Crowdfunding From 500 Physicians Instead of 1 VC with Laurence Girard: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down crowdfunding from 500 physicians instead of one VC. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Lawrence Gerard in the EO Fire Studios. Lawrence is the CEO of Fruit Street Health, an online diabetes prevention program where he has raised more than$30 million from 500 plus physicians. In today's foundation, we'll talk about how you don't need venture capital to be a successful entrepreneur and how the only thing that ever changed the world was a small group of committed citizens.

0:39And shoot for the moon. If you miss, you'll land amongst the stars and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Lawrence and our sponsors. Is this your year to grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Fire Nation, you have a book inside you, and it's time to share your message with the world.

1:15That's why I created Author 100, a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. If you want daily guidance and mentorship from me, JLD, then head over to author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details. Lawrence, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. You don't need a venture capital firm to be a successful entrepreneur. Kind of the entire focus of our talk because Lawrence went from instead of using a VC to crowdfunding with 500 physicians.

2:03So let's be honest, Lawrence, health is a big space. And I mean huge. Why is diabetes prevention specifically your main focus? Well, originally I was planning to go to medical school and I was volunteering in an emergency room while taking a nutrition epidemiology course. And I realized that I was probably one of the only people that have ever done those two things at the same time because they're really polar opposites in healthcare. And I started to realize that a lot of the patients coming into the emergency room with diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, that most of their issues were preventable through diet and lifestyle.

2:43And so I became interested in how we could use diet and lifestyle to improve public health and prevent disease. And I ultimately discovered this program called the Diabetes Prevention program. And it's designed to impact the one in three U.S. adults that are pre-diabetic, which means they have elevated blood glucose and they have a high risk for developing type 2 diabetes. And so 20 years ago, Medicare had spent$175 million on a clinical trial where they basically proved that this lifestyle modification program called the Diabetes Prevention Program was more effective than a pharmaceutical drug called metformin in preventing type 2 diabetes.

3:22people that participated in this diabetes prevention program actually reduced their risk for type 2 diabetes by 58 percent and in people over the age of 60 they reduced their risk by 71 percent so that was published in the new england journal of medicine and that led to this national public health effort with the cdc and medicare where companies like fruit street are delivering this program and having a real social impact fire nation focus is one of my favorite words for a reason, follow one course until success. So I personally love how Lawrence was just able to identify one specific issue amongst, you know, the tens of thousands that are out there that he was like, I'm going to go all in on this and I'm going to make a difference as a result.

4:08And hopefully by the way, inspire a bunch of other people to go all in on their specific niche, on their specific passion industry. But I do have to ask you, why did you go the crowdfunding route instead of VCs? I mean, in this day and age, it seems like everybody's going to these big venture capital firms who have more money than they even know what to do with. And there's SPACs and there's angel investors. But instead, you went to 500 physicians to crowdfund. Talk about that. I think that in healthcare, you have to have a dual focus of wanting to have a social impact and also having a sustainable business model at the same time.

4:46And this is not true of all venture capital and private equity firms, but I think the majority of them are mandated to exclusively focus on the financial returns and having an exit as fast as possible. And I was more interested in building something for the long term that had a social impact, but also had a sustainable business model. And so when you think of the mindset of a physician, it's very similar. Doctors go to medical school because they want to help improve healthcare and help patients, But I think they all realize that it's a fairly good job in terms of having a good income as well.

5:23And so we had made this decision that instead of working with a venture capital firm for capital and advice, we were going to make Fruit Street more of this grassroots effort of physicians who wanted to have a social impact in health care. And so we do have more than 500 physicians who have invested in our company, but they're not just investors. We've also included them in an advisory board through an online discussion forum software called Basecamp, where they also provide us with very valuable advice into things like the software design, the business model, clinical guidelines, introducing us to colleagues that may want to refer patients to our program.

