Today I served as a judge for the 2012 Medical Technology “Concept to Company” Competition. As judges, we were asked to select three winners from a group of eight different companies that presented to our panel. Each of these entrepreneurs brought their A-game and each of them had come up with impressive and innovative business ideas. The question for these aspiring business owners to have considered prior to today’s presentations is: When you are surrounded by tough competition, how do you make your business stand out to potential investors?
Each of the eight companies presented a good product or solution; each of them validated a need in the industry that their concept solved; each of them was catering to extremely large markets; and each of them had filed for patents to protect their idea. Therefore, it became necessary for me to look for other things that made one idea stand out from the next in order to determine which companies should receive my vote. While I am not allowed to share which companies I voted for yet, as the winners won’t be announced for a few weeks, hopefully the following four examples will help illustrate how entrepreneurs can help their companies stand out in the crowd when it is their time to shine.
Stand out by having a great story behind how you came up with your innovative product.
Reltus (www.reltus.com): The founder of this company was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30. Through radiation treatments and chemotherapy, he was thankfully able to overcome the cancer, but he was left with an incessant ringing in his ears, a condition medically known as tinnitus. One evening while he was brushing his teeth with his sonic toothbrush, his young child came in the room wanting to be tucked into bed. As he went to answer his child, he inadvertently bit down on his vibrating toothbrush and noticed that for a glorious moment the ringing in his ears had stopped. After tucking his child in bed he returned to his sonic toothbrush and pulled off the brush head, wrapped the device, and held it against his ear. To his amazement he found that it gave him immediate relief from the ringing. He went on to experiment with several prototypes until he was able to create a solution he was happy with and thus, Reltus was born. Hearing the personal story behind any business idea really helps to draw an investor in emotionally, and it helps to illustrate the need your product can solve in a very personal way, thus making stand out from the others.
Stand out by introducing a disruptive, simple idea that will lead to a paradigm shift in the way things are done today.
iTest by 3PDx: This presentation was done by two young men, one being around 21 years old and the other being 25 years old. First I have to say that I love seeing talented young people put themselves out there in the business world, so that stands out all on its own. Young people bring such a great energy to the table, a fantastic ability to understand upcoming trends in the market, and they tend to have an eye for harnessing technology in new and innovative ways. These young men that presented were proof of this. Their idea was born from a group of smart people sitting around a room with a whiteboard, which in my opinion is how many a great idea is born, writing down whatever ideas came to mind. These students began strategizing on how to couple existing technologies in a new and disruptive way that could create a paradigm shift in the world of diagnostics. From their session, they realized that if they could find a way to leverage one of the most commonly used devices in the marketplace – a smartphone – and combine it with a widespread need for accessible, inexpensive, in-home diagnostic tests for sensitive testing such as HIV and HPV, that they could cause a paradigm shift that would decentralize central laboratory diagnostics and place personalized testing in the hands of the consumer. Their idea was simple yet elegant in that it leveraged two existing technologies, the smartphone and a home diagnostic test, and combined them in order to achieve this easy to use, simple to understand, private test for the consumer. I love that their idea would also have a huge social impact in that it would encourage more people to test for HIV in the privacy of their own home, leading to earlier detection, early treatment and hopefully better prevention of spreading the disease.
This next example was a double whammy: Stand out by being confident, not arrogant AND standout by having a business that can make money while changing the world for the better.
Signal Diagnostics (www.signaldiagnostics.com): The founder of this company really shone on his own because he had the perfect combination of confidence without being arrogant. That is a unique combination in an entrepreneur and one that always stands out to me as “one to watch” for greatness to be achieved. His technology delivers rapid and sensitive disease detection solutions to the masses, with results available in less than an hour.. Typically it takes days or even weeks to get critical lab test results back for a patient, but with his development of a battery operated handheld detection device that is readable by the naked human eye, he can reduce that turnaround to getting results in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. He tested his unit recently in Kenya, Africa, in a remote village where power and clean water were not an option. Just think of the social impact his technology could have across the world toward improving healthcare. Coming up with a concept that will make money and change the world for the better is a true home run in my book.
Aside from these four examples, I want to add a fifth and final thought. Keep your presentation clean and simple! Slide one of any presentation should include the burning questions that every investor in the room is waiting patiently through your entire presentation to hear.
- Market Size (ex. $x billion annually, hopefully)
- Revenue model and margin (ex. each unit sells for $500 retail, my cost is $20)
- Do you have a simple solution for big problem? (ex. Yes)
- Is your idea protected? (ex. Patent granted or filed)
By placing these on a single beginning slide, you will allow the investor to get these answers immediately, which will allow them to sit back and genuinely enjoy the rest of your presentation.
There is very little in life as invigorating as watching great ideas be brought to life. There is an energy that exudes from entrepreneurs who are passionate about their idea that can light up an entire room. I only listed a few of the companies that stood out today, but the reality was that each of the eight presenters stood out in their own right. Hopefully these examples will help others stand out when it is their moment to shine.
~Amy
