Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Duane Mancini & Rich Mazzola Discuss How the Project Medtech Team Created a Life Science Consulting Powerhouse

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Duane Mancini & Rich Mazzola Discuss How the Project Medtech Team Created a Life Science Consulting Powerhouse · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guests are Co founders of Project Med Tech, Dwayne
0:21
Mancini who is the CEO and Rich Mazzola who is the CFO.
0:26
Now Project Medtech is a company dedicated to helping innovative
0:30
medical technology startups succeed by providing guidance on
0:35
product development, regulatory pathways, and go to market
0:39
strategies. Founded in 2020 and based in
0:42
Cleveland, OH, Project Medtech focuses on supporting
0:46
breakthroughs in areas like medical devices, diagnostics,
0:50
digital health, and more. Under their leadership, the
0:53
organization continues to expand its reach, launching events,
0:57
podcasts, and collaborating with industry leaders.
1:01
Dwayne holds a Masters of Science in Medicinal and
1:04
Biological Chemistry from the University of Toledo and has
1:07
previously LED business development efforts at well
1:11
known organizations in the Med tech space such as LabCorp and
1:15
NASA. Rich holds a Bachelor's of
1:18
Science in Business Administration with a focus on
1:20
accountancy from John Carroll University.
1:23
He has served as Director of Finance at a technology SAS
1:26
startup and consulted at several CPA firms, always focusing on
1:31
growth and operations and finance.
1:33
He also brought his financial leadership to Coologix and
1:37
Resident Medical as a CFO. Now before we get into all that
1:42
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adbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:13
today, Dwayne and Rich of Project Medtech.
2:16
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:19
Yeah. Thanks for having us.
2:21
Good to be here. So you guys founded Project
2:24
Medtech at a time when the world was in a state of flux.
2:28
What inspired you to make that leap in 2020, and how did you
2:34
guys navigate some of those early uncertainties?
2:37
Yeah, yeah, yes. So, so I guess you know, to to
2:41
kind of go back to a little bit of maybe how we founded the
2:44
company. You know, we or how we, how we
2:46
had the idea I was at a company called NAMSA and, you know, just
2:51
kind of working through with Med tech companies and, and, and
2:55
because you get to do business development, you get your finger
2:58
on the pulse of what's going on within the startup industry.
3:03
And you know, I had, so I had this idea, Hey, I think we could
3:05
do this better. This would be a cool concept.
3:07
Started thinking about that a little bit, but that was
3:11
February of 2020 is when I really started to give that some
3:15
serious thought. March 16th, I took my last
3:18
flight, flight from Minnesota and then the world shut down.
3:21
Like the next day, April 4th, my wife is like, hey, we're
3:26
pregnant with our first kid. How great.
3:27
And I'm like, oh, this sounds like a great time to start a
3:30
company. And then, you know, the end of
3:33
April, the COVID is still, you know, everything is still shut
3:37
down. No one has any clue of when this
3:39
is going to let up. And so the idea was, hey, maybe
3:44
just launch Project Medtech as a podcast.
3:46
We'll just launch the media side of the company, put the rest of
3:49
it kind of on ice for now. And so, so that's what I did.
3:53
I took that job at LabCorp and, and moved over there and did
3:57
business development there, but kind of launched Project Medtech
3:59
in the background. Rich was episode 19 or 20 of the
4:05
podcast series. I had known Rich before.
4:08
He was a, he was oddly enough he was a + 1 to my wife and I's
4:13
wedding. And so I had known of him.
4:17
We had talked a little bit. I met one of my other Co
4:20
founders previously. He came on board in November of
4:26
of 2020. Rich ended up coming on board of
4:28
May of 2021. But just, you know, with those
4:31
guys really kind of thinking through, hey guys, this is what
4:36
I'm seeing. Does this line up with what
4:38
you're seeing in the industry? We all had different skill sets.
4:42
I think that was a really important feature of this as
4:44
well. The founding team and we, we
4:48
didn't go full time until I went full time in in January of 22
4:53
and Rich and Aaron, Aaron Tanhusen, who's our Chief
4:56
operating Officer went full time in August and September of of 20
5:01
so. What is it that you guys were
5:02
seeing Dwayne that did you move forward with something here?
5:07
Yeah, I think it was for these early stage start up companies.
5:11
It was the ability, honestly. I'll share my experience first
5:15
because this will make sense for Project Med Tech, right when I
5:19
had the idea, I knew what my weaknesses were, right?
5:23
Like if if I'm looking at a staircase, I can see the top of
5:26
the staircase where we need to go clear as day.
5:29
That's my skill set. I will most likely fumble on the
5:33
first three steps and and then once I get there, I'll I'll
5:36
fumble again a little bit. So I needed someone to help
5:38
Opera operationalize what we were doing.
5:41
Rich and Aaron were perfect compliments to that.
5:44
It does help that Rich has a very strong financial
5:47
background, right? I mean that that's a big key.
5:49
But he also is very tactical in what the next step is.
5:53
And and so was Aaron. And so, you know, that same
5:57
concept is what startups in the Med tech space needed,
6:00
especially at an early phase. You can't afford to go out and
6:05
hire a CFOA Chief Commercial officer, a chief off chief
6:10
operating officer. That's way too much capital to
6:12
use when you're not actually hitting any milestones yet that
6:16
are meaningful. We'll kind of get into that in a
6:17
little bit. And so that was kind of the
6:20
concept was can we provide fractional support in some
6:24
really key areas that need to be integrated.
6:27
That was the key. They overlap so much that if we
6:32
could have it under one roof, is there an opportunity here to
6:36
provide real value in the pro formas and cap table dilution
6:40
scenarios and fundraising strategies that also bleed into
6:43
the regulatory and quality and operational piece that also
6:46
bleed into the health economics and commercialization strategy.
6:51
And so that was the, the main concept was how, how, if, if I
6:55
can't do it, then how would we expect anyone else to any of our
6:59
companies to do it? And so that was kind of the
7:01
genesis of the idea. So just.
7:04
To just to sprinkle a little bit onto that too, I think you know,
7:07
one of the things I was doing a lot of fractional CFO work
7:10
within these CPA firms for startups at the time.
7:13
And you know, anybody that walked in the door, I would be
7:16
selling fractional CFO work. I wouldn't sell regulatory or
7:19
OPS or people's operations or anything like that.
7:22
So the value of what you're providing at specific times
7:25
within the startup is also crucial.
7:26
And there were no one stop shop solutions out there that could
7:29
provide every type of resource that a startup would need at
7:32
these earlier stages in the Med tech space.
7:34
There's parts that have, you know, Namsa does a little bit
7:37
and LabCorp does a little bit and some CPA firms do a little
7:40
bit, but nothing together in cohesive words, collaborative
7:43
across multiple consultants in multiple different verticals.
7:47
So that's I think the part. Thanks for that additional
7:50
context, Rich. So are you guys providing mostly
7:53
sort of this high level like fractional CFOCOO level service
7:58
or is there also like back office functions like, you know,
8:01
basic bookkeeping, accounting, HR, payroll functionalities?
8:06
Yeah, I mean, that's those those I can remember those
8:09
conversations so vividly specifically, you know, with the
8:13
Co founding team. Me and Rich were sitting at a
8:16
Starbucks right in Strongsville, OH, in May of 21 talking about
8:21
this right of hey, we can't just provide guidance of like hey,
8:26
and Rich will love this example. It's worn off on me.
8:29
This is a direct Rich quote. We can't just be hey, go dig the
8:32
trench over there. We have to go dig with the
8:35
startup. That's the difference, right?
8:37
So, you know, when you think about finance, yes, we help with
8:41
the pro forma, but we do all the back end bookkeeping.
8:44
You want regulatory strategy, sure, we'll do that, but we'll
8:46
also do the submissions for you. You want to know how to build a
8:49
QMS, we can help you with that. We'll also build it for you.
