November 6, 2024 • 37 mins
How does our past shape the way we work and lead? On today's episode we talk with Ezra Torres our first return guest to Senior Care Academy. Ezra talks about how his international travel and family examples have built him into the leader he is today. Our conversation dives into how selecting team members driven by compassion can create a culture of genuine care.
We also discuss the importance of cultivating communities where older adults can connect over their unique challenges and joys. Plus, we explore the delicate balance of integrating technology in senior care, ensuring safety without infringing on privacy.
Discover the behind-the-scenes journey of developing a privacy-respecting fall detection system, and meet the passionate team at Care Life. This episode concludes with a lively discussion on the power of friendship and collaboration, as Caleb and Ezra reflect on their shared commitment to harnessing the wisdom of older generations to revolutionize the industry. Join us for an episode filled with insights, compassion, and a vision for a brighter future in senior care.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Senior Care Academy.
This is we're back with EzraTorres.
He came on pretty early inseason one and we talked a lot
about care life and now we'rejust back.
We're both younger in the spaceand want to learn more from his
experience in working in thesenior care space.
As a young person owning thetech outright, it's pretty sweet
(00:26):
.
So thanks for coming back on,ezra.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So glad to be here, Caleb, and you know likewise
from our side, whenever we heardabout Helperly, Connect
Helperly and Senior Care Academymore specifically too, we
automatically knew that ifthere's somebody shaking up the
industry this much, especiallythis close to us, that we wanted
to know who they were, and weare so blown away by all the
cool stuff that you're doing andalways glad to kind of continue
(00:50):
growing our relationship withyou.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, it's fun being 15 minutes away not one of us in
like San Francisco or somethingbut yeah, this one I want to
dive a little bit more just intoyou, because you talked about
on our last episode, like theupbringing that you had, that
you traveled a lot with yourparents and your grandparents.
So what lessons did you learnabout seniors, I guess, or how
(01:15):
did that shape who you are, allof that travel in your early
days?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, one thing that's for sure is that our
grandparents and people that areolder than us have experienced
way more life than we have, andso one of my favorite things
when working with seniors isjust hearing the wealth of
knowledge they have from alltheir experiences, and traveling
is, I think, a similar way tomaybe even gain experiences a
little bit faster.
(01:46):
Faster when we travel, and whenI have had the privilege to
travel, it's been interesting tosee you know how different
people live and how the way thatthey you know.
If we look at, for example, acountry like the Philippines,
where you know we consider it adeveloping nation, the people
there have much less resourcesthan we have over here, but at
the same time, they are sogiving, so loving to one another
that they'd give you the shirtoff their back, much more so
(02:06):
than you'd find somewhere likehere.
So I think, in the way that Ilead, that would probably be
something that I've brought into.
The way that I like to dobusiness is making sure that I
am giving the most I canpossibly give myself, and I feel
like when you do that and whenyou're just out to help people
and I imagine at Helperly, it'sa similar focus of helping
people.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
When you're out to help people, it makes it a lot
easier to do business, becausewe're not there to make the
money, or we're not there to getextremely rich, but we're here
to help people, and so that, Ithink, is what I gained from my
international travel, and maybemore specifically, the
Philippines.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And meeting older adults here, I see that they
have learned that over theirlife that you know it's better
to be generous and just give,and so maybe that's some of the
overlap or similarity I've seen.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, I think it's something that eventually
everybody learns, that it'sbetter to just give like.
Um, we're doing an episode uh,we used to have a show called
the wisdom.
Well, and we still kind of dowith helperly.
We're trying to create lifestories and and help seniors
realize that they've livedexceptional lives.
Um, but we were doing an episodewith a 70 year old couple and
(03:11):
she talked about how their wholelife she was living keeping up
with the joneses, and it was oneof the things I asked was what
is something that you put a lotof value on and wait on as a
younger person, but not soanymore, and she was like
material stuff, she's like itdoesn't matter, like it's just
like be good and help otherpeople.
So it is cool that you got towitness that so early by going
(03:34):
to, like I said, humblercountries, because even just
travel within the us you seelike different flavors of the
same ice cream, you know, versusgoing international and seeing
people in different cultures andhow they interact.
So that's pretty sweet.
You mentioned with yourgrandparents and I agree that
(03:56):
people that are older are justwiser.
Naturally, 9.9 times out of 10,you always have those that
never learned, but, um, but theyhave a lot of wisdom.
What's something or a specificlesson from whether it's your
grandparents or, um one of yourclients that are using your tech
that you've learned from them?
That you're grateful that youlearned at such a young age
(04:17):
rather than having to learn itby yourself?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, it's a good point.
Um, you know, I think it takesa special person to go into an
industry no matter what industryand start something Not
everybody has the dream of.
Let's start a company, or let'sfigure out how we can fulfill a
need for for a certaindemographic of people, and
that's something that we share.
So I think that's reallyinteresting and unique that we
(04:44):
have that kind of similarity,and I think that in the
relationship we probably havewith our grandparents I know we
spoke about that a little bittogether- in the past.
that really influenced, I think,a piece of why we do what we do
For me, my grandparents justbeing some of the pillars of my
life, when life was a little bitmore shaky, at periods, me
(05:05):
being able to depend on peoplethat were not only so
knowledgeable and had lived somuch but also were just there
and loving me.
And it just happened to be mygrandparents.
You know, I think thatinfluenced my perception of
appreciating older adults.
Maybe they not all older adultsare amazing grandparents and not
all of them are in our lives inthe same way they were in mine
and, I think, yours as well, butit is probably the thing that
(05:28):
influenced my passion for forspecifically helping seniors is
my grandparents left such animpact on on the way that I felt
they helped me, and so how canI give back?
Well, of course, I can helpthem, but I'd love to help
everybody else, and so I'd loveto hear also just a little bit
about your grandparents and howthat may be similar.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, no, it's definitely very similar.
I was super blessed my entirelife up until last year.
I lost my mom's mom, so mygrandma on my mom's side.
But growing up I lived down thestreet from my dad's parents so
went up there.
My grandma loved well, well,family history and science, so
every I think I can't rememberif it was tuesdays or fridays.
(06:08):
Growing up we did like sciencedays and we lived near the
jordan river parkway so we'd godown to the jordan river and
she'd tell us about some plantor like some bird.
It was a lot of fun.
Um, growing up in that areawith a bunch of cousins I'm one
of like 70 grandkids wow, um, sothat was very impactful on that
side.
And then also going to like thesame church as them and all of
(06:30):
that just seeing how they heldthemselves.
And then a special relationshipwith my grandparents on the
other side.
They are ranchers still up inIdaho where my grandpa is now.
So growing up taught medefinitely hard work.
Taught me like my grandpa.
He's slowing down now that he'slike 85.
But probably five years agowhen I was like 20, and he was
(06:50):
80, he would still outwork melike he'd out throw, throw more
hay than me.
He could last longer withoutneeding food.
He's just a machine.
So I learned hard work there.
And then my kind of experience,the same idea like very just
stalwart and staples in my lifethat I knew I could count on my
grandma both grandmas, like Iknew that anytime I'd walk in
(07:14):
their front door they'd opentheir arms and they'd give me a
hug and act.
Even though I'm one of 70 plusgrandkids, I was the only person
that mattered to them when, Iopened the door.
That's something I reallyadmired.
But yeah, my kind ofrealization of the wisdom that
seniors have it was I was 15 or16 with my grandpa Steven, so my
(07:35):
mom's dad and we were drivingback from fishing some summer
day and it like dawned on me alittle bit.
I was like Holy crap.
At the time he was like 74 orsomething.
I was like you before, before Iwas even born, had lived 60
years of life, and I was like,what were you like when you were
my age, grandpa?
And he started telling storiesand he's like, well, you're
(07:58):
talking, like like it's reallyhard to understand him.
Um, he's just a rancher.
But I learned that donkeybasketball back in that would
have been like the 1950s was abig sport in rural areas and he
was just exceptional at donkeybasketball.
So you're just up, saddled upon a donkey plastic on the
(08:20):
basketball court and you'replaying.
Anyways, it's a little bit of atangent, but realizing that
they lived through justincredible times in history,
like the end of segregation andwars and different social and
economic improvements andpitfalls, and like just living
(08:41):
through that, is crazy.
