2021 Startups to Watch: SureShow turns no shows into cash flow amid virtual healthcare boon
January 13, 2021 | Austin Barnes
Editor’s note: Startland News selected 10 Kansas City firms to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. The following is one of 2021’s companies. Click here to view the full, ranked list of Startups to Watch — presented by sponsors Husch Blackwell and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
The stage is set, Dr. Shelley Cooper said, recalling ways 2020-prescribed pivots have positioned SureShow for a New Year bow that promises to be most momentous.
Elevator pitch: Twenty-five percent of medical appointments end in no shows or late cancellations. SureShow helps patients see their doctors more often and reclaims revenue for doctors by replacing no-shows with revenue-generating telehealth visits.
• Founders: Dr. Shelley Cooper, Dr. Moe Hamid
• Founding year: 2019
• Amount raised to date: $60,500
• Noteworthy investors: Digital Sandbox KC
• Current employee count: 2
“I started hearing ‘telehealth’ on TV and other places [during the pandemic shutdown]. I was like, ‘Hey, wait a minute. That’s my word,’” Cooper, founder and CEO of SureShow by Diversity Telehealth, said as she detailed ways virtual healthcare became a sudden lifeline for the nation’s most vulnerable.
“I’ve been doing telehealth since 2015. Now these newbies are coming along,” she continued to joke, noting she felt a certain reassurance in her work as the trend took hold — and unshakeable confidence in the abilities of SureShow to meet such a rising demand.
“You don’t have to use the emergency room as your primary care physician,” Cooper said, further explaining SureShow’s purpose and the way its platform automatically fills missed appointment slots at traditional doctors offices with telehealth consultations.
Click here to learn more about how SureShow works and how the sudden loss of Cooper’s father inspired her to build the company.
“The first thing we thought of was, ‘We’ve got to get out there,’ I’m talking to people, putting information on social media, applying for different fellowships and pitch competitions — anything I can think of to get the word out to people, [letting them know] that just because you might not have transportation or a regular physician, there are other options for receiving healthcare.”
The pandemic era also yielded new applications of SureShow’s platform, Cooper teased, noting new interest from the animal health industry.
Participation in such local programs as OHUB.KC and Pure Pitch Rally further helped prime SureShow for its next steps, Cooper said, hopeful to see the startup finalize large-scale partnerships in 2021 with the company also eying plans to secure its first major injection of capital.
“The software we have meets the highest level of security, it’s HIPAA compliant, patent pending. We’ve got a beta going on right now and we’re collecting data from that beta to move on to a larger beta. We’ve changed our pricing structure so that it can yield at least an eight-x return,” she said of what Kansas City can expect to see out of SureShow as it navigates a wide-open, fast moving market in the months ahead.
“The sky’s the limit! Telehealth is here to stay — and, like I say, ‘When there is a no show, that means no dough, but with SureShow that increases cash flow.’”
The Kansas City Startups Watch in 2021 list is made possible by presenting sponsors Husch Blackwell, a value-driven law firm with offices in Kansas City, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, though independently produced by Startland News.
1) TripleBlind
2) LaborChart
3) Bar K
4) Ronawk
5) SureShow
6) Daupler
7) PMI Rate Pro
8) Scissors & Scotch
9) Replica
10) The Market Base
Startups to Watch is now in its sixth year, thanks to ongoing support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
Featured Business
2021 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
From Google to KC, Beth Ellyn McClendon’s advice to startups: Test everything
Don’t fall in love with an idea, Beth Ellyn McClendon said. “Test everything, especially your assumptions, and allow yourself to be persuaded by data,” said McClendon, a seed investor who formerly worked with Google, Android, YouTube, Cisco and Netscape. “Try to remember — tattoo it on your eyelids if you have to – anecdotes are not…
Bodyrite duo cooks meal prep into personal training concept
Don’t just go with the flow at a traditional gym, Jamil Nelson said. Go with Flo. “Treadmills and ellipticals are pretty archaic to us,” said Nelson — or “Mr. Bodyrite” to his wife, Florese. “A jump rope is way better because it’s going to blow up your heart rate.” Modern workouts are all about functional,…
Denise Kruse: So your startup wants to be acquired – now what?
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. In the first column this three-part series, I discussed how a stellar strategy only gets your company halfway, but executing can take you to the finish line. Next, we took a deep dive into what startups should do after landing a first big…
Tech tracks workplace bias: It exists ‘whether you want to face it or not’
During a summer internship with a large Kansas City corporation, college student Louis Byrd was unexpectedly called into the HR office. Although the incident was about 10 years ago today, it has not yet left his mind, Byrd said. “I’ll never forget this,” he said. “HR told me that the people on my team had…