Tag Archives: innovation

MedTech Innovations Now and Beyond

Artificial Intelligence Meets Radiology

Artificial Narrow Intelligence is becoming a thing of its own with natural language processing also emerging as tools in healthcare. While IBM Watson is largely a marketing property, other healthcare giants are putting a real stake in AI. And coming up with semi-workable technologies. Note that AI is plateauing at the moment. Some sunspots include a company called Arterys which has developed a deep learning algo for radiology. Knowing folks in the radiology field myself, I would say that this could augment their scale-ability IF they as radiologists embrace and trust the algo to search effective. There will be push back of course, especially if the technology is cumbersome, requires a login, has a poor quality interface, the usual guaranteed problems. The iPad of the 90s WAS the PalmPilot so execution is essential for Arterys.

Cyber Pills Make the Fantastic Voyage

Nanotechnology is allowing for digestable computers to enter the body orally. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the very first pill of this kind last year. The pill is called Abilify MyCite joining the ranks of pills with totally goofy pharma names. How about Track-O-Matic. Hmmm, maybe not… This pill has sensors that communicate with a wearable patch to confirm that the drug in the pill has been taken. That information is relayed to a smartphone for the forgetful patient or the family or team of clinicians taking care of the patient. In the event of a court order for, say, a man who is required to take medication as part of his or her sentencing, this sensor in a pill might come in handy. 

Medical ChatBots Are A Thing, Sort Of

AI chatbots like in the struggling Kik App are pretty terrible at the moment. In the next 5 years there might be more messaging capability but I would not recommend talking with a chatbot about your feelings just yet. The benefits of an effective chatbot with Artificial Narrow Intelligence is to engage people in need of a human therapist and can direct them accordingly. A company called Ada Health is providing this service in Europe as of 2017. It’s been tested by over 1.75 million people. Meanwhile in the UK, the National Health Service is using a chatbot app for providing medical advice thus drawing down the on call nurses. However, I can tell you that having a conversation with a real nurse over the phone when you’re having an asthma attack is the only way to go because they know which hospital to go to and can give you medically sound advice…expensive but valuable.

Virtual Reality in Health Care

Playing video games is one way to distract people from pain. It’s especially potent if the patient has never played a video game before. Cue the VR helmet and you have a great distraction. Of course, there are elderTech folks developing the sounds and environments of your grandparents youth: dust bowl, anyone? While there are over 100 million sufferers of chronic pain in the US and Oxycondin has terrible side-effects (and is a scourge on society), VR and video games have mild side-effects like the feeling that you want to crash your actual car after playing Grand Theft Auto for 5 hours straight. Look to see this technology applied more widely.

Roche and the Acquisitions of mySugr

mySugr is a diabetes management startup from the Alps (Austrian-side). They have already registered patients from all over the world. The acquisition was around $100 according to TechCrunch. The good news is that mySugr is now embedded in Roche giving that pharmaceutical giant a new competitive edge. Other pharmaceuticals will follow suit. Meanwhile competitors like Livongo and Glooko are likely to be emboldened to cash out at a higher price point. This tactic is a classic in pharma: buy instead of build. It’s not hard to predict that more such acquisitions will happen in 2018.

CRISPR and Gene-Editing Is Not a Fad

In 2016, experiments were conducted to demonstrate how to treat mice with muscular dystrophy using CRISPR techniques. Genome editing is a thing and probably is a path to curing cancer in my opinion. MIT is leading the way. Could this technology be used to manage potential mutations of fatal blood disorders through something called base editing? Yep. Meanwhile, China is also pushing forward on human testing with this technology in part due to less ethical approach to science. How do you feel about that?

Insurance companies want to give you better rates for wearing fitness wearables

Qualcomm and Xiaomi + other smartphone providers are signing up participants with a price of $1000 if the user meets their daily walking goals. Imagine being paid to be healthy? I wonder if there is a business model there? Certainly, I would like a tax deduction for my gym membership and a free pizza to balance the health benefits while I’m at it (kidding;-P) But seriously, instead of Stickk.com where you punish yourself for not meeting your target, how about a pool of funds to pay out to citizens who meet their person targets? Make the target hard to game of course. Insurance companies are all over this predictably, largely because, it’s not that interesting outside of the financial team in these firms. Make insurance marketing the greatest it always wasn’t:-)

 

China and Mobile Payments from the Wall Street Journal

The WeChat App is the one app that rules all interactions in China with Alipay increasingly falling behind. North Americans are afraid of bundled information. Everyone in China is purchasing with their information bundled for commercial interest and as well as the State. What is clear is that China is ahead of the Western world in mobile technology but then again so is Africa….

