Scott Pantel  00:00All right. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. I guess we're getting close. Welcome to this featured session, and I thought we'd get right into it. Three transactions, three years, $5 billion We've been talking about the work that Ray has been doing, the busiest retired man that I've met, but before we get into one of the things that I think people don't know a lot about is how Axonics actually almost never happened, and it ties into, I think, a simple principle, which Ray and I have talked about, which is the importance of just suiting up and showing up, which everybody here has done today. You all look great, you suited up, you showed up. So, Ray, maybe you can start by sharing the story that most people don't know about Axonics, and we'll start there.Raymond Cohen  00:55Sure. Okay. So, where does one begin? I had been fortunate that I've been involved in an exit, was a Rene Innovation company that we sold to Boston Scientific in late 2012 Okay, all right, so that's nice and fun, and blah blah blah, and you know, we all take a little bit of break, and you know, try to catch our breath after a bit of a, you know, a sprint, so you know, I was just chilling out, thinking about, okay, what's next, this, not the other thing, and one of my colleagues, who is an industrial design firm, was sponsoring a session down at, I forget, what conference it was, it was an MDNA or MD and M, whatever it was, invited me to tell the story of Vesicvascular. How did we start it? How did we sell it? What was going on? Because that was a cool little project, in the sense that, you know, we, my colleagues and I, we built a product that was a great product. We ran a clinical study, and before the study was finished, we sold the company, and it was 18 months, 25 million in, 200 million plus out, and 18 months it was like, wow, this is a great, it was a great deal. Now you know, if I hadn't resided, if I, if I wasn't being a resident of the state of California, and so on, so forth. Maybe 51% of the money that I made would not have gone away before I thought, which was another issue. I did subsequently move to a different state after that, but in any event, that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is I accepted the invitation to talk about, you know, the experience, and okay, it was fine. It's kind of like a chat like this in a way, and then afterwards, well, during the talk at the end, we did some Q and A. Somebody asked me, "Well, Ray, what do you.. what do you.. what's next? What are you interested in? What do you think that's hot? And my answer at the time was, and this is now the beginning of 2013 and I said, I think neurostimulation or neuromodulation is going to be a big deal, and these, this is a technology whose time has come, and you know, at that moment, the only neurostulation technology that was really being used was for pain that was, that was basically it. Okay, so that was my answer to the question. Simple as that. I get off the stage, somebody walks up to me and says, hey, you know, we're, we've been working on some things that you are in this space that you just talked about that you might, might, might you be interested in taking a look, and what they had fundamentally developed was an enclosure of a titanium and ceramic combination to be able to miniaturize a product. Okay, and why ceramic? Well, it's a translucent, you know, area of the IPG where energy can flow in and out quickly without being attenuated. I thought, oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I'd like to take a look at that. Okay, and went up, looked at the product, wound up doing not the product, just that this idea, or technology, if you may. And we did a license deal, and we formed a company. I mean, but the moral to the story is it would never have happened had I not volunteered to speak at a conference and be open to, you know, introductions with folks, you know. Now the journey from there was all quite interesting, and so on. So, but there's a lot of lessons and things to talk about there, but so I think that was the first point, and it's the idea that you know, if you don't do the work, if you don't put in the time, if you're not open, if you don't talk to people, you know, you know, people say, "Oh, well, you must be, you're lucky, you know, luck favors the brave, the hard working, and the well funded. Yeah, okay.Scott Pantel  05:03We'll come back to that well-funded thing. We'll come back to that well-funded funny how that works. That's funny how that works. And I think you know, in the story part, part that he didn't share is there was a moment where you weren't going to drive down to San Diego and go to that thing, and you said, you know what, I'm going to suck it up and I'm going to go do it. And good thing you did, for you and a lot of shareholders,Raymond Cohen  05:20every time I got to go somewhere that's two hours, or I got to get on a plane, I think to myself, oh God, how many times have you done this in your life already? And you know, so I'm always a little bit reluctant, but in the end, you know, it's like, okay, if you like people and you like to schmooze, and you know, you want to be in the game, well, you got to be present, and I think that's that's the point.Scott Pantel  05:40Okay, so I want to talk about this well-funded thing, because we had you and I had a lunch at your club, I don't know, around Thanksgiving, and we have a chat, no agenda, just getting caught up with each other, and you said, "Yeah, there's there's a few companies I'm kind of interested in, kind of kicking the tires on these three companies, and you told me who they were, and then we talked about five weeks later, but it was a more specific conversation, because you sent me drafts of press releases where you had raised, I think, 120 or north of that for two of those companies. So a lot happens