On 2 weddings, a fax machine & ShiftRx
This is a story about 2 weddings and a fax machine.
Wed. Feb. 21:
I am taking the last few meetings at Work-Bench before I check out and head to South Africa for my wedding the following week 🙃
We finally get to meet up in person with Owen Willis, a healthcare pre-seed investor here in NYC of Opal Ventures. He mentions in passing a company of his based in Austin that is raising a Seed round - called ShiftRx. When he leaves, I head back to my desk and dig into whatever I can find.
I am drawn to their platform - connecting pharmacy technicians with open shifts at facilities and rethinking healthcare staffing. But what really strikes me are a few podcasts I come across - where Autumn-Kyoko C. and Leann Haddad talked about trying to figure out how to get to their first few pharmacy facilities. They had a lightbulb moment realizing that every facility still utilized fax machines (!) - and that using fax was a way to reach out and get to their earliest users. I laugh out loud at just how tremendously creative this hack is, how well they know their user/customer, and their sheer hustle to make it all happen 📠
I cold email Autumn and ask if she'd meet with me. She writes back - and we schedule a call for 8:30PM that night.
Turns out, Autumn herself is getting married - in 2 days (!) and while we're on Zoom, her friends and family are in the next room over helping her put together party bags.
Tues. Feb. 27th:
Daniel Chesley and I take the first flight out in the morning to Austin, TX and spend a marathon day with Autumn and Leann and hear more about their massive vision and mission to completely transform healthcare staffing.
While still early days, their early proof points - now launched in Texas and California, in 100+ pharmacies, 2K+ pharmacy professionals and a waitlist of 10K+ sign-ups in the remaining 48 states - already demonstrate a very real demand for ShiftRx's platform and service...we know this is just the beginning.
We also got to experience in-person Autumn and Leann's unrelenting energy and hustle 🔥🔥🔥
Fri. Mar. 1st:
I hit send on a term sheet 3 hours before my flight and we sign the term sheet with Autumn and Leann 1 week later, on Friday, March 8th - my wedding day and most fittingly of all, International Women's Day 💪 💪
The moral of the story?
An opportunity could be waiting - and actually usually when it's least convenient lol. So *always* be chasing 🏃♂️
Also: creativity and hustle may come in the form of fax machines 😎
Huge congrats to ShiftRx on their announcing in Axios of their $3.5M Seed round, which we at Work-Bench are so pumped to lead, alongside Inflect, Tau Ventures, and Opal Ventures.
Axios post: https://www.axios.com/pro/health-tech-deals/2024/07/25/shiftrx-pharmacy-staffing-seed-round
Work-Bench blog post: https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-investment-in-shiftrx
ShiftRx blog post: https://www.shiftrx.io/resources/shiftrx-announces-seed-round-funding
ShiftRx is hiring! https://shiftrx.notion.site/We-re-Hiring-c76f4ce4153145df8e67cab66ecfa117