Thursday, December 10, 2009
Interview with David and Aimee Greenholtz, KeyVive
Last month, Park City, Utah-based KeyVive (www.keyvive.com) launched its free, online web site for diabetes information. We spoke with founders David and Aimee Greenholtz to learn more about the firm, and what it's trying to do.
What is KeyVive all about?
David Greenholtz: KeyVive is a diabetes management company. We integrate social and lifestyle content with medical components, which helps people with diabetes succeed in living life. Aimee and myself co-founded the firm, and we've been working on it for two years. Aimee is a Type 1 diabetic, and my dad, who passed away at 54, was also diabetic. He did no management whatsover, and I personally went through an exercise and food program and lost 50 pounds recently. Collectively, we looked at these components, plus Aimee's involvement with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and Kids Rock The World, and came up with this solution.
Aimee Greenholtz: I've been a diabetic for 20 years, with Type I Diabetes, and I know all of the management that goes into living a healthy life. There's lots of components, but not a lot of support out there for people with diabetes.
Why the focus on free content, and why a site like this?
Aimee Greenholtz: KeyVive is not a medical site, it's more of a lifestyle site. Picture diabetes meets Facebook meets the Biggest Loser. With diabetes, I'd never to got a medical site to learn how to care of myself. Instead, I'd go to a lifestyle site and learn to live a healthier life. At first launch, our focus is getting people diagnosed and treated early. There are 24 million with diabetes, with six million undiagnosed, and about 57 million people in pre-diabetes--that's lots of people who need help to get diagnosed and treated. We have on our site a series of PSAs with celebrities and athletes and also everyday people, where we send them a wellness kit. They can take our online test to get help, and more information on how to get diagnosed, and connect them with a doctor's network.
David Greenholtz: That's our start, getting people diagnosed, which we are focusing on in the first twelve months of our site. We've got a very easy to use tool for individuals to help with their own management, not to change their regimen, but to complement what they are doing now, and help make improvements. For most people, it takes baby steps. The majority of Type 2 diabetes treatment is lifestyle related, and our focus is helping with that lifestyle.
Aimee Greenholtz: We follow the life of a person who is newly diagnosed--how do you eat, exercise, and balance all the components with insulin, testing, and all those different things.
You recently announced some testing kits for free, what's the catch here?
David Greenholtz: On the site, what we're doing is following a standard protocol of symptoms, where the high risk individuals get test kits. If they are at risk or having existing symptoms, we send an information packet, which is comprised of national information about diabetes and resources to reach out to a doctor.
Aimee Greenholtz: The doctor network and partner advocate provides live support. People who do receive wellness kits can receive live support--how to use the test, how to test themselves, how to get questions answered, and numbers, where they can get answer right away, 100% free, with no catch.
So are those partners then helping to support the site and are your source of revenue?
David Greenholtz: There's a couple of things. Obviously, from the traffic standpoint, there's different opportunities for advertising and sponsorship. We have an e-commerce platform, which we are adding next year. We've also filed patents on what is unique about our site, and will be doing a study on how people make improvements on their management of diabetes. That, in turn, allows us to receive insurance reimbursements for our premium services.
What had you two done prior to this, which led you to start the business?
David Greenholtz: I've been in financial services, real estate, and mortgages for 20 years, and worked on several initiatives and partnerships with other companies. There was a strategic alignment here, in my personal interest with the world of diabetes and using my business experience here.
Aimee Greenholtz: Public relations was my former career. Before, I created the PR department at THQ, the video game firm. I've work in publicity, entertainment, corporate PR, and then video games.
We often talk to entrepreneurs who have moved here, and are always interested how they ended up in Utah-- you two end up in Park City?
David Greenholtz: We really followed the path of what we wanted to do. Utah and Park City is really about lifestyle and health living. We started coming up here and bring our two kids to enjoy the summers and winters, and decided to make a move a couple of years ago, because we're avid skiers, hikers, and bikers.
How is the site funded?
David Greenholtz: The site is funded privately. We did an offering a couple of months ago, and are raising $1.5M. We're about 90 days out from filling out our first round right now. We have one of our partner advocates come on to provide us with meters on our test kits and support, and are currently working on a number of other contracts as well as partners. We're working hard with angel investors and high net worth investors to finish out our round.
Our last question, is it seems like you've got quite a lot of celebrity content at launch--how did you manage that so early in your firm's launch?
David Greenholtz: In both of our years, working in the financial business in Los Angeles, I've been able to go into my database of people. Aimee, with her support for diabetes and nonprofit involvement, has been able to get people like Shawn Busby, who is a Type I diabetic and snowboarder.
Aimee Greenholtz: Shawn was a guest speaker at our Kids Rock The World event, and I also have been tapping people who live here locally in Park City, pulling our resources together.
Thanks!