8:52
So with all of these, it was strategy but also tactical
8:57
execution to get these things done.
9:01
And that's a really big differentiator.
9:03
And and what that led into is that we want companies to feel
9:06
like we are actually part of the team.
9:08
I mean, every consultant group says that, but when something
9:13
goes wrong or something goes right, who's the first call?
9:17
If that could be Project Medtech, then we have something
9:20
really good going on and that's what we've pretty much driven
9:23
towards. What's QMQMS?
9:26
Quality management system, Sorry, yeah.
9:30
So, Rich, what were you doing before Dwayne roped you into all
9:33
of this? I was.
9:36
I call myself a recovering CPA these days.
9:37
So I spent most of my career in CPA firms.
9:41
I had fallen in love with the venture space pretty early on
9:43
and out in Oklahoma City of all places, where I lived for a few
9:46
years. But then coming back, I said,
9:48
I'm going to I'm going to jump on the other side of the fence
9:50
and join tech startup. So I joined a group called
9:52
Squints Inc down in Akron, which blossomed out a product or a
9:56
company called Drips, which was the spin off company.
9:58
So shout out to AC or Aaron Christopher down in Akron.
10:02
They had a really cool telecommunications product with
10:05
an AI engine before AI was the the hot thing to invest in these
10:08
days and really love that. Worked with them for about 13
10:11
months. And after we were done thinking
10:13
about raising money, I said, this is great.
10:15
I can do this for a lot of companies.
10:16
So I brought that concept and, and drips back as my first
10:19
client and a fractional, you know, fractional CFO, fractional
10:21
finance space for startups and launched that practice at a
10:24
couple different CPA firms. And you know, there's regulatory
10:27
compliance stuff within CPA firms and restrictions.
10:30
But then, you know, seeing what Dwayne was thinking about with
10:32
this project, Med tech and I had worked both with life science
10:35
companies and technology companies.
10:37
I said, this is great. We can get this out of a, a
10:39
regulatory environment, but focused in the consulting space
10:42
along with other education events and and eventually a
10:44
venture fund. And so that's what really
10:46
attracted me to what Dwayne was kind of building.
10:49
And I had a lot of that infrastructure kind of set up
10:51
for what a consulting practice would need to operate off of, to
10:54
help with that. So that was kind of the blessing
10:56
in disguise. So how many groups in sort of
11:00
this Med tech space have you guys touched over the years?
11:04
Just trying to take a picture of your your experience.
11:08
Over 80 companies now, yeah. OK.
11:10
Yeah, I'd say we're you know over 80 probably nearing 100 and
11:16
any given time, you know, 40 to 70 it just kind of it
11:20
fluctuates, but the duration of our engagements are the coolest
11:25
piece. I mean, Rich, you mentioned
11:29
reservant in the in his intro. Rich has been with reservant for
11:35
five years maybe and and a lot of our engagements are 18 to 36
11:40
months. And you know, we're just really
11:43
engaged with these start-ups. We stay with them for a while.
11:46
So touch at least 80 start-ups, you know, approaching 100.
11:51
What are some of the most common challenges that you see medtech
11:55
start-ups facing when they first get to you?
12:00
Yeah, I think from, from our end it's, it's everyone comes to you
12:03
with funding requirements. Everyone needs money, right.
12:06
That's the first thing. I think what we found is that
12:09
what the challenge with fundraising is usually the
12:11
strategy around what you're doing.
12:12
And and what I mean by that is start off.
12:15
So come and say, hey, I need to raise this much money.
12:17
It's like, OK, what's that money going to?
12:19
And they can't really articulate that.
12:20
And so there's a lot of back end information they haven't thought
12:23
through, foundational stuff they haven't thought through.
12:25
They know what they're supposed to do.
12:26
They have a gut, a feeling for what they're supposed to do, but
12:28
they haven't really put it on paper.
12:29
And that's where we can help them articulate in a better
12:33
fashion, hey, here's what you're raising today, but here's also
12:35
the next round we need to be thinking about which impacts
12:36
valuation in your negotiations today.
12:39
And so we're kind of broadening their view.
12:41
And Dwayne likes to say this all the time, where the shirt was on
12:43
Mount Everest, we're going up there.
12:45
We've been up this trail before. We tell you don't go down that
12:47
road, go up this road. And that's a big value add.
12:50
We've saved startups countless thousands of dollars of time and
12:53
money by educating them on the broader picture.
12:56
And I think that's where we start with a lot of companies.
12:58
It's our foot in the door investor readiness assessments
13:01
or or just giving them knowledge of the space a little bit more
13:04
than they already have and then helping broaden their view with
13:07
some of the strategic stuff. We know those investors who we
13:09
probably have connected to or been through a diligent cycle
13:12
with before will ask for. And so that's the big help we
13:15
have is kind of dropping those hurdles for them so that they
13:18
don't have to have the bumps in the road.
13:21
But also by broadening that view and looking at the subsequent
13:23
rounds and subsequent milestones and what the valuations could
13:26
be, it helps them better negotiate with the investors
13:30
what a proper valuation and proper ownership structure would
13:32
look like. Do you guys get involved in
13:34
those negotiations with them? Quite a bit finance, everyone on
13:39
the team does for sure, but definitely from a finance
13:41
perspective, absolutely. And Dwayne from his investor
13:43
connections as well does from some of those partnerships and
13:46
relationships he has. And so that's those negotiations
13:50
are kind of we've seen that before.
13:52
Why don't we help with this? I'll give a great example really
13:55
quick of one company came to us and said, we want the valuation
13:58
at, I don't know, 7 million, but this lead investor is going to
14:02
come in and they want it at 5:00.
14:03
The problem with that lead investors are taking a portion
14:05
of the round and all the other investors will follow in suit.
14:09
And as we, we walk through this with them, I said, well, what is
14:11
that investor? Why do they want it at 5?
14:13
Is it something with the exit where you're growing to?
14:15
What's the, what's the problem? And it was really about a
14:18
percentage of the cap table. They wanted it all.
14:19
They wanted a specific percentage.
14:21
And I said, well, that's an easy one.
14:22
Why not tell them go with the higher valuation and provide
14:25
them with a board seat or an advisor position on a board and
14:28
at that point, give them shares for their time that equates to
14:31
the same level of ownership that they wanted.
14:33
But it brings the valuation up where not everybody's as
14:35
dilutive at the five versus the seven.
14:36
And so that type of idea that that was a 32nd conversation,
14:40
couple minute conversation with the startup.
14:42
But that idea was I, because I've seen, we've seen that
14:44
before. You've been there.
14:45
I've done that. But somebody on the outside like
14:47
me is like, oh wow, that's brilliant.
14:50
Right. And so that's the kind of stuff
14:52
we get into where it's they've they've reached, they've done
14:54
all the leg work, they've done the pitch, they've, you know,
14:57
built the relationship with the investor, they've gone through
14:59
the diligence. We probably helped with a little
15:01
bit of that as well. And then at the end of the day,
15:03
it's they're stuck, OK, what's the situation?
15:05
Why are you stuck? And then how can we help with
15:07
that? And, and Anthony, just to, to
15:10
layer on here that, that's a great example that kind of leads
15:13
into just the kind of value that we bring to a, a start up
15:18
company. So when, when we, we, we have,
15:21
we had three different podcast series.
15:24
We talked to a ton of investors. We have a lot of investor
15:27
connections. Every single one of them says
15:29
they're betting on the team over the product and anything else,
15:33
right And and I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, they think,
15:37
oh, well, that means I have to have a full Time Team.
15:40
Early stage investors don't care if you have a full Time Team.
15:43
They just want to know that you have a good team, right?
15:46
Because the less money you have to raise means the better
15:51
potential multiple at the end of the day, right?
