speaker-0: Most investors, especially family and friends and agnostic family offices and people who are investing into two, three, four million dollar rounds, are not going to be experts in whatever field of innovation that you're building. So going to the bottom of the ocean of the technicalities of that, do they really care? The answer is no.
speaker-1: And I think the one piece that's missing, even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be, the other piece that's missing is the accountability piece. That generation wants all the fun and unique experiences and all the unique responsibilities. But the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're thin air, man. They're ether. They're nowhere to be found.
speaker-0: Like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you just rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business, it's just an obsession at this point. Like why make good so hard?
speaker-1: Hey there, I'm Terry Kucholuchis, founder of RevRX AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for med tech and consumer health practices. Welcome to the Zero Friction Podcast. Terry Kucholucus here. I have an exciting guest today who is taking the bull by the horns with some of the most innovative founders in the country in the med tech space. I have Giovanni Loricello with me. He spent 16 years doing one thing, and that's basically doing an executive recruitment. And then he's pivot pivoted into a new business model where he's actually helping CEOs build out their companies. And so Giovanni, welcome to have you on the show today. I appreciate you being here. Why don't you give us a little background about your experience in the med tech space and then what you and Lifeblood are doing in the market?
speaker-0: Thank you, Terry. So for 16 years, I've been recruiting for venture-backed medical device companies. And nearly 20 years down in South Florida, transplanted to Houston, Texas, roughly three years ago. ⁓ for a lot of great reasons that we'll dive into right now. But this is an up-and-coming, burgeoning medtech hub that's geographically centered right in the United States. ⁓ was on a plane direct to Sydney, Australia, a few months ago, so incredibly connected to the globe, direct flights. To wherever you can possibly think of. Ironically enough, not to ⁓ my original hometown of Buffalo, New York, which is challenging to get to. I was just there last week with my parents, but ⁓ that's the only place that I can't get to from Houston. But this has been an incredible hub. And ⁓ we're doing work right in our backyard with companies that are ⁓ expanding their teams here in Texas and also nationwide, and then also still pursuing CE Mark over in Europe. So out of those 16 years. I have worked with boards, investors, and executive management teams to either design those independent board members to join those boards, ⁓ replace or take to the next level CEOs that are going from RD clinical and into those commercial forces that are ever more important that I'm sure we'll touch base on as the markets change over the past certainly five to seven years. ⁓ and then also in addition to being able to ⁓ build out those executive management teams and provide some of that counsel as to how you do that, where you do that, when you do that, and what's the process involved in making some of these strategic hires. We have created events called the MedTech CEO only forum that we do all throughout the the globe at this point. From this year, by the time we're done, we'll have done it from California to Boston to London to Paris to finishing up in Tel Aviv at the end of this year. ⁓ we opened up JP Morgan in January for San Francis in San Francisco with this conference. We're gonna be doing AdvaMed ⁓ in Boston in October. And we do it here in Houston and those other places that I mentioned, once again wrapping up in Israel. So what we do with those is bring CEOs together to share best practices and there's no one else in the room. And this is usually kicked off with a fireside chat on an exited CEO. I actually just before jumping on with you right now, I was just talking to Maria Bennett. Who sold SPR therapeutics out of Cleveland Clinic to Medtronic two months ago for $650 million? She's gonna be our fireside chat telling that story of how she actually founded the company off of her master's thesis, brought it through a hundred million dollar annual run rate, and then ultimately transacted it for $650 million to Medtronic just a couple months ago. And then we'll dive into a two-hour platform of a hundred CEOs sharing best practices on building boards. Hiring and firing, insourcing versus outsourcing the challenges of commercialization, managing boards, you name it. Obviously, raising capital. That's the bane of most companies' existence these past few years, especially. So we do the CE-only forum. And then ⁓ last but not least, twice a year, semi-annually, in March and in September, and we're a few weeks away from the one coming up in September, ⁓ we do the MedTech Com or the Houston MedTech conference series. So in March, we do the Houston MedTech Rodeo. And in September, we do the Houston MedTech Oktoberfest, both very themed, fun conferences bringing together strategics, investors of varying sorts, and executive operators into a room to have a very B2B focused conference, ultimately to help medical device CEOs build their businesses. So, in short, ⁓ I'm not in the conference business, but we do do some events and conferences that bring our community together. And 16 years later, I'm still an executive search consultant building venture-backed. Medical device executive teams and boards.
speaker-1: So what got you into the space originally? So what what you know, did you just wake up one day and find your way in there or, you know by accident? On purpose?
speaker-0: The answer is completely yes. ⁓ if you talk to any recruiter, I still all these years later I've never met one that said, when I wanna wake up ⁓ or when I grow up, I wanna be a recruiter or I went to college to be a recruiter. I still have not yet met that person. All of us have a story of how we fell into it. ⁓ my story was after graduating college with a finance undergrad, ⁓ I started a business in Costa Rica and Colombia during the economic crash in late 2008, 2009, going into 2010-ish. ⁓ and then it was just I was in South Florida at the time and the industry was really not there. And so after getting rid of the business in Columbia, coming back to South Florida, there was just not much going on. And I got accepted into a PhD program thinking that I was gonna buy the next five years of my life and hopefully wait it out to better times, only to ⁓ take a job at Starbucks while waiting those five months before my PhD started. ⁓ and two months ahead of that starting time, ⁓ got a letter in the mail saying that you're not gonna get a stipend anymore. ⁓ economic times and the schools aren't merging together, so you have to pay for your own PhD. And I was already starting to drown in ⁓ undergraduate debt. I didn't have the money to pay for my PhD, so I said it's time to go to work and spent time blasting my resume on Craigslist all throughout the night, only to wake up with two interviews. ⁓ the next day, one from a medical device recruiting firm in South Florida and one from ⁓ Merrill Lynch. And so I could either be an entry-level stockbroker or learn about medical devices, which I didn't know anything about, how to recruit. I love talking to people. I love people in general. And it was just something that wasn't even on my radar, and it was a good sell. And ⁓ you know, what do you have to lose if you don't make it? Just a little bit of time. And so That's how I fell into this and fell in love with the industry. Then went and got my master's degree in regulatory affairs for medical devices, kind of solidifying my understanding and academic knowledge of the industry that I was falling in love with and recruiting for. And then literally just obsessed with the medical device industry and how to build these businesses through talent and people and the effects of what good talent versus a bad actor can be into a company and how incredibly a company with people. ⁓ is and I've made a career out of it. And so sixteen years later, ⁓ was with my previous firm for thirteen years and then started my firm actually no, ⁓ eleven years and ⁓ I'm coming up on five years with ⁓ with life blood after starting it in twenty twenty two January.
speaker-1: That's great. And so when you talk about what what really gives you the buzz around medical devices, what really kind of jacks you up when, you know, this space versus other spaces for
speaker-0: So, I mean, 16 years of doing it, I I I probably would have told you a different story along those chapters. ⁓ in the beginning, it was just simply technology. Like I happened to fall in medical technology. Like, how cool is that? ⁓ when I got a little bit more educated, I felt ⁓ privileged on the fact that we were dealing with these companies that were developing technologies that were yet to be approved by the FDA or CE marked over in Europe. So you had this lens and ⁓ dare I say insight as to what's coming in the future. And then, you know, y you felt a little smarter, you felt a little cooler at cocktail parties where no one else was in the medical industry, and all of a sudden you talked about someone's mother's ailment or someone's brother's ailment. And ⁓ well, did you know that this heart failure thing is coming up and they're in clinical trials right now, or this peripheral nerve stimulation system's coming up, or there's a watch that actually handles ⁓ hand. Tremors that eliminates hand tremors and it's about to go commercial in six months. Just wait and see. So that was very cool. That was the next phase. I would say now, having been over a decade and you see the ebbs and flows and the challenges of raising capital and the challenges of regulatory versus reimbursement and the shift of pursuing C E mark first. And now the FDA is the major focal point for innovation. And now the commercial challenges. ⁓ and the financing challenges for venture back companies, it's just much more of the love of the game and unfortunate complexity to build a medical device company that is actually founded on the principle of helping people. Like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you just rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business that falls within that statement. ⁓ without ever giving up on the fight that you're actually building something that ultimately will help somebody. It's just an obsession at this point. Like, why make good so hard?
speaker-1: Yeah, that's a really good point. And having been in the medical device space for over thirty years, you and I were talking about it earlier before the program on how fast iteration and, you know, versions of technology were coming out, you know, twenty and thirty years ago and versus today, where you think with AI and lots of knowledge behind you that the processes would be more efficient and slimmer and ⁓ but it's not. It it is more complicated. There is more paperwork, there is more hoops to crawl through. And so, you know, you and I have seen how that has changed the landscape of the medical device community. And you deal with both sides of the fence, actually. You're dealing with investors, right? So part of your ⁓ your customer profile is serving the investor who's actually investing in this companies and and building. those companies with people. And now you have, you know, a new arm where you're you're helping CEOs build companies from an infrastructure perspective and a process perspective. And so you're almost like an operating partner in a lot of ways, it sounds like.
