Medsider: Learn from Medtech and Healthtech Founders and CEOs - Proof Looks Different at Every Stage: Interview with Former SpectraWAVE CEO Eman Namati

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

In this episode of SNL, we sat down with ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/eman-namati/ )Eman Namati ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/eman-namati/ ), former President and CEO of ( https://www.spectrawave.com/ )SpectraWAVE ( https://www.spectrawave.com/ ), whi...

The best technical solution isn't necessarily kind of equivalent or aligned with the best product. And, you know, there's a lot of factors to that. I mean, it could be really expensive, could be hard to manufacture, could be very hard to use, might be very disruptive to the workflow, and ultimately also just take a long time to develop. So I think transitioning into that kind of, you know, business leadership and ultimately CEO of a startup, You're optimizing a lot more than, you know, the technology to be successful. Hey, everyone. In this episode, we sat down with Imanamati, former president and CEO of Spectra Wave,

which was acquired by Phillips. He now serves as Phillips's head of advanced imaging within image-guided therapy. The Spectra Wave Hyperview imaging system provides high-resolution structural and molecular imaging to assess coronary arteries and plaque morphology. The system also includes X1FR, which provides physiology assessment from a single X-ray angographic view without the system. the need for a pressure wire. Together, they combined coronary anatomy, plaque characterization, and physiology to support PCI planning and optimization. Imman previously spent a decade at 9-point

medical rising from principal scientist to CEO. Before that, he was a scientist conducting imaging and biomedical engineering research at Massachusetts General Hospital in the University of Iowa. Iman holds a Ph.D. in medical imaging and biomedical engineering from Flinders University and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. Here are a few topics we explored in this conversation. First, what do scientists have to unlearn when they take on a CEO role? Second, the North Star that decides which tradeoffs to make for your MVP. Third, how to decide what to prioritize at each step throughout the development process. And last, what separates evidence that gets you approved from evidence that gets you adopted.

Before we dive into today's episode, a quick heads up that the full Medsiter interview archive has officially moved over to my personal platform at Scott NelsonLive.com. Our popular courses are now available there too. And they're free. of courses, if you're a founder or CEO preparing to raise capital, you should check out the fundraising cohort. This four-week live workshop combines small group sessions with real-time feedback to help you sharpen your investor story, build a targeted investor pipeline, and run a focused fundraising sprint instead of a never-ending slog. Over the month, you'll walk away with an investor-ready narrative and deck, outreach scripts that actually get responses, a refreshed LinkedIn profile,

a simple content plan that keeps you on investors' radar, and a repeatable system for running your raise. You can join the wait list at Scott NelsonLive.com forward slash courses. Again, that's Scott NelsonLive.com forward slash courses. All right, let's get to the interview. Hey, man. Welcome to the program. Appreciate you coming on. Great to be here. Thanks for the invite. And yeah, look forward to a chat. Yeah, it's been a long time coming. And congrats on all of the success with Spectra Wave. Now inside Phillips, we're definitely going to dive into the journey. But let's start there. I recorded a very short, abbreviated bio at the outside of this episode. but like to kind of start there.

What's your one-minute elevator pitch on your career kind of leading up to taking on the CEO role at Spectra Wave and now leading kind of image, I can't remember your exact title at Phillips now, but kind of leading the imaging category at Phillips? Yeah, I think one liner would be just my entire career around medical imaging, engineering and building companies to kind of bring those together to have some positive impact on the world.

So, yeah, that would be kind of my one-line. I think. You're being humble. You've got like a PhD in this arena. I'll brag a little bit more about you in the bio that I record for this episode. But I want to expect you to do the same. The one thing that I did, I did notice, even in doing research that I didn't realize before, you spent a little bit of time at the University of Iowa. So, you know, do you consider yourself a fellow Hawkeye? Definitely. Definitely. In fact, you know, I have a very close colleague now at Phillips who did her undergrad at Iowa State. So Cyclones and Hawkeyes have a fierce rivalry.

Yeah, and we're recording this in early September of 26. If you're listening to this after the fact, it's like the rivalry continues this weekend, you know, with the old Iowa, Iowa State football game. But that's good. I think a lot of people don't realize that Steve Michelson, right, founder of Ferrapulse, also, you know, AP at the University of Iowa earlier in his career too.

