Inside the Remedy & Revuud Partnership

An Interview with Revuud's CEO Dan Schubert

Transcript

 00:00 - Intro

Iggy Moliver: Hello, I'm excited to be speaking today with Dan Schubert. Dan is Co-Founder and CEO of Revuud, a health IT talent management platform headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was fortunate enough to visit Dan and the team down there last year. Beautiful city, beautiful home there. Today, Dan and I are going to be chatting about Revuud’s most recent feature build, how Remedy was involved in the build, and what makes a successful technology partnership. Remedy and Revuud have been working together since November 2022, so we can talk about a lot. Thank you for joining us, Dan.

Dan Schubert: Absolutely, glad to be here and looking forward to the conversation.

00:45 - What is Revuud's mission?

Iggy Moliver: To get us started, maybe you can give us an overview of Revuud’s mission?

Dan Schubert: We started Revuud for a couple of reasons. My background is in software development. For the last 25 years or so, we would hire a lot of contractors through our professional services team. It was always very frustrating to me to land big projects, hire 20 or 30 contractors, train them extensively, and then the project's over six months later. We’d lose 90% of those people probably because we couldn’t afford to keep them employed, and then we have to start all over again on the next big project we landed. So that was the background that I brought to the table.  My co-founder, Eric Udzinger, came out of the consulting/staffing/recruiting world, and we were actually neighbors, and he approached me saying ‘there's got to be a way that technology can get in the middle of making staffing and recruiting more efficient.’

Dan Schubert: Right now, companies — in our case, health systems — contact their consulting and recruiting firms to find highly paid talent — in this case to work on things in IT groups such as Epic Consulting, Cerner, N4, AWS, whatever IT needs are in their departments. And it's fairly inefficient from our perspective because you have to involve a third party. Our platform allows you to go directly to talent, which means you sign up on the platform and get access to all of our pre-approved talent IT needs. So it's really about disrupting the way staffing works right now. It's a way to make their lives a lot more efficient. When you're cutting out certain inefficiencies and processes and third parties, you generally can drive the cost down as well. So, we've seen about a 30% drop in the cost for our clients to employ those contingent labor resources.

Iggy Moliver: For hospital systems that operate usually in margins that are going to be in high single digits, that's a pretty meaningful amount of savings.

Dan Schubert: And people don't realize the volume of contingent labor that — especially larger health systems — actually employ just because of the nature of all the technology products that they have to use. An average CIO in a health system or CMIO will manage over a 100 applications, right? They have a very large IT staff. Obviously it's imperative, from a technical standpoint, to keep these hospitals up and running and to have all these tools, but it makes it necessary to ebb and flow with contingent labor on top of your full-time staff.

04:15 - What is Revuud building right now?

Iggy Moliver: So, with that vision, what is Revuud building right now? What are you excited to launch in the next few months?

Dan Schubert: The most exciting thing that we've already launched phase one of is our AI matching functionality, where a health system comes into Revuud to post a job opportunity. Once they post that, they instantly get very highly qualified matches. There were the days of calling a staffing firm or calling your recruiter waiting for them to return results to you after a day or two or whatever it might be. You get results within seconds on our platform. So that's number one. 

Dan Schubert:  And they're highly vetted. I do want to talk about the quality of the talent that's in Revuud. In one sense we do have a large pool of contractors that use the platform, but we vet them and interview them to make sure that who they say they are — their experience — is up to par with what our clients need. We're not looking for a database of hundreds of thousands of consultants and things like that. We're looking for a smaller number of really highly vetted, top-quality consultants that our customers can feel really really strongly about as they look and review these applicants to the job postings that they put in the system. That's number one. 

Dan Schubert: The matching functionality around and the use of AI through the platform is one of the biggest changes I think that we would see from a hiring manager perspective. They go into the system and simply type into one note field, ‘Hey, I'm looking for an Epic ClinDoc. They need to be certified with 10 years plus experience.’ That's all they need to write, and we're going to present them with very high quality matches related to that. 

