#34: Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream)

-- AI-Generated Transcript --

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:00:00]: When you build out infrastructure across the employee benefit space, which is ultimately what we're building, what that can unlock. Right? And how you can solve the communication problem for the HR manager that can lead to all sorts of innovation when you eliminate The barrier that's associated with, you know, buying, changing, reevaluating your benefit package.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:24]: 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, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I'm your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jacob Sheridan, who is the CEO and cofounder of TPA Stream. Jacob cofounded The company Kneebak in 2014 here in Cleveland Land has since led the company and raised a couple million in capital in their effort to simplify health care administrative challenges. TPA Stern is focused on automating employee benefits and solves communication challenges across all benefit types, making it simpler, safer, And more cost effective for everyone that helps make employee benefits happen. Jacob brings over a decade of experience to TPA stream, Leveraging his deep experience in technology to lead the business to where it is today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:22]: And prior to his role at TPA Stream, Jacob founded Lake Erie Partners, A consortium dedicated to providing resources to young professionals and companies in the Lake Erie region, which we talked a lot about in this conversation. The beauty of these conversations is that I always learn a lot from our guests, and today is no exception. I learned a great deal from Jacob here, and I hope you all enjoy the conversation as well. So I've been kinda selfishly looking forward to this conversation because I am now Always excited to learn from others building in the health care and health care adjacent space Land have, You know, intentionally decided to take on a gargantuan challenge of driving change in an industry where it is really hard to drive Change and affect the status quo in kind of a meaningful way. And so I'm looking forward to hearing about, you know, your journey and how you've approached the space so far.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:02:21]: It's been a fun ride. I would have never expected to dive headfirst into, yeah, health care, kind of the employee benefit spaces. We like to Really talk about our focus in that area, and it's been fun watching you guys over the years as well as a, you know, another company kind of in a very similar Space tackling huge problems.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:40]: Yeah. Well, let let's just kinda dive right into it. Well, we'll talk about the market and InsurTech and Of the the nature of of what it is you're focused on at a TPA Stern. But I would love to just start with your own, You know, personal path to entrepreneurship Land where it is the inspiration for this company that you've been working on has actually come from.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:03:04]: Yeah. So, you know, I think back to actually think of when I was in middle school. I was always entrepreneurial from early on. I came from a very entrepreneurial family. People that know our, The know myself and my 3 younger brothers have always joked that, our dinner table conversations were always about business, and starting businesses and innovating and being creative. And it really stems from, you know, my mother who's just an incredible business strategist runs a marketing strategy firm working with all sorts of, you know, companies, start ups, established businesses, investment groups. And my father is an investor and entrepreneur who's in the commercial real estate real estate space now and also in the ecommerce space. And, Yeah.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:03:48]: Back in middle school, I got into the e commerce space very in the early, early days when eBay was popular. And I remember, going to OfficeMax Land Home Depot

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:00]: Yeah.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:04:00]: Trying to buy products that were free after rebate. And what I would do is I would buy these products, submit the rebates Land bundle them together Land sell them on eBay. And it was a really fun business until I ran out of money because the rebates took too long to come in, and I said, alright. I should do something else. But that's really where I got my kind of entrepreneurial start at a very young age. And over the years, worked on various types of businesses. And I was just sharing with you before we started how When I came to Cleveland, I was working for a real estate firm, and I just had all these awesome friends in Stern, and I knew a lot of entrepreneurs, and I wanted to bring people together. And so one of the first things I did was start a nonprofit organization called Lake Erie Partners.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:04:46]: And it first was a group of 10 friends of mine The got together on my done, for drinks and some appetizers. And, you know, while it was a little costly, I I thought that this was a great group of folks coming together Land something really awesome will come from it. And so for a couple of, I hosted these events Land, brought together just really smart and innovative folks That, had an entrepreneurial edge. Over time, we developed kind of focus areas, and one of those focus areas was on tech startups. And so we had a a meeting at Parallax. I will never forget this one where we had different, entrepreneurs present Different concepts and ideas that they had. And one of those people, was Eric Sugalak, who is now one of our cofounders at The Stern, Who presented a tool that he developed to solve a problem that he had. He was working at a software company at the time that changed their health plan.