The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Dan Prince, Founder and CEO of illumisoft

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Dan Prince, Founder and CEO of illumisoft Illumisoft.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to another podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. The Chris Voss Show.

The family that loves you but doesn't judge you. For 13 years, we've been doing this thing as of September this month. And, boy, I feel old. I feel old and tired. My back's hurting. I've been carrying this show for 13 years. I'm starting to feel like Johnny Carson, man. I always watch his show and I go, what was it like to host for?

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and our big LinkedIn newsletter goes out every day. We love that thing as well. Today, we have an amazing gentleman on this show. He is Dan Prince. He is the founder and CEO of a company called Illumisoft, and he's going to be talking to us about his amazing company, what he does, his leadership vision, how he does it, and all sorts of things we're going to be able to learn from him.

Dan set out on one simple mission to make healthcare better. He believes that building strong relationships with clients helps to understand their needs and provide them with the right software solutions. With over 20 years in the software industry, Dan has a knack for maximizing resources and knows how to spearhead custom solutions that help healthcare organizations, practices, and providers work more efficiently. Clearly, I need to efficiently my English. Efficiently and make an impact on their patients' lives. Welcome to the show, Dan. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on.

There you go. And thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. We can see your Lumisoft there in the background. See at the company there. So give us your.com so people can find you on those interwebages. That would be alumisoft.com. There you go. So give us an overview of what Alumisoft is, kind of a sky down package. Well, we started off as a custom software development company. And really,

now you could probably describe us better as a technical consulting agency in the healthcare vertical. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. So who are your clients and who works with you and utilizes your services? Mostly that would be hospitals and research, healthcare research organizations that are trying to innovate and utilize all of the advances in technology to do a better job at what they do is taking care of people. There you go. There you go. So give us, you know, you did some stuff that led up to this and stuff. Tell us about how that works. Well, so I spent 25 years in the industry building software and climbing the ladder and seeing that most of the software projects that were undertaken were failures, ultimately, in the end. Either they didn't meet the expectations that were required when they were finished, or they came in over budget or they just simply never

got finished at all. And as a result of that, I learned how to ask the right questions and make sure that my team had everything they needed in order to not fail and to make it through to the end and actually have somebody say, good job. That was my goal. How I motivated my team is by telling them, look, if we're going to win here, we've got to pull together and we've got to make sure that we know how to architect this solution, which means we have to talk to the right people and ask the right questions. And what gave you the proponent to want to create this organization? Well, you know, my grandparents were entrepreneurs. My dad was an entrepreneur. And I pretty much skated through life in a

corporate world up until about 2013 when my son started a company and I was helping him through some of the thought process around that. And then I got an opportunity to do a side job. I was working at a company managing a couple teams of developers, and I took on that side job as a temporary thing just to make some extra money and help my friends do some side work. And I realized that I got faced soon after that. My company found out that I was working on that, which they allowed me to do, but they didn't realize what I would hire eight of the developers that I worked with. And so they realized the risk that, you know, that pose that I might up and decide to leave and take those developers with me. So they, they gave me an ultimatum, either shut it down or, or quit. And I chose the latter mainly because I wanted to set a good example for my son. I don't have a never quit attitude and, you know, just keep building that business at all costs.

Awesome sauce. So that's how I got here. It was a funny story, not really funny in retro. After I quit that job, my one and only client pulled the plug on the project that we were working on. We had worked on it for two years and we were virtually done, but he ran into some financial difficulties and forced to pull the plug on it. And so that salary went away in addition to my, my other salary. And I guess I could have gone back and asked him, you know, groveled a little bit and said, give me my job back. But, uh, there you go.

You know, what's, uh, you guys say you're unique in how you guys organize your teams and you interact with your clients. Give us a insight as to how you make that work. Okay. What do you, do you understand how basically an agile software development team is organized? Give us a rundown. You've got a team of five to seven individuals. One of them is doing business analysis, basically figuring out how the solution is supposed to work, doing the testing of the solution, etc.

You've got a few developers, maybe a UI UX person. And then you have a scrum master who is the project manager of that team. And that scrum master will go out and talk to stakeholders to find out what are the requirements, to display to them what the technical leaders of the solution, but also to write the solution to make sure that everything they accomplish or everything they promise to accomplish gets accomplished. And they call those sprints. And often they turn into what feels like a true sprint. You're exhausted afterwards. And so what we do at Illumisoft is we decided to take some of the burden off those developers. Those really are the core component of how we do what we do.

