De-Risk with the Right Partners at the Right Time | Greg Lange

Partner sprawl stalling progress? A Fractional CMO prioritizes what moves revenue now. https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/ 

Connect with Greg Lange
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-lange-70bab04/

Early-stage medtech moves faster with the right partners. Greg Lange (Symbex) shares how to de-risk early, pick partners you can trust, and keep product + commercialization in lockstep. We cover founder archetypes, when to bring in reg/reimbursement, and the operating cadence that avoids “beautiful dead ends.”

00:00 – Who’s Greg & what Symbex does — design + commercialization under one roof
03:00 – Why partnerships matter — big-co vs startup dynamics; treat partners like partners
08:30 – The Maine case — MVP first, then V2; commercialization before “perfect”
13:30 – Founder archetypes — clinician, engineer, entrepreneur; typical misses and how to cover them
20:00 – When to bring in experts — reg, reimbursement, competitive scan; sprint without blinders
27:30 – Partner-first strategy — recruiting talent & capital by selling the vision early
33:00 – How to choose partners — trust signals, communication, no-surprises rule, say-no credibility
40:00 – Requirements & communication — MV-requirements, cadence, shared dashboards
46:00 – Budget & burn — share constraints, co-scope the work, optimize for speed-to-learning
50:00 – Three practical tips — align on mission, quarter-by-quarter deliverables, treat partners like key hires

Founder Field Manual: Three Moves That Save You Months

1) Start With the Story, Not the Spec.
 Before you sprint into building, write the one-page vision that explains why this exists, who it’s for, and how it wins. Share it with three people who would buy, use, or fund it and ask, “What’s missing?” This gives partners a north star, helps you say no to shiny objects, and turns early collaborators into advocates—because they can see where you’re going and how they fit.

2) De-Risk in Days, Not Quarters.
 Run a “week-one gauntlet”: a quick regulatory path read, a reimbursement/payor sanity check, and a 10-call voice-of-customer sprint. You’re not seeking perfection—just red-flag hunting. If a pathway, payment, or workflow blocker pops, pivot your scope now (MVP to masterpiece). This keeps burn pointed at validation instead of vanity, and it arms you with credible evidence when you talk to investors.

3) Choose Partners Like Co-Founders.
 Don’t outsource and hope—co-build and verify. Use a minimum viable requirements doc (one page is fine) and a no-surprises cadence (weekly 30-min sync + transparent task board). Favor partners who push back with alternatives (“no, and here’s the path”) over order-takers. Share your constraints—including budget—so they can design scope that actually ships. Trust, speed, and clear accountability beat rock-star resumes every time.
Founder energy is real—but so are bottlenecks. Greg Lange, President & CEO at Symbex, breaks down how early-stage teams can use partnerships to de-risk, shorten timelines, and build products the market will actually buy. We cover founder archetypes (clinician, engineer, entrepreneur), when to bring in regulatory/reimbursement, what a “good partner” looks like, and why sharing your budget is a trust signal—not a weakness.

#MedTech #Partnerships #Startup

Transcript

0:00

When do I need to raise money? It's always a shift from building a great product, which everyone aspires to do and getting it into the market. How are you going to sell this thing? What's the market available? And our clients really excited about it. Welcome to Lifestyle Continuum. I'm Bill Schick, your fractional chief marketing officer. Today we're digging into three big ideas founders trip over all the time how to choose and trust the right partners. Understanding the three founder archetypes in their blind spots and moving from MVP to version two to real commercialization without getting lost in fantasy timelines or Tam daydreams. Then in the medical device business for long enough to know that it takes a village, it's very hard for for an individual, company or an individual to know everything they need to know to actually bring a product to market. Today we examine De-risking Your Business and answer. When do you stop sprinting alone and bring in the people who can help you de-risk and actually get to market? A lot of smart teams believe they can figure it out later, and you'll hear why later is how you burn cash, kill momentum, and miss the window. We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It's really exciting. And if you can tell that story well, and you can show them that there's a path to doing this. I invited Greg Lang, president and CEO of Simex. His world is product design and software regulatory strategy and commercialization. He's built teams, shipped products, answer to investors and lived through the. This looked a lot simpler on a whiteboard phase. Many times I love working with founders and helping them navigate through the journey. Launching products is hard. Bringing new innovations to the market is hard, and it's a puzzle. By the end of this conversation, you'll walk away with a practical checklist for when to bring in the right partners. How to pick partners you can trust in concrete moves to shorten the path from prototype to paid. Without letting your burn rate on fire. All right, let's get into it. So Greg, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate having you on. Thanks for having me, Bill. Tell us a little bit about you and your journey and how you got here today. Now. Oh, well, you know, first of all, president and CEO of SIM Backs were a product design and development firm. You know, my background is, you know, master's in biomechanics and did a lot of orthopedic and, you know, clinical research early in my career and, you know, eventually landed in the medical device space 20 plus years ago. And, you know, vascular surgery focused company doing software as a medical device and clinical trials and working with big companies and, you know, and really, you know, grew and grew that company and, you know, private equity held, you know, we have CEO for the last six years of my 15 years there and, you know, really, really enjoyed that experience. And then, you know, moved move from from that company after we, we sold it to a strategic to, to SIM back. So I've been at some books for, you know, eight and a half years now and it's really a pleasure to be the at a company that, you know, gets to interact with lots of early stage companies, you know, and, and big companies. But, you know, like, I love working with, with founders and helping them navigate through the journey, you know, like launching products is hard. You know, really bringing new innovations to the market is hard. And, you know, it's a puzzle and a challenge. So that's my my world. Love that. So, so