You know, in fact, that's, I think, where the first prototypes were built. So little do people know that the Hawkeyes have a little, you know, have kind of a sort of a, there's serial entrepreneurs, right, that have spent some time in Iowa City. Everywhere, including Iowa City. Iowa City is actually an amazing, amazing city. That was where I landed from Australia. It was a great place. Definitely fond memories. But also on the medical imaging side, which has been my, you know, kind of core focus for the last 20 plus years, just an incredible group of, you know, professors, and entrepreneurs pushing the envelope on the medical imaging side. And I really actually, I would say very unique, you know, having then gone to Harvard, I would say a very unique collaboration at the University of Iowa between its engineering school and the hospitals and clinics,

something that actually quite hard to replicate without, I think, partially maybe a little bit of the Midwest culture, partially a little bit of, you know, it is an incredible school with great track record in research, but also just the proximity of these, you know, two kind of powerhouse engineering and medical schools. Well, I agree, having grown up in Iowa, so, and still continue to watch the Hawks play, even though we're talking about the engineering schools, you know, so. But SpectraWave and Hyperview specifically, right? I think a lot of people listening to this are maybe at least loosely familiar with SpectraWave, considering the, the exit to Phillips earlier this year.

for those that like don't know anything about the technology, you know, give us like a very high level overview and maybe kind of where it sits today kind of within the broader kind of Phillips portfolio of devices. Yeah, sure. So spectraway was founded to address a gap in the interventional cardiology space, specifically the planning and optimization of revascularization or typically stenting procedure in coronary artery disease. We developed a next-generation intravascular imaging product with a core tech combination of deep OCT, so optical coherence tomography,

a next generation of that technology, as well as NIRS, NIRS, so near-infrared spectroscopy. And this combination allows physicians to have the highest-quality image in the coronary artery, as well as for structural, but then also use the spectroscopy for effectively chemical imaging and evaluate the plaque makeup end or morphology. So that combination allows physicians to make the best decision for evaluating the need for stenting, you know, how to go about where to stent, and then confirmation that the stenting procedure

was successful and doesn't need any additional kind of steps. So that was the kind of the core, I would say, value proposition for Hyperview along the journey, and we can talk a little bit more about this as we kind of chat today. But we also then took that first, I would say, beachhead technology slash application space and looked at how to expand the utility of this product and move towards a platform. And in that regard, we then developed a non-invasive physiology. assessment product that we referred to as X1 FFR, fractional flow reserve. And this was really a next generation, non-invasive assessment of whether or not the restriction that's in a coronary artery

is significant enough physiologically, and it meets a criteria for revascularization or stenting. And so that was the second product that we launched and developed and then launched under the spectra wave banner and now under Philip. inside Phillips, and this was, I would say, a fantastic, I would say, yeah, just merge of our technology into the image-guided therapy group, and specifically under the devices team, which takes its history all the way back to actually Volcano, who developed what's referred to in the field as digital IVIS, intravascular ultrasound, as well as, you know, that's kind of one, one significant product line that the devices team owns and has grown significantly.

And the second major product is the more traditional wire-based pressure device called Omniwire. And this one is what produces, you know, FFR and IFR, IFR, being a proprietary approach to fractional flow reserve that Phillips has developed. So interestingly, the two Spectrewave products have now been. been integrated into a team that actually has and leads the market in the two categories. So both intravascular imaging for coronary artery disease, as well as physiologic assessment, FFR assessment in coronary artery disease. And so, you know, the digital Ivis, I would say, sits on one end of the spectrum from ease of use and image quality. And the hyperview deep OCT

nears sits on the other end of the spectrum, where digital Ivis, I would say, is very simple to go, you know, kind of place the device and get an image, but has less of the automation and doesn't produce as high of a resolution in image, but really great kind of day-in, day-out use for this application. And then on the other end of the spectrum is the Hyperview Depot CT Nears that provides the highest image quality on the market with, you know, the most comprehensive morphological assessment, including full automation of AI features. So it kind of covers both bookends. And then interestingly on the physiology, the OmniWire is also the market leader on the pressure wire side. And then now what we

believe is the best in class non-invasive fractional flow reserve assessment device that leverages X-ray image. So it's a lower risk and faster approach to evaluating physiologic flow. And that's the X-1 F-F-F-R. So both actually kind of cover the two different bookends for Phillips now, which is really exciting. Got it. I love, I don't know if that was a pun that was fully intended, the drop of spectrum, right? Spoken like a true optical scientist. That's a great overview. And I've got the website pulled up, which is actually still available, even though you're under the Phillips umbrella. SpectraWave.com, willing to do it in the full write-up, S-P-E-C-T-R-A-W-A-W-E.com, SpectraWave.com.

You can check out both the F-F-R product as well as the Hyperview imaging platform as well. So let's jump to some different topical areas, right, that most startups are going to have to kind of get through or hurdles that you're going to have to cross to get to a successful outcome, whether that's an exit to a large strategic, maybe an IPO or potentially, you know, something else. But first one I wanted to tackle was really kind of this idea of going from scientists as CEO and you've, you know, you've run, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about your, the company that you, uh, that you're with prior to Spectre Wave, but you've got,

you know, a fair amount of experience in the world of startups, right? And so when you think about, you know, going from like an academic arena, right, to, you know, developing a sophisticated device, you know, that ideally or hopefully is commercially viable, and maybe, maybe frame this up for the other, you know, physicians, PhDs, engineers that are listening to this. Like, what do you think someone has to sort of unlearn, right, going from scientists slash engineer to startup CEO? Yeah, I think firstly, I'd say for everyone, it's obviously very different. As you know, you have different flavors of every individual.

