Harsh from Qualtivate (00:00.93)
Holly, welcome to the show.

Holley (00:03.49)
Thank you so much for having me, it's such an honor.

Harsh from Qualtivate (00:05.974)
Yeah, I love your energy and I want to start off by saying I can't remember doing a single thing in my life for 19 years. How have you been running a life science marketing agency, Grey Matter, for 19 years? Do you ever think about that journey? When you're thinking about it, what are the few things that come to your mind?

Holley (00:29.422)
Well, this is the true story. So 19 years ago, I lost a bet and I've got one more year to go and then I'm free. I'm just kidding. But you know, I think the truth is that I didn't really set out to create the first healthcare category design firm. I just knew after 10 years being on the kind client side, industry side with some amazing companies, I just wanted more personal agency to do what I think matters to meaningfully advanced healthcare.

and the delivery of it. And that's really what I started Grey Matter with the premise, which is our tagline, which is do what matters. So I was actually supposed to go to law school, but I decided to defer my admission and I ended up working in some marketing and promotional companies doing things like direct mail insurance and like selling cigarettes and just wasn't that exciting to me or that inspiring. But it's still seemed better than becoming a lawyer.

Harsh from Qualtivate (01:04.095)
Okay.

Holley (01:23.702)
And so that actually kind of led me by luck, I guess, into the life sciences space. I ended up taking a marketing position with a company in California that at the time was creating a new category of soft tissue surgical robotics. And it just kind of blew me away. And I realized like, is I'm hooked, like this is what I want to do with my life. And to this day, my mom still asked me how nice it would be if we had a lawyer in the family.

Harsh from Qualtivate (01:51.139)
Yeah, I think it's you know, the good thing is that because of your profession and what you do in life science is whether you're a lawyer or not, you're still, you know, going through regulations, right? So like, you know, sometimes I explain to people like, oh, you know, I work in quality compliance. I do like software. Oh, so do you so you are a software legal person? I was like, no, I'm not. I guess you could call me that, but I don't have a law degree. Right. So like

Holley (02:05.842)
man.

Harsh from Qualtivate (02:20.151)
But in our industry, we can't really escape the law, unless you're in HR or some other function.

Holley (02:26.862)
No, in some ways that's what I really like about this space is that it is highly regulated for good reason, of course, but also makes it more challenging. Like I love a good challenge and I feel like, you could work for Apple and have a gazillion dollar budget. Like this is way more challenging, but I really like that personally.

Harsh from Qualtivate (02:32.995)
Mm-mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (02:45.155)
So, 19 years is an amazing span, right? And I haven't been able to ask this question to anybody else because they haven't spent 19 years doing one thing. So, how has this, you know, you can pick anything like let's say you pick life science marketing or let's say you pick branding or category design. If you pick one of these areas, how have you seen that 19 years ago and how it's being done today? What's the big shift happening?

Holley (03:14.762)
I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm overly dramatic, you know, marketing specifically is radically different now than it was 20 years ago. mean, all business aspects, but I remember being, you know, like a PR and IR manager and a life scientist, you know, more than 20 years ago, it was like 30 years ago. And I had to literally go into the office and fax a press release to even get it on the newswire for distribution. Like that's how, that's how, that's how hard-headed I am.

And I think I was one of the last people that had a Blackberry, like, you I'm on a plane, just kind of crock, you know, clawed away from my hand. But I think really marketing was very much considered what I call arts and crafts, which was like, your job was to just make a pretty brochure or make a presentation for the sales team. And I think that many, you know, device and pharma companies, like that's still a little bit what marketing does. They still embrace that legacy kind of sales led revenue model, you know, reps drive our access, our procedures, not marketing.

Harsh from Qualtivate (03:53.909)
Hmm. Hmm.

Holley (04:12.558)
But I think the two biggest fundamental shifts is really the kind of empowerment of the patient and also really how marketing now is in, I don't want say the driver's seat, but certainly can have a seat at the table in terms of really helping to educate the market. And that's really, I think, the fundamental core kind of precedence that has to happen is you have to really teach the market that something is that they have a problem that is really

Harsh from Qualtivate (04:33.089)
Hmm.

Holley (04:41.29)
needs to be urgently addressed. And if you do it'll transform your life. And that's really what drives behavior change and embraces new drugs, new therapies, new standards of care. And so I think really marketing has shifted its role. And I think the patient has, it's an ongoing thing, but kind of an empowered patient, think are two of the stark contrasts when I look back over 19 years and think about where are we today? What does business look like?

Harsh from Qualtivate (05:08.705)
Mm.

Holley (05:09.57)
So how is technology? Yeah, that's in the background. That's a no brainer of what's changed in 20 years. But I think marketing and the patient have actually taken a much more kind of aggressive and assertive role in what it means to drive healthcare and also to drive revenue at companies.

Harsh from Qualtivate (05:26.055)
Yeah, yeah agreed. And when you were explaining, you know, how like back in the day you had to like go and fax something from your office to get the press release out. I've heard like other stories from people who work in, let's say regulatory and they're like, we remember having, you know, a truck or a car with all our regulatory dossiers driving to Silver Spring, Maryland to the FDA office like a few weeks before just to go to the front door, give it to.

Holley (05:50.146)
Yes! Yes! Yeah. Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (05:55.221)
give the whole box to them, get a stamp that we've filed the stuff and now it's all electronic. Yep.

