#461 Investing in the Future of Healthcare: Cameron Sabet on AI, Space, and the VC Edge in MedTech

Mehmet: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased. Joining me, Cameron Sabet kaon, thank you very much for being here with me today. As I was explaining to you, before we do the actual recording, the way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themself.

Tell us a little more about, you know, your background, your journey, and what you're currently up to, and then we can start the discussion from there. So the floor resumes 

Cameron: fantastic. Thank you very much for having me. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm Cameron Sabet. I'm delighted to be here. I am a uh, uh, Georgetown medical student.

Here in Washington DC in the United States. And I am also a, uh, an investor. So I work in venture capital as principal at Multifaceted Capital. And, uh, I, I also do a little bit of angel investing on the side. So I'm a Y Combinator investor. I've invested in multiple Y Combinator startups, uh, as well as I focus specifically on healthcare.

Um, but I, but I can also branch out from that investment thesis as well. So I'm happy [00:01:00] to be here and happy to answer any questions or talk. 

Mehmet: Great. Thank you very much, Cameron. It's quite interesting because usually we don't see people, I would say, uh, especially in healthcare, who get excited about investing, whether as a, you know, proper institutional investment or like as an angel investment.

So what attracted you to be following these startups and, you know, um, actively being in, investing in them? 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So it all, it all started when I was in college actually. And so here, here in the states we have pre-med and then medical school, so it's four years of some unrelated degree, which I then pursued.

Uh, I, I studied religious studies and, uh, business at, at Wharton and up Penn. So I got a little bit of finance exposure there, uh, and a lot of ethics exposure. And I, I was very interested in a lot of the. Solutions like public health or you know, even physician uh, [00:02:00] responsibilities. In terms of, you know, administrative paperwork, all of the different duties that, uh, physicians are supposed to have were being tackled from within the system.

And that led to a lot of administrators with potentially misplaced priorities. And I, I, I realized that the startup scene is the strongest disruptor for any industry, even one with significant red tapes such as healthcare. And I know there's a huge presence of healthcare in the Middle East. Um, I'm, I'm, my, my parents are from the Middle East.

Uh, so. I, I'm, I'm, I'm well aware of that. What, what I will say is I, I, I latched onto startups and entrepreneurship and venture capital as a way to affect change through healthcare. 

Mehmet: That's beautiful, Cameron. I like it. So maybe a typical question which, uh, you know, people in the VC space and even like angel investor, they ask them this question.

So, uh, what defines your investment thesis? Of course, it's, it's in health tech, but I mean, what [00:03:00] you look for like, um. Like, is it like more in, uh, you're more expert to, to explain this than me? Like, because I know like people, they focus, for example, on medical devices. Some people they will go and focus on, I don't know, like, uh, maybe robotic surgery, like mm-hmm.

What's like more for you? Interesting. And where, you know, uh, based on the thesis, uh, you, you go and, uh, you know, decide to pursue if it's worth to deploy capital for these startups. 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. Thank, thank you for asking that. So I, I mainly have two investment thesis, and they're divided across of my institutional paths and my personal angel investment paths.

So on the, uh, on the institutional path at, as a principle, multifaceted capital, our, our goal is to invest in, uh, companies founded by Phillips Exeter alumni. And Philip is a very. Uh, one, one of the top high schools in the nation. It's a boarding school and it has, uh, multiple [00:04:00] time, approximately a hundred time higher chance of.

Uh, uh, entrepreneurs from that institution going on to, uh, form unicorns. And in, in the same way, we aligned our investment thesis, not toward a specific industry for multifaceted capital, but rather toward the founders. We believe in the founders, and we think that anyone, you know, coming from Phillips Exter Academy has proven their competency, uh, most often has connections and, and can really make it big now in the medical space.

What I will say is there's a lot of seniority in the medical space. So if you wanna be an advisor, for instance, uh, for a later stage company in, in medicine, it's better that you're in the specialty that you're advising and companies will actively look for that for. So for someone at my stage of training where I'm still going through clinicals and I'm still going through the training process, it's a lot.

More effective, uh, use of my services to aim at early stage startups. So, um, for instance, I've joined PRUs Health and [00:05:00] specifically health tech rather than medical devices. 'cause medical devices requires a lot of clinical insights that are developed over years of residency and training and practice. Uh, so, so me as a medical student, I'm getting involved with health tech and specifically the logistics of healthcare.

