#11: Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare)

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Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:00:00]: So I see us elevating the status of care providers across the country so that they are earning the right, wage to provide care. When you're earning the right amount of money, you're doing a better job, you're you show up on time more often, You try your best, and you feel that you're succeeding at home as well. So I think what OndaCare will do in 10 years, it will help equalize that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:26]: Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to The Lay of the Land Northeast. We're exploring what people are building in Cleveland Land coming to you live from Cleveland as well. I'm your resident car here, Jeffrey Stern. And today, we're exploring the world of in home care. Nicole Pelosi is the founder and CEO of AndeCare, which is a startup based here in Cleveland that connects pre vetted care professionals with families needing on demand in home care. As a mother, Nicole recognized that families who are juggling demanding jobs and care of loved ones often may not have sufficient care options for their children, for their parents or for special needs relatives in their lives.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:13]: And Build On The Care is a platform to offer flexibility and organization to those with caregiving needs. I really enjoyed this conversation with Nicole, and I hope that you all enjoy it as well. So we had first connected back, at the beginning of last year, just before the beginning of this illustrious period that we find ourselves in now. And I was really excited to learn about the work you were doing at Omnicare, for The, because, you know, it was complimentary to the work that that I'm doing at actual with health care credentialing, But also because I kind of immediately recognize the need for what you were building, growing up with a father who has multiple sclerosis and How difficult it is to find aids, nurses, practitioners who you can trust to come to your home and, you know, literally entrust the life of your loved ones too. Move. With that, I'm I'm very excited to have you on The to talk about Omnicare and and learn about all the progress that you've made sense.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:02:09]: Thank you. It that's one thing about this project turned company of mine. It's really connecting me with people that have experienced what we've experienced and that they're thankful that we're trying to do this. So I appreciate that you're saying that and sharing your sharing that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:24]: Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And so, obviously, we'll talk a lot about, The company and and what you're doing there. But, I would love if we could start just, you know, painting a picture of how it is that you got to the point of actually wanting to To start this company Land yeah. I would love if you could just take us through your background and and your motivations.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:02:40]: Sure. Sure. Well, my personal background, I grew up overseas as my father worked for the Stern department. We moved every 2 to 3 years of my life from one country to the next. To I went to Purdue University, spent my twenties in Chicago, one of the greatest cities to be in your twenties and launch a career. The foundation for my career was with American Express, corporate card, and corporate travel services. I started out in b to b sales, led their knowledge management team while we built Wikipedia like databases. I'm talking about the eighties before there was Wikipedia.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:03:12]: And then, was in their first six sigma black belt cohort. American Express was the 1st company in the world to apply six sigma methodologies to service as opposed to product. From there, I have built and led customer centric service organizations, divisions, and companies, both small and large. And it was during that tenure that I found the need for on demand in home care.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:39]: Yeah. So In that kind of professional journey and and trajectory, how is it that you came to the decision? What what was Land of the catalyst to to kinda depart that world and then start your entrepreneurial journey.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:03:52]: So I I wish I could say I was a serial entrepreneur. It really would have helped me with investors, let me tell you. But I'm an entrepreneur only because I couldn't let go of the problem without trying to solve it myself. I will say I ran into this problem almost 20 years ago. I repeatedly ran into the need for safe, reliable on demand in home care. 1st, as a single mom, when I lived in Chicago with a toddler and a demanding job, I used to dream of a taxi dispatch like service before Uber The would drop off a tenured nurse or retired teacher to take care of my daughter, Jordan, while I was implementing a CRM system at 4 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday or she was simply home sick with a fever. And then later in life, as the caretaker of my father-in-law who had Parkinson's. And my 5 year old, not to mention a teenage daughter at the time, I realized that on demand in home care was not just a need for single moms with demanding jobs.