"Founder Mode in Medtech" — Perspectives from Technical Founder/CEOs | LSI USA '25

Holly Scott  0:05  
I'm Holly Scott. I'm with a firm called The Mullings Group. We have been building companies through executive search, advisory and media services for three decades plus, and this is a topic near and dear to my heart. We've been asked to speak about founder mode, and that's a really interesting topic that we're going to dive into. And the the genesis of this founder mode topic was essentially based on a viral essay that Paul Graham wrote in reference to Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnbs speech. Essentially, he caught the speech, and the speech was just in short, conventional wisdom about running companies that are growing is mistaken. Founders are advised to move from founder mode to manager mode and hire good people and let them do their jobs. And it's not always the winning move. In fact, he found it to be disastrous, and he had to figure out a better way. He did a lot of studying of Steve Jobs at Apple and other successful founding CEOs. And of course, now you know, the company's 10 billion in excess, so obviously we're in med tech, a different market, but I think there's lessons to be learned from experiences of founders here and from discussions like these. So given this is a workshop, we really do want to encourage questions and and healthy discussions. But let's start with some intros and and get going. So I'm going to leave it to you, Dr Jaworski, to introduce yourself, maybe tell a little bit about yourself. 

Elizabeth Jaworski  1:42  
Yeah. So my name is Ella Elizabeth Jaworski. I have a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Texas Medical Branch. I studied virus evolution in my PhD, I actually helped start my first company, which was a spin out of technology that we developed in the research lab. The company was called click seq technologies. The company's still around. We have a kit on the market, which was really exciting, but I wanted to do something more hands on mechanical. And I got the opportunity right after grad school to be a Biodesign fellow out of the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Program. It's a one year fellowship to find unmet clinical needs and build a company and a product, which is where Exxon health was born. So we are preventing ventilator injury to the million and a half Americans that require mechanical ventilation every year. We do this through stimulating the diaphragm to get it out of the way and let the ventilator do its job.

Holly Scott  2:45  
Thank you. We have next Dr Sabnis. 

Vijit Sabnis  2:49  
I've got a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford. I do not come from the healthcare or the medical device space. I started my career at a telecommunications startup. Then I co founded a solar energy company, and then I was a technology venture capital investor at Costa ventures for five years, became really passionate about how we collect data in our healthcare system and how it's generally broken, and so we had a thesis around data and the need to collect that data in a much more efficient way, put AI around that. Back then, we used to call it Big Data. Now it's it's AI, and got really passionate about wanting to be an operator again and go off and do something very impactful. So two and a half years ago, we we spun another company out of Stanford called adaptix Biosciences. We're building a wearable technology platform that will continuously monitor biomolecules in our body, similar to a CGM. We're focusing first on congestive heart failure, but this is really a platform that could measure over time, really hundreds of different molecules continuously.

Gabriel Sanchez  3:59  
Awesome. 

Holly Scott  4:01  
Thank you. Dr Sanchez. 

Gabriel Sanchez  4:04  
Sure. So I also have a technical background. I'm working on it, but my degrees are in mechanical engineering from MIT, and then I did a master's and PhD at Stanford, also in mechanical engineering. I was on an academic track, so I was hired right out of my PhD, as a faculty in bioengineering, I had invented a new type of imaging for my PhD that I thought had maybe broader potential than being siloed in the university. So I went through the process of licensing that out, started my company in spectra, and what we're doing is a new type of imaging for skin, everything from beautiful to clinical in terms of evaluating pathology under the surface, noninvasively. We've gone from kind of concept through a few trials where FDA cleared now reimbursable, and it was the first new imaging physics cleared by the FDA in over 25 years. So it's a pretty impactful technology that we're really excited about.

