MedSpas Unveiled: Transparency in Treatments & Customer-Centric Care

Explore the evolution and increasing acceptance of aesthetic treatments along with the importance of establishing trust through customer care in our latest Healthcare podcast on MedSpas with Alchemy 43 Founder & CEO Nicci Levy and Solomon Managing Director Brad Hildebrand.

Transcript

Nicci Levy (00:00):
There's an opportunity here to really own this piece of the business and to say, hey, there is a tried-and-true place — like Starbucks with coffee or SoulCycle with cycling classes. It's like these businesses that say: we are going to wrap our arms around this one aspect of things and create a household name, a brand that people know and they associate with high-quality results.

Brad Hildebrand (00:23):
Welcome to the Solomon Partners Healthcare podcast series. I'm your host, Brad Hildebrand, a managing director at Solomon Partners, which is a leading financial advisory firm, where I focus on advising clients in the healthcare services vertical. Today we're speaking to Nicci Levy, CEO of Alchemy 43, a leading platform in the aesthetic space. Thanks for joining.

Nicci Levy (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me, Brad.

Brad Hildebrand (00:44):
Maybe before we dive into the discussion, you want to just give our audience a little bit of background on yourself, introduce yourself?

Nicci Levy (00:51):
Sure, absolutely, would love to. My name's Nicci Levy. I'm the founder and CEO of Alchemy 43, a modern aesthetic and wellness brand. We have 10 locations nationally. So, started the business and I'm based here in Los Angeles. Started with my first location in 2016, and now we are between Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Dallas, Houston, and New York City — 10 locations strong and growing — specializing in cosmetic injectable treatments like Botox and fillers, as well as wellness treatments like vitamin shots and GLP-1 weight loss injections.

Brad Hildebrand (01:23):
Excellent. You've been in the space for a very long time. I know obviously it's been a hot topic in the investor community here over the last five years. Your background in the space goes back a lot further than that. Maybe you could talk to us a little bit about what attracted you to the space initially, how you got involved, and how you've seen things change from when there were a few other players versus today where there's more than a handful of platforms out there in the market trying to compete.

Nicci Levy (01:49):
It's been an incredible journey thus far, and like you said, have been fortunate to have been around for a lot of changes within the industry and a lot of evolution, including having started and pioneered my concept, but started in medical aesthetics back actually in 2009 as a Botox rep. Prior to that, had all of my work experience and career experience had been in beauty and cosmetics and skincare. In 2009 I was recruited by Allergan from the cosmetics industry because Allergan was launching a product called Latisse, which is a serum that grows your eyelashes. They believed that there was a merchandising component in medical offices and med spas, and so they were very interested in recruiting and bringing on people from the beauty industry, which was actually a very unusual move on their part. The majority of people that previously held these roles were people with pharmaceutical sales backgrounds.

(02:38):
So this idea and this decision to specifically target and recruit people from a very different industry was a pretty unique idea, and I think a very smart one. And so I got recruited over not knowing too much about the industry, really understood it to be in these products and services that I would be representing, which were Botox, Juvéderm, and Latisse, were all elective cosmetic products, purely cash pay. I was only working on the cosmetic side of the business, so there was no insurance involvement at all. And these were non-invasive, in and out of the physician or med spa offices, and they were purely elective and cash pay. I viewed it as an extension of the beauty industry. The consumer intent was the same, right? You go out and you buy skincare or you buy cosmetic products with the intention of looking and feeling your best, and in the same way you might go out and get a Botox treatment with the same intention.

(03:32):
So I first made that transition and stepped into medical aesthetics, really thought of the consumer intent as being somewhat similarly rooted. I realized pretty quickly after spending a little bit of time in the industry that while that intent might be the same, there was nothing about the experience or the way that someone would go about getting a treatment that felt similar. So I felt like there was an opportunity to materially improve on the experience of getting these treatments done and really make it more of a confidence-boosting, elevated high-touch consumer experience. I understood that all of these treatments were repetitive in nature, meaning there's a great repeat rate — all the services that we're talking about here need to be maintained. You have to do them on a periodic cadence in order to continue to enjoy the results.

