Lindsay Jurist-Rosner On Raising $80 Million To Change The Way Families Experience Care

Life’s journey is filled with unexpected twists and turns, molding us into the resilient individuals we are meant to become. In a recent interview with Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, the CEO and founder of Wellthy, we delved into the transformative experiences that shaped her path.

Her venture, Wellthy, has attracted funding from top-tier investors including Citi Impact Fund, Cercano Management, Rethink Impact, and Stardust Equity.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The experience at AdMob marked the inception of an entrepreneurial spirit, emphasizing the value of a dynamic and unrestrained environment for fostering innovation.
• AdMob’s success and subsequent acquisition by Google in 2010 set the stage for an entrepreneurial journey, leading to the creation of Drawbridge, a pioneer in the mobile advertising space.
• The dual purpose of entrepreneurship: creating value through innovative products and fostering opportunities for individuals to grow and succeed beyond the founding venture.
• The divestiture of Drawbridge underscores the challenges faced by founders, emphasizing the importance of effective communication and decision-making in navigating complex situations.
• The latest venture, Samooha, addresses the need for intuitive collaboration tools in handling enterprise data securely, reflecting her continuous commitment to innovation.
• The advocacy for embracing diversity, particularly in the male-dominated tech landscape, encourages women to bring their true selves to the table and contribute to a changing paradigm.

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About Lindsay Jurist-Rosner:

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wellthy, Inc. a company dedicated to helping the 66 million Americans who are caring for their sick and aged loved ones.

Before Wellthy, Lindsay served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Simulmedia. Prior to Simulmedia, Lindsay ran Marketing Research at Machinima and worked in product and strategic marketing at Microsoft.

Lindsay has also worked in marketing at LA-based startup, Spot Runner; and ran the West Coast advertising and marketing relationships for the magazine, The Atlantic.

Lindsay has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics Research from Columbia University. Lindsay lives on the Upper West Side in New York City.

Connect with Lindsay Jurist-Rosner:

• F6S
• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• LyfeBulb

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Righty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmaker show. So today. We have a very exciting founder. You know she is really going to walk us through her journey as a founder you know building scaling financing all of that good stuff that we like to hear we’re going to be talking about building a category in addition to building a company. Racing Capital as a woman and then also what it’s like to be a social entrepreneur with impact. Obviously you know like while building a company. You also go through the personal journey to and blending both on how you maintain that balance so that’s some of the things that we’re gonna be touching on as well. But without furtherdo. Let’s welcome our guests today. Lindsey Yuri Rosner welcome to the show. So originally born in Pennsylvania Philadelphia so give us our walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Thank you Alejandra great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah, life was life was good I um, yeah I was born in Philadelphia lived in Philadelphia outside of Philadelphia with my mom. Um and my stepdad my parents got divorced when I was a young kid around four or five years old and so um I kind of grew up. By coastal I was um in Philadelphia with my mom and stepdad during the year and then did holidays and summers with my dad in Seattle Washington. So um I earned some frequent flyer status at a very young age. So.

Alejandro Cremades: And I and and I guess you know one thing that is very interesting is the uncertainties that you go through to ah growing up I mean I’m also the the son of divorced parents. So Obviously that that helps you. You know, even though it’s tough to deal with you know, those uncertainties. They really build you up as a person and obviously you’ve dealt with with many uncertainties too. You know that you have uncovered. Ah you know with family and situations I Guess how would you say that that has built you as a person.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah I think it I think it was definitely Formative. You know, um, tear point going through a divorce and having parents on different coasts and then you know later when my mom got diagnosed with um with multiple sclerosis MS You know I do think part of kind of. Going through some hardship you know, whatever that looks like in your younger years I Do think it helps with grit and resilience. Um, you know and wanting to you know, prove myself to make my parents proud and you know has it kind of a different. Yeah, different impact right? than maybe if you um, have a little bit more of a kind of stable or reliable kind of upbringing.

Alejandro Cremades: Absolutely now out of all things you decided to go to Columbia and study economics. You know what? what really got you into numbers and and also the business side of things.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah, well I got very focused on wanting to go to a college in a big city. So um, I’m a big city girl and so it was New York or um, you know Philadelphia you see I you know I liked l a so I looked at Youcla so I really liked the big city kind of aspect. So yeah. Loved my time at Columbia got into studying economics more so kind of for a general business. Um, understanding. You know I just in my early career I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with myself I didn’t know what? um my you know my career would would lead to and kind of. Wanted just a general understanding of business to be able to kind of go in whatever direction life took me.

