Full Transcript Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:01 Welcome to the Startup [music] Physicians podcast, where we explore how 0:05 doctors lead healthcare innovation. Please like and follow our show to join 0:10 our community of physicians [music] contributing to meaningful change. 0:17 Hi, welcome back to Startup Physicians [music] podcast. This is your host, Dr. 0:20 Allison Kurfman. I am joined today by my colleague and friend, Tomasz Rudolf. 0:26 Tomasz is located in Poland. We first met years ago when I did a keynote for a 0:33 pediatric innovation network that he had created, but what really has struck me 0:38 about his career is both the dedication to a lot of very mission-driven 0:44 ventures, but also a focus on venture building and actually 0:49 physician empowerment through a lot of the different ventures that he's built. 0:53 And so, Tomasz is an advisor to me and to the Startup Physicians Incubator, and 0:58 I am so happy to have you with me today, Tomasz. 1:01 Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. I guess you have been an advisor to me as well, 1:06 so it's a mutual value that we're bringing each other. 1:09 Thanks for for having me. We we're very, very fortunate to have 1:14 your expertise um on our team. One of the things that 1:18 I struggle with, so I I'm very visionary, I have a lot of ideas, and 1:23 then I sometimes struggle with having a real growth strategy or a go-to-market 1:28 plan, and one of the things that I've always really appreciated about the way 1:32 your brain works is that you never think of things as like one-sy, two-sy growth. 1:38 It's always like, "Okay, that's how you get it started, and then the real plan 1:42 is this much larger scale. How do you grow things with a network effect? How 1:48 do you grow things with enterprise contracts?" Um and and I always have 1:54 really appreciated how your brain works that way, and I think it's going to be a 1:58 great thing for us to talk about with people listening today who may be
Tomasz Rudolfu2019s Founder Journey 2:02 kicking around a concept in their in their head and wonder is this something 2:06 that could actually become something become something really scalable. So 2:11 we'll talk a little bit about that but before you get to the scalable growth, 2:15 you have to actually start from scratch and so I think we could talk about that 2:19 as well. So just to kick us off, I'd love if you could share your background 2:24 and kind of 2:28 Well, I started as an entrepreneur when I was 19 which is frankly 30 years ago 2:35 and I was initially bringing foreign investors to Poland. Then was was 2:40 recently a market economy, lots was happening and and I I loved really the 2:45 joy of building something new. I saw the country changing. Poland has grown 2:49 immensely over the the last decades. So I was witnessing that and I loved 2:53 shaping this as well, building new companies. company that was a venture 2:57 builder, a building with big corporates like Mastercards, new companies. It's 3:01 still operating. At some point, I also got into healthcare through a personal 3:05 story with my son. I started a foundation to transform the experience 3:09 in children's hospitals which again still operating. I'm I'm happy to on the 3:13 be on the board there and I contribute to to really changing with digital 3:17 tools, with new technologies how how parents and children experience 3:21 pediatric care. That's how we connected by when we were working on on the 3:25 hospital of the future and so we were we are work at Mercy Virtual. So so that 3:30 that has been my starting point and then I I decided to really focus on 3:34 healthcare and changing healthcare. I was a co-founder and and CEO of of a 3:38 digital health startup called Doctor One which really started with the idea of 3:42 humanizing healthcare and bringing this core relationship between the doctor 3:47 and the patient to a new level and beyond visits So, obviously care often 3:51 stops when you finish the visit. And in chronic care, it's so important, I 3:55 guess, to have this relationship really working well. So, so I worked on that. 3:59 We We raised over 6 million, but the company's growing. And I really am a 4:03 starter by definition. This is the design phase when the venture is 4:06 starting. So, right now I'm I'm uh really advising companies how to make 4:11 this starting phase better and to build stuff that matters and reach potential 4:15 with because obviously, when you're designing, everything is just an idea 4:19 about the decisions you're making uh are really really defining the DNA of your 4:24 business model. And define if if it's going to be something really small or or 4:29 something huge that changes the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients and 4:32 has financial potential. I think that um you are kind of a stereotypical 4:39 founder of you just see problems and instead of grumbling about it, you think 4:44 like, "Huh, I wonder if we could change that. I wonder if we could change that 4:47 for not just me, but for everyone." And so, people out there who are listening, 4:52 if you identify with that, I just want you to know this is kind of an episode 4:56 for you. I I identify with that. I walk around the world and I think like, 5:01 "Why do we do it that way? Maybe we could do it another way." And then I 5:03 start my Once the gears start turning, I I end up 5:07 exploring