15:53
This is all it's advantageous for the founder, the first
15:56
investors, everybody. And So what is beneficial to
16:00
what you just saw here is if you can get a Rich to join you on
16:05
that call and show that, hey, this is the kind of person who
16:10
I'm going to when I have financial questions that
16:13
bolsters your team. And hey, by the way, I don't pay
16:17
Rich a $200,000 salary. I use them when I need them.
16:21
It's just like that story. For a long time, everyone
16:25
thought, oh, we need to have this full Time Team.
16:27
And that's just what we're telling you.
16:29
We have all these conversations with these investors.
16:32
It's just fundamentally not the case.
16:33
They're they're totally OK with this kind of arrangement.
16:36
And So what does that relationship between you and
16:39
your clients look like? Are you guys on the cap table
16:42
yourselves? Are you taking like a monthly
16:44
fee? Is it a combo of the two?
16:46
It, it's, that's a whole hodgepodge.
16:48
And I'll, I'll tell you that if there's anyone who probably felt
16:52
the frustration of when we started Project Med Tech, it was
16:55
rich on the billing side of things because you know, we have
16:57
to, we have to do everything right, where we do the invoices,
17:01
we have to pay people. We got to set up all the
17:03
structures, right, all these things.
17:04
And, and one of the, the major points we talked about was the
17:10
first few years is going to be frustrating guys, because we
17:12
need to meet clients where they're at.
17:14
And so that's going to mean a hodgepodge of different
17:17
relationships. It's going to be some fixed fee
17:20
project based contracts, it's going to be some retainer based
17:24
contracts, it's going to be some hourly contracts, it's going to
17:27
be some equity contracts. It's going to be a mixture of
17:31
all these things. Eventually they'll sort into
17:34
buckets and it'll be a little easier for us.
17:36
And that's where where we've kind of, we're around that
17:38
corner now. But yeah, it depends on the
17:41
situation. I would say, you know, in terms
17:45
of taking equity right off the RIP, that's probably pretty rare
17:50
for us. You know, it's just we'd rather
17:55
kind of date a little bit before we get married.
17:58
And so, but we've also have very flexible engagement models.
18:02
So we're we're kind of all over the place, but.
18:04
It sounds like, you know, just from my own experience, you
18:07
know, when you've got a fixed fee, you've got retainer, you've
18:11
got hourly, I mean each of those is in a sense it's own kind of
18:15
business model. You know, I mean, they're
18:16
companies that are dedicated often times to one of those
18:19
models. Does that create, I don't know,
18:23
a lot of internal angst or extra work having to kind of shift
18:28
between those? No, no, I don't think so.
18:31
I think, I think the way we look at retainers is you're, you're,
18:34
you're basically taking a chunk of our calendars, you know, or a
18:37
chunk of the team's calendars in, in that, OK, I like to work
18:40
with Frank in New York or I like to look, work with, you know,
18:44
somebody out in Indiana or West Coast, whatever the case might
18:47
be. But the idea there is you've,
18:48
you've a retainer is you're taking a chunk of their time on
18:51
the calendar. We have that dedicated time for
18:53
you hourly is you call us when you need us.
18:55
And that's very flexible arrangement.
18:57
At the same time, we might not have the availability you want
18:59
to suit your needs, but we will make sure we do the best we can.
19:02
So it's just, it's a different type of arrangement.
19:04
But to your question, internally, we look at
19:07
productivity and utilization like any other consulting
19:09
groups. And we're making sure that the
19:10
team's productivity ratios are where they need to be for growth
19:13
and performance with Buffer to then take on those hourly
19:16
engagements where they need to, you know, have some flexibility.
19:21
Before we kind of get into rounding out more of the
19:24
services that you guys offer because we haven't hit
19:27
everything yet, can you explain to us what kinds of companies
19:31
are a good fit for Project Med Tech?
19:36
Yeah. So, so we always say precede the
19:38
Series B companies are where we specialize.
19:41
And if you think of that as a bell curve and and when we say
19:43
precede the Series B, there's precede fundraise, seed round,
19:47
fundraise, Series A fundraise, Series B fundraise and beyond.
19:50
There might be bridge rounds in between or different types of
19:53
arrangements there. But those four major fundraises,
19:56
that's where we operate really well at.
19:58
And if you think of it like a bell curve, a lot of advisory at
20:00
the very beginning because there's not a lot of tactical
20:02
stuff we need to work on. And then it's a bell curve of
20:05
Seed Series A. There's a ton of stuff we need
20:06
to do, especially in the Med tech scene.
20:09
I always say Med tech's kind of wash and repeat.
20:11
Not that things are difficult or different, but it's that you
20:14
follow the same regulatory pathway through Seed.
20:17
You get your clearance or approval depending on your
20:18
regulatory pathway. You then go commercial with the
20:21
product or your fleet of products and that's your Series
20:24
A growth capital and beyond. And so the playbook is somewhat
20:27
similar across that that echelon.
20:29
And so we've worked with companies beyond Series B, but
20:31
it's a different type of work because it's more advisory focus
20:34
rather than we're in the seat helping you be tactical and
20:37
execute on things, it's more of advisory.
20:40
So I would say seed Series A is where we're very tactical and
20:42
very executioned and then precede and beyond is, you know.
20:47
It's always in medical technology and that could be
20:50
hardware, software, combination of the two.
20:54
Yeah, yeah. Medtech for us is defined as
20:57
wearables, diagnostics, anything that has to go through the FDA
21:00
process excluding, you know, basically the easy way to say it
21:03
is everything but small molecule products.
21:04
So pharma. Yeah.
21:08
And then and then I would say to you know, we've we've from an
21:11
expansion perspective, the last probably year and a half, we've
21:15
really gained traction in accelerators, incubators and
21:20
then hospital and university innovation groups, right?
21:23
So helping them evaluate technologies that they maybe
21:28
consider spinning out, right? What that could look like, is it
21:32
venture back able? Is it, you know, what's the
21:35
regulatory pathway look like reimbursement, what's a
21:38
competitive landscape, market size?
21:41
But but really evaluating a less from a technology perspective
21:45
and more from a could this be a stand alone company?
21:48
And so we've been doing a lot of work there and then also helping
21:50
VCs and other investment groups either determine, you know, kind
21:56
of kind of step in and help with some of their portfolio
21:59
companies or also helping them with due diligence for a follow
22:04
on round. Hey, did they make as much
22:05
progress as one would have expected that kind of thing.
22:08
So really started to expand our our client portfolio that way as
22:13
well. So you mentioned, you know,
22:15
getting more traction with accelerators and incubators.
22:18
Are you also kind of at this stage like helping them validate
22:23
the market fit? It's like, oh, I have an idea
22:26
for this thing that I wear on my ear and it gives A and you're
22:31
like, no, there's nobody who's going to buy that kind of a
22:34
thing. I think, I think this is where
22:38
the diversity of of of the groups we have internally really
22:43
shines a little bit here. So on the commercial side, we
22:48
have two former hospital executives.
22:50
We have a team of 1090 nines who are salespeople in some of the
22:54
larger strategics. And then we have a health
22:57
economist and reimbursement expert, right.
22:59
So we can get a full 360 view in terms of hey, is there a, is
23:04
there a reimbursement code for this?
23:05
Can we get this medical device paid for?
23:07
OK, the answer is yes. Great.
23:09
Hey, Jake, can you, can you sell this to a physician?
23:14
I don't know. I'm not sure it's going to
23:16
create as much value. OK, well, let's say it does
23:18
create value. OK, let's go to Jamie and Shawn.
23:21
Jamie and Shawn, as a former CEO of a hospital system, tell me if
23:26
I check both these boxes, are you interested in this product?
23:28
Absolutely not because of XY and Z, right.
23:31
So, so that's cool. Let's say we check all those
23:33
boxes and commercialization generally if you are a hospital
23:37
innovation system, you have access to those resources we
23:39
just described, right? So you could probably evaluate
23:42
that side. But then the next question
23:44
becomes which what we like to do is take that over to this the
23:47
finance side of the house, right?
