Episode #8 - Smita Nair, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Equip

Written By Omar Mousa

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Description

Today on Concept to Care, we welcome Smita Nair, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Equip, a pioneering health tech company dedicated to treating eating disorders and related conditions such as anxiety, depression, and OCD. Equip offers virtual, family-based treatments accessible to patients of all ages across all 50 states, leveraging a comprehensive approach to ensure broad reach and effectiveness.

In this episode, we'll delve into the crucial role of clinical expertise in developing and scaling digital health solutions. Smita will share strategies for achieving impactful healthcare outcomes, focusing on aligning organizational tasks with broader company goals and the importance of tying every action to key organizational metrics.

We'll explore Smita's approach to product development and strategic roadmapping, including maintaining flexibility in plans while ensuring stakeholder alignment. She'll explain how to balance strategic planning with the need for agility, especially in the dynamic healthcare sector.

Additionally, Smita will discuss building high-performing teams, emphasizing clear role definitions, collective accountability, and fostering psychological safety. She'll offer advice on addressing cultural and operational misalignments with new hires and promoting a culture where feedback is seen as a tool for growth.

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Some takeaways:

  1. Clinical Expertise and Impact

    1. Equip's Mission and Model: Equip is dedicated to treating eating disorders and co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, and OCD. They serve patients across all age groups with family-based treatment for children and teens, and individual treatment for adults. Equip operates virtually across all 50 states and is in-network with major commercial payers, covering approximately 110 million lives in the US. Equip’s comprehensive approach to treating eating disorders includes family-based treatment for children and teens, and individual treatment for adults. Their virtual model allows them to provide services nationwide, making them accessible to a large patient base.

    2. Importance of Clinical Expertise: Smita values strong clinical expertise and outcome-focused approaches in digital health companies. She joined Equip because of its clinical-first approach, which she believes is crucial for effectively addressing healthcare problems and ensuring impactful technology solutions. Smita stresses that clinical expertise is foundational to developing effective healthcare solutions. Equip’s focus on clinical outcomes and expertise ensures that their technology is not just innovative but also impactful in improving patient care.

    3. Feedback as a Growth Tool: Embracing feedback, even when it’s tough, is vital for growth. Smita views feedback as a gift that helps identify strengths and areas for improvement. She encourages openness to feedback and using it to drive personal and professional development. Smita encourages a culture where feedback is welcomed and used constructively. By viewing feedback as a tool for growth, individuals and teams can continuously improve and achieve better outcomes.

  2. Organizational Strategy and Alignment

    1. Understanding Organizational Metrics: Smita emphasizes that every task should be tied to an organizational-level metric. It may not always be a direct one-to-one relationship, but it's crucial to understand how it contributes to the overall goals. If a task or tech debt doesn't seem to relate, it's worth questioning its importance and possibly deferring it. Smita suggests that every team member should ask themselves how their work impacts the broader organizational metrics and goals. This helps in ensuring that all efforts are aligned with the company’s strategic objectives, thereby driving overall growth and efficiency.

    2. OKRs and Alignment: Equip effectively uses OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to drive alignment and accountability. Each department’s OKRs are derived from company-level OKRs, ensuring that all teams are working towards common business goals. Regular reviews and adaptations keep the focus sharp and aligned with changing priorities. Smita mentions that OKRs are reviewed rigorously every quarter, not just set at the beginning of the year and forgotten. This continuous review process helps in adapting to changes and maintaining a clear focus on what success looks like for each team and role.

    3. Strategic and Tactical Balance: Smita highlights the importance of regular strategic check-ins, such as yearly and mid-year reviews, to ensure the roadmap remains relevant. Being responsive to market events and balancing operational priorities with strategic goals helps maintain focus and adaptability. Smita points out that while it’s essential to have a strategic vision, flexibility is key. The strategic roadmap should be adaptable based on new learnings, market events, and operational necessities. This approach helps in avoiding rigid plans that may not hold true in a dynamic business environment.

  3. Team Building and Culture

    1. Building High-Performing Teams: Clear roles and responsibilities, along with well-defined OKRs, are essential for high-performing teams. Smita fosters a culture of collective accountability, where the success of one team member contributes to the overall success of the team. She also emphasizes psychological safety, ensuring team members feel comfortable sharing concerns and feedback. Smita believes in making roles and responsibilities very clear to avoid distractions and confusion. She also stresses the importance of collective accountability, where the team’s success is prioritized over individual achievements, fostering a collaborative environment.

    2. Dealing with Wrong Hires: Smita has faced situations where hires didn't align culturally or operationally. She believes in addressing such issues promptly with clear and kind communication. If alignment can’t be achieved, it’s better to part ways for the benefit of both the individual and the company. Smita shares that cultural misalignment is often the root cause of hiring issues. Addressing these issues transparently and promptly helps in minimizing negative impacts on the team and maintaining a healthy work environment.

    3. Team Organization: Minimizing coordination burdens and ensuring clarity of responsibility are key principles in organizing teams. Early in Equip’s development, teams were organized around platform builds, but as the company scaled, teams were realigned to focus on business functions like clinical, commercial, and patient areas. Smita’s approach to team organization evolves with the company’s growth. Initially, teams were focused on building the platform, but as the company matured, the focus shifted to aligning teams with business functions to better meet strategic goals and enhance efficiency.

    4. Recruitment and Talent Development: Smita looks for curiosity, hunger, and high agency in potential hires. She believes in leveraging networks to find the right people and emphasizes the importance of a good cultural fit. Building strong teams involves finding individuals who are eager to learn, grow, and contribute to the company’s mission. Smita values attributes like curiosity and a strong drive to excel. She believes that hiring individuals with these qualities, who also align with the company’s culture, creates a strong, cohesive team that can navigate challenges and drive innovation.

  4. Product Development and Management

    1. Focus on Outcomes: One of the key reasons Smita joined Equip was their focus on clinical outcomes. Even when the company was small, they were publishing outcomes and focusing on data transparency. This commitment to clinical expertise and outcomes aligned with Smita’s personal mission to make a positive impact in healthcare. Equip’s dedication to transparency and data-driven decision-making was a significant factor for Smita. She believes that a strong focus on outcomes ensures that the company is genuinely making a positive impact, which aligns with her personal goals in healthcare.

    2. Roadmapping and Flexibility: Smita believes in a collaborative approach to roadmapping, ensuring alignment across different stakeholders. She stresses the importance of flexibility in roadmaps, understanding that plans may change based on new insights and priorities. Roadmaps should be directionally loose to allow for adjustments and iterations. Smita advocates for a flexible and inclusive roadmapping process. By involving various stakeholders and keeping the roadmap adaptable, the company can better respond to new information and changing priorities, ensuring continuous improvement and relevance.

    3. Balancing Planning and Flexibility: While planning is essential, it’s crucial not to plan too far ahead. Smita advocates for a quarter-by-quarter approach, especially in the healthcare space, to remain agile and responsive to changes. This approach helps balance the need for stability in engineering processes with the flexibility to adapt to new priorities. Smita suggests that shorter planning cycles, such as quarterly plans, help maintain agility and responsiveness. This approach allows teams to quickly adapt to new priorities and changes, which is particularly important in the dynamic healthcare industry.