a lot of different concepts that are like, "Maybe we should do this. 5:11 Maybe we should do this." That makes really great founder potentials cuz if 5:15 you're someone who's able to look at problems and try and think outside the 5:20 box of what solutions could be and then you'd actually be willing to start 5:23 mapping it out and figuring out like, "Hey, could this actually 5:27 work and be sustainable?" You mentioned that, you know, a lot of your initiation 5:31 into the health care field had to do with personal experiences. And I know 5:34 you had an experience with your child at uh in a health care setting um which 5:39 made you say, "No, it shouldn't be this way. Like, we 5:44 should change this for pediatrics." And then did this incredible initiative 5:47 across your entire country for pediatric innovation. And so, um I find that to be 5:53 very inspiring, and I hope that other people, as we talk through more of the 5:56 nuts and bolts today, will realize that I don't know, sometimes I always thought
Zero-to-One Validation and Market Testing 6:00 there was something wrong with me cuz I'm always like just 6:04 I say spewing vision all over the place. Like And so, it gets hard for people 6:08 that work with me to be like, "Okay, what are we actually doing? You're 6:11 you're visioning all these things." And so, as a founder, one of the first 6:14 things you have to do is uh how do you stress test this idea? So, you've got an 6:19 idea, before you go putting capital into it, what does that zero to one 6:25 validation look like? And what have you seen in your experience? What have you 6:29 seen other physicians building? And And where have you seen founders that do 6:32 well in that zero to one concept? Well, I think I I see this as two steps. So, 6:38 the first step is uh the validation you can do yourself, just intellectually 6:42 right now, also a lot supported by AI and research tools. And this is a 6:47 validation where you ask yourself really the DNA questions of this business that 6:51 you're designing. And And I think using this biology metaphor, any business that 6:54 we're starting can have the DNA of the founder, what you believe, what you 6:59 really how you design it. Like the Apple style has this specific thing, and every 7:03 founder has has their specific way they they would structure the business. And 7:07 the other half of the DNA of the of the business is defined by the market you 7:11 pick. So, if you pick, let's say, design the same idea of a let's say chronic 7:16 care startup for the Indian direct-to-consumer startup market, it 7:20 will be a totally different business than if you design it for a payer market 7:24 in the US. So, So, all of those decisions that you're making initially 7:28 uh really define what kind of business you're making. And that that's why I 7:32 love that the incubator is is a process that can actually stress test your idea 7:36 and open your eyes to the to the potential that can also you multiple 7:41 go-to-market ways. And And because if you're doing it for the first time, you 7:44 maybe haven't even asked yourself many of those questions. So, this is the 7:49 initial kind of discussion, how could that business look like if we went this 7:54 path this path? And it's good to have this intellectual exercise even to play 7:59 around with how it impacts financials, how it really is market big enough 8:04 really to be a billion dollar startup and be venture funded. Is it just a 8:08 small business that you'd like to build? And it's okay if you want to build a 8:11 small business, but if you would really like to build something bigger and 8:15 impact more lives, which many doctors have as their their motivation, you need 8:20 to make this decision. So, I think this is the the homework that you need to be 8:25 doing before you go out of the building and before the real validation on the 8:30 market starts. I agree completely, and that's the teaching that we bring in our 8:35 incubator program is how do you build as much as possible on paper before putting 8:40 capital in. And so, a lot of times people are like, "Wouldn't it be great 8:43 if this problem could be solved, and maybe it would look like this fancy 8:47 shiny tech-based solution. Maybe I should go build that." And and the 8:51 question is, okay, have you actually looked and seen like, who's going to buy 8:55 it, and can you test something very small with the person who you think is 9:00 going to buy it because I've seen a lot of like six or seven figure builds that 9:04 then like they totally missed the mark, and they don't have they can't sell it. 9:08 And and they're they obviously don't take off. Um, so 9:13 what sorts of things have you done besides just I I have built entire 9:16 models and curriculums and and ways that we de-risk a concept on paper? 