Eren Bali is Cofounder and CEO of Carbon Health, a healthtech company that offers a uniquely seamless experience from virtual to in-person care. Carbon Health expanded from 7 to 27 clinics over the past year, and intends to use the recently acquired $100M Series C funding round to increase its nationwide footprint.
Previously, Eren founded Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for online courses, with over 50 million students worldwide. Eren shared his top four business strategies at a recent brunchwork.
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1. Capture a unique market. Companies often target the same narrow, affluent market. However, the average person’s needs are often left unmet.
Think beyond commonly targeted groups (like the young, affluent consumer), and you’ll find endless audiences that have barely been tapped yet.
Udemy found success by zeroing in on the average white collar worker. They noticed most people didn’t want a prestigious degree — they wanted simple online training to brush up basic skills like Excel.
2. Lean into direct-to-consumer. As a GTM strategy, think twice about relying on a distributor who isn’t as passionate about your vision.
DTC will not only help you stay in control of your vision, but could get you to launch much faster. Udemy was able to launch internationally three years earlier than their competitors because of an aggressive DTC strategy.
Carbon Health is another example. Rather than sell their technology to hospitals, Carbon Health built a full service brand around their software to provide care directly to patients.
3. Invest in a team that can scale. The people on your team are like chess pieces. You want to develop them as early as possible.
Hire a mix of junior talent and strong executives that can offer a clear top-down direction. Once you develop junior talent, trust them.
A small number of people, with the right direction can accomplish just as much, if not more, than a larger organization.
4. Take advantage of the latest trends. There are a lot of exciting opportunities right now:
• Software-enabled learning: Smart AI software will enhance learning.
• Interactive education: Community-based, learning experiences over on-demand videos.
• Virtual reality: The technology is finally up to speed, but the bottleneck is the lack of quality VR content. There’s a huge opportunity there!
• Unbundled care: Regional hospitals with every specialty under one roof, are costly and not easily accessible to many populations. The future of care looks more like Carbon Health — modern, hassle-free, omnichannel.