    4. Agile Misconceptions: Agile doesn’t mean constant changes without structure. Smita clarifies that agile involves giving teams the necessary time to do their work correctly and iteratively, rather than planning everything in detail far in advance. Smita explains that agile methodology is about structured flexibility. It requires planning just enough to start and then iterating based on feedback and learnings. This ensures that teams have the time and space to develop solutions effectively without unnecessary disruptions.

    5. Discovery and Iteration: At Equip, the discovery process begins with identifying the problem and desired outcomes. Understanding who the users are and conducting opportunity analysis from various perspectives is critical. Smita’s team emphasizes iterative delivery and learning, often starting with a minimum viable product (MVP) or even a pre-MVP version to gather feedback and make informed decisions. Smita highlights the importance of a thorough discovery process that involves identifying problems, understanding user needs, and analyzing opportunities. Starting with MVPs allows for quick learning and adaptation, ensuring that the final product effectively meets user needs.

    6. Empathy and Lean Startup Methodology: Empathy is central to Smita’s approach, whether in product development or team interactions. Understanding the user’s perspective and focusing on solving their problems is key. She also follows lean startup principles, emphasizing iterative development and learning from small, incremental releases. Smita incorporates empathy and lean startup principles to ensure that products are user-centered and developed efficiently. By iterating in small steps and continually learning from user feedback, the team can build solutions that truly address user problems.

Show Notes

Where to find Smita Nair:

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Where to find Angela and Omar:

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Referenced:

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Smita Nair: I do believe that everything can be tied to the organizational level metric. It may not be a direct one on one relation, but you have to find out how it relates. And if it doesn't relate, I would say question yourself. Maybe the tech debt can remain. For another two years, 

[00:00:18] Angela Suthrave: welcome to concept to care, where we hear candid stories of success and failure, discuss strategy, and dive into the details that offer advice on what to do and what not to do in health tech, 

[00:00:29] Omar Moussa: whether you're a seasoned pro growing your career, or just starting out our aim for this podcast is to be relevant, real world and tactical.

[00:00:37] Omar Moussa: We're dedicated to not only entertaining you all, but also empowering you with actionable insights that can be applied beyond the podcast, one concept at a time. 

[00:00:45] Angela Suthrave: This is Angela 

[00:00:46] Omar Moussa: and this is Omar. 

[00:00:47] Angela Suthrave: Welcome to concept to care. Hi everyone. I'm thrilled to welcome my mentor Smita Nair to the show. Smita is the chief product and technology officer at Equip, a virtual evidence based care delivery organization.

[00:01:02] Angela Suthrave: Equip is dedicated to treating children, teens, and adults with eating disorders. And co occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, and OCD. In this episode, we'll dive deep into how equip builds its product. Smita will also share how she looks for talent and builds high performing teams. She offers invaluable tips for thriving in high growth organizations.

[00:01:27] Angela Suthrave: We hope you enjoy the episode.

[00:01:34] Angela Suthrave: Hi Smita. Welcome to concept to care. Hi Angela and Omar. Thanks for having me over. Can 

[00:01:39] Smita Nair: you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Sure. Hello, everyone. I'm Smitha Nair. I'm the chief product and technology officer at Equip Health leading virtual eating disorder provider. And I have close to two decades of experience working in healthcare startups notably companies like Evelyn Health, With Me Health, and most recently at Equip.

[00:02:02] Smita Nair: I'm an engineer turned product person because I realized that I have the most fun when I'm tackling. Solving complex business problems. That's where I enjoy the most, and I've been fortunate to be in places where I got to do a ton of problem solving around. How do you bring technology to solve complex business problems in health care and really make a positive impact to patients and families and general population.

[00:02:26] Omar Moussa: Smita tell us more about Equip's model. So who, who does Equip serve? What is the go to market strategy? What is the mission? And maybe some any other facts that folks should know about equip? 

[00:02:40] Smita Nair: Absolutely. As I mentioned, you know, we treat all kinds of eating disorders. We are a virtual eating disorder treatment program.

[00:02:47] Smita Nair: And one of the leading providers in that space we have provided our services across all 50 states in the U. S. and our model is based on where the patient is. So depending on the age group, you know, we provide family based treatment, we provide treatment to adults so it's like we cover the entire spectrum and we are in network with patients.

[00:03:07] Smita Nair: Most major commercial payers in the space covering approximately 110 million lives across the United States 

[00:03:14] Angela Suthrave: and you joined equip and it's in a growth stage. How were you able to find that product market fit? And how did you know that you hit product market fit? I would 

[00:03:25] Smita Nair: say I would start by saying that I think I was very lucky when I came across equip because they had I've identified a big gap when it comes to eating disorder treatment.

[00:03:35] Smita Nair: So by the time I landed in 2021 at equip, they already had success in identifying the problem and coming up for the right solution for that problem. So yeah. When I came in my job was to make sure that, okay, how do we now hone in into this and how do we make sure that we can provide this at scale and continue to kind of iterate and learn from what's working and what's not working.

[00:03:58] Smita Nair: So for me, the biggest thing when I came to equip and I was, as I was making my decision was equips focus on outcomes. Even then when we were really, really small. We were publishing outcomes, we were focusing on data and we were being very transparent about it. And that was very, very, like, it just increased my confidence at a level that if a company at this early stage is so focused on clinical expertise and outcomes, that's the place where I want to be.

[00:04:22] Smita Nair: There's a reason why I chose to be in healthcare and not in other technology companies because that's what I wanted to do. Drives me personally that mission off, you know, making an impact and changing healthcare at least in a little bit. With my contribution, 

[00:04:36] Omar Moussa: roadmapping as an activity, I often view it as kind of changes as with the stage of the company.

[00:04:43] Omar Moussa: So what makes sense today doesn't necessarily make sense tomorrow. Given you were very early and going from zero to one with equip, can you just talk to us about how you think about roadmapping for that zero to one phase? And then we have a lot of, you know, I imagine there's commercial ambitions early on of growth to support the growth.

[00:05:03] Omar Moussa: Like, how do you bring on more lives onto that platform to scale and to support contracts effectively? 

[00:05:09] Smita Nair: There is no one size fits all, according to me. Like, even if we say early stage, high growth, different stages, I feel the DNA of a company could change how you go about with the road mapping. So first and foremost, it was very important for me to understand.

[00:05:25] Smita Nair: What the opportunities are. So I did do kind of a listening tour, if you would during my early weeks at Equip to figure out, like, what are different people worried about, concerned about, what they wish they could have. So pretty much did that across all the departments. And I always keep reminding this to my teams, no roadmaps should be set in stone.