6:01And so we're kind of like crowdfunding the capital for the company, but also crowdsourcing knowledge for the company and then building a network of evangelists who could lead to potential customers. My last point is just that I saw a quote from the CEO of AngelList recently. It went something like this. You know, venture capital firms and angel investors provide capital and advice, but crowdfunding creates customers and fans. And so it's a bit of a different approach. And actually one last point is, there's a quote that we kind of live by, which is that the only thing that ever changed the world was a small group of committed citizens.

6:41And so that's another reason why we've gone down this crowdfunding route. I love that quote. That last one specifically really resonates because it is all about those evangelists. It's about those raving fans. And I love that phrase that you use too about crowdsourcing knowledge. I mean, think about that. You bring in one VC or even a VC team, what's their expertise? Their expertise is finance. They're money people. Are they really going to be able to advise you very well on health and specifically diabetes? Probably not. You know, a very unlikely chance that could happen, but it's unlikely. But if you have 500 physicians who have a vested interest, who have invested into a company, They want to see it succeed, and they have the knowledge, the excitement, the passion, the enthusiasm to make it happen.

7:33Now you have 500 people who are out there sharing this message with the world, sharing the fact that, hey, Fruit Street Health is an online diabetes prevention program, and you need to check it out because this is something that I'm vested in and I'm passionate about. I'm contributing to, and again, I'm talking right now as if I'm one of these 500 physicians, which of course I'm not. But that's what they're thinking. That's what they're saying. So this is why you can see, Fire Nation, this can be such a powerful idea and path to take. So before we move on, is there anything that you kind of want to add to this specific topic?

8:11I think the physicians are also realizing that it's an idea that can benefit their patients, right? They're realizing that prediabetes, diabetes, and obesity are big problems in their patient population. and they're investing in an idea that can ultimately help their patients. Now, of course, those physicians need to disclose to their patients that they're a very small shareholder in the company, but it's physicians that are also realizing that, hey, I don't have to sit here and wait for a big insurance company or a big venture capital firm to invest in a good idea. I can participate in the entrepreneurial process and support an idea through capital and advice that can benefit patients in my own local community.

8:51And so I don't think that we need to wait for these big institutions to do something to improve our local community. We can just take it upon ourselves to do that, which is what many of these physicians have realized. That's a fantastic point. I'm really glad that you brought that up. And you can see kind of how this just continues to grow, Fire Nation. I mean, it's truly exponential at this point. Now, we have a lot to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, you have a book inside you right now. But it's not always about our desire to write a book. Sometimes it's about knowing which steps to take and when to take them to make it happen.

9:27If you know you have a book inside of you but aren't sure where to start, then I have an exciting opportunity for you. It's called Author 100. Author 100 is a program I personally crafted to help you one-on-one every step of the way, from drafting to writing to publishing and even marketing your book. When you join the Author 100 program, you'll have access to me, JLD, for 100 days. We'll have weekly one-on-one calls, plus you'll get daily guidance from me whenever you have questions or hit a roadblock. Over the past 12 years, I've self-published five books, including one of the top five publishing campaigns of all time on Kickstarter, the Freedom Journal.

10:07I've also traditionally published with HarperCollins, so I know a lot about the book publishing world and where most authors go wrong. I created Author 100 to share my experience and the lessons I've learned along the way, and I can't wait to share it with you. If you're interested in learning more, head over to author100.com and sign up for a free call with me. That's author100.com. Is this your year to grow a successful business? Are you looking to learn the proven processes and success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories? See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire.

10:52Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Yes, it's month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. schedule your free personal 13 point assessment with clay clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire because clay only takes on 160 clients and only allows 300 attendees to each business conference you will interact with clay directly see thousands of real success stories and learn about attending the thrive time show two-day in-person workshop featuring football star tim tebow and president trump's son eric trump today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire become the next success story schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join football star tim tebow and president trump's son eric trump at clay clark's next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eo fire so lawrence we're back and i want to start talking a little bit about the pros and the cons because let's be honest we know there's a lot of pros and i want to talk about some more of those when you're working with this crowdfunding physician type of atmosphere than working with an institution.

