Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Chirag Kulkarni.
Chirag Kulkarni who?
Chirag Kulkarni, the chief marketing officer and co-founder of Medly, who is at your doorstep to personally deliver the prescription you ordered.
No, this isn’t a joke. It was how Medly operated back in 2017.
During their first year of operations, leaders at the full-service digital pharmacy that offers free same-day prescription delivery for all types of medications wore a lot of hats. To gain intel from customers, Kulkarni would sometimes hop in the car with the company’s lone delivery driver to deliver prescriptions to people’s homes across New York City. He’d collect the customer’s co-pay, hand them their prescription and ask questions, curious to see if ordering a prescription through Medly was as seamless as ordering a cheese pizza.
“It was very scrappy at the time. But we were very clear as to the direction we wanted to go,” Kulkarni said. “The exciting thing is seeing the company come to life in ways that are better and faster than we imagined.”
Nowadays, Kulkarni doesn’t have time to go on delivery trips. The company has rapidly grown from its scrappy startup phase to hundreds of drivers, a full-fledged pharmacy team and a customer experience team focused on tech, product, marketing and sales. And it’s only getting bigger. At the start of 2021, Medly had 850 full-time employees, but with its summer acquisition of the pharmacy chain Pharmaca, its headcount has ballooned to 1,700 and it now operates in almost 30 cities.
“With the acquisition, we get access to all of the NFL cities,” Kulkarni said.
It’s an exciting time to be at Medly. But what does growth and scale look like from the inside? What are the challenges that come with acquiring a new company, and how does it impact Medly’s next steps? Built In NYC sat down with Kulkarni and two other C-suite executives to find out.
First off, what sets Medly apart from its competitors?
Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder, Chirag Kulkarni: The crux issue we’re trying to solve is access. It might not always be feasible for someone to go to an actual pharmacy. Maybe they have multiple jobs. Maybe waiting in a long line after work is taking away valuable time spent with their kids or spouses. Our delivery system changes that.
Then there’s the insight we bring to delivery, or customer care. We have the ability to provide insights like, “You have these two medications, and they interact with each other. We’re going to contact your doctor and see if there’s a different medication they can give you.” This is the stuff that Sarkis Kalashian, our SVP of product, and his team have built to help us better communicate and work with our customers on a one-on-one basis to make the experience feel like it’s a human connection — with technology being the enabler. It’s something really unique to Medly that other pharmacies just inherently have not built. It’s ultimately what sets us apart from the traditional pharmacy experience.
SVP of Product, Sarkis Kalashian: My dad had a quadruple bypass at 45, and I know how tough it is to navigate the healthcare system. The prior authorization (PA) process is so agonizing. Keeping in mind that they’re inherently different processes — one is for surgery, Medly is for Rx — but the PA process can be similarly chaotic.
Depending on the medication, insurance companies might require PA. Medly helps patients navigate that process. We have various products that we supply to our partner providers, as well as to our internal staff, to help navigate and even automate some of that process. When patients have that support, they feel like someone’s in their corner.
PHARMACA, MEET MEDLY
On a large scale, what does Medly’s acquisition of Pharmaca mean for the company and the industry?
Chief People Officer, Renee Kaspar: This acquisition will establish a national footprint for Medly. The expansion will increase offerings to customers, accelerate growth and increase professional growth opportunities for employees. As we incorporate Pharmaca into the Medly brand, we’re working with the Pharmaca stores to redesign the floor plans and build out their pharmacies in order to better support our customers’ and patients’ needs. This is a super exciting time for both companies with a lot of room for learning and growth for employees at both Medly and Pharmaca.
Kulkarni: It allows us to scale to multiple locations. From an experience standpoint, we’ve realized that not all customers want to transact digitally. Some want to have a retail experience where they can walk into our brick-and-mortar pharmacies and chat with a pharmacist. This acquisition allows us to expand to even more locations.
Customers always ask, ‘Why can’t you be a one-stop shop?’ Well, we’re on our way.’’
It also allows us to think about adjacencies. We’ve always said that pharmacies are a critical part of how we solve healthcare as a whole. But pharmacy is one aspect. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from customers, such as, “You’re delivering my prescription, but why can’t you deliver Tylenol with it?” Or maybe there’s a deficiency of a certain vitamin by taking certain medications. So they ask, “Why can’t you include those vitamins in my delivery?”
This Pharmaca acquisition gives us the ability to include add-ons like that at a massive scale, given that their business has been so focused on health and wellness products.
What are some of the challenges of an acquisition like this?
Kalashian: The acquisition has created a bunch of questions we’re currently thinking through. How can we most effectively move forward when we’re acquiring a company in a comparable business? What systems are they using? Are they using a more modern technology stack, or something more dated? We’re adding 20-plus locations with Pharmaca, which means we’re adding a whole new set of customers to the business. Are those customers different in nature? Are they comparable? As we start to look at the customer segmentation, and the profiles and the data, we might have to go back to the drawing board and rethink what the product strategy is and ensure that those questions are accounted for as we integrate and scale.
Kulkarni: The biggest challenge is managing growth, whether it’s people, process or product. Integrating the businesses is in some ways like the marriage of two families. Each has their quirks, and it’s ultimately about working together to find common ground.
Luckily, we’ve done the necessary team-building and invested in people from the onset.
Kaspar: The challenges that come from scaling any business are the same and it usually boils down to staffing, recruiting and setting up systems to meet the demands of a larger organization. As we continue to grow in our existing markets and expand into new ones, more talent is needed. On our end, we have to manage the dual challenge of hiring new team members to meet this growth, while simultaneously developing our internal talent infrastructure to successfully navigate a significantly larger workforce. As for the acquisition, we’re conscientious that we continue to stay connected and communicate effectively so that all employees feel inspired and connected to the vision, values and future goals of the company.
We are on a rocket ship in a half-trillion-dollar industry. There is so much room to grow.’’
MEDLY EVERYWHERE
What excites you most about working for Medly?
Kulkarni: It’s getting to work on exciting and challenging problems that impact people at the human level, every day. You’re dealing with somebody who might have cancer, or is about to give birth, or just gave birth — all examples of where a pharmacy becomes a centralized piece for someone’s world.
Kalashian: To think that I can make an impact to the prior authorization Rx process, and the type of pain that customers go through to get the help that they need to live (hopefully) good, long lives brings tears to my eyes. I’m able to use technology and work with a superbly talented team. I’m making an impact, and that’s dope.
Kaspar: What excites me most is that the sky’s the limit for us. We are on a rocket ship in a half-trillion-dollar industry. There is so much room to grow.
