February 10, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, we’re speaking with Andrew Riesen, a mission-driven entrepreneur, financial accountant, and CEO of Heard.
If you haven’t heard of Heard (see what we did there?), it’s an accounting platform built for therapreneurs, aiming to empower therapists as business owners by saving them time on their finances.
In today’s special edition of The Money Sessions, Andrew doesn’t hold back — he gets real about his journey as a business owner, gives his perspective on therapists and financial literacy, and shares his thoughts on how to set ourselves up for a successful 2025.
If you have questions about the nitty gritty of money and finance as a therapreneur, this is THE place to start.
In this episode, Andrew shares:
The challenges he’s seen therapists face in 2024, especially when it comes to making money;
His predictions for 2025 and what you can do to set yourself up for success as a therapist in private practice;
The challenges he’s faced and the lessons he’s learned as a business owner;
The real importance of financial literacy for therapists (we promise it’s NOT boring).
Resources mentioned:
More about Andrew:
Andrew Riesen is a mission-driven entrepreneur, financial accountant, and CEO of Heard, the financial back-office for therapists in private practice. Prior to Heard, Andrew worked at PWC, where he worked as a financial accountant, helped build an internal software incubator, and co-founded an affordable sales tax solution for small to medium-sized businesses. When not supporting mental health professionals in private practice, Andrew can be found exploring the nooks and crannies of the Pacific Northwest trail-running, cycling, or snowboarding, or at home with his nose in a book or journal.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tiffany(00:01):
(00:01):
Folks, I'm here with Andrew, Andrew, the CEO founder, and CEO of Heard. Welcome. How are you doing today?
Andrew(00:08):
I'm well. How are you doing? Nice to see you. Nice
Tiffany(00:11):
To see you. And folks who are listening to us now. We already did this 30 seconds ago, we already said, how are you? We already welcomed up what we wanted to do officially for you, so welcome back. Nice to see you. We're gonna get into, in a, a moment who you are, what you do, all of that. But before we do that, I, I actually wanna talk with you a little bit about some of the challenges you saw therapists face in 2024 at the time we're recording this, we're just in January of 2025, we're all getting back in. What were some of the challenges you saw a therapist facing in 2024? Talk a little bit about that.
Andrew(00:44):
Challenges that I saw a therapist facing in 2024. I think the, the biggest and continuing challenge is the dynamics of payers. New age, mental health marketplaces, and the ability for therapists to like in independently credential themselves. And you know, not just handle that as a process, as a standalone to be able to reap the greatest rewards. But the system has continued to shift in so far that therapists are not able to get the same reimbursements on their own. And then from an advertising and a marketing standpoint, there's no way that they're gonna be competitive or manage placements against these larger organizations that are, that are taking these types of placements. And I think there's a benefit in different regards from an admin standpoint, from a lot of these organizations. But I think the dynamic for therapists is quite challenging from a lead generation standpoint, even through insurance. Cash pay has always been a, been a challenge. And I know that's one thing that you help folks with, but this feels like the year where insurance became a challenge to acquire clients in a way that feels confusing and obscure because of the supply and demand relationship. And so I think there's a lot to be learned in 2025, but I would say that's like kind of the, the biggest and hairiest thing that I've seen.
Tiffany(02:14):
It's really interesting. So maybe five years ago a therapist could be in private practice or get paneled with an, an insurance company. They could go out and have a website and get SEO or run Google ads and just fill up. And now, because there are all these tech platforms coming into the space and, you know, these different organizations that are forming the therapists can go work for therapists can no long, it's, it's much harder now for therapists to put up a site with good SEO and get to the top of a listing on Google. Like, it's probably not gonna happen. So therapists having a much harder time getting out in front of their potential client when it comes to being online, is that what you're talking about?
Andrew(02:49):
Yeah, exactly. Even on Psychology today as well. Yes. It feels like the, the density of new leads that are coming through is, is different than it once was. And so yeah, it feels quite challenging to be an, an independent practitioner and certainly one with without having reached a, a density of referrals within their local network.
Tiffany(03:07):
Yeah, very interesting. So given that, what are your what do you think's gonna happen? What's happening for us in 2025 given that this is a reality? What are some of your predictions for how the space may change or where the space is going in the coming year or two?
Andrew(03:23):
Yeah, this is really interesting. And these are all guesses and conjecture. Sure. I have no, we're
Tiffany(03:29):
Gonna hold you to this. We're gonna come back in one year and say, Andrew.
Andrew(03:32):
Yeah, I'm nothing short of hot takes. You can ask my partner and also everyone on the team. I think, I think there's a lot of new technology that's gonna enable therapists to save a lot of time from an administration standpoint, which is really awesome. And I hope that we approach this and work through this in the most ethical way that we possibly can. But I think there's already a lot of great solutions out there. Even around like simple things like AI note taking that can just reduce the amount of burden of having to catch up with notes at the end of the week or adding an additional hour to every day. And so I'm excited about some of that stuff for private practitioners. My hope over the next couple years is that we can create a world where it's as easy for an individual provider to access the same benefits that one of these larger organizations that's operating under a group NPI can do to drive those advantage reimbursements.
Andrew(04:26):
And so yeah, we'll see, we'll see what, we'll see what happens in that regard. And I think over the next couple years, there's just gonna be really interesting and weird shifting dynamics with, with the payers as providers start to push back. 'cause From what I can tell externally in the communities, providers are pretty effing fed up mm-hmm. With a lot of the stuff that's going on. And I, I hope that they can continue to recognize and come together and realize that in community and in in scope or in scale, they have a lot of power over those dynamics.
(00:22):
Tiffany(04:59):
I love that collective power, like therapists actually coming together to advocate for themselves in the work that we are doing.
Andrew(05:05):
That's my hope. Yeah.
Tiffany(05:07):
Yeah. You sound a little, you sound a little, you're not sure, so we're gonna hope Yeah, that's right. What do you think could get in the way of that happening?
Andrew(05:18):
Externally and I, you know, see it through my partner and then my partner's a clinical psychologist, many of my friends are as well, is the thing that I always worry about most is like therapists, it feels like in some regards, can be their own worst enemies. And oftentimes they're looking at another provider and they're like, you're charging 2 85. Like, you have five years less experience. Like, get what you're worth, right? Yes. And lift everybody up. And I think if the rising tides kind of lift all these boats together, I think really good things can happen. And I think if therapists recognize the opportunity to, to get creative and expand their revenue streams outside of just direct clinical care, especially if the payers are going to limit what the possibility is of how much they get paid on a, an aggregate basis each year, I think we're in for some like, really exciting changes.
Tiffany(06:11):
I agree. You're speaking my language. I love it. Yeah. So you mentioned your, you mentioned your partner who's a clinical psychologist. Let's talk a little bit about you. What is Heard? What does Heard do? Talk a little bit about that.
Andrew(06:24):
HEARD is a weird little niche accounting solution for therapist in private practice. My wife is a clinical psychologist, and like I said, many of my good friends are just because PhD programs don't ever end. Like I'm still not sure if it's over yet. But basically the reason for starting Heard was in the pandemic, lots of folks were recognizing, Hey, I don't need to give up 50% of my income to a group practice or an agency or some sort of system. Oh, and also being self-employed in a business owner is really hard and there's all of this like, really weird accounting stuff that I have to do. And so what HEARD does is makes it really easy for you to connect your bank accounts, track your income and expenses, get a good sense of where your business is at on a regular basis, figure out how to pay yourself, pay employees if you have employees through payroll, calculate taxes and file taxes at the end of the year. And so, again, all kind of that weird accounting stuff that you don't ever really want to think about. That's the stuff that we're trying to be really good at. And some of the stuff that we've been spending time in more recently is on the financial advisory side. So helping folks build wealth and explore beyond practice.
