Navigating a global crisis can be difficult with isolation and social distancing, especially for some of the population’s most vulnerable – those in elderly care facilities.
On Wednesday, Clint Lee, co-founder and CEO of Dallas-based video SaaS startup OneDay, joined NTX Inno for another installment of the virtual conversation series Bytes with the Beat to talk about how he has been navigating the pandemic as a business leader and how the company’s technology has been helping others do the same.
“Our hopes with it is to help capture as many of these amazing stories of these residents as possible, because they're unbelievable,” Lee said at the event. “There's a lot of people getting to know their great grandparents in ways that I didn't get to know mine. And technology affords us that opportunity to be able to do that.
“I think if we can build technology that connects people in unique ways and helps them tell stories, then that's awesome. If we can build a business and a culture that people love coming to work for, that’s great.”
OneDay’s software provides question-and-answer prompts for seniors living in communities to create videos and content related to their thoughts and memories to be shared with family and the community, helping senior communities improve resident engagement, improve customer satisfaction and create branded content for digital marketing.
The company has also recently expanded into the into the funeral market with the launch of a software service called Reflect by OneDay. The tech allows users to send a message to their friends and family after a passing to crowdsource personalized messages, memories and condolences which can be compiled by the family or funeral home.
While the company has been growing since its launch in 2012, the pandemic has greatly accelerated that growth and demand for the company’s technology. OneDay started the year fresh off of a $5.2 million Series A led by Silverton Partners. Since March, the company has experienced 130 percent growth, doubling the number of community customers its serves from about 2,000 to more than 5,000 and adding 12 new members to its team.
“We've got a team of people, who are not only mission driven to what we do... and they've got a lot of pride in it,” Lee said. “It is unfortunate that we have some team members who've never actually been able to meet other team members. When you are a small company of about 35 people to 40 people and you're growing as much as quickly as we are, that's always a challenge. We've just got to make sure that we're aligned and everyone knows what their goal is and what we're driving towards.”
Lee said he sees that mission in two facets. One, helping the senior care industry by keeping residents in their care engaged and helping the business grow through customized promotion, something Lee said has become more difficult with social distancing requirements during the pandemic. The other part of OneDay’s mission is making virtual connections, helping seniors and their families combat isolation.
“I wouldn't call (the pandemic) a technology revolution in the industry by any means, because they were already using technology,” Lee said. “But I definitely think it expedited the day-to-day use and the frequency in which they use these pieces of technology and what they lean on them for.”
While the senior community may not be known as the most technologically-savvy, Lee said OneDay begins by designing its software with them in mind. Typically conducted by a worker at a care facility, the company’s platform prompts stories from seniors with a set of questions about important moments in their life. Overall, OneDay hopes the stories collected on its platform can help make an impact on future generations.
“Regardless of who you're building technology for, user experience has got to be there, and it has to solve problems that are important to them and it has to make their life easier,” Lee said. “If you do that, and it's easy to use and you're solving problems that help them live their day-to-day more efficiently or enjoyably, they'll use your technology.”
As it looks to the future, Lee said OneDay has plans of “aggressively” expanding. Without giving out too many details, Lee said that expansion will include new products aimed at markets outside of the senior living and funeral home industries.
“The core and mission of what we do of helping spread the power stories stays the same… we are just going to have a few other video platforms,” Lee said. “Being somebody's storytelling partner is not something we take lightly in these communities.”
If you weren’t able to join us for Bytes with the Beat this time, you can watch the full conversation below and hear it Lee’s own words.
