Before launching the Relief Telemed app earlier this year, co-founders Vishal Vasanji and James Davis envisioned their on-demand care delivery platform as “the Waitr of health care.”
That makes sense, given how much similarity there is between the two business models. Both are Louisiana startups with on-demand delivery platforms and hyperlocal sales strategies, and they’re built for rapid consumer adoption. What restaurants and hungry customers are to Waitr, medical providers and sick patients are to Relief.
So when Vasanji and Davis began thinking about scaling up their business, who better to guide them, they thought, than the founder and former CEO of Waitr?
The pair set their sights on striking up a relationship with Chris Meaux, who not only expanded the Lake Charles-based food delivery app’s footprint throughout Louisiana, but later sold the company to a Houston billionaire for $308 million and watched it go public on the NASDAQ stock exchange last year.
But the timing never seemed right—that is, until August, when Meaux stepped down as Waitr’s CEO.
Meaux sees vast potential in the emerging telemedicine field, drawn by its time-saving and on-demand nature.
A partnership was born, with the three now regularly meeting at the Louisiana Technology Park—where Vasanji and Davis currently house Relief’s operations—and talking daily on the phone. At the center of their conversations are the lessons the Waitr experience has taught Meaux, which is helping Relief’s decision-making as it moves from the proof of concept phase to a greater marketing push near the second quarter of 2020.
Read the full story about their partnership and Relief Telemed’s plans for the future from the Nov. 19 edition of Business Report.
