from the crossroads of America in the hooer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt hunkler CEO at powdercake and I will be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at powdercake and on the show today i' I'm really excited because we've got a special guest Ray Frasier co-founder and CEO of vital View once you raise a fund you have about depending on what kind of fund it is you typically have 10 years to make investments but then
also start returning [Music] Capital really pumped to talk to him today about his company Ray Fraser is the co-founder and CEO of vital View and vital view is a healthtech iot platform that is is developing sensor technology to improve the hospital at home experience and in today's show I think we're going to cover a lot of ground one I know that Ry has a background in acting but I'm sure we're going to talk about cross- sector Innovation commercializing research from Top tier universities fundraising tips for early stage startups and so much more Ray welcome to get in thanks for being here man thanks so much
for having me guys it's truly an honor and a pleasure we are pumped man and we have some surprises today so okay all right yeah when I was researching your background you have such a unique story man like you gave an incredible pitch at Powder Keg earlier this year thank you thank you and that was the first time I had actually really experienced the Journey of what you're doing at vital view I want to talk about your background but first for those who are listening I I don't want to butcher it can you give us like the elevator pitch on vital view like what are
you building there yeah and what's the market opportunity you're looking at yeah definitely so at vital view we're very focused on the hospital at home so what we're doing doing we're a medical iot company developing connected solution tools that care providers can use to help not only improve quality of care for patients but also reduce unnecessary hospitalizations which is a huge cost in our system today yeah oh that's awesome man uh and how big is that market opportunity that's got to be like in the billions yeah we're talking about um definitely over 40 billion wow yeah in terms of the first opportunity we're looking at
which is improving care for congestive heart failure patients y yeah so for us non-technical people non Healthcare Tech specifically people can you talk to us about iot just a 10,000 foot flyover of what is iot yeah definitely so you're internet of things for those who aren't indoctrinated in the acronyms of startup world yeah yeah and connected Solutions so think about having a sensor that trans is transmitting a signal in an environment and we're capturing the data that's on the other end of that sensor and transporting it up to the cloud yep and a lot of times the software is like turning that data into information
right exactly looking at patterns looking at Diagnostics and predictive this is very similar to we had Ariana McGee on from navigate maternity and that's we didn't talk about iot in that episode but that's what I'm getting the a similar yeah definitely some of the other terms you might hear of are like say connected medical device was an example and and yeah there's definitely a few names that you'll hear but yeah it's all about data at the end of the day and you've been pretty entrepreneurial your entire life you take us all the way back to your earliest entrepreneurial memory yeah definitely so I would say
the I would say when the switch clicked for me was I used to love buying toys or not buying toys but getting toys when I was a little kid sure and who doesn't yeah and favorite toy Star Wars Star Wars man I was huge the original trilogy or like the re the original trilogy let's let's not get reboots they're prequel sequel yeah the the original is the best the originals are the best yeah okay oh come on B the best oh no 100% huge Luke Skywalker fan and I actually remember the last toy my dad bought me because that's where it all started there's this
Luke Skywalker action figure from Empire Strikes Back we're at Kmart wanted the toy my d dad looks at me and he says this is going to be the last toy I ever buy you going forward if you want toys you're going to have to buy them yourself so after that I actually we used to go down to the Farmers Market on weekends I went up to one of the gentlemen at the farmers market got a little job sweeping floors yes and I never had asked my dad to buy a toy for me ever again after that one that's pretty incredible how old were you 9
years old that's wild that's that's so wild yeah and is vital view the first business you've ever started that you've raised money for uh so yeah so uh the first um this is the first one where I've actually raised external Capital um I've done I've been a part of startups since about 2011 I've been a part of startups where I um started things up with a few classmates been a part of those where I was an early employee most recently I was an early employee over at lme bikee okay now lime scooters yeah so that was a great experience what yeah no way okay tell
us about the early as in what number employee at lime oh so definitely at that point we were probably in 30s 40s man that is that had to be a wild experience what what were you doing there so Notre Dame not a lot of people know this but Notre Dame in South Bend was one of lime's first case study schools if you would and what they needed was like brand manager especially because they were dropping anywhere like a thousand bikes at that time they didn't even have scooters yet I I remember this right so I went to a wedding in South Bend three or four
years ago and they had the bikes that you could rent and I was like they don't have these in India what's going on up you're in South Bend you would literally rent these bikes all around South Bend yeah okay I see it coming together now yeah so um what did you learn during that experience oh my goodness I learned the power of Storytelling for one um um trying to dumb down I would say a vision for people that they can get behind gain energy from I also learn the power of Team not any one person I've always been a part of startups where it was
