Allon Bloch On Taking Two Startups To IPO And Now Raising $375 Million To Do Healthcare Differently

Allon Bloch is a repeat founder who has been with at least two ventures through going public so far. His newest venture has raised nearly $400M to disrupt and transform the third industry. K Health has successfully raised funding from top-tier investors like Kaiser Permanente, Counterpart Advisors, BoxGroup, and Valor Equity Partners.

In this episode you will learn:

• How K Health is transforming healthcare for patients
• Allon’s top advice when starting a business
• What he says you need to create a successful startup

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About Allon Bloch:

Allon Bloch is the CEO and Co-founder of K Health. Previously he served as the CEO of Vroom, the largest online car retailer in the U.S, Co-CEO of Wix, the world’s leading website publishing platform, and CEO of mySupermarket, a digital platform that empowers consumers to find the best prices for their groceries. Allon is also a former venture

capitalist, serving as a Venture Partner with Greylock’s Europe/Israel fund and a General Partner at JVP. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and is based in New York.

Connect with Allon Bloch:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

00:00.00

Alejandro:

Um, alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So we have today another founder from startup nation I mean it’s amazing. The founders coming out of Israel. But I think that we’re gonna be learning quite a bit because this founder you know has seen it all. Seen you know the goods and the bads also on the market. So I think that we’re gonna be learning quite a bit from that a lot of adrenaline field stories which I know that you all like so I guess without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest today alone block welcome to the show. So originally born in in Israel.

 

00:29.29

Allon Bloch:

Hey ala Handra good to see you.

 

00:35.91

Alejandro:

So you know give us a little bit of a walkthrough memory lane. How were your upbringings you know, growing up there. Yeah.

 

00:40.19

Allon Bloch:

Well Israel was a I grew up in the 70 s so Israel was a very different place. It was a mission driven place there were wars there was by the way hyperinflation I remember as a kid there were 2 currency changes economy was always from 1 recession to to another. Israel wasn’t poor but wasn’t wealthy like it is today. Um, and people were very mission driven. They cared about the country they cared about the society they were trying to it was it was truly a startup country Israel was created 1948.

 

01:13.42

Alejandro:

So so in your case, why because obviously you did your military they combat the and division there and then you did your undergrad. But then you you lander in the us. So why coming here to the us for the Nba what triggered that.

 

01:26.70

Allon Bloch:

I didn’t ready have a plan I studied biology ready biochemistry and gene genetictics and um I decided I didn’t want to be a researcher and work in the lab I felt like I wanted to see the world. Um. And I was curious about business I didn’t know what it really meant but you know coming from a small country in the 90 s coming to the us to New York was it was ah was kind of a big change I didn’t have a plan I just knew what I was interested in and what I liked and I hoped. Somehow these things would would you know fit in together so came in Brett Johnson ended up spending probably 18 out of the last twenty five years here but I also went back twice to Israel. I lived in London for 3 years so I’m moving around.

 

02:21.42

Alejandro:

Moving around and then also you know different things that you’ve done. You know everything started for you in the consulting you know side of things. So I guess you know one of the one of the one of the things that I typically see on on really successful entrepreneurs entrepreneurs that you know have done the full cycle you know and have done it. Well. Is that they have the consulting background. You know, many of them have been in Bcd Mckinsey so what what? would you say that that gave you you know that Mckinsey gave you to really you know think and approach problems.

 

02:53.39

Allon Bloch:

Look I think it’s a continuum because I don’t know if I’ll do an Mba today. Um, it just to be clear but I did come from a small place and didn’t have a lot of business experience in Columbia gave me the opportunity and from there I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Didn’t want to go to a particular industry and I went to mckinsey at the time in the 90 s um, it was a very thought off to place and so a lot of people wanted to go there. Um I think it was just 2 things 1 is being surrounded by smart ambitious people and the other thing is. Just the ability as a as a young guy I was in my twenty s to see to see how ceos and executives think in you know fortune 500 company so it was interesting for me to see but I also knew fairly quickly that that was not wanted to die what I wanted to do I wanted to I wanted to be able to control my deaths. Control my destiny to be a principal owner of things. So but you know clearly it helps you get exposure to decision making and judgment understand how to communicate. Um, you know. You know those kind of things. So I think it was good for me to do for a couple of years and that was the right amount for me as well.

