kevc

It feels like we are pretty far away from LLMs running a concession stand (see andon labs) so not surprised it would struggle here. Still the failure modes are super interesting and having benchmarks seems to be the starting point to domain-specific improvements.

This is a pervasive myth. Young founders get pr because it’s notable and drives clicks, but the average age of a successful founder is older. The average age of a YC founder is 30. According to a Harvard Business Review article I remember reading, the average age is 45.

Unfortunately “protecting ourselves” against these drugs has terrible second-order effects (see war on drugs). Perhaps we should let people buy drugs and bad food but add taxes to cover the collective damage done by them.

I worked in the game industry on the business side and saw all salaries. Game developers are paid well under software engineers at “traditional” software companies. Similar software engineering job requirements, except one pays less and demands far more in terms of hours worked. Of course the depressed wages are consistent as you move to lower paid roles at game companies.

It comes down to supply and demand. There are legions of young, passionate gamers who want to “work with their passion”. Why they stick with it, I’m not sure. I certainly didn’t.

I think you are right - but only for a specific crowd. The hardcore iron types tend to be serious about fitness, but define fitness narrowly. They fetishize the weightlifting basics, and dislike any and all gadgets and tech in their routines.

Always in fitness you have a group of customers who are not into fitness and making an aspirational purchase. However, there is also a group (probably larger than the hardcore weightlifter types) of fitness-oriented people who aren’t trying to lift heavy weights and they use apps, workout classes, and HIIT training with light weights.

Peleton/Mirror suit this group well. Both of my parents - who are older but fit - do almost 100% of their workouts on the Peleton now. My roommate, a former D1 athlete runs and does fitness classes via app. In both cases they were doing this before COVID, and quarantine is obviously causing many others to embrace this as well.

A good friend was recruited by Meg in Quibi's early days (under 20 employees). Her report to me: 0 customer validation, experimentation, research, etc. She ran for the hills and predicted this outcome for years. They had a giant vision from the execs and set out to build it with huge piles of cash. Never stopped to see if consumers actually wanted it along the way. If people's jobs weren't at stake, I would say there is some kind of dark humor here. As a startup, they built the exact type of company startups are great at disrupting.

Always liked the landing page for:

https://www.gradientmetrics.com/

Currently writing a web app to help business owners navigate the Byzantine process of getting federal assistance (US) for Covid-related hardship.

This looks great, looking forward to trying it out. I was a heavy Essbase user at a previous analyst role so working with data as a spreadsheet plugin feels very natural.

We also leveraging the ICHRA, but Savvy works a little differently.

Instead of a reimbursement-based approach, where employees pay insurance premiums themselves and submit them for reimbursement (like a business expense), we manage the payments for employees. This means the insurance bill is paid by the employer and any extra employee contribution is deducted from payroll. We do it this way so that the employee contribution is also tax-free.

We are also investing heavily in helping employees find the right plan. Behind the scenes our brokers are recommending plans for every employee, and we are building out tools that help employees do things like find a plan with a specific doctor or hospital in network.

Appreciate the tip! Will definitely check out the Justworks onboard flow. I think partnering with payroll vendors would be a great idea.

As long as you are enrolled in health coverage (whether yourself, or on a spouse's plan) you can spend your employer's health funds on dental and vision.

Agreed healthcare is changing. I will say, however, that the ICHRA was one of the few healthcare related initiatives with pretty strong bipartisan support. The SBA (Small Business Administration) lobbied for it.

To your point on employees quitting - one of the benefits of Savvy is that if you change jobs, your insurance can stay with you as it is no longer tied to your employer.

Thanks! If they are still looking to offer health benefits, we would love to speak with them.

This is a good point - we can do a better job demoing how the product works before you buy. Although it looks immediate on the site, we don't currently charge the setup fee until we check in with our customers and make sure they are happily set up.

The reason right now is that we work with outside experts to draft and review the legal plan documents for every customer that signs up. Because this is such a new thing we think it's worth spending extra to be sure we are buttoned up from a compliance standpoint. This has an upfront cost we need to cover. Once we bring this in-house we can think about the pricing differently.