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:05:41]: They went from a low deductible health Lay to a high deductible health plan. And the employer was gonna save a significant amount of money, but wanted to keep the level of benefit the same for all the employees. And so what they did was set up a pretax account that would cover the out of pocket variance. So if you had a co pay of $20 with your low deductible health plan and $50 with your high deductible health Land, this pretax account would cover $30. It was a really creative way to help the employer save a lot of money by reducing their premium when they increase their deductible while while keeping the Effective benefit The same for all the employees. Now, unfortunately, it turned into a very tedious process for the employees to manage. They were required to, you know, get all of their medical, dental, vision claims and send them over to a third party administrator for processing. Nerek Cukulak, our our cofounder, just found himself spending a lot of time at work trying to manage this awesome benefit that his employer created for him.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:06:39]: And so he built a tool The logged into his insurance company's online portal on his behalf to collect his claims data, so then he didn't have to do it manually Land then figured out a way to standardize that across his medical, dental, vision, insurance, and then securely send it over to his employer's third party administrator. And so that's kind of the the the founding story Land and ultimately, how the company started, really from Eric's challenge, You know, trying to take advantage of this awesome benefit Land then presenting at a Lake Erie Partners meeting. And then, you know, I was watching a really cool of how this technology works. And I said, hey. I you know, I'm very familiar with health care, not so much on the insurance side, but I love what you're doing. I'd love to help see if we can turn this into something.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:23]: Wow. That's that's a pretty serendipitous story. So in kind of having been pitched the idea yourself and and now now running with it, How was it that, you know, working with Eric, taking this tool that he had built to solve his own problem, what was The, You know, taking it from idea to to to thinking about it as a business in in the early days.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:07:46]: So Eric also brought along his best friend, Steve Fury, our CTO at The Stern, who I had worked with, at OnShift Software. And, You know, in the early days, we were really, really fortunate because we had some awesome software developers. And so we were able to build product at a very, very early stage that was functional. And these conversations started For the end of 2014 Land at the beginning of 2015, we had a product Land had a customer start using it in 2015. And so I think early on, we were really, really fortunate due to just the awesome talent that we had as part of the cofounding team, and that really helped be able to deliver a product early. You know, I then was focused on the business side. So sales, marketing strategy, you name it. And learning about this third party administrator market that I had never heard of before, but seemed like there was a huge problem that we could help them solve.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:08:47]: And so, really learned about about that market, started selling into third party administrators and calling on them across the The, And we were able to deploy the software to about 15 customers while we bootstrap the company over 3 years until the, the beginning of 2018.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:06]: Awesome. And to paint the rest of that picture to to where we are today, how has the the business evolved in terms of, You know, how you've thought about the business and who you're selling to and how it's capitalized and and just kind of the whole the whole deal.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:09:21]: Yeah. So, you know, when we talk about the business, we talk about, you know, TPA Stern as an insurance technology software company. So early on, you know, we We kind of thought ourselves as health care, but as we started diving in, we learned that, we really needed to focus on the insurance side, on the employee benefit side. Because, we just saw so much opportunity Kind of on that side of the space, you know, there's so much innovation on the clinical side of health care. And so we saw a huge greenfield opportunity Land kind of the nonclinical insurance side. So so that's where we we focused early on. Yeah. We bootstrapped the company.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:10:02]: We raised our 1st, equity round in 2018, have raised 2 other rounds since The, a total of just under $4,000,000. The have an awesome team of about 18 team members right now and some part time staff as well. And we've really been focused on and building good product and solving problems that our customers have The are not necessarily solved by others in the market. So one of the things that we decided to do early on was we learned about the challenges that third party administrators had Very similar to the challenge that Eric had Land quickly learned about software systems that third party administrators use. And we decided to really focus on integrating with those software systems, learning about that ecosystem Land playing into that ecosystem. And then from there, what we did was we learned about a lot of the, deficiencies of the software platforms in our space and started Adding tools that helped our customers that were using kind of the first product, drive more efficiency Land grow their business, drive additional revenue through the capabilities. It's definitely been a long, a long road from, you know, 2014 to now. And we've ebbed and flowed, and We've had, you know, some products that are no longer in existence today, but we really believe that, you know, we've we've made challenging decisions.