Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Inventivity. What does it mean? The state of being inventive, creating or designing new things or thoughts? Hello, I'm, um, Richard Miles. Welcome to the inventivity pod. Join us as we speak to inventors, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are using inventivity to change the world. They will bring us alongside their journey as they share their personal stories from start to finish, including the.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I'm James de Bergilio. Welcome to our series exploring the animal health industry, a look at what it is, who's involved, and what the future is going to look like. Thanks to innovators and their inventivity for this limited series, we were able to talk to a selection of subject matter experts who are excited to give our audience a look into the growing and impressive animal health industry and the inventors who are utilizing their inventivity to help better the lives of our pets. Today's guest is someone who is doing just that. It is Scott Ijaz, and that's not exactly right. Scott, I'm going to let you pronounce your own last name on the show, because I believe in pronouncing last names correctly. I want everyone to know exactly what it is. But Scott is working on a plethora of interesting things, and one of those things, vet Guardian, is something we've actually featured on this podcast before. In fact, I was able to host Vet, uh, Guardian, who came in fifth place in the 2020K prize for an episode that you can find. If you go ahead and search that search, vet Guardian, uh, wherever you find your podcast, you can find our previous episode on that. So today we're going to spend our time learning about Scott and the animal industry. Scott, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being our guest today.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Thanks for having me, James.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: So let's talk about just in general, why have you found yourself in the pet space in the first place?
[00:01:50] Speaker C: That's a great question. So I started off as a philosophy major, then I studied biotechnology, and really what got me into the space was owning a dog. I adopted a dog a few years ago. We developed a really tight bond, and I wanted to create technology and products that can take care of her and also other animals out there. So when it came down to it, it's a love for the animal human.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Connection, and why sort of try to solve problems, I think with entrepreneurs in general, uh, it's often assumed from the outside that money is the main reason. What was your primary motivation for trying to improve pet health?
[00:02:28] Speaker C: The more I learned about veterinary providers, I realized that they have really difficult jobs. They do great work. And I thought that if I could use my talents in order to help them do their job, that would be fulfilling to me. So I got a chance to talk to veterinarians out there, figure out what their pain points were, what their problems were, and I thought that I can do a lot of good for the industry and also the animal community if we can make their jobs easier. So it was a strong problem solving approach. That's what drove me.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: And what are some of the problems that you came across in the vet space?
[00:03:01] Speaker C: So one of the first ones that jumped out is safety. They get bit, they get scratched all the time. They deal with contagious diseases, that opportunity to keep them safer, they're used to it, they're tough people, but there's some things that you shouldn't have to get used to, and that's one of the motivating factors. Another is the amount of time and energy they put into these animals can lead to burnout. You want to be able to keep the profession sustainable, and one way of doing that is creating solutions that saves them times and maximizes their efficiency while, um, maintaining that high quality of care. So when it came down to it, if I could make a solution that helps keep them safe and that helps save them time, I wanted to do that.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: And how many different solutions have you created thus far?
[00:03:45] Speaker C: I've been focused on one solution, but it's gone through many iterations and has a lot of different functionality in it. Um, and it's worth noting that most of the features that's in this product is a direct result of the veterinarian feedback, for example. So it's ideas, problems, they told me, or features they've said that they wanted in our product and we were able to build them.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: And on the vet Guardian episode, of course, we talk about primarily what it does. Uh, and very simply put, veterinarians, of course, often have to leave their practice at nighttime to go to sleep or for other reasons. And how then do you monitor the pets that are there? How do you know if it's okay? Much like a human in a hospital that's going to have a variety of detection measures on them to make sure that everything is okay with their respiratory systems, their organs, et cetera. Pets need the same thing. And obviously vet guardians found a better way to do this that was non invasive, no touch, and, uh, really freed up veterinarians, not only a better data measurement and management, but also just better off site management. Uh, so very interesting and obviously important sort of improvement. Not only just for lifestyle, as uh, you mentioned, burnout, et cetera, but also just in general, better. From animal to care provider solution. When you were working on this project, what hurdles did you find with as an innovator, trying to have to overcome some of the issues that came your way? You have an idea, but then executing it, of course, is a very different thing.