in a short period of time in the life of Ray Cohen. Talk about the importance of number one, raising capital for companies. Is it hard? Is it easy? Why is it so important, and you have this philosophy of get more than you think you need, so talk about that.Raymond Cohen  06:24Sure, sure. Well, just so the facts are clear, it was two different companies, 50 million in one and 67 million in another. I think thatScott Pantel  06:36we named companies.Raymond Cohen  06:37Sure, sure, sure, because tomorrow on stage we have the three CEOs who are going to be on stage, and we're going to talk to them about, I'm going to do your part, and I'm going to ask them questions about, tell us about your journey. How did that work? What you know, what role did this chairman guy, who's been around for a while, what, how did he play into this, and so on, so forth. And me, because you've heard me say that if you're a first-time CEO, and you've not raised capital before, you need to find somebody like me who's been around, who has contacts where folks have a good listening for you, you know, it's very helpful, right? So that's really key. So the question again is about the company. So one was Spyro Medical, I think that's a really excellent example, because you're talking about a brand new company, and I've got colleagues I'm looking at them. I see them in the audience right now. I mean, a brand new company starting ultimately from scratch, and we put up a - it's a series A $15 million pre-money valuation. Does that really matter? No. 1520, 10, who cares. Okay, but you set a valuation, and then we sold 85% of the company on day one, raised $67 million Okay, now if you got this thing in your mind about dilution, you're not going to do that, you're going to hold that equity tight to your chest, like as if you know it means something, or it's worth something, it's worth nothing. So, sell the equity, get the capital you need, so you can bring the talent to the company that you need to execute on the tasks at hand. How else do you do it? I don't, it doesn't happen any other way, you've got to have the right people involved in the project, and people, good people, don't work for free, okay? And if you're attracting people that are just going to work for stock, for paper, well, those are far and few between, right? So you got to have the capital. Why play around now? Now, the good news is, for this CEO, who you'll meet tomorrow, he's going to spend zero of his time, zero of his time in 2026 2728 talking to investors about raising capital. Okay, so what are we going to be focused on? Execution, getting stuff done with quality and velocity, right? That's the key. You got to move the ball forward, it can't. You can't take 10 years, you can't take, you know, I mean, so you need the capital to be able to do, do, do this stuff. So that's a core tenet of my personal philosophy. Okay, you know, everybody, they get hung up about dilution, and the fact is, this is going to be a journey. We're in the medical device business, this is not, we're not in, like, some, you know, Stanford dorm room software thing, right? You know, this fast fail. Here's a million dollars, it's gonna, you know, this is real stuff, right? We build real tangible products, they're tangible, you know, they got circuits inside them, and this and that, and the other thing, and you got to do clinical work, and on and on and on, right? You got to deal with FDA, so and so forth. So there's a long journey, and it's an expensive journey, and you know, how do you get it done if you don't have the capital resources, and you don't want to be spending your time running around telling stories to potential investors? Sure, you have to do it for a certain period of time, but you don't want to be doing it over and over and over again, because then you're spending. Be wasting your time as the, as the leaders, you know, the key readers of the company are the ones that are going to be out there, you know, pitching the story. So get the money you need, don't be afraid, because let's face it, if you're successful, if you can run a successful project, how much equity, even as the CEO of the company, what do you think you're going to own?Raymond Cohen  10:21At the end of the day, you're not going to own 20% 25% you're going to own 3% 4% maybe 5% if you played the game perfectly. But once again, but if you focus on creating the value and ultimately an exit, whether it's an IPO or trade sale, you're going to make a lot of money, and you know, so because you did the right thing with with the equity that you had to get started,Scott Pantel  10:46Ray, I want to talk a little bit about, I know you, you see, you have a lot of, you see a lot of deals, how long does it take, there was in the session this morning with Peter Abery talked about knowing pretty quickly from an instinct standpoint if he liked an idea and what he thought about the person pitching it. So, from your perspective, you see a lot of deals. Yes, can't say yes to everything. Don't say yes to everything. The ones you pick, how? What are the things? What are the intangible things that you're looking for? Not just the technology, maybe the technology, but the founder, the team. You're, you're big, you got a legendary history on building teams. We're going to talk about that, but what are you looking for, and how fast do you know? Well,Raymond Cohen  11:26I think it all starts with the clarity of the speaker. Let's start right there. What is this person saying? And when I ask a question, do I get a direct answer, or do I get this circuitous story in you know, that's number one. I have a difficult time dealing with people who can't answer a question, a direct question that's being asked. So, if you're out there pitching your story and somebody says, you know, how much money has gone into the company, there's only one answer to that, X is