Ted Ferrin of Rivet: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ted Ferrin.

Ted Ferrin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rivet, a healthcare revenue acceleration platform. He is passionate about building organizations, people, and products and is working to make the healthcare system a more efficient and delightful industry, starting by serving providers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I always aspired to start a company because I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. The idea of founding a startup was always exciting rather than anxiety-inducing to me. With this goal in mind and fresh out of college, I made a conscious effort to find opportunities that would equip me with the knowledge and skills I would need to start a business later in my career. I worked at a handful of great software as a service (SaaS) companies in industries such as accounting, education, and eventually healthcare. Once my co-founder Andrew and I began seriously discussing Rivet, I felt confident in my ability to build a company, and the rest is history.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

Originally, Rivet had three co-founders. In the early days, all three of us were planning to quit our jobs and commit to starting this company full-time. A few days before our deadline to put our notices in, this third person had to back out — the risk felt too great and he wanted to keep the stability of his current position. In this process, he was incredibly kind and complimentary, sharing his belief that Andrew and I were going to be absolutely fine and that Rivet would be a success. That was an early hiccup that Andrew and I had to overcome, but it ended up working out for the best and forced Andrew and I to get used to problem-solving right from the get-go.

Another challenge we faced early on was deciding the scope of our solution. Initially, Rivet was to be a tightly focused product for organizing contracted rates with insurance companies. However, within a few months of building our solution, we received a lot of feedback that Rivet would be far more valuable if it provided more than just organization. Instead, our prospective customers wanted a pricing engine, which was an incredibly complex piece of software to build. As a small-stage startup, we only had a few engineers, so figuring out how insurance companies and the healthcare system treated billing was a huge challenge. Ultimately rising to this challenge resulted in a superior product that is helping many practices across the country today.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Camaraderie and mutual sacrifice are incredibly motivational. When starting Rivet, Andrew and I both quit our jobs. Andrew moved across the country — with a newborn baby — to found the company with me in Utah. We shared a keen understanding of the sacrifices we were making to honor our commitment to the company and each other. That is the magic of having a strong, committed co-founder: It makes a world of difference to have someone “in it” with you and it drives you to keep going even when things get hard.

Additionally, having the right mindset is invaluable when founding a company. As a founder, you need to expect a multitude of challenges and can’t let those challenges discourage you. By design, startups are supposed to experience crazy fast growth, but that growth is hard to create and maintain. Accepting challenges along the way and fostering a positive mindset will keep you going even when things get hard.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

I’m very enthused about everything going on at Rivet. We have hundreds of customers in almost all 50 states, and we have a pending contract for our biggest customer yet. In addition to customer wins, we are incredibly proud of the team we’ve built. The caliber of our 85 employees is extraordinary and we collectively have a lot of passion and drive. But more importantly, they are all fantastic people that I love working with and being around every day.

From a funding perspective, we’re in great shape with $39M in capital raised to date — more than half of which is still available. As a result of this funding and our team’s hard work, we are strategically positioned to maintain our market growth and innovation investment. In the current economic climate, a lot of companies are pulling back on investing in their team or are starting to play defense. In contrast, we are in a great position to be more aggressive than ever before.

Finally, we’re launching into the hospital space, and we are excited to bring mission-critical ROI to healthcare’s biggest stage. We’re working to provide value to the CFO’s office to help them drive better, more predictable cash flows and improve business performance.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When you’re founding a company, your schedule is a blank slate that you must choose how to prioritize. It is easy to spend too much time on inconsequential tasks. For example, Andrew and I spent way too much time trying to make our website look nice with clip art. Now we laugh about how crazy it looked, especially because soon after we created it, we had enough capital to hire talented website designers to redo it. We wasted so much time working on this website that few people ever saw instead of focusing on more important things. My advice to my younger self would be to not sweat the small stuff that will end up being redone anyways. In a startup environment you need to move fast and remember that not everything has to be perfect in the very beginning stages.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

SaaS companies are incubators for world-changing, exciting ideas, but they aren’t necessarily good at communicating this. The consumer-facing companies, like Uber, are well-known, attract talented employees, powerful partners, and additional funding because they are flashy, fun, and well marketed.