quickly. What is Simex do and what's your role there today. Yeah. Well, president and CEO of Simex. You know, we're not a big company, so we're about 50, 50 people. And we have two components to our business. One is engineering. So taking product ideas from napkin to ready for manufacturing, and then commercialization strategy, which is regulatory reimbursement, market intelligence. You know, and we feel like putting those two things together is essential because, you know, even if you you think you have the right product idea or you've developed the right technology, most of my first questions are not engineering focus there, but somebody's going to pay for it when they, you know, when you sell it. And so that means, you know, what is the what is the cogs, you know, what is the cost of that thing to, to manufacture need to be how how is that payment process going to happen? And what are the ultimate needs of the customers? You know, so that we're building something that actually is successful when it gets into the market. Not technically successful, because sometimes that doesn't matter. You know, you have to meet the clients where they are. So that's our, you know, our world at Simex. And, we, we work with companies all over the world, big companies, small companies. And been doing it this year, our 25th anniversary. So we've been doing this for, for quite a while. And at any given time, we probably have, you know, 20 to 30 different, companies that we're, that we're working with helping them in some, in some capacity. And, you know, this year we've had companies from Switzerland, Iceland, South Korea, all over, all over the globe. We're working with a really innovative, client in New Zealand right now. And, you know, it's been been really fun over the last few years to see us going from us to kind of, you know, global, global presence. So that's what we're doing. You said something before that that is interesting. You work both with startups so directly with, you know, founders and entrepreneurs, but also with more established companies. I imagine given the scope of what you do, working with those two groups is a little bit different. Yeah. And I'd like to, to talk a little bit about what you see happening with them and maybe some of the challenges that they struggle with, particularly in the context of working with partners because they're maybe the philosophy of those, those those, you know, an individual versus an established company on working with partners is a little bit different for them. Yeah. So so let's start there. Let's talk about that. Sure. Partners are, are really required. Piece of the equation for most entrepreneurs and companies. Talk a little bit about that. What do you see out there? Well, you know, I think I think I think the, the partnership discussion like it's so broad, you know, like how do you find the right people, you know, like I, you know, like, have been in been in the medical device, business for, for long enough to know that that it takes a village, you know, like like it's very hard for for an individual company or an individual to know everything that needs to they need to know to actually bring a product to market. And so you do need to rely on people and, you know, hopefully, you know, you find people that you trust, you know, and, and key partners. So, so, you know, the partnership discussion for early stage companies, and established companies wildly different, you know, like if you're if you're a well-established company, like, you know, we've done a lot of work with with Stryker and Analog Devices and agility and, you know, a few, you know, a number of really big companies, you know, they can be very specific about what they want. They know how much they're going to pay for it. You know, they really have a process dialed, you know, and, and the, you know, the the good thing is, you know, what you're getting into, you know, it's, you know, generally very clear, you know, the hard the hard thing is, is, is, you know, what I would ask of them is treat us like a partner, you know, like, you know, and and I think sometimes it's, you know, a means to an end as opposed to, like, you know, developing a relationship that, that actually can, you know, like, mutually support one another, you know, as, as we bring ideas to the table and maybe, maybe make what they had thought they were doing a little better than they originally that they intended. So I think that's, you know, that's my message to, to larger companies is, is, you know, like really explore like how do we get to the best solution? Not here's what I want you to build and here's, here's the specific, product requirements that we have to do. You know, let's explore that a little bit because, you know, the advantage that a company like Simex has is we work with lots of companies and new tech, lots of new technologies, and we can bring innovation to the discussion that may or may not be on their radar. So that's the, you know, established companies for early stage companies and partners. You know, this one. Yeah. At any given time in the development of a company, you need different partners, you know, and figuring out how you prioritize that so that you're focused and you're getting the support you need, I think is really hard, you know, and, you know, like, like it's easy, you know, for, for for me, you know, I product design and development firm, you know, like, we can help you with specific things. Come to us with what you need. And then let's let let's go on that journey together. But I think if you're, if, you know, early stage company, you know, what's the thing that moves you in the next quarter, in the next six months, in the next year, you know, and what what expertise do you need. And really you have to prioritize that and I don't I think that one's a, a really a challenging one for, for most entrepreneurs because they have, you know, a vision and hopes and they want to eat the whole pie. And sometimes you can't eat the whole pie. I think you make a good point there where, where an individual, simply hasn't been down this road before. Yeah. And so you really don't know what you don't know until you get to sort of that critical point in the process. Yeah. And I do, you know, in speaking with somebody, somebody the other day is sometimes a little bit of a mentality of, well, we'll just deal with that when we get to it. We don't have to worry about that. Yeah. And I think we could get we could get into a big partnership discussion on, advising against that maybe. But you also make a really good point in having that, you know, different partners at different stages. And, and I think part of that is knowing, you know, what or who to bring in, at what time, you know, at what time or what what part of the project. So, you know, tell me a little bit about your experience. Tell me a story about, you know, developing a partnership or getting through a partnership where, there