How can we streamline that? So. My, my work is on the board of advisors at Parus Health, for instance. I am, uh, leveraging my network built across years of research to, uh, get, get these entrepreneurs in touch with the right contacts to expand and scale the, the business. And they're, they're expanding pretty quickly and I'm creating warm intros.

I'm trying to figure out correct business strategies. Um, for instance, like. Deploying it an orthopedic clinic versus a Dermato dermatologic clinic building pipelines for workflows, because I've seen that all in my clinical rotations. Now, for instance, what is Parus Health? What are these health tech companies that I'm investing in?

Well, PRUs Health is an AI intake nurse, and they're, they're, they're essentially. Streamlining the [00:06:00] intake process for new patients, so they don't have to have a, a separate nurse come in and take all the information down. Uh, it's, it's really a conversational thing with the, um, with the patient and it delivers accurate results via SMS directly to the physician and helps streamline, uh, clinical workflow and administrative tasks.

So really it's, it's, it's down to how can we improve healthcare from the early stage for someone in my early stage of training. Mm-hmm. 

Mehmet: Got you, Cameron. There's one thing, which also of course, like, uh, for, uh, founders and for, uh, investors that might be listening to us. So I know some of you guys, you know, this, um, when it comes to healthcare specifically, you need to have what I call.

The long road ahead because two things you have first, I know in the US sometimes especially you have to do some, um, medical trials. You need to go for the FDA approvals. Like sometimes [00:07:00] also, um, and I, I'm lucky that I learned a lot of things talking to both founders and investors. So sometimes also you need to, I mean, not only this, so the technology itself needs time.

To, to prove itself. Now for you, um, how you identify, you know, something you say. And of course, uh, everyone in the VC world, they know like, uh, VCs usually, uh, aim for the moonshot, right? Mm-hmm. So how do you identify? Because at the end of the day, everything is regarding the return as well. Of course there is impact and that's why I like, you know, people like yourself, Cameron, who.

You know, focusing on the investment side slash the impact side, but of course identifying founders or technologies, um, how do you identify, especially for example, maybe if the market still, I would say, nascent or maybe misunderstood or maybe still there's no defined market for what these guys are [00:08:00] trying to do.

So how do you identify this? 

Cameron: Yeah, that, that's a very good question. So in, in healthcare. Specifically, and I'm not as well versed in raw tech. Um, so, so just outside of healthcare, I'm not sure there's specific business models. And as a venture capitalist, you review so many business models within your industry that, you know, maybe there are 12 or 13 business models in, for instance, construction.

And the more you go through it, the more you learn pattern recognition and you understand, okay, they're trying to emulate this business model. Exactly. How are they structuring it? How are they incentivizing? They're, they're nascent employee, their staff. How are they? You know, is it equity? Is it straight pay?

How are they? How is the business structured internally? And then obviously the SWOT analysis, the market opportunities. But that all comes later. Really what I'm looking for is who are the founders? Do they have the fire in them? Because I'm always looking at the founders, and that's really the principle behind my institutional investing.

At Multifaceted Capital, [00:09:00] we're investing in the founders. We're always looking toward. Philip Ter alums with, with some fire to show like they are, uh, sacrificing a lot of their time and energy and they have proven market traction. So that's another thing when they're breaking into a new industry. For instance, if they're brand new startup founders, what I would recommend is take something that exists in works and either put it in a new geography or put it in a new context, but don't just dive into something cold without.

Having previously understood the market conditions for it. So really what I'm looking for is at least some market traction in the path to exponential growth. And it's, it's pretty tricky sometimes in healthcare, and this is why I don't do medical devices as much, although I've done a few, like rom tech for instance, uh, which is a knee rehabilitation company.

Um, but, but typically, uh, you know, tech startups can, can scale a lot faster. So I also look. For scalability and uh, uh, runway. Yeah. 

Mehmet: Yeah, [00:10:00] that makes sense. Now it's also a question that I learned to ask myself from both sides of the table. What are, like sometime you, you mentioned about, let's call them the green flags.

