Thoughtful hiring and progress in the healthcare industry with Ami Kumordzie of Sika Health

Maren Kate
Welcome to Talent+Tech. Today I am very excited to have Ami Kumordzie as our guest. Ami is a graduate of Stanford Medical and Business Schools and is currently the Founder and CEO of Sika Health. She was previously a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group focused on the health care sector. Ami, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

Ami Kumordzie
Thanks for having me, Maren.

Maren Kate
So what was your first job?

Ami Kumordzie
Oh, so my first job was at a company called McMASTER-CARR I took this job coming out of undergrad at Johns Hopkins, even though I was pre med, and I knew I was going to medical school, eventually, I wanted to have a different experience. And this was a job that allowed me to have an experience in management, even though I was coming straight out of school and really had no work experience. But I'm really glad that I took the job. And that it gave me a great opportunity just to learn about what it's like to manage and lead, especially if you're not the most experienced person in the room, and you're early on in your career. And I think some of those lessons I take even in my day to day here at Sika Health where I'm really focused when it comes to hiring on finding people who are great at what they do, and kind of getting out of their way. Right, and empowering them to do the things that they do best. As long as I'm continuing to set that mission and that Northstar goal as a leader.

Maren Kate
So what were some of the experiences you had at that first role that informed you of the way you work and hire today?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, I think some of those experiences, one of the early things I actually I had to learn and how to master was how to how to give feedback, especially, again, in a context where, a lot of the folks that I was working with, who before me were people who've done their job, much longer than I'd been at the company, in some cases longer than I'd even been alive. So it really, when it came to kind of feedback and coaching and leading, it was less about sort of the technical things, and more about kind of meeting people where they are, taking a style where I was learning, what people's perceived strengths were, what were some of the things that they were working on, to better themselves in the role, and then serving almost as kind of a coach. And in that way, as I provided an approach to feedback, and that's very much something that I still bring to my day to day at Sika, kind of trying to meet people where they are letting them drive the conversation around goals and growth, and then being that support that helps them to move towards those goals quickly.

Maren Kate
Gotcha. And so going from that role, kind of, tell us the story of how you went from that job, to where you are now to founding Sika Health and especially, your experiences, both on the business and healthcare side, how did that bring you to where you are today?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of these things where, what's the phrase with dots only connect when you're looking back? I certainly, I don't know that, from that point, I would have planned the path that I've taken, but I'm really, really grateful for the path that I've taken. Ultimately, it started with going to medical school, that's been the thing I wanted to do my whole life was to become a physician and help people to improve their health. And I did that, I went to Stanford for medical school. And, even from the beginning, I started realizing that I was really somewhere between sort of frustrated and energized by some of the problems that I saw around me. Just things just didn't seem to work, things that seemed really simple, like, how do we communicate with each other, as physicians, we ended up using pagers and when the rest of the world who was using cell phones, things like how we share information about people's medical history, was done through faxing when the rest of the world was able to email and even things like how we pay for health care, accept payments in the health system, were just really outdated oftentimes, and it didn't happen at all. So it was just these experiences that made me realize that there was a lot of work to be done in healthcare on a systems level. And that is ultimately what I decided to dedicate my career to. Over the years, I sort of honed and refined that as I had different experiences going from management to management consulting, for a bit at BCG, Boston Consulting Group, as well as working in the medical device industry. And ultimately, I found a problem that I really cared about that was personally impacting me around how people pay for health care and realized that there was a lot of opportunity, even just in that space, and so decided to build a company around that.

Maren Kate
And is this your first time founding something kind of from the ground up?

Ami Kumordzie
It is.

Maren Kate
How has that been different than your previous work experiences? What challenges have you found? How did you decide to take the leap?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it ultimately came down to the fact that once I saw this gap in the market, I realized that if I didn't do it, no one else would. And, no one else could. And it was kind of just having that conviction that, I have the skills, I clearly see a problem. And, I'm hearing from potential customers and users that if I build this something great will happen, the world will have changed in a materially better way. So I think with with that conviction, I knew I had to do it, How is it different? There's no safety net. Yeah, actually, when I quit my job about a year ago, now, I knew that I was going on a journey where it was up to me, I wasn't going to have a manager who would tell me how to do things or support me, and how to think about decisions, I had to create that opportunity for myself, even creating the opportunity to fund the business, but at the same time, the fact that there was no safety net, that is the thing that, I think makes startups work, there's no going back. So it's a matter of finding the path forward, and just continuing to take one step at a time, until, we've solved this problem that we've set out to solve.