 

04:06.84

Alejandro:

So not only on the consulting side. You know you were able to really think about problem solving but then also you were able to look at it too from the investor side right? because I mean you you were on the other side of the table for about 6 years on jvp where you had the. You guys had this $400000000 fund to invest in early stage companies. You know I’m sure that that gave you access to really see what separated the good performers from the bad performers on the fund and perhaps pattern recognition. So. What were you able to identify there from the things that work from the things that did not work in our entrepreneurship.

 

04:42.35

Allon Bloch:

So first of all I think um, the cycle ready matters and when you’re a young guy you haven’t seen cycles or maybe you don’t realize what his cycle is and I told you kind of growing up in Israel recessions wars new currencies inflation you know. Those are things that you you kind of learn the hardware that you know the economy is not necessarily stable when I joined jvp I joined in April Two Thousand and for those who know you know the stock market peaked I think in March 2000 Nasdaq and and and and the and the craziness around it. Um, and then um, started um, going down gradually and then much foster into late 2000 and into 2001 and I think um. That was a very humbling experience because doesn’t matter what you did things moved from amazing to whatever you did wasn’t get enough so a month after I joined my venture firm ah was a major shareholder in a company called chromatis that was sold to loosen for $5000000 um, that was about 2% of of loosened shares. Um and I you know all of a sudden I have carrie in this in this company that I wasn’t part of putting together the deal I’m this junior guy. Um, you know I’m going to be super successful here. And all of a sudden the world changes dramatically all of a sudden you know the price of the stock of lucent went down 75% but also all these different assets and said we were lucky to raise a fund I think it was four hundred and fifty million dollars um and start investing. And so it interesting on the one hand doesn’t matter what you did nothing kind of worked. There were no ipos There were very few m and as and the prices of deals were much lowerer so 9003. Everybody was still shell shocked if you remember b two b was back to business. Um, yeah, sorry. Ah, back to banking and b two c back to consulting like there was a huge migration out of tech and even 2004 or 11 the markets were very subdued for for technology. There wasn’t a lot of investment certainly not in consumer stuff. It was kind of more more on the b two b side. Um. Doesn’t matter what you did you felt like you were peddling as fast as you could you? You know you you weren’t getting above water but on the other hand um you could take more time you could um think about things you could um you weren’t rushing to invest.

 

07:27.15

Allon Bloch:

In fact, people wouldn’t wouldn’t touch most companies even if they knew were good I mean I let a deal in a company called cyber arc in April Two Thousand and two in the height of the of the of the of the huge tech you know meltdown um, we raised a $12000000 free um, and you know we invested $6000000 there weren’t a lot of people wanted to invest and so that was an example of a company that twelve years later went public and you know we had a major position in it in part because nobody wanted to you know you know, Coinvest. Um. And so you need to venture in general is always super successful and a lot of failures when you’re in a tough market time. You know you you need to really really double down on. What’s going to work and explain to you. What’s going to work because luck’s not going to work or floating was just buying into a company and it floats more and more successfully is not going to work. Um, and so that dramatically from my perspective um, enabled me to understand early. Stage investing I by the way I loved it. Alejandro I loved it. It’s a lot of fun. You meet smart entrepreneurs. But then again I felt like I want to ah be a principal invest principal owner of the business I don’t want to just invest I want to own. Um. And I remember having a dream that I could do it I haven’t coded since you know middle school so I wasn’t you know an engineer but I felt like I could do it so I wanted to take a concentrated bed of my on myself so that was ah. There but it was so interesting to see all these different entrepreneurs. Super smart people very ambitious different approaches to market different approaches to technology um and early stage investing is always tough because you know it’s it’s mostly still just a dream.

 

09:32.73

Alejandro:

Yeah, so then so then in your case, what course the what was the trigger for you to go from the investment side to the operating site because you landed on Wix and and what a rocket ship wix. Yeah yeah.

