Speed and Grace: Interview with Seth Rainford, Co-Founder of Digital Diagnostics
I recently went on one on with Seth Rainford. Seth is the co-founder, President and COO of Digital Diagnostics.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Seth: I grew up on a farm in rural (Romney) Indiana until we moved into town near Purdue University. I went to DePauw University for undergrad expecting to play both football and basketball and ultimately played neither. At the end of my freshman year, I remember getting my tuition balance and feeling overwhelmed at the choice I’d made to go to such an expensive school for a reason that no longer was relevant (sports) to my undergrad experience. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to transfer or start over elsewhere. Consequently, I started selling Kirby vacuums door to door to help with the loans, and as a result, I graduated with some hardcore door-to-door business development experience. I knew I wanted to be in healthcare in some capacity and started working hard to find someone willing to give me a shot. After a lot of “no’s” and working 2-3 jobs depending on the week, I found an opportunity to join a small business startup within a community health system in Chicagoland. Just 10 months in, I took on a leadership role and then operating responsibility before going back to get my MBA. We had a great run at that business that included a merger with Northwestern Medicine and several tuck in acquisitions that fueled growth and profitability for many health system initiatives. I left after about 10 years to go run the Midwest P&L for Labcorp, a publicly traded, multi-billion-dollar enterprise that had just acquired Covance, a Contract Research Organization. I learned all kinds of stuff in that environment and was grateful for my 3+ years there but was also anxious to get back to building which is what landed me in an advisory capacity, and ultimately a full-time executive leadership role with Digital Diagnostics.
As one might imagine, I experienced all kinds of failures, setbacks, difficult moments, and adversity throughout that journey. Moving to Chicago without enough money in my bank account to pay my first car payment was scary. Leaving a very comfortable corporate role to pursue building businesses in private equity was also daunting, especially for a family of 6 and a lot of mouths to feed. Moving from Healthcare Services to Healthcare Technology and Artificial Intelligence has been all kinds of fun and also really challenging and trying at times. There were countless difficult moments and personal setbacks throughout that journey and hopefully I learned from many of them. I also had (and continue to enjoy) fantastic mentors and team members along the way that really helped make me who I am today as each of those difficult moments took place, not the least of which are my amazing wife, 4 kiddos, and loving parents. One of my favorite aphorisms is “adversity is inevitable, but misery is a choice.” I’d like to think through the different hard moments that I chose wisely most of the time and if that’s true, the people along the way certainly played a central role in lifting me up accordingly.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?
Seth: There are creative artists/geniuses and then there are hardcore operators. I’m the latter. Dr. Michael D. Abramoff is the one that deserves credit for coming up with the technology that we deploy today. I’ve had the great pleasure of shaping the overall business vision and strategy with Dr. Abramoff and John Bertrand, but Dr. Abraomoff saw the ability to provide better outcomes, quality, and lower cost to patients a long time ago. I’ve just been executing on that idea to ensure the tech gets adopted and the business functions at a high level. As to my advice to come up with great ideas—treat every thought or concept as a great one until proven otherwise. This should serve to prop up an innovative culture vs. one that might stifle ideas that just need time to grow.
Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?
Seth: In healthcare, you see a lot of noise. This is understandable given how many problems there are to solve and how much opportunity exists to make things better. Digital Diagnostics was worth pursuing because it’s tech that actually makes a difference…it checks all the boxes. It delivers very high-quality care, it enables meaningful access to patients that otherwise wouldn’t get the care they need and deserve, it provides the opportunity for doctors and medical staff to focus on higher-value tasks as opposed to the routine stuff that leads to burnout, and it saves all stakeholders valuable healthcare dollars. It’s a win all around, and I wanted to be a part of ensuring the technology didn’t get thrown into a closet because it didn’t get the right attention or support. With respect to testing something, my advice would be to find the right partner to try it within the wild. You can spend countless hours iterating on something that just needs to be handed to a customer who is willing to tell you what needs to work better. Fear of failure or a bad experience with one customer wastes time and resources. Assuming patient safety isn’t at risk, get it out there!
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
Seth: People, people, people. I realize it’s cliché to say anymore, but a business is at its core the extremely valuable human capital that wakes up every day wanting to make a difference. Our people are the best of the best, and I say that having had the great fortune of putting together several incredible teams in the past. The right people, in the right seats, at the right time is the key to growth and sustainability. Our team is simply phenomenal and while things like strategic partnerships are great and sometimes needed, and referenceable customers certainly help, at the end of the day, leveling up most businesses requires the right team.
Adam: How can leaders build a culture that fuels disruption and innovation?
Seth: Speed and Grace. I feel like that should go on a t-shirt. Leaders must push the envelope with pace because it creates an energy around problem-solving and innovating. And, you have to combine that speed with plenty of grace when things go wrong or just don’t end up being the right answer or right path towards a solution. It goes without saying that if your mission isn’t a worthwhile endeavor, going fast and innovating might not be that valuable to the business or its customers. So assuming you’re oriented around a worthy cause—Speed and Grace.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Seth: I’m a huge fan of servant leadership. There are countless examples and a growing body of evidence that the inverted pyramid just simply produces better results, and frankly is more fun and meaningful for all involved. Command and Control is dead in the business environment and few companies show sustainable growth with legacy leadership models. People want to feel like they’re an integral part of what’s being built (and they are!) and creating an environment where bad ideas get challenged and internal politics don’t win the day is paramount. Staying focused on the mission and having each other’s backs is what keeps teammates engaged and retained to keep building the business and pursuing the mission.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?
Seth: Listen and follow through. If you’re focused on hiring team members with high character and high EQ, they will usually work their way towards strong collaboration. I often see folks that think they must have everything figured out and it’s so damaging to relationships and culture. If you take a listen-first approach (seek first to understand, then to be understood) and follow through on your commitments (both big and small) you’ll be a long way towards leading team members well and the rest of management is blocking and tackling.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?
Seth: 1. In building or leading strong teams liberate information. We talk about transparency a lot, and of course, there are two edges to that sword. But free-flowing information and strong communication usually wins the day versus the alternative.
2. In the end, strategy is nothing but good intentions unless it’s effectively implemented (Clayton Christensen I think). I’ve learned over the years that you can have amazing plans to do big things, but if you don’t have people you enjoy and trust beside you to actually do them, it’s not very meaningful or successful, and certainly not good for business.
3. Keep your energy as smooth as you can. Don’t let your highs get too high or lows get too low, especially if you’re in a leadership position. First-it’s good for you so you don’t lose perspective on the big picture. Second, it’s good for those around you for the same reason. Third, you and your team will need to sustain progress (with both ups and downs) and this is most easily done if you don’t get too high or too low.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Seth: I’ve received so much good advice I can’t begin to pick just one. My Father pointed me towards Jim Collins (among many other great authors) and there are all kinds of nuggets in his research. Confront brutal facts. The biggest business mistakes are not “what” but “who.” My mother had me reading Og Mandino and Dale Carnegie around the value of relationships and staying positive, as well as the importance of listening to others. I could go on…there’s a lot of great wisdom to soak in from people that have done it before us!
Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.
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