Founders' Forum
Great business stories and great people come together on Marc Bernstein’s Founders’ Forum! Marc Bernstein sits down with business founders across the country to discuss their lives, successes, lessons, and their vision for the future. It’s all about the success they’ve earned and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. These are American success stories and they’re not done yet!
Your Host, Marc Bernstein
Marc Bernstein is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant. He helps high performing entrepreneurs and business owners create a vision for the future, accomplish their business and personal goals, financial and otherwise, and on helping them to see through on their intentions. Marc recently co-founded March, a forward-looking company with a unique approach to wealth management. He captured his philosophy in his #1 Amazon Bestseller, The Fiscal Therapy Solution 1.0. Marc is also the founder of the Forward Focus Forum, a suite of resources tailored specifically to educate and connect high performing entrepreneurs, and helping them realize their vision of true financial independence. Find out more about Marc and connect with him at marcjbernstein.com.
Are you a visionary founder with a compelling success story that deserves to be shared with our audience? We're on the lookout for accomplished business leaders like you to be featured on the Founders' Forum Radio Show and Podcast. If you've surmounted challenges, reached significant milestones, or have an exciting vision for the future, we'd be honored to have you as a guest on our show. Your experiences and insights can inspire and enlighten others in the business world. If you're eager to share your journey and the invaluable lessons you've learned along the way, we invite you to apply here. Connect with us, and let's discuss the possibility of featuring you in an upcoming episode. Join us in celebrating your success and contributing to the legacy of the Founders' Forum!
Founders' Forum
Breaking Barriers with AI for Healthcare Innovation: Armon Vincent’s Transformative Approach
What does it take to turn a brand-new technology into something that changes an entire industry? In this episode, Armon Vincent, the founding partner of Catalyst Technology Partners, shares his incredible journey from tech outsider to a trailblazer in healthcare innovation. Armon started out building websites for pharmaceutical companies but soon realized the power AI could have in transforming healthcare. Back when AI was seen as more science fiction than science fact, Armon took the leap, pushing through skepticism to build groundbreaking AI-driven solutions that are changing the game.
Join us as Armon talks about his entrepreneurial evolution, the ups and downs he’s faced, and how he’s leading the charge today at Catalyst Technology Partners. He also dives into how AI is helping businesses scale, the importance of company culture, and how he built a remote team that thrives on innovation.
Key Takeaways:
- AI in Healthcare: How Armon introduced AI into healthcare, even when most didn’t believe it could work.
- From Failure to Success: How Armon’s journey wasn’t always smooth, but his setbacks turned into stepping stones.
- Building a Culture of Innovation: Armon’s approach to fostering creativity and collaboration, especially with a remote team.
- The Future of AI: Armon’s thoughts on where AI is headed, and why it’s just getting started.
- A New Venture: How Catalyst Technology Partners is helping businesses unlock the power of AI to drive growth.
If you're curious about how AI is shaping the future of healthcare—and business in general—this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear how Armon’s journey is making waves in the tech world.
About Armon Vincent:
Armon Vincent is a seasoned healthcare and life sciences technology executive with a track record of innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship. As the founder and Catalyst Technology Partners, he is helping companies harness emerging technologies to redefine current offerings and launch new products.
Connect:
Website: catalysttechpartners.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/avincent/
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The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. Through his innovative work and the Forward Focus. Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Forums Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the lessons they've learned and the stories behind their success. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights and a little fun. Now let's dive in.
Marc Bernstein:Good morning America. How are you? This is Marc Bernstein. This is Founders Forum. I'm in the studio with our guest Armon and our engineer Eric, and I said good morning America. This is one of those days you have to work at making a good morning. The weather's a little crummy, it's raining and personally, I may have mentioned this on the radio because my voice has been a little crummy. It's raining and personally, I may have mentioned this on the radio because my voice has been a little weak lately.
Marc Bernstein:I came back from Florida doing the shows and living down there and I got walloped with allergies and, as a result, it's been like every day. I got to kind of pump myself up to get my voice going, to get my attitude going. So it's one of these days. Today I pulled out my old tool of affirmations that I recorded on my phone and I played them and I repeated them and things just to get me going. That, you know, remind me what a great day I have planned, because I get to do two radio shows today, I get to talk to two of my favorite clients. Today I get to meet a new potential client. For me, it's an exciting day. That's how I. What do you do. Do you ever have days you're down Armon and you have to like, oh, absolutely. And what do you do to change that?
Armon Vincent:I'm big into meditation. So I try and start there, if I can in the morning, and try and reset myself, but in lieu of that, a lot of coffee. There you go.