Maren Kate
So tell me about your team, do you have co founders, are you a solo co founder?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, so I am a solo founder. But one of the things that I've done is really tried to find incredible people to bring on to our kind of core founding team, including people who are leading really critical assumptions for the business, so on the engineering front, on our kind of sales and go to market front, as well as on the operational front. And that was really important to me, and that, I wanted to create a kind of a core group, of people who are really experts and can really drive and own own their functions in the business and together as this sort of core founding team start to chart the path towards solving the problem and building a product in the space that we're building.

Maren Kate
So I've done the solo founder thing before as well. And there's benefits. And there are some things that make it harder. And I've always been curious with people that do that as well. How did you attract the initial team? Like, what was your talent acquisition strategy?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, it's a great question. I think, I wish, I had a strategy, to be honest. Ultimately, I think it was I knew that I needed to really bring a personal touch to talent acquisition and to hiring. Because, that was the way that I'd be able to differentiate myself. And this company and the opportunity here from, let's say, a name, your big tech company, where it's just the machine, right, and you're going through, five different screens with a bunch of different recruiters and just going through this kind of process in the pipeline. So part of the way that I differentiated myself, I did a lot of personal outreach. Sometimes it was cold outreach. Sometimes it was sort of warm networking outreach, but regardless I made sure that I was the first touch point with every person. And I spent a lot of time with people that I had a very low threshold to, like, meet people for a coffee, and to have conversations that were not just about, here's the job, and here's the role, but like getting to know each other and understanding how we tick and what our background and experiences were, like, are like, and through that starting to get a sense of how we might work well together. And so I think that, for me is kind of the the major thing that helped. And it's something that I still continue to do it given that we're still very early, is making sure that I'm really, really heavily involved and we're bringing that personal touch to every stage of the hiring and every role that we're hiring for.

Maren Kate
I realized i just skipped over this, but can you just kind of explain to people that aren't familiar what you all do? And the business model and how you're approaching it?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, absolutely. And I sort of glossed over the streets. I'm glad that we get to come back to it. So the company is called Sika Health. And you can think of us almost as a Stripe for health care. So Stripe for health payments. So what we're doing is we're building a payment technology that allows any merchant to be able to accept funds from your health plan as a form of payment. And where we’re starting is, a special part of your health plan, that includes your HSA health savings account, or FSA, flexible spending accounts, these are accounts that contain your own money that is, again, allocated towards being able to use towards your health, the problem that we found is a lot of merchants, merchants that sell different items that you can buy with your health plan that you'd buy oftentimes don't even know that they can accept these funds as a form of payment. And even if they do really struggle to accept these funds, because of the way that , as with most things in healthcare, these funds are regulated. And so by building this payment method, we are able to clearly provide that way for them to accept those funds, and on the other side for their customers to be able to spend those funds with these merchants.

Maren Kate
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And I think something you touched on is true. It's like health care does seem to always be lagging behind the other main buckets of the tech industry of startups. And why do you think that is? What have you seen in your experience? And do you think that's something that's going to change in the near future?

Ami Kumordzie
Yeah, it's such a great question. I don't know that I've fully wrap my head around why that is? I think some of it is, honestly, that the regulations and those regulations are for good reason. Right? So in the space that we're working in, there are good reasons why, these FSA and HSA dollars can only be used on certain products and not others. And that's because, they're meant with the intention of being used to help people to improve and invest in their health rather than, invest in things that go against their health. So, I think, ultimately, it does come down to regulations and sort of incentives and creating positive incentives for people to do certain things, and also maybe negative incentives for other other outcomes. Is it changing? I do think it is. And I think part of the ways that healthcare is changing is that it's becoming really driven by the consumer. It's, we're more and more, we're creating ways so that, folks like you, Maren, and I can kind of teach take charge of our health plans, take charge of the way that those funds, that oftentimes come out of our paychecks are used, and how they can be allocated and to invest in in our health. And I think that's a really positive trend. And that's honestly the trend that Sika is looking to get ahead of is as we as the consumer get to be the ultimate sayers, right, the ultimate, gatekeepers of how our health plans funds are used, creating an easy way for that to happen, and for ways for that to happen out in the wild, where we are, shopping, for different various products and services, rather than, kind of having to go through the bureaucracy of a health plan. So, I think there are, these changes are happening and they're happening, for the better.

Maren Kate
And it seems like a lot of it's being pushed by early stage, by startups, by founders. And then those changes eventually get adopted kind of en masse.

Ami Kumordzie
I think that's exactly right. And that's the beauty of working in this space is really, being able to kind of push the forefront, as well, as a lot of times, what we think about is how we can partner with the sort of big established companies that are already there, right to to kind of help drive change, from that end, as well.

Maren Kate
Looking back, when you very first started, what's something you wish you had known when you launched.

