[00:00:28] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to the First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Chris Molaro. He is the CEO and co-founder of Neuro Flow, creating a happier and healthier World. Chris, it's been a long time coming in, my friend.

How are you?

[00:00:42] Chris: Jay, what's up? I'm doing 

[00:00:43] Jay: Oh, all right. Well look, we'll, let's get this outta the way. thank you for your service being in the Army. I appreciate that. we wanna talk about that a little bit. we did talk about you being a Giants fan. I'm a huge Eagles fan. We are gonna say thank you for your service for Saquon as well.

Like I said, I would. but other than that, tell me, man, where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:01:04] Chris: so I grew up on, in Queens, New York, and then Long Island. So New York. That's hence the Mets fandom and the Giants fandom. And you know, I'm just, I'm unfortunately a New York sports fan these days 'cause we'd. We do nothing but lose. but yeah, I mean, a big, a big impact to being an entrepreneur. I didn't appreciate at the time, my family, you know, we're, I'm the first person to go to college in my family, but my grandfather and my dad owned a construction business, a flooring business.

And, you know, they were laborers. they went and installed floors, but it was their own business. And I think learning from them, seeing how they did that, I didn't even know it at the time. I think it. It got the entrepreneurship bug in me.

[00:01:47] Jay: How did they feel about you going into tech instead of, you know, being a guy working with your hands and blowing out your back by the time you're 45 years old or whatever?

[00:01:57] Chris: I think they're thrilled by it. 

[00:01:58] Jay: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:01:59] Chris: they're like, awesome. go to go to college, get it paid for. And you know, I think maybe they were more confused about why the army than entrepreneurship.

[00:02:06] Jay: That's such a great segue. I. You almost knew that I was gonna ask that. tell me about the army. I mean, when did you go, were you a teenager? Were you young twenties? Like, when did you go in? Why did you go in instead of going, you know, and doing a career first? What made you go into the army?

[00:02:20] Chris: You know, I was 13 years old when nine 11 happened and we lived, you know, within commuting distance in Manhattan. And so. friends that had parents that were affected, that some were killed, and we all were affected by just the change of lifestyle and so forth. But you had this jolt of patriotism back then, and I was in eighth grade at the time, and, you know, that combined with, I was literally the first person to go college out of my immediate family.

And so my dad was like, you know, you're doing great in school. We're proud of you, but. You have to rethink the schools you want to go to because we can't afford like these expensive private schools. And that's when I learned about ROTC programs, which provide scholarships to go to college. but you have to serve in the Army afterwards or the Air Force or Navy.

and then upon learning that, learned about the academies, was fortunate enough to get into West Point. I figured if I'm gonna do the military thing, whether through ROTC or West Point, might as well do it through the place that's made for that. And, had a phenomenal experience, at West Point.

Had a, have an engineering degree from there and learned about leadership and 22 years old, found myself as a commission lieutenant in the army.

[00:03:33] Jay: And when did you decide to go back to civilian life and did, I mean, was there any thoughts of being a lifelong army guy or were you like, this is gonna serve a purpose to get me to somewhere else?

[00:03:46] Chris: I don't think anybody's ever asked me that in like an official capacity like this. I love the question I.

For me at least, and I don't know how other people feel about this that are in a similar position, whether ROTC or West Point. But for me, I was very open-minded about it. Like to me, I didn't want to, I didn't wanna go to West Point be an officer just to get out after five years, or six years it was for me.

but I also didn't want to say I'm doing nothing but. Serving in the military for a career. I had a really,great teacher, professor, a mentor of mine who's now actually on the board of Neuro Flow, Brigadier General Bernie Banks, who gave me the advice when I was thinking about what to do for a career.

He said, run to something not away from something. Far too many people get out of the army because the grass is always greener on the other side, and then they regret it. They miss it. And so I made a commitment that to myself while I was in the Army serving, I would try to be the best dang leader I could.

I mean, my, the soldiers that were in my command under, you know, when I was a platoon leader, deserved that from me. and then I would only get out if. There was a plan and a promise to do something on the other end, and so that decision wasn't made until I, I was accepted into Wharton and I made that transition at roughly six years of active service.

[00:05:10] Jay: What do you think was something, you know, that you did in the military, whether it was

leadership or something else that. Didn't translate today to being, a CEO. You know, I think the obvious question is like, well, what did you, what's something that you brought from the military into, but like, what is something you had to leave behind that, you know, maybe didn't fit in corporate America, that you kind of, that was the way that it worked in the Army, right?

