Why a Strong Resume Can Be Wrong for Your Startup

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0:00 Most investors, especially family and friends and agnostic family offices and people who are investing into two, three, four million rounds are not going to be experts in whatever field of innovation that you're building. So going to the bottom of the ocean of the technicalities of that, do they really care? The answer is no. And I think the one piece that's missing even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be, the other piece that's missing is the accountability piece. That generation wants all the fun and unique experiences and all the unique responsibilities, but the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're thin air, man.

They're ether. They're nowhere to be found. like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business, it's just an obsession at this point. Like why make good so hard? Hey there, I'm Terry Coutsolioutsos, founder of RevRx AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for MedTech and consumer health practices. Welcome to the Zero Friction podcast. Terry Coutsolioutsos is here. I have an exciting guest today who is taking the bull by the horns with some of the most innovative founders in the country in the MedTech space. I have Giovanni Lauricella with me. He spent 16 years doing one thing and that's basically doing executive recruitment and then he's pivot pivoted into a new business model where he's actually helping CEOs build out their companies. And so, Giovanni, welcome to have you on the show today. I appreciate you being here. Why don't you give us a little background about your experience in the medtech

Space and then what you and Lifeblood are doing in the market. Thank you, Terry. So, for 16 years, I've been recruiting for venturebacked medical device companies and nearly 20 years down in South Florida. transplanted to Houston, Texas roughly three years ago. Uh for a lot of great reasons that we'll dive into right now, but this is an upand cominging burgeoning medtech hub that's geographically centered right in the United States. Uh was on a plane direct to Sydney, Australia a few months ago. So incredibly connected to the globe, direct flights to wherever you can possibly think of. Ironically enough, not to uh my original hometown of Buffalo, New York, which is challenging to get to. I was just there last week with my parents, but um that's the only place that I can't get to from Houston.

2:34 But this has been an incredible hub and uh we're doing work right in our backyard with companies that are um expanding their teams here in Texas and also nationwide and then also still pursuing Cark over in Europe. So out of those 16 years I have worked with boards, investors and executive management teams to either design those independent board members to join those boards uh replace or take to the next level CEOs that are going from R&D clinical and into those commercial forces uh that are ever more important that I'm sure we'll touch base on um as the markets change over the past certainly five to seven years. Um and then also in addition to being able to uh build out those executive management teams and provide some of that counsel as to how you do that, where you do that, when you do that, and what's the process involved in making some of these strategic hires.

Uh we have created events called the MedTech CEO forum that we do all throughout the the globe at this point. Um from this year by the time we're done we'll have done it from California to Boston to London to Paris to finishing up in Tel Aviv at the end of this year. Um we opened up JP Morgan in January for San Franc in San Francisco with this conference. We're going to be doing Adv um in Boston in October and we do it here in Houston and those other places that I mentioned once again wrapping up in Israel. So what we do with those is bring CEOs together to share best practices and there's no one else in the room. And this is usually kicked off with a fireside chat on an exited CEO. I actually just before jumping on with you right now, I was just talking to Maria Bennett who sold SPR Therapeutics out of Cleveland Clinic to Medronic two months ago for $650 million. She's going to be

Our fireside chat telling that story of how she actually founded the company off of her MA master masters thesis, brought it through a hund00 million annual run rate and then ultimately transacted it for 650 million to Medronic just a couple months ago. And then we'll dive into a two-hour platform of 100 CEOs, sharing best practices on building boards, hiring and firing, insourcing versus outsourcing, the challenges of commercialization, managing boards, you name it. obviously raising capital that's the bane of most companies existence these past few years especially so we do the CEO only forum and then uh last but not least twice a year semianually in March and in September and we're a few weeks away from the one coming up in September uh we do the medtech com or the Houston medtech conference series so in March we do the Houston medtech rodeo and in September we do the Houston medtech Octoberfest both very themed fun conferences bringing together strategics investors of varying sorts and executive

5:15 Operators into a room to have a very B2B focused conference ultimately to help medical device CEOs build their businesses. So in short um I'm not in the conference business but we do some events and conferences that bring our community together and 16 years later I'm still an executive search consultant building venturebacked medical device executive teams and boards. So what got you into the space originally? So what what you know did you just wake up one day and find your way in there or you know by accident on purpose.