 

09:43.93

Allon Bloch:

Well in hindsight you know there’s a long of stuff. um know where I didn’t know anything I just you know um I knew um avi shay and Hiss Brother Nadav and the third co-founder gig. Avi Shai was a co-founder of a major tech company called fara that my venture firm backed and wasn’t the company wasn’t successful but I knew Avi shy I knew he was a genius and I knew he is very creative thinker um, and he was working on something that just i. Really really really powerful which is a way to enable people to express themselves online. When fact, wix was called in the beginning wixpress because the whole idea was to okay, how do we enable people to express themselves online as if they’re drawing on a piece of paper as as if they’re. You know, designing something online was out the need to code and all that complexity around that. Um, so how do you build that abstraction layer that editor and so I was drawn to that and we had a lot of different approaches. We didn’t know you know what we ended up doing um. But I joined at the early days there were 10 or 12 people. The product wasn’t stable. We certainly didn’t have a go to market but we had a tremendous vision fonders certainly had um and it felt like the right thing to do because at the time. There was just very little ah very little in the way of enabling small businesses to operate online. It was just so expensive if you go to Godaddy you hire a team you pay them a lot of money. It’s many weeks of building your website now you can never change it. And now you want to add functionality like marketing or crm um or or supply chain or booking. Everything was just very was tilted against small businesses and so you know we strongly felt that debt is just a major avenue to us and there were 50 companies that had side builders at the time. Alejandro and um, you know that was another lesson to me most of your competition is not your direct competitors. In fact, they often help you? Um, you know squares squarespace is public. Um, ah you know that now. Um. And and you had other companies like wordpress etc. But at the time we weren’t first to market but we built a product that was excellent and we focus on making it better and better over time both from a product perspective. We focus on better marketing and now you’re in a very different setting.

 

12:24.41

Allon Bloch:

And if you think about it still most websites of small businesses a lesson great. They’re much better the last five years because because of wix and because of because of other companies. But now you can just build into this growing market and so what I learned from that is these markets would. You know are just massive if you get it right? a market like building ah online but business capabilities for small businesses for micro entrepreneurs and small businesses is just just massive. Um, and these things just. Gone for decades because there’s always more and more things that people need. Um.

 

13:01.40

Alejandro:

Yeah, now. What? what about being the core Ceo of um of our startup that was just you know, literally coming out in the midst of the whole economic you know crisis at that point you know around 2008 I mean what were what were some of the um. I mean I’m sure that there were like a lot of those moments where you guys thought there was gonna be a no tomorrow. No.

 

13:24.67

Allon Bloch:

Oh absolutely I think to me the most just if you think about the timeline um Lehman collapsed in September Two Thousand and eight if you remember and we had a free offering until Len because we’re still testing out the product and the product only launched in October. 2008 but in between we need to raise money like three million dollars by today’s money it’s a seat round but then that was the series b so bessemer backed us previously and mangrove also also joined that round and after Lehman collapsed and. Mangrove um Mark to lose was wanted to. He was a big believer in the company and any double down on the company and so he became the largest shareholder. Um, and I reminded it to him in the ipo I said Mark you. You know at the height of the of the mark of the market crash when everybody was uncertain, you still weren’t you didn’t waiver you continued to back by the way he didn’t try and get another dollar and lower the price somehow you know for the deal but it was successful for him and for the um entrepreneurs. And so that’s why you know? Yeah I’ve I’ve worked with with Mark and mangrove again, but it just shows you you you need to have character a lot of fundamentally. It’s easy to make money and the markets are going well but when the markets are tough like now or you know every 2 to 3 years a markets are tough. You need to have character. You need to have leadership because otherwise you’re going to listen to everybody and you know a lot of people become greedy or a lot of people are just focus on all the wrong stuff. They just flee their companies, etc. People need to have conviction either as entrepreneurs or investors in the company. Um, and and people forget it. Because right now there’s a ton of venture firms. But you know are they all going to stick around in a year or 2 if the markets change you know I don’t know.

 

15:25.73

Alejandro:

Yeah, so I mean obviously in weeks. Incredible journey you know now Wix is a company with over six thousand employees so I mean I’m sure that you know that was out of out of this world as an experience but another company very similar to this one that you were involved with you know in terms similar in terms of growth. And number of employees this room. You know now it has probably over a thousand employees. But what was that experience and what were some of the learns and what were you doing there as a co-founder and Ceo of of room.