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:04:54]: It's a need for everybody. And That's when I said Lay. I did the research and found out that millions and millions of days are missed annually due to primary care breakdowns. And fortuitously, I had the time to start OndaCare. Now we have a 10 year old son who has ADD and Tourette's and a startup, and the fact that my husband is also A small business owner, we often need this care. The and generating well paying flexible jobs for care, safety, and education professionals.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:33]: Yeah. That's fantastic. And when when did this journey start?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:05:37]: In 2016, I wrote my first patent. And then in 17, I built 2 MVPs and and launched the second one mid 17. And so that's that's basically when it started.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:51]: Got it. Got it. And at what point did your did your path bring you here to Cleveland?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:05:56]: So I was in Cleveland already. So we moved to to Northeast Ohio in 2005. I am a transplant to Cleveland. My husband's from Ohio. He calls this the Ohio nation along with many Ohioans, I'm sure. My career took me to Chicago. My husband brought me here, to raise our family. Being a nomad as a child instilled the need to raise my children in as few places as possible, quite frankly.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:06:22]: My husband had a Cleveland based business strategy consultancy, Bush Consulting Group. And in 2005, we moved to Northeast Ohio to be closer to my husband's parents for the last years of their lives. We were lucky enough to be able to pick where we wanted to live, and, we chose Chugrin Falls just outside of Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:39]: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So one of the things I I've been curious about is is in The early days of of OndaCare, Given the the human the very human nature of the work that you're doing, the the concept to me of, like, the MVP is is is more challenging, I think, because it's it's very much like you have to have, you know, a lot of the the right components in place for for this to work in practice. And so I I'd love if you could just speak a bit about, in the early days, how how you went about the actual development of this platform and and kind of iterating, to a point where You felt it could actually be put out in into the the world and and

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:07:17]: market? Well so that's why I ended up with 2 MVPs. I knew I needed, technology that would be able to connect caregivers with clients. The vetting protocols that we had to do from the get go. We're all done traditionally, like any company or agency would do to interview and and vet care providers or or any employee for that matter. But the the technology MVP was, was a marketplace. The first one was based in Sharetribe, which is a European based marketplace technology steeped really for products. It's built was really for products and in sharing economy. But Platform OS built Near Me, which is a platform that had scheduling tool in it.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:08:05]: So I've I've built it on on Sharetribe first, and I realized I could not rig the components of Sharetribe enough to create a calendaring function. So I had to go back to the drawing board and I found Near Me and convinced the CEO of of Near Me to allow me to buy an instance for nominal fee. I can't say how much, but typically, big companies, like Cisco and Hallmark are clients of near me. And, you know, you buy an instance for $30,000 Land then their engineers build the dream marketplace that you want. I didn't have that money. But it was Christmas The, and he liked my idea, kinda like you did. And and he's like, Lay. You can buy an instance if you deal with it.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:08:52]: I said, do you wanna compete with Sharetribe? He's like, I'll test that out, you know, maybe. And I was like, I'll do it myself Land, you know, I can help you with your documentation, etcetera. And he basically took pity on me. He said, go right ahead. Have have at it. Gave me an instance for a a very fair price. And The and and that's what I worked with, but it was primarily the of calendaring function Land caregivers build their own profiles. The system had great controls so that they didn't get published until I had reviewed it and later our social worker had reviewed The.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:09:25]: And it it does everything from the search it's a search find technology to booking and payment through a traditional Stripe gateway, payment processing gateway.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:36]: So building a a marketplace, I think, is notoriously difficult, with the kind of chicken and egg problem that you quickly run into Where you have to of straddle and build, you know, both the supply and demand side of the the market. In The early days, how did you go about getting your first practitioners on board and and finding people interested in in working with those practitioners.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:09:58]: So in the early days and what we still do today, our Onda care providers are exactly those that I used to dream about 20 years ago. They're tenured nurses. They're teachers. There's nurses' aids. They're EMTs, firefighters, Med students, nursing students, education students, they're highly incentivized as they set their own rates and they work when they want to work. So once we found avenues to get to these individuals and what's great about it is We're we're looking for specific kinds of people. So keywords and and things like that on on Handshake or Indeed or even within organizations like health care institutions. It it's easy to find them.