The answer is completely yes. If you talk to any recruiter I still all these years later I've never met one that said when I want to wake up uh or when I grow up I want to be a recruiter or I went to college to be a recruiter. I still have not yet met that person. All of us have a story of how we fell into it. Uh my story was after graduating college with a finance undergrad, um I started a business in Costa Rica and Colombia during the economic crash in late 2008 2009 going into 2010ish. Um and then it was just I was in South Florida at the time and the industry was really not there. And so after getting rid of the business in Colombia, coming back to South Florida, there was just not much going on. And I got accepted into a PhD program, thinking that I was going to buy the next five years of my life and hopefully wait it out to better times,

Only to uh take a job at Starbucks while waiting those five months before my PhD started. Um, and two months ahead of that starting time, got a letter in the mail saying that you're not going to get a stipen anymore. uh economic times and the schools aren't merging together. So, you have to pay for your own PhD. And I was already starting to drown in uh undergraduate debt. I didn't have the money to pay for my PhD. So, I said, "It's time to go to work." And spent time blasting my resume on Craigslist all throughout the night only to wake up with two interviews uh the next day. One from a medical device recruiting firm in South Florida and one from uh Meil Lynch. And so I could either be an entry- level stock broker or learn about medical devices, which I didn't know anything about, how to recruit. I love talking to people. I love people in general. And it was just something that wasn't even on my radar. And it was a

Good cell and a you know, what do you have to lose if you don't make it just a little bit of time? And so that's how I fell into this and fell in love with the industry. then went and got my master's degree in regulatory affairs for medical devices, kind of solidifying my understanding and academic knowledge of the industry that I was falling in love with and recruiting for. And then literally just obsessed with the medical device industry and how to build these businesses through talent and people and the effects of what good talent versus a bad actor can be into a company and how crucial building a company with people uh is. and I've made a career out of it.

8:16 And so 16 years later, um was with my previous firm for 13 years and then started my firm actually no 11 years and um I'm coming up on five years with uh with Lifeblood after starting it in 2022 January. That's great. And so when you talk about what what really gives you the buzz around medical devices, what really kind of jacks you up when you know this space versus other spaces for recruiting? So I mean 16 years of doing it I I I probably would have told you a different story along those chapters. Um in the beginning it was just simply technology.

Like I happen to fall in medical technology. Like how cool is that? Uh when I got a little bit more educated I felt um privileged on the fact that we were dealing with these companies that were developing technologies that were yet to be approved by the FDA or CE marked over in Europe. So you had this lens and uh dare I say insight as to what's coming in the future. And then you know you felt a little smarter. felt a little cooler at cocktail parties where no one else was in the medical industry and all of a sudden you talked about someone's mother's ailment or someone's brother's ailment and oh well did you know that this heart failure thing is coming up and they're in clinical trials right now or this peripheral nerve stimulation systems coming up or there's a watch that actually handles uh hand tremors that eliminates hand tremors and it's about to go commercial in six months just wait and see. So that was very cool. That was the next phase. Uh I would say now

Having been over a decade and you see the es and flows and the challenges of raising capital and the challenges of regulatory versus reimbursement and the shift of pursuing CER first and now the FDA um is the major focal point for innovation and now the commercial challenges um and the financing challenges for ventureback companies. It's just much more of the love of the game and unfortunate complexity to build a medical device company that is actually founded on the principle of helping people. Like our industry makes helping people unnecessarily challenging. And when you just rest on that concept and understand then you you fall in love with how to build a business that falls within that statement. um without ever giving up on the fight that you're actually building something that ultimately will help somebody. It's just an obsession at this point. Like why make good so hard?

