Medsider: Learn from Medtech and Healthtech Founders and CEOs - Grit and the Power of Showing Up: Interview with Venture Capitalist Anish Kaushal

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

In this episode of Medsider Radio, we had a riveting conversation with Anish Kaushal, an ex-physician turned healthcare investor at Amplitude Ventures, one of Canada's leading healthcare VC firms. Anish's engagement with venture capital began at M Ventures in Amsterdam, a corporate VC fund of Merck KGaA, where he quickly developed a passion for the field. Outside of his professional pursuits, Anish is an avid reader and writer who has published over 900 articles and summarized 250 books across 50 categories. He has also authored two books, the latest of which is From Here To There: A Niche Guide to Navigating Career Transitions. In this interview, Anish reveals vital fundraising strategies from a VC’s perspective, offers practical tips for crafting pitch decks that capture attention, discusses why always being in the mode of seeking funds is so important, expands on the value of building extensive networks, and talks about the cumulative effect of small improvements. He also provides guidance on staying open and ready for career shifts in today’s fast-paced professional environment as outlined in his latest bookBefore we dive into the discussion, I wanted to mention a few things:First, if you’re into learning from medical device and health technology founders and CEOs, and want to know when new interviews are live, head over to Medsider.com and sign up for our free newsletter.Second, if you want to peek behind the curtain of the world's most successful startups, you should consider a Medsider premium membership. You’ll learn the strategies and tactics that founders and CEOs use to build and grow companies like Silk Road Medical, AliveCor, Shockwave Medical, and hundreds more!We recently introduced some fantastic additions exclusively for Medsider premium members, including playbooks, which are curated collections of our top Medsider interviews on key topics like capital fundraising and risk mitigation, and a curated investor database to help you discover your next medical device or health technology investor!In addition to the entire back catalog of Medsider interviews over the past decade, premium members also get a copy of every volume of Medsider Mentors at no additional cost, including the latest Medsider Mentors Volume V. If you’re interested, go to medsider.com/subscribe to learn more.Lastly, if you'd rather read than listen, here's a link to the full interview with Anish Kaushal.

You just keep showing up, like, again and again and again, where I think I read something recently that was like, you know, fall down seven times, stand up eight, and it's really this idea, especially in entrepreneurship in general, like your first one is not going to be success, your second one might not be, your third, your fourth, your fifth, your tenth may not be. But if you keep showing up, you keep trying, you keep innovating, you keep listening, you keep learning and reflecting on what you're doing, good things happen. Welcome to Medsider, where you can learn from the brightest founders and CEOs in medical devices and health technology.

Join tens of thousands of ambitious doers as we unpack the insights, tactics, and secrets behind the most successful life science startups in the world. Now, here's your host, Scott Nelson. Hey everyone, it's Scott. In this episode of MedSider, I sat down with An Niche Kishal, an exposition turned healthcare investor at Amplitude Ventures, one of Canada's leading healthcare VC firms. His engagement with venture capital began at MVentures in Amsterdam, a corporate VC fund of Merck, where he quickly developed a passion for the field. Anisha is skilled in scientific due diligence and well aware of the value of networking. Outside of his professional pursuits, Anish is an avid reader and writer who has published over 900 articles and summarized 250 books across 50 various categories.

Anish has also authored two books, the latest of which is titled from here to their a niche guide to navigating career transitions. Here for you the key things that we discussed in this conversation as it relates to raising venture capital. First, get to the bottom of the problem you're solving. Clearly define the gap. the solution, the regulatory process, and how it's going to be reimbursed. Show VCs that you're not improvising and that you have a well-considered roadmap with clear,

achievable milestones. Second, to make a memorable pitch deck, keep it short and clean. Know your audience. Personalize your pitch, include hard evidence, invest in design and readability, and deliver all of these in a story that resonates. Third, always be in fundraising mode. You don't always get an intro, so be proactive in approaching people and telling your story. Find them online and send them emails.

other players in the industry, as they often know the best opportunities. All right, before we jump into this episode, I wanted to let you know that the latest edition of MedSider Mentors is now live. We just published Volume 5, which summarizes the key learnings from the most popular medsider interviews over the last several months with incredible entrepreneurs like Gabriel Jones, CEO of Proprio, Kirsten Carroll, CEO of Can Do Health, Dr. David Alpert, founder of AliveCorp, Greg Bowington, CEO of Magnolia Medical, and other leaders of some of the hottest startups in our space. Look, it's tough to listen or read every interview that comes out, even the best ones.

But there are so many valuable lessons you can pick up from the founders and CEOs that join our program. So that's why we decided to create MedSider Mentors. It's the easiest way for you to learn from the world's best medical device and health technology entrepreneurs in one central place. To check out the latest volume, head over to MedsiderRadio.com forward slash mentors. Premium members get free access to all past and future volumes. If you're not a premium member yet, you should definitely consider signing up. In addition to every volume of Medsider mentors, you'll get full access to the entire library of interviews dating back to 2010. You'll also be able to see all of our playbooks, which are handpicked collections of the most insightful interviews with the brightest

founders and CEOs that join our program. Whether you're looking to master capital fundraising, navigate early stage development, tackle regulatory challenges, understand reimbursement, or position your venture for a meaningful exit, MedSider Playbooks have you covered. And last, considering that fundraising can be one of the most daunting tasks for any startup, we created a meticulous database of investors right at your fingertips. Explore a wealth of VC funds, private equity firms, angel groups, and more, all eager to invest in medical device and health technology startups. Access to this database is a premium member exclusive, so don't miss out.