(04:21):
So I thought, people love the results of these treatments — Botox has a 98% patient satisfaction rate — and if we made the experience better, and we actually just made it something you actually looked forward to as a customer versus something that you had to endure to get that result, there could really be a lot of increase around how often people repeat, how good people feel about getting these treatments done, and reducing the shame factor and making it something that was less embarrassing and more pro-health, pro-wellness. And that's what we've seen happen with the industry. I think when I started with Allergan in 2009, which is now 13, 14 years ago I guess, people still didn't talk about getting these treatments done. It was very private. Maybe your closest friends knew, but your significant other probably didn't know, and you certainly weren't broadcasting it on social media.

(05:08):
You fast forward to now, and it's like people are loud and proud about these treatments. They are shouting it from the rooftops, they're sharing who injects them, where they get injected, how much they spend, and much more. It's been really fun to be able to have a bird's-eye view to how the industry has changed and how consumers think about getting these treatments done. To some degree, I think concepts like mine and the way that I've very intentionally gone about creating this brand from scratch — from everything from real estate site selection, to who we hire, to how we show up on social media, to our branding — all of that is really intentional to evoke these feelings of confidence and pride and taking care of yourself and self-care is not selfish. And I think we've had a hand in changing the way consumers think about these treatments.

Brad Hildebrand (05:54):
Yeah, it's a very interesting dynamic. I think in some ways people have continued to become more and more vocal about treatments in this space, like you mentioned. How much of that do you think came from Covid specifically versus just a gradual increase in social media awareness around the treatments?

Nicci Levy (06:12):
Covid really did provide a unique kind of experience, and certainly what we saw during those years was, as I'm sure everybody knows, the “Zoom effect” — so much of human interaction during those years took place over Zoom, and as you guys know, when you're on Zoom, you're staring at yourself on a screen. There's always a picture of you on the screen, and that's a very unique experience. You're sitting across a conference table room with somebody in a meeting, you're not seeing a picture of your own face, you're not staring into your own image. And so it did definitely shine a light on people staring at their faces and therefore maybe making decisions about enhancements or improvements that they wanted to make in that regard. But also I think, when the restrictions started to loosen for Covid and people were leaving their houses and leaving their homes for the first time, in some cases in a couple of years, they wanted to look great doing it.

(07:04):
There was just this resurgence and revival of “I want to put my best foot out there in the world.” There was a new perspective around taking that vacation you never got to take, or buying those shoes you always wanted to buy, and people came full-force. We saw a huge amount of new clients hit the market after Covid. So it did provoke, I think new trial, wanting to live your best life and whatever that means for you. In our case, a lot of it meant going out and trying these treatments for the first time and really embracing an aesthetic regimen for the first time. But also, I think there's a natural evolution to beauty services, and I always use the example of bikini waxing in the seventies. It was like no one did anything like that, and then all of a sudden you started to hear about people doing that kind of thing.

(07:50):
It was very much a certain type of person — it was like, oh, if you go and you groom yourself in that way, you're a certain type of woman or a certain type of person — and you fast-forward to today, and it's like everybody gets laser hair removal, and where do you go? So it's become so normalized. So I think a lot of times these things are initially secretive and taboo, and then they just sort of gradually become part of the human experience and part of living your life, and people are just less protective over letting people know that they do it or not. So I think it was combination of probably both that has  led to this explosion of it just becoming very mainstream for most people.

Brad Hildebrand (08:30):
I think we see a lot of people playing this market in different ways. Maybe we could do a deep dive on Alchemy and how you designed the business on the front end, and what are some of the key aspects that you've seen lead to success in your platform?

Nicci Levy (08:44):
There were definitely some multi-unit players. Like I said, started the business back in 2016, and at that time there were certainly a couple examples of some large, multi-unit players. One that comes most readily to mind is Ideal Image. They were a national brand. They had, I think, over a hundred locations. They were very much one of the main multi-unit players. As you probably also know, more than 90% of places that offered injectable and aesthetic treatments like these were single-unit, one-stop — whether it's a med spa, whether it's a dermatologist or plastic surgery or aesthetic medicine office — but really single location. So my idea and my intent was to say, most of the places that people go to procure these treatments and services are places that do a lot of other things as well. And so you could say it's almost an add-on, or it's almost an afterthought that, hey, while I met the dermatologist getting my annual skin check or getting my rosacea prescription, while I'm here, I might get some Botox in my forehead just to smooth out the fine lines and wrinkles.

