Health Street

Justin Recla:

Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today, we are going to dive down to something that’s kind of near and dear to my heart. For most of you that have been following us for a while, you know that we come from the counterintelligence world, we had our own corporate counterintelligence business, which we recently sold off, thank goodness. And it’s in good hands now, and doing its magic and doing its thing. And my guest today, though, is in a very similar industry. He does background checks, but more importantly, he’s focused on entrepreneurship, the personalization of it. Because they don’t just do background checks and drug testing. They do DNA testing. They do all sorts of cool stuff.

And he’s got an amazing backstory. My guest today is Jared Rosenthall. He’s the CEO and founder of Health Street, and he’s got just such an amazing entrepreneurial journey. And I look forward to learning more about that. Please help me welcome Jared Rosenthall to the show. Jared, thank you so much for being here today.

But I was so frustrated with the healthcare system because man, the things that we learned about, if you remember when Bill Clinton was proposing national health insurance, in 1992 or ’93 or something like that. The issues that came up then are the exact same issues that we’re facing today. And it really hasn’t gotten anywhere. It’s only gotten worse, right? It’s so intractable and so frustrating. And my personality is one where I like to do something different, not keep talking about the same problem all the time. So with that and my desire to be an entrepreneur, I said, “Let me just try to do my own thing.” And I bootstrapped Health Street from the beginning, and I bought a used RV.

And the thought was to go around to businesses and do onsite drug testing. And also, in the middle of the night, if there’s truck accidents and that sort of thing, they could call me, and I would send people out, and it turns out it was mostly me that I was sending out. And then for the first several years, show up at three in the morning. And I used to sleep with the phone next to my head. And if I got a call, I was thrilled, because, hey, I was going to make money today, to pay the rent that day.

I would jump in the car or jump in the RV and go out and breathalyze truck drivers and that sort of thing, and drug testing. And over time, we added DNA testing, which really got me into the personal side of the business, with all kinds of crazy situations that people go through, with paternity tests and long-lost brothers and long-lost sisters and that kind of thing that they track down. And we do a lot of background checks, as well.

Justin Recla:

This is good. You can hear the passion you have, it comes through in your story. And you can tell that it’s not just making the buck, that was just the side effect, right? You got to pay your rent, but you got to go help people, as well.

Jared Rosenthall:

Yeah. If you make a good paycheck, you’re happy one day a week, maybe one day every two weeks, when you get paid. But if you really love what you do, and do it on your own, of course, you don’t make a paycheck. You’re taking a big risk, so you have to have that risk tolerance for it. But for me, my passion is both the business as well as the people’s side. And over the years, we’ve got much more into the technology of it, which, of course, is just, fortunately, or unfortunately, it’s just a better way to grow a business.

And one of the things that are unfortunate is that the higher up you go into any company, or the more successful the business gets, the further away you get from the day-to-day of the people. But it’s still inspiring to know that the things that we’re doing, even if I’m a little more removed from it, is sort of a people’s business. It’s not exactly healthcare anymore for me, but it’s sort of adjacent to those kinds of issues.

Justin Recla:

I love that. And when we get back from the break, I want to dive down this a little bit farther, expand out on your vision of what you see this industry is, what it’s moving forward, and how you’re playing your part in that. But before we do, where can people go? Where can people go to find more information about you?

Jared Rosenthall:

It’s health-street.net.

Justin Recla:

Fantastic. Folks, if you are in need of a DNA test, a background check, or a drug test, go take a look at Health Street. They’re doing some good things in the world, and they’ve got a really good feeling about them. And in the meantime, make sure you go take a look at the new Superpower Network app. App 2.0 has come out, much easier to stream, so you can listen to this show a lot easier than Apple Podcasts, or Android’s version of that. And go take a look at the app, download it, stream all of your favorite shows there. And if you like what you see, give us a review, leave us a five-star rating, and we will see you right after this break. Take care.

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