And so making their life easy is of the utmost importance. And so what we do is we don't make them think about the business stuff. We handle all of the business stuff on the business side of the team. And then we dole out to the developers the things that they like to work on based on what their skill set is and where they want to move technically in terms of their career paths. So by doing that, we don't ask a lot of our developers. We definitely take their opinion into consideration. But we're driven by business requirements and we architect our solutions on the business side. And then we just ask our developers to accomplish those goals by giving them small bite-sized pieces

of request. So we make it easy for them to do their job. And what I found is, you know, a developer can go through a board of tasks to do. And if they do one in three days, they're not nearly as happy as if they can do three in an hour. So I like to have really small bite-sized tasks for them to accomplish so that at the end of the day, they can pat themselves on the back. And, you know, I got 25 stories done today versus, you know, I almost got that story done from last week. Those are two different levels of motivation for software development. Most definitely. Most definitely. So you probably have to help a lot of these medical companies to address issues with regulatory stuff like HIPAA and things like that.

Well, you'd be surprised how in tune they are with HIPAA requirements. They aren't necessarily in tune with what it takes to technically meet those requirements, but I cut my teeth in the development world in healthcare. And that was right around the time HIPAA was being talked about and then finally ratified in the late 90s. So we've built software like this from day one. I have. And so everybody on my team has the patient data safety and the hospital's data at the center of our attention when we build solutions.

There you go. Custom maps and everything. I noticed there's a telehealth. I think telehealth company in your list here, companies you've worked with in the past, it time. But speaking of telehealth, we actually did create a telehealth solution for a client of ours. And then later we threw some of those components together for a demo. We created our own demo and our own product and our own mobile app that does telehealth-related things so that we could kind of display what it is that we do and how we do it. And that's turned out to be a rather positive product in our field. So we can implement it at nonprofit organizations relatively quickly and get them up and running doing telehealth and

remote patient monitoring rapidly. Yeah. I love telehealth. Being able to call in and see a doctor rather than going in is incredible. In 2011 or 2012, I was in Forbes being interviewed, talking about a horrible recent experience I'd had, you know, going in, sitting in waiting rooms for two hours and stuff and getting a horrible infection with poor doctoring. And I was calling out how there needs to be telehealth, how there needs to be, you know, the whole process needs to be redone. At the time I was thinking about trying to raise money or start an app to do it. And I knew it was going to be a ring of a nightmare. And I was just like, I just really don't want to do that. And I

really wish I would because it's quite become quite the same. But yeah, being able to call in, I mean, I think two times I've had walking pneumonia. And I'd just sit up in bed and my head would spin. There was no way I was going to be driving as a single person to the hospital. So it's good that there's this technology that's out there now. And hopefully more companies embrace it and stuff. Talk to us about how your business changed and the world changed with coronavirus and COVID lockdown. Well, almost immediately we became a remote team.

So the projects, the studies, we were working on a couple of research studies and they have a timeframe that you have to meet. And so we didn't really get a chance to stop working. We just, the next day, you know, turned on the Zoom and said, let's do it this way. And we, you know, we fumbled through that for the most part, but eventually got some cool backgrounds and, you know, try to make it work in that direction. But one of the big things that changed for me was I noticed immediately that my pool of candidates was much wider, right? I could look for people all across the United States that didn't have to be here to talk to my clients in person.

And neither did I, because my clients were also doing the same thing. They're very, you know, health conscientious. They're sitting at home probably with their masks on, having Zoom calls to continue their daily operations. So that changed. Another thing that changed is I started to look at healthcare from a patient perspective and realize what, you know, if we can really help our clients innovate, which that's what a lot of them are trying to do. They're innovating in terms of, you know, doing research and studying errors and, you know, diabetes, for instance, insulin usage is only like 8% to 12% effective.

And about that other 86%, let's try and figure out how to stop pumping insulin into everybody so that they become insulin resistant. Yeah, that's a definite thing. That's something I do with intermittent fasting is being insulin resistant. And so by having the data, I mean, I imagine a lot of these companies can be able to have data, feedback and stats and stuff. They can better administer medical care. Sure. And a lot of them are doing machine learning and artificial intelligence on that data so that they can find things they didn't know before.

Like one of the studies we did in diabetes, we did not see a correlation prior to that study that would allow us to create models to predict a patient who's in need of dire care. So yeah, we just don't know what we don't know unless we put a machine on it to look at that data because there's too many data points. But one of the other things that changed for us

in the pandemic was we started to envision a patient experience in healthcare and share this with our clients and have back and forth conversations about what does the future look like? What should it look like? I see us not going to the doctor nearly as much in the future. We should have wearables on that, you know, they don't have to take our temperature. We just, here's the temperature or, you know, it transmits to them. And going to the hospital, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of afraid to walk in there because that's where all the infection congregates. And I have a lot of respect for nurses and doctors who have to do that every day. But I see healthcare from home or healthcare from remote locations becoming

much more prominent. The need to capture and send that data securely and share that data securely is going to change. People are going to want to take control of their medical record in a far greater way. And a lot of the data today that's collected by hospitals is owned by the hospitals and it should be owned by the individuals as well, if not solely by the individuals. But those are the things that changed for us most greatly when the pandemic started. And also people started to talk more about telehealth, not necessarily coming to us for those solutions, but just realizing that that was going to be the next phase of healthcare. There you go. The future of healthcare. I like not having to go in the doctor as much.

