We had the pleasure of sitting down with Joe Spector, a serial entrepreneur and Supporting Partner at Calm/Storm, to delve into his journey in the digital health space. Joe played a pivotal role in building Hims, one of America's leading telehealth companies specialising in men's wellness and care. Now, he is channeling his expertise into pethealth with his new venture, Dutch. In our conversation, Joe shares his insights on creating a trusted brand in digital health and how telehealth can revolutionise pet care by addressing the root causes of pets' conditions. Joe's transition from human medicine to pethealth offers a unique perspective on leveraging telehealth for diverse applications.

With Hims first and then with Dutch, you have a track record of building ventures in highly regulated industries. What advice would you give to businesses operating in these spaces?

You learn by doing. Don't overthink things. Act and iterate. Having a good lawyer can give you a framework and parameters, but there's a chicken and egg problem. If you follow the most conservative version of the law, there won't be any reason for progress or changing the law. I ask myself: is this product or service helping people? If a product is net positive, laws will come around and adjust in the long run. Many might say that, due to the current macroeconomic climate, the digital health industry is undergoing a shift to a B2B model.

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Hims and Dutch are a testament to the opposite. Do you think direct-to-consumer healthcare businesses will continue to drive success stories in the future?

A lot of DTC success was based on cheap venture capital dollars and pre-iOS 14.5 privacy changes. Hence, products that should have been B2B went the DTC route instead. I think it goes back to product market fit. Some products, such as those that have a very high cost and require insurance coverage, are better suited for B2B and other products, such as Hims and Dutch, that are lower cost are a great fit for DTC.

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Many products that Hims sells could be considered health taboo topics, e.g. hair loss, erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation. These are stigmatised topics that people generally dislike talking about, and much less buying products for. What strategies did you take into consideration when tackling these challenges?

Building a trusted brand was paramount. On building a brand, this involved investment in SEO, beautiful photography, multi-channel, multi-touch messaging. On building trust, having doctors on staff, creating content, speaking publicly, and integrated into the consumer journey. There's a huge education component throughout the journey and messaging that goes from playful to serious depending on the user and their needs.

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What are the most significant lessons you have learned from your customers, and how have they shaped the services you offer today?

You learn by doing. There were products where the data told us we'd be successful but they flopped and vice versa. The other thing is that the devil is in the details. For example, we were internally excited about our various vitamin gummies and so were many of our customers. Unfortunately, many of these gummies would end up melting during transit or while sitting on people's doorsteps, which led to negative reviews. They would also expire and get stale faster than we could sell them.

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How has the move from human to pethealth been? Have you witnessed similarities in red tape and protectionism between the two spaces?

Lots of similarities and even more differences. Pet health is in its infancy so there are a lot more pockets of resistance. Also, insurance plays almost no role and this has created a lot more incentives for brick and mortar players to be anti-telemedicine because they can charge cash prices as much as the local market will bear. What's common is that change ends up moving forward even if unevenly and that as long as there's consumer demand, change will happen.

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Where do you see the pet telemedicine sector going in the near future?

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Pet telehealth will be even bigger than human telemedicine. There are a lot more conditions and treatments that can be done in pet telemedicine. In the US, there are twice as many pets as children. In fact, many adults either start off with pets prior to children or end up having only pets and no children at all. Pets live shorter lives so a lot more issues happen to pets in a shorter period of time. On top of that, because most people don't have pet insurance and it's not something that employers or the government subsidises, pet care expenses are usually a brutal shock that most people can't afford. In all, it's a significant opportunity.

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