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:10:40]: So so You you post job opportunities, let them know that it's within their control, tell them what's what's in it for The, and they come in droves, quite frankly. The problem was figuring out how to vet them thoroughly and reduce that cycle time to do the vetting. And that's built into OndiCare 2 point o, the Land iteration of our product that's actually launching next month, finally.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:04]: Oh, very exciting.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:11:05]: Yes. Very siding. And I didn't build it. By the way, I'm I'm not an engineer. So this is being built by true technology engineer.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:16]: Yeah. Yeah. Can can you tell us a little bit more about, you know, the current current state of of the product and and how it's how it's come along?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:11:23]: Sure, sure. So it is like you said, it's just a two sided marketplace and Omnicare is a corporate SaaS decision making tool as well. Our customers, our corporate clients, offering on demand in home care to their employees as a benefit or a perk. So our marketplace platform employs intelligent matching based on availability, rates, credentials, and 15 other proprietary attributes that we've learned are necessary or key to our clients over the last couple of, and it's combined with a real time bidding system to ensure ease and speed for coordinating schedules and agreeing on rates. So those uncomfortable conversations you have, oh, I can only spend $20 an hour, and your rate says $25 an hour. It's all happen it all happens in the system, and, it It eliminates that uncomfortable conversation quite frankly. So if you think eBay, it automatically allows people to come to agreements when it comes to schedules and rates. It automates the service agreements for any of schedule Land we are realizing higher than typical booking rates because it's it's able to do do that matching.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:12:33]: So we have emulated this matching of protocol on the back end pretty much manually to prove out that this is what we needed to build. So we're really excited about it launching. Additionally, our protocols manage care activities and integrate customer support to assure consistent quality. So like a home care agency, you need to know that the caregiver showed up on time, that the caregiver executed The the care report. So all of that is is automated through The system and right through to payment. And finally, employee adoption and usage data is It it informs customizable employee benefit decisions. Corporate beta clients get our SaaS platform for free right now, And their employees get ready access to quality backup family care Land companies can subsidize care based on real utilization of achieving true ROI. We're really the only customizable backup family care perk out there right now.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:35]: Yeah. I wanna kinda double click on the idea of Enercare as a perk. I imagine there were, like, a lot of channels you could potentially have taken the Lay, Whether just directly to consumers and practitioners, where did the idea to, you know, kind of have a a corporate or company sponsor Of the the whole platform come into play?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:13:55]: Well, my background with American Express was b to b, middle market sales. So I kinda understood how that machine worked. And also my husband's business strategy consulting firm did a business strategy consulting project for us in the early Lay. And we explored avenues for rapid deployment Land, the b to b to c strategy is the one that'll get us The fastest Land also entrench us in the companies and the the the metro areas. So that's what helped us develop this plan.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:34]: Yeah. And you've taken kind of a a geographic specific approach as you're building this out?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:14:39]: Well, we're starting here in Cleveland and Akron metro areas. So our 3 beta clients that are on our list right now, Cleveland Clinic, Markham Accountants, And Gertzberg Lay firm are all starting out here. Markham's got offices in 20 different cities. They're headquartered in New York actually, but they bought a big, accounting firm here thankfully, in the Cleveland, Akron area. So we're allowed to pilot test here before going to New York. But yeah. So we will follow our beta clients to the larger metro areas and build our client base around those beta clients and add new clients in those metro areas and go from there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:15:21]: Yeah. That's very exciting. I guess in tandem with the the pilot, or beta partners that that you have, how many Practitioners and people are are on the the platform right now. And what's the kind of reception that that you've been hearing from from people?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:15:37]: So we have added more than a 1000 users to OndiCare's MDP. We're migrating probably 2 thirds of that to 2.0 right now. And most of those our our practitioners little more than half of them are practitioners.