like very small or like solar entrepreneur I learned about like when you're scaling a business how to build a team in terms of looking at for example different personality types and bring on people that kind of like balance you and gain energy from things that aren't necessarily let's say your sweet spot we had a great leadership team at lime we also had really great investors as well that partnered with the company for the long term so I think I learned a lot about what to do things to do correctly and then also learning experiences along the way as well so you've been part of startups
right since 2011 you said like pretty early employees solopreneurs why did you want to go off and and start your own or or build your own company yeah I would say my parents parents are older so my dad's 89 for example and growing up we unfortunately went to a lot of funerals if you would and you'd always hear about lives lived well and then lives where there was a little bit of regret wish they would have done this one of the things that's really important for me is impact in whatever I can do and I saw entrepreneurship whether it was from my father or whether
from Joe rafini he was the person at the Farmers Market as a way where you can impact the lives of not just your family but your community as well so I knew I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and try to help people when you had a really unique community at Notre Dame y uh tell us a little bit about what was going on at Notre Dame at the time what was going on in business what was going on in Innovation I haven't been up there for years sadly but I know that there's been a lot of initiatives to really bolster entrepreneurship on
campus there yeah I think the university has done a lot in terms of putting a flag down of saying this is part of their long-term Vision that they want to provide students to be a part of provide access to when I got to Notre Dame I went there for my MBA and I started working in their Idea Center which is like their Innovation Park if you would y um I started off as an analyst and then when I graduated I started working as an entrepreneur in residence for their Venture fund so for the first time I got to look from the other side of what
these firms are going through in terms of just looking at deal flow what's their thesis and how they go about making decisions when it comes to funding a company and I would say what areas they're interested in as well so when you're thinking about overall alignment yeah it was definitely an invaluable experience any particular things that you learned when you in that role on the other side of the table looking at the de flow looking at all these different companies yeah I would say it's definitely empathizing empathizing with investors they definitely have um a lot on them because they're beholden to their LPS sure and
it might sound like a long time but once you raise a fund you have about depending on what kind of fund it is you typically have 10 years to make investments but then also start returning Capital to those LPS so that's why timelines are very important important that's why understanding various sectors are very important because if we really want to have a vibrant entrepreneur ship I would say ecosystem we also got to make sure that we're getting wins for these fund managers so that they can have a fund two a fund three a fund four when people think about the coast for example you think
about the names like Sequoia a16z battery ventures in Boston all of them have been able ble to return a lot of capital over the years and that builds trust with their LP networks that help create that flywheel mhm so that was very eye openening were there any tips for Founders that you learned from the VC side that you applied in your fundraising experience today oh 100% one of the things that I've always um tried to Champion now is if an entrepreneur has a chance to even work for free mhm volunteer at a venture fund somehow some way or just figure out ways to be helpful
whether it's like scouting providing deal flow it's all about relationships and I found that it takes by the time someone is comfortable to write say a bigger check especially when you're beyond the preed level and you're looking at either a seed or a seed extension or series a those are bigger checks you're TP typically talking about and and they want to have an opportunity just to get to know you as a human being yeah put the business deck to the side assume that the technology Works assume that you're going after a big Market who are you what are your values are you going to be
here for the long term can I trust you that no matter if things are good or if things aren't working so good I can pick up the phone and just have a straightforward conversation with you yeah yeah are there things that you saw entrepreneurs do that were common mistakes in that realm yeah so and I think it can we can get a little bogged down sometimes in just what we're working on sure because we live and breathe it every single day and you're almost taught to hey work on your pitch deck work on your elevator pitch and if those things are correct people will invest
I don't think we spend like enough time in terms of figuring out what other these investors are like as people um what fund are they on when did they close that fund just so that you can put yourself in their shoes to even understand if you do get to know why it is and how you can best position yourself to not only they see the opportunity but also want to be more invested in you going forward you know yeah absolutely I I'm trying to think of all the startup pictures that I've seen there are a few that that really stand out to me are there
