175: Derrick Miles (CourMed®)

Derrick Miles on Innovation City

“What it all boils down to at the end of the day, it’s all about relationships. Especially when it comes from a sales perspective. People do business with who they know, like and trust.”- Derrick Miles

Welcome to Season 4 of Innovation City (The Miami Edition), a podcast featuring innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency and Aīre Ventures, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community.

Today’s guest is Derrick Miles, founder and CEO of CourMed, an innovative healthcare delivery service. Derrick is also the founder of TMB Equity Partner and a multiple patented inventor. In this episode, Derrick sits down with the team to discuss how CourMed came to be, what’s unique about the CourMed platform, the value of social capital and much more! 

They discuss:

• Derrick’s superpower is encouraging others
  • He achieved success early in his corporate career
  • First experienced failure around 37-38 when he left corporate America to become an entrepreneur
  • He got to a very low point in his life because he saw himself losing all of the luxuries in his life
  • A number of friends from across the country called for no reason, but it stopped Derrick from making a terrible mistake
    • The friends all said, “I don’t know why I’m calling you but I felt you needed me to call and encourage you.”
    • He realized the power of a word of encouragement – it can save your life
  • His superpower was born from the lowest point of his life
• The “Cour” of CourMed is short for “encouragement”
  • Our messaging is “Be Encouraged”
  • CourMed recognizes that everyone needs a little encouragement
• How Derrick was first exposed to entrepreneurship
  • A conversation with another successful entrepreneur, Joel Wiggins
  • Derrick had a feeling while working in corporate America that he was meant to do something else
  • It gave him the courage to leave his corporate job
  • Running a startup is hard work!
• An executive recruiter called one day with an offer to go build hospitals in Africa
• Entrepreneurs need a lot of mental support
  • They often spend a lot of time alone
• The greatest challenge with CourMed
  • They’ve received so many accolades and investors
  • But for some reason they’ve struggled to raise funds
  • The platform has grown, but raising money to scale it has been a challenge
• The CourMed platform is unique
  • Started out as a crowdsource delivery program, like UberLift or PostMates
  • But they deliver all types of healthcare products, primarily prescriptions, high-end vitamins, PPE, in-home Covid-19 vaccine
  • They use an enterprise software program
  • Platform built to enhance experience, last-mile delivery and patient satisfaction
  • Concierge delivery for telehealth patients and hospital-discharged patients
  • Morphed from healthcare delivery company to a healthcare solutions company with a delivery vertical 
• Telemedicine is here to stay
  • Covid-19 has really accelerated that
• Where the idea for CourMed came from
  • Talked to a friend with a courier company that wasn’t working out
  • Derrick decided to try to put his spin on it
• The power of relationships – social capital
  • He knows how to sell to a hospital administrator
  • Credibility and solutions
  • He continues to develop relationships
• Get in touch
  • LinkedIn 
  • admin@courmed.com

Lightning Round:

If money was not an issue, how would you spend your time?

• Thinking

What challenge do you want to overcome?

• Dealing with teenagers

What makes you feel loved?

• My friends and family

Where have you found peace?

• The opportunity to be an entrepreneur, and work from home

What does this world need more of?

• Encouragement