[00:05:10] Speaker C: I'd say that one of the biggest challenges was understanding the nuance and complexity of the market. So there's veterinary providers, but there's a lot of different roles that come within that umbrella term, many different types of clinics, and it's rare when you have one solution that can simply adapt to all of them immediately. There's an iteration process where you learn about the unique aspects of the environment, how, uh, they deliver care, and then you have to continuously make the product better in order to speak to that complexity. And, um, you can only know that by going in depth with these veterinary providers, going to the clinic, seeing how they operate on a daily basis. And then that's when those problems that I was talking about became immediately clear. That's, um, one of the biggest challenges that I faced.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Once you solve the problems, solving them, of course, requires gathering the tech, figuring out how to make those things. A lot of startup companies get stuck in what we'll call the prototype phase, like actually taking their idea and put it into something that can be marketable. How are you able to navigate that portion of your journey?
[00:06:18] Speaker C: You can create a great solution, but there's a lot more that goes into it than simply meeting the need. You have to know how to communicate the solution. You have to understand how it fits into their pre established workflows. You have to get the right language correct and figure out how the distribution aspect, how do you get the solution to people? And I think that a lot of other companies get hung up in that phase. They have an awesome idea, they have an awesome MVP product, but in order to get past that hump, so to speak, it takes a little bit more pushing to understand that end user and exactly how they operate.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point there. So much of it is, right communication, being able to effectively and quickly reach someone who's not familiar with your solution or service and then be able to articulate to them why this is helpful. And uh, oftentimes if you miss that right, then it doesn't really matter how good your solution is, it's not going to be adopted in any way, shape or form. Uh, now looking at, ah, obviously animal tech, you're dealing both with animals and with humans, you have to kind of handle both sides. Right. This is good for your pet. This is good for, obviously, you as a practitioner, as a human. Is there any difference if you're just developing tech for one or the other, if you're just doing animal tech versus just doing human tech, is there any difference in how you handle that, or is it essentially still all the same?
[00:07:37] Speaker C: There's plenty of differences when you're dealing with animals. They can't communicate to the same way that humans can. They don't speak English, they don't speak other languages. So a lot of times, it's the pet owner that's driving the health cade decisions. And in really to create, uh, a meaningful solution, you have to understand how the different stakeholders involved with animals care operate together. So it's not just the veterinarian and the pet, the pet owner. The pet owner might have different family members. There might be the groomer, anybody that has interactions with your pet, maybe it's a dog walker. They all have effect on the health of the animal, and you have to understand that all these factors come together and affect the quality of care. There's many social factors that affect how veterinary care is given, and if you don't understand those social factors, then that could have negative impacts on the animal itself.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Scott, are there any other industries that you are creating solutions for right now or in the past, whether it be animal or otherwise? Is there something different that you've worked on, or is animal tech sort of your specialty at this point?
