{"href":"https://api.simplecast.com/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhello-chaos.simplecast.com%2Fepisodes%2Fep-203-carl-stecker-XN30jPup","width":444,"version":"1.0","type":"rich","title":"Ep. 203 Carl Stecker - The $407 Pharmacy Bill That Wouldn't Let Go","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/f416d843-c024-4ad6-9b80-d86f6c0d4e47/a6383ec3-1b5f-4637-9d82-f89530dafb43/hello-chaos-podcast-cover-3000x3000.jpg","thumbnail_height":300,"provider_url":"https://simplecast.com","provider_name":"Simplecast","html":"","height":200,"description":"Carl Stecker walked out of a Greenville pharmacy after paying a $407 deductible before his second open heart surgery, and the frustration stuck to him like a tick he couldn't shake off. That moment became an obsession that led him to uncover something most founders never see: CVS and Walgreens markup prescriptions between 1500 and 3000%, creating a broken system where medication costs can be someone's rent or reason they skip getting help. So he did what any founder would do after nearly dying three times and spending 11 days in a coma. He built FreeRx, a subscription healthcare model designed to disrupt pharmaceutical industry pricing and bring affordable prescription alternatives to families and rural markets nobody else was serving.\n\nThis conversation gets into the real chaos of building a mission driven business after personal crisis. Carl shares how he went from knowing nothing about pharmaceuticals to creating a hybrid pharmacy network that delivers meds to your door for under $50 a month. But it's not a clean growth story. His Ohio pharmacy partner went bankrupt overnight. His IT director walked into an empty fulfillment center with no filter and called it out on the spot. He talks about the marketing experiments that'll drive you crazy and why he's willing to make zero profit if it means fixing pharmacy cost transparency for good. For any founder navigating uncertainty while trying to scale something that matters, this is what it looks like to keep moving when your partner fails, your body breaks, and the system you're disrupting is the same one keeping you alive\n"}