12:00But there's probably some cons too. So let's talk about both sides of the equation here. Maybe let's start with cons because we have been talking about some pros. Are there any cons that you found thus far working with a crowdfunded 500 physician group like this? Yeah, there's certainly pros and cons to everything. I think some of the cons to this type of model is that it's definitely more time consuming to raise capital. I mean, if you could get a 10 or 25 million dollar check from a venture capital firm, it does allow you to put your head down and just focus on the business. You're not necessarily going to get those benefits of the crowd promoting your product, but it does provide you with the capital you need.

12:41And so you can kind of pause fundraising and just focus on running the business. And so I would say that's one con. It is fairly time consuming to raise capital this way. It's also, you know, sometimes difficult to keep 500 people happy, right? I mean, I don't think anyone can keep 500 people happy. So you're always going to have, you know, five or 10 people out of 500 who basically think you're doing a bad job, right? But that's true of, you know, any product, there's going to be people that love it, people that hate it. It's true of politicians, there's people that love a politician or hate a politician, and so forth.

13:14And so you definitely have to keep, you know, a lot of people happy. and it is time consuming to raise capital this way. But at the end of the day, we do feel like the pros outweigh the cons. But I would say those are two cons. And I think that is kind of a clear con because listen, time consuming projects can be draining. They can be bandwidth draining. They can be financially draining. You can be spending your time on a lot of other things. I mean, that's one thing you see about all these politicians. It feels like, do you ever do anything like besides campaign and ask people for more money.

13:49I mean, it's like, as soon as you get elected, you're just turning back and saying, okay, I'm gonna start up the next, you know, campaign so I can spend money on TV commercials and get elected again. It's just like, when does it ever end? So it's time consuming. I mean, you know, it's more people. And like you said, you can never keep, you know, five people all happy at the same time, let alone 500 people. So that time consuming thing is quite a deal breaker when it's really going to take away from what your main focus is. But again, there's a lot of pros. And from what we've talked about so far, we can kind of see why the pros do outweigh the cons overall, especially when you know what the cons are going into and you can really minimize those.

14:28So Lawrence, let's maybe talk about an additional couple pros beyond what we've already mentioned of really going this route, going the crowdfunding route. And if you don't even need to make it specific to your specific company, or you can, whatever makes sense, go for it. Well, I would also say that when things are going well, you have 500 cheerleaders, and it really makes you feel good about what you're doing. And so it does kind of create this emotional wind in your sails kind of momentum where you can have 500 cheerleaders really cheering you on. And then also, I would say that often the biggest deals that companies do are from warm introductions.

15:11And so we have several situations now where, you know, one of our investors and advisors have introduced us to, for example, one of the top five largest health insurance companies in the world. I mean, that could generate tens of millions of dollars of revenue if successful. And so I think that getting a warm introduction from someone is priceless, especially when you're in the enterprise space. And so I'd say those are some additional pros that really make us have conviction in this funding model. So what I want to talk about next is social impact. I mean, you have Fruit Street's social impact planned out for the next five plus years.

15:53Let's talk through that. Let's hear what your goal is. Let's see what your roadmap is. Let's talk about the social impact you're going to make here. So take the microphone. Give us a breakdown of everything you have going on in the near term and short term future. I think ultimately we like to think about what if we had 1 million people go through our diabetes prevention program. Right now we're at about 30 ,000. But if you had 1 million people go through a diabetes prevention program and achieve at least 5 % weight loss. I mean, you are probably preventing hundreds of thousands of cases of type 2 diabetes, which means you're also preventing the complications associated with type 2 diabetes, such as heart disease, limb amputation, blindness, stroke, and all of those types of issues.

