Subscription Business Models – Health as a Forever Transaction
Robbie Kellman Baxter shares an episode from her podcast series, Subscription Stories. In this episode, she interviews Joanna Strober of Midi Health to discuss how health care fits into the subscription business model.
My final guest of Season Three, Joanna Strober, was the very first guest on the Subscription Stories podcast. Back then, we were talking about Kurbo, the children’s service for WW (that’s Weight Watchers new name). Today, she’s back to talk about her latest venture in direct-to-consumer healthcare, Midi Health. While Kurbo focused on helping kids get to and maintain a healthy weight, Midi is for women at midlife, helping them get better as they get older. You may have noticed my interest in how the way we stay healthy is changing—with guests from Whoop, 30 Madison, Strava, just this season alone. I am fascinated by all of the transformation in the space, as healthcare embraces the concept of a forever transaction. After all, what forever promise is more compelling than more happy, healthy minutes. Healthcare is just embarking on a massive rethinking of how to better align their business models with patient outcomes. Midi is a great example of this. In today’s talk, we cover the consumerization of healthcare and how COVID accelerated the move to digital patient-centric health, the importance of “forever transaction” in treating patients, and the challenges of developing a clear business model in a highly complex environment.
Welcome back to the show.
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
It’s so great to have you back. I know we want to talk about Midi, the new company that you’ve launched, but before we get there, I want to catch people up. When we last talked to you in January of 2020, you were leading Kurbo, part of WW, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers. A lot has happened since then. Can you catch us up?
Yeah. We sold Kurbo to Weight Watchers in 2018. I spent two years integrating Kurbo within the overall business, growing the team, and figuring out how to integrate it into the overall organization. After being there for two years, I promoted a number of people within my organization and decided that I was interested in pursuing other entrepreneurial ventures.
Key points include:
40+ healthcare
Patient vs member service
Access to community data
Access the full podcast, Midi Health’s Joanna Strober on the Ultimate Forever Transaction—Healthcare, on RobbieKellmanBaxter.com.
