From Stress to Scalability
How Real Patients (formerly Savvy Cooperative) scaled its recruiting systems to engage 10,000+ users across 55+ countries—after a failed Salesforce build.
“Rarely Decaf just gets what we're doing. To me, that's invaluable.”
Ronnie Sharpe, COO, Real Patients
Healthcare / Research Services
Meet Real Patients
Industry
Healthcare / Research Services
Founded
2016
Location
Remote
Employees
~20
Real Patients was born from the frustrations of its founders, Ronnie Sharpe and Jen Horonjeff. Tired of healthcare companies designing products and services without patient input, they set out with a mission to empower patients to leverage their experiences to drive positive change.
Just a few years later, the company had become a leading provider of qualitative patient insights, helping teams at AstraZeneca, Bayer, and the American Medical Association build better patient-centric experiences.
The Challenge
Delivering project-based qualitative research services meant recruiting diverse patient populations, verifying backgrounds, coordinating research sessions, and compensating participants.
As they expanded, recruiting patients, processing applications, and paying participants turned into a juggling act across disconnected software tools, email templates, and static spreadsheets.
“I didn't expect other employees to do what I was doing—it was unsustainable.”
— Ronnie Sharpe, COO, Real Patients
At one point, Ronnie and a colleague were managing 30 simultaneous client projects.
The Big Bet That Failed
The team's search led them to Salesforce. They were told a custom implementation would fit their needs, signed a 3-year contract, and started with consultants.
After months of collaboration, two things became obvious:
- Neither Salesforce nor its app ecosystem could fully support Real Patients' unique needs.
- The consultants still didn't understand how the business actually operated.
It became a costly misstep in both time and money—without ever reaching production.
The Solution
We believe in two simple things:
- Your time should be spent on what you're good at—not getting buried in technical weeds unless you want to.
- Long build and scoping cycles don't make anyone happy.
Instead of a long discovery phase, we quickly align on the minimum lovable improvement that moves the business forward.
What It Looked Like in Practice
- Shared context in the formats their team already used (spreadsheets, systems access, screen shares)
- Targeted follow-up questions instead of exhaustive workshops
- Built deep understanding of compliance needs and workflows
- Shipped the first production platform in one quarter of the time of their prior Salesforce attempt
- Continued with weekly updates driven by direct feedback
“The Rarely Decaf team understood our business and goals early on.”
— Ronnie Sharpe, COO, Real Patients
The Result
Launching the Ask Patients Platform (APP) saved team members dozens of hours on project management every week.
Key Features
- • Bespoke project management views with a birds-eye perspective of active projects and participants
- • Specialized tools for global payments, patient communications, and compliance documents
- • Robust security improvements and seamless data migration systems
Impact Metrics
1 Year Later
1,600+
Payments Facilitated
25,000+
Applications Processed
100,000+
Transactional Emails
140+
Projects Managed
10,000+
Users Verified
55+
Countries Reached
What Came Next
With the operational foundation in place, the partnership evolved. Rarely Decaf became more than a delivery team—we became a strategic partner helping Real Patients shape what comes next.
Together, we've continued redesigning products and services for an AI-first future while preserving the speed of innovation they need to stay ahead in a fast-changing healthcare landscape.