Like even young people of todayI think don't think about it,
but we all live through COVIDand we learned different things
about ourselves, about society.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So imagine that, but times for, you know, 40 to 60
more years no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Go through a situation that's traumatic or
difficult and when we do, wecome out so much stronger.
On the other side, I think noteverybody does.
Of course there's people whohave traumatic situations that
they end up maybe falling moreinto not being able to help even
themselves, let alone anyoneelse, but others, I think, when
they go through somethingdifficult, we're almost required
(09:54):
to take care of the peoplearound us in that difficult
situation and through that gainkind of an ability almost.
And our grandparents, they'vehad series, you know, series and
series and series of traumaticevents in their life because of
the life they've lived and theduration of it and hearing
stories, like your grandparentsyou know, obviously, going
through economic downturns andeverything else.
That's the same story for minetoo, right, and um, going to war
(10:17):
.
I mean, I remember hearingstories of my, my grandpa,
getting drawn for the draftright, so he's going to Vietnam
and my grandma just is pregnantright and so he's going to be
gone for the first pregnancy,comes back for a quick visit.
Oh no, now there's a secondpregnancy and he's gone during
this period of time.
So I can't imagine how hardthat must've been for my
grandmother and my grandpa, butalso helps me understand that
(10:40):
because of all those difficultthings they had to go through
that just being one of them.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's why they're such amazing people today.
Yeah, and so do you find that?
Maybe that similar thing that Inotice of when we have to go
through something tough in ourown life, it all of a sudden
makes us that much stronger.
Do you feel like that had tohappen to you for you to be in
the position that you're intoday?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yes, yeah, I wish that sometimes that life was
like super sunshine and rainbowsand stuff.
But, yes, definitely like to beable to go through something
and especially especiallystarting a company and trying to
build something meaningful thatis mission driven.
You have to be able to stickthrough something, like it took
(11:20):
before I was able toconsistently pay myself.
It took 18 months of me workingtwo, sometimes three other jobs
and trying to get help reallyoff the ground for a
ridiculously long amount of timeand during that time I got
married, I had a kid and my daddied.
Like stuff happens and it takestime to go through, or you have
(11:42):
to be able to go throughdifficult times if you want to
do anything meaningful.
Cause if you've never tried,done, if you've never been
forced to survive something hard, then when you approach
something hard in your life,you're going to have, you're not
going to have the faith inyourself because, like when you
have to choose the hard, you'renot going to do it if you
(12:03):
haven't had to be forced to livethrough the hard and going back
again kind of to seniors, Ithink, having other people in
your life, even if it's not likeyour direct blood, um, that has
lived through garbage, even notfor just advice, but somebody
(12:23):
that you're like.
I know that you're in theVietnam War, you saw people die
or you have been living withthis traumatic memory or
physical impairment for 40 years.
Yes, it's not the same as my,like crippling depression, but
if having somebody in your lifethat's gone through stuff, that
(12:46):
is there to just listen, issomething that's really valuable
and I think that that can befound a lot of times in older
adults and seniors, so that'sone of the many, many reasons
why I consider them the goldengeneration, but a lot of times
they're kind of forgottenAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Something that came to mind while you were talking
about that for me was that youknow we we have these situations
that create us to be resilient.
Something really difficulthappens in our life and we
become resilient, and the moredifficult situations, probably
the more resilient we becomeeven if the situation is like a
muscle, and even if we encountersomething that we haven't seen
(13:24):
before, we have a lot ofresilience, and so we can
probably encounter thatsituation better than somebody
who hasn't had to experiencesomething tough before.
But you know, part of thereason why my grandparents are
so instrumental in my life is Ithink they were there during
those difficult moments of mylife.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And so another interesting thing is that I love
how part of your operation HelpReally Connect is about helping
connect people and in the samesense that it was helpful for me
that my grandparents werearound when I was going through
something tough or traumatic, Ithink something really powerful
about Help Really Connect justthe idea of it is that you are
(13:59):
now supporting people,connecting people who are going
through something traumatic aswell.
It's traumatic to get old.
It is.
Because there's a lot of changesyou have to go through, maybe
losing your spouse, maybe havingto move into a different living
situation.
These are difficult things.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, we had a cool on that note experience where we
have it's called Daily Connect.
It's literally just like a coolon that note uh, experience
where we have it's called dailyconnect.
It's literally just like a jumpon and meet other people, just
connect and shoot the shiz.
Um, shoot the breeze.
And we had one lady that shewas a younger senior, I think
she was 67 or 68, so she wasstill working.
And then there was an olderlady, uh like later 70s, early,
(14:36):
early 80s, and the younger ladyhad gotten injured and wasn't
able to work anymore.
So now she's at home.
This was almost like nine,almost a year ago probably, so
she's working from home or notbeing able to work.
She was feeling like what's mypurpose?
And it was really hard and shewas kind of getting the first
(14:57):
glimpse of what it can be likeas you get older, losing things
to do and people you love.
And she was able to connectwith the older lady and the lady
was like, oh, I had that exactsame injury.
You need to do this and thatand, and I was there as like the
moderator to make sure,whatever that's kind of how it
works.
We just have somebody that'smindful of it.
(15:18):
But I was just sitting therequietly for like 45 minutes and
they were just really connectedand the lady at the end said
that she just felt so muchbetter.
She felt like heard likesomebody else has gone through
this.
She's 20 years older than meWell, like 15 years older than
me and doing great, so it wasreally cool.
Like you said, it's just likethat ability to connect and
(15:38):
share what you're going through.
It's an interesting statistic.
It's like 70% or greater, Ican't remember of older people
want to make more friends withtheir peers, like people that
have gone through it, thataren't using like Gen Z slang,
like people that they canconnect with.
So it's a cool platform forsure.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Absolutely.
And you know, in that same vein, kind of what we were almost
comparing ourselves to is as wecome across experiences in our
life that make us resilient.
We become capable of handlingdifficult situations, maybe like
starting a company, or maybefor a senior that's like moving
through a tough place in life.
But, no matter who you are, it'simportant to connect with
people and have good peoplearound you, and I've noticed you
(16:19):
know, coming on your firstpodcast walking into your guys'
office.
I mean, you guys have a lot ofgood people in your office and
that seems like something thatyou've intentionally done.
Have you been able to handselect the guys that you're
working with and what has beenmaybe some of the things that
you focused on when selectinggood people?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, great question.
That's one of the benefits ofbeing mission driven um is that
we lead with that more oftenthan not, like when we kind of a
litmus test.
A fun litmus test that I try togo through um in a lot of
scenarios is one is have themrecognize somebody, an older
(16:55):
adult, an elderly person intheir life that they care about,
and really get like a good,vivid picture of that person.
And then I ask them do you feellike you're able to visit them
as much as you'd like or as muchas you feel that they deserve?
And like 99% of the time it's ano cause.
We're all busy people living ourown lives.
And then it's like does thatmake you feel guilty?
(17:17):
And 90, like almost a hundredpercent of the time, but say yes
, so helping them realize thatit's a real problem, even
anecdotally for them it's aproblem, but on a larger scale
it's a problem for everybody.
So that's a great thing.
And then one of our coreattributes is compassion, so
assuming the best in otherpeople, not having drama Just
(17:38):
when you show up, have a genuinelike how can I help?
Mentality is what we try toscreen for.
And anybody that works with uslike experiences is wonderful,
but it's definitely secondhandto being able to do what it
takes to help seniors and thenbe compassionate while doing it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I love how you focus on that, you know, on the final
piece, just throwing in therethat you know, while experience
is valuable, it's not the onlything we're looking for, and not
even the most important thing.
We're looking for that.
You it sounds like at Help.
Really you're looking for moreservant-styled people who will
come into any situation andthey'll be there to help.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, with CareLife.
Sorry, this is a randomquestion that came up to my mind
, but with Care, care, life,something that I'm curious about
because you guys have thetechnology that helps monitor
falls and it's not it's not likeprivacy invading, but I know,
thinking about my grandpa, yeah,he's like worried about privacy
(18:31):
and like the government's outto get him.
He's like definitely one, maybean extreme case, but how have
you overcome that with trying toget this the fall detection and
the technology in the space,with them being worried about
like privacy?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
How do you?
