Medsider: Learn from Medtech and Healthtech Founders and CEOs - How Failure and Flexibility Can Spell Success in Medtech: Interview With Kyle Frye, U.S. President of SyntheticMR

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

After a brief hiatus from recording podcasts, it was a privilege to dust off the microphone and interview Kyle Frye. As U.S. president of SyntheticMR, Kyle is tasked with growing and expanding the brand and business in the U.S. for the Swedish-based company that is creating the future of quantitative MRI technology. Their innovative MRI software solutions support shorter exam times and deliver more information to clinicians, leading to improved diagnostic efficacies.Prior to assuming this role in August 2019, Kyle was a Zone Vice President of Sales for Siemens and also was in leadership positions at both niche and large medtech companies including Blue Belt Technologies (now Smith & Nephew), Verathon, and Brainlab. He also worked for BioMedix for three years, working his way up from a sales rep driving 4–5 hours a day to Western Area Sales Director, which required relocation from metro Cincinnati to the San Francisco Bay area. Kyle received a B.A. degree in political science and finance from Northern Kentucky University in 2004.Norbert Juist, an executive recruiter who specializes in medical device sales and marketing, joined me as a special guest for this interview with Kyle. He brings a unique perspective to this discussion, having worked as a sales rep and consultant in pharma and medtech for nearly 20 years prior to transitioning to recruiting.Here are a few of the key topics we discussed in this podcast: Why a competitive spirit and winning are important, but not the “be-all and end-all” to medical device success.Why communicating “the why” of career moves is key to landing new opportunities.How being flexible and willing to relocate can help advance your career, especially in the medtech space.The pros and cons of working for large vs. small companies.Kyle’s favorite business books, the importance of having a mentor, and the advice he would tell his 25-year-old self.Check out the rest of the show notes here...

I don't think that leaders are born. I think leaders can develop and leaders can be made. And I think you have to have a vision for yourself, right? And you have to have a reason why you do something and to have in front of you what you want to do. I think if you have those blinders on to creating your own path, you're going to be successful. Welcome to MedSider Radio, where you can learn from proven med tech and healthcare thought leaders through uncut and unedited interviews. Now, here's your host, Scott Nelson. After a brief hiatus from recording podcast, it was a privilege to dust off the microphone and interview Kyle Fry. As U.S. president of synthetic MR, Kyle, is tasked with growing and expanding the brand

and business here in the U.S. for the Swedish-based company that is creating the future of quantitative MRI technology. Their innovative MRI software solutions support shorter exam times and deliver more information to clinicians, leading to improve diagnostic efficiencies. Prior to assuming this role in August of 2,000, 2019, Kyle was a zone vice president of sales for Siemens and also was in leadership positions at both niche and large med tech companies, including Blue Belt Technologies, which is now Smith and Nephew, Verathon, and Brain Lab. He also worked for biomedics for three years, working his way up from a sales rep, driving four to five hours a day to Western Area sales director, which required relocation from Metro Cincinnati to the San Francisco Bay Area. Kyle received a BA degree in political science and finance from Northern Kentucky University in 2004.

Here are a few of the key topics we discussed in this interview with Kyle. Why competitive spirit and winning are important, but not the be-all and end-all to medical device success. Why focusing on people and relationships is crucial to a successful career path. Why communicating the why of career moves is a key to landing new opportunities. How being flexible and willing to relocate can help advance your career, especially in the med tech space. Why finding a happy medium between leaning in and letting go is essential for business. and personal growth, how synthetic MR is changing the treatment and diagnostic paradigm for brain MRIs through software AI. And lastly, Kyle's favorite business books, the importance of having a

mentor and the advice he would tell his 25-year-old self. There's a lot more we cover in this wide-ranging discussion with Kyle, but I wanted to highlight a few things before we get started. First, joining me on this episode as a special guest host is Norbert Juice to Norbert and I go way back. In fact, we used to sell vascular devices into the same cath labs. Now he runs sales performance resources and specializes in recruiting for medical device sales and marketing positions. And he's really quite good at it. Norbert not only brings a ton of industry experience to the table, but he's one of the most honest, genuine, and personable people I know. So if you're looking for a new gig or need help recruiting for some open positions, Norbert is your guy and he's not paying me to record this.