Learn more about MedSider Mentors and our premium memberships by visiting Medsiderradio.com forward slash mentors. All right, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. All right, and Iish, welcome to Medsiter Radio. Appreciate you coming on, man. Thank you so much. I'm really excited about this. Yeah, yeah.

This is a little bit of a unique interview because most of the time as, you know, if you've been around MedSiter for a while, I typically have, you know, founders and CEOs of what I, you know, see to kind of series C med tech and health tech startups. I like to break my own rules a lot, right? Especially with, with folks that have really interesting backgrounds like yourself. So let's start there. I recorded a brief bio at the outset of this episode. but you're a physician turned VC, right, but also, you know, a prolific writer.

In fact, we'll talk a little bit about your most recent book. But yeah, let's start there. Give us kind of a high-level overview of your professional background leading up to kind of where you're at with Amplitude right now. Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, thank you so much. Super excited to be here. And thanks for giving me the opportunity to, you know, change the boundary a little bit and some of this a little unique.

So yeah, happy to, so in terms of my background. So from Canada, originally from Toronto, kind of born and raised, brought up here. and what happened for me was I originally thought I was going to go to medical school. And so, you know, was planning on being a doctor. That was kind of the path that was set out for me. And then when I was in high school, got really interested in business and this idea of like, you know, economic, particularly economics, like I took economics class and was just like, oh, this is really cool and different.

And so when I was applying to high school, out of high school and university, applied to a bunch of business programs, applied a bunch of science programs, got into a few places and then ended up getting to medical school in the UK. And so I thought, you know what, if I can get the opportunity to become a doctor and see where that takes me. I'm going to try and see where that goes. So I ended up moving into Scotland when I was 17, very young at the time, and it still kind of surprises me that I went all the way over there. And so I spent six years at university in Scotland. So I went to one place called University of St. Andrews, the home of golf, if people are golf fans, spent a little bit of

time there and definitely was a golfer. And then also spent three years at the University of Edinburgh. And so that was where I also did a bunch of clinical electives in Canada. So I worked at the hospital in Edmonton in Alberta for about four months. And then every summer I was coming back and doing research. So like clinical research, I was in labs and, you know, trying to sort of, you know, work on a bunch of clinical medicine problems. So I thought I was going to be a doctor. That was the goal. That was the plan. That was what I set out to do. And then as life happens for many people, it gets in the way and things change and stuff goes on. So when I was finishing my time in Alberta, this was sort of going to my final year of medicine. And I was applying to residency back in Canada.

So in order at that time to apply, you had to take two exams. So one of them was a clinical exam where, you know, you're assessing patients and sort of walking through different cases. And then another one was a multiple choice exam. And at the time, what I, the information I was told based on one of my professors was that, you know, we just need to pass both of them. That's it. You're all good. And once you do that, like, you have a good shot at getting in. Turns out that wasn't the case. And actually one of the exams that I did, I didn't do very well on. The other one I did really well, the OSCE, but the multiple choice one I didn't. And unfortunately, just the way the system worked at that time was that that was sort of the gating exam in order, like a threshold to kind of get in. And so even

even though I had like, you know, I had five first author publications. I went to medicine abroad. You know, I did all these things like, you know, in the summers, they didn't look at me. So I basically didn't get a residency job for a year. And so that was kind of like, okay, you know, I had a year out. And I was like, okay, what am I going to do in this time? And so at that time, I was also still kind of falling out of love with medicine. I just kind of realized, like it was very administrative. It was much more bureaucratic, very political, very much like a cookie cutter.

Like you have to do all these other things in order to kind of follow the path. And at that time, I was like, you know, if I can leave or if I can do something different, let me try that. So I ended up reaching out to actually people in sort of subsequent like sort of adjacent industries. Like I talked to a banker. I talked to a consultant. I talked to people in pharma. And I was like, hey, like, what do you guys do? What's it like? How do things go on? So I ended up speaking to them and all of them kind of gave me the same advice, which is like, go back to residency, finish your job and then kind of come talk to us. And I was like,

okay, I'm not so sure about that in my own head because I was like, why would I spend extra few years if I know I don't really want to do this? But okay, sure. Like, that's fine, no problem. And then I got to basically my end of my final year, finished exams, finished finals and it was had a year off. And I was like, what am I going to do? So at that time was the plan was actually to go back to school to do a degree in London. It was a one-year master's in drug discovery and farmer management. And yeah, I thought I was going to go. I met the program director, had a friend who went in, thought, you know, it was a great program. And then, so applied, I got into that. This was like, so I applied in like July and the program started

in October. So basically had like a month off or a couple months off to just basically figure out what I want to do. So at that time, I kept reaching out to folks, kept, you know, having conversations, cold emailing, talking to wherever. And everything went nowhere. So I think I applied to probably, I don't know, 75 to 100 jobs during that time, like, and literally just like didn't get anywhere. I mean, I got interviews, ended up getting interview with the bank. Jeffrey's actually in New York and then L.E.K. in London. And again, they were like, you know, unfortunately, you're not, you're not who we want. And I was like, okay, that's fine. It's all good. I totally get it. And then all of a sudden, my dad is like, hey, have you heard of this thing

called venture capital? And I, you know, I'm sure I don't know about you, but for me, it was one of those things that in medicine you definitely do not hear about and are aware of. And I was like, what the hell is a venture capital? Like, I, you know, I didn't know about that. And so, the only context I had for that was actually the show Silicon Valley, which was, you know, where, you know, all the tech guys. And I was like, oh, this is just in tech. My dad's like, no, it's actually in healthcare. I was like, I genuinely had no idea.