How to Bootstrap Your Startup

Original set publish date: December, 2011

Paul Grant started coaching with events on topics like how to raise funding based on his experience as an entrepreneur having founded a London based company through private equity and debt finance. The company offered London-wide catering to the corporate and retail markets. He has since been involved in building a network of over 500 business angels at Capital Partners Private Equity Ltd and more recently at BA Capital Ltd, while assisting young businesses with fundraising and coaching. He has also the founder of “The Funding Game” seminar series which offers practical guidance and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs seeking capital for early-stage and growing ventures. Paul’s passion is playing a part in helping other entrepreneurs launch and run their own successful businesses.

Matthew Arnot is blogger, business analyst, and ghostwriter living in London, England. He first became interested in startups after creating his own proofreading company based on his experience at the London School of Economics. Shortly thereafter, he worked in sales and then as a business analyst at Groupon UK which is arguably the fastest growing company in the history of the internet. He is now developing his own startup by building on his academic and work experiences. He writes a blog www.professornerdster.com and he has also ghostwritten Don’t Screw Up Your Bride’s Wedding Day.

Introduction

This How To Bootstrap A Start-Up guide is designed to help you avoid the most common pitfalls when creating a startup. If you take the time to quickly read this eBook, it will fast-track you towards business success, and it will save you countless hours of unnecessary work that startups commonly create for themselves. This eBook is built around the central idea that bootstrapping is the best way to create a functional, and thriving business.

Only after you have proof of concept as a bootstrapped company can you begin the process of seeking investment. The techniques, and real life advice contained in this eBook come from years of aggregated knowledge from expert literature in business, as well as the direct experience of Paul Grant at BA Capital Ltd, and his own startup experiences in the early 2000s.

Avoiding The 99%

Starting a business is an attractive path for ambitious, self-motivated, and hardworking people. After all, being an entrepreneur provides greater control of your life, as well as the freedom to think creatively, and to take on the responsibility for your own successes, and failures. The problem is that it is hard work, risky, and there are huge barriers to entry in today’s business environment. Most often, so-called entrepreneurs end up doing nothing more than doing the classic case of: buying yourselves a job (BYAJ). Since there are thousands of long established businesses already vying for market share, the challenge of creating a successful venture that is scalable is a rather daunting one.

You will need to avoid the mentality of the 99% of entrepreneurs who have failed, and instead seek to be part of the 1% of entrepreneurs that convert their aspirations into successful scalable businesses.

Take the Blue Pill Or the Red Pill

Whether you are aware of not, every entrepreneur makes a choice between dealing with the reality of the challenge that awaits them, or sugarcoating their strategy with the cozy illusion of ‘common-sense-know-how.’ It is much easier to simply approach business as a game founded on the logic of common-sense-know-how rather than the extremely unstable work of startups. There is a low chance that you will raise equity with this Easy Root/Blue Pill strategy. As Paul Grant’s experience suggests, VC/Angel Groups will not be interested in a poorly conceived product.

In this eBook, we are asking you to make a serious choice. You could take the Blue Pill which is a primrose path to buying yourself a job. Or take the Red Pill which this eBook outlines. Many people take the Blue Pill which consists of following the conventional steps to getting a startup going; creating a detailed business plan that you will spend months creating, and then seeking out investors with your insistance that you have “the next big thing since Facebook.” Taking the Blue Pill will even include asking friends and family to fund and support, in order create an inflated sense of success in your entrepreneurial endeavour.

1%…typical success rate for start-ups that take the Blue Pill.

Why have so few entrepreneurs succeeded? You can follow the common-sense approach BUT this lower performance happens because they haven’t played the game well. In 99% of the startups, there is no proven revenues, and the product has not been tested. 1 out of 100 entrepreneurs actually acquire funding of + £250K from Venture Capital of otherwise.

These are Paul Grant, and VC/Angel Groups findings. In fact, the 1% figure is actually an optimistic reading considering how many startups are never recorded..

The 99% Approach….(Road to Buying Yourself A Job)

 Step 1    An entrepreneur has a great idea, and has the guts to see it through!


 Step 2    Sets out writing a detailed business plan: a robust business plan, which experts have been paid to ensure will work. Some entrepreneurs buy business plans, and end up spending a year working on a business plan. There are some people who spend £50,000 on business plans, and only get £5,000 back in investment. Everyone thinks it is all about the plan, but continually fine tuning this blue print for the business actually detracts from reaching your funding goal.


 Step 3    In Search of Capital: while people aren’t even keen he/she flies to Silicon Valley where they meet VCs who are disingenuous, and rarely say “no, thanks” for fear of passing up the next Zuckerberg. There is no margin for saying “no.” For the VCs, in other words, there is no reason to turn someone away completely, but instead they will spur on an entrepreneur and give the entrepreneur false hope about the possibilities of successful deal being made after further research. Plans are refined, and entrepreneurs then go back with a better business plan, and a bigger team, but it is a waste of time, and have to get salaried jobs.