[00:05:46] Smita Nair: And that's true, right? Like, we cannot proclaim to know everything. Mm hmm. That's going to happen from six months from now or two years from now. So yeah, it can be, it can be a loosely like directionally lose in a way that you can flex and you can see what worked in terms of your delivery. So that's kind of one, like really understanding what the different opportunities are and coming up with some way of like alignment on if I'm thinking something is the highest opportunity to other stakeholders.

[00:06:16] Smita Nair: decision makers, do they think the same if they all think the same? Great, right? Easy, easy problem. But normally that doesn't happen. So how do you kind of get alignment? Either you shift your stance or you get others to shift their stance. So that's very important. And that's where I really believe in a very collaborative roadmap approach.

[00:06:34] Smita Nair: Like I feel a technology team should never have, like, Oh, this is technology team's roadmap. It should be the business's roadmap, right? Like, what are we trying to do together? So that has generally worked well for me. There are always learnings, every single time, but I think that's generally the process I take when it comes to roadmapping.

[00:06:52] Smita Nair: Keep it flexible. Learn and iterate. Drive as much alignment as you can. And the reason why I say as much as you can is because depending on the stage of the company, time is of essence. So you have to have a balance of how much alignment is good enough for you to experiment and for you to move on, because there'll be a lot of time for iteration.

[00:07:13] Omar Moussa: I think there's always an interesting balance to strike as well. Like, You mentioned roadmaps are not set in stone. 100 percent agree on that. It should be iterated over time. We should be flexible to shift gears and focus on the topmost priority. Engineering as a machine often works really well when things are planned on.

[00:07:33] Omar Moussa: And I'm wondering how do you navigate? You know, you set out maybe 1 to 3 quarters in advance. You say we plan to implement these or work on these initiatives. We groom the work. We get it all shovel ready. How do you kind of navigate the, the, the balance of, you know, we need to be really flexible. We set out to accomplish five things.

[00:07:57] Omar Moussa: might not accomplish those five things, but we still want to be within a percentage of like what we plan to do versus not plan to do. So how do you find that balance? What are some good ways to think about that? 

[00:08:08] Smita Nair: Yeah. And I think this is where I also want to bring up when people say agile, agile means, you know, we can just change things anytime we want.

[00:08:16] Smita Nair: I mean, no, not really. So I think the philosophy is You have to give the time to your teams to do the right, to the, to do the work the right way, right? So whatever the process is but does that need to be a six month process? Maybe for some initiatives it could be a six month process, but for most it should not be.

[00:08:37] Smita Nair: You never want to write your requirements and your kind of prototype six months in advance because I'm pretty sure by the time you get to developing it, you would have changed your mind on it. So that's generally my philosophy. Like, don't plan it that far ahead. Like, what you can plan that far ahead is like the vision.

[00:08:53] Smita Nair: And to kind of get buy in from, you know, your business users, your, your stakeholders and all of that. But you should never be And, and I don't want to make this a blanket statement because I'm getting to this question from a lens of healthcare services, which is where, you know, I have spent most of my career.

[00:09:10] Smita Nair: In that space, I feel a quarter timeline is pretty good enough from a prep standpoint. And I've also realized that our engineering teams are generally not, they really focus on like what's happening now and just immediate. So if you, even if you start something like that's nine months out. It may not be the best use of everyone's time.

[00:09:28] Smita Nair: That's how I deal with it. There's, I think the second part of your question, the expectations management, it's a tricky one, but I think it's highly, I have seen product managers really succeed when they have highly collaborative relationship with their stakeholders. Right? Because the one example that's coming to my mind while I'm answering you this is where the business is.

[00:09:49] Smita Nair: understands the shifts even before we explain it to them, right? And, and that's, that's like nirvana in my mind, where you don't even have to convince us to why something shifted, but they are so like aligned and they're so lockstep and sync with you that they know that, Hey, you know what? We learned something new from our marketing strategy and we have to implement this now to get an impact now.

[00:10:10] Smita Nair: So we are going to shift something else out and there's that alignment. 

[00:10:15] Angela Suthrave: That's great when you can achieve that. You had said that there are times where. You feel like, Hey, this thing over here is the biggest opportunity. Can you give an example of when that hasn't been the case and what you've been able to do, did you change the roadmap because you saw their perspective or did, were you able to.

[00:10:35] Angela Suthrave: bring them along in how you were thinking about solving the problem. 

[00:10:38] Smita Nair: I'm actually dealing with something like that right now where we've started with something that was a pilot. I think from a commercial landscape it's definitely, not just from a commercial landscape, but just from a modern health tech standpoint, the pilot is definitely.

[00:10:54] Smita Nair: sound and directionally what we should do. But as I'm talking to like other execs at equip, we are just figuring out the cost benefit analysis on that. So even though I'm completely sold that that's the right feature to provide to all of our patients, but there are like other operational and other kind of business decisions that just.

[00:11:15] Smita Nair: It doesn't make it maybe the right thing to continue and I'm, I'm definitely like changing my stance on it from like, Hey, we should go from pilot to all versus I'm rethinking should we push that out by a few more months while we can do some other high impact work in that timeframe and still pick it up?

[00:11:33] Smita Nair: It doesn't have to be now. So yeah, I think I've done this more than once where even though I believe in something it's the right thing for the patient. But I think if you. Start adding every single thing. Are there other things that are more impacting for the patient and like doing that trade off?

[00:11:49] Angela Suthrave: So it sounded like you started with a pilot. There were a lot of learnings and you were able to take those learnings to be iterative in your approach. And so maybe this is a good segue for us to talk about. If you're happy to share, you know, how you think about doing discovery at Equip. 

[00:12:06] Smita Nair: We, first of all, like we start with identifying the problem like that's generally a philosophy we all are trying to anchor on is like, what is the problem you're trying to solve?

[00:12:15] Smita Nair: And also what is the outcome we hope to get? So kind of having both ends of that spectrum and then within that understanding who are the users, what's the impacted people and kind of getting that perspective. So whether it's end users, whether it's people who are kind of peripheral to that, figuring out who the user base is and understanding kind of the opportunity analysis.

[00:12:37] Smita Nair: from each of that lens and then putting a prioritization framework on like, okay, we can, if you could do everything, that will be great. But I have never been in a situation where we could do everything right. There's always a trade off. So that's where you put some kind of agreed upon, you know, prioritization and scoring to see where do we go first and how do we kind of sequence it, right?

[00:12:58] Smita Nair: One of the things that I and my team generally does not believe in is like big bang releases. Like they always want to deliver iteratively and not wait for like nine months before we deliver a big project. So that's a huge emphasis. So how can we tackle this? Problem like is that a first step to tackling it?

[00:13:15] Smita Nair: Is that an MVP version? We have even gone like pre MVP version in some cases and say, okay, can we do this and just learn? So we do believe in a lot of like iteration but also like upfront agreeing on like what is the problem we're trying to focus. And what outcomes like, well, once it, once it gets implemented, what's the change you expect?