Ami Kumordzie
What’s something I wish I had known when I had launched? I think it kind of comes back to the focus of your podcast, and this conversation, which is, talent is everything, people are everything. So, investing in people early and often is what I would have told myself and what I wish I had known, even, to the point of, starting to build the team, earlier or starting to maybe looking for that co founder or, just learning and sort of reminding myself that to do anything, we need people, we need great people, and we need them to be excited and motivated to support the journey. So, maybe for every hour that I'd spent, building the product, or working towards kind of scoping, investing in, kind of team building and hiring, I really, I really think it's never too early.

Maren Kate
I couldn't agree more every time I think back about like, mistakes I've made or things it always comes down to like hiring the wrong talent, not attracting talent, not being aligned, I would say, it seems something we noticed is that healthcare in general, especially Health Tech, it's a place where a lot of candidates and job seekers want to go because I think they can clearly see that what they're building makes a difference. That being said, what would you say? What unique challenges do you face when it comes to hiring at this stage in your business?

Ami Kumordzie
Great question. I think I'll touch on on the last point first, which is that we've got a lot going for us, I think the the joy of what we're building in healthcare is that, everything that we're doing, and what we're building is sort of materially helping the world, helping people and kind of having a positive impact on the world. And so that really, does have an impact, and that follows through on the hiring front. In terms of unique challenges, I would just say that, you could just never, never hire fast enough, especially on the technical side with kind of engineering, especially, and even kind of product oriented talent, and especially someone, who, started a company without a more technical co founder, trying to early on assess, who would be the right, types of technical folks to bring into the room was really challenging. And, and even now, given that our product is, somewhere between a health tech product and a payments product and operates in this very highly regulated industry, that does create a lot of challenges in terms of how we build making sure that we're building with, security in mind really, really early on, from really, really early on, making sure that we're building with certain compliance standards around HIPAA, kind of healthcare privacy is around as well as around PCI and payments privacy. And so, I think, finding that way to build a product that's still really nimble, that still easy to onboard and easy to deploy in the world. But that doesn't compromise on security and privacy and these things that we expect from a healthcare in a payments product. And that all kind of flows through into the hiring decisions, finding people who have, a mix of the right experiences, but also just the right kind of mindset that they sort of understand the context and know when to cut corners and which corners we really can't can't afford to cut.

Maren Kate
Yeah, absolutely. That's a really important balance, especially in this industry. What would you say as you've been hiring and doing a lot of coffee, speaking to people, what do you see the best job seekers doing that most other candidates kind of maybe forget or overlook?

Ami Kumordzie
Oh, that is such a good question. I was actually thinking about this question, as I was speaking with a candidate earlier today, I think the best job seekers realize that hiring recruiting is a game of networking. It's not about how many applications, LinkedIn applications you can drop, or resumes you can drop, it really is a game of conversations, and starting kind of deliberately with, knowing focusing on what type of company, do I want to join? Or am I looking for? And then how can I find myself? How can I find the right and put myself in the right network, right, and get in front of the right people who can help me find those companies. So one strategy actually, that I think a lot of job seekers overlook, especially if you're looking for an early stage companies, networking within investors, that might seem counterintuitive, but that is actually one of the best ways to get in touch with exciting, up and coming early stage companies, right, because many of them are venture funded, and you probably want to go to the ones that are funded or maybe are, are looking to get funded really soon. And then using that to try to find opportunities and network your way in front of those those companies.

Maren Kate
I think what you're saying is so true, especially around the the idea of being tactical versus kind of spray or pray. We talked to somebody else, yesterday, that was talking about a book called The Happiness Advantage, which I actually haven't read. So I'm gonna put that on my list. But the gist is like, you do your best work when you enjoy what you're doing. And I think often, we and maybe it's just kind of, business culture has taught us this is it's the idea of applying a bunch of jobs and whoever gives you an offer letter and is within like, the range of salary you need. Just take that and then go back into the rest. And it seems like not only is that not a great way to manage your career, and to do meaningful work, but it also, I think, is a less effective way of getting hired. Some of the best hires I've ever made have been people that have reached out and been like, Hey, I saw this role was live or even if there's not a role, and I looked at what you're doing, I like what you're doing, I think I could help you solve XYZ problem. Here's my background, we'd love to chat. And that is still something that's done so rarely, like normally people will apply for 50 or 100 jobs, and wait to hear back versus maybe finding three to five jobs where you're like, I resonate with the company, I resonate with the mission, I think I could really make an impact at this company, doing these specific things because of this specific background. And then applying if there's a role open, but alsofollowing up being persistent, and really pitching yourself versus taking a more passive candidate experience. And I think most candidates take that passive experience, but those who are proactive about it, it's kind of a big lever you can pull because so few people do.

