Highlights from 10x 2025

Wait, closing in 5 min for to see.

Morning, Sean. Happy birthday. Thank you. I guess I have to crank my volume up because there's a loud noise out here.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of noise at the airport. Joe, I'm making you the host because I'm gonna have to go like halfway through to my plane. Is that okay?

Sure it is.

You home safe and sound.

I'm all safe and sound.

Oh!

What time's your flight?

9 o'clock.

Okay.

And you you live out of Philly, right? You're near Philly. Oh, I'm like ready to mute someone. It's you. Because of the background. Noise. You you're flying into, Philly. Right? Yes, okay. you know. Yeah. Hi, Andre and Arlen, it was good. And I'm we're gonna have to look into what you suggested. Sean. There's a way to block note takers in webinars where people just you know they don't. I? I don't even know what's really happening like, is it automatic that

notes are being taken? But the person doesn't come on at all? I mean, I don't know.

The way the way. Well, now, because so many people are using it, zoom and other meet up. I mean any other audio. Visual conferencing platform now allows you to just push a button and automatically record what's going on at the meeting. At the same time, there's a button that prevents that and the issue.

The question is the this automatic? Do I have to be ambiently aware the meetings on? Or is it just.

Yeah, that's.

I didn't forget it. Well, you can set it and forget it. Whoever is organizing I'm assuming you're the owner of this meeting. John is.

Oh, well, then, Sean can push the button, go into settings and eliminate the use of scribe summary software that usually works, but every now and then, and I don't know whether someone is doing it now. You should be able to disable it. But then you have to do that in the course of the meeting. It's a real pain in the neck. And I that's why I suggested you eliminate it, because there's the main reason has to do 2 main reasons. One, it inhibits people from saying things they otherwise wouldn't want to say. And second, you don't know where this information is going. It goes out into the web. And then it's used for training data in algorithms. So I I just

I, I ban them. I don't think it's a good idea. If you want to participate, show up and show up.

I'm removing him now, just for the heck of it.

Great.

Yeah, if you want to come, come.

Exactly.

You can always watch the video later.

But there were some people signed up, and you're illuminating.

It's a it's a bit of a moot point here, though, because you recorded and put it online, anyway. No.

Right, so.

You know. To be honest with you. It's very helpful for me, because I actually go back and look at meeting notes in case I forgot to write something down.

Well, that's what I mean. We put all of them online for later.

No, I'm talking about my meetings when I have them go in.

Oh, yeah, no, that's fine, hey? You do you? Right?

Oh, I do do mean.

Yeah, you do, you certainly did you? This week there was a lot of Nelly.

It was an outsized portion of Nelly relative to the other guests. I'm sorry I didn't mean.

But that's okay. It's okay. That's what we've come to enjoy about Nelly she's in. She's an oversized personality. and she compensates for people who are undersized. There were some people in the room who I would have loved to have heard more from. Oh, there are 2 Sean Smith's now from 2 different perspectives. This is it interesting?

Well, actually, the argument is that for internal meetings, private internal meetings, there's more of an argument not to use it. because people take employees take that information, and you don't know where it goes.

Well.

So it's it's a cyber. It's a.

Her her employees. Primary employee is her daughter, and she's about to be a grandmother, too, that.

I guess it depends on the circumstance. I'm just, you know, the pros and the cons. There's certainly pros to it. I get it.

Nelly, you're gonna be grandma of a baby. What do you know? A little girl? Yeah.

And I'm praying for red hair. They're like no.

Well, let's let's start because this whole meeting is a conversation. Today. It's we're not presenting anything.

But hey, everyone, I have a suggestion.

Yeah.

I had huge Fomo. And then I was thinking that maybe next year, if it's possible, maybe you could do. If you guys consider some conferences will allow people to attend virtually at a cost for those that can't make it on site.

I've explored doing that in the past. But that's a sean decision. And Christopher, I invite everyone to become a panel so they can talk, and we can see you and get to know you but it is optional, of course. Okay, and I know Mara got home safely, because we flew on the same flight, and I drove her home, and I waited until she walked in the door, nice and safe and sound. That was our 15th meeting, and as co-host I'll be among the last to speak today, because I'd like to hear from the folks who were there about what they took away from this meeting. I would like to start with the Dutch, because they are very blunt, indirect. The things.

And I heard from other participants that they liked the breakout meetings the most. Yeah. And I my, my highlight was the the presentation by April on real world evidence showing where the money is.

Hmm.

Hello! I did I. It gave me a new perspective on how to. how, how to encourage monetizing by startups. So, and also I had a great well, there was one great breakout meeting I had with Jose, and we were talking on. Where do startups fail on? And then the usual answer is, it's either regulatory or reimbursement. But in my, in my humble opinion, it's anything a startup fails on. That's the most important thing for that startup. so it can be either your team or your planning, or your funding, or whatever. So, and Jose said, well, you can look at it as a bridge.