10:47 You know, that's a really good point and having been in the medical device space for over 30 years. You and I were talking about it earlier before the program on how fast iteration and you know versions of technology were coming out you know 20 and 30 years ago and versus today where you think with AI and lots of knowledge behind you that the processes would be more efficient and slimmer and um but it's not. It it is more complicated. There is more paperwork. there is more hoops to crawl through and so um you know you and I have seen how that has changed the landscape of the medical device community and you deal with both sides of the fence actually you're dealing with investors right so part of your um your customer profile is serving the investor who's actually investing in these companies and and building those companies with people and now you have you So, a new arm where you're you're helping CEOs build companies from an

Infrastructure perspective and a process perspective. And so, you're almost like an operating partner in a lot of ways. It sounds like uh yes, I I I still would call myself an executive recruiter because I I wouldn't want to jump over my skis and say I'm an operator, but the one story I haven't told yet is I actually do have my own medical device company. So um right it was with a co-founder and is with a co-founder who has already successfully exited his first medical device company. So I do have very real world operating experience. Um we're actually just about to receive FDA clearance. We're just about to go commercial at the very end of this year.

So we have had everything from inception of outlicicensing patents to getting freedom to operate to raising capital and how to raise that capital from institutional investors to family offices to friends and family and how that works. Um to then soliciting medical advisory boards and Koss and finding contract manufacturers and pricing models um you name it and obviously doing the submissions itself. And so it's been an awesome awesome experience starting a medical device company 15 years into my career and now uh we are 16 months old and about 45 days away from receiving our FDA clearance. So we've built a medical device company in lightning speed. It is a class 2 device but going in and recruiting the right people from previous exits. Um having excellent law firms behind us and specifically a law firm Goodwin. Um, shout out to Marty Gomez, who has done all of our patent work, um, and corporate counsel. And so, um, it it's been an absolute pleasure finally working behind the curtain of what it really means to build a medical

13:36 Device company. And it's only strengthened me as an executive recruiter, helping out other companies, understanding really the pain points of making sure that you have the right person. You know, that's a great little commentary on yourself. You love the medical device business so much you bought a company and started one. How about Oh, yeah. And I'm invested into it myself. I wouldn't I wouldn't ask for somebody else's money unless I put my own money in there. So, right. It's been uh it's been a very very intense learning curve and it's only made what I've been doing for all these years that much stronger, helping out other CEOs do it.

So, what do what do most investors look for when it comes to hiring an executive team for a medical device company? what what are the key things that they look for? So, at the end of the day, it's d-risking, right? And and as general as that truly is, you just have to get super human about it. Um, if it's an institutional venture capital firm versus a family office or a high net worth individual, you know, one person is investing someone else's money, the other person's investing their money.

Uh, no one wants to lose their money. Most people don't want to lose anyone else's money. If they lose someone else's money, that means they can't go raise another found fund, which means they don't have a job. So there's there's selfish motivations for both people to protect something. And so it's really more, it sounds offensive when you are investing into something, but once the investment's made, it's really more about defense um at least in the short to midterm um before you can get past some of those growth door openings, if you will, to say, "Okay, let's put some more fuel on the fire." But you know in the in the early days it's like and and behind the scenes now I know for a fact there are companies who have co-invested together in previous companies who then want to syndicate into new companies and they would say I love the technology I love the market but that's not the right CEO and and I'll syndicate with you only on the term that will replace a CEO

And Right? Or it could be I'm investing because the CEO is exceptional and they're part of our network and I have invested behind that CEO before. Um, so what is our major problem? Okay, our major problem is our reimbursement strategy. Let's go out and hire a real head of reimbursement and then we have to validate why they've done this before. You know, it it's it's it's shocking how human it is if you just stop and think about some of these things. I mean there's there's diligence but um a lot of these investment investments are made based on relationships and trust. I mean and and obviously there's a lot of investments made every single year into new people and into new entities. Um but when you start understanding the websites for venture capital firms aren't necessarily telling the real story of how they actually invest. Um there's a lot of sheep movement I would say where you know they they run together, they invest together, they

16:52 Soundboard with each other, they're willing to share risks together, but they're also willing to derisk one another by going into it together. Um so it's a it's an interesting model. It's not necessarily what you would think on the surface. Kind of like I'll do it if you do it kind of thing, you know. Exactly. Truthfully. Truthfully. I've heard I've heard that a lot as well. like where I'll go if they go, you know. Oh, I know those guys. If they're in, I'm in. You know, they they it's truly a flock of sheep. So, it's 100%. And and you know, there's very very little exception, especially when you start playing around with big big dollars. Um I will tell you there is a there is such thing as diligence. Um and and realistically, and this is a very general statement, so any venture capital firm listening into this, I'm sure, will point to reasons why I'm wrong, but um diligence is either meant to surface the reason that allows them

To pass. Sure. Or they want to um follow a friend and and have a d-risk situation based on relationships. But diligence itself, like very rarely will they go to the bottom of an ocean on diligence and be like, I've soundboarded with no one I have a relationship on. I found the holy grail. This is what I'm investing in. I'm going to win. Um, it's it's less of that and it's much more of like I'm going to do diligence to actively look for a reason not to invest. Um, and if I can't find that, then I need to find a friend or something that derisks relationships as to why I would invest.

