His Strategy and Success Story with the MedTech Startup: FastWave

Scott Nelson: 0:00

Joovv j o o v v is the company that I started back in 2015. We designed to develop what are called Photo bio modulation devices or their class two devices commonly referred to as red light therapy. Now, joovv was one of the first companies to design develop and commercialize a full body light therapy device or photobiomodulation device for in home use. So we kind of created this category, it was really hard to find information online, but the science was legit. We decided to take a swing. And

Harsh Thakkar: 0:25

what's up everybody, this is harsh from qualtivate.com. And you're listening to the life sciences 360 podcast. On this show, I chat with industry experts and thought leaders to learn about their stories, ideas and insights, and how their role helps bring new therapies to patients. Thanks for joining us. Let's dive in. All right, welcome to another episode of Life Sciences. 360. I'm really excited for the guest I have today on the show today. I have Scott Nelson. He is the co founder, president and CEO of fast wave medical. Welcome to the show, Scott.

Scott Nelson: 0:55

Harsh. Thanks for having me on. I too am excited. Yeah. So looking forward to kind of a quick hitting a conversation here. Yeah,

Harsh Thakkar: 1:01

I've had a lot to prepare about your journey, which is three pages worth here. From your LinkedIn. So it is I want to start off by asking setting the stage right? If you were to compare your journey in Med-Tech and HealthTech, to an adventure, which one would it be and why? That's

Scott Nelson: 1:19

it? That's a great a great question. And I don't have like a perfect answer, probably. But I would say it's a it's a journey or an adventure that's involved taking a lot of swings, right, which I think is probably going to be a theme that we talk about is taking a lot of shots take a lot of swings, right. So it may be a journey that's kind of up and down a little bit and zigs and zags, but certainly adventurous to say the least. And then the reason I say that is just just to set the stage is the the first half of my career I spent with large strategics. Right, the first call it whatever, 13-14, 15 years of my Med-Tech career. And the last probably close to a decade now I've spent with with early stage startup. So I could speak to kind of both both sides of the spectrum, right? Yeah. And I'm sure we'll probably dig into that in a little bit more detail.

Harsh Thakkar: 2:00

Yeah. And then talk to us about fast wave medical, right. So that's where from what I understand you spend most of your time with fast wave medical, so So take us through behind the scenes day in a life, what are you what's going on with your contribution or work at fast wave medical, you can walk us through like a happy day or a challenging day, whichever one you want to paint the picture for the audience.

Scott Nelson: 2:22

Yeah, flip, flip a coin. Right. Today, maybe happy tomorrow, maybe putting in a lot of fires. Yeah, talking about startup. Yeah, but yeah, fast wave to your point is where I spend the overwhelming majority of my time, it's been my primary focus over the past two to three years now. But it fast wave is a is a cardiovascular startup. It's a pre pre revenue company. So we're kind of at a clinical stage now with our devices, but we're designing and developing something called intravascular lithotripsy systems, or IDL is the acronym and and I'll explain it at a high level without getting too far into the weeds. But the intent of these devices is to treat complex peripheral and coronary artery disease. So if you're not familiar with the space, you may have heard of like a blocked artery or something like that, where it's especially challenging to treat a blocked artery or a clogged pipe, when the build up is largely due to complex, hard calcific plaque, there's there's been various ways to treat that historically, balloon angioplasty, stenting, atherectomy, etc. All of those tools have their have their pros and cons and intravascular lithotripsy is a relatively new kind of category that in essence, delivers shockwaves inside the blood, the blood vessel ultrasonic shock shock waves to help fracture or crack this calcified plaque to increase and increase the elasticity of the of the vessel in order to kind of keep keep it open. And so I don't want to get too technical into the weeds. But that's that's what we're that's what we're focused on at Fast wave.

Harsh Thakkar: 3:48

So thinking about like, when you started, because you started like two or three years ago in that role, if I'm correct. So how did how did that idea come about? Like, were you? Did it come from talking to people in the industry? Or did that something come from a personal experience? How did how was fast wave medical born? I guess, is the question.

