Show Notes

Jonathan and Angela asked for questions and listeners submitted all sorts of questions ranging from leadership, entrepreneurship, podcasting, and life. The questions were tough, amazing and required some digging deep to answer; along with many laughs.

Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca

Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com

Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke

Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)

Jonathan: [00:00:00] I think your renos have created a slight echo.

Angela: [00:00:02] Are you

Jonathan: [00:00:03] it's just, it's just slight. It's fine. We'll leave it in. Cause I, I don't want to deal with it right now.

Angela: [00:00:08] We could put like a blanket over my head or something?

Jonathan: [00:00:11] that's how podcasters do it.

They go in closets because of all the clothing and then crawl under a blanket. I'm not doing that because I'm not bringing this whole desk into a closet.

Angela: [00:00:21] maybe I need like, a blanket tent to go over top of me.

Intro [00:00:26]  

You are listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Angela Hapke, and...

Jonathan: [00:00:36] I'm Jonathan Bowers and this is our Q and A show. We've got questions from listeners and we're going to answer them. I'm very excited. Yeah. I'm a little disappointed that no one asked, like really obscure, odd, weird questions about. You know about things that are unrelated to podcasting or startups.

Cause we've, we, you know, we're, we're deeper people than just this,

Angela: [00:01:01] barely. Yes, no, no, we are. Yeah.

Jonathan: [00:01:05] Uh,

Angela: [00:01:06] I there's so many, I mean, these questions are wonderful and they're beautiful and they're going to get into some, some interesting, things here, but, yeah, there's no like wild or wacky questions for us. So,

Jonathan: [00:01:18] and I apologize that my first response to getting questions was to criticize the quality that criticized the criticize, the questions I just realized that I'm kind of a poopoo.

Angela: [00:01:28] you did you poo-pooed on them? I, yes. Thank you. Let's do it.

Kaileen, on leadership [00:01:34] 

let's start with Kaileen because Kaileen jumped on this and I'm so proud of her for like, Jumping on it and putting it out there. So let's start with her. Yay. Yay. Kaileen and, let's jump into the leadership questions that she had. Okay.

So she asked a few questions around leadership and she said that she'd love to hear both of us answer these questions. And the first one was what is a piece of leadership advice you think everyone should know? I know? Right? Just like

Jonathan: [00:02:11] Just

Angela: [00:02:11] head first, right into the deep end. Yes.

Jonathan: [00:02:14] Ah, I don't know.

Angela: [00:02:18] Kaileen authenticity.

Um, we can, we can read all the leadership books that we want to, and we can, try and emulate all these wonderful, amazing examples of people out there. But at the end of the day, being authentically yourself is what I would just tell anybody. If you found yourself in a place where you're in a leadership position in your life, you're, you're doing what we do.

We probably done something, right. So I would say authenticity.

Jonathan: [00:02:47] I think there's a temptation to put on a facade, which does have, which does have its place. Uh, there is a, there's a place for that, but I think generally, yeah, being authentic, Yeah. And just being open, honest and maybe a little bit more vulnerable

Angela: [00:03:03] Yes, please, please. We need more leadership with vulnerability, please. Can we do that? Yes. Okay. Her second question is what is a common myth about leadership you think we all need to let go of? You go first on this one.

Jonathan: [00:03:20] Uh, Oh my goodness. So I haven't prepared for any, I haven't read any of these questions. I just copied and pasted these in, I haven't had time to think about them. a common myth. I don't know what, Ooh. I don't know.

Angela: [00:03:33] Do you want me to go?

Jonathan: [00:03:34] Yeah, I'm struggling. I'm struggling to answer these because I don't, I don't know. Maybe cause I don't read enough books, uh, to know like what are some of the

Angela: [00:03:43] I just don't read enough books, period. Um,

I think a common myth about leadership, but it's also not just about leadership. I think it's about, especially as startup, culture in general is this hustle culture that we have created. And we think being busy is the ultimate, Showcase of success.

It's not at all. It's I think it's quite the opposite. Actually. I think having a lot of room and flexibility in your day, it makes, makes you a much better leader than burning yourself out.

Jonathan: [00:04:23] Yeah, I'm I'm, I'm not gonna offer anything different than that. I'll just, I'll just agree with that. Like, I think that's totally true. even, uh, like Justin, Justin Jackson, he asked a question, we'll get to that, but he shared his calendar

Angela: [00:04:36] I saw that.

