want to learn about everything. And so I was terrible. 

Beth Houck: You actually want to be on the Cosby show. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, exactly. I want that was what I really wanted, right? I wanted to be Denise. A whole different situation. But the reason why I want to double click on this for a little bit is because I think what's interesting is you mentioned, okay, was an engineer, and now I'm a CEO, like on paper, that is in the straight line. And I think what's been very interesting in the last maybe 10 years ish, and that might even be generous, is, I think that we're looking at the C suite very differently. We used to have a very specific path, and there was a particular type of person who ended up in the C suite outside of white male in the United States. There was also a very specific path that they followed. They went to an Ivy League business undergraduate school, and then they went to an Ivy League business school, and they had a particular experience. Maybe they worked at, like a, some sort of McKinsey or some sort of consulting firm. And then they spent a little time out in the world, maybe in one business, but as soon as they got there, they weren't working in the mail room. They got there and they were planted in a particular level of the organization. So there was just like this really predictable path. And if you weren't on that, you weren't considered for the C suite. It just didn't make sense. Certainly not CEO, right? We thought that had a particular kind of human experience behind it. And what I think has been really interesting is exactly what you were talking about for your path, and very similarly to mine, that in the last few years, I think we have actually changed our perspective on what a CEO needs to be able to do. And all those other things are valuable. I'm not trying to say that people, and if you have done that and you're a CEO, great. Good for you. No hard feelings. But I think what's different is that we now look at a CEO as more of a, can you creatively problem solve on big things? Do you have this ability to really cast a vision and have people follow you, which has become, it's always been important, but it's become more obviously important of late. And do you know enough about all of the things that you're responsible for to be well-informed and then ask the questions around the things that you don't need or that you don't know? Excuse me. So that path is very different. So I'm curious, from your perspective, how has your experience moving from engineering through all these different places that you've been to getting to CEO, double click, I also moved from COO to CEO and that's a really different, it's a really different operational versus anyway. So I'd love to get your take on that. Like, how has the experience that you've had walking through the world in this very different way than most people have in this path that you've had influenced how you lead from this position that you're in now? 

Beth Houck: Yeah, I think it's very interesting that you have that observation because I think there's a part, just that little part of me that still believes that you have to have that exact path to CEO, and potentially also be a white male. Although there's lots of evidence that's showing that is not the case. So I appreciate that there has, many things that have changed that have enabled many of us to get to this role at this point. But there is that little part of you that likes, still believes that it's the ones that have that sort of compulsivity that you have if you did that McKinsey route and, there's some things. So I definitely have zigged and zagged. I am, I make no apologies that I'm CEO of a small company and I don't know that I'd want to be CEO of a super large one. Different types of people. I like being CEO of a small company because I feel like I can have more influence and I like to get my hands dirty. So back to the COO to CEO movement. I like to know what's going on in the organization and I think I build credibility with my team because they know I've touched it. They know I've done it myself or at least been close enough to it to know if it's hard or if this is going to be easy to do. Because, sometimes it's easy for me to say that kind of stuff. I go a little bit back to where I started with the authenticity. I think there's more permission that I've either given myself or that society has given me a little bit to be a different type of CEO than what was traditionally on paper. And I think that's part of what has allowed me to get to where I am. And so I'm a late CEO. I'm a reluctant CEO, meaning like I didn't go seeking it out. But I have to say that I've been number two enough times that I was like, I can do this. I think this is going to work out OK. And I actually like it. I feel like it's been a good fit for the type of person that I am and the influence that I want to have on the generation after me. That's great. 

Natasha Nuytten: So in this role now that you have. I am curious how you made this flip. From that role in your own sort of thinking, you hinted at I've been a second. So I knew what was coming. But I'm curious, what did you have to change? And were there any surprises once you got into the role that you're like, oh, yeah, I wasn't thinking about that or, oh, yeah, I'm curious. 