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:11:28]: We've we've We've made a lot of good decisions, but plenty of terrible ones as well along the way. However, we've been really focused on our customers, on solving their problems, and building an awesome team. You know, I never would have expected that culture would be one of the differentiators for our company. And just how the team works together, how we support each other, How we have these awesome key values like, doing whatever it takes to solve our customers' challenges, you know, even if we have to operate another software systems that we don't, you know, provide and maintain to our customers. You know, one of the other things I'll add, when I was working at OnShift Software, I quickly learned the value of software integrations. At OnShift, we were selling labor management and staff scheduling software to nursing homes. And it was a fantastic product, but it required time and attendance integrations. So we had to get punch data for all the hourly employees that worked at nursing homes to figure out How many folks within a given pay period have already exceeded their allotment of hours that could or have already entered into overtime? And so what I learned at On Chip was that we would build new features, new capabilities, and that would drive some revenue.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:12:37]: However, when we would add a new integration, We would get more customers coming onto the platform through that integration than any other activity. And so quickly, I honed in and focused on integrations, Became very close with Steve Fury, who is the integration manager at OnShift.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:52]: I'm

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:12:52]: now the CEO at TBA stream. And when we Set off to start building TPA stream. One of the things we did on the back end was build out a middleware platform because we were consuming data From insurance company online portals, we knew that we'd probably have to send it to other places in the future. And so building that integration capability early on has Helped us tremendously over the years and enabled us to build products that leverage that capability, Which is just a capability that a lot of other software systems Land, players in our space aren't great at because it's really, really hard. And I think that's what, What gravitated, me to head towards that and to to wanna learn more about integration and do more with integrations because While they are really, really challenging, you know, data is the new oil. Right?

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:41]: As they Lay, yes.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:13:42]: Right. And Land it it it's just all about how can you, You know, connect software systems. Can you, you know, share data between various participants so that that data, you know, only needs to be entered into 1 place? So, Anyway, that's the of chip story.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:57]: Yeah. What what I'll pull on from that is, this idea of of doing whatever it takes. And and in the context of Thinking about products that, you know, you've sunsetted Land, you know, those are really hard decisions. And so what I wanna get at here is How you kind of balance, you know, where the market is pulling you and the vision that you have for the company and and where you maybe are trying to push instead of being pulled, And what actually is the push? Like, what is the vision Land and just how you kinda balance?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:14:27]: Yeah. You know, at TBAStream, we have some awesome products Today, we provide to administrators, and we get really excited about what we can do and what our customers can do with infrastructure when it's fully built out. We like to talk about, you know, our North Stern, what I like to call version awesome, which is where we're going. Right? And, you know, it might take 3 years for us to get The, maybe a few years, more than 3 years, maybe 3 to 5 years. Right? And when we look at, you know, you know, that point in the future, we envision a way where we can solve the Data communication challenge for HR managers, HR managers today have such an important role and typically are responsible for managing benefits for their company. You know, I like to talk about a typical 100 person company Land the HR manager that might work for that company. And When they put together a benefit package, they'll put together they'll typically set up a medical plan, maybe make dental or vision available as a voluntary option, And they'll set up a pretax account if it's a low deductible Land FSA, high deductible HSA, typically set up a four zero one k plan, maybe a low amount of life insurance, And then a bunch of other supplemental options like a student loan repayment benefit. Land that's your typical benefit package.