The MedTech Commercialization Mistake Teams Keep Making | Ayse Unsalan

If your commercialization team shows up after the big decisions are already locked, don’t act shocked when the product struggles in the market. Talk to Bill.

- Bill Schick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/founderandcdo/

In this episode of LifeSci Continuum, I sit down with Ayse Unsalan, global medtech commercialization and product strategy leader, to talk about why strong products still stall in the market. We dig into the hidden cost of silos, why commercialization teams too often inherit decisions they did not shape, and why clinical value alone is not enough to drive market adoption.

Connect with Ayse Unsalan to continue the conversation on medtech commercialization, product lifecycle strategy, and market adoption.

- Ayse Unsalan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayse-unsalan-ab11a743/

00:00 Why great medtech products still fail in the market
01:10 Ayse Unsalan’s background in medical device commercialization
02:58 Why successful teams focus on the problem, not the product
04:48 How silos break product launches in medtech organizations
07:47 Why cross-functional teams must align early
12:11 Why commercialization must be involved from day one
16:08 The danger of falling in love with your product
18:56 How bad assumptions kill pricing and market success
21:33 Clinical value vs market adoption explained
25:06 Why great products fail without financial and operational value
30:23 A real failure story from trying to build the “perfect product”
33:36 Why startups fail without commercial strategy
37:56 The biggest mistakes teams make too late in development
41:11 Feature-focused vs value-driven product strategy
45:46 What “relevance” really means in medtech

Too many medtech teams assume that if the product is clinically strong, the market will figure itself out.

Cute theory. Often dead wrong.

In this episode, I talk with Ayse Unsalan about the commercialization failures that happen long before launch. Drawing on nearly two decades in medical device marketing, portfolio strategy, and product lifecycle leadership, Ayse explains why successful products are usually backed by successful teams, not just clever engineering.

We get into what happens when cross-functional teams stay trapped in silos, why timing matters more than many organizations want to admit, and how commercialization teams are often forced to inherit decisions around indication, price, value proposition, and evidence long after those decisions should have been challenged.

Ayse also lays out one of the most useful distinctions in medtech: clinical value may get you access to the market, but adoption is what keeps you there. That means teams have to think beyond features and superiority claims and focus on whether the product creates real clinical, operational, and financial value for the full system around the user.

If you work in medtech and you’re still treating commercialization like the last mile instead of a strategic input from day one, this episode is for you.