speaker-0: ⁓ yes, I I I still would call myself an executive recruiter because I I wouldn't want to jump over my skis and say I'm an operator. But I the one story I haven't told yet is I actually do have my own medical device company. So it was with a co-founder and is with a co-founder who has already successfully exited his first medical device company. So I do have very real-world operating experience. ⁓ we're actually just about to receive FDA clearance, we're just about To go commercial at the very end of this year. So we have had everything from inception of outlicensing patents to getting freedom to operate to raising capital and how to raise that capital from institutional investors to family offices to friends and family and how that works, ⁓ to then soliciting medical advisory boards and KOLs and finding contract manufacturers and pricing models, ⁓ you name it, and obviously doing the submissions itself. And so It's been an awesome, awesome experience starting a medical device company 15 years into my career. And now ⁓ we are 16 months old and about 45 days away from receiving our FDA clearance. So we've built a medical device company in lightning speed. It is a class two device, but going in and recruiting the right people from previous exits, ⁓ having excellent law firms behind us and specifically a law firm, Goodwin. ⁓ mart shout out to Marty Gomez, who has done all of our patent work. ⁓ and corporate counsel. And so ⁓ it it's been an absolute pleasure finally working behind the curtain of what it really means to build a medical device company. And it's only strengthened me as an executive recruiter, helping out other companies, understanding really the pain points of making sure that you have the right person.
speaker-1: You know, that's a great little commentary on yourself. You love the medical device business so much you bought a company and started one.
speaker-0: yeah. And I'm invested into it myself. I wouldn't I wouldn't ask for somebody else's money unless I put my own money in there. So it's been ⁓ it's been a very, very intense learning curve and it's only made what I've been doing for all these years that much stronger, helping out other CEOs do it.
speaker-1: So what do what do most investors look for when it comes to hiring an executive team for a a medical device company? What what are the key things that they look?
speaker-0: So at the end of the day, it's de-risking, right? And and as general as that truly is, you just have to get superhuman about it. ⁓ if it's ⁓ an institutional venture capital firm versus a family office or a high net worth individual, you know, one person is investing someone else's money, the other person's investing their money. ⁓ no one wants to lose their money. Most people don't want to lose anyone else's money. If they lose someone else's money, that means they can't go raise another found fund, which means they don't have a job. So there's there's selfish motivations for both people to protect something. And so it's really more, it sounds offensive when you are investing into something, but once the investment's made, it's really more about defense, at least in the short to midterm, ⁓ before you can get past some of those growth door openings, if you will, to say, okay, let's put some more fuel on the fire. But No, in the in the early days, it's like I and and behind the scenes now, I know for a fact there are companies who have co invested together in previous companies who then want to syndicate into new companies. And they would say, I love the technology, I love the market, but that's not the right CEO. And and I'll syndicate with you only on the term that will replace a CEO. And Or it could be I'm investing because the CEO is exceptional and they're part of our network and I have invested behind that CEO before. ⁓ so what is our major problem? Okay, our major problem is our reimbursement strategy. Let's go out and hire a a real head of reimbursement, and then we have to validate why they've done this before. You know, it it's It's it's shocking how human it is if you just stop and think about some of these things. I mean, th there's there's diligence, but ⁓ a lot of these investment investments are made based on relationships and trust. I mean, and and obviously there's a lot of investments made every single year into new people and into new entities. ⁓ but when you start understanding the websites for venture capital firms aren't necessarily telling The real story of how they actually invest. ⁓ there's a lot of sheep movement, I would say, where, you know, they they run together, they invest together, they soundboard with each other, they're willing to share risks together, but they're also willing to de-risk one another by going into it together. ⁓ so it's a it's an interesting model. It's not necessarily what you would think on the surface.
speaker-1: Kind of like I'll do it if you do it kind of thing, you know?
speaker-0: Exactly. Truthfully. Truthfully.
speaker-1: I've heard I've heard that a lot as well, like where I'll go if they go, you know. ⁓ I know those guys. If they're in, I'm in, you know, they they it's truly a flock of sheep. So it's
speaker-0: hundred percent. And and you know, there's very, very little exception, especially when you start playing around with big, big dollars. ⁓ I will tell you there is a There is such thing as diligence. ⁓ and and realistically, ⁓ and this is a very general statement, so any venture capital firm listening into this, I'm sure will point to reasons why I'm wrong, but ⁓ diligence is either meant to surface the reason that allows them to pass. Sure. Or they want to Follow a friend and and have a de-risk situation based on relationships. But diligence itself, like you very rarely will they go to the bottom of an ocean on diligence and be like, I've soundboarded with no one I have a relationship on. I found the holy grail. This is what I'm investing in. I'm gonna win. ⁓ it's it's less of that. And it's much more of like, I'm gonna do diligence to actively look for a reason not to invest. ⁓ and if I can't find that, then I need to find a friend. Or something that de-risks relationships as to why I would invest.
speaker-1: Got it.
speaker-0: Interesting.
speaker-1: ⁓ so why do most because you know, the other thing that I'm I see quite often today in today's marketplace is the money for innovation in the med tech space is kind of getting kind of thin, right? In some ways. And it's in other ways it's getting kind of thick too. ⁓ you see a lot of big acquisitions and there's a lot of big money being spent, but I also know there's a lot of startups and early stage companies that are looking for money that are having trouble getting two, three, four, five million dollars to get off the ground because, you know, it's not enough money for private equity. It's not enough money for venture. ⁓ and it's probably too risky for family. And so, ⁓ why why is the market so challenging today in terms of raising?
speaker-0: I'll start by telling my own story. ⁓ because when you start referring to that early stage money of that one, two, three, four million dollar raise.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: ⁓ the well-tenured executive CEO who's raising tens of millions of dollars doesn't have those same dynamical challenge, right? So that's that's off the table. And if that same experienced CEO had a success and they were starting their company 2.0 ⁓ and they were raising that money, I will tell you the likelihood of ⁓ it being easy to raise that is pretty high, only contingent upon one factor. That they actually have a clear business model story to tell friends and peers and colleagues. ⁓ a very quick example is Daniel Hawkins, the founder of Shockwave Medical. ⁓ I was doing a podcast with him, and I've known him for years, but this is going back probably five years ago. And I just asked him, like, after all of these successes that you've had, does raising capital become easier? And the answer is. raising capital doesn't become easier. Opening the doors to having opportunities to pitch raising capital becomes easier. You have to have something tangible. Just because you've done exits and stuff like that doesn't mean you can go sell snake oil on on version 3.0. You still have to have something real. It's just the reputation and the ability to open doors ⁓ becomes much easier. So where I go with that is, you know, if you think about Once again, generally speaking, how our industry is brought up, many times or oftentimes, founders are physicians or engineers. The business acumen, the business awareness is not typically there. ⁓ the naturalness of networking and coming with a robust trusted network in to invent ⁓ investing in a technology isn't typically there. ⁓ and then also asking for money and then just this general. fatiguing effect of pitching the same story 15 times a day doesn't also come natural. So there's a lot of things stacked up against the non-business founder ⁓ raising that technical money in in the early days. For myself, you know, Albert Wong is originally a surgeon ⁓ who became an inventor, who became an operator, who became an exited CEO of his first medical device company that he founded. ⁓ he's a water walker here in Houston. I am very blessed to be able to have him as a friend and know him for the past handful of years and also was in the right place at the right time when he wanted to start his second company, of which we co-founded together. when I found the IP for it, and he wanted to do it and I brought it together ⁓ with him. And he brings this operational experience of all the both failures and successes of his first company, the network of having that first success underneath his belt. ⁓ and then obviously that medical and even ⁓ inventorslash technical and engineering awareness. I bring a network, I bring the investors, I bring the business storytelling, I bring the what do people truly care about ⁓ when you're pitching and and how do you actually craft a story that's gonna resonate once the doors open. And when we did that together, we raised our ⁓ two and a half million dollar seed round and just Shy of three weeks. It was exactly two weeks and six days. And it was because we had the network, we had the trust, he had the experience and the exit underneath his belt. ⁓ I have great relationships. And it was a very crisp and clean painted story of not our technology. I actually told him I don't want to tell you about our technology unless you have questions. We're we're creating a motile sep ⁓ sperm separation technology. That's what we're doing. If you want to know how it works and what it does, ⁓ Glad to ask, but I will tell you what from a business standpoint you'd be investing in and really roughly the timelines and expected ROI that you'll get from giving me your dollar. Because when you're pitching to these people, most first-time founders or or technical engineered background people will want to tell you why they're going to change the world with their invention. Well, most investors, especially family and friends and agnostic family offices and people who are investing into two, three, four million dollar. Rounds are not going to be experts in whatever field of innovation that you're building. So going to the bottom of the ocean of the technicalities of that, do they really care? The answer is no. You're asking them for minimum $50,000 checks, $25,000 checks, $150,000 checks. They want to know, in essence, a few things. ⁓ I give you $150,000. Tell me why I'm going to get my money back. How much more I'm going to get back when I get it back. the timeline of when you can expect or assume that to happen. ⁓ and by the way, when I'm at my cocktail parties or when I'm at my dinner parties with my wife, my husband, whatever it may be, ⁓ and I want to just tell a fun story of what I'm investing in these days, what's the one or two liner that you guys are actually building? Like that's really what they care about. It's truly an investment. It's not a sell me the innovation story of how you're going to change the world and expect other people to care as much as you do.