ones for you that when you see those pictures you're like oh this is a pro this entrepreneur gets it what are those things that those entrepreneurs consistently do really well I would say they they do a really good job of simplifying what's going on whether who's the customer what the pain point is and how you're creating value um in a few short sentences that anybody could understand yeah really simplifying that story and obviously being able to go deeper any entrepreneur can can go for days about their startup or project which slide in your deck is most important oh good question oh I would say um
that that's actually a really good one I'd say a couple so for so I would say of course your team yeah right because these are the people that are going to be in the Foxhole with you yep and then of course I would say your mission slide as well because again like whether times are good or I would say tough you got to have that kind of Guiding Light that this is the reason why you're waking up every morning it's going to help you just to power through yeah um then I'll right there then just go to the pain Point understanding why care who really
has the problem and just just empathizing with them you know I didn't hear a single thing about Tam that right there I I'd like to dive just one more layer deeper on that you're talking about team slide is super important we have a lot of Midwestern Founders that do not like to brag about themselves how do you write a really good team slide that features your own accomplishments ah so I would say it it has to balance out what you're good at I think investors want to understand that yes you can be you know a rock star but if you can have self-awareness of understanding
where you what activities you don't have the experience with or you don't gain energy from and you're able to build a team around people that are all stars in those specific points I think that's very important more so than focusing on accomplishments or what makes you a rockstar another thing investors want to see is all right if this is your founding team how long have you guys been together how long have you guys been working together is this just something that came together in the past three or six months or have you guys worked together over a number of years they like to see that
because they know over a number of years that's when you go through the real work Y and that's how you really know that someone's going to be there at the end of the day so take my two actually my three co-founders we've been together for over four years now wow how did you all meet yeah so I met Dr Rick snar Snider he's one of the top cardiologists in this country he's actually in Notre Dame grad and he was working with the Innovation Center and he's the one who identified that hey if this faculty research could have an impact in the health care space when
it comes to a monitoring and a connected solution could be created it could create a lot of value when it comes to not just helping people but decreasing costs in our system and not only did he want to be an advisor early on but he also wanted to be an investor as well he started simply advising two days uh a month in terms of the overall steering Direction while it was still incubating at the University and did you know that this this was going to be your company at the time no right at that point this was just something that he and I both found
interesting and I was making progress while I was in incubating it at the University and it just flowed the relationship next thing when I was looking at figuring out how we were going to productize the technology I got the chance to meet my CTO Chris Ral who actually happens to be one of the top Minds when it comes to commercializing RF sensors if you would had a long career at Texas Instruments and I literally found him by cold calling a bunch of different say vendors if you would not only it it was funny he also had a Notre Dame degree as well but again he
started off simply just advising the company wow in terms of because he just really loved this kind of technology and over say 6 to8 months when we figured out that hey this was actually going to be spun off into a company it was natural because we just loved working together and we balanced each other out and then the fourth person our coo Cassandra Adams only one not in Notre Dame grad but when it came to the clinical side and the regulatory side those were aspects that she was actually an expert in she spent a lot of her career doing that for medical companies and again
it just flowed and what I also made sure to do was that they they met each other yeah and you could also see that the personality types really interlocked very well we each brought something different to the table and that's how you make magic yeah I love it you you said the term incubating while you were incubating this company at Notre Dame can you talk to us a little bit about what that process looks like yeah so when you're talking about especially federally funded research it it's typically very novel and it can have multiple applications in terms of different sectors that it can go into
so a lot of that incubating is talking to a lot of various subject matter experts in different sectors to figure out okay where is the most impact where this can truly be differentiated and helpful and settling on one go to market that's very clear to give you an idea the research that vital view is based on had applications within defense industrial agtech for example but Med the healthcare space is definitely where after we done all the research done all the exploratory brainstorms is where he wanted to go first mhm it when you looked at this opportunity was there a time where you like knew like