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:15:45]: Land, you You know, what's crazy today is just how much time HR managers spend trying to communicate with all the different brokers they might work with Land then Ultimately, all the different benefit providers to make sure that the benefits are working as expected, that they all have up to date information Of all the employees Land any events or things that might have changed, right, that might affect the benefits. And so we get really excited to think about, well, when you build out infrastructure Or across the employee benefit space, which is ultimately what we're building, what that can unlock. Right? And how you can Solve the communication problem for the HR manager that can lead to all sorts of innovation when you eliminate The barrier that's associated with, you know, buying, changing, reevaluating your benefit package.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:34]: Yeah. Do you think about, you know, what you can unlock? And then are those things that you're working towards building yourself, Or is it more about the enablement of those things?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:16:46]: You know, we are very, very focused on enabling others right now. There is so much work to just build out the infrastructure that, you know, we we have a number of innovators that our customers today and constantly working with new and innovative startups and other established companies. And there is just So much work to do on the infrastructure side that we have plenty of work to do there. We're gonna stay very, very focused on infrastructure and enable all sorts of innovators to build on top of our infrastructure, to drive engagement, and drive all sorts of value across the employee benefit space.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:23]: I'd like to understand, like, how this data communication challenge came to be. Like, how did we get here? The challenge to me is very clear. That sound, you know, I just as an employee, it's confusing enough, You know, managing it, I can't even comprehend the difficulty that comes with that. But how is it that it got to be The challenging.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:17:47]: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is the role that employers Lay, right? Because I think when you think about employers, Right. You know, they're managing a defined benefit. And you saw this with pension plans in the past, with retiree health benefits, where, You know, pension plans have really turned into 401 k plans. Right? And they've really moved from kind of this defined benefit to defined contribution. And I think that by, you know, putting the employer in the role that they are right now, you know, makes The insurance and employee benefits space really, really challenging. Land so I I I think that As we evolve here over the next 5, 10, 20 years, we're gonna start to see a shift where instead of It's gonna be, you know, a defined benefit managed by your employer. We'll see something similar to what happened with the four zero one k space with a, you know, defined contribution, Where, you know, the employees potentially manage it. And so I I I think we've we've gotten to where we are Just over the years because of how companies are trying to retain Stern, They're trying to manage turnover, and they're looking for all sorts of creative ways to take care of their team.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:19:14]: And, you know, all these different benefit options, there's fantastic tax advantages. Right? So additional, incentive for employers to set them up. But there's there's a lot of The. And it's been fun for us, you know, in this space to learn about the challenges And learn about kind of how we got here. You know, I think the the employer being so involved has really created this ecosystem where the employer's kind of managing the insurance, they're providing it, they're seeing costs Go through the roof. And so they're trying to save money, so they're buying higher and higher deductible plans. Right? So then what do you do? Well, going to put some money into a 41 k for you. We're going to put some money into a pretax account for you because the actual benefit that we provided just on the medical side is way less than it used to be.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:20:04]: And so, you know, one of the things that we find interesting is just how about half of the country right now is on some Form of government sponsored insurance, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid. And how that trend could continue. Right. And we could see the government rolling out some type of basic, You know, health insurance plan for all Americans. And then, you know, we could see insurance companies really changing the role. Right? Instead of providing the Primary insurance of more supplemental benefits, ancillary benefits, voluntary benefits Land of around that primary medical plan. And so We've seen that a little bit with employers. Employers have driven that that change a little bit.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:20:46]: But as we continue to have Joe Biden is president. Right? We could see more and more change in that direction for some type of government sponsored, You know, basic level of insurance. So to answer your question, how we got here, not not exactly sure how it got so complicated. And you have, you know, all these different components that the employer is providing. And it's I mean, in the most basic sense, it's just to really Take care of your team, really try to manage turnover, try to improve retention as much as possible. You know, I wonder one day when it'll start to go back to the salary. Right? You know, the employers that say, alright. Enough of all these benefits.