Scott Nelson: 4:10

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great question. And so I think it dates back to kind of the back half of 2020. Even though fast wave as a as a standalone entity. It was technically formed in early 2021, we actually started working on the project towards the back half of 2020, largely rooted in two things. One is that there was there's only there was only one kind of incumbent in this space. And there still is, to this day, a company called shockwave medical and they they've done a great job of kind of building or building this category of intravascular lithotripsy within the broader cardiovascular space. And so we have been been watching and tracking their progress. And then and also based on conversations with physicians sort of had this had this belief that the utilization of the therapy even though at that time, it hadn't really taken off like it has today, but that it would be that it would that the It would be used more and more by interventionalist, cardiologists, vascular surgeons, etc. So that was one core belief. And then secondarily, we were also watching another competitor in the in the space a company called cardiovascular solutions or CSI. That company has since been acquired by by Abbott that we had been tracking their progress with respect to an intra parties review and their initiative to invalidate some key patents that shockwave holds. And so when the USPTO overwhelmingly ruled in CSI's favor, that sort of served as a signal to our founding team that there might be a little bit more room to operate in this space than than others would would perceive. And so that was really kind of the classic why now moment for us, right? There's there's typically always a why now like, why should a group of people come together to pursue a certain project or idea with more rigor and throw their own resources at it, but that was kind of the why now for us is like, we expected the therapy to the utilization of IVL therapy to only increase really more, more, more specifically, that inflection point and the way the USPTO ruled in favor of CSI CSI was kind of that, that why now moment for us

Harsh Thakkar: 6:04

interesting. And and being being at a startup and being at the leadership level running the company. I'm sure you're juggling tons of tasks, but I want to focus particularly on people management, or like building that dream team, if you if you will call it that. So can you help us understand like, for for anybody who's listening in the audience who works at a bigger corporation, or a medical device, or health tech company, and perhaps wants to take a turn in their career, go work at a startup, whether it's fast wave medical or something else? How is it different working? Because you worked on both sides? Like you said, you had a career for 10-13 years? And then you started enter the world of startups, you you've been very successful with your previous role at Joovv. And then now at fast wave, so how, what can you share for somebody in the audience who wants to make that transition and enter the world of startup?