Holly Scott  4:59  
Yeah, yes, that's great. Thank you. Thank you all for the intro and and just kind of generally categories we have on first CEO, first, I'm sorry, first time founding 10 years plus, though, so that's in dog years, quite a while, right? We've got multiple startups outside of tech and now in med tech, and now you're on your second startup as a founder. Okay, so as we think about leading these organizations and the health of the company, and from the advantage point I sit in it's what's in the best interest of the team, and do we have the right individual, the right style, the right affect to make the actions that we need? So I'd like to just talk a little bit about the key traits of founders that are really critical in the early days. Okay, so just some of the things that were mentioned as I was doing some research, deep commitment to the vision the North Star, customer centric, a bias towards action, high level of engagement, hands on, active in various aspects of the business. Agility add up to adaptability, data driven decision making, strong work ethic, leadership, curiosity and a mindset for learning. Now I'd like you to think about these attributes and perhaps share with us a little bit about your experiences there, and maybe even where these might have been double edged swords in some circumstances. Okay? Because the goal here is to empower the audience think about their own scenario and what they can learn from your experiences. And would you like to start? 

Elizabeth Jaworski  6:41  
Yeah, oh, those are all great. No, it's all super important to all those qualities. I always found that those qualities, like agility or this, like desire to for the North Star, right? You have this product vision can be both great and detrimental, right? Because then it makes you sometimes not willing to pivot, because you want to do this one specific thing, so you have to be simultaneously on track, but willing to take new information in and adjust as necessary. So I always found that being a founder is riding right at the edge of doing things appropriately. And that's a hard thing to define, right? Because you just have to take what you know and data as it comes and just keep moving forward.

Holly Scott  7:32  
Any additional comments on that Vijit? 

Vijit Sabnis  7:34  
Yeah? I mean, I think, you know, I read the article and, and I do think this is a little bit of a messy topic, because there's not a phenotype for founders that's super well defined, but I think all the characteristics you mentioned are right on. And I think some of the challenges that I've seen in lots of different companies, and certainly the frustrations I've had just in my company, which is two and a half years old is things are changing all the time. So there's a there is a vision we want to go towards, but how we get there is a complete mess, and it's going to change over time. And your employees and even your fellow co founders, who may be the technically the best in the world, they they don't like to see change all the time, right? And I think that that's true when you're very small, but it's even true when you've got 50 people there. And so it's really about shifting context. And you know, I think you know, just to be a little self critical about myself, is I'm not always sharing that change about how I'm thinking about things or something that I learned from the outside, and as I mentioned, I'm coming. I'm a relatively new med tech founder and CEO, and I'm learning a lot of things all the time, and my team doesn't know what's going on all the time, and so it's we're going towards this vision, but they may see me go left and right all the time, and that can be a big frustration in both directions. 

Holly Scott  9:06  
Really good insight. I want to earmark a couple of those points and come back. But I definitely want to hear from Gabriel on this. 

Gabriel Sanchez  7:34  
Yeah, no, I would double down on that. I think if you were to generalize a little bit, one of the things I've seen in say, like, like a founder operator CEO, is there a little more mission or vision driven, maybe less process less so than like a professional CEO is gonna be process driven. And those are useful in kind of different modes, depending on what you're facing. Like, if you're in the trenches and it's war time, I think the founder operators can be very effective because you can, you kind of hold to that vision that sort of transcends all the challenges and you can, and you're also very effective with kind of your domain knowledge to be able to jump out and create some sort of value. The common situation for this is that con, that catch 22 paradox, where you need some. Money to show something, but you can't get the money without showing the thing. But that's where founders are pretty good at creating stuff out of out of nothing, and I think you can shake that out, but I think you also then it's double edged. You gotta be very honest with yourself, when you get into you get a little success, and then you start kind of flowing. And it actually is more about process, and you have to be really careful that you're not so locked into your own mindset that you're missing the opportunity to grow. And I think it's this interesting balance between, can you mature at the pace that's needed for your organization, also, do you have people around you to kind of fill in some of the experience that you may not have? So I think it's it can cut both ways. You know, probably most stuff just gets evaluated, like it like, everywhere it's based on the ends, like, if it works, people say that it was, it was effective, and if it didn't get probably not right. So it's very interesting. 

