Listen as Sean Duffy shares his entrepreneurial journey, passion for using design and technology to tackle chronic disease, and exciting work at Omada Health.
The ModernMD: Sean Duffy
Sean Duffy is the Co-Founder & CEO of Omada Health, a healthcare & technology company pioneering the field of digital behavioral medicine with a mission of inspiring and enabling people everywhere to live free of chronic disease. Omada is one of Fast Company’s 50 most innovative companies. Sean believes that behavioral medicine is at an incredible tipping point of innovation. He holds a BS in Neuroscience from Columbia University, was an MD/MBA candidate at Harvard, and formerly worked for Google and IDEO.
SUCCESS QUOTE
“We inspire and enable people everywhere to live free of chronic disease”
Mission statement at Omada Health
WHITE COAT TO BUSINESS SUIT:
After graduating Columbia University, Sean went to Silicon Valley to work at Google. He realized that technology and healthcare was not a binary world, and decided to pursue his MD/MBA at Harvard. He spent his first summer at IDEO and discovered an alarming crisis in chronic disease. After reading a landmark diabetes trial with great scientific evidence, he saw a big opportunity to combine his passions for design, technology, and medicine and founded Omada Health. He always planned to finish medical school, but found a problem he was very excited about and wanted to solve.
What is your advice to medical students and residents interested in entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation?
Entrepreneurship is a powerful way to scale your skills set.
When, or if, should you leave MD/MBA program or residency? Find something you want to solve – You will know when the time is right when you find a problem that you must solve. Ironically when the choice becomes easy, it is the right moment. The key to business success is determination and never giving up.
What is a good approach for exploration?
Good approach – Education + Build entrepreneurial projects
Educational Resources (Must Reads!!):
Sam Altman: http://blog.samaltman.com/
Paul Gram essays (read every one): http://www.paulgraham.com/
Build entrepreneurial projects as hobbies to build your entrepreneurial skills and muscles.
IDEA TO VENTURE:
The Idea: Chronic disease now kills more people than infectious disease. How can technology and design be leveraged in a scalable ways to inspire lasting behavioral change for those at risk of chronic disease? Listen as Sean shares his entrepreneurial journey and big vision for Omada Health.
Biggest Insights: Surprisingly, the greatest adoption rate with older age group! Omada continues to innovate by running small experiments & randomized control trials.
Success: Start with science and clinical rigor, build with policy, and design with commercial viability.
BUSINESS ROUNDS:
Best Advice: To be a leader of a team – Be authentic and be yourself – David Webster, IDEO
Daily Success Habit: Structure to-do list in the morning with four categories: urgent, today task, near term, long term. Everyday look at near term and long term, bring into today’s tasks and complete today’s tasks.
Healthcare Trends: Can technology make the biggest impact in healthcare? A wave of technology into healthcare seems incredibly unique and different from what has been tried previously with massive penetration. Listen as Sean shares his thoughts about large scale technology innovation and exciting payment transformation.
