Podcast
Golden Spiral Goes Ratio
Jessica Head
Agency Marketing Director
We are excited to share that, as of today, Golden Spiral will now be known as Ratio! Our agency’s mission and passion have always been to help transformative technologies gain the visibility they deserve, and we look forward to continuing in this pursuit. This new chapter launches with a healthcare advisory board to deliver mentor-backed and data-driven marketing solutions to the technology companies that we serve, and it’s certainly an exciting moment that our team has been looking forward to. Tune in to hear more about what you can expect from Ratio!
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Transcript
Introducing Ratio
John Farkas:
Welcome everybody to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas and I am here today with none other than Jessica Head. Jessica is our head of marketing for Golden Spiral and she is joining us today because we have a really exciting announcement to make and a lot to cover in the context of that. Jess is here to help me walk you through some of what is going on in our little world.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. Thanks for having me, John.
John Farkas:
Happy to do it.
Jessica Head:
Awesome. Well, I think we have a very exciting announcement to share with everyone today. John, do you want to share? Do you want to be the one to share this exciting news?
John Farkas:
Sure. As of today, we are no longer Golden Spiral. We have made the decision to rebrand and our new name as an agency is going to be Ratio. There’s a lot behind that and that’s some of what we’re going to talk about at the start of it today because it is about how we are aggressively moving into what is happening today in the healthcare landscape and wanting to greet that. That’s a lot of why we’re making this happen.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. This is a big decision I think, and after 12 years, this new chapter really launches with a healthcare advisory board to deliver mentor backed and data-driven marketing solutions to the technology companies that we serve. It’s certainly an exciting moment I think for the team and one we’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. John, tell us, why Ratio and why now?
John Farkas:
Yeah. We’ve been Golden Spiral and the reason that we’ve been Golden Spiral is why we continue to be Ratio. The story remains much the same in that the shape that’s reflected in our logo is based on the golden ratio, 1.618, and it’s considered by many people to be the perfect form and it’s reflected in everything from the growth patterns of sunflower seeds to how galaxies sprawl, and it’s the basis of a lot of modern design. There is a reason that it is so resonant, it so permeates our world. It’s because there’s something about that form that just fits, and when we see it and when we see it reflected and when we see it manifest in everything from how our fingers curl out of the center of our hand to, like I said, how galaxies sprawl, it is manifest in a lot of places.
We see that as a really critical component of how we approach marketing. It is very important that we understand what resonates with people. What is that perfect form that a message needs to come across, that a website needs to be manifest, that a message needs to be articulated? What is that sequence that when people encounter it it just fits? It is congruent with who they are. It makes sense in the context of the problem space they’re living in and they begin to resonate with it. They start moving with you in it. That’s a lot of what we strive to do in the context of marketing.
Adapting to the Dynamic Healthcare Market
John Farkas:
This is a movement. It’s really a moment in healthcare and in healthcare technology right now, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that, but we are seeing the need to address that aggressively. There’s a lot of this rebrand, the move from Golden Spiral to Ratio. Ratio is a derivative name of Golden Spiral, but it is a new name, it’s a new movement and it’s reflecting what we see as a lot of the change that’s happened in the healthcare market. Really, it’s been since the pandemic, and a lot of the ways that we are needing to help our clients engage with what has become a very dynamic, fast moving and crowded market.
That’s some of why, and I’m not going to ever pretend to say that a rebrand is important to the rest of the world. We understand that even talking about this, and that’s how we would reflect it to our clients. The world doesn’t necessarily care about the rebrand. I do care. It means something to our team and it does mean something in how we manifest what we bring forward to our clients and how we are approaching the market. I’d say one of the things that has become really apparent is just how much this market is moving right now. For those of you, the few of you that might be watching on video right now, I’m going to bring up a graphic that was shared by CB Insights just a few weeks ago. It’s showing the digital health funding and deals flow over the last several years since 2019. When we started in Q1 of 2019, the deal flow or the funding level was at about 3.9 billion in the context of the digital health space.
Digital health isn’t all of health tech, but it is certainly a healthy cross sample or a section of it and I believe is relatively indicative of the whole. Q1 of ’19, 3.9 billion. Well, then 2020, the pandemic entered the mix and we see that in Q2 of 2020 it moved from 5.2 billion to Q2 of 2021 where it hit its peak at 15.1 billion dollars of funding flowing into help further the ideas that many early stage technology companies were bringing forward. That was spread over about 693 deals, so it helped push or create a whole huge number of entities that were addressing this new shape of the problem set that healthcare was encountering. We saw it. There was a lot of activity in this sector that was also amplified by the fact that we weren’t able to jump into trade shows. We weren’t able to see people face to face.