Alejandro Cremades: And now marketing obviously has been a ah repeated pattern now that you have done in multiple companies such as Microsoft so that’s pretty amazing to be able to also see how super successful big companies operate because obviously this is different than the type of company that you’re.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah, yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Running today which hopefully one day will get there but but how do you think that that gives you perspective to as an entrepreneur when and you are like working in such a massive business and then you reverse back engineer to starting from nothing.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah, Well I Love I Love being out in front of our business I Love the marketing components and the sales components. It’s a lot of what I’ve done in my career and um I think it’s some of the most exciting work within a startup you know to be able to you know solve. Problems for clients and be able to articulate what those problems are and how the business can solve them um to help think about how to get the word out there about the company and how to impact more and more people. Um, you know it’s It’s sort of where I Love. Spending my time. So yeah, that’s definitely been a through line through my career and definitely a lot of what I end up getting joy from in my day to day work now here at wealthy running running the company.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously wealthy do is say the inspiration really comes from what you endured you know and the family you know by the diagnosis of your mother with Ms as you were ah pointing to work I mean you were literally living. Ah, double life. Um, because you were taking care of her. So I guess walk us through you know that journey to I’m sure it was not easy for you. But then also how it triggered you know the idea for what it would end up being wealthy.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah I mean my mom I mentioned in to your point I my mom got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was um, nine and and what that meant for her was that she started to lose some mobility so started to walk with a key and and walk with Walker and. Um, I just really I loved my mom I mean I guess most people do but I was very very close with my mom and um, hated hated seeing her struggling and and suffering and so as a kid you know just was wanting to help out more probably the most kids around the house and. You know helped helped her even you know a little bit with kind of her her you know her care needs and then yeah and then after college I moved home to to live with her and take care of her because her mobility had really declined and she just needed a lot more help doing just basic day-to-day things and so. Um, yeah in my twenty s I lived at home and I would get my mom up in the morning and help her with breakfast and help her get dressed and then I’d go into the office and slip home throughout the data helper and help her in the evenings and I did that for years and to your point it was this kind of secret double life. You know it’s not really. Cool or sexy to tell your friends or colleagues that you’re taking care of a parent. You know it’s different than talking about going to a kids soccer game on the weekend right? It just doesn’t kind of come up as easily and so it wasn’t really something I shared with people but it was.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Incredibly challenging. It was so stressful and so overwhelming and my mom’s care needs continued to evolve and I just was never quite sure if I was doing the right thing or doing enough and certainly kind of affording care and and accessing care was challenging and so um. Yeah, it was many many years of taking care of my mom in this kind of secret double life and then it was actually a moment when I was in business school when my mom needed a special she was in hospitalized needed a special procedure and it happened to fall when I had finals and so I was going to miss my finals and so I went around to my. Teachers and my peers my colleagues my friends and told them that I was going to miss. They were going to notice I was going to miss finals. My mom was sick. She’s actually been sick for a while she has a mess and it was this profound moment of connection. You know these people who I’ve known who had known who shared with me. That they were taking care of a loved one. You know a professor who takes care of their parent who dementia drives home 2 hours every weekend to help with groceries and cleaning around the house. You know a learning um team member of mine whose mom also has a mass and we had never we. But every morning together and never talked about the fact that both of us had parents with Ms. and so what I realized in that moment was just how big of an issue caregiving is and how nobody talks about it and how we don’t have any support or infrastructure. Um, and this is a growing problem and so I got very obsessed.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: With this as something that I wanted to try to solve for for families like mine. So I actually when I graduated from business school I was very um, inspired to do something but I didn’t have the nerve to.

Alejandro Cremades: So at what point do you decide to take action.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: I was working at Microsoft I didn’t have the nerve to quit I didn’t think I was ready to be a Ceo and founder. But I bought the domain name wealthy dot com in 2009. So yeah, like six years before I started working on the company. Um, so it took me 6 years of getting up the nerve and finally quitting my job and deciding to go off and do it. Um, and I certainly do maybe wish that I had done it earlier but everything happens for a reason so it was the right timing for us. Um, but yeah I knew it was this company this. Solution this problem was inside me I was living it and I was totally obsessed with solving it.