9:22 What other kind of hacks have you used in that early stage to get feedback 9:26 early on? Well, I think the key challenge for many 9:31 people is just to go out of get out of the building and start talking to people 9:34 and not just hire a market researcher or whatever, but really do it first hand. 9:39 You cannot outsource your eyes as Steve Blank, a a professor that teaches 9:44 entrepreneurship, used to say. Uh and and you really need to start 9:49 talking to, let's say, 10 at a time from a certain segment. You might change your 9:53 segment after those first initial conversations and see, "Okay, I'm 9:57 thinking it might not be the best market. Let's pivot to a to a new group 10:01 that would be the buyer group." And then you again take 10 at a time and talk to 10:05 10 similar people. Find them on LinkedIn, find them on with with a 10:09 certain criteria. And then if you scale this business, you 10:13 just multiply it by 100 or 1,000, whatever, but you already have some 10:17 criteria. How do you define this unit of 10, let's say, the people? Don't base 10:22 decisions on on initial one or two conversations, which might impact your 10:26 maybe you talked to a friend doctor or friend the hospital director that tells 10:31 you it's a good or bad idea. I don't think it's it's good enough because you 10:35 might be really throwing away a great concept or the other way around and be 10:39 biased by somebody that just says your friend and would like to be polite, so 10:43 tells you it's a great idea. So, I think if you if you do this validation and 10:46 start talking 10 people at a time from your cohort, you might obviously 10:51 validate if the problem exists. Is it costly? If you're talking to companies, 10:55 obviously it should either mean lost revenue or or it should mean potentially 11:00 increased cost that you're validating. If you're talking to consumers, it's a 11:05 different story, but still you can see is there an unmet need and focus your 11:09 80% of your initial conversations on the really understanding what are the the 11:14 the jobs to be done for for people, what are their problems, pain points. And I 11:18 think if you have that, then you can move to really building the solution, 11:22 prototyping it, showing the prototype, and really testing it on the market. And 11:27 and I think there are many hacks and obviously during the incubation process, 11:31 you might you might get the support from mentors in finding the best suite of of 11:36 tasks to do easily in your situation. One that you really love from from my 11:41 past I I learned from Trevor Owens who wrote a book about Lean Enterprise and 11:47 validation techniques and he he shared his story when he was building a startup 11:51 that was about rental of electric vehicles 11:55 and and he he just posted an ad for half the price and they got people calling 12:01 him day and night to buy this this vehicle and and he told them I'm sorry I 12:07 just want to be transparent. I don't have this vehicle anymore 12:10 >> [laughter] >> but I wanted to talk to people that are 12:13 interested in electric. Would you rent it and can I ask you a couple of 12:16 questions? And so he had actually his whole customer base call him all the 12:20 time. He didn't have to look for them. They were calling him. So I guess there 12:24 are many hacks like that that you can learn from experienced founders or from 12:28 people that are experienced in in just validation of concepts that will help 12:33 you to talk to enough people quickly enough and and validate if the idea is 12:37 right or wrong and and I guess the goal of a validation isn't to prove that 12:42 you're right. It's to prove where your concept might be wrong or what it might 12:47 require a rethinking and get there as soon as possible because then you're not 12:51 wasting time building something that nobody wants. 12:54 Yeah, that's the worst possible outcome is that you invested not just your time 12:59 but probably capital into building something that can't be sold. And so 13:03 everything in this process is step-wise approach. I think 13:09 back to when we were incubating my first company how I mean some of the first 13:13 conversations I'm like I don't even know what we talked about. Like I I 13:16 feel like we had just like an idea that we talked about and then we get to a 13:19 one-pager where it's like okay, I think we've kind of crystallized what we think 13:23 we're doing and those earlier your are a lot lower stakes cuz you're not 13:27 actually selling cuz you don't actually have something to sell. 13:30 That's really what we call the discovery process and uh it is something that you 13:35 should be doing you should be having a lot of conversations and you should be 13:39 moving from those lower stakes conversations of like friends, family, 13:41 colleagues to okay, if I'm really going to make this 13:46 guess that health insurance plans would pay for this, like 13:50 who could I actually talk to to ask, would you actually pay for this? And 13:54 then I think that along with as your messaging is evolving and becoming a 13:59 little bit more mature um and you're creating materials to go along with that 14:03 in the appropriate ways to communicate because the the clearer you can be, the 14:09 better the feedback will be. But you also be have to be kind of having a good 14:15 way to track and manage all your assumptions. And so we do that in the 14:19 format of two main assets that I help people build as they go through the 14:24 discovery process. The first is a forward-looking financial model, which 14:28 is like, you know, the model. It's the operating plan. It's exactly all the 14:32 things you would do if you got you know, it's it's it's something you 14:38 make on paper and then you identify what are the core assumptions that you're 14:42 making and which of those assumptions are highly sensitive, meaning it could 14:46 make or break the business case so that you're really directing a lot of your 14:48 discovery towards those. And every piece of feedback that you get, you are then 14:54 going back and updating your assumptions and updating your model and identifying 14:57 like here's this other like rabbit hole I might need to go down to validate