the answer, not like a whole state. Didn't ask you about the story, you know where you went to school, and what you know. Okay, how much money went into the company? What's your pre-money valuation? You know what, or what's the post in this case? If you've have raised, you know, on and on and on. Who's involved? These are just simple questions. So, if people can't answer those questions crisply, then you lost me. I mean, I don't have the time to be digging around trying to, you know, teach you how to answer a question, so, so I have to say it's about the person number one. Do do I like, I mean, hi Cathy, I met her yesterday. I love Cathy. Okay, yeah, we spoke for 10 minutes. Okay, now we're fast friends. Okay, but you see what I'm saying. So you gotta connect. It's we're in the people business, no matter how you look at it. Yeah, it's technology and, oh God, IA bots and all that bullshit. But the point is, it's a people business in the end, right? And we gotta connect with each other. And if I'm gonna get involved with you, I need to understand that you're a person who a has integrity, who is a hard worker, that you got grit, right? And are you willing to do what it takes to be successful? And I have met so many people, right. And also, I tell this one, this is a silly thing. I saw a cartoon one time, and it had a table and two signs. One side said, if you'd like to be successful, line up here, and the other sign said, okay, and the line is out the door, of course, right, everybody wants to be successful, and the other sign said, if you're prepared to pay the price for success, line up here, nobody in that line, okay, so there's no way around it, it takes work, it takes energy, you got to be willing to dig in the dirt, and so on and so forth to make it happen. So I'm looking for people who got grit and that are clear communicators, because if you're not a clear communicator, how are you going to enroll people in your vision, whether it's raising capital, you know, or bringing employees to the company, or customers, and so on, so forth, so I, and I'm looking for people that are subject matter experts that you can tell right away, they know their stuff, and they're clear communicators. So,Scott Pantel  14:10let's talk about that. And, by the way, I put out a post a while back, and I asked for some rayisms for all the people that you've, that have worked for you, and I got a hell of a list of reasons, but one of the ones that came, came in over and over was be direct, be direct, and don't repeat things that other people have said, but you just talked about hard work, and one of the things you and I have chatted about is, and you have this philosophy that if you have something really important that needs to get done, give it to the busiest person. What does that mean? Why?Raymond Cohen  14:40Well, because busy people know how to get stuff done, that's why. Okay, I mean, you know, you, you know, it's like the to-do list, okay? You know, everybody else, humans, we all like to make these to-do lists, right? Well, the fact of the matter is, the only to-do thing should be the hardest thing, and that should be the number one. Thing, and that's what you should work on. Okay, there's other things. Okay, those are busy, busy work. So, understand what you know what it is that is really important, that's going to create some value, move the meter, or whatever the expression might be as to what you're doing. So, I think that's that, that's the key, and I find that you know people that are successful people that are productive, they get stuff done, and they know how to manage their time, and they don't waste time, and that I think is the key. So that's where that comes from.Scott Pantel  15:31So there's another one that you talk about. It's, I think, use like a pizza analogy, just talk about subject matter experts, and not having a bunch of generals, but having people that are very pointed and very, very specific, talk about your philosophy there, and how you've had success building teams with people with very, very specific deep domain expertise.Raymond Cohen  15:51Exactly. Look, I'm a generalist, I'm not a physician, I'm not a scientist, I'm not an engineer. Okay, so pretty much useless, huh? Okay, but the point is, you know, I gave that silly analogy. It's kind of like when you're building a team, it's kind of like a pizza pie with different slices, right? You know, okay? The pie, in order, pie, that tastes great, it's got to have good ingredients and all that, but you know, in from a business standpoint, I'm looking for people that have very specific skill sets, okay? You're, you know, you're the mechanical engineer who's really, really good at what you do. You're an electrical guy, you're a software person, you're a clinical person, whatever it is. I need to form that team with these very specific subject matter experts, so that in the end you've got the elements that that you need to make a successful team. And I think that's really the key. You don't want too many generalists, you know, in your company, because where's the expertise you need, the expertise if you're building product or you're running studies and all these other things, you got to have subject matter experts, so that's that's where that that comes from.Speaker 1  16:56Okay,Raymond Cohen  16:57okay,Scott Pantel  16:58so another, another, here's a little backstory, too. Before I met you, Ray, a few years ago, I had a friend who had worked at Axonics, Tom Keating. Now, if you may remember Tom, and I said, "Hey, I'm getting ready to meet with Ray, tell me about Ray, and he said, "He's exactly what you see is what you get, and you built some big successful companies, and it's not easy, but one of the things that comes out of all the people I talk to is people loved working for you. They will say it was Ray's tough, but he's fair. And you talk about this idea