I Built Too Much in a Silo (And How I Learned to Listen to Customers) — Ethan Schwartzbach

Ethan Schwartzbach, CEO of Flychain, joins David Knack to unpack the financial and operational challenges that can make or break a growing home care business. From messy financials and generic accounting systems to benchmarking and proactive decision-making, Ethan explains why having accurate, home-care-specific data can fundamentally change how owners run their businesses.

Ethan also shares one of Flychain's biggest early mistakes: building too much in a silo instead of staying close to customers and prospects. He explains how that experience changed the company's approach to product development and reinforced the importance of listening to the people actually using the technology.

The conversation also tackles one of the most talked-about topics in healthcare technology: AI. Ethan argues that AI can be transformational, but warns against treating it like a magic solution. He and David discuss the risks of automating bad processes, the importance of AI governance and guardrails, and why home care organizations need to think carefully about how technology affects caregivers and other stakeholders.

As the conversation moves into growth, Ethan explains why growing too quickly can create financial problems weeks or months down the road, why cash-flow forecasting matters, and why successful agencies consistently invest time in their clinical and operational teams. He also breaks down how the right KPIs can turn financial data from a source of confusion into actionable information.

In this episode, you'll discover:

1. How generic accounting systems can make it difficult to understand profitability, corporate structures, expenses, and performance at the level home care operators actually need.

2. Why Ethan believes Flychain moved too quickly without enough customer feedback early on, and how staying close to users reshaped the company's product development.

3. How accurate, granular financial data can help owners move beyond using their books as a tax placeholder and start using them to make business decisions.

4. Low staffing costs, utilization, cancellations, caseload, and other underlying variables can affect gross profit, and why simply looking at one top-line number isn't enough.

5. Why automation can actually create more work or damage relationships when the underlying process isn't working in the first place.

6. How regularly creating forums for clinical and operational employees can improve engagement, retention, and their connection to the organization.

7. Why tracking metrics like cancellation rates is only the first step, and how breaking those metrics down can reveal the operational issues driving them.

Lesson Takeaways:

1. Clean financial data is more than bookkeeping. Accurate, granular numbers can help home care owners make proactive decisions rather than simply report what already happened.

2. Build with the customer, not just for the customer. Ethan's biggest early lesson was that what makes sense internally can be very different from what customers actually need.

3. AI isn't a substitute for good processes. Technology works best when the underlying workflow is already thoughtfully designed.

4. Growth needs financial discipline. Taking on more clients and hiring ahead of demand can create cash-flow problems if growth is uneven or temporary.

5. Your employees are the lifeblood of the organization. Successful agencies create opportunities for clinical and operational employees to provide feedback and feel like people rather than cogs in a system.

6. Don't let data become decision paralysis. Focus on the handful of financial metrics and KPIs that actually help you determine what action to take.

7. Benchmarks need context. Knowing your number isn't enough, you also need to understand what good performance looks like and which underlying variables are driving the result.

8. The goal of financial intelligence is action. The most useful data is information that can be interpreted quickly and translated into a specific next step.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction 

02:10 – Why Flychain is positioned as a home-care-specific alternative to QuickBooks

03:02 – Granular financial data and benchmarking for home care

05:16 – Ethan's biggest mistake: building too much in a silo

11:35 – Moving from retroactive analysis to proactive business decisions

14:36 – What Ethan thinks is overrated in home care

16:36 – What happens when you automate a bad process

17:48 – AI governance, context, and guardrails

19:19 – The small financial mistakes that become bigger problems

20:26 – "Death by a thousand paper cuts" and financial mismanagement

25:50 – The key metrics that help owners make decisions

29:55 – What Ethan is proud of at Flychain

30:23 – How benchmarks define "good" for home care agencies

31:43 – How to connect with Ethan and Flychain

Quotes

1. "Building what's in our brains can actually be quite different from what an actual user and customer wants to see." — Ethan Schwartzbach

2. "It's a lot easier to make those decisions and be proactive about your business when you have the numbers that will tell you a story." — Ethan Schwartzbach

3. "At the end of the day, that is the lifeblood of your organization. It's you