Choosing Buyers and Business Models 15:02 this. So we create the financial model. We create your product roadmap, which is 15:06 like, what is the thing you are making? What is And then what are the versions 15:09 of it? So that like the earliest version, the earliest prototype is like 15:14 a V0 and it's maybe just like a clickable prototype or the tech that 15:19 would support the service model or something like that, but that we're 15:22 actually tying that together with like what is the thing that you're making 15:26 over time and how will it mature over time and how does that map to your 15:31 financial and operational model. And so if you have those two tools and you know 15:34 how to use them, then every single one of these discovery calls comes back 15:39 comes back in drastically improves both of those assets and 15:44 those are the things that I feel like a founder today, an individual founder, 15:49 with the help of a lot of AI tools and the guidance of people who have done 15:53 this before, can do so much as a solo founder. Like it's it's astounding how 15:59 much you can do to get a lot of leverage so that at the time that you finally go 16:03 to close contracts or raise funding, you have a lot of proof, even though you 16:09 haven't operated yet. Exactly. Exactly. Not much to add. I 16:14 mean, I definitely I love starting from the reverse P&L method that's or sorry, 16:18 Rita Gunther McGrath from Columbia, uh I think promoted and and you start 16:23 from a number, it might be your the profit, it might be let's say revenue in 16:27 year three, let's say. What would it take to make it a hundred million dollar 16:31 business? And then you go, you list all those assumptions back to the initial 16:36 like one transaction price, the unit price of a one transaction. And then you 16:40 have in a whole Excel sheet all of those risk assumptions that you mentioned. And 16:45 you can start by validating assumption number one or number two or the price or 16:50 the frequency of purchase or whatever. And and I guess this intellectual 16:55 exercise backed by interviews is something that you really need to invest 16:59 in early on in the first weeks or months of of building the venture. Because 17:03 obviously right now it's impossible to build any technology very fast, but you 17:08 need to know what problem you're you're solving first. 17:12 And the other big question is who's paying for it. So So 17:15 something that I think you have a lot probably have a lot 17:18 of thoughts on but as I've talked to a number of founders throughout their 17:23 different exploration stages sometimes they have this very aspirational vision 17:27 of something that really would make health care better but then they have no 17:30 idea who would pay for that and I think that that is the core question that has 17:35 to be answered before you start investing in something. What are some of 17:38 your thoughts on like how you narrow in on a business model and identifying who 17:43 would pay for it both initially and at scale? 17:46 I guess first you need to know that you at the end you you don't have to make 17:52 choice or like it's not one choice forever. You might start with direct 17:56 consumer and for initial validation that's first months let's say and then 18:01 move and transition and really build this business as an enterprise business. 18:05 You might if it's possible to start with enterprise deals you might stay only 18:09 with with big companies as clients rather than individuals. You might go 18:13 and stay with direct consumer as as as a consumer brand so and and sometimes 18:18 those companies have multiple business models and they have a consumer layer, 18:22 they have small and small business layer and they have 18:26 enterprise layers and you might decide which is the best to start from and 18:30 that's that's a tricky question. If never made those decisions it's good 18:34 to get some advice for your specific case but I I think it's good to ask 18:39 yourself which which of the models do I really 18:42 understand the best which of the of the target groups that could be paying 18:47 because it might be that patients themselves might be paying for that to 18:51 solve this problem. It might be that employers might be paying, might be 18:54 pharma, it might be whoever and and you might ask yourself which of those groups 18:59 actually has the biggest benefit from your solution which is is where is the 19:04 pain point really biggest? Where will if you solve that problem where will the 19:09 evidence that you've solved it It be actually the strongest and the most 19:13 powerful because then maybe you should start from the center of the bull's-eye 19:18 and really solve the problem for the for the extreme user, for the group that 19:22 really feels the pain the most. And then, if you solve it from them, it will 19:27 be easier to have this ripple effect and and scale it to other groups. So, so I 19:31 think one is your skill, your understanding. Can I really sell into 19:34 enterprise? And if not, then really understanding, learning from someone or 19:39 bringing on board the salesperson or a co-founder or whatever who really knows 19:43 how to do it or an advisor. Or deciding at the same time where is 19:48 actually the market taking you. Where is the Where are the payers actually 19:52 wanting this solution the most and and not trying to boil the ocean and and 19:58 bring the solution to everybody initially. It's it's good to to to start 20:02 from this so-called beachhead market that it's easy to to win there. And 20:07 then, if you win there, just like Facebook then to become a platform with 20:11 billion dollar users, initially they started just with with Harvard and even 20:16 actually within Harvard with with the fraternity centers or entities there. 