Alejandro Cremades: So why six years later I mean obviously you you already had this brewing you even you know, bought the domain as you were saying. Why do you think was that push that you needed to ah to get going. Okay.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: You know a hundred not to make this kind of a gender related thing but I do actually see this pattern more so with women than men where women don’t feel like we’re ready for things you know we see that you know women i’ve. Given women promotions at the company where they say I don’t know if I’m ready for the job men and this is overly generalizing right? We see women who are different than this men who are maybe more hesitant but you know just to overly generalize you know I think for whatever reason. I felt like I needed preparation and so I went about preparing to start wealthy so I went to work for this serial successful entrepreneur in New York City this guy named Dave Morgan amazing man mentor of mine and because I felt like I needed to see up. Close what it looked like to be a serial successful entrepreneur Ceo and so I went to work for him I was his head of marketing and became his chief of you know, kind of filled this sort of chief of staff role kind of running the executive team meetings and got to see what it was like to be a Ceo and and he’s he’s a very effective 1 and just it built my confidence you know I I would watch him and think to myself I can do what he’s doing I I feel like I have the skills and so just gaining that confidence and comfort and then when I went to quit ah Dave you know was the consman entrepreneur and he said.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: I’ll keep you on the payroll for a couple months and give you a head start and I’m proud of you and you’ve got this and you’re going to go change the world and so he gave me that kind of push and nudge that I think I probably needed. So um, yeah I actually felt like I used the time productively.

Alejandro Cremades: So what were the early days like so obviously here you are you give the notice you have the head start. You know you so nice that you got two months of payroll. What did you do next? okay.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah, you know Dave Morgan the the entrepreneur who I was working for. He said something to me which was you know don’t start anything right away. He said I’m going to keep you on the payroll but I want you to go and learn take your time. Talk to as many smart people as you can read as much as you can um and absorb yourself in the problem talk to you know start just rolling up your sleeves and supporting families and learning what it looks like but don’t actually start a business. And it was the best advice ever I spent a good probably 6 to eight months in that learning discovery mode and I was busy. You know I was I was booking full days spending time with. Professors and ceos and investors and people on all sides of the ecosystem and reading books on how the health care system works you know I didn’t come from health care professionally had a lot of experience personally um, but that time was invaluable and and Dave had said you’ll never get this time when you’re building the business. And so take the time upfront and it was in valuable time and so then when we started building the business. Um, you know we were really clear on what’s the problem statement where is our direction. What are kind of the avenues we want to pursue and we had a lot of kind of structure and focus.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Potentially more so than maybe if we hadn’t taken that time.

Alejandro Cremades: So I guess for the people that are listening to really get it. What ended up being wealthy. What is the business model. How do you guys make money.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Oh yeah, so the business is you can think of us sort of like a care concierge so virtual delivery model for supporting families with complex chronic and ongoing care. Um, so imagine you know you have the parent and they’re dealing with. Ah, chronic condition or aging related issues or you have a child with a complex care need what we see is that it’s very difficult, especially in the Us but this is a global issue but it’s very difficult to navigate and and manage care and so um, what we do is you know, almost the same way you might work with financial advisor right? Someone who’s. Partner for you in not only providing guidance and expertise but going and getting things done setting things up, We do that for families. Um with complex Health care so understanding What the options are so things like finding in home aids or helping to make a move into a long-term care facility Navigating. Insurance options ah finding providers and scheduling Appointments. You know, really everything in between and our business model is that we actually sell into and partner with employers for the most part although we are working with Health insurance companies as well. But companies cover the cost of wealthy as an employee benefit. Which is truly a win-win. You know? So if you know you can imagine if you have an employees dealing with complex Care. They’re missing work. They’re distracted at work. They might even have to quit all their job altogether to be able to provide them with support and really help them set up infrastructure so that they can show up to work be their best self be their you know.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Focused and productive. It’s game changing. It’s life changing for for employees and this is a topic that’s impacts women people of color and people on the lower end of the income spectrum with more severity and so especially for companies that talk and care a lot about Deni and attracting retaining women. You know the topic of care is is you know you can’t you can’t ignore it.