Holly Scott  9:17  
It's interesting because there's so much about our industry that is black and white. You need certain approvals, you need a reimbursement path. You need a certain clinical data. You need these is these pieces. Is it reasonable to say that based on milestones, there's a time that makes sense to go from, say, a founder driven company, to more ex other leaders, this managerial mode that we're we're referencing here. What do you think, Ella? 

Elizabeth Jaworski  9:17  
I think it depends on the founder and their willingness to step into that new role. I think a startup company, from startup to commercialization goes through three, four or five different changes of what the company looks like right early stage. You're scrappy and quick versus commercial. You gotta be more process driven, and you got a bigger team. So it's a totally the company looks totally different. So if the founder is malleable and willing to do those changes and grow as the company grows, absolutely, I think founders have the incredible capacity to learn and to adapt, and if that's something that they want to do, they absolutely should be able to do it, but it's not for everybody, right? I like creative I don't know if I would like process and very strict, regimented type things and managerial stuff. So I don't see myself going all the way to that commercial, commercial stage, obviously, being a part of the company. But it's not something that I truly enjoy. So I think it really just depends on the founder and what they want to do, and where they see themselves. 

Holly Scott  10:30  
And you have a high level of self awareness, especially for frankly, your youth, experience wise, in the business you've already you're on your second company, you know about yourself, what you love to do where your sweet spot is, where your magic is, and you're able to capture that. And you even said to me in our earlier call, 'I don't think anyone else could do my job.' That's and that's what you said. And when, when you said it, it took me a second to think through and where you sit, you're 100% right. That what the where you're at in your organization. That's where that founder mode is absolutely critical, right? So as we look at drawbacks of founders, micromanagement, burnout, lack of empowerment of the team of key team members, over reliance on founder, decisiveness and the continuity and confidence in the ability to scale, lack of experience and next level growth, extreme agility, lack of structure, chaos, uncertainty, future, reliance, again, lack of scale, on interpretation of founders. So these are some of the things that are discussed, and frankly, some of the offline conversations I end up having with board members that say, time to bring in somebody else. So the reason we should discuss this is at some point it's not a black and white answer, right? There's things that can be done on both sides that may pull out more productivity. What are your thoughts? Vijit, and I, and I, I'm going to put point to you specifically, because in tech, we see a lot more scale and and I'll speak to the med tech audience here. You may not need to hire more than two, four or five people in the next three years. But the reality is, your investors want the confidence that you can and would if needed, right? So speak to us a little bit about this and what decisions go into when timing is right for you. 

Vijit Sabnis  14:35  
Yeah. I mean, you know, the way I think about it is, you know, when you're an early stage company, and for example, in our case, we are trying to build a platform that's almost a dirty word in Medtech. I almost didn't want to say that, but you know when the frustration coming from founders is oftentimes the team doesn't have the right context, and part of that is the founder's fault, because they don't communicate. They're off running around. I almost feel like I should do like a weekly all hands, or I need to go around everyone and make sure they know what they need to do. But the bottom line is, when you're building a med tech company, there's an indication for use once you have scientifically, de risked that the context is not shifting, it better not be shifting. And you need to get those role players in there, and you need to let them do what they need to do, you know, and, and I think that's where you have to graduate. When I was doing a solar company, there was, it was a different time. It was a different era. Our investors gave us four years to really develop the technology before we really knew that it worked. We ended up getting the world record in solar cell efficiency. Once we had that is like, we know where we're going, we know what we need to do, and we could bring in those role players, and you've got to be able to let go. And so, for example, I was very hands on in the technology. But once we got there, it was like, I'm focused on business development, I'm focused on communicating our value proposition to customers. And so I completely pulled away from that part of the business, because that's what we needed to do. And we brought in manufacturing people, we brought in that version of quality at that time. And so you just have to there are these very natural inflection points. And I do see parallels in Medtech, you know, we're, you know, we're kind of transitioning out of science mode, collecting that initial clinical data. And once we sort of turn that corner, the context cannot shift, and I've got to bring in the right people and let them go do what they're going to do way, way better than, than, frankly, anything that I could ever affect. 