Jeffrey Stern [00:15:56]: Got it. I know you've also been in the process of trying to to raise a round. Land, obviously, with that comes a lot of thinking about the future and and the vision and the impact. And so you don't you don't have to give me the whole investor spiel, but I am curious, you know, like 10 years from now, what what is the kind of impact that you hope to be able to have with OnDeCare Land, you know, what what's the scale at at which you wish to have it?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:16:19]: So 10 years from now, I I will be nationwide Land we'll be doing 2 things. We'll we'll be enabling Those more effectively balance work and care of loved ones, as well as raising up the caregivers themselves. Caregivers come to OndiCare because they control their own rates. They know what the clients pay Land OndiCare only takes at a maximum 20% of each transaction. So the caregivers can earn a well worthwhile rate wage on OndaCare. So I I see us elevating the status of care providers across the country so that they are earning the right, wage to provide care. When you're earning the right amount of money, you're doing a better job, You're you show up on time more Stern. You try your best, and you feel that you're succeeding at home as well.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:17:15]: So I think what It will help equalize that as our population ages, we can get more people into the caregiving community because it'll be a better avenue for for many care providers.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:31]: Yeah. I actually came across an interesting, statistic today. Totally unrelated, but, it played pretty well in the in the conversation we're gonna have here. But it it was going over it's from the, US Lay, department and bureau statistics, and they were going over the potential increases in employment in different jobs over the next 10 years. And, you know, top of the list, you had RNs, software developers, fast food workers. But the top of the list by, like, a very significant margin, I think it was, like, close to 1,200,000 was home health aids. Yep. Which to me, I is not is an extraordinary, like, thing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:07]: How the the magnitude by which That it's increasing and

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:18:12]: The the need is is increasing so significantly. And right now, I mean, home health aid in this market Makes at best 12 to $13 an hour. But on the on the care, they make The and a half times to two times that because they can they can control it. The the home care agencies are making 1 and more than 1a half to 2 times that themselves. They're making between 2 Land 3 x. So like I said, we're reinventing in home care, so that we do get the resources to fill those jobs that our country will need. Right?

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:46]: Yeah. Why do you think it's been so difficult to crack this code of getting people the right Aids and like in building this marketplace.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:18:56]: I think timing is everything quite frankly. If I had started this You know, just a couple years beforehand, I probably would have ran out of money before COVID hit and Land and and launched the demand or accelerated it by 5 to 10 years. So I think there's a lot to do with timing. I think, you know, in home pet care and in Uber even, The precursors to things like this. So that Now it's almost natural that we're we're going to have more and more people go to solutions like OndiCare to provide, to get pre vetted in home care providers rather than before. Right? Before, you didn't even know what a home care agency was unless, like, you and I, we grew up with a family member that needed that extra care. And then when you navigate the home care agency, the the complicated processes that they have to go through and Land it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:19:54]: It's all paperboard and just labor intensive. And So it's just it's just ripe. It's ripe for for for being reinvented or disrupted like many people like to Lay.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:06]: Yes. In The Stern up world.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:20:08]: In The start up world disruption. So it's just right. I think it's timing, and We were lucky enough to be here at this time

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:19]: Land Yeah.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:20:19]: To be have learned from what the clients and the caregivers need over the last few years. We didn't grow too fast. If we were in California, we might have grown too fast and built the wrong product. But being in Cleveland, I I needed to really work hard, and and get through the grind and really learn, before I, had the money and the time to build the product. And a lot has been added to the product just based on the last 6 months of of COVID impact. So