[00:05:35] Chris: You know, that's a tough question because so much of it does translate.

[00:05:39] Jay: Right.

[00:05:40] Chris: It really does. It's like crazy how transitional it is. I, you know, for a, I mean, the obvious is that we're not. Like our decisions here are impactful and important, and it could mean the life or death of the company, but like the stakes are so much different.

Like when I was combat in Iraq, like we've literally, we had loaded weapons, we were on combat missions, and the a mistake in that context could be difference or life and death. Human in our context. What that does for me actually is it helps me stay calm in a lot of environments. Like if we get bad news from a customer or there's a bug in our code or whatever, it's like, okay, we could figure this out.

No one's gonna die. we, you know, we're good to go. Let's just tackle this problem head on. so that's one thing. I don't think that's, that was a, that translated. The other thing that's been different is when you're. Dealing with people in the military. a lot of people think that the military is like Hollywood, like full metal jacket and you just yell and scream all the time and make people do pushups.

That's not at all how the military is, like that's maybe how basic training is, but the military is like you're just dealing with humans. So leadership is leadership regardless of what uniform you're wearing. but what is different is that. In the military, you're contractually obligated to follow orders and you are, you have to stay in the military.

Whereas at a business like ours, you know, anybody can leave at any time. And if they don't like what the culture and what they're a part of, you know, they can leave. Where in the military that flexibility's not there.

[00:07:17] Jay: That's a great answer. I love that answer. Which means that obviously you have to lead in a different capacity knowing that your people aren't, you know, gonna be court martialed or whatever if they leave. So that's.

Although maybe, you know, maybe you're good people, you'd want to like, keep on, hang on. You know, look, you can't leave.

But I appreciate it. all right, well, tell me about neuro flow. Where did the idea come from? You know, when did it start? You know, just gimme kind of the genesis,of where it came from.

[00:07:41] Chris: it goes back to the military days. I mean, I. There was, I mean, deployed to combat for a full year. A lot of soldiers were without their families. you know, we dealt with like being stressed, amplified in like this heightened state, almost 24 7. Anybody's gonna walk away from that being anxious, like a lot of PTSD.

and transitioning back home when we, our home base was in Texas. It was just a huge transition period and we, our unit lost a soldier to depression. He took his own life and, you know, that was just a huge tragedy that we look back on it and it, we learned that he never went to the therapist that he was referred to go to.

He never went to the pharmacy to get the medication he was prescribed

and no one ever followed up to see how he was doing. Was he improving, not improving and that sort of thing.

just that enormous gap in care was, I mean, frankly it was a leadership failure. It was a failure of the system, the medical system, and it was frustrating.

You know, the, and as technologists, you have to think that's where like tech and data and can remove the human error of missing that and make those gaps are filled. So that was the genesis of the idea.

[00:09:02] Jay: So tell me how you transformed that tragic situation into the idea of like, okay. there's a problem here, but this is, again, I talk to my friends about healthcare all the time, and I used to hate the healthcare space because I worked in it, as a, an interoperability and interfaces QA engineer, which is just as awful as it sounds.

It's just like, it is just all, it just numbers and data and it's

just, I mean, it's fine. It's just, and it's soured me a little bit. But then I started coming back around and talking to some of the people like you and, you know, some of the, like the over verity and they were just talking about. you know, the healthcare system obviously is broken in many ways. And, you know, you can equate it to a bunch of other giant social issues in America where just people feel helpless, like they can't fix it. Which is why I think I shied away from it so long is it's so broken. Like, just, I don't, I'll go work on any of these other things that I can actually have an impact on. And there, you know, what I have learned and come to appreciate is that there is space to improve. In small areas. Right. And not even small, like small being like millions of people compared to the entire healthcare system in general, which kind of feels like what you guys did, right? Like you picked a problem in this massive broken system and you went out and solved it.

So what, how did you identify that? Like there is a real. Tech thing that I can build or some solution I can make to kind of bridge the gap between, you know, your situation you were describing before into something where, you know, healthcare is more integrated with technology to, to kind of prevent situations like that.

[00:10:34] Chris: a lot of trial and error and a lot of learning, but it wasn't a, it wasn't this like aha moment that I had in the Army. It was just something that. You know, was more tragic in the moment and I've dealt with personally. And then it was years later that I, when I transitioned off of active service into the reserves and I was in Philadelphia, I moved to Philly for business school, I went to Wharton.

I was in a healthcare class called the Business of Healthcare. We're learning about all these new business models, like value-based care, mental health parity laws, and all the different issues with like 70% of people that have a diagnosed mental health. Illness, never get it treated. It's like nuts to me.