Holly Scott  16:50  
I think that last point is critical, right? The ability to do it better than you, because you have things that you're better at to for sure, that's that's really important, Gabriel, I'd like you because you are a, boy, you've got, you've had a long time with one organization. Talk to us about burnout. How do you how do you manage that? Because, as I counsel individuals who are considering becoming a CEO of a startup, I encourage them to think of it as their number one life priority. They got to be in a position where they can give it that much attention and commitment. So I'm curious about how you've managed that.

Gabriel Sanchez  17:26  
Sometimes poorly. I mean, it's hard. I mean, so that the tricky part is, one of your key advantages as someone who can dig deep is that you can put more in, and you're one of your cheaper resources, and I think you're at a very high risk of burning yourself out. The best thing, I think, is if, and this kind of gets to your previous point about, like, how long can you stay in the role? I probably stayed longer than more people thought. I do. Think it's been, for us a constant discussion. It's been mostly milestone based. I had no experience in running clinical trials or navigating regulatory considerations, reimbursement, et cetera, but thus far, I've managed to keep up and sort of learn at the pace we needed, and guide through that on one hand, on the other hand, by supplementing with kind of key leaders that I could really rely on. So one of the things that worked, really effective, at least at inspectra, the duo we have, is so I'm still operating and CEO, but I have a CEO, and he's got a lot of experience, and he's really deep, and we are very non overlapping in our skill sets. And I was really intentional, intentional on hiring individuals that we did not have, like four clones of Gabriel, but we actually have very different skill sets, and that freed me up to kind of do the things that I do and and he can keep the business all the granular, nitty gritty, necessary things that are really important to kind of keep the business going. He's got a lot of experience with that, and that's actually helped me to both manage my burnout and my my my demand, but also keep the company moving really effectively. And I'm still providing sort of the high level strategic guidance, so that that's one of the things that has worked quite well for us. But I do think that is a significant risk for anybody, especially when you're when you're early, and it's just two of you. I mean, I think that's like your cheapest resource is your time, and then it's just very natural just to sort of overextend yourself. So something, we just think about it a lot, but I think we've, we've, I was younger when I did that also, so I had more, more juice. So like, like, now we've kind of gotten through that. I don't know that I would want to go back and do that again, honestly, but I don't quite have to, so I'm kind of glad. 

Holly Scott  19:37  
Yeah, why do you think we, like, the first time they don't know how bad it is, right? 

Gabriel Sanchez  19:43  
That, yeah, ignorance. Ignorance insulates you a little bit. It's kind of good. 

Holly Scott  19:48  
Yeah, hey, we're med tech. It's worth it. It's worth it. This is a workshop, so I want to make sure that we hear from the audience too. I would love to hear questions, comments and and also ex-experience is especially if you're a founder who has made a critical hire or made a decision not to make a critical hire at any junction, anything. Would anyone like to offer? Anything? Sandra, I see you right there, so I know you. You've been in the founder seat for some time, especially in a tough position last few years.

Audience Question  20:19  
Mean the decision to make or not make a vertical hire, yeah, and I even you've been really busy the last couple years, being deliberate, yeah? No, I wait. But I mean our team, yeah, our team, I think, is similar to what Gabriel was saying is, and that we, the co founder, her very non overlapping in our still stuff. So we were very intentional when we founded the company to have, you know, like I came from the I'm a scientist by training, but I came from the business side with sales experience, and then I had a background clinician, and then a PPO, you know, we've been able to just keep the whole ship going forward. And we try to pull from like advisors or clinical advisory board, and we have, you know, scientists that we talk to, and just as needed, I guess, we try to be as you know, cost effective as possible. So we've been good at staving off hires, but it is at some point you just need to have, you know, you need, you need to expand the team when, when it's when things just aren't getting done. 