(09:46):
I felt like I had a unique vantage point coming from the beauty industry and understanding how important the experience was and how important it was to make that connection with the customer, and the artistry of these things. So in the same way that if you're going to get your makeup done for the first time, you ideally want to have somebody doing that for you that has experience and knows what they're doing, and is specialized and is an artist of sorts. And I found that to be very much the same truth with medical providers and Botox and fillers. There are a lot of training materials and ways to learn how to do these treatments now. But I saw, as a rep — because when I was a Botox rep in Beverly Hills, I saw hundreds of different injectors — and whether it was physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants or RNs that were doing the treatments, the ones that had the longest waiting list and had the highest demand for their services were the ones that truly viewed it as an art form and really were passionate about placement of the product in the right place to get the right results.

(10:45):
I just felt like nobody was talking about that, and that was something that I felt to be a great opportunity to say, hey, this really is an artistry. There's an artistry to doing these treatments well and to getting natural results. Why is no one focused on this? And what if we launched a brand that was rooted in creating a world-class experience for that consumer, making it a great place to come rooted in positivity, enhancing confidence instead of telling people what's wrong with them, providing them with opportunities and insight and education about what's possible, and then allowing them to make that decision themselves. There's an artistry to doing these treatments well. You're not just buying the medication — you're buying a result, you're buying an outcome, and there's an opportunity here to really own this piece of the business and to say, hey, there is a tried-and-true place, and you can point to it in other industries, right?

(11:33):
It's like Starbucks with coffee or SoulCycle with cycling classes. It's like these businesses that say, hey, we are going to wrap our arms around this one aspect of things and  create a household name, a brand that people know and they associate with high-quality results. And so that  was my intention with Alchemy 43. And so it wasn’t to say that we were going to be so narrow-focused that we were only going to offer one or two services, but the things that we do choose to offer, let's be the very best and let's  focus on results and outcomes and natural results in particular. In our industry and our tagline, the best work goes unnoticed — that is a very unique industry reality. You go out and you buy a new car and people say, hey, Brad, great new car you got; you're excited for people to notice that. You do not want people to notice your Botox. You do not want people to say, hey, Brad, great Botox, who did your Botox — right? You want people rather to say, gosh, you look so relaxed. Did you just go on vacation? Did you just fall in love? What's going on with you because you look fabulous, but you never want the compliment to be about the service, that's the wrong result. So, kind of unique that way.
Brad Hildebrand (12:37):
It's an interesting dynamic in the space for sure. It makes me think about the importance of the relationship between the provider and the patient here. And I'd be interested in your thoughts on how that relationship evolves over time. I assume the first time a patient comes in, they're a new patient, they might have anxiety, they might have stress around, is this person going to do a good job? How do you build that trust and relationship over time, and what does that mean to your business as somebody sees you as the trusted provider or do they do more services? How does that evolve over time?

Nicci Levy (13:09):
I'm thrilled that you used the word trust, because I do believe that that is the north star of everything we do in our business. We are aesthetic wellness, beauty services, but I would say that there's a different gravity, and you can't compare us to something like a spray tan or a blowout because at the end of the day, if you don't like those results, you can just go home and take a shower. With these results, first of all, we're asking you to pull out your wallet and spend $800 with us, -plus, in many cases — and we're going to put a needle in your forehead. So, if you have that trust, when the client trusts you, there's nothing you can't convince them of. And so, when it comes to introducing other services, or additional add-on products, or retail, or any of those things, if you have their trust, you have their loyalty.

(13:52):
Building that trust is so critical. The flip side of it is, if you lose that trust, you not only lose that client, you probably lose all their friends, and they're never coming back. There's just a gravity to this that I think is so important, and that building of the trust, to your point, between the provider and the patient is so important. As a brand, we have 10 locations today. We have very, very big aspirations around getting to 200-plus locations nationally. We do aim to be and want to be the premier offerer of these services nationally and perhaps internationally as well. And we don't even get close to that without trust. So what our challenge also is, besides making sure that we're doing everything we can to insulate the trust of our providers with our patients, is also the trust with the brand.

(14:41):
And that's I think a unique perspective and something that was kind of new to the industry was this idea of being a household name and a trusted brand is very different than having a relationship with one provider and saying, okay, if that provider is down the street but they move, let's say they leave and they move six blocks over, I'm going to follow that provider because my relationship is with them, my trust is with them. So as a brand that wants to be the go-to place, we believe that there was an obligation on our part to also build trust with the brand. So I'm going to go to Alchemy 43. It doesn't matter whether I'm in Manhattan or Newport Beach or Dallas, I know that if I walk into an Alchemy 43 location, I'm going to get the same quality of service. They have the same rigorous requirements and rigorous training and development of their providers. I know I'm going to get a good result, and I know that I'm going to trust this brand to bring on the right people. That was an additional layer of challenge between building a single-unit location that you have that individual trust with one provider versus, hey, we want our clients to feel like they can walk into any location and see any provider, and trust in that experience.