was it was a little bit of a struggle maybe. But also writing the ship, a few things that we've seen over time. You know, the, the classic example of, you know, partnerships gone well or partnerships maybe not gone in the straight as straight as line. We worked with a company in, you know, in Maine, you know, really great, great concept and product in they're on the market today and, you know, they're doing doing fairly well. But but certainly, you know, like you raise money and you think about, you know, what partners, partners you need. And you go down a path, and then, you know, then you realize that that, you know, like what's, what's really the priority now, you know, it sometimes just it lands on money, you know, and like, how do we how do we get the most revenue possible? And that's an it's always a shift from building a great product which, which everyone aspires to do and getting it into the market. You know, the MVP idea, which is I need I need somebody actually buying this thing, getting feedback so I can iterate, you know, so so we work with this, this company in Maine, really great idea, great leadership team, you know, and really focused on getting product in the market, which they did. You know, that was great. And and then, you know, thinking about second, second, iteration of product, and really, really diving into all right, now how do we go from MVP or, you know, for first product to V2, and and then, you know, really pulling it back and going, hey, we, we really need to focus on commercialization and, and selling and getting into the market. So that we can have the revenue to support the, the V2 product. And I think, you know, like this is, this is, you know, knowing, you know, that that this is this is a potential path or seeing what the risks are, you know, could could have, you know, maybe, maybe accelerated the marketing and commercialization and, you know, like earlier, and, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, been a little bit easier in the, in the, you know, in the winding down. What, what we had aspired to build, in their next product, let's sort of maybe back up the train and, and really talk about knowing when to bring someone in a quick interruption. I've got an offer for med device and life science companies doing at least 3 million a year. But dealing with growth challenges. The first step is really easy. Just connect with me on LinkedIn. The details are below. The rest is to follow. That's it. Let's get back to the podcast. Knowing when to bring someone in. Something that I see a lot, is a lot of entrepreneurs when they're just starting out, you know, it's it might be, a physician or a surgeon or a nurse. It might be somebody more technical, like a scientist or an engineer. You know, a lot of times they've spent their lives solving everything themselves. And so they see they start off sort of going it alone, and then they almost get backed into bringing in partners and figuring that out. And I think I think you and I've spoken before about, different founder archetypes. Yeah. So what we see out there and how we deal with them. So let's talk about that a little bit. Tell me about your view on the three types. And then we can talk about a little bit how might they might interact with, you know, partnerships. Yeah. Well you know let's focus on early stage companies. You know, in the, in the these founders that, you know, come from either a clinical, strong clinical background, you know, which happens all the time, you know, and strong technical background coming up with an engineering, expertise with, with a particular skill or novel skill that can, you know, I call that the have a great hammer. What do I hit with it approach? Yeah. And, you know, and and then there's the, you know, the, the business person, entrepreneur, that is capable of identifying, you know, challenges and capable of, of solving that problem, but really need support in each case they have they have different needs, you know, but the, you know, the core or the, you know, the thread between all of them is, you know, like, how do you de-risk? You're, you're not product but your company, you know, and you know, if you're a clinician, let's talk about that archetype first. You know, what do you know. Like you know how the procedures work. You know how you're engaging with client, with customer or with patients. You know what the challenges are. And, you know, you know, like often like I can see a path to a better way to treat these patients, you know. And it's so common clinician sees that. And then what happens is we go into the lab, you know, they go into the lab. They can get grants to do that, do animal studies and and solve that. And you know, like if, if you stepped back and you and at that point when they said, all right, you know, you have this, I have this great idea, what do I need to know? You know, then if you talk to a regulatory person, they would say, yeah, we better figure that out right away. If you talk to a reimbursement person, they better say, well, how's this all getting paid? Because if you don't know that, then you're going to waste a lot of time going down to solving this problem. Both those things have to come be part of the journey and have to happen at some point. But thinking not like a clinician, and bringing in the, the other perspectives, it's that's not it's not hard advice to find, you know, there are lots of people that have that expertise. But actually knowing that I need to think about that early, so that I am not building something that the hospital that my own hospital won't buy, you know, and I think that that's kind of the the clinician clinician trap sometimes is all right. You know, like I, I know the patient I've solved the problem. But I don't necessarily think through the the whole business plan basically. And you know, like likewise if you talk about the, you know, the, the engineer, you know, and we work with lots of, you know, of academic institutions and engineering, schools that, you know, they have scientists that are doing really great work and they're developing, you know, materials and technologies that clearly have an application in in the medical space, you know, and you have to have that clinical expertise. Right. And, and some of them do a great job of, of partnering with clinicians, you know, but certainly, you know, like in that now you can pull together the the engineer with the clinician. Great. You know that's a partnership made in heaven. And you still have to answer those questions which are what's the market going to pay for and how's the what's the regulatory pathway? I see I see those challenges all the time, you know, and I don't know if there's, there's a there's a perfect you know, there's never a perfect formula, you know, like each each entity is different. But once you start talking to people about what you're doing, you know, like, like solving some of those problems, we