 

15:56.70

Allon Bloch:

So I had a little bit more experience. You know coming into from and room was um, essentially a twofold bet 1 is around our desire never to see a use car salesman. I hated that experience everything about that. It was wrong and more and more over over time of life I wanted to focus on things where people should have power technologically you can’t create the power but because of the way an industry is built. They don’t have power so every industry. Calcifi right? You have some very successful players. They built a product for different error for different need decades go by society changes technology changes but things still work the old way why because that’s what people used and so I never understood why. I want to buy an expensive vehicle I have a little bit of information. The car dealer has a lot of information I’m going in there and they’re doing all these tricks and negotiating they go into the back room pretending to negotiate coming back. It’s a whole big you know turkish bazaar but it’s not There’s no fun. There. Um, and so I never understood. It felt very wasteful and very disrespectful for the customers like why should I get a better price just because I’m groundstanding right? Um, and b if you’ve ever looked at the stack of papers you get from the dealer. They they try and get you to do all kinds of things that you go want to do they try and sell you all kinds of stuff you don’t do everything about that I didn’t like um and so and the other thing is you have a lot of auction data auctions are like stock market. There’s a massive auction in Manheim Philadelphia just outside of Philadelphia. Um. Where all these cars are bought and sold. So why not take advantage of it. Why not have all this information and enable people to buy and sell cars and why not do it remotely because fundamentally people spent a lot of time researching car. Um, and so what we did was. Actually the first thing that we were really successful about is enabling consumers to sell us their cars. So we built a software that allowed us to focus on the ability to give you a cash price for your car sight on seat. There are only a handful of pictures. We want you to do. And there’s only a handful of information that mattered to us based on today’s auction data and we started buying cars from consumers. But guess what when you treat people fairly, you give them a fixed price. There was no haggle but you couldn’t haggle was this now we started buying one hundred two hundred cars a day from consumers site on scene.

 

18:35.25

Allon Bloch:

And yes, sometimes people would try and trick you but most of the time people were being really honest and out a hundred what I learned from that is if you actually treat people fairly and you let them um and you let them to um, you give them a fair price for a car. They will actually want to do more business with you because people who sell their sick car were also in the market to buy cars from us. So we’re able to build that capability to sell people to buy cars from people and to sell it but think about it we were able to build a profitable business by paying customers for their. Precious assets treating them fairly and we still were able to make a profit um and of course you need to scale it and build operations and build systems and you know and and that’s ah, that’s always very tough but it’s quite a reverse way to do to do stuff. Um. And the other thing is in America there’s about 50000 card hiters just think about it for a sick most of them 49000 of them are pretty basic local card hiters there’s a few hundred bigger regional ones and some really bigger ones like carmax or automatnation pet. I was always surprised like how they willing to accept the status quo. They know it’s going to go away. It makes no sense. Why not put it online. Why not let people try to car for a week and see if they like it you know cars actually nobody looked at the economics of shipping cars. Which is a small fraction of the value of the car. So nobody nobody reallyied you know, looked at that kind of stuff and for me I was always surprised that the big card dealrs which now have all this strategy online I was surprised why they didn’t have it because you know 20 years after at that time this was twenty Fourteen 2015 20 years after Amazon was created everybody heard about Amazon nobody wanted to be Amazon and yet a couple of people are coming into the market and everybody again thought they were stupid and crazy and you know going to lose their money. I mean literally car dealers thought we were off our rockers. How would we buy car sightncing from consumers those so used to somebody coming in and trying to haggle with them that they forgot to focus on on building relationships with people and they also didn’t build a big enough inventory because most of them were local. So all these things will surprised me but I was surprised how the bigger companies. Um, you know that the leading car deals are growing five or ten percent a year that they were a tiny part of the market. You know, even today Karmax is the most successful use car dealer. It’s still low single digit.

 

21:13.80

Alejandro:

Now.

 

21:21.56

Allon Bloch:

