SD Voyager Magazine - Feature on ASAP IVs

We were lucky enough to be featured in an interview with SD Voyager magazine, chronically our story and how we became the premiere provider of IV Therapy for San Diego. For the link to the original article, click here. Enjoy!

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

Taylor, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.

I earned my MD in Phoenix, AZ and moved to San Diego shortly after. I have been here a little under three years now and I practice Anesthesiology primarily, which is better known as the medical practice responsible for “helping patients go to sleep” before surgical procedures. While I love my day job and the work I do, it’s been a long road to get to where I am now in the medical world. It has been an important period of learning, and it’s a necessary journey to competence, but it’s left me burnt out at times and wanting to use my brain in another outlet. Over the past few years, I think I’ve been searching for something to help fuel a little creative and entrepreneurial fire inside of me. At the same time, 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 and it changes the way you think about spending money. It took some time to be ready to put some business dreams to paper and push myself outside of my comfort zone.

I started hearing about IV hydration services a few years ago. It’s become popular with the wave of concierge health/wellness that seems to be attracting people more and more, and it is a lane which felt familiar for me considering my background in Anesthesia. In a business venture, I was looking for creative potential, a means to connect with my community, and, of course, financial prosperity. For me, IV hydration checked all those boxes. I’ve been able to see the immediate impact an IV can have each day and I wanted to bring that outside of a hospital to a more convenient setting. I took a risk and decided to make it even more convenient by making our entire model on wheels. Rather than a traditional medical setting, I wanted to deliver the treatments to a client in the comfort of their own home/apartment/office. And that’s where ASAP IVs were born!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?

It’s been smooth-ish! I think I knew that starting and running a business would be difficult, so I’ve been prepared for ups and downs. Truthfully, I’ve enjoyed the process. I love using the entrepreneurial part of my brain and seeing something that I’ve built starts to succeed.

Time management has been key early on. It’s a constant balance of outsourcing tasks/jobs to people who “know better” versus opting to do it myself. I’ve learned that doing it myself saves money, but comes at the cost of time, which for me is valuable considering I have a full-time job. As my business grows, I’ve realized that, eventually, I won’t be able to do it all behind the scenes. But I’m okay with that.

Beyond time management, I have found social media to be the biggest beast of them all. There are infinite avenues of social media these days, and you could spend years studying and still not grasp it all. I’m still working to utilize our spaces better to attract clients, create meaningful content, and promote our brand because I know how important it is to a small business’s success in this day and age.

Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?

Our company, ASAP IVs, provides mobile IV hydration services to the greater San Diego area. We come to you and provide a treatment where and when it is most convenient for the client. 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. 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 a nurse (or myself) to the client’s preferred setting and we’re off and running. The IV takes less than a minute to place, and the infusion takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete a one liter infusion. All the medications, vitamins, and supplements can be safely administered together, so we get it all in one poke! We can do group events for larger parties such as bachelor or bachelorette weekends, corporate wellness days, or athletic performance gatherings.

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 many 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 motivates me. I’m proud of the team we have built, but even more so, I’m proud of the reputation we have built.

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?

Our company is still young. We founded the company in early 2019, where we have navigated from a single provider with limited availability, to a team of 6 providers and daily scheduling. This has dramatically increased our volume and the satisfaction of our team. We have increased our volume each successive month this year, and hope to sustain that trajectory of growth. We just celebrated our 100th IV visit/client! I’m looking forward to hopefully tripling that number in 2020. I think we’ve got the foundation in place now and are ready for more volume.

Additionally, another goal I have for 2020 is just the expansion of knowledge. The benefits and availability of our service are not yet well known in San Diego. We want to increase our outreach and work with local SD companies to bring higher value to future clients. We also want to occupy more of the health and wellness space, in promoting the benefits of IV hydration for athletic performance, immunity-boosting, and vitamin deficiencies, rather than just for acute illness or hangover recovery. I think we can be a little more far-reaching with our benefits.

Pricing:(all prices are all-inclusive, there are no other taxes, fees, or delivery charges)

  • Basic IV: $125

  • Hangover IV: $165

  • Athletic Performance Recovery IV: $205

  • ASAP Myer’s Cocktail: $205

  • ASAP Immune Recovery: $205

Contact Info:

Features and HeadlinesTaylor Graber