So in this episode, you're going to learn why clinician infused Adam for your products doesn't equal adoption. How hospitals actually decide what to buy and how to avoid those commercial mistakes that burn cash and prevent you from delivering sales. Welcome to Clinician to CEO, the podcast helping clinicians simplify your go-to-market strategy so that you can stop guessing and turn your working prototypes into international MedTech businesses. I'm your host, Hakeem Aade. Let's get started. In MedTech, we're told that the hard part is building the device, regulatory approval, clinical validation, engineering perfection. And yet that is hard. But I would argue that commercial scaling is even harder. And in this episode, what we're gonna explore is why technically strong MedTech products can still stall after launch, and what separates quality. And a quality invention from a business that genuinely scales. And joining me to do that and have that conversation with Mark Tudor, who for the past two decades has been helping medical device companies turn ambition into measurable growth across commercial leadership and advisory roles. So welcome Mark to the show. Great to have you on. Thanks Hakeem. Thanks for having me. So let's get stuck in, I said in that little intro that the commercial, is and can be harder than all the technical stuff. Now if that's true, when would you say a founder should start planning for that commercial launch or that, you know, putting that commercial plan in place? To ensure that, that they can turn that invention into growth. I think for me, Hakeem, it needs to be done in parallel. Ideas on their own are fine, but how do you take something from the heart and turn it into something from the head? So I think it's difficult, but I think what we've gotta do is we've gotta, as we start coming up with the concept, we've gotta look at how we commercialize that concept. What channels, what roots is it? Is it. Can we commercialize it? Can we actually get it to market? So simple answer is, at the time you come up with the idea, we look at the commercial routes as well. Yeah, no, and, and, and I think, I think that's important. And I suppose that's what I was alluding to in, in the first place. And because if you don't do that, what, what is your, view in terms of when you've seen it, what, what happens? Because what, what tends to happen is, what I see is that people do all the, the technical stuff, the regulatory stuff, and then once that's all done. They start thinking about commercial, as opposed to doing it as you just said there at the same time to really be able to hit the ground running once you've got all of your approvals in place. So, yeah. What, what, what's the negative of not doing it as you, as you've just outlined? I think there's two main negatives. One is financial. How long can I sustain it? And I've been in that situation myself. The other one is around time to market. Competition, you might think you've got a great idea. However, if you're not in sync with the processes, your competitor who may be more in sync is gonna come along and they're gonna beat you to, to that market position. And, and just, just give you, the first one you said was obviously the, the, the runway, the amount of money you have. Just, just, just go into that a bit more. So why, why would. Doing it almost like chronologically, I, you do the regulatory stuff and then you do the commercial. Be more expensive than doing it together. I think what you see is people will throw money at things. It, it's, it becomes a passion. So, so again, heart versus head. It's a case of I'm gonna tweak, I'm gonna tinker, I'm gonna do whatever that. Costs money, costs time. We get to a point whereby, and as I said, I've seen this myself with some things I've been working on. We get to a point where the cashflow becomes more and more finite and then we have to start stopping things or we, we can't do things. I'll give you an example. One of my roles, as you know, as a Business Wales mentor, and what I see are many, many people come through the Business Wales model whereby they have very, very good ideas. They've invested. Lots of their own savings or their cash or whatever. And the reason they've come through the Business Wales model is they don't actually know where to go next. They've exhausted their, their, their savings or their, their cash flow, whatever that looks like. And they don't know where to go to take that physical. So sometimes non-physical product might be a digital product. They don't know where to take it next and how to get over that, that metaphorical hurdle to take it to the commercial stage. Yeah. No, and I think that's really important. One thing you just mentioned that triggered off my mind because I've had these conversation before, is that that tinkering bit. So how do you prevent founders and clinicians from tinkering? Because obviously they have created something that's, they believe there's a got clinical need, there's a gap in the market. And then when, when, when you don't do it together and you're going into the market. You then find out, oh, somebody over here says, oh, can you make it blue? Somebody over there says, can you put bells on it? Someone over there says they can do that. And then the clinician, because they're not commercial, will start thinking, okay, yeah, yeah, because if we do that, then we'll be sell more. How do you prevent that from happening? Because it's, it's basically in reality, it's a lack of discipline or a lack of confidence in what you've got. So how do you prevent that from happening? I think it's both. I think it's a lack of discipline. Not intentionally. I think it comes from, from that desire to build something that everybody wants. The the color change, the bells, the whistles. They all become value added. They become premium products. So for me it's build the core, whatever that core is, build the core, use that to enter the market. Once you've entered the market, then you can start. Putting the bells, putting the whistles on, only if they bring value. So just on that point, because that's, that's a critical point. Only if they bring value. 