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When my twin brother Eli and I first decided to build Bask Health, we had zero background in healthcare and way too much confidence. We thought launching a telehealth brand would be just like any other ecommerce business — it wasn’t.
We hit wall after wall, failed fast and almost gave up more than once. But through that chaos, we uncovered a playbook that helped us build a SaaS platform that now powers over 100 telehealth companies.
If you’re building a SaaS company or launching an app, here are the five things I wish someone had told me sooner.
Related: 5 Business Truths I Wish Someone Had Told Me 5 Years Ago
1. Launch before you’re ready
I used to think we needed a perfect product before we could launch. That mindset almost bankrupted us.
Early on, we built a telehealth platform focused on eyelash enhancement. We spent months developing the site, obsessing over the design, working out regulatory issues and then realized we had no customers. Worse, we couldn’t get any because we didn’t even know if our idea worked.
Eventually, we scrapped the perfectionism and put up a bare-bones demo of our new vision, an all-in-one SaaS platform to launch telehealth companies. Within a week, we had paying customers, real feedback and a clear path forward.
If you’re building something, get it into users’ hands as fast as humanly possible. You’ll learn more from one real user than from months of whiteboarding.
2. Differentiate and simplify
The first business we tried to launch failed hard. We built a decent platform, but we underestimated how hard it would be to compete in a crowded market without anything unique.
That experience taught us to focus on differentiation. We didn’t want to be another “telehealth tech” provider. We wanted to be the Shopify for telehealth, simple, customizable and built for founders like us. We also realized that the more complex a solution is to launch, the less competition you’ll face. And that’s your opportunity.
We built Bask to remove the friction: self-serve onboarding, drag-and-drop tools and API integrations. No need for a developer. No prior healthcare experience required.
SaaS is competitive. If you’re not solving a very specific problem better than anyone else, you’re just another tool in a sea of tools.
Related: 5 Free Tools That Simplify Work And Save Time
3. Do one thing extremely well
In the early days, we tried to say yes to every feature request. We spread ourselves thin, building tools we couldn’t maintain and promising customizations we didn’t have time to support.
Eventually, we realized our core product was more than enough. The deeper we focused on that one thing, the faster we grew. Word-of-mouth exploded. Support tickets dropped. Customers were happier.
Focus wins. Build one thing that solves one pain point better than anything else. Once you dominate that space, you can layer on more.
4. Work seven days a week (at least at first)
This isn’t hustle culture advice. It’s just reality. If you’re competing with companies working 40 hours a week, and you’re working 70, you will outpace them.
For the first year of Bask, Eli and I worked every day. No weekends. No breaks. And we still felt behind. But that intensity helped us ship fast, adapt faster, and serve customers directly while we built in real-time.
The window where your startup needs you to work nonstop won’t last forever. But if you’re not willing to outwork everyone in the beginning, you’re gambling on luck instead of effort.
5. Building and scaling are two different games
Building a product is all about focus, creativity and agility. Scaling it requires structure, systems and delegation.
We learned this the hard way. Once our customer base grew, support tickets exploded, onboarding became inconsistent, and our three-person team couldn’t keep up. We thought the product alone would solve these problems, but it didn’t.
It wasn’t until we started hiring (slowly and intentionally) that things clicked. We brought on technically adept customer success reps who could troubleshoot without needing engineers. We invested in internal tools. We built documentation. Scaling is about infrastructure, not just code.
Understand this early: your first 10 hires are not just filling roles. They’re building the foundation for the next 100.
Building Bask has been the wildest ride of my life. We’ve gone from nearly broke with a failed eyelash startup to helping companies launch telehealth brands serving millions of patients.
But it didn’t happen because we were lucky. It happened because we learned from every mistake, listened to our users, and kept going when things looked hopeless.
If you’re building a SaaS product, know this: It’s not about having the perfect idea. It’s about executing relentlessly, staying focused, and building something people actually need.
And when in doubt, launch it, talk to users, and keep shipping.