What would be the red flags for you, Cameron? And I'm asking you the question. Um. Basically, I started to read a lot of books about VCs mainly, and, you know, some use cases and we know there were some unfortunate, uh, cases where, you know, there was like brilliant ideas. Founders looks pretty solid, but then things collapsed, right?

So of course, again, there's no one that can. Do a hundred percent prediction, of course. Uh, but at least for you, you would have like some red flag to say, okay, this is a no. Mm-hmm. Like if I have, if I see this in the business plan in the founders to say no, so what, what some of them would be. 

Cameron: Sure. Uh, I'll give you three to [00:11:00] start out with and we can go from there.

Uh, one, one major one is where they define the company's impact as the projected market share. Uh. They can take if they take over 1% of the industry. This has said a lot in venture capital circles, but it's worth reiterating. Just saying if we can capture just 1% of the market opportunity will make billions of dollars is insane.

Um, it, it's very difficult to reach that level. Uh, and, and it requires a lot of, uh. Plans and unfortunately for investors proven traction, uh, before they can invest. I mean if, if, if they have any element of risk, risk, uh, intolerance. And so that, that's the first thing I would say. Uh, second thing is, uh, if the founders lack domain expertise, especially in healthcare in other spaces, I think you can get away with it.

Uh, I'm, I'm not sure in all spaces, of course, 'cause there are other highly regulated industries such as law, um, but at least in healthcare. When people say, [00:12:00] oh, you know, we can disrupt this new system for, for doctors. Well, first of all, you know, does it work with electronic health records here in the, here in the United States?

If you're trying to expand globally, uh, is it interoperable with other electronic health records, both within and outside of the states? What is the approval process gonna look like? Do you even understand what the, uh, FDA approval process works? How, how does it work? Right? So if they don't have an MD. Or at least have not founded a company before in the space or worked in the space.

Uh, I, I am highly doubtful and ask a lot of questions on the initial interview and potentially can't offer my services to help advise them, uh, to move forward. But I, I am a highly skeptical investor. Uh, the third, the third issue, uh, really comes when the, uh. When it's a little bit too unclear, the business model isn't clear.

They sell the vision very well. But the logistics is all I'm looking for. I'm a numbers guy, so I'm always looking [00:13:00] for how do you exactly plan to do this? Okay. You plan to set up, you know, a data center for instance. Do you, do you understand, you know. If you build this data center, for instance, I mean this is a little more of a private equity thing, but if you build a data center, is it near a source of water to cool the, the data things is?

What about the price of land there? I mean, is it gonna appreciate or depreciate, is there a prison being built nearby that's gonna depreciate the value of the land there? So that same principle applies to venture capital where people just throw ideas into the wind, uh, looking from outside into the industry of medicine and they don't understand quite.

The complexity of the logistics of in integrating with hospital systems and et cetera. So those, those are really the major three red flags. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Makes sense a lot. Now when it comes to pitching, we know, like, uh, of course I believe, and, you know, people in, in whether angel investors or, uh, NVCs, uh, you've got a lot [00:14:00] of, of, you know, emails every day.

Mm-hmm. But then, you know. The moment where these founders, they get the chance to sit with you, maybe even on a Teams or Zoom call. Um, and this is, I'm asking you to kind of give an advice because I see this a lot, Cameron, and of course, not only in healthcare, it's across the board, so people tend to, yeah, templates are good.

I tell people templates are good, but the way you pitch to an investor. Uh, like in, I'm asking in general, but especially for healthcare, like how the founders should, you know, act what they should focus on during, you know, and their time is limited, so probably they have the first maybe one or two minutes to grab your attention or any investor attention.

So what really they should be focusing on the most, uh, when it comes to health tech in front of the founder, uh, sorry, in front of their investors. 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So [00:15:00] really first I would think, uh, first I would think, is this a real pain point or is it something that the founders imagine as a pain point and might think that, uh, customers might latch onto?

So again, this is where I look for traction. Um, additionally. What I always look for is a story, either a story from the founders themselves on why they, you know, pursued this or a story, and this is perhaps more, more potent from someone that they talked to that led to a light, light switch where they were like, oh my gosh, this is a huge problem.

This is why, for instance, in healthcare, if they have a dialogue, for instance, paraphrasing, a dialogue between themselves and a doctor or a nurse, and this has to be real of, of course, um, uh, but the doctor just said offhand, oh, I hate it when blah, blah, blah happens. And they were like, oh my gosh, have you thought about this?