of the absence of information is the absolute worst thing they can have with your team. So, what's your philosophy on sharing information? Is it open book? Is it selective open book? What's your strategy there?Raymond Cohen  17:40I, you, you want to be the most transparent person that you can possibly be. We're talking about business now. Okay, you got to let people know what the hell is going on, you know? If there's some scary stuff, then share it. Tell people this is a problem we're going to solve. This problem, here's I'm going to solve the problem. So, I think it's that this is a an issue in my mind in companies where the leadership has got a closed door and is not talking to the individuals in the company and sharing with them what the hell is going on. Okay, good, bad, or indifferent, you got to be communicating, you know, with people. So, where did this come from? I'll share this. Okay, when I was a young man, okay, I took a, I got a job, I went to training class, I was in this training class for two weeks, and in the end the president of the company came in to give a little talk to the troops. Okay, my first comment is, why the hell wasn't he at the first session at the first minute, but okay, it was at the end. I had learned some things that I thought were a little odd, and you know, I'm from New York originally, and okay, whatever, but you know, I was a little young whippersnapper, 22 years old. I raised my hand. Oh, sir, you know, I was wondering what's the philosophy behind this particular policy, and the policy was you had to give 50% of your commissions to the person who used to have the territory. I'm thinking, 'Shit, I'm from New York, this is weird, man. What's up with that? But a polite question. The guy completely blew me off, didn't answer my question. I raised my hand again. Excuse me, sir, with all due respect, but you didn't answer the question. He blew me off again. Then there was a break, and then there was tap tap on the shoulder. They walked me out. They handed me a plane ticket and told me that I was done. So I got fired out of my training class, you know? I mean, imagine that, right? And why did I get fired? I got fired for asking a question. Okay, and I vowed at that time, as a very young person, that if I was ever in a position of leadership, I would be the most transparent person. I would answer every single question. I don't care, public, not public, probably care. Okay, you got to tell people. People, the truth, or what's so okay. Let's not go truth like you know what is so just tell people what's so. They really appreciate that. So, when you say, why do people like to work with me? Because I'm clear about what the objective is. Here's the goal. Here's what we're doing. Here's what it is. Here's how it's got to happen. Okay, let's go to work. Okay. And you got to be able to, you know, treat people with respect. Okay, you got to pay them well. You got to think about health benefits for your employees, and you have to make them equity owners in the company. They got to have a piece of the action, and so that's the answer. Because if we're going to go on this journey together, all right. You know, look, life's not fair. If I'm the CEO, if I'm the founder of the company, I'm gonna have more shares than you. But the point is, I want you to have some, so that if we're successful, then it was meaningful at the end. You made real money, it made a difference for your family. Okay, that engenders loyalty. I have been very fortunate, I met a lot of really excellent people, you know, and you kind of curate that group over the years, but man, I've moved people from project to project to project. Why? Because they know I'm going to pay them well, I'm going to treat them with respect. Yeah, is my boot going to be up? You know what? Yeah, no doubt about it. But in the end, if it works out, people going to make money, you know.Raymond Cohen  21:18And it was a good experience, and it was a positive experience, and they learned things, and they heard things about the business that they wouldn't normally hear. I talked about the fundraising process. I'm going to talk about whether it's the IPO process. I'm going to talk about these things, because I want to be able for the people involved in the project, I want them to understand that there's more to it than just your clinical slice or your engineering slice, or whatever it might be. I think that's the winning formula.Scott Pantel  21:45And so you share, you share the tough news just as quickly as youRaymond Cohen  21:49got it. If you're, if you got, if you're at a, if you're on fumes, right? And you're on fumes, you don't have cash in the company, youScott Pantel  21:56probably already know it, right?Raymond Cohen  21:57People, people know it. And you made the comment about the if you don't tell people what's going on, humans will make up a story, and the story is always 10 times worse than the actual facts. Okay, think about, you might as well control that, right? Yeah, right. So, just, just give them the facts, right? I can go on and on about that little, you know, situation, but, but I think everybody heard that, right? You know, how it is, you know, you're trying to figure something out. Just our brains are such that we want to fill the gaps in, you know, you know, gee, Dr. Mendelson, you know, he walked past, I mean, he says hello to me every single time. I mean, you know, we're friends, like, what's going on? He just walked right by me, okay. Well, shit doesn't like me. I pissed him off, you know. I don't, right? We make up these stories, right? So it's better to just say what's so, and you know, leave the storytelling. I was gonna ask youScott Pantel  22:55if that was an evolved thing, but it sounds like the termination during the training thing, just you instantly became a person that was going to share that stuff up front. Be