How do you respect privacy?
I guess at the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah.
So from day one it was ourfocus, my focus, to make sure
that that question was answered.
Like I don't want to go into mygrandma's house.
That's who I started with too.
You know I started by puttingCare Life in my grandparents
house before I did anybody else,and when I got there, you know
I had to think about thosequestions.
How do I keep my grandmafeeling like she's okay?
(19:07):
Big brother's not watching?
You know totally that, becauseyou know the news makes us feel
sometimes like there's nowherewe can go without being seen.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And so we started with radar for fall detection
and quickly we found out that,for radar, while it was really
awesome and we were getting fallalerts, we were getting a
hundred alerts for every realfall, so a lot of fake alerts.
And so, while our goal was tobe private, it wasn't
accomplishing the goal ofactually preventing a fall or
(19:36):
detecting a fall and not beingunsure whether it happened or
not.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So what we had to do is figure out first if our goal
is to help people not be on thefloor that's my goal is to make
sure in any case, in any type ofsenior living environment, that
we don't have people left onthe floor overnight.
Yeah, there was an incident inmy family where that happened.
It was one of my great auntswho was on the floor overnight
and ended up passing away in thebathroom, and so my great
(20:01):
grandmother found her, or mygrandmother found her in the
bathroom, and that was prettytraumatic for her.
And so that started me thinkingabout this idea of how could we
use technology, and I started,like I said, with radar.
It wasn't working because ofthe false alerts, so we just
looked at every technology withthe goal of being as private as
possible.
So we just looked at everytechnology with the goal of
being as private as possible.
Where we landed was, it is acamera.
(20:21):
However, none of the video isaccessible live.
None of the audio from thatdevice is accessible live by us,
by any of our partners, byanyone.
Nice, Instead, we have a littlerobot running on that camera
and it is basically an AI falldetection sensor, and so it's
looking with a stick figure theversion of the person in the
(20:41):
room at them and identifying ifthey're on the floor for longer
than you know a few seconds togo ahead and then start
recording a video.
So that way, we're not justalways recording.
It's not like we have video ofeverything that's going on.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
We don't really want to know by any means what's
going?
On in someone's home.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
But if there's a fall , we know not only that there is
one, but we have a video ofthat Right, and so that made it
so that we were able to go to ahundred percent accuracy, right,
or very close.
You know, sometimes people dolay on the floor and do pushups
or other activities, and so mostof the time, and if they are on
the floor, we will be detectinga fall with perfect accuracy
(21:19):
and no false alerts.
Now, wow, and so, although wehad to step into the realm of
using a camera, even though wewanted to shy on the side of
let's use as limitedfunctionality of this camera as
we can, yeah.
That's how we really ended upultimately protecting the
privacy.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Cool, sorry, that was a little random side question.
Yeah, I want to ask you thesame question because you guys
so with helperly, the helperlycare, the service side
specifically, um, even helperlyconnect a lot of the moderators
or the hosts we really have toscreen for their passion, about
(21:54):
their compassion and passiontowards helping seniors.
So, like we try to find peoplethat have some sort of
connection to an elderly person,whether it's their grandparents
, parents or aunt, but with CareLife, where a lot of what you
do is more it's on thetechnology side, right, like the
people on your staff are morenot necessarily face-to-face
(22:16):
with seniors all the time.
So do you have to screen forthat as rigorously?
Or what do you?
How do you?
How have you found the talent?
Cause you have very talentedteam as well.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, one interesting thing that I find when I'm
talking to people in a hiringsituation is that I'm always
interested in what is thatperson's goal in life?
What is that person's missionin life?
Where do they want to be infive years?
And primarily because we'rekind of a high growth startup,
we have to have people who arewanting to put in a lot of
(22:45):
effort now and sometimes notreap the rewards today and have
to wait to reap some of thoserewards in the future.
And so when I say that, you know, carelife started inside of a
large incubator called Hall Labs, well-funded, and we were able
to cover all normal salary costs.
We had built something over thecourse of a few years that
really helped seniors and,partially because I was so
(23:06):
passionate about that, I broughtpeople with me that were also
passionate about seniors,similar to what you did.
But at the beginning of 2024,really halfway through 2023,
Hall Labs essentially needed tosell off the CareLife operation,
and our team was so passionateabout what we were doing to help
seniors that we felt there wasno better way to make sure we
(23:30):
actually helped seniors than toforego pay, stop getting
salaries and go all in with justmaking sure we were helping
people.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And so when we did that, surprisingly, every single
one of the Care Life membersstayed on Wow, despite not
having salary in the beginning,despite needing to step up and
do more than they were doingbefore, a lot of them even going
into debt.
The goal was that we wanted tomake sure that we accomplished
our goal, which we had set outto do, despite whether or not
(24:02):
we'd have funding to do it,because we knew that if we made
sure we helped people, that themoney would come.
And so that's, I think, alittle bit about how we got our
founding team is we were allpaid very well under a large
incubator building technology,but then there came a point in
time where it's either shut downthe technology or keep going
(24:23):
and shut down salaries.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Shut down money.
That's incredible.
So you mentioned, like you said, kind of foregoing pay.
Now for the long horizon,what's the end?
Not the end, obviously, butwhat is the?
What's the golden elephant thatyou're chasing?
And then also, um, oh, what wasmy also, um, my brain, oh, and
(24:48):
then what?
Like with chasing that goldenelephant, a lot of the times, I
think, especially in senior careor elder tech, there's not as
many companies that want somesort of massive outcome like
there are in like sas or othertech sectors.
So, yeah, do you have kind of aend long-term goal and what?
(25:12):
What makes you want to do that?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, so I you know, I've always been business
oriented from like a very youngage.
I think my first job was apaper out when I was seven.
Um, I just saw the paper truckor paper van driving by where
they were throwing papers outthe window.
I ran up and I said, hey, Iwant a job.
And uh and like a year later Ihad five people delivering
papers for me and I was justcollecting the tips.
(25:36):
Um, so you know I always had apassion for just doing business
and and through my master's inLondon and others jobs that I
had, I realized that whatbusiness really is is solving a
need in the world.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And it's just helping people.
That's really what a businessis and that's what I latch onto,
because I'm passionate abouthelping people and my name.
For some reason, I found out, Ithink maybe a year ago, that in
Hebrew it means to help people.
So I was like wow, love it,Perfect.
And so when I step into whereI'm in now, I will be happy
closing Care Life tomorrow if wealready had helped the people
(26:10):
that we have.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And so I'm already happy with, with care life today
.
But you know, that doesn't meanthat I'm going to just stop
today and I'm not going to keepgrowing and where I'd like to go
with care life is, you know, Ipreferably like to be in every
state in the United States.
Um, we would.
We would have a goal of of ofworking with all of the
operators in the United Statesthat are interested in
transforming safety forresidents, and so we see that
(26:35):
there are sometimes operatorswho are money-driven and so,
earlier I mentioned, wheneverI'm looking at a hiring
situation, I want to know whattheir motives are, and a lot of
times when we're in theinterview stage with a community
or a group of communities, wefind that some of them are
interested in money and othersstarted at the bottom and they
were there because they'regrandparents and they helped so
(26:57):
many people and they're onlymoving up because they want to
help more people, and those arethe ones that we want to work
with.
And so as long as I've gottenin front of every single one of
those people in the UnitedStates, I'll be happy with you
know, having done everything Ifeel like I need to do Because,
like I said before, I don'treally feel like at CareLife,
we're building a product morethan we're building something
that's there to help people andmaking sure that there's no one
(27:19):
ever left on the floor.
But even more than that, whatCareLife has become today is
we're a call system, soresidents push a button when
they need help.
Oh, cool, and all of thecaregivers have phones they
carry around.
They respond to those helprequests.
95% of our alerts are helprequests, 5% of them are falls
or incidents.
Right, so a lot of what we dois just help people get help,
(27:40):
yeah, and so whenever they needa diet, pepsi, or maybe they,
you know, need a transfer to the, to the, the toilet, or maybe
they need an escort to thedining room, you know, those are
the things we help people withon the day to day.
And so that's where we get alot of um, kind of pleasure
internally, if you will, is whenwe go into communities and see
(28:01):
how much people are just helpedday to day and how easy this is
for the caregivers and how easyit is for residents.