And, and, and, and the doctor's like, oh my gosh. And in that way, we're [00:16:00] able to see at least if, if you're a doctor and you're pitching to a doctor who's in venture capital. If they're able to see another peer who has validated that and almost peer reviewed the idea, almost like a journal. And in the same way we wanna hear stories, uh, almost like this is journalism in, in the lay press.

We wanna hear stories because those hook and grab and pull investors in instead of pushing yourself forward in front of them. Additionally, I'm always looking for a moat, um, in, in, in today's AI driven world, you know, there, there's too many ways that, you know, maybe two Stanford startup founders can just come and take your whole product up and code it in the weekend and just.

Erase you. So there, there is a danger there and it's a very fast-paced world and I look for, you know, are, are the founders? Relatively quick. Is there a patent pending on the application? Is there a brand that they've built, specifically a community? Um, is there a community of people that are surrounding this that might make it difficult?

For instance, that's [00:17:00] how social media networks maintain their, their leverage, uh, over the population is, is, I mean, yeah, you can found another social media network and it can be 10% better, but already all of my quote unquote friends are on Instagram. And so it becomes very difficult for other social media, uh, companies to, to come, come across.

So tho those are the main, the main sections that I'm looking for. Uh, yeah. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. So now one thing, uh, which I think you know, based on your background and your experience, uh, that you shared with, uh, with me today, Cameron, so far you are in inter at intersection because. You are in the academia still.

Like you, you, you're still in, in, in college, right? And you're still grabbing all this knowledge. So do you see yourself having an edge over the other investors? Do you think they are missing something when they are evaluating, uh, medical innovation? Do you feel this [00:18:00] edge that you have? 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So, well f first of all, I, I will note, um, I, I graduated college, uh, some, some years ago, and I've done three master's degrees.

So in the US I'm in, I'm in the Doctorate of Medicine program, which is separate from an M-B-M-B-B-S and overseas, uh, a medical degree program is just a five year, six year, seven year program straight out of the school in the United States. That's not how it works. So we, we have to finish four years of an undergraduate full degree.

And then, you know, any number of gap years to try to get into medical school. And then you do a four year medical school and then, you know, three to seven years of residency and then additional fellowships. So it's, it's a very different process. So I'm, I'm a doctoral candidate. Um, so, so I already have my MBAI.

I'm already playing on the level of other MBAs. So when when I enter this, this place, for instance, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. Uh, when I was investing in Y Combinator companies, uh, two weeks ago, [00:19:00] I was speaking with, uh, one of the founders of the yc uh, WC 25 batch. And. He was saying that a lot of the investors on the floor were just throwing money at the companies on the floor of Demo Day for Y Combinator.

And they were saying, okay, just take my $200,000. And he said, you know, I haven't seen money move like that before. Um, and and he, he, he also told me that I had been asking him questions that he hadn't been asked before, and he hadn't been grilled at the level that I, I asked him because no one who was investing in him was from Healthcare Venture Capital is, is.

Ridden with a lot of people from tech, but there's a huge lack of healthcare talent and innovation, uh, within venture capital, partially because investors are scared off by all the red tape, uh, here in the United States. And partially because people who became doctors became doctors primarily to help patients.

And that's primarily why I'm here as well. Uh, I, I just wanna help healthcare as well, and, and I see that coming from the entrepreneurship world. So I'm extending a hand out there [00:20:00] and trying to see if we can pull talent and pull. Uh, opportunities for innovation. So I, I, I really do think that there's an opportunity for anyone in medicine who's interested in venture capital.

Mehmet: Do you think, Cameron, you know now because we, we touched on the AI a couple of times and there's a lot. I spoke with brilliant people mainly in the US and you know, globally. Uh, and some of them, they are in here in the Middle East. Some of them they are in, in New Zealand, in Australia. And you know, these use cases that they are come, uh, uncovering now with the ai, uh, are you seeing a shift also from traditional VCs who maybe.

They won't now because you know the opportunity, both from a business perspective and maybe impact perspective to be more into healthcare. Are you seeing AI as a driver for more money pouring from, uh, I would say non-traditional healthcare investors? 

Cameron: Yeah. And, and what I will say is it's [00:21:00] closing the knowledge gap as well, right?

