Leaders of Tomorrow: Daniel Umfleet, Kindbridge Behavioral Health
Welcome to my “Leaders of Tomorrow” Interview Series, where I interview those who have made, and are making an impact on the world of tech as we know it. I ask them to share their stories and explain what it took for them to get to where they are today. My hopes are that this can inspire and educate aspiring entrepreneurs in their journey.
This interview is with Daniel Umfleet, Founder of Kindbridge Behavioral Health.
About Daniel and Kindbridge Behavioral Health:
Daniel is the Founder & CEO of Kindbridge Behavioral Health. He has 15 years of experience working in the C-Suite across the Health Care, Oil & Gas, and Regulatory Technology Sectors. He also serves as Chairman of the Kindbridge Research Institute.
Kindbridge Behavioral Health provides mental health business solution for the casino and sports industries. Kindbridge builds internal mental health strategies for teams, leagues, and casino organizations that address gambling disorder and the impact of addiction on your organization leveraging the companies already existing employee benefits programs to ensure that employees and players have access to mental health resources trained specifically to deal with niche addictions and behaviors.
What motivated you to do what you do now?
A desire to see telehealth treatments and technologies embedded as part of the continuum of care for people suffering from mental health problems. I’ve been working on tele solutions to major health care problems most of my career, and Covid presented care challenges that could only be overcome by maximizing our use of telehealth technologies and treatment plans.
I also have quite a bit of experience in the regulatory technologies field, particularly in relation to Casino. I saw an opportunity to fill a need in the US where care access for a person suffering from a gambling disorder is quite fragmented and can be extremely costly for the individual.
The US has been struggling to organize the problem gambling space for decades and with the rapid expansion of sports betting, I saw an opening to create a solution that makes sense for everyone involved, from the player to the customer.
What tip would you give a younger you?
You have to create your own opportunities through action. No one ever got anywhere by standing still and waiting for the opportunities to come to them. You have to be aggressive and you have to trust your capabilities. The earlier that anyone comes to grips with this, the faster they will both see the results they are after and get where they want to go.
When starting a company, what is the most important step to ensure you have the best chance to succeed?
Understanding how your product solves your customers problem. You may have the coolest idea on the planet but it means nothing if it doesn’t solve a problem for your customer . No one is going to buy something that doesn’t solve a problem for them.
If you could see the future, where do you see the gaming market in 10 years?
Everywhere with some more consumer protection oriented regulations applied. I see sports betting and online casino pretty well entrenched in the US with some twists and turns here and there. I see several other emerging and developing markets adopting sportsbetting and various forms of online casino that could easily become massively important priorities for casino industry stakeholders. It’s easy to see that the demand for the product is there. It’s important to ensure the best interest of the consumer is at the heart of how these products are built and that the right infrastructure is in place to help manage scenarios and situations that go awry for the individuals that use them.
Can you describe a time you failed and what you did as a result. Please describe the lesson you learnt?
I fail every single day, and I continue to fail right up until I figure out how to fix the problem. Failing IS the job. I want to deliver the highest quality mental health care on the planet leveraging tele programs. This is a space that is in such infancy, with so much blank canvas around us, that innovation has enough room to breathe and thrive in that it makes for exciting times, but failures are part of the journey because we don’t have the recipe for perfect in mental health. Ever. Building something that is both extremely high quality for the person that needs mental health care and agile enough that casino and sport can distribute access to it so that we can improve the lives that need it and research more on the topic than ever previously thought possible is a tough reality to bring to life. The lesson I have learned over the years is that failing is winning in so many ways, you just can’t always see how the failure leads to the success yet.
If you could meet any single person in history for lunch who would it be?
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest Hedge Fund with about $150 billion being managed in their portfolio. The man’s successes speak for themselves, honestly. It’s hard to think of someone that I could sit with for 2 hours and learn more from.