Dan Schubert: On the talent side, when they come in and create free profiles on the platform, and they go through our quick interviewing process, they create — in essence — their resume on the platform. They can upload a PDF resume if they would like as well. We scrub all that inventory so we can then do that matching within seconds.

Dan Schubert: The days of figuring out complicated taxonomies and things like that are over, and AI has all to do with eliminating that decades-old process. AI is probably the most exciting thing that'll happen because it's also then going to morph into doing interviewing for the hiring manager, even walking candidates through the interview process, then to contracting, then to onboarding, and so on, as they complete the entire journey. I call it from initial job requisition to job posting, to contracting, onboarding, and then to actually working on a project. So AI is probably by far the most significant impact that we'll see that hits the staffing recruiting industry in total.

Iggy Moliver: Yeah, I mean I think that's huge, in terms of being able to uplevel the time that that person would normally spend going through and manually vetting. Being able to automate different parts of their process — starting with that matching and then moving on to the actual vetting process. I think what you described is a really interesting workflow, where you guys both have some elements that are kind of maybe a little more labor intensive up front — the curation that you do so you juice the results of making sure the pool is always a really high quality bar — but then being able to use that AI to actually make sure that you're matching the right person from that really high talent pool to the right opportunity. The candidates get a much better experience because they're being matched to things that are actually going to be intellectually stimulating for them and that are actually going to take advantage of their skill set. At the same time, it obviously makes it a much easier process for the health system where they don't have to go through a bunch of low-quality resumes that aren't going to match them.

Dan Schubert: When you look at the annualized impact of getting your projects done faster, being more efficient, saving 20/30/40% off of your contingent labor, it really does add up to significant productivity gains.

Iggy Moliver: What you're describing, it's obviously a very simple process for the hospital system for the candidate, but there's a lot going on under the hood. There's a lot that's been built to support this.

09:50 - What product processes have you found to be most successful in ensuring high quality output, velocity, and business impact?

Iggy Moliver: Obviously, for those that don't know, this isn't your first rodeo, right? You successfully sold a company previously.  Throughout your years as a founder, I know you've been involved with many product builds and I'm sure you've experimented with a lot of different approaches to those builds. I'm curious, what are the processes that you found to be most successful in ensuring high quality output, velocity, and the kind of results from a product build that drive the business?

Dan Schubert: Yes, I definitely have a lot of experience — some good, and some certainly bad. In my prior company, we had totally insourced. We had our own complete development department, and that went okay. We thought we could get additional gains five years later after we started by outsourcing 100% of the department. That didn't work out very well at all, and that was probably in the 2008 time frame, so we didn't find the productivity gains that we thought we would. It was quite the opposite, actually. There were all kinds of problems: language gaps, time barriers, quality of code, oversight of senior management, things like that.

Dan Schubert: What we ended up doing, and what I think at the end of the day worked the best and what I've deployed here with Revuud as well, is a blend. We have our own in-house — I call it the front-end of the development cycle, where we are defining the backlog of feature sets that we feel like the market needs in our segment. We then prioritize those, and we're getting that information from clients through user group sessions, through prospects, things like that. 

Dan Schubert: What we hear on the street is that our prospects are asking what our competition is doing. One of the interesting things with us is our competition right now tends to be the staffing firms.There are definitely other marketplaces like Revuud hitting other segments, particularly in healthcare, like nursing and clinical, but not like us. That's actually an interesting positive and negative for product building, because you don't have someone in the market trying to change this industry because this is actually new technology. Especially in healthcare.

Dan Schubert: So back to the original question — what we landed on was that blend of in-house product feature definition, then it’s turned over to the Remedy team with our product manager at Remedy. It's much deeper than that though, at this point, because she actually helps in that process as well with our internal senior product manager, and they do a fantastic job working together, figuring out the right priorities. Then the Remedy product manager takes that to the development team and the QA team and all the resources at Remedy to implement. We do a final QA test as well before it goes to production, and that has worked phenomenally. 

