Eric Kinariwala: Founder and CEO of Capsule (Raise the Line)

Hi, I'm Shivani. Thanks for checking out our raise the line interview series.

In which me and my cohost osmosis chief Medical Officer Dr Rishi Desai explore how to strengthen our healthcare system with some amazing leaders in medicine, technology, education and government and they have some great advice for people starting careers in healthcare as well.

I hope you'll watch these highlights and then go listen to the full podcast interview wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Sh in today on RA line.

I'm happy to be joined by Eric Kariwa, who's the founder and CEO of Capsule, a New York based Digital Pharmacy startup that is expanded to Chicago Boston and Minneapolis Capsule is considered leading disruptor in the pharmacy industry by offering fast delivery and having pharmacists on call 24 7 to talk to customers among many other benefits.

Prior to founding Capsule Eric invested in global healthcare technology and retail companies as part of the investment teams at Bain capital and Perry Capital.

So can you start by telling us a bit more about your background and what got you interested in the digital pharmacy space in the first place?

I woke up one day with this totally killer headache. And I called my doctor and I asked him, you know, my, my, my head's exploding.

Like, what should I do? And he asked me a series of questions and finally basically was like, hey, don't worry about it.

You've got a sinus infection, I'll call a prescription and then go get it. And so I went out, you know, put my coat on and I went out in this like snowy January day and I went to this chain pharmacy around the corner from where I used to live and literally everything you can think about going wrong with the pharmacy went wrong for me starting with the fact that I'm meandering around the store and I can't find the actual pharmacy.

And so, you know, I get to the back of the store and there's this escalator and it's broken. And so I walk, walk down this broken escalator.

I get this dark dingy basement where there's, you know, like 40 people line ahead of me and my cell phone doesn't get signal.

And I, I'm waiting in line for an hour and a short long story short, you know, II get to the counter, ask the pharmacist for the prescription.

My doctor had called in and she kinda asked us like a really sad look on her face cause she's like, hey, I'm really so sorry, we're out of stock.

That was the catalyst and that was the spark for me. To start just unpacking my own experience around pharmacy.

And what just happened. And, you know, is this common, is this uncommon that was, that was sort of the foundation of the spark of what you've been doing a capsule over the last five years.

You know, what advice would you give to someone considering a career in health care um about meeting the challenges of COVID and beyond one of the philosophies that I think we're trying to stay pretty true to a capsule.

Um as we think about talent, talent development recruiting. Um and how we, you sort of coach and develop people is really this idea that I think people should double down on their strengths.

And usually the things you're good at are the things that energize you. And there's a usually pretty quick feedback loop on that.

Uh And so I think identifying the things that you're good at identifying the things that are energizing for you and then doubling down on those things.

And I think smart, motivated, ambitious people always gravitate towards wanting uh to work on their weaknesses. Um And I think there's an alternative perspective, maybe that's not as, as popular or common, but, you know, I think if you can double down on the things you're great at, um There's, there's sort of the potential I is pretty limitless and I'd encourage people to find, you know, roles and environments that bring out their best work mo kind of above above anything else is, you know, are you going to be in a role doing work with people, a manager or a team um where you can, you know, get to spend the vast majority of the day doing things that feel fun uh and not like work.

Um And then I think everything else takes care of itself. Thanks for watching this preview of Raised Line to hear the full interview, check out all of our podcasts and subscribe to the series.

Please go to osmosis.org/raised Line podcast or listen wherever you get your podcasts.