#MedTech #MedicalDevices #Commercialization #ProductStrategy #GoToMarket

Transcript

0:00

What is the commercial plan? We should focus what value we are bringing. This is solving a specific disease. Perfect. But how much it's going to cost? Is it possible to have a sustainable business production to reach this patient? I'm obsessed actually with the patient getting the solution. In this episode of LifeSci Continuum, I sit down with Ayse Unsalan to talk about why strong medical device products still fail in the market. We get into the commercialization gap, the danger of siloed teams, and why clinical value is not enough to drive adoption. Value proposition is what we have to manage. And if I end up with lack of evidence, this is the biggest pain, not having the evidence to position the product in the market. If you're building, launching, or leading a medical device product team, this episode gets into the stuff that makes or breaks success. Looking at the problem, you can tell why you are building this product. I used to tell the engineers, "I don't necessarily care." What matters is there is a disease and this is what we are trying to solve. But if you bring an additional competitive edge, right, a unique value proposition, it might offer some additional value. All right, let's go. Ayse, thanks for joining me today. It's great to see you again. So I'm excited to talk to you about commercialization. Your background is in global commercialization and product leadership. For the listeners and viewers, give us a little bit of your background and some of the experience that led you here today. Yeah, I have a quite long background in medical device, like quite close to 20 years, I would say across the different regions. I started in the country, moved to cluster, moved to region, moved to global and across downstream and upstream marketing roles so that I gained kind of 360 degree view of the marketing and business. background, you've worked at Getinge, you're now at Olympus. What areas do you think you've been closest to portfolio launches evidence strategy pricing? All of them, but if you ask what was most interesting and most challenging, I would say it was portfolio strategy in general and also the business cases because we had a big liability to build the business cases and provide a strong forecast. What part of that work do you find the most enjoyable, do think? Enjoyable? I would say most of it, but maybe more the research part where you bring more market intelligence, where you bring more analytical skills on the table. I find it's more interesting and also most challenging. So today we're going to talk a little bit about commercialization, you know, and working with different groups and silos actually within organizations. With your background and experience, know, in vascular and endovascular work and therapy, what is a common pattern that you see, you know, with product wins versus products stalling out? I wouldn't describe it as a successful product or solid product, but the successful teams behind the products. These teams have usually a common aspect, which is looking at the problem rather than looking at the solution. On top of this, timing is important. These teams, believe they are more mindful about the timing when to launch. and being mindful about the go-to-market timing strategies, those are quite crucial to be successful, what I have seen especially in the endovascular field last decade. So thinking about that, one of the threads there is taking a problem first approach rather than being super hyper focused on, I built a great product. I'm to spend a lot of time just focused on the success of the product and being more customer centric and solution centric. Yes, because looking at the problem, you can tell why you are building this uh product, right? The product solutions are, they exist because there is a problem exists, right? So that's why there are different ways to solve a problem. So I used to tell the engineers, okay, I don't necessarily care if you are going to bring me a tube, right? So it might be completely different product. What matters is there is a disease. And this is what we are trying to solve, right? So we are trying to help to treat. You talked a little bit about working in a big matrix organization. I imagine that commercialization in that environment is even more challenging than, you know, like a startup that's focused on, it's a, it's a small team. have, you know, one or two, a handful of products. What is it like? Talk a little bit about that. Yes, startups, I believe they have their own challenges because usually they even don't have a commercialization team and approach, right? So, but in the big metrics organizations, commercialization is crucial. It's in the heart of the organization, but sometimes we are left in silos, right? So, and we find ourselves just inheriting the decisions. We were not necessarily involved. So I think the biggest challenge in the metrics organization is to manage. removing the silos and managing these teams coming together and working in a cross-functional team manner. That's, that's, I see it in different organizations. see this as, this has been a big challenge. in an organization like that, what do the silos look like? What's been your experience there? There are several silos, how it looks like is, let's say if it's about the product launch, what commercialization needs is mainly the timing, right? So everything, the timing is like in the beginning, I said, successful teams are very mindful about the time. And if we are left alone, not knowing whatever is delayed, this is one of the very major side, right? So if we don't know what is really happening in the kitchen, So you can just think about the restaurant, how we operate. So if the chef is not going to cook on time, all these orders, so then the waiter in the service will have a challenge, right? So we are the customer facing teams, right? So as the commercialization, and this is kind of putting us in big troubles and also the reputation of the company moving forward. Have you had an experience where this is sort of broken down that you could share? I think it's very common because in medtech, it's inevitable having the delays, right? So there are a lot of components in a product launch, not necessarily a launch, even in a commercial product, right? So there are things happening in different functions and we may not be aligned, right? So, and we need to have a common strategy because in the end the purpose is the same, right? So we have sales targets. we have to achieve for the company to successful and regardless they are commercial or