Meet The Disruptors: Jason Krantz Of Definitive Healthcare On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
I have always taken this to heart and at Definitive Healthcare I have been lucky enough to partner with extraordinary people that have helped take this company to where it is today.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Krantz.
As CEO and Founder of Definitive Healthcare, a healthcare commercial intelligence company, Jason drives a client-centric approach to business strategy and manages the day-to-day operations of the organization. He has built several research-based businesses focused on providing the highest quality and most timely data in information-intensive industries. Before founding Definitive Healthcare in 2011, Jason started Infinata, which provided online databases of information for the pharmaceutical industry under the brand BioPharm Insight.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Since I was a child growing up in Wisconsin, I always wanted to start my own business and I’ve been fortunate enough to do that multiple times over the course of my 25-year career. I also have been able to start these businesses in an area that I am deeply passionate about, which is leveraging data and intelligence to drive strategic and tactical decision-making.
My obsession with data and analytics started right out of college with my role as an analyst at McKinsey & Company. While I was there, I realized the value of leveraging data to identify the biggest and best business opportunities. I also saw firsthand the struggles companies faced with accessing high quality data and analytics to drive smarter business and commercial decisions. That was a light bulb moment for me as I saw a huge opportunity to industrialize information.
In 2000, during the dot-com boom, I capitalized on that opportunity and started my first SaaS data and analytics business while I was at Harvard Business School. The company, Infinata, also introduced me to the world of healthcare as we helped biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies research, analyze and develop investigational drug pipelines.
While things got a little rocky as the dot-com bubble burst, we bootstrapped the business over the next seven years before successfully selling it to the Financial Times Group in 2007.
After Infinata, I still had that itch to do something more and I wanted to start something that could have a bigger impact on the world. As I spent time workshopping ideas and talking to others, I kept hearing the same thing over and over again related to the healthcare data explosion and how challenging it was to navigate the healthcare market.
As I had some background in the healthcare space already, I knew just how large and complex the healthcare market is. It makes up nearly a fifth of the US GDP and continues to grow. And at the time I started Definitive Healthcare, the industry was undergoing a massive digitization effort, leading to new complexity and vast amounts of unconnected raw data. There was a huge opportunity to turn that data into intelligence to help companies navigate the market and make informed business decisions.
That led me to launch Definitive Healthcare in 2011 with a simple vision — to provide companies with healthcare commercial intelligence through a platform that helps them compete and sell into the healthcare ecosystem. Over the last 10 years, I’m proud to say we’ve done just that.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
As I said, the healthcare market is huge and is expected to continue to grow rapidly. It’s also incredibly complicated given the complex relationships between physicians, hospitals, providers, healthcare insurance companies, government regulators and patients. The complexities make it incredibly difficult to develop products for and sell products into the healthcare ecosystem.
That’s where Definitive Healthcare comes in. Definitive Healthcare helps companies analyze, navigate and sell into the complex healthcare ecosystem by turning data, analytics and expertise into healthcare commercial intelligence. Over the last 10 years, we’ve built an intuitive SaaS platform that provides comprehensive and accurate information on all the players in the healthcare system and ties the information together with our Definitive ID. We’ve done this by combining proprietary research technologies, powerful data science and healthcare subject matter expertise to create insight that does not exist elsewhere.
This has disrupted the market in many ways. We have created, through our powerful data science, a comprehensive view of the entire healthcare market and how the players are interconnected. This allows us to give our clients the ability to analyze this data through an intuitive, up-to-date platform that adapts to changes as those changes take place in the industry.
Think of it this way. In the world prior to Definitive Healthcare, companies utilized the equivalent of paper based TripTiks to navigate the market. A useful tool, but time consuming to create and only helps you if you know exactly where you are going. Definitive Healthcare on the other hand is a modern-day GPS system. We put the entire healthcare landscape in front of you. We help you evaluate different ways of achieving your objectives and when things change (new regulations, new competitors, new technologies), we help you modify your route to get to your objective as quickly as possible.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I started my first business back in 2000, we were amidst the dot-com explosion. Everybody wanted to start a business, including myself, and the thinking at the time was that all you needed to do to be successful was to put out a shingle — which at that time meant registering a clever URL.
Well, we did just that and with all the confidence in the world we started hiring office managers and we started creating processes to efficiently collect and manage our banking processes so we would be ready when clients started pouring in. We even bought one of those stamps that help you endorse checks more quickly.
In short, we were spending money we didn’t have and we were focused on the wrong things.
The problem was that starting a business is not that easy. Before you focus on collecting cash from clients you first need to actually have clients.
And when the dot-com bubble burst and small companies were unable to raise more capital, things got tough — very tough. But it was at that time when I learned my most valuable lessons. Lessons about capital efficiency and how to build businesses that generate cash to fuel further growth.
It’s also when I learned about focus. As an entrepreneur, it is essential that all your effort is focused on the most important issues, which for an early stage company is about making a great product that solves important business problems for your clients. I continue to apply these lessons in my company today.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I have been lucky enough throughout my life and career to be surrounded by amazing people that have taught me not only about business but about life: my parents for one. My father was a highly successful business owner albeit in a different industry — meat distribution.
