Born and raised in New York City, my twin brother and I founded Bask Health after attempting to start our own direct-to-consumer telehealth company. As one engineer and one life sciences IB, we became frustrated by the lack of technology and infrastructure available to help non-healthcare entrepreneurs like us launch in the space. We took matters into our own hands to build Bask Health, a Shopify style solution for telehealth.
Bask provides a full-service software (SaaS) platform that allows you to build any digital health experience. Designed for doctors, physicians, entrepreneurs, and developers, the Bask system is built at an enterprise scale for the everyday user. We are a platform that enables everyone—doctors, entrepreneurs, or physicians—to create and grow a direct-to-consumer telehealth business.
Company: Bask Health
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Zachary Dorf: Born and raised in New York City, twin brothers Zachary & Elias Dorf co-founded Bask Health after their own attempt to launch a direct-to-consumer telehealth company. With backgrounds in engineering and life sciences investment banking, they quickly became frustrated by the lack of technology and infrastructure available to help non-healthcare entrepreneurs enter the space. Determined to solve this challenge, they built Bask Health, a Shopify-style solution for telehealth, empowering others to seamlessly create and scale digital health services. Zach’s approach to business is particularly data-driven, focusing on building products that both fulfill his own needs and solve problems for others, always striving to create the best solution in the market.
What inspired you to start your business, and what were the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages?
Zachary Dorf: I (Zach) had previously started an ecommerce company at the beginning of COVID supplying schools with medical supplies. It turned out I was actually pretty good at ecommerce, which first exposed me to the healthcare space and how much innovation was needed. In parallel, Eli had been working in biotech investment banking and had the idea of starting a direct-to-consumer telemedicine platform focused on Latisse.
When we came together to enter the e-commerce healthcare space, we naively decided to start an online telemedicine platform focused on women’s eyelash enhancement using a generic version of Latisse called Bimatoprost. It might sound questionable now, but at the time, we thought it was going to be a real winner.
We sourced some money from an old colleague of Eli’s and spent practically every dollar we had trying to build this platform. Ultimately, over 9 months later, we ran out of money and needed to shut the company down. We couldn’t get enough customers, couldn’t figure out marketing, and kept running into obstacles with Google and Facebook not letting us advertise prescription products.
We shut the company down and ended up owing Eli’s colleague money. We were at a crossroads, both considering returning to our previous paths in e-commerce and biotech investment banking. However, we started receiving emails through our dormant website from people seeking consulting services to help them build their own direct-to-consumer telemedicine platforms. These inquiries led us to pivot and start a new company focused on providing services that would have dramatically helped us launch our own direct-to-consumer business faster—as well as helping these potential clients start theirs.
At what point did you realize your startup was gaining traction, and what key strategies helped you scale successfully?
Zachary Dorf: I realized our startup was gaining traction after our first full year, when we evolved from demo to MVP and saw dozens of companies requesting access monthly. The early validation came from our first customers who sought us out before we even had a working product. Their input was invaluable in shaping our solution, confirming we were building infrastructure that companies desperately needed.
Our successful scaling strategies included:
Getting to market quickly to gather real user feedback and adapt accordingly
Creating a differentiated product with limited competition that solved specific problems better than alternatives
Excelling in our niche rather than trying to be everything to everyone
Maintaining laser focus on perfecting our core product before expanding
Embracing the competitive advantage of working seven days a week instead of five
Today, over 100 telehealth companies use our software, serving millions of patients, with thousands accessing patient portals daily and tens of thousands interacting with our infrastructure through these companies.
Three factors were crucial to building our thriving community:
Hands-on founder involvement – Eli and I work directly with every business that joins our platform, personally ensuring successful launches and ongoing growth
Exceptional customer success and support, which drives powerful word-of-mouth growth (we do zero marketing)
Building strong partnerships with every vendor and third-party we work with, from pharmacies to providers, who have become our best referral sources
Being one of the few platforms in our space without direct competitors, combined with delivering a product that genuinely addresses critical needs, has allowed us to win business consistently, even without high search engine visibility.
How did you approach funding and financial management during the scaling phase? Did you bootstrap, raise capital, or take another approach?
Zachary Dorf: We have always been focused on profitability. Many tech companies focus on hyperscaling, spending a lot of money to gain revenue without considering the bottom line. For me and Eli, we don’t understand this approach. We believe businesses should be built through cash flow and profitability. As such, we have used the cash flow from the fees we collect from customers to build our business.
After our initial experience of running out of money with our Latisse venture, we became even more committed to building a financially sustainable business from day one. We deliberately structured Bask with a capital-efficient model that allowed us to reinvest revenue into growth rather than constantly seeking outside funding.
This approach has given us tremendous freedom. We don’t have to answer to investors who might push for growth at all costs, and we can make strategic decisions based on what’s best for our customers and the long-term health of the company, not quarterly metrics that look good in a pitch deck.
That said, bootstrapping does require discipline. We’ve had to be extremely intentional about where we allocate resources.
One interesting side effect of this approach is that it’s forced us to be creative with our solutions. When you don’t have millions in venture capital to throw at problems, you develop a knack for finding efficient, elegant solutions that accomplish more with less. This mindset has actually become one of our competitive advantages.
We’re proud of building a profitable tech company in an era where that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Our financial independence has allowed us to weather market fluctuations and focus on building something genuinely valuable rather than chasing the next funding round.
What role did company culture and team building play in your growth, and how did you ensure alignment as you expanded?
Zachary Dorf: Company culture has been at the core of everything we’ve built at Bask Health. When Eli and I started this journey, we weren’t just creating another platform—we were solving problems we had faced firsthand. That mission-driven approach became the foundation of our culture, and as we scaled, we ensured every team member shared that same level of passion for making healthcare more accessible.
Early on, we learned that building a successful company required more than just a great product; it required a team aligned around a shared vision. One of the biggest ways we maintained that alignment was through direct involvement. From day one, Eli and I worked closely with every business that signed up for our platform. This hands-on approach helped our customers and ingrained a deep understanding of their needs within our team.
Additionally, hiring the right people was critical. We didn’t just look for skill—we sought individuals who were adaptable, eager to iterate quickly, and passionate about solving real problems. This ensured that as we grew, our team remained focused and motivated.
Finally, financial sustainability played a key role in shaping our culture. After our initial telemedicine venture ran out of money, we committed to building Bask as a profitable, cash-flow-driven company. This instilled a culture of resourcefulness and strategic decision-making, where everyone understood that our long-term success depended on making smart, sustainable choices. That alignment is what has kept us agile and allowed us to scale without losing our core identity.
Looking back, what is one critical lesson you learned about scaling that you wish you knew earlier?
Zachary Dorf: When you’re in the early stages, you can do a lot with a small, scrappy team. But as you grow, you hit a point where doing everything yourself becomes the bottleneck. I wish we had known sooner that hiring and delegation are just as important as product development. We learned that bringing on the right people—not just to execute tasks but to take ownership of key areas—was critical to our ability to scale efficiently.
Another hard-learned lesson was that speed matters. We wasted time early on perfecting things internally instead of launching and iterating based on real user feedback. The truth is, customers don’t care if your product is perfect; they care if it solves their problem. The faster you can get something into the hands of users, the faster you can improve it and actually grow. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to launch sooner, hire earlier, and focus more on building a scalable operation—not just a great product.