 Step 4  Entrepreneur quits after a year of searching: they might have good team etc and they blame the business plan, or the company who wrote up the business plan for them, perhaps some interest occurs but disappears before any contract or commitment to investment occurs.

The Choice Is Yours

Yes, of course, there are UK-based entrepreneurs who have received millions of pounds in funding with a business plan no longer than just 10pages, and no revenue to show for his project. Random cases of such success are rare pre-2008 case, and in the end, almost all startups fail to couple equity capital with sustainable revenue growth. BUT they are not going about it the right way. Otherwise, instead of taking this Blue Pill for the easy road forward, we encourage you to take the more rewarding Red Pill which asks you to strategically assess the reality of your situation in. The Red Pill means thinking strategically about how to maximize your potential as an entrepreneur. Where you might find yourself conducting several pivots in your value proposition because of new information about what customers really want (whether they know it or not).

Choose:

Continue reading How to Bootstrap Your Startup

Lee Iacocca: Meet Customer Requirements, Don’t Compromise

For years, Chrysler had been building lousy cars, according to Iacocca, but it is in a company’s interest to catch problems at the factory, it would cost about $20 on hour to fix versus $30 when under warrantee. The designer has to 1) ensure the part is low weight since heaviness affects mileage, 2) ensure the part is low in cost, 3) and ensure that it is easy to manufacture: when an assembly line only does two pieces versus three it is better. Understanding what customers want is difficult because you don’t want to compromise on other things that were lost in innovations. Air conditioning is the classic Iacocca example, when you pay $700 more for air conditioning, you want your money’s worth. The problem is air conditioning has to work fast because most rides end within 30 minutes but at the same time you don’t want the car to be loud and noisy so that they customer can’t hear his radio. It’s a tough job but this matters to customers.

This is a synopsis & analysis based on Iacocca: An Autobiography and other miscellaneous research sources. Enjoy.

Lee Iacocca: Triage Is Essential In Hard Times

1979 was a War-zone for Chrysler.

In business, you need to be like an Army surgeon. You might have 40 injured people, but you only have 3 hours to save them. You need to pick the ones who have the best chance of survival. At Chrysler, there was no time to study a marginally performing car plant, you have to axe it immediately.  You need to have discipline.

First, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler had to close plants in Lyons, Michigan and Dodge Main in Hamtramck, which was the Polish district of Detroit. There were major protests over these plant closures but Iacocca had no choice.

Next, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler had to reassure suppliers that they were going to be paid on time. They needed to demonstrate that Chrysler was not going into bankruptcy even though suppliers knew their business and Chrysler’s well.

Then, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler brought in just-in-time inventory delivery. The Japanese had been doing this for years but as far back as the 1920s, Ford’s River Rouge Plant had taken ore from the boats, converted it into steel and then turned that into engine blocks within 24 hours. Ford Motor Company had just in time but with the boom years fro 1945 to 1978, the US car industry fell into old habits and lethargy.

Next, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler designed the K-cars to be 176 inches long (14’ 8’’) so that they could fit into a standard freight car. Even the financial report for 1979 was printed on cheap document paper.

Then, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler sold all the dealership real-estate they owned to ABKO from Kansas. The cash came to $90 million, which was desperately needed (timing matters), then later Iacocca had to buy back half of that property at twice the original price!

Next, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler sold all their non-North American businesses. Peugeot bought their European operations for $230 million and a 15% stake in Peugeot. They sold their military tank operations for $348 million to General Dynamics. Interestingly, the union negotiations at the time forced workers to $17 per hour instead of $20 per hour, so General Dynamics got a cheaper labour force when the contract was signed between Chrysler and General Dynamics.

Then, there were major layoffs in waves from 1970 and then 1980, both blue and white collars. This saved Chrysler $500 million in annual costs. Iacocca admits that some of firings were tragic and mistakes. Firing people is never a positive experience.

Next, Iacocca’s team at Chrysler fired the staff who had integrated the work of the line managers into a workable system. These were the Harvard Business School graduates who had never run anything, but were now telling the line manager who had done the job for 30 years how it ought to be done. Iacocca always trusts people with a dedicated background in the industry over elite educated people.

Then, Iacocca went shopping for people to buy into Chrysler. This included Volkswagen which was a very serious discussion because Chrysler was dying. The stock jumped form $11 to $14 upon the news that Volkswagen would buy for $15 shares but this was a false story.

Finally, there was the big government bailout.

This is a synopsis & analysis based on Iacocca: An Autobiography and other miscellaneous research sources. Enjoy.