Like, never heard about it, thought about it, never came up across my thing. So basically, this was like a Sunday in August. And I basically looked up the top 75 VC firms around the world in healthcare. And I just called email them. I said, hey, my name's Anish. Like, I just graduated. I'd love to talk to you. If you're open to it, like, if not, no worries.

And as you can imagine, most people don't respond because that's how the world works. But a few people did. And I was really grateful that a lot of people got on the phone with me. Some people want me nice long messages. And then one group came back and it's like, hey, we actually have an internship. Are you interested? And I was like, of course I am. But, you know, I'd been rejected from 100 jobs.

So I was like, there's no way they're going to take me. Like just absolutely no chance. And so I went through three rounds of interviews with them. And the last day was actually two days before I was about to move to London because I still thought I wasn't going to get this job. And they're like, yeah, we really like you will see you in Amsterdam. And so as you can imagine, life changes very quickly again. So two weeks later, I got on a plane and moved to the Netherlands and never thought of my

wildest dreams I would ever get there or be there or live there and spent about seven months living there. I worked for a group called M Ventures. It was a corporate VC fund of Merck or EMD Serrano, as it's known in the U.S. So I was working with a corporate venture team there for six months on the therapeutic side, really interesting just to see what a corporate VC is like, how it works, how it operates. And then as I was finishing that, basically found out halfway through there like, you know, we really like you, but we don't have a job.

And so I was like, okay, my parents at the time were like, hey, you should go back to medicine. And in my head, I was like, absolutely not. I'm not going to do that. And so I basically done, again, cold emailed, reached out, talked to, I think 100 VCs in the span of a couple of months, just literally just through like sheer force and will and resilience. And then what happened was I ended up getting three final interviews with three different firms. One was in Germany. One was in SF. And then one was in Canada.

And I'd been away from home for seven years at that point. I was like, you know what? If I can come try to build something sort of back here at home and start something from the ground, that would be really cool. that would be really cool. So I ended up joining Amplitude. At the time, we didn't have any money. We didn't raise anything. And so I joined as an early employee.

Was there in 2019, helped raise the first fund, which was 200 million Canadian. And then the second fund, which were basically deploying out of now, which is 200 million US. So we're managing almost half a billion dollars at this point. And yeah,

I've been here for four and a half years, which is kind of crazy to me. And so kind of been in the venture world now for over five. So yeah, anyway, that's sort of the long-ish story about how I kind of got here. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like a couple of things that, like, I'm just kind of picking up on, you know, hearing you describe your background as one, you're just naturally curious, right, about a lot of things. And I think that's a common trend that I see with entrepreneurs across, you know, whether you're in the VC space, but obviously you're in, you know, functioning in entrepreneurial capacity. Yeah. But even with, you know, founder operators, right?

There are a lot of the best ones that I run into are naturally curious. But the other thing that's kind of funny, hearing you describe kind of just, like just grinding away, just constantly reaching out. Yeah. Do you know Marshaun Lynch? the football. Of course I do. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there's this, there's this funny clip where he's, um, he was at the super, like,

when the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl, he's being interviewed and he's like, I'm all about the action boss, you know, I'm all about that action. It was like a meme, I think that went around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think about that a lot, right? Because that's like, that's so crucial. So true. Like if you're, whether you're earlier on in your career or just like in the game of

startups is like momentum and action typically trumps almost everything, right? Oh my God, absolutely. And resilience too, to your point. I think that's the other thing to accept is. like, I think it's one of those things that you just kind of, like, it's almost the thing that you just keep showing up, like again and again and again, where I think I read something recently that was like, you know, fall down seven times, stand up eight. And it's really this idea, especially in entrepreneurship in general, like your first one is not going to be success. Your second one

might not be your third, your fourth, your fifth. Your tenth may not be. But if you keep showing up, you keep trying, you keep innovating, you keep listening, you keep learning and reflecting on what you're doing. Good things happen. And I think that, like, I mean, it's been really cool. Just, I mean, I look at my own journey sometimes and it's hard to believe that I'm even here because I don't even think about it. It's just one of those things you do. But even meeting to your point, other entrepreneurs and other people who are in venture, especially young folks, because I think it's one of those that it's really hard to get into this industry as you start out. But everybody I've seen and I've spoken to who's successfully gone through, they all have the same kind of like interesting path and interesting story of right, like showing up, always being there, always figuring it out as you go.

So yeah, I mean, I think the thing I always go back to as well is like, you know, none of us know what we're doing. We're all figuring out as we go every day. But if you keep showing up and keep trying, good things can happen. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I was actually listening. And we'll get to the substance kind of a conversation. here in a bit. But I was listening to this podcast yesterday. It's my first million with Sean Perry. Yeah, yeah. Of course. And Sean was describing, like, where he's

at from a framework perspective with startups. And he's like, the thing that I keep gravitating, you know, back towards is this idea of like, to be successful in a startup, it's about the six, the six inches in front of your nose, right? Yeah. You can just keep showing. Can you saw the front? Yeah, yeah. Six inches in front. And it's like, I think there's a, there's a, what was the movie. It's like any given Sunday where he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the next six yards in front of you or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, it kind of reminded me of that a little bit. But yeah,

good stuff. So I guess to kind of set the stage for everyone listening, we're going to, we're going to, like, the bulk of this conversation is going to be going to be centered around two kind of two things. The first half is getting just kind of an inside glance, peek behind the current, you know, VCs. Like what you, what you typically like see, do interact with, etc.