Got it. Interesting. Um, so why do most because you know the other thing that I'm I see quite often today in today's marketplace is the money for innovation in the medtech space is kind of getting kind of thin, right? In some ways and in other ways it's getting kind of thick too. you see a lot of big acquisitions and there's a lot of big money being spent. But I also know there's a lot of startups and early stage companies that are looking for money that are having trouble getting two, three, four, five million dollars to get off the ground because, you know, it's not enough money for private equity. It's not enough money for venture. Um, and it's probably too risky for family. And so, um, why why is the market so challenging today in terms of raising money? I'll start by telling my own story. Um, because when you start referring to that early stage money of that one, two, three, $4 million raise, right?

19:41 Um, the well-tured executive CEO who's raising tens of millions of dollars doesn't have those same dynamical challenge, right? So that's head that's off the table. And if that same experienced CEO had a success and they were starting their company 2.0 um and they were raising that money, I will tell you the likelihood of um it being easy to raise that is pretty high. uh only contingent upon one factor that they actually have a clear business model story to tell friends and peers and colleagues. Uh a very quick example is Daniel Hawkins, the founder of Shockwave Medical. Um I was podcast with him and I've known him for years, but this is going back probably five years ago. And I just asked him like after all of these successes that you've had, does raising capital become easier? And the answer is raising capital doesn't become easier. Opening the doors to having opportunities to pitch raising capital becomes easier. You have to have something tangible. Just because you've done exits and stuff like that doesn't

Mean you can go sell snake oil on on version 3.0. You still have to have something real. it's just the reputation and the ability to open doors um becomes much easier. So where I go with that is you know if you think about once again generally speaking how our industry is brought up many times or often times founders are physicians or engineers. The business acumen the business awareness is not typically there. um the naturalness of networking and coming with a robust trusted network in to invent um investing in a technology isn't typically there. Uh and then also asking for money and then just this general fatiguing effect of pitching the same story 15 times a day doesn't also come natural. So there's a lot of things stacked up against the non-b businessiness founder um raising that technical money uh in in the early days.

For myself, you know, Albert Wong is um originally a surgeon uh who became an inventor who became an operator who became an exited CEO of his first medical device company that he founded. Uh he's a water walker here in Houston. I am very blessed to be able to have him as a friend and know him for the past handful of years and also was in the right place at the right time when he wanted to start his second company of which we co-founded together um when I found the IP for it and he wanted to do it and I brought it together um with him and he brings this operational experience of all the both failures and successes of his first company, the network of having that first success underneath his belt. Um and then obviously that medical and even uh inventor slashtechnical and engineering awareness. I bring a network. I bring the investors. I bring the business storytelling. I bring the what do people truly care about um when you're pitching

22:55 And and how do you actually craft a story that's going to resonate once the doors open? And when we did that together, we raised our um $2.5 million seed round in just shy of three weeks. It was exactly 2 weeks and 6 days and it was we had the network, we had the trust, he had the experience and the exit underneath his belt. Um, I have great relationships and it was a very crisp and clean painted story of not our technology. I actually told them I don't want to tell you about our technology unless you have questions. We're we're creating a motile se uh sperm separation technology. That's what we're doing. If you want to know how it works and what it does, um, glad to ask. But I will tell you what from a business standpoint you'd be investing in and really roughly the timelines and expected ROI that you'll get from giving me your dollar.

Because when you're pitching to these people, most first-time founders or or technical engineered background people will want to tell you why they're going to change the world with their invention. Well, most investors, especially family and friends and agnostic family offices and people who are investing into two, three, four million dollar rounds are not going to be experts in whatever field of innovation that you're building. So, going to the bottom of the ocean of the technicalities of that, do they really care? The answer is no. You're asking them for minimum $50,000 checks, $25,000 checks, $150,000 checks. They want to know in essence a few things. Um, I give you 150,000. Tell me why I'm going to get my money back.