20:22 Yeah. I mean, I think that identifying 20:25 multiple potential buyers is a really important exercise and then identifying 20:29 where you're going to start and where you're going to go. I see a lot of 20:31 people who are interested in building a technology solution. 20:35 I think about it as a potential software as a service model. 20:39 But I think as development becomes so much 20:43 more accessible, that's going to be harder to sell. What are your thoughts 20:46 on that? Well, I believe uh 20:49 the general trends right now is that we are disrupting labor and work, not just 20:56 providing tools for the work. I guess the initial wave of in the last years 21:00 was that we were giving tools to people and one tool was replacing uh a previous 21:06 tool. Now, a lot of work can be done powered by AI, but it's it's way more 21:11 powerful than just to be selling tools to solve the problem and then take a cut 21:16 of the of the of the whole problem of the how you much you have been spending 21:20 to to get it done. And I think that's where where a lot of new companies will 21:24 be getting. I guess Y Combinator recently announced the call for startups 21:29 and one of them were AI-powered agencies. So, rather than selling a tool 21:33 for to get something and that the cost of that tool would be 5% 1% of the 21:38 revenues of of of of the business and that we're selling to, 21:43 you get the whole thing done and 21:47 and you really disrupt it from from behind. You really benefit from from all 21:53 the cost savings yourself. Plus, if you're delivering this business 21:58 yourself, you know the proper problems really well because you're operating 22:03 this yourself rather than just providing tools for others to get the job done. 22:08 And I think with agents right now with AI, it's really powerful what you can do 22:13 in terms of automating your own business. And that's why agencies 22:16 becoming and in general outsourcing work to new AI power AI-first companies 22:22 becomes hot again. Yeah, and I think you just verbalized it 22:25 so well and it I want to really put a pin on it that physicians 22:30 are really well positioned to build service models because there is a piece 22:37 that that is required to have a doctor to do it. It is required like someone 22:42 could build the tools, someone could build the agent, but if they don't have 22:44 the doctor, if they don't have the clinical people behind it, they're not 22:47 going to be able to do it. And so, the difference between a clinician saying, 22:52 "I'm going to build a software that you can use with your team." versus "I will 22:55 take this entire problem off of your plate and 22:59 I'll hand it back to you done because we have the ability to do that.
AI, Service Models, and Workflow Integration 23:04 You could then continue to make your own business your own tech-enabled service 23:08 model more and more and more efficient with your own agents and and your own um 23:13 kind of internal efficiencies, but that's just an example of how I see 23:17 something that a doctor could provide immediate value, get it off the 23:21 ground even if it's a little more manual at first, get it off the ground very 23:25 rapidly, and also have a path to scaling it. Definitely. And I think it's easy to 23:31 create a new tool, but it's very hard to get that tool 23:34 integrated into workflows. And I think what I've learned is that when we're 23:40 thinking of the value we're creating for the market, we're thinking of all the 23:43 benefits. If we will add this to your workflow, it will it will be changing 23:48 this, it will be making this and this simpler, but we're not really thinking 23:53 of of the effort of the implementation, of the integration, of of 23:58 teaching people how to use it, and so on. 24:01 And I believe uh it 24:04 in general subtracting is more important especially 24:08 in the healthcare innovation than addition. 24:11 And we need to think how we're actually subtracting work from people, 24:15 not adding extra extra tasks, extra extra 24:20 elements. That's why ambient scribes and everything that are actually adopted, 24:25 they are adopted because you were eliminating certain tasks. Mohan Sawhney 24:29 person Mohan Sawhney from Kellogg School of Management who created the tool for 24:33 understanding your value proposition really stresses this well, I think, that 24:37 as a as an innovator, we cannot just think of the of the positive side of of 24:42 a solution we're bringing and the benefits and the differentiators and the 24:45 proof points, the evidence that it works. We need to think of the of the 24:49 negative side, and cost is not is really not the biggest thing usually or the 24:53 price you're paying, the cost of implementing, switching, uh teaching 24:58 others, and all the effort related to it, even the effort to buy this 25:01 solution, which sometimes is months of procedures, and the effort to prove that 25:05 it's actually safe, secure, and so on. And the risks related to implementing a 25:10 new solution and entering a new player into our systems, all of those negatives 25:15 elements is what blocks innovation. And that's why it's very hard to hope that 25:19 if you create a tiny thing about needs to go through all of those hurdles of 25:24 getting implemented that it will really get adopted well and quickly. 