Pepper FAQ: NYC’s Spiciest Healthcare Community 🌶
Just getting started? Learn what Pepper is and how you can best engage 🤙🏽
TL;DR ⏩
- Pepper is NYC’s Spiciest Healthcare Community. We meet up in-person once-a-month since August 2021 and also have additional, more focused meetup opportunities (e.g., topic-based quarterly dinner series, founder-only events, etc.)
- Pepper is for: (1) People whom physically live in NYC or come here very often, (2) Health-tech/digital health/healthcare services only (no Pharma, Med-Device, etc.), (3) Investors, Founders, Operators (e.g., no consultants, lawyers, bankers), (4) People w/ 4+ years experience.
- Pepper is free as of this Sep ‘22, but likely won’t be in Q1 2023.
- *NEW* Pepper is open to collaborating on “bespoke” events for companies that clearly add value to our focused ecosystem in NYC.
Whose in Pepper? As of this writing … 492 people 👩🦰 🧑🏽👩🏾🦱🧑🏻🦱
- 25% Investors (mostly Early-Stage and Multi-Stage VCs)
- 25% Founders (mostly Pre-Seed and Seed, Some A or B, B+)
- 50% Operators
FYI you can see who EVERYONE is in the community through our CRM (link to CRM, its password protected), AND get a double-opt-in intro to them:
How can I best engage with the community? Once you’re in …
- 🗓 Come to monthly meetups. These are open to all and often sponsored by a Fund/Company. So far we’ve done 13 with over 250+ unique folks attending.
- 🙌 Founders: Come to Founder-only meetups. We’ve done two thus far with ~half of Pepper’s founders attending at least one. We’re booked out for the rest of the year of sponsors wanting to host these.
- 🪃 Use the CRM to get double-opt-in intros to anyone else in the community. Use this for sales, partnerships, recruiting and more! In the last 5 months I’ve introduced 122 people to one another, of which 101 have said the interaction was a high value one.
- 💰 Have your company/fund sponsor an event (see this page for details): Monthly meetup, founder-only event, or bespoke event
- 📣 Create your own activity/event that Pepper will promote: Pepper Members promote their own personal events, poker games, running clubs, etc. — so long as they’re healthcare-people-specific. (You can also promote your company/fund’s events)
FYI there is no online way (e.g., Slack) to interact with the Pepper community. That’s on purpose; we’ll see how it changes over time.
Who has sponsored events in the past? 💰
See below — also here’s an FAQ on Sponsoring Events
How do the introductions work? 🤝 (Link to 1min video)
Everyone has a unique link in the CRM assigned to their signup email. This unique link allows for others to request introductions to them (this uses a third-party platform called “Bridge”).
The intro request comes in to me, Rohan Siddhanti (Creator of Pepper), and I usually quickly approve assuming it’s appropriate and has the right detail. Thereafter, once the person accepts, you both are automatically connected!
Why did Pepper Start? 🌶
I started Pepper for two reasons: (1) I love building Community but had never tried my hand in an “official” way, (2) I wanted to recreate the feeling that the NY Health/Tech Scene had from 2014–2017ish.
From ‘14-’17 in NYC, you could do a General Assembly PM meetup for lunch, go to a Blueprint Health accelerator event in the afternoon, hit a Flatiron happy hour after work, and finish with a Zocdoc party in the evening. People would strike partnerships/sales, learn a ton, and even find dates all within the community that felt like it was building something together. It was hardly ever zero-sum. I want to bring that feeling back, in whatever way I can.
At the end of the day, nothing beats a beautiful in-person moment when two people connect and really “see” each other. It’s a feeling they remember for life. I’m in the business of creating those moments whenever I can 💙
Why is it called Pepper? 🌶
Pepper is built on the idea of being as honest as you can, and therefore always providing your spicy hot takes on the industry, companies, trends and people. Hot takes keep it real.
