An Interview with Sebastian Gruber Co-Founder & CEO of hi.health
2020 was a digital jump-start across industries and none were more transformed than the health and medical industries. A few notable startups saw the potential of tech solutions in health and medicine before the wave of necessity. Spielfeld member hi.health has been working to streamline the user experience and make health insurance easy for customers for over three years.
hi.health was founded in 2018 by experienced entrepreneurs Fredrik Debong (former Co-Founder of mySugr and pioneers.io) and Sebastian Gruber (former Senior Engagement Manager, McKinsey). The inspiration: Debong’s experience with his own chronic illness and the endless bureaucracy when dealing with insurance companies. Based in Vienna and at Spielfeld in Berlin, hi.health is on a mission to make complex healthcare systems understandable, easy to use, and human. hi.health acts as an intermediary between customers and insurance companies and offers digital solutions for health care services reimbursements.
The app launched in Germany in 2019 and gathered over 1000 users in just a few short weeks (the app now boasts more than 15,000 users). The team operates at the intersection of healthcare, fintech and insurtech, combining the best aspects of all three of these quickly developing market segments. hi.health has already enjoyed a considerable amount of success, having completed a financing round of over $3 million in early 2020 which they used to expand their team to over 20 employees.
SF: Hi Sebastian — thanks for sitting down to chat with us about hi.health. Let’s start from the beginning — tell us a bit about yourself and how the concept for hi.health began.
Gruber: Fredrik & I are actually old friends and he had already co-founded mysugr, a diabetes app that was acquired by Roche in 2017, which resulted in one of the biggest exits in digital health to date. Fredrik is himself a diabetic. His experiences suffering from a chronic condition inspired the app mysugr. Fredrik was driven to change the healthcare industry by making it more accessible, reducing complexity and limiting bureaucracy. People with public health insurance already have a seamless experience — they can get their health expenses reimbursed by simply showing a card. Privately insured people, on the other hand, are still paying out of pocket and often have to hand in their costs via post. The process is truly outdated and overly complex, not to mention an often impersonal way of dealing with your insurance. That’s why we created hi.
SF: What were some of the challenges you and your team were interested in solving when developing the app?
Gruber: Oh there are so many… What I love about managing a startup is the high pace at which our team is dealing with upcoming challenges. You are constantly adapting a partially-finished product. To create product innovations using digital technology you need to think on your feet and constantly analyze how and why a system is outdated. We often challenge our own ideas again and again until we feel the product or feature we are developing really meets the needs of our users. We conduct user interviews on a weekly basis and it’s amazing to get direct feedback from our customers. It reaffirms that we are truly helping them handle their health expenses by saving energy and time.
SF: Did you have any challenges in the beginning?
Gruber: One of the main challenges — but also, in my opinion one of the most fun — was building an outstanding team. We were incredibly lucky to receive unsolicited applications from great candidates — so many, in fact, that early on we didn’t have enough positions for them! I kept in contact with them and we ultimately created positions for them when the time was right. I am really happy that applicants are so eager to work with us and that they truly see the purpose in what we are doing. Our team includes several members who are themselves suffering from chronic conditions. In a way, these personal experiences allow us to have our user at the table with us when we decide where to aim next.
SF: What were some of the most important milestones for you and your team?
Gruber: We had our first big celebration when we learned that we were going to be able to offer our service with about 90% of private insurance companies in Germany. This was just before the app was launched. Another moment of pride was when we gained 1.000 users in just a few short weeks of our launch. Now we have close to 20.000 users — wow! In the meantime we have already handled over 10 million Euros in reimbursements — can you imagine?! In a recent survey, we achieved a Sean Ellis score of over 50 % with our user base — this means more than half of our customers say they’d be very disappointed if our app ceased to exist.
SF: It’s safe to say that the COVID pandemic has transformed the healthcare industry. How did the past year change hi.health?
Gruber: I believe that we learned just how well our team can work remotely. We actually started hiring people no matter their geographic location (As long as we can make sure people are working in the same time zone, of course.). We of course miss the personal interactions we used to have with coworkers at our physical office. We’re doing remote social events but I definitely miss getting to know my colleagues over coffee or and having personal chats in our co-working space.
SF: What’s next for hi.health?
Gruber: We just launched the first version of our Health Expense Account, which offers instant reimbursement to our users for amounts up to 100€. A small step for hi, but a big step for the industry. We’ll soon be launching even more financial services aimed at completely eliminating out-of-pocket expenses for our users. We will also launch a new payment service that will enable hi.health users to directly submit and reimburse receipts on medical e-commerce platforms. And last but not least we’re excited to be expanding into new markets later this year!
SF: How did the concept for the “Health Expense Account” start? What impact will this have on your app and your users?
Gruber: As I mentioned earlier, our user is the key stakeholder. We always have the user mind when developing the app. By conducting qualitative and quantitative user research on a regular basis we get insights into what our user base is most interested in. We learned that there was a need for an easy overview of user transactions — especially when users are waiting for money to be reimbursed and tracking health expenses. Once we came to this realization the concept of an easy-to-use financial account crystalized pretty quickly.
SF: What does the future look like for hi.health? What are your long term goals?
Gruber: There‘s still so much for us to do! Our broad vision is to utilise digital technology to provide seamless access to health services. Our goal is to provide the essential interface between insurance providers and their customers and to help our users get the best healthcare possible while keeping precise track of their expenses and reimbursements. There’s still a lot of potential there. Our goal is health expense management, made human.