[00:13:35] Smita Nair: You know, which KPI will change? What metrics will change? So we try to get some alignment on that, that way Okay. We avoid this trap of you know feature overload because I have, I have been in product for so long that I just wanted my product to be perfect and you want to like put all kinds of bells and whistles, but you have to really be honest, like, is that really going to change the outcome or is that really going to help for the problem too much?

[00:13:59] Smita Nair: And if not, then. We make, we make a decision based on that. 

[00:14:03] Omar Moussa: So I think it's interesting, especially in that zero to one phase, I find that like everything is a, is a crawl, walk, run at first. And so I, I think the big bang makes, I can't speak, I like, I think for all of us makes us nervous and we don't want a lot of big bangs.

[00:14:22] Omar Moussa: We would prefer something small. Move like let's get some information on. Is this even working? And then then we can make major investment and like tech enabling it further, automating it, et cetera. I wanted to ask you about the how susceptible the road map has been to the selling cycle. So it selling in health care is hard and long, and it's hard to anticipate what are the requirements.

[00:14:49] Omar Moussa: But you know, it's coming. And so how do you, how do you kind of continue to plan and build without committing to a lot from upcoming potential deal closes? 

[00:15:02] Smita Nair: I have been in that kind of a situation in the past, like maybe two jobs ago. But most recently equipped. But thankfully, I'm not in that situation where we are driven by, you know, contract, contracts and deals in terms of what features and capabilities we need, because our contracts are with payers health plans and who we are treating are the actual patients and families.

[00:15:25] Smita Nair: So it is more around how can we deliver our treatment in the best possible way and how can we reduce kind of any kind of like healthcare. That's an area that excites me the most, like there's so much wasted that happens and every point of coordination, every point of like healthcare touch, like what do we do there?

[00:15:45] Smita Nair: So thankfully we are able to manage the timelines based on like keeping, keeping our providers and our patients at the front and center and less by the contracts and deals. So I would just say it's really good to be in this kind of a setup at Equip but that's generally not the case in most other cases.

[00:16:06] Smita Nair: So I would just like add one more thing. In a situation where it is based on deal closing and stuff, like I have always had the, especially if you're building an enterprise platform, I always want to see if whatever the particular customer is asking, can that be scaled across all? Like if it's very one off.

[00:16:23] Smita Nair: That's custom that I have literally one more more evidence as to why that is important and if you should really do it. So I do really push back on those kinds of things. If you're building an enterprise SaaS platform. 

[00:16:34] Angela Suthrave: And earlier you talked about being able to convey a vision and not being tied to certain feature sets.

[00:16:42] Angela Suthrave: Can you talk about how you're able to convey a vision where people like when you talk to them about your vision, they are just like, Oh, that's a great feature. When are you going to deliver that? 

[00:16:52] Smita Nair: Yeah, I think I would take your question and kind of to two perspectives, right? One is conveying your vision to your own team, the technology and product teams as to what we're building, and the other is conveying your vision to kind of your business stakeholders to make them excited on why this is important.

[00:17:09] Smita Nair: So slightly different kind of approaches I would take there. When I'm talking to my own team, I, the analogy I use is like, we all need to know, are we building A castle. Are we building a religious building? Are we building a home? Like what are we building? Like people need to know that. So that vision has to be painted so that when people are making decisions, micro decisions about what kind of wall, what kind of wall color, like they have that perspective that this is the end state that's going to look like.

[00:17:41] Smita Nair: So that's one way I do it. Like, what are we trying to build at the end of it? What's our main goal? But also like it's exciting for people, right. Like changing this nav, all of that, like where is it leading to and being in healthcare, I feel like that's really we're, we're honored to be working in healthcare because it's really easy to find that mission connect like most people who come to work and.

[00:18:03] Smita Nair: Such companies are missionally aligned already, right? So for them, what really matters is, okay, how is this going to change the life of a patient, life of a provider? How is this going to impact the healthcare we are providing? That's what they are driving towards. So painting that vision is easier and so authentic.

[00:18:23] Smita Nair: When it comes to stakeholders I would say I mean, they're also missionally aligned, so all of those statements still hold true, but it's very important because they are also not coming from a place of like, Many of them may have not worked in an organization where products were built internally, right?

[00:18:38] Smita Nair: Maybe they were using an externally built EMR and things like that. So this is where I would love, I love to use like as much storytelling as I can to paint the vision, but also like how can we get prototypes you know, Some visuals to, to make it a little bit more concrete and not leave it to too much interpretation.

[00:18:59] Smita Nair: So yeah, those are some of the tactics I use. 

[00:19:02] Omar Moussa: I've seen this play out in a couple ways at a lot of tech enabled healthcare services. Right now you are, you're, you're chief of both products and technology engineering, right? As a person who's grown up in product, what are the biggest considerations for like starting an engineering function or having the engineering function roll up to you at a startup.

[00:19:25] Omar Moussa: How do you think about making decisions and how do you provide oversight in an area that You haven't spent the majority of your career focused on. 

[00:19:34] Smita Nair: Yeah, definitely. And I would, I would be very honest in saying when I took my kind of first role in that capacity, one of the things that I said to myself is that I'm going to be very honest about what I'm really good at and what I'm not good at.

[00:19:47] Smita Nair: And I would even say that even in the product discipline itself, there's so many things, right? Use the research and use the design and product. I'm not an expert in all those. I think building the right team. Is the most important thing for me to make sure that I'm doing right by the company. And that was my focus.

[00:20:03] Smita Nair: Like, how do I make sure one, I know my own strengths, but I also know what my biggest gaps are and finding the people who are really complimentary to that. So yeah, I've, I've built a very, very strong team here at equip especially our VP of engineering. He comes with lots of years of engineering expertise and very, very high kind of a bar for excellence.

[00:20:22] Smita Nair: So that's important. So, so building the right team. The second is, you know, enough to be dangerous, right? How do you drive kind of accountability? How do you Make sure that you're very clear with people on what you're looking at and how are you looking at success versus what's not going well.

[00:20:39] Smita Nair: That way, it gives you an opening to kind of ask deeper questions as to, hey, what's happening here and what can we do? And sometimes, you know, you may not exactly know what's wrong, but those questions, those probing questions will give you more insight into, okay, something is not as good as it should be and what are we going to collectively do to do?

[00:20:59] Smita Nair: That's, those are some of the techniques kind of I follow and I generally like being in a startup, to be honest, every single time I take a new opportunity, I'm always looking at how can I contribute with all the things I'm good at. But what can I also learn for myself? Like what's my growth in terms of learning?

[00:21:17] Smita Nair: So I think this role expansion in that regard is, is a part of that for me. And then eating disorder space is another part of it, right? Like even though I've been in healthcare, I've never been in behavioral health. So there, there always like the point I'm trying to make is there's, there'll be always something that I wouldn't, won't be an expert at.

[00:21:36] Smita Nair: But what you need to know is what signals you're looking for when things are going well and not going well. And do you have the people who share a kind of a relationship where they can be open about it and discuss and problem solve with you? 

[00:21:48] Angela Suthrave: You talked about the accountability and it sounds like at Equip, there's shared accountability across the organization.