How much more I'm gonna get back when I get it back? The timeline of when you can expect or assume that to happen. Oh, and by the way, when I'm at my cocktail parties or when I'm at my dinner parties with my wife, my husband, whatever it may be, um, and I want to just tell a fun story of what I'm investing in these days, what's the one or twoliner that you guys are actually building? Like that's really what they care about. It's truly an investment. It's not a sell me the innovation story of how you're going to change the world and expect other people to care as much as you do.

Well, yeah, I think that's probably true. Is Family Office a little different where they might invent invest with a little more purpose and intent or is it they There's mission driven for sure. I mean, like, you know, just one that comes to mind for example is Broadview Ventures up in in Boston. Technically speaking, the the it was originally a French family. the um funds are managed out of uh London and you know multi-billion dollar family and then they have an investment team sitting out of Boston but Broadview Ventures is not a venture capital firm they're a family office um most of their metrics are actually missiondriven metrics not family or financial return metrics and so yes to your point like when you have some of these family offices where as a family their Maslo's hierarchy of needs is already met right like they have more money than God all of their assets are taken care care of. They can buy cars, they can do whatever they want. This is just ancillary or additional money that

25:55 They can feel good about themselves. Um, and by the way, the father of the family died of heart failure. Well, yes, of course, I'd like to invest in that heart failure company. I'd like to tell myself and those around me that I'm moving the mission forward of I don't want that to happen to other families or other people. Um, and if I can invest in science that's moving that solution forward, yes, that's what I would like to do. Do they really care if they're worth a billion dollars and they're writing $150,000 check and you return them 400 grand? They don't care, right?

So, let's talk a little bit about getting people into the room, right? And you we talked a little bit before about five years ago in your recruiting environment, you know, getting the right people in the network, which we've talked a lot about. Like what does that mean? Like getting the right people in the room. So you as an executive recruiter when a company's coming to you and saying I need help to build it out like what do you look at when you get like what does it mean to get the right people in the room for you?

And you are talking about from a recruitment standpoint, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, recruiting and getting the right people in the room, I will tell you, is an interesting amalgamation of not necessarily the best talent or the best resume, especially with venture-back medical device companies, you know, being in fast-paced organizations. And I was actually having a conversation with somebody earlier today that had built medical device startup company and then had to contractually stay in corporate, the one that acquired them for upwards of a year and they stayed 18 months afterward.

And they were just describing corporate as what is the most safe way to make it to Friday afternoon. um you know reflecting of um decision making um having and driving for consensus agnostic of how long that may take uh in terms of timing which is very counter to how medical device startup companies or startups in general have to be built. You know when you receive venture capital and there's and you're not generating revenue and there's operating costs and there's monthly burn. If you are sitting on a decision to gain consensus that could have taken 17 minutes and it took a month because of whatever um that is unnecessary burn and and that's not efficacious for the company, right? So how do you get someone in there who can be agile, efficient, understanding of time is money, be bought into the mission based on having them have equity options in the organization. So driven for the successful win of the company, not just selfish succession um or success rather.

28:51 So uh this is th this is where I'm talking about there are plenty of resumes out there that from a keyword perspective may look incredible, but if you don't have the right attitude and especially from a recruitment standpoint, it's a it's a big talk track at our CEO only forums. um the workforce mentality since the inception of COVID and really the remote workforce going into then the contraction back to headquarters that we're seeing more and more of these days. There's something in the water whether it's generational whether it's the the snap of COVID that changed people's work life balances and flows.