In the show notes for this episode, you'll find a link to learn more about Norbert and his best. background. Second, after about a two-year hiatus, I've just recently started to record and publish MedSider interviews again, and there's a good reason for it. I've been knee-deep in my own startup at Juve. That's J-O-O-O-V-V. We manufacture light therapy devices, which is technically referred to as photobiomodulation in the world of academia. It's a really interesting space because our products are class two medical devices, but we're following a classic direct-to-consumer commercialization model. It's been a fun ride over the last three to four years and have definitely learned a ton. So if you follow these Med-Sider interviews, I'll be sharing quite a bit about

my experiences. So keep listening. And again, if you want to check out juve, go to jove.com. That's J-O-O-O-V-V-V-C-Com. Third, if you're new to these MedSider interviews and want to be updated when the next interview goes live, head on over to medsider.com and enter your email address. Rest assured, you won't be spammed. In fact, the only time will hit you up via email is when a new conversation goes live. Again, it's super simple. Just visit Medsider.com. And right there on the homepage, you'll see the opportunity to enter your email address. And then lastly, as a reminder, If you continue to enjoy these interviews, please give us a rating. Just to open up your podcast app and head on over to the reviews tab and click the old five stars.

Thanks again. It really helps us out. All right. Let's go ahead and get to the interview with Kyle Fry. All right, Kyle Frye. Welcome to Medsider Radio. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Scott.

I appreciate you having me. This should be a really fun conversation. And for those listening that haven't caught a Medsider interview for quite some time, you know, I had to dust off the mic a bit. It's been, you know, a little bit over a year, I think maybe quite honestly closer to two years since I've busted out the old podcasting mic for a wide variety of reasons, one of which is I've been kind of knee-deep and helping to grow my own MedTech startup, Juve, which a photo biomodulation or light therapy company. But nonetheless, coming up for air, I'm excited to kind of kick things off here

with a really good guest in Kyle. Joining me on the show, which is a little bit of a different twist, is Norbert Juist, who I've known personally for, gosh, Norbert, it's probably been maybe close to 15 years now, at least 10 years. And I know you've spent really the majority of your career in MedTech. It'll be fun to have you join me on the show and we can kind of go back. and forth with our guest. So I guess welcome. I'm excited as well. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited. Cool. So Kyle, we're going to learn a lot about your climb within your med tech career, which I think is going to be really fun to glean some insights from. But for those listening that aren't familiar with you and synthetic MR, just for contextual purposes,

why don't you kind of provide an overview of what you're doing now and maybe the product that you're commercializing with synthetic MR? And then we'll kind of go back in time and really kind of learn a little bit more about how you got to, to your current place. And then also some of the unique challenges that you're kind of facing and what you're learning along the way. Is that sound good? Sounds great. And I'm glad you got the cobwebs to be dusted off with me. So happy to be a part of it. Yeah, since I came on, it's something that when I went through the hiring process for the role to run the U.S. operations, it was something that continued to intrigue me day in and day out through the conversations. And it's one of those things where I've been heavily involved in capital,

hardware, robotics, imaging, you know, the whole gamut within the hospital system. And this is something that's really software-driven. And as you kind of see the marketplace shifting, software becomes a big piece of why people are moving the needle in the medical world. And I saw the software and what synthetic MR could do is something that really could broaden it, not only as a niche product, if you will, but become a standard of care, which was something that, to me, was exciting. And so just in a short little brief background in synthetic MR, it's a software, and we'll also, we would call a sequence. And so in the MR world, people that, you know, don't need to know much about MR, but basically we have a software that allows

shorter patient time on the table for their sequence and their protocol of an MR scan. And in some instances, you may see an MR scan 30, 45 minutes. Our sequence can allow for it to be, you know, less than 10 minutes total. And we run what we call a six-minute scan side. Then we also can post-process it with the software to allow the radiologist, neuroradialologists, additional time to be able to read and interpret and diagnose their patients. And so it's a product that gives what we call quantitative. So as you know, in your world, Scott and what you've done in Norbert and what you've done