would call it de-risking, you know, like, how do you de-risk this product development? Because, you know, doing, you know, two years of clinical research and animal studies to realize that, you know, somebody else in the market solve this a different way and it's a better way, or, you know, like, this is going to be a class three product and it's going to cost you 10 to $15 million to bring to market, maybe, you know, 25 million. And there's no way, no way to get it there. Like you, boy, you don't want to learn that later. Like so. I think learning that early and then, you know, the third archetype is just the, you know, the triangle there is, is, you know, now now you have this entrepreneur who actually is capable of identifying the problem, but really needs the technical expertise and the, the clinical expertise to really drive it, drive at home. And recognizing early here's the here's the partners that I need. And that is, you know, the people that can help me validate that the idea I have, the problem I've identified actually is a problem that needs to be solved. And I see each of each of those, archetypes coming to us, and it just means that every time we talk to them, it's a little, little different. Questions. But, you know, generally the theme is always the same. Tell me how it's going to get into the market. What I, what I hear is or what I wonder about is when when should I start thinking about these things? Because I think about sort of the innovative process if if you want to call it that and, you know, as somebody who who creates things, I often just want to sprint, I just want to make and I want to make and I want to go and I don't want to slow down. And I certainly don't want to stop. It feels to me like, well, you know, I should I should pause what I'm doing and start having these conversations and that sometimes that feels a little bit friction to me. And what would help me is if I knew at what point is the right time in my creative process. To start, start looking at bringing in additional expertise. And what are the questions I should absolutely answer at that point? Because some of these things do feel like, well, couldn't I wait a little bit? Shouldn't I really get down the path a little bit further before I start investing my time? What feels like I'm slowing down? You know, I'm spending money on things that, you know, maybe I'm not even going to get there. So. So I sort of feel that this is a little bit of a struggle. So do you have any recommendations on when is the right time to start bringing in people who are experienced and what specifically what experience of challenges? You know, like you're passionate about about solving a problem and you just want to go, you know, and I think that that's that's our natural tendency, like, put your head down and, and work hard and, and figure out figure it out. And you know, you can't you know when the idea happens, you can't go, you know, like what's the market need? Because I don't even I don't even have invented the, the idea well enough to actually communicate with someone. So so there's always that, that that tension I don't think there's, there's any, you know, clear advice there. You know what what always happens though, or often happens is you've gotten somewhere down the road and and inevitably somebody will say, well, you should have asked these questions early on. You know, like, the, the, you know, we participate in a lot of accelerators. So we, we, we've really enjoyed our partnership with, with Dartmouth and, the Magnuson Center. They have a couple accelerators there, and seeing that accelerator process, you know, teams, you know, that that have different people on them and figuring out how to bring a product to market. You know, the first, first part of it is figuring out what's the product and how do we how do we, you know, like communicate it well, you know, and you have to you have to do some of that work, you know, like and at some point you're going to say, okay, you know, like, you know, now I need I need other feedback. I wish I could tell you there's like, you know, you know, a week to do this week for do this, you know, like what I've, what I rarely see, even even in pitched, you know, pitch decks or, you know, like that have, like, development timeline. You know, they're like, what I would love to see is the, broader product, product timeline, you know, like, what do I need to know at each stage? Before I go on, you know, what are what are my gates? And most of those gates are technical, right? You know, so, like, how do I prove what? How do I validate that this particular device is is effective and safe? You know, but, you know, at the same time, the other the other things on that timeline are did I do a little bit of customer discovery to know that I'm solving the problem that my customers are actually going to need, you know, because at some, you know, like usually the forcing factor, you know, is when do I need to raise money? Because once you once you go to, go to an investor, the investor is going to ask the same questions that I want to ask, which are, you know, like, how are you going to sell this thing? What's the good, you know, what's the what's the market available? And our clients really excited about it. And, you know, show me the 500 clinicians that said they'll buy it as soon as you, as soon as you create it. So, like, there's no perfect, you know, like, like timeline or or, you know, when, when, when you triggered those things. But I would say thinking through that, you know, this doesn't have to be put everything on hold for a month. It could be, you know, like a few hours with a couple friends and say, what do I need? I need through this process in the next month, we need to know, you know, what's the regulatory, you know, give us, give us a regulatory understanding or I'm going to spend some time, using AI to come up with my competitive, landscape so I know what other people are doing and what what you know, what their products are, like, those kind of things are kind of, you know, building out, you know, you so that you're basically putting, putting the, the things in your belt that you need, in order to get to the next round of funding and, you know, communicate effectively with potential investors and partners. I think what I see, too, is I can do it all, and I'm just going to, go heads down and just go, you know, brute force maybe, maybe describes it is is getting through. And I'm going to tackle every step of everything along the way. I mean, we're we're working with highly intelligent people. They can do most, if not all of the activities, you know, along the process. But when you have one person doing everything, that process then typically extends way out because you can't do everything at once. Yeah. And everything takes time. You know, and also that person, even though they can learn it and then and then do that, they often don't have