not, they will be getting the rewards based on the commercial success. So this is, I think the way to break the silos in a way is bringing these teams, understanding what is the ultimate purpose and what is the commercial plan. And when the teams really understands not necessarily overarching values of the company like saving lives, etc. So what we are trying to teach you, how we will be successful to help the customers to save lives. What I'm wondering from you is in a matrix organization or larger organization, do you see there are particular groups or silos that always blew up the budget? I wouldn't say particular groups. I think this applies to all groups. In a way, we focus on what we're supposed to deliver. Let's say R &D has their data lines. We have our commercial targets. In a way, the corporate sets the targets, individual functional targets. Everyone is kind of rushing to hit their targets. That's why I mentioned the way to break might be really embracing the same targets. But one example, let's say we are working in a product development and in a development, you cannot just target and let the scientific affairs team or the uh design trial, right? So if they work in a silo to design a trial, at the end, the commercial team will end up with the launch with some evidence, which may not necessarily fit what we want to uh claim. So what is going to help us to sell a product is bringing some values to customers. And to build these values, we need to be involved in the early stages of uh clinical trial design. This is an example. When these teams work in silos, they don't belong into the same team. We need to seamlessly integrate to each other. It's kind of difficult, and many organizations struggle. We are also trying to find solutions, right? Constantly building cross-functional team, building agile teams. But I would say it is not intentional because in a way we have a tendency to focus on what is passed to us, right? So what our function exists for. This is kind of a neutral tendency, I would say. But there are ways to break and it's also a matter of education, like bringing these cross-functional themes together, working for one single purpose. It's not easy, but it is the ideal world. So with those challenges in mind, what have you seen work? What are some, you know, whether they're big overarching changes or just kind of small interpersonal things, what have you seen work to bring those teams closer together? To me, I have a great example. When I was hired for a senior product management position in the US, I thought I was the right candidate. I was pulled kind of for this position because I was bringing some clinical intelligence, right? So from the clinical uh partner's perspective. But interestingly, I was interviewed by a cross-functional team, including the R&D. And the first thing the R&D interviewer asked me was, told me was, you have to be my best friend if you want this job. Right. So I think this was a very visionary approach, right. So to hire a marketer in a product development teams, product strategy, portfolio strategy team, because we are kind of inseparable, right. So the commercial part, marketeer part and R&D part and the clinical part. supposed to come together. in some organizations, we may not have the doctors, but we have the consultants, right? So to select which consultants going to fit for the specific project, it's also a market intelligence. So this is what we bring to these projects. And I think this was a kind of first time I experienced, and I think this is a very visionary way to bring the teams together because I believe the success is also related within these teams, bringing like technical, clinical, commercial, savvy people together, but in a team where people trust and respect each other. I think trust and respect, that's why even in the hiring process involving this cross-functional interview was a kind of very interesting and successful decision, I would say. You would mention too, when working in silos, commercial teams can be treated kind of as the last mile service versus being a strategic partner and that you're not always involved in the strategy early on. And so you end up inheriting decisions that you didn't help define. Talk about that a little bit. In a way, the understanding about the commercialization is we are in charge of commercialization of the product to sell the product, right? So to promote the product, but how we will achieve this. Like if you give me a product just because it's a nice green, how I'm going to sell this. that's, that's, that's, this requires to, for us to be successful in the commercial side. This requires to have some. involvement in the earlier decisions, right? So which includes the product requirement, what kind of product is required, right? So, and we also have a person mindset to look around us, not like because this is about the vision you have. If you are sitting in a lab, you can be the best scientist to develop the best product, right? So, but then you need the peripheral vision, need a wider vision to understand what is happening in the market because I don't believe we are looking for the best technology, right? So always, of course, best technology is desired. But what I try to say, this technology may not work, may not fit to the reality of the market, right? So we need to understand what market looks for and then how market will evolve, right? So which players will be in there, right? So this market research is not easy. can spend millions to the consultants, research companies, but we all know it is not the final final. This is all expectations, forecasts. We are utilizing our equipment to validate some research right after paying millions to this research. So this requires a holistic view, right? So I think when you merged these teams earlier, rather than late like during the commercialization. If you bring this intelligence earlier, you can develop maybe the right product for the market considering the timelines because in MedTech, we are also looking up to 10 years sometimes, right? So to commercialize a product from the day you start a project, it might take 10 years, right? Depends on the product obviously, but it's a long journey. Right. And I think you make a good point. Not many companies have millions of dollars to spend on market research. However, they can do things at a smaller scale. But I think the important takeaway, too, is that you actually do your due diligence. You look at what's happening in the market, whether you have $1,000 or millions of dollars. You need to do the work. I might have exaggerated with the millions but I think like even spending