Pinch – an At-Home Home Health Med-Spa

Back in September 2021, I got a call from a good friend about a potential opportunity in the at-home healthcare space.

The pitch? Botox and filler delivered right to your home by licensed medical professionals.

My first reaction wasn’t exactly excitement. The med-spa industry was already packed, margins were tight, and with COVID winding down, people were starting to feel comfortable going back into public spaces again. I even called a couple of friends in the industry, including the guy who rolled Botox out worldwide, just to get their take. The consensus was cautious at best. It sounded interesting, but not exactly like a clear path to success.

Then I met Jacob. He was a trauma surgeon in one of Chicago’s busiest hospitals and, from the first conversation, it was clear he wasn’t just casually kicking around an idea. He had the determination, energy, and commitment that serious founders have.

Something about his drive pulled me in.

I started running numbers, researching market trends, and building out spreadsheets. Slowly, the data started telling a different story. There was room for this model, if it was done right. That was the turning point for me. I decided to come on as an advisor. My one condition was that I wouldn’t get hands-on with the actual implementation. I had plenty on my plate and didn’t have the bandwidth to execute.

If you’ve ever worked with a startup, you know how this goes. A few months in, I was deep in development, dusting off programming skills I hadn’t used in decades. Jacob had brought in other developers, but eventually I was knee-deep in code myself, working with friends from India, chasing down bugs at all hours. I was putting in 20-hour days, seven days a week at times. I hadn’t worked like that in years.

The personal cost was real. There were nights where I’d surface from my system just in time for dinner, feeling almost like a guest in my own home because I’d been so absent. My wife Amanda put up with more than her share of late nights and missed weekends. The kids still remembered who I was, but just barely. :)

But we pushed through. We launched the platform, onboarded practitioners, and started booking clients. The software worked, mostly. Like all new builds, it had its bugs, and of course they showed up at the worst possible times. I still remember being at a soccer field with no computer when a major glitch popped up. That’s startup life.

We stabilized things, Jacob worked the business development side relentlessly, and we started having real conversations with investors. He pitched the founder of Groupon at one point to get feedback. Eventually, we closed a funding round with a group of investors who I believe had been involved with companies like Groupon, Grubhub, Instacart, and LinkedIn. Along with the funding came a new CEO, Elan, and a new development team.

We worked together for about six months at which point they were able to replace my system with a far more robust, beautiful, and scalable platform. It was hard to watch my work get shelved, but what they built was great – and it has continued to evolve. Speaking of evolution, this is how startups evolve too.

Today, Pinch is growing in Chicago, Seattle, and Denver, with many more markets on the way. While some competitors are shrinking, Pinch is expanding, proving there’s a real demand for high-quality, convenient, at-home care.

Looking back, I’m proud of my role in getting Pinch from an idea on a phone call to a functioning, funded, growing company. I made new friends, learned a lot, and even rekindled some old skills I thought I’d left behind.

If there’s a takeaway from this journey, it’s that startups will test every limit you have. They take longer, cost more, and stretch relationships to the breaking point. But if you’re lucky, and if the team stays focused, you cross that finish line with something you can be proud of.

If you’re in one of the cities Pinch serves, I highly recommend giving Pinch a try. You’ll get premium injectables from licensed professionals, for less than a med-spa, without leaving your home or office. You can book at https://pinchmed.com or https://bookpinch.com.