23:49
And say, hey, Rich, this is it checks all the boxes.
23:53
Do you think someone would pay for this?
23:55
Like is this a business model that can integrate into a
23:58
strategic yay or nay? And, and sometimes that answer
24:02
is, you know, a little more convoluted or it's a easy yes or
24:06
an easy no. But but that's the kind of value
24:09
that we can provide when looking at an early stage opportunity,
24:13
at least a good gut check of like thumbs up or thumbs down.
24:17
OK. So we've talked a lot about sort
24:20
of the different types of consulting that you guys offer,
24:24
but there's also an education component to what you guys do.
24:27
Can you talk more about the podcast that you've already
24:31
referenced and the events that you guys put on?
24:34
Yeah. So we, you know, the, the the
24:38
vision is to create an ecosystem where Med tech companies thrive.
24:42
And, and we kind of from the very beginning took that and
24:46
said, hey, we need to focus on building a network because it'll
24:51
be beneficial to all the start-ups we work with.
24:54
We'll build a network in, in three main areas.
24:57
Who who buys these companies, who buys the products of these
25:01
companies and who invests in these companies.
25:03
If we can build that network, we would provide a really good
25:08
platform for the startups to integrate with.
25:12
Also, can we take some of the information that we've gained
25:17
and give it back to the community, right.
25:20
So when you think about those few missions and creating this
25:25
ecosystem, we started with the podcast and we scaled into
25:30
events. The podcast is, you know, we, we
25:34
had project Medtech, we produced medtech money and we also
25:38
produced and hosted funding Medtech.
25:40
Rich was the, the, the host of that one.
25:42
Medtech money and funding Medtech are still out there.
25:45
You can go to Spotify, Apple podcast and find them and listen
25:48
to them. There's some really great
25:49
content there. Project Medtech continues.
25:52
That's kind of our, our, our only ongoing show, but there
25:57
we're providing, you know, network connections, we're
26:00
providing educational resources. We're really helping in in
26:04
aiding the development of some of the ultimate customers we're
26:09
going to work with. But then just the industry in
26:11
general. And then events was our next
26:14
step there. And there, you know, we have two
26:17
real main events here in the US. We have our Midwest showcase and
26:21
our startup symposium. Our startup symposium is
26:24
excellent because it takes companies from ideation through
26:27
exit. Everything you need to worry
26:30
about IP, forming your company, finance, M&A, raising capital
26:36
from angels, family offices, VCs, corporate VCs, non dilutive
26:43
capital. So grants we cover regulatory
26:46
reimbursement, commercial strategy.
26:48
And then the Midwest Showcase is all about showing off innovation
26:52
in the Midwest. You know, for a long time
26:56
everyone thought it went Boston, NY and then San Francisco when
26:59
it comes to the Med tech and life healthcare scene we have
27:05
there, there are a number of top tier institutes, healthcare
27:10
institutes and universities in the Midwest that are doing
27:14
really cool things with really cool innovation coming out of
27:16
them. And so we wanted to take that
27:19
and, and we're all Midwest guys, right?
27:22
Rich is from Cleveland, still lives in Cleveland.
27:24
I'm from Youngstown, went to school in Toledo, live in
27:27
Cleveland. Aaron's a transplant from from
27:30
Hershey, PA, but we'll lump him into the Midwest.
27:34
Our chief commercial officer is from Cincinnati.
27:37
And so we really just wanted to kind of show off all the cool
27:40
stuff that we know is going on here.
27:43
And so we we run that event as well.
27:45
And then we do have an event in Denmark this year called Coming
27:48
to America. But if you're thinking of the
27:51
Eddie Murphy movie, you're spot on.
27:53
And really just helping companies think about how they
27:57
come to the the US and commercialize a Med tech product
28:00
here, because they're two drastically different systems.
28:03
You know, 1 is a generally a single payer healthcare system
28:06
and the other is not. And so it's a little complicated
28:08
for them to understand and setting up your company here,
28:11
there's so many facets of it that are are difficult.
28:14
And just to clarify, are you guys also helping to make
28:17
introductions to investment capital or are you kind of
28:22
counting on those folks to come or find their own relationships
28:27
and then you kind of help to mentor them on how to navigate
28:30
that space? The the mentoring is, is
28:33
definitely a big one for us, but we do help with introductions.
28:37
We're not an investment banker, so it's not like there's any
28:40
percentage of the raise we take or anything like that.
28:43
We maintain a network. We will send deal flow to the
28:49
investors and say, hey, this is a company that's raising, here's
28:52
what we're doing with them, here's what we know about them.
28:54
But you should have a conversation directly with them,
28:57
right? And we kind of let them make a
28:59
decision. And you know, really the network
29:03
was built because we sent good deal flow, well coached
29:07
companies to these investors. And so the investors are more
29:11
than happy to take the e-mail, look at it, say yay or nay to
29:15
another conversation. But from there, it's kind of in
29:18
the entrepreneurs hands. It's kind of like a level of
29:20
validation to the investor. It's like, oh, you guys work
29:24
with Project Medtech? OK, I know at least that you're
29:27
serious. I don't know if it's a good fit
29:29
for me. I need to do my due diligence,
29:31
but I at least know that you guys have taken the proper
29:34
steps, that this is worth the time for me to take a look.
29:37
Yep, and we're we're totally honest in that e-mail.
29:39
Hey, we are we're working with them on finance OPS and
29:42
commercial or hey, we did one project with this group.
29:46
We really don't know more than you probably know.
29:49
You know, totally transparent with the investors and and
29:52
again, if you, if you're transparent and if you create
29:55
value, it generally works out. And, and just I think the types
30:01
of opportunities we're putting in front of our investors, we
30:02
know what they're looking at or we know what they want to look
30:04
at. We know their thesis, we know
30:06
their check size. We know what rounds they like to
30:08
invest in. We understand their diligence
30:09
process to a certain extent. And so when we put a deal in
30:11
front of them, it's not like we're sending AC level company
30:14
to a Series B investor, right? We're sending the right
30:16
companies at the right times to the right investors, or in some
30:18
cases proactively stating that they're not here yet.
30:20
Just keeping you aware of them. And pay attention to these guys.
30:23
They got something going on. And and Rich, great point
30:26
because that advice, while helped us build a relationship
30:31
with investors, start-ups need to understand that as well is
30:36
just just be you. You, you are going to meet
30:38
people in this ecosystem who are like, hey, I know Bill Traynor
30:42
and mutual Capital Partners. You should go talk to him and
30:45
they'll go talk to Bill Trainer. They're a pre seed company.
30:48
Bill's, Bill's mutual Capital Partners fund likes to invest in
30:52
companies that have annual recurring revenue.
30:55
So you, if you're a pre seed company and you go talk to Bill,
30:59
he's your only VC you've talked to so far.
31:01
And he says, well, hey, I got to see some revenue before I'm
31:03
interested in investing. OK, that startup's going to go
31:07
back and take that advice and say, well, I got to, I got to
31:10
get revenue to get investment dollars.
31:12
They should have never have been talking to Bill.
31:15
He's not. They've got the wrong.
31:16
Idea Now they think that every investor is gonna think that and
31:19
they just they talk to the wrong guy at the wrong stage.
31:22
You've got to talk to the right investor at the right stage and,
31:25
and some of that is that's where we can lead you and say, hey,
31:29
you know, because what happens there, Anthony, is then they
31:31
focus on revenue instead of clinical data and, and there you
31:36
have a broken problem right off the RIP.
31:38
And so, you know, while rich, you know, was talking about how
31:42
that helped us build relationships in the investor
31:44
network, it helps us lead our start-ups in the right
31:46
direction, too. That's a gold nugget there,
31:50
Dwayne. I whether I wonder whether you
31:52
or Rich have another sort of tip for start-ups that you think
31:58
would be like spot on that you see a lot of people sort of get
32:01
confused about or tripped up on. I'd say there's probably too
32:08
many to that we don't have enough time for.