Beth Houck: Yeah, I think so. Again, small company. I've gotten to work alongside the CEOs quite a bit. So I felt like I had a decent understanding of what I was going to have. I do think I had to do my own mental shift. I do. I had to tell myself it's OK to be the leader. It's OK. I continually have to remind myself, oh, you know what? I can actually ask for that. I don't have to apologize. I don't have to check with anybody. I get to just, I get to dictate. So sometimes I have to tell myself remember, Beth, you're the CEO. So I did have to do, though, a mental shift and tell myself what? Not like you write it out on paper or anything like that, but I had to do a bit of in my head what kind of CEO do I want to be and really feel and own that so that when I showed up, it was authentic. It was something I felt good about, something that I had thought about as opposed to just because I think otherwise you're showing up as the CEO who's doing some new jobs, like you're not able to shift it over. I think there's some things that have surprised me, not necessarily in a bad way, but I had an impression in my head around the board and financing and meeting with financial people that was, let's say, a little bit scary. Like my board is wonderful, so I'm not sure that they would count in this. But broadly, this is going to be hard to meet with investors. It's going to be hard for me, though. Those people are different from me. Those people are, more, things that are characteristics that have made them choose finance or sometimes, a little more aggressive, a little bit more dry, less chatty, less funny, all of those things. So I had an impression that it would be really hard. Those would be hard conversations that I was going to have on a regular basis. And I have learned and they were hard at the beginning because I couldn't quite find my bearings. And I think I went back to what I knew was to try to be like them, to try to not be authentic, to try to fit a mold that I felt like they were asking for or looking for. And then I and then over time, I realized they're just people that they're just people. They have families at home and insecurities and they're just people. They're just people. And they're there to help me improve my company. And they just happen to have money to do that. And so if I can just reframe it as these ask them questions, learn from them because they're out in the market. Be authentic when you're telling the story. Here's what I really know and I'm excited about my business. And here's what I don't know. When I gave myself the permission to not try to fit a mold that I didn't really understand anyway, it really improved things quite a bit. But that was a big that was a big learning and still probably is a learning, but definitely very much at the beginning. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective, right? Like we often think, especially in this role. And I think that there is some truth in this. So I'm definitely not knocking it. But we do expect that someone in leadership knows a few things, right? And so when you maybe are coming from a different background or different experience set or you didn't go that traditional route, the sort of how you learned that or the depth at which you've learned that. Sometimes you have to like to test that out a little bit, right? Because you're like, do I know what I think I know? And so I think there's this humility that has to come in those conversations. I don't know the answer to this question, right? It's one thing I love about my board, for instance, we have someone that sits on our board who's phenomenal. I'm like, here's what I think I know, right? What is right about that and what is wrong about that? Correct. Help me correct the course. And he has helped me extrapolate that into even our conversations with investors and things like that and the rest of the board is, hey, here's what I know, here's what I think I know, right? Let's have a conversation about the parts that I think I know and you can help me and maybe that will change some of the things that I know. Let's do that together in a really meaningful way that moves this particular company forward. Because I know it better than you do. That I do know. I know my business. I know what we're doing. I know how we're serving. I know what my team is doing. I know how we can do this together. And you know a bunch of other stuff. So what do you know that I don't need to know to move this vote forward? So I really appreciate that perspective that you have. 

Beth Houck: That's a good one. And I like the way you just put that because that is true. It's you know your business better. But tell me, it's like walking up to that edge of am I too far over the edge? Can you pull me back? I'm not sure if I am, if I'm just being, if I'm overthinking it or if I'm really over the edge. It's what I think I, what I think I know. 

Natasha Nuytten: That's good. So one of the things that I've heard you say in the past in other interviews is that active listening is a really core part of your leadership perspective. And I'm curious, I'm thinking about these rooms that you're walking into with all of these different folks. Like, how are you, what does it look like really practically to be an active listener in those rooms and then to get everyone on the same page moving forward? And being, and here's why I'm especially interested. I'm interested in the question in general, so you can extrapolate to any scenario. And I am also curious because you are such a small company and a small team, it is entirely possible that there have been times when you've worked at these small companies when there are more people not in your, involved in your day to day, in the conversation about the choices that your company needs to be making than there are people doing the work every day, driving the boat. And so I'm really curious about how you're using that sort of active listening to get everyone on the same page and sort of row in the same direction. 