speaker-1: Well, yeah, I think that's probably true. ⁓ is family office a little different where they might invent invest with a little more purpose and intent, or is it are they
speaker-0: There's mission driven for sure. I mean, like, you know, just one that comes to mind, for example, is Broadview Ventures up in in Boston. Technically speaking, the the it was originally a French family. The ⁓ funds are managed out of ⁓ London and a you know, multi-billion dollar family. And then they have an investment team sitting out of Boston. But Broadview Ventures is not a venture capital firm, they're a family office. most of their metrics are actually mission-driven metrics, not family or financial return metrics. And so, yes, to your point, like when you have some of these family offices where as a family, their Maslow's hierarchy of needs is already met, right? Like they have more money than God. All of their assets are taken care of. They can buy cars, they can do whatever they want. This is just ancillary or additional money that they can feel good about themselves. ⁓ and by the way, the father of the family died of heart failure. Well, yes, of course, I'd like to invest in that heart failure company. I'd like to tell myself and those around me that I'm moving the mission forward of I don't want that to happen to other families or other people. ⁓ and if I can invest in science that's moving that solution forward, yes, that's what I would like to do. Do they really care if they're worth a billion dollars and they're writing a hundred and fifty thousand dollar check and you return them four hundred grand? They don't care.
speaker-1: Right. So let's talk a little bit about getting people into the room, right? And you we talked a little bit before about five years ago in your recruiting environment, you know, getting the right people in the network, which we've talked a lot about. Like, what does that mean? Like getting the right people in the room. So you as an executive recruiter, when a company's coming to you and saying, I need help to build it out, like what do you look at when you get Like what does it mean to get the right people in the room for you?
speaker-0: And you are talking about from a recruitment standpoint.
speaker-1: Right, right, yeah.
speaker-0: So Recruiting and getting the right people in the room, I will tell you, is an interesting amalgamation of not necessarily the best talent or the best resume, especially with venture-backed medical device companies, you know, being in fast-paced organizations. And I was actually having a conversation with somebody earlier today that had built medical device startup company and then had to contractually stay in corporate, the one that acquired them for Upwards of a year and they stayed 18 months afterward. And they were just describing corporate as what is the most safe way to make it to Friday afternoon? ⁓ you know, deflecting of ⁓ decision making, ⁓ having and driving for consensus, agnostic of how long that may take ⁓ in terms of timing, which is very counter to how. medical device startup companies or startups in general have to be built. You know, when you receive venture capital and there's and you're not generating revenue and there's operating costs and there's monthly burn, if you are sitting on a decision to gain consensus that could have taken 17 minutes and it took a month because of whatever, ⁓ that is unnecessary burn and and that's not efficacious for the company, right? So how do you get someone in there who can be Agile, efficient understanding of time as money, be bought into the mission based on having them have equity options in the organization. So driven for the successful win of the company, not just selfish succession, ⁓ or success rather. So ⁓ this is th this is where I'm talking about there are plenty of resumes out there that from a keyword perspective may look incredible. But if you don't have the right attitude, and especially from a recruitment standpoint, it's a it's a big talk track at our CE only forums. ⁓ The workforce mentality since the inception of COVID and really the remote workforce going into then the contraction back to headquarters that we're seeing more and more of these days. There's something in the water, whether it's generational, whether it's the the snap of COVID that changed people's work life balances and flows. ⁓ And we're and we're seeing it in multiple areas of life from restaurants to customer service to you you name it, ⁓ it is very challenging building a company these days. I would argue to say more so than it used to be. And so getting people who want to work, getting people who want to work in a fast paced environment, starting an interview that doesn't ask with ⁓ How if your opening interview questions are ⁓ when can I come in and when can I leave and how many days can I work from home? And you know, what is your your corporate ⁓ policy of days off? And you haven't even started about what's the technology and what's this position gonna do for my career and the the talk tracks are just becoming more different, right? So to let
speaker-1: It's a different animal. It really is. Like, and it's it's you know, as a as a business owner myself a couple times, and even leading large commercial teams, it's pretty challenging in today's marketplace to find people that, you know, they're not they're all leaning into this work life balance piece. And ⁓ you know, I'm just gonna go on my own stance on it. And I'll just say that I grew up in a different world. I grew up with, you know, first generation, Greek immigrant family. You know, I didn't my father got up at four o'clock in the morning and got home at eight o'clock at night. And that's what I grew up with. And frankly, that's I attribute to a lot of the things that I've accomplished in my life has because of my grind. And, you know, I used to joke about that like I changed more headlights out of my car than anybody in the world because I got up Headlights were on when I left, and the headlights are on when I got home at night. And so that generation or that group of professionals does not exist coming into the workforce anymore. It's a totally different ball game. And the one piece that we can talk about work ethic and we can talk about work-life balance. The one thing that that same group, I think, is also missing is this sense of accountability. Like, you know, and I used to tell my salespeople all the time, I'd be like, I really don't care where you sell it from, you know, as long as you don't put me in jail and you're not jeopardizing the company brand. And if you can do it at home every day and God bless you, go do it home every day. But to hit your number, right? I think the one piece that's missing, even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be, the other piece that's missing is the accountability piece. That that generation wants all the fun and unique. experiences and all the unique responsibilities. But the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're they're they're thin air, man. They're ether. They're nowhere to be found. And that's the other piece I would imagine in the startup world that accountability is a big, big piece of that attitude that you've got to bring in.
speaker-0: In a small team, small company, there's less places slash no places to hide. So accountability is a huge thing. ⁓ and you know, if you're joining a company, a startup company of of 10 people, you represent 10% of the company. If you represent if you lose 10% of your body, you're gonna feel it. ⁓ so it it you're very, very visible in that sense in these startup companies. And so ⁓ yes, ⁓ and to kind of come full circle on how to get right people in the room. That's why I don't recruit for the big corporate strategic companies. That's why I don't deal with massive big HR layers in between us and the decision-making hiring for ⁓ hiring firms or hiring managers rather. ⁓ because it really is about personality, mindset, DNA, work ethic, obviously pat like passion and point of interest of to why someone would even want to take on this role. ⁓ because that's not leading from the front. If it's just more defensive of like what is this position doing for me? versus what I can do for this position and company that will inadvertently give me back experience for my growth that it's on me to leverage and grow myself. If you're not thinking like that, then you don't belong in a startup company. So yes, of course, as a as a headhunter, as a recruiter, there is this quote unquote matchmaking where like if I'm going into a hardcore heart failure company, the likelihood of someone needing heart failure experience in some capacity is very likely. ⁓ so that means that's my pool of candidates that I'm pursuing. But then out of that, it's on me to find the personality, the mindset, the availability, the accountability, that personal fit into the culture of the team. Because I will tell you all these years later, my tagline's always been I I recruit for med tech venture backed companies. A lot of the times when we're taking on brand new clients, our clients are like, Well, we need someone who wants to roll up their sleeves and they want to, you know, really get involved in the work and be there with us. And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hear you out. We're gonna go through all this, but I'm gonna let you know, like that's that's to be assumed in our process, or else I'd be working for the big companies as well and and understanding this more corporate nature. But anyone who wants to join your company ⁓ must roll up their sleeves, must understand as a startup, must know that they're doing a lot with a little. ⁓ So it's it's more of a mindset and a personality.
speaker-1: That's great. And probably very refreshing, great people to work with on both sides, by the way. As you're bringing people into this new organization and you're helping founders and and innovators and CEOs and investors make dreams come true, right? That's what you're kind of helping them do.
speaker-0: Make a wish foundation. I that's what's kept me going for 16 years. I I I love making a good match where the hiring managers are grateful that they have a new asset to help them go and build a company. I'm grateful or I'm I'm super happy when I get to see people build their own personal careers and learn and grow from it. ⁓ and then when you start even seeing more macro things like the product got clearance or approval or it's now commercial or the company got acquired. It's very cool to be able to indirectly affect those things from happening through making sure that you're instilling the or installing the right talent.