this was it you needed to be a part of this fulltime oh oh 100% take us back to that moment yeah what was going on how long had you been working with these folks I would say I've been working with these folks for about two two or so months yeah if you would and I had experience in iot from my time with lime sure and so it's just you're instead of doing connected micromobility Solutions right now we're doing connected tools for care teams yeah so I could understand like how the technical infrastructure would look like but then I understood that hey if this hit on
some really big themes at the time which is Big Data yeah while there are a lot of sensor devices out there that can get you the same kind of data sets whether it's like heart rate things like that that multiple people can do if you were able to have software that could extract different unique data points that others couldn't that could lead to a lot of different opportunities take our first use case with congestive heart failure patients 90% of hospital readmissions from CHF patients are because of what's called fluid overload the key metric there is measuring total body fluid change in total body fluid and
unfortunately there aren't sensor devices that can do that today especially in a non-c contct way so using this faculty research we can get the underlying raw data set necessary to provide care teams that measurement and what can they do with that measurement this can lead them to step in and provide preventative care services that are necessary prior to a costly hospitalization the average hospitalization for a heart failure patient is over $15,000 you know so walk it through you talked about like the key to a good pitch is Simplicity Y for the listeners that like are starting to put it together of what you're taking to
Market first thing Beach head laid out in a simple way for us yeah when you can you rephrase that yeah the current I I remember when you pitch you talked about like your current product that first product you guys are bringing to market the actual sensor and then how it all works to reduce hospital visits for for congestive heart failure Pati exactly yeah yeah yeah so I would say the first place to start is simply putting things into numbers so for example in my case there are over 900,000 hospitalizations that occur each year for heart failure patients that's a big problem big problem is that
rehospitalizations so those are Hospital ation in general and then one in two patients are readmitted within 6 months wow okay yeah that that's in in terms of numbers if you think through Tech stuff like 50% back in that not good not good not good at all not good and then when you add in the average cost of each of those hospitalizations then it's wow okay $115,000 each one that that that's that can get pretty expensive very quickly yeah absolutely and then the key data point after that is that all right when you're looking at those rehospitalizations 90% of them are due to the fact of
fluid overload and if you had this one data point it could help so much when it comes to impacting and reducing those hospitalizations and is your product we talked about this with navigate maternity is this like a prescription like it comes out like you someone experiences congestive heart failure they're discharg from the hospital and they get a prescription to a vital view sensor exactly and the I think I remember from the screen goes under your bed right it's a bed sensor so basically we're able to take nightly readings right before the patient goes to sleep that's amazing yeah and this these things like I I
love these kind of episodes that like brings the cross- sector Innovation right the hard tech the physical sensor with the software the data and how it all works together I wear a garment people wear Apple watches like there are all these pushes into like the the Health Tech space and and the cross- sector innovation of that and it's okay heart rate pulse like I think I have V2 Max on this thing and that makes sense but I have to wear it everywhere has a whoop you have to charge it every night like and you have to remember to take it on and off your wrist
and put it on I feel like naked these days if I go out without it uh but just being able to like I just see like this huge opportunity obviously you want to stay very dialed on what you're doing but like the opportunity to lay down in bed and like all the different readings for your health that could come from that like that's really exciting to me oh yeah like one of the things if you think about trends that you're going to see going forward are what we're called like say Ambiance sensing room sensors that when you just walk in you're able to get those
key data points um without any wearables one example that Dr Snider likes to bring up is Star Trek yeah so like in in the early episodes they would have this I think it was called a tri Corridor and it's like this bed sensor where you go lay down on it and then all these data points IM magically just come and appear and they know exactly what to do I think that we're going to get to the point where that kind of device is very possible and that kind of like really excites me about the future are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video
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all of your video needs talk to us a little bit about some of the other things that you're excited about in healthtech you know maybe that vital view isn't even doing currently what are some of those things that um you've seen come out recently or you anticipate will be coming out soon yeah so like we all know about that inflection point when chat chpt really said a statement in a way of hey generative AI it's no longer a thing it's actually really here yeah and the regular person can use it and find utility I think that it's going to have when you just think about
clinical AI for example when it comes to these algorith ithms that you see a lot of it came from having to do a lot of manual development with clinical AI a lot of that algorithm development is going to be able to be done what used to take months in seconds wow so there's just going to be using neural networks you're going to be able to see a lot more data points come out in the future and it's going to be able to help a lot of different people which is what I'm like excited about yeah that's really cool yeah any other Tech I would say