Brad Hildebrand (15:47):
It's very interesting, especially as you're out doing de novos, as I listen to you speak, what it makes me think is these will take a little bit to ramp up, but once they're ramped up, you've got a very stable customer base that's going to keep coming back for a long time, and that has opportunities to deliver other services that they may not have taken in the first six months.

Nicci Levy (16:07):
Exactly. And we're seeing that loud and clear with GLP-1s, which, as you know, we launched back in October of 2023, so it's been less than a year that we've offered these services, and already it's close to 20% of our total revenue. We've seen an incredible amount of demand and just an increase in traffic in all of our locations with these GLP-1s. One of the things that we're seeing is a lot of conversion of people that have used these prescription medications at home for several years. In some cases, they've been on prescription Ozempic for a few years, and they're making the choice to switch to Alchemy 43 for GLP-1 treatments because we offer it in a very different way. There's medical oversight, and so you're having weekly check-ins with a medical provider to ensure that you're getting great results, and we'll adjust your dose accordingly to make sure that not only are you having minimal side effects, but you're also getting maximum results.

(16:58):
What we're seeing is a great opportunity is that we're building trust with those customers so much faster because we're seeing them every single week in our practices. So that conversation about, hey, and as I'm sure you can imagine, when you lose weight, your face changes, you lose volume in your face. And so, 30% of the people that are coming to see us for GLP-1s have never been into an aesthetic practice of any kind before, so they have never touched any other services. So that education around, hey, you're going to go on these medications, you're going to get results and you're going to lose weight, and we're your partner for that journey as well as we're going to also be your aesthetic partner. We're going to be telling you as you evolve in this journey, hey, it's time to start considering some fillers and some Botox, because you've actually had a strong volume reduction in your face, which does change things. And so laying that foundation initially, building that trust, and then being able to convert them to these other services with that trust and on that journey has been so powerful. It's  incredible to see what the impact has been both on the business and on just the client experience.

Brad Hildebrand (17:55):
I think there's probably benefits on the actual delivery of the GLP-1s, but, additionally, just having the relationship to hold somebody accountable to the progress that they're making and what else can be done can be powerful there for sure.

(18:12):
Maybe shifting gears a little bit, can you talk a little bit about staffing? You really emphasize the importance of the staff in these practices, developing the relationships that they do with the patients. How have you seen the staffing environment in this space? As we spend a lot of time in other areas of healthcare as well, what we've found is that people actually like to work in aesthetic practices. They might work in some other medical practice or aesthetics. They would prefer to work in aesthetics for a certain profile of individual. Does that ring true with your experience?

Nicci Levy (18:42):
Yes, it's in high demand. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we have a very interesting challenge in aesthetics with finding providers, which is, I  think it's pretty unique to the industry, which is, every medical provider from every other part of the industry — I'll just use anecdotally my own experience — when I go to my dermatologist or when I go to my internal medicine doctor for my own personal checkups, as soon as people find out what I do, they're like, how do I break in? I'm dying to become an aesthetic nurse. I'm dying to learn how to inject. I don’t know how to get in. How do I get in? And so you have this high demand, and there's great reason for it, right? It's like number one, aesthetic medicine pays on average 30% to 35% more per hour than an urgent care would pay a nurse.

(19:25):
And so the pay is better, the hours are better, as you can imagine. It's normal nine-to-five hours, and you're dealing with making people pretty all day. There's not the heavy weight of some of the other types of things involved sometimes with nursing. And so people are looking for these types of roles. And the interesting challenge that is faced by these people is that there really isn't a way to learn how to do this. There isn't a formulary or a way that if you are an RN and you work in urgent care and you want to become a Botox injector, I mean, essentially your options would be either to, number one, go take a course, spend your own money. So you take a couple weeks off work, you fly somewhere probably, and you take a two-week certification course probably from an agency or an institution that no one's really heard of.