But the lessons for growing a business are the same — lessons about being practical, about standing out versus the competition, about creating real value. But I also learned from both my parents a much more important lesson about how to do things the right way.
This lesson we apply every day in how we treat employees and customers with the respect that they deserve. You will also find this lesson applied with how Definitive Healthcare gives back to the community.
Several years ago, we launched our DefinitiveCares initiative where we create volunteer opportunities for our employees. It is a way for our 700+ employees to channel their creativity, energy and passion into improving the world around us. We now support almost 50 organizations and have had a 100% employee participation rate five years in a row!
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I am a true believer in disruption, and as such will have trouble finding examples where I don’t think disruption is a good thing!
So let’s start with the positive. Disrupting an industry in my mind is about changing an industry for the better. It’s about finding new ways to accomplish tasks in a more efficient or effective way. To advance society we need disruptors.
Healthcare is in a period of massive disruption. Innovative companies are using AI and precision medicine to improve healthcare quality, to reduce the cost of healthcare and to save lives. And Definitive Healthcare is at the center of this disruption as we provide the healthcare commercial intelligence to help our clients navigate this very large and complex market to make sure their disruptions are finding the right home in the most effective way possible.
While I never think disruption is bad, sometimes it can happen too quickly in ways that the world is not ready for. The dot-com bubble back in 2000 is a good example. Many companies failed during that time creating job losses, destruction of wealth and a period of difficult economic conditions. But the reason they failed is not because the ideas weren’t good, but that the world and the infrastructure was not ready for the disruption that was happening.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
The best advice I got was from a mentor at McKinsey & Company which was about surrounding yourself with the very best people and then giving them the space they need to flourish and succeed.
I have always taken this to heart and at Definitive Healthcare I have been lucky enough to partner with extraordinary people that have helped take this company to where it is today.
However, while making the decision to bring in great people is easy, as a founder and entrepreneur, the second part of that advice — giving people the space they need to flourish — is a bit trickier.
At the early stages when you start a company, you are involved in everything that goes on. EVERYTHING. But as Definitive Healthcare grew and reached 100 people, this was no longer possible. So at that point it was time for me to give up control in certain areas and to let these amazing people own their function and take it to the next level.
This was one of the more challenging things that I have had to do (and one that continues to be a challenge as we surpass 700 employees), but without eventually succeeding at this effort I have no doubt that Definitive Healthcare would not be where it is today.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Over the last ten years, we’ve accomplished a lot, but we’ve still only scratched the surface of what we can achieve. The healthcare market is always changing. Every day, we hear from our customers about new problems and challenges they’re facing that we can help solve.
To help our customers grow their business, we aim to continue to build out our healthcare commercial intelligence to help our customers discover new opportunities. In fact, we want to be the single source of healthcare commercial intelligence. We will do this by continuing to tie in more unique data and by applying even more sophisticated data science to help companies across the entire healthcare ecosystem transform healthcare.
I think you will see amazing things from Definitive Healthcare over the next ten years.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
A book that has impacted me is the biography of Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw. It’s a great story of a pretty tough steel baron who completely changed over time to focus less on business and more on philanthropic activities that could have a bigger impact on the world around him. I think it’s a really great message for business owners and people of significant wealth on how to impact the greater world around you and use wealth in appropriate ways.
This story really resonates with me as here at Definitive Healthcare, we’re an incredibly mission-driven company and giving back is part of our DNA. People join Definitive Healthcare because they want to help solve big problems in healthcare and they want to be part of something larger than themselves.
I mentioned earlier our DefinitiveCares employee-driven community service outreach program, which is one of the facets of our company culture that I’m incredibly proud of. In addition to 100% employee participation each year since the program launched, we have spent over 7,000 hours volunteering since 2018 and donated thousands of dollars and care packages along the way.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I believe it was Warren Buffet who said “You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
This quote sums it up for me — success in business and life is about focusing on what is most important, which for me is family, creating a great work environment where the very best want to be and about giving back.
There is so much distraction in the world which is only growing with constant access to social media and information. So it is essential to always step back and decide for yourself what is really important and make sure those things are going well.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
There are so many important movements and ideas so it is hard to focus on one, but something important to me is figuring out how to give every child a chance to succeed.
I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment where I had access to an excellent education and I did not need to worry about whether I had good nutrition or the proper equipment for sports or other activities I was involved in. I had access to a computer at a young age — an Apple II Plus the size of a small couch — before most other people.
All children should have these same opportunities and I believe we can all make a difference. We need to be constantly thinking about what we can do to change the life of even a single child — whether it be through a financial gift or a donation of your time or support.
How can our readers follow you online?
- Definitive Healthcare:
- Website
- Twitter: @DefinitiveHC
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/definitive-healthcare-llc/
- My LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-krantz-164421a/
Photography courtesy of Nasdaq, Inc.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Jason Krantz Of Definitive Healthcare On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