Marc Bernstein:That helps too. Mine is matcha tea, but I gotcha, Gotcha matcha. I just how about?
Marc Bernstein:that. So listen for our topic of the day. I just wanted to talk a little bit. Armon and I were talking about different situations. We were talking a little bit about boundaries and how they can come into relationships, because both of us are in situations where our clients can be our friends and our friends can be our clients and we might have a third or fourth kind of a relationship with them, and whether it's public service on boards or that kind of thing, how do you deal with that situation, Armon? How?
Armon Vincent:do you deal with that situation, Orman? Well, as we were speaking about, it's a very challenging situation when you start to mix friendships, business, money, all of those things sort of into the same soup, if you will, and with some people it's very easy. I'm lucky enough to have some friends that the boundaries are natural and you can kind of see them as you're speaking to the other person and you're both aware and you can make conscious decisions around that. But when it does get muddy, I have to say I do struggle with the balance between the business outcome, the friendship outcome, especially if that person also represents long-term business or is across multiple milieus within my life. So I try and talk through it and I try and explain my decisions as best I can and hope that it is received with the same grace that I attempt to deliver it.
Marc Bernstein:Well, first of all, it's very thoughtful the fact that you even are thinking about that, because I wonder how many people actually even do you know, right? So that's number one. And number two, because I've been doing this. I've mentioned before there's a course that I've taken called Create Powerful, and I've done some coaching around that for several years now, and in that we talk about the use of domains, and domains could be areas of your life or areas of your relationships. So, as an example, what I try to do now is, if I have a friend who's becoming a client or a client who I see is becoming a friend, to say, hey, this is really nice, our relationship's evolved and some other things.
Marc Bernstein:But we have to be careful of boundaries. Sometimes, you know, I don't want to be in a social setting. Let's say, we go out to dinner on a Saturday night and you know I bring up a business issue that you may not necessarily be in the mood for, or there's other people around and of course you don't want them to hear it and things like that, and vice versa. It may work that way. So what I might say to them is so.
Marc Bernstein:So I tend to think of things in domain. So we have the friendship domain and we have the business domain and we might also have the. We are on a board together, so we have the board domain. You know, and is it okay with you, Armon, if I see it or if you see it as well we point out to each other hey, right now we're in the business domain. You know, let's put a wrapper around the friendship domain, for example, while we're doing this or we're in the board setting. You know, let's not necessarily go into the business or the friendship domain because we're here to do a job for this particular nonprofit that we're working on or whatever it is. And are you okay with that? Because then we can point that out to each other and if we're together and there's a need to switch domains, we can be conscious about that and we can switch into another domain.
Armon Vincent:I think that's a brilliant idea. I'm kind of embarrassed that I didn't think of it.
Marc Bernstein:Well, I didn't either, so I just want to point that out. But I love to be around brilliant people and pick up things.
Armon Vincent:Absolutely, and so you know, because I'm often on the back foot when it comes to that and I am having that conversation after the awkward conversation has already happened. Conversation has already happened. So I think I'm going to take that advice myself and try and be a little more thoughtful and explicit about that sort of upfront, especially with new relationships. I think that the idea of domains and boundaries is a really strong strategy.
Marc Bernstein:So we are here as your radio guests or in the domain of the radio show podcast right now. But we met in a different domain because we're mutual members at the Union League of Philadelphia and that's how we met. So we have two domains now and from the way this is going I could see us entering into a third domain of a kinship of some kind. So it's pretty cool. So let me introduce my new friend, Armon Vincent. I say it because I knew a couple guys named Armon.
Armon Vincent:Oh, don't worry, it's the most common pronunciation.
Marc Bernstein:But anyway, Armond Vincent is a seasoned healthcare and life sciences technology executive with a track record of innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship. He is the founding partner of Catalyst Technology Partners and as that, he is helping companies harness emerging technologies to redefine current offerings and launch new products and kind of fascinating the work that he's doing. So welcome officially. First of all, thank you, thanks for being here. So this is a show about entrepreneurs and their stories, and we talked a little bit about because I can usually track something that you know where. I see that you know how did you become an entrepreneur? And we were talking about this and you didn't have a family that were entrepreneurs. You didn't have any model for that. So how did that come about?