I'd say clinical AI is the the big one that I'm seeing right now yeah that's huge I um I I think it's so fascinating that you're taking all these different experiences from your past applying them now at vital View and it all incubated at Notre Dame yeah and sometimes Academia doesn't always get the best uh reputation as a place where Innovation can happen research can happen there but then they'll actually innovating it and getting it to Market is really challenging what are some of the things that you think Notre Dame does well to like actually take that research that's being done on campus and and
get it to Market yeah I would say one of the things the university does pretty well is not just put a lot of emphasis on their Alumni network if you would but also taking long-term bets and I think they've definitely gained a reputation that hey if we're going to try something out their Partners can really understand that hey they're going to do this for the long term yeah and whether it's a win or kind of like how Marcus Freeman says hey we either win or we learn so they're going to learn and they're going to try to come back better Matt Marcus Freeman is a
football coach for the Fighting Irish he are resident M Sports guy not a sports guy that doesn't no ball I grew up going to Notre Dame football games but I don't remember any of that I I more remember the like hot dogs and oh the tailgates yeah the tailgates the tailgates are definitely Legendary Legendary growing up yeah I so I'm from just south of South Bend so have had my fair share of Irish tailgates and it's a great time and it's awesome to see all the new developments happening in South Bend just overall in general we had an episode with Bethany Harley and we had
Bethany's awesome Iris H they're doing some amazing work who's oversees the idea Center up there oh so it's Kelly Rich k all right that might need to be a future episod oh 100% I would say Kelly's definitely a great when it comes to not only say setting that Vision but then that execution of it because it's a daily especially when you do those long ranging missions it's a daily program yeah and it really takes really getting into the weeds to figure out how to make things work what are some of the ways you've seen the idea Center and just Notre Dame in general evolve over
the last several years yeah so one of the things I saw was of course they started with the Venture fund yep that allowed them to really not just look at it from the research University lens yeah but also step into it with investors and un and I always bring up that word empathize with what they need to be successful y they're now going on to doing a fund two right now that is going to also have a venture Studio component that I found very interesting I I think they're working with the high alpha team down here in Indie so I think they're also doing that
great job of not just focusing on that South Bend network but extending to the other great resources that we have here in the state so smart I love that we mentioned educational background one of the things that I find so interesting is uh decent number of our guests have have a background in theater yeah tell me a little bit about that for you and how that's applied to your own entrepreneurial Journey at all oh yeah I would say naturally I'm actually a bit of an introvert yeah and I get that and one of the things with that I loved about acting it got you on
stage it helped you have say presence and also get turned some of those I would say areas that necessarily wouldn't be strong points for you to figure out what you really love about them and to be successful yeah so besides public speaking because obviously there's like a one toone correlation of acting helps with public speaking what are a few other lessons you learned in your time as an actor that applies to what you're doing today with vital yeah I would say also storytelling yeah because one of the things that I was a part of was looking in theater a theater group throughout high school and
one of the things that we would do is write our own scripts so we'd always have to think about that audience of all right what are they going to find compelling what words your word choice is very important as well and trying to like bring people into that story with you I think that is a superpower like whether it is you're giving a slide presentation in college or you're like whatever like you're a data analyst or whatever anytime you're presenting something really telling the story and putting yourself in the audience shoes is going to keep people awake yes like even the most boring subject if
you have someone who's a captivating Storyteller it can make all the difference oh my goodness like you you'll see it in movies for example like some of these directors say a Christopher no for example I would say he'd be probably one of my favorites to your point about subject matters that could seem very put you to sleep you're engaged whether it's how does Christopher Dolan tell a story what do you like about his style I would say he focuses on every aspect in terms of what he can bring in to keep you engaged whether it's music for example Le that's very big as well as
say actor selection he typically likes to work with actors he he knows or he's built a rapport over a number of years so they could have that onetoone relationship when they get on camera or in those rooms another thing that he does is I believe no cell phones are allowed on set it's all about being in get just automatically just engaged yeah with what's going on I think there's so much you're talking about one toone relationships there one toone relationships with investors it all comes back to it's about these relationships yes I think that's so powerful I'd like to talk as we're getting close to
