7 Questions with CEO Michael Raphael: Celebrating 7 Years of IndeVets

IndeVets is Celebrating Seven Years of Redefining the Veterinary Industry.

In honor of IndeVets’ 7th anniversary, CEO and Co-Founder Michael Raphael sat down for a special Q&A session. He reflects on the early days, sharing what motivated him to launch the company and how IndeVets’ mission and core values have shaped it into the doctor-driven organization the industry desperately needed. He also offers valuable advice for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs, along with his insights on what has been the key to IndeVets’ success.

 

1. Why did you first get into vet med?

Like so many people, animals have always been a part of my life.

My first dog was Reggie. He was a miniature Schnauzer with an attitude. Patches was number two. A full mutt, he loved bagels. Riley, my black Lab, was a sweetheart. She loved the water and would whine when meeting new people. And today, my two geriatric cats, Obi and Kit, are all about laying on the couch, and eating.

When I had a chance to merge my love of animals with a career, it just seemed like the right choice. That was in 2008, when I started working as a practice manager at the Animal Hospital of Dauphin County, just down the street from Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.

2. What was your initial goal for IndeVets? How does the company today compare to those initial hopes?

It was working at the Animal Hospital of Dauphin County that I saw first-hand the challenges that many veterinarians were facing. Long hours, limited work flexibility, production anxiety, inconsistent medical standards … I created a list and it was long.

The initial idea for IndeVets was to begin to address the problems I saw, starting with workplace flexibility. The plan was to flip the script and empower veterinarians to choose when, where and how they worked. Instead of being scheduled by a practice manager, our vision was to have veterinarians schedule themselves based on their needs and what worked for their lives, but without compromising what they love about vet med.

Looking back on it all today, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’ve hired more than 250 veterinarians across the country who work when and where they want. This would not be possible without partnerships with great animal hospitals. Over the years we’ve begun to knock out more and more issues: we’ve added clearly defined career paths for veterinarians; built professional development tracks around leadership, clinical skills, mentorship and mental health; developed a dynamic wellness support team, including a full-time veterinary social worker; and found a way to dramatically reduce burnout for doctors that join us. We’ve accomplished this while maintaining an extremely high standard of medicine. Along the way, we’ve built a doctor-driven company with more than a dozen veterinarians as part of our HQ team.

3. Can you share a funny story from the early days of the company?

It was just a few months into starting IndeVets, and we finally had our first partner hospital signed up.

Dr. Andrew Heller, IndeVets’ co-founder, was set to cover the shift at Pet’s First in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. But I screwed it up. And I gave him the wrong information. And we missed our very first shift.

It didn’t feel very funny at the time. But now that we’re covering hundreds of shifts each day – and showing up to all of them – I can laugh at the first one, which we never actually staffed.

Oh, and Andrew ended up working our actual first shift at Pet’s First a few days later. I’m happy to report they are still a great partner today.

4. If you could go back in time and tell yourself something when you were first starting IndeVets, what would it be?

I would just encourage myself to believe in what we were doing. The early years of any new business can be challenging. It’s often easy to look back and tell a linear story about how you got from there to here. It wasn’t easy. But believing in our core mission helped us stay focused on the long-term goals.

 

5. What values or principles have guided your leadership and IndeVets’ growth over the years?

The first thing that comes to mind is our core value of being highly competent and nice. This stemmed from my real-world experiences working in animal hospitals. I saw again and again employees that did their jobs extremely well from a technical perspective – drawing blood, collecting urine samples – but they were kind of jerks while doing it, and I saw the negative impact that had on the clinic culture.

When we started IndeVets, our first rule was “no jerks.” It evolved into our core value of being highly competent and nice. It’s probably the “core” core value and it creates a certain point-of-view for everyone that works here. There are two sides to every job — the technical aspect and how you do it. They both matter.

6. What do you believe has been the biggest contributor to the company’s success over the past seven years?

The biggest contributor to our success has to be our unrelenting focus on being doctor driven.

When I started my first veterinary business, before IndeVets, we made a strategic decision not to bring doctors into leadership, and it was a terrible call. It’s really hard to build a leadership team for skilled medical professionals without having doctors be a part of that conversation.

When we started IndeVets, we centered the company around veterinarians and to this day there are 15 vets in leadership positions driving our clinical excellence, our hiring, our benefits, our professional development, CE — basically everything we offer to ensure we are providing the absolute best place for vets to build their careers. That’s the key to our success.

7. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs or leaders who want to build something sustainable like you have?

It’s important that you invest your time in something you’re passionate about. It’s easy to believe that you can grow a better piece of software or provide a great service, but if you don’t passionately believe in it, it’s hard to be successful.

As an entrepreneur, you have to wake up every day and do it and inspire people to do it.

We’re a mission-driven company, and we care about the welfare of our doctors. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. Every day I hear real stories from our vets (like the one below) about how their lives are exponentially better now that they are part of our team. That keeps me going on the tough days.

 

“Before I joined IndeVets, I felt as though my work environment was falling apart. At my previous clinic, we did not have strong leadership, and I found myself addressing issues that were not in my job description. Oftentimes I dreaded going into work. Now I feel as though I have a better work-life balance. I focus on doctor duties and practicing strong medicine. Having control over my schedule and being able to redirect my focus on treating pets, instead of being encouraged to see them as revenue, has enhanced my joy of learning in this profession.”

-Kelsey Heron, DVM and Associate IndeVet