So, so all of these questions of what even is healthcare. How is it run in different environments? And here in the states, every state runs healthcare a little bit differently and it gets very confusing for outside investors. So it's certainly helping there. Uh, again, for some of the companies I'm investing in, uh, AI is really helping them.

I know for the Y Combinator batch, a good amount of the companies had built code bases entirely based off of ai, and a lot of those companies were in healthcare. So it's not like y Combinators shying away from ai. I mean, if anything, it's just accelerating and I think it's, it's going to explode innovation in medicine, not even through venture capital, but also through traditional, um, you know, entrepreneurship from, uh, you know, GlaxoSmith Kline, a lot of the established pharma companies as they start to develop, uh, drugs using AI and other, you know, proteomics, uh, pushing proteomics forward using ai.

Mehmet: Right, Cameron, you, you sit [00:22:00] sometimes on the board of these startups and you act as an advisor for them now, in your opinion, for a successful health tech startup. Um, like if they want to think about the best backgrounds or the best personas, best traits in, in, in their, uh, you know, board, what they should be looking really for.

Cameron: So you're asking what do health tech startups look for in their advisors? 

Mehmet: Yeah. Like, yeah, so, so what, what kind trying to. Attract you to their board to be sitting on their board. 

Cameron: Yeah. So again, it depends on the type of, of startup in, in health tech, certainly I would say anyone in medicine, including nurses, in fact, I mean mm-hmm.

If you're, if you're looking to produce an AI powered intake nurse, I would also include, I. Maybe a nurse on your board of directors as well as doctors, because you need as many diverse perspectives as possible. Uh, what I will say is it's, it's easy to load up on [00:23:00] the quote unquote experts in your domain and forget about the other players, like insurance companies, like, uh, hospital CTOs and CEOs.

So it, it's helpful to think critically about all of the different stakeholders in healthcare and perhaps ask the people on your existing board of advisors who they interact with. Uh, on a, on a daily basis because those people will be in the hot seat for the decisions, uh, moving forward. Like if you want to implement something, you need to have it, uh, uh, uh, reimbursed by insurance sometimes.

And if you don't have it reimbursed by insurance, maybe you're gonna want someone from the insurance world who knows what these companies are looking for. Uh, so, so that's, that's extremely important. Remember to diversify your talent and not just double down on one subsection. 

Mehmet: Right, and I think, you know, they would need.

The kind of, uh, people who can help them in getting maybe approval faster. Maybe, uh, people who have experience in regulations more [00:24:00] so they don't, uh, get surprises in the future. Right. And even from legislation perspective, because I know like how it is, uh, very much, uh, highly regulated in, in the US in, in North America in general, like compared to other part of the world.

So I think. Yeah, this is, this is very important. Now, Cameron, you, you see a lot of pitches, you see a lot of, uh, you know, startups and I'm sure you don't miss a lot of the demo days. Again, like it's kind of maybe traditional question and things are changing very fast, but what are like the most exciting innovation that you seeing currently?

Of course, ai, but when we say ai, like what exactly, like what kind of use cases we're talking about? 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, we, there, there are a number of exciting opportunities. Uh, what I will say is for. Low income countries in particular, uh, this is [00:25:00] something that's not discussed as much. We often talk about AI use cases in healthcare settings with lots of resources.

Um, I, I, I was part of a project called Tele Catalyst, and we, uh, you know, the, the whole purpose of the project was to help use AI to, uh, uh, improve healthcare literacy in Africa. And that that was specifically important for oncologic care, for cancer care. And in, in Africa there's often a medical mistrust because of centuries of, uh, uh, the medical establishment, especially from western civilization, uh, encroaching upon human rights.

So major human rights violations. So the legacy remains and the footprint remains, and the shadow remains. So, uh, really what we wanted to do was improve. Especially in native languages, uh, information on cancer care and the latest cancer drugs and in incorporate that with traditional methods of medicine or care, uh, so that [00:26:00] there's, there's kind of a balance between, uh, Western and, uh, traditional perspectives.

So that's one very exciting implementation of ai. But I will say to not make this interview too heavily AI, because that's often, you know, anything that anyone talks about at this stage. Is, uh, really everyone's looking to space now. Uh, and and why I say that is because surprisingly enough, there are a lot of applications for pharmaceutical, uh, drug development and organoids in, in space.