Take one stone out of it, and the whole thing collapses. You have to have all stones in place, and then you can have a successful startup. So that was my takeaway.

For those of us that were unable to attend. Can you describe the breakout sessions? What? What was the structuring process of that.

Did you ask me? Or I think.

Anyone who attended. I just.

Okay.

It was the 1st time you know. So I passed the torch this year I was there, and I attempted to not post, but my incessant need for attention led me to hold the microphone at all times and over exert myself. and Sean was very gracious, and all but once didn't embarrass me in front of everyone. So that was good. Shawn introduced something that I had actually only done once, and that was 10 x number one in Minnesota. In 2013 I attempted to have a breakout where you know you could be in one of 2 tracks, but a we didn't really have enough people to make it work, I think. Really. Well, and second

I heard from the folks that weren't in my room. That was weaker. The person who was leading that didn't really know how to work a room. So it was very. I find. much a function of, you know the energy of of the host and and keeping it moving and fluid. Of course I'm biased but Shawn broke the meeting out into 4 groups to work on different issues. Jose led one Jan. I believe you led one and

Nellie.

No, we like, of course. How could I forget and it was interactive. And there was a lot of positive feedback about of people being able to get to know one another a lot better than they otherwise would. Hearing real contributions real time. So folks who participated. Maybe, Jose, tell me about.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean the format to answer your question. Arlen was, you know, there, I don't know about 60 people at the conference. So when we split up, there were about 15 people in the groups, 1012, 15, people in a group. And so then, that allowed for everybody to sort of make a quick introduction and really participate on a discussion on a topic. So those of us who are hosting it might have kind of queued up, you know, the the topic of conversation, and then people might have shared some of their experience around that, for example, the group I led was around software development for medical devices. And so we had some conversations about, you know the process, the regulations, the challenges, how it interfaces with reimbursement. You know those various things the nice thing about it, I mean, really, honestly, the the

best thing about 10 x for me always has been the fact that because it's relatively small. You can really meet every single person there, shake their hands, have a quick conversation with them. And so this just facilitated that further. so really got to hear by the end of it, since everybody participated in 4 different breakouts. And there was, you know, kind of a an attempt at ensuring that you weren't always grouping with the same people. It really allowed all of us to get some face time and some conversation with pretty much everybody at the conference, so you know, as as is usually the case, I walked away feeling like

I. Now you know there's many people there whom I already knew. I know them a little bit better now and then. Many people there whom I didn't know, and I feel like now I know who they are, what they do. you know, not just from a business perspective, but a little bit on the personal side, so I would say I liked it. I thought it was good. It was a little bit of, you know, Rocky, right? Because it's 1st time and figuring out the logistics and the 1st breakout session. It was like 4 groups in one room, so sometimes hard to hear. By the middle of it some of us started going outside, so there was less noise to contain.

And everyone was going outside.

And then everybody remembers.

Going outside again. You couldn't hear group relative to the others. Everyone's like, I'm gonna I don't care what it is. I'm sitting outside.

Yeah. That was.

Nice

You know. I think Mattea said it really best last night. What I liked about the breakout groups is sometimes we had an agenda, and it deviated. And it was because we were having intimate conversation with a small group. And so it could have started one area. But it actually would. It could have evolved as part of a natural course because the group was smaller. So I think he said it best.

Arlen Anthony was to be our kickoff speaker, and somehow it fell off his calendar entirely. So at 3 min to not, and this he he couldn't have been more apologetic. This never happens, etc, etc. Stop nodding your head and disapproval. The point is, he showed up. He rearranged his whole calendar, and he showed up to talk at the end of the day. But you know it was 3 min to 9, and I was like, you're cutting it kind of close text. And he was like in a meeting, and he's like, you know. It took him like 2030 min, he says, was that today? yeah, anyhow, because of that, when he did show he didn't use any of his slides, and he just sat in front of the room, and we had the best 45 min

of give and take with him people asking, you know, because we always run out of time for him. He always has so much to contribute. It's ridiculous! And People are just brimming with questions, and then he's, you know, off saving the child or something. But I learned that Not only are you going to be at AI Med, but that you invited Nick Anderson to present. and at the end of the day we went out to dinner, and Anthony was like, I don't know I'm like, Come on have one drink. He's like, okay, I said, well, drive me. Everyone else is walking. So we got a little extra time together, and he invited me to come and moderate some sessions, which I will do, so I'll have a chance to

shake your hand, or if you're a hugger, I don't know if you're.

Yeah. So there's there's 2 points to this one. I'm a big fan of intimate instructional and inspirational meetings. I every was every one of us has been to a meeting where there's 20,000 of your closest friends, and nothing gets done. These meetings are great for the reasons that have been mentioned, and we've the the challenges. And I'm I'm opening this question to the group. The challenge for the organizers is, how do you at least break, even if not make money doing it. cause it's a lot of work, and it's a lot of money, and and if you don't have people registering to keep it small. It so so how do you? How do you make that work other than just raising the price which then you run into elasticity. So how do you do that?