All of a sudden marketing became the channel for these companies with this new infusion of power that came in the form of 15.1 billion dollars of funding in Q2 and then 11.6 in Q3 and then 13.9 in Q4. Lots and lots of money poured into the sector. Everybody was talking. There was a lot of volume that happened in the market and a lot of new companies that were born or substantiated in that moment. Well, that was the apex of the crisis and the attempt at answering the crisis through a lot of these solutions. Then what happened is we started to confront the outcome of the crisis, and stuff started happening like a dramatic nursing and clinician shortage hit because so much stress that was encountered by those folks in those situations and it put unprecedented pressure on many health systems and provider organizations that didn’t know what was coming, didn’t see how they could answer it, and now are in a situation where they’re having to completely reframe how their business model looks and what that’s based on in a scenario where you have a declining supply of clinicians and an increasing demand.
The demand curve in the context of the baby boom is just really starting to hit and the combined storm is really substantial. It’s dramatically… that financial crisis that has happened and hit the provider organizations is really starting to impact all those companies that were born or accelerated in that 2021 framework. All of a sudden everybody’s getting a little concerned because those healthcare organizations that needed some quick input of new technology are now not having the resources that they were having to innovate and the cycle has slowed down tremendously. I’m hearing lots of our clients talking about just how remarkable it’s been to watch the sales cycle protract and what that’s meant for their projections, the pressure it’s put on their teams to produce and the tension it’s created between their teams and their boards.
It is a moment right now, and I’m anticipating that over the next several months, because what’s happened is lots of investors have pulled back, and what we saw in 2021 as a record high has slid down the ski slope and is now lower than it was in 2019. We’re looking at, in Q1 of 2023, we were looking at 3.5 billion dollars in funding, compared to 3.9 Q1 of 2019, and reminding you up to 15.1 billion in the high of 2020 in a quarter. Huge difference. There is not near the momentum that this sector was realizing at that point and the need is tremendous. We’ve got a lot of different entities out there. We’re going to see a lot of activity in mergers and acquisitions as a result of these early stage companies running out of runway in the next several months.
Clarity in the market has never been more important. It’s just going to be essential for health tech organizations to make extended efforts to clearly articulate the value of their solutions in ways that will compel the market. We have really worked to answer that need and how we are structuring our offerings as an agency and how we are prepared to be partners with the organizations that we’re working with to help them clearly bring their case to the right kind of stakeholders that have the opportunity to make decisions in a very compressed budget cycle. That’s a big long story, but a lot of why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Telling the Right Stories to the Right Market
Jessica Head:
John, just to speak to… our agency’s mission and passion has always been to help transformative technologies gain the visibility they deserve to accelerate the innovation of various legacy industries, health tech being one. I think as we’ve seen and as you’re describing even in this visual here, that innovation in healthcare has never been faster and more critical than it is today. I know we’ve spoken to so many people on the show in the last several months that are really proving that point in some of their experiences and more of the provider space. We want to support those companies that really have the power to change people’s lives and I think that will definitely continue.
John Farkas:
Absolutely. It’s what we’re about and it’s about telling the right stories to the right market and you have to tell a great story. It has to help people. We talk about in a lot of what we’re bringing forward in the context of the Ratio brand is the importance of belief. Marketing is not just a casual pursuit. It is something that has to be taken on with gusto. It has to come on strong and it has to be anchored in a really strong belief that what you have to bring to the market is worth bringing. It’s not just the marketing department’s job. It is the whole organization because in the world that we’re living in right now, it has to be a passionate pursuit.
This market is not going to go to the ones who are dabbling in it. It’s going to go to the ones who are determined, who have a strong solution, have a great fit for a real need that’s happening right now and are willing to put it on the line and communicate it in ways that are as confident, as sure and is going to inspire the kind of confidence that a healthcare organization right now needs to take another step of innovation. It can’t be a half-hearted attempt. It has to be a confident, well articulated, well pointed effort. That’s who we want to work with; companies that are ready to go there and believe that they can make that happen. It’s really an important moment.