the, experience of the nuances, of the process or the, the system that we're basically selling into the health care system. And knowing how to deal with that. And I often see surprise when, clinician, thinking like a clinician has solved a problem and brings it into the system in the sense of the systems, like, no. Right. Yeah. You know, and it's not that the solution isn't good, it's that it's disrupting. You know, the system's built to sort of keep those things at arm's length and, you know, stress test them. So, yeah. I see that a lot. So in building, a partnership, I, it sounds to me like while while you're not, you know, drawing a line in the sand and saying, well, at this point, you should you should start thinking about these things specifically. I think maybe what you're encouraging is it very early on start talking to people who who've been through that before? Yeah. Well, because they will know. Yeah. Let me tell you, tell you a quick story, like, you know, like I talked to probably 5 to 10, you know, early stage companies a week, a lot of them, you know, they're they're calling to ask for, you know, like how do they move forward and different in different ways. I'm working with one particular one now that I think has done something, you know, like better than I've seen anybody else do. It because he envisioned a product, and he told the story of the product. Well, and one of the first things he did was say, here's the list of key people that I need on my team to make this a successful product and brand. And, and he, he had basically a partner first mentality. But what but you know, which like, in some cases, I wouldn't, you know, like, it's counterintuitive, a little bit like, why would I bring all these people in? It's a distraction, you know? But for him, what what it did was he was able to sell the idea to people that were motivated to be part of his journey. And what that led to is not like, you know, partners that can provide advice, but investors, people, people that said, I'm on board, and let's let's do this together. And so, you know, he didn't come up with the plan and then take it to a bunch of VCs and say, all right, now, will you? And, you know, invest in this, you know, and by the way, I've de-risk the whole thing, you know. No, he started he started the opposite and said, said, I'm going to the people that I think are going to help me make this product successful. And there and told them, this is what I'm going to need to be able to get this thing into the market. And, and amazingly, they all said, yeah, we want to be on this ride. And so, like, here's how we can contribute from an investment or partnership perspective. And he's, you know, he hasn't raised any money. And, you know, and he's pulled in a consortium of investors that and people, that are committed. So, you know, you have you have clinician or engineer heads down not doing that. And then you have, you know, entrepreneur doing exactly the opposite, I think. So that person comes from the entrepreneur, the business side. And one of my questions was going to be how like, do you know how or why they started their, versus going product and, and, you know, going it alone until I'm forced to bring in additional partners. What do you think was really different? Was it being in that group of, yeah, you know, business solution first? Or do you think it's it's something else? I don't, I don't know if you have insight. It's a that's a great question. Like I don't I don't know I don't know. And honestly like I'm still exploring this myself like it has been, you know, a little mind blowing the like because if you, you know, if you sit in enough accelerators or, you know, like, talk to enough entrepreneurs, you know, there's a I wouldn't say a recipe, but it's fairly straightforward. Like here's here are the steps along the path that you need to do. You know, they can happen at different times, but this is generally what you do. And like he turned it on his head. Yeah. You know I think and and so getting my head around it like how how did he get there I think he thought big, you know, like this this, you know, like you can you can say I'm going to develop a new bandage. And the there's a the market is big for bandages, but I can do it a little bit more cost effective, and I can improve the, you know, the healing properties of the wounds that it it covers a little bit better. And, you know, and then there's a straightforward process to, you know, like, do that or you can say, you know what? I'm going to put all the other bandage manufacturers out of business because this is this is what is going to take over the world, you know. So he thought big here's here's the the big vision and went there first, you know, and then could really tell the story, you know, like articulate that this is what I'm, you know, I'm taking to the world. And it's surprising. I think it's human nature. I, I it people could argue with this one, but I think it's human nature that we all want to be be part of something bigger than ourselves. You know, that's really exciting. And, you know, like. And so if you can tell that story well, and you can show them that there's a path to doing this, even if there are competitors in place and they're, you know, like, you know, I think people get get behind it. And, I think that's what he's done really well is start with, you know, here's the big idea, here's the vision. Now, based on that vision, who do I need on my team? And don't think small, think big. So, like, you know, like who from Apple do I you know if. Yeah. This isn't the case for this particular you know. But who who from Apple or who from Google aligns with what I'm doing. Let's get them on the team. Because all of a sudden you have instant credibility, you know, and thinking like that for him, it's worked out well. It's not easy to do, but he's done it exceptionally well. It's an interesting story, but it illustrates something that I bump into all the time. And that's where, a company will be overly focused on Tam. Yeah, a total addressable market. And then that becomes their entire world. And it is first of all, it's not a it's not a great, it's not a great target to attach your company to. Because you see that big number. And just do you think, you know, your eyes turn into dollar signs and that becomes the focus of everything? I like the idea of having everybody, you know, on the same bus. Working or driving towards a bigger mission or a bigger goal than just Tam. And that that, story you shared really illustrates that, in that when you're, when you're, that's your perspective, you can do bigger things with, I think less effort. You know, it's not it's simply not as hard because people are on board. Yeah. Yeah I think it's true. Like headwinds versus tailwinds you know like headwinds are I've got a you know like you can start off and you're like, who are the physicians that I need and work really hard to