Now, I'll give you an example, uh, for retinas, artificial retina, implant implantations for the back of your eye. Uh, it needs to have a perfect curvature like down to the cell because, I mean, the AI is essentially, or the, sorry, the retina is essentially like a little camera, and so you're, you're looking at the world through these little cameras and they need to be absolutely perfect.

I. What they do right now is on the International Space Station, there's an experiment to have, uh, grow perfect retinas in zero [00:27:00] gravity or microgravity so that you can have that beautiful shape. But the issue is you can only export 10 kilograms off the International Space Station. So there's no natural production of, of retinas in space.

And, and, you know, this has obvious implications for, you know. Soft tissue lithography and other microfluidics applications in, in science. But really, I, I'm talking about the medicinal side and, uh. So, so I've invested in a company now, uh, and, and they're raising at a $50 million valuation, but Reddit is space and they're a y Combinator backed company that's developing, uh, essentially the new, uh, space station for pharmaceuticals and other materials development.

And the ISS is gonna stop their, you know, experiments in about 2026 and they'll. It'll be shutting down by 2030. And so we're gonna need some real serious pharmaceutical implementation there, uh, without necessarily humans on board. Uh, and so running those experiments and [00:28:00] having those production processes, uh, autonom, automatized in space is, is hugely important.

So that's another really interesting avenue is looking up to the stars. 

Mehmet: Yeah, definitely. And you know, you are, you are the second, uh, guest on the show in at least this past month who, uh, opened my eye and thank you for doing so, Cameron. And it's, I, I like when, when you know, the same team comes again, uh.

He told me that space is underrated sometimes because people, they only think about it as satellites and, you know, uh, just going and getting some, this is the way some people, they put getting some dust from the moon or Mars and study it. So there are a lot of plenty use cases over there that can help humanity actually, which, you know, I, I am passionate about anything that, to your point, can.

Let us, you know, in any form of shape, whether founders, investors, operators, leave [00:29:00] the world better, uh, place than we we founded. Now, maybe a traditional question and first time I ask it on, on the show as an investor, whether an angel or, uh, as, as a vc, uh. Any startup that you missed and you regretted and you get hunted by it, and was there like something that you truly believed in it?

And actually, yeah, like it, it became a huge success. So if you can mention like two examples. 

Cameron: Yeah. Um, 

Mehmet: you don't have to mention names if you don't want for. 

Cameron: Yeah, yeah. You know, uh, looking back, I, I, I still remember when I was in my earlier days of investing, there was a company called Horon Technologies, and I don't, I haven't really tracked them as much since I, I, I turned down my investment.

But they are a DC based startup that was [00:30:00] building, uh, essentially a, uh, patent scraper. I believe, and they were, uh, partnering with actual like Fortune 100 companies to go and search the Chinese internet and, and partnering with also us, uh, departments, uh, and, and government departments to search for overseas patent infringements.

And they were using, uh, ai, uh, not generative ai so it wouldn't hallucinate, but AI to scrape those uh, areas and see if there was any. Replications and any infringements of international patent laws and, and reporting that to companies such as DuPont or other, other major, you know, chemical companies or other.

Um, American industries. And so they're safeguarding, you know, American prosperity, uh, through, through artificial intelligence. And that was a really interesting opportunity, especially now, uh, with the upcoming trade war and, you know, China potentially stealing a lot more, uh, us uh, [00:31:00] information and materials and patents, uh, to, to, to be able to collect intel on, on that scale.

So that's something that I kind of, I, I didn't see the potential for when I immediately saw it. And. It's a potential regret. Yeah. 

Mehmet: Yeah. It's, it's, and these things are, you know, very, for people who maybe get shocked, oh, how come someone can miss something? So in whether you are an angel or you work, um, as a partner or in VC in general.

So yeah, you have these misses all the time. But it's fine. Like this is, this is, you learn and you try to, to spot the next, uh, uh, big startup again. So absolutely a hundred percent. Um, like one more thing that I think I didn't touch about it much. Um,

I should have maybe ask it like when we [00:32:00] were still talking about the founders, but you know. When you said about the traction, uh, and you know, the thing that they should, uh, be prepared to do it now in traditional, in traditional, uh, businesses, I would say Cameron, getting the traction, whether it's real revenue or at least, you know, getting a list of people who are interested, it's quite easy, right?