Launching Our Advisory Board
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. We have also an exciting announcement in relation to the rebrand, which is just launching an advisory board. It’s really spearheading extensive experience, thought leadership in the healthcare ecosystem. John, do you want to touch on that?
John Farkas:
Yeah. We are focused in the healthcare market. What I know about that is that anybody who says that they understand the healthcare market is either pretty far up the intellectual food chain or not telling us the truth. It is one of the most complicated markets that exist and a variety of strong, knowledgeable perspectives brought to the table is really critical to us being able to serve our clients well. We’ve put together a team and are going to continue to assemble a team of tremendous experts who have been there, done that, lived it at a level that is really, in my mind, remarkable. They’re joining forces with us and in the position that when our clients are needing that insider perspective that they’re going to be available.
We’re going to set up scenarios where they’re able to come in and really act as the voice of buyer for the folks that we’re working with and add invaluable perspective. We’re talking about some substantial organizations that are going to be a part of that. Folks from HCA, folks from Premise Health, folks from AmSurg with tremendous backgrounds that are coming to the table, understanding what it means to be a leader at an academic health system, understanding what it means to be in the public health arena as a leader and what technology has the opportunity to do and what are some of the roadblocks to technology in certain situations. It’s an invaluable perspective and we want people to know that we’re connected in that ecosystem. These are primary relationships that we enjoy, that are folks that we can call on a moment’s notice and get their input. It really does add to the context of what we bring and our ability to help toward understanding the market clearly.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. Just unraveling that complexity, as you’re speaking to that. I think of Bill Russell and his episode, he’s the founder of This Week Health and previous CIO at St. Joseph, but he was talking a lot about that complexity of healthcare. When people say the word healthcare, he hears a lot of different things. Healthcare provider could mean six different types of organizations. The ability for us to distill and have all of those different people in our ecosystem to help these health techs leverage how to think about selling into and marketing to those spaces is going to be, I think, super helpful for our clients.
John Farkas:
Yeah. It’s already made a difference as we’ve put some formal structure around this and I’m really looking forward to what it’s going to mean on the horizon.
Where to Find Ratio
Jessica Head:
For our listeners too, just as a reminder, we will have a new URL, so what is that, URL, John?
John Farkas:
It’s www.goratio.com, G-O R-A-T-I-O dot com, which is a whole lot shorter than www.goldenspiralmarketing.com, so I’m pretty stoked about that.
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. I think we’ll obviously be updating our website with all types of content and material. You can read more about our advisory board there. It’s a really great opportunity to explore some of the different service offerings we have to support these health techs in the specific challenges that they’re looking to address in the market.
John Farkas:
Yeah. We are really about creating and helping to create dynamic, clear communicating brands that are designed to resonate with the market. I think you’re going to see that in the context of our new web experience and how we’ve been able to do that for a number of our clients and how we see that in the context of our own skin. I’ll just call out Jess on this because Jess has done a phenomenal job in helping lead that effort. We’re super excited that she’s a part of our team and making a huge difference and helping us connect effectively with our market. It’s some of the work that we hope to be able to do for a lot more healthcare technology companies in days to come.
John’s Favorite Resources for Healthtech Companies
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. We appreciate you listening to this different type of programming this week. Back to our regular programming next week. Yeah, special episode this week. John, among our team, we referenced so many different resources and materials. Obviously we’ve looked at CB Insights today, but are there any that you want to call out that you’ve found exceptionally helpful as we’re exploring resources for health tech companies that we support that are out there? Books, podcasts, anything outside the scope of obviously everybody should be following and is hopefully following Healthcare Market Matrix.
John Farkas:
Yeah. Well, certainly Bill Russell’s podcast I think is helpful because he’s talking… and that’s This Week Health. I would encourage you to check that out. It is a tremendous resource. Bill is talking to a lot of healthcare leaders about their technology pursuits and that’s been a tremendous resource. I know I’ve got a lot from that team. Health Further, and gosh, I’m dropping the URL right now. We’ll certainly have it in the notes, but Health Further has done a phenomenal job in facilitating some important discussions about some of the market dynamics that are at play right now. Those guys, Vic Gato and team, are doing a tremendous job in hitting some of these subjects that are mission-critical to what we see going on. Those are just a couple off the top of my head that I’ve been tuned into and appreciating the perspective that’s coming. How about you, Jess? Anything on your end?