Tiffany(07:36):
That's exciting.
Andrew(07:37):
Yeah, it's really exciting. It's nascent days, but some stuff we've been working on.
Tiffany(07:42):
So if I'm a, a, a therapist, I'm, I'm listening to the money sessions right now. I, I'm paneled with insurance. I have 50 clients on my caseload. I see 30 a week. I have my two kids at home. I'm, ugh, I can barely even keep up. And I'm trying to do like my own bookkeeping or I have my local bookkeeper in my city who's like doing something with my books, but I don't know. And I'm scared of money. I'm scared to leave, you know, Sylvester, who's been serving my family for 20 years. What's the entry point for Heard? Like, what, what's it like to get started with Heard and, and what's gonna become easier for me by virtue of leaving Sylvester who I don't know what I'm, what what he is doing? And kind of coming over to you all,
Andrew(08:21):
Well, first shout out to Sylvester, CPA, that's been doing, doing God's work for a period of time. Yeah, I think the way that I frame it and I, when we do workshops, the things that I always like to say is like, Heard's not right for everyone. And I can contextualize that. Hopefully eventually we will be right for everyone. But I would say if you're earning less than $20,000 in your private practice Heard is not right for you. And paying a local CPA probably also isn't right for you. In that case, you could use a spreadsheet and you could use something like, actually, I don't think you can use Wave anymore 'cause of HIPAA compliance concerns, but you could use something like QuickBooks or another like very low cost solution if you wanna get sophisticated with it and then just work with a free filing service at the end of the year or work with TurboTax. And you're gonna pay probably in total 200 to $500 to handle your accounting on an annual basis. And you're gonna do it in a very simple way.
Andrew(09:18):
(00:43):
And if you were to choose to work with a tax account, we're not gonna be able to save you additional money on top of like what you might otherwise get just given where you are from an income standpoint. When you start to get in that like 20 to $50,000 range it starts to make a little bit more sense to outsource it. And what I would recommend at that point in time is probably like still that same spreadsheet. Ideally you're starting to think about like, let's separate our bank accounts, let's have automated accounting software just so we can kind of start to put some of those things on autopilot. And then maybe you work with a tax preparer at the end of the year. 'cause Maybe there's some savings that you might be able to find and getting some support from a quarterly tax standpoint will be helpful.
Andrew(09:57):
So you don't have any surprise liabilities. I would say after you reach 50,000, whether it's us, whether it's another online accounting service or whether it's a local CPA, getting someone to support you, just given that, in our example here, you're seeing 30 direct clients a week. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's not even talking about all the admin stuff, but getting someone to help you just even have peace of mind on top of everything else that you're dealing with. I would say that's the point in time where heard in current state is a good fit for you. And where we see most success with clients, right? Because if we have folks that are sub 50,000, oftentimes if they do leave, the feedback is like, I love this, but it's just too much for me. And I get that mm-hmm. And so what is the experience like of working with Heard?
Andrew(10:45):
What is different for Heard from your local CPA is that your local CPA, you might be able to go into the office, right? And have a sit down and chat with someone back and forth. And that can be beneficial if that is what you are seeking and what you were looking for. What might be challenging there is slow response times, lack of continuity because they have a lot of larger clients that they probably care more about. That's just me directly stating that mm-hmm. And you're still gonna end up paying for all of the different software services that they use and pay for a return at the end of the year. And so why we built Heard and the way that Heard is set up is to streamline everything and bring it all into one place. And so once you get set up with Heard, I still think we haven't totally nailed the onboarding process of getting everyone like up to speed and feeling really good as quickly as we'd like to.
Andrew(11:41):
Our goal internally is like a hundred percent of the folks that join Heard are set up within 14 days and have all of the systems in place and have had their questions answered. But I think we have a little bit of work to do, but what that onboarding process is gonna look like is you'll talk to one of our sales representatives, they'll tell you more about her, they'll share about the software, what you can expect, and then you would make the determination, I want to move forward. You would sign up, connect your bank accounts, choose which plan you want, you get into the main dashboard, and you would have an onboarding webinar to where you'd learn more about that. You could always schedule a follow up one-on-one with one of our onboarding team members. Our onboarding team is all ex therapists as well.
Andrew(12:23):
And so, oh, they're able to share some of that context with you. Yeah, Robbie and Melissa are just fantastic. And then from there it's just getting into the general flow of accounting. You have monthly bookkeeping and reporting. We handle all of that for you. Throughout the month, you can always reach out to us. That is a different thing for us is that we have a support team internally, and then within our support team, we have an accounting team, a payroll team, and a tax team, so that the right questions go to the right place. For some people that can be frustrating because they're looking for direct contact or direct communication, so the ability to get on the phone. And so that is a little bit different than your local CPA, albeit we are setting up phone support earlier this year, so you can expect to have that as well. And then on a quarterly basis, it's quarterly taxes. On an annual basis, it's annual tax filings. And so a long-winded description of, of what we do, but I'm happy to dive into more specifics.
Tiffany(13:23):
Well, this is, this is super helpful. I've had both experiences. I've had the local accountant, I've had online kind of bookkeepers or tax people, and I've had the local one who I'm, I, I can't get ahold of, or I'm the small fish for that person in the beginning of my practice. So I really like that you touched on that of like, or even I don't, talking to a a local person or someone who doesn't have systems set up, they kind of just are pulling things together. Yeah. It, it can, I've heard therapists be intimidated about asking questions or if they're not understanding, they feel like maybe their emotional, their emotions are too much. They just kind of stay vague and confused. Yeah. I have the, the good fortune of being able to see and kind of play with the back end of Heard.
Tiffany(14:02):
And the dashboard is beautiful. It's very clearly set up for therapists in private practice or group practices. The, the, the customer service was when, like, I don't know who your people are, but they would, Hey, we haven't heard, they chased me down. We haven't heard of you, Tiffany. We just wanna make sure you have everything you need. Do you wanna come to a a, a call? Like very, yeah. For, for me, very clearly like, okay, these folks are gonna help me every step of the way if I'm scared or anxious or I don't wanna look at something. They were very patient and very kind. So that was my experience with what the Heard team felt like.
Andrew(14:34):
Awesome. Well that makes me very excited. Yeah.
Tiffany(14:36):
You, you all are doing very well. I wanna know a little bit, so this is making me think about talking to therapists who maybe, I don't know if you've had this experience working with clients, but they maybe just don't even get on calls or they avoid it. Like they sign up up and they're like, I'm ready to do this money stuff, and then it just feels too overwhelming. You said you had some ex therapists on your team. How do you all think about, you know, therapists being anxious about money or therapists feeling bad for even desiring money? How do you approach those things as a team?
Andrew(15:06):
Yeah, it's really hard and hard in so far as like we want to figure out the right ways to communicate and create the opportunities to connect. And yeah, I think it's twofold, like from a foundational standpoint of like our ethos as a company. Like it's financial literacy at its core, right? And so, like if you come and join one of our, like monthly all hands with our full team, the thing that I'm always gonna say is like, whether you're a Heard customer or not, I want to be able to like, support you with the resources financially or otherwise to help you understand how to solve these problems. And I think there's a base level of financial literacy that therapists should have. I'm not saying that they should do all of the work themselves, but being able to get to that baseline of financial literacy.