convince them to actually get on your team. And, you know, they're busy physicians and, you know, they they they have plenty of, you know, other things, competing things. You know, and you're just going to battle that, you know, it's hard to get the, you know, but if you come in with the right idea and they get excited about it, and then all of a sudden they're calling their friends, hey, like, I want you to, you know, like, totally different, you know, experience in the and effort and, you know, like, execution. Well, when you can get people working kind of you know, I guess with their passion or from their heart. Yeah. They'll they'll take steps for you. They'll they'll do things for you out in the world that you just can't motivate them with, with this, you know, with dollar signs. Right? You know, you really get to the heart of it. And that's I mean, I think that's been proven time and time again. So for you, are there any other challenges kind of still focused on, you know, the entrepreneur early stage, that you see in, going to market and where, where, you know, part partnerships are really critical. If you went down, you know, like if we went down one layer lower, you know, like so so you've identified like we've been talking about like how do you find the partners, you know, and like what what what do you think about, like when do these partners come in but take it down one one layer lower. You have, you know, five options to find a regulatory person that can help you, like how do you find the right person, you know and and there are, you know, expertise and you know, like, you know, experience in the particular thing you're doing, you know, but like, I like I always come back to can you trust them, you know, are they going to be somebody that they're on your or they're on your team. You can call them up. And they actually are there

for you in sometimes at 10: 33:44

10 p.m. because, you know, like the, you know, you had a call, you had a call at 6 p.m. from one of your advisors and they said, wait a minute, did you consider this? And you've got to call the regulatory person. And they actually pick up the phone, you know, and like, so, so developing the relationship, making sure that you've built the trust with them like I think you know like you know the you know, there's the mechanics of of establishing the partnership. But then there's the really the how do you how do you, you know, what is a partner? A partner is a, you know, a trusted person, you know, and it's and people, not entities. They're people, you know, and find the people that you trust. And you know, like treat them just like you'd be hiring, hiring a new employee, you know, your second employee of your company. Pretty, pretty important hire, right? Well, it's no different in a partnership like that. You know, make sure you do due diligence and work with people that you like to work with. You know, like, I mean, I've had plenty of experiences where I've had people come to me and, you know, talk to me about a product or a company, and, the idea resonates, but the person resonates, you know, like, I see their passion. You know, like, I see that, you know, the integrity is there. Like, I see that, you know, they're going to have my back, you know, and I'm going to have their back. And that makes that makes sense to me. You know, and I always tell early stage companies that work with us like product development is hard. You know, it's it's not a straight path. You're going to, you know, like we are going to come to a place where we're going to have a difficult conversation. We all know that, you know, like I'm sure you've experienced. We're Bill, we're not getting all the marketing leads that we need to get, like, yeah. All right. So what do what are we doing about it? You know let's talk about that. And that's, you know, like you have to have the ability to have that hard conversation and be comfortable having that hard conversation and, and trusting that, you know, they're still on my side. So I don't know. I hope that makes some sense. It does. It does. And I think I want to hear a little bit more about maybe what you look for, maybe what your criteria are. Yeah. I I'll share that. I look for people who tell me no, and they don't just tell me no to control it or argue. They're telling me no because they have expertise. But know is only the beginning of the conversation. Yeah. They'll say, okay, you know, I understand what you're trying to do, but that, like, you simply don't have the expertise or the grounding to understand this problem. It doesn't work like that. But I understand what you're trying to do. And here's the path. Or here are our options to succeed there. And I think I run into this actually all the time with, sales calls for what I do. Because I begin my consulting in the first conversation. Right. And it often starts with somebody saying, okay, you work in life sciences, you work in med device, we have an SEO problem. And that's my least favorite problem to solve. But we we get into the conversation and it's apparent that they don't have an SEO problem. They actually have a product market fit problem. They, you know, they they might have, you know, one of a variety of other problems. And they're, they're sort of going to what seems like the easiest thing, which is let's just tweak some messaging in the market. Well, you know, finally get it. But it's a, it's a bigger problem. And so I often will say, you actually don't need this right now. You don't need this. You should be focusing over here. And I tend to not win the business, but I'm also not taking it to win a client. So, I look for partners that will tell me know as early, you know, that are establishing that credibility and expertise. What do you what do you look for in, in, partnerships. So, so we're we're speaking for the audience here, understanding that early on they want to start, sort of bouncing ideas off and and getting a better understanding of how to bring these things to, you know, through development and to market. What do you look for in a partner and somebody that you can trust? You know, what are some of the attributes? Yeah. Well, I like your I like your idea of, you know, like, you know, having a, an honest and, you know, like frank conversation, like, you know, that that's, that's the way it should be. And I think that's hard for a lot of people, you know, that's, you know, as humans it's it's hard. You know, some people are much better at it than others. But it's important, you know, like you have to have that, but, you know, you have it in a respectful way always, you know, like I like when I think about this, this question is, you know, like like it's little for me. It's little things, you know, like, you know, we, you know, it's it's people following through, you know, and you know, like you had like you, you have a conversation. And then they say they're going to send you something and then they