Beth Houck: Oh yeah. It's gotten harder in the age of remote working too. So it's a very core part of how I lead. I listen, I restate it to other people. I am, I'm constantly trying to make sure that we're aligned. That is, and anybody that's worked for me, they'll always say, Oh, Beth is talking about context again, because that's the word I use all the time. I'm like, you got to have context because I'm convinced that if you have that context, then you will make better decisions. You'll be able to innovate on your own. If you know all the things around it, then you're going to be able to do this. Obviously it's very important to me, so I'm, I impose it on everybody else as well. And you don't get that context unless you've listened really acutely to everybody, like really down to the what is the real problem we're trying to solve. You just keep picking at them because everybody's working in these small settings. They're just going really fast. Everybody's always trying to solve something. They're always going and have the ability to really know the root cause to know when it's okay to just keep going or it's okay to keep going right now, but we're not going to solve the root problem unless we do X, Y, and Z. So that kind of cycle is happening all the time, every day, practically just trying to keep everybody on the same page towards those same goals and also ensure that we aren't just going and not thinking. You asked the question of like on a practical level, like how do you do that? It's hard. I, we try to bring people together. I have in true startup fashion tried stuff and iterated on it, to see does this work better? If we post it here, is this information better? Should we get this small group together? Should we get this small group together less frequently? Should we get this small group together more frequently? There's all the typical process things that are, there's no one size fits all. It's a function of both the people, the remoteness, the size, the functions, there's so many pieces that go into it. So you don't know it's working until it's working. I think the times I know it's working is when I hear somebody repeat back to me some of those high level goals I'm doing, the most important thing is enrollment, right? The most important thing is engaging with our patients, whatever. If they start repeating that back to me, I know that it's getting through. 

Natasha Nuytten: I really appreciate that because it is easy to get caught in the trap that you've communicated something because I've said it, therefore you shouldn't have heard it, right? And even if you did hear it, what did you interpret, right? So there's just those layers and that's just like communication stuff, but it's so easy to I think especially no matter what the size of your team, whether it's two people or 10 people or, 20,000 people, it can be very because you have so many things happening and you understand the gravity of the thing that you have said or shared because you, to your point, you have context, that it can be very easy to forget that person doing that job does not know the weight with which I am trying to say this thing unless I specifically say, this is super important. I need you to listen to this. You are right. 

Beth Houck: You are right. Cause you're—

Natasha Nuytten: I assume sometimes I'm like, I said that, why the hell are we having this conversation again? And the reality is yeah, but you're not in my head. You don't know that this is a 10 out of 10 on the shit you're supposed to be listening to Natasha say out loud, yeah. So I really appreciate that context. 

Beth Houck: Yeah. And I really don't think we should minimize the, again, the remote working impact because you're not seeing our, so you're just hearing my words. You're not seeing my body language or in my case, like I'm, my hands are always moving. You see maybe a little more body language than normal, but you don't see my body language. You don't overhear things. So you don't know that issue came up three times already this morning. So boy, it must be a problem. You just heard it that one time. There are a number of things related to this that make it harder. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. Very true. One thing I want to pull on, I want to talk a little bit about SonarMD and what you're doing and how you're solving. Because as you've grown, you've gone through some pretty big shifts. Even from hey, patient enrollment on a whiteboard to 80% digital engagement, like that's a massive company and culture shift. So as you've been going through those things, how have you been leading through those changes being remote, being all these other things, what are some of the practical ways that you've made some of those shifts? 

Beth Houck: It's good to be reminded of that, Natasha, because sometimes I'm in the here and now and I've forgotten how far we've come. So I guess that's one point that I should remind my team about as well, because that's important. I've been relatively blessed with having a pretty stable team. I haven't had a ton of turnover and that itself can help to smooth out some of the edges around those transitions as you grow, because there's enough people with historical knowledge of how you do things and how, the core of what we're trying to accomplish that will help you be ambassadors throughout the company to ensure that you're continuing to row in the same direction. I, we're still not huge. And so I'd love it actually, if the problem were that we were much bigger and I had to tackle it at the next level, because that would mean that I'm bigger and I have more to tackle. The thing that I think a lot about, we have an upcoming meeting with the whole company. And so one of the things that I think happens is you start to get a little further removed from the patient. You get further removed from the patient and the person that you're actually working with. So in this digital age it's, if you move from a whiteboard where you talk about the person that got on the phone with you and said, yeah, this is gonna be the best program ever. And I'm so excited. And then we have names for certain people. We had some guy named Eugene and Eugene was a sweet man. And so we could hear Eugene stories from the person that was helping to do the enrollment. You have this instant connection because of all of those small company things, and then you move to doing it all digitally and you go through COVID and everybody's remote for so long and you don't get to be in person and everything just starts to move further and further away from the places that you're having the impact. So the most important thing I'm continuing to work on and we're gonna do at our all company meeting is get it back to the reminder of the end user of the who's, who is this impacting? What are they like? What's the, what do they care about? So different people in the organizations hear that on a regular basis, the person doing the coding is not, or the person that is my finance person is not, we, so you have to be overt about making those connections back to the why. And I think that helps to weather the growth and changes because the things that were special to you as a small company go away. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. I really appreciate that. I was actually at a conference, I don't know, but unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago, someone invited me, someone was in town that I needed to see and they invited me to go listen to them speak. And one of the speakers was talking about it with a lot of healthcare people there. And one of the, one of the speakers was talking about an organization that they worked with that at every one of their all hands, they invited one of their patients to come and talk about the direct impact that the work that the people in the room did had on them. And so a couple of times, like one example was, Hey, I got married in August and my dad was there because of the heart, the pacemaker that you made that was inside of him. And I, so thank you. Like it was that kind of because you think about, and it's, so it wasn't even just the guy, who got the pacemaker. It was like his daughter said, Hey, my dad walked me down the aisle in August because you did this thing. And there, and I thought that was a really powerful experience because like we work with human beings who are getting jobs and, or trying to get work. And so for me, it's always what is the, that person that now has been seen past their resume for who they are, what they bring to the table that we have felt facilitated. Like, how do we keep connecting our development team, our social media person? She lives in Spain. She's awesome. How do we connect her to that? This human has a different job and their family now has a different opportunity. Like, how do we talk about that ripple effect? So I think it's super interesting that you've mentioned that. And that was one way that I thought, wow, that's a really powerful way to keep your team connected to the thing that they're doing. That, even that three times remote piece is so critical. So I'm interested to talk a little bit about what you all do. I keep talking about medical stuff and you've said you're in the background, but let's talk a little bit about what your company does and how you're solving and what's, how it's different. 