Dan Schubert: We actually started with a different outsourced software development firm that went okay to start, but some of the things that started to fall apart were adequate QA, senior management oversight, and the related technical architecture. And it was super important. It was important enough for us that after a year — which was a very very big deal to convert after our first year of getting our MVP out — to move development providers. That was a huge, difficult decision to make, but it was absolutely the right decision. That was a problem, so we made that tough decision to pivot over to Remedy, and it's been a really terrific relationship since then.

Iggy Moliver: Thank you for the kind words. I think you pointed out a few things in there that I found really interesting. Most companies, when we talk to them, they're thinking about hiring internally or about outsourcing, and really, the right approach we've seen is a hybrid approach where you have certain core capabilities in house and then you supplement. But you don't supplement with true outsourcing where you're just throwing things over the wall; you supplement by having a team that's embedded, where you're working really as one unified team, where your product manager and CTO do a great job making sure that the Remedy team feels ownership over what they're doing and that they can bring their own ideas. That kind of dynamic, I think, is what makes any hybrid engagement work really — when it doesn't feel like two different teams, but one team together. 

Dan Schubert: 100%. It's hard to do.

Iggy Moliver: It's incredible how often people don't actually get it exactly right. It takes a lot from a CEO like you honestly to establish that cultural norm of “hey, this isn't an outsourcing team” and for your internal leadership to follow that through. I think it's an incredible win on your part.

Dan Schubert: One of the key words I think in the relationship is transparency, across the entire board. Not just from the actual dev team working with our resources as one unit, but even at the executive level. You and I have had very candid conversations, about as a small company, as a startup — we've been around four to five years now, but we're still trying to get to profitability — so it's very important that we're in lock step on how we forecast revenue that flows all the way down to product and the product team. Complete transparency and trust in that relationship is absolutely key. it's not smart to hide things from a partnership like this. It's too imperative, At the end of the day, the product is what this company is really all about. And the people that build it. If we don't have a product that we can market and sell, we're not going to be in business. It's imperative that you guys understand what we're going through and can pivot with us — as you guys have done in the past — when we need to pivot our spend or resource allocation on the dev team and things like that. So I think trust and transparency are absolutely critical to making that successful.

Iggy Moliver: Absolutely. I think you've actually kind of segued into the next thing I wanted to ask about.

17:15 - What are the key elements that separate a strong partnership from a weak one?

Iggy Moliver: You alluded to having a technical partner before and working with different technical partners at past companies. We've worked together now for about two and a half years, and I think we have a really really strong technical partnership, but also a relationship between our companies and our team members. In your eyes, what are the key elements that separate a strong partnership on the technology side from a weak one or a troubled one?

Dan Schubert: My last point on establishing trust very early on, meaning, just have open, candid conversations about how we operate this business, what our goals or what our budget is, and trying to be reasonable with that and finding a partner that is in lock step with you on that stuff. Meaning, they're not just trying to build their team out because we understand, you have a company to run as well and you need to be successful and you want to grow your revenue per project just like we do with our clients. but we have to work together to get there. Otherwise, if we're not successful, you don't have us as a client anymore. So, it's imperative that you spend the time getting to know one another,  and that trust needs to be established all the way down at the team level as well — being involved in the team structure, interviewing the team members, understanding where they come from, even their personalities to some extent, right? To make sure that they meld with our internal team since it's a blended team structure. Those things are what's absolutely most important — just taking the time to establish that trust and transparency is key.

Iggy Moliver: Beers and barbecue in North Carolina do help with that.

Dan Schubert: Absolutely. Spending time together and getting to know one another. At the end of the day, we all care about each other and we want everybody to be successful and happy in their jobs. There's nothing, to me, better than that kind of true trust on a call. Our product manager at Remedy — I trust her implicitly and her decision- making and her intuitiveness and all that. It's quite phenomenal to me — the team we put together — because they are extremely efficient now. Our velocity has increased over time even though we've leveled out the team size a little bit at times.So, that's been terrific. It really has.