in background of recruiting is, you know, data is key. And in the radiology world, the radiologists are really looking at black and white and qualitative data. And what synthetic MR can do is provide quantitative data to allow for a diagnosis. And so it's pretty exciting what it does. So it's kind of a little bit of brief background on what synthetic MR does. No, that's great. Thanks for providing that high love, keeping it, you know, pretty high love. I know there's going to be some interesting follow-up questions that Norbert and I have kind of coming full circle on what you're seeing kind of in the marketplace, especially commercializing kind of this type of technology that's sort of centric to Europe, but now you're kind of leading all things in the U.S. But one follow-up question

with respect to synthetic MR, if I'm understanding this correctly, because I'm not, I've really spent no time kind of imaging, imaging world, or at least commercializing imaging, imaging products. So you're in essence adding a quantitative layer on top of a kind of a baseline qualitative like MR. So in essence, is this helping like a radiologist sort of like diagnose something with that much more accuracy? Exactly. So, I mean, what we aim to do is provide two strong things is workflow enhancement and diagnosis enhancement. And so through our, what we call our synthetic sequence, it shortens the scan time, which allows for increased workflow, allow more patients to be scanned within any given day. It has additional information to your point to allow for a more precise and better diagnosis and to give that peace of mind, which, you know, in some instances when you're looking at, a large amount of scans per day, it's nice to have that additional data to give you that peace of mind. And frankly, I'm sure the patients want that as well, right? The patients want to know

that their reading radiologists and saying, hey, I've got that additional data to know that what we're diagnosing is very accurate. And that's a great piece. And that's what synthetic MR brings. And so those are one of those things where I think this can truly become an everyday sort of use that it can become a protocol that techs, hospitals, radiologists are asking for and utilizing on a day-to-day basis. And right now, it's focused on the brain, Scott, but we are certainly looking at other avenues, you know, whether that's spine, MSK, and the abdominal area to where we can provide this sort of technology across all platforms within the MR-Scanor world.

Got it. That sounds really interesting technology for sure. And everyone that's listening to this is kind of familiar with the phrase, bigger, better, faster, right? It sounds like you're kind of hitting on at least two of those buckets and better and faster, you know, when it comes to Mar-TAC. So with that said, hopefully everyone kind of gives, has a better feel kind of what you're doing, your position, what you're doing kind of with synthetic MRI, what you're kind of commercializing.

So using that as kind of a baseline point, let's go back in time now because I think, I think a lot of people listening to this, myself included are really going to be, you know, fascinated with kind of your career tracked. And I know, like, you know, dating, I'm dating myself here. I'm getting, getting old. But when I first got into MetTech, I was always like super curious, like, how did people in sort of these sales management and really kind of executive management, how do they get to where they are. What path did they follow? What kind of levers did they pull? What challenges did they

face? What failures, quite honestly, did they have to overcome, you know, to kind of advance within their career? So let's try to answer some of those questions because when Norbert introduced us, that's the first thing that I noticed, you know, looking at your background is you've had this, like, really strong track rate of like setting yourself up for what, what seems to be like really nice career moves. And I'm not sure if all of those were intentional or not. But, you know, and Norbert, feel free to, feel free to chime in here, because this is, I mean, this is really your wheelhouse. But you started off, Kyle, as a sales rep, right?

Back in kind of the mid-2000s, was that kind of your first entry into the medical device game? Yeah, absolutely. So it's been an awesome journey, but it's been one that I would say the failures have helped me to get to where I'm at today. But, yeah, I started off as a sales rep. I started off carrying the bag in the medical world running around the Midwest, much like, you guys did. and living in Minneapolis, running around Iowa, Wisconsin, and having those nice four or five-hour drives, which I would have had a podcast to listen to back then.

But yeah, it started off just hitting the ground and going. But I always had a vision, right? So when I, you know, going through college, you know, I played college baseball, was competitive, you know, knew that I, my vision was to run a company. Didn't know how I was going to do it, what I was going to do, what would be the pathway there. But I knew that I was passionate about winning.