Andrew(15:52):
And so we're doing everything that we possibly can to like, create as many resources and create the opportunities to learn from that. But I think there is like a, a general sense of avoidance and we see it. I just was talking to you about our goal of 14 day onboarding. I think I was in a call with the team earlier and of the folks that signed up in December, it's a busy time for us. We're heading into tax season. 70% have onboarded within 14 days, and the 30% that haven't, it's because we haven't received the documentation. Yes, we need from them to be able to set them up for success. And I think that's a couple different things. One, it's like you're really fricking busy and trying to find the time to dive into something where, I don't know what I don't know, what I don't know is pretty daunting.
(01:04):
Andrew(16:38):
Yes. And then finding out certain realities around what your tax liability might be or you know, what your current financial situation might be is pretty scary as well. Like I know that just a business owner in general, and so I think it's multiple fold. And I mean, the way, the way that we directly approach it is what you alluded to, is like, as much communication as we possibly can. It's messages, it's call campaigns, it's in our app, like letting you know, and like if you log into our dashboard, we, like, our main dashboard is a list of your action items, which can be super overwhelming for some folks or really helpful for other folks. Yeah. And so I don't know if I have a silver bullet for that, but that's just like a little context of how we look at it internally.
Tiffany(17:22):
It's helpful for, I I, I know for me, and I'm sure for the listeners to even get a visual sense of like, oh, here's step one, step two, step three, as you're imagining what it might be like to work with you all or to hire someone, a company like Heard. Yeah. So this is a question I have for myself all the time. I'm gonna ask it of you. Anyone I talk to who serves therapists, I, I, I'm a former therapist, I am a therapist. So I know why I went into this space to serve therapists, but therapists have such a hard time with money. We, we struggle, we're afraid to charge. We, we don't know what it, we, you know, we're changing this, but therapists struggle to understand the importance of investment. I don't wanna spend money on a bookkeeper as opposed to, oh, if I make this investment, these people are gonna help me. It's gonna free up 10 hours in my, my time and also bring me more money. That's a no brainer. Why did you decide to work with therapists instead of Wall Street bankers or just plumbers, you know, people who might have a a easier, more comfortable relationship with money?
Andrew(18:18):
Yeah. And I think, like truthfully, I think we've, like, we've learned a lot about that over the course of the, the past five years of the unique dynamics within this customer base that we have. Like, of course I have the perspective of like my partner and my friends and like supporting them through this process. But for me, like I've I mean, I had my first panic attack when I was like 12. And then I tried to take my own life when I was 16. And so I saw the first let
Tiffany(18:44):
Me pause. Let me pause you. You, you're talking to therapists here. Yeah. They just heard you go. You, I think you probably do interviews and gloss that over. We're not gonna go deep into that, but I want folks to hear what you just said. Yeah. You had a panic, your first panic attack at 12. Yeah. You tried to commit suicide as a teenager. This is, yeah. You were dealing with big stuff. Yeah. It sounds like you went to a therapist or you got help from somebody, is that right?
Andrew(19:07):
I saw a psychiatrist for the first time. Okay. Yeah. I saw a psychiatrist. And then I've, I've been in therapy for like the last two decades in a number of different facets at different turning points. 'cause Unfortunately, these these types of things like anxiety and panic and depression follow you for an extended period of time. That's so, that's right. Yes, they do. I'm very grateful for the work that you do, and I have invested quite a bit into the work that you all do as well.
Tiffany(19:30):
Excellent. So you have a very personal, you've, you have had your life changed by getting help from therapists.
Andrew(19:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I have. And I don't, I don't think it's probably ironic that, so I met my partner when I was 16. We met in wow. Physics class. And I don't think it's ironic that she decided to become a, a clinical psychologist. And so no, I'm very, yeah, deeply grateful. And it, it is like the intersection of my like weird passion for mm-hmm. Accounting and mental health.
Tiffany(20:01):
Yeah. That's really interesting. Very moving too. It's moving like, oh, I, I find that the people who serve therapists they don't stay in it if they haven't had personal relationships or been per personally moved by mental health work or therapists,
Andrew(20:15):
It makes showing up a lot easier, that's for sure. That's
Tiffany(20:17):
Right. That's right. Yeah. So we, we primarily, we talk, you know, therapists listen to this podcast, therapists in private practice who are want wanting to work through their money stuff. But we also have therapists who have we have a lot of students who have gone through our program and then move to the next level of business. They start, they start scaling up their own businesses. So let's take a couple moments to talk about just what it, the, the means to be a business owner in this world who's building a business that scales and has an impact, particularly around the challenges we face. I have had the experience of, you know, growing this business. I I know therapists too, as they're learning the clinical work, we up. Yeah. Oh no, I shouldn't have done that intervention. Or, oh no, we, we got all these new students in our program and we weren't set up to serve them. I would love to know about a situation when you all heard have scaled and broke things that had an impact on your clients. Can you talk about a time that has happened?
Andrew(21:13):
(01:25):
Yeah. Which one? Right, right. I think that, I think that's just the nature of, of building building a business. I think, like most acutely to me, what I think about is because of the impact that it had on my mental health and physical health, but also the impact that it had on our customer base, most importantly is 2022 tax season. So we like really launched, quote unquote, this version of Heard in like 2021. We, a couple of pivots prior to like really getting to this place. And we were growing really quickly. We had an understaffed team. And the way that we had structured our our tax filing process at the end of the year is like we were working with a network of preparers that, like we had personally gone out and found ourselves. And so we had three preparers.
Andrew(22:05):
One person dealt with a personal loss during tax season. One of the prepare preparers disappeared. The way that we had structured our support was like every provider had like a one-to-one person that they were working with. And that led to like a deeply variable experience. Some people were like, oh my God, X person is like the best person ever. And then the other person was like, oh my God, I haven't heard from this person in 14 days. And so I think as you certainly face the pressures of like wanting to be a high growth business and be a startup, there's like so many trade-offs that you make along the way. And I think for the first couple years I felt really subject to the pressure of like high growth, high growth, high growth at all costs. And we saw that in the, the evolution of our support model.
Andrew(22:49):
We saw that in some of the changes of our team. And so I would say those 2022 tax season for sure. And then in 2023, the thing that I did is I brought in like a very professional COO and who is now our president, Kristen. She's amazing. We brought in a, a support leader, multiple support leaders that had been doing this for the last two decades of their life to help us build out a support function that could help us respond to therapists quickly and on time. And then build operational processes on the backend to make taxi season feel easier and more streamlined. But we work with thousands of therapists and we don't always nail it. And I think the thing that I am continually trying to figure out is like this desire for more one-on-one interaction and more time directly connecting with a person.
Andrew(23:41):
'Cause The balance that I've always wanted to create is like the lowest cost possible version of what we're doing to make it as accessible as possible, while also serving our therapists in the most effective way possible. And so that's kind of just been like knob twisting over the course of the past, like four years to figure out like what that dynamic looks like. And I would say we have like a world class support function, which is part of what you experienced, but there's another piece to support is I'm looking for a human interaction. And that's something that we're not delivering in the most effective way right now. And so that's something that we're working on this year.