I'm proud to say, in 15 sessions I never lost money not once.

Oh, good!

I didn't make a fuckload each time, but I didn't lose money, which is good. I'm actually, I'm encouraging Arlen, who will be our speaker next week. To start his own equivalent of a Friday call with his members, and you know his folks are. This is the society of physician entrepreneurs. We spoke after yesterday, after last week's call, and they said, These are physicians who are looking to either have a side gig or looking to step away from being in practice, and that the folks on this call, or

the people that he would want to be the featured guests for his call, because I don't know how many of you have had. A client who was an aspiring entrepreneur, who was a doctor who doesn't know anything about quality management doesn't know anything about cyber security doesn't know about, you know, regulatory stuff. And so it's like a new awakening. Wow. All these things I need to take into consideration. So we'll stay.

1st week.

If Arlen chooses to go this route, but I think it would add a lot of value to his members.

Well, I I started to socialize it in our group. But what particularly I'm interested in from this group is your perspective. In other words. As Joe said, there's an increasing number of physicians that want to supplement their practice or replace their practice with non clinical roles. advisors, consultants, members of teams, board of directors, chief medical officer, etc. and there are a number of barriers that get into the way of those folks finding jobs with companies like yours or the companies that you work with or for. So what I'm interested in is from your perspective, from the potential employer or contracting contractor perspective.

What do you look for? What are the things that get in the way? When a doctor says I want to work with you so we can have. That's what I'm thinking about next week. I I can tee it up with some stuff, but I'm really more interested in the voice of the customer, and that is you. What what do we need to do to to improve the odds of someone being able to add value to whatever it is you're trying to do.

Well, I'm thinking that I don't think of it as them adding value to what these folks are trying to do, but rather, whether these folks believe that they can have a successful engagement with.

Correct.

So for me. If someone came to me with an idea that I challenge them on their point of difference. And what's the clinical operational financial value relative to what's on the market today. And they're like, I'm like, I because I don't wanna work on a project that I'm not gonna be able to say I helped with that, you know. I wanna put it in my portfolio and say, Wow! You worked on that. Not something that just kind of fizzled. And it's like. you know, I don't like taking money from someone who I don't think is gonna make it. That's me. Personally, Michelle, I'd like to ask you. physician, entrepreneur approaches you says I have this idea. I don't have a prototype. We haven't raised any money. What do you think.

Send me a retainer. I mean, seriously like these people, and it's it's a pipe dream, and it's hopes and dreams. So you know we take them. We do the regulatory pathway assessment seriously, though, I take a retainer if they're at that, because I've very often come to to find out that they appreciate, or they think that they should get certain information for free. so we do. We start them with a regulatory pathway assessment, and then that takes them. They take that, and then they use that to go out and raise funds and say, Hey, I understand my plan. This is like a legitimate 3rd party opinion on what my, the reality of what my device is, and how much, how long it's going to take and how much money it's going to take, and those kinds of things. So the smart ones put that in there that the high level information in their pitch deck, and then they give the position paper to serious investors, to validate their

their assumptions, that they they put in.

It's a good point, Michelle, but it's a 2 way street. In other words, I totally agree with what you're saying. But when and and that's the case of a physician entrepreneur trying to get an idea to a patient and go through the process. But the other scenario is, I don't. I don't necessarily have an idea, but I think I can add value to your idea. And then the issue becomes. And it's it's the same conversation. So, for example. it's just not me. But let's just use me as an example. So someone comes to me and says. I have Xyz idea I've gone through all these steps, but I want you to help me do whatever

and then the issue, and I say, Well, send me a retainer. and they say, well, I can't, because I'm a startup, and I don't have any money. I'll give you equity. Well, that's not gonna work.

Right? So it's a 2 way. It's a 2 way street. Yep. And so I just like, if you don't have like, ask for $2,500. And if you don't have $2,500, even if you just have friends and family or your own money like, how? Where is this relationship gonna ever go. you know, and how long is it going to take to get there? And then then, if you start out like that, and you take equity, then they really do take advantage of what they get for free. you know, if you take equity only. So I never do equity only, and there's only a few circumstances in which I've done a hybrid equity and cash so enough cash to cover my expenses for the project, and then equity to make up with the discount that I gave between below my normal rate.

And now that way the risk, you know I'm I'm I'm risk neutral, you know I'm not going to lose money on the project, and then I've got a hope of making you know bigger money with the equity. One day.

I think. Well, Sean. I don't know how loud it is there at the airport, but you just wrote me privately. I think that's worth using your outside voice for.