And, of course, the falls issomething that we appreciate
secondary as well.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, yeah, when you say operators that actually care
, I think of.
Dave Egbert was a guest on theon senior care Academy.
It was like episode 11 or 13.
I can't remember, but yeah, hewas one of those people that
moved his way all the way up.
He started out as like anactivities director or marketing
director and now he's the VP ofoperations operations at um,
(28:33):
western states management orlegacy yeah and yeah, he's like
totally a care first, like juststayed in it for as long as he
did because he actually cared,like as through covid, as the
executive director of a buildingof like 200 and something
residents.
Um, he said that he was as theexecutive director, he was
coming in and filling in likecaregiver and cna, like just
(28:56):
filling in because, yeah, thethought of, yeah, thought of
them not getting help was hardfor him and there's a lot of
operators out there,unfortunately, that, because it
is a great invest, real estateinvestment, um, and there's a
lot of people that see it thatway.
But the people that see it as agreat vehicle to helping people
, I feel like always have betteroutcomes on the longer time
(29:18):
horizon, for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It's interesting as business owners.
People always just wonder areyou guys just there for the
money?
That's an easy question to asksomebody.
So what's interesting to me isthat both of us and then, like
we've just discussed, inoperators as well we find that
there's the two types.
There's somebody who is therefor money, and then maybe
there's somebody there to helppeople.
I wonder how that plays out inthe long run.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I really hope it's on the side of the companies that
are there to really help.
People are the ones thatultimately get the biggest
benefit, and I'm so glad thatyou're in this boat with us
where we're going after this, ofjust the approach of, of doing
the best we can for anybody weinteract with.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, Um, what?
What advice would you have forcause?
You talked to a lot ofoperators.
What advice would you have foroperators that maybe they are
more money focused or theyunintentionally they're more
money focused, Like they'remaking decisions that are effect
(30:13):
, making decisions based off ofthe bottom line and not making
decisions based off of theirresidents?
What advice would you have forthem, or how would you help them
change their perspective, ifyou will, to make decisions that
actually help their residents?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
So the way that I like to thinkabout this is in terms of the
operators we work with that aremore focused on money.
I wouldn't say that all of themare necessarily like just out
for the money and they're notthere to care for people.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, sometimes it's unintentional, they're just like
it's the easier metric tomeasure is dollars on the bottom
.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So before I just say that they're all greedy, they're
just there for the money.
I don't feel like there's a lotof operators out there that
really like that, but I thinkmore so.
We find that there's operatorsthat are more risk adverse.
They're more interested inmaking sure that nothing that
they do is risky, but on theflip side of that, that's also
what kills innovation and killscontinuing helping more and more
(31:10):
people.
That's also what killsinnovation and kills continuing
helping more and more people,because if you're only focusing
on just doing the minimum thatyou need to be the business that
helps seniors, then you're alsomissing out on all of the
shortcomings that exist aroundus today already, and I think
that's what you lose out as anoperator who is risk adverse and
focusing only on what 100% hasalready been penciled and what
(31:32):
100% makes sense.
Instead, if you're an operatorthat says let's look at how
either companies are changingthe landscape of senior living
or how we internally couldchange the landscape of senior
living, I think if you focus onthat, what you end up with is a
company who creates moresolutions to problems, and the
more solutions to problems youhave, the more likely you are to
(31:53):
have residents, the more likelyyou are to have better revenue
the more likely your bottom linelooks better.
So, I think that I wouldencourage operators who are risk
adverse to flip the coin alittle bit and think about maybe
what problems they haveinternally that they can start
solving that may not force theminto this kind of position.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah.
When you said that, I thoughtof Adam Benton from Stellar
Senior Living.
He was like episode 20, but hetalked about how they wanted to.
Or they're putting in an icecream in one of their buildings
in like Colorado an ice creamparlor ran by people with
different disabilities, notdisabilities and his little like
(32:31):
he was just like we're going tomake this happen, like
everybody's like, talking aboutall the red tape and he's like
they try to stop us.
They're going to go to hell.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Like I think that that's a good mentality
sometimes of like we're tryingto do these new things because
you want to help seniors, andthat's kind of the advice that I
have a lot of the times fordifferent operators and
whichever industry whether it'sassisted living or home health
or any senior focused servicecompany a lot of the times they
really are slow to adopttechnology that like, even
(33:01):
though things are working theway that they always have, they
can be working better, and it'san industry that's definitely
slower to try something new.
And it's not necessarily, likesaid, for greed, it's just fear
or risk and because of it theyare missing out on better
outcomes for their patients andclients.
So, that's my advice is alwayslike just give it a shot.
(33:23):
Like most especially today,like I feel like most offer tech
offers, whether it's like a SASor a crm, or like care life or
like helperly connect, whateverit is it's there's always like a
very low risk option to givingyou a shot, like, yeah, there's
something that makes it likeworst case scenario.
(33:46):
You're six or twelve months inand you can.
You can flip it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Nothing, nothing's irreversible, so try something
new you know, and to put alittle bit of data behind this,
you know, there's a famous umyou know, if you will, leader in
business.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
His name's Clayton Christensen, even lived here in
Utah for a while.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And Clayton Christensen has an idea called
disruptive innovation, and theidea behind disruptive
innovation is that you havethese incumbents in the market.
Today they're Amazon and Googlethe biggest players in the
market, and over time, if youlook at these incumbents, they
actually change.
It's not that Google and Amazonare actually going to be the
biggest forever.
It's likely Tesla or the nextplayer ends up taking over the
(34:24):
gauntlet right.
And if we think about this in asmaller case, let's talk about
just how that change happens.
In the past, we used to go upto the lakes, cut out bricks of
ice and break them apart, andthat's how we cooled our food
Right.
But today we have refrigeratorsand all of a sudden
refrigerators took over thatwhole market.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The thing is that if you're not consistently staying
on the edge of innovation andchange and if you are more risk
adverse, you tend to not be.
Ultimately, what happens is theones that are acquiring new
skills and innovating and takingon new things.
Those are the companies whobecome the new incumbents
because they're solving problemsthat haven't been solved yet,
(35:03):
and so I think we have a uniqueposition being in startup, where
we have to figure it outalready.
We're forced to figure it out,where we're in a mode of
throwing stuff at the wall.
Let's throw this at the wall,see if it works.
Let's throw this at the wall,see if it works.
And ultimately, we are forced totry a lot more things than a
stable, large business who hasbeen operating for 50 years.
They're like, if we changeanything, we might risk the
(35:25):
money that's paying everybody,so let's not even try, and so
ultimately, we have a lot ofunique new solutions, being a
new company, that the both of usthat allow us to already try
new things all the time.
So I think that's one thingthat large operators which
Google, you know Amazon, todayincumbents are trying to
mitigate their risk at losingout on the gauntlet share, and
(35:48):
so the way they do, that is,they buy up small companies or
they continue trying to engagein a startup style approach of
throwing everything at the wall.
Let's see what sticks.
If it doesn't, fine, let'squickly say no and close it down
.
But just being open to tryingnew things, being open-minded.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, and I definitely think the senior care
space a lot of times is slower.
So it is a great thing to justtry being open-minded,
especially over the next 20years, with everything happening
in the technology space and howmuch over the next 20 years,
how much more older adults aregoing to be accepting and using
(36:23):
the technology like, implementit now, so that way the seniors
of five, seven years from nowthat are already using the tech
are going to come to you ratherthan being behind and all of a
sudden trying to switch randomly.
So to end on this, you havemultiple pictures of yourself
doing backflips off of likebridges and benches.
You're dressed up nice but, Iwould love to see it if you're
(36:43):
down.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, if you're still , can you still have it?
I love the request for me to goahead and do a backflip now.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I would love to give it a try, but I also have a lot
of things planned in the futurethat I don't want to hurt myself
for, and it's been a littlewhile since I've attempted.
Well, darn it, I'm so sorry.
No, you're good.
Yeah, we'll just scrap it.
No, just kidding.
Just let me stand in the middle, cut me and move me in a circle
(37:18):
.
Yeah, true, yes, we'll justlike if we had, like, green
seats.
No, um, it's been a lot of fun,ezra, this 40-ish minutes or
whatever, just flown by.
