Last October, Omaha-based startup LifeLoop won a $100,000 investment at Rise of the Rest. Since then, the operational platform for senior living communities has seen an increase in users around the country and has been focused on sales and growth.
“Since Rise of the Rest, we’ve added five employees,” said Amy Johnson, LifeLoop Co-founder. “We’ve grown our team in all areas: product development, sales, and client services.”
At the time of the Rise of the Rest win, LifeLoop was in 20 communities in 4-5 states. The team started focusing on the regions where they had contacts and saw a fivefold growth in the last fourteen months. Now the platform is in roughly 100 communities in 20 states.
“Growth happens naturally with our customers because they’re typically headquartered out of one state, but they might have multiple locations,” said Johnson. “We’re on both coasts as well as a big segment in the Midwest based on where we’re located.”
“Part of that is due to the quality of the customers that we have that are based around here like Dial Retirement Communities, Vetter Senior Living, Agemark, New Cassel, and Nye Health Services,” added Co-founder Philip Lee, Co-Founder. “They’re based in this area and they’re great companies running great operations in several states.”
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LifeLoop was started because the co-founders felt that residents benefited from their families being engaged in their daily activities, and from there it grew. Johnson said the platform has become a large marketing tool for care facilities which increases its value on the client-side.
“The idea was sparked from family but then we realized it’s much bigger,” said Johnson. “It’s very much become a value-added service that the community can provide to their customer which is the resident and their family.”
Lee added that LifeLoop’s aim to become an operational tool for community management would help standardize care, which in turn helps residents and families.
“It’s really hard to standardize care and operations provided across communities,” said Lee. “They’re very spread out and every community is different, so it’s hard to maintain that consistency of product that they offer, which is caring for the residents. That’s what we try to help bring together.”
LifeLoop tracks resident engagement in non-clinical events within their community like activities and meals. Staff, residents and families can all receive that engagement information in real time.
The platform currently tracks 25,000 resident activity points each week. The co-founders said those data points are helping to tell the story of what’s happening with residents.
“It gives us feedback right away and a little bit of pressure,” said Lee. “There’s a lot of people depending on it.”
Lee said that in order for the platform to provide any valuable data, the product had to be something that the staff wanted to use, and that’s what has driven the direction of the product.
“The more staff engagement in the platform the better the results,” said Lee. “Any time you’re trying to get a team of people to use one product in more than one area of the operation it is important to understand their gaps and have their buy-in.”
LifeLoop also offers training and client implementation with webinars, online training videos, and some on-site training.
“The one thing we learned early on with training, is if day one they don’t have everything in the system that [staff] needs, you’re usually fighting an uphill battle,” said Johnson. “That’s something we’ve done really well.”
Lee said that there are additional features that can be added down the road to make the platform even more useful for care staff. The LifeLoop team also wants to focus on more ways that residents and families can benefit from it.
“It’s a very large product roadmap, but we have a handle on our vision and what features need to come next,” said Johnson. “All those things tie together because, in order for us to continue to sell, we have to continue to respond to what the market needs.”
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Christine McGuigan is the Managing Editor of Silicon Prairie News.