Iggy Moliver: I love seeing those sprint burndown charts. They look like a finely tuned machine now. I think you're right though. One of the big things that you mentioned is about soft skills and making sure that there is a good personality match. I think we're very conscious of the fact that there's the skillset element, and then there's the product mindset element, and we care a lot about that for the teams we put together. I think making sure that we are taking into account the soft skills — where it's not just individuals thrown together — but where you're thinking of what that's going to look like as a team. You need different personality types and archetypes on a team, you can't just throw any backend and any frontend together and hope it works.

Dan Schubert: Absolutely.

Iggy Moliver: I think that you're very conscious of that as well in how you form teams and that's been a really great meld between cultures.

Dan Schubert: And when someone's not working out for whatever reason, whether it's their experience, their personality, you can't be shy about bringing those kinds of things up as quickly as possible, because actually making a change out early is far better for everyone — for you and for your client. It's better to be transparent about those kinds of things so that the team can change and move on. Which would happen if we had our own internal team, right? You try to hire resources. Sometimes they don't work out for various reasons. Not that they're not going to be a good resource on another team, but it's just in that situation. So it's really good to be open and all about that stuff, which you guys have been.

Iggy Moliver: Thanks. I mean, it is a little more painful when you make that full-time hire, because unfortunately the only path there is a layoff, but I think that the nice thing for us, knowing that we have multiple teams running at once, is the flexibility to say okay this may not be a great fit for Revuud, but this person could be a great fit for this other partner.

22:00 - What is your advice for establishing trust with an external partner?

Iggy Moliver:  I think you're right about making sure to have those difficult conversations, and I think a lot of that comes back to what you were saying about trust. I want to maybe dig a little deeper into that because you've brought it up a few times. What's your advice for establishing trust with an external partner? I think we've done a great job integrating the Revuud and Remedy teams together. So, how would you say that's happened, in your case? How does it help for builds? I would love to dive a little deeper because I think that's such a key element. It's a concept, establishing trust. But how have you done it in practice?

Dan Schubert: I mean, it obviously starts from interviewing different providers and establishing an early relationship and that sense of trust at that point because you really don't know each other all that well yet. And talking to references and things like that. That's really, really important in the process. But then, once you've kind of settled on, say Remedy, as the provider, then really the trust starts somewhat more internally on our team with our resources, and we have just phenomenal resources on our team. It's like they pretty much run everything with your senior product manager, Julia, who's fantastic. To me, what has oiled this machine to make it as efficient as it is now, it's really those two resources: the two PMs that work on each side of the fence. They are driving the whole thing and they exude trust in each other big time. Cheryl on our team really trusts Julia and her decision-making and we'll defer to her. We're critical of things. Everybody has a voice, right? So, speak up if you don't feel like something's the right priority or designed right or whatever. I think I would place more of that success for sure on the team itself, that Cheryl and Julia have worked on and put together.

Dan Schubert: It really comes down to them and what they've done outside of the normal interviewing of different development providers, you know what I mean? Getting that first initial sense, but after that, between us at a more senior level, it's trying to make sure we're on the same page budget-wise. Whatever forecasting I do, I've tried to be very very transparent with you guys about ‘hey, this is what we're trying to do this year. Here's our cost structure and expense structure related to that.’ It’s great to get your feedback. You deal with a lot of different companies all the time, so you can even consult me on different things, which is fantastic. And then once all that's built up, we want you to be successful and you want us to be successful. So, we're referring things back and forth to each other about different business opportunities and potential clients and things like that. When it all comes together, that's just the perfect environment, right? and I think that's what we've got here. So, it's fantastic.

Iggy Moliver: I think you're absolutely right. Thinking about the people that build the process that builds the trust and transparency at the top, I think you and I have always been very kind of aligned from a cultural standpoint. You've worked a lot with our CEO, Oleg. We've worked with your CTO Dave. And I think there's a lot of that seeing eye to eye from the top down. That's definitely played into it.