Tiffany(24:15):
Yeah. It's really, we could, we will not talk about this for an hour, but we could talk about it for an hour. Like just the the difficulty of having a human connection. It's hard to scale and actually we one cannot scale to human connection. So how do you, how, how does a business make sure people are seen, heard, and taken care of, especially therapists who really value that while also growing. So it seems like you're really, I I'm gonna actually answer that. I'm gonna answer the answer that question I just asked, which is having someone like you at the helm who talk about the struggle, the pain you felt as you went through this, you have a lot of empathy. I, Robbie is who I was thinking about earlier. So yeah,
Andrew(24:55):
Robbie's the best. Yeah.
Tiffany(24:55):
Robbie, I, I've been emailing with Robbie and he has asked, he said, I want your feedback. I, as you go through, get on. And I emailed him back and I said, do you want my nice feedback or do you want real talk? And he said, we always want real talk. It's a, it's a, it's a value of our company to hear the truth so we can change. I'm like, all right, like growth mindset. So I think we're gonna up therapists, we're gonna up businesses. But the willingness to actually hear like, what was the impact on you when we grew too fast and, and it had this impact, I wanna know we're gonna work to fix it and really try to find the balance and things will break in the process. But that's humanity, that's growth, that's life.
Andrew(25:32):
Yes. 100%. And I mean, Robbie's correct. Like if, like, if you were in our, we use Slack for communication, and if you were in our Slack channel, like anytime there's a cancellation at Heard, anytime there's like a NPS comment, net promoter score, comment, uhhuh, every piece of feedback comes across the entire team at Heard. Every one of our all hands, we talk about it, we have a weekly customer sentiment meeting where all of our feedback channels, whether it's through support or otherwise, we're all going through and reading each one of the comments. Wow. They're not always super fun to read. That's right. But they are su certainly certainly motivating. And so I don't know, my sense is like, if we stay as close as possible to the customer, we're transparent about, you know, where we up. To your point, yeah. My hope is that we can, you know, build this thing together. But yeah, trust is the most important thing, and I think that is what I've learned about this customer base.
Tiffany(26:24):
Yeah. Yep. That's right. On. you mentioned earlier you talked about the words financial literacy. And I already heard the therapists were like, they went just like, look on YouTube. They started scrolling their phone. It's a big word. Therapists freak out. Can you break down? Like you said, it's really important for fi for therapists to have the most basic financial literacy. So for, you know, Myrna, who's listening to this podcast with her 30 clients, she's, she's on her 10th client of this week and she knows something's off. She's not looking at her bank account. She doesn't even know if what she's doing is profitable. Can you say what she need? What does financial literacy mean to Myrna right now? What does, what would be the basic entry point to help her feel a little relief and to take a first step in gaining this thing called financial literacy
Andrew(27:08):
First shout out to Myrna. Yeah, that sounds very overwhelming. I don't ha I don't know if I have like the necessary, like, part of my mind goes to like tactical. Like these are the things that I would learn. I would just say like I would say just, just start. Find the, find the place to start. Find an area that you can, can learn more. And I think Jenny, Jenny s Schmill, she has, or you also have a financial community. Like get into a community of other therapists and ask what you perceive to be the stupid questions. Mm. And we do a ton of workshops, so it's certainly like shameless plug for like Michael and Melanie and our like content and marketing team. Like, we are always doing stuff and we have a lot of stuff out there whether it's on our website or workshops, but getting into a community with other providers and being willing to like ask the what you perceive to be silly questions is, I think the most important starting place possible.
Andrew(28:04):
Like something like, how do I know how much I'm making? Or like, what percentage should I set aside for taxes? My, my sense is whether incorrect or correct the responses are that are provided from the other therapists in that group, it's a way that it's gonna feel a lot safer to start talking about it. Yeah. And then finding ways to just like, plug in, even if it's like, maybe this is a, an action coming out of this is like once a once every three months or once a month, attend a, a workshop on setting yourself up for financial success, whether that's through you, Tiffany, or whether that's joining one of our workshops or, you know, through your you know, associations or networks that you're a part of.
(01:46):
Tiffany(28:44):
We're gonna, we, we have an, our Slack channel, non-humble brag. So we, we, we, we plug every, everything shamelessly. So I don't actually want them to come to me 'cause I don't do this. This is not my, I I help you raise your feet. I don't want, I am Myrna, I don't want you to go to your suite, mate, right now. I actually want you to, you said that you all teach regular for anybody. Yeah, for sure. Any therapist to come to a workshop. Can you, is it regular? Do you have a link for that? How does Myrna find out about this workshop of yours?
Andrew(29:07):
Yes, for sure, for sure. I need to be better at selling Heard. Yes. Okay. So you can go to join hern.com mm-hmm. J-O-I-N-H-E-A-R d.com. My recommendation would be to subscribe to our newsletter. We have an awesome community of over 50,000 therapists on our newsletter. Great. And every single week we write a new piece of financial content for you and every, whether that's like a resource or it's a tool or it's a guide for you. And then we have workshops typically on a monthly basis, sometimes more frequently. And that could be anywhere from like bookkeeping basics 1 0 1 to, I think we have one in January in like the, after the 20th. That's around setting yourself up for financial success out of practice. So great for things like, you know, you might get from working with a certified financial planner, a financial advisor, things like how much to contribute to retirement, or a big thing that therapists often think about is like, oh my God, I have this crippling debt from Yeah. My educational program. And so join our newsletter. And then if you go to our the name has changed, so I'll tell you specifically what it is. Go to our resources section on our website. We have a resource hub, lots of checklists as you approach tax season, tax specific tax season specific hub. We have a podcast that's something that I should have alluded to that Michael's been putting on where we've been talking with therapists and experts. Wow. We're doing a lot of stuff. That's great. A hundred percent. Here's Heard com.
Tiffany(30:39):
Here's what I'm gonna do. Okay. I'm gonna actually, what's your podcast called?
Andrew(30:43):
It is called Heard Business School.
Tiffany(30:45):
Heard Business School. So for folks, everything that Andrew just said to do, don't do any of that. 'cause I hear you're already overwhelmed. Like, gotta go to the website and find the resources. Like, I actually just want you to go, we're, we're gonna put this in our show notes. Heard Business School. Yeah. Just go there and listen to the podcast and you'll hear people actually talking about money, their anxieties, what worked for them, what did, like, you can just hear real conversations with people who are trying to navigate this stuff just like you're trying to navigate this stuff. So go do that. Heard business school. And Michael is wonderful. Michael was actually my entry pro to Heard Michael's. Great. So go listen to that. Before we wrap up, we're just about to wrap up. We really I'm a parent of young children.
Tiffany(31:21):
I have a three and a half and a five year and a half year old right now. We have a lot, our therapists, they're like these moms who are just phenomenal. They have a partner Sure. But they're like holding the emotion. They're in emotional labor for their clients, usually their partner, then their own kids. They're doing a ton. So I do wanna talk about, you just had, you are a parent. You had your first kiddo who's like four months old, four and a half months old, and you are also running a company. And you're on this podcast being coherent right now. Can you just say something about the struggles or the challenges or the joys, however you wanna tackle this, of trying to balance having a new infant, becoming a parent, stepping into an entirely different stage of life while also being a CEO and founder?
