For the longest time, I thought that building hardware was hard. Coming from a software background with little exposure to engineering or hardware, I thought the odds were stacked against me to build a hardware startup. The age-old advice in entrepreneurship always struck a core with me that said, “stick to what you are good at.” I was clearly not set up to succeed from the beginning.
In college at Indiana University (IU), I studied informatics with a focus in business. For those of you who don’t know what informatics is, it’s the application of technology to different disciplines; basically, the idea that there are all of these computer science folks out there and business people and they don’t know how to talk to each other. Coming out of informatics I was given the toolset to be able to program as well as translate requirements from one side to another. The other thing to consider from my time at IU was that at the time they didn’t have any engineering programs beyond computer science. If you wanted to do engineering you went to Purdue up north, and for everything else, you went to IU. This also meant that there wasn’t a community of people familiar with hardware projects in Bloomington, IN which added to my misfortune.
So here I was with the odds stacked against me…How was I supposed to learn how to engineer and build something functional that delivered extraordinary value in the healthcare world. My first steps were to learn as much as I could with the resources I had. I started by attending every Meetup I could fit into my schedule in neighboring cities as well as reading books and blogs about building hardware products. It didn’t take long for me to learn that far fewer people go down this road versus those who build software and that there simply were not many resources for people like me to learn about building hardware startups from scratch with no background in the matter. (The one blog I did find, which became the holy grail for me and that I still use today, is from the venture capital firm Bolt. It’s an outstanding guide and active blog about building hardware startups.)
What I had learned from my conversations and research, was that hardware is a black box. Investors see it as a 1 way ATM with no way to get their money back out. And most entrepreneurs see it as a space they want to let the big guys like Apple and Samsung play in and just sit on the sidelines. Some entrepreneurs who have hardware ideas take the plunge and start by taking off the shelf technology and hacking at it for a while till it works for their purposes. These people often get to a semi-working ish prototype and stop there. Knowing everything I did at this point, I started my journey. The worse I could do was fail or have the big guys beat me to the punch.
Initially, I started by building with the tools that I could from my software development days. I built a proof of concept with 2 mobile phone apps and then a simple Arduino prototype. Once I exhausted my skillset and proved viability in my idea, I was able to gain some friends and family financing. This was a great validation point and helped me to continue pursuing my dream. The next step was to seek professional help.
While in Chicago for an internship one summer, I attended a Meetup where I met a business development guy from a local industrial design and product development firm in Chicago. I had heard about these lofty firms, like IDEO, from my research but didn’t know much about them and especially didn’t know they existed other places than the East or West coasts. Another fun fact that I learned was that there are a limited number of firms in the nation, yet they survive by building hardware products for well-known brands like Microsoft, Apple, Nike, and many others. Being naive, I thought each company had their own engineering and R&D teams internally, yet what I began to understand was that just like how Fortune 500 firms hire EY to do their taxes, corporations hire these industrial design and product development firms to build the products to take to the market. Once I learned this, I made it my mission to raise enough money to start a project with a firm. (Read about my process of choosing outsourced engineers vs. hiring an engineering team)
After a few months of fundraising, I was able to start on the project. The goal of this project was to take the Arduino prototype and transform it into a functional wearable. Within a few months, the team was able to take the idea in my head and turn it into a real device. I cannot begin to put into words the amount of knowledge that I learned by working with this team of 8 experienced engineers. Beyond seeing the functional wearable, proceeding along the journey was a once in a lifetime experience.
With the product in my hands, I had the realization. Building the hardware isn’t hard, it’s about finding the right people to help you build the thing you imagine. Once I was able to find the people, the capital and wait some time, the product came together. The bigger realization with the product in hand was that throwing it in the nursing home wasn’t just going to work, that that fit was going to take some time. Leading to the bigger realization that Healthcare is hard.
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Growing up, everyone in my family was a doctor. My dad, cousins, sisters, grandparents and everyone in between. I gained a unique perspective on healthcare from my family. One in which everyone focused on delivering the best care possible, no matter the situation. Being provider focused I saw the world from the lens of helping people live life at the highest quality as possible. Although I knew from an early age that medicine wasn’t for me, I developed my core values and passions from growing up in this environment.
Fast forwarding to today…I had heard this quote in reference to the world of healthcare before but didn’t really get it. My family would always say, “Walk in my shoes for just one day and maybe then you’ll get a clue.” Today, I can honestly say I get it.
The world of healthcare in the United States is dynamic, changing, and transforming. It is a world that isn’t driven by logic or reason, instead of by culture, workflow, stakeholders and regulation.
I am still in the thick of it all and don’t see a clear path yet. What I can say so far is that this world is very unique and challenging compared to other markets. My biggest lesson so far that I have learned is from a recent conversation with a healthcare startup CEO who came from Silicon Valley’s big tech company world. When he came to this market we were expecting to disrupt it just as he did in other markets, yet quickly learned that healthcare is all about workflow. Even if you have the latest and greatest piece of technology, and it doesn’t fit in a users workflow and create significant value, you will not survive. His concept that he shared was “Pacing, then Leading.” He explained it’s about crawling with the users then walking then running. The way healthcare innovation occurs is in phases, steps, and process, with the understanding that the chance of failure is still high.
The hard part is ahead. I haven’t figured out the magical way to success yet. Following my past advice, I believe it has to do with finding the right people who believe and have expertise in your space. For the time being, I plan to continue staying up on my healthcare news and pursuing my vision and hope that one day I can move on to another challenge with the memories behind me knowing that Hardware is not hard and Healthcare is not hard.