What Would Lisa Suennen Say?
Hello All, I decided not to lug my laptop on vacation, as it is hard to type with a cocktail in one hand and a guidebook in the other. Thus, I am leaving you with a terrific segment I recently saw on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. John Oliver, you may recall, was a […]
Over the past year I have seen a significant rise in the number of food-related healthcare company start-ups. Zipongo is one with which I have been familiar for some time; but the evolving recognition that a majority of our most expensive health conditions could be mitigated through healthful eating has spawned a plethora of new […]
I always assumed “entrepreneur” was a French concept, considering the etymology of the word, but as it turns out an Irishman coined the term in 1755. Richard Cantillon first introduced the term in his seminal economic work called Essai sur la nature du commerce en general, which was published after his 1734 death. In the […]
As we approach the end of March, which is officially National Nutrition Month, I thought I would pass along a note from those who clearly didn’t get the memo: Dunkin Donuts has announced in March that they are getting ready to fill the void that has stunted efforts at world peace by launching marshmallow Peeps-encrusted […]
I figured Thanksgiving was the perfect time for this clip from 1973’s movie Sleeper. For those of you who missed it because you were born after the invention of the iPhone, Sleeper is aa Woody Allen movie where the main character is the owner of the Happy Carrot Health-Food store; he is cryogenically frozen and […]
A few days ago Dan Munro, a Forbes columnist, got out ahead of me on a Princess Bride metaphor I intended to use for this story for one of his own, a really good column on healthcare disruption. I was going to use some of the same quotes from my all-time favorite movie and call […]
I learned today from my number one source of news, The Daily Show, that Dubai has begun a behavior modification weight loss incentive program that pays a gram of gold — worth about $45 at current prices — for each kilogram of weight lost in a 30-day challenge. They call the program “You Are Worth […]
I was surfing around Facebook this morning and looking at everyone’s postings about their impending vacations. Seems as if everyone in the U.S. is leaving this week for some exotic locale, stretching out their July 4th weekend into a week-long celebration of summer. I was enviously watching the string of boasts (my term for Facebook […]
On Tuesday of this week I hosted the 2nd Annual Consumer Health & Wellness Innovation Summit. We were fortunate enough to have an incredibly strong and diverse array of speakers and nearly 200 participants. It was funny, but a colleague asked me why I was the one hosting a consumer-focused conference when historically I have […]
Sometimes the cure for a serious disease might be right under our nose but we just don’t see it (I think of the accidental discovery of penicillin, for instance). Other times a cure or treatment might seem so unlikely that you just can’t imagine it. I had both of those reactions when I read a […]
Lisa Suennen is a venture capital investor and the managing partner of Venture Valkyrie, LLC, which publishes the Venture Valkyrie blog and co-produces the Tech Tonics podcast. She is also co-founder of CSweetener, a women's healthcare mentoring organization.