2021 was a banner year for Digital Health, and the Wild West on the hiring front.  It’s truly remarkable to reflect on the growth seen across all segments last year, including our own, as we doubled in size from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021, and are on pace to do so again this year. Market dynamics have created some incredible challenges in our space, but also presented us with opportunities to broaden the way we think about the role that people play in building great companies. We’ll have some exciting announcements about new things we’re building to rise to these challenges as the year progresses. In the meantime, this quarter I took a look back at last year and a look forward at what we think is ahead of us in 2022. One of our newest team members, Regina Heffernan, took a stab at unpacking all of the confusion surrounding the litany of different “growth” titles, and Polina sat down with our friend Stephen Smith at NOCD to discuss what they are building in service of the serious mental illness crisis in our country. We missed seeing everyone in person at JPM for the second year in a row, but look forward to getting on the road to see many of you as it becomes safer to do so!

— Tim Gordon

An Interview with Stephen Smith, Founder and CEO of NOCD

Stephen Smith is the CEO and Founder of NOCD, a digital community and telehealth platform that delivers OCD prevention and management therapy to people who have traditionally been stigmatized, misunderstood and misdiagnosed. NOCD is on a mission to create a world where anyone can access effective OCD therapy, no matter where they live or how much money they make.

PH: What was the inspiration behind founding NOCD?

SS: NOCD was founded off of my personal experience. I have OCD, a very misunderstood condition that affects about one in 40 people. I would say the term is recognized by pretty much everyone in society, right? People always use the term “OCD,” but very rarely do people actually know what it means. It’s a condition that’s similar to PTSD, where PTSD is intrusive thoughts about the past – for example, a war veteran who has flashbacks…

What a Year! Now What?!

It’s easy to forget that Q1 and Q4 of 2021 were bookends for the same calendar year. The outlook at the start of last year was far from certain without hindsight on our side – vaccination rollouts were slow and mismanaged, our healthcare workers were getting the jab, but most of us had resigned ourselves to not being vaccinated until summer or fall at the earliest, if even in 2021. Digital Health seemed to be leading the recovery after monster third and fourth quarters from a funding perspective, but we had hardly come to feel like we were on easy street. Fast forward through an unprecedented year of Digital Health funding, and unquestionably the wildest talent market I’ve ever seen, and here we sit with no sign of the latter slowing down.

As we reflected on the year, and then looked ahead, we got a good sense for what dominated the discourse, and we have some thoughts on what will in 2022.

In Spite of Hot Streak in Growth Hiring, Confusion Remains

In 2021, approximately 30% of Aequitas Partners’ total searches were related to Sales and Growth roles ranging in titles from Head of Commercial, to Vice Presidents of Business Development, Sales or Strategic Partnerships, to Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Growth Officer.