Jonathan: [00:04:37] a blank canvas with like two meetings in it.

And I think part of that is because his business partner is away on holidays, but, um, regardless, he's still like, he's still, you know, that's, that's, his goal is to maintain that. And I, I, you know, I really like that. I look at my calendar right now and it is, it has very few holes in it

Angela: [00:04:55] Oh, no.

Jonathan: [00:04:56] stressful.

but that's, I mean, that's just a personal thing. Like, like, I don't know that that's,

Angela: [00:05:02] But isn't that what leadership is like? I mean, leadership is so personal, right? Yeah.

Jonathan: [00:05:07] Yep. So yeah, I would agree. don't hustle so hard.

Angela: [00:05:09] Don't. Slow down. Take a breath free up your calendar.

Jonathan: [00:05:14] this idea that Kaileen and I are kind of batting around a little bit around, taking some of the lessons we learned from endurance training and applying it to, to work in life and things like that. And we we've all, we always say like this isn't a sprint. It's more like a marathon.

And I think putting in the measures and practices that allow you to sustain a pace over the long-term is, I think what will get you there? Not, not sprinting. Cause you can't, you just can't, you can't sprint in this. You're just going to burn out.

Angela: [00:05:45] no, I totally agree. Okay. Like that. Okay. Jonathan, what is your best leadership qualities?

Jonathan: [00:05:54] I don't know.

Angela: [00:05:56] Just made an awful.

Jonathan: [00:05:58] I don't know. I don't know how to answer these questions. Like I really don't cause

Angela: [00:06:02] think you need to have a little, like sit down with yourself.

Jonathan: [00:06:06] I, I mean, so I think, I think I'm fairly authentic. I, um, I try to lead from the heart sometimes. That's, uh, that puts me in a, I'd make, not as great business decisions doing that occasionally. Um, but yeah, I think, I think I try to lead from, I try to, I don't always, I don't always succeed at that, but I think it's, I tried to lead from the heart.

What is your best leadership quality?

Angela: [00:06:34] Oh, I made the same noise. I know. Let's see. I, I don't know. I think. Oh, gosh, we should have had her team answer this for us too. Like a 360 review. I know what's my best leadership quality. I'm, I'm not sure. I think, you know, when I did mention authenticity at the beginning, I think that is a piece of it.

I try and be actually pretty vulnerable leader. I let my team know. Maybe when I made some bad decisions so we all can learn from it rather than being, Oh, just trying to like you talk about facades. Oh my goodness. Like, I couldn't, that would just be too exhausting. So maybe that's my best leadership quality.

I'm not really sure. Kaileen thank you for asking, but I okay.

Jonathan: [00:07:19] Humility, maybe that's it.

There's nothing. Nothing. You say nothing. So it's humility.

Angela: [00:07:29] Yeah. Yeah, no. I did my, my, any Enneagram, have you heard about this?

Jonathan: [00:07:35] Is this another, is this

Angela: [00:07:36] It's like a, basically a personality test is what this is. It's like very Myers, Briggs, ask. But, I'm, I'm an throw it out there. I'm an eight. And, um, I am very sure that, humility isn't top of like the best leadership quality of an eight we're we're very like anyway, anybody who knows what the Enneagrams are probably giggling right now.

Yep.

Jonathan: [00:08:00] I don't know anything about that.

Angela: [00:08:01] Okay. What is a leadership lesson that you keep having to relearn or remind yourself of?

Jonathan: [00:08:08] this one's easier for me to answer. Um, well, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't because, if I keep having to relearn it, I'm probably not, it's probably not sticking. but the one, I think that just because it happened again was, to just give people more freedom than, than you might be willing to. Cause they're there they'll surprise you.

Angela: [00:08:31] Yes. That's that's a beautiful one.

I'm going to jump on board with that one too. I do have to relearn that one a lot. Sadly. That's embarrassing to

Jonathan: [00:08:40] It's hard. It's hard because when you start from, like, when you start from one, right. When it's just, you, you're so used to doing

Angela: [00:08:47] everything. Yes.

Jonathan: [00:08:49] a way that you think that it needs to be done. And the way that it's always been done. And you just gotta remember to like, let go of that.