Alejandro Cremades: So here and only you have the challenge of building a company from nothing but then also building a category. How do you go about that.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Yeah I I love the question because I don’t know that we set out to do that? Um, but it’s where we found ourselves. You know the the category you know the care economy is valued at $6000000000000 it’s like massive 6 times the size of the pharmaceutical industry. It’s bigger than the gdps of Germany and Japan right? like it’s massive the care economy and care economy is all this stuff outside of the health care system right? So it’s like child care and senior care. It’s all this stuff that um. You know I think many people think of as kind of social issues right? But it’s actually valuable work and so um, what we’ve really tried to do is raise awareness raise urgency around the care topic listen we have massive demographic shifts happening especially over the next. Ah. Several years and decades large aging population living longer than ever before with more complicated care needs. We have shrinking supply of care providers and professionals to support this massive aging population and so we’re setting ourselves up for really. Ah, very challenging societal impact that will impact all of us every single one of us at some point and so yeah, you know part of building wealthy was getting people to care about this larger caregiving issue and topic and so you know we we.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: We work hard. We’re raising awareness of the larger topic and selling the value of wealthy kind of all at the same time so it does feel like it’s um, you know, extra extra work. But we’re happy to do it right? like it’s we’re very mission driven as a business and so. This is part of just having the impact we want to have so we’ve raised just under $80000000 um, you know through our our series b um.

Alejandro Cremades: And how much capital have you raised to date.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: And have a really diverse and wonderful set of investors institutional investors and um Angels and um and some strategics as well.

Alejandro Cremades: Now How has it been the experience of you know being perhaps one of the only women in the room you know unfortunately and that’s changing by the way and I’m so glad that that’s the case. Ah, but I’m sure that raising money you know as a female founder was not easy.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: In the early days it was really hard. It was really hard because we were talking about First of all a female founder first time founder and talking about a business that mostly solves a women’s issue so I would be in rooms and.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Just it was just the nature. You know back in 2015 2016 2017 when we’re raising seed see dollars. You know I’d be in rooms with all men by the way mostly white men too. I mean we’ve seen so much more diversity which is great. Um, but it was really challenging because I would hear from then you know I would I would pitch. People on on the business and they’d say to me like yeah, it’s a huge issue you know I see my wife my wife you know my wife doesn’t work. She’s full time taking care of our parents and it’s really stressful and challenging for her. So. It’s very hard for kind of those um you know. Traditional kind of white male investors to relate to the need and the problem. Um and then just as a female founder. You know it’s hard for hard for them to relate it just you know I didn’t resonate for sure and you know they had to believe. Me and believed that there was a massive category and a massive opportunity a massive tm and that we could go execute and it was hard. Um, and so we yeah we struggled in the early days and then it was pretty amazing because things flipped pretty radically once we started just to get. Where the story was less believing the vision and it was more you know showing our growth rate showing our clients showing margin expansion showing our ability to deliver on what we had said we were going to do and then all of a sudden things got easier for us and so.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: I Don’t know what the lesson learned there is. But if you can persevere through those earlier stages. Even if you’re kind of a you know a unique or you know in a different segment or or a different type of founder. Um, you, you know once you can prove traction things do get easier.

Alejandro Cremades: Now you were talking about vision there and by the way I’m I’m so excited that that you’re saying that things get easier and that obviously things are changing during the in the venture landscape as they as a girls dad myself I have 3 3 daughters so you know hats off to you for paving the the way for.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Now.

Alejandro Cremades: For all the female founders out there I Guess you were talking about it earlier you know vision you know, quick question there if you were to go to sleep tonight lindsy and you wake up in a world where the vision of wealthy is fully realized what does that world look like.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: And there’s there’s this future state of wealthy that is everybody has access to a wealthy and by the way doesn’t have to be wealthy could be a competitor by all means but everybody has access to ascend. Essentially a health care partner Healthcare care Advocate. You know in the Legal system. We see you know everybody has access to a public defender right? If you’re if you’re dealing with a legal issue Even if you can’t afford to hire a lawyer and so there’s a similar concept here I Do believe that everybody deserves. Support and help navigating care through a complex care situation and um to be fully realized I’d love to see every single not just American by the way and this is not just an American issue. The American system is uniquely complex but we see care challenges around the world. And you know, shifting shifting demographics and families Struggling. So I would love to see everybody having access to a solution like ours.

