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Featured Alumni Business: Hiveaway

hiveaway_logo

Name of Business:
Hiveaway, LLC

Mission/ Description:
Our mission is to help employers eliminate barriers to communication and to provide pricing transparency between employees and local health care providers.

Alumni Name and Contact Information:
Carl Hall, M’03
chall@hiveaway.com

Located:
North End, Boston, Massachusetts. Beta testing in the Back Bay.

Inspiration/Business:
The late Professor John Shank: I never thought cost accounting would be a class I would talk about 10+ years later, but Professor Shank really inspired everyone he taught. I still have a copy of the Ringo Rag case study. I’ll never forget him educating us on the need to admire and appreciate the opportunity in a rag company. I now look at boring, niche businesses with more curiosity and respect.

How The Idea Began:
I had the idea of aggregating category-based projected spending  (i.e. consumer denotes their interests, we aggregate, and providers communicate promotions) for the automotive and home maintenance and repair fields for a while, but I realized the pain point wasn’t large enough. When I discovered a.) How confusing tax advantaged medical savings accounts are and b.) How big of a theme consumer-directed health care will become, I became confident enough to approach some folks about getting the platform built. Luckily, a cousin, who is a savvy coder, and a couple of friends, who have other great talents, decided to offer their sweat equity.

Favorite Thing About The Business:
Creation. I know that in 10 years I won’t regret sitting taking action. Also, I’ve been amazed at how helpful and generous dozens of people have been with lending their expertise and experience. The fact that I am a technology idiot is also quite ironic; it’s been amazing to see how everyone’s expertise has impacted our business today.

Worst Thing About The Business:
The idea of knowing that 20 things need to get done in a given month, but not knowing how we need to prioritize them because everything keep evolving. Now I know what they meant in class when professors would state, “entrepreneurs must thrive on ambiguity.”

Most Recent Business Accomplishment:
We had our first promotion sponsored and we also met with our first potential distribution partner. We will partner with benefit consultants and brokers to profitably scale our platform.