And we'll kind of go step by step. And the goal being that if you're listening to this, you're either a founder or a CEO or involved in a startup, you have a sense for kind of like once you send a niche, a DAC or whatever, like, how does this stuff work behind the scenes? You know, how's the, how's the sausage sort of made? And then, and then, you know, maybe the back of the conversation here will focus a little bit more on your recent book, which talks about career transitions, which I think is crucial. I think, because a lot of people that are listening to Medsiter are typically, one, interested in startups, but they're at a, they're out of big company. They're out of strategic, getting paid fairly well, right? And they want

do you want to do something a little bit more interesting, but they're afraid to make that lead. They don't know what the transition is going to look like. So we'll kind of focus on that. Yeah, absolutely. But let's start with kind of talking about the world of VCs, right? And what it's like to kind of sit in your shoes. I want to ask you some detailed questions here in a second. But just real quick on amplitude.

You mentioned you're investing out of a second fund, I think right now. Right now. Give us a sense for kind of where you typically invest, what stage, what your typical check sizes, et cetera. Yeah, happy to do that. So yeah, so amplitude, so as I mentioned, got started a couple of years ago. We're now on our second fund, which is about 200 million US, investing in about, I would say, 12 to 15 companies, primarily focused on biotech. We're primarily a biotech investor. I would say about 75% of our capital, kind of 80% going towards that. And then the rest of the 20% we call what we call other. So medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, digital therapeutics, AI and machine learning as well. And I would say even within that scope, like at the firm itself, just given my background as a clinician, anytime we have a sort of device,

or diagnostic or sort of other category, it tends to get sent to me. So I've seen a lot of them over the course of the last few years. I always found it really interesting because to me, I always think of it as a like, how are you solving a real problem like that a clinician faces, not just like a technologist, not just like a nice to have, not just like a, oh, you know, this is like a little bit different shape when it's currently there. But like, how does this fit in terms of a physician and somebody at the end who would actually use this?

And not only how would they use it, but how would you also get paid for that? Because I think that's the other thing with sometimes device companies that people just highly underestimate is like a lot of the risk in my perspective is not just necessarily on the building the product, but it's really like commercializing. And you see a lot of companies fall to where they just don't have some of the commercial scale. So that's in terms of sense of like how we look at or how I look at companies, at least on the device side, it's really that perspective. So it's definitely more, a bit more later stage companies, companies that have approved products, companies that have like, you know, five to 10 million revenue so far,

but really they're trying to grow and scale into sort of their next phase of what they're doing. Those are ones that are more interesting to us. But that means, like I said, I've I've seen everything from pre-seed, C, A, B, everything. In terms of check size of how we do it, we typically invest kind of five to 10 million U.S. initially can be later, depending on if it's a later round. Also, we do a bunch of company creation, mostly on the biotech side where we have like a venture studio,

sort of internally in amplitude. And so we've started creating companies for the last few years. A couple of them actually have just been announced recently. But that's more on the bio side. So on the METTech side, like, yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, like we are and it's within scope for us to invest in biotech, sorry, MedTech and diagnostics and everything, but finding opportunities is pretty tough. And so that's why for us, we're just kind of much more selective. So yeah, that's a little bit

about what we do. But in terms of like my experience and exposure, I mean, like I mentioned, like within our firm, sort of every med tech and diagnostics and digital opportunity gets sent my way. So I've definitely seen a few of them and have definitely some opinions and ideas on them. Got it. Got it. Sounds good. And then we'll get to this in the second part of the conversation, but just quickly touch on your most recent book again, because you got, you got, you You're like I mentioned earlier, you're a prolific writer on your, I mean, you've got like a blog with endless number of pieces, but most recently just kind of give us a high level summary of the book and, you know, I want to just kind of set the stage for that part of the conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I wrote a book for folks called from here to there. It was basically called the niche guide to career transitions. And essentially it was the idea of like I went through, as I mentioned in the story at the top, right? Like there was many different ebbs and flows to my life in terms of, you know, starting in one place and the up and many others. And I just found that as I was going through that, like, there was no good resource that I could go to or refer to.

And more a resource that like, one goes through logistics, like, how do you actually execute on changing careers? Like not the like theoretical, oh, it's nice to have. This is nice to do. But like genuinely, like, what are the steps? What do you have to go through? How do you have to talk to people? How do you set up a resume?

How do you do LinkedIn? All of this stuff. But then also not just that, but more of the emotional side of things. Because I think some people just highly underestimate. And even for me, my perspective is like the story and the emotions that you deal with that are almost more difficult than actually logistics. because, I mean, I can tell you, right, Scott, I can say like, hey, here's how you do your resume, here's your doing like, okay, that's helpful. But really the like fear, the guilt, the shame,

the like, you know, criticism, the like, you know, getting questions and conversations with family and friends and partners and like kids. And it's, they're big changes, right? Like to make a transition and to move or to travel or to do anything is not an easy thing. And so I think the story or really the reason for writing the book was one, logistically, how do you do it? But two, like, what are the emotional steps you go through? Because, I mean, as you can imagine, leaving from medicine to go into venture, talking to parents, talking to family, talking to friends, not the easiest thing, especially when everybody's, you know, what, what are you doing? Like, you're in medicine.

What, what was that? So, yeah, that was kind of the genesis for the book. And, yeah, super happy with it so far because, like, the goal being is just like, you know, I find so many people today feel very stuck where they are where, you know, exactly what you said, they may be at a company. They may have a great job. They may be getting paid well, but they're super bored. Don't feel like they're improving anything.