And then even crazier, over 80% of mental health providers never objectively track outcomes. It just goes off of like asking their patient how they feel. and you know, that lack of objectivity, lack of data, that lack of accountability candidly, was it reminded me a lot about my, the soldier time. And I, what it, what I, what was most elucidating to me was that this was not just a military thing.

This was, you know, I think a lot of times vets get typecast of, oh, you're the PTSD like group. And what I learned was, this isn't just a veteran thing, this is a, a human thing, but Medicaid, Medicare, urban, rural, men, women, it doesn't matter. Everybody's impacted by it. And that these problems are pervasive across the board, not just in the military.

Even though that was my, you know, my impetus for wanting to do and the. We didn't, we were never a, so my co-founder is a bioengineering PhD from Penn. That's how we met at Penn. And he, you know, we were never in search of a problem to solve. In other words, this gap in care access issues, quality issues were always there.

it was just a matter of how to solve that. And again, we've made a few pivots along the way. Way that we initially started to solve it was just talking to people that were actually on the front lines, delivering that care, therapists and psychiatrists and primary care providers, and saying, when you identify somebody that has mental health, what do you do when you see somebody that you're treating?

How do you track out? You know, just asking them how their current workflow is and where there are gaps, where there's like, what's their hair on fire problem? And that led us to build the first prototype of what we have. That was eight years ago or so, and you know, there been evolution since then.

[00:13:08] Jay: Well, did you guys, so tell me just a little bit about kind of the, that original, you know, you meet somebody that's obviously very smart and has a lot of, you know, medical knowledge and things like that. How did, what was the spark at least, or what was the conversation where like, we should do something together?

Like how did the co-founder kind of thing start.

[00:13:29] Chris: Ma'am. You know how sometimes they say it's better to be lucky than it is good. 

[00:13:32] Jay: Oh yeah, that's how, that's my life story, buddy. I know all about it.

[00:13:36] Chris: this is a quintessential example of that. So we, We did. His name is Adam Parus. We did not meet through a mutual friend or a connection. We didn't meet, because we were in the same program or class or whatnot. We happened to be at this like entrepreneurship event on campus that just, if you were interested in entrepreneurship, you went there.

So he was there. I was there. We met randomly. there happened to be a business plan competition that was going on like in two weeks, and we just started talking and we're like, do you wanna submit something? So yeah, we went back and forth on a few ideas. I told him, like, healthcare, to me, the idea of going into healthcare was attractive because when I was in the military, you were part of a mission that was bigger than yourself.

And being, I think in healthcare, it afforded the opportunity to. Be a part of something that was gonna be impactful to people society. So I wanted to focus on healthcare and, he was all about that too. And we submitted to this business plan competition and I mean, we didn't make it past the first round, but we found that we really liked, like doing like the, just the strategy behind it and put together a deck and a plan, was a lot of fun.

And we got along and, And that's how we met. And we just kept on getting to know each other better. And I think where I say we got lucky because there are so many co-founder stories of where that marriage goes south real quick,

and sometimes could pull apart a company. And you know, Adam and I are lucky that just the universe decided to bring us together at that point.

And we. Have the same value system. We see the world in a lot of the same way, but we also are different in a lot of ways. We compliment each other in what motivates me and motivates him. You know, he's a details guy that likes to get into the weeds. I'm not, I like to be more high level strategy vision oriented, and so we, reinforce the things that are important and we compliment the areas that need to compliment.

[00:15:36] Jay: Love that. All right. Well, who was the, what was the first kind of iteration of the platform and who was the first customer?

[00:15:43] Chris: Dr. Van Doran is a private therapist. You know, a lot of people would always say, oh, you're neuro flow. You're the vet's mental health company. And the funny thing is, we didn't start serving the military and the VA until five years into the company because. The DOD and the VA wouldn't touch us with a 10 foot pole because we were a brand new startup and we're unproven and stuff like that.

So our first customers were just private therapists in the Philly area that we would literally go knock on their doors and they'd say, oh, you're here for therapy. We're like, no, but do you have a few minutes? We'd like to just learn? And we weren't trying to sell them yet. We were trying to just learn what their workflows were and you know what kept them up at night.

What were their challenges throughout the day? And after doing that for about six months, we learned a lot and realized that this idea of objectivity and measurement based care kept coming up. They're like, you know, I only have to go off of what my intuition and my patient's telling me. I don't know how they're doing in between their appointments.

