"Serve Well, Serve More:” Interview with Chris and Ashley Moates, sibling cofounders of TeamUp Therapy
This week’s interview is with Chris and Ashley Moates, the co-founders of TeamUp Therapy, a company that provides online speech therapy services. Their mission is to provide ultra-convenient, family-centered services that allow children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to thrive. In addition to being cofounders, Chris and Ashley are siblings!
Prior to founding TeamUp, Ashley was a practicing speech-language pathologist, and Chris was a student at business school dreaming of starting his own business. Eventually, his research led him to speech therapy, an area both he and Ashley are super passionate about. Their sister, Anna, has Down syndrome and the siblings saw the challenges that she and their family faced growing up navigating her therapy needs in rural Georgia. Chris and Ashley’s conversations about the state of the speech therapy market eventually turned into a business idea. Chris asked Ashley if she would be willing to start something together and a few months later TeamUp was born.
When I heard about their story, I immediately asked myself the same question many of you are probably considering right now: What would it actually be like to work with one of my siblings? I wanted to know: What’s it been like for the two of them to navigate being siblings and business partners? What was it like for Ashley to take the leap from clinical practice to founding a company? How have they each experienced the first year of building a business? How has their perspective on uncertainty changed as a result of the entrepreneurial journey? What do they do to shift after a tough day? What have they learned about the importance of making time to rest and recharge?
We spoke about all of that and more. I’ll let Chris and Ashley’s words take it from here!
Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. While every effort has been made to preserve the integrity of the conversation, please be aware that the quotes may not be verbatim but reflect the essence of the dialogue.
What led you two to actually decide to work together? What were you each doing before?
Ashley: I am a speech-language pathologist. I went to school at Auburn University and got both my undergrad and master’s of science there. Following getting that degree, I worked at a multidisciplinary clinic with occupational and physical therapists. It was a great company, and I got to serve some really amazing families. I became a speech pathologist because our younger sister Anna has Down syndrome. Growing up, I saw her deal with communication being a barrier in her daily life. I saw how that influenced how people viewed her and how that influenced how she lived her life. That experience inspired me to become a speech pathologist and support other families.
I’m so curious. Who approached who first when it came to starting the business?
Chris: I approached Ashley first. I went to business school at Tuck (the business school at Dartmouth). While I was there, I was exploring entrepreneurship and knew that I wanted to start a business. I didn't know exactly what so I was mostly looking into areas where there would be problems I’d be passionate about solving.
As Ashley mentioned, our younger sister, Anna, has Down syndrome. Everyone knows that healthcare is broken, and I started thinking about challenges that our family faced growing up. Anna had a lot of therapy needs which was difficult to navigate living in a rural part of Georgia. I began to do more research, and it turned out that our situation was not unique at all. Access to speech therapy was a problem everywhere, especially in rural communities.
I started doing more research and was fortunate to have my own industry expert in Ashley. So I'd call Ashley on the phone, and we started having phone calls about the speech therapy industry. Slowly the conversation started shifting away from broad theory and more towards, “Would we actually like to do something?” I'll let her speak to what was going on in her head as I started asking those questions. I went to business school knowing that I would be switching jobs and had an interest in starting something, whereas I imagine it probably felt very sudden to her.
I can only imagine. What was it like for you, Ashley?
Ashley: It felt quite sudden to me. I hadn't really considered it. I had a job that I really loved working with and serving families. It gave me so much purpose. When the conversations with Chris started to shift, I thought, “Why is he asking me these questions?” It was about a year ago when he really prompted the conversation of, “Could we do this?” I was shocked and didn’t really know what to think at first. But after our first serious conversation, it just felt like what we were supposed to be doing. The final decision didn't come until a couple of months later after we talked about it more and continued doing research. It was like something clicked, and I knew this was what we were supposed to be doing.
What’s it actually been like to work with a sibling?