Andrew(32:06):
Yeah. I don't know if I, you and I were talking about this briefly before, but becoming a parent has been, I think for me as somebody that's like long dealt with my own mental health struggles has been like a forcing function to be like, not like you should have a kid to achieve this, but like, it's been a forcing function to be like incredibly present and also focused on something like deeply focused on something outside of myself. And that's one of the things that I'm like super grateful for, that I've really enjoyed. And she's just like great temperament. Not to, she has been sleeping well. I hate to say that out loud. Knock on wood. Say it. Knock on wood, knock
Tiffany(32:41):
On. They're happy for
Andrew(32:42):
You. And then just from like a, being a business owner and a parent at the same time, that's the thing that I'm like trying to navigate and figure out. Like, I was talking to my partner last night about this after I ended my work day and I was like, I feel like I'm like 50% good at being a dad and like 50% good at being a founder. And I like, I want to be 150% at both, let alone like my own ambitions, like from a health standpoint of where I want to be. And so I don't know if you have good tips or other parents, I have good tips, send them my way. But that's something that I'm trying to like, navigate and figure out. And maybe it's a resetting of expectations, but I haven't figured that out yet.
Tiffany(33:19):
Only four and a half months in you'll you'll, you got some time. You got some time. Andrew, it has been a pleasure talking with you. I find it be very just transparent, kind, thoughtful empathetic. So thank you for coming and just being yourself and also you know, letting us in on what it's like what these business owners who are starting these companies and these financial companies and these tech companies. We can, we can, it's easy to oh, these people, capitalism and, and so it actually talk to a real person who's just kind and in the struggle and, and, and in it to be, to be in the struggle is wonderful. Refreshing.
Andrew(33:57):
(02:07):
Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk and it's always nice to hang out with you anyways, so I love likewise.
Tiffany(34:04):
Keep knocking on wood for the sleep and we'll, yes. And folks listening, go to Heard Business School podcast. Just look it up right now. Find that and listen, and you'll start getting a little bit of financial literacy, which really means financial freedom, hope, possibility to show up more fully in your life. Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew(34:22):
Thank you.
Outro(34:28):
All right. Whatever you're doing, I want you to pause. If you're driving, pull over. If you're chopping a carrot, put that knife away. If you're making sweet love to your woman, well, I mean that's, that's, that's kind of flattering in a weird way. Huh. You can go, you can just go ahead and you can keep doing that. But for the rest of you, if you learn even just one thing of value today, please share this episode with even just one therapist who could benefit from the message. Here's how, if you're listening on iTunes, click on the episode and you'll see a small purple circle with three dots. Click on those dots and you're gonna see the option to share at the bottom of the list. Click that and you can just go ahead and share it on Facebook, or you can even just text it to one therapist who you know needs to hear it. If you're listening on Stitcher, just tap the triangle icon on the upper right corner. It's next to the menu that displays your upcoming playlist. You'll see the option to share the episode you're currently listening to Right on Facebook. Look, it's time to get the word out. We gotta spread the message. Thank you so much, and we'll join each other again soon.
Tiffany(00:01):
(00:01):
Folks, I'm here with Andrew, Andrew, the CEO founder, and CEO of Heard. Welcome. How are you doing today?
Andrew(00:08):
I'm well. How are you doing? Nice to see you. Nice
Tiffany(00:11):
To see you. And folks who are listening to us now. We already did this 30 seconds ago, we already said, how are you? We already welcomed up what we wanted to do officially for you, so welcome back. Nice to see you. We're gonna get into, in a, a moment who you are, what you do, all of that. But before we do that, I, I actually wanna talk with you a little bit about some of the challenges you saw therapists face in 2024 at the time we're recording this, we're just in January of 2025, we're all getting back in. What were some of the challenges you saw a therapist facing in 2024? Talk a little bit about that.
Andrew(00:44):
Challenges that I saw a therapist facing in 2024. I think the, the biggest and continuing challenge is the dynamics of payers. New age, mental health marketplaces, and the ability for therapists to like in independently credential themselves. And you know, not just handle that as a process, as a standalone to be able to reap the greatest rewards. But the system has continued to shift in so far that therapists are not able to get the same reimbursements on their own. And then from an advertising and a marketing standpoint, there's no way that they're gonna be competitive or manage placements against these larger organizations that are, that are taking these types of placements. And I think there's a benefit in different regards from an admin standpoint, from a lot of these organizations. But I think the dynamic for therapists is quite challenging from a lead generation standpoint, even through insurance. Cash pay has always been a, been a challenge. And I know that's one thing that you help folks with, but this feels like the year where insurance became a challenge to acquire clients in a way that feels confusing and obscure because of the supply and demand relationship. And so I think there's a lot to be learned in 2025, but I would say that's like kind of the, the biggest and hairiest thing that I've seen.
Tiffany(02:14):
It's really interesting. So maybe five years ago a therapist could be in private practice or get paneled with an, an insurance company. They could go out and have a website and get SEO or run Google ads and just fill up. And now, because there are all these tech platforms coming into the space and, you know, these different organizations that are forming the therapists can go work for therapists can no long, it's, it's much harder now for therapists to put up a site with good SEO and get to the top of a listing on Google. Like, it's probably not gonna happen. So therapists having a much harder time getting out in front of their potential client when it comes to being online, is that what you're talking about?
Andrew(02:49):
Yeah, exactly. Even on Psychology today as well. Yes. It feels like the, the density of new leads that are coming through is, is different than it once was. And so yeah, it feels quite challenging to be an, an independent practitioner and certainly one with without having reached a, a density of referrals within their local network.
Tiffany(03:07):
Yeah, very interesting. So given that, what are your what do you think's gonna happen? What's happening for us in 2025 given that this is a reality? What are some of your predictions for how the space may change or where the space is going in the coming year or two?
Andrew(03:23):
Yeah, this is really interesting. And these are all guesses and conjecture. Sure. I have no
Tiffany(03:29):
Gonna hold you to this. We're gonna come back in one year and say, Andrew.
Andrew(03:32):
Yeah, I'm nothing short of hot takes. You can ask my partner and also everyone on the team. I think, I think there's a lot of new technology that's gonna enable therapists to save a lot of time from an administration standpoint, which is really awesome. And I hope that we approach this and work through this in the most ethical way that we possibly can. But I think there's already a lot of great solutions out there. Even around like simple things like AI note taking that can just reduce the amount of burden of having to catch up with notes at the end of the week or adding an additional hour to every day. And so I'm excited about some of that stuff for private practitioners. My hope over the next couple years is that we can create a world where it's as easy for an individual provider to access the same benefits that one of these larger organizations that's operating under a group NPI can do to drive those advantage reimbursements.
Andrew(04:26):
And so yeah, we'll see, we'll see what, we'll see what happens in that regard. And I think over the next couple years, there's just gonna be really interesting and weird shifting dynamics with, with the payers as providers start to push back. 'cause From what I can tell externally in the communities, providers are pretty effing fed up mm-hmm
(00:22):
Tiffany(04:59):
I love that collective power, like therapists actually coming together to advocate for themselves in the work that we are doing.
Andrew(05:05):
That's my hope. Yeah.
Tiffany(05:07):
Yeah. You sound a little, you sound a little, you're not sure, so we're gonna hope Yeah, that's right. What do you think could get in the way of that happening?
Andrew(05:18):
Externally and I, you know, see it through my partner and then my partner's a clinical psychologist, many of my friends are as well, is the thing that I always worry about most is like therapists, it feels like in some regards, can be their own worst enemies. And oftentimes they're looking at another provider and they're like, you're charging 2 85. Like, you have five years less experience. Like, get what you're worth, right? Yes. And lift everybody up. And I think if the rising tides kind of lift all these boats together, I think really good things can happen. And I think if therapists recognize the opportunity to, to get creative and expand their revenue streams outside of just direct clinical care, especially if the payers are going to limit what the possibility is of how much they get paid on a, an aggregate basis each year, I think we're in for some like, really exciting changes.