speaker-1: Let's lean into one more pivot ⁓ of a topic and we'll kind of close it out here. And I think it's really exciting. You have your your conference coming up here in I think 22 days. ⁓ let's let's talk a little bit about the conference and and let's reach out to an audience just to see here if there's ⁓ you know, I've got a lot of executives in the med device, med tech space. ⁓ you know, who's the ideal target? What are they gonna learn if they come and you know that what's the value proposition for the the program?
speaker-0: Great question. I'll try to hit it in as organized a fashion as possible. So I think it's a strategic positioning of green space that we took, building a dependable semi-annual. So this happens every six months. ⁓ conference for medical devices that's B2B investor focused, so B2B business focused, ⁓ helping out the medical device CEOs. surround themselves with the correct stakeholders that they can learn from or network with or or grow their businesses from. And that's right here in Texas. A lot of the love goes to the coasts. I was on the coast for all my life until I wasn't and came here. So I'm I'm very well used to that. I used to do plenty of red eyes from Miami over to California and back. ⁓ don't have to do those anymore. I should say red eyes from California back to Miami, but ⁓ you know here in Texas, great geographically positioned To go from coast to coast very easily, but also the fact that you know this is the second largest state next to California. ⁓ absolutely burgeoning as we speak, as there's exoduses happening from the c the coast. We are growing rapidly right here in Texas. Houston is the third largest city in the nation. Most people don't even know that. And we have the largest med center in the world. So from a, I think it's more than 10 million patients go in and out of the med center, the Texas Medical Center every single year. It's a massive clinical trial site. You literally could, if you really wanted to, design, build, clinically test, and commercialize a medical device company in the state of Texas, right here out of Houston. ⁓ there's contract manufacturers, there's great industry partners, there's exceptional talent here. And that part of my role is actually even recruiting more exceptional talent down to Houston. So the positioning of having it here, which is not done elsewhere, we have great. MedTech MVP up in Minneapolis that takes place every June. I love that conference. AdvaMed is happening. The MedTech conference is happening in in Boston this year. You know, we have MedTech strategist happening in San Diego every November. Like so you got a lot of love for these coasts. ⁓ but nothing is happening dependable here in Texas. And so I wanted to grab that space. ⁓ we have been building conferences for five years plus at this point. And so Who comes? We bring the corporate strategics down here. We have Johnson and Johnson coming, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Hamanetics, Edwards Life Sciences, for example. ⁓ so we bring the corporate strategics, we bring the investors of varying sorts. We have an institutional venture capital panel. We have a health system corporate venture panel. So you think Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Providence, OSF Ventures, Rex Health, now UNC Healthcare Ventures, ⁓ Orlando Health Ventures. We have a ⁓ How to build your board and executive team panel, talking about best practices from high-powered CEOs who have built people or teams of tens and hundreds, as well as design boards that have allowed them to exit their companies. So we build this panel, two days of panels, which is eight panels, and the rest is networking with a very fun theme event. In September in 22 days, on September 15th and 16th, we're doing the Houston MedTech Oktoberfest. So people are showing up in Leiderhosen and Dernville, and we're doing Kohlsch service and we have open bar from 12 until close. We have a an Oktoberfest band. We're doing it in a big Munich high ⁓ Munich style event hall, beer hall ⁓ at St. Arnold's brewing campus. So I say Sam Adams is to Boston as St. Arnold's is to Houston. So it's this very off-centered, fun, thematic medical device company that brings the same value, if not more, because it's so intimate of 400 people. Than some of these other ⁓ mainstream conferences. I have nothing to lose. We don't make any money on these things. Our entrance fees are 300 bucks versus sometimes there are thousands elsewhere. So we just bring really great people together to help out the community. Yes, it takes place in Houston. So the demographic is typically a third Texan, a third coast to coast United States, and a third international. So we have Israelis coming, Europeans coming, ⁓ and once again, California, all the way to Boston and everything in between coming down. And then you do get that underbelly of what's going on here in Texas, which is awesome. So ⁓ if you're a CEO, we have our CE only forums to kick it off. This year we're actually doing ⁓ our fireside chat with Rick Randall, who four months ago just sold Ciencia Vascular to Medtronic for $550 million. We're going to tell that story. ⁓ and then we're going into our CE only forums, followed by the next day and a half of eight panels led by Piper Sandler. corporate strategic panel, the investor panels as mentioned, ⁓ and some other really great ones from the industry supporters that have come in on this with us. So if you're a CEO, if you're an industry partner, if you're an investor, if you're a corporate strategic, you're all welcome. This is a B2B conference that is literally talking about how medical device executives should build and ultimately commercialize with the hopes of exiting to the big guys. That's what we do.
speaker-1: That sounds like a lot of fun. That sounds like a lot of fun.
speaker-0: Blast. I'll be wearing later hosen, by the It'll be a blast. And we drink beer on our panels too.
speaker-1: You know, you got to look for it too, by the way. So I think you'll you'll you'll pass off very well. ⁓ one more question for you before you go. And I really just want to say thanks for being here. You just bring great energy and a great story. And you know, for somebody that like myself as a big medical device passionate person, I it's nice to meet somebody else that carries that same sort of ⁓ that energy with them as well. Thank you. So if Giovanni, current day Giovanni could go back to I don't know, 22-year-old Giovanni working at Starbucks in Miami as a barista, right? And offer one piece of advice, whether it's professional, personal, financial, just but just one piece of advice. What would current day Giovanni go back and offer yonder, more impressionable Giovanni as that advice moving forward?
speaker-0: Discipline. So I was I was very fortunate ⁓ between the household and then just taking it on myself at a very young age. ⁓ when I give you a punchline and say a word like discipline, what do I really mean by that? A lot of it I wouldn't change anything at all. And I don't mean that from a a cliche because i ⁓ my life could have gone in many, many different directions, but you know, I am thirty-eight years old. I have been with my now wife for 13 years. We're coming up on our eighth wedding anniversary. I have a daughter who's turning two this weekend. I have a son who's four, who'll be five in November. ⁓ I run a business. I have an executive search practice that I've personally been a part of for 16 years. ⁓ we've started it coming up on five years ago. The massive learning curve that has gone into being a high profile executive search. And recruiter for another firm, knowing that what it means to be business development and run a team, but never run a business, and then learn how to run a business and that learning curve that awaited me when I had to do that and have been doing it now for five years. ⁓ and then having the opportunity to start a medical device company. ⁓ so I run a product company, I run a service company, we build community events that are materially affecting the Profile and persona of of what Houston is in Texas and bringing world-class people here. So affecting the community, which I love doing. I say, you know, bouncing around, I'm gonna keep on bouncing around, but my three things in order are God, family, community. And as long as I don't deviate from those three three things in that order, my life makes sense. ⁓ so you know, I wake up every single day, no matter where I'm at in the world at 4:30. I don't do quite what your dad did at four to eight, but I'm a 430 to 70 guy. So ⁓ on the weekends, my my ⁓ I'm completely dedicated to my family because throughout the week, unfortunately, I don't see my children on as much as I would like. Hopefully one day that will change. But ⁓ I could not have done travel the world 15 times over. I could have not started a company or had the balls to start a company and then start another company while having two children and running an executive search practice. And not to say that I never dropped a ball before, but ⁓ if I didn't have discipline and if I didn't stay true to that discipline and if I didn't keep life as simple, but yet under very complicated terms, but have the discipline to be able to manifest and and and make sense of it all, ⁓ I definitely wouldn't be here right now. So what would I tell my 22-year-old self at Starbucks? Don't give up on what I wanted back then, which is just simply a a better life and something bigger than pouring coffee, even though I love coffee. ⁓ but I always had a drive, I always had ambition, ⁓ and I always loved people. And that none of that's ever changed. And the discipline to carry that out and not change, I think, is what I would tell myself, don't change.
speaker-1: Well there we have Giovanni. Thank you so much. Couldn't have been better said. Thank you for being here today. Good luck with the conference. And ⁓ where can people go get some info on the conference if they wanted to?
speaker-0: If you go to lifeblood.com, lifeblood.com, on our website you will see differentiators. And underneath that it has all of our events. So our CE only forums, our Oktoberfest, and our rodeo, or our rodeo and Oktoberfest in order. ⁓ You can find more information there. You can also go to Houston MedTech.org. and that's you can find ⁓ information now about Oktoberfest there. We have an app. Called Houston Med Tech Conferences, which gives you mo more information about Oktoberfest and rodeo whenever the time comes. But the simplest way, and the ones that if you're driving your car listening to this right now, we spent a lot of money on the URL, www.lifeblood.com. And you go to differentiators and look up Oktoberfest. That's where you can register. That's where you can learn about the agenda, who's coming, and the great time that we're about to have on September 15th and 16th.
speaker-1: Well, and I'll even do you a favor, I'll I'll drop it in the link in the YouTube channel as well. So we'll be good to go.
