Founders’ Five: Josh Kermisch, Founder and CEO of Steadywell
In Founders’ Five, Rev1 Ventures checks in with Ohio founders who are growing their companies and helping strengthen the community around them. Through five recurring questions, founders share what they are building, why they work at Rev1 at The Peninsula, and what is keeping them energized as they move forward.
This month, we spoke with Josh Kermisch, founder and CEO of Steadywell.
What are you building, and what inspired you to start it?
Steadywell is building software that helps health systems deliver proactive care to seriously ill patients.
The company grew from an incredibly personal experience. My mother had documented the care she wanted if she became seriously ill, but that information was not available during a medical crisis. She received heroic care, but it was not the care she would have chosen.
That experience showed me how fragmented and reactive healthcare can be. SteadywellOS flips that: it proactively documents patients’ healthcare wishes, reaches them between office visits, and helps care teams catch changing needs before they become a crisis.
Why did you choose Rev1 at The Peninsula as your workspace?
Starting a company takes many connections, advisors, customers, investors, technologists, and other founders. When I entered Rev1’s accelerator, I was relatively new to Columbus and saw it as an opportunity to begin building that network.
Rev1 at The Peninsula helps us maintain and expand that network. Rev1 is constantly attracting new, talented entrepreneurs and professionals to its ecosystem, and staying engaged there gives us ongoing opportunities to grow our own network. It also gives us a professional place to work and meet with prospective customers and investors, which adds credibility for an early-stage company.
What’s one thing you’ve enjoyed most about the Peninsula community?
The opportunity to encounter people I would not otherwise meet. I can come in to work and find myself talking with a founder solving an adjacent problem, or building something completely different.
Those conversations continue to expand my network and often lead to new ideas, connections and opportunities. The programs, speakers, and community events are also incredibly valuable.
It’s midday at The Peninsula—what’s your go-to kitchen grab or workday ritual?
The snacks are plentiful, so my primary ritual may be trying to avoid the “Rev1 15.”
I am also a soccer, or football, fan, and during the World Cup, the games were playing here. Being able to work, catch part of a match and connect with other people in the space made The Peninsula a fun place to spend the day.
What are you working on that excites you most—or what’s on the horizon?
We are beginning to see real momentum. Steadywell is post-revenue and just signed its second commercial customer, and more than 500 patients are now using the platform. We have additional prospective customers under letters of intent and an ever-growing pipeline.
What excites me most is the simplicity of it: All a patient needs is a phone and that alone can help a health system find exactly who needs support today. It’s a small thing that does something big. It hands agency back to the patient, letting their voice guide the care they get instead of the other way around. That’s the kind of leverage I want to build on.