I think for me, it was definitely a little bit more of a practical engineer scientist. And so, and also recognize that if I'm going to have impact, it has to come through commercialization. So I realized that pretty quickly as I transitioned from, I didn't know that in academia, actually, but as I transitioned into industry, it became very evident very quickly. And so I think partially your motivation, yeah, and drive become much more aligned to, obviously, clinical unmet need, building a product that truly meets that and delights the customer in a way that is also, can, one, sustain a business, but commercially can be very successful.

And that commercial success is what ultimately leads to real impact. And so if I kind of wind that back to your question, I think, you know, as a scientist and an engineer, you're always looking for more data and you're always trying to really optimize kind of every question, you know, how you end up answering it. In a business slash CEO role, I think you have to, you know, even even the decision on how much more information to get is in itself a critical, critical piece of the puzzle. And so, you know, making quite consequential and in some cases, you know, non-recoverable decisions based on limited information, I would say is kind of one element of that transition. Another, particularly for someone like myself who came out of,

even though I was in the pretty heavily on the medical side, but still on core technology development is recognizing that, and this kind of comes back to what I was saying at the beginning, is, you know, the best technical solution isn't necessarily kind of equivalent or aligned with the best product. And, you know, there's a lot of factors to that. I mean, it could be really expensive, could be hard to manufacture, it could be very hard to use, might be very disruptive to the workflow, and ultimately also just take a long time to develop. So transitioning into that kind of, you know, business leadership and ultimately CEO of a startup, you're optimizing a lot more than the technology to be successful. I think of one other element, maybe I'll kind of end here on this, is in the

academic setting, it ends up, at least in the period that I was involved, it's much less about teamwork. And I would say particularly true teamwork and true collaboration. There's much more about, you know, being the first author on a publication, being PI on a grant. It kind of centers around a singular person. And I think you very quickly realize that if you want to do something, you know, that has a very high impact and broad reach, you need a team. And you also need a team of really great people across many, many different disciplines. And so, you know, you end up recognizing that you need to leverage and work with an increasingly

number, you know, a higher number of people to be able to make the impact. So I think really, you know, believing and then recognizing, believing and living this path where it really is about the people actually in these organizations that make kind of the magic truly happen. Yeah, that's a really good point. It reminds me of, and his name is totally escaping me. He's a physician that runs, he's a urologist that runs a urology startup. And his name is totally escaping me if I remember it. I'll mention that because he's great. But he mentioned something very similar, because we haven't at this conversation on how to transition from practicing medicine into an industry or building a startup. And he mentioned something,

you know, fairly similar that that trajectory, he was describing a physician, is, it's kind of individualistic, right? You're kind of, you know, you're trying to get the best grade, the best score, you know, leading up to med school. And then, you know, the achievements thereafter are pretty sort of siloed, I guess, for lack of better descriptions. So it's interesting that you touch on that. But I want to double-click into your first point around, kind of this concept of like making decisions with either little information and really, you know, trying to, trying to not to like overbuild or over engineer it, right? Because I think you and I both, both have been around enough where that, that tends to be an issue with first time founders,

especially those that are technical, is they want to engineer the perfect solution that maybe sounds great or looks great, you know, on a spec sheet or in a CAD drawing, but it's not, it's missing, there's some clear gaps in terms of actually being incorporated or adopted into a clinical workflow. So what's your advice there, right? I mean, if you're coaching up, you know, another, you know, someone who's never done this before that's coming, you know, that is technical, that is quite smart. How do they, how do they avoid that trap? It's really hard for sure. So, you know, just recognize that balance is not easy to strike, even with a lot of experience. My experience so far is it also depends on, are you creating a completely new category with a

completely new technology versus, you know, it could be an incremental improvement in technology that actually has a big impact on an existing workflow, work, you know, procedure and market space. The nature or maybe the minimum viable product for whatever stage you're in, whether it's clinical, early commercial, or scale up, is different depending on kind of where on that spectrum you sit. But one of the things I think that can be very helpful

is very close and open and trusting clinical collaborators. And ideally, you know, I don't think you need a lot of them. As long as you are not designing for the KOLs, you are designing for, you know, the broader portion of the target user, I think having some very close collaborators there can be very helpful and making sure that you have, you know, really good clarity on what does this product need to look like. And then with that clarity and that North Star, make the tradeoffs along the way. and know that, you know, the clinical product doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles.

The early product needs to, you know, needs to be differentiated, but maybe again, doesn't need to have kind of the longer term integration into the broader ecosystem, but certainly design it so that, you know, you can come back and build upon it. And then for scale up, of course, there's a lot of requirements at that point that are needed, including, you know, manufactureability, serviceability, cost, you know, all of all of the pieces that that will ultimately drive to a successful and profitable product line. Yeah, that phrase that you mentioned just a few minutes ago around designing an MVP for the stage that you're at, I think that's so crucial, right?