32:10
But no, I think it, when it comes to understanding your
32:14
market, I think they, it's go to market fit, right.
32:17
Most Med tech startups have a predetermined pathway to market.
32:22
And in, in some cases to, to Dwayne's point is they have the
32:26
ability to sell their product prior to at some sort of
32:28
clinical data point because it doesn't require regulatory
32:31
approval. That's actually a detriment
32:33
because clinicians value committees within hospitals or
32:36
VAC committees. They're going to want to see
32:38
some of that data to actually say, OK, I'm interested in
32:40
buying this product. And so to Dwayne's point,
32:42
they're just reiterating, just because you have multiple
32:45
pathways and one is closer to revenue and the others doesn't
32:47
mean it's the right one. I think the other thing that
32:51
tends to get people in a bit of a tickle is when you talk about
32:55
investments, you're really always focused on the first
32:57
round that you're in right now. You're not focused on the
32:59
subsequent rounds and understanding what the dynamics
33:01
of those rounds will be. And so sometimes startups will
33:04
take a deal today because it's quick and painless, but it will
33:07
mess up their subsequent rounds, the value of the rounds.
33:09
It will require a lot of rework with attorneys to redo documents
33:12
or whatever. So paying attention to the full
33:13
landscape and starting with the exit in mind, why?
33:17
You know, we're building this to exit, We're building this to get
33:19
this to market. What does that exit look like?
33:21
It might be multiple different types of exits, but
33:23
understanding what those are today will help influence your
33:26
decisions across that entire timeline.
33:29
And so start with the end in mind and work your way back.
33:31
So what's an example of how somebody might mess up the cap
33:34
table or the structure of the deal early on that affects, you
33:37
know, future rounds? Is it just taking a a bad
33:40
valuation or is there more nuance to it?
33:43
So this wasn't a client, this was just somebody, you know,
33:45
picking our brains at one of our events.
33:47
But there was a situation where they had raised money from, And
33:51
I, I've seen this multiple times where we've had start-ups raise
33:53
money from a couple angels, high net worth individuals, which is
33:56
what the angels refers to, versus an Angel group with a
34:00
diligence process or a venture Capital Group that has a
34:03
diligence process. They raise money from one person
34:05
or a group of small individuals. And the idea there is that that
34:09
that discussion, that diligence, that pain you have to go through
34:12
to get an investment to debate about their questions versus
34:16
your answers and what your products doing.
34:18
If that's missing at the beginning, you tend to have
34:20
that's actually a negative in in my view.
34:22
And I think most of the team's view is because valuations can
34:25
be higher for a lower about it in an earlier stage, which then
34:28
what will happen in the subsequent round is no one will
34:30
invest in you because in order for them to invest, they have to
34:32
invest a higher dollar amount of a higher valuation.
34:35
And so we had an individual come to us with a pretty absurd
34:38
valuation in, in terms of what their product market fit was.
34:41
And at the end of the day, it was influenced by some folks
34:44
that didn't work with start-ups in a financial world.
34:46
And, and what we ended up having to encourage them to do is we
34:49
called it, you know, reset your cap table, but basically go
34:51
accept a down round and renegotiate that, that prior
34:54
investment at a lower valuation because you won't be able to
34:57
raise money now when you need it.
35:01
And, and it's, it's just a matter of you need the right
35:03
people in the room. A lot of people say they work
35:05
with startups and I would say most people don't.
35:08
If you don't work in the negotiations, you don't
35:10
understand the landscape, you don't understand the timelines,
35:12
you don't understand the exits. That becomes a bit of a problem
35:14
because something might look correct today, but it's not
35:17
going to be correct in 18 months.
35:20
Yeah, Rich. Dwayne, did you have more to add
35:22
to that? Not to that.
35:24
I I have a keep going on the finance piece.
35:27
I have another big, big kind of like we see companies screw up.
35:32
No, let's go there because I was going to kind of shift gears
35:34
anyways. OK.
35:35
So, so, so he mentioned the finance, the clinical data
35:38
piece, the other one that is huge and this affects your
35:42
timeline, it affects burn rate. All of it is just because you
35:47
get for regulated products, just because you get your regulatory
35:50
clearance does not mean you're commercializing, right.
35:54
So like you can't, if we see another, if I see another pitch
35:57
deck that says I get 510K clearance and then January 26th,
36:01
I'm going to generate $4 million that year and then 20 the next
36:04
year, it's probably not going to happen.
36:07
And and you know, the reason for this is like I'm AI, my
36:12
background is in the regulatory pre commercial side of the
36:16
business. It is a walk in the park
36:18
compared to commercialization. Commercialization's the hardest
36:22
thing you're going to do. There's so much to it, the sales
36:26
cycle into the into hospitals as long, but also we talked about
36:31
the clinical data need. It's also just, hey, get your
36:35
first few sites, your first few customers up and running and
36:40
then let people interact with your device.
36:42
Because when you're when we're talking about the development
36:46
side, you're generally there, you're, you're with the
36:48
physician, you're with whoever is using it, you're there to
36:51
help answer questions. But when it kind of gets out in
36:54
the quote UN quote wild, right, What happens now?
36:58
Do other physicians adopted, OK, can you move from the third
37:02
floor of the hospital to 4-5 and six?
37:05
I mean there's so many things that you kind of just need to
37:08
figure out before and you might go back and then reiterate your
37:11
product again, right? And now your real commercial one
37:14
is version 2. But if you don't plan for that
37:18
in your pro forma, you're going to that's this is where bridge
37:22
rounds happen. This is where down rounds
37:24
happen. This is where companies run out
37:25
of capital. I mean, commercialization is
37:29
it's a dogfight like you got to be ready to, to really get after
37:32
it there. And it's going to take however
37:34
long you think it's going to take, it's going to be much
37:36
longer. And what's your best advice for
37:39
folks that are approaching or in that commercialization phase?
37:44
Like is it hey, find somebody who's LED a medical device sales
37:48
team before, let them come in and kind of lay the road map, or
37:53
is it, hey, you got to do this 'cause you're the founder and
37:55
figure it out? I, I, I would say you're, you're
37:59
first full time hire. If you know when, when you think
38:03
about like as you get closer to that should be on the commercial
38:06
side. I don't, I don't know if it's
38:08
the skill set of, oh, they've ran a commercial organization
38:11
before 'cause you're probably not going out and hiring a ton
38:14
of people just yet. I don't know.
38:16
I, I'm not sure on, on, I think I could be swayed either way.
38:20
There's more ways to, there's other ways to do it.
38:23
But you know, the, the advice there is just be realistic on
38:27
what it's going to take to commercialize.
38:30
I mean, Rich and I see it all the time where they're like, oh,
38:34
we're getting clearance and then we're going to hire like 501090
38:37
nines and they're going to sell in all these hospitals for us
38:42
maybe, but they're carrying other products in their bag.
38:46
And so they're not thinking of your company every step of the
38:50
way. And so you just gotta think
38:52
through whatever strategy you're going to deploy, what are the
38:56
pros and cons of it? Where are the weaknesses and how
38:59
are you gonna tackle those weaknesses?
39:01
If they come to light, they need to be meet more prepared.
39:06
And so you need to be thinking about that.
39:09
But that starts early on. I mean all the companies we're
39:11
working with, we're all talking to them about commercialization
39:14
strategies, what's going to work, what's not, who's your
39:16
first adopters? And then there's that aspect of
39:19
it too, Anthony, which is first adopters.
39:22
That's easy. It's easy to find a Doctor Who's
39:25
jazzed about your product, right, and will use it and push
39:28
for it and be your champion. How do you get the laggers to
39:30
come? And that's where an experienced
39:33
commercial person is super valuable.
39:37
What is it that people don't understand about the regulatory
39:40
process? You said, Dwayne, you've got a
39:42
background that's pretty heavy on that.