Armon Vincent:And then let's talk about your history a little bit so for me it was. I've always I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, as I was actually telling you earlier, and so I developed my own independent rubric for how I thought about the world. And once I got into my professional career, I would see things that I thought I could do differently, or an opportunity in the, in the market for technology at least, that you know I thought was going to be the next area to be, and so I always went for it. I I never had, I never thought about it in terms of risk, um, betting on myself. It was always just okay, this is the idea. How do I execute it? I want to go execute it, and especially when I was a bunch younger, the concept of maybe I'll fail or maybe I shouldn't do this just never entered my mind really.
Marc Bernstein:You were fearless, well young let's just say Well, that's sometimes where fearlessness comes from. Yes, Not knowing any better right and now.
Armon Vincent:It's been such a pattern throughout my life. I've had successes and failures and good days and bad, but now it's just how I operate. I can't imagine my life in any other way or fashion. It's sort of now I'm an old dog that you can't teach new tricks to.
Marc Bernstein:Well, except that I think you're working on some new tricks right in a way, absolutely.
Armon Vincent:AI is absolutely the latest and the new, but I've actually been in AI since 2007.
Marc Bernstein:You had said that. By the way, I have to tell you, ai comes into almost every show we have now, regardless of the business. It's hard to avoid because it's everywhere now. It's ubiquitous, it's ubiquitous, Ubiquitous.
Armon Vincent:Thank you. It's funny. With AI, I started in 2007 and I built a system that was analyzing early comments in message boards and forums and this is pre-Facebook, this is pre-Facebook, this is pre-Instagram and all of that. And we was using some early forms of natural language processing. And it was in healthcare. All the clients I was going to first I had to explain what AI was. Then half of them would laugh at me and say that's going to go nowhere.
Marc Bernstein:You were calling it that then.
Armon Vincent:Yeah, yeah, it was called that then, and I mean the number of people who laughed me out of rooms and presentations saying there's no way to prove that. That's ridiculous. I mean it took. I spent more of my time in client education than I did actually selling anything Kind of like science fiction, then right yeah absolutely, or they just thought it was completely fake and I was making it up, so there was that too Right, right, right yeah so it was a long slog in the beginning. Another form of fiction.
Armon Vincent:Absolutely, and so you know. Then we get to the present day, and now it's on everybody's lips and everybody's talking about it and everybody's using chat, gpt and et cetera. So it's just a wild ride for me.
Marc Bernstein:And, by the way, it seems like a year ago people were just starting to talk about it. Now it's everywhere.
Armon Vincent:Absolutely, and this is just the very very beginning.
Marc Bernstein:I only know, not that I'm an expert, but I've had so many people on who are in it, like you are, every day that that's what everyone says. It's just we're just scraping the surface.
Armon Vincent:Yeah, this is going to be a larger revolution than I think, even the industrial revolution, I mean, it is one of the largest inventions of humanity.
Marc Bernstein:So let's talk about your story and what you've been doing, so how you got in the business, and just let's talk about that because, believe it or not, already we only have about four minutes to break, so we'll do that and then we'll come back and we'll talk about challenges and future and things like that.
Armon Vincent:I started out my career building in the late 90s building websites for pharmaceutical companies, working in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising firms, worked my way up into the very, very early 2000s into an executive position doing what they called digital. At that point, I had an idea for a company to do what I was talking about with AI and natural language processing, to understand the thoughts, feelings and emotions of people who were commenting online about products, brands and therapies, built that company up. I didn't think I could be the CEO of that company, so I brought someone in to do that and I was the product guy. We ended up exiting from that company positively in about four years. How long ago was this? This was actually about five years, so this we exited in 2015. Okay, sorry, sorry, 2013. 12 years ago. And then I spent a couple years consulting. Then I started the last company I had, which is Custom House. Custom House, it was a software development shop. We developed software for hire.
Marc Bernstein:About 70% of our clients were healthcare Most of our business was really using AI and bringing that into startups, into existing businesses, everything from Thomson Reuters to Greenfield Blanksheet freshly funded startups. Can you give me an example of how somebody? So?
Armon Vincent:Thomson Reuters is not a healthcare company as such, but how did give an example of how you would bring AI into healthcare, if you don't mind. So, for example, with Thompson Reuters, we were looking at helping them analyze publications at scale, especially scientific and health-related publications, and helping them glean different data. I can't go into too many specifics there, but glean data from that. Other healthcare startups that we worked with worked with a company to help them develop A chatbot system that could speak to young children who were in emotional distress and use AI to screen those kids at scale and monitoring. For a light issue, what was a heavy issue a system to rope in caregivers, teachers, parents, all of it. Other things voice assistants for nursing homes If you remember the Amazon Echo oh, sure, sure, yeah, that first device. We built an analog to that Pre-Alexa, right?