Jessica Head:
I am in the process of reading The Cold Start Problem, which Eric Thrailkill had featured in his episode, but really enjoying that. It’s not entirely healthcare specific, but I will say Eric’s viewpoint on how this impacts the health tech network effect was really insightful. That’s what I’ve been reading as of late.
John Farkas:
Yeah. It’s really important and a Cold Start Problem talks about this. It’s really important that when you’re bringing in innovation that you do the work of helping the market understand what it is that you’re talking about. You can’t just throw technology out there and expect people to adopt it. People are hesitant to change. Organizations, healthcare organizations don’t change easy. I don’t care how phenomenal the innovation leader in a certain health system is. There is a big machine that they are trying to turn. There’s a bunch of change that they’re trying to manifest. You have to create a compelling case, and that is just not going to be done in the context of great technology alone. It has to be combined with a really clear story. It has to be combined with a very well articulated value framework that shows proven results and how those results are able to be transposed into a number of different contexts.
We’re going to be talking a lot about that in days and weeks to come both in the content that we’re bringing out as a part of Ratio and in how we’re communicating in the podcast. I will say, that value equation has been something that has come up repeatedly in the interviews we’ve had with some of our advisory board members. Just the critical nature of these early stage and any stage health tech company being able to show just how well you fit the problem space and what the results are, what the clear results are. That ends up being a very important piece that I think up ends up falling short for a lot of people’s marketing efforts; just how much time, effort, and energy they spend in clearly bringing that forward. We’ll talk more about that. There’s a lot of opportunities there, but it’s going to be some of the very important elements that come out as we are trying to make our way through this marked time, this marked moment in the history of healthcare and the health tech universe. Looking forward to jumping into it.
Closing Thoughts
Jessica Head:
John, anything else that we need to cover before we take off and let these people explore this fascinating website that’s launched today?
John Farkas:
Yeah, it’s a great website; goratio.com. I would encourage you to go there. There’s a lot of good that you’ll see. If you have any questions, if there’s anything that we can do for you, I’m John at goratio.com and feel free to reach out. Would love to hear from you and get the conversation started. Thanks for joining us today.
Transcript (custom)
Introducing Ratio
John Farkas:
Welcome everybody to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas and I am here today with none other than Jessica Head. Jessica is our head of marketing for Golden Spiral and she is joining us today because we have a really exciting announcement to make and a lot to cover in the context of that. Jess is here to help me walk you through some of what is going on in our little world.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. Thanks for having me, John.
John Farkas:
Happy to do it.
Jessica Head:
Awesome. Well, I think we have a very exciting announcement to share with everyone today. John, do you want to share? Do you want to be the one to share this exciting news?
John Farkas:
Sure. As of today, we are no longer Golden Spiral. We have made the decision to rebrand and our new name as an agency is going to be Ratio. There’s a lot behind that and that’s some of what we’re going to talk about at the start of it today because it is about how we are aggressively moving into what is happening today in the healthcare landscape and wanting to greet that. That’s a lot of why we’re making this happen.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. This is a big decision I think, and after 12 years, this new chapter really launches with a healthcare advisory board to deliver mentor backed and data-driven marketing solutions to the technology companies that we serve. It’s certainly an exciting moment I think for the team and one we’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. John, tell us, why Ratio and why now?
John Farkas:
Yeah. We’ve been Golden Spiral and the reason that we’ve been Golden Spiral is why we continue to be Ratio. The story remains much the same in that the shape that’s reflected in our logo is based on the golden ratio, 1.618, and it’s considered by many people to be the perfect form and it’s reflected in everything from the growth patterns of sunflower seeds to how galaxies sprawl, and it’s the basis of a lot of modern design. There is a reason that it is so resonant, it so permeates our world. It’s because there’s something about that form that just fits, and when we see it and when we see it reflected and when we see it manifest in everything from how our fingers curl out of the center of our hand to, like I said, how galaxies sprawl, it is manifest in a lot of places.
We see that as a really critical component of how we approach marketing. It is very important that we understand what resonates with people. What is that perfect form that a message needs to come across, that a website needs to be manifest, that a message needs to be articulated? What is that sequence that when people encounter it it just fits? It is congruent with who they are. It makes sense in the context of the problem space they’re living in and they begin to resonate with it. They start moving with you in it. That’s a lot of what we strive to do in the context of marketing.
