Part of the power of Sage is that our team feels a real ownership of the mission. But for Shane Connor, Sage’s Business Development Lead, there’s also a different kind of ownership at play, from years before he joined the team. “I actually put $10,000 into the very first investment round,” he says. “So I’ve been there from the very, very beginning.”

Shane had worked for The Judge Group for eight years, eventually rising to the position of Managing Director of Healthcare. His job was to recruit healthcare professionals, which gave him a deep understanding of the difficulties of finding and retaining top-tier talent in senior living. The Judge Group would place caregivers into communities, but because these nurses were their W2 employees, the relationship didn’t end then. Shane remembers calls from nurses and caregivers explaining the good and the bad of the workplaces. “I definitely got an idea of how hard the job is, how hard these people work, how thankless it is,” he says. “These caregivers are busy with kids—and maybe taking care of their own aging parents—and then still having to work a 10-to-12-hour shift in the field or at a facility.”

He saw clearly how much the industry needed a change. He realized he needed a change, as well. “I started to get burned out,” he says. “My dad died at 61. I was 30 years old at the time, and I'm like, ‘If this is my ride, I'm halfway done. What do I want to do to make an impact?’”

A pivotal introduction to Sage co-founder and CEO Raj Mehra changed everything. “That's when I saw what was essentially the roughest version of Sage,” Shane remembers. It was a PowerPoint that included bios for Raj as well as his cofounders Ellen Johnston and Matt Lynch. What struck Shane right away was that this team had both a novel idea and the technical skillset to pull it off. That was a rare combination in the senior living space. “No one had really tackled the problem before,” he says. “These systems that are used today are just antiquated, and no one's really innovated them in a cloud-based smart platform that you see in so many other industries.” 

So, Shane invested $10,000 and started having calls with Raj every few weeks to talk about strategy. Finally, in Spring 2024, Shane was at a real estate conference in New York and stopped by the Sage office. He mentioned to Raj that he was looking for a change, and soon enough, he was onboard as Business Development Lead.

What did Shane see back then that led him to invest and what did he see in 2024 that led him to take the job? In many ways, it was the same thing: from his years on the staffing side, he understood how difficult and how essential keeping great caregivers is for a community. “They’re the final link in the chain for all these businesses, and if they're not happy, and if they're not fulfilled, and if they're not rewarded, they will leave,” he says. 

That’s why in demos he highlights the fact that Sage-enabled communities see a 20% reduction in staff turnover. The caregivers — “the final link in the chain” — feel more seen and supported, and their workflows vastly improve. “Most people that enter senior living are leading with their heart, but I’ve seen workers get burnt out and disengage,” he says. “Sage has the opportunity to improve morale which directly improves the care delivered to residents. I’ve seen caregivers fall in love with senior living because of a tool like Sage that makes it easier to connect them to the residents and to management in a very seamless way.” 

More than that, since joining Sage, Shane’s gotten to see firsthand how the team’s technical brilliance has brought senior living into the future. “The thing that’s unique about us is that the product is not stagnant,” he says. Game-changing updates like Routine Checks and Multi-Outcome Logging came from customers asking if the new feature would be possible, Shane explains. The Sage team then beta-tested the new feature and within six months it was available to all Sage communities. 

“The benefit you get by being with Sage is that we push that software in the same way your Tesla sits in the driveway and updates itself. That's what Sage is,” he says. “You buy very little hardware from us one time, and then we embed ourselves with you for life, constantly improving and innovating the platform for your benefit. That’s totally unique to a partner in this space.”

Not long ago, Shane went to a new community to help install the Sage system for a Go Live. He knocked on a door and talked with a resident and her daughter, who were blown away by the product. “They were so happy to hear that she was gonna have that new sense of security,” he says. 

It was a full-circle moment for Shane. “I remembered when I first saw the PowerPoint and thought what it could be, and now I'm in a room, physically installing the button and it's going to be live within 45 minutes of me walking out, and this resident is going to be receiving better care,” he says, smiling. “And we're in hundreds of communities. It was pretty cool.”