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:46]: Yeah. Speaking of of COVID. There's there's been a quote that's been kinda ringing around in my head. I'm not even sure who said it, but it was Is it captures, I think, a lot of what's happened from a technology perspective over the last year, which was, you know, the the last, You know, 2 years of digital transformation occurred in the last, you know, months. And the idea that COVID took a bunch of these existing trends and just sped them up, I mean, it's just evident. We we've seen it, in everything from ecommerce to to working at home. And and so, yeah, I am curious how in home aids have been impacted by by the last year. I mean, obviously, people to to varying degrees are taking, precautions like this very seriously, having someone into your home.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:32]: I'm curious The kind of headwinds or or or tailwinds potentially that The you've seen from that.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:21:37]: Or honestly, it stopped us in the tracks in March. So in March, COVID, as you would it gave me one of those really tough go no go decision opportunities. Yeah. We never considered pivoting, But we quickly learned who of our clients sought us out as a nice to have, The date night backup care or even the respite care for their special needs child Land and who couldn't live without us. Fortunately, because our entire hero force consists of professionals, it was really easy to implement safety protocols and continue to serve the clients without a hitch. So that was one thing that went into my go no go decision. Yeah. But Stern, business was less than dismal for 4 whole months.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:22:22]: We all contracted, myself included. I used Ondycare providers consistently up until the end of March, And my husband and I swapped and traded care of our our 9 year old at the time as we remain safe and quarantined. My daughter is has an autoimmune disease, so we we just really, were over cautious, some people would say. So our business was very slow until August, but I had money in my pocket. I had Glide money, the Glide b, the non dilutive funds, and we got our 1st angel investor. So I decided to build 2 point o during that downtime instead of close the doors. So we launched the project at April, and we go live. But we're only a couple months behind schedule because of COVID.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:23:10]: Even even technology resources got impacted. But as you might expect, because of what you're hearing in the news and what you just set about the the need for home health aids. Those with experience and credentials to care for others, whether they're elder care or special needs care, direct support professionals are focused on those with special needs. But our clientele came out of the woodwork. Land with very, very little marketing spend. We achieved a 142% year over year growth despite 4 months of like almost stagnant no no revenue, and it induced the creation of caregiver task force in most companies. Executives and HR leaders are all working on sustainable practices for getting back to work and charting their new normals at work. Be that at work might be in their home and in the office, But it's certainly going to be dependent on irregular schedules.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:24:09]: And caregiving is now in that discussion. Like I said, it's that timing thing. Caregiving has bubbled up to the top of these corporate leaders' minds, and that that's why undecare has been flourishing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:22]: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I would imagine as as things start to to get back to to normal The that there's there's definitely some some tailwinds for you.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:24:32]: Yes. Yes. But, I mean, I know there's many companies out there that in those 1st 4 months, you know, they they couldn't sustain Land we were kinda hanging on by our fingernails. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:46]: On The point, I would love to hear about your experience, you know, going through the the fundraising cycle here in Cleveland and, you know, build building the the war chest to weather that storm Land more recently in your in your current round. And, Yeah. Some some follow ups after that, but we can get there.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:25:02]: Sure. Sure. I I'd love to shout this from the proverbial Cleveland rooftops, But we have a lead investor of our 1st round of funding. Thank goodness.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:12]: Wow. That's amazing.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:25:13]: It's been a of a road for me. But being a new entrepreneur, I just had to figure it out. And, it took me longer than some sum, I'm sure. But, SSIP LLC is a really neat angel group led by a Cleveland Clinic doctor, but it has members from all over the country. And, we're also in due diligence with Pittsburgh based Blue Tree Allied Angels Land a venture group that focuses on elder care solutions. So, yes, our round is actually being pulled together. It's a 1 and a half $1,000,000 note round. And if I kills me.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:25:50]: I'm gonna close it before my birthday, March 29th. So that that's Probably been the hardest thing for me to learn how to do. Learning what clients need, learning what the caregivers needed to make this work for them was easy. It's kind of like what I've been doing for the past few decades in in my career, but figuring out navigating the funding landscape here and ultimately outside of, of Cleveland to to make this work was probably the steepest climb for me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:22]: Yeah. What what has been so challenging about it?