Ashley: We have talked about this before because we both get asked this a lot. People are like, “You work with your brother. I could never work with my brother.” Chris has set us up really well for success. He created a week-long retreat where we got together before TeamUp really started. He made sure we were aligned in our goals, our mission, and our vision. We talked about hard things like how we might handle the sibling dynamic. We’re a couple years apart in age so we've always been close, but of course there's a sibling dynamic that comes with that.
He set us up really well by initiating conversations before anything happened. For example, if we have a conflict, how are we gonna deal with that? What will we keep professional? What do we want to keep personal? How are we going to talk with each other and approach these situations? I think it made all the difference in the world to talk through how we could best communicate with one another and learn along the way, and how that might be different professionally than the way we communicate with family or friends. I will say it was definitely tricky the first month developing and learning each other’s working styles.
A really amazing thing about working with my brother has been that our mission is truly a shared mission, and that mission has been part of our entire lives. Our sister Anna loves to say that she's TeamUp’s inspiration. We have been so impacted and influenced by her, who she is, how she lives her life, and how we want to make a difference for other families. I would trust Chris with anything, and I feel like having trust in a co-founder is incredibly important. There’s no one I trust more.
Chris: I echo everything. The only thing that I'll add is that I think that one of the reasons why we work well together is because our expertise is so clearly in different areas. It's very rare that we butt heads on decisions where we both feel really confident. Ashley knows that she's developing in the nonclinical areas. I know that I have so much to learn from Ashley about the clinical side, our patient population, and interacting with families. I think that makes decision-making a little bit easier for us, relative to other cofounders who have more overlapping skill sets.
One of my favorite questions to ask people is: What's the most honest way that you would describe the first year of building a new business? I don't care what you're doing - I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t experience some kind of rollercoaster.
Ashley: I would use the word whirlwind. It's been a whirlwind. Rollercoaster actually works pretty well too. There have been lots of learnings. We specifically call them learnings rather than failings because those learnings help us approach and figure out ways to adapt and grow. I was used to wearing a lot of hats as a clinician because I worked with kids ranging from 12 weeks to 21 years old. That said, I have so many more hats to wear now, and it was tough. There are new things to learn every day and not having a structured routine was something that was difficult for me at first. I was coming from a job where I saw 15 kids a day. When they were going to be seen was on my schedule, time for paperwork was on my schedule. At the end of the day, I’d see the number of kids I was scheduled to see, and then I was done. Productivity looks very different now, and it can feel hard to measure what I’m doing and achieving. As a clinician, seeing kids was a big part of my motivation. Sometimes making progress in something but not being able to check it off at the end of the day was tough.
I can definitely relate to that. What about you, Chris?
Chris: I think the word I would use is tedious. At TeamUp therapy what we do is offer virtual speech therapy for kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the state of Georgia. We're really passionate about trying to reach families in hard to reach parts of the state, where there are long wait lists or transportation challenges. We also heavily emphasize the family-centered component by making sure the caregiver is involved and an active member of the team. It’s an amazing mission, and I'm super proud of it. People always say things like, “Wow. That’s so innovative. So strategic.” Not to say that it's not, but I think the part that always gets discounted is all the background work.
We're still very much working in a fee-for-service insurance world. There's all these contracts that have to be set up. It's healthcare so it's heavily regulated. We’re credentialing lots of new therapists. There's all sorts of non-sexy work that goes on in the background to bring the mission to life. That’s the part where the progress is made. You just have to roll up your sleeves and do it, but it is tedious. The underlying passion is what gives you the motivation to do all the underlying, tedious work. I would love to sit back and riff on the industry, trends, and where it’s all going, but we’re in scrappy mode right now where we’re supposed to be.
You both touched on this a bit, but one thing that comes up for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the early days, are moments of self-doubt and fear where you wonder, “Is this going to work?” What helps each of you make a shift after a tough day when those moments hit?
Ashley: Two things. One is having a co-founder who is able to encourage me, be super honest, and stay upbeat when I’m having a tough day. The second thing goes back to what Chris was saying. It’s the underlying passion and remembering our why. What we go back to on tough days is,“We got to serve families today.” Remembering that is something I constantly go back to.