Percent of the market and so look what happened when Karvana Androom came in you know they they started taking market share. This is a 110700000000000 ah market and if I was sitting there in one of the top dealers I’d say how come we not growing 100% a year like why? Why should we grow 10 percent a year but that never it was there was never something they thought about because it was successful. They were profitable and and even when at Karvana and room started Karna I think started about a year before us and did a fantastic job. Um, nobody. The the the insiders you know, never you know, never moved and again the big issue Alejandro is the inertia. Oh I hate the car dealer experience but I’m still gonna go there because I want to touch and feel the car. But I’m gonna send you the car for for week to your house. Oh but I don’t know how maybe you’ll trick me. You know? So. It’s always a matter of building trust with people you know and how this works and this is where um I always think about a mindset of somebody who’s looking at the at from the outside and saying why are we doing it and somebody. And the inside saying why should we change the insiders always want to perfect the hos we can do 10% better. So if you and I went back to 1870 and we were in madrid and somebody had a horse and carriage and they wanted to go somewhere an hour out of madrid to the mountains or to a lake or something. And you caught them in 1870 and you said um, you know what? yeah I don’t know how to say it in spanish I’m just going to say it in english but you caught them and said to them. Okay, um. What would you want your your horse to do I want my horse to run 20% faster I want my horse not to stop for drinking I want my carriage to be a little bit more comfortable. They wouldn’t say I want a tesla I want a train I want a rocket ship I want to be able to fly to the beach because it’s difficult to imagine these things.

 

23:17.51

Alejandro:

There.

 

23:21.75

Allon Bloch:

So insiders always want to make things 5 to 10 percent better whereas outsiders say why the hell are we doing it this way. Why work this way. Why not work in a completely different way now you still need to be right? It’s not enough to usie’s questions but oftentimes again systems get calcified. Because the bureaucracy sets and then there’s a way to do stuff and people are accustomed to do it and then twenty thirty forty years go by and you look at and say why is it working lifeway this doesn’t you know it doesn’t make any sense and to me that’s very interesting because insiders are usually the lost people the lost people to figure the out. Early adopted customers will figure it out. Entrepreneurs will figure out. Venture investors will figure out because they all gonna be talking to each other and looking at it and that’s where you need to think about how to build the systems because the insiders will always kick the candle take another 1020 years and just you know let’s let’s just drag this out a little bit.

 

24:15.68

Alejandro:

I mean ah quite a journey as outsiders though because as outsiders I mean you guys go in with room and I mean you you literally the company went public. So I mean what? Ah what? an amazing journey and and I’m wondering you know too.

 

24:17.46

Allon Bloch:

But even so many years.

 

24:32.50

Alejandro:

You know what was the trigger for you to you know because that was a rocket ship. You know for you to say you know what? it’s time for me to go and start my next baby you know k health so what triggered that Alan yeah.

 

24:45.11

Allon Bloch:

Um, there were several things that triggered that but you know not all of them were were in my control. Um but look it it at the end I was looking to do also really big ambitious things around. Societal changes stuff that will make a big difference to a lot of people. Um, and I think I never had a career plan and in retrospect, um, it always looks like a neat way to do a career plan but it was always around. Um. Obsession and tenacity around certain things about why they work and how to change them immense curiosity and a desire to change things. Um, and I was always interested in how medicine works and our healthcare works because I was always. Surprised by the way it works Stephen Brill wrote a really interesting expose around the american health care system and around how it’s really deeply unfair and if you live life long enough you see experiences that you have or your family your your aging parents. Have around health and you go to the doctor and you look at it and looks like it’s 1962 you, you’re having conversation and everything looks like you you were brought back fifty seventy years ago and I’m saying this because. If you look at medicine and you look at healthcare in many respects. It hasn’t changed since the 1950 s so I was curious about that. This is such an important profession I revere doctors just like most people do I certainly do and I employ many of them. So I’ve got a lot of respect for them. But I was always curious as to why things work that way in medicine and health can and who set it up and you know the way it works and this is where I can give you a little bit of of my view of things but this is this is something quite foundational. Not only. Decay but also to medicine and the business of medicine. It’s called healthcare and to societies because this could have big impact.

 

27:02.15

Alejandro:

So so for the people that are listening to really get it. What is the business model of khe.