Angela: [00:08:56] Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Hope, on podcast metrics [00:09:00]

Jonathan: [00:09:00] from Hope, I don't know who Hope has, whose Hope? We know,

we both know killing. Oh, hope. Yeah. Oh, sweet.

Angela: [00:09:05] Hope just started a new marketing company. and it is called  Hello Unicorn Marketing. Yay. Hope I'm super proud of you for starting your own business.

Jonathan: [00:09:19] that's awesome. I didn't know she had done that. Good for you. Hope. so her question is I'd love to know how much reach your podcast episodes are getting, how much you measure this, any best practices on launching podcasts for the global market. I'm, I don't really want to share the podcast numbers they're not that impressive.

Angela: [00:09:42] Hope, uh, reach. We have had listeners all over the world, like, Oh, all different parts of the world. So that's pretty cool. how are we measuring this? Well, maybe Jonathan, tell them how we use Transistor.

Jonathan: [00:09:57] yeah, Transistor, the  podcast hosting platform that we used has has analytics. they measure the listens to each episode. there's I think some problems in, accuracy in measuring. Podcasts downloads because like, you never know if someone asks you to listen to it, they may have just downloaded it.

so it, it works really well. there's some somethings that I wish were a little bit more specific, because, so we can, I can see when somebody, when somebody binges the entire, the entire show, because there's a huge spike. Yeah. There's a big spike. And that, like, I think is a bit of a hint as to how low our numbers are, because that

stands out. so it's yeah. Tips on tips on launching a podcast for the global market. I don't know, like we we've, we've just new at this and we haven't, we haven't really managed to have the podcast grow a whole lot. it is picking up more listens though. Like people are, are discovering it and listening to it more, but it's not at a pace that is impressive.

Angela: [00:10:57] It's a little bit like Clinnect not at a pace. That's

Jonathan: [00:11:00] yeah.

Angela: [00:11:01] yet.

Jonathan: [00:11:03] Are podcasts like the startup we're starting is just sort of,

Angela: [00:11:06] Trudging alogn. Keep on going.

Jonathan: [00:11:08] My tip is, to not get too stuck on the details  of the, like the mechanics and the format and all of that. Just start recording something and get comfortable with.

Talking

and just, even if you throw some of those away, just record. Cause that's what we did. We recorded one,

Angela: [00:11:27] One or two, I think, and then we trashed them. They were

Jonathan: [00:11:31] them. One B we actually made a recording mistakes. So that's helpful to do a practice that we made a recording mistake. and then the second one, just,

Angela: [00:11:39] Was bad.

my husband said to me last night, what we're doing with this podcast is like flexing a muscle and, and it's absolutely, it's absolutely true. not only do you have like the podcasting muscle being flexed, but it has run into so many other parts of my life. I used to get really nervous standing up and presenting or talking in front of P peopole people.

And I was like that.

now even just doing this has helped a ton with meetings and. Talking about being able to articulate how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, formulate my words around my thoughts and things like that.

So I highly recommend exactly what Jonathan just said is just start recording. Just start trying if it's all junk at first, who cares? Keep going.

Jonathan: [00:12:43] yeah, I've, I've found myself, Leaning on, I mean, part, partly just the equipment to set up. So it's really easy, but, when I need to communicate something asynchronously to the team that doesn't make sense to write, I'm just, it's so easy to just hop onto, hop onto a screen record and do that now. And that, that has been really helpful.

Just like practically as a, as a, like you said, like a muscle that I can, that's been worked out. I'm like, yeah, I know how to do this. And the same way that, like, I can just go for a run, like I know how to do that.

Angela: [00:13:10] I wish I could just say that. Okay. Um, I'll get there.

Justin, on B2B vs B2C [00:13:16] 

Okay, Justin Jackson. So we mentioned Transistor already. Justin Jackson is one of the co-founders of a Transistor that we do use. And Justin decided to ask a pretty tough question here. Why did you decide to go B2B instead of going a direct to consumer health startup? I think we need to define what B2B is just for anybody listening that may not know what that is.

Jonathan: [00:13:41] Bananas to Bango. Oh no.

Angela: [00:13:43] But, um, it's, it feels like that sometimes, B2B business to business, um, it's a, it's a business, a business, product. So Clinnect is not direct to consumer, so meaning direct to a patient. but rather it is doctor to doctor. So B2B. so why did we do this? Who you want the long answer, the short Justin.