our time here I'd like to talk about where vital view is today y kind of like how far you guys have come thus far and what's on the road map going forward oh yeah 100% so like one of the things that we did um that was very pivotal for the company last year was that we had our human proof concept studies were which were third-party studies that were led by um a a clinical research organization that went phenomenally well uh we just hit another milestone in terms of having design freeze on what our products going to look like for going to Market yeah and now
we're getting ready to close on a round of funding in order to say help us like take that next step and hit some huge Milestones that we have set up for 2024 congrats thanks that's so huge it has been really awesome to root for you learn about vital views early success and momentum we came up with a game this this may be a terrible idea but we're going to give it a shot if you're down to play which I'm down it seems like you are this is an either or game okay we created these this or that right yeah it's a this or that you
can only pick one so it's a binary game there's no wrong answers this is very personal right cuz it probably depends the kind of company depends on the kind of entrepreneur this is just for you yeah uh Ray Frasier uh which would you prefer and why and why all right ready first first two a lead investor or a strategic investor O So this right now I would say it all depends on stage of the company okay so if you're an early stage Company lead investor is huge now when you're getting um closer to let's say an a BC then you're going to want your strategic
invest but you're lead investor because they're going to they provide let's say early customers for you they also provide I would say credibility for you as well in terms of getting in the market your lead investors like in the Foxhole with you yeah and then they live and breed the company as well they also are the person that those other investors that are a part of your Syndicate look towards yeah in terms of leadership and guidance so yeah great answer also forgot the name of the game is fundraising flash cards ah nice fundraising flash cards and for our gu our listeners that are just listening
if you go to YouTube you can see all the fun visual repres fising flash cards next one flash card ready boom all right hot Tech or traction o so hot Tech would be like AI blockchain not so much now blockchain but yeah yeah yeah would you rather have hot Tech or traction so again this would be stage as well hot Tech to start the company because people want to know know what's the moat going to be a lot of these Investments are going to take five to seven years competition's going to come Y and you're going to need to have protection traction when you're going
from that preed to seed in series a because then it's all about how you been executing with other investor money I love that great answers round three fundraising flashcards are fun guys two one boom great pitch deck or an amazing product demo so so one will I would say this one that will always win is going to be the great pitch Teck to get an amazing product demo as we get more and more into Tech the evolution I feel like back in the 90s it'd be easy to do say a product demo with some duct tape sure nowadays especially if you're talking about Hardware software
component it's going to take some investment so I'd say start with the pitch deck be able to tell that story and then yeah amazing product demo unless you're going on Shark Tank yeah unless you're going on Shark Tank yeah bring that sucker out there oh if you can bring that if you can bring it out there there's nothing that be a great demo I love it all right fundraising flash cards round four 3 two 1 profitability or momentum oh see all these are depending on like stage we try to make these tricky yeah so like momentum definitely especially if you're pre-revenue and I would say
markets that are let's say High regulation like whether what would the momentum be in a pre-revenue company if the momentum isn't Revenue yeah so in terms of say Healthcare startup that there's an FDA track it's all about clinical data yeah do you have good data it's a yes or a no and so you typically want to start looking at fundraising after that right before or right after or like you have say a good meeting whether it's an FDA prub or something like that but then profitability again once you get there nothing beats profitability because that also leads to product Market fit those investors can then
go and talk to wait profitability leads to product Market fit it's not exactly wow oh interesting because your first customers are going to tell you not only what works what they love but what you need to fix yeah and those investors can have that real conversation like yes you are first customer you wrote a first check but is this something that you really need or when times get rough are you going to drop this product I want to do a quick quick sidebar do you have advice for getting those first couple customers the ones that are not going to be like oh this doesn't work
exactly how it's supposed to be and I don't want it anymore yeah 100% this comes down to relationships before you need them start reaching out yeah like a um I would say and give those relationships a good like say six months if you would just go reach out tell them a little bit hey what you're building mhm because again those first customers are going to be in the Foxhole with you just like like that lead investor I also wouldn't try to go in there think that you have it all figured out be very transparent in terms of where you are the type of help that