Tiffany(06:11):
I agree. You're speaking my language. I love it. Yeah. So you mentioned your, you mentioned your partner who's a clinical psychologist. Let's talk a little bit about you. What is Heard? What does Heard do? Talk a little bit about that.
Andrew(06:24):
HEARD is a weird little niche accounting solution for therapist in private practice. My wife is a clinical psychologist, and like I said, many of my good friends are just because PhD programs don't ever end. Like I'm still not sure if it's over yet. But basically the reason for starting Heard was in the pandemic, lots of folks were recognizing, Hey, I don't need to give up 50% of my income to a group practice or an agency or some sort of system. Oh, and also being self-employed in a business owner is really hard and there's all of this like, really weird accounting stuff that I have to do. And so what HEARD does is makes it really easy for you to connect your bank accounts, track your income and expenses, get a good sense of where your business is at on a regular basis, figure out how to pay yourself, pay employees if you have employees through payroll, calculate taxes and file taxes at the end of the year. And so, again, all kind of that weird accounting stuff that you don't ever really want to think about. That's the stuff that we're trying to be really good at. And some of the stuff that we've been spending time in more recently is on the financial advisory side. So helping folks build wealth and explore beyond practice.
Tiffany(07:36):
That's exciting.
Andrew(07:37):
Yeah, it's really exciting. It's nascent days, but some stuff we've been working on.
Tiffany(07:42):
So if I'm a, a, a therapist, I'm, I'm listening to the money sessions right now. I, I'm paneled with insurance. I have 50 clients on my caseload. I see 30 a week. I have my two kids at home. I'm, ugh, I can barely even keep up. And I'm trying to do like my own bookkeeping or I have my local bookkeeper in my city who's like doing something with my books, but I don't know. And I'm scared of money. I'm scared to leave, you know, Sylvester, who's been serving my family for 20 years. What's the entry point for Heard? Like, what, what's it like to get started with Heard and, and what's gonna become easier for me by virtue of leaving Sylvester who I don't know what I'm, what what he is doing? And kind of coming over to you all,
Andrew(08:21):
Well, first shout out to Sylvester
Andrew(09:18):
(00:43):
And if you were to choose to work with a tax account, we're not gonna be able to save you additional money on top of like what you might otherwise get just given where you are from an income standpoint. When you start to get in that like 20 to $50,000 range it starts to make a little bit more sense to outsource it. And what I would recommend at that point in time is probably like still that same spreadsheet. Ideally you're starting to think about like, let's separate our bank accounts, let's have automated accounting software just so we can kind of start to put some of those things on autopilot. And then maybe you work with a tax preparer at the end of the year. 'cause Maybe there's some savings that you might be able to find and getting some support from a quarterly tax standpoint will be helpful.
Andrew(09:57):
So you don't have any surprise liabilities. I would say after you reach 50,000, whether it's us, whether it's another online accounting service or whether it's a local CPA, getting someone to support you, just given that, in our example here, you're seeing 30 direct clients a week. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's not even talking about all the admin stuff, but getting someone to help you just even have peace of mind on top of everything else that you're dealing with. I would say that's the point in time where heard in current state is a good fit for you. And where we see most success with clients, right? Because if we have folks that are sub 50,000, oftentimes if they do leave, the feedback is like, I love this, but it's just too much for me. And I get that mm-hmm
Andrew(10:45):
What is different for Heard from your local CPA is that your local CPA, you might be able to go into the office, right? And have a sit down and chat with someone back and forth. And that can be beneficial if that is what you are seeking and what you were looking for. What might be challenging there is slow response times, lack of continuity because they have a lot of larger clients that they probably care more about. That's just me directly stating that mm-hmm
Andrew(11:41):
Our goal internally is like a hundred percent of the folks that join Heard are set up within 14 days and have all of the systems in place and have had their questions answered. But I think we have a little bit of work to do, but what that onboarding process is gonna look like is you'll talk to one of our sales representatives, they'll tell you more about her, they'll share about the software, what you can expect, and then you would make the determination, I want to move forward. You would sign up, connect your bank accounts, choose which plan you want, you get into the main dashboard, and you would have an onboarding webinar to where you'd learn more about that. You could always schedule a follow up one-on-one with one of our onboarding team members. Our onboarding team is all ex therapists as well.
Andrew(12:23):
And so, oh, they're able to share some of that context with you. Yeah, Robbie and Melissa are just fantastic. And then from there it's just getting into the general flow of accounting. You have monthly bookkeeping and reporting. We handle all of that for you. Throughout the month, you can always reach out to us. That is a different thing for us is that we have a support team internally, and then within our support team, we have an accounting team, a payroll team, and a tax team, so that the right questions go to the right place. For some people that can be frustrating because they're looking for direct contact or direct communication, so the ability to get on the phone. And so that is a little bit different than your local CPA, albeit we are setting up phone support earlier this year, so you can expect to have that as well. And then on a quarterly basis, it's quarterly taxes. On an annual basis, it's annual tax filings. And so a long-winded description of, of what we do, but I'm happy to dive into more specifics.
Tiffany(13:23):
Well, this is, this is super helpful. I've had both experiences. I've had the local accountant, I've had online kind of bookkeepers or tax people, and I've had the local one who I'm, I, I can't get ahold of, or I'm the small fish for that person in the beginning of my practice. So I really like that you touched on that of like, or even I don't, talking to a a local person or someone who doesn't have systems set up, they kind of just are pulling things together. Yeah. It, it can, I've heard therapists be intimidated about asking questions or if they're not understanding, they feel like maybe their emotional, their emotions are too much. They just kind of stay vague and confused. Yeah. I have the, the good fortune of being able to see and kind of play with the back end of Heard.
Tiffany(14:02):
And the dashboard is beautiful. It's very clearly set up for therapists in private practice or group practices. The, the, the customer service was when, like, I don't know who your people are, but they would, Hey, we haven't heard, they chased me down. We haven't heard of you, Tiffany. We just wanna make sure you have everything you need. Do you wanna come to a a, a call? Like very, yeah. For, for me, very clearly like, okay, these folks are gonna help me every step of the way if I'm scared or anxious or I don't wanna look at something. They were very patient and very kind. So that was my experience with what the Heard team felt like.
Andrew(14:34):
Awesome. Well that makes me very excited. Yeah.
Tiffany(14:36):
You, you all are doing very well. I wanna know a little bit, so this is making me think about talking to therapists who maybe, I don't know if you've had this experience working with clients, but they maybe just don't even get on calls or they avoid it. Like they sign up up and they're like, I'm ready to do this money stuff, and then it just feels too overwhelming. You said you had some ex therapists on your team. How do you all think about, you know, therapists being anxious about money or therapists feeling bad for even desiring money? How do you approach those things as a team?
Andrew(15:06):
Yeah, it's really hard and hard in so far as like we want to figure out the right ways to communicate and create the opportunities to connect. And yeah, I think it's twofold, like from a foundational standpoint of like our ethos as a company. Like it's financial literacy at its core, right? And so, like if you come and join one of our, like monthly all hands with our full team, the thing that I'm always gonna say is like, whether you're a Heard customer or not, I want to be able to like, support you with the resources financially or otherwise to help you understand how to solve these problems. And I think there's a base level of financial literacy that therapists should have. I'm not saying that they should do all of the work themselves, but being able to get to that baseline of financial literacy.