Marc Bernstein:sure, yeah, that first device. We built an analog to that Pre-Alexa right.
Armon Vincent:Yes, we built an analog to that that was deployed in the elder care market, so it was really trying to looking at AI as how does AI help? At that point, it was just how does it help you scale and how does it help you gain efficiency?
Marc Bernstein:You know what? This is a really good jumping off point for a commercial break. So we'll be right back on Founders Forum.
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Marc Bernstein:We're back on Founders Forum and with our guest today, Armon Vincent, who really is a multifaceted serial entrepreneur. We're just getting into the story a little bit. So let's talk about Custom House a little bit. You built that up and how many employees, as an example, did you have?
Armon Vincent:So at our height we got to 32.
Marc Bernstein:Okay, and were some of them offshore?
Armon Vincent:Yes, yes, we had tried every type of offshoring. We had people in India, philippines and then, finally, we've had the most success with Columbia and South America, columbia.
Marc Bernstein:I thought so, yeah, I thought, I remembered that. Yeah, that's amazing, and that company still operates. Yes, how did you build culture, given that most of your customers were offshore?
Armon Vincent:that most of your customers were offshore. So with most of our, with our employees all being remote at one point for even before COVID, we were 100% remote.
Marc Bernstein:You were ahead of the curve. It's helpful that you knew how to do that.
Armon Vincent:Yeah, it was very natural for us.
Armon Vincent:It was, you know, you put the tools in place, so we always had Slack, then teams, uh, all of that, and we would meet on such a regular basis that it was just like being in constant conversation, like you were in a cubicle. Sometimes what we would do is just open up the line and have everybody completely open. So you were almost in a true virtual office. So, you know, you could just say anything you wanted at any moment and someone was responding, because it was, you know, a each team, say a seven person team, they would have an open voice line right there in text and that really helped us build cohesion and make sure that people are talking to one another and exchanging ideas. But also, you have to. That starts with hiring and it starts with screening the people beyond just their capabilities, really understanding them how are they going to work on a team, what's their approach to their work? And then trying to be as choiceful as you can about integrating the right people into the team, even if the skill sets aren't perfect.
Marc Bernstein:I know because of another conversation we had in prep that getting to know people on as deep a level as is appropriate in a business situation is important to you Very, so it sounds like you do that work up front. And then what is the ultimate outcome of the culture you're trying to? What's the most important part of your culture at Custom House, I guess would be the way to ask you the most important part is the true teamwork breeds innovation, but only if you remove the gotcha, is what I say.
Armon Vincent:So there's no finger pointing, there is no people. You have to give people room to fail and you sometimes have to reward failure. You took the risk. I get that that didn't work Doesn't matter, we're moving on. Or we have a bug or some kind of issue. I don't care why or how we're going to work as a team, we're going to fix it. You have to get rid of the gotcha, especially if you remove physical presence, because people can't read your body language to see that you're not mad. They're just reading words you're typing, and so if you don't create that culture, I think that's a huge part of remote work.
Marc Bernstein:So I love that. Get rid of the gotcha. It's really a great example. And the next studio is a friend of mine visiting with another friend of mine. Pretty interesting, that's pretty interesting. Anyway, sorry about that. So company culture we were talking about that. Now, custom House has really become a mature business. At this point it is, and you've started another company. You want to talk about that transition?
Armon Vincent:Yes, so, as we are finishing our exit of Custom House, we now started a new business called Catalyst Technology Partners and really we're taking the opportunity to no longer build software for people, but it's a fractional CTO business and focused on helping private equity and VCs really inject AI into the business, into the businesses that they have in a portfolio, specifically in healthcare, then healthcare startups and then also mature healthcare companies who have products that now need to find a way to add AI to them, and none of these companies may have the internal skill. They may not have CTOs and they need that experience, but they don't need it forever. They need it three, six months, maybe nine months to get up and working framework procedures and policies in place, and then they can keep on going down the road.
Marc Bernstein:Gotcha so and tell us about the new venture.
Armon Vincent:So that is the.
Marc Bernstein:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armon Vincent:Yeah, so that we've just started.
Marc Bernstein:Well, I guess the differences in terms of you know, between what you were doing.
Armon Vincent:So now we are not going to build anything. We would take, you know, build from scratch to the full solution. This is just working at the C-suite level to really take all the knowledge we have from building everything from product management to all of the development operations, hiring engineering teams, understanding how those budgets work and how to configure those teams to get the best outcomes. Now we want to take all that experience and apply it from the C-suite at the individual companies in which we're working with.