Holley (05:59.63)
It's true. Yeah. We had to drive in a snowstorm, Up hill, both ways. And it sounds ridiculous, but that was reality. That was reality. And you had to get it there. It's like FedEx. We absolutely have to have it there. It's like, absolutely have to have your submission. You're like, that's my job. I'll drive to Maryland and deliver it.

Harsh from Qualtivate (06:10.151)
Yep.

Harsh from Qualtivate (06:16.042)
Heh.

Harsh from Qualtivate (06:19.935)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you've started at you started your career as you mentioned at Allergan and Intuitive Surgical. I want to ask you some stuff about Intuitive Surgical because that's like a fascinating company. But when you know and then you started Grey Matter and you worked with tons of clients before we got on camera. You told me you've got clients in Israel. You were used to early morning meetings.

So I'm assuming you work with all shapes and sizes of clients. And one of the things I see on your content on LinkedIn, how I discovered you, I think it was one post that a video you had made about and how you were like, you're mentioning something about how it is important to not just be part of a category, but to try to own the category or quote unquote, create your own category. So why do you think that's so crucial?

you know, what can you give advice to people who are trying to achieve that goal?

Holley (07:25.442)
Category design, I would say, is not for the weak of heart, but I think once you see it and understand the premise and really the business lens, it's pretty transformative. so category design is something that's existed for hundreds of years. We just didn't have a label on it. And I think that there are many category creation examples in the life sciences space that, again, people don't recognize that's what it is. They just think, wow, that's an amazing company. Look at Intuitive Surgical.

Harsh from Qualtivate (07:42.335)
Hmm.

Holley (07:54.828)
And I think the truth of the matter is all of those companies that really create new categories or even redesign a category, for instance, your iPhone, Apple didn't invent the smartphone, right? They just redesigned the category of what is a smartphone. And that happens too. I think Abbott is a great example. Like they redefined what a heart valve is. They didn't invent the heart valve. The heart valve just wasn't a great invention. It needed improvement. And so the companies that recognize there's something missing in the market,

Harsh from Qualtivate (08:05.539)
Hmm.

Holley (08:25.014)
And if we could fix that, would have an amazing, positive transformational outcome. Let's do that instead of just trying to make an incrementally better heart valve or better drug, fewer side effects. Those are good, but that's really been the lens that most life sciences companies, again, regardless of sector, they're like, we're going to compete and be the better, the best product. We're going to compete on features. We're going to compete on price.

Harsh from Qualtivate (08:31.999)
Hmm.

Holley (08:54.39)
And that's fine. Companies can be very successful, but category creators basically say like, we're going to really do the hard road and be different. Not better, different. And so intuitive surgical is interesting because if you are going to create a new category, which means, if you think about it, you were talking about regulatory and the essence of like regulatory classifications.

Harsh from Qualtivate (09:05.757)
Hmm. Yeah.

Holley (09:20.364)
If you're a 510k device submission, you're basically saying, I'm substantially equivalent to your product. That's how you get approved. We're the same. We're the same. And so if that's the case and you go to market, how do you convince a surgeon or a doctor that your product is any different? It's the same, right? To know how we're saying, okay, we're so unique that there is no classification, that's kind of category design in essence, but it extends in many more ways.

Harsh from Qualtivate (09:25.165)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Holley (09:49.736)
what happened with intuitive surgical for many years, surgeons thought, you know what, like surgery is very effective. We can, you know, open up a patient and we can get to the source of their problem, sew them back up. They're on their way. So we fixed the problem, but we had to, you know, open the patient's, know, sternum, crack the ribs to get at the heart, super traumatic. And while they may have fixed the clogged heart vessel,

The patient then goes through a very long and difficult recovery process, which has other risks, surgical site infections, other comorbidities. so everyone was like, what if surgery was less invasive? Sounded great, right? Sounds great. But to do that is super hard. You're basically saying, hey, surgeon, you could access the chest, but now we're going to close it up and make you operate with chopsticks with no dexterity.

Harsh from Qualtivate (10:25.854)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (10:39.614)
Hmm.

Holley (10:40.98)
and tremor, it was a great idea, but super hard to execute. And so the interesting thing about Intuitive Surgical is they weren't the only company doing that. There was another company, Computer Motion, and that's actually where I worked with. So they had two companies with the same idea. And what happens in category design by being different, what happens is at some point someone has to win. Someone will become the dominant design. And in the case of soft tissue surgical robotics,

Harsh from Qualtivate (10:46.493)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (10:54.014)
Hmm.

Holley (11:08.802)
Computer motion ended up getting acquired by intuitive. Intuitive took them out. But then there's been one dominant design, one category king, as we say, for over 20, almost 30 years now. And so the idea is that really transformed surgery in a way that will never go backwards. And now companies are trying to figure out how to create new categories in robotics, but they're doing it with hard tissue, which is like, you know, your bones, but also endovascularly.

Harsh from Qualtivate (11:11.695)
Interesting.

Harsh from Qualtivate (11:21.181)
Mm-mm.

Holley (11:37.71)
to reach other parts of the body in less invasive ways. So that's like in my mind, what got me so excited about the idea of why compete and try to be better when you can be different and solve a different problem for a different audience that is transformative. And so like to me, once you see that, I'm motivated to help companies do the same thing.

Harsh from Qualtivate (11:48.253)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (11:54.374)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (12:01.79)
Yeah, and it's interesting what you said where why compete when you can own the category? And then you also gave the example of like, if you're defining a category, you have a focus group. So like, let's say in case of intuitive surgicals, they're looking at surgeons and they're looking at their day in a life of a surgeon and what that person is going through.