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:21:31]: We're just gonna give you more money, and you figure out, you know, how to spend your money and buy whatever types of plans make the most sense for you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:39]: Yeah. No. It is really interesting to to think about. I wanted to Land of pose a fantastical question giving you Magical capabilities here Land, and a Land to kind of like reimagine the the space. Because it it seems, you know, As a consequence of the regulatory framework we have, somehow we got here. And I'm curious from the perspective of of TPA Stream, You know, is there a reliance on that regulatory complexity? Or is it still a more ideal world where the system just kind of operates more functionally?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:22:14]: I mean, I think one of the challenges that we face across the employee benefit space and specifically on the medical side is that You have the employers paying, right, for, you know, the majority of employees across the country, whether it's a fully insured or self funded Insurance plan. And whenever, you know, you don't have to pay for something as an individual. Right? A lot of folks, the majority of folks, not everyone, right, Doesn't necessarily value whatever it is that they're receiving as much. And so, you know, there's a lot of talk around the CDH or consumer directed health Care space, which is a fancy way of saying pretax accounts. You know, the the thought around pretax accounts is that, You know, you put some money into these accounts for employees. You let them spend that money and really turn them into consumers, Conscious consumers that, you know, are, having to make decisions about how will they wanna spend, you know, the money in these different buckets That can be set up for them. And so I think that we need to empower individuals to make choices, To determine what they want, when they want, why they want certain you know? And and really understand why, you know, it makes sense for them to take advantage of of different benefit options. And I I think if we can, you know, move to a model where the of is more involved, they're making more Choices The more aware of the effects of their choice and how much things might actually cost.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:23:45]: I I think we can really start to see change. I think one of The, you know, one of the other challenges, though, is figuring out how much things cost, right? Yeah. Yeah. But you would think, you know, like every other industry, you know, You you understand cost, but, I think, you know, the health care space and employee benefit space, it's just so challenging When so many costs, and procedures Land visits are just like, the cost is just unknown. I mean, I I find it comical, you know, going into a doctor's office and saying, well, you know, and I had a situation the other day where one of our doctors said, where do you wanna Pick up this prescription. And I said, I don't know. What's where's the cheapest pharmacy? Land they went Land they said, what's the what's the closest pharmacy See to your house. I I think we really need to empower individuals to be more involved, to understand the costs of different and and the implications of different decisions they make.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:24:44]: And until that happens, until we shift it back from the employer back to the employee to the individual, It's gonna be really hard to see a lot of changes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:54]: Well, on a related note there, and this is something I wanted to get your perspective on, but It seems just anecdotally that there has been this resurgence or boom of, you know, what has been thrown under the insurance Tech umbrella. Like, completely new insurance companies that are really kind of focused on the consumer experience. And with that, you know, the infrastructure that that we don't get to see as consumers using these applications. And what I wanted to to ask you about is, you know, like, why Why now? Like, what has happened that is allowing for this The shift in in the insured tech market? And also your perspective on Working with, you know, some of maybe the newer companies versus some of the older companies. And and if you feel like that there's, you know, a shift in the right direction there.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:25:45]: Yeah. You know, it is wild just how many new startups are coming into the insure tech space. And I, you know, really believe in the opportunity To solve problems using technology, in in the insurance space. You know, there's been so much attention on the health care side, on the clinical side, and so much innovation there. And we I really think about the nonclinical side of health care or insurance as the underbelly that people don't talk about, But that drives up costs. Right? And, you know, when you really analyze the market, when you look at the administration space, That's where I believe there's the greatest opportunity to drive efficiency through technology And actually drive down costs and significantly eliminate costs. Right. You know, we're so focused on the clinical side Land on cost, which, You know, there's all sorts of different strategies, right, to to to drive down cost on the, you know, acute side, the clinical side.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:26:42]: But I truly believe that when you look at administration, you can truly eliminate costs by implementing technology, Which then I believe, you know, affects all of health care, right? And all of employee benefits, right? When you eliminate The the redundancies and the number of parties and participants that get involved with the data flow of the administrative Land can truly take data from a system of record to another system of record without people touching it in the middle. There's So much money that can be saved, which then can go back into the system.