Andrew(15:52):
And so we're doing everything that we possibly can to like, create as many resources and create the opportunities to learn from that. But I think there is like a, a general sense of avoidance and we see it. I just was talking to you about our goal of 14 day onboarding. I think I was in a call with the team earlier and of the folks that signed up in December, it's a busy time for us. We're heading into tax season. 70% have onboarded within 14 days, and the 30% that haven't, it's because we haven't received the documentation. Yes, we need from them to be able to set them up for success. And I think that's a couple different things. One, it's like you're really fricking busy and trying to find the time to dive into something where, I don't know what I don't know, what I don't know is pretty daunting.
(01:04):
Andrew(16:38):
Yes. And then finding out certain realities around what your tax liability might be or you know, what your current financial situation might be is pretty scary as well. Like I know that just a business owner in general, and so I think it's multiple fold. And I mean, the way
Tiffany(17:22):
It's helpful for, I I, I know for me, and I'm sure for the listeners to even get a visual sense of like, oh, here's step one, step two, step three, as you're imagining what it might be like to work with you all or to hire someone, a company like Heard. Yeah. So this is a question I have for myself all the time. I'm gonna ask it of you. Anyone I talk to who serves therapists, I, I, I'm a former therapist, I am a therapist. So I know why I went into this space to serve therapists, but therapists have such a hard time with money. We, we struggle, we're afraid to charge. We, we don't know what it, we, you know, we're changing this, but therapists struggle to understand the importance of investment. I don't wanna spend money on a bookkeeper as opposed to, oh, if I make this investment, these people are gonna help me. It's gonna free up 10 hours in my, my time and also bring me more money. That's a no brainer. Why did you decide to work with therapists instead of Wall Street bankers or just plumbers, you know, people who might have a a easier, more comfortable relationship with money?
Andrew(18:18):
Yeah. And I think, like truthfully, I think we've, like, we've learned a lot about that over the course of the, the past five years of the unique dynamics within this customer base that we have. Like, of course I have the perspective of like my partner and my friends and like supporting them through this process. But for me, like I've I mean, I had my first panic attack when I was like 12. And then I tried to take my own life when I was 16. And so I saw the first let
Tiffany(18:44):
Me pause. Let me pause you. You, you're talking to therapists here. Yeah. They just heard you go. You, I think you probably do interviews and gloss that over. We're not gonna go deep into that, but I want folks to hear what you just said. Yeah. You had a panic, your first panic attack at 12. Yeah. You tried to commit suicide as a teenager. This is, yeah. You were dealing with big stuff. Yeah. It sounds like you went to a therapist or you got help from somebody, is that right?
Andrew(19:07):
I saw a psychiatrist for the first time. Okay. Yeah. I saw a psychiatrist. And then I've, I've been in therapy for like the last two decades in a number of different facets at different turning points. 'cause Unfortunately, these these types of things like anxiety and panic and depression follow you for an extended period of time. That's so, that's right. Yes, they do. I'm very grateful for the work that you do, and I have invested quite a bit into the work that you all do as well.
Tiffany(19:30):
Excellent. So you have a very personal, you've, you have had your life changed by getting help from therapists.
Andrew(19:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I have. And I don't, I don't think it's probably ironic that, so I met my partner when I was 16. We met in wow. Physics class. And I don't think it's ironic that she decided to become a, a clinical psychologist. And so no, I'm very, yeah, deeply grateful. And it, it is like the intersection of my like weird passion for mm-hmm
Tiffany(20:01):
Yeah. That's really interesting. Very moving too. It's moving like, oh, I, I find that the people who serve therapists they don't stay in it if they haven't had personal relationships or been per personally moved by mental health work or therapists,
Andrew(20:15):
It makes showing up a lot easier, that's for sure. That's
Tiffany(20:17):
Right. That's right. Yeah. So we, we primarily, we talk, you know, therapists listen to this podcast, therapists in private practice who are want wanting to work through their money stuff. But we also have therapists who have we have a lot of students who have gone through our program and then move to the next level of business. They start, they start scaling up their own businesses. So let's take a couple moments to talk about just what it, the, the means to be a business owner in this world who's building a business that scales and has an impact, particularly around the challenges we face. I have had the experience of, you know, growing this business. I I know therapists too, as they're learning the clinical work, we up. Yeah. Oh no, I shouldn't have done that intervention. Or, oh no, we, we got all these new students in our program and we weren't set up to serve them. I would love to know about a situation when you all heard have scaled and broke things that had an impact on your clients. Can you talk about a time that has happened?
Andrew(21:13):
(01:25):
Yeah. Which one? Right, right. I think that, I think that's just the nature of, of building building a business. I think, like most acutely to me, what I think about is because of the impact that it had on my mental health and physical health, but also the impact that it had on our customer base, most importantly is 2022 tax season. So we like really launched, quote unquote, this version of Heard in like 2021. We, a couple of pivots prior to like really getting to this place. And we were growing really quickly. We had an understaffed team. And the way that we had structured our our tax filing process at the end of the year is like we were working with a network of preparers that, like we had personally gone out and found ourselves. And so we had three preparers.
Andrew(22:05):
One person dealt with a personal loss during tax season. One of the prepare preparers disappeared. The way that we had structured our support was like every provider had like a one-to-one person that they were working with. And that led to like a deeply variable experience. Some people were like, oh my God, X person is like the best person ever. And then the other person was like, oh my God, I haven't heard from this person in 14 days. And so I think as you certainly face the pressures of like wanting to be a high growth business and be a startup, there's like so many trade-offs that you make along the way. And I think for the first couple years I felt really subject to the pressure of like high growth, high growth, high growth at all costs. And we saw that in the, the evolution of our support model.
Andrew(22:49):
We saw that in some of the changes of our team. And so I would say those 2022 tax season for sure. And then in 2023, the thing that I did is I brought in like a very professional COO and who is now our president, Kristen. She's amazing. We brought in a, a support leader, multiple support leaders that had been doing this for the last two decades of their life to help us build out a support function that could help us respond to therapists quickly and on time. And then build operational processes on the backend to make taxi season feel easier and more streamlined. But we work with thousands of therapists and we don't always nail it. And I think the thing that I am continually trying to figure out is like this desire for more one-on-one interaction and more time directly connecting with a person.
Andrew(23:41):
'Cause The balance that I've always wanted to create is like the lowest cost possible version of what we're doing to make it as accessible as possible, while also serving our therapists in the most effective way possible. And so that's kind of just been like knob twisting over the course of the past, like four years to figure out like what that dynamic looks like. And I would say we have like a world class support function, which is part of what you experienced, but there's another piece to support is I'm looking for a human interaction. And that's something that we're not delivering in the most effective way right now. And so that's something that we're working on this year.
Tiffany(24:15):
Yeah. It's really, we could, we will not talk about this for an hour, but we could talk about it for an hour. Like just the the difficulty of having a human connection. It's hard to scale and actually we one cannot scale to human connection. So how do you, how, how does a business make sure people are seen, heard, and taken care of, especially therapists who really value that while also growing. So it seems like you're really, I I'm gonna actually answer that. I'm gonna answer the answer that question I just asked, which is having someone like you at the helm who talk about the struggle, the pain you felt as you went through this, you have a lot of empathy. I, Robbie is who I was thinking about earlier. So yeah,
Andrew(24:55):
Robbie's the best. Yeah.
Tiffany(24:55):
Robbie, I, I've been emailing with Robbie and he has asked, he said, I want your feedback. I, as you go through, get on. And I emailed him back and I said, do you want my nice feedback or do you want real talk? And he said, we always want real talk. It's a, it's a, it's a value of our company to hear the truth so we can change. I'm like, all right, like growth mindset. So I think we're gonna up therapists, we're gonna up businesses. But the willingness to actually hear like, what was the impact on you when we grew too fast and, and it had this impact, I wanna know we're gonna work to fix it and really try to find the balance and things will break in the process. But that's humanity, that's growth, that's life.