Okay? Well, hopefully, they won't have any announcements. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Arlen. There was a person named Steven Flutie Davis, who has developed a network for physicians, and it's like upwork, and people can go in there, and they can put in their projects either as things that they want help with, or things that that they're that they're willing to consult on. And you mentioned your doctors. Not all of them have an idea that they want to bring to market, but they want to advise on that. So this is the network that he's built for them. Where they go. They put their Cv. Up there. Their credentials say what kind of projects they want to work on. And then people developing medical devices go in and say, we want help. With this. We want help. With that we can pay this much, or we can pay nothing, or you know we can give equity, or you know, so it it is a marketplace for physician entrepreneurs that are interested in consulting with medical device companies, and you should probably

connect with Steven Davis about that. You know I happen to agree with Michelle. I think that when people get things for free they don't value them. Every therapist I've ever had, and there have been a lot of them has made me pay something, even when I'm not able to pay the entire fee, and I insist that my clients pay something, even if it's a nominal amount, because when people get things for free. And this was my experience with this conference is they don't show up, they don't value it, and they don't treat you with respect.

Yeah, I know, Steven. He happens to live in Denver. We've had several conversations. And my my response to what you said is. there are several dating services to do this, in other words, matching doctors with companies that want them as advisors like any dating service. The success of it, in my opinion, has to do with the quality of the people and the know-how and mindset of the people on the dating service. And so typically, what happens is that? But what I see is that 1st of all, the doctors that want to do this are not prepared to do it. They don't have the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies to help a company create speed to value.

They just think because of the initials after name, and they know how to do nephrology that they're good to go. Well, that doesn't. That doesn't happen. And the other side of the point is that some people, not all, but many companies that recruit physicians have the same problem. They don't understand the mentality of the person that they're trying to recruit, and at the end of the day the date fails. So just putting up a matching service doesn't help. It actually gets in the way, and it causes a lot of heartburn and hard feelings.

I I happen to agree with you on that, at least on the last aspect. Marketplaces are a risky product for everyone involved. And one of the reasons I've never created one. What we talked about during my panel discussion on marketing was about how we're going to build community going forward. 2025 onward. What that's got to look like and how it's going to work. And I don't believe just another Saas product is going to solve that problem. I think that the answer and the answer behind the reason why we held this conference in person and called it humanizing Medtech was the fact that people are only as good as the relationships that they've formed with the other human beings on this planet

and to that extent, when people work together on solving problems, you get much better outcome than when doctors go it alone, or anybody goes it alone. So I feel very strongly that yes, you're correct. You've developed a community of doctor entrepreneurs, but I think it's a question of how do you enrich that group and get those people talking to each other. Get those people learning from each other, and get those people connected to other networks such as our network. The Mdg. Group. Not one of them has shown up here, you know, and I think you know my grandfather was a doctor at the Mayo clinic, and I know something about doctors.

So the if you need to be the smartest person in the room. That's a problem. And there is there. There are a lot of Doctor Divas out there not to be rude. However. if that is the case, and you're unable to take direction from other people, then it's unlikely that you're going to succeed in a collaborative environment.

8, 9, 30.

Every, so.

So I'm sorry.

You have a huge challenge in front of you, which is, How do I build community with a group of people who inherently don't get along. You know the FDA has the pharmaceutical meetings where they get 26 physicians to fight with each other about whether or not a drug is safe and should be approved. And so, you know, you know, 2 doctors, 3 opinions.

Do you have a comment?

Well, I did have a comment, because I think we're getting a little bit of ways from what your original question was. because you're talking about a group of physicians that want to learn more about doing medical device development. If they realize they need to learn more. As some of the speakers have been saying, I think that's a easier question to approach. If they don't realize they need to do more than then. That's if they don't realize they need to learn more then that's kind of a different question. because they may not understand why they're not doing it. But to go back to Michelle's point

that knowledge that we have we share freely within this group. And of course the physicians are welcome to come here. But at some point that knowledge and the training that's being provided to the physicians to allow them to go into a different job. Space has value too.

I would say that well, I I could do account. But maybe over the 15 sessions maybe we had 50 Mds attend, and they really do seem to get a lot out of these meetings. Do you remember how rich Dr. Martin's feedback was? This week? It was fantastic, and he's working on a he's a neurosurgeon who is working on a number of projects among them a way to do Oh, what's the word just left me laparoscopic brain surgery for tumors where right now there are products on the market. But they're very hard to guide.

and his is easier to guide. And he said that the surface that you can do right now is like this big. But his will allow this much type of thing. So There were so many things that when we had a panel the last question I, I said, was I? I have a question, and that is Dr. Martin. Will you read to us the notes that you took? I wondered what stood out for him, and it was just across the board a whole bunch of things like, you know, even I tangentially like, yep, I know that I know a person who knows that I know that. That were a little new for him. So that was that was rewarding for me to hear. Now.

