Hi - this Dr. Rob Anderson, the physician founder of Marit. We’ve seen some questions come up recently about our investors, our mission, how we plan to sustain Marit financially, and why we require an NPI from users, so I wanted to take this opportunity to explain this in more detail.
As physicians, we've been let down by so many things that when something seems too good to be true, it’s natural to be skeptical. I totally get it. Our data is valuable - it's no surprise everyone wants access to it. But that sucks! And it’s not how it should be.
Marit is about salary transparency - so, in this post, I will explain clearly and transparently - our mission, why it’s free, how we’ll make money, and more.
We are backed by a mission-aligned group of supporters. Not Private Equity.
We started Marit because we believe critical salary information should always be free. Marit is, and always will be, free for verified clinicians.
We are not backed by private equity. We’ve seen the disruption PE has caused by acquiring private practices, squeezing incremental profits at the expense of clinicians and patients.
Marit is owned primarily by its co-founders. We have raised a small amount of funding from an excellent group of individuals who are passionate about our mission - including several physician angels, former Glassdoor executives (including our co-founders Vikas and my brother Tim), founders who've build some great digital health companies, and an early-stage digital health venture capital fund. You can see our team and investors clearly listed on Marit’s About page.. We took this funding so we could focus fully on building the best possible product and service for our clinician community.
The distinction between PE and Angel / VC investment is important to understand. Private equity (PE) firms typically buy established practices and aggressively try to maximize profits, often at the expense of previous owners and their end users. In contrast, Angels and VC investors support young startups like ours to help get great products off the ground.
So, how will we make money while keeping Marit free?
Our salary dataset is free for clinicians and always will be. We will never charge clinicians for access to salary data (MGMA already does a great job offering a paid service) nor will we ever sell your information to third parties - full stop.
If it’s free and we’re not selling data, how will Marit sustain itself? Why would investors invest?
The answer is advertising and partnerships. We will monetize by connecting you with relevant services you genuinely find useful. This is not dissimilar to how other trusted physician-focused websites work. As an example, if you decide to get your employment contract reviewed through one of our partner services, Marit will receive a small referral fee.
In parallel, we’re building a modern, comprehensive, and mobile-friendly job search product to connect clinicians with the best job opportunities out there, which we are excited to launch soon. None of this involves selling your data or charging you directly - instead, it’s about putting you in charge to decide which services you want to connect with
Why do we ask for an NPI?
Because we are Anonymous, but Verified. Verification ensures security. We want to ensure that every contributor is a real clinician and that only verified clinicians can view the salary information. Marit is not for administrators (they already have access to MGMA, AMGA, or similar tools). The other reason is accuracy - because salary data is only as good as its accuracy. We verify each salary submission using algorithmic moderation, and I personally review most salaries submitted to Marit.
Using an NPI as a unique identifier also allows you to edit or update your salary submissions over time. Your NPI is strictly for internal verification purposes; it is never displayed publicly or connected to your anonymous salary data. Accurate data is critical, and this verification step is necessary to maintain data integrity. If you have suggestions or alternative ideas to sure data integrity, please do let me know.
Marit is inspired by the best platforms in other industries
Marit started as a passion project for me. Medicine has changed a lot over my 20-year attending career, and most of us have now become just employees of a large health system. My brother Tim was part of the earIy team at Glassdoor, and I saw firsthand how Glassdoor rewrote the rules of salary and workplace transparency in Tech. Surely we could use something similar?
So, our approach is inspired by proven platforms like Glassdoor and Linkedin, which have demonstrated that it's possible to build thriving, empowering, and transparent communities, while keeping them free for their users.
I truly believe empowering clinicians - attendings, residents & fellows or medical students, with critical resources and tools, will them make more informed career decisions. I’m grateful to have a passionate and committed team excited to build a product with me that puts us all in control of the data we need to advocate effectively for ourselves.
Thank you for joining us on this journey. In a era of never ending reimbursement rate cuts, I hope we can forge a new path toward fair-pay in medicine. If you have any feedback, please let us know here, or ping me on Linkedin here