16:42I mean, we've had people that have participated in our program where they've lost 50 pounds, 60 pounds, 70 pounds, and in many cases, they've been able to stop taking medication for diabetes or stop taking medication for cholesterol, or they've reduced their A1c, which is a measure of their average blood glucose over the last three months. They've been able to reverse that into a normal range where they are no longer pre-diabetic, and their doctors are amazed at, you know, what did you do to reverse your pre-diabetes? Because a lot of healthcare professionals view diabetes as more of a progressive disease that's not preventable or reversible in some cases.

17:19And so we really like to think about 10 years out, what if we enrolled 1 million people, how powerful that would be? Because if we did that, we would also be financially successful. But I think that the social goal is more powerful in terms of motivating our team. One of the other things that we do every week is our frontline dietitians will share what's called the Wednesday wins with the entire management team. And we'll hear stories about people, again, losing weight or coming off of medication. And it motivates the entire team. You know, for us, there's a few different channels that we go through to try to enroll people.

17:56I mean, we sell it to small and large businesses as an employee benefit. So we have a Fortune 500 company as a customer. We are also going to be rolling it out directly to consumers on January 1st. And then also we are starting to pursue physicians being able to refer their patients, just all with the goal of being laser focused on diabetes prevention and over the next decade enrolling a million people into the program and having that social impact. These are the type of audacious goals, Fire Nation, that I want you to be thinking about, that I want you to be taking a step back and saying, like, how can I leave a legacy in this world?

18:37How can I really impact people in an incredibly meaningful way? And there's people that come on the show every single day who are doing just that. And Lawrence is one of them. And, you know, carving ourselves out like this little tiny, lonely corner of the world to kind of eke out our days of existence. That's not how we as humans are meant to exist. We're meant to be bold, to be audacious. And guess what? If things go down in flames, we rise from the ashes and we try again and we do something else. And I just want to commend you, Lawrence, for what you've done and what you're doing in this world because I know how big of an impact you're going to have on so many people and how much of an impact you've already had on so many people, which is just fantastic to think about.

19:20So let me hand you the microphone right now. Take us home. What is the message you want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our entire conversation here, from what you're doing in this world with Fruit Streets? Give any call to action you have, and then we'll say goodbye. I would just say to every entrepreneur out there, you have to set a big goal that inspires you. And if you miss the goal, it's the classic quote, you know, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you land among the stars. And I think every business at the end of the day is having some sort of social impact in one form or the other.

19:57So instead of focusing on financial goals, maybe focus on the end goal that you're having in terms of the social impact for your customers. And that can be more motivating. And think to yourself, what social impact can I have over five years or ten years? Because that can really inspire you instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day of I've got to pay this bill. I have to do this. I have to fundraise. I have to do all these difficult things that are associated with entrepreneurship. But I think that if you have more of a romantic view of it and you say, well, the reason I started this business is to have this social impact over five years or 10 years, it can really keep you motivated for the long run.

20:37I love that message. In fact, it reminds me of a Tony Robbins quote that most people overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Like in a year, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to go out and conquer the world. And then like by the second month when they don't, they're just like, I'm never going to conquer the world. I might as well give up. And they quit. But they would never think to give themselves a 10-year goal that's so audacious because they just think it would never happen. But again, they underestimate that. 10 years is an absolute lifetime.

21:09I mean, so much can happen in that time frame when you stay committed, when you stay consistent, and when you put your heart and your soul out there and on that line. So, Fire Nation, I just want to say that you are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with LG and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And head over to eofire.com, type Lawrence in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about here today, links and all that jazz. And Lawrence, where do you want Fire Nation to go to learn more about you, your company, get involved, anything here?

21:42You can head over to fruitstreet.com or send me an email at Lawrence, L-A-U-R-E-N-C-E at fruitstreet.com if you want to learn more about getting involved in our business or you have questions. I really appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value, the impact you're going to have on this world with Fire Nation today. So for that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Lawrence and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

22:24I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, which has been personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order yours today. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Is this your year to grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire.

23:02Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Fire Nation, you have a book inside you and it's time to share your message with the world. That's why I created Author 100, a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. If you want daily guidance and mentorship from me, JLD, then head over to author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details.