[00:21:54] Angela Suthrave: Could you say more about that? I would say this is 

[00:21:56] Smita Nair: one of the best implementations I have seen about, of You know, putting OKRs, objectives, and key results in practice. So we all have company level OKRs, but then each department derives their own OKRs from that. Which is pretty much driving the collective KPIs of the top level KPIs of the company.

[00:22:16] Smita Nair: So every single thing that product engineering is doing is hitting one of the business KPIs that at the company level we track and that's, that's like a really powerful tool to drive alignment because You would hardly see people working on stuff that's not attached to those high level KPIs. And then we do have like a very rigorous review every quarter.

[00:22:38] Smita Nair: So we just don't like write them at the beginning of the year and then forget about it and then look at it at the end of the year. No. There's a continuous, like, review. Looking at the KPIs and saying, okay, what has changed since we last set them? Do we need to revise it? So there's a lot more like focus on understanding the change and adapting to that change, but at the same time driving accountability so that people are always clear on what will success look like.

[00:23:01] Smita Nair: For a particular team or even for a particular role. 

[00:23:05] Angela Suthrave: I think that when someone's listening to this, they could think, okay, like that makes sense if your work is tagged to a KPI or an OKR that is driving revenue, right? Like that is very attractive. In that model, how do you drive accountability for work that is more keeping the lights on or tech debt?

[00:23:25] Smita Nair: I personally believe that all of that touches on something that's at a higher level in the business. Right. So even for tech debt, like, okay, why do you care about tech debt? Because you're trying to scale, you don't want this to slow you down. So you're looking at the scaling metric, right? Are you able to support the growth that your business is seeing on the platform that you have?

[00:23:46] Smita Nair: And if you have a tech debt, maybe you can't grow 2X next year. So I feel like even the tech debt, like we do and this is a real example, like we do have a tech debt. Workstream and that's actually attached to our growth work stream, right? Because we can all choose to say, you know what, we can live with this.

[00:24:04] Smita Nair: We've lived this for two years. Why fix now? But we are fixing because we are growing at a rate and we don't want to carry that tech debt into the next phase of Equip. So I. Do believe that everything can be tied to the organizational level metric. It may not be a direct one on one relation, but, but you have to find out how it relates.

[00:24:24] Smita Nair: And if it doesn't relate, I would say question yourself, like, why are we doing it? Maybe the tech that can remain for another two years. 

[00:24:31] Angela Suthrave: One of the things that we talked about when we were talking about you leading product and engineering was building the team. And so I really feel like this is one of your stealth secret superpowers.

[00:24:44] Angela Suthrave: You know, you have largely built teams at organizations that you've been at. And I think you have a little bit of an unorthodox approach here. So we'd love it if you could share about how you think about talent and finding people and unlocking their potential. Yeah. 

[00:24:58] Smita Nair: I'd love, and you put it this way, it feels like you're telling that I have some kind of a secret.

[00:25:02] Smita Nair: Yeah. power to identify that. But honestly, I don't. And I wish I did. Right. Because that'd be so cool just to know, like, who's the right person when you talk to so many individuals and like, this is the right person. I think I, I look at it from a lens of like when I was early in my career. And when I didn't know so much about product market fit and revenue and what the companies are doing, what did I care for most at that time?

[00:25:28] Smita Nair: I personally care, cared a lot for like learning. And the kind of people I got, I'll get to work with. Right. So can I look up to some people who are working around me and can I learn more new things? So those were like really important. And then the third part was also like. I'm also having fun while doing the work that I'm doing because the reality is that we all end up spending a, a major portion of our life at work.

[00:25:52] Smita Nair: So it better be a little bit fun and not like completely draining. So those are the kind of three things I look for. So when I'm looking at people to join. My team, I'm definitely looking for curiosity, like how curious are people? Because that, especially in a startup, right? Like nothing is going to be super clear.

[00:26:13] Smita Nair: There'll be a lot of ambiguity. And if you're a curious person, you will be able to find your way through that ambiguity and bring clarity to others because people are curious. So in many cases, relying on you to bring that clarity. So finding you know, examples of like how curious they have been in their career leading up to now is, is, is one way for me to look at that.

[00:26:34] Smita Nair: Second and don't ask me how I found this because I don't know, honestly, I just don't know how I find this is how hungry are they? You know, I remember Angela, you from many, many years ago and I put you as like, you were a very hungry person. Yeah. Yeah. Always. You're always wanting to do more things.

[00:26:51] Smita Nair: So sometimes you just get that vibe or you get some examples from their past and things that they have done, like how, how happy are with their, their status quo? What else? How did they push themselves? How did they push an initiative at somewhere? Like, so that's a very important component for me.

[00:27:07] Smita Nair: I think another word for that would be like high agency that many people use, like do you have high agency? So I think those two things, along with like, Integrity and like, are you a generally like nice person to be around are my three like non tangible things. Obviously the other competencies have to be there.

[00:27:26] Smita Nair: Like if I'm hiring an engineer, they better know, you know, the tech stack that we're going to be working in. If I'm hiring a product manager, they better know the product. The product manager concepts and the frameworks and things like that. That's a given. That's a baseline. But these are the other things I really, I really focus on.

[00:27:41] Smita Nair: And then I focus on good people, no good people. So. Harnessing the network is super 

[00:27:47] Angela Suthrave: important 

[00:27:48] Smita Nair: always. 

[00:27:48] Omar Moussa: Once you've hired those individuals, tell us a little bit more about how you create a culture of high performing teams and from, from top to bottom.

[00:27:57] Smita Nair: Some of the things I follow, and I hope that people who report to me can watch for this but I try to make sure that the roles and responsibilities are very clear. I feel like there's nothing more distracting than not being very clear on what the expectations are and what your role entails. So I try my best to make it as clear as possible that all the responsibilities and then as I mentioned before that we do focus a lot on KPIs and OKR.

[00:28:22] Smita Nair: So like making very clear that what are the different key results that each of them are responsible for. But at the end, what is the collective accountability, right? Like as a team, like tech and product, like if every single team did their own KPIs, but if the collective accountability was not there, then that's a miss.

[00:28:39] Smita Nair: So do really focus a lot on that collective accountability that either we've All win or we all lose. So what, what will it take? So really reemphasizing that is important. And third, I, I, I truly enjoy the people I'm working with. Right. So I feel like we have a relationship where I can be very honest with them about what has made me super happy and where I'm like, Oh, this could have been done better.

[00:29:04] Smita Nair: Like I can be very honest. And vice versa, like they're all super honest with me about, you know, all kinds of feedback. So, if they're worried about something, they're very honest. If they need help, then they're very honest. If they're sometimes just venting that I wish this could be different. So I feel like, I personally enjoy that I can provide that platform both ways, where I can do the same with them and they can do it.

[00:29:26] Smita Nair: I think that just creates a very psychologically safe environment that if somebody is facing a problem, it's not just their problem, like we are all here to solve it together. I would rather know the problem versus like not know of the problem till six months and then we're like, Oh, now we are in a soup.

