We miss sleep. We ‘walk it off’ again and again. We live on a pill and a prayer. And all the while, these nagging issues become something that compound, ultimately impacting everything else in our bodies (and multiplying those quality-of-life issues).
MEDIA 7: Could you please walk us through your professional journey of over two decades and what brought you to this specific career path?
BILL GIANOUKOS: I started my career in engineering, focusing on software and solutions. After a few years, I went on to co-found HeyWire. The company’s platform allowed businesses to chat with their customers in seamless, two-way texts, even from a landline. It opened modes of communication that larger corporations didn’t have reliable access to before, and I went on to sell Heywire to Salesforce in 2014. It's now the Salesforce LiveMessage system. After HeyWire, Carl Nehme and I founded TrumpIt, an augmented reality application that allowed users to send photo and video messages. That platform gained more than a million followers in a single year and was purchased by Wayfair in 2016. The company went on to use the app’s AR technology so shoppers could visualize purchases in their space. Carl and I moved to Wayfair, too, where I led product strategy and development for the biggest mobile app team in Boston. Then I had an experience that changed everything. I’m a first-generation American. When my parents moved to the States from Greece, they had to learn a lot while raising me and my sister.
We’re a close family but navigating the world together in this way made us that much closer. So, when my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer, we were just floored. That experience was a powerful and deep dive into the American healthcare system. All my years of startup and technology experience taught me to ask questions about everything. Those questions helped add more than two years to my mother’s life, but they also exposed me to a mountain of inefficiencies in our current system. We tend to treat illnesses, but there’s very little conventional treatment to address the factors that can lead to those illnesses. So, I got to work with TrumpIt co-founder Carl Nehme and Dr. Akl Fahed, a cardiologist and scientist at Massachusetts General, to start Goodpath. It’s a mission-driven company aimed at improving Quality Of Life and, honestly, to help people like my own mother take care of themselves in those areas conventional medicine often ignores.
M7: Goodpath’s mission is to improve the ‘Quality Of Life’ for those suffering from chronic conditions. Could you please elaborate on this?
BG: Have you ever had to stop washing dishes because of the pain in your lower back? Ever had to duck out of an event because of the cramping in your stomach? How many extra coffees have you had this month because you missed out on a few hours of sleep? Those are quality-of-life issues. They’re not emergencies, and they’re not occasional ailments you can cure with an aspirin. They’re somewhere in between, but they’re strong enough to have a real impact on your day-to-day life. That’s what we aim to improve. We do that through integrative care. It’s the medical term for “we treat the whole person” and it’s how we operate. For instance, if you’re in a Goodpath program for back pain, we’re not just treating flare-ups. We’re journaling your experience. We’re accounting for stress. We’re doing yoga and region-specific exercises to loosen muscles. We’re adjusting diets. We’re looking at proven supplements that can help along the way. So, by getting our clients to be proactive in this way – to look at their pain, digestive, and sleep issues in a comprehensive manner – they start taking the initiative to address those quality-of-life issues. No more ducking out of parties, and you can even help with the dishes afterward.
Marketers know all about this because the best marketers are the ones who can honestly put themselves in their customers’ shoes.
M7: Could you please shed some light on Goodpath’s entry in the upcoming ‘Health and Wellness Web Seminar Series’ with Employee Benefit News & Employee Benefit Adviser, in September 2021?
BG: Absolutely. We’re very fortunate to be able to partner with Employee Benefit News on this project. The web seminar will focus on whole-person care – not as a replacement to conventional care, but as a complement to it. We’ve found that the cost of musculoskeletal treatments is going to rise significantly in the coming years, so we’re sharing with employers how they can curb some of those costs and provide a benefits package that keeps their employees healthier. There are some really bright minds from Goodpath giving the presentation, and you can sign up here. The date is Tuesday, September 21, 2021.
M7: What might be the reason that chronic conditions such as back pain and digestive issues are undertreated? To what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated these disorders?
BG: It’s that in-between scenario again. Primary care physicians only have so much bandwidth, and since most folks don’t go to a doctor until they’re ill, these conditions often go undertreated. Sometimes you’ll see a specialist, but that’s often disconnected from your primary care in a way that removes it from your general care equation. So, we tend to let these things go. We miss sleep. We ‘walk it off’ again and again. We live on a pill and a prayer. And all the while, these nagging issues become something that compound, ultimately impacting everything else in our bodies (and multiplying those quality-of-life issues). And the pandemic is a big driver in the increase of these conditions. Many people are working from home. Stress levels are outrageous. Global studies are proving that sleep issues are widespread because of the pandemic. All that leads up to lost sleep, lots of slouching, poor digestion, and a boatload of stress, which further contributes to pain, digestive issues, and sleep loss. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle.
Many people are working from home. Stress levels are outrageous. Global studies are proving that sleep issues are widespread because of the pandemic.
M7: What are the major advertising and marketing tools you use to hike up the brand awareness of your company?
BG: Glad you asked! Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Seriously though, we have a fantastic CMO on board who is guiding our multi-channel approach. We keep expanding our awareness marketing with more webinars, conferences, PR, inbound, etc. We’re a research-backed company, so we’re also providing industry-relevant reports (you can see our studies on MSK costs and sleep on our website). We also have some excited clients who help with person-to-person and company-to-company word of mouth.
M7: It is said that “Empathy is one of the greatest tools of business.” and Goodpath exemplifies it. Could you please share your perspective with our readers starting with their careers?
BG: There’s truth in that statement. Marketers know all about this because the best marketers are the ones who can honestly put themselves in their customers’ shoes. Good doctors are often ‘good doctors’ because they have empathy. The teachers you remember most are the ones who connected learning to your life. If you’re just starting out in any field, my advice is simple: always try to understand – and empathize with – whoever it is you’re serving. Emulating a hero CEO is fine. Honing your ‘boss energy’ is fine. But if you don’t do your work with your end-user in mind (and at heart), you’ll miss the mark every time.