meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

713: You'll Never Guess What Salary They Gave Up To Launch Their Startup

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6683 Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2017

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ryan Hungate. He’s the co-founder of Simplifeye, it’s the number one technology experience for healthcare providers, patients and their businesses. The company’s platform of software solution health care providers improve productivity, efficiency and profitability. Ryan is an orthodontist and previous Apple retail strategist and Zach is a previous founder and Wall Street alum with a background in Tech MNA.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup (Zach)
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — Calendly
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 (Zach) 3 (Ryan)
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How difficult business can actually be”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:11 – Nathan introduces Ryan and Zach to the show
  • 01:54 – Ryan’s dad was a doctor
  • 03:00 – Simplifeye tries to make doctors’ lives easier
  • 03:28 – Simplifeye provides the patients’ information before they walk in during checkups
  • 04:03 – Ryan and Zach are VC buddies
    • 04:07 – They’ve raised money from their hedge fund friends
    • 04:12 – They applied at AngelPad
    • 04:35 – Simplifeye was a halfway project and they thought it would be big
    • 04:52 – it was in 2015 when they got into AngelPad
  • 05:02 – Zach gave up hundreds of thousands in a salary when he joined Simplifeye
  • 05:14 – Ryan gave up his $500K salary
  • 05:34 – They rationalize building a startup by getting validation from different capital companies
    • 06:01 – They also know that they can be in every doctor’s office
  • 06:17 – Simplifeye has raised $3.5M
  • 06:24 – Angelpad’s terms
  • 06:50 – It was September 2015 when Ryan and Zach came out to NY and ended up coming out with AngelPad strong
  • 07:21 – Simplifeye’s customers are healthcare practitioners who pay on a monthly basis
  • 07:25 – Simplifeye tries to involve everybody—to teams of doctors, nurses, dentists and others
  • 08:18 – Average pay is $2400 a year
  • 08:39 – Expansion revenue is based on the size of the practice
  • 09:08 – Simplifeye is also HIPAA compliant chat
  • 09:28 – Simplifeye started with the Apple watch
  • 10:00 – Nathan had Laurence Girard on Episode 575 who talked about the HIPAA compliant chat
    • 10:16 – Being HIPAA compliant is a huge advantage for you
  • 10:20 – Doctors communicate with each other in an insecure manner
    • 10:35 – The limited standard
    • 10:56 – Doctors will pay a fee if they break the standard
    • 11:29 – Simplifeye always tries to be transparent
    • 11:46 – Having Simplifeye can make doctors feel better in their daily processes
  • 11:53 – Simplifeye just passed 1000 office signups
  • 12:03 – MRR
  • 12:44 – Simplifeye has 90% annual retention
  • 13:24 – Team size is 13
  • 14:42 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Doctors feel more comfortable using HIPAA compliant products and services.
  2. You have to trust your product in order to take that leap from the corporate world.
  3. Enjoy what you’re doing and believe that you WILL be successful.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

There you guys have it from Zach and Ryan.

0:02.2

Accepted into AngelPad in 2015.

0:04.0

They both gave up multiple six figure salaries, one being in Tech MNA, one being a doctor

0:09.9

to launch the company.

0:10.9

They've since raised about $3 million, serving about 1,000 health care providers as customers

0:15.3

that pay on average somewhere between $150 and $200 per month.

0:19.6

They've got great churn rates in the form of 98% annual retention, again, with their team of 13 based up there in New York City to help doctors, again, communicate efficiently and most importantly, securely in a hippocomplying fashion.

0:32.2

This is episode 713.

0:34.1

Coming up tomorrow morning, you'll learn from Sherry Atwood, and you won't believe what this

0:38.2

divorced mom raised $7 million to do. But first, here's today's episode. This is the top, where I

0:46.4

interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue

0:51.6

or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making,

0:55.6

what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000

1:01.4

per talk. Five and six million. He is hell bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000

1:06.9

unit sold mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Hello everybody. My guest this morning are

1:14.2

Ryan Zach Hungate. They're the co-founders of a company called Simplify Inc. It's the number one

1:19.1

technology experience for health care providers, patients, and their businesses. The company's

1:24.3

platform of software solutions help health care providers improve productivity, efficiency, and profitability.

1:30.4

Ryan is an orthodontist and previous Apple Retail strategist, and Zach is a previous founder and Wall Street alum with a background in Tech MNA.

1:38.5

Zach Ryan, are you ready to take us to the top?

1:40.8

Absolutely.

1:41.7

It sounds so much sexier like being an Apple retail or a tech MNA, you decided

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nathan Latka, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Nathan Latka and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.