Don't feel like they're kind of, you know, wasting away almost. And it's like, hey, there's a lot of opportunity out there and a lot of different things. And if you take initiative and you try for different things, as we mentioned before, like a lot of really good things can happen. So, yeah, that was the sort of genesis of the book. But yeah, we're happy to touch on it sort of laid on the conversation. Sounds great. I love the title, by the way, right?

Thank you. Working in the Anish as a father of five. I can appreciate funds quite a bit. So all right, let's start. That's a good overview. And just for everyone listening, Amplitudevc.V.com is the website for the VC firm that Anish works for. And then we'll, of course, link to Anish's personal site. as well in the full write-up on Medsiter that you can you know you can check out his blog

which is very very robust as well as the the book that we're going to be talking about as well so with that said let's spend maybe the next 15 minutes or so talking about kind of the world of VC ideally this is as helpful as possible right for other founders and CEOs that are that are especially in the throes of fundraising right because it's no no no easy feet no easy heat yeah yeah for sure so let's I guess let's start kind of in the beginning if I if I don't know you, right, Anish, and maybe I'm in biotech, right? Just kind of a little bit more in your warehouse or take any other VC for that matter. I don't have a direct connection with you. So someone can't make the referral, et cetera. But I think amplitude might be potentially

a good fit for what I'm working on. What's the best way to kind of get your attention? Like, what do you prefer? What's maybe things to avoid versus things that we should kind of lean into. What's your, let's start there. Yeah. So definitely a few things. So again, let's start with the context of to your point. Like you don't know me. You're not able to get an intro. it's really sort of hard to get to. So like how do you how do you flag or sort of come with that idea? I think one obviously pitch deck is sort of the most important is in terms of like what are you looking for? How are you formatting it? To me in terms of like best practices or ones that I see is when it shouldn't be very long. I would say like maybe 10 to 15

slides max. It shouldn't be a lot of text on each slide because it shouldn't be too dense. It should be very quick. It should really kind of describe like the way I think about it is like what is the problem that you're solving. How are you doing it? And why is it better than what everybody else is doing. Basically, the goal being is you want to just get a second, you want to, you want them to follow up and get a second interview. Like that is really the key to kind of that first introduction. Because I've seen a lot of folks who reach out and it's like, you know, also the other thing is email is everybody's busy. We don't have time to read like page long emails because I've gotten like two page emails. And then you look in the deck as like 40 slides and I'm like, this is not going to work.

This is just not. This is just not it. So I think for me it's like, you know, it's what's the tagline? What's the problem you're solving? How does, why is your solution? quite a better. And then to me, honestly, on the biotex side, I think MedTech is a similar, depending on what stage you are, is really data, right? It's really like showcasing like, okay, this is why we're proving that what we're doing is unique and differentiated. I think a lot of it honestly is like, it's one of those things where I mean, I've had conversations about it this week where like, I think just the power of storytelling is so underrated and is essentially the skill that I think, I mean, even myself as a VC, but anyone in general,

like, if you can tell a really good story and understand what that person is looking for, it is so helpful. And I think the other. thing that people need to remember is like, I think you need to do homework in your research on like, you know, who are you reaching out to? What's their background? What did they invest in? Listen to like them on podcasts like this, but also like, you know, go and see have they talked in other places. Do you know, do you know what somebody is at the firm? What's their background looks like? Just because, I mean, there's other people that reach out and it's like, oh, you know, we're developing a, you know, food marketplace software and your company looks

really good for it. And it's like, okay, this person clearly did do their homework. Like, you know, they're clearly just like sending like a marketing email to a thousand people. And the other thing is personalizing it. I think like the more research, like, And again, I don't think it takes too much effort. Because I mean, even for me, when I was reaching out to like 100 VCs, like cold email, like it was really just like, okay, look at their website, look at their background, look at their profile, look at their LinkedIn. What are they interested in?

What do they talk about? And if you can, the other thing I always go back to, too, is so I read a lot of psychology. And one of the things in it, there's a really good book called influence by this guy called Robert Sealdini. So I don't know if you're familiar with you book, but it's a fantastic book. And one of the ideas is this idea of principle of similarity. We're essentially, and a lot of sales guys use this too. You can see it.

but it's also, it works really effectively, where it's like, if you and I can find one thing that makes us the same, whether it's we like the NFL, whether it's we like the color red, whether it's we have the same car. I don't care. It doesn't mean matter.

That just small thing gets the other person to be like, oh, okay, this person, even subconsciously gets the other person to be like, huh, okay, maybe I should take a look because maybe this person's kind of similar to me. So I think it's like small tips and tricks like that. At the end of the day, my thing is like, don't overcomplicate it.

Don't give them too much information. Have a clean deck. Also making sure, like, I think spending time on like even design, like PowerPoint design. It sounds like such a simple and kind of like weird thing. But I found like even myself where when we're putting together pitch decks that we send externally, I mean, you can find people now.

I mean, you know, you go on Fiverr, you go on, you know, Upwork. You go on all these platforms where you can find PowerPoint designers for like really reasonable, like under a hundred bucks kind of thing. And just to spend like an extra little bit of money in time just to get somebody to make it look nicer makes such a difference in getting people to read it, open it, see it, and be like, huh, this person is clearly spent time. So I think it's like, to me, it's small change. or small things that I think you have to think about.

