10 years ago, Zach Reitano was the only intern who didn't get a job, but now he's the CEO of a $7 billion company.
Zach Reitano (USA) has had many turning points in his life, most of which were related to his health. Zach had poor health as a child. His father, a doctor, had a stroke and four heart attacks when Reitano was a teenager. His mother also had two strokes after that. His startups are all related to this issue.
In 2012, Reitano interned at consulting firm Booz & Co. His job was to create a digital version of the phone book. He tried to be creative, but it didn’t fit the consulting firm’s work structure. Reitano’s management recognized that, so when he wanted to become a full-time employee, they turned him down. Reitano was the only one of more than 10 interns who didn’t get hired.
A year later, Reitano came up with a startup idea: provide people with the ability to wait in line to buy concert tickets or reserve tables at Michelin-starred restaurants. And so Shout was born.
In 2014, the startup was backed by Y Combinator, the world’s leading startup incubator. The fund has helped many successful companies, such as Airbnb, Coinbase, DoorDash, Dropbox, Reddit. Reitano also flew to California to realize his dream.
Zach Reitano at the company's headquarters in Manhattan. Photo: WSJ
Shout attracted a lot of attention in the industry and received $2 million in funding. However, in 2015, Reitano's sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Shout did not grow as quickly as Reitano and his investors expected. So he decided to return the money, close the company, and devote his time to helping his sister. Many people said Reitano was "crazy".
But Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, another Reitano investor, said the move showed Reitano’s consistency. “I know how difficult and distracting it is to be a CEO,” he said. “They’re always told, ‘The business is everything,’ but they know it’s not really everything.”
After Shout closed, he was so broke that he had to sell burritos to survive. Greg Rosen, a friend of Reitano's, invited him to live with him. They later moved into a larger apartment. Their two girlfriends also moved in with them.
Reitano thought of his father’s career as a doctor when he came up with the idea for a startup that would provide remote medical care to users. He noticed that many other companies that initially focused on hair loss had grown rapidly.
But when Reitano said he wanted to start with an erectile dysfunction drug, Rosen was dismissive. “No one would fund that idea,” Rosen said.
Still, Reitano showed Rosen what he’d learned: that the condition can lead to other health problems. Men are often reluctant to talk to their doctors about it, and Reitano himself was struggling with it. And so Ro was born.
BoxGroup, an investment fund led by Rosen, invested $400,000 in Ro in its first round of funding. Reitano bought ads for Ro in the New York subway system. Reitano’s girlfriend at the time agreed to appear in the ad, talking about her boyfriend’s problem, its causes, and possible cures. In just one month, their revenue went from zero to $1 million.
“Now, thanks to Ro, this issue is no longer taboo,” Rosen said.
Ohanian also became an early investor in Ro, which he calls one of the most controversial deals his firm, Initialized Capital, has ever made. Everyone on the board was against the decision, concerned that Ro’s model would be too easy to copy and would be too difficult to build into a big brand. “The privilege of being a founder is that I can use my vote to override everyone else,” Ohanian says.
Covid-19 has given companies like Ro a meteoric rise. More patients are turning to telehealth services like Ro. The company has also expanded its operations, with three online clinics: Roman (for men), Rory (for women) and Zero (for addiction). Early last year, Ro was valued at $7 billion and raised another $150 million.
They have also made several acquisitions to expand the company, most recently acquiring Workpath, a platform that allows doctors to send medical staff to collect blood samples from patients, and Kit, which allows doctors to deliver test kits to patients' homes upon request.
But as Ro expanded and its employees grew beyond Reitano’s own hiring, some employees began to disagree with Reitano’s hard-line leadership style. In a 2021 TechCrunch article, current and former employees shared their stories of Reitano’s obsession and frenzy with expanding into weight-loss and smoking-cessation medications.
In 2018, Reitano brought in a business management coach to interview his employees. He wanted to know what he needed to improve at work. The answer was that Reitano needed to be better at accepting feedback.
This conversation completely changed the way he viewed employee criticism. Reitano realized he needed to better communicate to prospective employees what it would be like to work for a company with a tough culture.
In 2022, he introduced a number of new rules. With potential employees, Reitano is clear from the start about the company's values and how Ro will execute the vision. "Debate is actually a way to find the truth," he says.
Ha Thu (according to WSJ, Bloomberg)
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