Um, I appreciate that you're 15minutes away and that we're
both trying to impact the and,like I said, my opinion, the
most valuable generation, peoplethat have lived through the
most and that can impart themost wisdom on the younger
generation, just in differentways, so excited to continue
this friendship and workingtogether and disrupting
(37:38):
industries.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, I look forward to doing life and business with
you as well.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Caleb, Thanks for the time, appreciate it.
Thanks, ezra, we did it.
That was a good one.
Welcome to Senior Care Academy.
This is we're back with EzraTorres.
He came on pretty early inseason one and we talked a lot
about care life and now we'rejust back.
We're both younger in the spaceand want to learn more from his
experience in working in thesenior care space.
As a young person owning thetech outright, it's pretty sweet
(00:26):
.
So thanks for coming back on,ezra.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So glad to be here, Caleb, and you know likewise
from our side, whenever we heardabout Helperly, Connect
Helperly and Senior Care Academymore specifically too, we
automatically knew that ifthere's somebody shaking up the
industry this much, especiallythis close to us, that we wanted
to know who they were, and weare so blown away by all the
cool stuff that you're doing andalways glad to kind of continue
(00:50):
growing our relationship withyou.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, it's fun being 15 minutes away not one of us in
like San Francisco or somethingbut yeah, this one I want to
dive a little bit more just intoyou, because you talked about
on our last episode, like theupbringing that you had, that
you traveled a lot with yourparents and your grandparents.
So what lessons did you learnabout seniors, I guess, or how
(01:15):
did that shape who you are, allof that travel in your early
days?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, one thing that's for sure is that our
grandparents and people that areolder than us have experienced
way more life than we have, andso one of my favorite things
when working with seniors isjust hearing the wealth of
knowledge they have from alltheir experiences, and traveling
is, I think, a similar way tomaybe even gain experiences a
little bit faster.
(01:46):
Faster when we travel, and whenI have had the privilege to
travel, it's been interesting tosee you know how different
people live and how the way thatthey you know.
If we look at, for example, acountry like the Philippines,
where you know we consider it adeveloping nation, the people
there have much less resourcesthan we have over here, but at
the same time, they are sogiving, so loving to one another
that they'd give you the shirtoff their back, much more so
(02:06):
than you'd find somewhere likehere.
So I think, in the way that Ilead, that would probably be
something that I've brought into.
The way that I like to dobusiness is making sure that I
am giving the most I canpossibly give myself, and I feel
like when you do that and whenyou're just out to help people
and I imagine at Helperly, it'sa similar focus of helping
people.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
When you're out to help people, it makes it a lot
easier to do business, becausewe're not there to make the
money, or we're not there to getextremely rich, but we're here
to help people, and so that, Ithink, is what I gained from my
international travel, and maybemore specifically, the
Philippines.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And meeting older adults here, I see that they
have learned that over theirlife that you know it's better
to be generous and just give,and so maybe that's some of the
overlap or similarity I've seen.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, I think it's something that eventually
everybody learns, that it'sbetter to just give like.
Um, we're doing an episode uh,we used to have a show called
the wisdom.
Well, and we still kind of dowith helperly.
We're trying to create lifestories and and help seniors
realize that they've livedexceptional lives.
Um, but we were doing an episodewith a 70 year old couple and
(03:11):
she talked about how their wholelife she was living keeping up
with the joneses, and it was oneof the things I asked was what
is something that you put a lotof value on and wait on as a
younger person, but not soanymore, and she was like
material stuff, she's like itdoesn't matter, like it's just
like be good and help otherpeople.
So it is cool that you got towitness that so early by going
(03:34):
to, like I said, humblercountries, because even just
travel within the us you seelike different flavors of the
same ice cream, you know, versusgoing international and seeing
people in different cultures andhow they interact.
So that's pretty sweet.
You mentioned with yourgrandparents and I agree that
(03:56):
people that are older are justwiser.
Naturally, 9.9 times out of 10,you always have those that
never learned, but, um, but theyhave a lot of wisdom.
What's something or a specificlesson from whether it's your
grandparents or, um one of yourclients that are using your tech
that you've learned from them?
That you're grateful that youlearned at such a young age
(04:17):
rather than having to learn itby yourself?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, it's a good point.
Um, you know, I think it takesa special person to go into an
industry no matter what industryand start something Not
everybody has the dream of.
Let's start a company, or let'sfigure out how we can fulfill a
need for for a certaindemographic of people, and
that's something that we share.
So I think that's reallyinteresting and unique that we
(04:44):
have that kind of similarity,and I think that in the
relationship we probably havewith our grandparents I know we
spoke about that a little bittogether- in the past.
that really influenced, I think,a piece of why we do what we do
For me, my grandparents justbeing some of the pillars of my
life, when life was a little bitmore shaky, at periods, me
(05:05):
being able to depend on peoplethat were not only so
knowledgeable and had lived somuch but also were just there
and loving me.
And it just happened to be mygrandparents.
You know, I think thatinfluenced my perception of
appreciating older adults.
Maybe they not all older adultsare amazing grandparents and not
all of them are in our lives inthe same way they were in mine
and, I think, yours as well, butit is probably the thing that
(05:28):
influenced my passion for forspecifically helping seniors is
my grandparents left such animpact on on the way that I felt
they helped me, and so how canI give back?
Well, of course, I can helpthem, but I'd love to help
everybody else, and so I'd loveto hear also just a little bit
about your grandparents and howthat may be similar.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, no, it's definitely very similar.
I was super blessed my entirelife up until last year.
I lost my mom's mom, so mygrandma on my mom's side.
But growing up I lived down thestreet from my dad's parents so
went up there.
My grandma loved well, well,family history and science, so
every I think I can't rememberif it was tuesdays or fridays.
(06:08):
Growing up we did like sciencedays and we lived near the
jordan river parkway so we'd godown to the jordan river and
she'd tell us about some plantor like some bird.
It was a lot of fun.
Um, growing up in that areawith a bunch of cousins I'm one
of like 70 grandkids wow, um, sothat was very impactful on that
side.
And then also going to like thesame church as them and all of
(06:30):
that just seeing how they heldthemselves.
And then a special relationshipwith my grandparents on the
other side.
They are ranchers still up inIdaho where my grandpa is now.
So growing up taught medefinitely hard work.
Taught me like my grandpa.
He's slowing down now that he'slike 85.
But probably five years agowhen I was like 20, and he was
(06:50):
80, he would still outwork melike he'd out throw, throw more
hay than me.
He could last longer withoutneeding food.
He's just a machine.
So I learned hard work there.
And then my kind of experience,the same idea like very just
stalwart and staples in my lifethat I knew I could count on my
grandma both grandmas, like Iknew that anytime I'd walk in
(07:14):
their front door they'd opentheir arms and they'd give me a
hug and act.
Even though I'm one of 70 plusgrandkids, I was the only person
that mattered to them when, Iopened the door.
That's something I reallyadmired.
But yeah, my kind ofrealization of the wisdom that
seniors have it was I was 15 or16 with my grandpa Steven, so my
(07:35):
mom's dad and we were drivingback from fishing some summer
day and it like dawned on me alittle bit.
I was like Holy crap.
At the time he was like 74 orsomething.
I was like you before, before Iwas even born, had lived 60
years of life, and I was like,what were you like when you were
my age, grandpa?
And he started telling storiesand he's like, well, you're
(07:58):
talking, like like it's reallyhard to understand him.
Um, he's just a rancher.
But I learned that donkeybasketball back in that would
have been like the 1950s was abig sport in rural areas and he
was just exceptional at donkeybasketball.
So you're just up, saddled upon a donkey plastic on the
(08:20):
basketball court and you'replaying.
Anyways, it's a little bit of atangent, but realizing that
they lived through justincredible times in history,
like the end of segregation andwars and different social and
economic improvements andpitfalls, and like just living
(08:41):
through that, is crazy.
Like even young people of todayI think don't think about it,
but we all live through COVIDand we learned different things
about ourselves, about society.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So imagine that, but times for, you know, 40 to 60
more years no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Go through a situation that's traumatic or
difficult and when we do, wecome out so much stronger.
On the other side, I think noteverybody does.