a couple of hundreds for a big medtech it's it's it's it's a big pocket right in your marketing budget but still you will not get the perfect answer right so you that's why it requires a multifunctional effort to bring the right right forecast that's why I said in the beginning for me most interesting and most challenging part was the dignity of a business case because we are liable. We are providing a forecast looking ahead minimum 20 years, right? So because you are preparing a 10 years forecast, if the product will be launched 10 years later, you have to guess what's going to happen in 20 years, which products will be, which therapies will be in the market, right? And not necessarily population-wise, right? So it might be easy to guess the aging population, which diseases will be, but this is also hard because we don't know which kind of solutions will come to some major diseases, right? So this is always a bet and we have to have the best bet in this forecast and the business case. the things I like to stress with my clients who often they have a product that they've created, it's their baby, they love it. um And they just want to market it. But they don't want to necessarily invest in market intelligence and looking at those projections and what the future might look like. They just want to move, move, move. So I appreciate the idea of doing your due diligence and owning that projection. That makes a lot of sense to me. Actually, we all love our babies, right? Either ugly or beautiful. I call it like falling in love or even not falling in love. Maybe it's very strong, like product infatuation, right? So we have an emotional connection either as a startup. I see with the startups as well, but even with the major products, then we have a great solution, great product, which is also, you know, acknowledged by the, by the societies. Then you have such a confidence in your product and it even strengthens this infatuation. But I see this might become a trap, right? So moving forward, it might just blind you what is happening around, right? So we need to still continue to look around what is next. Let's go back for a moment though. Tell me little bit more about inheriting decisions that maybe you didn't have a chance to shape. What have you seen there? How does that manifest? There are so many examples, but one just pops in my mind. It's the willingness to pay, right? So this is how you like very, one of the essential pillars of a business case. So you assume an ASP expect, you know, average selling price based on the research you have done about the willingness to pay. This may not be the reality when you come to the commercialization phase, right? So. And I have examples that we face with the fact that this business cases turn negative, right? So then you cannot prove the return of investment or even the forecast. But these decisions have been made and these assumptions based on these assumptions, we end up inheriting a decision based on X um ASP. But this X may not be the reality and then the business case will not realize um because we cannot achieve the expected forecast maybe targets. You're inheriting decisions, right? Somebody else before you or earlier in the chain, however you got there, made a decision and now you're responsible for the outcomes. I think I would struggle to support that if you hadn't been part of the decision-making process and the strategy. Yeah, another example, strong one actually. So you are developing a product and you go through the approval process, but you might end up with the wrong indication. If you don't have the real market voice and understanding of what market needs, I was in a position trying to sell a product without an indication. So which means your hands are... completely tied. You can't do so. This is a decision taken maybe five, 10 years ago before you start the trial phase, right? So before, I don't mean filing the FDA for the FDA or the CE mark, but it starts when you start designing your trial. That's why it's kind of, I keep bringing up this involvement requires to start from the day one. Right. was listening to that and thinking through with a company that I worked with years and years ago. um We did some voice of customer work and customers wanted the company to expand the application of this particular product to, you know, to different markets. The company though uh was infatuated with developing a solution that would put it in line with a competitor and make it very direct one-to-one competition. And as a small company that has a unique solution that nobody else has, a unique technology, um in the market, the customer is asking specifically for you to expand this to other areas. And you ignore that and instead um basically try to turn your product into a me-too product. And then you're responsible for the growth of that. that product line and the market doesn't want it because they already have a solution that does that. On top of it, you are eroding the value of the previous product, right? So because you are causing this product becomes a commodity. But if you bring an additional competitive edge, right? A unique value proposition, it can be a feature, right? A basic feature, might change the, the, the offer some additional value, right? Either an operational value or a clinical value, right? To the, to the customers. Not necessarily. Sometimes we also stuck like, um, What value we want to bring? Value is not necessarily clinical value, right? So we have to think who we are trying to relate ourselves. I mean, what do you wish product teams understood really better about the difference between clinical value and market adoption? Yeah, very simple way to say clinical value is just your permission to enter a room. But adoption means it's the permission to stay in the room, right? So this is the room. I mean the market, right? So access to market. If the R&Ds, like in the beginning of the project, at least the R&D teams are focusing from different perspective how we will access the market, right? So first, how we will make this approved and the market access. But access is not enough for the adoption, right? So because you supposed to stay in this market for this project to become real, right? Because I also want to say, it is a scientific project, right? So an art can be for art sake, but science is for humanity. And at the end, you are not bringing anything to humanity if you are not staying in the market. I see this quite a bit with smaller companies, um particularly clinicians who have seen a problem in practice and they decide to solve the problem. They develop a product and they expect that people will simply