By Stephen Tweed
After a huge media splash last November, HomeTeam, one of our home care Digital Disruptors, has announced that their CEO and their President are leaving. 
HomeTeam, serving home care clients in New York and New Jersey, last fall touted the fact that they had hired an Apple executive as their new President. ( See our Article) Josh Bruno, founder of HomeTeam, announced that Matt Marcotte, who formerly ran Apple’s retail operations, had joined HomeTeam as their new President. “I’m thrilled to have Matt on our leadership team as we drive towards our next chapter at HomeTeam,” said CEO and Co-Founder, Josh Bruno. “Matt has built best in class retail businesses with a focus on being customer and employee obsessed, culturally led, operationally focused and technology enabled – resulting in significant scale at Apple, Gap, and Tory Burch. He’s one of the industry’s most respected leaders and under his guidance and oversight we will greatly expand our capabilities.”
This week, we learned that Marcotte has left the company, and founder Josh Bruno is apparently also on his way out. The company announced that it is shifting its business model, moving away from private pay personal care, and focusing on Managed Medicaid home and community based care.
As a regular reader, you know that we have been following the Digital Disruptors for several years, and have questioned their business models. The back to back departures of two key executives raises serious questions about the future of this company. I suspect their equity investors are getting impatient for a return. HomeTeam reportedly raised $42 million in initial capital, and have gone back to the market with another $7.5 million of convertible debt financing. Does that mean they’ve burned through the original $42 million?
Home Hero Pulled Out Before They Ran Out of Cash
You will recall that back in August we reported that one of the early Digital Disruptors, Home Hero, had pulled the plug on their technology facing home care business. They had raised $20 million in venture capital, and we believe they quit before they burned through all that cash. They later resurfaced with an announcement of another health care related business venture.
In the same article, we told you about new Digital Disruptor start up, Respect, announced they were closing. Respect was based in Chicago.
Honor Changing Their Business Model 
One of the most highly touted Digital Disruptors has been Honor, based on the San Francisco. Honor was one of the early companies attempting to “Uberize” home care. They have recently modified their business model to focus on partnering with existing home care companies to manage their pool of caregivers. Honor approaches leaders of home care companies with an offer to manage their pool of caregivers using their technology platform. As one of our top tier clients in the Bay area said to me, “Why would I trust them with my caregivers who I’ve worked hard to attract if they haven’t figured out that their original business model would not work?” We have talked with a number of companies that have been approached by Honor, but don’t know of any who have signed up, other than Catholic Charities mentioned in the above article.
What do You Think?
As a leader in home care, are you paying attention to industry trends? What do you think about this and how it will affect your business? We’d love to hear from you about this and other trends in our industry. Join us for a discussion on Linked In at the Leading Home Care Network.
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