In contrast, SaaS companies in fields such as education, accounting, and healthcare don’t attract the same kind of energy and interest. There are decades-old healthcare companies with solutions that remain unchanged since the company’s inception. In comparison, Rivet is dynamic and exudes creativity. Through our design and branding, our audience can tell we aren’t like your typical healthcare solution. It’s pretty, it’s clean, it’s modern, and it’s easy to use. At Rivet, we have a running joke that “healthcare deserves nice things too,” and we try to bring that creativity and freshness to everything we do. At trade shows, instead of walking around in suits, we’re memorable for wearing these bright purple eye-catching T-shirts. What we’re communicating is that healthcare SaaS doesn’t have to be boring–it can be fun and loud. It’s this energy and visual communication that sets Rivet apart from other companies in the industry.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Healthcare is a complex and nuanced industry underpinned by an incredibly clunky technology infrastructure and cumbersome regulatory framework. With these challenges fueling burnout, it’s important to remember that healthcare is about caring for people’s health. Before getting involved in founding a healthcare company, make sure you have the right mindset and know that things move slowly in this industry. This will give you more patience when solving hard problems and fuel the tenacity you’ll need to make improvements for the good of the patient.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Rivet wouldn’t be what it is without my fellow co-founder Andrew Harding. Andrew is the motor that cuts through the minutiae of the healthcare landscape and navigates us to where we need to go. In those early days of founding Rivet, we called him our sherpa because he was the person holding the lantern up in the darkness and navigating us in the right direction. He continues to be our sherpa today and Rivet would not be what it is without him.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Within the healthcare ecosystem, Rivet’s mission is to empower healthcare providers. If providers can’t stay in business, especially providers at small practices, the cost of healthcare gets more expensive for everyone. Rivet is providing an extreme level of financial sophistication to provider organizations of all sizes to be both fiscally strategic and continue providing exceptional care to patients.

Additionally, Rivet is a leader in healthcare price transparency. Most people would agree the financial experience of healthcare leaves much to be desired. There is a huge aversion to seeking care because of the high cost. Rivet is bringing much needed transparency to healthcare by identifying out-of-pocket costs upfront. This is a significant improvement to the patient experience and something that I am exceptionally proud of.

Finally, Rivet has created around 85 jobs and those jobs are helping to provide for people’s families. People have other priorities and hobbies, but nobody can get very far without a good job. I am honored that Rivet can provide people with the means and economic success to fuel their lives and other passions.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why.

1. Do something that makes you tick: If you are going to start a company, be sure you are passionate about the cause you are addressing or the solution you are offering. Some people have a “first paycheck,” which is their moneymaker, and then a passion project as their side job or a “second paycheck.” Ideally, a founder combines these to achieve both financial success and personal fulfillment.

2. Make something people want: It’s pointless and frustrating to attempt selling something to a person who doesn’t want it. Instead, do your research beforehand and be minutely focused on making something that there is a market need for.

3. Be smart about fundraising: From a tech startup perspective, the next couple of years are going to be extraordinarily challenging for a lot of companies. Some startups have raised so much money on such high valuations that they will need to raise more money at a huge down round. This will result in extraordinary dilution for employees and founders. Make sure your business is sustainable from a financial perspective and watch out for trap doors.

4. Go long: The first company I worked for, Qualtrics, is now famous for its founder owning the Utah Jazz. Although it was a successful company when I worked there, if someone had told me it would be a multi-billion-dollar company, I would never have believed them. To the company’s great credit, it had multiple offers to sell throughout the years, but the founder knew its value and would never have sold it short. The importance of “going long” and thinking years ahead instead of how to make quick money helps you make more strategic choices for your business.

5. Stay sane and have fun: Founding a company can be incredibly stressful, so it’s important to prioritize taking care of your mental and physical health. Although it can be difficult, be sure to have a personal life that is separate from your business. It is going to be a long journey, and if you swear off having hobbies and a social life, there is a strong chance that you are going to end up very unhappy. Maintaining a balance between your company and personal life is critical to success.

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

Think long-term and remember that over the next five, 10, or 20 years, there are going to be both highs and lows. In my experience, having a long-term perspective has helped both in business building and maintaining a positive outlook throughout short-term challenges.

Another essential tool for riding the highs and lows is knowing who you are personally. I’m happily married with three kids. When I come home for the day, my kids don’t care whether or not we lost a big customer. They are just happy to see me and want to play in the yard. Having an identity before, during, and after your company keeps those work challenges in their proper perspective. Whether it’s through a focus on family, a hobby, or participation with another group, knowing who you are beyond your company’s revenue growth is so important to staying grounded.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

My movement would be to end addiction. Whether that is alcohol, gambling, drugs, or phone addiction. Breaking the cycle of addiction, big or small, and ridding people of the things that sidetrack their lives and potential would be the most impactful.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can keep up with Rivet by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long-term incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.