you need the kind of impact you want to have and I find that not only allows them to be very honest with you okay are you solving a problem but even if you're not seeing it fully they can help guide you and Mentor uh I think that Indie Indie especially is doing like a great job terms of like those networking events for various sectors that are really good we just had the rally conference a couple of weeks ago such a great event I think to and the whole entire Elevate team is doing an amazing job when it comes to Bringing these people and stakeholders that
can be very helpful together yeah totally agree great answer all right you ready for the last one fundraising flash cards here we go would you choose final round would you choose industry relationships or brand awareness I'd say again stage industry relationships comes first y because it's not just about whether you have like that one in one investor or or the best product if you're going to get it out there you're going to need to have all those stakeholders that are in that ecosystem involved and if they're not even involved on a day-to-day basis understand their Vantage Point what they're looking for because they're the ones
who are going to make you successful especially in the very beginning but then when you reach a growth stage like a series A or a B it's all about brand awareness how important are industry relationships in health Tech specifically oh very important very important imagine especially I would say argu like more important like software but in health it's like such a it just feels gated to crack into that it's very complex and difficult and you talk about FDA track and all this stuff and I feel like industry relationships would be super important there very important very important one of the things I do love about
that Community is that they do Galvanize around each other and I I think like one of the things that really excites me about Healthcare is a lot of silos that used to be around are really coming down that's going to lead to a lot better opportunities and outcomes for not only patients but I would say our whole entire ecosystem in general yeah it's an exciting time it's a very exciting time I appreciate you one sharing your journey yeah two humoring us with uh fundraising flash cards those are great Answers by the way I'm very excited to share that that that was good the the visual
segments are still new for us and and these are going pretty well so far I say and if listeners out there have other ideas for segments that they want to give us please let us know we're all here for it yep we do have one final segment if you're down to play It's the lightning round lightning round no wrong answers no wrong answers quick first thing that comes to your mind we have three three questions for you all right outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for I would say sports ah wrong you're just kidding the amateur sports capital of the world
I'm sorry Matt but totally is hey the Irish one one loss it's all right that was a crazy game with the house state they're going to bounce back yeah again like Marcus said we win or we learn there's I think there's some guys from the West Coast coming into town in a few weeks the USC guys that I I think that the Irish will handle them I I think it's going to be a really good game I I think yeah it'll be fun I think we're looking forward to that one that's what the if so if Marcus says you either win or you learn people
in the tailgate lot either they either win or they have fun exactly exactly no matter what you're going to have a great time encourage anybody to come up for a tailg what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana i' I'd go and say the dunes the dunes are good I'm also foodie so St Elma oh Andy oh my goodness those are both great answers and I'm surprised no one has said the dunes yet no one has to has a stat he'll he can break outward it's like we have so much like 45 miles of Coastline on Lake Michigan up there it's wild the dunes are fun
like you look at it because I think that's right there at Lake Michigan it looks like an ocean yeah nobody can't tell me that's I can't see that other side yeah totally final question of the lightning round who is someone we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things I'd go ahead and say Shan Hawkins who is Sean Hawkins so he's part of Pier 70 Ventures they're actually one of our co-leads on our round I just think like he also used to be a part of Eli Lily Ventures as well so definitely loves Indiana I think that when you look at
those who are not only in it but are thinking long term I think he has a great mind I think everyone over at the iedc Ryan lock over there is doing big things Aaron Gillum for 50 South is also doing big things absolutely and then some of the great guests that you guys have had like bethley is amazing Oscar Morales we can need get Oscar on here yeah I would say he's in the building yeah osar come downstairs oh yeah I think one of your guests might have brought him up but yeah he's definitely another one as well yeah great answers I could ask you
another hour of questions but we are totally at our time and I'm sure you've got some go investors to close or deals to to Ink with some hospitals yeah great thank you so much this was amazing I do want to say to the listeners if you want to get your company represented on get in you want your start up your organization send us three large t-shirts we'll give you a minute ad read we'll talk about you and what you're doing in the community but send them to 16 Tech uh here in Indianapolis and address them to Nate or Patrick egg and we'll give your show
a shout out um Ray thank you so much for coming on the show this was amazing congrats all successful vital view oh thank you guys so much we I appreciate it and yeah this was a lot of fun we had a blast yeah this was good this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our new newsletter at powder.com
newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder.com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at
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