don't send. And you have to track them down and they don't respond like, all right, that's that's a red flag. You know, we were going to negotiate an NDA and the negotiation of the NDA takes longer than the whole project would take because, you know, we've got two lawyers involved and we've got, you know, like different things happening and like, nothing against, you know, non-disclosure agreements, they're important, you know, however, you know, if the NDA is going to be that hard to, to, to navigate when it gets down to negotiating product requirements, you know, like this is going to be really hard. I also think that, you know, like I like to tell our prospective clients that syntax isn't a throw it over the wall kind of company, like you're not coming to us and saying, here, build this for me. I'll be back in six months. No, no, no, that's that's not how product development works, by the way. Like right. Like we're we're hand in hand here, you know, and I don't expect you in my office every day, but I do expect you on regular calls. I do expect you're giving my team feedback. I do expect you holding us accountable. And so, like, our job is to be as transparent as possible, but your job is to hold us to it, you know, like, make sure that, you know, the expectations are clear and that we're on the same path, because at any given time, like, you know, I live by a no surprises rule. There should be no surprises. Like, we shouldn't get a month in and go price going in the wrong direction. No, no, no. Like you've been in you've had you've seen everything we're doing. You know, you know like and so I think, you know back to the what are the red flags early is do they communicate. Well you know. And are they on top of it. And are they willing to be engaged. You know, and and again, entrepreneurs have all, you know, they're all flavors, you know, and some, you know, attention to detail, high way down in the weeds and really willing to dig in. And some, you know, like just live at a different level. You need both of those in your organization, but somebody that's interacting with a partner has to actually live with the partner, you know, and, and maintain that relationship. Like, those are the things that I think about when we first engage with someone is are they going to be a good, you know, like, are they going to walk this journey with us? You know, because like, you know, it's the it's their product. And, you know, we want to, you know, and we want it to be our product, but we want to do it together. Those those are the things that really, you know, you know, then you could go maybe one level technically deeper is I talked to lots of entrepreneurs that come in and say, I need an ally. You know, I need, you know, a prototype for this. And I say, well, all right, great. Show me the requirements document. And one it, you know, it comes in an email with five bullets, you know, and I like, all right, we're going to do some work to pull this out of them, you know, or, or it's clear that they don't know what they're building, you know, like, so like, you know, they like, you know, and this is back to the to the, big company, small company conversation. You know, big company comes with you know, 30 to 50 page requirements document, you know, down to the, you know, the color of, you know, the the color of this has to be this shade of orange, you know, like, yeah. All right, I get it. And then you have the entrepreneur that says it's just gotta have a button. Yeah. Like, what is it fun have to do? I don't know, like, it's gotta go here and here. And you're like, all right. So you know, but but I think that, you know, like there is a part of it that's a journey. Like we're going to explore that together, you know. True. And you still need to know where you're going. You know. So if you know, we occasionally I would say, you know, one out of 20 don't know where they're going, you know, and and in the recommendation is, all right, go back, build a requirements document, come back to us. And that's not that, you know, it's not exactly what they were looking for, but it's necessary. So tough love. Kind of a kind of arrangement. Exactly. It's one of those things that when when you're of, the mindset of go, go, go, let's just get this thing going and done and out there and yeah, you know, every second that we're not doing that just feels terrible. This feels like one of those things that's just stalling the process. Yeah. Like, I know what I want. I want you to take that, and I want you to make that piece green instead. And then we'll solve all the problems associated here. And. And it's really not that simple. Like, it doesn't need to be crazy, you know, 50 pages. There's kind of a minimum viable requirement, you know, like a clear product and project definition. And you really need those, I think. I think you know, I think one of the common threads here is communication. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You you have expectations and experience that, your partner won't have. And that's one of the things that makes the, the partnership work is if your partner has all of the same experience, you know, and expectations that, that you bring to the table, there's no point in having the partner there. One of the values of a partnership is you've done things I've never done before, and you're going to be the expert in the room. Yeah. So really looking at providing that and it comes back to providing the right amount of information so that everybody can really do their best work. Yeah. So that, that communication I think is key. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. So we're this is great. So we're we're close to time here. It it flew right by. You know, I always like to provide the listeners and, and as a, as a quick reminder, we're, we're talking to people who are, their entrepreneurs or founders or the people within an organization that own product, you know, development and the, you know, the entire process. You know, in, in the context of this conversation, what are three easy, tips for making this whole process of of bringing your product, through development and into, you know, market? I mean, they're probably a million, but what are three for you that they can walk away today from listening to this and say, okay, I should do this differently. I definitely am headed down the wrong path here. You know, just concrete, actionable things. I tend to be a little bit more of a big picture guy. My advice always is get the vision right, get the mission right, you know, and understand what the steps are in that, that you need to do to realize that vision. This is a little bit more, you know, like softer, softer, skills. But you know, once once you have those, right, you can communicate more effectively with your partners, you can communicate with investors, you know, and you can communicate with your employees and partners if you if you are clear, here's