25:29 And it makes the sales cycle longer, especially if now you're talking about 25:32 enterprise contracts and you're talking about offering new tools. Like, "Oh, 25:36 it's going to make this thing so much easier for you." And they're like, 25:40 "We put a moratorium on new tools. Like, 25:43 we're done with new tools. We're building our own tools. Like, we we 25:47 don't want to integrate any We don't want to piece together any more things." 25:51 Um I think it's going to get really hard to 25:53 sell software-based solutions unless there's there's some other, you know, 25:57 aspect to it that makes it, like you said, subtracting work, not adding. I 26:02 think that a lot of times founders underestimate those implementation costs 26:06 and how much it takes to, you know, there's there's internal processes, 26:09 there's legal teams, there's vendor review teams, there's How do you 26:13 actually get it integrated from like a technical perspective, but more so the 26:17 change management. If you're going to have to train people on it, if you're 26:20 going to have to keep this updated as part of training, 26:25 all of that becomes really, really a hard sell, especially when other 26:31 people are starting to realize that they could make some AI tools themselves. And 26:35 so, if you actually take work off their table, it becomes something that 26:40 the sales cycle can get a lot shorter because if you say, "I will take care of 26:44 this service line for you. I We We would contract with you to come and do the 26:49 work and, you know, we're insured and all these things 26:54 they would be a lot more willing to try it because it's like an easy button for 26:58 them. The other piece that I think we wanted to talk about was about the 27:03 difference between a venture-backed startup and more of a lifestyle business 27:08 and how you differentiate those. So, I call those small businesses ants 27:14 and and the the really scalable ventures elephants. And and even when you're 27:19 starting and we're investing the first month or two in the work, you don't 27:23 really see like in the early phases of pregnancy, you don't see what's going to 27:27 get out of this embryo, but I guess the decisions you're making to build a 27:31 venture-backed startups are totally different than if you're really building 27:35 a so-called bootstrapped or small business lifestyle business that might 27:40 be your just private clinic or whatever. If you want to really build for scale, 27:45 there is there is certain logic of the fundraising process which takes a lot of 27:48 time and effort and which is a commitment to really build a company 27:53 that can return the whole fund for two investors because that's how how the 27:57 this industry operates. So, so you're you're really looked at as can this 28:02 company be a billion-dollar company, which means that it cannot be a 28:05 two-niche solution. It needs to be infrastructure for the whole industry or 28:10 or at least a niche. And it needs to generate a certain minimum of let's say 28:15 100, 200, 300 million dollars in in the foreseeable future and 28:20 it needs to be built to for scale and you need to be yourself ready to really 28:25 grow fast grow and and build large larger structures even though right now 28:31 there are first billion-dollar companies reported who are just solo founded and 28:36 have one employee only. Um And I believe it's will be more and more 28:41 possible to build smaller companies that are unicorns, but it's it's a different 28:45 story. So, it's good to like at least read a book about building 28:50 venture-funded startups or join an incubator where you can really talk to 28:54 people, talk to investors, have this preparation to understand, to speak the 28:59 language, to know how to talk to investors, to know how to respond to 29:02 questions. It's it's a skill in itself. It's like learning Spanish. I mean, you 29:06 need to learn the language and you need to practice it. Obviously, fundraising 29:10 doesn't happen by talking to three investors or four. Usually, you need to 29:14 take talk to a 100 of them. So, you you better do it right. And and there there 29:19 definitely tips and tricks that you can learn from other either other founders 29:22 or or advisors and and and investors in the incubator that can help you get 29:28 there. I find that if I'm trying to do 29:31 something on my own, I tend to take kind of a meandering pathway and sometimes 29:36 start down ways that I'm like, "Oh, shoot. I spent 29:39 way too much time on that and that was actually not the priority, but now I 29:42 know that looking back." Um and when I was in more of a venture 29:46 studio environment, I think that what really helped is just having like a 29:49 really clear structure. This is what you are supposed to be working on. Here are 29:53 the tools, here are the people, here are the processes, here is the thesis 29:57 statement, we're all