Marc Bernstein:If I were to sum it up from what we talked about the two companies, one was you were an agent of creation. Now you're like an agent of change really going to companies.
Armon Vincent:It's sort of I consider it a natural maturation process. Yeah, gotcha, you start off early in your career starting to work on a team to build things, and now you're really creating products and then you eventually get into executive management and that's sort of what the path, my companies have taken Makes sense.
Marc Bernstein:So what challenges do you see ahead for this company, if any there's?
Armon Vincent:the biggest challenge is going to be scaling uh, because you're finding the right talent to bring in and making sure that our revenue model supports. That is going to be the most difficult, the difficult piece because, um, it's a very new area and I haven't perfected my rubric of how I'm going to vet the people and bring them into the right situation to build that culture I was talking about.
Marc Bernstein:Right. So in a way you're kind of like a search firm slash well, fractional share, obviously CTO company, but searching for talent is a big part of it. Yes, absolutely.
Armon Vincent:The way it's structured. It's structured almost like a law firm in terms of how it'll work. But yeah, finding the talent is going to be the hardest point. I really need to find executives who are willing to take some risk out on their own there is some P&L responsibility that they would have to take but have the large company experience that it takes to really understand the challenges that our clients are going through.
Marc Bernstein:And I would also imagine you have to match personality to cultures and to companies as well.
Armon Vincent:Absolutely so I'm going to need many crayons. And to companies Absolutely, absolutely so I'm going to need many crayons in the box Right.
Marc Bernstein:So it's a new set of skills almost you're developing in order to be able to do this Absolutely. Now you're in the people business as well, but that's what makes it fun, of course. That's great, and I know you'll do great at it, because you're a great people person, as I know too.
Armon Vincent:Oh, thank you.
Marc Bernstein:So we always talk about the future. So, Armon, if we were sitting here today, a year from now, and we're looking back on the last year, what would have to happen in business? But if you want to go into other domains as well, personally, what would that look like for that year to have been a successful period in your life? That?
Armon Vincent:year to have been a successful period in your life. So it's going to be about the client transformations we can create In a year from now. I really want to be working with private equity to transform some portfolios and to really help them drive and see AI injected into traditional businesses and what we can do there, because I think that's a huge model I want to put out in the world.
Armon Vincent:It's almost like getting them to see the possibilities in the businesses that they're investing in Exactly, and how can you deploy AI as a service across your portfolio? I want that to happen. Then, on the other end, I'd love to be involved in some great new products and help them develop their AI strategy within their products and incorporate that into their product management, especially with healthcare, understanding the ethical side of it all the way through delivery. I think those are my real.
Marc Bernstein:Those are my two milestones I'm trying to hit, so it's like you're going into the people business and then you're seeping back into the product development business, in a sense as well.
Armon Vincent:Yeah, it's, I mean it's sort of the same thing yeah it really is, because the people create the products and without the right mindset and strategy, you're not going to get there, yep, so we have a couple more minutes.
Marc Bernstein:I'm going to ask you one question so we let our guests pick the questions and you've picked one that many pick, and I love this question, which is if you could speak to your younger self, what advice would you give you? And then I'm going to come back at you with some other questions after that, because we have another minute or two.
Armon Vincent:So, when I was thinking about this, I think the number one piece of advice I would have given myself is to, very early on, spend as much time with people outside of your area of expertise as possible, especially in engineering. It becomes a very insular thing.
Armon Vincent:And you're geek, speak geek and you kind of go down that road and that was much to my detriment. I had to work very hard later to develop networks and connections to people that other people already had, because they had looked at networking in an entirely different way. So I would say get out of your own echo chamber, go jump into as many others as you can and start to fill your life with as many different disciplines as possible.
Marc Bernstein:Great. That's really wise advice and especially because I see it a lot with engineers. It's very but obviously all different kinds of disciplines. I know many lawyers that don't get much out of the lawyer world and it's a similar issue. Are you a reader?
Armon Vincent:I am when time allows. I am because most of my time is spent inside of technical books and manuals.
Marc Bernstein:So, let's say, aside from technical books, do you have a favorite book or a book that you're reading now or that you'd like to read?
Armon Vincent:Oh, I'm always perusing what's the top 10 business book out there and so I haven't had a chance to look lately. But at my next opportunity I'll be looking at the New York Times top 10 business books and seeing what's the zeitgeist out there, because I'd like to know what my clients are thinking.
Marc Bernstein:That's a great place to look, and I think actually, as it works out, that's all the time we have today for Founders Forum. So, Armon, thanks so much.
Armon Vincent:Fascinating talking to you.