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:26:25]: I started out talking to the wrong people. People big, big venture capital firms that, you know, with my my few dollars of growth, I meant nothing. And they're all Everybody's really nice. That's one thing, they're brilliant people. They know business, they know finance, and and they know macro trends, but they're all very nice. So I had to learn to figure out that they're just being nice and providing me advice. They're not gonna invest in OndiCare for another 3, 4, 5, maybe 10 years of people I started talking to. So finding the right people Stern wise was something I had to figure out after spinning my wheels with with a lot of great mentor type investors.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:27:11]: But what's good is, you know, once this round closes and we have the 2 years of runway that it it should fund, my 2nd round will not be card at all, because all of these people have been on this journey with me. But yeah, it was just figuring out who is the right, group. These the angel groups that are interested in this stage Land this type of product. Mark marketplaces are not easy. Land Ann Gris was the 1st person to tell me. She was The very Stern nice investor. She's from the Cleveland area The said, you know, What you're doing is really hard, and you're not gonna get very many people to invest in you. And I was like, well, of course, it's hard.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:27:51]: What isn't worth it, you know, and if it's not gonna be hard.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:55]: So Right. Right.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:27:56]: So I had to find the investor that felt that, yeah, this might be hard, but if done right and executed, it's it's it's going to happen. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:05]: No. It's super important to to find the the right alignment of Yeah. People that that believe in what you're doing and wanna help you make it happen.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:28:13]: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:14]: I don't actually know exactly the the involvement, that you've had with The the generator g beta Yeah. Stern, but I of if you could just expand a bit on what that is and, and how you've been involved.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:28:26]: Yeah, so G Beta is, I think they call them micro accelerators. There's no money involved, But it's 7 weeks, intensive weeks, quite frankly, of helping founders really figure out the right messages for investors. So it was ideal for me quite frankly. I knew and I love my business and I have a great passion for it, But I tend to spend a lot of time talking about all the ins and outs of it rather than exactly what the investor is looking for. So They helped you with your executive summary, they introduce you to tons of mentors and potential investors. We, Aja is the Cleveland Director Land in 1 week she had us meet, my cohort meet more than 20 potential investors that were interested in early stage. Now some of them, you know, we're still we're too early for, but they're like, Keep me posted. I wanna talk to you when you hit get your next round, when you when you need your next round.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:29:33]: So but 20 in 1 week we spoke to. Now, Luckily, we we got to do this all via Zoom. So we weren't driving around for 1 investor to the next. We probably wouldn't gotten 20 in in 1 week, but but she's a go getter and lined up all these investors for that final week. One of those investors was SSIP, And they happen to coinvest with Blue Tree who was somebody I was already talking to that I had generated from my own kind of relationships. So It just was a great experience for OndaCare to be a part of g beta. Yeah. And Generator has their own.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:30:09]: They have several products. They do have a investment, accelerator as well, the the traditional generator. But, g betas I think are popping up all over the country, and they really do help entrepreneurs really do focus on what they need to focus on. They quickly found out that I knew how to build my product. The I knew what my customers wanted and what my caregivers needed Land And what we really needed was was the introductions and the assistance with communicating with the investors, and that was That was how they helped.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:39]: That sounds awesome. Mhmm. So we've already spoken to, I think, some of the the learnings that that you've had as a as a first time entrepreneur. But I am curious as you have navigated these company building waters, what are some of the things that you have learned and picked up along the way that, Maybe you wish you had known when you were starting this, or that kinda have surprised you as you've worked to build to where you are now?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:31:07]: Well, one thing that I probably should have already known is to ask for the favors. You know, when I talk to all The bigwig VCs, for the 1st 6 months of my fundraising, I never asked them to introduce me to smaller angel groups that might be interested in an endeavor, like OndiCare at the stage that we were in at the time and are now. It took me a while to say, so what would it take for us to be of interest to you or Lay, Who do you follow? And, you know, what angel groups would you recommend us to or could you recommend us to? So asking for that was something I learned that I should have known Land I I tell every entrepreneur that I talk to, to to definitely ask that question. Lay. If we're not in the right space for you now, who do you recommend? Because they all know each other. They follow each other. They co invest. So that that would be the first thing.