So one of the things I wanted to go back to, you know. What do physicians need to know when they're getting involved? And as part of it. I'm later in the process, in the quality management process. And physicians are geniuses, and they have to have that bravery or anything that needs to to basically take care of a patient in a way. But when they try to bring that personality into the medical device arena, they get very frustrated because they're not in control of, let's say, the regulatory strategy, the Qms. The B. And B. And sometimes their frustration comes out in a manner that's not appropriate that demoralizes the team because these experts they want. They think my device is ready. It should be able to go out in 6 months. It takes

at a minimum 2 years to get a device through everything it needs to get through and the different channels. And so they're frustrated because they're not the expert with their my advice to the doctors and physicians who want to get involved later in the process. I'm not in the early stages, but right when you're getting into that stage where you're starting documentation, you're starting requirements, documents, your regulatory strategy. You need to trust that the people are experts and have respect for them. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a doctor be disrespectful to somebody on the team, because they're not the expert, and they're frustrated that it's taking more than 6 months. So that's just some feedback that I can give. And that's just more of a team building perspective.

Andre. I'm curious to know as a contract manufacturer, how often have you had positions? Be your point of contact on a project versus having them find a someone who's more of a traditional business person to interact with you.

It's very seldom, actually, because we typically deal with the engineers and so forth, unless the developer, of course, is the physician himself. But we typically deal with engineering. And they they've there are companies that have physicians that are advisors. But candidly, we don't get much interaction with them. You know they'll usually come to us if there's a problem. But you know, in the development phase or or bringing product.

Anticipated that. How about you, Jan? And packaging.

We don't typically deal with physicians at all because they don't touch the packaging. They think everything happens just because of the device. So we're working with all the people in the sterile room, or the people unpacking it. And doctors really don't care so.

Jose, I'm thinking you probably do. They come to you with their idea.

I do have to say. I've had doctors come to me and want packaging for their products without anything else going on, and I have to send them out to other people to do the Qms's. And.

I don't know.

Other types of stuff, but.

Like, oh, you want to put that in a box, have you? This, this, that, and that? Have you checked these boxes first? st See what I did. There, Jose, do you have.

Yeah, I probably worked with maybe 8 or 10 doctors in various capacities, oftentimes, like chief medical officers of of startups or companies. A couple that you know we've I've helped start companies. I mean, my experience has been pretty positive. I think I can definitely appreciate the challenges sometimes of kind of translating between. you know, somebody whose experience is in the medical domain and dealing with patients who can be extremely valuable, as like voice of the user and like, understand the clinical need of something, but maybe doesn't understand some of the challenges related to engineering or manufacturing or regulations, or reimbursement, or all that kind of thing.

yeah, I haven't had too many. Yes, there's always an ego to to deal with. But honestly, that's true. With pretty much any kind of person. You always have to deal with egos but I find that I don't know. I've always had pretty good relationships with them, and.

With engineers.

The only ones who are going to succeed are the ones that are humble enough, at least, to say, here's what I'm an expert at. And here's what you're an expert at. you know, and you can sort of each each side show deference to the other in their area of expertise. And if you can, you know, there's a soft skill required in that, of course. but that's part of the job. I think if you're helping somebody build a company. It's managing that those soft skills so that the person.

I I temporarily muted you only because I want to get appointed before we lose Sean, who looks like he's online to board. We are. Gonna have a a branding change for this regularly scheduled call. This is, in fact, the last Mdg. Premium call on a Friday, and next week you'll have the 1st Mlv premium call. as Sean has proven to me not only his friendship and stewardship, but desire to continue what we've built here, and so he's your guy when you have a question, hey, Jodia, I was telling the folks at the meeting. I now have a new short code called Zz Shawn, which is a sentence that when someone says, Hey, Joe, I just type in a few characters, and it says, you really want to talk to Shawn Smith. He's effectively leaving the group now. So I wanna publicly thank Sean

for doing that, because, you know, there was a lot of work that that brought us to our little family here, and I'd hate to see it wither and he won't let that happen. So thank you. Sean, that's okay. You can stay on mute Luke.

Sure, sorry for the background. It was dense volume earlier, so it's settled down a bit. I wanted to say it's not only about egos. But doctors speak a different language than engineers, and they have a lot of contact. So you either have to have multilingual doctors or multilingual engineers, or they have to have an intent to understand each other. I mean, there's a lot of effort in biomedical engineering and clinical engineering, so that you have people who speak both languages and can be interpreters. But you really have to understand each other. So

I think that's more important than.

When I when I brought that up, I'm actually witnessing this, the dismantling or not dismantling the disruption in a negative way. And that's the reason I brought that up 80% of the time. It's not a problem. But when it's that when it is a problem, it can. It can literally dismantle a company is my, that's my point is being in there. And so making sure you have those good, positive relationships, and that you're always relationship building as you're building. The company is important because you don't want to get 2 to 5 years in and have a blow up of some sort. That's just because of frustration. That's really where that point was coming from.

Stephanie, it looks as though you have something to add.