transparent,Raymond Cohen  23:03I mean, I just.. it's important.Scott Pantel  23:04Yeah, important. So love the advice to go out and just raise as much capital as you can. Not everybody can do it. Not everybody has the access. You've talked to a bunch of founders, I see you taking meetings. You're very generous with your time, that's actually something also that comes up in the, in the rayisms, or the feedback from people that have worked with you, is the generosity of time and the giving back. So, I want to come back to that, but you have a bunch of founders in this room, you have company builders here. What are, what are, what are we doing really good, and then what are we not doing so good? And what's some feedback from you on where we need to kind of get after it, and some stuff we need to work on.Raymond Cohen  23:44Well, I think you need people with experience who can help you sort through some of this stuff, right? You know, if you're trying to, if you, if you really just need $2 million okay? Because you're really just getting started, you need $2 million Should you be pitching all these big VC funds? I mean, didn't somebody tell you that if they can't put 1015, $20 million to work, they're not going to do it. So, what? Why are you wasting your time doing that, right? So, you know that that's that's that's part of it. Okay, so my point that I, and I think we said this yesterday also in our panel is the idea that if you're the first, if you're a first-time CEO, find someone who's done it numerous times before who has a good listening from the investment community, right? Get them involved in your project, right? Put them, get, make them your chairman, put them on your board, offer them 1% equity in the company, they don't want 10 points, they just give them a point, get them involved, right. Most of these people that would be doing that are successful folks have been around for a while, and they don't need the cash. Sure, if they like the project, they'll take some equity, but get somebody, get some people involved who can help you, who can make the introductions, and so on, so forth, so that I. Is important,Scott Pantel  25:01so before we get to some of the projects that you're working on now, there were a couple rayisms that I need to just clarify with you. True or false, a reply all on a company. Oh God, it wait, wait, is this a fireable offense or not, inRaymond Cohen  25:20my opinion. I mean, my colleagues typically have held me back. Okay, I'm like, how stupid are you? Okay, I'm sorry.Scott Pantel  25:29Did the person get fired?Raymond Cohen  25:31You know, they getScott Pantel  25:32softy. He didn't fire him,Raymond Cohen  25:33you know? I mean, let's just say this: if he did it more than once,Scott Pantel  25:37yeah,Raymond Cohen  25:37you're definitely gone. And my colleagues are shaking their head, like, yeah, yeah. Okay, because I'll be saying, if you do this again, you're done. I mean, you literally saw an email that went to 100 people, or 200 people, or 900 people, or 20 people, and your response was, "Thank you. You clicked reply all. Do I need to look at that? I mean, you know, so it's a productivity issue. People are sloppy. Okay, here's the other one. Let's talkScott Pantel  26:06about that. The attention to detail, I've heard things like the signature line must be perfect,Raymond Cohen  26:11exactly. TheScott Pantel  26:11dress must talk about this. Why is this important?Raymond Cohen  26:14Okay, you're going to send me an email and it doesn't say hi Ray or dear Ray or how or something or howdy, or whatever. I'm like, oh, you're so goddamn bits. Sorry, you're so busy that you can't use salutations. You're so busy. Okay. Hi, Ray. How long did that take? A micro second. Okay. What about you know, love, comma. Best regards, yours truly. At the end with your signature, okay? And if you've got a company signature block, by the way, if it has a - if it shows up with a paper clip on every email you send, how do I know when you attach something and when you didn't attach something? Okay? I mean, this is silly little stuff, right? But in the end, if you don't get on top of things like that if you don't say, "Here's how we do business in this company. Okay, we use salutations, we're polite, okay? I mean, this is a cultural thing, right? And, and I just think that's it's really important, and it forms the basis when people hear, "Oh, wait a minute, the CEO is focused on it, you might want to say, well, that's ridiculous. What we're wasting your time? No, not because you want people to act in a certain way, and that's how you start to form the culture. Be accountable, be responsible, be clear, be sharp. You know what I mean. These are things that I think are.. I just think it's really important, and I think we all kind of, you know, see that, and the problem with texting, you know, that we've gotten into a lot of bad habits, right? There's no salutations, it's, you know, emojis and all this bs, right? So email is what, once again, I'm older, we used to send letters to people, okay? You know, right? I mean, oh my god, now it's, but email is the letter, it's the official form of communication. So, why are we treating it like it's a text? So, anyway, we got two, too much time on that nonsense, but, but it just.. I think it's the point, right? People talk about culture, and it's important. It's like details matter, they do matter, details matter. You know, you want people to, you know, to be honest, to be straightforward, to have integrity about what they're doing. And I think that that's how you get a sense about the company. And let's face it, tone for all the CEOs and senior people in this company, it's all about tone from the top. This is not just some saying that somebody made up one day. It's true, tone from the top. You're the leader, people are looking at you. How do you act? Yeah, okay. When do