Andrew Dudum is more than just the co-founder and CEO of Hims & Hers. He is also an active angel investor and advisor to more than two dozen startups. In a recent interview with Thrive Global, Dudum talked about his past career, what makes Hims & Hers unique, and what the future of health looks like.
“I’ve been building companies for about 15 years now,” Dudum said. “It started when I was an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania at The Wharton School, where I spent more time trying to convince designers and engineers to build things with me than paying attention to my classes.”
Not surprisingly, Dudum left school after his sophomore year, moved to San Francisco, and joined his first startup, which was sold to Telefonica in Spain in 2012. This process kick-started Dudum’s love and passion for bringing companies to market, and over the past decade, he has built more than a dozen businesses and raised more than $1 billion in capital across them.
When asked what he thinks makes Hims & Hers stand out, Dudum said it’s the people that have made the company’s progress to date possible. “I think it’s a rare combination of grit, resourcefulness, can-do attitude, and an obsessive passion for building beautiful products that customers love,” he said. “That’s what Hims & Hers is all about—it’s beautiful, it’s seamless, it’s on demand, and it’s affordable.”
That small group of people took on a monumental task when it became obvious that COVID-19 was going to be a big problem and people needed safe access to testing and healthcare. “In March of 2020 we had a board meeting, and at that meeting, I showcased a slide that highlighted our roadmap for the next two years. We planned on launching at-home testing, primary care services, full dermatology, and mental health services,” Dudum said. “On the next slide, I explained that we were going to consolidate this two-year roadmap into the next 90 days.”
Hims & Hers then did what it does best, which is to focus on far-reaching goals in very short time frames, establish small teams, and start sprinting. As a result, in just about a year, the company has been able to expand its offerings to include a range of primary care, dermatology, sexual health, and mental health products and services.
Hims & Hers takes a unique approach in that it wants to be there from the moment someone learns about a specific condition they have all the way through receiving and taking the medication, and even adjusting the treatment as needed. The company also aims to make its services affordable, even for those who don’t have insurance.
“By building the whole system in the cloud and avoiding much of the legacy historical inefficiencies and costs, we can pass that cost savings right back to the customer, which is key in expanding access to care,” Dudum said.
Dudum believes what happened with healthcare during the pandemic is an acceleration of existing trends that have been happening for years: people have increasingly started to use telemedicine because it is affordable, efficient, and seamless. Prior to the pandemic, consumers—especially Millennials and Gen Z—were already opting for telemedicine rather than waiting in offices.
“I believe in the next five to 10 years, you will be able to use your phone from the comfort of your home for 80% of your healthcare needs,” Dudum said. “More healthcare companies and systems will finally put patients’ wants and needs first.”
Read the full interview here.