Phoenix Voyager Magazine

Feature on ASAP IVs

We were lucky enough to be featured in an interview with Phoenix Voyager magazine, chronically our story from startup in San Diego to expansion in Phoenix and Scottsdale. For the link to the original article, click here. Enjoy!

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Graber.

Hi Taylor, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in Phoenix. My family relocated to Phoenix from Texas in the 1930s, and we have extensive roots in Phoenix and Scottsdale. I went to Brophy College Preparatory for High School, graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, and I earned my degree as a medical doctor (MD) in Phoenix at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. I spent four years at the University of California San Diego for a residency in Anesthesiology.

Anesthesiology is better known as the medical practice responsible for “helping patients go to sleep” prior to surgical procedures. I love my “day job” and the work I do (I currently work with a private practice Anesthesiology group in the Scottsdale area). It’s been a long road to get to through medical training, and it has been an important period of learning, growth, and achieving competence and mastery in my field (which is VERY important when patients’ lives are at stake!), but it left me burnt out at times. I was searching for something to help fuel a little creative and entrepreneurial fire inside of me.

I am a calculated guy by nature, so it took me a while to figure out a worthwhile venture and feel confident enough to risk my extra time and money. Trust me, you spend enough years living like a broke college/medical student, and resident that it changes the way you think about spending money. It took some time to be ready to put some business dreams to paper and really push myself outside of my comfort zone.

I started hearing about IV hydration services a few years before I started ASAP IVs. Concierge health/wellness services are attracting more and more people through the higher level of time and care that they provide (compared to the normal 5 to 10-minute outpatient doctor’s office visit through insurance). I insert IVs and use them every day in my practice in Anesthesiology, so it was a field where I naturally felt comfortable and confident in my professional experience. In a business venture, I was looking for creative potential, a means to connect with my community, and, of course, eventual financial success.

For me, IV hydration therapy checked all these boxes. I’ve been able to see the immediate impact an IV can have each day in the operating room and I wanted to bring that outside of a hospital to a more convenient setting. Rather than being limited to a clinic setting, we took our service a step further and offer our service in a mobile-based, in-home setting as well, where we will travel directly to our clients.

Instead of being limited to a traditional medical setting, we deliver our treatments to clients in the comfort of their own home/apartment/office. And that’s where ASAP IVs were born!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

The story of any business (or success story really) would be bland without challenges and obstacles. Nearly every major enterprise started with a work ethic and a garage, working through the challenges which arise and dealing with them one at a time. I knew that starting a business, streamlining its service, and eventually expanding would be difficult. I truthfully say that I have enjoyed the process. The journey is more exciting than the destination.

I have always loved the feeling of having built something. I love using the entrepreneurial part of my brain and seeing something that I’ve built succeed. Our company has changed a great deal in the three years we have been operating. At the very beginning, I operated the company as the sole practitioner of the company tasks (accounting, marketing, customer service, etc.) as well as the clinical tasks (delivering the therapies to our clients, the more important aspect of the job!). As we grew, independently balancing these tasks became increasingly difficult, and I needed to outsource.

My background and experience were in clinical medicine, not necessarily in a small business venture. Time management is always key to success and is a constant balance of outsourcing tasks/jobs to people who “know better”. When running a business, independently finishing a task often saves money, but comes at the expense of time. If you are spending time on task A, you are unable to simultaneously complete task B.

Often, it is more helpful to hire an expert who can readily complete task A, freeing you up to focus on a separate task where you yourself may be the best expert to complete. As the business grew I realized that, eventually, I wouldn’t be able to do it all behind the scenes. Coming to terms with this realization and building out a team set up our company to fully succeed.

I have found social media (such as Facebook and Instagram) to be difficult and time-consuming as well. There are infinite avenues of social media these days (Snapchat, TikTok), and you can spend years studying and still not grasp it all. We are still working hard to utilize these spaces and better attract clients, create meaningful content, and promote our brand.

For the last 1.5 years, every small business has had to deal with the largest obstacle of all, COVID-19. For the early months of the pandemic, we had to shut down all our mobile services for several months. Then, once we restarted, we had the additional logistical capacity of the increased demand, since there has been a larger amount of our clients who are looking to stay proactive with their health in addition to utilizing them for recovery.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

Our company ASAP IVs specializes in IV hydration therapy. We were founded in San Diego, California, but have now expanded to Phoenix and Scottsdale as well as San Ramon, CA, and the East Bay Area. We perform mobile-based (aka in-home services) where we go directly to our client, and we also have a clinic in La Jolla. We currently operate in a mobile-only capacity in Phoenix and Scottsdale and are opening up a clinic in early 2022.

We can travel directly to our clients and provide treatment where and when it is most convenient for the client. Through our website or through our customer service team, we offer on-demand, same-day scheduling of our services, and we can be at your location in as little as an hour. While we are not a substitute for emergency medical services (and would always recommend getting professional medical treatment at a hospital if there is any question that the underlying issue is life-threatening!), our IV treatments are very safe and effective. We have performed thousands of IV therapy treatments and have never had a major adverse reaction (thanks to our skilled, professional registered nurses and our medical screening process).

Our IV treatments are composed of fluid and electrolytes, in combination with other medications and vitamins. We offer a variety of packages to target concerns such as: maintaining optimum hydration before and after heavy exercise, boosting the immune system during cold and flu season, treating inflammatory conditions such as viral gastroenteritis and fibromyalgia, and even IV hangover recovery (which is one of our specialties!).

The visits are easily scheduled online using our website. Once the client selects a time/date and IV therapy package to be administered, a brief medical history is completed (which is ultimately reviewed by me as the physician of our company) which ensures that the IV treatment would be safe for the client. After that, we dispatch one of our clinical providers (a physician or registered nurse) to the client’s preferred setting. The IV takes less than a minute to place, and the infusion takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete a 1-liter infusion. All the medications, vitamins, and supplements can be safely administered together, so we get it all in one poke! We have the capability to do group events for larger parties such as bachelor or bachelorette weekends, corporate wellness days, or finish lines at races, marathons, gyms, and cross-fit events.

Delivering a best-in-industry customer experience is at the center of the ASAP IVs model. Our team is professional, friendly, and skilled, and we do our absolute best to make sure the experience for our clients is a comfortable one. We are timely and efficient in our delivery of IV hydration services thanks to our mobile status, which I feel sets us apart from other providers. I believe that our rapid growth has been a direct result of the excellent service we provide, and we have received thousands of positive reviews to reflect that.

The positive experiences shared by our clients, and the dramatic effect we can have on their health and recovery in such a short amount of time, is what truly excites me and motivate me. I’m proud of the team we have built, but even more so, I’m proud of the reputation we have built.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?

I am a student of history, and readily acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. Most decision points for our company have involved heavy research on the internet, with other articles, books, or blog posts written by other small business owners. Additionally, we have met several awesome small business owners throughout the history of our company.

Rather than any direct or single mentor, we have used these relationships (some within our industry, and others from different industries) to collectively learn from each other’s experiences. This has been immensely invaluable and has avoided us “re-inventing the wheel”.