you show up to work? How hard do you work? Are you willing to take a phone call from a customer? Are you willing to talk to a rep or a clinical specialist or anybody, are you going to sit in on an engineering meeting because you're interested in what people are doing? I mean, everybody's watching you and you set the pace, you set the pace. I think this is really importantScott Pantel  29:16that lead by example thing, and that's also something that comes up in a lot of the conversations, is that you're in the mix, there's, you know, expressions like in the mud with us, and not uncommon to see you having lunch with anybody in the organization, getting deep into it. Is that something that evolved over time? Is it just a Ray thing, like you're interested in people? What's the.. is that just the part of the way you lead, or you know, I'll go meet you at lunch, and you're sitting there talking to the valet guy, or this person there. I think part of it is a Ray thing, but, but,Raymond Cohen  29:44well, I mean, I like people, and I, you know, that's great, but, but I think it's, it's a lot of this is, you know, purposeful. I mean, you know, we at Axonics, we had a big lunch room area, and we paid for lunch for everybody every day. They could order it and get delivered, and why did I do that? Because a, it fostered camaraderie, where you could sit and have lunch with your fellow colleagues, that was also being provided by the company, nice little benefit. But think about it from productivity standpoint, if you've got to go out to lunch, everybody's got to eat, right, unless you're on GLP one, by the way, and food is irrelevant, but the if you got to go out to lunch, think about that, you got to leave your office, you go to wherever you work, go down, get in a car, go somewhere, blah blah blah, you know, whatever you're going to spend, I don't know, an hour, an hour and a half, or whatever, you know, just going to get lunch in the middle of the day, in the most productive time of the day, right. So, the idea is we bring, you know, people could order the lunches we'd get, and then I had an opportunity to go and sit with people and talk to them, and these are folks that I would not normally ever talk to. If you're somebody working in manufacturing, I mean, look, I got a lot of other stuff I'm doing, I'm not, I'm not going to visit you on the manufacturing line, but I could sit with you at lunch, and I can say, how's it going? You know, anything you know that you see that you think could be improved upon. I learned a lot of stuff by asking people questions like that, right. And then I get to say, how's the family? Okay, I mean, you know, I'm talking to a production worker here, you know, they're making $22 an hour. I'm interested. How's your, how's it going? Right, you know, I get to ask them things. Is this lunch thing? Is that what do you think about that? Oh, right. This is a great benefit. Okay, anything else we can do to, you know, remove some pebbles from your shoes, or whatever the case might be. I mean, you learn things if you talk to people and ask them questions, instead of sitting in your office, you know, nothing good coming out of that,Scott Pantel  31:45so that's a, that's a another one that comes up, Ray, in the, the amazing cultures and teams that you've built is move fast, don't waste time, and there's this idea of the coalition of the willing, not what, what, what does coalition of the willing mean,Raymond Cohen  32:00well, look, not every I used it in the context of customers. Okay, you're out there, and no matter what we got, no matter what the great cool widget that we got, the fact is there's going to be a lot of number of customers that are not going to do business with you. They have a relationship with the other company with the rep, they're on the speaking circuit, they're the whatever it is, whatever their story is, status quo. I don't have time. Oh, this is better. Yeah, I hear you, but I got no time for that. Whatever it is, those people are not doing business with you. The ones who say, yeah, hey, this is cool, man, I like this. Yeah, I'd like to work with you. That's the coalition of the willing, and those are the people you need to focus on. Okay, you can't sell everybody, but the people that are open, the people that you know are willing to give you that shot. That's how I refer to the coalition of the willing, the people that want that want what you've got, and they're willing to support you, willing to speak positively about the company. Right, we all need others to help us with the referrals that we can't contact them, and that's the other piece, is that if you're the leader of the group, you want to be able to have relationships with your customers, you want to be able to know what's in their mind, what they're thinking, what they think about your product, what they don't, on and on and on. Staying really close to the customer, I think, is very important, or otherwise, how do you have a take? How do you have an intuitive feel about what you should be doing, and how you might want to move your project along, or what something new that you might want to get involved in? You do it by asking questions, and when you ask questions of your customers, they're happy to give you, you know, their views, and then you can create a relationship, and next thing you know, you know, you've got this cadre of people that actually like you and like what you're doing and like your company, and, and feel like, you know, wow, I'm not getting a phone call from, you know, any other CEOs, but this character seems to be interested, so I think that, you know, that's all important, important stuff. It's not one thing, you notice that we talked about a whole broad range of kinds of things, and what we didn't talk about is doing deals and selling companies, right? But you know, these are the building blocks, okay? And