Alejandro Cremades: So Lindsa You’re ah you’re a mom you are a wife you’re a friend too many too. How do you balance it. You know because obviously here you are riding a rocket ship you know which is not Easy. So How do you go about balancing. All of these balls up in the air at the same time.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: It’s really hard I mean I um I hear people talk about balance and I just don’t think that there is I don’t know that I’ve cracked the code on balance. Um, but yeah I think you know becoming a mom and having a family. And going through care has taught me how to be just um, fiercely protective of my time with work. So um, you know I try to be really structured with my days you know doing meetings during certain times and I have hours of my night that I catch up in emails. Um, but I work fewer hours than I did before having a family certainly on the business and so it means that the time that I do work has to be bigger impact. And so yeah, there are certain things that I just don’t get to and I have to be just really focused on prioritizing and getting to the right stuff at work I think that’s just the reality I just work fewer hours but I work probably I would argue higher quality hours than I used to when I didn’t have to kind of focus and prioritize so much and then yeah. Family fills my family and friends fill my film a cap and so I make time and I love it and it makes me feel like when I do when I am present at work I’m more present than just you know, fully devoting myself to work. So i. Do highly recommend it I think there is this concept that um entrepreneurship is for the young and.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Childless and single and um I’d argue I Think there’s a lot of benefit to um, you know having a family and and by the way it makes me relate to my colleagues who have families in complex personal lives. Um, probably better than I could before. Before when I was a single you know entrepreneur.

Alejandro Cremades: I Hear you now work. We’ve we’ve been talking to about the future but I want to talk about the past but doing so with a lens of reflection. So imagine I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time I bring you back in time to perhaps the moment where.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Um, yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: You obviously had this idea already brewing and you know you were eventually going to do something about it. Ah, but you have you did not take action yet but you were about to do so and let’s say you are now able to just go right there next to your younger self to that younger Lindsey and and you’re able to give. That younger self one piece of advice. What would that be and why given what you know now which is almost ten years in which is unbelievable.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: I I think I would tell myself. Um, it’s It’s sounds so stupid. But I just not to sweat the small stuff. You know it’s funny like those early days. You know you. Every rejection every you know employee who doesn’t work out every kind of smaller decision point feels so big. Um, and and so meaningful in those early days and um I think I would just try to tell myself to. Mean There’s just so many ups and downs every single minute of every single day in building a company and I’ve just learned over time how to weather those ups and downs much better. So They don’t impact me and I can be kind of calm and steady through whatever kind of happens with the business. But. Yeah I struggled with that in those early days you know feeling because building wealthy was so personal to me, you know it was my life’s work. It was what I was put on this planet to do and so you know an investor who told me you’ll never make it. You know that would impact me and penetrate and so I wish I could. Ah, have thicker skin and not sweat the small staff and know that it would just put my head down do the work and it’ll all work out.

Alejandro Cremades: And how how how do you go up because I mean it’s iss obviously easier said than done and and it’s really profound what you’re sharing here. You know the apps and the downs. Obviously the apps are amazing, but the downs are my god they can be really low. So I guess after being. You know for close to 10 years as we were saying you know riding this ship. What have you really learned about yourself or or or really learned about being with whatever moment or event or a low. You know that you had in front of you how how do you how. What have you learned in that in that journey of discovering yourself too.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: I think it’s just perspective right? like you know, being you know through the journey of wealthy I lost my mom I lost my mother in law I got married I had a baby you know and so like you know. I think sometimes when you’re in the kind of you know in the weeds of building a company. It’s harder to see kind of the bigger picture and some you know so much I think of what I’ve gone through over the years personally and professionally has just given me bigger perspective on. What really matters and so it’s the day-to-day the day-to-day ups and downs aren’t as meaningful as kind of those you know I I have better perspective on what’s really important you know personally and and with the business those moments that actually matter versus. You know the things that will you know, just time will heal and will move on and I think just time and perspective um helps with those things.

Alejandro Cremades: I Love that so linsey for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Oh please do yeah lindsy at wealthy and um emails always good for me. Um l I n DSAY at w e l l t h y dot com reach out. Please I’d love to connect.

Alejandro Cremades: Is he enough? Well liny. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us today.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner: Oh thank you so much for having me so much fun.

*****

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