Because I think some people in our world, they get cut up at this idea of MVP and it's like, well, this is medical devices. You can't, you know, you can't launch, you can't run a study on a minimum viable, device or minimum viable product. But yes, to a certain degree, but it's nuanced, right? You can certainly develop an MVP for a certain stage, right? So like your product may look, well, should probably look a lot different if you're going into a first inhuman versus a pivotal trial as an example, right?

But I love that framing of like getting to an MVP for your stage so long as you're not walking through a door that you can't walk back through, you know, if something needs to be changed, right, as an example. So I think that's really, you know, kind of really healthy kind of lens to think through when it comes to when it comes to development. Yeah. And I will say like there are certain things you can't compromise at any stage. when your product is now being used on patients.

And number one is safety. So that you can have a compromise on. But there are plenty of other things that, yeah, as the stages evolve are not as necessary. And we all know, kind of perfect is the enemy of good. And so, and maybe good enough. And so you learn so much at every stage. And it's actually one of the things I would say on the research and development side that always surprised me.

and I had a great mentor in the first company I was in. And the thing that always surprised me was every single pre-clinical study we would do, as much as we would vet things out on a bench, we would always learn something new that surprised us on the engineering side. Not necessarily on the clinical physiologic aspect, but just we missed something. Going in and doing a pre-clinical study, it sharpens, I would say, the sword in a different way

than a bench study. It's actually quite fascinating, especially when you have a multi-disciplinary team. Yeah, yeah. No, I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I remember a pitch earlier on in kind of fast-waves journey with, I want to name the firm.

Maybe I should, but it's a very well-respective venture firm, arguably led by some of the more names that people would have readily recognized, right, if they're in MetTech. And their feedback was run a feasibility study for our peripheral system, even though FDA was not requiring it,

And it was kind of like, well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, you tend to want to not have to do a lot of clinical work or at least try to minimize it. But to your point, like learned a lot. We ended up making that decision to run a small feasibility study. And we're really, really glad we did because it's like it never ceases to amaze me how much you learn. Whether it's, you know, a pre-clinical cadaver lab versus like a pre-GOP lab or GEPA lab to a full-on GOP study, it's like it. And then maybe even a feasibility study, you're always going to learn something. And yeah, I couldn't agree more, right?

like that stuff is so, so crucial. So important. And the sooner of the, I mean, you know, this is like, you know, MBA slash just, you know, even technology development 101. You know earlier the better. Yeah. You're on a race against time. You're on borrowed time slash money.

And you have to kind of balance it all. Yeah. Hopefully with no nefarious investors on your cap table. We won't go there. We'll save that maybe conversation for another time. But let's jump to Clenrag, right? because I know we don't have a ton of time on the docket. But when you think about kind of under the similar kind of framework of like someone

who doesn't have a ton of experience in the world of startups and, you know, they're jumping and, you know, trying to define their clinic or the regulatory pathway, I mean, are there a few things that really stand out in terms of kind of what you've learned over the past, call it, you know, 10 to 15 years developing clinical evidence, you know, maybe that are, you know, not obvious, right? or other that that would you know sort of weren't that weren't obvious obvious things that that that that you knew kind of going into this uh this function i think early on particularly as i transitioned from academia into industry one one thing i didn't appreciate was in med tech having a regulatory

clearance and i think specifically in the context of a 510k pathway versus a pma which i would say is quite different in what it means a clearance is by no means, you know, the evidence, like whatever clinical evidence you generated for that is by no means equivalent to the evidence required to drive adoption and build out a real kind of commercial pathway for a product. And, you know, as we know, the 510K pathways about, you know, substantial equivalence to some predicate and evaluating safety and efficacy. And you think the efficacy demonstration should be enough. But in general, general, particularly for MedTech startups, most, I would say, and I think I can generalize here,

most that take a 510K path, the claims are relatively light. I would say particularly in the diagnostic setting, for sure. So I think one question around clinical and regulatory is, well, what's the objective? And, you know, do you need evidence to drive adoption? Or do you need evidence to to just get in the market to then evaluate your product on maybe the right target customer in a market and patient population. Because for adoption, I would say it's very different, you know, whether it's diagnostic or therapeutic. I mean, you're talking about significant studies that are typically multi-year, you know,

multi-center. But, you know, at the same time, that also drives significant value in these companies. So, you know, I think certainly in the first company I was in, I feel like, you know, we ended up having, I think, nine clearances in total. And they, they spanned from, you know, the initial release, additional features, all the way to new indications. But, you know, we hadn't even then, after 10 years, we hadn't yet gotten to one that had an incredibly strong claim around the diagnostic capabilities. and I think if you're creating a new tech, new category, I think that's actually much more important is, you know, refine and optimize the product in a more protected and,

and quote unquote, lower cost setting that is not in a commercial setting, and generate the right evidence to ultimately support driving adoption. And that, you know, obviously that will include a combination of reimbursement and guideline change. that is just incredibly different to the strategy to get clearance. Yeah, so, so important to understand kind of what you're building and where you're headed, right? And in answering that question, is this simply to sort of check a regulatory box? Or, you know, is this a strategy that's going to ladder up to like real commercial adoption?