[00:08:45] Speaker C: I've been working, um, on animals fully for the last five years. I fell in love with solving problems for the veterinary industry, and that's why I wanted to stick to it. However, uh, before this, I did work in a medical device space, public health space. I, uh, previously lived in Rwanda, Africa, where I worked at a hospital, creating it solutions to help community health workers optimize their care. So there is a lot of stuff I learned from those previous experiences, but these days, I'm all veterinary focused.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's talk a bit about, uh, your background in general and how you think those experiences have helped you to where you are today. I found that instructive, doing this podcast now for many years to find the common threads in everyone's story and oftentimes experiences that maybe in the moment, didn't feel like they would contribute to what you're doing now. Contribute. And I think you may have just mentioned one, but do you have an example or a story of something in your past, whether it was Rwanda or something else? That you actually found to directly help you now that you're working in the animal space, even though those two things seemingly would be unrelated, I really do.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: The one thing that sticks out to me is I have a background in medical ethics. So I mentioned before that I study philosophy, and it wasn't exactly a straight path to animal health. And what we did in the medical ethics scenarios is that we had complex medical cases, uh, where the answer wasn't black and white. There was some gray area on what the doctors and the patients should do next. And that really taught me the value of understanding the different stakeholders perspectives. Just given that people have different roles in the delivery of care, they might see things differently, they might prioritize things differently. And unless you really are able to reconcile all those different Personas and stakeholders, you're not going to see a complete picture. And then carrying that to the veterinary industry is the same thing.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: We mentioned before how there's different stakeholders involved with your animal, your family, your friends, the different type of veterinary providers out there. And if you really don't understand the role they play, it's difficult to create a meaningful solution.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: That's a great example right there, of a direct overlap, right. From learning one thing into the next. Uh, let's talk for a second just a little about funding in general. Obviously, as an innovator, funding can tend to be one of the biggest hurdles to take your idea from idea to actual, usable service product. Right. Did you have any challenges obtaining funding, getting through the funding process? How did you learn about how to even handle that?
[00:11:20] Speaker C: It was certainly a learning process. Most people don't come in with the full set of experience. In order to truly close a fundraising, you can bootstrap here or there, but when you want to get to scalable numbers, it is a strong balance of an art and a science. You have to understand how to cold call. And with that saying, you're approaching people. In many cases that you haven't met before, great if you can get a warm introduction. But with that said, too, I said it was a science, and you have to understand how to get these people's attention in the first place while keeping it personal. Because if an investor doesn't feel like you're speaking directly to them, it's much lower likely chance that they're going to want to invest in your round. It becomes easier the more you do it. You have to be able to have a ten second pitch, 22nd pitch, 32nd pitch, all the way up to 2030 minutes. So be able to deliver a concise pitch, where you highlight your main benefits and the value of your product. And one of the traps that I fell into early on is that I was so excited about the technology itself that I would overemphasize that in all my pitches. I talk about our amazing next generation, um, array of remote sensors, and I go into the scientific detail about that. From the investor's point of view, they might care about a different set of things. Now, of course they care about the science, but they want to understand from the user's point of view, they want to understand the scalability. And you really have to speak different languages to different people. And on top of that, there's different investor groups as well. You want to target the right investors. You can waste so much time targeting the wrong investors, and that only hurts you in the long run because it sucks a lot of time, sucks a lot of energy. And as an entrepreneur, you have to conserve your energy in order to keep it sustainable.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, this is good stuff. Let's dive a little deeper. You mentioned a couple of things in there. I want to go further. And let's start with the one you just mentioned there at the end. Identifying the right sets of investors. What are some tips you have for figuring that out?
[00:13:23] Speaker C: You have to understand the strengths of your business model and your product and find investors who will care about your strengths and competencies. You have to understand what criteria they invest in. A lot of them have very precise criteria, and you can go through the process and then realize that if you're off on one of them, you're not going to get anywhere. So one thing I really focus on is understanding the prior investments of the person that you're talking to. Figure out which ones went right, which ones went wrong, and perhaps you can customize your pitch to that investor's previous experience. For example, just like you're doing market research on your customers, in order to convey the right message to them, you have to do the same thing with investors. You're crafting a message to them that needs to resonate. And if it doesn't, one incorrect question could send it down the wrong path and misrepresent your entire product or solution. So you have to be very careful in your language. You have to develop a strong relationship with them because a lot of times there is a personal touch involved and they want a good business opportunity. But there's a million billion ways to make money and you have to differentiate why your opportunity is unique compared to a bunch of other options out there. There's a lot of great startup companies in the world. If you're not able to differentiate yours, you have to, uh, rethink about your approach in many cases.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Let's go even further into that. You had mentioned obviously having to create a personal connection, and you had mentioned researching and kind of knowing maybe what they've invested in before, what they will invest in. Once you're on the call, you've had the call. You've done as much research as you can, knowing things. How much of the first five or ten minutes is sort of fluid, where you're trying to kind of get a feel for what they might be about and what's happening and then move from there versus how much is strategic, where you're just going to say, this is what I want to accomplish. I'm going to find a way to kind of make this happen based upon the research I've done beforehand.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: That balance would depend on the case. And the first important rule is you have to be comfortable in your skin, because if you're not emitting confidence, they're not going to have confidence in what you're doing. There is a good way to collect the information you need in order to guide the conversation towards the outcome that you want to do so. I always ask like, two or three questions when I start prior investments, what you're looking for, what's your average check size, for example? And that sets the stage.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Let's revisit the personal touch part. In the beginning, you mentioned creating a connection, how it's beyond just the science, right. You're overly focused on science. At one point in time, you had to figure out, obviously what was important to the investor. How do you develop rapport with someone that doesn't know you? Even if you come in warm, they still don't know you. What are some tips you have for developing rapport and reaching them where they are?
