Michael Walsh of Cariloop
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Michael Walsh (co-founder and CEO) of Cariloop, which was honored in our:
Tell us the origin story of Cariloop – what problem were you trying to solve and why?
There are upwards of 50 million Americans providing 20 or more hours a week of unpaid care to the loved ones in their lives. Most of them get thrown into these stressful care situations with little experience and spend hours googling their way through how to best navigate their care. While spending so much time figuring out how to take care of them, these selfless family caregivers are missing out on spending quality time with their families, pursuing careers they enjoy, and caring for themselves.
My co-founder, Steven Theesfeld, and I have been friends since childhood. After both of our families experienced the intense amount of stress and anxiety that comes when a loved one is not well, we saw our opening and Cariloop was founded in July 2012. Knowing just how many caregivers, parents and families are out there who need help, now more than ever, we’re focused on doing everything we possibly can to reach as many of them as possible and to impact our communities and society in a number of positive ways.
Our Care Coaches save our members an average of 70 hours per loved one that they would have otherwise spent researching, coordinating care options, and navigating insurance issues. Those 70 hours can and should instead represent the precious time they’re spending with their person.
Cariloop pairs caregivers with their very own dedicated, experienced Care Coach who supports them with the research, care coordination, navigation, and guidance it takes to confidently care for their loved ones. Our Coaches are all licensed/certified care professionals with a wide variety of backgrounds including nursing, social work, insurance, case management, education, and more. The passion, dedication, and support of our Care Coaches paired with our Care Portal empowers families to spend less time figuring out how to take care of their people and more time being present with them.
What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?
The Cariloop story is one that is ever-evolving and has been one that has required a strong degree of patience and persistence. It actually took us about 5 years to really figure out how we could create a sustainable, scalable model whereby we could generate the growth and impact that we always believed was possible.
When we first started Cariloop in 2012, our initial focus was on partnering with long-term care providers, such as assisted living and memory care communities, by profiling their services, pricing and room availability so that local hospitals and family caregivers had better visibility into the landscape.
In late 2014, we identified a really compelling trend in some of our early data that pointed at the opportunity to potentially partner with our nation’s employers to better reach families needing help. As we surveyed the employee benefits market and some of the key players back then, it was really challenging to communicate the business case and potential opportunity without getting plenty of pushback. At this point in time, supporting caregivers and parents wasn’t being discussed much as part of a well-balanced corporate health and wellbeing strategy.
Our challenge then turned into educating employees on the need to support caregivers. Thankfully, there were some incredibly progressive and forward-thinking companies who saw the need that their employees had as they struggled to care for family members, and they gave us the chance to showcase what we could do and the impact that it had.
Little by little between 2015 and 2017, employers began to open up more and more to the idea that their health and wellbeing strategy needed to extend beyond just thinking about just their own employee, their spouse, and their dependents. What about their parents? What about their grandparents? What about their siblings? These are all people in our lives that if taken ill, it would certainly affect our focus and performance at work.
In 2022, the desire within corporate America to support caregivers and parents has never been stronger. I’m just so proud that we made the pivot within Cariloop when we did and that we’ve been able to play a small role in helping to educate our country’s business leaders on why our society’s future may very well depend on our caregivers and parents being successful.
What does the future hold for Cariloop?
Our vision is to create the global standard for the way we support caregivers, families, and each other. When a care challenge arises, we want to make sure everyone has the support they need to focus on what’s truly important, which is being present with their loved ones.
If we were to work to meet our vision over the next 5-10 years (where caregivers are properly supported, armed with the right guidance, and empowered with the tools, information and the platform to drive the care process), there would be a paradigm-shift that would take place within the healthcare system itself. Caregivers would be finally recognized for their critical role in any patient’s journey. Maybe even more importantly, this paradigm shift could also result in the significant improvement of those caregivers’ physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeings.
In the long-term, we aim to continue to reach more caregivers and their loved ones to fully support them in various ways and areas of their lives. We believe no one should go through caregiving alone, and we want to be able to support a caregiver and their loved ones through every aspect and stage of their lives.
What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Richardson?
It has been amazing to watch so many incredible entrepreneurs and startups making the choice to set up shop and build their companies in Richardson. Organizations like Tech Titans have been long time supporters of startups in both Richardson and North Texas, and their commitment to welcoming startups into the community has been very visible and appreciated. Our Cariloop office is located at Hexa, a coworking building, where we have the opportunity to collide with some other amazing startups and founders everyday who are all working to create jobs, impact, and economic activity for the city. We’re so excited to be a part of that.
What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Always pay it forward. There have been numerous people and organizations who have taken a chance on Cariloop to help further our cause over the past 10+ years. They could have just as easily not followed through with their offers to help and support us, but they did. In those moments, my advice is to always express your gratitude for their efforts and to double down and pay those gestures forward. Based on my experience, those payments always came back tenfold.