Scott Nelson: 6:57

Yeah, and I love this topic, because I was there, right. And I've always sort of had an entrepreneurial bent throughout my career, even though the first whatever 10-12 years and it was, my professional time was spent at large strategics. So I always had this, this kind of this, this desire, right to eventually eventually kind of land at a startup either either as a early employee, or as it were starting the companies myself. So the first way I guess, to answer that is maybe a little bit atypical, or contrarian is that if you're at a startup or a big, big company, it can feel frustrating, right? The bureaucracy, that kind of the slow moving pace, you're seeing all of these other startups kind of have, like, appear to have fun, etc. But the first thing I'd say is, it's not for the faint of heart, it's very, very hard, right? Startups, there definitely lot of fun, but it's definitely like a lot of up and down. A lot of ups and downs, a lot of a lot of times you're shooting if you feel comfortable about the decisions that are being made, you have to do a lot, wear a lot, wear many, many hats, etc. So it's definitely hard. So don't don't under appreciate that aspect. Because there's a lot of and there's some decent things that big companies too, right? There's a lot more I would say not total security, but maybe a lot more security, etc. So that's the first way to answer that is go if you're interested in a startup, and making the move from a large corporation to a startup, I would say go do it eyes wide open right and don't under appreciate how hard it's like it's gonna be and how likely your your your day to day life is going to change. Now, having said that, it is certainly a lot of fun, right. And so I would think that if you're if you're at a company at large company, large strategic and wanting to eventually make the move into a startup, the first kind of piece of advice I'd have is, is go and try it and do some work for free. So I'm a big fan of a book called What's the name of it, I'll try to remember the author's name, but the book was like the I think it's called the recession proof graduate, right. And it speaks to more like how to how to basically get get a job after graduating college. But the framework applies, I think, to making the move from a strategic to a startup in the in the sense that you likely have some sort of expertise, right, whether it's marketing, whether it's engineering, whether it's clinical, clinical and medical affairs, etc. Use that knowledge and try to lend lend lend that that domain expertise for free to a start up, right, so because one that's going to allow you to tap into a network of people in a much greater degree that you probably wouldn't otherwise have access to, right. But then, and so. So in addition to kind of building out that, that network, you'll also get a ton of experience, right? By just getting involved, right, even if even if it's in a relatively lightweight sort of fashion. And so that's the other thing that I would probably advise people that are listening to this that want to try to make that transition is do some work for free, lend your expertise at no cost to that startup, you're going to learn a lot along along the way. Right. And also, you're going to get to build a lot of a lot of invaluable relationships. And that's I that's advice that others have shared with me on the podcast that I host and in particular, there's a guy by the name of Mark Tolan to speak, I think his entire most of his career, Boston Scientific. Then he went to a startup called corindus, which showed the Siemens healthcare he's now I think, at Biostar capital involved in cell or other startups. And he, he mentioned that very same thing to me is that that's the one piece of advice that he wished he told himself back in his kind of late 20s is just try to get involved in startups early on, not not into like a full time role or a part term, part time role or even expect to get paid for it. But you have some sort of experience or expertise, just let let that expertise to that startup and you're gonna learn a lot. And you may Hey, you may walk away from that experience saying, I thought maybe I'd like this, but I really don't, I'm comfortable in my in my my job at large strategic, or it may cause you to be very fuel that fire, right. And it may cause you to kind of want to want to make that that transition sooner rather than later.

Harsh Thakkar: 10:29

Yeah, that's, that's such a great point. Because when when people graduate, or like, I'm reflecting on my journey, when I graduated, there's always this pressure, right? Like, you need to get a job, or maybe you have student loans. Or maybe you have this societal pressure to show that, oh, I have a job. I mean, I'm working at a Biogen or I'm working at Abbott or I have this role. So a lot of times, it's hard to do, like, think from your perspective, like you said, try to learn or we're not saying work for free, but get that job, but also do something else on the side, right. So I remember this quote that a friend shared with me, which is like, at any point in your career, you should be learning and earning. If you're doing both at your job, it's great. If you're doing one of either of those, that's also fine. But if you're not doing any of those, you should probably move on.

Scott Nelson: 11:22

I love that I love I love that, quote, it's, let's get spot on. Like, I mean, I've never heard that before. But like I'm, I'm kind of leaning into that as you were, as you were referencing that, but it's really good framework, from my perspective. And another thing that kind of I think aligns or kind of falls under the same topic is that what examples whenever we issue a press release announcing those news related to fast wave medical as an example, I'll get a lot of people that reach out, right, whether it's someone in a CRO right, that wants a business that wants us to do business with them for Clinical Affairs, maybe it's some consultants, or maybe it's someone that's wants to eventually get maybe get a job at fast wave. And that's all great. Like, I don't I respect people kind of reaching out when they see that news. But I don't I have no idea who these people are, right? No idea, right. And so that's the power of tapping it beginning to build networks with people that are already in startups, right? Even though and it kind of speaks to what I mentioned earlier, like, if you're at a strategic and you can lend, lend your your expertise, let your experiences at free begin to build out sort of your own network. Well, when those people move on to another startup, which most likely will, like they're gonna tap into you, right? They're gonna know you're, they're gonna know your work, they're gonna tap into you, you're gonna have a much better shot at eventually making a move to a startup by taking that path, versus just randomly reaching out to some startup that has no idea who you are. So anyway, I think I think it kind of lines up to your you know, what you just mentioned, I've always been learning and earning at the same time,

Harsh Thakkar: 12:51

yeah, that's, that's a great point. I want to switch gears and maybe go a different angle, because we did talk about professionals who want to enter the startup world, but now I want to get something from you that might help other entrepreneurs, other CEOs and executives, or working at startups. So one thing that struck out as I was looking at your track record, is that your role at Joovv you, it was somewhere I read that you helped the company grow from zero to 20 million in like a three year timeframe. So give our audience maybe a fast backstory of what Joovv is what it does, and then maybe take a deep dive into if you reflect back on those three years. What did you What did you do? What are the two or three things that you did to sort of move the needle that could help other entrepreneurs who are trying to do the same right now?