And then they come to the different problems that they have, like, okay, make surgery less invasive or make this equipment less expensive, whatever that list is. When you are working with a brand new med tech client that comes to you or calls you and like, I am my team or my software or my team is specialized in surgery or dialysis or whatever the area is.

How can I create my cat? How do you walk them through like this problem solving step to say, these are the seven things. Which of these do you think can you dominate? Can you give us an example?

Holley (13:14.412)
Yeah, it's a great question. And it's actually when we work with clients and again, regardless of sector, regardless of, know, are they pre-commercial, you know, already have products in the market and they're doing, you know, a new product introduction or a line expansion. The first question we always ask them is what problem do you solve? And it's funny because it's like having a baby. You think your baby is so beautiful. It's amazing. You know, it's so talented. It's going to like, you know, we become president one day and change the world. That's how you think about.

Harsh from Qualtivate (13:22.492)
Mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (13:31.118)
Hmm.

Holley (13:42.136)
your technology, right? whether it's a drug device, you know, therapeutic, whatever. And so we always start the conversation as, yes, your baby is very beautiful, but what does your baby do? You know, what, what, what's different about your baby? What problem does your baby solve that people care about? And we use a very simple grid. It's got four quadrants and, the upper right is delight, delighters. Then it goes, it goes nice to haves.

Harsh from Qualtivate (13:53.819)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (14:05.532)
Mmm.

Holley (14:09.356)
the bottom left is annoyances and the top right are disgusters. Okay, so you have delighters, nice to haves, annoyances and disgusters. And we say, you know, what problem? Let's map it on this grid. And what we find is that most companies, the problem they're trying to solve is probably a nice to have or an annoyance. And guess what? That's not probably a big enough problem to get people to change their behavior. Because again,

Harsh from Qualtivate (14:22.62)
Mm-mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (14:31.543)
I see.

Holley (14:36.94)
I'm a surgeon, for example, I'm operating. I think I do amazing work. I'm a doctor. I'm treating my patients for 20 years. I use the same drug regimen or protocol because I see really good results. So to get a surgeon or a doctor or frankly a human being to change your behavior is super hard unless you can address a disguster. And so the example you always give is you think about an airline company. If you get a free upgrade to business class, that's it's lighter, right?

Harsh from Qualtivate (14:57.212)
Mmm.

Holley (15:06.862)
that makes you excited. If you give people free snacks, that's a nice to have. No one's not going to fly because they don't get a bag of pretzels or whatever. And then the audience would be maybe the middle seat. But hey, if I'm an important executive and have to get to a meeting in Chicago, I live in San Francisco. So if I'm flying from Chicago to San Francisco,

Harsh from Qualtivate (15:20.763)
Yeah.

Holley (15:33.422)
then I absolutely have to get to that meeting. And so I'll sit in an annoying middle seat because my priority is to get to my destination. But if you cancel my flight and you do it too many times, I will stop flying United and I will fly to another airline that can solve the problem of canceling my flight. And so what we always say is, what's your canceled flight? What's that problem for your particular audience that if you

Harsh from Qualtivate (15:41.561)
Right.

Harsh from Qualtivate (15:48.485)
Mm-hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (15:54.063)
Hmm.

Holley (16:01.964)
basically fix that, will switch airlines. And so it's a very simple way to think about it, but people don't change their behavior because of delighting things. They change their behavior because you address the disgusters.

Harsh from Qualtivate (16:05.716)
Harsh from Qualtivate (16:14.66)
Hmm Interesting. Yeah, no, I love I love that analogy because actually I'm I'm I'm traveling like, you know seven different places this year and bunch of my flights are united so I'm Fingers crossed they don't cancel the flight cuz that's gonna be a lot of headache. But yeah, I I love that framework and I love how you explained because I was gonna ask you like you you

you know, what are some mistakes that companies make and you already said one which is like trying to focus too much on just solving the nice to haves and not trying to fix the things that can delight. And another angle of this I've heard in know service like consulting agencies and service businesses because I have a lot of friends in that in that space is I've asked people hey what's the difference between a good consultant and a great one?

And I was always under the impression that the great consultants who work at McKenzie, Bain, all these companies, they're really analytical, they're like proficient at Excel, they're good at slides. And one of people that I talked to, he basically told me the difference between the good and the great is a good consultant focuses on a customer's problem. So they go to the customer.

The customers say, this software is not working. Okay, here I fixed it. need a regulator. I need you to help me respond to this FDA letter. Okay, here's the response. And the great ones solve the industry problem. So the great ones are seeing, three people are talking about this problem. Like I need to stop doing everything else and just like go deep on this one because then they know like in to your example, they're owning that category, right?

And now they've instantly got credibility from three same people who have the same problem and they're validating that yes, other people in the industry also have that same problem. So yeah, it reminded me of that because I just had that conversation last week.

Holley (18:20.766)
It's a great example and so true to, again, no matter what your sector is, no one is buying your product. They're buying what your product makes happen for them or the outcome. And so the closer you get, there's a quote by Theodore Levitt from Harvard Business School, which says, one buys a quarter inch hole. They're buying a quarter, sorry, no one buys a quarter inch drill. They're buying a quarter inch hole. Meaning to your point, whatever the problem is, if you can fix that,

Harsh from Qualtivate (18:31.731)
Mm-hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (18:43.449)
Yeah.