Yeah, very, very different approaches. And just kind of circling back around to a point you made earlier about working with the right clinical advisors, medical advisors early on. Like, if you've got the right folks around the table, they should be able to help. help you really answer some of those questions, right? Certainly you can, you know, bring in regulatory strategists to sort of, you know, get your head around, you know, the best path forward and maybe to design the right trial that doesn't, you know, doesn't expend too much cash, maybe, right? But answering the latter question, which is much more challenging is, what is it going to take for physicians to really, truly adopt this, you know, technology in a commercial, you know,

capacity? That's a, that's a different question, right, all together. Hey everyone, let's take a quick break. Quick reminder that while we're cooking up something new for Medsider, all 250 plus interviews and our popular email-based courses are now officially consolidated over at Scott Nelson Live.com. These courses are completely free, self-paced, and delivered directly to your inbox over eight weeks. You'll get actionable insights packed with winning formulas from world-class founders and CEOs covering every key stage of the startup journey like fundraising,

device design, and development, clinical and regulatory strategy, commercialization, and A. Each course covers hard-earned lessons shared by the medical device and health technology entrepreneurs who joined our program. You can explore the courses at Scott NelsonLive.com forward slash courses. Again, that's Scott NelsonLive.com forward slash courses. All right, let's jump back to the interview. Yeah, I think clinical KOL, clinical strategists, clinical scientists can really help on what evidence is necessary to demonstrate and have convincing output for the community at large, the clinical community that you're targeting at large. And then I think the other pillar there is having really great reimbursement advice.

I mean, most startups typically don't, at least my experience is you don't have reimbursement expertise in-house, but there are great firms that can support you know, support you along the way and having a better understanding of what that looks like is it's super important because the timeline to get reimbursement in place. And the synchronization of that with clinical evidence and, you know, obviously, ultimately being a cleared or approved product is not sure. So having that be part of the overall strategy. And maybe it's just an intentional, we're not going to do it because of, you know, A, B, or C could be already in the market. You know, doesn't make sense because we're not going to have the funding and we're going to transition it to, you know, another entity that will carry that forward, you know, whatever it is.

But it is really, really important. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. people are surprised by how much, like this idea. I mean, even if you're, your task with sort of, or you have a mandate to generate a new CPT code as an example, right? And say you maybe you're successful in that endeavor, that's just like initial coverage, right? I mean, if you, if you're treating a patient population that's kind of sub, you know, below the Medicare kind of threshold and you're dealing with private

payers, they're going to have typically a whole, whole different set of, of, of, requirements and evidence that they're going to look for, right? And I think a lot of people that haven't gone down that rabbit hole are surprised, you know, by what that, what that looks like. And it's a big process. If you're, if you're interested in like learning more about this topic, definitely encourage you to check out the interview. I did with Bob Paulson for those listening. He, uh, he's done a couple of startups, right, where they've had to generate new CPT codes. And he's, uh, I think especially thoughtful on, uh, on what it takes to, to get, not only CPT co, but to actual, you know, drive, you know, real coverage and, and reimbursement

with a broad set of, a broad set of payers. So let's maybe transition to kind of, of, you know, fundraising in M&A, right? Because all of these startups in the device world require a lot of capital to get to the finish line. And we kind of, you know, I jokingly refer to ideally supportive investors on your cap table that are willing to truly support the company, you know, through the ups and the downs. But when you think about, you know, coaching up either a first-time CEO or maybe someone that doesn't have, you know, just a lot of experience raising capital in general, what do you think are like one or two of the most important things? they need to like real understand or maybe maybe think about it you know thought about slightly

differently what do you think most people underestimate right when it comes to kind of their approach to capital raising for a capital intensive startup well I think everyone underestimates how much capital you probably need and how much effort it is to raise capital in kind of a traditional venture setting the timeline you know from introduction through closing around is, you know, if you do it in six months, that's amazing. If you do it in nine months, it's probably typical. And oftentimes it could be up to 12 months. So I would say don't underestimate kind of the level of effort and focus,

particularly for the CEO around financing. People always tell you, you're always financing. And I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, you should tell as many people about the story where you're at, what you're planning to do as you can. I think at the end it's very much a relationship process because even though these entities, the VCs and family offices or otherwise, they'll do their diligence,

a big part of their diligence, and I would say, I think more than 50% of it is do they trust you as the CEO? And have you generated a strong enough relationship of both trust in the way you interact? but also what you've said that you're planning to do and then you've come back and told them, yep, we did that, now we're going to do this. So speaking to as many of the relevant financial groups as you can about your vision, your strategy, your execution effectively builds a relationship through that track record

that you're building up just in interactions. I think, you know, you obviously, you definitely want to be careful, obviously with funds, right? It is effectively borrowed money. But, you know, my first chairman, who was fantastic at Spectra Wave, one of the things he said early on to me was we shouldn't forget that we're playing to win. And so, you know, definitely good to be really efficient. But, you know, in the grand scheme of things,