Um and we're and we're seeing it in multiple areas of life from restaurants to customer service to you you name it. Uh it is very challenging building a company these days. I would argue to say more so than it used to be. And so getting people who want to work, getting people who want to work in a fast-paced environment, starting an interview that doesn't ask with um how if your opening interview questions are um when can I come in and when can I leave and how many days can I work from home and you know what is your your corporate um policy of days off and you haven't even started about what's the technology and what's this position going to do for my career? here and the talk tracks are just becoming more different, right? So, it's a different animal. It really is like and it's it's you know, as a as a business owner myself a couple times and even leading large commercial teams, it's pretty challenging in today's marketplace to find people that, you

Know, they're not they're all leaning into this work life balance piece. And um you know I'm just going to go on my own stance on it and I'll just say that I grew up in a different world. I grew up with you know first generation Greek immigrant family. You know I didn't my father got up at 4:00 in the morning and got home at 8:00 at night. And that's what I grew up with. And frankly, that's I attribute to a lot of the things that I've accomplished in my life have because of my grind. And you know, I used to joke about that like I changed more headlights out of my car than anybody in the world because I got up, headlights were on when I left and the headlights were on when I got home at night. And so that generation or that group of professionals does not exist coming into the workforce anymore.

31:32 It's a totally different ballgame. And the one piece that we can talk about work ethic and we can talk about work life balance. One thing that that same group I think is also missing is this sense of accountability like you know and I used to tell my salespeople all the time I'd be like I really don't care where you sell it from you know as long as you don't put me in jail and you're not jeopardizing the company brand and if you can do it at home every day and God bless you go do it home every day but to hit your number right I think the one piece that's missing even from the the softer work schedule or the softer edges around hybrid working, remote working, whatever it might be. The other piece that's missing is the accountability piece.

That generation wants all the fun and unique experiences and all the unique responsibilities, but the minute something starts sliding off the road, you know, you're looking around and they're they're they're thin air, man. They're ether. They're nowhere to be found. And that's the other piece I would imagine in the startup world that accountability is a big big piece of that attitude that you've got to bring in the door. In a small team, small company, there's less places slashno places to hide. So accountability is a huge thing. Um, and you know, if you're joining a company, a startup company of of 10 people, you represent 10% of the company. If you represent, if you lose 10% of your body, you're going to feel it. Uh so it it you're very very visible in that sense in these startup companies and so uh yes and to kind of come full circle on how to get right people in the room that's why I don't recruit for the big corporate strategic companies that's why

I don't deal with massive big HR layers in between us and the decision-m hiring fir um hiring firms or hiring managers rather uh because it really is about personality mindset DNA work ethic like obviously p like passion and point of interest of to why someone would even want to take on this role because if that's not leading from the front if it's just more defensive of like what is this position doing for me versus what I can do for this position and company that will inadvertently give me back experience for my growth um that it's on me to leverage and grow myself. If you're not thinking like that then you don't belong in a startup company. So yes, of course, as a as a head hunter, as a recruiter, um there is this quote unquote matchmaking where like if I'm going into a hardcore heart failure company, the likelihood of someone needing heart failure experience in some capacity is very likely. Um so that means that's my pool of candidates that

34:15 I'm pursuing. But then out of that it's on me to find the personality, the mindset, the availability, the accountability, that personal fit into the culture of the team. Um because I will tell you all these years later, my tagline's always been I I recruit for medtech venture-backed companies. Um a lot of the times when we're taking on brand new clients, our clients are like, "Well, we need someone who wants to roll up their sleeves and they want to, you know, really get involved in the work and be there with us." And I'm like, yes, I'm going to I'm going to hear you out. We're going to go through all this, but I'm going to let you know like that's that's to be assumed in our process, or else I'd be working for the big companies as well and and understanding this more corporate nature. But anyone who wants to join your company, um, must roll up their sleeves, must understand it's a startup, must know that they're doing a lot with a little. Um, so it's it's more of a

Mindset and a personality. That's great. and probably very refreshing, great people to work with on both sides, by the way, as you're bringing people into this new organization and you're helping founders and and innovators and CEOs and investors make dreams come true, right? That's what you're kind of helping them do. Make a Wish Foundation. I That's what's kept me going for 16 years. I I I love making a good match where the hiring managers are grateful that they have a new asset to help them go and build a company. I'm grateful to or I'm I'm super happy when I get to see people build their own personal careers and learn and grow from it. Um, and then when you start even seeing more macro things like the product got clearance or approval or it's now commercial or the company got acquired, it's very cool to be able to indirectly affect those things from happening through making sure that you're instilling the or installing the right talent.