Scott Nelson: 13:42

Yeah, it's all it's I'll try to capture all of that in you relatively quickly, condense, you know, sort of three or four years and into maybe two or three minute response, but it's a great topic. And I'm glad you brought it up. So just to kind of take a step back, Joovv J O O V V is the company that I started back in, we started working on it, the back half of 2015 ended up launching our first our first device in early 16. And we designed it develop what are called Photo bio modulation devices so they're class II devices, commonly referred to as red light therapy now, right? Most people that are listening may have heard of this, you've probably seen it on Instagram at the time. Like it was really hard to find any information whatsoever on red light therapy or photo by photobiomodulation. Online, you have to sort of piecemeal things together from PubMed. I mean, there really weren't any brands talking about the therapy. So anyway, juve was one of the first companies to to design develop and commercialize a full body light therapy device or photobiomodulation device for in home use. So we kind of created this, this this category. And it classic startup story, right thought there was a market early on back in 2015. Again, largely rooted in the fact that there it was really hard to find information online, but the science was legit. So it's kind of like seeing a little bit of a, a little bit of a gap there. But we decided to take a swing right? And we did ended up again launching those devices in early 16. And we did the classic kind of triple triple double Double in the world of venture that venture capitalists often look for is we tripled our revenue two years in a row and doubled it two years in a row. And we did that without raising capital actually. So we bootstrapped, the company entirely, ended up growing it to north of $20 million in annual top line revenues. And so really kind of interesting, interesting story really, really a lot lot of notably fun learning experiences, but also challenging learning experiences. But to kind of circle back around to like, what worked? Well, what didn't, so there's a couple things that come to mind. So one is that we built that company entirely on the backs of, of health and anti aging influencers, right. And so, we did that probably before it was maybe popular, and that now that's definitely more of kind of a lever that that a lot of companies pull. But we did that because of probably two reasons that I can think of off the bat. One is that we did at the time, we were unknown at the time, but we bootstrap that entire company, right. And so throwing a ton of capital at paid search and paid social and those channels would have would have been somewhat risky, right, we instead invested more of that capital into the product itself. And in working with influencers allowed us to kind of commercialize in a reasonably lean, lean fashion. So that that was that was that was one one reason we did that. And then secondarily, there was a lot of knowledge around the space, right at the time, when when people heard of photobiomodulation, or red light therapy, there's naturally a lot of skepticism. And so by working in partnering with a lot of these anti aging, longevity, health and wellness influencers that already had a lot of trust with their audience, by partnering with them to help us raise more awareness for that for the therapy, because it really does work that that really that that actually ended up turning out to be a pretty, pretty phenomenal strategy for us as well. So it's kind of the equivalent for those listening that are in kind of the life sciences or Med-Tech or biopharma of working with KOLs, or key opinion leaders or thought leaders, sort of the same thing that we did that with a good with a specific target around these health, health and wellness and longevity experts. Some of them were physicians, some were not. But we did that kind of entirely online, right, we didn't work with them or partner with them in offline offline conferences, or to get on podium, we did entirely online through podcasts through collaborative content production, etc. So a little bit of a different spin that was much more digitally digitally focused, but it worked exceptionally well for the company.

Harsh Thakkar: 17:13

Yeah, and like you said, Today, it's getting more and more popular to go that route. Because there's a lot of case studies, lot of examples of companies like yours, juve has, who has done that, and I left those breadcrumbs for other people to analyze. But it's really interesting that you implemented that play back when 2015 or between 2015 and 2020. At least at that time, I wasn't paying attention in that area, or thinking that online presence or social media could be a way to maybe take the product from the one level to the next level.

