Thursday, February 16, 2012

Interview with Henry Albrecht, Limeade

Limeade (www.limeade.com) is a Bellevue-based startup which is tackling the employee health and wellness market. The firm is headed by Henry Albrecht, who previously worked at Intuit, and the firm's board includes John Keister of Marchex, Chris Ackerley of Ackerley Partners. We thought it would be interesting to catch up with Henry to hear about how the company is doing.

Describe what Limeade does?

Henry Albrecht: Limeade is a corporate wellness business. We provide wellness incentives and engagement services to high performance employers. What that means, is we help assess and help companies improve the vitality, energy, and health and productivity of their workforce. We do that through assessments, screening, self improvement, social challenges, games, and incentive management programs.

How is technology involved in this?

Henry Albrecht: We are a software-as-a-service company, but we also provide end-to-end, customer support and customer service and strategy. At its core, it's a technology-enabled business. One example, is managing a social challenge system. If you have a workforce that is working on tracking miles or exercise, we can create a social challenge, and send it to the population, so they can track that online, or through their mobile phone, or a fitness device. We engage in programs that reward people for healthy activities.

Who are your typical customers?

Henry Albrecht: It's been a great year, and we've grown 67 percent, year-over-year in the number of clients we have. We have about 50 total clients right now. Some of the new customers on the list from the last 12 months are Cincinnati Children's Hospital, which is the number three children's hospital in the country; Intuit, the easy to use software company which has been on the Fortune 100 for the last ten years in a row, and Ashland, a leading oil and gas company.

Is it a long cycle to sign up these big companies--much like enterprise software sales?

Henry Albrecht: This is enterprise software-a-a-service. One of the reasons our technology is appealing to large enterprise, is that we make their programs look and feel and act extremely relevant to the company, and to the customer itself. There are hundreds of different ways to brand the look and feel, and we have also design incentives--both financial and non-financial--to make it fun. For those challenges and for social interaction, it has to feel very local and relevant to the consumer. Perhaps because we have both the enterprise software perspective, coupled with the consumer software focus on ease of use, we have been able to deliver an enterprise class solution which feels to the end user like a delightful consumer app.

Many people trying to crack the code for employee wellness - and there seem to be a lot of new startups doing things similar to what you are doing now. Do you find you have lots of competition?

Henry Albrecht: We view the competition as a great validation of the size of this market, and the interest in this market. In general, we welcome it. We've had the social components of our system since 2006, when we started the company. It's not because it's trendy, but because that's how people change and improve--they use peer support, from their coworkers or family. We've been doing this since Limeade was founded in 2006, and we're excited the market is catching up to our approach.

How difficult is it to get employees to engage with service--how do you inspire employees to continue to use your tools?

Henry Albrecht: There are a couple of key elements. It has to be fun, and it has to be a voluntary engagement. If it's just about paying people to complete assessments, or comply with the rules of the company, the program is never going to gain momentum. Programs have to be fun, engaging, and people have to like them--and it helps to have a little irreverence to them too--so that they feel like they came out of the DNA of the company themselves. It can't be something jammed into the workforce from outside, or a one-size-fit-all program, it's something which needs to be organized and natural to the culture of the business strategy of that company.

On a different topic, as a company that's been around now for a few years, what do you think helps to make a startup a success?

Henry Albrecht: I think true alignment with our customers is critical. When we launch a service, it has to completely and 100 percent embody the ethos, vibe, and financial and business strategy of companies. If we can do that, we see market leading engagement and excitement around our programs.

Finally, what's the next step for you in terms of growth?

Henry Albrecht: We're excited and hiring right now. We have six open jobs as we speak, and we think we'll probably double the size of the company in terms of employees this year, as we did last year. We're really focused on providing great customer service for our customers. Also, with healthcare reform coming, and with all the changes to the way health insurance is structured, and those big, looming changes to the delivery systems for health, we think there's a very big and exciting opportunity for nimble technology based companies in this space.

Thanks!