Barbara:

I’m here with Charlie and Richard with Leverage Health and HC9 longtime partners. Charlie, you and I go back to 1997, I think, at Devon Health and before I even went to design school, before Wild Blackberry Studio even existed.
What do you remember about that early working relationship?

Charlie Falcone:

Jeez, 1997. Did you have to go there? My kids weren’t even born yet.

Barbara:

And that’s a really long time ago

Charlie Falcone:

It’s great to see you, Barb,
I don’t believe it was 1997. Doesn’t seem possible. But I am happy to say that we’ve known each other for that long. I have very good memories of you. Very reliable, accountable, getting extremely important projects, initiatives completed. We were working together at a pretty fast-growing company. For me, it was important to have somebody that I could rely on, be empowered to get those things done. So thank you, and I’m really happy that we have known each other for that long

Barbara:

Thank you. Richard, it’s your turn. We met at lunch in downtown Philly that Charlie set up for us. What do you remember about that meeting and what were you looking for in bringing someone on board?

Richard:

To echo Charlie,I’m aging myself thinking about how long ago that was. I remember honestly was the trust that Charlie had in you. I had just partnered with Charlie not too long before that, and one thing that resonates with me a lot is trust and team and loyalty, and the relationship that you and Charlie had was really all that I needed to hear on why it mattered to have you become part of our team. And I knew that we were going build a unique business, and it was going to be about the team in the locker room, and watching the dialogue between you and Charlie really was the most memorable attribute of that lunch meeting

Barbara:

Thank you. Thanks. I remember after that meeting in particular coming out and later talking with Charlie and being like, “Oh, I know. I see why you like him. This is gonna be a lot of fun.” I remember having that conversation.

Richard:

That’s good to hear, by the way, from my point of view. So thank you

Charlie Falcone:

And I didn’t even know him that well yet, so

Barbara:

yeah.

Richard:

Not really. I was just this guy carrying a bunch of brochures at an AAPPO conference. He’s “Who is this guy?”

Charlie Falcone:

Exactly

Barbara:

The Lungen Group? So this is all happening around the time of the Great Recession, and I had just been laid off and decided that I was going back to design school. And while that was happening, Charlie, you invited me to come work part-time at The Lungen Group. What made you think it was time to bring me in?

Charlie Falcone:

I could probably just reiterate what I just said. We had a great experience together our time at Devon Health, Americare, a few other names I could probably think of. But Richard and I were starting together at the Lungen Group. This is even pre-Leverage Health days. We needed somebody with a creative mindset that could really help us start to build our brand. To me, you were a known commodity, a perfect fit at the time, and I’m happy that we pulled the trigger and did it

Barbara:

This anticipates my next question a little bit, which is the Lungen Group eventually became Leverage Health, and I want to revisit what was driving that transformation at that time

Richard:

So if you think about it, like The Lungen Group is obviously an incredibly strategic name. It was named after me, right? So a little bit of a joke there. The whole goal was to build a team, it was to reflect a brand and a platform that a team could feel proud about and that we were going do big things in the industry. You were a big part of that, Barb, and I’m not just saying that here. We really set out to change the business name, the business mission. It was Charlie and I 50/50 going into this in the marketplace. We built a team around doing that, and transitioning the business from away from something that was named after me in my home, which was, to me, always temporary if things were to work out, to build a platform and a brand that people could feel proud about. Your work on the marketing, the messaging, the branding, being part of the team, pushing back on initiatives that was really it. It was about building a name, an initiative, and a brand that was a lot bigger than an individual or two. It would be about building an initiative that a team of people could feel good about, and we can go out and accomplish big goals in the industry.

Barbara:

So we’ve done over the years brand reworks website rebuilds, many emergency PowerPoints, CEO interview content, pretty much everything. And I’m wondering if there’s a standout project or a moment that felt like a turning point for either of you.

Charlie Falcone:

I think just the very beginning is one that I recall. So transitioning from Lungen Group to Leverage Health, right? Building out a logo, a brand, a color scheme, a style guide, all of these things that were very important. We were building this foundation of something that’s, now going on, 16 or 17 years. That project and what we built then was really the base for a lot of things that we’ve accomplished at Leverage Health, and now even HC9. And then I guess I, I’d have to mention that famous venture catalyst tagline that we came up with, which is compelling. A lot of people love to ask questions about it, and it’s a great story.
So I think it’s Lungen Group to Leverage Health, and then venture catalyst. Those are the things that I think of

Richard:

I would agree. The notion of doing consulting work, helping companies, that’s transactional, temporary. But the idea about being a sustainable, repeatable platform to help companies grow, it needed to be something a little bit more than just, “We can help you for a few months.”
So the thought of the Lungen Group, Leverage Health, but this word venture, these words venture catalyst group, Barb they really stuck. So thank you for that. It really was the catalyst, “venture catalyst”, to, I didn’t think about that by the way, I just made that up. It was the catalyst to when we thought about should we become a real investment platform, HC9. If we didn’t think about being this, catalyst of early stage companies after so many efforts I’m not quite sure we’d be successful being a venture capital firm. so those pivots along the way were incredibly important.