39:46
Yeah, I you know the one. The first thing is the FDA has a
39:53
mission to make sure products that go to market are safe and
39:58
effective. And they're also human beings,
40:02
right? So getting frustrated with the
40:05
fact that you need to get regulatory approval.
40:08
And getting frustrated with your FDA reviewer is not going to set
40:12
yourself, you're not going to be set up for success.
40:14
That's the first area everyone gets frustrated with.
40:17
If you have never been in the regulated environment, it's
40:19
like, well, why is the FDA asking for this and that and
40:22
this? It's like they need to make sure
40:24
that if you're going to put this in a human, it's safe and
40:26
effective. So just maybe put yourself in
40:29
their shoes for a second. The second thing is the easiest
40:33
regulatory path is not always the best.
40:37
You need to evaluate those things.
40:40
Generally, you know the FDA will, will, will classify
40:43
medical devices as class one, class two, class 3.
40:47
As you step up in classification, it's more risky,
40:50
right? So Class 1 you can think of like
40:51
a Band-Aid. Class 3 you can think of as a
40:54
pacemaker. You know, if something fails in
40:57
a Band-Aid, you're going to be OK.
40:59
We might have an upset toddler, but we're going to be OK.
41:03
If you know, your pacemaker fails, well, someone dies.
41:07
And so where there is nuances though is in Class 2 medical
41:13
devices, there's two different path.
41:14
There's a few different pathways there. 510K and de Novo being
41:18
two different ones. And so 1 is a little bit longer,
41:21
one's a little bit easier, just determining which one you want
41:25
to do. It's not always we'll take the
41:27
easiest path. Also, you can do a stepwise
41:30
process and change your claims. And so there's a lot behind it,
41:34
but some of those basics are are generally where some companies
41:37
fail. And I'll just give a tactical
41:40
example here. So you know, for example, a de
41:42
Novo might require a clinical trial and you might think 05/10
41:46
K, we'll get my product to market faster and I can start
41:48
sales earlier. But then it creates an
41:50
environment where competition can come in.
41:53
And so by creating doing a de Novo, it builds a bit of a Moat,
41:56
right where that forces other products to go through a
41:58
clinical trial. Now, if they want to use your
42:00
device as a predicate or what's called a precursor device.
42:03
And so there's, there's also intellectual property strategy
42:06
behind this. If you don't understand that
42:08
landscape and you pick, most people would probably just jump
42:11
to the 510K because I can get to market faster, but then they
42:14
don't understand the ramifications of that from a
42:15
strategy and a protection standpoint.
42:19
That's fascinating. You know, I think about this and
42:21
I think about the other example that you gave earlier about, you
42:25
know, the creative solution to that, you know, person who ended
42:29
up giving equity to somebody for their board seat contribution to
42:34
help keep the valuation, you know, where they wanted it to
42:37
be. Can you guys think of another
42:39
interesting example that's maybe hit when it, you know, had
42:42
helped your companies hit like an important milestone along the
42:45
way? But I think these are these are
42:47
really fascinating stories for people to hear.
42:49
Like when it's real, it's like, Oh yeah, that makes me sort of
42:52
connect the dots to what I'm going through here, too.
42:56
Yeah, I have a lot of examples in the fundraising space, so
42:59
I'll give Dwight a minute here to think about one from his end.
43:01
But you know, from a fundraising example side, you know, we've
43:04
had situations where investors have gone through diligence and
43:06
there might be just a hold up. There might be other investments
43:10
they're evaluating to at the same time as the company we're
43:12
working with. And so I call them levers.
43:15
But how do you or, or icing on the cake, but what, how do you
43:18
sweeten that up? How do you encourage somebody to
43:20
jump faster if they're waiting for other things to happen?
43:24
And so we've, we've had situations where things have
43:26
stalled and we, hey, we're close to closing this round out.
43:29
Do you guys went in or not? And or there's some strategic
43:32
value to having this partner in and on the cap table, like a
43:34
strategic that would potentially buy the company at some point or
43:38
the product at some point. You know, we encourage companies
43:41
go through a warrant. OK, let's offer a warrant and
43:44
warrants can be a. Warrant is rich, so that is a
43:47
an. Agreement to buy equity at a
43:48
certain value. And it's like an option.
43:51
If I was an employee of a startup and I got an option to
43:53
buy equity in the company at a specific value, I would wait to
43:56
buy it until the value of that equity is higher than the price
43:59
I'm buying it for. So I'm getting a little discount
44:01
a part of it. Now warrants can be anything
44:03
from, you know, less than a penny per share or it could be
44:06
something like 50% of the value you've already paid for.
44:09
And so where we've seen strong examples of warrants that work
44:13
really well is by offering a strategic investor a warrant
44:16
that gives them 25% or 50% coverage, warrant coverage in
44:21
the next round. And what that means is if I
44:23
invested, I'm going to use simple math $100,000 today at a
44:27
$10 million valuation and I gave, I got a $50,000 warrant or
44:31
50% warrant coverage into the next round.
44:35
And then the next round is $20 million in value.
44:37
I can still invest 50,000 of my 100 at the same valuation
44:41
before. So as if it's in, in clients
44:44
like, well, isn't that more dilutive?
44:45
And I say, yeah, of course it is.
44:46
But it's as if they invested 150 in this round.
44:49
So don't, don't think of it like you're, you're losing out on the
44:52
back. And it's really just encouraging
44:53
a further investment and it's a sweetener for that investor to
44:56
jump into the, the round right now.
44:58
And so that's, that's kind of some of the uniqueness we can
45:01
provide. And there's, I mean, these are
45:02
standard terms and standard offerings out there, but some
45:05
start-ups just don't have the knowledge of those or, or they
45:09
might have partners that understand this, like attorneys
45:11
or Cpas. But because they don't work in
45:13
that strategic fashion, they're working more on the
45:14
documentation side or making sure it's proper.
45:17
They're not willing to offer that advice because it just
45:19
doesn't ring a bell. Yeah, I think the, the, the
45:23
example I give can maybe validate a little bit more of
45:26
the importance of that regulatory mixed in with
45:28
reimbursement at the beginning. And I'll, I'll keep it less,
45:33
I'll keep it a little more generic, just not to disclose
45:36
anything. But you know, this happens
45:39
frequently where folks come in, they had a regulatory assessment
45:43
done by a regulatory consultant. You tell them, hey, this is what
45:48
I want to do, but this is what the product does.
45:52
What do you think my regulatory pathway is?
45:55
And sometimes when it is a 510K, which means you're looking for a
45:58
predicate that's already on the market there, they'll give you a
46:01
bunch of ideas and then they'll tell you which one might be the
46:04
quickest pathway to market. Well, generally when we come in,
46:07
we always ask the question, OK, well what market are you trying
46:11
to attract? What, what's, what's your, where
46:13
can you make the most amount of revenue?
46:15
Where's the margins the best, where's the reimbursement the
46:18
best? And, and this has happened on a
46:20
number of occasions where we've kind of come in, asked those
46:23
questions. We do a deep dive into that.
46:26
Then you find out that the product code they were going to
46:28
go for it may have been the easiest pathway within the FDA,
46:33
but the reimbursement was not where they thought it was going
46:37
to be. And so we actually made a pivot
46:40
to another product code and and within these products.
46:44
Oh, go ahead. Anthony, yeah.
46:44
Just to clarify. So a particular product code may
46:48
have helped speed up the approval process in in the early
46:53
FDA stages. But because of the way that
46:57
insurance reimbursements work, that product code is going to
47:01
get them a lower reimbursement from the insurance companies
47:04
than if they had taken a different product code that had
47:07
a more difficult process of getting approved through the
47:11
FDA. That's right.