Holly Scott  21:26  
So, yeah, that's great. No, that's helpful. And the consistent theme I hear from from founders and young teams is that ability to to to lead broadly in a number of different classic functional areas within a business, but pulling an expertise as needed, if you think back on on experiences that you've had, and I'll go to you because, because of the scale you've experienced, is there one pivotal hire, you know, Gabriel reference that the COO as being the big differentiator from where you sat, what was, what was The role that that kind of made the difference for, difference for you. 

Vijit Sabnis  22:03  
You know, we, you know, in my, in my previous company, we are very lucky, and we were able to bring in some technical hires that were young, fresh PhDs, and they were just monsters in ownership, right? And they delivered. We, as a team, delivered. And, you know, I thought it was a really nice sort of milestone to give up part of my job, like, and that was one of the kind of the things that I grew into. Like, it's great that I no longer have to do this. It's great that I can pop into the lab and see things are working, and my team has grown, and they've really taken ownership over everything, and it allows me to go do the other fires that are going forward in the company at that time. So that's the things that I that I really look forward to, you know, is, when can we get to the point where there are these little mini graduations before you're commercially successful and whatnot. But, you know, and I do think you know, where Gabriel is, you know, you have a COO. I'm thinking about that right now. You know, there's, we're kind of at our my company, we're kind of graduating into needing to be very methodical, needing to be more process oriented, and that that's less of a that's less suitable for kind of how my mind works and what I enjoy doing,

Holly Scott  23:29  
two things on that I think are fascinating, the the the engineering side, that you hand it off and with, with happiness that you're able to, you know, give, give over. What was it at a point in the product development life cycle where it was more development focus, where the the actual product going to market? So you're not looking at research anymore, you were in development? 

Vijit Sabnis  23:50  
Yeah, absolutely 

Holly Scott  23:51  
Okay. I think that's critical with the founder. That's an important piece. Because unless you're totally sure about the product, 

Vijit Sabnis  23:57  
when you're in science mode, things are way too messy. I mean, you've got to be involved. You've got to have the right people there. Yeah,

Holly Scott  24:05  
that's that's good to know. And the operations piece, Gabriel with hiring that, when someone comes to me and says they need a COO, that is likely one of the most broad categories that we can hire for. So I ask a lot of questions. I'm curious, what was on your list in terms of bringing in a good COO? And it could be just the top. You know, few things that jump to mind,

Gabriel Sanchez  24:30  
I wish. I wish I was that intentional. I was lucky, because I was I was Gipe. So one of the things you may not know, I'm in an I'm in a incubator called Fogarty innovation. And so part of the reason also, I've been able to operate effectively and hang on so long, is because I have a I have a wealth of sage guidance and coaching from people that actually have lived that experience in the industry. And that's been a huge advantage. And they were like, you really need a CEO? And in fact, we kind of know what the phenotype might be. That would be really, really useful. And so the thing that I did that was effective was I listened and I was welcoming of the input, and I went with someone who is not a clone of myself, but actually very much complements what I do. And it's actually worked out really, really well, but I probably would not have had the experience to draw on, really, to fully to characterize what that person would be, because I had come straight out of academia into the space I could do it now based on Now, having done this for a while. And you know, what I'm looking for is for something like that. You know, I'm looking for someone who's like, I say, more process driven, understands the nuances of of the space, highly organized and structured. I'm a little more creative. And then, you know, there's another interesting thing, but for whatever this is worth, like we did a Meyer Briggs test among our core kind of our VP to C suite, and we didn't have a single overlapping personality within that group, which kind of gets to the point that we when we're hiring, we're looking for gaps, and we're not trying to replicate what we already have. We're trying to fill in the holes. So I sort of look at what, what I'm really good at, and then I'm trying to find somebody who can fill in the gaps. So that frees me up for that. And then the other thing is, I really empowered our CEO. I actually made him president. So the idea there, too is when, when I did that, is kind of put in a little bit on par with myself in terms of decision making. Decision making and stuff. So he has a lot of autonomy and authority as well. And so we've been a really good duo. 