Of course there's people whohave traumatic situations that
they end up maybe falling moreinto not being able to help even
themselves, let alone anyoneelse, but others, I think, when
they go through somethingdifficult, we're almost required
(09:54):
to take care of the peoplearound us in that difficult
situation and through that gainkind of an ability almost.
And our grandparents, they'vehad series, you know, series and
series and series of traumaticevents in their life because of
the life they've lived and theduration of it and hearing
stories, like your grandparentsyou know, obviously, going
through economic downturns andeverything else.
That's the same story for minetoo, right, and um, going to war
(10:17):
.
I mean, I remember hearingstories of my, my grandpa,
getting drawn for the draftright, so he's going to Vietnam
and my grandma just is pregnantright and so he's going to be
gone for the first pregnancy,comes back for a quick visit.
Oh no, now there's a secondpregnancy and he's gone during
this period of time.
So I can't imagine how hardthat must've been for my
grandmother and my grandpa, butalso helps me understand that
(10:40):
because of all those difficultthings they had to go through
that just being one of them.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's why they're such amazing people today.
Yeah, and so do you find that?
Maybe that similar thing that Inotice of when we have to go
through something tough in ourown life, it all of a sudden
makes us that much stronger.
Do you feel like that had tohappen to you for you to be in
the position that you're intoday?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yes, yeah, I wish that sometimes that life was
like super sunshine and rainbowsand stuff.
But, yes, definitely like to beable to go through something
and especially especiallystarting a company and trying to
build something meaningful thatis mission driven.
You have to be able to stickthrough something, like it took
(11:20):
before I was able toconsistently pay myself.
It took 18 months of me workingtwo, sometimes three other jobs
and trying to get help reallyoff the ground for a
ridiculously long amount of timeand during that time I got
married, I had a kid and my daddied.
Like stuff happens and it takestime to go through, or you have
(11:42):
to be able to go throughdifficult times if you want to
do anything meaningful.
Cause if you've never tried,done, if you've never been
forced to survive something hard, then when you approach
something hard in your life,you're going to have, you're not
going to have the faith inyourself because, like when you
have to choose the hard, you'renot going to do it if you
(12:03):
haven't had to be forced to livethrough the hard and going back
again kind of to seniors, Ithink, having other people in
your life, even if it's not likeyour direct blood, um, that has
lived through garbage, even notfor just advice, but somebody
(12:23):
that you're like.
I know that you're in theVietnam War, you saw people die
or you have been living withthis traumatic memory or
physical impairment for 40 years.
Yes, it's not the same as my,like crippling depression, but
if having somebody in your lifethat's gone through stuff, that
(12:46):
is there to just listen, issomething that's really valuable
and I think that that can befound a lot of times in older
adults and seniors, so that'sone of the many, many reasons
why I consider them the goldengeneration, but a lot of times
they're kind of forgottenAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Something that came to mind while you were talking
about that for me was that youknow we we have these situations
that create us to be resilient.
Something really difficulthappens in our life and we
become resilient, and the moredifficult situations, probably
the more resilient we becomeeven if the situation is like a
muscle, and even if we encountersomething that we haven't seen
(13:24):
before, we have a lot ofresilience, and so we can
probably encounter thatsituation better than somebody
who hasn't had to experiencesomething tough before.
But you know, part of thereason why my grandparents are
so instrumental in my life is Ithink they were there during
those difficult moments of mylife.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And so another interesting thing is that I love
how part of your operation HelpReally Connect is about helping
connect people and in the samesense that it was helpful for me
that my grandparents werearound when I was going through
something tough or traumatic, Ithink something really powerful
about Help Really Connect justthe idea of it is that you are
(13:59):
now supporting people,connecting people who are going
through something traumatic aswell.
It's traumatic to get old.
It is.
Because there's a lot of changesyou have to go through, maybe
losing your spouse, maybe havingto move into a different living
situation.
These are difficult things.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, we had a cool on that note experience where we
have it's called Daily Connect.
It's literally just like a coolon that note uh, experience
where we have it's called dailyconnect.
It's literally just like a jumpon and meet other people, just
connect and shoot the shiz.
Um, shoot the breeze.
And we had one lady that shewas a younger senior, I think
she was 67 or 68, so she wasstill working.
And then there was an olderlady, uh like later 70s, early,
(14:36):
early 80s, and the younger ladyhad gotten injured and wasn't
able to work anymore.
So now she's at home.
This was almost like nine,almost a year ago probably, so
she's working from home or notbeing able to work.
She was feeling like what's mypurpose?
And it was really hard and shewas kind of getting the first
(14:57):
glimpse of what it can be likeas you get older, losing things
to do and people you love.
And she was able to connectwith the older lady and the lady
was like, oh, I had that exactsame injury.
You need to do this and thatand, and I was there as like the
moderator to make sure,whatever that's kind of how it
works.
We just have somebody that'smindful of it.
(15:18):
But I was just sitting therequietly for like 45 minutes and
they were just really connectedand the lady at the end said
that she just felt so muchbetter.
She felt like heard likesomebody else has gone through
this.
She's 20 years older than meWell, like 15 years older than
me and doing great, so it wasreally cool.
Like you said, it's just likethat ability to connect and
(15:38):
share what you're going through.
It's an interesting statistic.
It's like 70% or greater, Ican't remember of older people
want to make more friends withtheir peers, like people that
have gone through it, thataren't using like Gen Z slang,
like people that they canconnect with.
So it's a cool platform forsure.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Absolutely.
And you know, in that same vein, kind of what we were almost
comparing ourselves to is as wecome across experiences in our
life that make us resilient.
We become capable of handlingdifficult situations, maybe like
starting a company, or maybefor a senior that's like moving
through a tough place in life.
But, no matter who you are, it'simportant to connect with
people and have good peoplearound you, and I've noticed you
(16:19):
know, coming on your firstpodcast walking into your guys'
office.
I mean, you guys have a lot ofgood people in your office and
that seems like something thatyou've intentionally done.
Have you been able to handselect the guys that you're
working with and what has beenmaybe some of the things that
you focused on when selectinggood people?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, great question.
That's one of the benefits ofbeing mission driven um is that
we lead with that more oftenthan not, like when we kind of a
litmus test.
A fun litmus test that I try togo through um in a lot of
scenarios is one is have themrecognize somebody, an older
(16:55):
adult, an elderly person intheir life that they care about,
and really get like a good,vivid picture of that person.
And then I ask them do you feellike you're able to visit them
as much as you'd like or as muchas you feel that they deserve?
And like 99% of the time it's ano cause.
We're all busy people living ourown lives.
And then it's like does thatmake you feel guilty?
(17:17):
And 90, like almost a hundredpercent of the time, but say yes
, so helping them realize thatit's a real problem, even
anecdotally for them it's aproblem, but on a larger scale
it's a problem for everybody.
So that's a great thing.
And then one of our coreattributes is compassion, so
assuming the best in otherpeople, not having drama Just
(17:38):
when you show up, have a genuinelike how can I help?
Mentality is what we try toscreen for.
And anybody that works with uslike experiences is wonderful,
but it's definitely secondhandto being able to do what it
takes to help seniors and thenbe compassionate while doing it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I love how you focus on that, you know, on the final
piece, just throwing in therethat you know, while experience
is valuable, it's not the onlything we're looking for, and not
even the most important thing.
We're looking for that.
You it sounds like at Help.
Really you're looking for moreservant-styled people who will
come into any situation andthey'll be there to help.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, with CareLife.
Sorry, this is a randomquestion that came up to my mind
, but with Care, care, life,something that I'm curious about
because you guys have thetechnology that helps monitor
falls and it's not it's not likeprivacy invading, but I know,
thinking about my grandpa, yeah,he's like worried about privacy
(18:31):
and like the government's outto get him.
He's like definitely one, maybean extreme case, but how have
you overcome that with trying toget this the fall detection and
the technology in the space,with them being worried about
like privacy?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
How do you?
How do you respect privacy?
I guess at the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah.
So from day one it was ourfocus, my focus, to make sure
that that question was answered.
Like I don't want to go into mygrandma's house.
That's who I started with too.
You know I started by puttingCare Life in my grandparents
house before I did anybody else,and when I got there, you know
I had to think about thosequestions.
How do I keep my grandmafeeling like she's okay?
(19:07):
Big brother's not watching?