just buy it because they solved the problem. And I think one of things you and I have talked about before is that you're not just selling that product to other people just like you. you're selling your product into a system and you need the people within that system to adopt, you know, to not create friction and not block that product from being adopted into whether it's a, you know, the healthcare system, a specific hospital. Reimbursement. Yeah. Do you want to weigh in on that? Actually, I want to just reinforce what you said. I think like I find myself and my colleagues, we are like a privileged group of people because we are working with super intelligent people, right? So including the clinicians and R&D people, right? So I feel myself, I'm super privileged, finding myself sitting together with most esteemed surgeon in the world and brilliant. engineer working together, right? So I think in a way, this also clouds some judgments because these people are really extremely intelligent and visionary sometimes, right? And they see there is a problem and they have a solution. But these solutions, like we discussed, may not have a place in the market. So we have to make sure because those are expensive long term projects and This is important. We are contributing in the science and the humanity. This is how I see my role in the society, right? And my function is to make sure this is gonna work. If it's not gonna work, there might be ways to pivot the same project, right? So the idea not necessarily needs to be killed, but if we bring the commercial intelligence to these kinds of projects, then we might help. these bright people, right? So to pivot and make sure there will be commercial success, because if there is commercial, if there is no commercial success, there is no need to have an invention, even though it is a breakthrough. This is how I see it. Right, and that makes a lot of sense. You said something interesting, and you said, sometimes there's not a place in the market for this. Can you explain that? There's so many reasons we need to focus what value we are bringing. Okay. This is solving a specific disease, right? So perfect. But how much it's going to cost? Is it possible to have a sustainable business production to reach this patient? Because in the end, this product once upon a time was a prototype becomes a product gets the FDA, but still needs to reach the patient. And the financial obviously barriers are quite high. So if we don't reach to some threshold to achieve the economies of scale, so it is really hard to run this business and to, that's why I keep talking about commercial success. It's not like an obsession about commercial success. I'm obsessed actually with the patient getting the solution, right? So, but I have to think how the patient will get this solution because there are... brilliant solutions out there because I have been also involved in investigations of little startups during M&A processes and it amazes me. It amazes me because there are brilliant ideas but we have to make sure this is feasible. The idea needs to bring a clinical value, operational value and financial value. We cannot just stuck to the clinical value unfortunately because it's all together. If a product is working, bringing a value, but physician may not prefer to use it because it might be super cumbersome, right? So the handling may not be good enough and the physician might prefer to go to good enough alternative rather than a perfect solution clinical wise for the patient, right? For the end patient. But if you don't address the needs of the operator, then your product still fails. There are different questions we asked before we start this prototype. You make a really great point in that a lot of companies in some different markets are looking at, they've developed the very best. We have the very best, most highly engineered solution out there. And we are going to bank the commercial success of this on the engineering of the solution when that high level of engineering is not what the market is looking for. And the market can succeed. you know, and accomplish whatever they're trying to do in treating a patient with a good enough solution. I think that that point can't be said enough because from my perspective, you know, I'm more downstream, a lot of times the market doesn't care about perfect. You know, they have to balance these variables and a good enough solution can often win when it checks more of the boxes along the way. And most importantly, while we define good enough, it doesn't mean it's not safe because safety is the baseline of in MedTech. So you have to prove the safety regardless. Good enough means it may not be the perfectly desired by like, because we also listen a lot to customers before doing this process. And sometimes I believe this also leads us to wrong directions. Like I'm going back to the timing, sometimes making the right decision, right time. trying to make it perfect, which will take you 15 years later to the market. This may not be the best solution, right? So we have to look again from the business lenses and what is the ideal? Can we make the iterations to make it close to perfect in the next steps, right? So because features can be always improved, but timing to the market also matters a lot, right? So that's why trying to, I see the teams I experienced that personally trying to perfect, make the product perfect and we are delayed. And back to the solution. Sometimes there are different ways just to make it shorter to the market time, to shorten the market time. You might even pivot the complete project, right? Because there are some products I have a lot of experience obviously with implants and implant. compared to non-implant, the time to market, there is a significant difference. Maybe we are talking maybe five years difference. Like bringing an implant to the market, it takes eight to 10 years. But if you have a tweak in a solution, rather than changing the implant, you can change maybe the delivery mechanism of the product and you can just provide similar benefits because... This is not about your product. Again, it's about what customer needs, what the problem is, what you are trying to solve. If you focus on the problem, you are not going to obsess with the best product, but you will be obsessed with solving the problem. And then you might come up with a shortcut solution. And I experienced that they were quite successful and I was in the part of the failure. Yeah, actually the story is. I was in a team trying to make the perfect product. That's why I genuinely share my experience because I was there and this was a wrong