Yes, I I'm new to this group, and and so I think it's been wonderful listening to the inputs you have. My background is process improvement with a really deep coverage in operations and regular regulatory. I facilitated many, many Kaizen events. So that's probably old language. You guys are rolling your eyes going? Oh, God! Not that stuff again! But frankly, I was in orthopedics for over 15 years, and I remember talking to folks about. Let's invite the surgeons to the event, and they're, you know, really worried about it. Oh, my God, we can't air our dirty laundry in front of the surgeons. They'll never talk to us again. Blah blah!

When I finally convinced them to do that. it was breakthrough we had fantastic events. The surgeons gave us the feedback that you know you trusted us enough to come in and talk about this, and they, just, you know, loaded us with information. You know. And then we began to build the trusting relationships to even get to videotape surgeries so that we could actually see in action what they were doing, and how they were struggling with with the instruments and the tools that we made. It was fantastic. So you know it. It really is the the language of being able to interpret and have the person that can help everybody interpret and and building the trust that goes both ways. You know both of you have things that you're worried about exposing, and you know, what have you but to me? That's what it was. And we we had some amazing

breakthrough solutions and discoveries, because we work together and took that leap of faith.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I I. So what I'm hearing is that for the for the experience, this for the most part. And again, there, there are 2 categories of individuals. We're talking about one clinicians. And when I say surgeons and doctors, I mean nurse practitioners and pharmacists and anybody who's a healthcare profession. I just happen to call them doctors, but that's what it is. And they're trying to get an idea of a patient, and they need help to do it. And the second group is they don't have the idea someone else does, but they want to consult their advice. 2 separate tracks. But to Stephanie's point, most of the time

my experience has been that individual companies or founders turn to physicians for 2 basic jobs to be done. One is, as you mentioned. give us some understanding of workflow and process mapping. Where does this fit in the user experience? If we make it or disrupted, which is kind of like a death knell or secondly, help me understand the market demand. So you're a nephrologist or a surgeon, or whatever. Here's what we're coming up with. What do you think? And sometimes that's valid, and sometimes it isn't. But those are usually the 2 sort of major asks. But there's a whole bunch of other asks where it it winds up being. Ask, creep!

It's what I call ask, creep. We want you to help us understand what it's like being an ent doctor or a neurosurgeon. We have this endoscopic, whatever that we're going to use using image guided surgery in the, or to take out a brain tumor. What do you think? That kind of thing? And then it evolves, and I and I do that, and they say, oh, gee! By the way, can you help us identify a hospital that wants to get? Do a pilot project with my device? Or, oh, by the way, do you know a bunch of rich neurosurgeons who are willing to invest in my company? Or, oh, by the way, are you willing to let us use your stuff that you write to populate our block. I mean it. It gets into ask creep.

And so I I guess another point that I'm trying to make is you really need to have clear expectations of the deliverables and the timelines, and and how this is gonna work satisfactorily for both sides? This is a temporary gig. We're not hiring you for the rest of your life. We want you to help us get from A to B, and once that's done. We're probably gonna say, thanks a lot. We're moving on, and we gotta find somebody else with a different skill set. So that that's just maybe I'm talking endlessly about this, but that's what I think.

Well, we invite you to the call. It's it's valuable to hear.

I. I do belong to a group that has a really cool part of their conference, usually where they'll have nurses or sterile people, and we hire them to look at packages. People have done and put them in a video room or room and videotape them and their reactions to it. That's been really cool. but that's only a 1 time gig, too. So.

I would disagree a little bit with like about mindset versus skills. the examples I would give is that I mean, skills are basically, what are you capable of doing, or what do you know how to do? Can you think out of brain tumor versus? Can you do some electrical whatever in what you're making? But I think that the the mindsets and what do I mean by mindset? It's like, what's your worldview? How do you see the world? How do you interpret the world and and everything in it? And and that brings to the table, and it gets to the point of, how do you find people who know how to be bilingual without an accent? How do you get doctors to speak the same language as engineers or data, scientists

or chemistry people or Phd. Scientists. They come with a different mindset. and the reason they come with a different mindset has to do with the culture of their discipline. I believe you don't get into medical school because you're a creative genius. You get into medical school because you know how to conform. and you know how to compete. That's very different in a business. We're asking you to be creative and cooperative and play nice with each other. Doctors don't do that. We don't play nice with each other. So that's a mindset it. It's something that's enculturated when you get into that discipline.

and it's not our fault. That's what medical schools pick. We pick people who are gonna play between the guardrails for good reasons. You might want to move fast. But you don't want to kill somebody. So it's the same. It's a different mindset.

Can you train them out of that? To.

Yes, yes, and that's another misunderstanding, that unlike personality which is usually fixed, the psychologist tell us by the time we're 8 or 10 years old. And there's all these personality profiling, and Myers Briggs, and you know, Enneagram, and all that stuff. It's been shown time and time again that there are ways that you can change your mindset. But it's it's it's a. It's a different process. And there are ways to do it. And that's.