'cause a lot of them don't bring value and it's just, someone said it and then you get excited and then you, you produce it, you spent loads of money, and then that person's, well actually it's a bit more expensive than that thought. I'm not gonna buy that. So how do you determine whether it really adds value so that you can say it? Actually, it's definitely worth doing it. I think there's, there's a little word called empathy. Okay. If we, if I am, if I'm the, the developer of a product, I'm the inventor of a product. It is, it is my product. It is from my head, my brain, and I've pushed it out there. I. What we've gotta do is we've gotta do the research, we've gotta speak to the clinicians, we've gotta speak to the whole value chain. Might be that, that we speak to. If we're looking at the hospital setting, we speak to the patient, we, and then we come from the patient backwards right through. We reverse engineer it and we say, actually the thing we wanted blue patients don't like. Patients want it yellow, right? Okay. We'll make it yellow. But we've gotta keep asking why all the time, why, why, why that gives us, we, we can have as much knowledge as we want, but we've gotta turn our knowledge into wisdom. That's what gives us the vision to allow us to move forwards with products that people want, not that we've made. Yeah. No, and, and that, that, that's an even more interesting question because that. Begs the question, shouldn't you be doing that before you even start spending money at all developing the product? Which, which often rarely happens rare. Most of the time, especially when I'm speaking with clinicians, it's, well, I'm a clinician and I work in this area. And I've seen a gap, so I'm gonna create something for the gap. And they've not, and they might have spoken to one or two of their friends who just, oh yeah, it's a great idea. You crack on and do that. And then when they deliver it, their own hospital won't use it. Nobody else is using it. You're thinking, oh, well, I, I ask people, but they've only really asking a, almost like a confirmation bias type of. Yeah, and I can resonate, I can really resonate with that when I speak with people. If, if somebody comes to me and says, can you work with me? Can you develop X, Y, Z? Can you take me to market? Yes. I use something simple. I use the ideal model. Yeah. Is it feasible? Is it desirable and is it viable? And if they can't immediately answer those questions and not just a yes, yes, yes, yes, because yes, because yes, because then we take a step back. And then we get into what research have you done? How big's the market? Where is the market? What are your roots to market? And they're not trick questions. They're questions that should be at the forefront of your mind. Yeah, this is my market. This is my entry point, this is my price point. This is, these are the true as I've got now. They may, those answers might not be. Robust, they might not be set in stone, but what they are is a, is a framework to say, yes, I've looked at these different areas, I understand these areas and I know that I've gotta have an answer for each of these questions before I move to the next gate. And it's it. Then you get into sort of true development cycles around stage, gate stop goes, all of those kind of things to say right. Now we're gonna take a step back. We're not gonna go any further until, and then quite often we go, I see we go from zero to a hundred miles an hour in terms of here's my first design product, right? Let, let's take it to market. Who have you tested it with? What's the feedback? What are the positives? What are the negatives? Can we make like this? Do we have to make it like that? And I think. It comes from, it comes from ownership. I've made this thing, I've developed it. It's come outta my head. This is perfect. In your eyes, it's perfect. However, you are not the one most of the time that's gonna be using that product. So let's do the co-production bit. Let's speak to the stakeholders, not just one or two. Let's put a full. Stakeholder map together, and then let's, let's work through that stakeholder map and identify where we bring the most value. And it might be, we, we are talking about hospital setting, for example. Actually, no, it's, it's better fitted to a community environment, still in the clinical field. However, what you've done in a hospital. There's 10 of them in the community, there's none of them. So your product is better placed in this market rather than this market. And we get into segmentation then. Yeah. No, and I, and I think that's really important. So from, from your point of view, I've obviously done this a hundred times. What's the biggest commercial? Blind pot. Blind pot. Blind spot. Even you