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:20]: How does TPA Stern actually make money? I wanna follow-up there.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:27:23]: Yeah. So so TPA stream, we sell We of products today to benefit TBAs, benefit third party administrators that primarily offer and administer pretax accounts and COBRA For small to medium sized businesses across the country, we sell our software for we have a monthly minimum associated with the different products, and then we charge per employee or per employer month fees based on the different product or service.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:50]: When you are of of pitching the product, is it one of that Story of savings and driving the efficiency down. Like, how what is what is the value that that you're, you know, telling there?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:28:01]: Yeah. So, you know, early on when we started The stream, we were so focused on operational efficiency. Right? And To, you know, save time for our clients and and delivering a of ROI by saving them so much time by automating these really manual tasks and data movements. What's funny is that it took us a few years to realize this, but we found out that our customers, Not only were we realizing fantastic operational efficiencies and saving a ton of ton of time, but they were also winning new business And they were using our capabilities to differentiate against their competitors and grow. We had 1 customer that told us They grew 40% year over year, and much of that growth could be contributed to TPA stream. And so once we started really learning about how our Customers were using our capabilities to differentiate against their competition Land win new business. We really started focusing on that more. You know, as we've rolled out other products, we've also been able to not only drive additional operational efficiencies, but also help our customers Like, truly make more money.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:29:12]: So not only winning new business, using our capabilities as a differentiator to win new business, but then actually using our software to help them make more money. We, we rolled out an employer invoicing product. So our customers, work with employers Land, you know, a typical customer for us might have a 1000 or 2,000 employer clients. And so the invoicing process, to send all those invoices out to 1 or 2,000 people can be, you know, take a long time. And so we developed a tool that not only automates that process, but it also helps to capture data from various administrative systems that correlate to very small fees that our customers can charge their employer clients That historically, many of them would not charge due to it taking too long to gather data from all these different systems, do the calculations, Put those, charges, you know, for a dollar or $5 onto an invoice. Right? But when you automate the process Land you're pulling that data Through an automated integration, we found that we're able to actually help our customers make more money and increase the revenue that they collect every single month. So That's been unbelievable and extremely rewarding, for our team.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:31]: Yeah. That is really exciting. When you are are doing those sales, What is the kind of pushback that you get? Like, how where where is competition in this space? Is it just like other processes that people have figured out that are trying to, You know, operationally do better or are there other companies that you're competing against?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:30:49]: Yeah. So, you know, there are some awesome competitors in our space That are looking to tackle the infrastructure problem. Right? I'm trying to pull out middleware to connect to spirit systems. And so, You know, there there there's there's a few of those competitors, and, we're seeing more and more of them, and they're raising tons of money, which is just awesome. We love that. We really try to stay close to our competitors because maybe there's an opportunity for us to work with them one day. But, you know, when we when we enter into a sales process, One of our biggest challenges is competing against the status quo. Right? And, you know, working with an organization that might have 50 employees, 75 employees Land their family.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:31:27]: Right? And we can bring some technology in that could help them significantly reduce headcount. But that's you know, that doesn't necessarily appeal to all business owners. And so, that's been one of the challenges, for