Jonathan: [00:14:11] I'm sure he wants the long answer,

Angela: [00:14:13] know we don't have time for the long answer and, but

Jonathan: [00:14:17] Listen to the whole podcast, continue listening. He listens, he listens to most of the podcasts that start up on his, on his platform. which is awesome. But I think at some point he's like, okay,

I'm done listening now.

Angela: [00:14:27] everything he'd just spent his whole 24 hours of his day listening to podcasts. the way the Clinnect started was it had started out of a, out of a, actually a government project and it was very much focused on a doctor to doctor referrals. And so that's it organically came as a B2B.

I think though. What, and I'm just going to infer here. What Justin is asking is, is it sometimes maybe easier to do a direct to consumer health startup? And my answer to that would be hell yes. It is much easier to do a direct to consumer start up. I think when you're in the, doctor to doctor, sphere and you are not linked to the government, it can be, it can be a bit lonely out in those seas sometimes.

And it's hard to do. and your, your accessible market is so much smaller than if you're just going to do a direct to consumer.

Jonathan: [00:15:28] I would, I kind of want to push back on that a bit, because I feel like a direct to consumer, would be very hard because accessing that market would be very, very expensive.

And, Like our problem doesn't really affect consumers in a way that they would want to pay for it.

so the market doesn't even like the market isn't really there for what we're trying to do, but even if we were to be, you know, selling something that was more, applicable to a consumer, they're just hard to get. Like there it's expensive to market, to consumers and as a, maybe as a bootstrapped company, that would just not be possible.

Angela: [00:16:03] I dunno. I feel like this is a much longer conversation.

Jonathan: [00:16:08] Sweet. Well, let's turn that into a whole episode. Maybe we'll invite to ask to not Justin, come on to our, come on to our show

Angela: [00:16:15] And

ask us the tough questions. Okay. I

Jonathan: [00:16:17] Or actually just share some of the knowledge because I mean, he talks a lot about, uh, about markets and, you know, catching, catching the wave.

Right. You know, and I think, I think what, what we've, what you've done is you've identified a problem that people are already paying for it. Right? Like fax machines exists. People are sending referrals are actually paying money to do this, putting energy into it. It's expensive and it's a pain in the butt.

and so you're trying to. take advantage of some other things that are happening, to try and turn this into a, into a product that people would pay for it because they're used to paying for something like this.

Angela: [00:16:48] Yeah, I think I'm just a bit of exhausted of trying to convince doctors that pay for all of this stuff anyway, to, to do it in a much better, easier way. And it can be exhausting. So I think that's probably why I was like direct to consumers ways or just if you have, I mean, it all depends on the idea.

Like you say our product, our idea doesn't translate to a consumer product. At all it is a B2B. and that's why we went this route with it, obviously. but yeah, there's a, there's a, I think if you were to look at like healthcare startups as just a big blanket term, I don't know if there can be, there is a lot of arguments to be made to going to direct to consumer, but, well, we can talk about that another time we can deep dive into,

Lindsey, on design [00:17:38] 

Lindsey.

This is for you.

What is yep. Specifically for Jonathan? What has the most valuable lesson in design that you've learned? Or what has, what has been the most valuable design lesson in design that you've learned and why

Jonathan: [00:17:56] I, so I, I did think about this one a little bit, cause I wasn't sure. I think for me the most important or the most valuable lesson, is. I want to say empathy, but like that doesn't quite get at it. Like it's, it's empathizing with the user, but to the point where you deeply understand their problem.

And I think what a lot of people think design is about is, making things look nice and it isn't, it's more, it's more around, what is the problem that needs to be solved and what's the best way to solve it. And part of that is also like balancing practicality with, timelines and the needs of businesses and, trying to get product out the door.

but it, to me, it's, it's ultimately like empathizing with, with who you're designing for who the customer is, what problem do they have and what sucks about their experience, trying to overcome that problem or that, that struggle and. And just always sort of rooting yourself in, in that frame of mind rather than, you know, I'll just put some buttons and they can click on the buttons.

That's not really what design is. It's more, you know, just, just thinking through and talking with people that are suffering from these, from these problems.