47:12
Or or and they both could have been 5-10 KS, but maybe there
47:16
were more testing requirements to Rich's point earlier that one
47:19
needed over the other. But you know, within product
47:22
codes it it's not just your technolog like what you're doing
47:25
from a technology standpoint, what claims are you trying to
47:28
make? What's your indications for use?
47:30
What are you treating? And, and those, you know, if you
47:33
look up, if you look up wound care, for example, there's like
47:36
28 product codes within wound care.
47:39
There could, there might even be more, but, but you know, they,
47:42
they differ based on some technological features, some,
47:45
some types of claims you want to make.
47:47
And so really meshing those two things together, that's an area
47:52
that we just see a lot of companies come to us with their
47:55
like headset on one area and you're like, this is a bad idea
47:59
because of this. I'm going to shift gears now,
48:03
and whether it's personal or professional, I'd like to hear
48:06
about a serious challenge that each of you guys have overcome.
48:09
How'd you get through it? What did you learn?
48:12
How did it help shape you into a better person today?
48:16
Rich, let me go first. Yeah, I'm sure we'd probably
48:20
have the same story. Yeah, I, I think starting a
48:26
company at the same time you're starting a family is difficult
48:32
on a number of fronts. It's difficult from a time
48:37
perspective. It causes strains in a lot of
48:41
your relationships in your life. And I think figuring out how to
48:49
navigate that and let people in on your journey is, is, is
48:54
really hard. I, it's, at least for me, it was
48:58
definitely an area I struggled with.
49:01
And, and I mean, it's, it's, it's strains with your spouse,
49:06
it strains with other family members, it strains with your Co
49:11
founders, right? It strains with friends.
49:15
It's just you don't have as much time as you used to.
49:19
And there's also different stresses that you've never felt
49:23
before. And then when you feel those
49:25
stresses in another area you've never felt before, like becoming
49:29
a dad for the first time, it is, it is overwhelming to deal with
49:36
at times. And allowing others to come on
49:41
that journey with you is, is it was just different for me at
49:46
least, right? Like I, I was, I was generally a
49:50
person who when I felt stress, I kind of kept it in a little bit.
49:55
I conceptualized it, I dealt with it and I moved on.
50:00
But when there's so much new stress, that's really difficult
50:05
to, to kind of deal with. And then you end up kind of
50:08
shutting down a little bit. And you know, there were
50:11
multiple times where, you know, my wife Emily, who's an absolute
50:15
St. she's the best. She would, you know, look at me
50:19
at dinner and be like, where are you?
50:21
You know, and it's like, Oh, I'm thinking about how rich and I
50:25
got to work with this company or, or the state of project Med
50:29
tech or, or hiring someone and the stresses that come with
50:32
that. I mean, it's just like, you
50:35
know, you, you, it's very easy for you to not be present and
50:39
that's not a good thing. So.
50:41
What pathway did you find to letting people into your
50:46
journey? Talking to them like like
50:49
letting people in real time, hey, this is what's happening
50:56
and just talking about it out loud with them, seeking help,
51:00
being OK. Talking to people like you have,
51:04
at least for me, I have such a great support system.
51:06
I have friends that I've been friends with for 30 years,
51:10
right? Like literally since we were
51:12
five. Being able to talk to them a
51:15
little bit. Now talking to my parents, my
51:18
wife 100% all the time. She's the first one you go to.
51:23
But then, and then also just a little bit of like relying on
51:28
the other Co founders and, and executive team members and Rich,
51:32
Rich and I were going through a very similar thing at the same
51:36
time, you know, and, and sometimes me and Rich, it's
51:41
we're we're definitely have a tendency to just talk about
51:43
work. And it's like, sometimes you
51:46
need to take a step back and be like, man, how are you dealing
51:50
with this right now? And so I, I think just being
51:54
aware of that, and I just, I think I was poor at that before,
51:59
was being aware of how those stresses were affecting me and
52:03
talking about them feels a lot better.
52:06
Rich, is this the same story you were going to tap into?
52:10
Well, yeah, I think what Dwayne, your first born was a month old
52:15
when you went over full time. Right.
52:19
Or was just about to be born. We had for this the second, the
52:22
second one, yeah. Julie was born in December of
52:24
2020 and Penelope was born in in July of 23.
52:28
So it's just like, yeah. Yep, and then my first son was
52:31
born May of 22 and I joined full time in August.
52:35
Right. So neither of our wives were
52:36
happy with us. But but I think exactly what
52:41
Dwayne said, I think, you know, one of the things that helped us
52:43
get through this is 2 things. One is taking solace in, you
52:46
know, we look at things today and you know, we're dealing with
52:48
the pains of everyday growth and this and that and growing pains
52:51
or whatever you want to call it. But then you look back, you're
52:53
like, wow, look at, look at how much we've grown this in two
52:56
years, three years, four years. Look at the pains of yesterday
53:00
don't feel as important as the pains today.
53:03
And so taking that memory and saying we got over it, you know,
53:06
tomorrow you won't feel this, you know, kind of thing.
53:08
And so that was one. But 2 is when you're having this
53:11
abundance of stress in multiple different areas, whether it's
53:13
personal or work, and you're working with people so closely
53:16
like Dwayne and Aaron and Jamie and I do the, it's important to
53:20
under develop communication strategies with those people and
53:23
understand, you know, the love language is right, Not that kind
53:26
of thing. But here it's more of I'm a
53:28
Parma guy, right? Grew up in Parma.
53:30
I need to deal with things head on.
53:32
And if you don't show emotion on your sleeve, then I think you
53:35
don't care. And it's that kind of thing
53:36
where it's like, OK, well, how are you feeling today or what's,
53:39
what's going? So developing that kind of
53:40
dropping the walls of of or having any type of emotional
53:45
wall is, is kind of needs to go away because we all need to be
53:47
very transparent with each other about how things are going.
53:50
And once that happens, we communicate so much more
53:52
fluidly. Yeah, and there are so many
53:54
funny stories of specifically Rich and I with this one where I
53:59
didn't realize that right? That like, hey, you know, I
54:02
thought, hey, as the CEO, I need to be calm and even keeled and
54:06
deal with the situation in here. And and Rich is like, no, like I
54:10
I need to see that you care, like you have this emotion to
54:14
it. And so but that's that was that
54:16
like that's super helpful. Now we both know that, right?
54:19
And so, yeah, that's a great example, Rich.
54:21
I forgot about some of that. Yeah.
54:23
I mean, you guys think about what you put yourselves through.
54:27
I mean, two of the biggest stressors in life you guys had
54:31
happen roughly in the same time period starting a new business.
54:36
And it was your first business, right.
54:39
And so you guys had worked in other places before.
54:43
You had a lot of great operational experience, but
54:45
you've never started your own thing from the ground up.
54:48
There's so much in that stage you didn't know.
54:52
You didn't know what you didn't know getting into it, right.
54:54
And so you're tripping over yourself, you're making
54:57
mistakes, you're trying to figure things out.
54:58
It's frustrating. And then you bring it, you bring
55:01
a new child into that mix and it's, it's the very same thing.
55:05
It's I don't know what I'm doing here.
55:07
I don't, I don't know how to help this creature.
55:10
I don't know how to help them stop crying.
55:12
I don't know why they're, you know, up now why they won't eat.
55:15
And and so, yeah, you've sort of layered these two huge life
55:19
events on top of each other and it just creates sort of a
55:22
tornado of emotions. But what I think was great is
55:26
that you guys had each other, right?
55:29
And you were, you were going through similar things together.
55:32
And once you kind of learn to open up, you have that safe
55:34
human connection there. You know, I I think you said it,
55:38
Dwayne, like, you know, when it's just rattling around in
55:41
here, all it's doing is burrowing a hole in your brain.
55:44
And when you can sort of give voice to it and bring it out
55:47
into the open and have somebody else be like, oh, yeah, me too.
55:51
That sucks. It's like it it, it doesn't fix
55:54
everything, but it deflates some of that pressure that's been
55:57
building up inside of you. Yeah, for sure.