But if you put those all together, then it just makes you have a much better chance of me being like, or somebody else being like, huh, okay, this person's interesting, I need to reach and I need to talk to them. But yeah, so I think somebody of kind of everything is like, make sure you do your homework, keep it short, keep it clean, make sure you're explaining the problem,

and then, you know, and personalize it. That's the other thing as well. Yeah, that's really good stuff. And just to unpack a little, a little, a little, that summary, right, that you just mentioned. And I want to circle back around at the storytelling concept, because it's a topic, I should say, because it's so so crucial and I think a lot of founders and CEOs, especially in MidTech,

completely understand that when they're pitching someone like yourself, you have to tell a compelling story, right? I mean, you cannot, you cannot expect someone on the other side of the table to connect the dots. Yeah, to not exactly the time. Yeah, no, you have to connect the dots in a compelling way for them. But just real quick, with respect to kind of that summary, right, of how do I get, how do I get in front of you? You laid out like four or five different things there, but a couple things that really stand out. You don't, an intro is great, right? But the reality is that a lot of people listening to this, they don't, they're not going to be able to find intros to every single PC, right? But, but, but just a little bit of research, right?

So this could be as simple as, again, to your point, looking at LinkedIn, looking at previous investments they led, right? So looking at press releases and just trying to find something. There's usually something that you can find, right? To make just a little bit of a connection. Google's really good. Yeah. It really works well. And maybe ask chat, GBT, maybe Bard, maybe. Yeah. Oh my God. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think it's all that stuff that's going to be like I think an unlock today. But to your point, even even now, just the manual like entering like that person's name, that person's website, that person's like LinkedIn and investments that they've led and what their website looks like. Like there's a lot of information you can find. That's pretty of it.

Yeah, totally. Totally. And then and then kind of, I guess once maybe I found a little bit of a connection, I can't send you like an email with like eight, nine, 10 paragraphs long and just vomit in your inbox. And we talked, we kind of joked about this a little bit about like focusing on the six inches in front of you. Yeah. The goal is I, I want, if I'm reaching out to you cold, I just want to reply. That's it. That's it. Just to reply.

That's all I'm looking for. So like the email should be short and to the point and try to get your attention, right? And then the other thing I think that stands out, I'm really, really glad you brought up is the design of the deck. Let's presume your deck is in good shape from a storytelling perspective, right? That's kind of entrance into the game. But I've seen so many decks, and I'm sure you have two, they're just so ugly. And it's like, I don't kind of, I don't want to. I don't want to look at it.

It's just, I don't, it's just too ugly. It's like walking into, it's like walking into an Apple store that's, yeah, it looks like a goodwill. You know, it's like, I know, like, the, they don't. This doesn't work. This doesn't fit. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's, and it's, and it's, and it's just literally like finding, again, someone on Fiverr, up work, whoever. Yeah. Yeah. Even referrals to like, I'm sure like, you know, a lot of founders, no other founders and other startups. Like you can definitely find decks that are very clean and very nice. Even now there's like, I mean, today, for example,

I was talking to an intern, there was working on a project. And there's this website called like beautiful. Beautiful slides.AI or something like that. I don't know if you'd heard of that. I'll put it in like the, what's it called in the chat. So like I don't know if people want to take a look at it themselves. But it's like one of those things where like now with AI and now with technology, you don't even need to find someone to do it yourself.

Like you can spend a little bit of time and make it look. And like you look at it and it's like just small, like a small change. Like it may take you an hour max to kind of figure it out. Because all your information you've already done, you already know the story. You already know what you're selling. It's really just like minor tweaks that like make it just look a bit. prettier and that small thing like I mean there's a reason why I'm sure you're the same as me where I've heard a lot of Steve job stories and a lot of stories of people who work with him and it

built with him and he was so so so like spent a lot of time on design and the quality of design and making it look good and people I think at the time were like you have a phone what does it matter you have a music player what does it matter like it's all the same functionally and he was like no it really matters because if we want the people to have the experience that it looks clean and I think it's one of those that even for me like I think only in the last I would say year or two have I been like huh it just Just that small, small, subtle change in design really makes a difference because it just, I think it just adds to your credibility.

That's what it does. Because it makes you look like, even before anybody's seeing, the first impression of you is this person's smart, this person's concise, this person's direct, this person can tell a story. And this person cares about design and cares about quality. And just those things, even if you don't, even if it's not, the presentation of it can really, really help you a lot. So yeah, I just think it's one of those things that like, I don't know if enough people

talk about, but I'm like, oh, it makes such a difference. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. In fact, I'm remembering like a deck that I just looked at maybe a couple months ago. And there was actually like a really, like they had done a really nice job in terms of like the preclinical work around this, this particular device. Yeah. But it was so hard to piece through because the deck was so ugly. I was like, it's like, guys, this is like you're expecting me to kind of like filter through all this garbage, but you've got really good substance here. Yeah.

Just spend a couple hours and clean it up, right? You don't have to do it. Yeah. Find someone to do it for you. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And that's the thing. People, I think a lot of this you can outsource.

Even if you're not the expert, you can definitely find someone who, understand kind of how to do these things and how to put together. So yeah, I just think, and because I think to me it fits in with what you're saying before the storytelling aspect, right? If like, that's how you tell the story too of like what the story looks like is also a part of it. Because to your point, I've seen the same thing where you have some companies where I'm like, oh my God, this data is beautiful and it's great if you understand it.

But then you look at the deck and you're like, this is not like, you know what I mean? Like for one company, for example, I actually met device company we were looking at earlier this year. Unbelievable product, really cool science, really cool preclinical data doing really well. but I looked at the deck and I was like, I don't even want to send this to other people because it doesn't look, you know what I mean? Like even though I know and I have to caveat with like, oh, guys, by the way, this deck doesn't look great, but I promise you, it's really good.