Barbara:

So let’s talk about HC9 a little bit. Because we’re right at the point of the story where HC9’s coming into being. You started to talk about that a little bit. I’d love to hear something about the conversations that you had that led to the creation of HC9 and then also how that’s shifted the kind of work that we’re doing together.

Charlie Falcone:

Look, HC9 was built from the LHS, Leverage Health Foundation. That’s how we got to HC9. You mentioned emergency PowerPoints, 50-plus successful projects. All of them in some way required probably some bit of effort from you. I think we built out a very good deck that we use, the presentation outlining what Leverage Health does, how we work.
As well as every time we get into a project, with Leverage Health, we would have to go look at the marketing material that the company that we partnered with had put together as their pitch, and we would almost always reformat it, clean it up, change the messaging, and these are all things that you were involved in. And that is really what led us to HC9. That experience, what we built, the relationships, the understanding of the industry, our ability to make messages that were compelling to buyers. All of those things are really what led us to HC9. It was a next logical step for us as a business. And I’ll mention one thing about the name and then maybe, Richard, I’ll let you say a couple of things. The HC9 name in itself was a pretty cool story, right? So we knew we wanted healthcare, which is obviously the HC. The number nine was originally IE for industry experience, and too many people thought we were talking about Internet Explorer. So we got a lot of laughs out of that one.
And the IE eventually became IX we turned that “industry experience” into a Roman numeral and came up with the number nine. So HC9, which a lot of people still ask us about, is healthcare industry experience with the industry experience being IX for a Roman numeral. But Richard, maybe, anything on HC9 from you?

Richard:

Sure. It the Leverage Health grinding and working and helping companies grow really was the catalyst and the segue to why we designed HC9. And if you think about Barb, how many companies did we work on together who might have lacked everything from PowerPoint to value proposition to a go-to-market strategy? All those things that to a lot of people sound very “every company does that.” Not really.
A lot of those efforts are things that you have to learn, and we brought those things to the table. So when Charlie tells the story of HC9 and the name, and the naming convention is a lot of fun. I love telling that story.
But I think that if it wasn’t for the things that we did at Leverage Health since 2007 the HC9 story would’ve been like any other venture capital firm. We’ve done a lot of good things helping support many companies. Over 50 different companies have been in the Leverage Health portfolio since 2007. Companies that have gone public, comp- companies that Charlie and I have taken out of large organizations like UnitedHealth Group and taking them private and growing them. Those organizations all at some point might have lacked some of the sophistication of marketing, branding, go to market. So I think all of us contributed towards those efforts

Barbara:

Thank you. So we’ve been working together for a long time, and actually for longer than Wild Blackberry has existed, so more than 13 years in some cases. And I’m going go out on a limb and say that most creative relationships don’t last that long. What do you think has kept this partnership going?

Charlie Falcone:

Yeah. First of all, again, pretty cool, and you’re aging us. I can’t believe it’s been that long

Barbara:

We look great. We look great.

Charlie Falcone:

Some of us still up here

Richard:

I’m depressed talking about the timeline of this whole thing, but it’s

Barbara:

It’s better than the alternative

Richard:

good point

Charlie Falcone:

Exactly. Look first it was you and me, then we added Richard and the thing that has kept us together, the partnership if you will is the things that I said earlier. The results, the relationship, the loyalty, the confidence in your ability to get things done. We’ve been through a lot together, and I think, that, that builds trust in each other, and that’s really what’s driven the ability for us to stay together, and continues to keep it that way.
There’ll be more ahead for sure

Barbara:

The next question isn’t really a question so much as an opportunity for me to say how much I appreciate the continuity and the real loyalty that you that’s kept me around through some personal difficult times and transitions in my own life. And it’s not often that you come across that kind of loyalty in the corporate universe.
I’m really grateful for it.

Richard:

Barb to us, our team’s about family. And I think companies lack that, element of family and loyalty, and we’ve all gone things in our lives, all of us. And at the end of the day some of us are answering the phones on a Saturday, on a Sunday. To your point about the emergency PowerPoint presentations, going to Kinko’s on a Sunday afternoon. All those things revolve around that element of team loyalty and knowing you can lean on each other. The lines of if you see the trash, take it out. If you see the shovel, dig. To Charlie and I all along, and Barb, you’ve been a huge partner of that initiative, it’s about working with people that you know that when you’re minutes away from walking into a meeting, a text or an email or a phone call away from helping each other out.
Thank you for that. But it’s about family. It’s about helping each other out and really going shoulder to help the bigger initiative

Charlie Falcone:

Look I think that matters, no question, but results really matter, and that’s the key here, having both of those as a benefit. And it’s been a pleasure working together.