[00:16:14] Speaker C: You're working so hard to solve a problem that is meaningful to you. And if you care about that problem to the extent that you should, you should be able to talk about that to somebody else and get them to understand the magnitude of that problem as well. A lot of times when you're building a connection, it's about finding common ground, getting on the same page. And I think as people are trained how human psychology works, it's easy to highlight or find problems out there. Right. A lot of people bond. Like Seinfeld, for example, is all about small problems every day that really bothers you on a regular basis. And that's a really good starting point for getting a conversation going, finding that common ground that could be found in a problem statement.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Seinfeld. That's one of my favorite shows. It really is a show about small problems every day that are there, and you can also connect, like you mentioned, through those things. That's why I think a lot of your funding story was great. I'm glad we got to elaborate on that. Let's spend our last few minutes together here talking about, actually your own personal childhood and background. I'll give our listeners a little background myself before you launch into it. But currently you're a senior product manager at Zomedica. You were obviously on the team that brought vet Guardian to the K prize in 2020. You did your undergrad studying at Ohio State, master's degrees from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Bioethics, and the John Hopkins University in biotech enterprise. So, uh, that's your educational background. But let's talk a little bit more about just growing up in general. How did how you grew up family wise, parent wise, etc. Shape maybe who you are today?
[00:17:51] Speaker C: Awesome question. And because I've been so influenced by my surroundings, my family and friends in the city of Cleveland, to a certain extent, that I don't think you really understand my entrepreneurship journey without that. So the first thing I want to point out is that a lot of my family are just huge Sci-Fi geeks, a lot of Star Trek fans out there. And that was implanted in me at an early age where I've always had a fascination with future technology. And, you know, I said earlier that I was blown away by vet guardians technology, and I truly am. Um, I think our team of engineers has put together a rockstar solution that's decades in front of a lot of other solutions out there. And it's part of that intrigue that, ah, really pushed me to grind through the hard moments of entrepreneurship. So I'd say that my family's love for science fiction definitely propelled me towards a technology love in space. And same with medical ethics, right? A lot of the questions of medical ethics are, how do humans respond to new technologies emerging on the market? VR, ar, AI. There's a lot out there, and that changes the way we think, how we operate in the world, even our personal relationships. Understanding technology without the impact on how it affects humans. And just your day to day is missing half the puzzle. So I fell in love with that second part of the process, too. It just wasn't cool sensors, it wasn't all the bells and whistles, wasn't disruption by itself. It was, how does it affect the average person that's going to use this product and making small gains that make life easier? I think that trajectory and that thought process really guided my journey in entrepreneurship.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: If we went back and asked your twelve year old self, or even your, your 20 year old self, and said, hey, look, here's what your future looks like in present day. In 2024, you'll be doing this stuff, would your twelve year old or 20 year old self have believe this is where you would be?