aligned on like what this month is all about, and you 30:00 can really compress time by following a really 30:05 clear pathway and not waste your time going and doing, 30:10 you know, I just I see people all the time they're like, "Oh, should I like 30:13 copyright my name? And should I Should I go get my domain name and and go like 30:19 start getting a logo?" And I'm like, "No, you 30:22 need to get your You need to get your business model down." Like, you don't 30:25 even know if you're building this. Don't get distracted, right? There's 30:28 And when you're a solo founder and you're actually the chief strategy 30:33 officer and the chief marketing officer and the chief growth officer and the 30:36 chief product officer, like you're you're doing all these things. It's very 30:40 easy to get distracted and it's very easy to get discouraged. I think that it 30:45 can be really hard to build on your own because, like you 30:48 said, you will get negative feedback sometimes, and you need to understand, 30:51 how do I incorporate that to make this grow and and move forward? And how do I 30:55 surround myself actually with peers that are that are going to help support me 30:59 when I mean, the the number of questions or problems that come up as a
Venture-Backed vs Lifestyle Businesses 31:05 founder that you not only have no idea what the answer is, but you had 31:09 absolutely no way to predict that this problem or question would come up. It's 31:12 like it was not even on your radar. I mean, it's like a weekly thing, right? 31:16 So, you want to have your bench or your your sounding board 31:21 up front, otherwise you will get distracted, you will get discouraged, 31:25 and you will get off track. And so, I think a lot of us who have built 31:28 startups before had really strong mentors, had really strong 31:32 infrastructure around us to keep us going. 31:36 Um, and we want to provide that for other founders, too. 31:40 Yeah. I totally agree, and I believe people like 31:44 you who have built that and turned an idea that you had by working in the 31:49 health system and and that you designed, but then you turned it into a company 31:53 with hundreds of thousands of patients 31:58 is is actually the way to go, and you need to talk have those people in your 32:01 network, have such expert mentors, and and the peer group that is just starting 32:06 with you so that you can actually be like a university friends with each 32:10 other. It's It's a journey, and I believe it's a very rewarding, but also 32:14 a very hard journey. So, why not have have friends that are helping you on the 32:19 way? And just like in the gym, it's sometimes good to have a personal 32:23 trainer that really has a structure and a process that guides you. You can come 32:27 up with all of this yourself, but we know that many people just want to be 32:32 and and they just buy the gym ticket, but they never go. And and I think it's 32:36 a waste of potential and and I've myself seen so many great ideas among 32:42 physicians. I mean, in physicians' heads and they were sharing them, but they 32:46 never actually had the guts to really do it and do it well and do it on a big 32:50 scale. So, I I believe your initiative, that's 32:53 why I believe it's so valuable, is that can give you courage and it can give you 32:58 courage not just to start and launch it and launch it really well among best 33:03 companies at Health in in Las Vegas still this year, but I think it can also 33:08 help you to build something that reaches its full potential. I have a lot of 33:12 faith in physicians. I think that if there's anything that we're really 33:15 really exceptionally good at, it's at learning. We have been learning our 33:19 whole lives and most doctors I talk to, they don't know 33:23 a single person in venture or startups. It's not that they don't feel like they 33:27 could do it or they they don't have the skills. They They could have the skills. 33:32 They just don't have the path and they don't have the connections and they 33:35 don't have that network. And I know people open the doors for me. I I 33:39 learned what executive sponsorship really is when people go ahead of you 33:43 and say, "You got to listen to this person. They've got a great idea." And 33:47 and use their relationships to to again clear the way 33:51 for someone who has a ton of potential and just needs that that that roadmap 33:57 and that launch pad. And so, I think that there's certain things that 34:00 clinicians are actually phenomenally good at. I I mentioned before like you 34:04 have the asset that's needed to actually start a healthcare business like 34:08 tomorrow. You could literally start in the next month uh you know, the smaller 34:13 version of what you want to do and you've you've got a license and you've 34:16 got experience and you could start a medical group. There There's so much 34:20 that's available to you as a physician that a lot of founders could not do. 34:24 They can't do. And then, if what you need is the pathway, the connections, 34:29 the language, the understanding, I think that those are learnable, those are 34:33 reachable. And so, I think there's something so unique about physician 34:37 founders, and I spend so much time with people in venture, and they're very, 34:42 very excited about what I am trying to build cuz they're like, "Oh my gosh, I 34:47 can't wait to have access to your founders." Like, people realize that 34:51 it's like two silos. You have physicians practicing in the traditional healthcare 34:54 system, and then you have this whole venture startup space where there's just 34:59 not a lot of connection between the two. And so, the idea of pulling these great 35:04 minds and these great creatives out of the traditional healthcare experience 35:08 and equipping them with what they need to actually thrive in the venture space. 