Interview With Founder, Reeve Benaron

Tell us a bit more about the business you represent?

I am proudly the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of health technology company Intrivo (a US-based organisation). We are a Diagnostic as a Service (DaaS) provider of cutting-edge health technology which created the first test-to-trace COVID-19 solution in the US. Using our exceptional AI-based COVID control and population management software, we also found the no-1 rated FDA-approved COVID-19 self-test in the US, On/Go.

I am currently focused on the health technology space with Intrivo and On/Go, however, my background is predominantly in the advertising technology and marketing industry. With that in mind, I am also the Co-Founder and Chairman of AUDIENCEX. We are a leading digital programmatic advertising company based in California, which partners with the likes of Warner Bros, Lenovo, and Jacksonville Jaguars, to offer exceptional digital advertising solutions. I am proud to be the leading digital advertising partner of these outstanding companies. I am also a partner at the marketing consultancy firm AX Venture Partners.

Being the founder, what do your day-to-day responsibilities look like?

I feel there is still a long way to go in keeping ahead of the curve and protecting the US public from trending health issues such COVID-19 (and other illnesses such as the Flu). So, at Intrivo, we are constantly executing research into disease prevention and further developing our healthcare management system and manufacturing capabilities. But aside from that, I am engaging with our corporate partners in the public and private sectors daily, ensuring best-practice implementation and use of our healthcare technology to track and manage health issues in setting such as hospitals and governmental departments (population management).

Aside from that, I am communicating and providing strategic advice to our marketing directors at AUDIENCEX most other days and working on major advertising projects. I spend a lot of my time raising my three sons and working on philanthropic efforts (I like to reach out to one person each day who may be struggling, and try my best to support them).

How have you evolved as a founder and leader over time, and what have been some of the biggest lessons you've learned along the way?

Earlier on in my career, as a CEO, I found it hard to relinquish control of my work or delegate effectively. I would often underestimate the breadth of work required, and naturally, when you’re managing a startup, I’d find myself wearing too many hats (performing multiple roles). This would lead to burnout. A single-handed approach to management is often not the best solution. Also, it’s important to remember - we all experience failure, which is something I’ve also learnt to embrace in my career as a leader. So, the biggest lesson I would share with anyone reading this would be to surround yourself with talented people, even those that you believe are better than you, to allow them the reign and trust to solve the complex issues with you (you cannot do it all yourself). Learn to delegate and collaborate more effectively to avoid burnout as a successful entrepreneur. Lead intelligently!

What is your company's approach to innovation, and how do you foster a culture of creativity and experimentation among your team?

To be honest, one of the best ways we’ve been able to be creative and successful as a senior management team is by bringing in some exceptional leaders and inventors from the health tech space such as Ron Gutman, who is the Co-CEO with me at Intrivo. Ron has an extensive background in founding and growing health technology firms, having previously founded and led HealthTap. Ron also holds patents in healthcare technology and AI, which has been instrumental in Intrivo's innovation and ability to deliver at-home rapid COVID-19 tests straight to people’s doors. He’s been truly inspirational in the way we have been able to go to market with Intrivo and how we have expanded so quickly. Ron is key to the company's board.

Another way we have been able to foster creativity is constantly communicating with people at all levels of Intrivo, constantly learning together as one big team. No single person will always have the answer. So, we are always listening to all staff. I am a firm believer that there will always be a solution somewhere to a problem, and we must work together (not just management) to try and find it.

How does your technical organization work with the other operational components of the company?

I think we’ve been really effective at Intrivo and On/Go in having our customer support teams feedback to us regularly on the issues facing our customers. This was particularly key when we were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and people needed more and more sophisticated levels of support.

We’ve continued to utilise consumer feedback (captured by our exceptional and vital customer support team) to develop further extensions to our testing services. For example, soon after we initially launched the On/Go Test-to-Test platform, we very quickly built the additional Advanced Care Toolkit in February 2022 which was an empathetically driven support solution to offer further guidance and resources for those users who test positive for COVID-19 via On/Go. We then launched what we call On/Go One in March 2022 – which is a portable, palmable test that users can take with them anywhere (it literally fits right into your pocket). A feedback loop from our customer support team to our technical development team has been crucial to helping thousands remain safe and healthy. It is important in business to try to routinely exceed clients' expectations and to create impactful creative solutions to the issues that customers are struggling the most with.

What are some of the biggest trends and challenges you see in your industry right now, and how is your company adapting to stay ahead of the curve?

The biggest trend, and in my opinion the biggest challenge also - is the move towards AI. AI will be crucial to healthcare, but it also inherently applies a lot of assumptions and biases to healthcare solutions. The danger of bias in healthcare AI is that it does not represent the target population and there can be a shortage of diversity in the data. For example, many diseases present differently in men and women or in certain ethnicities. Pharma companies must meet the challenge by developing tools that mitigate bias from health by ensuring that their clinical trials provide sufficient data to cover each segment of the population. Ensuring the personal and unique data is in there. To stay ahead of the curve and eliminate bias, at Intrivo and On/Go, we are making sure our testing is available (and delivered) to the segment of the population lacking access to COVID-19 testing such as lower-income neighbourhoods.

What is your company's stance on data privacy and security, and how do you ensure that customer information is protected?

Customer information and privacy in the medical industry is priority number one. Our tech system and customer database are watertight in terms of security. However, to report to US public health authorities in connection with the Covid-19 public issue, Intrivo and On/Go are required to collect and share certain personal information about certain consumer health data with the relevant public health authorities. This information is only ever shared with public authorities in total compliance with applicable US law.

What can we hope to see from your business in the future?

There is still a long way to go before COVID-19 is fully controlled in the US, and free COVID-19 testing programs will cease to exist once the official health emergency for COVID-19 ends in May. We will also work closely with international partners and governments on learning lessons from the pandemic - how can we better track trending health issues in real-time and address them before they become an issue? The focus of Intrivo will be on that.

Can you tell us what book you are reading currently?

I have just finished re-reading Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill. This was an essential book for me early on in my career. It instilled in me that with a positive attitude and hard work - anything is possible. I’ve loved re-reading it and would implore you to pick up a copy. In the book, there are actually some exceptional insights which can be applied directly to the digital media landscape.

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