see, when you get technically. Strong MedTech business. They've got a good product once they launch. What's the, what's the typical commercial buying supply for what they have? Is it what you've just been talking about in terms of really understanding who is gonna benefit from this product or is it something else? I think if we look at, at clinicians who've developed a product for market, they're optimizing for performance. Okay. They know. This device will do this better than the previous device. They, they've optimized the performance based on their, their intrinsic knowledge of that, of that subject matter. However, hospitals don't always buy better. They buy risk management, they buy simplicity, they buy economic clarity. So not just the cheapest, but the one that brings the most value, the one that's most cost effective holistically. So, yeah. Simple answer would be. Performance over adoption. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting. I had a conversation with, a Canadian lady, Julie Moore, Julia Moore, about this adoption, because I think that this, this is a key area. 'cause even if you've got a good product and people like it, just if you're talking out there, it's about understanding how are you gonna get it adopted. And who are the people that are making those decisions for adoption? And therefore, how do you make sure that you tick those boxes? 'cause if you just rightly said there, it's very, I'm not gonna say it's easy, but it's very common that clinicians, build devices, and products that actually will improve performance. But if it doesn't fit in with a workflow or it makes that workflow significantly, you know, more difficult, adds three or four steps in it. Or it's not as cost effective as the previous one. Even though it increases performance, the chances of it actually ever getting real traction are, are minimal. And, and, and that, that's supposed to lead me onto a, another question because, you know, when a founder or somebody who owns a products so come back and says, this is fitting in. You know, the clinicians love it. Now, does that get you excited? Or did it throw up any red flags and, and what would be the next question you ask them when they say, oh, clinicians love it. The pessimist is gonna come out to me now. Two, two questions. Who and why? Who loves it and why? And again, if they can't iterate an answer by return, then the research isn't robust for me. They've asked their friend, who's another clinician. Who says, yeah, good idea. Yeah. That's, that's not research. Yeah. That's opinion. You're asking for opinion. My, my answer to the question, less pessimistically would be who controls the budget? Yeah. Is the person that you've spoken to, the same person that controls the budget? If yes, then we've we're one stage further ahead. We've got somebody that. Can make a decision. We've spoken to the first person. No decision making power, no authority, no, no real position in, in the value chain, in in the buying process. So as I said, who, why? And. If we get a positive for both of those, do they have budgetary control? And that way then we start, we start stepping further and further into the commercial world and we start looking at, stakeholder management. So when I was working in the infection control arena. For many, many years, infection control nurses, they were the key decision makers. Yeah. Procurement had a handle in it. Waste management, health and safety. What we've seen now, particularly with things like the NHS Road to net zero is waste managers, environmental managers, whilst infection control teams are still, are still important. 'cause of that more holistic NHSR net zero. The power is, is being shared more equally with all the stakeholders, particularly in this case, waste managers, environmental managers. So it's bringing those stakeholders on. The question was, what happens when clinicians say they love it? Where in, where in that stakeholder map does the clinician sit? And, and, and this, this is, this is so important. So, so just on that. So all the people listening, what would you, what's your advice to them? When a clinician does say they love it, validate it. Validate it in two ways. Ask more people and ask why. So we, we are all different. We are all, we all have different views and values and beliefs. If I ask somebody something and ask somebody else something, the likelihood is I'm gonna get a different answer or I'm gonna get answer that is not exactly the same. So, I once remember, I was working in a hospital in London and part of the decision making process was come and meet the, the team and we'll, we'll talk through. The, the benefits of the product. And I thought, yeah, I'll walk into this tea in this room, there'll be three or four people in the room. And I walked in and there were 15 people in the room, all sat there staring at me. But that from a stakeholder point of view, I. Each of those had a vested interest in that product because it was used across the hospital. They all had a vested interest, and they all wanted to make sure that their interests will be met. And as you said, is it gonna make my life harder or better? Is it gonna make my processes longer? And if it is, I'm quite valid. As a stakeholder, I'm quite valid to say, actually guys, that doesn't work for me. It's gonna create work, it's gonna create waste. It's not gonna add value. So yeah, I think. Ask lots of people is probably the simp, the simple