I was passionate about being able to bring. value to people and, you know, medical kind of just spoke to me. So I always had that vision to get into medical sales and had the opportunity to do so and started that journey. After going through that and carrying the bag, you know, I knew I wanted to lead. And I believe that I don't think that leaders are born. I think, you know, I think leaders can develop and leaders can be made. And I think you have to have a vision for yourself, right? And you have to have a reason why you do something and and to have in front of you what you want to do. I think if you have those blinders on to creating your own path, you're going to be successful.

And so, yeah, I started carrying the bag and then had the opportunity to manage with the company. I had to move all the way to San Francisco, California, to have the opportunity to manage within the medical device company I was at at the time, which was biomedics was the name of the company, and had the opportunity to build a team. And what a daunting task that was, you know, not ever really truly building a team before. having to build a team. I'll tell you it's not always to build it in the image and likeness of yourself. I think, you know, to build a team, I learned a lot in hiring and interviewing and it was crazy the amount of experience you get just by starting to run your first team. And then doing so, again, like I said, learned a lot and built that and was able to take a team from the bottom ranks and build it up towards the top of the ranks, which is fantastic. And I truly put that to a

testament of building a team around you of people that are just better than you, right? And don't be shy to build a team of people that are more talented, more driven, and because they're going to ultimately build you up. And so I was able to do that. And I can keep, go ahead. Oh, sorry to interrupt, Kyle, but I just think that's such an interesting point. And if you don't mind, I'd love to, like, chime in with just a couple questions. One, what really stands out to me, especially when you talked about your experience at biomedics, because like your first kind of step into more of a leadership position, you said you moved.

And so, like, that's something that I had to personally do in my, in my medtech careers, moved to Minneapolis into a marketing, marketing capacity. So I'd like to get your, like, your quick, hot take on how, how important that really was is your, your kind of flexibility in moving in in order to take that next step in your career. And then, like, really the follow-up question, well, let me, let me ask you that. And I'd love to ask a follow-up question about building your team, because it's something that I personally have struggled with. And it would admit that I'm really It's a challenge for me when it comes to like managing and leading people in the way that like you would normally do things yourself. And so I want to ask you a little bit about that. The move,

the relocation. How important it is that for people to consider like for their own careers when it comes to progressing? I think it's crucial. I think a move isn't forever. You know, people that grow up in a particular part of the U.S. and love being in that area, you know, be comfortable being uncomfortable, right? Be comfortable to make an uncomfortable decision to move to go do something to further your career because honestly it always works out that you're going to be able to go back to where you want to go if that's truly what you want to do. And you have to be willing to make those sort of decisions. And I think it can speed up your career path is what you want to do. If you're willing to move and relocate, I think it shows investment in the company and the companies then are willing to invest in you.

And so I think it was crucial. It was absolutely crucial because it allowed me to develop at a younger age and a younger tenureship, right? And I think it's something we'll probably touch on a little bit too, and time versus talent, it allows you to develop some of those tools earlier on if you're willing to relocate. Right. Yeah. And actually, Scott touched upon the two things that I took away from what you had said at this point was, number one, you had a focus.

Like, when you were in college, you said, hey, I knew I wanted to be at a leadership level. So that was the first takeaway I had from that. And second was Scott hit on exactly what I was going to ask you is the ability to move. But the other thing that I'd like to have you add in there as well from the real. perspective of a recruiter is, you know, I grew up with the mindset. My father worked for DuPont for 30 plus years, and I had the mindset you get with a company, you stick with them, you're loyal to them, and, you know, you look at your, what I would call almost a meteoric rise in leadership levels. You know, you've moved between companies. So as you continue to talk about

your progression, talk about the thought process there as well, if you would. Because I think a lot of people have that old, you know, my father's mindset ingrained in our culture and society that changing companies is bad. Totally. I think when I, as I was coming up, same thing applied, right? I mean, my family members the same way. I mean, really dedicated to staying at a position. But I think they also were kind of early, you know, my parents would make decisions that would be better off for the family and better off from them. and they weren't afraid to make decisions.

