Since founding SimplaFYI in North Kingstown in July 2016, Kathleen Repoli has seen her integrative care company grow from a provincial health care network to one with an expanding nationwide footprint.
The “year-over-year growth,” said Repoli, includes increases in local membership among employers, primary care groups, higher education institutions and two Washington state-based health care practitioners.
Repoli, who partners with chiropractors, acupuncturists, masseurs, meditation/mindfulness specialists, yoga instructors and nutrition specialists, said much of her success is due to participation in the inaugural Social Enterprise Greenhouse Health and Wellness Accelerator in 2016.
“From a business perspective,” said Repoli, “tapping into [SEG’s] resources was really appealing to me.”
Therein, she was introduced to state administrators, funding partners, sales and marketing executives, accounting and legal specialists – “the components you need to build your foundation,” she said.
The third, now-annual, Health and Wellness Accelerator program will be hosted by SEG, a nonprofit social enterprise incubator based in Providence, from September into December. In addition to accelerators focused on impact and food, the decision to renew the Health and Wellness Accelerator in 2017 and 2018, said Meg Wirth, SEG’s health and wellness initiative director, was demand-driven.
While SEG had consulted with health and wellness businesses since 2010 – and has worked with roughly 120 in those eight years – Wirth explained SEG saw a role for itself in the 2016 Rhode Island health care and wellness market as “a convener” of resources.
The third accelerator was pursued because, said Wirth, “increasing demand” has yet to die down.
By SEG’s count, roughly 30 health and wellness applications are received each year while 11 or 12 are chosen. Eight companies were picked in 2016 and 12 in 2017. Of those 20, per SEG data, 15 are operational, 11 of which employ a total 54 individuals.
Eleven Health and Wellness Accelerator graduates are reporting growth, per SEG data, meaning, “We’re having an impact on their success rate, which signals to us that the program is working,” said Crystal Rosatti, SEG spokeswoman and water, energy and environment initiative manager.
When sifting through Health and Wellness Accelerator applicants, there’s so much demand, Wirth explained, some companies that aren’t chosen are redirected to an incubator program – specializing in those firms in the very early stages of operation – that acts as “a pipeline for the Health and Wellness Accelerator.”
Speaking of very young firms, Wirth said she and SEG would like to see increased health and wellness entrepreneurship around childhood poverty and its health care implications, the opioid epidemic, obesity, early learning and development, lead poisoning and the elderly.
Entering its third year, SEG CEO Kelly Ramirez believes the model of SEG’s Health and Wellness Accelerator is meeting the nonprofit’s expectations. Within the focal mission of creating a community of experts, she said, SEG has been “very successful” recruiting participant companies and industry specialists, as well as building the pipeline for future businesses and promoting its programming therein.
“It’s still early” to say exactly how impactful the Health and Wellness Accelerator has been, she said, “But we try to be an ecosystem builder more so than an accelerator” to provide an operationally easy atmosphere in which health and wellness companies can conduct business.
In addition, Wirth is now seeing companies that were not chosen for the first or second Health and Wellness Accelerator take the time to work out their business plans, become more involved in the industry and apply again for the SEG accelerator.
“To build the ecosystem, build the pipeline and bring them into our network” as they matured as businesses, said Wirth, “were key goals and we’re starting to see success with that.”
While demand has yet to let up, business-related health care and wellness programming is “rare in any city” said Wirth, who acknowledged ensuring companies “find their way to the services at SEG is still a challenge even though we’re a small state.”
However, Rosatti and Wirth feel the company is making progress. By partnering with banks, the Rhode Island branch of the U.S. Small Business Administration, MassChallenge and all 11 of the state’s colleges and universities, especially the nursing programs when it comes to the Health and Wellness Accelerator, they feel SEG is meeting innovators and entrepreneurs where they are doing research and making business connections.
Repoli, who admitted SimplaFYI is not yet profitable, said one thing SEG can do to help health and wellness companies is leverage their connection to the state and connect with employees for possible beta testing. State employees, let alone the Medicaid population of Rhode Island, said Repoli, would be “great” sample populations for young companies to use in the early stages of their testing.