Holley (18:48.108)
That is what actually drives revenue, drives loyalty, drives advocacy. And so oftentimes we are introduced to companies that say like, we're gonna do this, we're inventing this, and then we're gonna try to find how it can apply to healthcare. And we're like, no, you start with a problem, then you create the technology solution to solve that. That's how it goes. That's the order you should do it in. And I think that's a wonderful way to say what problem are we solving, yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (19:13.165)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (19:17.088)
Right, right. And also the other thing is that when you are solving, let's say, whatever problem you're solving for either your space or whether you're designing a product or what have you, the other thing to also learn is to try to play to your strengths. Because what I see a lot of times companies do is, yes, they have this desire to own a category or do something, but

They try to go at it without building their team or without having the right people. As an outsider, I've seen so many companies fail just because they didn't have the right strategy. They knew which problem to attack, but they didn't have the ammunition when they were going out on the field to battle. They didn't have the right people. Have you seen some of that with your... I know you don't help with with talent and hiring and all of that.

Have you told people, hey, you need an ex-guy or ex-female in this position with this credibility and this skills if you're going to shoot for this target?

Holley (20:26.626)
We have, and I think it can vary, but I think it does span a number of different functional areas. I think sometimes either they devalue certain roles or they wait too long for certain roles or they're not aligned with respect to what are the implications of decisions that are made. And so I'll give you an example. Companies that are certainly in the startup phase, pre-revenue, oftentimes it's their first product.

they recognize that they need regulatory, a regulatory consultant for sure. Like that's a critical part of bringing any type of technology or innovation to market. But they're tasked with the job of how can we get this product to market as fast as possible, and less amount of money. And that might be for a device, it might be a class one, it might be a class two, five to K exempt.

Harsh from Qualtivate (21:13.462)
Hmm.

Holley (21:24.662)
And that consultant did their job. I'm not picking on, I'm not picking on regulatory. That's just an example. But the problem with that is that there haven't been the conversations around, okay, well, what are the limitations of a class one device? What can you say? What can you claim? You can't just say, we're gonna sell a red pen. You're usually saying, we're gonna sell a better pen that writes upside down, writes underwater, see through blood, whatever it is.

Harsh from Qualtivate (21:37.016)
Hmm.

Holley (21:50.616)
But if you're a class one device, then yes, you got through the regulatory process very quickly and at a lower price, but you can't do anything with your products. And so I think to your point, having those fruitful conversations early enough and making sure that, yes, you find the best regulatory pathway there, but also what are the implications of that? So I think that's very important. Manufacturing is another big, big, big pillar. think that's very important, which is

you can design a product, but if you don't understand really the human factor element, let's say you're making a new surgical instrument and it gets to market and you realize it's too expensive to make, no one's gonna buy this because it's too expensive to make or surgeons, it's too big for surgeon hands, things like that, they're just obvious mistakes that aren't uncovered until very far down the line. And we see the implications of cost, time,

Harsh from Qualtivate (22:32.685)
Mm-hmm.

Holley (22:48.078)
You know revenue all those things can have huge implications And so I think there needs to be a real vision from the beginning about what are we trying to do? Why who is this going to benefit the most? Even as something as a simple as a decision of who is the patient population we're going after if you're a small company trying to Treat something like migraine for instance. That's a huge massive problem. Are you gonna really build out your entire?

you know, a massive sales force to go and compete against, you know, the fighters of the world. It's very hard to do. So is there a smaller segment, maybe, you know, the pediatric population that you feel like you could actually go and win and dominate because you actually do solve a problem for that patient population and then figure out how to get bigger. So I do think there's a multiple, you know, there's a multitude of ways you can, you know, kind of shoot yourself in the foot.

Harsh from Qualtivate (23:21.762)
Right.

Harsh from Qualtivate (23:36.246)
Hmm.

Holley (23:43.714)
but really understanding from the beginning, what are we trying to do? not what's the fastest way to do it or the cheapest way to do it, but what's the right way to do it to really create the category shift we're looking for that would not just advance the standard of healthcare, but would have a material implication to the company's finances and the valuation of the company, which is not ignored.

Harsh from Qualtivate (24:07.957)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it also, there's another, just going back to your point about trying to work on the delight and not just trying to shoot for the nice to haves or the other ones. So there's another quote I've read in some marketing blogs and stuff, which is like, I think it's like, the painkillers, not the vitamins or something along those lines. I'm not sure if I'm saying it right, but.

It's the same idea. You need to solve a problem because there's also this other thing that I was reading when I started my journey, is going back to your point is how do you motivate people to take action? People are more likely to take action if you can tell them that they're going to avoid a lot of pain by doing that thing.

or they're gonna get promoted or make more money because everybody cares about status. Or they care about looks and appearance because that's also related to status. So if you're a fitness coach, you can be like, if you do this program or you follow this nutrition thing, here's your goals. So there's only three or five things that human beings really care about.

always look at your problem and say which of these I'm gonna check. Obviously, they don't want friction in their work. That's why AI is such a big thing because nobody likes manual copy pasting. Everybody's going to chat GPT and using it for their work because it takes away that pain for $20 a month. I think I see that trend across every successful company.

owning their category or being like a leader in that space.

