GreatCall (now Best Buy Health)

Five patents and two #1 health apps, from a unit with no formal roadmap authority.

GreatCall Labs ran without an executive mandate to build anything. It ran on cheap tests and evidence brought to the table instead of a pitch deck.

Where things stood

GreatCall was a telecom company selling simple phones to seniors. There was no formal innovation function and no standing mandate for anyone to build outside the existing product roadmap.

The call

The obvious way to get new product ideas funded at a telecom company is to ask leadership for a mandate first. I went a different way. I built GreatCall Labs without waiting for sign-off on scope, ran cheap tests before presenting anything, and brought the CEO and the heads of product and marketing evidence instead of a pitch. That is what got the ideas funded.

What got built

1. Founded GreatCall Labs, an internal innovation unit run without formal roadmap authority
2. Produced five U.S. patents for a trust-network architecture originally built for emergency response call centers, later assigned to GreatCall / Best Buy Health
3. Built product lines that became flagship products, including mobile apps that reached #1 in the Medical category on the App Store and Google Play
4. Built part of the product and patent portfolio that supported GreatCall's move from telecom company toward health company, ahead of its acquisition by Best Buy Health

Results

Scope

Founded and ran GreatCall Labs as an internal innovation unit while a senior manager, without formal authority over the product roadmap. This isn't a claim of sole credit for the Best Buy Health acquisition: the patents and product lines this team produced were part of what made the case for it, not the whole case.

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Transformed our SEO visibility, grew digital marketing revenue while cutting inefficiency.

Richie Hannah · Sr. Director of Digital Marketing, GreatCall

now: Founder and CEO, Yellow Cap Media

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