answer. Validate your thinking. Ask lots of people and, and ask why. Yeah, no, I, I I think that, that they're, they're critical questions that you need to ask and you start talking about the stakeholder management, which is just as invaluable because I think. People automatically assume because it's a clinical product, then the clinician's decision is the final decision. And without doing that, and, and sometimes it is actually in certain circumstances and sometimes it isn't. But if you don't understand what decision it is you're trying to affect, and where that individual sits in the decision making, which is why I really like what you said about, you know, who likes it and why do they like it, and then what influence do they actually have in that process. You, you, you and I have both seen people running around thinking, oh yeah, yeah, I wanna get the sale tomorrow, because there's, because they've got a clinician who loves the products. Yeah. But when you then peel back the lead and peel back, like, yeah, yeah, but you've got no decision making capability. It's not him. You know, he can influence and input, but at the end of the day, there's someone else who says yes or no, and you need to know who that yes or no person is. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so, so, you know, regulatory and, and we always, 'cause every time I speak to a a any business, they're always talking about regulatory. And that's what's said at the outset. It, it's the regulatory thing that people talk about. And, and the commercial is almost like the, the last gas saloon when they think, oh right, we've got everything ready. So it's obviously a milestone when you get all your regulatory approval, whether that's in Europe, the uk, America, wherever else it may be. But is that commercially? A turning point or is it just permission to start the real work, which should have actually started before you got the regulatory approval. I think it's permission to begin, and it's not a differentiator. It is a validator. Yes, I, if you are going into tickle market, you, you've gotta have that benchmark because your competitors are gonna have the benchmark. So without that, you are already at a disadvantage, however. Permission to begin is different to validation. The market then has to validate commercially what you now have. Technically, you've got the technical tick in the box. If we, again, look at stakeholder management and that kind of thing, that gives the regulatory person within, within the hospital the person. Responsible for, for ensuring that product does what it says on the tin. That just gives them a tick in their box. We then have to look at the wider commercial aspects of it, and like I said, how do we, how do we validate it commercially? And that's gonna be different for each hospital. I, I was just gonna say, just to extend that out a bit, because obviously you've got regulatory on, on one side and all the other bits, and then you've got the commercial validation you've just been talking about, but then you've got in between that you've got some like clinical validation, which is kind of a different way of saying Yeah. The clinicians love it. So what's the difference between, in your view, between clinical validation and then commercial validation? I think you have to have a Venn diagram and the bit in the middle if we do the, the commercial clinical validation. Let's say it increases the time of an op, it, it decreases the time of an operation so we can do more operations per day. Therefore, our eight hour window, instead of doing eight operations now becomes 10 operations. We get an increase in productivity. We then get a throughput of patients. In the commercial sense, if we look at it from a hospital perspective, our waitin times are going down. Our numbers are going down. That means. From a hospital point of view, commercially we are being more, more effective, more productive. We, we are, we are doing more with the same resource in essence. So what does that look like for, for the selling organization? For the company selling the product? Yeah. If we can prove benefits. So price is X plus, however. The multiplier is x plus plus. So we get into that cost versus value discussion then around, is 10 pence more expensive? Yeah. But it's three times multiplier on it. So, so we look at the holistic, what is this costing versus what is the price? Yeah. No, and I, I, I, I think we've had this discussion before, and I, I know I've had a discussion. It's about it's about value versus price, isn't it? I think. Once you are getting into a price conversation, in my mind it's because you have not demonstrated the value to that person, to that customer, to the person who's gonna buy the product. Because once you've validated it and commercially validated it, you've just articulated there and they see the value that they're getting. There's less. Pushback around price and it stops becoming a, oh well that's 15 pounds and what I'm currently using is 10 pounds. Because actually they're looking, as you said, the free, free times plus plus. I'm thinking, well, I want, I want that. Yeah. So then the, the, the conversation about price is a much easier one to have. And if you haven't validated it, then you're gonna be, you, you, you, you just on a sticky wicket. 