Holley (26:07.31)
100 % agree. And we always say like, are you a painkiller? Are you a vitamin to your point? You know, I'm out of vitamins. I'm like, okay, you know, but if I, you know, have a massive headache, and I'm out of, you know, my painkillers or my Advil, I'm gonna get in my car, drive to the pharmacy, you know, grab it and take it home. And I think I'll share it with you. But there's a great, it's called the B2B pyramid. It's by Bain, they put out. And it's like to your heart, the hierarchy of need. And it's this idea of

Harsh from Qualtivate (26:11.976)
Yeah, yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (26:32.565)
Hmm.

Holley (26:35.938)
Look, there are table stakes, you know, in the life sciences space, you have to have safe quality products. But as you go up the pyramid, that really starts to ladder up with people's interior motivations, their personal motivations. And the higher up to your point, you can tick those boxes in a way that's unique to your company, the more likely they are to really change your behavior to your point and really almost like dig their...

dig their claws into, they're not going to give you up because you are going to create marketability for them, personal wealth, of altruistic, changing the world. The higher you can get up, the better you can be. So it's actually a great reminder that we are still dealing with humans, no matter what your application is, and humans really all operate the same way. So I'll share that with you if you're interested.

Harsh from Qualtivate (27:30.523)
Right. yeah, absolutely. I would love that. I want to go to one of your LinkedIn posts because I love what you wrote and I'm still shocked why a lot of people have not reacted to it because it's really good. So it says, your life sciences market domination framework. If you're a CEO, hang this up in your office somewhere and stare at it every day. And then you go into explaining

By the way, first of all, that's a really good hook. because yeah, I've seen that hang this on your wall, like, you know, hang this in your office. So what for, because I, like I said, you know, I'm surprised why more people have not resonated to that because, you know, I could feel what you wrote was very actionable. Do you want to expand on what those four pillars are for the audience?

Holley (28:03.182)
Thank you.

Holley (28:26.382)
Yes, I'd be happy to. So I think, again, sometimes we overcomplicate things, and it's not that hard, really. And I think the more, I always say, one of the strengths of gray matter is that we aren't maybe the subject matter expert in immunology or cancer or prostate. Pick your area of specialty.

Harsh from Qualtivate (28:33.15)
Yeah.

Holley (28:53.556)
I think that serves as well because we ask what I call the dumb questions, which are actually just really basic questions that everyone should be asking themselves. And I think it creates clarity. And I think clarity can bring velocity across many, many, many ways. And so I think when it comes down to those four pillars, these are in order, I think, again.

The first one is problem definition. So again, are you solving a real urgent market need? Again, are you the painkiller, right, for a certain segment of audience? And again, not for everybody, but a certain segment. And then the second one is your audience segmentation. Do you know exactly who needs your solution? Because if you think about that kind of acuity lever, going back to the canceled flights that we were talking about as the discuster, if I'm a college student,

Harsh from Qualtivate (29:23.279)
Mm-mm.

Holley (29:44.29)
and you cancel my flight, I might be delighted. I might get a free voucher for an extra $500 off on my next flight. That would be amazing to me. But if I'm a CEO and I'm trying to get to my important meeting, if I cancel my flight, I will stop flying United. And so again, your audience, the audiences will not all experience or suffer from that pain point the same way. I've never in my career have ever said, this,

Harsh from Qualtivate (29:54.292)
Mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (30:09.3)
Hmm.

Holley (30:14.178)
this magic pill, whatever it is, fixes everyone's problems equally, it's just not true. There is an acuity level and you have to find the segment that has the highest, highest level. And again, companies are like, no, but we can, we can do this for everybody. It's like, it doesn't make a difference. You have to find that kind of killer beachhead, that strategic beachhead, that killer application, going back to intuitive surgical, their killer applications was one surgery. It was a radical prostatectomy. That was it.

Harsh from Qualtivate (30:23.828)
Mmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (30:43.284)
Hmm.

Holley (30:44.244)
they built their entire kind of foundation on. And so I think companies just, Zithermax, the Z-PAC is another example, they went after the pediatric population, which some people thought was crazy, but it's because they couldn't basically find a way in to the adult population because there was already an established category king or category standard of care. so audience segmentation is super, super, super important. Comparative advantage, you mentioned this.

Are you really different? Are you slightly better? know, solve something that you can uniquely solve. Sometimes I call that your unfair competitive advantage, which is double down on something that really you guys can own that someone else can't say, we do that too. And that's like the true test. someone else, a competitor can say, we do that too, you got to go back to the drawing board and figure out a unique problem that you can solve that no one else can, that a specific audience cares about. It's that simple.

Harsh from Qualtivate (31:21.172)
Mm-hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (31:27.667)
Hmm.

Holley (31:43.266)
And then the last one is really about commercial readiness, which is, does your organization have a cohesive strategy? Meaning you touched on this earlier too. No category king. And when I say category king, those are the companies that really create or dominate a market. And they tend to earn 76 % of the valuation, not the market share, the valuation. Everyone else is left ready for shifts. And so that requires

Harsh from Qualtivate (32:04.85)
Hmm, wow.

Holley (32:10.198)
really a supremely aligned organization, your sales, your marketing product, your medical, everyone has to be very clear on the vision. Our vision is to cure cancer. Our vision is that no child sleeps with, goes to bed with a hungry stomach, like whatever that thing is. There has to be a vision that is motivating and people would actually change their behavior if they believe that's a big problem.

Harsh from Qualtivate (32:15.027)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (32:28.259)
Right, right.