Angela: [00:19:11] That's a really great answer. I loved that.

Prior to working with you guys. I thought design was making it pretty.

Jonathan: [00:19:21] Oh, Oh,

Angela: [00:19:22] I had no idea I've learned so, so much with working with Two Story Robot and their designers. And, and now we have a designer on staff at CRS and, Design is so much more, so much deeper rooted in, like experiences and feelings.

And then I ever gave it credit for.

So

Jonathan: [00:19:49] thank you. I'm glad to hear

Angela: [00:19:51] that's it's yeah, that's such a cool one.

Andrea, on job offers [00:19:53]

so my, my friend, Andrea sent this one in Andrea Phillips. How do you decide you should stay the course as an entrepreneur or accept one of the many offers to join a team? Yep. That was exactly, exactly my response to that one.

And I will tell you. So I've been, I've been working on Clinnect to and Central Referral Solutions for, three years almost full-time now. And, there has been offers that have come at me that have been. Very tempting. And it has been incredibly, incredibly difficult to navigate whether you stay the course as an entrepreneur or accept one of those offers, to join the team. At the end of the day.

And I can just speak from my own experience on this cause. That's all I got is I am so glad up until now that I have stayed the course as an entrepreneur, it has given, it has allowed me to grow in a way I never would grow in a big corporate, or big organizational environment. it has also given my family the flexibility of my time that has been.

Incredible cause I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Now, if you were to ask like my bank account, whether this was a good decision, that's another question mark, but it's, it's so much more than that. I have learned so much in the last three years that I wouldn't give up a day of that for, for an eight hour a day in a, in an office, in a big organization,

I think.

Jonathan: [00:21:43] What would you do with the money anyway?

Angela: [00:21:45] What would I do with them? I do want my list. I know it's I think it's a super individual question. and, and the push pull is real, though. It is real every time an offer like that comes through the door, man, I think hard.

Jonathan: [00:22:04] I don't get offers and I honestly, I'm not entirely sure why, like my

team gets regularly recruited. people are like trying to recruit my team and I don't get any of that. And it's, I mean, I used to think, Oh, it's because like it's because my profile is like not accepting jobs and, um, also listed as a founder.

Um, and so maybe you're like, ah, he's on recruitable, but, um, now I'm wondering like, Oh, Maybe no one wants me.

Angela: [00:22:31] I, no, I don't think that's it. I often get an offer with, so how is and see in CRS going? Yeah, like they're, they're very concerned that, and they're kind of like appealing to that side of me that is maybe, um, not like not in the, like the successful, amazing bucket yet. So they're like how much you come, come do this for while, but maybe because you're so successful, Jonathan, you're

Jonathan: [00:23:04] No.

Yeah. I, I, so I, I will caveat that with, I measure success in a very different way and it is not, monetary.

Angela: [00:23:14] Clearly I do do.

Jonathan: [00:23:16] Yeah. So I'm not rolling. I'm not rolling in dough. I mean like comfortable, like I'm not, we're not worried. Right. We were talking about, earlier about, just like the privilege of, if, both of us need to take lots of time off to deal with COVID or

whatever's going on,

we're fine.

Like we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna not be able to eat and I'll be able to pay rent. but like, it's not like I can go and buy a mansion and buy a new car whenever I want also kind of frugal. so. Yeah. I mean, kind of, I like to, I spend money on my dumb, a dumb desk, but, um,

Angela: [00:23:54] I like it. Andrea, thank you for that question. That it's an amazing question. It did hit, it did hit home for me pretty hard there. So thank you for

Jonathan: [00:24:02] Yeah, that's awesome.

thanks, Andrea. all the questions we're going to do for today, but we've got

Angela: [00:24:08] Well, we got

Jonathan: [00:24:08] to do more questions on the next episode.

Outro [00:24:11] 

So thanks for listening to fixing faxes, building a digital health startup I'm Jonathan Bowers. And my co-host  is Angela Hapke. Our music is by Andrew Codeman.

Follow us on Twitter @FixingFaxes. Yeah. And we'd love for you to give us a review on Apple podcasts and share it with a friend and tell some folks. thanks for listening.

Angela: [00:24:28] I'm reading through her questions and they're hilarious. I have so many podcast ideas period. She said

Jonathan: [00:24:37] That's a great question.