Andrew(25:32):
Yes. 100%. And I mean, Robbie's correct. Like if, like, if you were in our, we use Slack for communication, and if you were in our Slack channel, like anytime there's a cancellation at Heard, anytime there's like a NPS comment, net promoter score, comment, uhhuh, every piece of feedback comes across the entire team at Heard. Every one of our all hands, we talk about it, we have a weekly customer sentiment meeting where all of our feedback channels, whether it's through support or otherwise, we're all going through and reading each one of the comments. Wow. They're not always super fun to read
Tiffany(26:24):
Yeah. Yep. That's right. On. you mentioned earlier you talked about the words financial literacy. And I already heard the therapists were like, they went just like, look on YouTube. They started scrolling their phone. It's a big word. Therapists freak out. Can you break down? Like you said, it's really important for fi for therapists to have the most basic financial literacy. So for, you know, Myrna, who's listening to this podcast with her 30 clients, she's, she's on her 10th client of this week and she knows something's off. She's not looking at her bank account. She doesn't even know if what she's doing is profitable. Can you say what she need? What does financial literacy mean to Myrna right now? What does, what would be the basic entry point to help her feel a little relief and to take a first step in gaining this thing called financial literacy
Andrew(27:08):
First shout out to Myrna. Yeah, that sounds very overwhelming. I don't ha I don't know if I have like the necessary, like, part of my mind goes to like tactical. Like these are the things that I would learn. I would just say like I would say just, just start. Find the, find the place to start. Find an area that you can, can learn more. And I think Jenny, Jenny s Schmill, she has, or you also have a financial community. Like get into a community of other therapists and ask what you perceive to be the stupid questions. Mm. And we do a ton of workshops, so it's certainly like shameless plug for like Michael and Melanie and our like content and marketing team. Like, we are always doing stuff and we have a lot of stuff out there whether it's on our website or workshops, but getting into a community with other providers and being willing to like ask the what you perceive to be silly questions is, I think the most important starting place possible.
Andrew(28:04):
Like something like, how do I know how much I'm making? Or like, what percentage should I set aside for taxes? My, my sense is whether incorrect or correct the responses are that are provided from the other therapists in that group, it's a way that it's gonna feel a lot safer to start talking about it. Yeah. And then finding ways to just like, plug in, even if it's like, maybe this is a, an action coming out of this is like once a once every three months or once a month, attend a, a workshop on setting yourself up for financial success, whether that's through you, Tiffany, or whether that's joining one of our workshops or, you know, through your you know, associations or networks that you're a part of.
(01:46):
Tiffany(28:44):
We're gonna, we, we have an, our Slack channel, non-humble brag. So we, we, we, we plug every, everything shamelessly. So I don't actually want them to come to me 'cause I don't do this. This is not my, I I help you raise your feet. I don't want, I am Myrna, I don't want you to go to your suite, mate, right now. I actually want you to, you said that you all teach regular for anybody. Yeah, for sure. Any therapist to come to a workshop. Can you, is it regular? Do you have a link for that? How does Myrna find out about this workshop of yours?
Andrew(29:07):
Yes, for sure, for sure. I need to be better at selling Heard. Yes. Okay. So you can go to join hern.com mm-hmm
Tiffany(30:39):
Here's what I'm gonna do. Okay. I'm gonna actually, what's your podcast called?
Andrew(30:43):
It is called Heard Business School.
Tiffany(30:45):
Heard Business School. So for folks, everything that Andrew just said to do, don't do any of that. 'cause I hear you're already overwhelmed. Like, gotta go to the website and find the resources. Like, I actually just want you to go, we're, we're gonna put this in our show notes. Heard Business School. Yeah. Just go there and listen to the podcast and you'll hear people actually talking about money, their anxieties, what worked for them, what did, like, you can just hear real conversations with people who are trying to navigate this stuff just like you're trying to navigate this stuff. So go do that. Heard business school. And Michael is wonderful. Michael was actually my entry pro to Heard Michael's. Great. So go listen to that. Before we wrap up, we're just about to wrap up. We really I'm a parent of young children.
Tiffany(31:21):
I have a three and a half and a five year and a half year old right now. We have a lot, our therapists, they're like these moms who are just phenomenal. They have a partner Sure. But they're like holding the emotion. They're in emotional labor for their clients, usually their partner, then their own kids. They're doing a ton. So I do wanna talk about, you just had, you are a parent. You had your first kiddo who's like four months old, four and a half months old, and you are also running a company. And you're on this podcast being coherent right now. Can you just say something about the struggles or the challenges or the joys, however you wanna tackle this, of trying to balance having a new infant, becoming a parent, stepping into an entirely different stage of life while also being a CEO and founder?
Andrew(32:06):
Yeah. I don't know if I, you and I were talking about this briefly before, but becoming a parent has been, I think for me as somebody that's like long dealt with my own mental health struggles has been like a forcing function to be like, not like you should have a kid to achieve this, but like, it's been a forcing function to be like incredibly present and also focused on something like deeply focused on something outside of myself. And that's one of the things that I'm like super grateful for, that I've really enjoyed. And she's just like great temperament. Not to, she has been sleeping well. I hate to say that out loud. Knock on wood. Say it. Knock on wood, knock
Tiffany(32:41):
On. They're happy for
Andrew(32:42):
You. And then just from like a, being a business owner and a parent at the same time, that's the thing that I'm like trying to navigate and figure out. Like, I was talking to my partner last night about this after I ended my work day and I was like, I feel like I'm like 50% good at being a dad and like 50% good at being a founder. And I like, I want to be 150% at both, let alone like my own ambitions, like from a health standpoint of where I want to be. And so I don't know if you have good tips or other parents, I have good tips, send them my way. But that's something that I'm trying to like, navigate and figure out. And maybe it's a resetting of expectations, but I haven't figured that out yet.
Tiffany(33:19):
Only four and a half months in you'll
Andrew(33:57):
(02:07):
Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk and it's always nice to hang out with you anyways, so I love likewise.
Tiffany(34:04):
Keep knocking on wood for the sleep and we'll, yes. And folks listening, go to Heard Business School podcast. Just look it up right now. Find that and listen, and you'll start getting a little bit of financial literacy, which really means financial freedom, hope, possibility to show up more fully in your life. Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew(34:22):
Thank you.
Outro(34:28):
All right. Whatever you're doing, I want you to pause. If you're driving, pull over. If you're chopping a carrot, put that knife away. If you're making sweet love to your woman, well, I mean that's, that's, that's kind of flattering in a weird way. Huh. You can go, you can just go ahead and you can keep doing that. But for the rest of you, if you learn even just one thing of value today, please share this episode with even just one therapist who could benefit from the message. Here's how, if you're listening on iTunes, click on the episode and you'll see a small purple circle with three dots. Click on those dots and you're gonna see the option to share at the bottom of the list. Click that and you can just go ahead and share it on Facebook, or you can even just text it to one therapist who you know needs to hear it. If you're listening on Stitcher, just tap the triangle icon on the upper right corner. It's next to the menu that displays your upcoming playlist. You'll see the option to share the episode you're currently listening to Right on Facebook. Look, it's time to get the word out. We gotta spread the message. Thank you so much, and we'll join each other again soon.
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