spending another 10, even 20 percent of the total money raised, if that's the difference between success and failure, no one's going to be concerned when they get, you know, 3, 5, 10x on the back end that you spent another 0.2x to discuss that. And I think, you know, that kind of statement that we're playing to win, I think is really important because ultimately this, you know, this is being funded by entities that are looking for a very strong return in a relatively short period of time, you know,

as compared to the maybe more traditional equities market. So I think spending, raising more and carefully spending more is actually, you know, in itself a very critical strategy that is worth taking on. Obviously, you know, a part of that you need to deliberate with the folks who supported you and, you know, at the board level and the venture firms that are, that are, you know, have a particular thesis. but you don't want to be undercapitalized, that's for sure. Yeah, no doubt.

I mean, so many other, I would say, really, really experienced CEO as a common on the program and, you know, phrase this in, you know, in similar sort of ways, right? It's like, don't be scared of dilution, right? Like that if dilution is your number one priority, that's not, you're not getting off on the right foot, you know, and I couldn't, I couldn't agree with that more. Obviously, you want to be sensitive to it, of course, and try to manage it appropriately. But if you can take capital at slightly more dilution, take the capital, you know, especially in this, in this era of Medtech where most venture firms are

moving later, you know, later stage. And there's a big kind of, you know, gap in the, and kind of the earlier, at the earlier stages, yeah, definitely take more capital. But your comment earlier about diligence, right, and having enough conversations, even if those investors aren't going to come in. So just to be a little bit more pragmatic, say you're raising a series A. And yes, of course, you want to be talking to investors that are going to invest in a series A. But the goal is that you're having a lot of conversations. even if they may not come in for a series A, their ideal investors may be in your series B. And so they're tracking with all of your commitments and where you're headed.

And if you execute, if you get around closed and execute against those milestones and circle back around to all of those investors, well, they sort of have completely, I would say, the first half of diligence, right, by just simply watching your progress sitting on the sidelines. And that's assuming you're actually communicating with them over the course of those 12 to 18 months, which you absolutely should be. But your comment around, that's sort of like my understanding. That's my take on the fact of this idea of you're always fundraising, right? It's like that's a pragmatic example of kind of what that really means.

And I think you hit it on the head, right? It's like, you know, investors do a lot of, to build trust in the CEO, they're going to be watching to see what you communicate and, you know, whether or not you can actually hit your goals against a, you know, a certain timeline that you've communicated, you know. So those conversations, even if they're not going to invest in the current round or not, usually not a waste of time. You know what I mean? And so I think that's really. really helpful feedback. The other piece I'd say, Scott, is you are also looking for partners. Obviously, the financing and getting the money is really important and it's hard,

but all things equal. If you have enough irons in the fire and you're building these relationships, you want to pick people that first and foremost are genuinely engaged, excited about what you're doing, believe in you and the team, and you will enjoy working with on a board because you know, at some point there will be challenging questions and situations. And you want to make sure that everyone has a steady hand. And everyone, particularly on the VC side, I would say they can, they can legitimately and very carefully wear both hats that they wear, you know, as a board member for governance as well as a major shareholder, you know, or, yeah, I would say major shareholder. So I think that process also, of course, everyone says it's too.

way, which I generally believe it is, I think as the CEO, you're also kind of getting a sense for, okay, are they really engaged? Do they remember the last time, you know, what we spoke about? Are they keeping up with the space? Have they been watching, you know, our LinkedIn post, our press releases? Do they reference other strategics who are engaged in the space? And there's so many cues in their questions and also just the discussion that you can get a sense, okay, this individual who represents this firm is genuinely excited and engaged and could be a great partner for us, you know, in this business that we're trying to build. Ask me this question like three years ago. I used to kind of operate when it comes to

fundraising anyway. I mean, there's a lot of dynamics that, you know, inputs that that ladder up to how you raise capital. But I used to kind of generally think, just, you know, survive, survive that this stage advanced to the next round, right? And I wouldn't say I totally disagree with that approach, right? But after, you know, my experience is, and we won't get into this in great detail, right, on this podcast. But, like, you are absolutely right, that, like, this is a partnership, 100%. And hopefully at the very least, your investors are neutral, right? Ideally, they're actually helpful, but certainly not negative, right, to the business. And so, I mean, it is a true partnership, and I would make the argument now, after a lot of lessons learned, if you get signals that they may

actually fall into that net negative category, you could end up wasting a lot. of time, right? You're building something that's obviously very, very hard to do and get to the other side of that, you know, maybe at the top of that mountain, you push the builder up at least to the, to the next sort of plateau. And that could be, you could have wasted just three years of your life. You know what I mean? Four years. Who knows? Or like, whatever that given that time frame is. And so, so yeah, my thinking has kind of changed a little bit on that, largely based on, you know, what you've emphasized, right? It's like, this is, this should be a positive, I'm sorry, It should be a positive partnership, but a partnership nonetheless, right?