You know totally that, becauseyou know the news makes us feel
sometimes like there's nowherewe can go without being seen.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And so we started with radar for fall detection
and quickly we found out that,for radar, while it was really
awesome and we were getting fallalerts, we were getting a
hundred alerts for every realfall, so a lot of fake alerts.
And so, while our goal was tobe private, it wasn't
accomplishing the goal ofactually preventing a fall or
(19:36):
detecting a fall and not beingunsure whether it happened or
not.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So what we had to do is figure out first if our goal
is to help people not be on thefloor that's my goal is to make
sure in any case, in any type ofsenior living environment, that
we don't have people left onthe floor overnight.
Yeah, there was an incident inmy family where that happened.
It was one of my great auntswho was on the floor overnight
and ended up passing away in thebathroom, and so my great
(20:01):
grandmother found her, or mygrandmother found her in the
bathroom, and that was prettytraumatic for her.
And so that started me thinkingabout this idea of how could we
use technology, and I started,like I said, with radar.
It wasn't working because ofthe false alerts, so we just
looked at every technology withthe goal of being as private as
possible.
So we just looked at everytechnology with the goal of
being as private as possible.
Where we landed was, it is acamera.
(20:21):
However, none of the video isaccessible live.
None of the audio from thatdevice is accessible live by us,
by any of our partners, byanyone.
Nice, Instead, we have a littlerobot running on that camera
and it is basically an AI falldetection sensor, and so it's
looking with a stick figure theversion of the person in the
(20:41):
room at them and identifying ifthey're on the floor for longer
than you know a few seconds togo ahead and then start
recording a video.
So that way, we're not justalways recording.
It's not like we have video ofeverything that's going on.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
We don't really want to know by any means what's
going?
On in someone's home.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
But if there's a fall , we know not only that there is
one, but we have a video ofthat Right, and so that made it
so that we were able to go to ahundred percent accuracy, right,
or very close.
You know, sometimes people dolay on the floor and do pushups
or other activities, and so mostof the time, and if they are on
the floor, we will be detectinga fall with perfect accuracy
(21:19):
and no false alerts.
Now, wow, and so, although wehad to step into the realm of
using a camera, even though wewanted to shy on the side of
let's use as limitedfunctionality of this camera as
we can, yeah.
That's how we really ended upultimately protecting the
privacy.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Cool, sorry, that was a little random side question.
Yeah, I want to ask you thesame question because you guys
so with helperly, the helperlycare, the service side
specifically, um, even helperlyconnect a lot of the moderators
or the hosts we really have toscreen for their passion, about
(21:54):
their compassion and passiontowards helping seniors.
So, like we try to find peoplethat have some sort of
connection to an elderly person,whether it's their grandparents
, parents or aunt, but with CareLife, where a lot of what you
do is more it's on thetechnology side, right, like the
people on your staff are morenot necessarily face-to-face
(22:16):
with seniors all the time.
So do you have to screen forthat as rigorously?
Or what do you?
How do you?
How have you found the talent?
Cause you have very talentedteam as well.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, one interesting thing that I find when I'm
talking to people in a hiringsituation is that I'm always
interested in what is thatperson's goal in life?
What is that person's missionin life?
Where do they want to be infive years?
And primarily because we'rekind of a high growth startup,
we have to have people who arewanting to put in a lot of
(22:45):
effort now and sometimes notreap the rewards today and have
to wait to reap some of thoserewards in the future.
And so when I say that, you know, carelife started inside of a
large incubator called Hall Labs, well-funded, and we were able
to cover all normal salary costs.
We had built something over thecourse of a few years that
really helped seniors and,partially because I was so
(23:06):
passionate about that, I broughtpeople with me that were also
passionate about seniors,similar to what you did.
But at the beginning of 2024,really halfway through 2023,
Hall Labs essentially needed tosell off the CareLife operation,
and our team was so passionateabout what we were doing to help
seniors that we felt there wasno better way to make sure we
(23:30):
actually helped seniors than toforego pay, stop getting
salaries and go all in with justmaking sure we were helping
people.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And so when we did that, surprisingly, every single
one of the Care Life membersstayed on Wow, despite not
having salary in the beginning,despite needing to step up and
do more than they were doingbefore, a lot of them even going
into debt.
The goal was that we wanted tomake sure that we accomplished
our goal, which we had set outto do, despite whether or not
(24:02):
we'd have funding to do it,because we knew that if we made
sure we helped people, that themoney would come.
And so that's, I think, alittle bit about how we got our
founding team is we were allpaid very well under a large
incubator building technology,but then there came a point in
time where it's either shut downthe technology or keep going
(24:23):
and shut down salaries.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Shut down money.
That's incredible.
So you mentioned, like you said, kind of foregoing pay.
Now for the long horizon,what's the end?
Not the end, obviously, butwhat is the?
What's the golden elephant thatyou're chasing?
And then also, um, oh, what wasmy also, um, my brain, oh, and
(24:48):
then what?
Like with chasing that goldenelephant, a lot of the times, I
think, especially in senior careor elder tech, there's not as
many companies that want somesort of massive outcome like
there are in like sas or othertech sectors.
So, yeah, do you have kind of aend long-term goal and what?
(25:12):
What makes you want to do that?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, so I you know, I've always been business
oriented from like a very youngage.
I think my first job was apaper out when I was seven.
Um, I just saw the paper truckor paper van driving by where
they were throwing papers outthe window.
I ran up and I said, hey, Iwant a job.
And uh and like a year later Ihad five people delivering
papers for me and I was justcollecting the tips.
(25:36):
Um, so you know I always had apassion for just doing business
and and through my master's inLondon and others jobs that I
had, I realized that whatbusiness really is is solving a
need in the world.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And it's just helping people.
That's really what a businessis and that's what I latch onto,
because I'm passionate abouthelping people and my name.
For some reason, I found out, Ithink maybe a year ago, that in
Hebrew it means to help people.
So I was like wow, love it,Perfect.
And so when I step into whereI'm in now, I will be happy
closing Care Life tomorrow if wealready had helped the people
(26:10):
that we have.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And so I'm already happy with, with care life today
.
But you know, that doesn't meanthat I'm going to just stop
today and I'm not going to keepgrowing and where I'd like to go
with care life is, you know, Ipreferably like to be in every
state in the United States.
Um, we would.
We would have a goal of of ofworking with all of the
operators in the United Statesthat are interested in
transforming safety forresidents, and so we see that
(26:35):
there are sometimes operatorswho are money-driven and so,
earlier I mentioned, wheneverI'm looking at a hiring
situation, I want to know whattheir motives are, and a lot of
times when we're in theinterview stage with a community
or a group of communities, wefind that some of them are
interested in money and othersstarted at the bottom and they
were there because they'regrandparents and they helped so
(26:57):
many people and they're onlymoving up because they want to
help more people, and those arethe ones that we want to work
with.
And so as long as I've gottenin front of every single one of
those people in the UnitedStates, I'll be happy with you
know, having done everything Ifeel like I need to do Because,
like I said before, I don'treally feel like at CareLife,
we're building a product morethan we're building something
that's there to help people andmaking sure that there's no one
(27:19):
ever left on the floor.
But even more than that, whatCareLife has become today is
we're a call system, soresidents push a button when
they need help.
Oh, cool, and all of thecaregivers have phones they
carry around.
They respond to those helprequests.
95% of our alerts are helprequests, 5% of them are falls
or incidents.
Right, so a lot of what we dois just help people get help,
(27:40):
yeah, and so whenever they needa diet, pepsi, or maybe they,
you know, need a transfer to the, to the, the toilet, or maybe
they need an escort to thedining room, you know, those are
the things we help people withon the day to day.
And so that's where we get alot of um, kind of pleasure
internally, if you will, is whenwe go into communities and see
(28:01):
how much people are just helpedday to day and how easy this is
for the caregivers and how easyit is for residents.
And, of course, the falls issomething that we appreciate
secondary as well.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, yeah, when you say operators that actually care
, I think of.
Dave Egbert was a guest on theon senior care Academy.
It was like episode 11 or 13.
I can't remember, but yeah, hewas one of those people that
moved his way all the way up.