Um, so when it comes to healthcare attraction, right? So what, what. Instruction in healthcare, how you define it. And the other thing is, and kind of, and I'm trying to relate these two questions kind, it's we, uh, be a loaded question because in, and I'm asking you this, Cameron, because in traditional businesses like other health tech and maybe some other, you know, domains, uh, founders, they can self-fund in the beginning, get the traction and then to scale, [00:33:00] they go to.

Angels or VCs mainly. So how does, is, how does this work here with the, with the healthcare? 

Cameron: Okay. So really your first question, if I'm hearing this right, is one, what is traction in healthcare? Two, how do you get traction in healthcare? 

Mehmet: True. 

Cameron: Okay. So that, that's a good order as well. Uh, because 'cause it's really, you know, define it and then how do you get there?

So, 

Mehmet: absolutely. 

Cameron: First, first I would say, um, what is Traction Healthcare? Broadly speaking, it is clinics, hospitals, number of patients, number of providers, uh, and, and potentially market or, uh. You know, profit or revenue and, and any kind of, you know, an additionally runway. So it's, it's, it's really a, a, a nice tight equation of, of those kinds of variables.

Uh, and, and that's pretty obvious, uh, what potentially isn't as obvious [00:34:00] is corporate sustainability. And when I say that, I don't mean sustainability in the traditional used sense of sustainability of, you know, environmentally friendly practices, although that's always a consideration in healthcare with use of disposable, you know, gloves and a lot of waste products.

But I mean sustainability in terms of risk. And when I say risk, it's less about can you get this product? In front of its audience, it's more how do you navigate the regulatory hurdles to get there and, and how, how are you able to do that? So really, when I'm looking for traction, I'm looking for lack of traction in, in, in the growth process and lack of drag and, and pushback, uh, because that's really the toughest thing that that oftentimes sinks a lot of healthcare startups.

They're waiting for regulations. They still have to pay salaries and all these other things, and. They, they start to sink. I mean, it's just, you know, costs, succeed, profit, and, and they sink. So [00:35:00] that's, that's the number one thing I look for is just the financials. Uh, second thing is, um, so, so, so your second question is, how do you get there without, right, yeah, with, without institutional backing.

Uh, what, what I will say is that, uh, for, for Y Combinator, for instance, um. Well, I wanna get this completely correct. So for Y Combinator, oftentimes they'll invest in a startup. Uh, but they have to have, the founders have to have had like some kind of successful exit, some kind of domain expertise. And in the same way I.

If you wanna break into the venture capital industry, you needed to have at least some successful exit or some domain expertise. I've taken the domain expertise route, and then the, so, so using that instead of traction entrepreneurs really have three options, right? I. They either have traction immediately within their company.

They have domain expertise, meaning they're a doctor, a nurse, someone from within the field. [00:36:00] Or if you're not a doctor or nurse, you bring someone on board who is a doctor or nurse, and who can independently verify to investors that this is a promising idea that can work feasibly in a healthcare space, in a complex regulatory environment.

And third is prior. Uh, exits. And so any startups that you've founded, you know, maybe you've been the first employee for all of that, is enticing to investors. So it's really three paths you can take, um, to, to, to gain that funding and backing if you aren't able to immediately prove traction. 

Mehmet: Yeah. I've seen also, Cameron correct me if I'm wrong, uh, sometimes I read this, this happens a lot again in, in, in the US where, you know, especially if they are still students, maybe.

Mm-hmm. Uh, they get some grants, right? And then they use this grant to. Do the research and then they find the use case that this Yeah. Can be commercialized and then they would go and start to raise their funds. Uh, I I think this is something [00:37:00] also sometimes common, right? 

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. And so that's exactly what Horon Technologies had done.

The, the startup I referenced earlier. Uh, really college is the best time to get into entrepreneurship. First of all, you're young. And, and potentially, you know, single, you don't have a lot of responsibilities on your plate. Two, you have institutional support. So a lot of the times colleges will want to back you so that they can tell any applicants, Hey, we have some exciting entrepreneurial spirit, uh, on, on, on campus.