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:32:10]: The other thing is, I think I have probably 10,000 versions of my pitch deck, and I'm not exaggerating.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:20]: I believe you.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:32:20]: Thank goodness for drop box, The unlimited space, But it's not to change on based on everybody's feedback, every nuance of everybody's feedback. I I mean, you know, my changes would go one way and back the other way. It's not like they would progress consistently into something perfect. It was back and forth and back and forth based on people's opinions. And I needed to figure out who is aligning to our vision and our growth plan and our growth strategy and listen to those individuals and even push back. You're not gonna lose an investor, I finally realized if you're gonna push back and question their feedback or their thoughts because if you are, then then that's probably not the right investor anyway. You know, oh, she questioned my my expertise. No.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:33:16]: That that that's not it. So so I I think my 10,000 versions should have been more like 2 to 3000 versions. So those are the things that I wish I'd learned early on or knew upfront.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:31]: Yeah. Good good learnings. Well, to close out, been trying to paint a Collective collage not related to startups at all or entrepreneurial things of not necessarily people's favorite things in Cleveland, but People's favorite hidden gems in Cleveland, and so I'd love to know what what yours are.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:33:50]: I don't know how hidden it is is. It was it was definitely hidden to me until we stumbled upon it. But I would say actually Chagrin Falls, the town is picturesque, well maintained old buildings. My husband and I love old towns and our old architecture. There's really a falls in the middle of time. It has quality food establishments, top notch schools. We walk to work which has been a godsend during COVID. We could walk to the metro parks if I was really an exercise enthusiast.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:34:26]: My son runs around in the neighborhood with his 10 year old friends and the village like it's the 19 fifties without a care in the The, even during COVID. Okay. The only evidence of worry is the fact that they are all wearing masks, but It's just that carefreeness Land you can watch these kids grow up. I mean, it's a it's a gem. It might not be hidden, but it's definitely a gem. One.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:54]: Yeah. And it's absolutely beautiful out there.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:34:56]: It's it's like it's like New England. It's like, you know, the surrounding areas of this lizard. People people think, well, you're from Cleveland. Well, Cleveland's got a lot going for it, I think. And that's the other thing about it. Like, we are within 20 minutes from Cleveland. You know, professional sports teams, the thriving new edgy neighborhoods. You know, it's got a little bit of Chicago that I missed, you know? Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:24]: Yeah. Well, if, If people have anything that they would like to follow-up with you about joining the Ondacare platform, using Ondacare, investing, whatever it may be, what is, the best place for them to find you, Nicole?

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:35:38]: The best place for them to find me is well, they can always find me on LinkedIn, search for OndiCare or Nicole Pelosi or my email address is nichole@ondiCare.com. And there's no h in Nicole, n I c o l

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:53]: e. Awesome. Well, I really do appreciate you coming on today. Like I said, I was was very excited to talk to you. Romaine is excited to hear about the progress that you've made. And, Yeah. Definitely always love to see Cleveland companies, You know, building and growing Land yeah. Definitely, I appreciate you coming on today and telling your story.

Nicole Paolozzi (OndeCare) [00:36:14]: Super. Thanks so much. Thanks for The tuning. Quite frankly, my husband's like, wow. I've never been invited to a podcast. That's really cool. I'm like, I know. But I gotta go prepare.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:26]: That's all for this week. Thanks for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so shoot us an email at lay of the land at upside dot f m or find us on Twitter at podLayoftheland or at @Sternjefe, j e f e. We'll be back here next week at the time to map more of the land. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please email us or find us on Twitter and let us know. And if you love our show, please leave a review on iTunes. That goes a long way in helping us spread the word and continue to help bring high quality guests to The show. Stern lay of the land podcast in collaboration with The Upcompany LLC.