He started out as like anactivities director or marketing
director and now he's the VP ofoperations operations at um,
(28:33):
western states management orlegacy yeah and yeah, he's like
totally a care first, like juststayed in it for as long as he
did because he actually cared,like as through covid, as the
executive director of a buildingof like 200 and something
residents.
Um, he said that he was as theexecutive director, he was
coming in and filling in likecaregiver and cna, like just
(28:56):
filling in because, yeah, thethought of, yeah, thought of
them not getting help was hardfor him and there's a lot of
operators out there,unfortunately, that, because it
is a great invest, real estateinvestment, um, and there's a
lot of people that see it thatway.
But the people that see it as agreat vehicle to helping people
, I feel like always have betteroutcomes on the longer time
(29:18):
horizon, for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It's interesting as business owners.
People always just wonder areyou guys just there for the
money?
That's an easy question to asksomebody.
So what's interesting to me isthat both of us and then, like
we've just discussed, inoperators as well we find that
there's the two types.
There's somebody who is therefor money, and then maybe
there's somebody there to helppeople.
I wonder how that plays out inthe long run.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I really hope it's on the side of the companies that
are there to really help.
People are the ones thatultimately get the biggest
benefit, and I'm so glad thatyou're in this boat with us
where we're going after this, ofjust the approach of, of doing
the best we can for anybody weinteract with.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, Um, what?
What advice would you have forcause?
You talked to a lot ofoperators.
What advice would you have foroperators that maybe they are
more money focused or theyunintentionally they're more
money focused, Like they'remaking decisions that are effect
(30:13):
, making decisions based off ofthe bottom line and not making
decisions based off of theirresidents?
What advice would you have forthem, or how would you help them
change their perspective, ifyou will, to make decisions that
actually help their residents?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
So the way that I like to thinkabout this is in terms of the
operators we work with that aremore focused on money.
I wouldn't say that all of themare necessarily like just out
for the money and they're notthere to care for people.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, sometimes it's unintentional, they're just like
it's the easier metric tomeasure is dollars on the bottom
.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So before I just say that they're all greedy, they're
just there for the money.
I don't feel like there's a lotof operators out there that
really like that, but I thinkmore so.
We find that there's operatorsthat are more risk adverse.
They're more interested inmaking sure that nothing that
they do is risky, but on theflip side of that, that's also
what kills innovation and killscontinuing helping more and more
(31:10):
people.
That's also what killsinnovation and kills continuing
helping more and more people,because if you're only focusing
on just doing the minimum thatyou need to be the business that
helps seniors, then you're alsomissing out on all of the
shortcomings that exist aroundus today already, and I think
that's what you lose out as anoperator who is risk adverse and
focusing only on what 100% hasalready been penciled and what
(31:32):
100% makes sense.
Instead, if you're an operatorthat says let's look at how
either companies are changingthe landscape of senior living
or how we internally couldchange the landscape of senior
living, I think if you focus onthat, what you end up with is a
company who creates moresolutions to problems, and the
more solutions to problems youhave, the more likely you are to
(31:53):
have residents, the more likelyyou are to have better revenue
the more likely your bottom linelooks better.
So, I think that I wouldencourage operators who are risk
adverse to flip the coin alittle bit and think about maybe
what problems they haveinternally that they can start
solving that may not force theminto this kind of position.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah.
When you said that, I thoughtof Adam Benton from Stellar
Senior Living.
He was like episode 20, but hetalked about how they wanted to.
Or they're putting in an icecream in one of their buildings
in like Colorado an ice creamparlor ran by people with
different disabilities, notdisabilities and his little like
(32:31):
he was just like we're going tomake this happen, like
everybody's like, talking aboutall the red tape and he's like
they try to stop us.
They're going to go to hell.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Like I think that that's a good mentality
sometimes of like we're tryingto do these new things because
you want to help seniors, andthat's kind of the advice that I
have a lot of the times fordifferent operators and
whichever industry whether it'sassisted living or home health
or any senior focused servicecompany a lot of the times they
really are slow to adopttechnology that like, even
(33:01):
though things are working theway that they always have, they
can be working better, and it'san industry that's definitely
slower to try something new.
And it's not necessarily, likesaid, for greed, it's just fear
or risk and because of it theyare missing out on better
outcomes for their patients andclients.
So, that's my advice is alwayslike just give it a shot.
(33:23):
Like most especially today,like I feel like most offer tech
offers, whether it's like a SASor a crm, or like care life or
like helperly connect, whateverit is it's there's always like a
very low risk option to givingyou a shot, like, yeah, there's
something that makes it likeworst case scenario.
(33:46):
You're six or twelve months inand you can.
You can flip it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Nothing, nothing's irreversible, so try something
new you know, and to put alittle bit of data behind this,
you know, there's a famous umyou know, if you will, leader in
business.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
His name's Clayton Christensen, even lived here in
Utah for a while.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And Clayton Christensen has an idea called
disruptive innovation, and theidea behind disruptive
innovation is that you havethese incumbents in the market.
Today they're Amazon and Googlethe biggest players in the
market, and over time, if youlook at these incumbents, they
actually change.
It's not that Google and Amazonare actually going to be the
biggest forever.
It's likely Tesla or the nextplayer ends up taking over the
(34:24):
gauntlet right.
And if we think about this in asmaller case, let's talk about
just how that change happens.
In the past, we used to go upto the lakes, cut out bricks of
ice and break them apart, andthat's how we cooled our food
Right.
But today we have refrigeratorsand all of a sudden
refrigerators took over thatwhole market.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The thing is that if you're not consistently staying
on the edge of innovation andchange and if you are more risk
adverse, you tend to not be.
Ultimately, what happens is theones that are acquiring new
skills and innovating and takingon new things.
Those are the companies whobecome the new incumbents
because they're solving problemsthat haven't been solved yet,
(35:03):
and so I think we have a uniqueposition being in startup, where
we have to figure it outalready.
We're forced to figure it out,where we're in a mode of
throwing stuff at the wall.
Let's throw this at the wall,see if it works.
Let's throw this at the wall,see if it works.
And ultimately, we are forced totry a lot more things than a
stable, large business who hasbeen operating for 50 years.
They're like, if we changeanything, we might risk the
(35:25):
money that's paying everybody,so let's not even try, and so
ultimately, we have a lot ofunique new solutions, being a
new company, that the both of usthat allow us to already try
new things all the time.
So I think that's one thingthat large operators which
Google, you know Amazon, todayincumbents are trying to
mitigate their risk at losingout on the gauntlet share, and
(35:48):
so the way they do, that is,they buy up small companies or
they continue trying to engagein a startup style approach of
throwing everything at the wall.
Let's see what sticks.
If it doesn't, fine, let'squickly say no and close it down
.
But just being open to tryingnew things, being open-minded.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, and I definitely think the senior care
space a lot of times is slower.
So it is a great thing to justtry being open-minded,
especially over the next 20years, with everything happening
in the technology space and howmuch over the next 20 years,
how much more older adults aregoing to be accepting and using
(36:23):
the technology like, implementit now, so that way the seniors
of five, seven years from nowthat are already using the tech
are going to come to you ratherthan being behind and all of a
sudden trying to switch randomly.
So to end on this, you havemultiple pictures of yourself
doing backflips off of likebridges and benches.
You're dressed up nice but, Iwould love to see it if you're
(36:43):
down.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, if you're still , can you still have it?
I love the request for me to goahead and do a backflip now.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I would love to give it a try, but I also have a lot
of things planned in the futurethat I don't want to hurt myself
for, and it's been a littlewhile since I've attempted.
Well, darn it, I'm so sorry.
No, you're good.
Yeah, we'll just scrap it.
No, just kidding.
Just let me stand in the middle, cut me and move me in a circle
(37:18):
.
Yeah, true, yes, we'll justlike if we had, like, green
seats.
No, um, it's been a lot of fun,ezra, this 40-ish minutes or
whatever, just flown by.
Um, I appreciate that you're 15minutes away and that we're
both trying to impact the and,like I said, my opinion, the
most valuable generation, peoplethat have lived through the
most and that can impart themost wisdom on the younger
generation, just in differentways, so excited to continue
this friendship and workingtogether and disrupting
(37:38):
industries.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, I look forward to doing life and business with
you as well.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Caleb, Thanks for the time, appreciate it.
Thanks, ezra, we did it.
That was a good one.
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