Launching a new site

Its been about a week since my last post as we have been rolling up our sleeves in an effort to launch new branding and site design for http://www.spineuniverse.com/. It reminds me of when my wife asked me to put a new toilet in our master bathroom then turning around 3 days later with the whole bathroom gutted.

Having finalized a new logo and brand, I am struggling with which ad server to choose. Do we customize an open source solution which is catered to our needs or choose one of the major products on the market like the 24/7 openstream product or DoubleClick's Dart?

Given the size of SpineUniverse I am leaning towards the 24/7 solution rather than overtaxing our internal team any more. Either way it will be an improvement over the existing capabilities, but one is thousands of dollars and one essentially free.

We are constantly trying to balance expense & work load. Despite the money we raised this March, which gives us plenty of cash by which to grow, we are pushing for break even this fall, six months sooner than originally forecasted and in a way that does not limit future growth, so an out of box solution has some value despite being more expensive.

Ah the balancing act of a small venture backed business.

I'll get you the details of my evaluation in the next post. I am off to an ad server demo from 24/7.

Warmest,

BP

Picking up my son

Last week I spent some time at the beach, building castles with my 2 year old and generally trying to keep the stresses of building a small company at bay. My son asked to be picked up and as I bent over to grab him a shooting pain went up and down my spine. Since that moment I have had a localized pain in my lower back which progressed yesterday to a burning / pins and needles sensation in my legs.

Now your probably saying "this is awfully convenient given his role with SpineUniverse", but I can assure you, while I am moderately out of shape, I have never had a back problem until I took this role.

The point is I now find myself avoiding situations where I have to pick up my son. It is really frustrating and sad, and it makes me think of the other 80 million Americans with back pain. How many of them are moms and dads that now have to struggle through the pain and/or cut back on how they play and interact with their children.

While I have been in health for almost a decade building education for HIV, Diabetes and Cancer patients/physicians, I am shocked at the impact of severe back pain on family life. Of course almost 80% of back pain will diminish in 6-8 weeks, especially when rest is coupled with improved nutrition, core strengthening, weight loss and elimination of smoking from ones list of habits, but the other 20% is debilitating with a significant impact on your frame of mind.

(point of note: In spine surgery related clinical studies it has been shown that smokers do not heal as easily as non-smokers - so stop smoking if you need spine surgery)

Alas, today I am going to a physical therapist to evaluate my back and my back pain. Stay tuned for future posts where I will invite you to experience my efforts to reduce the pain in an attempt to return to my normal way of interacting with my son.

My "back pain" goals for the next week:
1) Start diet and get on the path to lose 15 lbs
2) Increase exercise from none to 3/4 days per week - improve core strength
3) See a physical therapist an a pcp for my back pain

Days living with back pain - 7

See you next post

Bill

Some thoughts on "Back Pain & Your Health"

Welcome to Back Pain & Your Health. This blog is an outgrowth of my efforts to launch a venture-backed spine focused health portal and the personal experiences surrounding this journey. For the past 6 years I have been committed to building companies that are improving the quality of patient care both in the US and abroad. With my recent appointment, I am finally in a position to run a company according to the vision uniqiue to my 35 years of experiences. I am hoping my mistakes and successes can help others with a similar desire to blend entrepreneurship and the public good.

To be frank, I am under no illusions that I have anything particularly brilliant or innovative to say that can not be found anywhere else, but what you will find is brutal honesty and the kind of talk born from a large and loud NJ Italian family. I intend to share with you the mistakes, shortcomings and internal dialogue behind my efforts to build SpineUniverse into a valuable resource for people with chronic pain and spinal diseases.

With that being said, while our particular niche is the spine and chronic pain, I believe our approach to medical education extends beyond our specific set of conditions and treatments to the broader population.

In the upcoming weeks I will begin to catalog:

• The inequities and inefficiencies in our healthcare system
• Models for improving the way individuals manage their health
• The need for a proactive and preventative self-managed approach to healthcare
• The trials of entrepreneurship: the ups, the downs and the absurdly frustrating
• Our efforts to launch a medical education company
• My own struggle to implement preventative strategies for reducing my own back pain

Each of these themes will be supported by interviews, case studies and personal experiences speaking as an individual not as CEO of SpineUniverse.

Expect a post once or twic per week. I hope you join me for the ride.

Warm Regards,

Bill Paquin