Startup community, meet Tal: Israeli born entrepreneur and founder of Intrigma, “The Fastest, Easiest, Most Complete, Medical Staff Scheduling Solutions.” I recently had a chance to sit down with him and talk about Intrigma and learn more about what makes his entrepreneurial clock tick.
So first off, what is Intrigma?
In a nutshell, it’s a cloud software solution that streamlines scheduling medical staff. Basically it helps figure
out which physician should work when, in a way that reduces physician burnout. Physician burnout is when you keep a physician on the schedule for too many hours at once. This causes them to be overworked which causes reduced quality of care for patients. Preparing schedules to fit these needs is time a time consuming and math intensive process that Intrigma easily does for you to fit your needs.
Administrative hiccups, such as, who is taking care of what and who will be working when are small problems that can compound over time and result in reduced emphasis on patient care. Intrigma uses analytical techniques to answer questions such as:
- Who can I assign here?
- Who can I swap with this person?
- Which days are the most constrained?
While this may seem trivial to some, it wasn’t to Tal. He saw an opportunity to reduce the amount of time and money that was being spent on scheduling tasks so that more could be spent on the patients. Simple yet effective.
So is it working? Ask the approximately 70 hospitals around the country and the world (Canada and Latin America included!) adopting the software as their own, including ones in NYC, Texas, New Orleans and Iowa.
But putting that aside, let’s talk more about Tal himself.
For those who are unaware, Israel is second only to Silicon Valley in terms of most innovative environments in the world. If you’re wondering how that’s possible, I’d encourage you to check out a book called “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.
But why is this significant? Well it means that Tal has spent his entire life learning from a culture that teaches you to think in terms of innovation. “Israel has a very flat society,” says Tal, “everyone speaks their mind.” In the US we wait for our bosses to tell us what to do. Then we do it. It’s a habit and a terrible one at that. But it’s easy and comfortable so everyone does it anyway because it brings home the green. Unfortunately, this prevents us from thinking the way Tal does about problems and opportunities.
Tal says he’s always wanted to use his analytical abilities to solve problems and influence as many people as possible. To him this mindset is innate. But was his journey always easy? No. In fact in High School Tal admits to skipping classes regularly and admittedly not having the grades to be accepted into Stony Brook University, where he did his undergraduate work.
Fortunately, Tal had various recommendations from army officers testifying for his leadership abilities. This helped him persuade Stony Brook admissions to allow him in. Once admitted, he did become an accomplished student, received various academic honors, and was even admitted to the University’s 5-year computer science master’s program (from which he is still on leave of absence). But the army in Israel is truly where Tal had his first successful venture: designing a military staff scheduling solution. After seeing the military project from concept to completion, he carried the experience with him and later as a college student saw a similar opportunity in US hospitals. Time and work-flow was not being allocated efficiently.
Tal says that it was this first success that gave him the confidence to take future risks. Not much later, Tal would turn a school project into Intrigma, become the first winner of the Stony Brook Sponsored DARE Competition, a business plan competition evaluated by professional VCs and also become a winner of a National Science Foundation grant. Altogether he gathered about 150k in funding from that competition and interested investors. In terms of future goals, Tal is bringing Intrgima to hospitals around the world.
Before finishing up I asked Tal to answer two quick questions for me:
How do you define being an entrepreneur?
“The ability to take your ideas on how to do something better and bring it onto the world, later to be judged by market forces. Success and financial reward only comes after the judgment has been made: If you truly do it better than the other guy financial success is just a side effect.”
What’s Your Best Advice for Young Entrepreneurs?
“Identify the people you plan on serving, figure out how to better their situation and never ever forget that your purpose is to serve them.”
With that said make sure to check out Intrigma and use Tal as inspiration to drive change.