decision because we were late to market while our main competitor pivoted the project and came up with a solution which was not an implant but was addressing exactly the same customer needs, right? So at the end, I learned in a very hard way. going back time travel a little bit, what do you think you would coach yourself back then to do if you knew what you knew now? Would you do differently? I would go back to my cross-functional team and do this exercise. What is the problem? What are the alternatives? Which competitors that we can see, right? So are working on which projects? So then what are their possible go to market times and what are our targets, right? So if there is a gap, it is no brainer. You need to change your strategy. I... would love to go back and do this exercise with our cross-functional team to pivot this project. It's important to talk about our failures, but we prefer to bury our failures. The best way to learn is the failures. So that's why I'm super passionate about this topic now, because we need to learn from our failures. Failing is, it's okay, you know. but we should not fail next time, right? So I just want to really help people, for them not to fail Iike I did. Yeah. I mean, we try not to fail, but when we do, as long as we learn from it and we don't do the same thing again, that's, it's really for the best. Have you ever been pulled into a program where you felt like it was too late and, and you were kind of locked into a situation where it was just, it was going to be really hard to succeed or win? Many times, right? So because let's say I was in charge of major products, right? So in that case, you were never a decision maker how this product will be designed. But then my position was obviously based on the market condition to reposition the product, right? So based on what is coming, what you have repositioning the existing major product was the solution, but We are always late with some decisions, right? It depends on when you enter to an organization, when you take a responsibility, right? You will be always, I think you will be always late and there will be a need to push the limits to find a solution because there are solutions, even you end up with, you know, product with very little evidence, right? So then you are gonna push for the evidence. bringing the evidence in the shortest terms. That would be the focus. I would say, I think commercial teams usually we are always late in the decisions or we inherit the products. Why do you think it's just how it is? Why do you think that's a rule? Again, it's back to the silos because in general, R&D teams and the commercial teams are not together. So there are different ways to work together. But if you look at the startups, I don't see a commercial partner when I look at the startups. I meet people, brilliant people, an engineer married with a cardiologist. They have a bright product, right? And they want to sell this product to some incumbents, right? Perfect. It's really inspiring what they are trying to do. But the basic questions I'm asking as a commercial partner, they have no clue, right? So they don't answer what these incumbents, potential buyers, potential founders will be asking to them. in a way, I see startups have the biggest problem because they usually don't have these partners. They don't see this necessity. They don't understand. they don't see the necessity because I see it's like an iceberg, right? So, and then you look at the researchers, like uh 75 to 90% of the prototypes never see a patient, right? So there are like, some of them must be really breakthroughs, right? So, and I have been in the industry for quite long time. And when I look at all the startups I investigated, some of them acquired by big medtech, they were not necessarily successful. Some of them were really successful, right? So I keep an eye on all these startups that I have investigated all my life. And I also, you know, like look at the new startups because in a way we have to look at the startups to foresee the indirect threats, right? So in a way, looking at startups, it's inevitable for us. And that's why it's kind of my hobby interest, let me say. And I see when I talk to them, they don't have a commercial, um, savings, uh, in general. But when we look at the organizations, like I do work, right. So big metrics organizations, this is about the setup. This is about, uh, this is about the silos, you know, like in a way also in the same organization, I work very. closely with R&D or in the same company, I may not have the same experience because it's about the time periods. It's about who is managing these teams, right? So then the personalities come to the picture. And I think we are just creating silos and not making it work. em Organizations are like humans. From the behavioral perspective, it's we are like, however we behave in our life, however we act, organizations are. exactly like humans. Yeah, I mean well, I mean we are we are humans and you're right uh they consist of humans, right? But the reactions, right? So we call them Apple, right? We call them Netflix. It's a brand, it's a company, but I see the way they behave, or a medtech company, like a human. We have our own egos, have our own emotions, we have our own inner fights and these are kind of clouding our judgments. There's a whole science around, you know, the human element, the behavioral uh parts of organizations and getting them, just trying to get people rowing in the right direction, in the same direction. And there are a lot of efforts, especially in the corporate world, right? To make it work. And there are times it works, it doesn't, because it's all human dependent, right? So it's all about us. And I still believe if we can build the trust within these teams and respect and trust, these are like coming together. And then things are working pretty well. And this product becomes successful in the market. sort of following up on the line of thought about being pulled into programs maybe later than you would like or too late. What are some examples of some things that you've seen that have been locked in place that have made your job harder? Indication, price, market assumptions, and the value propositions, right? The value proposition we also inherit initially, especially at the time of the launch, right? And it may not be real value, which will sell, it might be missing. And I think marketing is about not necessarily, I can call like, okay, we are managing the product life cycle, but we are managing the value proposition throughout the product life cycle. So at the time of the launch, you have a value proposition during