I mean, one of it was I grew up moving around, right? I mean, I grew up. I was born in Texas, moved to San Francisco, moved to Virginia, moved to Cincinnati, moved back to Virginia. And so I kind of moved around a lot as a child, and it was four career moves from my parents. But when I got in, I agree, when I'm going to talk to recruiters, you know, when I got into the medical road and then I, you know, was looking to grow in my, you know, leadership side, it was a recruiters that would say, you know what, we're willing to take a chance.

chance. I know that the hiring manager is going to have an issue with you moving from one role to the next. And to me, it was always being able to explain why I was making the move or why I would be willing to make that move. And I do think it's kind of an old philosophy. And I think, you know, if there's sales reps listening to this podcast today, you know, I would say create your own path and build your own brand. Don't worry about length of time. I certainly, from my side, and it kind of brings up, you know, the time versus talent. I want a higher talent. I want new ideas.

I want people that are, that have a fresh perspective and that are willing to work hard. I think the one thing we should take is that you need to work hard. The grind overcompensates for, to me, for experience. And talent is what can help drive companies to the top. Talent is what can help you surpass your competition, right? if you're number four in that space that you can help jump to number three or number two through talent. Yeah, technology will help the talent will be there. And for me, I had to deal with that. And even still, as I've moved up, every time I've spoken with a recruiter about a potential position

and or the hiring manager, it's certainly come up to say, hey, look, you've been in these roles for X period of time. You've moved up. Yes, but, you know, but why not? And why have you not stayed? And I think you also have to understand your limitations, right? And so I think some companies, you only have so far you can go. And if you want to continue to move up, you have to make a move. And I think that the loyalty to a company to me is you should show loyalty to people, not to a company. And that may get some criticism, but I believe that you're loyal to the people that work for you, you're loyal to the people that you work for. And if you do so, career opportunities can happen. But if not, career opportunities can happen elsewhere, right? I mean, I think some of the opportunities

that I've got in Norbert and Scott has been because of the relationships that I've built along the way with people and building my brand to where people have called to bring me over, people have thought about me in roles and to suggest me to other people because I've built a brand and that I've also realized that you need to build relationships and the days of loyalty to a company for 30 years. They're just not there anymore. And so don't be afraid to go after a job. If you've been a successful rep for two years and you want to manage a finger company, be hungry and go push yourself forward to go manage or put yourself in a position to call you, Norbert, right, to say, hey, look, I want to manage and you may have connections at other medical

device companies that say, look, I've got an up-and-comer, someone that's going to be able to change the game for you, and you should give them a look. And a good hiring manager is going to pay attention to what their recruiters say, and they're going to take a chance on somebody. Man, we got deep really quick, and this is really, really good stuff. And I'm being serious when I say that. There's so many, like, insights just in kind of hearing you. you download there, Kyle, that I wish that I had in my kind of my tool belt back when I first started in Med Tech. And a couple of them that really stand out just as follow-ups is that why. And you kind of addressed it kind of under the guise of the guys of this time versus

talent kind of context, which I love. I love that. I love that phrase. I'm not sure if that's yours, if it's yours, you know, let's brand it, the Kyle Frye. Let's brand it. Yeah. I like that I love that a lot because it's so true. And it's like at the end of the day, it's asking the why. Like you may have spent, I mean, so many of us have like, you get stuck in this. I've got to be at this job for three years. I've got to be at this gig for four years or whatever. But if there's a why, if you can tell the why behind that move, I think that's super, super critical. I mean, I personally have experienced that like early on in my med tech career, I bounced around a bit. And some of those, I would say were kind of quasi intentional. Some of them were just unique opportunities. But I think what did kind of help me, I guess, in some of those moves, considering that they were some fairly short, you know, relatively speaking was I was I was able to effectively community. communicate the why as to why I want to make this move. And I think that helps a ton. And then the other big thing that that really stands out kind of hearing you, you know, explain some of those moves is just the openness, the flexibility and making some of these, like being confident and kind of where you intentionally want to go. And, you know, some of that, I think the point you made about relationships, it's so crucial. And like one of