You know what I mean? If you don't have to get to that problem or you don't have to like give you that context, it just helps and makes such a difference. Yeah, that's a really good point because you're going to share that internally, right? Yeah, other colleagues, maybe even externally, etc. And yeah, if you're, if you're happening to like put an asterisk by, hey, ignore how terrible this looks but it's really good. That's not a good position to be in.

Not a good. No, it's really, really hard. Yeah, that's good stuff. I guess one other quick follow-up question before we get kind of to the pitch. Yeah. Is deck versus executive summary. Do you have a preference? Do you still, are you still seeing executive summaries these days?

Yeah, we see some. I think to me it feels very like, it feels much more like historical and much more like banker-esque, if that makes sense, where it's like, you know, a banker wants you to put together a thing. You get like the exact summary and then you get a deck and it's kind of both. To me, like, one, you should have. have a lot of versions of your deck, right? Like you should have the version that you pitch to internals, the version that you pitch to

strategics, the version that you pitch to investors, the version that you pitch to angels versus institutionals. And I, like, I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs talk about this where like you have a master version and then you have like, let's say, 40 slides and then you filter it based on who you need to send to. So I think one, knowing your audience and knowing who you're pitching is really important. But to me, the stuff that I like is like literally, it's like under 10 slides.

It's like really clean. It's very succinct. It describes a problem really easily and quickly. You can tell the person spent time because they're sending you something that is relevant to you so they're not looking for something different. But to me, I think an executive summary is great because some people might like it. And again, this is a preference thing. I'm just, you know, I'm talking about what I've seen. But to me, something that is like, it looks clean and it's under 10 slides and sort of describes everything that you want. That's enough for me to be like,

okay, this is, I can judge this on, should this be interested or not. Yeah. That to me is the kind of biggest thing. Got it. Yeah. And you're not, it's not different. So the last time I had a similar type of interview like this was with Garheng Kong with Health Quest Capital. Oh yeah. Yeah. A couple years ago now, maybe a little bit longer. And he mentioned the very safe thing. He's like, I don't like, I don't even want to see executive summaries. Just send me the 10 to 10 to 12, maybe 15 slide deck. And it's not that much, a much more of a commitment, right, to look through the deck versus read your summary. You know what I mean? So everybody, and this is the thing I think even for me, like, again, full transparency around like, you know, how the, how the thing is done

is like we get so many emails, so many pitches, so many things. We'll look through 10 slide decks in literally a minute or two, right? Like we'll literally just like click through. And it's long as you get some stuff that you look to. So I think this is the other thing some people just underestimate is like, unless you have big teams and like massive analysts, you don't go, like you don't spend a lot of time per deck. I just, I can't. Like it's just a function of time. Like I don't have time to go through everything.

And so for me, like a lot of those you go through quickly and you just want enough that you, again, like I said, enough there that you're like, okay, I would follow up and I really want to learn about this. So I have this question because this could be interesting. And I think a lot of it too is what we just emphasize the point of like really knowing your audience and knowing who you're pitching to and if that's within scope. because, like, again, I get ideas that I'm like, this is great and this is not an awesome opportunity, but like, I can't touch this.

Like, this is not who I am. So I think just spending that extra little like five minutes to do some research, I think makes such a difference. Yeah, yeah, so crucial because if I'm sending you a DAC for a seed stage investment, you're like, we, I haven't made a seed stage investment and like never, you know? I mean, it's all, it's all like, I can look at it. And again, like, if it's, to me, it's like, it's one of those things where sometimes, like, I'll take calls and conversations if I believe in the team and I believe in the product, even if I can invest in it.

because like I still know enough people in our industry and people that I know to try and like make some connections if I can. But even then like there's so many I just I can't like what am I going to do with this. You know what I mean? So I think yeah, just knowing your audience is such a big thing as well. Yeah. Yeah. And just just tactically before we get to the next next kind of part of this, this kind of behind the curtain sort of conversation or discussion anyway is um you mentioned earlier like I'm going I'm in the throes of this right now with fast wave right raising we're raising our series B. Um, typically like if you're if you're new to this kind of fundraising game like yeah, having a master presentation that maybe is like 150, 200 slides maybe.

Yeah, yeah. You want that. And then again, like separate subfolders of like, okay, here's I'm going to pitch, you know, maybe more. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the deck that's ideal for the exact stage investor that invest at the stage. Here's a deck that's maybe, hey, I'm going to try to get a more of a late stage investor

to come in early. Here's a different deck for maybe siege stage angels that want to follow. Yeah. Set up those different types of like sort of subfolders, right, based on the audience. that you're going to pitch. Yeah, that's, I'm glad you can. And it just made it to your point, it just makes it easier where like if you start with the master, you start with building every side, everything that you would have a question

for everything, then as you have more conversation. And I think the other thing that, I mean, this is, I mean, even going through fundraising, this is one of those things that I think entrepreneurs just sometimes highly underestimate. And it's something that we even, we even talk about internally, like we make a joke about because I think it's always true is you're always fundraising. Like, even if you're not fundraising, you are fundraising. And I think it's one of those things where especially when you're, especially like, I've seen really good CEOs and good startup execs do this where it's, where it's

like they're always having conversation with investors. They're always keeping them updated. They're always like, okay, like, here's what we're doing. We don't necessarily need things now, but I just want to let you know what, like, what's going on. And it's one of those things that like, I think people sometimes, especially now, they only come out when they need money. And obviously it's one of those where like, but if you haven't built a relationship over

a long time and you have no traction, I haven't seen you progress, it's really hard for me to judge it. This is something really differentiated. And so I think really kind of showcasing that and understanding like, you're, you are always fund raising. I mean, that's essentially kind of, even as venture, even as VCs for us, like, we have funds that we're deploying, we're still technically fundraising, like always. Like, we're always trying to talk to other investors and LPs and figure out how to do it for