[00:29:43] Smita Nair: So I think those are the three things like roles and responsibilities making sure that people know what they're accountable for and creating a space where people can bring up anything and everything. 

[00:29:53] Angela Suthrave: Inevitably, when you hire people you can make the wrong hire and the impact is disproportionate when you're at a startup and there are very few people around, sometimes you look behind you, there's no one behind you.

[00:30:04] Angela Suthrave: Right. And so can you tell us if this has ever happened to you and if so, what did you do and. Was there any, were there any learnings that you took from that? 

[00:30:14] Smita Nair: I wish I could say no, it has never happened to me, but it has. And I think this is the, the balance of, you know, when you, when you're, when you are in an early growth stage company, you know, there's a sense of urgency, right?

[00:30:25] Smita Nair: We all have, and I definitely have a lot of sense of urgency because the moment I see there's so many problems to be solved, I'm like jumping into how quickly can we solve it and what can we do? And hiring is important. For that, because as a team of one, I cannot do it. So sometimes when you shortchange that thorough vetting with quick hiring, I feel that's when.

[00:30:46] Smita Nair: Some of these things come up and honestly like at this stage of my career, I don't think it's ever a question of the technical skills per se, right? Like people, people will know what they know. But mostly what I have found out is there's a lot of. When I say it's a bad hire, it's mostly a cultural misalignment, right?

[00:31:06] Smita Nair: Maybe this is not the kind of work environment they envisioned, or maybe they were operating as more of a hands on person and now here they have to lead a team, so there's this, different level of step up that's, and, and sometimes you give, you take a leap of faith and you say, Hey, this person's going to do it.

[00:31:24] Smita Nair: But, you know, when they were very good at level a, but maybe they can't be equally good at level B. So those kinds of situations have happened with me. And in those cases, I think clear as kind is always a strategy. Like, first of all, you want to make sure that. You can make it work. And are there gaps that can be closed?

[00:31:42] Smita Nair: But then if there is no for whatever reason, right, whether it's because of me or because of the other person, if the two parties cannot come to some kind of alignment, right, then it's better to kind of part ways because it's not good for that person. It's not good for the company. And like you have to kind of make sometimes a mutual decision that this is not the place for the person.

[00:32:03] Smita Nair: So it does happen, especially when you're trying to move fast. And sometimes it's not because of the individual themselves. It's because of the environment, the kind of set up and the kind of expectations you have of that role. 

[00:32:13] Omar Moussa: There are a lot of reasons that would influence why you would need to change the way your team is organized in the past.

[00:32:19] Omar Moussa: You've described it as putting puzzle pieces together. Can you walk us through your thinking process here? How do you organize teams? How do you think about permanence versus and ownership? 

[00:32:31] Smita Nair: I think my basic principle when I'm thinking about teams is how do we avoid the burden of coordination?

[00:32:39] Smita Nair: There will always be coordination across silos and across different teams and across. Can you minimize that, right? Because you don't want the entire time, productive time to be spent in just meetings and the whole teams being in meetings and then every single person on the team being in a stakeholder conversation.

[00:33:01] Smita Nair: So like, how do you kind of streamline that? That's like, definitely one of my bigger things that how do I do that? And also how do you bring clarity on who's responsible? So those two things kind of, Play front and center for me when I'm thinking about teams. So, an example would be in the earlier years of Equip, when we were building our MVP, our teams were more driven by like the platform itself, because we were, we were going to the race of the MVP platform build.

[00:33:28] Smita Nair: And it was like platform one and platform two, and we had teams building those. But as now we are in like year four or five of it we are aligning more to our business teams. So, we have teams that are focused more on the clinical side of things, we have teams that are focused more on commercial, then we have teams on the patient side of things.

[00:33:45] Smita Nair: And that is because now we are at a stage where we are trying to like fine tune what else do we do what metrics what outcomes do we need what are the different stakeholder conversations that we need to be part of. And we are trying to embed more and more into business. When it comes to products.

[00:33:59] Smita Nair: So that's how the product teams have evolved. And, but the principle is still the same, right? Like, are you trying, you're trying to minimize the coordination required and you're trying to make sure that people know what they're accountable for in each of these streams. The second part of your question about like permanence, I don't, I don't believe in permanence at all because I feel like Angela, like you, you have experienced some of it with me back at a prior company, but I feel like the moment you start believing in permanence, then you start doing suboptimal processes just to meet the needs of that permanent structure versus the other way around.

[00:34:42] Smita Nair: Right. So I always say to everyone, like, okay, this is what we're doing now. And this looks like a good setup for the next six months. But if tomorrow, like our business shifts, or if we have to focus on a completely new product area, we should all be ready to dissolve the structure and get into a new but the promise that I have, the one thing that will be permanent is that you get to solve exciting new problems.

[00:35:05] Smita Nair: That'll be permanent. But in which team structure, which combination, that's not permanent. 

[00:35:10] Angela Suthrave: Smith, I stole a page from your book and I, I always tell people you are dating your product. You are not married to your product which I remember you, you always said to me, tell me more about that because change is hard, right?

[00:35:24] Angela Suthrave: You own a product. And you learn everything that there is to know about that product area. And then so to change it and maybe to change the org where maybe the reporting structure is different and your ownership area is different can be hard. And how do you manage that type of change? 

[00:35:45] Smita Nair: Yeah. It is hard and I also don't want to like trivialize.

[00:35:49] Smita Nair: By my earlier response that, hey, we can just change things when we want. I mean, that's not the idea, right? Like you want to provide stability as much you can, because there's benefit in that. There's benefit in those relationships as benefit and certainty and all of that. So anytime when you're changing.

[00:36:05] Smita Nair: There has to be a very good reason for change. Maybe there's a business change. Maybe there is a new product initiative. So there is something that is definitely exciting that's happening. And because of that, you're driving the change, right? So if it's, if it's driven by that kind of a logic and change, I think it's very easy to convey that to your team members.

[00:36:26] Smita Nair: Like, this is why And then, yeah, you may have to learn a new construct area and things, but this is where I go back to like my hiring principles of like, I'm trying to hire people, one who are hungry and second, who are very curious, right? So this is a good opportunity for them to like, open up those doors of curiosity and making sure that they're learning maybe a new domain altogether, a new construct and things like that.

[00:36:49] Smita Nair: So I feel like you, you want. Those kind of people who are open to that possibility, but also understand the strategic rationale as to why you're doing it. And it's important, like we all, I mean, if a change is happening to me, I would want to know why, and I would expect people in my team to ask me the same, why?

[00:37:07] Smita Nair: And I should have a good why. 

[00:37:10] Angela Suthrave: We are going to talk about our next set of topics, which is all around working in high growth organizations, which you've worked in a lot of them. In your career, which is incredible, right? And we've all read the stat that 80 percent of health tech startups fail. Can you tell us a little bit about how you evaluate organizations to understand the opportunity and whether or not it's an endeavor that you want to bark on and, and whether the opportunities there for it to grow?