speaker-0: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
speaker-1: Have a great day, Giovanni. Thank you for being here.
speaker-0: Thank you so much, Terry.
speaker-1: And I think the one piece that's missing, even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be, the other piece that's missing is the accountability piece. That generation wants all the fun and unique experiences and all the unique responsibilities. But the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're thin air, man. They're ether. They're nowhere to be found.
speaker-0: Like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you just rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business, it's just an obsession at this point. Like why make good so hard?
speaker-1: Hey there, I'm Terry Kucholuchis, founder of RevRX AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for med tech and consumer health practices. Welcome to the Zero Friction Podcast. Terry Kucholucus here. I have an exciting guest today who is taking the bull by the horns with some of the most innovative founders in the country in the med tech space. I have Giovanni Loricello with me. He spent 16 years doing one thing, and that's basically doing an executive recruitment. And then he's pivot pivoted into a new business model where he's actually helping CEOs build out their companies. And so Giovanni, welcome to have you on the show today. I appreciate you being here. Why don't you give us a little background about your experience in the med tech space and then what you and Lifeblood are doing in the market?
speaker-0: Thank you, Terry. So for 16 years, I've been recruiting for venture-backed medical device companies. And nearly 20 years down in South Florida, transplanted to Houston, Texas, roughly three years ago. ⁓ for a lot of great reasons that we'll dive into right now. But this is an up-and-coming, burgeoning medtech hub that's geographically centered right in the United States. ⁓ was on a plane direct to Sydney, Australia, a few months ago, so incredibly connected to the globe, direct flights. To wherever you can possibly think of. Ironically enough, not to ⁓ my original hometown of Buffalo, New York, which is challenging to get to. I was just there last week with my parents, but ⁓ that's the only place that I can't get to from Houston. But this has been an incredible hub. And ⁓ we're doing work right in our backyard with companies that are ⁓ expanding their teams here in Texas and also nationwide, and then also still pursuing CE Mark over in Europe. So out of those 16 years. I have worked with boards, investors, and executive management teams to either design those independent board members to join those boards, ⁓ replace or take to the next level CEOs that are going from RD clinical and into those commercial forces that are ever more important that I'm sure we'll touch base on as the markets change over the past certainly five to seven years. ⁓ and then also in addition to being able to ⁓ build out those executive management teams and provide some of that counsel as to how you do that, where you do that, when you do that, and what's the process involved in making some of these strategic hires. We have created events called the MedTech CEO only forum that we do all throughout the the globe at this point. From this year, by the time we're done, we'll have done it from California to Boston to London to Paris to finishing up in Tel Aviv at the end of this year. ⁓ we opened up JP Morgan in January for San Francis in San Francisco with this conference. We're gonna be doing AdvaMed ⁓ in Boston in October. And we do it here in Houston and those other places that I mentioned, once again wrapping up in Israel. So what we do with those is bring CEOs together to share best practices and there's no one else in the room. And this is usually kicked off with a fireside chat on an exited CEO. I actually just before jumping on with you right now, I was just talking to Maria Bennett. Who sold SPR therapeutics out of Cleveland Clinic to Medtronic two months ago for $650 million? She's gonna be our fireside chat telling that story of how she actually founded the company off of her master's thesis, brought it through a hundred million dollar annual run rate, and then ultimately transacted it for $650 million to Medtronic just a couple months ago. And then we'll dive into a two-hour platform of a hundred CEOs sharing best practices on building boards. Hiring and firing, insourcing versus outsourcing the challenges of commercialization, managing boards, you name it. Obviously, raising capital. That's the bane of most companies' existence these past few years, especially. So we do the CE-only forum. And then ⁓ last but not least, twice a year, semi-annually, in March and in September, and we're a few weeks away from the one coming up in September, ⁓ we do the MedTech Com or the Houston MedTech conference series. So in March, we do the Houston MedTech Rodeo. And in September, we do the Houston MedTech Oktoberfest, both very themed, fun conferences bringing together strategics, investors of varying sorts, and executive operators into a room to have a very B2B focused conference, ultimately to help medical device CEOs build their businesses. So, in short, ⁓ I'm not in the conference business, but we do do some events and conferences that bring our community together. And 16 years later, I'm still an executive search consultant building venture-backed. Medical device executive teams and boards.
speaker-1: So what got you into the space originally? So what what you know, did you just wake up one day and find your way in there or, you know by accident? On purpose?
speaker-0: The answer is completely yes. ⁓ if you talk to any recruiter, I still all these years later I've never met one that said, when I wanna wake up ⁓ or when I grow up, I wanna be a recruiter or I went to college to be a recruiter. I still have not yet met that person. All of us have a story of how we fell into it. ⁓ my story was after graduating college with a finance undergrad, ⁓ I started a business in Costa Rica and Colombia during the economic crash in late 2008, 2009, going into 2010-ish. ⁓ and then it was just I was in South Florida at the time and the industry was really not there. And so after getting rid of the business in Columbia, coming back to South Florida, there was just not much going on. And I got accepted into a PhD program thinking that I was gonna buy the next five years of my life and hopefully wait it out to better times, only to ⁓ take a job at Starbucks while waiting those five months before my PhD started. ⁓ and two months ahead of that starting time, ⁓ got a letter in the mail saying that you're not gonna get a stipend anymore. ⁓ economic times and the schools aren't merging together, so you have to pay for your own PhD. And I was already starting to drown in ⁓ undergraduate debt. I didn't have the money to pay for my PhD, so I said it's time to go to work and spent time blasting my resume on Craigslist all throughout the night, only to wake up with two interviews. ⁓ the next day, one from a medical device recruiting firm in South Florida and one from ⁓ Merrill Lynch. And so I could either be an entry-level stockbroker or learn about medical devices, which I didn't know anything about, how to recruit. I love talking to people. I love people in general. And it was just something that wasn't even on my radar, and it was a good sell. And ⁓ you know, what do you have to lose if you don't make it? Just a little bit of time. And so That's how I fell into this and fell in love with the industry. Then went and got my master's degree in regulatory affairs for medical devices, kind of solidifying my understanding and academic knowledge of the industry that I was falling in love with and recruiting for. And then literally just obsessed with the medical device industry and how to build these businesses through talent and people and the effects of what good talent versus a bad actor can be into a company and how incredibly a company with people. ⁓ is and I've made a career out of it. And so sixteen years later, ⁓ was with my previous firm for thirteen years and then started my firm actually no, ⁓ eleven years and ⁓ I'm coming up on five years with ⁓ with life blood after starting it in twenty twenty two January.
speaker-1: That's great. And so when you talk about what what really gives you the buzz around medical devices, what really kind of jacks you up when, you know, this space versus other spaces for
speaker-0: So, I mean, 16 years of doing it, I I I probably would have told you a different story along those chapters. ⁓ in the beginning, it was just simply technology. Like I happened to fall in medical technology. Like, how cool is that? ⁓ when I got a little bit more educated, I felt ⁓ privileged on the fact that we were dealing with these companies that were developing technologies that were yet to be approved by the FDA or CE marked over in Europe. So you had this lens and ⁓ dare I say insight as to what's coming in the future. And then, you know, y you felt a little smarter, you felt a little cooler at cocktail parties where no one else was in the medical industry, and all of a sudden you talked about someone's mother's ailment or someone's brother's ailment. And ⁓ well, did you know that this heart failure thing is coming up and they're in clinical trials right now, or this peripheral nerve stimulation system's coming up, or there's a watch that actually handles ⁓ hand. Tremors that eliminates hand tremors and it's about to go commercial in six months. Just wait and see. So that was very cool. That was the next phase. I would say now, having been over a decade and you see the ebbs and flows and the challenges of raising capital and the challenges of regulatory versus reimbursement and the shift of pursuing C E mark first. And now the FDA is the major focal point for innovation. And now the commercial challenges. ⁓ and the financing challenges for venture back companies, it's just much more of the love of the game and unfortunate complexity to build a medical device company that is actually founded on the principle of helping people. Like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you just rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business that falls within that statement. ⁓ without ever giving up on the fight that you're actually building something that ultimately will help somebody. It's just an obsession at this point. Like, why make good so hard?
speaker-1: Yeah, that's a really good point. And having been in the medical device space for over thirty years, you and I were talking about it earlier before the program on how fast iteration and, you know, versions of technology were coming out, you know, twenty and thirty years ago and versus today, where you think with AI and lots of knowledge behind you that the processes would be more efficient and slimmer and ⁓ but it's not. It it is more complicated. There is more paperwork, there is more hoops to crawl through. And so, you know, you and I have seen how that has changed the landscape of the medical device community. And you deal with both sides of the fence, actually. You're dealing with investors, right? So part of your ⁓ your customer profile is serving the investor who's actually investing in this companies and and building. those companies with people. And now you have, you know, a new arm where you're you're helping CEOs build companies from an infrastructure perspective and a process perspective. And so you're almost like an operating partner in a lot of ways, it sounds like.