Dan Schubert: Absolutely. And that's a good point. Dave's been instrumental in the whole process — introducing us to you guys and then for sure early on really controlling that environment, implementing it. I should have mentioned him earlier actually because he's had a big hand in all of this. And he continues to do things but now; he's kind of more architectural, making sure that he's building the architecture of the platform that he sees we need three years down the line, which is fantastic. It's been all around a great partnership between all of us for sure.

Iggy Moliver: So Dave Stern — for those that don't know Revuud’s CTO — we've actually sat across the table from him a few different times now at a few different companies, so there's just a ton of trust there. We have these folks that we come across at multiple companies because we find a great relationship in one place and it carries to the next place. It's been a pleasure working with Dave on your team as well.

27:22 - How have you closed gaps between the business team and the product/engineering team?

Iggy Moliver: I want to wrap up with one last question here that's really around business outcomes and how you drive certain company goals with technology. I think you are more disciplined than most founders to your financial model, to your projections, to making sure that the KPIs for the business are very tightly associated with where the cost centers are. I think that a common challenge for founders is making sure that their product builds and how they use resources are aligned with company goals. How have you as a founder and CEO closed this gap between the business team and the product and engineering team? What's the mindset that you look for to make sure that your products deliver companywide value?

Dan Schubert: It's so hard when you're small because there are so many moving parts, and you're getting pulled in so many different directions. The main thing that comes to mind, and my co-founder would definitely tell you how serious I am about it, is staying focused on what you're doing. Don't get outside your lane is probably one of the biggest things that I would advise early stage founders to make sure that they keep a keen eye on. You're always going to get hit by either prospects or maybe you see a competitor doing something different or another slightly similar industry doing something successfully. But it's imperative that you stay on track and in your lane because that's what you, and in our case, raise money on to investors. So you need to prove your model out. Now, if you find something fatally wrong with that, you need to try to pivot so that you can do what you can for your investors and your stakeholders. 

Dan Schubert: But one of the early things we did, and you mentioned it, was understanding the core metrics that will drive the success of this business, right? When you set those metrics up correctly, they tell the story about how you're doing.  It doesn't have to necessarily be driven down so much by one person in the business. No matter if it's me, Eric, or any other senior leader here, the metrics tell the story about how the business is doing, and they can tell you where you're not succeeding. Understand your metrics that drive your business. And don't get outside your lane would be my top.

Iggy Moliver: I think what we've seen repeatedly at Revuud is such a clarity of focus, because I think that there are different opportunities that, as a founder, will come your way. Understand and be able to parse through which ones are really core to how your business is evolving and which ones are maybe more side quests. They can be distractions. I think your team has — because you are grounded in your KPIs, in what you believe your success metrics are — you've been able to parse those different options really well. I think that that's a challenge for many founders. Obviously, you are not a first-time founder, and you've had a successful exit, and that's a big part of it. 

Dan Schubert: Yes, it does help a lot. And we made a lot of mistakes in the past that you live through and you learn from, and you don't want to make those same mistakes again. You can't really downplay that. It is a big advantage to have done that before because you do make so many mistakes. 

Iggy Moliver: It's like that old Mike Tyson adage: “Everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth. Getting punched in the mouth is good for you because you get to test your plan.”

Dan Schubert: That's right. Exactly.

Iggy Moliver: Dan, I really appreciate you taking the time this morning. I'm really grateful for everything you've shared. I think that our audience is going to find a lot of this insight, this advice really actionable, so I want to thank you for that time. We're looking forward to getting together in person with you soon. We're not going to take you to a barbecue in New York, but I think we'll find some good things for you and Eric to join us for. 

Dan Schubert: There's some good steak out there.

Iggy Moliver: There's a couple good things in New York that we can figure out. Any last words from you or anything you want to shout out before we wrap up here?

Dan Schubert: Just thanks for the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you guys. It's always fun to look back and really think through what's made a partnership successful. I'm thankful as well for our partnership and everything. We’ve worked so hard to get to this point and I look forward to a successful 2025.

Iggy Moliver: I love that. That's a great note to end on. Thank you, have a great day down there in North Carolina and appreciate all the time and the wisdom.