[00:37:42] Smita Nair: Yeah this is, I feel like it's a, it's a tough question. Because I don't completely take a scientific approach to be very honest, right? I'm not like looking at the revenue statements and doing all of that. I, I know some people who do that, exactly do that and go with that. My, my take mostly is I really look at the mission of the company, like what are they trying to do?

[00:38:08] Smita Nair: And is that something that I, feel proud to be associated with, right? That's very important for me. That is something that I want to be a part of. So that has to resonate with me first and foremost. Then I definitely look at the leadership team. As I mentioned before, like I want to be surrounded by people that I'm inspired by and that I can look up to.

[00:38:30] Smita Nair: And more importantly, like, are they passionate about it? Right. It's no fun working in a place where if you are the most passionate person for that team, like you're looking for what is the passion and how are people driven to work on this particular mission? So I do look at that aspect. And again, these two points that I said so far is no guarantee about this company featuring in the 80%, right?

[00:38:52] Smita Nair: It's not, I also now at least do look at like, what is the problem that they're trying to solve for? And as much as I can with my expertise in the industry, figure out some rationality in that, like, is this a problem worth solving or are there already a hundred solutions out there that has solved the problem?

[00:39:09] Smita Nair: So that's another kind of perspective I try to gauge and then fourth, because I have worked in healthcare companies and more and more like the recent one as such as equip, I did focus a lot on the clinical expertise. I was very sure that I didn't want to go into a digital health company, which was focused on the technology build.

[00:39:32] Smita Nair: And not the clinical part of it, and ICWF was clinical first, and that really resonated with me. I wanted to make sure that there's strong clinical fundamentals and outcome, focus on outcomes. Because then, you know, we can solve the technology problem. Then we can build the right tech to do that, but that's the fundamental I wanted to be very sure of.

[00:39:50] Smita Nair: So yeah, those are some of the things I look at. I 

[00:39:52] Omar Moussa: want to want to dive deeper into the stages of a company. So how do you categorize the various stages of high growth company? What should people need to know about each stage and how to operate within them? 

[00:40:05] Smita Nair: I mean, generally, I think that the most common stages that we all know of are like, you know, startup stage, early growth, scaling stage, and then mature stage.

[00:40:16] Smita Nair: So I would kind of remove the mature stage from our definition right now. In startup stage, it's very important to be lean and agile. Right. And we talked about roadmap. It has to be very, very flexible. Like the level of flexibility of roadmap has to be another level in a startup stage. And you are also working hand in hand with like the founders and the founding team members on understanding the product market fit.

[00:40:43] Smita Nair: So there has to be a lot of I feel irrespective of your titles and where you are in the organization, a lot of all hands on deck approach to find that. What's working, what's ticking, where do you need to iterate and really like this is not the stage where I would focus on tech debt, for example, right?

[00:40:59] Smita Nair: This is where you would want to like quickly trade and learn. When I talk about early stage, this is where you would start having a little bit longer term roadmaps that people can start looking at the vision. I do focus on putting a little bit more, you know, mature product development processes, you know, in terms of how do we manage our roadmap and how do we do our different ceremonies, like bringing some structure in.

[00:41:22] Smita Nair: I do start looking at that in that early stage phase. And yeah. Scaling stage is where I would be getting into more like now you have the I would say the luxury of focusing on some core problem areas and making sure that you're doing user research. You are having a little bit more baked roadmaps.

[00:41:41] Smita Nair: You're focusing on tech debt because now you're in the scaling mode and you're focusing on I mean, security is always the underpinning of it, but trying to get into more of like getting those attestations and those things. Security frameworks kind of implemented so that you can be a trusted source across like those are the kind of things I start focusing on in the scaling stage.

[00:42:01] Smita Nair: So yeah, more, more defined process, more certainty because now you may have higher user base. So like that one single bug could cause more heavy disruption than when you are a very early seed startup. So focusing like not becoming too heavy early on. Because you are trying to learn, but then as you get into scaling, putting more structure and frameworks across all of your teams.

[00:42:22] Angela Suthrave: And can you tell us a little bit about how you balance being strategic with being responsive to things that come up, either issues or learnings from your discovery? 

[00:42:34] Smita Nair: It is, as I said, it is a balance strategic in the sense of like, are we, have we, have we defined the lanes? Like, that's what I call the strategy, right?

[00:42:43] Smita Nair: Like, and then how, how we operate within those lanes is the tactical part of it. And we generally do yearly and a mid year process to kind of, Refine the road map at the higher levels and say, okay, this is, does this still hold true? Has something else changed? Are we still committed to kind of the resources and the roadmap priorities we all set?

[00:43:03] Smita Nair: Do we want to shift something else based on what we are, you saw in the first six months of the year. So we do that kind of intentional exercise around road mapping which is more strategic. And then it could also happen because of a trigger. So maybe there was a market event that happened and that triggered.

[00:43:18] Smita Nair: That raised a discussion for us to focus on like, okay, what should our strategy change? So we are not like waiting for that mid year check in because of that trigger happened before we would come get everyone in the room and discuss what needs to be done and what the recommendation would be.

[00:43:34] Smita Nair: It's, it's really hard. The other piece of it, where there's always priorities that will come from the operations teams and things that are important. So it's figuring out what's important and urgent. Versus what's important and not urgent and I feel like my, my product team does a fantastic job and always like weighing that and making, making the call and making sure that the people who are requesting those things are in the loop on why we think it's important and urgent versus why we think some things are important and not urgent to do right away.

[00:44:06] Smita Nair: So yeah, it's, it's still a balance and I don't, I don't think we get it a hundred percent right all the time. Honestly, I still think that I could spend more time being a little bit more strategic and there's always this balance of how much and when. 

[00:44:20] Omar Moussa: Smita, I get it from. Angela, all the time she mentioned mentions you, but even through this conversation, it's clear that you lean into your strengths really well.

[00:44:30] Omar Moussa: And you mitigate your mitigation strategies for or either work on or mitigation strategies for weaknesses. How do you discover for for those who are listening? Like, if you were to give them the playbook, how do you discover strengths within yourself? And then how do you advise others on, you know, that are reporting into your function to do the same and lean into that?

[00:44:52] Omar Moussa: Same way you do. A 

[00:44:52] Smita Nair: lot of hard feedback along the years is the answer to that. And I would say as much as a feedback stings, but it is truly a gift and obviously not my, it's a very cliched statement. I think somebody else has said this, but really believe in it. It may feel very hard when you get that feedback, but that's the only way for you to grow.

[00:45:11] Smita Nair: Because if you take that feedback and say, okay, what am I going to do about it? And how am I going to like change this or sometimes you can't change what you are at the core? How how am I going to be aware of this is the way I go about it, right? Like awareness of what you are not Super good at so that you can compliment.

[00:45:30] Smita Nair: As I said before, it's super important. I have personally been also lucky to be part of some like exercises where, you know, we did strength finder I'm forgetting the exact assessment name, but there's something called a strength finder. So we did that and it was surprisingly very apt. And sometimes you just don't know.