[00:19:45] Speaker C: I don't know how my twelve year old self would react. I always wonder. It's like, all right, when I was a kid, where do I see myself going? And then as a 34 year old right now, where am I and how does that match the expectation now, I really wouldn't have thought I would found myself in animal health or a role like this. It was never on my radar. My family has always been animal loving people, but I would never have guessed in a million years that I would dedicate my life to this area. So in terms of the industry I found myself in, it's a bit of a surprise. But as a twelve year old, you always wonder how good you can be. You have this image of yourself in your head about what you think your potential is. But as a young kid, you don't really get to test yourself in the ways that you want to. If you're going to live up to your expectation of your image of yourself when you're little, it's a hard process and you're going to be confronted by a lot of challenges. But it's through those challenges that, uh, you're able to live up to that or not, right? I mean, I think there was a period in my professional life where I produced okay results, nothing over the top. But if I were going to live to the expectation or a standard I set for myself, I knew I'd have to change the way I operate, especially if I was going to get this company off the ground and lead us to an exit like our entire team did. I would have to change who I am as a person in many ways or just my behaviors. That's how I got here.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: It's really interesting.
The question I asked, and the answer you gave, of course, is oddly fairly typical with entrepreneurs. Meaning, yeah, I didn't actually know for sure I would do this, or maybe I didn't even imagine it. Like you had said, like in a million years, I wouldn't have thought that. Uh, and yet, as we've heard throughout this discussion today, of course you love it. You love where you're at. There's a lot of, I think, instructive takeaway from those statements that we can all realize in our lives that so much of it is unpredictable. But are we willing to be flexible enough to pursue interest when they come our way or as you mentioned, look at maybe challenging yourself or changing your viewpoints or having to go in a direction and then add skills to get to where you are. So I think a lot of instructive stuff there as well. All right, final question for us today. Obviously you've gone through, despite still early on in your career, a lot of different things, experiences, both educationally and professionally. What are some words of wisdom you have for others who might be trying to either run their own startups or might be where you are, where they're sort of in a later phase with a successful launch and sale, what words of wisdom do you have for them?
[00:22:11] Speaker C: Listen as much as possible, taking all the information that you can. There's a lot of smart people out there who are willing to help. Same thing with people in your target industry. Listen to them. But with that said, don't listen to everything. You have to be able to stand your ground if you're going to get a new solution off the ground. It's a different balance for everybody, but you have to be in a position where you filter the noise while honing in on the signal that's going to get your company off the ground and to where you want to be as an entrepreneur.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: A lot of good stuff there as well. It's that fine line, right? Threading the needle between, uh, what do we know to be true? What is sort of our core ethos and mission, and then which we listen to and be flexible to change, be authentic.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Really looking back, the best entrepreneurs I've met are the ones that truly care about their customer, the problems that they're facing. Of course, it's exciting to get exits, it's exciting to rescalability, inflection points, all that stuff is really important. But you're putting your life into this, and if you don't have that level of authenticity that you need, it's going to be a lot harder to get through it at the end of the day.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: That's well said for sure. And obviously the drive and the mission of doing something for the right reasons, the motivations are lined up correctly, then the difficulties aren't as difficult. Well, Scott, thanks for being on the inventivity podcast today. We certainly enjoyed this discussion. All sorts of great stuff that we could glean from this. And thank you for spending a considerable amount of your time, of course, helping our furry friends and animals really out there everywhere, as well as rather the vets who take care of them and spend their lives trying to help those that we care about. So thank you for your contributions to that. Uh, again, we've really enjoyed this conversation today. I'm James Divergilio for the Inventivity podcast. We'll be with you next time.
[00:24:01] Speaker D: The inventivity pod is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard, Miles and me, James Divergiglio, are your podcast hosts. Podcasts are recorded at the Heartwood Soundstage in Gainesville and edited and mixed by Rob Rothschild. Be sure to subscribe to the inventivity pod wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment or review to let us know how we're doing. Until next time, be inventive.