Holley (32:38.158)
And so often when we look at companies that maybe start with a great problem that they can solve and find that specific audience, they can't get their internal teams to work together. Sales is off doing their own thing, medicals are doing their own thing, markets are their own thing. And it's really sad to me to think that there are many companies we could point to, I won't name names, that have had the opportunity to design and dominate new categories and really

you know, miss the boat because they could not get the internal alignment they need so that everyone is making the decisions that will bring them closer to that. And I often say the CEO is not the chief executive officer, they're the chief evangelist officer. And so like that's their job to get everyone very clear what we're doing and what we're not doing. And that sometimes is the hardest thing.

Harsh from Qualtivate (33:17.746)
Mm-mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (33:22.94)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (33:31.524)
Right, right. That's a good way to put it. I'm going to pause here and cut for a second so my editor can take all of this off. I know we're at 1048. I was planning on skipping the brainstorm and what if scenario because that might make it too long. So we might just go back. But I do want to, once we go back on recording,

or actually we are recording, but once we start the conversation again, I do want to ask you about the four that you mentioned, the four pillars and are they all equally important or how do you know if you are good at one and then I want you to plug the scorecard so that way we can put that in and then we'll go to the last two parts which is your personal philosophical vision for gray matter and the industry.

and then the final takeaways. So you have like seven, eight minutes more.

Holley (34:29.964)
Okay.

Holley (34:35.022)
Okay, yeah, yeah, and I just want to make sure I got to my head around like what do I think is the best thing? Okay, me one second.

Harsh from Qualtivate (34:41.283)
Yeah, for the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can read to you. So for the personal philosophical, the question I had for you is like, know, beyond frameworks, beyond strategies, beyond these, know, because you're extremely like well-versed with all these numbers. You're throwing out stats. Like it is obvious you live this, you do this, you know, every day, right? But when you take a step back from all the technical aspects of your role or working with

When you just sit back in the evening having a cup of tea or coffee or in the morning, how do you balance your work that you're doing with clients and your personal vision of where you want the company to go? How do you think about that? Because we've only talked about outside but inward, what are you thinking when you're reflecting? That was one.

Holley (35:16.782)
you

Harsh from Qualtivate (35:39.578)
And the final take away, yeah, mean the final one was just, what's one critical action if somebody in med tech or medical device is listening to this, either they are CEO or whatever position they are, they're listening once they get off this podcast, what's one action you want them to take, right? Or what do you wanna leave them with? So, all right.

Holley (36:03.808)
Okay.

Harsh from Qualtivate (36:06.211)
All right. So, all right. So that's great. You mentioned the four, right? Defining the problem, segmenting the audience, understanding your competitive advantage, and also preparing for commercial readiness, right? Somebody who's listening, they're like, okay, how do I, like, are these all equally important? 25 %? How do I know if I'm really good at commercial, but I'm really lacking at...

one of the other areas. Do you have some sort of way to calibrate that or benchmark that?

Holley (36:42.894)
Yeah, I appreciate the question. my goal is to help as many life sciences companies change the world, literally. And so my goal is to try to help companies figure out, where are we missing? Where are we missing the mark? And so we kept getting these same questions over and over again. And so we created a really simple tool called a Market Domination Scorecard. And it helps you do a quick diagnostic, lack of a better term, about your own company around those four pillars.

Harsh from Qualtivate (36:50.054)
Yeah, yep.

Harsh from Qualtivate (37:03.93)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (37:11.972)
Mm-hmm.

Holley (37:12.194)
Because in my mind, market leadership really is not about luck. It's not about even the best technology, the best clinical data. It's really about your strategy of preparation and your execution. And so if you would be willing to share the scorecard with your listeners, think people would find it really helpful. Again, honesty matters. You gotta be brutally honest with yourself and be like, hey, let me assess myself. But we basically take you through those four pillars.

and just ask some very simple questions. And we've created a really simple scale. You can kind of rate yourself from one to 10 in each of these areas. And it tells you really of the four pillars, where are you maybe doing really well, maybe where are you not doing as well. And that at least tips your hat off, like this is where we need to be working. But I would still go back and say, if you can't find a problem that you can uniquely solve for a certain

Harsh from Qualtivate (37:58.458)
Hey.

Holley (38:06.35)
for a certain audience, you're probably not a category designer in the making. You're probably competing. And so, for example, we had a company that came to us last year, I guess, and they said, we're very excited. We have this amazing technology. We're going in this massive space. It's basically spinal fusion. And there are 350 bone graft replacements on the market. But ours is

Harsh from Qualtivate (38:29.317)
Hmm.

Holley (38:36.014)
going to be better. We have better clinical data. And I was like, oh, Lord, you know, like, here we go again. And we kind of walked that, you we said, so you're going to be the 351st, you know, bone graft on the market. Like, don't think it's a terrible idea. But we essentially led them through a similar diagnostic and said, okay, you know, let's start with our disguster, you know, delight or map. What are the disgusters that aren't being solved by the other 350 bone grafts? And that really helped us

Harsh from Qualtivate (38:40.529)
Yeah

Harsh from Qualtivate (38:48.324)
Yep.

Holley (39:05.47)
get to the problem, which is, you you want quality bone fusion, you know, if you're having a slow fusion, but you also, it takes too long and no one had ever really considered the idea of it takes too long. It's just, it takes 12 months. It takes, it's just how long it takes. It's like baking a cake, right? You're like, if I'm going to bake a cake, it takes 45 minutes to cook. And that's part of being a category designer is challenging those premises. Like, why does it take 45 minutes to bake a cake? Why does it take, you know,

12 to 24 months to heal a bone fusion. And so we helped them realize through the problem step, which is what if you could actually solve or create fusion faster? It was a new lever to pull. And so we basically said, well, who cares about this most? Who wants faster fusion? If your patient's a healthy 20 year old that got in a car accident, they're probably gonna fuse fine. But if you're an older...