As you say, the sheer number of choices can be overwhelming. This is why we have our brokers, who are experts on the nuances of health plans, recommend a few plans for each employee - we do the shopping for most employees, and the power users can pick for themselves if they like. Employees can always chat with us in-app as well.

If you work for a large employer, you have benefits professionals who spend all year thinking about this - we work with small employers who don't have these kinds of resources and are happy to offload it onto us.

Thanks! We appreciate it. We believe Savvy and the new regulations will strengthen the individual market.

Thanks! We have definitely found we are a good fit for remote companies with employees in multiple states. If you don't mind me asking, what did you end up doing for your health insurance?

Apologies - We usually walk customers through the setup over the phone, definitely needs some work to be fully self-serve. We appreciate the feedback.

To answer your question: The premiums will be deducted from your account, and any extra employee contribution would be deducted, tax-free, from the employees paycheck. We integrate with Gusto to set this up for you.

I am happy to walk you through the specifics: kev@gosavvy.com

You are right, some of the regulations around association plans were only recently decided, so they are not widespread. We are very interested and working with some experts in the space to better understand how we can leverage them.

Choosing a PEO also means that you are outsourcing all your HR functions - payroll, retirement, benefits, etc. Part of that includes large group insurance prices. In return, you pay a per-head fee to the PEO.

If cost is the primary driver for your decision the important thing is to compare the PEO fees vs how much money you will save on the discounted insurance. We have helped a few companies do this analysis - On a pure cost basis, we are a better option for some, PEOs win for others. Feel free to reach out to hn@gosavvy.com if you want advice on your specific situation.

Association health plans are a way to group small businesses together for large group pricing, without using a PEO.

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/association-health-plans

We think other companies offering ICHRA services are a good thing. It's a new option that can help a lot of people, and more vendors will spread the word faster. Savvy works a little differently than the existing solutions.

Instead of a reimbursement-based approach, where employees pay insurance premiums themselves and submit them for reimbursement (like a business expense), we manage the payments for employees. This means the insurance bill is paid by the employer and any extra employee contribution is deducted from payroll. We do it this way so that the employee contribution is also tax-free.

We are also investing heavily in helping employees find the right plan. Behind the scenes our brokers are recommending plans for every employee, and we are building out tools that help employees do things like find a plan with a specific doctor or hospital in network.

Yes, you can do exactly as you describe. I'll make that more clear on our website.

We agree that less distance between the buyer and the end user is better. In our case, the middleman we are removing is the employer. With us, employers are no longer picking specific health insurance policies on behalf of their employees. Instead employees are purchasing them directly through our app, but still reaping the significant tax savings of employer-provided health benefits.

You are right, big-group rates are the lowest. Grouping smaller companies to negotiate lower rates is something we are actively pursuing.

Small group prices can, on average, be more or less competitive than the individual market, depending on geography. In recent years, the prices of both types of insurance have been trending towards similarity, but there is still substantial variation region-by-region.

To prevent this kind of thing from happening, regulations state that you cannot offer both Savvy and a traditional group health plan within the same "class" of employees (IRS-defined, things like full-time vs. part-time vs. seasonal, etc.). If you were to offer Savvy, you can scale your employer contribution based on age and number of dependents to help address the higher costs of healthcare for those employees.

Small groups can get large price increases if their members have serious health issues, and for them it can be cheaper to use us and get employees all the same tax savings, but buy on the individual market.

Correct, employers can pair their insurance reimbursements with HSA contributions if they wish.

The money your employer gives you can only be spent on insurance or medical expenses. So in your example you can buy the $250 plan and have $250 / month leftover to pay for prescriptions, doctor visits, or other medical expenses. You wouldn't be able to pocket the remainder as cash.

You would be surprised how common missed payment issues are. Many carriers will only notify you via paper mail, so it's easy to miss. We manage the carrier payments for all enrolled employees to make sure that this doesn't happen.

What do you envision is the best way to do this? Our approach is to present employees with a few options upfront that, behind the scenes, have been recommended by a broker for them. They can speak with their broker if want help understanding and selecting one of the recommended plans, or look at the wider market if nothing suits them.

We try to streamline the experience as much as possible, and put in a lot of work building an interface that explains the plan details in-app.

And you always have the option to tell one of our brokers "None of these work for me, I want to make sure Dr. Smith is in my network, show me more options".