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:40]: us. Yeah. How how do you navigate that? Like, what is the the pitch and this is, again, is a selfish question because, You know, the the work that we're doing over at Actual is one of again, at a high level, it's about saving time Land it's about, you know, better deploying of of workforce And analytics around that. And a consequence of it is is those kinds of considerations. Land, you know, how are you How are you telling that story?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:32:07]: Yeah. So, you know, we really try to focus on the way that we can help an organization grow And take resources that might be working on 1 task or responsible for, like, the invoicing process, for example, And be able to use them in other sides of the business, really being able to free up their time, which enables them to focus on other areas that can help the the organization grow. And so, you know, really trying to to focus on how we can, you know, help to, You know, automate and really eliminate a lot of manual work associated with, you know, area a, well, then helping Various team members, work on other areas of the business, and really helping, you know, these companies Grow without having to hire people as they grow. Right? So one of the beauties of technology is that, you know, it can scale infinitely. And so if you are able to adopt technology and use it across your business, you know, we've seen a lot of organizations in our space Be able to grow and sometimes double, sometimes triple the number of clients that they have, without having to increase team members when they, You know? Or truly using technology and making sure that they're automating, you know, any process that's manual today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:28]: Yeah. It's very similar to how we think about it as well. But automation as a tool to, you know, do the robotic thing so that people don't To do the robotic thing so that you're empowering them to focus on things that they should, you know, be spending other time on.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:33:42]: Yeah. Thing things that are more important. Right? Things, you know, talking with Clients, right, you know, working, you know, more closely with their team, right, finding, you know, different opportunities to take advantage of new revenue streams that they couldn't, you know, focus on because they were too busy doing the things that computers can do for them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:02]: Yeah. As you reflect on On the past few years and how the product has evolved Land the company has evolved and grown, knowing what you know now, and I I don't know where this question is actually coming from, but I feel like it's gonna be interesting. But like what what would you be doing differently if you were starting TPA Stern today?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:34:21]: Yeah. So we, I think, made some really good decisions early on. However, there's definitely some decisions I would have changed. So early on, we bootstrapped the company. I thought that was a fantastic decision. It enabled us to learn about the industry that, you know, was a new industry for all of us, enabled us to build out the product And get a nice customer base. I think early on, we started working with 1 customer. We were so excited that this customer wanted to use The software that we were building for them.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:34:52]: Land they would actually pay us, you know, dollars for this offer The you get developed. It was so cool. You know, I think that And, you know, when we first got started, we didn't really, you know, know anything about the market. We didn't know how big it was, how small it was, and we didn't do much market Search. Because, you know, we were just building a product for 1 business who said this is the best thing since sliced bread, it's only one of the biggest problems in our industry. And so we just stayed really focused on that. And, you know, that helped us Obviously, build a product that is now, you know, our most successful product. We call it claims harvesting.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:35:29]: But I I would have loved to learn more about the market, talk to a couple, you know, at least a couple other organizations, right, to learn about the challenges That they were having and how they would like those challenges to be solved so that, you know, early on, we just would have had more feedback, More, you know, prospects or customers to engage with, and then ultimately build a product earlier on that could have supported Multiple businesses with different business practices and processes. And so I think that's one of the things I would have done early on. I think also We were so happy early on to collect revenue.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:08]: Land revenue is nice.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:36:10]: Right? Revenue is nice. And, you know, I was so focused on, You know, getting away from saying we're prerevenue. Right? And I just I hated that concept. We're a prerevenue business. It's like baloney. Like, go sell something. Try. See See if someone will pay you $10.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:36:23]: Right? Land so early on, that's exactly what we did, and I got a bunch of people to pay us. Now looking back, they didn't pay us that much, But it was so rewarding early on. So, you know, I think I would have talked to more customers. I would have done way more market research. I would have definitely looked at ways to charge a higher price point earlier on, but that's easy to say after kinda Taking, you know, this idea from nothing into a company that's been doing rather well as of late. So

