While some entrepreneurship books are written by academics, James M. Sweeney is a serial entrepreneur who founded fourteen companies. He aimed to write a leadership book useful to both founders and restless young professionals. Creative Insecurity is an entrepreneurship book that will help anyone lean into the unknown, manage risk, and develop traits for success. It ranks among the best books for positive mindsets and business success. In this post, we share some of his street cred.
High Praise for James M. Sweeney on Page One of the Wall Street Journal
First, his serial entrepreneurship was the subject of a laudatory, Page One Wall Street Journal article which cited his “strong track record,” “dogged persistence,” and “clairvoyance.” As a result, much of his repeated success has been attributed to vision. Sanford R. Robertson, chairman of Robertson Stephens and one of the original fundraisers for Kleiner Perkins, said, “Jim can see farther into the future than most people do, and he’s been able to take advantage of it. This vision is a key element explored in his entrepreneurship book, Creative Insecurity.
Founder of the high-tech home healthcare industry
James M. Sweeney founded Caremark, the pioneering leader of the multi-billion-dollar home infusion therapy industry, earning recognition as the industry’s founder.
Capital raised
In his first business, Caremark, Sweeney sought and received backing from the prestigious Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers. In all, he successfully took four companies public, led a Leveraged Buyout Organization (LBO) resulting in a 650% return to investors and 77% IRR in less than four years, raised over $2 billion in financing for his various companies including $500 million in venture capital, $700 million in debt financing and $400 million in two IPOs. The $2 billion invested resulted in $30 billion exit value.
For decades, he has bought, sold, or taken public over 20 healthcare product and service companies. Consequently, his entrepreneurship book, Creative Insecurity, draws on these experiences to offer valuable insights into business success.
About Caremark, Inc./Home Health Care of America
James M. Sweeney founded Caremark in 1979 to offer home healthcare services. Caremark is the first company to bring complex intravenous therapies out of the hospital and into patients’ homes. This approach allowed patients who had been hospitalized for weeks or indefinitely to receive therapy safely and comfortably in their own environments—whether at home, on vacation, or away at school.
Caremark grew from a startup to a company with over $2 billion in revenues, serving hundreds of thousands of patients annually. According to an article in the New York Times, Sweeney founded Caremark (originally Home Health Care of America) after he “… realized that a considerable number of hospital patients requiring intravenous therapy and nutrition did not need to be hospitalized.” The company was profitable in six months and, within seven years, had opened 75 centers around the U.S. CVS ultimately acquired Caremark in 2007 for $24 billion.
CardioNet (BioTelemetry)
The first company to provide heartbeat-by-heartbeat monitoring, physician reporting and urgent response for patients as they went about their normal daily activities. CardioNet technology, combined with service center support, allowed for quick diagnosis of patients with episodic, potentially life-threatening heart problems. This swift diagnosis enabled timely treatment for conditions that are otherwise difficult to detect. CardioNet ultimately sold to Philips in 2021 for $2.8 billion. Jim Sweeney started this company in 2000.
CAPS
CAPS is a “just in time” IV medications preparation service for hospital pharmacies and clinical trials, allowing a high-technology, state-of-the-art level of quality control nationwide in preparing complex, high-risk intravenous medications, and nutritional formulations.
Coram Healthcare
James M. Sweeney was the Coram Healthcare venture starting in 1994. It is a specialty home infusion services and tube feeding company created as a leveraged buyout (LBO). Later on, CVS purchased Coram in 2013 for $2.1 billion.
Clarify Medical
While Jim was not the founder of Clarify Medical, he rebranded it, raised venture capital and got the product to market. This was the first company to provide Narrow Band UVB therapy, used to treat chronic skin diseases such as psoriasis, vitiligo, and eczema through a “smart” patient handheld device, without the need for multiple weekly visits to the physician’s office. This is done while remaining supervised by the physician, linked through their smartphones. Recently, 7 Wire Ventures invested $18 million in the company, which was started in 2017
Kids Set Free
Kids Set Free, a 501(c)(3) foundation, actively supports agencies and organizations that combat Child Sexual Exploitation. Its objective is to raise capital to address identifiable bottlenecks that hamper investigating, arresting, and prosecuting perpetrators on a timely basis. Its goal is to successfully provide capital and aftercare support throughout the United States on a city-by-city, region-by-region basis.
Coaching and mentoring
In addition to his role as a founder and chief executive, Jim regularly mentors professionals and individuals for success. He helps people turn toxic insecurity into creative insecurity, to get out of their own way, and achieve bigger dreams than they ever thought possible. He volunteers through the Stephen Ministry and through The Church of St. Clement in El Paso, Texas.
In closing, Creative Insecurity offers a wealth of positive mindsets and is a compelling entrepreneurship book. James M. Sweeney, a venerable startup entrepreneur with deep knowledge of business success, and his co-author Rhonda Lauritzen, wrote this upcoming bestselling entrepreneurship book.
