Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman Build Collaborative Partnerships to Achieve Health Moonshots
Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman have been business partners for decades, working together on various ventures like Allscripts, 7wire Ventures, and Livongo. Throughout the years they have worked with and nurtured an army of entrepreneurs and were excited to speak with StartUp Health about how to find a good business partner and what some of the top executives look at when deciding where to invest. Our CEO, Steven Krein, hosted a Q&A with them at a recent fireside chat.
In this StartUp Health Fireside Chat, we bring you a conversation with Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman, the dynamic duo behind 7wire Ventures, Livongo, and now Transcarent. These two have worked side by side as friends and business partners for more than 30 years, investing in startups, scaling businesses, and taking companies public.
Now, in addition to all the rest, the two are backing a diverse portfolio of early-stage health startups through the StartUp Health Moonshots Impact Fund.
When it comes to health innovation, Shapiro and Tullman have seen it all — always through the lens of a collaborative partnership. Steven Krein, StartUp Health’s CEO and Co-founder, leads the conversation, which covers everything from new market opportunities to practical strategies for working with investors.
On What Makes a Good Partnership
Glen Tullman: We started investing in companies together and building companies. Our backgrounds really compliment each other with me having a leadership background and Lee having a law background. It’s important to have complimentary skills, shared values, and make sure that you prioritize the same things.
Lee Shapiro: For example, we think that there are things that matter more than making money, so we want the companies that we invest in to feel the same. Companies need to have a mission beyond monetary success, and we love to get involved in those to help them reach their vision. We really enjoy the process of building up a company, but it’s important to have someone who shares those same values by your side from the start.
Where Mission Meets Market Ambition
We want people who are engaged and want to be in this for the long term to see how far the company can go.
Tullman: In regards to Allscripts, we felt that we had done all that we could. Now, moving into Livango, we’re looking to solve problems that are near and dear to our hearts, such as the cure for diabetes. We also now have intimate experiences with knowing what could be better within that realm which has helped us build perspective that way too.
We always thought, someone is going to be successful, why can’t it be us? We were always thinking, on Allscripts, how can we succeed? What can we do better? There were even situations where we wanted to find a way to give away our software for free — despite our investors’ hesitancy — and we found a way to make it work and still make the company profitable.
Shapiro: As investors ourselves, when we’re dealing with entrepreneurs, we always ask their exit strategy. We don’t want them to have one. We want people who are engaged and want to be in this for the long term to see how far the company can go. You can get money from anywhere, so it’s really important to understand who you’re partnering with, because it’s all about building your business. Right now, there’s a trend of entrepreneurs who are taking out money early in the process, which isn’t the best thing for the business. See, we’re all in, and that’s where we want all our people to be.
On Working With CEOs
Shapiro: We want CEOs who are willing to be open and honest with us about what is going wrong. It doesn’t help if those we’re talking to are unwilling to open up and let us in. Let’s dig in together, and we build trust with early stage directors. We don’t want to hear that everything is great. We know there’s an issue, let’s talk about those issues.
On How They Invest in Startups
Tullman: We tend to invest early in teams that are very small. They need to be in the position where they’re selling the company. Someone has to be the keeper of the culture, which often comes from the founders being involved in every part of the company. We do want to warn people of the dangers of echo chambers. Diversity in experience and expertise is one of the most important things in the process of developing a company. Also don’t be afraid to change the team as the company grows and changes. It’s some of the most difficult decisions that will help you the most.
Shapiro: 7wire Ventures is built upon common sense. In a similar way, we want to offer better access within healthcare. There’s a company we recently invested in that delivers healthcare right to your house. We’re always looking for ways to take the friction out of healthcare, and solving problems for people. We really love meeting people and companies, so we encourage others to reach out.
On Time Management and Finding the Signal Through the Noise
Shapiro: My philosophy is that this is a marathon not a sprint. You have to be maniacally focused on your priorities, but also be adaptable — sometimes life is like a game of whack-a-mole, so you have to be willing to adapt. I always start in the morning by catching up and organizing myself before working, then at the end of the day I always sit back and ask myself, “Did I do the best at…?” And fill in the blank.
One benefit of COVID has been the ability to spend more time with family, just try to focus on family and let everything else fall away.
Tullman: I’ll be honest, I don’t sleep very much. But when I do, I sleep deep because I don’t carry anything with me. Everyone should just get as much sleep as they need. My philosophy is that the world has too much to do, and every minute I’m awake, I want to make the most of it. It’s important, from a health perspective, to take care of your mind and body. I measure a lot of things, such as how many clients I talk to a day, even on Saturdays and Sundays. Because my clients aren’t just my clients, but my friends, so I love to talk to them all the time. But ultimately it’s a lot of discipline, it’s a lot of keeping yourself on track.
On Their Favorite Recent Reads
Tullman: I tend to just listen to books at 1.5 or 2 times speed. I just finished Upstream by Dan Heath.
Shapiro: I’ve been listening to a lot of books as well lately, the one that comes to mind is The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger, and a classic one I would recommend is The 8th Habit by Stephan Covey.
On Transcarent and Where Healthcare Goes From Here
Tullman: There are only two important parties in healthcare: the health consumers — which is us, and the healthcare providers. Everything else in healthcare just causes friction between the two, and we want anything that will streamline the processes and start to reduce the middleman and friction. The other important element is: Find a way for a measurable quality increase, instead of just quantity. For Transcarent, it’s really all about helping people find the best care at the lowest price. We want to help others in streamlining the process to get the care they need without going bankrupt. The biggest reason for bankruptcy is healthcare, so we want to make finding accessible, helpful, and inexpensive healthcare all in one integrated process to offer the best services available.
For more from Lee and Glen be sure to come to our StartUp Health Festival in 2022, where the two of them will be featured on a live panel to answer even more of your questions.
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