Adapting to the Dynamic Healthcare Market
John Farkas:
This is a movement. It’s really a moment in healthcare and in healthcare technology right now, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that, but we are seeing the need to address that aggressively. There’s a lot of this rebrand, the move from Golden Spiral to Ratio. Ratio is a derivative name of Golden Spiral, but it is a new name, it’s a new movement and it’s reflecting what we see as a lot of the change that’s happened in the healthcare market. Really, it’s been since the pandemic, and a lot of the ways that we are needing to help our clients engage with what has become a very dynamic, fast moving and crowded market.
That’s some of why, and I’m not going to ever pretend to say that a rebrand is important to the rest of the world. We understand that even talking about this, and that’s how we would reflect it to our clients. The world doesn’t necessarily care about the rebrand. I do care. It means something to our team and it does mean something in how we manifest what we bring forward to our clients and how we are approaching the market. I’d say one of the things that has become really apparent is just how much this market is moving right now. For those of you, the few of you that might be watching on video right now, I’m going to bring up a graphic that was shared by CB Insights just a few weeks ago. It’s showing the digital health funding and deals flow over the last several years since 2019. When we started in Q1 of 2019, the deal flow or the funding level was at about 3.9 billion in the context of the digital health space.
Digital health isn’t all of health tech, but it is certainly a healthy cross sample or a section of it and I believe is relatively indicative of the whole. Q1 of ’19, 3.9 billion. Well, then 2020, the pandemic entered the mix and we see that in Q2 of 2020 it moved from 5.2 billion to Q2 of 2021 where it hit its peak at 15.1 billion dollars of funding flowing into help further the ideas that many early stage technology companies were bringing forward. That was spread over about 693 deals, so it helped push or create a whole huge number of entities that were addressing this new shape of the problem set that healthcare was encountering. We saw it. There was a lot of activity in this sector that was also amplified by the fact that we weren’t able to jump into trade shows. We weren’t able to see people face to face.
All of a sudden marketing became the channel for these companies with this new infusion of power that came in the form of 15.1 billion dollars of funding in Q2 and then 11.6 in Q3 and then 13.9 in Q4. Lots and lots of money poured into the sector. Everybody was talking. There was a lot of volume that happened in the market and a lot of new companies that were born or substantiated in that moment. Well, that was the apex of the crisis and the attempt at answering the crisis through a lot of these solutions. Then what happened is we started to confront the outcome of the crisis, and stuff started happening like a dramatic nursing and clinician shortage hit because so much stress that was encountered by those folks in those situations and it put unprecedented pressure on many health systems and provider organizations that didn’t know what was coming, didn’t see how they could answer it, and now are in a situation where they’re having to completely reframe how their business model looks and what that’s based on in a scenario where you have a declining supply of clinicians and an increasing demand.
The demand curve in the context of the baby boom is just really starting to hit and the combined storm is really substantial. It’s dramatically… that financial crisis that has happened and hit the provider organizations is really starting to impact all those companies that were born or accelerated in that 2021 framework. All of a sudden everybody’s getting a little concerned because those healthcare organizations that needed some quick input of new technology are now not having the resources that they were having to innovate and the cycle has slowed down tremendously. I’m hearing lots of our clients talking about just how remarkable it’s been to watch the sales cycle protract and what that’s meant for their projections, the pressure it’s put on their teams to produce and the tension it’s created between their teams and their boards.
It is a moment right now, and I’m anticipating that over the next several months, because what’s happened is lots of investors have pulled back, and what we saw in 2021 as a record high has slid down the ski slope and is now lower than it was in 2019. We’re looking at, in Q1 of 2023, we were looking at 3.5 billion dollars in funding, compared to 3.9 Q1 of 2019, and reminding you up to 15.1 billion in the high of 2020 in a quarter. Huge difference. There is not near the momentum that this sector was realizing at that point and the need is tremendous. We’ve got a lot of different entities out there. We’re going to see a lot of activity in mergers and acquisitions as a result of these early stage companies running out of runway in the next several months.