Three, you have a lot of free time, so you don't have a job, you don't have anything. And this university is proud to back people from that university because it shows A, that they have competent alums and that can boost their ranking. And B um, it it, it drives more institutional research funding in general because the, the, the institution.

Uh, uh, grows. So, um, yeah, and, and, and actually three, [00:38:00] the institution often takes a cut of any patents that are produced from funding within the institution. So if you've built a new drug, sometimes the university will take up to half. Of any revenue that you develop from the drug because they said, you know, we provided that environment for this to flourish.

So lots of reasons that institutions want to back you when you're in college that you won't have as an advantage that you can lean on later on. So use, you, use a grant, find the use case, and then create and then follow through throughout college and beyond. 

Mehmet: Great. Um, Cameron, like really I enjoyed, and, you know, uh, it, it's really great discussion.

Uh, as we are closing to, to, to, you know, wrap up final words you might share maybe something I didn't ask you on to quickly touch base on or maybe final, uh, few words of advice for fellow entrepreneurs in, in the healthcare space and of course where people can get in touch and learn more about your work and, you know, [00:39:00] uh, maybe pitch you.

Of 

Cameron: course. So, um,

final words to share. Uh, what, what I will say is, um, okay, when you are early on in your career, um, you want to pursue avenues that are very public facing. Not be a hermit. And, uh, one issue I see is when people just sit in their rooms all day and they study. So if you're able to talk with people, that's important.

And what I did in, in throughout college was to become a journalist and enter venture capital. And through those both a two avenues, I've written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, uh, the Smithsonian, and I was able to interview public health leaders, vaccine leaders, and those are connections that helped me get into medical school later on.

Nice. And so, uh, really pick public facing careers where you're able to talk with these entrepreneurs. I would've never had time [00:40:00] of day to talk with these Y Combinator founders, some of the smartest entrepreneurs out there. Uh, if I hadn't been in venture capital, if I hadn't been in journalism, if I hadn't been covering these stories, telling these stories, learning how to tell stories, because.

In the end, we all become stories, and in the end, all of business is a story, and you're just pitching stories to each other day in, day out. And so if you can become a better storyteller and have that network, that's important. Two, entrepreneurship. If you go out and you go to conferences and you try to network by yourself, you have nothing to offer.

It's like throwing stuff at the wall and it just drops and there's, you know, you'll never expand your network. Okay? You have a few more LinkedIn connections. That doesn't mean anything. Once you build something that's actually valuable, the network will just suddenly appear. I. Just outta thin air.

Everyone's gonna come to you as soon as you have some proven traction or success. You don't need a network to become successful, you become successful. And then get the network and the success compounds. Finally, how can people get in touch? [00:41:00] I'm Cameron Savitt. You can go on cameron s.com. That's just my first name, last name.com.

Uh, or Cameron sabot@gmail.com. That's my email. Uh, I'm, I'm always open. You can find me on LinkedIn, uh, Instagram, anywhere, and yeah, I'm happy to, you know, respond or get pitched. 

Mehmet: Yeah. So I gotta grab, just joking, I gotta put the link. Of course. I gotta, we, we connect with, with Cameron, of course. Uh, so folks who you are listening or watching, you don't need to go search right and left and re-listen.

I'll make the life easy. You will find the links in the show notes or in the description. Um. And yeah, you can connect with with Cameron. Cameron, again, thank you very much for this. Really, I, I like these kinds of conversations because first myself, I learn a lot. I think, you know, the audience would learn a lot.

Plus we talk healthcare, which I. Touch all humans, which is one of the best thing. And, um, yeah, like, uh, [00:42:00] as, as, uh, I mentioned to you at the beginning, we try to make the world a better place to be. So thank you for being part of, of the show. I really appreciate, uh, you being here with me today. And for the audience, this is how usually I am.

Maybe you know it by now, but if you're new to the show, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did so please. Subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues and if you're one of the people who comes again and again, thank you for all your support messages. I thank you for all.

Also, you know, the push you did for me. So the show now is getting, you know, in the top 200 chart across multiple countries, simul intensely. Thank you guys so much for this trust. I really appreciate it. And. I promise you as much as I can, I would keep, uh, you know, doing my best to, to run the show to your expectations.

So thank you for tuning in, and we'll meet again very soon. Thank you.