35:13 That That's what gets me really excited. Yeah, it gets me excited as well, and I 35:17 believe patients are waiting for it. I guess healthcare is broken, not just in 35:21 US, in Europe, everywhere, in in different ways, but there's still so 35:25 much to be done, and so much that we can do for the next generation of healthcare 35:29 that can be massively better, and and leverage the potential of technology, 35:34 data, new tools. But, we will not never do it without physicians that understand 35:39 medicine, that understand the workflows. So, I guess there are so many bright IT 35:44 guys, but they don't know what you know. So, I think what we are really looking 35:49 for in the incubator is is access to to the pain points you're seeing and and to 35:54 the to the problems you're seeing and to the ideas you have about how to solve 35:58 those. Absolutely, and I love that you brought 36:01 it back to really the mission. This is why 36:04 why we became physicians in the first place was to help people, to help 36:07 patients. We've all become frustrated with the system. We see where it's 36:10 broken. I have always been most driven by mission and impact. How can we 36:15 actually help kids? How can we help their families? 36:19 Um and then to see something that's able to scale, I think it's it's so rewarding 36:24 to have that one-to-many impact. I personally wanted to help as many 36:28 aspiring physician founders flourish as possible. I think that just getting you 36:33 guys on the path, getting you in this environment is all you need to be able 36:38 to really make incredible change in the healthcare system. And so, I'd love to 36:43 invite anyone who's interested to join us on our next webinar for physician 36:49 founders. It's going to be on May 18th from 7:00 to 8:30 Central Time and we 36:55 have that link in the show notes. It's also on our website at startups 36:59 physicians.com, but we want to really walk through a lot
Physician Founders and Closing Thoughts 37:03 of this in more detail of the tools and the training that physicians need to go 37:09 from I have an idea, but I've never had any contact with the venture world to 37:15 you actually could be well on your way to becoming a venture-backed startup 37:19 founder. So, I really appreciate all of your insight here, Tomas, and I 37:24 want everyone to know that people participating in the incubator he's a 37:28 great advisor for me. He's been great at helping he's done so much with venture 37:33 building globally and just a great representation that the work that we're 37:37 doing there there's actually demand for it 37:40 all around the world. I mean, sometimes you can even think bigger than just like 37:44 oh, I'd like to start a US healthcare company. Like how else could we grow 37:47 these ideas? So, Tomas has been a great support for me, but also just really 37:52 good thought partner on go-to-market strategy. How do we make things that can 37:56 scale? How do we position people to get the the funding that they need? And it's 38:00 literally like a recipe and this is why you see so many founders who once they 38:05 do it, they go on to start you know, they call them what like a serial 38:09 entrepreneur or something. Like you find the pattern, you recognize there is a 38:14 recipe to starting a venture-backed startup and you can rinse and repeat and 38:18 you can do it with a lot of different concepts. 38:21 Exactly. Just do it. Just do it. Yeah. Just do it with 38:25 support. Um thank you so much, Tomaz. I I Do you have any closing thoughts for 38:29 physicians? No, I guess it can be overwhelming. So, it might you might ask 38:33 yourself, uh do I have the time with my clinical practice? I don't want to give 38:37 up I give up I give it up. And I I believe your example shows that you can 38:41 really do it. You can make the idea bigger than yourself. So, you might 38:45 hire a CEO, you might whatever have people there taking care of the business 38:49 side or operation side or financials, whatever. But nobody will really take 38:54 the job from you of starting this. And and I guess you can start it, you can 38:58 build a movement, you can build an organization around the idea. But but we 39:03 need your vision to to really get started. 39:05 >> Well, thank you for joining us. And uh those of you who are listening, we would 39:09 love to have you join the webinar on May 18th. So, Thank you. 39:13 >> see you all then. Thanks [music] for listening to the Startup Physicians 39:15 Podcast. This community was built for doctors [music] who want to contribute 39:20 to the future of health care. We offer support for physicians who are ready to 39:24 make the next step towards [music] building the career they've dreamed of. 39:28 Visit startupphysicians.com to learn more. 39:32 And if this episode [music] resonated with you, share it with another friend 39:35 who needs to hear it. Let's change the future of health care together.
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