{"id":28313,"date":"2022-08-16T15:36:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T22:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/?p=28313"},"modified":"2024-06-12T18:54:35","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T01:54:35","slug":"a-conversation-with-goodrx-co-founder-co-ceo-doug-hirsch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/a-conversation-with-goodrx-co-founder-co-ceo-doug-hirsch\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with GoodRX Co-founder & Co-CEO Doug Hirsch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s no secret that in the United States, our healthcare system is a source of endless aggravation and unnecessary pain and suffering for many members of our society. For the next episode of the Leadership Lessons <\/a>series, Comparably Co-founder & CEO Jason Nazar had a talk with Doug Hirsch, Co-founder & Co-CEO of GoodRx<\/a>, a wellness company with a mission to help Americans get the healthcare they need at a price they can afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 2011, the company continues to expand its efforts, and now encompasses more of the healthcare journey from prevention to diagnosis and treatment. GoodRx estimates they have already saved health care consumers 30 billion dollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hirsch has had an extraordinary journey on the way to GoodRx. As one of the first 30 employees at Yahoo!, he conceived and managed its earliest online communities including GeoCities and Yahoo! Group! And he gained experience raising rounds of capital from top-tier VCs when he founded DailyStrength \u2013 which was acquired in less than three years by Sharecare, a health destination founded by Dr. Oz, Discovery Communications, and Oprah Winfrey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone’s got a story of how the healthcare system has just fallen short for them. And my job is to plug those holes,\u201d Hirsch says of his current mission with GoodRx. \u201cOur health care system takes no prisoners. And it will take anybody down with the extraordinary prices that consumers are forced to pay when insurance isn’t paying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over and over during the talk, Hirsch consistently reveals that he\u2019s one of today\u2019s most passionate and driven leaders, with a clear mission that could not be more urgent or important. Here are 10 essential leadership lessons Hirsch related during the hour-long conversation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) The healthcare system as-is harshly penalizes the uninsured, but there are methods to help them with their outsized hospital bills<\/strong>. These resources include a number of nonprofit entities that will help the uninsured negotiate, as well as a number of companies with services that help those without coverage with the coding of the bills and actually negotiate on their behalf to reduce the cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) It\u2019s a common trait among entrepreneurs to be deeply insecure. <\/strong>Hirsch told me that he finds it\u2019s also unfortunately common to find outwardly successful people who are deeply unhappy, but that keeping things in rational and humane perspective is essential throughout your career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Control your own destiny as long as you can, and that means don\u2019t depend on outside investors until you\u2019re at the point where you need to.<\/strong> \u2013 With the help of resources like Shopify, it\u2019s not nearly as expensive as it used to be to get something started, and Hirsch told me he\u2019s a big fan of trying to go as far as you can by yourself before you raise money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) As in investor, look for someone who is solving a tangible problem and is not going to stop until it\u2019s solved.<\/strong> \u2013 Hirsch says then when he\u2019s invested in the past, it\u2019s because he\u2019s been intrigued he\u2019s by someone who’s doing something that feels like an opportunity that the world hasn’t exploited, and how clearly they can draw the line from the problem to the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5) Management begins with surrounding yourself with the right people.<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cI want to be surrounded by people who are here because they want to be here,\u201d says Hirsch. \u201cI don’t want to be surrounded by people who are here because they care about what we’re doing.\u201d Shared passion is the key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6) It\u2019s important for leaders to remember, especially during such continually uncertain times, that your employees are often putting a lot of stock into anything you say.<\/strong> \u2013 Hirsch tells it\u2019s his natural way to be \u201csort of negative\u201d and to shoot holes in new ideas the best he can. But he\u2019s learned that employees can sometimes take everything a leader says to heart and parse it needlessly, so he or she has to manage their tone carefully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

7) It can be a challenge for a leader to keep his or her eye on what\u2019s important once the company has gone public.<\/strong>  \u2013 There\u2019s a lot of other \u201cstuff\u201d that comes along with being a public company, and not all of it might be as fulfilling as the things you did to get to that point. But stay on target with that original mission: \u201cThe day we went public, the company didn’t change,\u201d Hirsch says during our talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8) Curiosity drives entrepreneurship.<\/strong> \u2013 Hirsch says he started down this path in life in order to satiate his never-ending curiosity. \u201cEven though we’re a bigger company now,\u201d he says, \u201cthere\u2019s just so many different ways that we can continue to attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9) Not everyone wants to – or is meant to – be an entrepreneur.<\/strong> \u2013 It sounds cool to lots of people to be a real-life entrepreneur, but you\u2019ve really got to be the kind of person who constantly looks for better way to do things. \u201cWhen you’re drinking a soda and you’re looking at it and thinking about a better way to design those cans?\u201d Hirsch joked. If so, you may have the right spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10) A great co-founder is one who is interested in other parts of business than you are.<\/strong> \u2013 It\u2019s absolutely invaluable to have someone with you on the journey who is at your level, a co-pilot as you go through the process or starting a business. And it\u2019s especially good to find someone who is naturally drawn to a different part of the business than you are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more from Nazar’s talk with Hirsch, watch the full webinar here<\/a>. The growing collection of episodes from our series<\/a> gives readers access to the best practices of successful CEOs from the biggest brands, including Foot Locker, Heineken, Headspace, Zoom, Chipotle, Warby Parker, and ZipRecruiter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that in the United States, our healthcare system is a source of endless aggravation and unnecessary pain and suffering for many members of our society. For the next episode of the Leadership Lessons series, Comparably Co-founder & CEO Jason Nazar had a talk with Doug Hirsch, Co-founder & Co-CEO of GoodRx, a wellness … Read full-story <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":28314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"articles-list.php","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2474],"tags":[19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28596,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28313\/revisions\/28596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}