Clarity in the market has never been more important. It’s just going to be essential for health tech organizations to make extended efforts to clearly articulate the value of their solutions in ways that will compel the market. We have really worked to answer that need and how we are structuring our offerings as an agency and how we are prepared to be partners with the organizations that we’re working with to help them clearly bring their case to the right kind of stakeholders that have the opportunity to make decisions in a very compressed budget cycle. That’s a big long story, but a lot of why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Telling the Right Stories to the Right Market
Jessica Head:
John, just to speak to… our agency’s mission and passion has always been to help transformative technologies gain the visibility they deserve to accelerate the innovation of various legacy industries, health tech being one. I think as we’ve seen and as you’re describing even in this visual here, that innovation in healthcare has never been faster and more critical than it is today. I know we’ve spoken to so many people on the show in the last several months that are really proving that point in some of their experiences and more of the provider space. We want to support those companies that really have the power to change people’s lives and I think that will definitely continue.
John Farkas:
Absolutely. It’s what we’re about and it’s about telling the right stories to the right market and you have to tell a great story. It has to help people. We talk about in a lot of what we’re bringing forward in the context of the Ratio brand is the importance of belief. Marketing is not just a casual pursuit. It is something that has to be taken on with gusto. It has to come on strong and it has to be anchored in a really strong belief that what you have to bring to the market is worth bringing. It’s not just the marketing department’s job. It is the whole organization because in the world that we’re living in right now, it has to be a passionate pursuit.
This market is not going to go to the ones who are dabbling in it. It’s going to go to the ones who are determined, who have a strong solution, have a great fit for a real need that’s happening right now and are willing to put it on the line and communicate it in ways that are as confident, as sure and is going to inspire the kind of confidence that a healthcare organization right now needs to take another step of innovation. It can’t be a half-hearted attempt. It has to be a confident, well articulated, well pointed effort. That’s who we want to work with; companies that are ready to go there and believe that they can make that happen. It’s really an important moment.
Launching Our Advisory Board
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. We have also an exciting announcement in relation to the rebrand, which is just launching an advisory board. It’s really spearheading extensive experience, thought leadership in the healthcare ecosystem. John, do you want to touch on that?
John Farkas:
Yeah. We are focused in the healthcare market. What I know about that is that anybody who says that they understand the healthcare market is either pretty far up the intellectual food chain or not telling us the truth. It is one of the most complicated markets that exist and a variety of strong, knowledgeable perspectives brought to the table is really critical to us being able to serve our clients well. We’ve put together a team and are going to continue to assemble a team of tremendous experts who have been there, done that, lived it at a level that is really, in my mind, remarkable. They’re joining forces with us and in the position that when our clients are needing that insider perspective that they’re going to be available.
We’re going to set up scenarios where they’re able to come in and really act as the voice of buyer for the folks that we’re working with and add invaluable perspective. We’re talking about some substantial organizations that are going to be a part of that. Folks from HCA, folks from Premise Health, folks from AmSurg with tremendous backgrounds that are coming to the table, understanding what it means to be a leader at an academic health system, understanding what it means to be in the public health arena as a leader and what technology has the opportunity to do and what are some of the roadblocks to technology in certain situations. It’s an invaluable perspective and we want people to know that we’re connected in that ecosystem. These are primary relationships that we enjoy, that are folks that we can call on a moment’s notice and get their input. It really does add to the context of what we bring and our ability to help toward understanding the market clearly.
Jessica Head:
Yeah. Just unraveling that complexity, as you’re speaking to that. I think of Bill Russell and his episode, he’s the founder of This Week Health and previous CIO at St. Joseph, but he was talking a lot about that complexity of healthcare. When people say the word healthcare, he hears a lot of different things. Healthcare provider could mean six different types of organizations. The ability for us to distill and have all of those different people in our ecosystem to help these health techs leverage how to think about selling into and marketing to those spaces is going to be, I think, super helpful for our clients.
John Farkas:
Yeah. It’s already made a difference as we’ve put some formal structure around this and I’m really looking forward to what it’s going to mean on the horizon.
Where to Find Ratio
Jessica Head:
For our listeners too, just as a reminder, we will have a new URL, so what is that, URL, John?
John Farkas:
It’s www.goratio.com, G-O R-A-T-I-O dot com, which is a whole lot shorter than www.goldenspiralmarketing.com, so I’m pretty stoked about that.
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. I think we’ll obviously be updating our website with all types of content and material. You can read more about our advisory board there. It’s a really great opportunity to explore some of the different service offerings we have to support these health techs in the specific challenges that they’re looking to address in the market.
