The Creative Business Forum, by TAVO Media Group
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The Creative Business Forum, by TAVO Media Group
Navigating the Medical Tech Startup World with Rob DiNicola
Imagine a world where startups in the medical tech space are not just about profits, but also about creating a real societal impact. Rob DiNicola, a seasoned commercialization strategist, steps into this realm with his expertise and passion for neuro rehabilitation and medical robotics. With over 15 years of experience with startups and private equity firms, Rob has honed his skills in achieving product-market fit, maximizing limited resources, and fostering a robust company culture. But what makes him truly unique is his drive to assist those companies that offer hope and rehabilitation to individuals suffering from neuro ailments, stemming from a personal connection to the cause.
In our conversation, we navigate through the intricate maze of challenges healthcare startups face, including the daunting task of creating a new market. Rob shares how his passion for aiding in stroke recovery was ignited by his mother's journey, and his conviction that there is always room for improvement, no matter where you are on your recovery journey. He also emphasizes the importance of obtaining crucial funding for these startups and the ways to do it, including tapping into non-diluted government funds. Most strikingly, he believes in striking a balance between making money and doing societal good, calling it the 'golden ticket'. Tune in for an incredibly insightful discussion with Rob DiNicola, and discover how he's making waves in the medical tech world!
The Creative Business Forum is produced by TAVO Media Group and is intended as a forum to highlight, spotlight and showcase cross-industry leaders and innovators with a story to tell. We share and celebrate their journey and encourage our listeners and followers to engage with our guests, support their brands and share their stories. We're building our community and want you to be a part of it!
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Hey guys, this is Bryant Walker with the Creative Business Forum. I'm here today with Rob DiNicola. He is a commercialization strategist and builder of organizations. Rob, thanks for being on the Creative Business Forum. I appreciate you hopping on. Let's start with just giving the folks a bit about what you do and what you're about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thanks again for having me on here. It's really cool to be on. Basically, for me, I'm a commercialization specialist. As you said, I've spent over 15 years in mostly startup and private equity companies. These companies, of course, have a lot of commercialization issues. They're mostly pre-commercialization series, a seed funding, things On the guy you bring in when you have limited resources. You have a good idea and you want to try to bring it to market. That's my job. I excel at three things really well One, being able to define commercialization strategy. Two, maximize limited resources and make the most of it. And three, build company culture, which I find is very important, especially in the startup world.
Speaker 1:What types of companies do you typically work with? What are other brands that might be interested in your services?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I really come into a specialty of neuro rehabilitation, medical robotics, med tech in general. It's a really interesting area. There's a lot of great ideas out there. Engineers are just building stuff, mit to name one. I'm from Boston so we have a lot of MIT incubators up here and things get popped out of there all the time. That's the kind of stuff that really jazzes me up, especially given the fact that a lot of this stuff fits an unmet need. Or in today's world, the healthcare world. So many hospitals are understaffed, their manpower is down, they don't have enough to fill the void of the patient loads. A lot of this technology actually helps fill that or at least gap that up. So being able to get these ideas out, being able to go and get some money from VCs or private equity or some kind of non-dilutive way to bring these products to market, is something that we try to do.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating. We do a lot of work with clients in senior living and skilled nursing. So, honestly, a lot of advertising and I hate to say it that way, but a lot of messaging will say targeting folks or family members of folks who have had or have neuro rehabilitation needs from strokes or whatever else. It's very niche, but it also isn't. It's a really big need we were talking about before we started recording. A lot of folks don't realize that they actually have a path forward and there actually is possibly a rehabilitation path forward. How do you see that journey ahead from a communication standpoint?
Speaker 2:No, I agree. I mean, it's a huge problem right now. Actually, quite honestly, there's not enough OTs and PTs in the world, going back to that shortage of healthcare workers and everyone thinks of nurses and doctors, but OTs and PTs especially, it's pretty niche. People don't even know what an OT is. For the most part right Occupational therapist. They don't get paid exceptionally well when they come out. They have a lot of school and it actually is a six-year course now and the population is aging right.
Speaker 2:The baby boomers are moving through that pipeline the biggest population group we've had ever and they're all aging out right and unfortunately dying. But they're also the ones having all the cardiovascular issues. And then we have had the COVID epidemic that again whether it's COVID or the vaccine, depending on what you talk about have caused a lot of cardiovascular issues as well that lead to stroke and things that need rehab and there's a huge demand there. And then we add on traumatic brain injury, parkinson's, things like that. It's a really exploding issue and I have a passion for it. My mom suffered from a stroke. She passed from it actually after doing pretty well, so it's a really complicated thing. A lot of people don't realize that there is hope after you go.
Speaker 2:Once you go to inpatient rehab and it's like a two week thing. When you go out, you're basically on your own. You might have some outpatient stuff, but no matter where you are on your journey of recovery, there's always a way to get better, and a lot of the companies that I deal with or talk to they have technology that's there to help solve this problem. So you know, for me it's a passion play and I'm here to help them, or I wanna help them get these in the hands of patients who need it. So it's really cool to not only be able to like create a business for these founders but also do some societal good. That's like the perfect thing, right? If you can actually solve a societal problem and also make money, that's great. You can make money doing anything, and some of it's not really a great way to make it. Yeah, that's golden, it's just a great way to make it. So that's kind of why I really enjoyed this niche. That's great.
Speaker 1:So help me understand, help some of the listeners understand. What are you looking for in some of these companies that might be able to benefit from some of your services? What are some of these common pain points? You touched on it before, but let me preface this with a lot of founders, whether they're tech founders, med tech founders or just operators in general, we have a hard time getting out of our own way sometimes. So how do you kind of articulate that to them and help them understand that the need is there and you're the guy to help them see the light Reliable?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear you. So you know I deal with a lot of engineers and sometimes they're very hard to get across to without a spreadsheet. But you know it's like the Peter Thiel book zero one they're the hardest people to get to commercialize. So you know, the thing that they usually face is one I have a great product, but have they even actually approached the end user to see if it actually fits in need? Right, so that's one. So we have to make sure there's a product market fit. Two they may have created something that's so advanced or so different that no one has even thought of.
Speaker 2:So now you have to kind of create a market which is very, very complicated. Right, you're trying to create a whole new market. And then the pain point attached to that is that you need resources. Right, you need money. A lot of these companies are like privately funded through the founder themselves, or maybe some founder and some friends. So being able to go out there and get some seed money series A, or maybe even look at government ways to get money that's non-diluted, which is actually the best way to do it because you're not actually affecting your equity at all in the company. So those are some of the major pain points that you know they deal with. Hopefully I can help them overcome these things, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this is a lot of very specific information and I really hope that we can have another conversation that's more tailored to maybe even some use cases and case studies and just get into it. But for the sake of time, how can folks get ahold of you and learn from Rob DiNicola, the commercialization strategist specialist?
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty easy LinkedIn. I'm a huge LinkedIn fan. I've always been that networking for commercialization. You know everything's there, so you can look me up at Robert DiNicola. Or my consulting firm is a small boutique wanting to be in someone else who's actually a JAD. It's good to have a lawyer on staff at regulations and it's not RCDT consulting, which is also on LinkedIn there.
Speaker 1:Very cool. We'll be sure to include it in the show notes as well as on our website that links to the show itself. And, rob, I really appreciate you being on the creative business forum and talking shop. It's been fun. Yeah, brian, I appreciate it Same, all right.