You bring up, you bring up something that's very interesting. One of the doctors that was in our breakout sessions yesterday. We were talking about how to build a team and how to do that. And one of the things he said is for his company. One of the 1st things they did was bring in somebody who did one of those tests and coaching on how to make the team communicate better and work together as a team, and they did that early on. I thought that was kind of brilliant, because then all these things that we were just talking about would be not a problem, they would actually be a positive asset, because then they blended it like, here's your strength, and here's your strength. So that was one of the great things about yesterday's converse. One of the breakout sessions yesterday.

Victoria has a comment based on do you still have a comment because you had your hand up and you put it down.

yeah. Sorry. Hi, I was. I wanted to like mention we had a experience working with doctors as well. We work on a a beauty dynasty. so we were fortunate enough to found find a really humble nephrologist who was like, who was us trained, had an empty title, and had worked on automated period analysis machines in us, like for seniors and Baxter. And then we got a lot of feedback from him from him on how we can improve our machine. And basically, how do we make it more user friendly? So I was working with the user manual and the human factor, study how to set it up and how to basically instruct the user on starting the therapy, setting up the machine, going through it, and then.

you know, getting done with it. So I had, like a great experience working with him, and we are still working with him and a few of the nephrologist as well. We are like trying to incorporate AI into our system. And basically making sure that it's more user friendly for the doctor who's prescribing the patient. The description. So we're trying to, you know, make it more user friendly, not only for the patients, but for the doctors who will be working with the patients and monitoring their physiological needs, just wanted to.

A lot of sense in Arlen. I know that you've undoubtedly been called upon as a key opinion leader, which is what we always used to call the physicians that we really wanted to be advocates for us. Who would really understand what we're working on so clearly? There's a market for that for for your community. So thank you, Faison, and before we move on, I know you're in Pakistan. and you've been in the news in the last.

Yeah.

8 h. How are you doing? How? What's.

Still alive. We were getting druns yesterday, so everyone was outside watching them. So I hope everything goes well.

I'm sorry. What were you watching yesterday.

Drones getting short term.

Drones.

Getting short down. Yeah, they were in the main city in Lahoy. They were found in other cities as well. So I really hope some of these these places, because both of the nations are nuclear armed.

Well, just thank God, you're in space. So you're not in danger.

Only for the Zoom Meetings.

God bless you! Good luck!

Thanks. Yeah.

Victoria.

Okay, can you hear me? My video gave out.

Yes, ma'am, we can hear you.

Okay, I just wanted to kind of make a comment to Arlen's comments and say, You know, everybody is an individual, and they all bring something to the table, no matter what their background is. It's kind of like. When I was in school, and I saw everybody digging through an engineering physics book, and they're all looking for the answer, and I'm thinking, but it's not always in there. And that was just kind of my comment that you know, everybody brings something different to the table, and a lot of researchers and scientists are artists. And that really, really kind of brings a unique process within the process.

That's a fair point, thank you. And because his ears were ringing, I made sure to reach out to Steven. We were talking about pitch sync, and how you fit into this ecosystem of bringing physician entrepreneurs together with the kinds of folks that we have in our community, and Arnold's told us that you've had a number of conversations that your neighbors I guess you've met in person. And you shared with us at the meeting where you are in terms of fundraising and build out, and the like. Is there anything you'd like to add to the conversation.

Hello, Doctor Myers, good to see you, and sorry for the background. I should just down at Commons Park right now. So I would say, Thank you for getting me on a call. I guess the question would be, what was the conversations really had? Because I came in just about 2 min ago. So I apologize.

We were talking about, if I can do so kind. We were talking about dating services and matching doctors with non clinical opportunities, and I mentioned that we had several conversations about this. We're we're, I mean, we're. We're like minded in trying to achieve the objectives. We we just have differences in terms of how we should approach that and the challenges.

And I said that I thought.

The problem with dating with dating, sir. I call them dating services. 2 sided market matching platforms. Has to do with the quality of the people on them, and the preparedness to match such that it is success and a successful engagement. That was my point. Do you agree or disagree with that.

1,000% agree with it. Our our process of our platform is not open to the masses. There's you build a profile you build, we get your resume. Get your Cv. But then we really engage with you further, most of the people on there have been recommended over to us by other founding positions. Physicians that have been involved in the development process. What I realized when I was at strikers down the street from you is is when we developed the air plus product. We consulted with over 57 positions on there. A lot of them only thought about things through the lens of their practice, not the greater good of what was being developed. And so we took that methodology methodology into building our platform. Same with the consultant levels. Our consultants have an average of 18 years of experience.