speaker-0: ⁓ yes, I I I still would call myself an executive recruiter because I I wouldn't want to jump over my skis and say I'm an operator. But I the one story I haven't told yet is I actually do have my own medical device company. So it was with a co-founder and is with a co-founder who has already successfully exited his first medical device company. So I do have very real-world operating experience. ⁓ we're actually just about to receive FDA clearance, we're just about To go commercial at the very end of this year. So we have had everything from inception of outlicensing patents to getting freedom to operate to raising capital and how to raise that capital from institutional investors to family offices to friends and family and how that works, ⁓ to then soliciting medical advisory boards and KOLs and finding contract manufacturers and pricing models, ⁓ you name it, and obviously doing the submissions itself. And so It's been an awesome, awesome experience starting a medical device company 15 years into my career. And now ⁓ we are 16 months old and about 45 days away from receiving our FDA clearance. So we've built a medical device company in lightning speed. It is a class two device, but going in and recruiting the right people from previous exits, ⁓ having excellent law firms behind us and specifically a law firm, Goodwin. ⁓ mart shout out to Marty Gomez, who has done all of our patent work. ⁓ and corporate counsel. And so ⁓ it it's been an absolute pleasure finally working behind the curtain of what it really means to build a medical device company. And it's only strengthened me as an executive recruiter, helping out other companies, understanding really the pain points of making sure that you have the right person.
speaker-1: You know, that's a great little commentary on yourself. You love the medical device business so much you bought a company and started one.
speaker-0: yeah. And I'm invested into it myself. I wouldn't I wouldn't ask for somebody else's money unless I put my own money in there. So it's been ⁓ it's been a very, very intense learning curve and it's only made what I've been doing for all these years that much stronger, helping out other CEOs do it.
speaker-1: So what do what do most investors look for when it comes to hiring an executive team for a a medical device company? What what are the key things that they look?
speaker-0: So at the end of the day, it's de-risking, right? And and as general as that truly is, you just have to get superhuman about it. ⁓ if it's ⁓ an institutional venture capital firm versus a family office or a high net worth individual, you know, one person is investing someone else's money, the other person's investing their money. ⁓ no one wants to lose their money. Most people don't want to lose anyone else's money. If they lose someone else's money, that means they can't go raise another found fund, which means they don't have a job. So there's there's selfish motivations for both people to protect something. And so it's really more, it sounds offensive when you are investing into something, but once the investment's made, it's really more about defense, at least in the short to midterm, ⁓ before you can get past some of those growth door openings, if you will, to say, okay, let's put some more fuel on the fire. But No, in the in the early days, it's like I and and behind the scenes now, I know for a fact there are companies who have co invested together in previous companies who then want to syndicate into new companies. And they would say, I love the technology, I love the market, but that's not the right CEO. And and I'll syndicate with you only on the term that will replace a CEO. And Or it could be I'm investing because the CEO is exceptional and they're part of our network and I have invested behind that CEO before. ⁓ so what is our major problem? Okay, our major problem is our reimbursement strategy. Let's go out and hire a a real head of reimbursement, and then we have to validate why they've done this before. You know, it it's It's it's shocking how human it is if you just stop and think about some of these things. I mean, th there's there's diligence, but ⁓ a lot of these investment investments are made based on relationships and trust. I mean, and and obviously there's a lot of investments made every single year into new people and into new entities. ⁓ but when you start understanding the websites for venture capital firms aren't necessarily telling The real story of how they actually invest. ⁓ there's a lot of sheep movement, I would say, where, you know, they they run together, they invest together, they soundboard with each other, they're willing to share risks together, but they're also willing to de-risk one another by going into it together. ⁓ so it's a it's an interesting model. It's not necessarily what you would think on the surface.
speaker-1: Kind of like I'll do it if you do it kind of thing, you know?
speaker-0: Exactly. Truthfully. Truthfully.
speaker-1: I've heard I've heard that a lot as well, like where I'll go if they go, you know. ⁓ I know those guys. If they're in, I'm in, you know, they they it's truly a flock of sheep. So it's
speaker-0: hundred percent. And and you know, there's very, very little exception, especially when you start playing around with big, big dollars. ⁓ I will tell you there is a There is such thing as diligence. ⁓ and and realistically, ⁓ and this is a very general statement, so any venture capital firm listening into this, I'm sure will point to reasons why I'm wrong, but ⁓ diligence is either meant to surface the reason that allows them to pass. Sure. Or they want to Follow a friend and and have a de-risk situation based on relationships. But diligence itself, like you very rarely will they go to the bottom of an ocean on diligence and be like, I've soundboarded with no one I have a relationship on. I found the holy grail. This is what I'm investing in. I'm gonna win. ⁓ it's it's less of that. And it's much more of like, I'm gonna do diligence to actively look for a reason not to invest. ⁓ and if I can't find that, then I need to find a friend. Or something that de-risks relationships as to why I would invest.
speaker-1: Got it.
speaker-0: Interesting.
speaker-1: ⁓ so why do most because you know, the other thing that I'm I see quite often today in today's marketplace is the money for innovation in the med tech space is kind of getting kind of thin, right? In some ways. And it's in other ways it's getting kind of thick too. ⁓ you see a lot of big acquisitions and there's a lot of big money being spent, but I also know there's a lot of startups and early stage companies that are looking for money that are having trouble getting two, three, four, five million dollars to get off the ground because, you know, it's not enough money for private equity. It's not enough money for venture. ⁓ and it's probably too risky for family. And so, ⁓ why why is the market so challenging today in terms of raising?
speaker-0: I'll start by telling my own story. ⁓ because when you start referring to that early stage money of that one, two, three, four million dollar raise.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: ⁓ the well-tenured executive CEO who's raising tens of millions of dollars doesn't have those same dynamical challenge, right? So that's that's off the table. And if that same experienced CEO had a success and they were starting their company 2.0 ⁓ and they were raising that money, I will tell you the likelihood of ⁓ it being easy to raise that is pretty high, only contingent upon one factor. That they actually have a clear business model story to tell friends and peers and colleagues. ⁓ a very quick example is Daniel Hawkins, the founder of Shockwave Medical. ⁓ I was doing a podcast with him, and I've known him for years, but this is going back probably five years ago. And I just asked him, like, after all of these successes that you've had, does raising capital become easier? And the answer is. raising capital doesn't become easier. Opening the doors to having opportunities to pitch raising capital becomes easier. You have to have something tangible. Just because you've done exits and stuff like that doesn't mean you can go sell snake oil on on version 3.0. You still have to have something real. It's just the reputation and the ability to open doors ⁓ becomes much easier. So where I go with that is, you know, if you think about Once again, generally speaking, how our industry is brought up, many times or oftentimes, founders are physicians or engineers. The business acumen, the business awareness is not typically there. ⁓ the naturalness of networking and coming with a robust trusted network in to invent ⁓ investing in a technology isn't typically there. ⁓ and then also asking for money and then just this general. fatiguing effect of pitching the same story 15 times a day doesn't also come natural. So there's a lot of things stacked up against the non-business founder ⁓ raising that technical money in in the early days. For myself, you know, Albert Wong is originally a surgeon ⁓ who became an inventor, who became an operator, who became an exited CEO of his first medical device company that he founded. ⁓ he's a water walker here in Houston. I am very blessed to be able to have him as a friend and know him for the past handful of years and also was in the right place at the right time when he wanted to start his second company, of which we co-founded together. when I found the IP for it, and he wanted to do it and I brought it together ⁓ with him. And he brings this operational experience of all the both failures and successes of his first company, the network of having that first success underneath his belt. ⁓ and then obviously that medical and even ⁓ inventorslash technical and engineering awareness. I bring a network, I bring the investors, I bring the business storytelling, I bring the what do people truly care about ⁓ when you're pitching and and how do you actually craft a story that's gonna resonate once the doors open. And when we did that together, we raised our ⁓ two and a half million dollar seed round and just Shy of three weeks. It was exactly two weeks and six days. And it was because we had the network, we had the trust, he had the experience and the exit underneath his belt. ⁓ I have great relationships. And it was a very crisp and clean painted story of not our technology. I actually told him I don't want to tell you about our technology unless you have questions. We're we're creating a motile sep ⁓ sperm separation technology. That's what we're doing. If you want to know how it works and what it does, ⁓ Glad to ask, but I will tell you what from a business standpoint you'd be investing in and really roughly the timelines and expected ROI that you'll get from giving me your dollar. Because when you're pitching to these people, most first-time founders or or technical engineered background people will want to tell you why they're going to change the world with their invention. Well, most investors, especially family and friends and agnostic family offices and people who are investing into two, three, four million dollar. Rounds are not going to be experts in whatever field of innovation that you're building. So going to the bottom of the ocean of the technicalities of that, do they really care? The answer is no. You're asking them for minimum $50,000 checks, $25,000 checks, $150,000 checks. They want to know, in essence, a few things. ⁓ I give you $150,000. Tell me why I'm going to get my money back. How much more I'm going to get back when I get it back. the timeline of when you can expect or assume that to happen. ⁓ and by the way, when I'm at my cocktail parties or when I'm at my dinner parties with my wife, my husband, whatever it may be, ⁓ and I want to just tell a fun story of what I'm investing in these days, what's the one or two liner that you guys are actually building? Like that's really what they care about. It's truly an investment. It's not a sell me the innovation story of how you're going to change the world and expect other people to care as much as you do.