(20:10):
It's not like you're going to Harvard Medical School for these types of things. So, it's going to be sort of a mom-and-pop training facility. Probably a good one, nothing against those training facilities. However, you're going to come back with your certificate, you're going to go out and try to find a job, and no one's going to hire you because you don't have experience. You may have taken this class and spent your $15,000 of your own money to take this class, and you come back and no one's going to hire you. There is a systemic problem with how injectors are getting into this industry. The very lucky ones find somebody that's willing to train them and take them under their wing. But as you can imagine, that's the exception, not the rule. And so as industry leaders, myself and a lot of our other multi-unit founder compatriots, we're all in the same position, and we are all on the advisory boards of the big pharma companies, and we're all sitting around in the room saying, oh, we all have the same issue.

(21:03):
We have all these injectors that we want to hire. We don't have a way to properly train them and funnel them into our businesses. And so we're looking at Allergan and Galderma and Merz and saying, hey, you got to help us train these people because we want to bring them in. The demand is there. Patients want these treatments, they want access to these treatments. We need more injectors. And so some of the big pharma companies are responding, and Allergan as well as some of the other companies are looking at ways to create training options for these people. But it is a unique position to be in, because there are a ton of people that want to break in and there isn't a clear path to doing that. As a company, that's something we're really focused on and that we're leveraging our partnerships with some of the big pharma companies to say, hey, you got to help us with this.

Brad Hildebrand (21:46):
Yeah, it's a good dynamic that different constituencies in the market are focused on the issue and trying to find a way to solve it. You mentioned that you sit on a few advisory boards. You would say that that's one of the top-of-mind issues for these folks?

Nicci Levy (21:59):
Absolutely. If you look at industry, and I'm sure you guys look at this stuff, but the industry is expected to double by 2027 in size. I saw a stat recently that I was fascinated by, which was 63 million people in the U.S. have considered an aesthetic treatment. Only 10 million of those have actually gotten one. So there's a moat of 53 million people that have expressed interest in some way, shape or form in getting an aesthetic treatment that have not yet made the move. So with all of the brilliant marketing that's going on, and with so many people on social media talking about this and it becoming just such a mainstream conversation, it's very likely in the next few years that those 53 million people are going to start taking steps in this direction. And guess what? We have to have people in place to service these people when they come in. Everyone's very aware of these constraints that we have, and we're all taking steps to solve it, and it's working. It's happening, which is great to see, because it was something that if you would have asked me five years ago what was keeping me up at night about scaling my business, it would've been that. And now I feel like I see a path forward to that and it's getting solved. So it's good to see and good to hear.

Brad Hildebrand (23:09):
The beauty of the de novo model is that you can really drive towards a uniform experience across locations. You talk to the importance of site selection, the importance of the brand. Anything you want to elaborate there on just how the company presents itself to its patient base to get people in the door, to allow you to begin on that journey of building trust?

Nicci Levy (23:28):
Yeah, I mean, I think we've really set out to, it's like you have plans when you start a business and you have a vision for how things are going to play out, and then it takes shape in its own way. One of the things that we realized early on is that based on the look and feel of our brand where our locations are in terms of real estate and the types of co-tenants that we align with and that you find us in, we are attracting a lot of new users. And as many as 50% of the clients that come see us for injectables every single month, the new clients are new to injectables. So we are their very first stop on this aesthetic journey. And not only am I very humbled by that as a founder, I feel like, again, going back to just that trust conversation and how important that is, and even more so when it's your very first time trying something like this out, there's a lot of responsibility I feel like we have in that regard.

(24:18):
So if we're getting somebody who's new to this journey, I think we have a high increased responsibility to make sure they have a great experience and we treat them well and we make it feel good. I mentioned confidence earlier, but it is at the cornerstone of what we are all about at Alchemy 43. Too often in my journey when I was a Botox rep and when I was in medical other offices, I just saw patients being torn down to be built back up. I mean, they would come in for a consultation and basically be told all the things that were wrong with their faces. And so a lot of them would do these treatments as a reaction to that — but coming from a place of, if I don't do this, I won't be attractive. And I just felt like that was the wrong approach.

(24:56):
I think that getting somebody to do something, or asking somebody to do something, because the consequence of not doing it means being unattractive or not feeling good about yourself just felt so wrong to me and so incongruous with why we do what we do every day. Because I  am focused on the idea that when you go out and you feel good about what you see in the mirror, you feel more empowered to live your life to the fullest. So you can go out and apply for that job you've always wanted to apply for or ask that person on a date that you've had a crush on. You can go out and live life in a more rich way. And so if in some small way we can contribute to that — but it's really coming from a place of elevating confidence, not creating it.