Beth Houck: Yeah. So we manage patients that have inflammatory bowel disease, which is Crohn's, ulcerative colitis. It's a very high cost disease. It's very disruptive to your life. In fact, I am currently at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, and I got to spend the morning at their IBD clinic learning a little bit more about how they manage their patient population. And so I got to hear all the stories. I got to use my listening to hear all the stories about what they face? Because, you get to come in and see your doctor every six months or maybe once a year. So what happens in between those visits? And so were they in between the visits? We are reaching out to the patient on a regular basis and collecting their symptoms so that they don't have to say, if you have a chronic disease, you're like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm a little worse today or not. I probably think I'm the same. I don't know. So you don't have to think that. You get to collect, we collect symptoms on a longitudinal basis. We calculate a score for you, and then we compare your fluctuations to that score so that we can determine whether or not you're potentially deteriorating and need to get in to see a doctor. So that's the acute part of what we do, but we also pair that with wraparound services. So if you're, it's not just that your check engine light has gone on, we'd need to also make sure that you're getting your oil changed on time. How can we connect you to the right nutrition therapy or GI trained psychologists or sleep sleep resources, because that's a huge issue. Create, your inflammation creates sleep disruption, your sleep disruption creates inflammation. So you've got to, you got to fix that cycle. So we're really everything that we can be to manage this very difficult set of patients. From a business model standpoint, we do this by contracting with a payer, typically typically contract with the payer and say, Hey, let us take care of this population. And if we take care of them at a better, in a better way, better outcomes, better price, you can share in the savings with us. So that's how we do it from a business model standpoint. So from just we're go up a level, we cost the system less. We patients love it. Practices who can't possibly call patients all the time between visits to check in on them. We just heard today, they get a hundred messages a day, 100. Of course they do. 

Natasha Nuytten: Cause it's a very challenging disease to have. Yes. 

Beth Houck: Yes. Yes. So you can't do that. You can't do that effectively, but everybody's in this business to make patients feel better. So how can we do that? So we feel, I feel really good about what we are doing for the system because it's very well aligned.

