Bootstrapping Using Services: Robin Wiener, CEO of Get Real Health (Part 1)

Robin has built an excellent company with large, international clients in the healthcare domain and has used the bootstrapping using services technique that we espouse in 1Mby1M.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Robin Wiener: I’m from Connecticut. I was born in Bristol, the home of ESPN. I went to the University of Connecticut for college. Early on, I had a major speech problem. I couldn’t really pronounce things. Along with that, I had a major learning disability. I had two sisters and a brother. The teachers told my parents that I just wasn’t as smart as my brothers and sisters. Maybe I could get married and that would be a good thing for me to do.

I was lucky enough to have a mother who thought they were crazy. She had me tested and figured out that I had dyslexia. I had a smart cookie as a mother and father. They figured it out. They got me into different things and made me show my worth. I was in plays and musicals. To help me with my speech, they got me into singing and helped improve my diction. I have such a fantastic family. Everybody supported me all the way through.

I went to the University of Connecticut. I did all right in college but it wasn’t great because of my disabilities. I worked in retail for many years. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always thought about it. I felt like I could do it my way and use the skills that I have found.

Sramana Mitra: When did you come out of college?

Robin Wiener: I went to college in 1982 and came out of college in 1987. The economy fell out. My best friend and I decided to come and move to Maryland. I’m never scared of trying something new. We came down to Maryland and got jobs down here and worked in retail for a long time.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of retail?

Robin Wiener: I ran different retail stores inside the mall. That’s what I went to school for—Fashion Merchandising. Through that, I realized that one thing I enjoyed doing was hiring people. I transitioned out of retail into recruiting. Through recruiting, I found my passion of trying to find the right person for the right job. I got into recruiting for IT people. This is where I started to look at technology as something that is really cool. At one company, I hired 200 people in a year. That was during the dot-com boom.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Bootstrapping Using Services: Robin Wiener, CEO of Get Real Health
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