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Digital Authority Partners (DAP) is the definition of an entrepreneur success story. What began as simple freelance work in 2016, has expanded into a company with three offices across the world, 50+ employees and two spinoff business ventures.
DAP’s core business continues to be consulting work, taking companies big and small “from prototype to production” and beyond.
The agency spun off a new media outlet in April 2018, Healthcare Weekly, a digital magazine directed toward executives, investors, and PR companies in the healthcare industry.
That still isn’t enough for the two-year-old company. Digital Authority Partners is also in the final development stages of a new healthcare productivity and collaboration solution designed to streamline hospital operations all over the US.
We caught up with Codrin Arsene, the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Authority Partners and Healthcare Weekly for an exclusive interview.
Q: Codrin, tell us a bit about Digital Authority Partners. Why did you start the company? How did it evolve to where it is today?
A: Digital Authority Partners started in 2015 with three young professionals who felt stuck and knew they could have something better. The initial goal was pretty basic: we wanted to make some money by picking up additional side work. We also wanted to provide true excellence in all of our work. We started with one client, but within 6 months we had acquired enough additional business to broaden our services. Within a year we left our other jobs and went at the project, by then a full-blown company, full-time. Our original mission was simple: provide the best content strategy, SEO, and writing services possible to companies lacking the internal resources to establish their brand authority in the digital space. Within a year, we had expanded our services to include digital strategy, product management, and design. Last year we began offering analytics and development services. As the company grew, we hired others with a high drive for excellence and thoughtfulness-both in their work and in their working relationships.
Q: This growth trajectory is really impressive. How were you able to grow so quickly in such a short period of time?
A: In a word: partnerships. We started with one direct client. Within 3 months we struck a deal with a mobile app marketing agency in Chicago seeking to change its business model and outsource some of its work. Later, in 2016, we started a partnership with a web development agency from Europe that needed an onshore presence to help define client requirements and provide assistance with designs that followed the best UX and design guidelines in the US (while they did all development offshore). Today, we have 7 partners located across the globe: in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Many entrepreneurs limit themselves by labeling other companies as “competition.” We take a different view. Strong partnerships, like the ones we have forged in a very short time, and collaboration result in significantly more business and opportunity for all parties than the isolation created by competition.
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Q: Since you are working with a variety of clients, I assume your work is wide ranging and contingent on what a partner provides in closed sales. Do you consider your company to be a generalist agency or do you have a specific focus?
A: You are absolutely correct – as an agency working with marketing, PR, development, and analytics partners – we do work with a broad spectrum of customers across many different industries. That’s the fun part of consulting. We work with natural gas, consumer packaged goods, retailers, banks, service, or healthcare companies – you name it, we’ve done it. Within two years, we’ve worked with more than 200 clients from all over the world. That said, as a company we have our own, clearly set, priorities. In addition to the business we get from our partners – which, naturally, we don’t have that much control over – we have three focus industries. In order of priority, these are: healthcare, financial technologies, and government work.
Q: You say healthcare is your main focus. What do you do within that sector?
A: We pride ourselves on being a leader in the industry–assisting healthcare executives to define powerful, omni-channel strategies that lead to digital transformation and, ultimately, digital disruption within the field. In the healthcare space, we create new mobile apps and websites, wearable technologies, artificial intelligence enabled digital experiences, Internet of Things device integrations, and even Amazon Alexa skills implementations.
Q: What does digital disruption mean in the context of healthcare ?
A: This is the simple truth: the healthcare industry – hospitals, manufacturers, software providers, payers, pharma companies, healthcare government agencies, etc. – have neither been forced to innovate nor have they done much themselves. Many of these agencies are finally experiencing pressure to innovate – both from inside and outside of the industry. Customers’ preferences in the healthcare space have changed dramatically over the last decade, but companies have been slow to adapt to new practices. Now the industry is being redefined by outside agents. I recently published an article on the most innovative healthcare startups of 2018. And I’ll tell you – what is happening this year is beyond incredible. Some healthcare startups are redefining the drug discovery process; some are creating digital marketplaces for patients to sell their medical data to big pharma; some are taking telemedicine to the most remote areas of the country and the world; others are creating digital medical passwords – allowing patients to easily access and transfer their medical records from doctor to doctor.