Holly Scott  26:27  
So let's say on that for a minute, because if that's working successfully, what what did you do in diligence to ensure that you two had the connection that could allow for that? Because that's where I see a lot of it go off the rails with a hire. 

Gabriel Sanchez  26:43  
Definitely. So So we met a lot. We really got to know each other. Timing was perfect. He had just come off an acquisition, a successful acquisition, which is also nice. But so he was in a good space, because he didn't need to work immediately. So that helped, because he had some time, and we basically got to like, like date for quite a long time and get to know each other really well. And at the end of the day, it, for me, it kind of still just comes down to vibes of like, if you really feel that you can work and communicate with this person, probably the key thing is going to be communication, to Vijit's point. Because, like, as the founder, sometimes you see a pathway, and because of your unique perspective, you see things other people don't see, and it'd be very hard for them to have faith in you and to trust you, and now it's your job to communicate that the most that you can. And I think we had a really good vibe in terms of sharing information and communicating. So ultimately, I was like, I think this is gonna work. It did work out, so I'm grateful for that, but I'd say we I took a little time getting to know them. So 

Holly Scott  27:47  
that's okay. That's okay. You can accelerated hiring timeline, by the way, and have thorough diligence, have multiple conversations, and realize the the ability to trust and communicate and talk about the tough stuff. That's great, that's important. Do you have any comments on that digit? I see you smiling. I feel like you've had 

Vijit Sabnis  28:05  
no I think I'm just resonating so much with this. When I was on the investor side of the table, I did a lot of exec recruiting, and it is incredibly difficult. So it's, I'm just happy for Gabriel that it worked out well, because it's not. Oftentimes the case

Gabriel Sanchez  28:22  
 doesn't always work out. Yeah. 

Holly Scott  28:23  
So let's the time that it didn't work out. How soon did you know that this was, this was on the wrong path? 

Vijit Sabnis  28:32  
I saw multiple times at falling apart in less than 12 months. Okay, it's, it's relatively fast, yeah. 

Holly Scott  28:40  
So what are the warning signs that we can all look for if we're seeing the wrong the wrong founder move? Maybe it's the timing for the founder. Maybe it's the timing for that replacement. What can we do better? 

Vijit Sabnis  28:52  
I you know, what I saw Justin, in my experience, is, oftentimes we're bringing in people who are very, very strong role players, very strong operational experience. And when they get into a startup, unless they've had that that stage experience, they're going to come in and be like, Whoa, this is not for me, right? They can see challenges with fundraising. They can see technical risk, operational risk. They can see kind of the messiness that is oftentimes present in young companies, and that's just not for everyone. That was probably the major phenotype that I saw that where things did not work very well, even though they had the most amazing skill set, right? 

Holly Scott  29:41  
So for a certain situation, it's all situational. Yes, that's the challenge of hiring, challenging the opportunity really. Ella, you've stayed relatively small that you've made you've had a co founder and relationships that for a long time now, correct the co founder. And so when you determined that you were going to found an organization. Was it like a marriage? Was is that what it was that kind of a rapport and and complimentary skill set? 

Elizabeth Jaworski  30:10  
Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you go, you're the company's your baby, so it is a marriage, right? You're, you're building and developing this thing with somebody. So kind of, I found like having a co founder was like hiring it's this person that you want to spend a lot of time of the day of with. You know, your minds have you have to collaborate really well. You don't have to agree on everything, but you have to be able to communicate effectively to one another. So I've always, I've been lucky that my co founders have been very complimentary, but have got along together and are able to communicate what their ideas are to one another. So yeah, it's very important. I'm resonate. I'm listening like diligently, because I'm about to hire three people, so trying to figure out all the what you guys are saying, what's important. So 

Holly Scott  31:01  
It's a process. The diligence is important. Yeah, let me pause for any questions. Anyone. Have any questions for the founders? Yes, please. Can you come to the microphone? Thank you.