I'm not a big fan. I mean, especially with COVID because, you know, anything you do during COVID that was elective, you know, they were shutting down and you're like, I don't want to go in there for, you know, just a hangout and pick up COVID because COVID, you know, they're treating all the patients at the hospital. And, you know, I don't want to go to COVID Central to hang out. So I like the remote thing. And I just don't like, you know, driving down to a doctor's office, sitting there for two hours, which I have no idea why that is. Maybe I do, actually, but I'll just leave it at that.

But sitting there for two hours, you know, looking at magazines from eight years ago, I'd probably do a whole stand up bid on waiting rooms, you know, and going through the whole process. To me, telehealth is just so amazing and being able to use the apps and the technology. And I think AI is great. AI is doing some amazing things. My friends are playing with AI beta systems. We have a lot of people in the software technology, Silicon Valley sort of base, and they're playing with these AI softwares that they can make faces and human beings

that you like look at them and, you know, they're instinctive to the human eye that they're fake. They look as real as all get out. In fact, there was some art that was recently made that won awards at an art show and it was completely AI computer generated. And they just, I guess they were saying it would pass, and it won. And so it's crazy what's going on with AI.

I guess you guys have a new CEO coming in November. Talk to us about the future of the company and how you're doing there. graduate student started working with me a few years ago and has been outstanding in terms of her outreach and her ability to communicate with specifically with my clientele, the people that I want to work with. One of the things that allowed Illumisoft to grow was our ability to bridge the gap between technology and, you know, the technical terminology and business terminology. And what I saw from Anne when she came in was that she could bridge that gap between a scientific research terminology and technology and the business. So she just added a whole nother layer where she can dig in and talk about genomics at, you know, the, at the level at which she can communicate with research scientists to, to find out really what those requirements are.

And I found myself during that time thinking, man, this, I'm like you, man, I'm getting old. I don't know if I can dig down that deep. Did you just call me, did you just call me old, Dan? You started it. I just, I did. I did. I admitted to the show.

You didn't have to confirm it. I was being self-deprecating and self-deprecating, deprecating, one of those two. I'm probably way older than you. So that's why I feel like I could do it. You're probably a year or two older than me. I'm 39. You're 40. And so what role are you going to move to again? I'll be the chief technical architect. That's what I really love to do. I've been studying Azure for years and I feel like I can get out there and throw some really elegant solutions together

relatively quickly that are secure and robust. And that's really where I like to spend my time. So as far as, you know, making personnel level decisions or going out and shaking hands and politicking or building resource, you know, building relationships, Ann is going to be way better at that than I am. And so I'm real excited for what she's bringing to the table and happy to be able to take a step back and focus on the stuff that I really do well and enjoy. So, so yeah, November 1st, we're going to do a PR blitz. This is the first time I've spoke about it in public. Oh, there we go. For we have an exclusive ladies and gentlemen. Yeah.

There you go. And, and what are some things things or techniques that you use with your team to help build healthy teams and leadership or different educational things that you've used, books you maybe read or people you've looked to that have been mentors for you for leadership? Oh, well, I do read a lot. I used to read a lot about growing a business and about sales and how to, you know, have grit and keep going. Anymore, my interests have turned to, I don't know, to science-y things. My most recent book, I'm not even halfway through it, but I'm finding it very, very helpful in looking at my life and also talking to people that are in situations where understanding why they do the things they do is important. The book's called Attached. I did not think I was going to enjoy it nearly as much as I do, but what do I do with my team? I'm just transparent with them. I try to be a good person and hire people that are also good people. And then I share with them what I think it takes to be happy and successful. And to me, that means you have a goal in place. You're working towards it.

You're not just, you know, kind of taking it day by day. You plan out your success and you move towards it. And so it's really just that easy. And also one of the things that we do at Loomsoft, not necessarily my idea, but a good one nonetheless, is we include everybody in our pipeline talks and we include them in our outreach because our associates have an interest in the things that we're working on. And they have a vested interest in, say, diabetes or in healthcare reporting or informatics or something like that. So we like to let them specialize in those and then engage our clients when those are the appropriate thing. So it makes

them really feel like they're a part of it. And truly, without them, we wouldn't work. So they are a part of it and they know that Lumisoft is there. I like how you include everyone on the team in the project. I think that's really, you include everyone on the team in the project. I think that's really, you include everyone because, you know, the one thing I learned is I'm, you know, as a CEO of any company I've run, I'm not the arbiter of all the great ideas. In fact, I really don't want to be because I know that all my ideas aren't great and I've learned that the hard way. So for me, I like everyone to know what's going on and how, and the processes we use. I was talking about this yesterday with someone who was on the show. And we, not only when we train people on jobs and roles and things they do inside of our company, but we tell them why we created it and built it the way that we did. So they have an understanding of the depth of it and why it's important. But also if they come up with innovative ideas, they can make changes.