Harsh from Qualtivate (39:46.895)
Hmm.

Holley (40:00.834)
not maybe a smoke or osteoporosis, know, cancer, what have you. Those patients really are challenge. So let's go to surgeons who are focusing primarily on those patients. So those patients live in greater concentration in certain markets or certain care centers. And the answer is yes. Southern states and academic medical centers, they treat the higher risk patients. But then this idea of competitive advantage, are you truly different? They are. They actually are truly different. They're not trying to be better. They were trying to be better.

Harsh from Qualtivate (40:21.551)
Hmm.

Holley (40:29.74)
And we said, hey, don't compete on price. Don't create, don't try to compete on your clinical efficacy. Even if it is better, no one really cares. And we said, you need to create a different category. Instead of being a bone growth substitute, you're a bone graft, sorry, bone growth accelerator. So bone graft substitute or a bone growth accelerator. Instantly people realize I want bone growth as fast as possible.

Harsh from Qualtivate (40:48.398)
Hmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (40:57.081)
Hmm.

Holley (40:58.702)
not a bone graft substitute. And so like that competitive advantage, no one else can say, oh, we're also a bone growth accelerator. They're not, they're a bone graft substitute. then the idea is now we have to, they're just getting ready for commercial approval. But now the work really begins. It's teaching the market that basically why are you sacrificing speed?

Harsh from Qualtivate (41:00.483)
Yep.

Holley (41:24.834)
You don't have to sacrifice quality and keep that, but you need to basically augment your treatment with speed. And you have to get the sales reps to basically only call on certain surgeons in certain settings with certain language. Marketing's job at this point is about teaching the market that essentially, what if you could accelerate the bone fusion? Like, wouldn't that be amazing? Guess what you can. So it's teaching people. And then they have to essentially align their medical affairs with making sure that they've got

Harsh from Qualtivate (41:24.953)
Hey.

Holley (41:54.478)
write clinical data, that they're educating people, creating, you know, CME courses, et cetera, because people aren't going to know about it. And then lastly, you to fund the company appropriately. Stop spending money on, you know, certain things if it's not going to help you really change the world. And I think that those really all come down to commercial readiness. And so I think, you know, that's just a quick example, but the scorecard can be really, really helpful in helping you identify where do we need to lean into.

Where should we accelerate? And what do we just have to tweak? And sometimes it's just tweaking. It's not, you know, throwing out the baby at the bathroom.

Harsh from Qualtivate (42:24.521)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Harsh from Qualtivate (42:31.477)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know, I wasn't kidding when I started the top of the episode saying I love your energy, because I know we've had some chats before recording this one and like talking stuff. it just, so it blows my mind. You're all about frameworks. You know the stats. are giving extremely actionable stuff that you've learned. Like it's obvious, right? When you pause,

I don't know if you do or if you don't, but when you pause, you're not thinking about med tech, medical device clients and all these things where you're sitting back and relaxing. What is your vision either for your personal self as an entrepreneur or your company, Grey Matter or your employees? What are you thinking on that level?

Holley (43:25.08)
So we talk about this, we get together every quarter. We're remote, we've always been remote. We get together every quarter, we're getting ready to meet up in Nashville next month. I feel a little sense of purpose that I went to when, I don't even know who to attribute this quote to, the quote is something to the extent of the people who, I'm gonna say it wrong, but essentially the idea is you have agency to create the future you want.

Harsh from Qualtivate (43:29.197)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (43:36.834)
Mmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (43:55.404)
Hmm.

Holley (43:55.828)
And the idea in my mind is that in my mind translates to freedom to choose how you work, where you work, with whom you work, how long you work, what you charge for your work. And I really want Grey Matter to have that luxury of really being able to pick companies that we believe are primed to change the healthcare landscape.

but they need our help. Like I feel like we have super power and we're going to use that super power for good or bad. So I think that's just something I feel really passionate about. I want my team to feel that it's a privilege to work here and they'll work here as long as it serves them. So that's really important to me. I think the second part is I'm from the South originally and I love country music and June Carter, who was married to Johnny Cash, she had a phrase or a saying which was,

Harsh from Qualtivate (44:45.961)
Mm.

Holley (44:53.806)
I'm just trying to matter. And I liked that idea of like, I'm just trying to matter. I just wanna make a difference. It goes back to kind of gray matters tagline, do what matters. To me, like, just wanna make an impact. And my husband is a big Golden State Warrior fan. were watching them play basketball the other night and there was like a Charmin commercial, Charmin Toll. And I was like, thank God I don't have to like.

Harsh from Qualtivate (44:56.075)
Mmm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (45:09.196)
Hey.

Holley (45:21.102)
make toilet paper advertisements for a living. It just was a real stark contrast of kind of what we do and how special it is and how I truly feel like I drank the Kool-Aid when I first got exposed to robotics back in the day. And I realized this is an amazing opportunity. I feel incredibly blessed. And I feel like we're really just scratching the surface. I think it's such an exciting time with technology.

Harsh from Qualtivate (45:39.955)
Yeah.

Holley (45:49.398)
opportunities, like we're just getting going in some ways. And I feel like that to me gets me out of bed in the morning. I'm not even a coffee drinker, if you can believe it. I don't drink coffee. I'm more of a Coca-Cola drinker, but still, you know, it's just this idea of to be so lucky to be in this space and to recognize the impact we're having and to be able to work with some of the finest minds, know, scientists and doctors.