Audience Question 2  31:12  
So I have a question about hiring, and I loved what you said about platform being a dirty word in Medtech, but I think it's completely unavoidable, because we have completely new tools, disrupting how we collect and analyze data, and ultimately, AI is going to lead towards prevention and not just treatment. So with that in mind, I have a diagnostics company, and we need to get FDA and all that. And right now we we're looking to hire somebody who understands the product and who can develop the product. And here's the dilemma investors want, and especially Medtech investors want somebody who's done this before, worked at J and J for 50 years, owned P and L, knows FDA. However, we as founders want somebody who can understand that platform vision, and really take our diagnostics, imaging, AI, into a platform of the future, understanding the trends that are coming, gaps in the market. So I just want to get your thinking because we, we had lots of debates on that, how we feel about it and why. And I would have, would love to get your thinking around how to discern this. Thank you. 

Holly Scott  32:24  
Great question. Who wants to take the first shot 

Vijit Sabnis  32:27  
Yeah, I mean, I'll start and take a shot at this. I think I'm a little bit less concerned about what you are today. I think five years ago, I would be super concerned that at a large, established company, you could find someone that had that breath and could sort of carry that forward. You know, when I was starting to invest in diagnostics and stuff, 10 years ago, again, you know, I made the joke. We used to call it Big Data. Now, I would say it's like machine learning and AI. That was very new, and that was a big shift in people's mentality that, look, I can collect a bunch of data that, by itself, means nothing, but I can develop these algorithms can do a lot. I feel like today, the train has left the station. All big companies are working in this area. So I do think it's, you know, maybe if you go through the dating process a little bit, and so you can feel comfortable with that, but I'm, I'm a little bit less worried about that now than than that I would have been in the past, 

Holly Scott  33:26  
Worried about which part of it less worried about hiring someone from? 

Vijit Sabnis  33:30  
yeah, someone who's going to be able to carry out that breath and turn this into into into a platform. Because I think that's just better appreciated today, that that there is a mountain, there is a lot of things that can, that can be done, that it's still early innings, you know, in the game, for, for how we're going to use AI with diagnostics and other other types of, you know, other types of modality for collecting data. So I do think, I do think that there's just a larger pool of people who are, who can look up at the mountain? You know, there's not clouds covering the mountain? 

Holly Scott  34:04  
No, it's, it's a great input. Would any would you like to offer anything else regarding that question? 

Elizabeth Jaworski  34:10  
I mean, I think it just takes time to find the right person that's the reality, right? So what I heard is, you're looking for somebody with experience, but also flexible in seeing the future and willing to drive to something that's different. It's easier, or, I don't know, so I got really lucky. One of my co founders has 40 years of experience in the field, has done this a ton of times, but is super agile, and so I think they do exist. It's very hard to find, but you just there's people out there that'll do it. You got to find other startup found. You know, people who have done companies before have moved on, exited, so they get that experience right. Have gone through the whole process, but they were founders at one point, right? So they understand that it requires a vision. I definitely think they exist. You just got to find them. It's hard. 

Vijit Sabnis  34:10  
I think maybe one other thing I would add is just to follow on. What you said is, oftentimes you can find mid career or late career people who have, maybe they've had a win right in their past, and that they're really just open to doing something totally brand new, and they're not trying to stay on a more kind of linear, sequential path. I've seen that work out really, really well. 