the maturity based on the evidence you generate, based on the therapy changes, competition. You constantly maintain this data. value proposition is what we have to manage. If I end up with lack of evidence. This is the biggest pain, I would say, for a marketeer, not having the evidence to position the product in the market. And this evidence is not necessarily clinical, right? So operational, financial, these three elements, these three pillars needs to be well taught for the successful commercialization. That was a lot that you can get pulled into too late. is a lot, you know, that is not like a single example. If I keep thinking most probably I will bring like tens of examples, but like very high level, I would say because from the marketing perspective, very high level is the value proposition, evidence, uh willingness to pay. Those are like the crucials because these are the main pillars letting us to be successful or not. One area that I focus on quite a bit is value creation. Like what are we delivering to the market that's of value and preferably unique value? know, there isn't... I don't think very many of us like to work on a me-too product. um And so... It's not fun. Well, yeah. And I don't think any... I don't think most people sit down and say, okay, hey, we should build another one of those. uh And be that people, you I think a lot of people want to and are focused on solving real problems and so um interpreting and developing a value creation is easier in those situations where there's that intention early on to deliver value to the market, not I have an idea for a thing and I'll just make that and expect that the market will just adopt it, you know, and so this idea of like a just making a better product, you know, that's ill-defined. It's not really a strategy. uh And it sounds like you're an advocate, shocker, that commercialization, that marketing should be part of the conversation very early on. Indeed. What has been your experience as far as the kind of the differences and the challenges there in working with people who are very feature-focused as opposed to being market or or needs focused. Feature focus, it's like a tendency in medtech, right? So in general, even the marketeers language is like about the features, right? So because this is what our customers really understand, right? They are scientists and they want us to be explicit, right? So we have a tendency to talk about features. It's, I think, across the board, not necessarily starting with R&D. And there is an explanation because this is what customer wants. don't necessarily agree because in the end, what is in it for the customer? This is how we define the value proposition, why the product matters or why this feature matters for this customer, right? So this is the mindset I want to reach, right? So, and it is hard, you know, I challenge myself every day whenever I have new product, it's quite challenging, right? This is an exercise and it's like, and especially when you stuck like with the features and especially if you have really a good product, right? So you kind of have this feeling that how like you are good, right? So knowing that this is good, it's also blinding you in a way because I don't, it's kind of a superior, it's a feeling, right? So, and you are looking at the market, I'm the best. And this, I am by far the best, right? And I can bring, this is making us kind of proud. and kind of blinding all of us. So it's called institutional blindness, right? So we teach about this in the schools and we train people. But when we come to the workshops, when we come to our own projects, it's hard to open this mind, right? So I several times try to bring external, suggest bringing externals to open our minds because I get blinded too. because I believe this product is by far the best, right? And we are in a way inspired by the physicians to create this product with these features, right? fall in love with our products, like our solution. We spent the time, we spent, you know, sometimes years going through this journey and developing a solution to a problem or a product. And, you know, as we go about that, we get locked in. You know, we get really invested. We become proud of it. You know, it is our baby. And it's easy to close out. inputs that might fundamentally change what your product is because, I mean, this is yours, you made it. And no one is going to tell you to change it or make it differently. And for, I think, larger organizations, it makes that thinking in some of the different silos can make pivots harder, you know, responding to some of the commercialization. um components that you talked about earlier. When you get new data in that says that maybe you need to move this thing a different way, um some of that blindness you talk about can make it hard to make those adjustments. harder or sometimes unnecessary, right? Because it's also a perception. As the company, as these all individuals across the company, we believe it's not necessary, right? So when you are so proud, when you are so uh obsessed with this success, you are blinded in a way you don't see what is necessary, what might be coming because right now everything might be peaceful, good. But like we constantly have this vision, like looking forward, right? So we have to constantly look next minimum 10 years, right? Depends on the product life cycle. It might be longer, shorter, but you have to in average look at 10 years. And if you're stuck with these features that you are really proud, you may not see what might be coming. That's also kind of a threat. It's kind of a trap. So you might enjoy for a while being the best. having a great solution, but in a way, sometimes it might be your enemy throughout the product life cycle. Just briefly, how do you define relevance in this space? um Who needs to find you relevant and why? Relevance in medtech has layers, right? So I focus on the stakeholders. Who are our stakeholders? We need to be relevant to the patient clinically. We need to be relevant to our stakeholders financially or founders. We need to be relevant to the customers financially, operationally, clinically, and also we need to be relevant to our employees, right? Co-workers. So. in many ways from the values perspective. So relevance has several layers. It's all about bringing the value to all the stakeholders we are touching, we have any kind of impact on. And I think we could dig into that more in another episode. I would love to. It was great to have you on today. Thank you for joining me and hopefully we'll hear from you again, but have a great night. 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.