Sarah Blanchard's guest appearances

Sarah Blanchard

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

School for Mothers Podcast

The Songwriters Podcast

Between Two Brains

Laura Vanderkam

Eve Rodsky

Marc Elliot

Sachin Patel

Lawrence Levy

Rajesh Gupta

Dave Jones

Jeff Epstein

John Collins

Eric Johnson

Michael Tannenbaum

Liz Astrof

Kraft Heinz

Chris Baker

Bob Feller

OwlTail

Back in 2014, when Sarah Blanchard became committed to landing her first CFO position, she kept a key criterion in mind: Her future company had to be mission-driven. “I ended up in digital health before anyone really knew what digital health was,” explains Blanchard, who received her first CFO appointment from Omada Health, an early-stage health tech firm whose flagship product at the time was a diabetes prevention offering.   “When you talk about a mission that can have a huge impact on the world and a huge impact on humanity and our economy, this was something that I felt lucky to be a part of,” comments Blanchard, who admits to having had limited experience prior to Omada when it came to raising capital and being face-to-face with investors. “I had two choices: I could raise money from life sciences investors or I could raise money from tech investors, and they both tend to be creatures of habit—they like to see patterns,” observes Blanchard, who still seems to savor the dual challenge of opening the minds of two distinct groups of investors. Notes Blanchard: “I would spend lots of my time in trying to help life sciences investors understand how and why we could scale a healthcare company so quickly and at the same time help technology investors understand why ARR was not a metric for us, even though we were selling into enterprises.” Meanwhile, Blanchard’s tenure at Omada endowed her with a degree of extra vigilance when it comes to company pricing models.    “Omada had an outcomes-based pricing model—which was really novel at the time—meaning that we didn’t really make any revenue if we weren’t driving outcomes,” explains Blanchard, who adds that the model was flawed due in part to the firm’s assumption that the number of lessons completed by participants was a worthy “milestone” and indicator of positive outcomes. “We were focusing on driving people to complete lessons, but lesson completion, while it’s correlated with weight loss, it is not weight loss, and it is not a reduction in the risk of getting diabetes, which is what we were all about,” recalls Blanchard, whose efforts to repair the model ultimately involved tasking the company’s data scientists with a mission to better expose the connection between participant weight loss and outcomes. Says Blanchard: “After we switched over to a percent-weight-loss-per-month model, we began getting paid for real outcomes.” –Jack Sweeney

Back in 2014, when Sarah Blanchard became committed to landing her first CFO position, she kept a key criterion in mind: Her future company had to be mission-driven. “I ended up in digital health before anyone really knew what digital health was,” explains Blanchard, who received her first CFO appointment from Omada Health, an early-stage health tech firm whose flagship product at the time was a diabetes prevention offering.   “When you talk about a mission that can have a huge impact on the world and a huge impact on humanity and our economy, this was something that I felt lucky to be a part of,” comments Blanchard, who admits to having had limited experience prior to Omada when it came to raising capital and being face-to-face with investors. “I had two choices: I could raise money from life sciences investors or I could raise money from tech investors, and they both tend to be creatures of habit—they like to see patterns,” observes Blanchard, who still seems to savor the dual challenge of opening the minds of two distinct groups of investors. Notes Blanchard: “I would spend lots of my time in trying to help life sciences investors understand how and why we could scale a healthcare company so quickly and at the same time help technology investors understand why ARR was not a metric for us, even though we were selling into enterprises.” Meanwhile, Blanchard’s tenure at Omada endowed her with a degree of extra vigilance when it comes to company pricing models.    “Omada had an outcomes-based pricing model—which was really novel at the time—meaning that we didn’t really make any revenue if we weren’t driving outcomes,” explains Blanchard, who adds that the model was flawed due in part to the firm’s assumption that the number of lessons completed by participants was a worthy “milestone” and indicator of positive outcomes. “We were focusing on driving people to complete lessons, but lesson completion, while it’s correlated with weight loss, it is not weight loss, and it is not a reduction in the risk of getting diabetes, which is what we were all about,” recalls Blanchard, whose efforts to repair the model ultimately involved tasking the company’s data scientists with a mission to better expose the connection between participant weight loss and outcomes. Says Blanchard: “After we switched over to a percent-weight-loss-per-month model, we began getting paid for real outcomes.” –Jack Sweeney

790: The Correct Order of Things | Sarah Blanchard, CFO, Udemy

On January 10th 2017, on a business trip in Italy, Sarah Blanchard experienced acute onset nausea and vertigo. After three hours, she was so debilitated that it became a struggle to even call for help. Sarah’s life was changed when at 29 she was diagnosed with a Stroke. Since then, she is a passionate advocate for younger survivors, creating programs and raising awareness for women’s heart and brain health Follow us on Social  Website Facebook Twitter Instagram 

On January 10th 2017, on a business trip in Italy, Sarah Blanchard experienced acute onset nausea and vertigo. After three hours, she was so debilitated that it became a struggle to even call for help. Sarah’s life was changed when at 29 she was diagnosed with a Stroke. Since then, she is a passionate advocate for younger survivors, creating programs and raising awareness for women’s heart and brain health Follow us on Social <ul> <li><a href="https://braininjuryns.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/braininjurynovascotia/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/BrainInjuryNS" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/braininjuryns/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> </ul>

003: Sarah Blanchard