And so that's, I think, hugely important, something that I think all people that are kind of new to the capital raising strategy should definitely appreciate for sure. Easier said than done, of course, right? But just I think anyone who's listening to this definitely keep that out of mind, right? I mean, you're looking for investors that, and maybe the best way to think about this is like when we're ultimately challenged with something, right? Whether that's a hurdle, whether that's sort of a market dynamics, maybe a clinical study that had to be paused, whatever, are these investors going to cause chaos? Are they going to be generally supportive?

You know, ideally, ideally they're willing to, you know, roll their sleeves, right? And help the company kind of get through a bit of a trough, you know. And so that's maybe the best way to think about that. So certainly could go into a lot more detail on this, but you share it a lot of good stuff. Do you have a few minutes?

I want to wrap it up with that kind of a rapid fire portion of the interview. Yeah. So again, for everyone listening, spectralwave.com is the website. I highly encourage you to check out the company's products. Now under the Phillips umbrella, we'll also link to Iman's LinkedIn profile in the full write-up as well. So you can check out his background in more detail. But let's transition to the last three rapid fire questions. Feel free to expand or if you want to answer these in true rapid fire passion.

That's totally fine. But take us to the, take us a year from now, right? You're leading up, you know, Phillips advanced imaging business now. what success looked like towards the kind of the tail end of of 2007. I think in many ways we feel like we've built this incredible engine on imaging and physiology. And Phillips has this, you know, tremendous, well, it's probably a semi-trailer, actually, you know, full global access, distribution network, sales channel. And this is really the opportunity and the responsibility.

I would say that we hold in this group to do everything we can, to work with all the existing leadership and teams across the organization to bring these technologies into every facet and every lab where Phillips already lives and of course expand on that. And that's, I would say, both a dream and thrilling to have that opportunity, but also a big responsibility for all of us, you know, everyone in Philips, that's associated with this product. But I think the folks that came across from SpectraWave definitely for us,

this is a really both meaningful but also privileged position to be in that we recognize. So I think in 18 months, 12 to 18 months, having the technology, you know, move from a couple dozen sites that we were in into hundreds, if not thousands of sites in the U.S. and then enter kind of the outside U.S. space will be, to me, that will be success and be on a trajectory to continue to have, you know, very, very broad and significant impact on patients, you know, in the space of coronary artery disease. Yeah, pretty wild, that journey, right, from, you know, getting into patients for the first time to potentially seeing it in thousands of, you know, of hospitals and centers around the world. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, these startups are

are incredibly hard, but like that's obviously one of the most rewarding aspects, right, is actually seeing this make an impact, you know, clinically in someone's, in someone's life. So let's get to the next rapid fire question. If you had a room full of like med tech entrepreneurs, right, what are founders, CEOs, et cetera, what's the one lesson that you think too many CEOs learn too late, I guess, in the game? I think the one that I speak about the most, at least from my experience, is build a company for independence.

And I definitely recognize and acknowledge that some of these startups are built to be purchased. But at the end of the day, you just don't control that. And there's so many different factors that drive an acquisition. And I genuinely believe it. And I can sincerely say that everything inside the company, independent of our venture group, founders, or otherwise, inside the company, Me Down, we were 100% focused on building this out into its own independent-scale organization. Now, that doesn't mean we built up all of this infrastructure in preparation for, you know,

this much bigger company. We did it, I would say, very thoughtfully, intentionally, but our North Star was that. So I think things that were really important on the technology, well, the people first and foremost, the technology, the product, our relationships in the clinical setting. We did it with an eye on, we're going to own this end to end until it scales. And so, you know, you think twice. You think twice about cutting a corner somewhere. I'm not talking about patient safety. Like that one, you can't cut any corners. But when you think about designing for manufacturing ability, you think about, okay, I'm going to outsource this. I'm going to do it in-house. It's going to take me a bit longer.

going to take more effort, I'm going to need the capability, et cetera, you think and you execute differently. And I think that's really important because if you have that full control, one, you learn so much more about the tech and the product and the space, but also when you get into some challenging scenarios, I think you have more optionality, actually, is at least my experience. So I think building for independence, but of course, we have venture backed, right? is the financing that got us where we got to at each stage. And so there's no doubt if a liquidity opportunity comes up every single time best foot forward, you know, and demonstrate that, you know, this is a trajectory we're on. Don't need the acquisition, but would be exciting, would help us

get to the broader goal of impact and, and, you know, better patient care. And ultimately, actually, now being on the other side, only six months in, but honestly, it's also great on this side. This is a different experience and one that now allows us to leverage, you know, all of the scale that exists with an entity like a Phillips. So build for independence and be opportunistic along the way for anything else. Yeah, I couldn't. Just to spend like one minute here again, I know we're over our time here. But I think that's so important.