Gabriel Sanchez  34:39  
I would double down on that in in our approach, what we've done, I probably weighed more heavily execution. Maybe then, then, let's say clout, or like, like, kind of pedigree, so to so to speak. And this comes up a lot with KOLs. You know, there might be, like, some big name people want you to get but I feel like, as a founder, CEO, we are really in the bull's eye everybody. Every the perception from the culture is when, when are we going to move you on? I mean, if you look at this conference, there's multiple panels about when does the CEO leave? There's one, they even reduced it to math. It was like, founder does not equal CEO, which I found less than or equal to, like, but so my sense was like, Okay, I'll probably get scrutiny for not maybe getting the biggest name brand person, but we need to hit the milestones, right? And so I emphasize that. And I've had the same experience. I feel like you get you can find if they're too established, they're so successful, they don't necessarily need you if they're still hungry and they're making a name and this is like, they're like, what you've got is cool. This could really be one of the landmark FDA clearances that I can point to. In my experience, we got an awesome regulatory person from a major, major place. We like swiped them because they just saw this as something they've never had a chance to do before, hungry, and they made it happen, and we're cleared now. So that's my sense. I may get some scrutiny about not having enough big hitters on my advisory board, but, but we've also got our milestones, so I don't know trade offs. 

Elizabeth Jaworski  36:55  
I kind of have a question, which is, maybe where you're coming from is you're getting, probably feedback from investors and other people that you need a heavy hitter or somebody big, right? So I always struggle with, how do you how have you guys maybe handled getting, like, you know, pushed one way or another from external advisors or investors? Of you should do this. No, you should do that. And then how do you like stay on track of like, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. This doesn't feel right, or this feels better. And how you like Swede through the advice, because everybody's got advice.

Gabriel Sanchez  37:33  
It's all communication. I think there's a key difference between listening to advice and following advice. I listen to most advice. That's that's information for me. They'll project it onto what I'm doing. Rote following it can be a disaster. And I think it all comes down to, how do you communicate with these people if they feel heard like, like, oh, Gabriel. Really considered this stuff, but ultimately had the responsibility to chart our own course. I've been able to mostly get that through by being really open and direct with my board. So I think it all really kind of comes down to that communication. And again, another analogy would be, there's a big difference between being stubborn and persistent. Like, stubborn, you've you're like, gonna do this no matter what. You've closed your eyes, your ears, you're not bringing any more information, and you've stopped learning persistence is like, I'm so dedicated to the goal, I'm flexible to to find the people and take the approach that we need. So I would just say, communicate regularly, often try to your job is to convince them to understand, 

Vijit Sabnis  38:36  
I think, I just think I would just, just maybe one last thing to add is, as a founder, when you're taking advice from various people, no one will understand your company's context better than you. So even though it's like famous person X over there said you should go do this, you should certainly listen, and you should think very, very deeply, sometimes for days and days and weeks about what he or she said to you, but they will never fully understand your context and what you're up against that that's, I would say, mostly true. 

Gabriel Sanchez  39:12  
That's so on that. And then you mentioned the company is a baby, so, like, if you've had a baby, right? People give you all this advice about your baby from their babies doesn't work. Like, there's some general things. You got to feed them, you got to keep them clean and stuff about, like, but like, the reality is, when you're a brand new parent, you know absolutely nothing about it, but you actually know that child better than anyone else on the world. So that's that weird kind of balance you're with. Trust yourself, that you know your kid, take advice, but do what works for your kid. Yeah, 

Holly Scott  39:38  
Those are gold nuggets. I'll also add from, from where I sit, there's, there's an interpretation that an investor, or anyone interested in your organization will throw out the word, I need experience. But what they really are saying is, I need confidence. And confidence in what you're looking to get done can come in different forms than exclusively experience. Hence the hence the opportunity for so many first time 'Insert Function here' that we place people move into new roles for the first time because others around the table have confidence in them. And you might want to consider if the experience is tough to hire an advisor or perhaps a board member, and individuals, especially later in career, are very open to conversations in that regard, thus, hopefully, hopefully, that helps. Oh, we are dead on time, 

Gabriel Sanchez  40:28  
or at least it stopped 10 minutes ago.