Scott Nelson: 17:47

Yeah, yeah. And I don't get me wrong. Like, it sounds really smart right now, right? Looking back, whatever, seven, eight years ago now, at the time, it was more of a thought, right, kind of a sort of a rough thesis that, hey, this could work, right, this this, um, but the key was actually we tried it. And I think that that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get wrong is they think their strategy has to be perfect. It's like, no, just don't get me wrong. I'm not I'm not I'm not under appreciating strategy, right, you definitely should incorporate that. But there's a part where you just you just need to go, right, you need to be 80% sure of kind of the direction and then just take a shot or take a swing. And your strategy is likely going to evolve over that time based on your learnings. But you won't, you will not learn anything without, without doing right without getting your hands dirty. And so I think that's another another key learning for anyone, anyone that's listening. And this is that don't don't wait for your, your approach or your strategy or your mission or whatever to be perfect, because it's going to change a little bit naturally. And you're you're going to learn a lot faster by just doing doing the work.

Harsh Thakkar: 18:48

That is that is a great, that is a great part that you mentioned. Because as you were talking about it, it reminded me of some other content that I read on social media, and there was some marketing person that was breaking down all the companies and their slogan and mission statements. And he or she was saying, why the why Nike has the slogan, just do it. Well, what's the most important word and people are like, oh, yeah, it's this is that. He's like, No, the most important word is just, if Nike had the slogan, do it, it wouldn't be as powerful. But because it has the word just, it's almost like tapping into that athletes inner matrix to say, just do it or do it even when you don't feel like doing it, right. Because you can do all the training and all the the workouts or whatever, but sometimes you just have to do it, and then play it out because you might have an equally competitive person on the other side. So that reminded me of that quote, because, like you said, sometimes you just have to go in and do it, and then live with the result.

Scott Nelson: 19:54

Yeah. 100% Yeah, there's like an aspect of just like there's a part where you may not feel Don't you feel uncomfortable, you may not want to do it, etc, of like, to your point, you have to just do it. There's also another aspect of, you're not going to learn until you actually just go right and and I don't want to, like repeat myself, but I can't stress that enough momentum is so crucial in in a startup and actually doing the work, right, you're gonna learn so much faster, and you're gonna learn so much more, instead of sitting on the sidelines trying to craft your perfect strategy, that's not going to work. Right. And, and that's different. I mean, I, the best entrepreneurs that I know and are and surround myself with do this really, really well, where they're, they're 80% sure of their decision. And they just go right, and they're used to operating in that level of like discomfort. And I think a lot of people don't that that's very, that's, that's very uncomfortable for them, right. They're worried about getting it wrong. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you should be foolish or reckless at all. But again, momentum is so crucial, and you just need to be comfortable operating in a world of imperfection.

Harsh Thakkar: 21:00

Yeah. 100%. Yep. It's, it's better done than being perfect or something. I don't know what the quote is, but I can't think of it but something along those lines.

Scott Nelson: 21:10

Yeah, perfect. is the enemy of good, right. I mean, it's kind of it's Yeah, I mean, when we're talking about, it's kind of in a very similar similar vein. But I it's one of the things that I often try to encourage other like younger entrepreneurs just like, get used to being uncomfortable, because like fast decision making is going to be crucial for kind of pushing your Boulder, whatever you're working on pushing it up the hill, you're gonna run into so much friction along the way. And if you're just sitting on the sidelines, you're not going to be able to push that boulder effectively uphill, I mean, you just need to be that need to sweat a little bit, right, get your hands dirty.

Harsh Thakkar: 21:40

Yeah. And I know that you're also really connected with a lot of interesting entrepreneurs and companies in this space, you have a great pulse of what's going on in the Med-Tech and health tech space. So sitting from where you are, imagine yourself as a futurist, what's one trend or headline that you predict in 10 years in this space?