And it's especially important if you're in the cardiovascular space, right? Because we know most startups in our arena are acquired pre-commercial. But I remember a conversation I had with Bill Hoffman, right, CEO of Vannari, pretty legendary entrepreneur in our world. Before that, he was instrumental in building Fox Hollow, so that's EV3, et cetera. I go on and on,

but Bill's, you know, pretty charismatic guy, but he has this, you know, very, very core belief around, like, what you exactly said. Like, build a company that you're eventually going to commercialize and it's going to be, and that I think flies in the face of a lot of, it's pretty somewhat counterintuitive, right, to I think a lot of med tech, you know,

startup founders or CEOs, but I couldn't agree with it more. And it's hard because you get pushback from sometimes from your board, but certainly from other investors because they know, I mean, and rightfully so, they know the most likely exit is through M&A, right, to another, to a strategic. But yeah, I mean, I just, I don't know, I guess what I'm trying to say in a sort of rambling fashion is if you've got conviction that you're building a best in class product, like, don't bend over, right?

Like, lean into that conviction, build it the right way. Like, I couldn't agree with you more. That's probably one of the other things that's maybe slightly changed, you know, my take on over the past, you know, a couple years. But, yeah, again, right there, right there with you. I think that's very, very good advice. All right, last question. Take us back to maybe your kind of late 20s or maybe like, maybe as you're transitioning kind of from the world of academia into into industry, anything that you'd whisper in the ears of your younger, younger self. Medtech is an incredibly challenging path.

I didn't anticipate the complexity of everything beyond technology. I mean, the technology and being a technology product person, that part I find actually very straightforward and I don't want to say easy, but it all makes sense. And, you know, it's kind of a sequenced process. There are so many other factors to make these medical device companies successful. I think without experience, without going through that process, without, you know, really, you know, hard knocks learning,

you don't realize that this is a long path. And I think at least for me, you know, having done a PhD, I'm not shy of five, 10 year journeys, if not longer. And in some ways, excited about a long journey that will have a tremendous impact, that will unlock a lot of value. But that's not necessarily kind of when you make the transition, transition, you don't realize how difficult it is, how many different, really incredible people

you need, support the venture, how much money it requires, and how much time it takes. And you could do all the right things. And, you know, there are so many other kind of boogie monsters out there that will derail the path. And so I think you said something before that I think is a really important word. You need to be convicted. You need to be convicted that you want to first and foremost have an impact through healthcare. You need to be convicted about, you know, your and the team's capability in execution.

You need to be convicted about the space that you're going to, you know, go after. You know, it requires a lot of conviction because, you know, otherwise it's pretty tough to get through every day in a very positive and excited and enthusiastic way. if you were to mount up all the challenges and, you know, put them on paper. But I will say on the other other end of it, it is incredibly rewarding. It is 100% worth the pursuit and all the trials and tribulations that you go through, but just be eyes wide open and prepared and, you know, make sure that you're in a good place to go tackle it. And, you know, we need more of them.

Yeah. I know where most people are going to be listening to this, right, not watching it, But yeah, I'm nodding my head in full agreement. And hopefully you can hear that in my voice. Like so, so true. Incredibly rewarding space to build in, but very, very difficult. And I think there's a few, I want name names, but there's a few individual investors in Fastwave as an example, right?

And I can always tell the difference between those that have invested, but also more so operated a lot of startups. And they fully realize, like, these are long journeys, right? With a lot of twists and turns and up and downs. Yeah, a lot of things that you simply see. simply don't know until you experience. You know what I mean? And so I'm right there, I'm right there with you, nodding my head in full agreement with your advice that you'd give your younger self for sure. So with that said, this has been a lot of fun. I'm glad. Thanks for

thanks a ton for carving out some time to do it. Super was thrilled, right, to see the news earlier this year that Phillips was all in on Spectre was. So rightfully so, right? You know, cheers to a lot of success moving forward. Thank you, Scott. And I just on behalf of the community. Thank you also for the incredible effort and service that you're providing through this podcast. I think there's so many people, whether you're new or very experienced, that learn so much through, I think, these interactions that, in the space that you've created in the community. So congrats to you. It's a huge, huge effort. And I see it actually as you asked me to come on and all the prep work that you and your team done prior to the podcast itself.

So big thanks for doing this. I appreciate that, man. Those are very, very kind words. Yeah, I selfishly wanted to start podcasting, gosh, 15 plus years ago, primarily to learn for myself. And I think that that's sort of held true, right? Because I always undoubtedly learn something, right, from, you know, people like yourself that are willing to carve out some time to share some insights with the rest of us.

So thank you. Thank you for doing it. So, you know, appreciate it. So again, for everyone listening, spectrawave.com is the website. we'll link to it in the full write-up. But you've stayed along this far now. Appreciate your attention, as always. Until the next episode goes live.

Everyone, take care. Hey, it's Scott again. One quick thing before you go. You see, I love bringing you insightful conversations with the best founders and CEOs of medical device and health technology startups. But here's the thing. I'd be super grateful if you could help me reach

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