my buddies as an example that's a, he does a lot of different things, but he's a really, really good digital marketer, especially within the consumer health space. He has this phrase where it's like relationships trump algorithms. And I love that because it's so true. And it sounds. And it sounds like you've kind of experienced the same thing, you know, in your career by really focusing on people in relationships and not over indexing on the job or the company, but instead on people in relationships, like that's really serves you well. So that's like super cool to hear. Yeah, and I think if you want to have goals and aspirations to move up within organizations or in your career, you know, job title, if you will, or increased responsibility, I think it's

really, really important that you build your brand internally and externally, but that you create followership, that you create people that are willing to come. with you to your next job and that they'll follow you blindly because they trust you and you build that trust by creating an atmosphere for people to be successful and that doesn't come without failures but i truly believe some of the best leaders out there and some of the best presidents and CEOs are people that wherever they go they're going to have a core group that's willing to follow them blindly regardless because they believe in what they do and they know that they're going to take a challenge that they're going to go into it with both feet and make the most of it and make it work and so i think

you know, as I've learned and seen those things, there's a lot of my, what I would call mentors or people that I look up to, you see that followership, which is pretty impressive. So help us understand you've worked for very large organizations like Siemens and now with synthetic MR being, you know, a small European-based company. Help us understand the idiosyncrasies maybe of the different types of organizations and, you know, what you see as the pros and cons and maybe some of the challenges that that presents to you at synthetic MR or possibly some of the benefits that it provides. Yeah, I think, you know, working for a big company like Siemens was fantastic.

And I think you learned different things in different areas. I've learned a ton at Siemens and have nothing but the highest respect for the organization. And I think when you work for a small company, you have the ability to make decisions. I think sometimes at larger organizations, the decisions you made may be scrutinized by four or five different hierarchy levels before it actually made. Or if you make it, you know, if it works, great. Somebody's going to try to tag along and take credit. And if it doesn't, someone's going to try to, you know, point that finger at you. But I think at a smaller organization, you're right or die, right?

You make that decision and you roll with it. And it either is going to be a great decision or you may, it may be a bad one, but you can learn from it. You know, the nimbleness of a small company is fantastic. And I'll tell you, it's synthetic. Our CEO, his name's Alrick, and he's really allowed to say, Kyle, I want you to build this. I want you to grow this and really give in the reins. And he's been a huge support mechanism. And really, the entire team that's based in Sweden has really been a huge support mechanism.

It's great when you have a company and you want to show growth and you want to go into growth mode. It's great when you really have the support of everybody there. And I think that's one of the beauties of a smaller company is that, you know, When you make decision, you almost make the decision together. Hey, we're going to branch out into the U.S. We want to build that market. And people get behind it and rally behind it. And so that's a really cool piece with synthetic M.R from the small side of a company.

I'd love to, since you mentioned your CEO and kind of the environment that it sounds like he's trying to provide you in building out your team here in the U.S. I'd love to kind of circle back around kind of this concept of building out a team. But before we go there real quick, I'm going to hold that thought and ask you a few questions on the flip side of a startup because I think most people listening are like, ah, Kyle, I love that idea of being more nimble, being able to make more decisions in a faster, more efficient manner, etc. What are some of the challenges that maybe unexpected or not that you've kind of seen this far and kind of going to a startup versus coming from a big strategic like Siemens? Yeah. I think the first and foremost is when you have the infrastructure at a big company like

Siemens, you have that internal support mechanism, which is second to none. When you You work for a large organization. You have support every which where you go. And I think that is huge. And I think with a smaller company, you have to be prepared in some instances to be on an island, right? You have to be prepared in some instances that you're the underdog. When you work for a small company, nobody knows your name. Nobody knows the brand.

Nobody knows anything. So you're creating that from scratch. To me, I love that, right? To me, it's about how do I control the process? How do I, you know, create new? How do I build the brand of the company? and I'm given the keys to do that here, which is fantastic in being the president of our U.S. operations. You know, some of these larger companies, there's so many other mechanisms that are in place

to help that you must follow to do so, which can be helpful. But I love being able to really have that entrepreneurial type of spirit. And so I think if people, you know, are willing to bet on themselves, a smaller startup type company is something that you should certainly push yourself to do because you really have your ability to put your dance on something versus somebody else. 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.

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