Q: Startups are clearly redefining healthcare ecosystems for the consumer, insurance companies, providers and hospitals. How do you believe the US government will institute changes in this field?
A: : The government has no choice but to make massive changes, simply because the current practices are too costly. There are too many redundancies, too much unneeded bureaucracy, and a general lack of innovation that continues to have a negative impact on the cost of providing medical-related services to U.S. citizens. The reality is that government, on state and federal levels, has a tremendous opportunity to innovate but it needs a willingness to hire the right kinds of people in the right positions. For example, in Illinois, Patricia Bellock was recently named Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. As a State Representative she spent her entire legislative career trying to reform the Illinois Medicaid system. I have no doubt that in her new position she will continue to revolutionize the entire Illinois healthcare system. Government healthcare initiatives are very slowly getting reshaped from within. New leaders all over the country are looking at how to cut costs, improve processes, reduce redundancies, and ultimately provide better and more efficient care to the populace.
Q: I see your point, but US government digital initiatives in the healthcare space have not been successful. For example, the Obamacare website remains one of the most famous examples of failed government-designed digital initiatives. The website performs poorly and users have no alternatives when trying to work with that program. Why we should expect better outcomes moving forward?
A: You are correct. To say the launch of healthcare.gov did not go as smoothly as it could have is an understatement. The truth is quite simple. The problem with digital strategy in the government space is not a lack of good ideas that could have a positive impact on the projects being redefined. The real problem with government in general, and the healthcare digital space in particular, is the inability to attract top-notch consulting companies that can completely redefine what digital means in a government space. Digital Authority Partners knows that first hand.
We recently responded to a request for proposals from a government entity. It was 400-pages long; that’s insane. Great companies that could provide real value to government entities quit the process of bidding on government work early, or they don’t bother at all, simply because the process to apply is just too costly and time consuming. Top flight companies usually don’t choose to spend their capital in that way. That leaves either those who are standard government contract receivers or B and C players, that are not as well qualified for the job, to work on government digital initiatives. This doesn’t mean the US government cannot reform itself for the digital age. It just means new leaders are needed who want to streamline the selection process and who will invite more innovators to the table. It’s a matter of trusting the basic process but changing the rules of the game. That will absolutely lead to better results for all of us because a streamlined application process will bring a return of the truly excellent companies to government work.
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Q: In addition to your core business, you’ve recently launched HealthcareWeekly.com. Can you tell us why Digital Authority Partners launched this platform and the role it plays within your long-term vision for your company?
A: Healthcare Weekly is a news website dedicated to executives in the private and public sector who are ready to revolutionize the healthcare industry from within. Digital Authority Partners has worked with dozens of healthcare providers – manufacturers, service providers, hospital entities, healthcare startups, and more. As we interacted with these innovators, we noticed two common trends. Either they had great ideas but didn’t know how to execute them well, or they knew how to execute ideas but couldn’t convince internal stakeholders to take up specific initiatives. Healthcare Weekly is that one platform – for entrepreneurs, government officials, heads of product management and development, and head scientists from the healthcare industry to come together and learn from each other. It’s one place to go each week to learn about other innovative ideas that have recently surfaced and that can be applied to another situation. With our experience in the healthcare space, and the talented team of journalists we have recruited, we know we will become the leader in innovative content in healthcare. And we welcome outsiders to join us in educating the entire industry on the latest trends in healthcare and beyond.
Q: Finally, DAP is creating its own proprietary software in the hospital space, correct? How did developing software solutions become a priority for Digital Authority Partners?
A: It’s true. We’re currently building a communications and productivity software that will help doctors better manage their caseload, stay more organized and provide a path to get input from other doctors, technicians and nurses, all within a HIPAA compliant platform. This software should truly help medical personnel be more efficient. Unfortunately, much like government entities, the healthcare space has also primarily attracted B players. Here’s the staggering reality: doctors currently using digital solutions (electronic medical records, schedulers, information sharing platforms, etc.) spend, on average, 2 hours more per week on administrative tasks than those doctors using pen and paper techniques. It’s true. Digital enabled doctors waste more time than those who make calls and take notes. That is absolutely unacceptable, and is a driving force behind why we want to contribute to the industry in a meaningful way. Much like our clients – we believe the software we build for doctors will redefine the quality of care in the United States and probably everywhere else, too.
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