 

27:08.96

Allon Bloch:

Well k does 3 things. It gives you information. Um that is based on a real data set of people and allows k to engage with you our machine our Ai can engage with you. And have a conversation with you around your health and acute issues and chronic issues for free and so people can use us. But there’s not some kind of doctor google let me guess what you have your stomach hurts. So maybe it’s pregnancy. Maybe it’s fruit poisoning. Maybe it’s something else. Horrible. You know. How do you have an intelligent conversation. How do you mimic the best doctor in the world and we built a system where it compares you to what we call people like people like me a dynamic class of people that’s 1 thing but that gives people a lot of information around their health. Oh I’ve got this. Weird aop painne or I’m concerned about covid or something else. But now I can go and answer a series of questions that are highly personalized to understand what I have the second thing we do is we enable people not only to understand if their headache is signositis or migraine or you know covid or lyme disease or something. But they can also press a a button in twenty four seven talk to a doctor and resolve the problem. Maybe they don’t need to do anything. Maybe they need a prescription. Maybe they need to be sent to do a lab or test. Maybe they need to go the r usually not but it gives people the ability to do it. So first of all, just from the most basic level your doctor’s not available 20 so. 7 and certainly your doctor’s not available right now. Try it I promise you you need to book an appointment. It’s often days so that’s a little bit weird because nobody has the worst headache in a world a weird pain or real concern and it’s ten p m and they say well let me just go to sleep. I’ll deal with it tomorrow morning I’m ready tired. No, you’re not you’re not gonna sleep right? Um, so it’s a little bit weird that we enabled medical clinics to work 9 to 5 and to for you to book appointments takes weeks and days weeks at to see a doctor. Why not? why? not right now. If you can trade cryptocurrency Twenty four seven I I’m going to say it’s more important you take take care of your health twenty four seven your buddy doesn’t shut down after 5 fan and who wants to go to the R and wait hours and you know how that goingnna work the you know the the other thing is um, ah. There medicine is based on a lot of data. The Johns Hopkins system in America which in turn is based on a lot of european breakthroughs especially german breakthroughs around moving away from bloodletting to labs right? Hotflighting is.

 

29:54.20

Allon Bloch:

Quickest way to kill people. But in the 1870 s 1890 S The Johns Hopkins at school created this whole system of westernson medicine which was groundbreaking um in so many in so many levels and started creating evidence based medicine and. You know it became a very practical profession and it became a profession that wanted to learn from from real data and there was a lot of building and stuff that added and then it started calcifying as well and we always confuse you know you saw the pig heart into a human heart. You saw um you saw modernina vaccines you’ seeing biomedical devices you seen continued glucose monitor devices. All these things are amazing using immunotherap and oncology energy blockers on oncology especially in oncology there so many changes but that is that is not day- to day medicine. People confused between the two and day to day medicine hasn’t changed from the fifty s I’m talking about acute care I’ve got a problem, something’s bothering me I’m talking about chronic care managing diabetes and hypertension and thyroid and asthma and heart conditions I’m talking about preventative stuff. This is where. The care delivery itself. What 99.5 percent of what people need right now hasn’t changed from the 50 s why.

 

31:16.36

Alejandro:

And you guys you guys obviously have raised quite a bit of money to really push this because as you say as an outsider you got to think about you know, doing things differently and for that especially in health care. You know it requires some capital so how much money have you guys raised today for this alone.

 

31:31.66

Allon Bloch:

Raise about I never remember the exact numbers because we had a lot of rounds but about two hundred and seventy million dollars to ky and over a hundred million dollars to hydrogen which is a joint venture between anthem and blackstone and k to leverage the Kkk. Capabilities into the employer market bear in mind again, people need to very simply we think we can give you access we can be your doctor. We can give you information and we can allow you to manage your health most of the time online sometimes you need to go in. And that’s often where it’s very expensive and very scary and very confusing. Even if you have an insurance and that’s why America is quite specific and anthem and blackstone understood this and we built this capability that leverages what we do is k which allows you to get information and get doctors in order. Also get other things people need labs and they need tests they need surgeries. They need insurance. So how do you build all those components. Um you know together. So we’re in the process of building. You know all these different kind of capabilities and partnering the right people I mean you know you know. $400000000 is a lot of money but there is three and a half trillion dollars in The American Healthcare Care system right now and you will see it will grow above inflation inflation’s giving it a run for the money right now but you’ll see it’ll grow above because medications getting more expensive and there’s new medications.

 

32:57.46

Alejandro:

Yeah, yeah.

