Startup Spotlight #80: Decent

Decent provides affordable healthcare for small businesses.

Feb 01, 2021

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I got the chance to speak with Nick Soman, co-founder and CEO of Decent, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Decent helps self-employed people and small businesses band together to save 40% on their health insurance. We have comprehensive ACA-compliant plans built around free primary care, and have a net promoter score (NPS) of 79 vs. the market average of 14.

Startup Spotlight: Decent

Problem: Health insurance is too expensive, especially for self-employed people and small businesses who buy their own. And health insurance companies can only keep up to 20% of the premiums they charge, which means they can only make more money by raising rates.

Market: Health insurance is a multi-trillion dollar US market.

Solution: Decent helps self-employed people band together to self-insure and save 40% on their health insurance, like 90% of big companies do.

Team: Our team has 5 former CEOs and decades of experience in healthcare and tech.

Recent Success:

Soman: As evidenced by our NPS of 79 vs. the market average of 14, members really love our plans. I think that's because of our customer service, and also our care model. We partner with independent direct primary care (DPC) doctors who provide unlimited primary care with no copays or coinsurance to all members in our plans. My parents are former primary care doctors, and this is the way they would have liked to practice without the interference of Big Insurance.

Recent Struggle:

Soman: We're doing something new, in an arena where anything new feels scary. It's taken us some time to figure out how to talk about Decent plans - particularly the fact that they're comprehensive and ACA-compliant and will cover anything you'd expect a Big Insurance plan to cover. Thankfully we partner with forward-looking brokers who understand that what we're offering is objectively better insurance for a lower price. Now it's time to grow it.

Founder Advice:

Soman: There's a lot of lionizing entrepreneurs in our current cycle. Sometimes that manifests as talking about how lonely the job is, and belaboring the challenges of entrepreneurship. Don't forget to be thankful that you get to have one of the most intellectually challenging and high upside jobs in the world. It will make you a more effective and less insufferable entrepreneur. And if you're thinking about it, start a company - there's nothing that will teach you how to do this like doing it.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Soman: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Omri Mor, Founder of Routable: Routable is the simplest way to send and receive business-to-business (B2B) payments.
Craig Lewis, Founder of Gig Wage: Gig Wage helps you pay, manage, and support your independent contractors.
Melanie Fellay, Founder of Spekit: Spekit is the leading in-app digital adoption and enablement platform that helps employees learn their tools and navigate process changes by accessing answers and enablement resources in real-time, everywhere they work.

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