It wasn't open for the masses for 2 reasons. You're only as good like you said, as the people on the platform. But also, if you overpopulate the platform, then there's no projects that are being done and people get mad, and then you lose people to just lack of engagement from there. But we've also decided again, not a big big number of physicians on there, same consultants, smaller hyper focus. But we did go to find physicians from Hs. 2, which is the consulting arm of a hospital for special surgery. And again, a lot of them have just honestly been word of mouth referrals dr. David K. Has been phenomenal really building out a lot of this as well, and, as you know, Jeff Cole is great.

I can go on and on, but we've been very selective of who's allowed on. And we talked about earlier a couple of months ago. Now there's so many physicians that want to join, but they don't look at things the right way. It's again through the lens of their practice, and there needs to be education on that and that's something I think we've we've talked about trying to tackle together, which I'm happy to continue. Conversations here soon.

No, we we'll we'll keep doing it.

But I agree there. It's only as good as the people on the platform, and it cannot be overpopulated population as well, because then people get annoyed at the platform, and then there's just stagnant projects out there that can't find anybody. But I will say we are. May 28th is our launch day for this whole project. So we're getting close and I'll send out our Demo day launch. We're doing about an hour Q. And a session. Live demo a lot about the problems, the statistics. It's interesting on the investor panel, Joe, that you had yesterday, which is phenomenal. All the investors really talked about traction and getting clinician involvement.

And the question I really wanted to ask is, how many of those investors actually utilize clinicians in their due diligence process? And we did the research and the numbers were extremely sad. But I was really sad. I mean triangulation off of reports data. It was maybe 20% at best utilized physicians in the investment process. Oh.

Or do you want to comment on that you were on that panel?

I'd be happy to. So for our group of the 180 members that we've got that get involved with due diligence. We do have several physicians, and if we have physicians available we'll pull them in as part of the due diligence. But we do, and occasionally we'll go outside. But we try to keep the due diligence activities within our group.

Yep.

If we don't have an expert in that area, we are less likely to invest in that company.

Yeah. And that's what we're trying to do is give you a platform. You could say, Oh, my gosh, I need a nephrologist that works at the Va. That does this blah blah! Here's the parameters that you connected with them immediately.

And so that's what we're trying to solve for. So you can make a little smarter decisions in the investment process. I enjoyed your take on a lot of the conversations. Yesterday.

What you brought to the meeting, Steven. So thank you for coming out and supporting it.

Thank you. It was a great meeting. Is my 1st one bad that it was your last one. We'll continue to support you.

Thank you. Let's end with a a soft phone question that Nelly asked the group. And that is what was.

I wanted to ask one very quick question, though, because you're talking about physicians all the time. I need nurses, sterile techs nurse practitioners and stuff. Is there a group for that kind of group? People.

I have one that I can help you with.

Can help you, too.

Well, put your contact information in the chat. Everybody who wants to connect there. So to Nelly's closing question for today's call, what was your favorite part? Ice cream is a legitimate answer. If you, if it was ice cream, you can say ice cream.

Legos. Nelly did a great job.

I'm sure she loves.

Thank you. Thank you. My favorite part honestly, was the breakout sessions, because the intimate.

Your your camera? Did you shut it off on purpose.

I did. I I'm kind of packing up. Get ready to go. So I'm multitasking.

Okay.

But I can hear I'll just put it back on. So my favorite part was, honestly just interacting with everybody and hearing what they have to say in the projects they're working on. And you know just that intimacy that you get. And I think some several people have said that a couple of times. Dan, how about you?

Yeah, you, yeah.

I I just enjoyed contacting with people and talking to them and seeing what they were doing and how they were doing it. And I just love learning all the other aspects of medical devices that I hadn't touched with on packaging, and it makes me understand why they think packaging is one of the last things they need to worry about. And it's not. I don't know. I just enjoy learning and meeting everybody.

I enjoyed finally cause it. It's very subtle, and you really have to listen for it. But I learned how to properly pronounce haven. There's like an E in there. But I didn't know I was going with a hard high, but it's more of a height than.

You're you're really doing. I mean, you could go for Dutchman.

You think I'm blunt enough.

No, you're not blunt enough. Well, you're rude enough, but not blunt enough.

Thank you. That's what I was looking for. What better way to conclude this call? And I will be glad to continue to be your chairman. Emeritus on these calls. You might not see me every week, and I gotta go, because on my other screen I gotta trade on right now, and it's nicely in the green, and I don't wanna fuck it up so I I even today to to symbolize that I'm wearing a shirt that I got in 2,001 when I was short term Vp. Of marketing for a Day Trading Company. and I got my series 7 and everything. But that's that's where I'm gonna be hanging out. So if you're anywhere on Wall Street, look me up and maybe we can talk shop.

So for Sean Smith. So signing off for the last time for Mdg. Premium. This has been Joe Page, and we'll see you and Arlen Myers, our featured guests next week at Mlb. Med. Tech, leading voice premium. See you then, everybody, and thank you.

Thank you. Joe.

Bye.

Take care! Bye-bye.