Let's lean into one more pivot um of a topic and we'll kind of close it out here and I think it's really exciting. you have your your conference coming up here and I think 22 days. Um let's let's talk a little bit about the conference and and let's reach out to an audience just to see here if there's um you know I've got a lot of executives in the med device medtech space um you know who's the ideal target what are they going to learn if they come and you know that what's the value proposition for the the program great question I'll try to hit it in as organized a fashion as possible So I think it's a strategic positioning of green space that we took building a dependable semianual. So this happens every six months um conference for medical devices that's B2B investor focused so B2B business focused uh helping out the medical device CEOs surround themselves with the correct stakeholders that they can learn from or

37:14 Network with or or grow their businesses from. And that's right here in Texas. A lot of the love goes to the coasts. I was on the coast for all my life until I wasn't and came here. So, I'm I'm very well used to that. I used to do plenty of red eyes from Miami over to California and back. Um, don't have to do those anymore. I should say red eyes from California back to Miami. But, um, you know, here in Texas, great geographically positioned to go from coast to coast very easily. But also the fact that, you know, this is the second largest state next to California. um absolutely burgeoning as we speak as there's exoduses happening from the c the coast. We are growing rapidly right here in Texas. Houston is the third largest city in the nation. Most people don't even know that. And we have the largest med center in the world. So from a I think it's more than 10 million

Patients go in and out of the med center, the Texas Medical Center every single year. It's a massive clinical trial site. You literally could, if you really wanted to, design, build, clinically test, and commercialize a medical device company in the state of Texas right here out of Houston. Um, there's contract manufacturers, there's great industry partners, there's exceptional talent here, and that part of my role is actually even recruiting more exceptional talent down to Houston. So, the positioning of having it here, which is not done elsewhere, we have great medtech MVP up in Minneapolis that takes place every June. love that conference. Advimed is happening, the MedTech conference is happening in in Boston this year. You know, we have MedTech Strategist happening in San Diego every November. Like so got a lot of love for these coasts. Um but nothing is happening dependable here in Texas.

And so I wanted to grab that space. We have been building conferences for five years plus at this point. And so who comes we bring the corporate strategics down here. We have Johnson and Johnson coming, Medronic, Boston Scientific, Haymonetics, Edwards Life Sciences for example. Um, so we bring the corporate strategics, we bring the investors of varying sorts. We have an institutional venture capital panel. We have a health system corporate venture panel. So you think Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Providence, OSF Ventures, Rex Health, now UNCC Healthcare Ventures, um, Orlando Health Ventures. We have a uh how to build your board and executive team panel talking about bre best practices from high-powered CEOs who have built um people or teams of tens and hundreds um as well as designed boards that have allowed them to exit their companies. So we build this panel um two days of panels which is eight panels and the rest is networking with a very fun theme event in September and 22 days. On September 15th and 16th we're doing the Houston MedTech October Fest.

39:56 So people are showing up in later hosen and durn bowls and we're doing kulch service and we have open bar from 12 until close. We have a an Octoberfest band. We're doing a big Munich uh Munich style event hall beer hall um at St. Arnold's Brewing Campus. So I say Sam Adams is to Boston as St. Arnold's to Houston. So, it's this very off-centered fun thematic medical device company that brings the same value if not more because it's so intimate of 400 people than some of these other uh mainstream conferences. I have nothing to lose. We don't make any money on these things.

Our entrance fees are 300 bucks um versus sometimes they're thousands elsewhere. So, we just bring really great people together to help out the community. Yes, it takes place in Houston. So the demographic is typically a third Texan, a third coast to coast United States and a third international. So we have Israelis coming, Europeans coming um and and once again California all the way to Boston and everything in between coming down and then you do get that underbelly of what's going on here in Texas which is awesome. So um if you're a CEO, we have our CEO only forums to kick it off. This year we're actually doing uh our fireside chat with Rick Randall who four months ago just sold Ciencia Vascular to Medronic for $550 million. We're going to tell that story. Um and then we're going into our CEO only forums followed by the next day and a half of eight panels led by Piper Sandler, the corporate strategic panel, the investor panels as mentioned um and some other really great ones from the

Industry supporters that have come in on this with us. So, uh, if you're a CEO, if you're an industry partner, if you're an investor, if you're a corporate strategic, you're all welcome. This is a B2B conference that is literally talking about how medical device executives should build and ultimately commercialize with the hopes of exiting to the big guys. That's what we do. That sounds like a lot of fun. That sounds like a lot of fun. It's a blast. I'll be wearing later hosen, by the way. It'll be a blast. And we drink beer on our panels, too.