[00:45:47] Smita Nair: And when people. Look at your results. I'm like, Oh yeah, I see it. Then I'm like, Oh really? You do see this? So I think that has benefited me, like finding, getting that perspective of like what my strengths are. And then over the years, like a lot of 360 feedback, right? Upward, downward, all kinds of feedback has really highlighted, you know, what things I do well and where I can still keep improving.

[00:46:11] Smita Nair: So, I think to all the listeners, one thing I would say is that really treat feedback as a gift and change your mindset around that. Like it's, if somebody is giving a feedback to you, they are most likely invested in you, right? Because if they were not invested, avoiding conflict is the best way for everyone wants to avoid conflict.

[00:46:31] Smita Nair: But if somebody is get, they've gotten past that and giving you a feedback, that means they really care for you and they want you to, you know, rise up. Rise above that. So treat it that way, work on it, and even if you can't completely avoid some things, be aware of it. All right, Smita,

[00:46:55] Angela Suthrave: we have reached the very exciting concept closing call portion of the podcast. And the first question is, are there any frameworks, methods, or processes that you've found especially useful in your work that others may find useful as well? 

[00:47:09] Smita Nair: Oh, that's a loaded question because I feel like, first of all, I've stopped reading many books these days, don't have enough time, but I read so many blogs and articles and podcasts and there's so many frameworks, like they're getting bombarding you with frameworks and frameworks.

[00:47:23] Smita Nair: And I'm like, okay, I was doing this. Is this what it's called? So with that said, I feel like. The things that I always lean into is I think it's called design thinking, but like empathy, right? Thinking about your user, keeping your user front and center and thinking about the problem. That's a framework I live by.

[00:47:42] Smita Nair: Not just in product. Like I feel like in every single interaction, if you're thinking about, you know, The person in front of you and then you are handling the conversation. I think it always has a better outcome. So that empathy is super important. And just by the nature of where I've been at, like early state startups the lean startup mythology has always helped, right?

[00:48:01] Smita Nair: I, I never had the luxury to build the platform. Perfect, you know, product in the first go. So you have to always iterate. So really, I really do lean into the lean startup methodology and always think about how can we integrate, how can we deliver in increments and, and move forward. 

[00:48:17] Omar Moussa: What is a tool that is highly valuable to you that you think others may not be using?

[00:48:23] Smita Nair: My one on ones, I do use a lot of one on one times With my skip levels with my directs with my stakeholders and I feel like those are very important because that's where you are able to get to the bottom of things that doesn't come up in larger meetings and you really understand what's blocking somebody.

[00:48:45] Smita Nair: And I feel like a big part of my role in the organization right now is how can I unblock various initiatives, what, what people are working on. So I think those those one on ones have been really helpful for me to really understand where things are at and where I can provide more support.

[00:49:01] Angela Suthrave: Smith, were you the one telling me that you have office hours? I do. 

[00:49:06] Smita Nair: I was planning to, I was talking to like my person who, who supports me is like, okay, we should open up like maybe every two weeks. Other Friday, like some office hours, but my team does a lot of office hours. Just so you know, like as a product team, they, during every launch and stuff, they would do office hours and people show up and it's just a great way to provide this in a virtual environment, providing this like virtual open door concept for people to come in and.

[00:49:29] Smita Nair: Talk to you. 

[00:49:30] Angela Suthrave: Are there any concepts in healthcare that excite you right now? 

[00:49:33] Smita Nair: The concept that has always, always excited me is that I'm always looking at how to reduce waste in healthcare. And there's so much everywhere in terms of how we deliver care, in terms of what patients need to do to get care and things like that.

[00:49:47] Smita Nair: So that's the area. That's always exciting for me. And I think in 2024 there's so much more like the, given how technology has progressed, there's so much more we can do in terms of making it more and more efficient for our providers, for patients and everyone. I'm super excited with the bills that are happening now and what we can do.

[00:50:06] Smita Nair: Gen AI included, but like, how can we make it just easy? Things that are less manual, tedious, like. Remove them. And how can we really help everyone operate at the top of their license? So that's kind of my dream. Like when I've done that at least at Equip, like is everyone operating at the top of the license?

[00:50:22] Smita Nair: And not doing stuff that they should not be. I would be, I would be a truly happy person. 

[00:50:27] Omar Moussa: Do you think product management is science or an art? 

[00:50:31] Smita Nair: I think it's a mix of both because if you're thinking about things like market research or data analysis, like backing your hypothesis with data and all of that, like that there is some amount of science in there.

[00:50:43] Smita Nair: Like you got to know what What works and how do you analyze and what, what did you present, how you should convince? But the other part of it, like, you know, the storytelling, the UX, UI all of that, like, there's a lot of art in that. And sometimes like I always especially when it comes to designers, I don't think like the number of years matter as much, the number of years of experience.

[00:51:03] Smita Nair: It's like you either have it or you don't. And so there are a lot of aspects of product management that is art. But the way to be truly successful is a good mix of both, because if you lean heavily on one, let's say you lean heavily on science, then you may get into this analysis paralysis mode and not be able to make like the right decision based on like other qualitative things you're seeing.

[00:51:25] Smita Nair: And if you lean too much on art part of it, then you may just end up building something really beautiful, but may not get you the outcome that you intended to be. So a mix. I'm still striving towards that, having achieved it. 

[00:51:40] Angela Suthrave: And Smid, last question. Do you have any shameless plugs or do you need our audience to help you with anything?

[00:51:46] Angela Suthrave: We 

[00:51:46] Smita Nair: are hiring at Equip and if you wanna work in a fast-paced technology team, product teams ping us ping our talent team. We have been featured in some of the top lists of startups in time hundred and fast innovators. So really exciting. Like we are. Enjoying what they're doing and as I said, like will be, we believe in having fun.

[00:52:07] Smita Nair: So that's my seamless plug, Come work for equip health. We are hiring for lots of exciting roles. 

[00:52:13] Angela Suthrave: What kind of roles do you have open? 

[00:52:14] Smita Nair: We're always hiring for software engineers. We do have a product manager positions that open up. Frequently, I don't know if there's one open currently, but we do have those come up regularly too.

[00:52:27] Smita Nair: And there are lots of other roles in our you know, commercial teams and clinical teams. We're always hiring for therapists and dietitians and all the providers. So plenty of jobs. 

[00:52:37] Angela Suthrave: Smita, you are a huge inspiration to me. Thank you for being here. 

[00:52:41] Smita Nair: Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure talking to both of you.

[00:52:44] Smita Nair: It was a wonderful chat.

[00:52:49]Omar Moussa: Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show. If you liked this episode, don't forget to leave us a rating and a review on your podcast app of choice, and make sure to click the follow button. So you never miss a new episode. This episode was produced and edited by Marvin Yue with research help from Aditi Atreya or Angelina Omar, and you've been listening to Concept2Care.

 

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