Right. So, you know, the rule around our office is the, the only, the only stupid question is the unasked question. And, um, I love getting ideas from people, you know, even if they come and they tell me, you know, Hey, Chris, we should probably do this. And we're like, well, we did that and that didn't work. But that's great. Keep coming up with ideas for us. You know, as a CEO or a team, you know, recognizing that, you know, some of the most weirdest things can come from out of the blue from the person who's the secretary. Like I have my secretary say, you know, you guys should do this.

I'm not in sales, but this really makes more sense. You know, I'm a firm believer that we are all equally intelligent. Yeah. I think we are equally intelligent. We just are intelligent in different experiences. And so I agree wholeheartedly with you. And I, one of the hardest things to get through to new members of my team when they interact with me is that I know I'm not right. Like, life is about, I use an analogy, you're walking down a hallway, but you can't walk down a hallway, the hallway of life. What you do is you bounce into the walls back and forth and back and forth. Eventually, you get down. I'm ready. You're welcome, you know?

Yeah, I think you described most businesses as bouncing around, or kids. I had somebody tell me that about children one time. They go, you build a hallway, and you got to give them some room to bounce around, but you give them a hallway that they can go down. So, yeah, I've learned the hard way. I'm not an arbiter of all the great ideas.

And like I said, I've learned the hard way. One of my last CEOs that I worked for who kind of finished off my CEO training, you know, I talked about, I remember going to him one time and I said, you know, that one guy, the accountant guy you have on the board, he's always so damn negative. Like that guy is always Mr. Tuber. You know, he's always like everything, whatever it is, he's got a problem with it.

And there's, he sees the problem. And he goes, Chris, when you have a board, it and there's he sees the problem and he goes chris when you have a board always keep that one guy on the board the guy is the tuber negative guy because when that guy is right it's going to save you millions of dollars and you know he's wrong a lot of the time and he's just got a negative outlook when that guy calls the ball and you know you gotta you gotta look at some of the things he says and go well is he right you know you gotta do crazy i've been on as i call it and go he could be right maybe we should look into his point of view because maybe he sees something we don't outside of the box and yeah it's really true and yeah you just never know so it's great to have these things anything more you want to

talk about on lumisoft that we haven't covered or touched on to get people aware of what you're doing there? Aware of what we're doing here. More aware than what we've already done the past 20, 30 minutes. I think we've hit it pretty high. We love to open up business with other research institutes throughout the United States and give us a call, visit our website, you know, that kind of plug. But as far as the way we do things or how we do things, I think that we've discussed it fully. There you go. And what's the best way for those guys to reach out to you and get in touch with somebody? Well, just send us an email, info at alumisoft.com or go to our website

or reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn at Dan Pritz, uh, in slash Dan Pritz or company slash Illumisoft. I'm always on there. That's how, that's how I connected with you, Chris. There you go. LinkedIn is such a great place to be, man. I mean, we have a huge group there. We've, we've been there since, I don't know, the beginning of something. I think I have like 60,000. There's 30,000 connections you can have and there's another 30,000 that follow me. It's really becoming a great place again. For a while, there was kind of iffy because they sold to Microsoft and Microsoft treated it like a stupid stepchild, but it looks like they finally got their numbers together. And so I'm really excited about it. We love our newsletter over

there and this will probably be going out on that for the next few days. And yeah, I'm just really excited about what's going on there. And I think a lot of tech jobs are, I was reading some of my friends, I think I was reading an article that tech jobs are definitely in decline for another month this month. So that may give you an opportunity to hire some more good people there. I have had some people reaching out to me that have some really good looking resumes. Awesome. So I am talking to them where it used to be LinkedIn was the place to find those people. But I think it's becoming more widely used. Definitely. Getting off of other social media platforms and focusing on their business,

I guess. So yeah, there you go. And I imagine we're in for, I don't know that we're in for a recession yet. It's kind of weird how it's going. We have this high unemployment, or high employment, and we have this high inflation rates. But the inflation is starting to come back down. So, I don't know. Maybe the Fed got it. They're a little slow behind, but maybe they got it right.

It's a weird time to be alive. It is. Look back there. There you go. Might still be going on. Who knows? There you go. Well, Dan, it was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Thank you very much for coming on and sharing us all your wealth of knowledge. Thanks for having me, Chris. It was really fun talking with you. There you go. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Be sure to go see all the groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, all the different places those kids are playing today. But we're not on Snapchat because we don't send you pictures. Also go to Goodreads.com, where it says Chris Voss,

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