Harsh from Qualtivate (46:00.31)
Wow.

Okay.

Holley (46:17.174)
in the world and then seeing how it translates to patients to me is pretty, pretty unique. I feel like when it comes to, you know, working and building a career.

Harsh from Qualtivate (46:23.392)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (46:26.784)
Yeah, two things there. First, the three word phrase that you said, do what matters, that is so powerful. And anybody can take that. Whether you are an entrepreneur, whether you are an employee in a company, whether you're just starting out your career, that is like a million dollar advice that if you just put that as your focus, you're eventually gonna start doing things that actually matter. Nobody needs to tell you,

do this, do this, do that to get promoted or to get more clients, whatever. But if you just keep that, so that's a really good takeaway that I'm gonna remember from this one. And second, I'm surprised that you don't drink coffee because you do have a lot of energy. side note, I don't know if you've ever tried it or what your initial reactions are, but my father-in-law has this habit of mixing coffee with Coca-Cola.

And the first time he did it, I was like, what are you doing? This is so awkward. And he's like, no, try it. He made, cause he drinks black coffee and he puts like a little bit of Coca-Cola on the top so you can get that fizz actually really good. I don't drink, I don't drink Coca-Cola or any soda. I love coffee, but I don't know if you've ever heard anybody else do that stuff.

Holley (47:48.142)
I've also heard Coke and wine, red wine, also seems crazy to me, but I can see it's very sweet, right? So it'd be like kind of like a little effervescent sugar, sugar coating. But no, it's funny. I feel like my husband chokes. He says, I'm going to get Alzheimer's one day and I'm going to forget that I don't drink coffee and I'm going to start drinking coffee at 80 years old. So yeah, I'll keep you posted.

Harsh from Qualtivate (47:52.885)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (48:07.71)
Yep.

Harsh from Qualtivate (48:12.039)
Yeah. Anyone that has been listening to you for however long we've been talking here, when they log off, they go back, do their own thing, whether they're in medical device, med tech, life sciences, whether they're a CEO or maybe working at an agency like you are, what's one step or takeaway that you want to leave them with after this is done?

Holley (48:39.65)
I think the simplest framework I try to think about, agnostic of your industry or sector is nobody cares about what you make. They care about what you happen. And I think it goes back to everything we buy or use, it's to get something. It's to solve a problem, have an experience, but have you. And I think we're just all so focused on the product and we lose sight

Harsh from Qualtivate (48:51.85)
Hmm.

Holley (49:09.3)
Again, why would someone do something? And so I just always try to think about that as ask yourself, what do you make happen? What does your product make happen? And it can be, you you could be an entrepreneur selling your service, you can make a product, but what do you make happen for people? And again, it might be a specific segment, but I always really try to encourage people to think, to think about that. What do you make happen? The other thing is that everyone I think has a superpower and I don't think people give themselves enough credit.

Harsh from Qualtivate (49:17.034)
Mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (49:30.122)
Yeah, no, that's,

Harsh from Qualtivate (49:35.832)
Hmm.

Holley (49:38.746)
And I would challenge you to really, really think about what's something that you do, I don't say better, different than anybody else. It could be that you, to your point, you make the best coffee and your secret is that you're putting Coke in it. But everyone has a superpower. And I think we just are conditioned that we're maybe not good enough, someone's better. That's not relevant.

Harsh from Qualtivate (49:48.723)
Hmm.

Holley (50:04.312)
But it is, and I feel like the more clarity we have on what is our secret sauce, what's our superpower, I think it can be very empowering and can really lead to some exciting, hopefully exciting changes for people.

Harsh from Qualtivate (50:05.322)
Mm.

Harsh from Qualtivate (50:11.944)
Yeah.

Harsh from Qualtivate (50:16.722)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And as you were explaining that the superpower angle, the one thing that came to my mind was, I'm sure you've heard this, but the Icky Guy framework, which is basically like three circles that are coinciding. And if you're you're struggling to figure out what should you be doing, it's like, what do you love? What are you good at? I don't know what the three pillars are, but it's basically like, what are you good at? What would you like keep doing if nobody had to

pay you and then how does that align with your life purpose or your non-work related purpose? You basically combine the two and that's when you are basically making the competition irrelevant, not because you don't care about them, but you are just trying to be 1 % better because you're in that zone and nobody else can take that because their goals are not the same. Their three circles are never going to be

like your three circles, right? So that's a really powerful tip right there, because I feel like more people should explore that path.

Holley (51:23.854)
I agree. I was like, feel like I've just met an old friend. Yeah, I feel like we should do this. We should do this at an annual retreat. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. You have such great insight. You're an intellectual capitalist, I think, in the best ways of just being really curious, wanting to help others. Yeah, I know that many people benefit from the work you put into this podcast, so thank you.

Harsh from Qualtivate (51:24.948)
Yeah. This is so much fun. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Harsh from Qualtivate (51:50.524)
Yeah, thank you so much and I hope that we get to meet in person someday maybe when I'm coming to San Francisco or if you're in Raleigh or if we end up going to the same conference. But I love everything you're doing. I love your energy. Keep going. I'm going to be rooting for Grey Matter and your team and thank you for coming on. Appreciate it. All right. Bye.

Holley (52:06.968)
Thank you. Thanks, same. Bye.