Natasha Nuytten: I love it. A, I have a very dear friend of mine who has Crohn's. We, and to be honest, we have teased her since she was 18. She's had the body of a 90 year old, like just like anything could happen. It was going to happen. But this is one thing that she has had to deal with, since we've known each other. And it is such an impact, a life impacting disease. And she's, she has a lot of resources, right? So she's fortunate in that regard. And so many people don't. And so I'm really interested. I picked up on the fact that you mentioned, okay, nutrition, but also psychology, because it is such a, like that mind body connection. And what I love about what you're doing is we have, because it's business, and we are very, and I'm, listen, I'm all for capital markets, very frankly, but I also think humans should be at the center of capital markets and like what we build and how we serve. So I'm weird like that. Maybe not as weird, but I do believe in capitalism and right there, not mutually exclusive for me. But the reason why I say why I'm saying all this is because I do think that there is in our country in particular, just the way our healthcare system is set up and the business that we have wrapped around healthcare, we are much more prepared because there's more money to be made on the backside of treating a problem than there is on the front end of prevention. And so what I really like about what you all are doing is it's a step in, not even a step, it's several steps in the direction of how do we mitigate the symptoms of the disease? How do we mitigate the progression of the disease rather than, okay, let's just throw a bunch of expensive pills at it on the backside. And now that may be part of the problem. Like I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but there is so much that can be done from a preventative perspective. If you could scale what you're scaling, which is that like patient check-in, and if we can incrementally get that further and further toward the beginning of the process and or before the thing actually starts, like just imagine the impact. So I love what you're, I love how you're doing. How did you land on A, this is a starting place for a disease that you wanted to touch on, but B hey, you know how we could improve this is let's go upstream and touch that. Maybe that's your engineering background. I don't know. You tell me. 

Beth Houck: Yeah. I, it's funny because I love that when you talk about it, it doesn't matter that it's IBD. It does, but there are lots of diseases that behave in the same way where if we, or actually just if you go upstream, we are, you are going to make patients healthier. And then the really downstream consequences of people being in hospitals are not necessary. And you can do that all over the place. And people are doing that. There's tons of companies out there that are doing that. The business model part is one of the challenges. I say this all the time. People say, oh, there's this really cool thing where it'll, this cool device that'll tell you this. And if we just gave it to people, then they'll know. And then, they won't end up in the hospital. I'm just making this up, right? And nobody, then I say, yeah, no, nobody can pay for it because our system doesn't reward the upstream right now, so you have to figure out that back part, too. You gotta figure that out, unfortunately. You do, but you have to figure out how to get paid for better outcomes, period. So how I found my way to it, we were founded by a GI physician, a passionate, very entrepreneurial GI physician. He's always finding a problem, but he's also just a classic entrepreneur not just finding the problem, testing it and trying to do it right away just, and he figured it out, so what he figured out was, I have these patients that are showing up in the ER. They've been my patients for years. Why didn't they call me? And so he figured out number one, they didn't recognize that their symptoms had deteriorated, but number two, like, how were we gonna get in touch with them between visits all the time? So he had a rudimentary system built to try to collect the symptom data that would then test the algorithm. Is it working? Is it actually predicting things? And got some data from Blue Cross of Illinois so that he could see whether or not that prediction was correct, and sure enough, his control had way better outcomes than, I'm sorry, his managed population had way better outcomes than the control. So I really, I like joining companies when there's this germ of an idea that just needs to be built, just needs to be built out a little bit, and so that's the point that I joined. So I was part of the founding management team. There were five of us at the beginning, different CEOs who I learned a ton from, so that was a really good experience, but it was a little bit my passion for, again, lots of problem solving. You're always, you get to innovate in all kinds of ways to commercialize an idea. I had, this is the third time I've done that, so I was at two previous startups where I also joined as the first employee, so I recognize I have a passion for building and growing something from the start. 

Natasha Nuytten: Okay, there's, I was gonna go in a different direction. And then 

Beth Houck: I- 

Natasha Nuytten: And then you said that, yeah, which I love. So I'm gonna ask the second question first, and that is, there is this fine line between, and I'm very lucky, so I hope nobody listening is extrapolating that this is the current situation that I'm in. It is not. But there is this fine line between a founder and a founder-CEO, or a founder and a CEO. There can be tension. Again, this is not the situation I'm in right now. I love my co-founders. We have a wonderful working relationship. And I have worked in other places where that has not always been the case. So I'm very curious, now having done this three times and coming in at this very early stage, as a leader, you were the person that is executing the plan, often probably creating the strategy, right? Like you're taking the germ of an idea and building it into a thing. How do you, as a leader, find that balance very practically between, all right, here's this notion and this founder who has this, clearly they have a passion for it or they wouldn't have built the thing, right? Or they have a deep expertise in something like this physician, and he had both passion and expertise. How do you walk that line between they think they know better and you actually might know better? 

Beth Houck: Yeah, it's, you may have been in a few of my conversations, this is like classic startup problems. Classic. It totally is. It is. 

Natasha Nuytten: Educate us. 

