00:00 Intro

James: HIV is like less of an impact on your life now than diabetes. The same reason you don’t want to see a doctor in the first place, you might not want to walk into the pharmacy to get treatment. You know, here’s your chlamydia medication, announce it, talk about next to grandma.

James: 16% of Australians from 16 to 49 have ever been tested. So 84% of that population have never been tested.

00:55 Steroids and stigma

Steve: James, welcome to the show. Tell us about Hyphen Health.

James: Hyphen Health incorporates four brands or virtual clinics. Stigma Health, Prep Health, and Hey Fella are effectively Australia’s largest sexual health service. Our fourth brand is Roy Safe, which is in steroid harm minimisation for mostly men on performance-enhancing drugs.

Steve: So you’re telling me that your right to healthcare can be denied if you’re doing something illegal?

James: It shouldn’t be, but it is. They’re risk averse and that comes ahead of the patient unfortunately.

02:25 From hospitality to healthcare

James: Before that, I was an ADHD accountant. I love the numbers, but sitting there doing meticulous tax accounting, I couldn’t sit at the desk. I wanted my own business. My first restaurant just succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I was earning four times the income I was as an accountant.

Steve: Why do you think it succeeded?

James: I thought it was because of me, and that’s the founder mindset, right? Then I opened a second one and started going backwards. The first one succeeded because we had the location, cheap rent, and we got so much right by accident.

06:10 The epiphany

James: My first cafe was across the road from my doctors. I went into an appointment at 11:00 a.m. and they didn’t see me till 1:00 p.m. I just watched my cafe struggle across the road through the window. There’s got to be a better way to get medicine. So we started building Uber for doctors, because 2015 everyone was building Uber for everything. Then it transformed into, what’s the internet great at? Anonymity. And what do you want for sexual health? You don’t want to talk to someone.

08:40 COVID killed the fax machine

James: COVID added the trust. It also encouraged public health to stop relying on fax machines and allow emails to work. It brought healthcare into the 21st century. We found true product market fit with our instant referral service in December 2019, four months before we needed to.

33:12 The 84% statistic

James: 16% of Australians from 16 to 49 have ever been tested. Not even once. So 84% of that population have never been tested. That’s the silent health crisis.