(25:36):
We're not saying get a Botox treatment so you feel good about yourself. We're saying, you already are great. You don't need any of these treatments. We represent a place to come if you want to enhance and augment yourself in this way, but we're not here to tell you that you look worse without it. You know what I mean? And so, I think it's just coming from a place of positivity that's resonated with people, and it's such an important part of who we are, and we've created the whole brand experience to celebrate that and celebrate individuality. We're not about transformations or improvements. We're about elevating, enhancing, and augmenting, which I think sets a different tone. So I think that that's  been our approach since the beginning. It seems to resonate with people. I find as a founder that people are very interested in my story, and maybe particularly because I'm not a medical provider myself, so I'm a unique founder in this industry, in that I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a physician, I'm the client.

(26:27):
That's how I very much view — the lens with which I view everything that we build at Alchemy 43 — is how would I want to feel if I was sitting in the chair as a patient? And I think that has resonated with people. I think it's something that I feel really passionately about. I always picture myself as the client in the chair and how I want to feel and how I want to be greeted and how I want… I mean, even down to we have a scent, and all of our stores are scented in a certain way, and that's because — you may know or you may not know — that scent is the most closely linked sense to memory. So whether we know it or not, we associate certain scents to certain memories and certain experiences. So we've created a unique scent at Alchemy 43 that all of our stores smell like. And so the idea being that it's a unique experience, and it brings you to a specific place when you smell our scent. And so we've just done everything with a lot of intention around feeling good and celebrating the experience of self-care.

Brad Hildebrand (27:20):
Look, I think a lot of good decisions can be made as managers if you put yourself in the shoes of the client, right, if you just base your decision-making upon, “if I was the one coming in to sit in that chair, what experience would I like to have” is a pretty darn good place to start. 
People have spent a lot of time, especially on the investor side in this space. What are additional things that you wish people knew about the aesthetics industry that might not be on that list of top 10 things that gets shared with a partner?

Nicci Levy (27:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I have learned in the last eight-plus years doing this — and you kind of mentioned it earlier — is trust does not happen overnight. And I think that when I talk to investors, and as you know, I've talked to many over the years, and we have a great group of investors and stakeholders on our cap table now, and there's many great people that I have gotten to know over the years that are very savvy, very smart investors that have looked closely at the industry. I wish people understood that that relationship and that building of trust with the brand doesn't happen overnight. And we've explored, and I would say that de novo units has obviously been our strategy since the beginning till now — who knows what the future holds? I think that when we're plus 50, 35 to 50 units, we may consider a franchising opportunity.

(28:37):
We may make a decision to try that out. I think that also the idea of rollups and buying established clinics is also on our radar. So as a founder, I always say I'm clear in the vision of what I'm building, and I'm flexible in how we get there. And I think — so I never want to say never that I wouldn't consider any of those things, I think they're all on the radar — but I think the benefit of the de novo is just really being able to learn and intimately understand exactly what customers need. And I think we're still learning. We still don't know it all. And I think we're still figuring out, and I just think investors should understand when they're looking at a model for a business like this, that in the beginning it does take a little bit of time for these units to get ramped, to get profitable.

(29:16):
And it's because you're building that trust. Once you have that trust, there's exponential growth to be experienced. Once you have that trust, now you're not only getting a Botox patient, you're also getting a GLP-1 patient, a filler patient. And then by the way, PRP microneedling, you can introduce other services once you have that trust, and it happens very quickly once you have the trust. But the trust, it's just important to understand that if you try to shortcut that part, you won't have longevity as a brand. So I think that investors should take some time to consider that that time at the beginning, building trust with the community, with the local users of these services, is critical time and not to make a judgment on the health of the business based on how long it takes to ramp it.

Brad Hildebrand (29:59):
And look, I think you see that with what you've been able to do on the GLP-1 side. I think if you didn't have a patient base that had a high level of trust, there's no way that those services would've ramped up as rapidly as you've seen and are seeing.

Nicci Levy (30:13):
Exactly. That's a great example of that.

Brad Hildebrand (30:15):
Nicci Levy, thank you so much for joining the podcast. We really appreciate it. Congrats on all the success at Alchemy. We look forward to continuing to monitor your success as you continue to grow the platform. Thanks again.

Nicci Levy (30:26):
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Brad Hildebrand (30:30):
Thanks for listening to the Solomon Partners Healthcare Podcast, where each episode we do a deep dive with industry leaders in the healthcare sector. Please hit the subscribe button and tune in for the next episode.