When Tristan Schukraft founded MISTR in 2018, he struggled to sell gay telemedicine as a viable business, especially to investors outside the LGBTQ+ community.
Any gay man can identify with the debilitating anxiety of visiting the doctor’s office for an HIV test—as if the test itself transmits the virus—and the agonizing wait for the results.
Still, safe and reliable access to testing is only half the battle. Staying negative or getting HIV treatment is another urgent challenge, especially in red states and rural areas where physical LGBTQ+ resources might as well be myth and legend.
Across the nation, a third of LGBT adults report being mistreated or disrespected by a doctor or other healthcare provider. For low-income or uninsured patients, the path to finding an LGBTQ-friendly provider is especially tricky in a medical landscape that has historically ignored gay health.
MISTR, a telemedicine platform offering easy, discreet online access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and long-term HIV care in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico, provided a solution for all the above.
Sitting down with So.Gay, Schukraft explains he conceived the idea to deliver HIV prevention, (and eventually treatment), to your door is ahead of its time.
“After I sold Frontiers Media, some local organizations came to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re having trouble getting people on PrEP. Please help us develop a PrEP program,’” says Schukraft.
Around that time, Schukraft was also invited to take on a more active role in the HIV Commission in Los Angeles.
“I was in the meeting for the HIV Commission, and there were a lot of passionate people there, many of whom lived through the AIDS crisis. They were looking at a five-year initiative and data from the first year. It’s now four years into the initiative, and they’re off the mark by about 80%,” says Schukraft.
It appeared the universe was nudging him to put his knack for problem-solving and business acumen into uncharted waters: How do you bring HIV prevention to the 21st century?
“I’m thinking, why don’t we have real-time reporting?” says Schukraft. “What could be the reasons people aren’t going on PrEP?”
The business mogul reflected on his own experience with the HIV epidemic, specifically a close friend he lost to the virus and another who nearly succumbed to it. He didn’t have to live through the AIDS crisis to understand the urgency of the problem.
After investigation, he realized some of the main barriers were the repeated doctor visits and the cost of labs.
“[With telemedicine] I started helping ten friends, then 20, 30, 50 friends, and it quickly became a full-time job,” he says.
He didn’t need further proof of concept: the gays wanted access to HIV prevention as seamlessly as possible. When MISTR officially launched, it coincided with Palm Springs Pride in November. The platform attained 300 patients by the end of the year.
Nowadays, they’re doing about 600 patients a day with 350,000 patients across the US. The COVID pandemic helped fuel the necessity of their business model. More importantly, they’ve been able to reach a demographic disproportionately impacted by HIV: Black and Latino gay men. They serve more Latinos in California and Texas than their competitors, and 15% of their user base is Black.
“I think what makes it successful is that when you see somebody who looks like you, speaks like you, and has the same interest in you talking about PrEP, you’re much more willing than somebody who doesn’t look like you, doesn’t talk like you,” says Schukraft.
MISTR sponsors diverse events that represent all of the different faces of gay culture, such as LA Pride, Black Pride, and Leather Pride. Although the company has a powerful presence on social media, Schukraft understands the value of old-school guerilla marketing tactics.
The CDC believes 1.2 million people could benefit from PrEP, yet in 2022, only 36% were prescribed it. MISTR aims to increase this number to 100% through convenient access.
Schukraft’s success hasn’t come from ignoring profits and numbers; he holds gay culture close to his heart and calls himself the “CEO of Everything Gay.” His ventures include ownership of multiple gay hotels and nightclubs, such as The Abbey in Los Angeles and multiple businesses in Fire Island.
Still, prioritizing the wellbeing of the LGBTQ+ community goes beyond business, and wherever there’s a gay community need—whether it be health or fun—Schukraft has tasked himself with bridging the solution.