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:54]: Yes. That's insightful reflection, though. What have been some of the other just of higher level learnings that that you're taking with you as you've built this over the last few years?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:37:04]: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I tell other entrepreneurs that wanna start the start of business is, 1, don't try to start a business. Right? Try to find a problem. Right? It's it's not about, I wanna be an entrepreneur. I wanna start a business. No. It's find a problem. Make sure that problem's big enough.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:37:22]: Right? Then see if people will pay you to solve their problem, and then after you get to that point, then you Stern your business. So, You know, thankfully, I had a really kinda cool, experience through Lake Erie Partners that led me To meet Eric Sokolak, who had the problem, and it kinda just all worked out really, really nicely. But, I really, you know, encourage entrepreneurs to Land a problem first. Find a big problem, a hairy problem, a challenging problem, one that someone will pay a lot of money if you can help solve for them. So that's one thing. And, you know, the second thing is that today, more than, you know, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, it's So much easier to start a business now. Right. And there's so many tools out there that can enable you to build a mobile app, a web app, Record a podcast.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:38:14]: Right? Yep. You know, that just make it easier than ever to to come up with your prototype, come up with your the The version of your product. And so I really encourage folks to not necessarily think they just have to raise money to start a company. There's so much that you can do with very, very little resources is with all the different tools available today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:35]: Yeah. I mean, it goes to your your point earlier about the kind of infinite scalability of technology. It's of It's empowering all of us.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:38:44]: Right. No. It's, you know, I'm I'm I'm definitely a builder. I was talking to a friend about this the other day Land, You know, it's it's just incredible the way that you can build something with with software once Land have literally Thousands, if not millions, of people use that same software. I just think it's incredible.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:02]: It is very cool to think about,

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:39:04]: for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:05]: I'm gonna I'm gonna tie it back to to Cleveland here for for a moment. Our our closing question for everyone actually is over time or painting a Collage of not necessarily people's favorite thing in Cleveland, but of hidden gems and things that other people may not necessarily know about. And so with that, I pose this question to you.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:39:26]: Yeah. So, you know, what's what's my favorite hidden gem in Cleveland? You know, it's something that doesn't cost any money, 1. And 2, it's, just tell a little backstory here. I lived

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:36]: Yeah. Absolutely.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:39:37]: In Cleveland for 10 years in the same apartment. I cannot believe that I'm saying that. But it was just a fantastic place, Land, it's the grand building Right near East 4th downtown. And in the last couple years, I lived with my girlfriend Land wife In that same apartment. And we would walk down to the Stern 9th pier and watch the sunset at night, and I still miss it. It was so beautiful. The was such a nice walk. It was so gorgeous.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:40:07]: The Stern 9th pier is just a fantastic Lay, and I think that's one of my hidden gems in Cleveland that anyone can take advantage of Completely free and just absolutely beautiful.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:17]: It is a great view. But in both in both directions from down there.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:40:21]: Yeah. Oh, right. I mean, Yeah. You gotta walk right all the way down, look out at the lake Land then look behind you. And it's a fantastic view of all the buildings downtown.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:32]: Yeah. It really is. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jacob, I I really appreciate you coming on and and telling your story and the whole TPA journey. I'm excited for Northeast you guys are building.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:40:44]: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to to be on your podcast. Super excited to see more and more innovators, entrepreneurs The you interview over the years here And just build a fantastic repository of just awesome content from folks across the region that are just doing incredible things in this awesome city that more and more people need to move to and learn about.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:09]: That's the goal. That's the goal. If folks have anything that they wanna follow-up with you about Cleveland, TPA Stern or otherwise, what is The, the best place for them to read you?

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:41:21]: That's a good question.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:23]: The hardest question of the podcast.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:41:26]: Right. Right. Yeah. So, you know, LinkedIn's a great place to find me. Send me a note. Connect with me. I do have a rule though. I will not connect with you if I've never had a call with you or met you.

Jacob Sheridan (TPA Stream) [00:41:37]: So, if you do connect with me, I will send you a message. Would love to get to know you, and then we'll connect with you. You can also check out our website tpastream.com.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:55]: So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m, or find us on Twitter At podlay of the land or at Sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well Land let us No. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us Spread the word Land continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of The Land.