The City Paper:
According to the American Diabetes Association, an attention-grabbing 7% of America’s population has diabetes, and an estimated 54 million Americans are considered pre-diabetic. In 2005 alone, about 1.5 million new adult cases were diagnosed. Sobering figures, indeed.
Removed from the glitzy towers and fast-paced hum of corporate Nashville and operating in a non-descript Woodland Street building on the city’s east side, a major player in the diabetes support industry is quietly growing. Young entrepreneur Brad Gulmi, a 35-year-old Vanderbilt University MBA graduate and Silicon Valley veteran, has led Diabetes Care Club through 5 years of growth. The club is now America’s 15th largest provider of diabetes testing supplies.
‘There’s just a lot of business going around,’ Gulmi said. ‘We offer membership in a club, which has benefits a pharmacy can’t offer.’
Nationally, diabetics spend an estimated $23.2 billion on supplies annually, according to the ADA. Gulmi’s biz sells only testing supplies – blood glucose meters, batteries, test strips, lancets, lancing devices and control solutions. Customers sign up for the club, then supplies are delivered free-of-charge to their homes.
Mail-order diabetes supply companies are becoming increasingly popular, as prices are often lower than those of pharmacies because of the lack of a Medicare co-payment, among other factors. Also, home delivery is a convenience, especially for elderly and rural diabetics.
Diabetes Care Club has grown quickly. Though Gulmi doesn’t release patient counts, the company is the nation’s 15th largest in terms of both size and sales and maintains a run rate of $10 million. The company has patients in all 50 states, with Gulmi employing 40 in his East Nashville headquarters.
The majority of Diabetes Care Club’s revenues – about 90% – come from Medicare.
While the market has been a good match for Gulmi, he didn’t set out to be a health care entrepreneur. Gulmi worked as an advertising executive in New York City before earning an MBA at Vanderbilt. Then, through the late 1990s, he worked in marketing for several Silicon Valley companies.
‘It was very obvious that you needed to be at a dot-com at that time and get stock options,’ he said. ‘I’d always wanted to start my own business, but things were so good in San Francisco, there was no need.’
With the high-tech downturns of 2000, Gulmi saw a window of opportunity to start his own company. He didn’t seek out the diabetes market and had never worked in health care. He found the industry by determining several conditions he felt would lead to a successful company. He knew he wanted a business with recurring sales, an advertising-based customer group and low start-up costs.
Diabetes supply happened to meet all conditions, and Gulmi’s research led him to believe he could leverage his marketing background for success.
‘The key to this business is how cost-efficiently you can attract a patient and then retain the patient,’ he said.
Gulmi has been recognized as one of the area’s top entrepreneurs, and Diabetes Care Club was recognized as one of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Music City Future 50 companies. More.
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