ourselves. And so I think it's just, yeah, one of those things to kind of keep in mind is like, it's hard in general. I kudos to anyone that can fundraise and raise money because it's, it is not easy. But it's one of those that like there's definitely an art to it. And it's one of those things that I think, especially like if you're, I mean, if you've done this a few times, I think you can kind of understand and go back to people that you know before. But if you're early and new to the game, it's hard. And you have to you, it's a really relationship game. at the end of the day. And you have to kind of build those over time because that doesn't happen overnight. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Let's get to the pitch side. So let's let's presume I've gotten

your attention, right? You look to my my nice looking, you know, it's got a good design, it's got a good story behind the deck and you're like, yeah, this could, this could be interesting. Let's set up a call. Walk us through kind of like what, and maybe you want to start with kind with the process and then maybe, you know, touch on, touch on what a good pitch should look like. But at high level, what does this process typically look like for your team in terms of, you know, from start to finish, intro pitch? Like, what does that look like? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me go through the process that I can talk about good pitches versus ones I've seen that ones that like, like, we're memorable ones at least.

So it's just a process that's like typically like myself or another person on our team will get an inbound from some company. We're like, okay, this might fit our, you know, our thesis or what we're doing. Like let's take an intro meeting. So usually that intro meeting is myself. Sometimes I loop in other colleagues oftentimes, excuse me, if I don't know, if I don't think it's like, for example, the device side of diagnostic side. If it's like a C diagnostic, like I don't need to bring in other people. Like I just know that like that might not be for us, but like it's something that I'll take a look at it and it's fine. So typically you got like one or two members of our team that look at it.

Once we have an initial meeting, then it's like, okay, is this interesting? Is this not interesting? Sometimes after that we'll bring in more members of our team. So if it's only myself, then I'll bring in like a second or third or fourth member, be like, hey, you know, what is going on? Do you like this? Do you not? If at that point in time, we think it's interesting and want to do it, then typically for our process, we typically have the company present in front of our whole team. And so like we'll ask follow-up questions. We'll like, you know, you know, do spend a bit more time, start to do things. And then once our team kind of like says the okay and hey, this is interesting or hey, this is not,

if they do, then we start to go into like real diligence. So then it's like, you know, it's CDA, it's, you know, data room. It's talking to customers, talking to product managers, talking to other members of your team, talking to other investors that have already invested in you, talking to like if we know people on the competitor side or if we know people who are in that same industry because we're reaching out to those folks to find out. And then it's just like, you know, it's term sheet. Are we leading?

are we not leading? If we are not, then who's leading? We have to talk to their lead investor. What do the terms look like? Does this make sense? Does it not? And then once the term sheet is kind of signed, then it's really legal, which is just like, you know, crossing eyes, doting teas, where the lawyers are representing each side, what kind of IP diligence and sort of blaspheming stuff do we have to do? Does it make sense? Does it's not? So, I mean, in terms of timelines and process, sometimes it's very quick, right? If you, like, you know, and years past it obviously was because markets were very hot. I think now, obviously, things are taking time. And I think that's the other thing to just keep in mind to entrepreneurs,

is like always prioritize and have in mind that your fundraising process is going to take longer than you think. Even if you think it's going to take long, it will take longer just because people are slow. It's definitely stuff is not moving as fast as it is. I think money is out there and people are definitely looking for opportunities. But it's one of those that like you're not going to see deals syndicated in weeks versus like you were before. It's going to take time. And it's also finding the right investor who fits your profile, who also has a good network has also done it before. Who else has experience and can reach out to their networks as well.

And so, okay, so that's in terms of the process. and just kind of start to finish as we think about that. So practically, what is like maybe a typical time, right? We're recording this in 2020. I don't think it's probably going to change dramatically over the next, you know, one to two years. But like, is this a three-month process? Is it a six-month process?

So I would say, again, I hate the answer, but it's also true. It really depends, obviously. There's so much to say that. I would say, like, let's say I've never met the company before. Like, first time I ever met them, don't know any background, don't know any context. The first time I'm kind of meeting them going through. I would probably say it takes over three months in terms of like initial meeting through

to diligence to terms to finding it. Syndication, I think it might actually take longer. Like I've heard deals sometimes it takes like you'll sign a term sheet, but syndication will take an extra three to six months, right? On top of that to find the money. Again, everything is the caveat of it depends. If you're raising a $2 million round, very different, you're raising $100 million round, right? Like there's a lot that kind of goes through that.

So I would say, yeah, I would probably say like three to six months on average in terms of kind of what you're doing. But again, depending on where you are with what investors at what stages, that can accelerate, not accelerate. Strategics, for example, if you have those on board, those sometimes take a while because it takes, like, the bureaucracy that you have to get through to get, like, to the right level, to get the decision maker to then sign off. And also, they don't lead, so you have to find a lead check because they're kind of always in the background. So it's just, it's one of those things that, like, it just, it does, I would say usually three to six

months for argument's sake. Got it. That's super helpful. Hey there, it's Scott. And thanks for listening in so far. The rest of this conversation is only available via our private podcast for MedSider Premium members. If you're not a premium member yet, you should definitely consider signing up. You'll get full access to the entire library of interviews dating back to 2010. This includes conversations with experts like Renee Ryan, CEO of Cala Health, Nadine Miarid, CEO of CVRX, and so many others. As a premium member, you'll get to join live interviews with these incredible medical

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