So we developed this system that could more effectively survey and measure outcomes related to their therapy over time and show them that graphically. And, we went back to Dr. Vandora and we said, here's the system we built. Would you like to use this in your practice? And, I still remember us invo, we invoiced through QuickBooks, believe it or not, back then.

And like the payment came through and I called Adam, I go, holy crap. We have our first pink, I can't believe it. And, you know, the rest is 

[00:17:17] Jay: It's a good feeling, isn't it? Your first paid invoice.

[00:17:21] Chris: It's a good feeling. It's like I can't believe it feeling. And

you know, now it's like, wait, now we actually have to provide value 

[00:17:27] Jay: gotta deliver. Now we gotta deliver. Now we have to,that's the kicker. now you have to, you know, do the stuff for the money you got. So, all right, well, who is your customer today versus who it was back then? Like, kind of just gimme the snapshot of like, you know, any major changes to the platform to where you guys kind of evolved to today.

So who are you serving today versus back then?

[00:17:47] Chris: Yeah, so back then again it was like these mom and pop single shingle providers, many that were out of. Network of insurance that there were cash pay and we, in terms of like the early adopters, we had to go to the people that were willing to be innovative, take a risk and they, like the provider or the clinician was also the decision maker.

So it was like just you could go there and sell them on the spot almost. we've used that. To build credibility and show the data and the outcomes and so forth to parlay into larger enterprise deals. And so today, you know, we, sell to enterprise healthcare customers. So, both health insurance companies like here in Philadelphia, independence, blue Cross, and, 

large providers and health systems like Christiana Care. the VA health system is a national customer now, and so much bigger clients, more complex, longer sales cycles, but also the opportunity to make a bigger impact in terms of the number of people that you're supporting and how the product has evolved.

both the product has evolved and the number of products we offer have evolved. We have four different products we offer today. we have a data analytics product we call BHIQ that looks at disparate data sources like claims data and EHR data to help identify mental health issues. we have workflow tools that will integrate into the EHRs and the claim, the care management systems, to help identify what the next best action is and coordinate the care.

so again, we're not delivering the care, but we have partners that deliver the care. We have a engagement platform we call Onward. That's, you know, think of that as a mobile app that has different support mechanisms on it, like, Mindfulness videos and journaling activities. And then we have an analytics product that measures the quality of care once it's being delivered, called treatment progress.

So all of those tie in together. We have some customers that use all four. We have some customers that just use one out of the four.

[00:19:51] Jay: if you had to start over tomorrow, and this isn't a what you would do differently question, but if you had to start over tomorrow, kinda same line of business, same problem you're solving,in 2025, what would be step one tomorrow to launching neuro flow?

[00:20:09] Chris: I think we tried to do.

I think in hindsight, we tried to do what was gonna be more sexy upfront, like the data we had wearables involved and so forth. And it was cool and people were like, wow, that's pretty neat. That's innovative, but it didn't, hit the bullseye in terms of solving a real problem or generating more revenue or cost savings and stuff like that.

So it. What we inadvertently did was we created a nice to have, not a need to have. And we realized that when like the A people wanted to use it, but when it came to, when it came time to writing the check to pay for it, they were like, eh, actually we're good. And so it, you know, Adam and I had a look in the mirror and we were like, okay, like what we're doing right now is exciting, but it's not working from a scaling perspective.

So let's go back to the drawing boards and figure out how we can. you know how we can reinvent that so that it actually solves a problem that is a hair and fire problem. And I'll just an example of eventually we found that we started working with a pain management clinic. So you think mental health, why pain management?

People that have chronic pain almost always have overlapping mental health issues. And if you go, if the mental health goes untreated. And unidentified the pain is not gonna get any better either.

And there were new insurance reimbursement codes that reimbursed pain managers, pain management providers to account for and treat the mental health as well as the pain.

So we went from our average contract size being like a thousand dollars a year to to our first pain clinic being over a hundred thousand dollars a year because they were able to make more money.

[00:22:05] Jay: On the services they were providing through our technology. And I mean, you don't need an MBA to know, like that's a, that's the scalable business model.

[00:22:13] Chris: So, I think we could have done things differently to get there quicker than what we did, you know, originally

[00:22:20] Jay: Well, I mean,

how do you keep up with all the healthcare stuff? I mean, like you mentioned, like those codes.

[00:22:26] Chris: yeah.

[00:22:27] Jay: That they were able to be reimbursed for, completely transformed your business, but you had nothing to do with those. Like you didn't make 'em, you didn't champion for 'em. You probably weren't on some committee that even talked about 'em.

how do you keep like tabs on all the shit that could like potentially affect what you guys are doing, especially today after you've grown, you got four lines of business. Like how are you staying on top of it today to know what's coming next or hope to find out what's coming next?