Chris: I think that’s right. Every task we do doesn’t necessarily feel like a mission moment. That said, we do try to be intentional about connecting the tasks that we're doing with the greater mission. If we get this thing done with an insurance company, we’ll be able to serve more families. I don't even know if I've told Ashley this, but something that I like to do every time we reach a tough moment, which might feel like a failure, is to tell myself that other people probably turned back here. If we keep going, we have another opportunity to separate ourselves. We’re different, and we’re going to keep going.
That really resonates. I think when you're an entrepreneur starting out, it can feel like there is constant time pressure. You feel like the shot clock is constantly counting down. I think the flip side of that is that the pressure can sometimes make it harder to do what you need to do. Have you two found that to be the case? What helps you focus on the things you can control?
Ashley: One of the things that creates a lot of time pressure for me is just knowing how much need is out there. I evaluated a kid a couple of weeks ago who has been on waitlists for a year and a half. That’s a long time, especially for a kid. We want to serve as many kids and families as we can and serve them in as many ways as possible. One of Chris’ mentors came up with a mantra we use which is, “Serve well, serve more.” I really love that and constantly come back to it. If we want to serve more families well in the future, we need to be focusing on serving well right now.
Chris: I definitely feel the shot clock, and I like it. When we did the retreat that Ashley spoke about, we talked about: Where do we want to be in one year? Where do we want to be in 5 years? What are the broader goals? I'm really glad we did that on the front end because now we can lift our heads up for air and ask: “Are we still tracking towards those goals? Okay? Good.” And then we can go back down. I think if we hadn’t done that it would feel like a rat race. We wouldn't actually know where we were or what we were tracking towards. I think it’s a good time to feel the urgency because the first few years of building our business and our brand are so crucial. We’re making our first therapist hires and meeting referring clinicians. It’s okay to have the urgency right now, but it’s not a forever thing.
One thing about entrepreneurship is that there is a lot of uncertainty. How, if at all, do you feel your relationship to uncertainty or the unknown has changed as a result of being on this journey?
Ashley: Mine has definitely changed. I think when I tell people that I just started this company, there's an idea that comes to mind of being a risk taker. That was never a way I used to describe myself. I like making safe, sure decisions, and I like being comfortable. I like being pushed a little bit out of my comfort zone, but not too far, you know enough to grow, but not enough to not still be comfortable. When Chris brought this up to me, and we started talking about it, I just knew I was ready to be all in. I had such peace about it, and I had no idea what the journey would look like or even what the end result would be. But I had such confidence and still do that it was what the Lord was calling us to and where our purpose was. It’s the biggest leap into uncertainty that I've ever taken. I feel like that's been my biggest shift - leaning all in to uncertainty and not being timid or unsure about it. I haven’t looked back and don’t plan to. I’m taking it day by day.
Chris: I've probably had a little bit more of a bend towards taking risks. Certainly, it was more risky than friends from school who were going into more secure jobs in industries like consulting and banking. I wasn't that concerned about that. We knew that there was a need in the market. I think the biggest uncertainty for me was my relationship with Ashley, working together, and her making this leap from therapist to cofounder and clinical director of an organization. How can you predict how something like that will go with the sibling relationship and this being such a new experience for her? Now I couldn't be more certain about it. She thrived off the charts in every way imaginable. It's still a startup but the biggest question mark for me has now been checked, which is a really good feeling to have.
It seems like you both are leaning into uncertainty more and more. You know you can figure it out.
Chris: I think the biggest stuff has been solved. We can see the impact we're making with families every day. We continue to hear about the need all over Georgia. We believe there's an appetite for what we're doing, and that what we're doing is really effective. Now, the question is: How can we get really, really good at doing what we’re doing in a way that makes life easier for our team and also for the families that we're serving? And then, how can we serve more families? It's really just optimizing those things.
