us because we allow employees to find doctors who can see them in the evening or on a weekend, thereby reducing absenteeism. Insurance companies like us because we keep people out of emergency rooms—one in five of the appointments we book is urgent in nature. Now, we have so many people using our product that there’s a social validation to it. It’s become easy to get doctors to standardize on the ZocDoc platform. When I was first pitching ZocDoc, I got thrown out of more than a few doctors’ offices. Many people in health care questioned whether online booking was the future. Now the only question is when—not if—all appointments will be booked online.
SHUGART AT THEATERMANIA'S HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK CITY'S THEATER DISTRICT
Serve Only One Master Every year or so, we build a new business on top of this marketplace we’ve developed. A couple of years ago we introduced Check-In, which fills out patient information forms online before an appointment. Now we have ZocDoc for Business, a premium version that enables employees to get more out of their company-provided benefits. Employees who use this service don’t have the complexity of figuring out what doctor is seeing new patients and who takes their insurance; it’s all pre-loaded in the system. Also, they get regular nudges about preventive care; for example, letting them know that it’s time for their annual physical, or they should get a skin cancer screening. Not only are we helping keep people healthy, we’re keeping health-care expenses for businesses down—and potentially saving lives. How do we choose the next product or service for our company? It’s simple. Going back to focus, a business can only have one master, and our master is the patient. What will make the most meaningful impact on patients? That is the thing that we’ll do, even if there’s not a business there yet. We’re longterm oriented. We just want to solve patient problems. Patients reward us with their loyalty, and we build businesses around that.
GRETCHEN SHUGART, THEATERMANIA LEADING FOR GROWTH
hen Gretchen Shugart joined TheaterMania as CEO in 2001, the organization faced big challenges. The company’s robust website helps consumers across the country decide where they want to spend their entertainment dollars; meanwhile, its proprietary ticketing system, OvationTix, serves event producers by integrating sales (phone, box office, web) with CRM and fundraising. In 2001, the company was coping with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. And the events of 9/11 triggered a
steep decline in attendance at performing arts events. Shugart, a seasoned advisor and financier to media and technology companies, rose to the challenge. TheaterMania is now the leading source for theater tickets in the United States, with over one million visitors to its site per month. With the recent acquisition of UK-based WhatsOnStage. com, TheaterMania has created the first transatlantic digital theater media group. The CEO’s focus is now on a new set of challenges—not related to staying afloat, but to managing growth, leading, and planning the future. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 >> Summer 2014
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