Beth Houck: Oh I like to, the things that make you a founder are things that don't always make you the best to operationalize it. And the things that make you good to operationalize it often don't make you a good founder either. So I really try, have tried and continue to try to remind myself of that because the same spirit that the founder brings, the go go, experiment, try this, know that, like no bad ideas kind of thing. You want that in your organization. You want some part of it. It can't be all of it because otherwise you will be all over the place and you'll be driving people crazy because you're trying too many things. And every single one of my founders have been a little different, interestingly, but all of them have had that characteristic. And I'm a twin. I'm easy to, I work well with other people. Like you, you have to appreciate exactly who they are and frustration included. Like you have to just be like, yeah, that's but you have to appreciate the good that comes with it. So you just have to let them be that side too. Our founder physician is all of those things. He's an energizer bunny. He's like early seventies and he has, he sleeps less than I do. He's just incredible. Like he's incredible. And he'll also drive you crazy. He'll also like for sure, because he's got a hundred ideas and he doesn't know why you didn't do it yesterday. And he, we ultimately got, we ultimately I think have gotten the company to a place where he trusts that we're going to take care of his baby well enough. And he had a new idea anyway. So he's stepped away from the day to day. So that's your goal. Your goal is to like get them there in the last two, two companies. The one case, the founder stayed with the CEO. And I think she had some operational background. So she perhaps had a little less of the chaos part. In the last one, I would say the founder was a little more absent-minded professory. Like he was less compulsive, driving you nuts. Although he, I guess he had some of that too. 

Natasha Nuytten: But. We all do. 

Beth Houck: But yeah, you have to. Again, you have to. But he was a little bit five steps ahead of where the market was. So you had to pull him back on, okay, but here's what we can sell right now. And I don't want you to stop dreaming because if you stop dreaming, that's not good for the company either. But here, but doing that balance of, but here's what we can actually commercialize in the market right now was the challenge there. So they've all been a little different. I love it. That's awesome. Founder whisperer, I don't know. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, I guess so. That should be the title of your next book or your first book. If you have it written. There you go. Yeah. Okay. So we're, I have two questions for you before we go. The first one is, what have I not asked you that I should have and or is there something you'd like to leave us with? That's just a sort of parting thought around keeping humanity in our work as leaders. 

Beth Houck: Yeah. I expected partially because you are a woman and I am a woman and this is human. And I've talked about it quite a lot in the past . We didn't talk about the fact that I'm a female leader as opposed to the traditional, again, white man. And there's plenty more of us out there. I know that, that now. And I do think it played a pretty big role in how I developed. I also, as a leader, because I especially think let's overlay how I developed as a leader over a period of time in the world where we were a little slower, we're getting there. We're getting a little, it's improving. It is definitely improving, it's definitely improving. And I would say I'm excited. I want to tell people, I'm excited about the next generation and I hope that I have created an environment where I've taught people that they can be exactly who they want to be. They can be incredibly authentic and be successful and be female and use female traits to express themselves. And that's all gonna be fine. It's all gonna be fine. People are gonna get used to it. And the world is not gonna worry about whether or not you're too nice or too emotional or too, not masculine. I don't know what the things are because we've moved along, because we've gotten further. 

Natasha Nuytten: Thank you for that. Yeah, I appreciate that. And my last question is, how can we be helpful to you? Listeners are interested in what you had to say or interested in your work. How can they get in touch with you? How can they be helpful to you? How can they amplify what you're doing? 

Beth Houck: Yeah if you are a narrow audience then we want you as a customer, but that's not where I'm gonna go. If you have a passion for healthcare and healthcare technology and helping people and you have a problem solving spirit and a work with others personality, then send us a note because you just never know. We might, that might be the right fit for the different roles that we have at any given point in time. So that certainly is something and you can go to our websites on rmd.com to do that. And I think just repeating some of the things that meant something to you, I think would be another way that you can help to amplify that humanness of leadership that I think is really important. 

Natasha Nuytten: Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. It was very enlightening and your authenticity shone through. So no worries there. Yeah, that was evidence. So you're doubling down on that, which is good. So thank you very much and we'll talk to you soon. 

Beth Houck: Okay, thank you so much, Natasha. 

Natasha Nuytten: Thank you. 

Natasha Nuytten: Okay, another fantastic conversation with someone who's willing, not only to show up and be themselves. She talked about authenticity right out of the gate, but with some really fantastic practical suggestions and tips, love that, I love it. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Beth, for being here. If you have questions for us or for her, let us know, reach out. We love hearing from you. Her information will be in the show notes. In the meantime, I will see you the next time around and keep the human side up.