Scott Nelson: 22:02

I'm going to say two them, I might I might get myself in trouble for the second one. But the first one I would say is that I mean, it's not it's not really been, it's not a new trend, per se, but I think it's only going to continue is this aspect of consumers, patients consumers taking more responsibility for their health, right as, as deductibles for health insurance plans go through the roof. Even if you have a great plan, you're gonna pay a ton out of pocket, I just think generally speaking, that combined with other some other dynamics at play, just more and more people are going to take more responsible for their for their health would be willing to pay for cash, would be willing to pay cash for for a lot of different products, procedures, services, etc. So I think that's one trend. That's only gonna continue. Secondarily, I think this is a little bit more specific to Med-Tech. But I'm just I think that the nature of like how VCs invest in startups, and that whole world, I think, is changing, you know, quite quite rapidly, I'll get a shout out to Duke Rohlen. And what him and his team are building at Ajax health as an example, very, very different take on how to get companies started out of the out of the blocks. And so I think, I think there's gonna be a lot more of that one of my one of my friends, Gary mCore, I'll give another shout out to him. He's, he's sort of got the Midas touch with a lot of investments that he's made over the years and Med-Tech companies that have all, not all, but a lot of them have have had really good exits. And he's primarily been involved in companies that have not raised institutional capital yet has been extremely successful. And so I just think that the traditional world of how Med-Tech VCs and just VCs, as VCs, that asset class within Med-Tech is changing and will continue to change.

Harsh Thakkar: 23:34

Yeah, those are those are great ones, especially the first one. That's that's a very interesting one. So I really just

Scott Nelson: 23:40

Just on that note, harsh, just just just real quick. I think the reason the reason I'm bullish on that is that we got this pushback early on with joovv because we commercialized devices entirely online, by the way, right? I mentioned those revenues, those those top line revenues. Previously, we did that without a Salesforce, we didn't go through retail channels entirely online direct to consumer ecommerce business. And most people said, Wow, your your your products are expensive, right? I mean, they're north of $1,000. Right? Are people really gonna pay for that? Sure enough, they did. Right. They believed enough in the therapy and they saw enough results that in the in the price, the devices are much more expensive, I think, upwards of close to two or three $4,000 now and so I think yeah, to my point earlier, consumer slash patients are going to are willing to pay a lot of money, right? More than you think for for products services that they that they believe in. Yeah,

Harsh Thakkar: 24:28

Yeah, that's that's that's spot on I know, I want to value your time. I know you have tons of stuff going on with everything you're doing. You're very busy man. So thank you for coming on. It was such a lively discussion. I love hearing your insights. Were any any closing statements for the audience? And where can people connect with you to learn more about what you're up to?

Scott Nelson: 24:48

Yes, thanks for giving the opportunity again really, really appreciate the conversation I learned a few things just in the in the short in the short discussion with you harsh I definitely appreciate it. Best Places to come if you if you're interested in seeing kind of what I'm talking about the most active social channel that I've done that I'm on is probably LinkedIn I tweet every now and then but but LinkedIn is probably my most active channel if you just search Scott Nelson and fast wave you'll probably find me and then the company that we talked about a little bit earlier at that at the outset of this conversation is fast wave medicals fast wave medical.com where the process of our raising our series be around a financing right now and we will likely maybe carve carve out a portion of that and for folks in our community, right, we did this about seven months ago and oversubscribed, way faster than we thought because there's a lot of physicians and other Med-Tech life science folks that wanted to get involved so what we'll maybe do that so if you're interested, you can go to fast wave medical.com You can you can learn a little bit more there.

Harsh Thakkar: 25:36

Alright, that's it for this one. Thank you so much Scott and wish you everything wish you best with everything at fast wave medical and all other ventures that you're doing.

Scott Nelson: 25:45

Awesome. Thanks again, harsh appreciate you having me on.

Harsh Thakkar: 25:48

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Check out the show notes in the description for a full episode summary with all the important links. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.