 

33:06.72

Allon Bloch:

People are getting older in America in general so that there’s more more issues as you get older and um, people have more chronic conditions. Um, so you’re fighting demographics that are making it more expensive. Um, but. But here’s the thing alejandro that people don’t fully realize as much as medicine is based on a scientific underpinning. It does not use data every day to get better if somebody goes a doctor complains about a headache and gets diagnosed with a sinusitis. And has some kind of complication and it’s not sinusides and that person goes to the rthe doctor who diagnosed and treated them and gave them a prescription and everything else does not learn from that. There’s no learning here from the data. The doctor is none the wiser if that. Identical patient came back the next day. The doctor would make the same mistake again. Why because a doctor doesn’t get an update about this. It takes 1020 years and even that I’m not even sure it always gets look how many times in the you live in Connecticut how many times lyme disease gets up.

 

34:17.15

Alejandro:

And all the time all the time.

 

34:18.00

Allon Bloch:

Misags in America why you know and so I’m I’m just pointing out that um these things are um, ah there is a gap between people’s perception of doctors as heroic and super experience we say are um, versus. Their ability to have information in the fingertips so building a system that can learn. So I said to you about k about an information system came d about our services and the ability to resolve your problem right now. 24 7 or refer you if we need to um the ability to provide you the connection to offline which is stuff we’re building. And then the ability to learn from the data and to build something that’s slightly more personalized for Alejandro or anybody else.

 

35:01.25

Alejandro:

Okay, so let me ask you this if I put you to and into a time machine and I bring you back in time you know just to finish it off you know with this last question that I typically ask the guest that come on the show and I put you you know back in time where you were you know let’s say involved in your first rodeo. Know I’d say with Wix you know and and you had the opportunity of giving yourself one piece of advice before you know, embarking on that on that business. What would that piece about what would what would that you know piece of advice that you would give. You know to your younger self and why given the wealth of knowledge that you have now after everything that you go through what would that be.

 

35:40.54

Allon Bloch:

That’s an interesting question. Um.

 

35:48.70

Allon Bloch:

It’s all around. It’s all about the people truly so and it’s all about a handful of people who will be there when the shit hits a fan whether it’s investors or partners or your key employees this matter if they’re super senior or not. Those are the people are going to matter. Um, you know that’s one thing I would do and 1 thing I would say and the other thing is you need to trust your instincts There’s no playbook for everything you can’t call up bill gates and say hey Bill. What would I what would you do it doesn’t work that way. Everybody needs to figure out their own industry and you know the the other thing I’d say if you look at the stuff I’m tackling these are massive industries enabling you know hundreds of millions of small businesses to operate efficiently online enable um, you know people to to buy these massive. Expensive assets called cars enabling people to deal with say health care and medicine. Um, if these things work out. They will be way bigger than what my excel plan for 2 years from now will be It’ll be way bigger. Not it will be decades I think these things take long time. These are hard things to do. You need to get the services right? The software right? The data right? The marketing right? You know the the engagement was health care but in order to do all these things if it works out these things will be massive and that you’re starting to see this in certain companies. Um, but I think this is where. You know it’s never uber never replaced just taxis right? That’s the wrong way to look at it is you need to find people that will have the right way to look at it in the and the right kind of horizon to to to enable that um and you know yeah luck plays an important part of this, you need to be lucky. Market timing. You know, etc. The 1 thing I’d say that people overstate his competition unless somebody comes with a cracker jack product that works amazingly well and sucks out all the oxygen in the room Google into search for example, then you really need to worry about Google. Most of the time you need to worry about market inertia people are not going to trust you, they’re not going to believe you they’re not going to hear about you if they’re going to be here about you. They’re not goingnna try it. You know that is this thing that you need to break through even with the great product. You know. So hopefully that gives you a sense of of the things i.

 

38:08.98

Alejandro:

Absolutely that was fantastic. So so for the people that are listening alone. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

 

38:18.72

Allon Bloch:

Um, Linkedin Twitter um, I don’t post a lot but you know people send me a lot of stuff so you know, um, you know at alon block and and and and my Linkedin um, you know and you know I do I do. Look at a lot of stuff I don’t always respond don’t always get to everything but you know I do respond to a lot of cold stuff that people send me. So um, you know and it’s if people take take the time and and think of something to say and and why it’s relevant for me I will respond you know? um. I’ve hired a lot of people that way and I’ve met a lot of people that way so you know I like the serendipity.

 

38:57.80

Alejandro:

Amazing! Amazing I love that well alone. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today.

 

39:04.17

Allon Bloch:

Thank you all a hunt for having me and thanks for your time.

 

 

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