Ami Kumordzie
I completely agree. And to the point on spray and pray versus tactical, on the hiring side, it's very evident when someone is taking the spray and pray approach or has come to, that first interview or first conversation, having done their homework, being able to articulate what the company is, at the very least based on what's out there in the world coming in with thoughtful questions coming in with a hypothesis or proposal around, what they could bring to the company what they could bring to the role and you're so right that these tactics, are not only very valuable for for differentiating yourself, but actually are probably the things that we ought to be doing anyway, if you're getting the next 2,4,6, however many years into a company, it's to your own advantage as a candidate to do your homework and to be really deliberate and tactical about the steps that you're taking in your career. So, I definitely want to validate the things you're saying. And, we definitely see that in our hiring process.

Maren Kate
And it's like, I think job seekers come to it. Honestly, I think unfortunately, there's companies that will put job seekers through a lot of hoops or require a lot and then kind of drop the ball, like, we're all guilty of that at different times. So people tend to take the opposite approach of let's let's do quantity over quality. But I think especially in whether it's a tight labor market or an open one, it's just there's filtering on both sides, you can stay above the noise or cut through, it is really impactful.

Ami Kumordzie
Totally. Okay. I wanted to just highlight one thing that you said, it ties back to your question around, how do we differentiate ourselves? As I approached hiring, I don't think of hiring decisions in terms of yes or no, most of the time, it's either yes or not right now. And even if it's a not right now, every not right now could lead to a yes later. So , even just how you end a hiring, a recruiting conversation is so important, that person who's not right now could lead to an introduction to a future candidate or a future investor or future whoever customer so, I think really taking that personal approach, and really not being transactional about the process and experience, I think, is something that I think really has differentiated us and I think is, kind of sowing seeds already that are starting to bear fruit.

Maren Kate
Yeah, you have to invest in it early on and you never know where that's going to pop up down the line. It works on both sides, both candidates and employers. Okay. So I, I have a few final questions, which I always love to ask. My first one is, what is your favorite book or podcast in the last, say, six months? And it doesn't have to do anything with business? If you don't want it to.

Ami Kumordzie
I had thought of an answer, but I kind of want to change it now. I think actually related to our conversation, I'm going to change it related to our conversation. I didn't read in the past six months, but I thought about it a lot in the past six months. I read it a few years ago, but it's Never Eat Alone. It's a book by Keith Ferrazzi. And it's all about just networking and investing in people and relationships. And, treating every conversation you have not as a transaction, but as just a seed that you're planting for the future. So our conversation reminded me of that book. And it's also a book that I had kind of gone back to and thought about, even during this hiring process.

Maren Kate
I like that. I read that years ago, too. And I noticed that was something that some of the smartest people I knew when I lived in the Bay Area would always do. They would always book several coffees, several lunches, maybe happy hours and just get together with smart people they knew or, new hires, and it seemed to really just benefit both parties. I love that idea. Okay, and then what product or tool do you rely on to do your best work?

Ami Kumordzie
I'll be honest, I'm very analog. I'm very old school. And it's for me, my best tool is a pen and paper or a whiteboard. I'm someone who in the worlds of like digital and just always having this app or that app or this thing going on, sometimes putting pen to paper and saying okay, what are the three things that I need to get done today or putting up a whiteboard and sketching here's the vision that's been in my mind and kind of taking a picture and circulating that I honestly think , for me just helped so much with clearing my mind helping communicate ideas to my team. So I don't know I’m embracing my analog finesse it and sharing that answer with you.

Maren Kate
I'm actually very similar I have a legal pad as we're doing this interview, and I'm writing things down. Between my physical notebook I carry with me everywhere. And that captures most of everything. And then processing that and adding it to Notion we use Notion a lot. And that seems to be my best. I think no matter what it's just getting in a system and knowing what works for you. A book that I read years ago and have gone back to a few times is the Getting Things Done method by David Allen. I think it's an old book. It's 20 or 30 years old. But and it's not a super fun read. It's like a little bit of a snoozer, but the actual method of writing things down capturing your ideas, processing them, putting things in buckets, it's like no matter what you use, as long as you use that, it kind of optimizes for creativity, but also for getting things done.

Ami Kumordzie
I think that's right. And I think that's the macro method. It's just pick something and keep going keep using it. Especially the times where you want to veer off.

Maren Kate
Exactly. And then how can people find more about you follow you and find more about Sika Health.

Ami Kumordzie
Absolutely. So you can find us on LinkedIn, Sika Health, and you can also reach me just through our website, www.Sikahealth.com.

Maren Kate
Me thank you so much for being on the show.

Ami Kumordzie
Thank you so much for having us Maren