where we're going. We're rowing the boat in this direction. This is what we do, that mission, you know, and here are the steps we need to do to get there. Then you get clarity, you know that. You know then so so all else falls from that. But for first step and you know, like I would take it I would take it seriously. I like, you know, like if you if you have done any work on writing a vision or mission statement, you know, you know that sometimes it's just, you know, like people look at it as a necessary evil. I think I think for you, this is not this is not about putting something on the website. It's about how you communicate with your team, you know, and your partners, you know, like I said, that, you know, like, make sure you know where you're going and you can communicate that to everybody and how we're going to get there. And what are the steps like I want to know in the next quarter, this is what I'm delivering in the quarter. After that, this is what I'm delivering. And at that point I'm going to say, all right, we've done these things, you know, does our plan need to change at all? Let's keep going. What's the next quarter but may not be very clear, you know. And that helps all of us. All right. We know we know what we need to achieve. And it gives me constraint as a partner okay. Like I got it. I can deliver within that within that constraint or I can't if if it's not realistic but you know like lay it out. That's that's my advice. Yeah I like that a lot. We talk a lot about kind of a business, os like an operating system. Yeah. So if I understand your rules, if I understand how you make decisions and what you're aiming for. So we talking about mission and vision. Sometimes we get into the why. Why you're doing this and what's driving this. Yeah. And the impact that you hope to or expected to make, that helps us make decisions that are more in line with where you're taking your company. I know so many times, and this was this four days ago, working with a client, they're putting finishing touches on a website, and they came to the table, and this is the first time in their relationship where they said, you know, I was on somebody else's website the other day, and they had their mission and vision on there, and I think it'd be really cool if we had one. Yeah. All right. You mean like a page with that on it? No, no, no, we don't we, we just haven't really done this and I, I kind of like theirs. And I want to do something like that for us. Like how how did we get here today without without that. Right. And so you can I mean, you can brute force it. But it makes things a lot more difficult when people just don't know what or why you're doing it and how you plan on getting there. So I think that's really important. So that's a good point. Greg, anything else that you, want to add before we, jump off today? You've been great. I appreciate, you know, like sharing, sharing a little perspective. You know, like, I feel like, you know, we have the honor of working with early stage companies and seeing people approach it in different ways. And, you know, it's really fun, you know, like to, like, take the learning, you know, from from them and, you know, like try, try to guide people, you know, as we see them, them come to us like, you know, like, all right. If I were you like, I like I, you know, we talked to our staff about it, about like, put yourself in their shoes. What do they really need right now? You know, and sometimes we'll say, you know, like, like I think you said it earlier. I don't think you need that right now. SEO is not your problem. Like, for us, it's you might think that you need the need this done, but I think if we did this approach right now, it'll better inform us for that. For what you really need. That's okay. You know, let's do that. And, you know, like, I think when you work with early stage companies, you always have to be cognizant of, hey, burn rate is is burn rate. You know, like there's only so much money. And so how do we do it in a cost effective way so that we can get value and make good decisions, and do that quickly? So that's why I think about it. You just open up a can of worms, and I. Sorry, had that. No, I think that's a really great point. I think it's important is that when you're at that stage where you're really focused on burn rate, sometimes it can be hard to take the advice of partners now because it feels like it's contrary to, me being focused and spending my money wisely. And right now it seems that maybe a recommendation feels like maybe that'll take a little bit longer. It will delay things and that, you know, that's maybe the perception. But often when we're making recommendations, it's the right way to do it. And we're thinking about it at the front end as opposed to trying to backfill and fix things. And, once we've sort of, you know, steamrolled our way up to that part of the process. So I think that's really important to consider. Yeah. The problem has been, you know, the problem there is that that like, you know, partnership is what you want. Yeah. You know, client service provider is what people perceive. And when you're in that, when you look at it like that, then you might not be as open as you, as you need to be. Like, I would argue, you know, like I want to know, like, if you only got $100,000 that you need to go over the six months and you can only afford this, like, let's figure out how we do that. Most effectively. But most people look at it like they're negotiating a car. Like, I'm not going to tell them how much money I have, you know, because then they're just going to tell me this is how much it's going to cost. But the reality is, is like, tell me what you really need, you know, and let's figure out how we get the scope in the right way to, to get you moving down the road and, you know, like, yeah, that's that's the partnership versus a position. You know, you know people on two the two sides of the table. We want to be on the same side of the table. But how do you get there without feeling anxious about it. Back to trust. Exactly, exactly. And yeah. And I would say that's probably one of the, oddly clear ways of seeing whether you have a partnership or not. I think in a, in a true partnership, you share the budget. Yeah. You know, I think when you're not willing to share the budget, you don't have the trust, you don't have the relationship. And it's more about order taking and getting the the cheapest thing I can get. And it's not always about getting to the right solution. Well said Bill. Thank you. Right. So Greg, thank you so much for hopping on today. This is great. Yeah, I appreciate your time. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, Bill. If you made it here. Thank you. If you haven't already, like, share and subscribe to the channel. If you want to learn more about this topic, I expand on it below as well as in my LinkedIn newsletter. That's all for now. More soon.