55:59
And I think, you know, the, the one group too, that was key for
56:02
us is having good advisors, right?
56:05
Mentors that, you know, you can kind of rely on to say, Oh yeah,
56:11
we're working through this right now.
56:13
And they could say totally, totally understand, right?
56:16
So it was good to have professionally and personal
56:18
mentors. That's awesome, gentlemen.
56:21
I've just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I
56:24
want to do a couple of things. First of all, everyone listening
56:27
today, go ahead and hit that follow button on your favorite
56:29
podcast app. We had a great interview today
56:32
with Rich and Dwayne from Project Medtech.
56:34
I want you to continue to get more wonderful content,
56:37
wonderful interviews like we've had today.
56:40
Rich Dwayne, I want to let people know the best way to
56:44
either get in touch with you directly or to follow your story
56:47
to learn more about your events, find your podcast, kind of give
56:50
us the rundown there. Yeah, Project medtech.com, great
56:55
website to go to. That's where you can reach out
56:58
to us. Through the website, you can see
56:59
our events. We have 220 episodes of the
57:02
podcast. If you want to keyword search
57:05
something, you can do it on our website.
57:07
So you can't do that on on Apple or Spotify.
57:09
We were on Apple and Spotify. But if you want to get all the
57:12
regulatory episodes and go in there, keyword search
57:16
regulatory, click on those things.
57:17
If you want to see, hey, how many times has Rich Mazzola been
57:20
on the podcast? You can do those episodes and
57:24
then LinkedIn is a great place to follow us on.
57:27
We have a YouTube channel as well.
57:29
In terms of getting a hold of us, we're both very active on
57:31
LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with us and
57:34
send us a message. And if you want to reach out to
57:36
projectmedtech.info@projectmedtech.com is a pretty good place to start.
57:41
And we'll give links to all these resources that Dwayne just
57:44
mentioned in the show notes. Last question, this might be the
57:47
one I'm most looking forward to. The answer to you guys get, you
57:50
know, a front row seat to a lot of really cool developing
57:54
technologies. What are some of the either
57:57
trends that you're seeing or the specific emerging tech that
58:03
you're most excited about? I'll I'll take this one first,
58:07
Wayne. So, so I think trend wise and,
58:11
and we, we have folks like Sapiris and pitch book come to
58:13
our events and do quarterly updates all the times.
58:15
And I, I think we tend to hear the same things, you know, I'll
58:18
bet moving in, in different fashions, but AI still a big
58:22
push for AI, surgical robotics, still a big push for surgical
58:25
robotics. And what both of those are
58:27
highlighting is the fact that it's a talent need, right?
58:31
When we, we looked at the nursing shortage, the doctor
58:33
shortage, you know, the, the fault, the same type of quality
58:36
of clinicians across the, you know, the United States or the
58:39
world, having access to an AI engine that is the best in class
58:43
or having access to a surgeon in New York providing a surgery in
58:46
Montana through a surgical robotic system, something like
58:48
that. That's where we're still seeing
58:49
a lot of trends come into play. And a lot of I, I would say
58:52
doing, correct me if I'm off base here, but a lot of hospital
58:55
venture groups investing in those areas as well because they
58:57
see the need in their own hospital systems.
58:59
I think from what I get most excited about, and I still too
59:03
to this day, it's going to be probably consistent for the
59:05
foreseeable future, is a simple product treating a complex
59:10
problem. And I think when you talk about
59:12
simple products and, and I would encourage you to look at
59:15
Reservant or Coologix. And I'll do a selfish plug of
59:18
both those products. Reservant is a product that's
59:20
treating, it's a skin glue for surgical incisions, right?
59:23
It's a simple product that's not having to use sutures and
59:26
staples, which have been going on since the the millennia,
59:28
right? This is a new product, new class
59:31
of product that is focused on closing incisions and helping
59:34
with scarring. So that's a great product I like
59:37
to focus on. And another product is Bliss,
59:39
which is Coologic's product treating bacterial vaginosis.
59:43
And it's a simple product treating a condition that women
59:46
suffer in silence for. And I think it's a great
59:47
product. And my wife has told me I'm not
59:50
allowed to talk about Coologic's product at the dinner table
59:52
anymore. So I bet that's been a new rule
59:54
in my house. But no, I think the simpler the
59:56
product. Treating a complex problem is
59:59
something that I always will get excited over.
1:00:02
Yeah, yeah, those are those are all great.
1:00:04
And those are real, real life examples too.
1:00:06
I'll stay generic in terms of a space.
1:00:08
So Rich talked about the shortage of, of clinicians,
1:00:13
whether it be nurses, doctors, imaging techs, those types of
1:00:17
things. I, I think the other areas that
1:00:20
I, I love to see are products that are helping to take care
1:00:25
from the main hospital to either other areas to consume
1:00:30
healthcare or even rural places as well.
1:00:33
Because there's a huge untapped market there to be able to do
1:00:39
procedures, imaging, a number of various different things.
1:00:44
Just where people don't have to travel, you know, an hour to a
1:00:48
hospital, they can do it at a smaller Regional Hospital or a
1:00:51
more rural hospital. Those ones are also really,
1:00:55
really interesting. And so anything in that space, I
1:00:59
think is is is pretty cool. You know, surgical robotics, AI,
1:01:05
fascinating tech. The one I want to actually ask a
1:01:08
follow up question on though, is the reservoir, the skin glue,
1:01:11
because I know that there are similar products that exist out
1:01:15
there. I cut my finger, I don't know,
1:01:16
about a year ago pretty good. And they were like, and it was
1:01:20
right in the nail bed and they're like, we could do a
1:01:21
stitch. They're like, but that's going
1:01:24
to be pretty painful in your nail bed.
1:01:26
Like we've got the skin glue that we can get.
1:01:29
And so we did that instead and it worked pretty well, but it
1:01:33
didn't keep the wound closed as tightly as it should.
1:01:37
Is that sort of what reservant is doing a better job of?
1:01:40
It's just a better adhesive. Yep.
1:01:42
And so I, I would promote or promote the fact to go to
1:01:45
reservantmedical.com and and watch the graphic.
1:01:47
We have a nice animation up there, but that it's a different
1:01:49
type of chemistry. You're right, there's a lot of
1:01:51
different products out there. This is a silicone based
1:01:54
molecule over a rubber based molecule, which is the basis of
1:01:57
super glue, right? And so silicone based molecules
1:02:00
like this, the sinoacrolate, allow for a more cohesive and
1:02:04
cross layered bond, which means it's going to stay secure
1:02:07
longer, create a microbial barrier longer.
1:02:10
And so, you know, infections are always a concern with skin glue,
1:02:13
longevity is always a concern with skin glue.
1:02:15
And so these are kind of tackling those things.
1:02:18
And I say that simply because I'm not a technical person on
1:02:20
the chemistry side, but it's through that new type of
1:02:23
chemistry with the silicone based molecule that changes the
1:02:25
game of skin glues. So that's the big innovation
1:02:28
here. That's cool.
1:02:30
Be fun to have you guys back on in a year or two and hear what
1:02:34
what kind of advancements have been made and sort of that combo
1:02:36
of AI and surgical robotics. I think a lot of lot of fun
1:02:40
advancements coming out. Gentlemen, Rich Duane from
1:02:45
Project Med Tech, I want to be the first to thank you for
1:02:48
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:02:50
I'm very grateful. Thanks for having us.
1:02:53
Yeah, thanks for having us, Anthony.
1:02:54
And real quick too, because I've hosted 220 episodes.
1:02:58
Kudos to you as well from from just being a great interviewer
1:03:04
because that's not it's not easy and so appreciate it.
1:03:08
I, I take those kind words. Thank you, Dwayne.
1:03:11
Nice having both you and Rich on today, folks.
1:03:13
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:03:17
Thanks for learning with us today.