speaker-1: Well, yeah, I think that's probably true. ⁓ is family office a little different where they might invent invest with a little more purpose and intent, or is it are they
speaker-0: There's mission driven for sure. I mean, like, you know, just one that comes to mind, for example, is Broadview Ventures up in in Boston. Technically speaking, the the it was originally a French family. The ⁓ funds are managed out of ⁓ London and a you know, multi-billion dollar family. And then they have an investment team sitting out of Boston. But Broadview Ventures is not a venture capital firm, they're a family office. most of their metrics are actually mission-driven metrics, not family or financial return metrics. And so, yes, to your point, like when you have some of these family offices where as a family, their Maslow's hierarchy of needs is already met, right? Like they have more money than God. All of their assets are taken care of. They can buy cars, they can do whatever they want. This is just ancillary or additional money that they can feel good about themselves. ⁓ and by the way, the father of the family died of heart failure. Well, yes, of course, I'd like to invest in that heart failure company. I'd like to tell myself and those around me that I'm moving the mission forward of I don't want that to happen to other families or other people. ⁓ and if I can invest in science that's moving that solution forward, yes, that's what I would like to do. Do they really care if they're worth a billion dollars and they're writing a hundred and fifty thousand dollar check and you return them four hundred grand? They don't care.
speaker-1: Right. So let's talk a little bit about getting people into the room, right? And you we talked a little bit before about five years ago in your recruiting environment, you know, getting the right people in the network, which we've talked a lot about. Like, what does that mean? Like getting the right people in the room. So you as an executive recruiter, when a company's coming to you and saying, I need help to build it out, like what do you look at when you get Like what does it mean to get the right people in the room for you?
speaker-0: And you are talking about from a recruitment standpoint.
speaker-1: Right, right, yeah.
speaker-0: So Recruiting and getting the right people in the room, I will tell you, is an interesting amalgamation of not necessarily the best talent or the best resume, especially with venture-backed medical device companies, you know, being in fast-paced organizations. And I was actually having a conversation with somebody earlier today that had built medical device startup company and then had to contractually stay in corporate, the one that acquired them for Upwards of a year and they stayed 18 months afterward. And they were just describing corporate as what is the most safe way to make it to Friday afternoon? ⁓ you know, deflecting of ⁓ decision making, ⁓ having and driving for consensus, agnostic of how long that may take ⁓ in terms of timing, which is very counter to how. medical device startup companies or startups in general have to be built. You know, when you receive venture capital and there's and you're not generating revenue and there's operating costs and there's monthly burn, if you are sitting on a decision to gain consensus that could have taken 17 minutes and it took a month because of whatever, ⁓ that is unnecessary burn and and that's not efficacious for the company, right? So how do you get someone in there who can be Agile, efficient understanding of time as money, be bought into the mission based on having them have equity options in the organization. So driven for the successful win of the company, not just selfish succession, ⁓ or success rather. So ⁓ this is th this is where I'm talking about there are plenty of resumes out there that from a keyword perspective may look incredible. But if you don't have the right attitude, and especially from a recruitment standpoint, it's a it's a big talk track at our CE only forums. ⁓ The workforce mentality since the inception of COVID and really the remote workforce going into then the contraction back to headquarters that we're seeing more and more of these days. There's something in the water, whether it's generational, whether it's the the snap of COVID that changed people's work life balances and flows. ⁓ And we're and we're seeing it in multiple areas of life from restaurants to customer service to you you name it, ⁓ it is very challenging building a company these days. I would argue to say more so than it used to be. And so getting people who want to work, getting people who want to work in a fast paced environment, starting an interview that doesn't ask with ⁓ How if your opening interview questions are ⁓ when can I come in and when can I leave and how many days can I work from home? And you know, what is your your corporate ⁓ policy of days off? And you haven't even started about what's the technology and what's this position gonna do for my career and the the talk tracks are just becoming more different, right? So to let
speaker-1: It's a different animal. It really is. Like, and it's it's you know, as a as a business owner myself a couple times, and even leading large commercial teams, it's pretty challenging in today's marketplace to find people that, you know, they're not they're all leaning into this work life balance piece. And ⁓ you know, I'm just gonna go on my own stance on it. And I'll just say that I grew up in a different world. I grew up with, you know, first generation, Greek immigrant family. You know, I didn't my father got up at four o'clock in the morning and got home at eight o'clock at night. And that's what I grew up with. And frankly, that's I attribute to a lot of the things that I've accomplished in my life has because of my grind. And, you know, I used to joke about that like I changed more headlights out of my car than anybody in the world because I got up Headlights were on when I left, and the headlights are on when I got home at night. And so that generation or that group of professionals does not exist coming into the workforce anymore. It's a totally different ball game. And the one piece that we can talk about work ethic and we can talk about work-life balance. The one thing that that same group, I think, is also missing is this sense of accountability. Like, you know, and I used to tell my salespeople all the time, I'd be like, I really don't care where you sell it from, you know, as long as you don't put me in jail and you're not jeopardizing the company brand. And if you can do it at home every day and God bless you, go do it home every day. But to hit your number, right? I think the one piece that's missing, even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be, the other piece that's missing is the accountability piece. That that generation wants all the fun and unique. experiences and all the unique responsibilities. But the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're they're they're thin air, man. They're ether. They're nowhere to be found. And that's the other piece I would imagine in the startup world that accountability is a big, big piece of that attitude that you've got to bring in.
speaker-0: In a small team, small company, there's less places slash no places to hide. So accountability is a huge thing. ⁓ and you know, if you're joining a company, a startup company of of 10 people, you represent 10% of the company. If you represent if you lose 10% of your body, you're gonna feel it. ⁓ so it it you're very, very visible in that sense in these startup companies. And so ⁓ yes, ⁓ and to kind of come full circle on how to get right people in the room. That's why I don't recruit for the big corporate strategic companies. That's why I don't deal with massive big HR layers in between us and the decision-making hiring for ⁓ hiring firms or hiring managers rather. ⁓ because it really is about personality, mindset, DNA, work ethic, obviously pat like passion and point of interest of to why someone would even want to take on this role. ⁓ because that's not leading from the front. If it's just more defensive of like what is this position doing for me? versus what I can do for this position and company that will inadvertently give me back experience for my growth that it's on me to leverage and grow myself. If you're not thinking like that, then you don't belong in a startup company. So yes, of course, as a as a headhunter, as a recruiter, there is this quote unquote matchmaking where like if I'm going into a hardcore heart failure company, the likelihood of someone needing heart failure experience in some capacity is very likely. ⁓ so that means that's my pool of candidates that I'm pursuing. But then out of that, it's on me to find the personality, the mindset, the availability, the accountability, that personal fit into the culture of the team. Because I will tell you all these years later, my tagline's always been I I recruit for med tech venture backed companies. A lot of the times when we're taking on brand new clients, our clients are like, Well, we need someone who wants to roll up their sleeves and they want to, you know, really get involved in the work and be there with us. And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hear you out. We're gonna go through all this, but I'm gonna let you know, like that's that's to be assumed in our process, or else I'd be working for the big companies as well and and understanding this more corporate nature. But anyone who wants to join your company ⁓ must roll up their sleeves, must understand as a startup, must know that they're doing a lot with a little. ⁓ So it's it's more of a mindset and a personality.
speaker-1: That's great. And probably very refreshing, great people to work with on both sides, by the way. As you're bringing people into this new organization and you're helping founders and and innovators and CEOs and investors make dreams come true, right? That's what you're kind of helping them do.
speaker-0: Make a wish foundation. I that's what's kept me going for 16 years. I I I love making a good match where the hiring managers are grateful that they have a new asset to help them go and build a company. I'm grateful or I'm I'm super happy when I get to see people build their own personal careers and learn and grow from it. ⁓ and then when you start even seeing more macro things like the product got clearance or approval or it's now commercial or the company got acquired. It's very cool to be able to indirectly affect those things from happening through making sure that you're instilling the or installing the right talent.