John Farkas:
Yeah. We are really about creating and helping to create dynamic, clear communicating brands that are designed to resonate with the market. I think you’re going to see that in the context of our new web experience and how we’ve been able to do that for a number of our clients and how we see that in the context of our own skin. I’ll just call out Jess on this because Jess has done a phenomenal job in helping lead that effort. We’re super excited that she’s a part of our team and making a huge difference and helping us connect effectively with our market. It’s some of the work that we hope to be able to do for a lot more healthcare technology companies in days to come.
John’s Favorite Resources for Healthtech Companies
Jessica Head:
Yeah, for sure. We appreciate you listening to this different type of programming this week. Back to our regular programming next week. Yeah, special episode this week. John, among our team, we referenced so many different resources and materials. Obviously we’ve looked at CB Insights today, but are there any that you want to call out that you’ve found exceptionally helpful as we’re exploring resources for health tech companies that we support that are out there? Books, podcasts, anything outside the scope of obviously everybody should be following and is hopefully following Healthcare Market Matrix.
John Farkas:
Yeah. Well, certainly Bill Russell’s podcast I think is helpful because he’s talking… and that’s This Week Health. I would encourage you to check that out. It is a tremendous resource. Bill is talking to a lot of healthcare leaders about their technology pursuits and that’s been a tremendous resource. I know I’ve got a lot from that team. Health Further, and gosh, I’m dropping the URL right now. We’ll certainly have it in the notes, but Health Further has done a phenomenal job in facilitating some important discussions about some of the market dynamics that are at play right now. Those guys, Vic Gato and team, are doing a tremendous job in hitting some of these subjects that are mission-critical to what we see going on. Those are just a couple off the top of my head that I’ve been tuned into and appreciating the perspective that’s coming. How about you, Jess? Anything on your end?
Jessica Head:
I am in the process of reading The Cold Start Problem, which Eric Thrailkill had featured in his episode, but really enjoying that. It’s not entirely healthcare specific, but I will say Eric’s viewpoint on how this impacts the health tech network effect was really insightful. That’s what I’ve been reading as of late.
John Farkas:
Yeah. It’s really important and a Cold Start Problem talks about this. It’s really important that when you’re bringing in innovation that you do the work of helping the market understand what it is that you’re talking about. You can’t just throw technology out there and expect people to adopt it. People are hesitant to change. Organizations, healthcare organizations don’t change easy. I don’t care how phenomenal the innovation leader in a certain health system is. There is a big machine that they are trying to turn. There’s a bunch of change that they’re trying to manifest. You have to create a compelling case, and that is just not going to be done in the context of great technology alone. It has to be combined with a really clear story. It has to be combined with a very well articulated value framework that shows proven results and how those results are able to be transposed into a number of different contexts.
We’re going to be talking a lot about that in days and weeks to come both in the content that we’re bringing out as a part of Ratio and in how we’re communicating in the podcast. I will say, that value equation has been something that has come up repeatedly in the interviews we’ve had with some of our advisory board members. Just the critical nature of these early stage and any stage health tech company being able to show just how well you fit the problem space and what the results are, what the clear results are. That ends up being a very important piece that I think up ends up falling short for a lot of people’s marketing efforts; just how much time, effort, and energy they spend in clearly bringing that forward. We’ll talk more about that. There’s a lot of opportunities there, but it’s going to be some of the very important elements that come out as we are trying to make our way through this marked time, this marked moment in the history of healthcare and the health tech universe. Looking forward to jumping into it.
Closing Thoughts
Jessica Head:
John, anything else that we need to cover before we take off and let these people explore this fascinating website that’s launched today?
John Farkas:
Yeah, it’s a great website; goratio.com. I would encourage you to go there. There’s a lot of good that you’ll see. If you have any questions, if there’s anything that we can do for you, I’m John at goratio.com and feel free to reach out. Would love to hear from you and get the conversation started. Thanks for joining us today.
About Jessica Head
Jessica is a seasoned and innovative strategist specializing in experiential marketing, branding, and digital campaigns. With an impressive track record spanning over a decade, she excels in rebranding initiatives, digital marketing, and orchestrating captivating event activations across diverse industries, including fintech, healthcare, healthtech, experiential marketing, and the non-profit sector.
Jessica is an integral part of the Ratio (previously Golden Spiral) team, where she is dedicated to crafting strategies that facilitate the convergence of healthtech enterprises with the essential marketing resources imperative for exponential growth. Through curating exclusive digital content and event activations, she contributes to advancing healthtech companies on their path to scalability.