in the end, I think the other thing is that people beating around the bush about everything, okay? Okay, we need to raise capital. This is how much capital I raise. Is this something you might be interested? I mean, just get to the point. Okay, I got this company. Is this something you might want to own? Do you want to own this? You know, well, maybe. Okay, good. Let's go. You know, I mean, but ask the question instead of, like, you know, having all this stuff in your mind, and you know, so let's pull itScott Pantel  34:37back to the, let's pull it back to the three years, three transactions, 5 billion. You've come a long way. You've learned a lot. What are some of the things you want to.. what are some of the things that surprised you in that those experiences that you can share with us? Some of the things that maybe caught you off guard, or lessons learned from that stuff. And then I want to ask you about a couple new projects that you might be excited about, and maybe we'll have time for a question or two. So, lessons learned from three years, three transactions, 5 billion.Raymond Cohen  35:03Make sure your data room doesn't have a bunch of crap in it that's going to kill your deal. Okay,Scott Pantel  35:10sounds painful. Yeah,Raymond Cohen  35:12okay, don't be delegating that, you know, to people you don't trust, okay? Because you know, then you know, so that's one lesson. Okay, make sure you got a clean data room, and you're prepared, and if you're gonna, you know, if you're trying to sell your company, well, you know, you better have your stuff together. Okay? I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna have quality people that are gonna go meet with your quality people. Well, you know, you better make sure that that's tight, you know, on and on. I think the point is, is that you, you need to communicate with everybody. See, back to transparency, we're going to run a secret sale process. How can you run a secret sale process when the people in your company are the ones who've been doing the work that need to interface with the potential buyers BD team? So you have to tell people what's going on. Okay, and it might be scary to some people. Yeah,Scott Pantel  35:57what about the disrupt? How do you manage the disruption?Raymond Cohen  35:59Well, you tell them, look, if they're owners in the company, then they should be able to do math,Scott Pantel  36:05so the disruption of the disruption of hiding is bigger than the than just address.Raymond Cohen  36:09Listen, man, you know, I got x amount of shares, and they either got options or RSAs or whatever it is, and here's, here's what it's going to mean to me. Yeah, okay, I'm in. You know, I mean, but you see, you had to build up to that. Right here we are, you know, because some people have a very strange reaction to being acquired, right? Because we've heard all the stories, you know, where people lose their jobs and they're not satisfied working for a larger company, and all these other kinds of things. But in the end, if they weren't equity owners, then what is in it for them? Just potential problems, right? So, I think it gets back to that piece. You got to share the wealth, you got to share the wealth, you got to make sure everybody's got a piece of the piece of the action. Is it fair? Does everybody get the same? No, of course not. But the, but you know, because we're capitalists, we, but everybody's got to have a have a taste and have the ability, so that's how you mitigate this issue.Scott Pantel  37:03Clean data room, share the news, be upfront. People already probably know something's going on, might as well address it. Okay, we've got a couple minutes. If people have questions, queue them up. We're going to do a couple quickies, but Ray, if we were to look at your calendar right now, what would surprise us? You know, you got I saw the panel yesterday, Star 51 something I'm really excited to be a part about you. Got companies that you're building, raising a bunch of capital, but if we look to your calendar right now, is there something that would surprise us, or some really interesting thing that you're kind of fired up about?Raymond Cohen  37:32Yeah, tomorrow I'm going to go on a plane, I'm going to the Bahamas to go fly fishing for a couple. Yeah, good for you, because every once in a while, you know, you got to take a break.Scott Pantel  37:41Good for you. Okay, cool. That's good to know. Okay, anybody got a question for Ray Cohen? Here, come on, somebody's got something. Lisa,Lisa Carmel  37:51so this is probably boring to you, Ray, but is there a failure that you have experienced in your career, a failure you've experienced in your career, and you know plenty with the learnings from it. Sure.Raymond Cohen  38:07So, okay. When I was CEO of Cardiff Science Trade Company, we had a.. we built a great product. We very quickly were able to get 25% of the market. We were competing against what. what was Zoll Philips, and I don't remember who, Medtronic. Okay, and in a event, we had a really cool product. We had tons of patents, tons of patents on every silly little feature you could imagine. We had it. Philips decided to copy our product. They just copied it. We woke up one day, and there's our, there's all the key features that we had in our product showed up in their product. Okay, what do you do? Okay, well, I made the classic mistake of I pulled on Superman's cape, I sued them for patent infringement, I yanked on Superman's cape, but there was one problem, I didn't have any kryptonite, okay. okay? Were we right? That's not kryptonite, okay? Did I have 10s of millions of dollars sitting around that I had extra to be able to go fight this battle? I had it, but I burnt it pretty quick, because the big company just rope a doped us to death, even though we're suing them, so, so, here's the lesson I learned: you got to have, you're going