Remedy and Ash first crossed paths when our Head of Product Iggy Moliver met Ash Wellness co-Founder and CEO David Stein through networking platform LunchClub in March 2020. Iggy felt strongly about Ash’s mission to expand accessibility to at-home diagnostic testing and recognized David’s passion and ability to execute. After a few conversations, he made an angel investment and became a product advisor.
In 2021, Ash realized they needed engineering support to reach their bold vision quickly, and soon after, the two companies formed a partnership. With 100+ tests available now, Ash empowers their partners to make remote healthcare inclusive and accessible for all – and has made their vision a reality.
To learn more about the history of the partnership, we spoke with Iggy Moliver from Remedy and both Nick Sempere, co-founder and VP of Engineering, and Kyle Waters, co-founder and CPO, from Ash Wellness.
What projects have Ash and Remedy worked on together?
Nick + Kyle: Early on, we brought Remedy on to build our Lab API, which helps us integrate our services with external labs. Eventually, they helped us create software reliability infrastructure, including software and services that ensure 24/7 availability, and establish contingencies for recovering from major incidents/outages.
They’ve really done a lot for us, but the Lab API is still the main product the Remedy team manages, and it’s rapidly expanding because they’re always working on awesome new features.
Iggy: After Ash raised their seed round in May 2021, they needed support scaling their business and implementing an API as one of their core products. They were a perfect fit for our healthcare thesis: we build products to provide access to underserved populations in the most important areas of life. We had experience building complex API products, so we knew we could deliver the tech.
Their Lab API has since streamlined and automated a lot of Ash’s business, which helps them integrate new clients at a faster rate and boost their revenue. It was such a successful project that the partnership expanded to include other initiatives.
What have been the highest moments of the partnership so far?
N + K: Although we’ve had many positive moments, what we really get from this partnership is stability and consistency, and we’re very grateful for that.
At the beginning, a few issues caused requests to pile up, which led to constant error alerts. They were constant. Immediately, Dmitry, a Remedy backend engineer, stepped up and set up a queuing mechanism, which dramatically improved our ability to respond to surges in orders (yay traffic) and our processing time.
I also remember when we fully transitioned all of our labs over to the Lab API. It was so stable and reliable, it made it EASY to onboard new labs, increase capacity and improve interactions with said labs. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and we were very pleased with the result.
I: A big win was the launch of the Lab API. When Ash took their team out to dinner to celebrate in New York, they sponsored a celebration dinner for our team members in Europe . It is so rewarding to see our team’s hard work pay off and even better when it is recognized by our partner.
We talk a lot about partnership. I want to emphasize that Ash really does treat us like a true partner. The Ash team interacts with our teammates everyday; they talk throughout the day, as if they were one team sitting in the same office.
What does each team value the most about the other?
N + K: The Remedy team often goes above and beyond. They demonstrate a level of dedication that shows they really care and have gone through a lot of work to learn and understand the business on a deeper level.
We also can’t believe how quickly the Remedy team works. We give them a task expecting it to take two months at least, and they’d have it back to us in a week or two. It’s almost scary how efficient they are.
Additionally, we originally created our product to help LGBTQIA+ people have safer sex, and all the Remedy engineers were very gracious and mature about it. Not everyone would be comfortable with it.
I: Ash has a strong product engineering culture that aligns really well with our values. They’re a great partner because they’re open, communicative, and collaborative. The entire team excels at executing on their goals, selling their business, and utilizing customer relationships to get their product to market.
What does the future look like for this partnership?
N + K: Currently, Remedy is building a 2.0 version of our Physician Provider of Record API from scratch with us. Most companies in the digital health space need a Provider of Record within their systems, and don’t have one.
With the addition of this new API, Ash will be able to provide a clinician supported experience to clients who opt in. It allows physicians to check on results and create a more meaningful result process, while guaranteeing a higher quality experience for our clients.
I: Over the past year, we’ve observed amazing traction and rapid growth. It feels great to know that our efforts to scale have worked, and we’re really excited to keep growing with them. Despite the uncertainty of the market right now, we continue accelerating growth and hitting revenue targets.
Once we’ve reached this goal, we’ll have the opportunity to raise additional funding for Ash, focus on growing the team, and serving more users. This is just the beginning of Ash’s story, and we hope to help them achieve all of their goals.