Barbara:

Looking at some of our work I know healthcare isn’t necessarily known for being the most creative. I think that’s changing though. But we’ve managed to do some interesting things together. I know we’ve talked about the Leverage Health rebrand, the HC9 brand.
Is there any other example of a time we took a risk with the branding or tried something different in terms of marketing?

Charlie Falcone:

Yeah, may- maybe Richard you I feel like I’m taking the first on all these. I’ll let you talk, which is unusual for us.

Richard:

It’s okay. It’s role reversal. I think the shift of the Lungen Group to, Leverage Health, that sounds easy, but the brand move was important. I wouldn’t say it was a risk, but it was a definite pivotable moment for the team. Barb, you’ve been with us through every move we’ve made from the Lungen Group to businesses we’ve created, such as NHO to various things. Then you think about when we started the idea about building a VC firm and what would that look like? How do we do it? How we market it?
How we position it? was a very big move for Charlie and I, and the risk in doing that was not about, just about the brand, it was about the overall ecosystem and how that moves into HC9, and you’re with us the whole way. So I would say that risk of going from a advisory business development platform Leverage Health Solutions, to then adding to it HC9 Ventures, which Charlie and I obviously co-founded. We’re the general partners. We raised a little under $100 million in fund one. We’re in the midst of raising fund two. We’ve had pretty good success aggregating 134 limited partners into fund one, and then on fund two we’ll be bringing on, by the time we’re done another 50, 60 limited partners.
We already have 45 to 50 limited partners in fund two. The whole notion of how do you transition from those platforms, big risk, but somewhat of a natural evolution going from what we’ve done to what we’re doing. That’s a lot of differentiation into healthcare and what we’re doing at HC9. Without Leverage Health, I’m not quite sure HC9 would have a lot of differentiation. So long-winded answer is to it was a big risk for the team. It was a big risk for us financially. It was a big risk for us strategically. But I think without our team, I’m not quite sure it would’ve been successful at it

Barbara:

How has the way we work together changed over time, if it has, and what do you think is different now than when we started? I have some opinions about it, but I’d like to hear what you guys have to say too.

Charlie Falcone:

To go back to you and me, we started together building a PPO, when nobody even knew what PPO meant or stood for. By the way, it’s preferred provider organization.

Barbara:

For the young people in the house.

Charlie Falcone:

Exactly. Three or four brands later, dozens of projects, we’re pretty well aligned. I would say also congrats to you for your own evolution and growth. For us, Richard and I, it’s been great to see you grow and evolve. Its not easy to build a business. Richard just explained it.
We’ve been through it a few times. It takes persistence. It takes frustration at times. But you’ve done a really nice job, so congrats to you. And it’s been nice to see your success.

Barbara:

Thank you.

Richard:

Very proud of you, Barb. You’ve done a great job, and we greatly appreciate the relationship and partnership

Barbara:

I was going to say that I think I am definitely a better designer than I was 13 years ago. It just comes with experience, and I really have learned to trust my own design aesthetics and also that if I didn’t have the stable foundation that I have working with you, it would’ve been much harder for me to be able to grow my business. I’m curious if, you knew at the time that you were creating that kind of anchor for me, if that was intentional, or that’s just something that that’s how things evolved?

Charlie Falcone:

I think it’s probably both, Barb.
It evolved, but I would tell you if we go back to this sort of loyalty and mutual respect, I had the benefit of working with you before it was you, me, and Richard. I knew you were somebody I could rely on, somebody that was always there and available to take on any project. And I think Richard and I wanted to give you a foundation because we knew that you would have success, and ultimately that success selfishly would also benefit us. So it’s a combination of both of those things where we wanted to provide a foundation, but we also knew that you were going to do good work for us at all of our brands

Barbara:

Thank you. I think that’s really those are all the things. So is there anything else you wanna add?

Charlie Falcone:

This has been great to catch up, just hear from you about things going so well. It’s great to hear. From Richard and I, it’s been active and busy as usual with HC9. We have great portfolio companies. You’ve been involved with some of those as well. We’re excited about the future of HC9, as Richard mentioned, onto our second fund here, and we’re looking forward to a continued relationship with you and many good years ahead. So thank you

Barbara:

Awesome. Thanks

Richard:

Ditto. Thank you, Barbara, everything you’ve done. a privilege to work together been a great time to talk with each other tonight. So thank you

Barbara:

Thank you