speaker-1: Let's lean into one more pivot ⁓ of a topic and we'll kind of close it out here. And I think it's really exciting. You have your your conference coming up here in I think 22 days. ⁓ let's let's talk a little bit about the conference and and let's reach out to an audience just to see here if there's ⁓ you know, I've got a lot of executives in the med device, med tech space. ⁓ you know, who's the ideal target? What are they gonna learn if they come and you know that what's the value proposition for the the program?
speaker-0: Great question. I'll try to hit it in as organized a fashion as possible. So I think it's a strategic positioning of green space that we took, building a dependable semi-annual. So this happens every six months. ⁓ conference for medical devices that's B2B investor focused, so B2B business focused, ⁓ helping out the medical device CEOs. surround themselves with the correct stakeholders that they can learn from or network with or or grow their businesses from. And that's right here in Texas. A lot of the love goes to the coasts. I was on the coast for all my life until I wasn't and came here. So I'm I'm very well used to that. I used to do plenty of red eyes from Miami over to California and back. ⁓ don't have to do those anymore. I should say red eyes from California back to Miami, but ⁓ you know here in Texas, great geographically positioned To go from coast to coast very easily, but also the fact that you know this is the second largest state next to California. ⁓ absolutely burgeoning as we speak, as there's exoduses happening from the c the coast. We are growing rapidly right here in Texas. Houston is the third largest city in the nation. Most people don't even know that. And we have the largest med center in the world. So from a, I think it's more than 10 million patients go in and out of the med center, the Texas Medical Center every single year. It's a massive clinical trial site. You literally could, if you really wanted to, design, build, clinically test, and commercialize a medical device company in the state of Texas, right here out of Houston. ⁓ there's contract manufacturers, there's great industry partners, there's exceptional talent here. And that part of my role is actually even recruiting more exceptional talent down to Houston. So the positioning of having it here, which is not done elsewhere, we have great. MedTech MVP up in Minneapolis that takes place every June. I love that conference. AdvaMed is happening. The MedTech conference is happening in in Boston this year. You know, we have MedTech strategist happening in San Diego every November. Like so you got a lot of love for these coasts. ⁓ but nothing is happening dependable here in Texas. And so I wanted to grab that space. ⁓ we have been building conferences for five years plus at this point. And so Who comes? We bring the corporate strategics down here. We have Johnson and Johnson coming, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Hamanetics, Edwards Life Sciences, for example. ⁓ so we bring the corporate strategics, we bring the investors of varying sorts. We have an institutional venture capital panel. We have a health system corporate venture panel. So you think Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Providence, OSF Ventures, Rex Health, now UNC Healthcare Ventures, ⁓ Orlando Health Ventures. We have a ⁓ How to build your board and executive team panel, talking about best practices from high-powered CEOs who have built people or teams of tens and hundreds, as well as design boards that have allowed them to exit their companies. So we build this panel, two days of panels, which is eight panels, and the rest is networking with a very fun theme event. In September in 22 days, on September 15th and 16th, we're doing the Houston MedTech Oktoberfest. So people are showing up in Leiderhosen and Dernville, and we're doing Kohlsch service and we have open bar from 12 until close. We have a an Oktoberfest band. We're doing it in a big Munich high ⁓ Munich style event hall, beer hall ⁓ at St. Arnold's brewing campus. So I say Sam Adams is to Boston as St. Arnold's is to Houston. So it's this very off-centered, fun, thematic medical device company that brings the same value, if not more, because it's so intimate of 400 people. Than some of these other ⁓ mainstream conferences. I have nothing to lose. We don't make any money on these things. Our entrance fees are 300 bucks versus sometimes there are thousands elsewhere. So we just bring really great people together to help out the community. Yes, it takes place in Houston. So the demographic is typically a third Texan, a third coast to coast United States, and a third international. So we have Israelis coming, Europeans coming, ⁓ and once again, California, all the way to Boston and everything in between coming down. And then you do get that underbelly of what's going on here in Texas, which is awesome. So ⁓ if you're a CEO, we have our CE only forums to kick it off. This year we're actually doing ⁓ our fireside chat with Rick Randall, who four months ago just sold Ciencia Vascular to Medtronic for $550 million. We're going to tell that story. ⁓ and then we're going into our CE only forums, followed by the next day and a half of eight panels led by Piper Sandler. corporate strategic panel, the investor panels as mentioned, ⁓ and some other really great ones from the industry supporters that have come in on this with us. So if you're a CEO, if you're an industry partner, if you're an investor, if you're a corporate strategic, you're all welcome. This is a B2B conference that is literally talking about how medical device executives should build and ultimately commercialize with the hopes of exiting to the big guys. That's what we do.
speaker-1: That sounds like a lot of fun. That sounds like a lot of fun.
speaker-0: Blast. I'll be wearing later hosen, by the It'll be a blast. And we drink beer on our panels too.
speaker-1: You know, you got to look for it too, by the way. So I think you'll you'll you'll pass off very well. ⁓ one more question for you before you go. And I really just want to say thanks for being here. You just bring great energy and a great story. And you know, for somebody that like myself as a big medical device passionate person, I it's nice to meet somebody else that carries that same sort of ⁓ that energy with them as well. Thank you. So if Giovanni, current day Giovanni could go back to I don't know, 22-year-old Giovanni working at Starbucks in Miami as a barista, right? And offer one piece of advice, whether it's professional, personal, financial, just but just one piece of advice. What would current day Giovanni go back and offer yonder, more impressionable Giovanni as that advice moving forward?
speaker-0: Discipline. So I was I was very fortunate ⁓ between the household and then just taking it on myself at a very young age. ⁓ when I give you a punchline and say a word like discipline, what do I really mean by that? A lot of it I wouldn't change anything at all. And I don't mean that from a a cliche because i ⁓ my life could have gone in many, many different directions, but you know, I am thirty-eight years old. I have been with my now wife for 13 years. We're coming up on our eighth wedding anniversary. I have a daughter who's turning two this weekend. I have a son who's four, who'll be five in November. ⁓ I run a business. I have an executive search practice that I've personally been a part of for 16 years. ⁓ we've started it coming up on five years ago. The massive learning curve that has gone into being a high profile executive search. And recruiter for another firm, knowing that what it means to be business development and run a team, but never run a business, and then learn how to run a business and that learning curve that awaited me when I had to do that and have been doing it now for five years. ⁓ and then having the opportunity to start a medical device company. ⁓ so I run a product company, I run a service company, we build community events that are materially affecting the Profile and persona of of what Houston is in Texas and bringing world-class people here. So affecting the community, which I love doing. I say, you know, bouncing around, I'm gonna keep on bouncing around, but my three things in order are God, family, community. And as long as I don't deviate from those three three things in that order, my life makes sense. ⁓ so you know, I wake up every single day, no matter where I'm at in the world at 4:30. I don't do quite what your dad did at four to eight, but I'm a 430 to 70 guy. So ⁓ on the weekends, my my ⁓ I'm completely dedicated to my family because throughout the week, unfortunately, I don't see my children on as much as I would like. Hopefully one day that will change. But ⁓ I could not have done travel the world 15 times over. I could have not started a company or had the balls to start a company and then start another company while having two children and running an executive search practice. And not to say that I never dropped a ball before, but ⁓ if I didn't have discipline and if I didn't stay true to that discipline and if I didn't keep life as simple, but yet under very complicated terms, but have the discipline to be able to manifest and and and make sense of it all, ⁓ I definitely wouldn't be here right now. So what would I tell my 22-year-old self at Starbucks? Don't give up on what I wanted back then, which is just simply a a better life and something bigger than pouring coffee, even though I love coffee. ⁓ but I always had a drive, I always had ambition, ⁓ and I always loved people. And that none of that's ever changed. And the discipline to carry that out and not change, I think, is what I would tell myself, don't change.
speaker-1: Well there we have Giovanni. Thank you so much. Couldn't have been better said. Thank you for being here today. Good luck with the conference. And ⁓ where can people go get some info on the conference if they wanted to?
speaker-0: If you go to lifeblood.com, lifeblood.com, on our website you will see differentiators. And underneath that it has all of our events. So our CE only forums, our Oktoberfest, and our rodeo, or our rodeo and Oktoberfest in order. ⁓ You can find more information there. You can also go to Houston MedTech.org. and that's you can find ⁓ information now about Oktoberfest there. We have an app. Called Houston Med Tech Conferences, which gives you mo more information about Oktoberfest and rodeo whenever the time comes. But the simplest way, and the ones that if you're driving your car listening to this right now, we spent a lot of money on the URL, www.lifeblood.com. And you go to differentiators and look up Oktoberfest. That's where you can register. That's where you can learn about the agenda, who's coming, and the great time that we're about to have on September 15th and 16th.
speaker-1: Well, and I'll even do you a favor, I'll I'll drop it in the link in the YouTube channel as well. So we'll be good to go.
speaker-0: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
speaker-1: Have a great day, Giovanni. Thank you for being here.
speaker-0: Thank you so much, Terry.
