How COVID-19 expanded our mission and helped us earn FastCo's Most Innovative Companies award

If you would have told me a year ago that my company, XP Health, would be named by Fast Company as one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies under 50 employees, after a major pivot in our business, I’m not sure I would have believed you.

When we started XP Health in 2019, our core solution was to address the growing demand for more access to vision services by offering the best experience in healthcare, starting with vision. That took shape by providing eye exams and delivering high-quality, finished glasses in under an hour to workers at their offices. We chose “XP” because it evokes the values of “experience, express, exponential, and expertise” needed to overcome the fact that just 14% of the workforce uses its vision benefits to obtain glasses each year—a big opportunity that our talented team was chipping away at.  

But in the wake of C-19, XP had to make several tough and quick decisions after our revenue fell to zero nearly overnight. How to continue executing our mission to create the best experience in vision care? How to take care of our employees while being financially disciplined with the money entrusted to us by our investors? 

Like most businesses in 2020, we decided to pivot our model, and the result helped us embrace a new value along the way: to “exceed expectations” of what vision care can be by enabling employers to offer vision benefits that are more equitable, accessible, and lower cost for every employee by building a fully digital, more cost-controlled, and highly personalized experience. 

Why is this problem worth solving?

• Only 14% of the workforce uses its vision benefits to buy glasses each year
• This huge under-utilization of vision benefits costs employers $17 billion per year
• The average cost for an employee to purchase just one pair of doctor-recommended glasses per year comes out to over $300+ due to an incredible 3000% retail markup
• Employees who don't need glasses but want to mitigate eye strain and the effects of blue light must pay out of pocket for elective anti-glare or blue light glasses since traditional vision insurance plans don't cover these
• 65% of Americans suffer from digital eye strain, which causes headaches, blurred vision, and wreaks havoc on productivity

And how valuable is the solution?

• 87% of workers would stay with companies with better vision plans
• Currently, just 1 in 4 Americans uses their vision benefits for preventative care, proven to mitigate health problems caused by more screen time 
• Employers gain $7 for every $1 they invest in vision care, which will save employers billions
• 75% of workers under 40 say that access to technology and tools for virtual visits would make them more likely to schedule routine eye exams

Once C-19 hit, we understood the enormity of the opportunity to drive transformative change in this 50+ year old industry. After all, there are 4.8 billion people using screens around the world. We also believed that by pivoting to offer XP Health as an add-on for employers, we could help cover the gaps of traditional vision insurance and provide more access to preventative eye health that would save employers billions and improve employee health, and boost retention.  

With a maniacal focus on user-centric design, rapid prototyping, and experimentation over four months, we reinvented the user experience in vision care from the ground up. My co-founder James and our engineers developed a convolutional neural network using computer vision techniques that measure the unique facial dimensions and pupillary distance between a person’s eyes. This incredible AI-powered system was trained with 35,000 human face shapes and now has 98% accuracy—the equivalent accuracy of a $20,000 optometric instrument used in modern optometry offices but without the necessary office visit.

This is all a fancy way to say that we created the world’s first AI-powered technology to modernize the online glasses buying experience with a powerful, more efficient recommendation engine that offers every employee the *perfect* pair for their faces, which they receive in the mail the next day and can try on before they buy. 

The results have been staggering. 

Since launching our new platform, we’ve seen 188% utilization of vision benefits at our clients, with 188 pairs of glasses sold for every 100 members using the XP Health platform. Using AI and deep learning, XP Health helps companies save their employees up to 90% in eyewear costs per year while giving employers themselves a 10x boost to their vision coverage.

XP’s goal is to make the highest quality eyewear products accessible to everyone so that 100% of the world’s population can benefit from protecting their sight, being more productive, and staying safe.  

Since vision insurance hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years, it’s no surprise that employers and employees alike have accepted this status quo and “check the box” for vision care come open enrollment time, but XP Health hasn’t. 

We’ve been honored to be recognized for our innovation by Fast Company, and it’s encouraging that we’re at the forefront of what has the potential to have a huge impact on employers and employees alike. 

After a major business pivot, enhancing our product, raising $5M, and securing an amazing board of advisors, we’re working on our next adventure: providing employees even more affordable eyewear choices via sunglasses and contact lenses. The future for XP is certainly bright.  

On a personal note for my co-founder, James and I, winning this award is also a chance to recognize the outstanding efforts of our whole team and the dedication they’ve shown. This has been an incredibly challenging year, and without the help of all our employees, advisors, investors, and customers, we wouldn’t be on the trajectory we’re now on today. 

If you’re looking to learn more about how XP can help bring better, more affordable vision coverage to your company, please reach out. I’d love to show you how we can help.

Read our full press release about FastCo's Most Innovative Companies award here and the FastCo Top 10 Most Innovative Companies under 50 employees here.