Lasso MD Set for Hyper-Growth with Its Martech Platform for Medical Practitioners

How Lasso MD Began

While running their original company, ​​Get Practice Growth, Eric Bunnell and his co-founder Pete Johnson had an important mission: to help medical practitioners become better business owners. The team recognized that the most effective way to accomplish this mission was to create predictable and repeatable marketing systems and incorporate them into the daily operations of a typical practice. 

“Many private practices are owner-operated and—since they’re run by medical professionals—they don’t usually have marketing, communications, or business development expertise in-house,” said Eric. 

With a new focus on delivering technology-powered services, Get Practice Growth was rebranded Lasso MD in 2018. Today, it offers content, growth, and communication solutions to help dental and medical practitioners grow their practices and manage patient relationships. 

Even more importantly, Lasso MD helps these organizations verify that the marketing investments they make are delivering a return. 

“Local businesses and owner-operators have a difficult time trusting sales and martech vendors because they don’t have people to run marketing and accounting analytics. We saw the opportunity to lead with revenue-focused analytics that would really change the game for these companies and show them the impact of their marketing spend,” explained Eric.

Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business

In the early days of Lasso MD, the co-founders maintained their day jobs as they built up their client base and proved their product-market fit. 

They took a small convertible debt round in March 2019, allowing them to hire a team and accelerate client acquisition. After adding just one salesperson to the team, Lasso MD began to take off, growing its client base by over 600% and hitting $1 million ARR in the same year.

Then the world changed. The COVID-19 pandemic hit just as Lasso MD was gaining traction. Lasso MD paused its growth plans to shore up cash out of an abundance of caution, but it never wavered from its mission.

Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Spending

While the healthcare industry remained strong throughout the crisis, purchasing cycles were heavily affected. Private practices like dental clinics typically have cyclical buying patterns. Practitioners attend continuous education events online or in person to learn about the next big trends in their industry. Purchasing decisions are usually made after that.

With many events postponed, the purchasing of new technologies stalled. In addition, patients were not switching services because of the prevailing uncertainty, so it was difficult for practices to acquire new clients.

Despite these challenges, Lasso capitalized on the opportunity to help its client base take advantage of a resilient industry.

Eric Bunnell and team, San Diego, CA

Funding Growth Post-COVID

Post-COVID, Lasso MD was ready to resume its stellar growth path and needed some extra capital to stimulate sales.

“We just needed that booster shot to get us back into a hyper-growth mode, so we were looking for a finance company that could work with us in a non-dilutive way,” said Eric.

Eric explained that the company was in an unusual growth position: it was too late for early seed round money but too early for VC money. TIMIA Capital is a good fit for companies in this position because it buys them time to grow their business and better negotiate when the time comes to take on VC. 

“Giving up 20% of our company at the current valuation makes no sense. TIMIA Capital gives us time to get back to double-digit growth rates, grow our valuation, and raise capital when the environment is better,” he said.

Working With TIMIA

Lasso MD originally began working with Lighter Capital but came across TIMIA Capital a few years ago.  

“TIMIA offers really helpful information and always stays in contact in a non-intrusive way over the years, so they were top of mind when we needed capital,” said Eric.

Eric found TIMIA’s content about the B2B SaaS market, revenue-based financing models, and other alternatives to venture capital useful as he built his business and financing strategies. He said, “TIMIA delivered value to us before we became a client, and I trust the way they do business.

For a smaller company, some of the due diligence involved in funding can be excessively time-consuming and takes entrepreneurs away from the important job of running their business.

“TIMIA made it a lot easier than I expected. I didn’t feel like our company was getting sized up the way an investment banker would do it. Instead, TIMIA looked at our whole business thoughtfully and saw the value in what we’re doing,” said Eric.

What Does the Future Hold?

Lasso MD plans to use TIMIA Capital’s investment primarily to fuel sales and marketing efforts. Approximately 80 percent of the investment will be allocated in those areas. The remainder will go towards building its strategic partner referral program. “Our market is very close-knit so partnerships and referrals are key to our growth,” explained Eric.

Today, Lasso MD has approximately $1.3 million in ARR and is servicing over 200 locations with just eight employees. In the next year, the team plans to double its revenue and client base by adding four salespeople, one developer, and a client success manager.

Lasso MD Team, San Diego, CA

The medical space has many regional barriers and restrictions due to differing regulations. As such, expanding its US footprint in other verticals is a smart move for Lasso MD. The next target vertical is the fast-growing med spa industry.

“Once we get into the swing of things, and we start seeing a return from the sales hires, we will invest in growing the teams further. In the next two to five years, we hope to partner with a bigger company to take Lasso MD to the next level, expanding even more across the US,” said Eric.

It’s clear that Lasso MD has a solid, sustainable growth strategy in place, and we’re excited to see them put it into action.

• Share