[00:22:51] Chris: So different answer for back then versus today. Back then, it was just a lot of curiosity. It was a lot of research. It was a lot of reading newsletters and. You know, listening to podcasts or webinars, a lot of it was asking our customers, like what they're seeing in the market and, you know, placing bets sometimes like this.

When these codes came out, it wasn't obvious that our tech could be applied to that. So we had to do some research, think about it, and then go to the, you know, some of the pain providers to talk to 'em about that. today. I, we still do that, but we have a team now that does that. Our, you know, our go-to-market team, our business development team, but we are actually leaning into influencing more.

We have, a lobbying arm and a government affairs arm that. DC that helps advocate alongside our customers and, and influences where the market's headed into, and, you know, has more value-based care and integrated mental health aspects of things. And so we get to be, I wouldn't say that in the driver's seat today, but we have a seat at the table so that we know more of what's coming down the pike that we could be excited about versus reacting to it, which is what we did earlier on.

[00:24:02] Jay: I didn't know that. so I'm. Gonna give my myself credit for that being an incredible question. That seemed to work. I mean, that couldn't have gone any better. That was great. That went 

from that. That was great. That was that. we all did good on that one. All right. we're coming up against it.

you know, I have one more question that I ask all my guests. It's a mystery question. it's a mystery question 'cause nobody knows it. And, I've had 250 episodes and nobody's known it, which means nobody watches the episode before. And I'm okay with that. So that's fine. Chris, non. Business related, you know, maybe even non, you know, healthcare related, just in general, what would you do?

if you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail?

[00:24:40] Chris: What would I do if I could do anything on Earth? And I knew I wouldn't fail,

man. I mean, my, my instinct is going towards like this whole. It sounds like a soapboxy answer, and I don't want to give that one. I,

I mean, I'll just give it whatever. It doesn't, the, I, coming from the army and the military serving in combat, I mean, this kind of hits home to me, right? And so if I can work with other leaders to get us to a place where we can, you know. we could put violence aside and work collaboratively with other countries and have peace on earth and not fail at that.

I mean, who wouldn't do that? If you, if I told you.

[00:25:33] Jay: a great answer. That's a great, I look, if it was like a guy who owned like a, I don't know, like a library platform or something that had nothing to do with it, I would be like, that doesn't make, but you lived through the violence and some of the stuff that people can't even probably imagine.

So, I think it's a fair answer and I think it's a great answer and I think it's. I, you know, look, you can't fail in this scenario, so whatever you want it to be is fine with me. So that works. Peace on earth. And honestly, I haven't gotten that as much as I feel like I would've gotten that I usually get like, go to space or like, you know, I don't know.

I've gotten a couple other good ones, but that's a good one. I think that's totally fair. And again, I think from your context and your perspective, that feels like, you know, a really, and it feels like what you're trying to kind of. You're trying to solve a lot of big things, man, and you've done a great job so far.

everybody I know loves you, especially people on your team that I know are, you know, they just love your leadership style and have nothing but great things to say about you. You built a great company in the city of Philadelphia that I know a lot of people know about because, you know. We happen to be partners on some things and, you know, nobody has anything but great things to say.

So keep up the great work. you know, I think it's genuine, which is why I genuinely, you know, am rooting for you guys to be successful. I don't think that this is like a cash grab or some way to just like, you know, do something in healthcare to get my, like you're really trying to solve problems that don't hit home for you and that, you know, I think that says a lot about you.

So, Chris, you're awesome. If anybody wants to reach out about anything they heard today directly to talk to you, how would they do that?

[00:26:59] Chris: absolutely. Well, Jay one, I appreciate that. I joke with people, I said if I wanted this to be a quick win, I wouldn't have gone to healthcare.

[00:27:06] Jay: you would not have 

no. 

[00:27:07] Chris: they could find us@neuroflow.com. we're also on all the social media platforms and so forth. We're at 16th in market, so come on by. we'd love to innovate and collaborate with y'all.

[00:27:17] Jay: Beautiful. Chris, you are the man. Have a great weekend. I can't, I guess say Go Birds. I can still say Go Birds. It doesn't mean you're gonna agree with me, but go Birds, and thank you for being on Buddy. We finally made it happen. I think we had a great show and I'll talk to you soon. All right, thanks Chris.

[00:27:30] Chris: Thanks, Jay.

[00:27:31] Jay: See you buddy. 

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