You know, you got to look for it, too, by the way. So, I think you'll you'll you'll pass off very well. Um, one more question for you before you go. And I really just want to say thanks for being here. You just bring great energy and a great story. And, you know, for somebody that like myself as a big medical device passionate person, I it's nice to meet somebody else that carries that same sort of uh that energy with them as well. Thank you. So, if Giovanni, current day Giovanni could go back to, I don't know, 22-year-old Giovanni working at Starbucks in Miami as a barista, right? And offer one piece of advice, whether it's professional, personal, financial, just but just one piece of advice. What would current day Giovanni go back and offer younger, more impressionable Giovanni as that advice moving forward?

43:01 Discipline. So I was I was very fortunate um between the household and then just taking it on myself at a very young age. Um when I give you a punchline and say a word like discipline, what do I really mean by that? A lot of it I wouldn't change anything at all. And I don't mean that from a a cliche because my life could have gone in many many different directions. But you know, I am 38 years old. I have been with my now wife for 13 years. We're coming up on our eighth wedding anniversary. I have a daughter who's turning two this weekend. I have a son who's four, who will be five in November. Um I run a business. I have a an executive search practice that I've personally been a part of for 16 years.

Um, we've started it coming up on five years ago. The massive learning curve that has gone into being a high-profile executive search and recruiter for another firm, knowing that what it means to be business development and run a team, but never run a business and then learn how to run a business and that learning curve that awaited me when I had to do that and have been doing it now for five years. Um, and then having the opportunity to start a medical device company. Uh, so I run a product company. I run a service company. We build community events that are materially affecting the profile and persona of of what Houston is in Texas and bringing worldclass people here. So affecting the community, which I love doing. Um, I say, you know, bouncing around. I'm going to keep on bouncing around, but my three things in order are God, family, community. And as long as I don't deviate from those three three things in that order, my life makes

Sense. Um, so, you know, I wake up every single day, no matter where I'm at in the world, at 4:30. I don't do quite what your dad did at 4 to 8, but I'm a 4:30 to 7 guy. So, um, on the weekends, my my I'm completely dedicated to my family because throughout the week, unfortunately, I don't see my children, um, as much as I would like. Hopefully one day that will change. But um I could not have done traveled the world 15 times over. I could have not started a company or had the balls to start a company and then start another company while having two children and running an executive search practice. And not to say that I never dropped a ball before, but um if I didn't have discipline and if I didn't stay true to that discipline, and if I didn't keep life as simple but yet under very complicated terms, but have the discipline to be able to manifest and and and make sense

45:37 Of it all, um I definitely wouldn't be here right now. So, what would I tell my 22-year-old self at Starbucks? don't give up on what I wanted back then, which is just simply a better life and something bigger than pouring coffee, even though I love coffee. Uh, but I always had a drive. I always had ambition. Um, and I always loved people and that none of that's ever changed. And the discipline to carry that out and not change, I think, is what I would tell myself. Don't change.

Well, there we have it, Giovanni. Thank you so much. Couldn't have been better said. Thank you for being here today. Good luck with the conference and um where can people go get some info on the conference if they wanted to? If you go to lifeblood.com lifeblood.com on our website you will see differentiators and underneath that it has all of our events. So our CEO forums, our Oktoberfest and our rodeo or our rodeo and October Fest in order. Um you can find more information there. You can also go to houstonmedtech.org.

Um, and that's you can find uh information now about Oktoberfest there. We have an app called Houston MedTech Conferences um which gives you mo more information about Oktoberfest and rodeo whenever the time comes. Um, but the simplest way and the ones that if you're driving your car listening to this right now, we spent a lot of money on the URL www.lifeblood.com and you go to differentiators and look up Oktoberfest. That's where you can register. That's where you can learn about the agenda, who's coming, and the great time that we're about to have on September 15th and 16th.

Well, and I'll even do you a favor. I'll I'll drop it in the link in the YouTube channel as well. So, we'll be good to go. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Have a great day, Giovanni. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much, Terry.