Running a business can be all-consuming. What have you found helps you recharge and stay energized to keep going?
Ashley: Two things. I realized no matter how busy I am, I need to step away from the desk around lunchtime and go for a walk. No matter the weather, no matter what it feels like outside. I prefer it to be sunny and warm, but I have to get outside. It's super important for my mind and for clarity for me to move my body and just be outside. We both have things on our calendar after work that we’re committed to doing. For example, I have church on Tuesdays and Chris has frisbee. It’s nice to step away to do this other thing that's really important to me. It energizes me to step back in and serve more.
Chris: Very similar answer. I start every day the same way. I go on a walk, then I do one of those five-minute gratitude journals, then I read my bible. I try to control that first part of my day, and then Ashley and I both do a good job of putting things that we want to prioritize outside of work on the calendar. We make sure that we actually show up regardless of what's going on at work. For me, that’s frisbee. I'm gonna play Frisbee with my friend on Tuesday night no matter what’s going on. I'm just taking that time for myself because I need it.
If those things fall to the wayside, what changes and shifts do you two notice?
Chris: My productivity just plummets. Even if I was solving for productivity and not health, I still think it would be the right decision. There are just diminishing returns to staying at my desk. Talking about the shot clock - I feel like my productivity has a shot clock. If I don’t do some kind of reset, it just gets worse and worse.
Ashley: My stress level increases and my productivity gets worse and worse over the long run.
Chris: We try to hold each other accountable on this stuff as much as we do with business stuff. We’ll say, “Hey, what time did you go to bed last night? Did you get some good exercise in last week? Did you eat lunch?” Ashley will text me at 4:00pm and say, “I did it. I ate lunch.” I have to tell her that doesn’t count.
Ashley: I think someone has to hold you accountable about that stuff. It helps to have someone say, “I'm so glad that you went to Frisbee last night” or “I'm so glad that you went to Small Group last night and had that time that is important to you.” Both of our work very much impacts the other. Having the other person encouraging you to take that time for yourself because they know that it impacts the work that you do is really impactful. It’s hard to serve well when you’re not taking care of yourself.
The inspiration for the blog is the idea that no one has lived the life that you were meant to live before. What's that starting to look like for each of you? What's the unique life that you're building in terms of work and how you’re living your lives?
Ashley: It’s been really cool to serve families that didn’t have another option or were on really long waitlists throughout the state of Georgia where we’re from. It excites me to know that we are getting to directly work with families that are in different geographic locations. I’m growing in a lot of areas outside of clinical expertise. Chris has been teaching me a lot about the business world. We’re having a constant conversation around: How can we make things better? It's really cool to be the ones making decisions that are directly impacting families.
Chris: I really like the ability to make our own decisions. We had a quirky idea last week to introduce a role-play exercise into our interview process. If we were at a different organization and running that up the chain, maybe it would have gotten shot down at some point. But we're able to try it. We get to notice things and immediately implement them and experiment. That’s the part of the job that I really appreciate.
The business is on our shoulders and there is a lot of pressure there, but at the same time, every decision we make is our decision. If Ashley decides she wants to go on a beach trip or something, she doesn't have to ask someone. She can decide for herself, and it's her decision. Same with me. If I want to play in a pickleball tournament with my dad, there’s no one to ask for approval. It can feel like the business consumes a lot at this stage, but I can still decide how I spend my time. I do really appreciate that it will allow us to shape our lives in the way we want to shape them.
Last question - What’s next for TeamUp?
Ashley: We want to continue serving families and will be able to do more of that as we hire therapists. We also want to expand into multidisciplinary practice. There is a huge need for occupational therapy as well. We have a goal to bring that in.
Chris: That's exactly right. The 2 big components of our mission are family-centered and ultra-convenient. A lot of the families that we've been able to get off the waitlist for speech therapy are still on super long waitlists for occupational therapy. To add that on would not only add more impact by allowing us to serve new families, but it would deepen the impact we have with existing families.