to need some IP to get funded, right? Everybody needs some IP, but the point is, if you, who you're going to assert it against, you're going to assert your IT against the big company, they're going to crush you, okay? And that was a lesson I learned, you do not yank on Superman's cape, unless you got tons of dough, and you know what I mean, and everything else is going great. We had to merge the company with another company in order to survive, because we got bled out in terms of capital. Now that's another reason why, when we formed Axonix, we over. Uh, capitalized that company as well, and it turned out it was a damn good thing that we did, because Medtronic decided that they wanted to sue us for patent infringement, because that was their, from a competitive standpoint, that's their strategy. It took five years and $30 million and it went all the way to a jury trial with jurors and the whole thing, eight days, and in the end they said this is nonsense, everybody can go home. So we won the case. What did I win? Nothing. I just didn't lose, and $30 million just got pissed away for no reason, and it was annoying. So, so my point is, you got to be, you got to really be thinking about what you're doing, okay? And that was a big, that's a big lesson, okay. Don't, don't you know, don't be in such.. you want to go, and you're going to say, "Well, I'm going to sue these smaller guys. What do you think you're going to get? You're going to sue a smaller company? What are you going to.. what are you going to get from that? Nothing. So, just the whole IP area is one of these things that it's a little bit fraught with peril. I mean, you need some IP, but if you think that's protecting you, that's stopping someone from doing whatever they want to do, it isn't. The only thing that stops people is your balance sheet, okay? And your pugnacious nature, all right, soScott Pantel  41:22think that's a good one to end. Oh, we got, we got one more, one more question.Yuval Binur  41:29Your management comments are really enlightening and always holding, always correct. And thank you for that. However, you know, we are living now in different worlds. All of a sudden, the world changed on us in many respects, globally, politically, et cetera, which immediately affect our ability to raise funds. And if you look on this conference, if I'm not mistaken, over 200 companies and ideas that look for money, maybe 20 people were willing to move some money out of the pocket into this situation, so how you suggest to cope with this kind of changing environment?Raymond Cohen  42:08So you're suggesting that there's not capital available to fund companies, is that what your question is?Yuval Binur  42:14Yes.Raymond Cohen  42:15Okay, so let me just say this. In time and memorial, there's always been capital available to fund good ideas with good management with big total addressable markets, that's always been the case. And the fact is, money is available now. You have to be thinking about how what is the quantum of money that you need, and who are you asking that money from, right? So part of the I'm going to tie it back to Star 51 so we have identified this problem, and here's the problem. If you need to raise big capital, you can talk to the large venture funds and maybe some strategic whatever, but what happens when you're just getting started and you need the seed money or you need the series A money, and so on. So that's the piece that is hardly exists today. So we're set, we've set up Star 51 to bridge that gap, right, to be able to support earlier stage companies that don't need massive amounts of company, massive amounts of capital, and so forth. So we're aware of this problem, and we're, we, I say, myself and Scott and LSI and some of the other folks, and a strategic and the big hospital system. I mean, we're joining together to try to help bridge this gap for the companies who've got good ideas, big opportunities, and good management, right? But that needs some help from a support standpoint, in terms of practical experience, and then also, you know, that capital, so we're going to try to do our part in the ecosystem to be able to do that, but money is there. I mean, I just look, we give you an example. In December, right before Christmas, on December 23 two companies get financed, one for 50,000,001 for 67 million. I mean, okay, it happened. I just was in, I was involved in that. It just happened, you know? I mean, other companies got sold last year in 2025 So, so the point is, it's happening. Companies are M and A environment is better than now than it's been in a long time. The strategics are stepping up. They're buying properties. It's not just Boston Scientific. Medtronics just bought a bunch of companies now, so on and so forth. Danaher stepped up, bought Massimo for 9.9 billion. I mean, there's action in the market, there's M and A action going on, and there's a lot of capital that is being raised, lots of capital. There's that small gap, although in the early stages for companies, and you know, in the United States, unlike some other countries, like Israel or Ireland, you know, the government is also providing some of that early support and providing, you know, capital. We're not doing that these days in America. So, anyway, but I understand. Is a good question, but I think it, you can't have that attitude that somehow there's a scarcity of capital in the world. We live in an abundant world, it's abundant, you just got to tap it in the right spots and the right people in the right stuff. So you have to have that mentality, if you're, if you're walking around thinking I live in a world of scarcity, you're not going to be successful, you're not going to get, you're not going to get funded, you're not going to get it done.Scott Pantel  45:28All right, let's, let's lean into that momentum. Thank you to everybody for showing up, you.