'cause everyone just keeps all about pound shilling in the pen. Absolutely. Which is foreign ways. An issue. So, so, and if you were to strip away the product or the service, you know, because we're talking about digital products as well. Completely. So, so move that to one side when you're looking at a business, and a MedTech business specifically, obviously to judge whether it can scale. What are the things that you look for? Is it, is it the narrative? Is it economics? Is it, you know, something completely different? What, what, what are the things that you look at the economic model first Is this, is this viable? Is this gonna be sustainable in the long term? Is the product going to do what we said both for us as the supplier and for the customer? The hospital, the, the clinical setting, buying route? Have we got a sustainable, robust procurement model? So is this a one-off purchase through extraordinary funds? Is it a capital expansion model? Is it an operational budget model? All of those will impinge upon what our decisions next look like. Margin resilience. Are we, where are we sourcing our, our products from? Do we have to hedge exchange rates, et cetera, et cetera. Is it, is it scarce resource? Is it gonna run out? Those kind of things. Sales cycle. How long is the sales cycle? How short is the sales cycle? How can we reproduce that model with the least amount of, of waste? I think that's probably it off the top of my head. Yeah. And, and, and, and, but that's a lot thing, isn't it? And, and this, this is our point of this conversation because I think when we talk about commercial to non-commercial people, and those clinicians aren't commercial people, and some of 'em are, are, and some of 'em become very good commercial people, but when they first go into it, they've got, they've got a product, they've got a clinical need, they produce a product. And when you start looking at economic model, that's a topic in itself. You know, procurement route to understand that another topic in itself, margin resilience. You have to understand what margin is. You have to what, what, what we mean by margin resilience and all the factors that affect those, that, that resilience and then the sales cycle, because often. You know, people either think the sales cycle's gonna be super short because someone said, oh, I like that be all right. Yeah, it'll take me, I'll go in, I'll present it, and then they'll buy it. Mm, no. 'cause all those other things that you mentioned about procurement, pathways, et cetera, will affect that. And then other times people think it's gonna be super long and therefore going with the wrong messaging when actually it could be quite short. So there's lots of actual specific things that you need to know from a commercial point of view before you'll actually start to see some traction. Kick it off. Sorry. You Yeah, I can see you were gonna say something there. No I think it, it's, it's the inventor syndrome, what I call the inventor syndrome. I've made it so somebody will buy it because I think it's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Some somebody will buy it, somebody might buy it. However, what the inventor hasn't factored into the equation is that. The length of that sales cycle might not just be long in terms of time, but might be long in terms of people. So depending on the complexity of the product, depends on on how many people have to validate that that. Sales process in it might be, I dunno. We, we've got a, a wonderful piece of new, new machinery, new kit, new new technical kit that has to go through, through many, many stages of testing and validation before it'll even get into the hospital site, let alone be used on a patient. So all of those people have to tick the box before the, the, the check is actually signed. Yeah, no, I mean, it. It's not, it's not as easy as it seems, let's say. And, and then just, just bringing it in into like a closed loop. And then we're gonna go into, a couple of examples, which I think will then bring this to life. You know what, especially when you're looking into international, which is obviously my area, and we're just talking about to you about your, your new product where obviously you're now looking at different continents, even though you started in the uk, you know, and often, one of the quickest ways to do that, to go through distributors. Yeah. So. And, and this is a book Bear of Mine. 'cause lots of people go to conferences. It's not for distributor without really knowing exactly what they're looking for. They get a distributor who's super positive. I'm gonna give you the world. I'll, I can sell loads of this. And they're really excited. And then six months later wants to come back. They're underperforming. Why do you think that, I suppose there's two questions there. Why do you think people still go to conferences without a plan of what they're looking for? And then two. What happens that then leads to the six months later, nothing actually happening. I think, let's answer the second one first. I think enthusiasm is free. So if I'm going to a conference, distributors at the same conference or an exhibition medic, anything like that, we are in the same hub. There's lots of enthusiasm that's free. However, when we move back to our day to day. We don't have the, the luxury of being in a mess. In Germany, what we have is conflicting. Conflicting tasks. Conflicting priorities. The distributor, maybe distributor for 10, 20, 30 organizations. Yeah, they have competing, competing demands. In terms of the question around planning, I think a lot of it is down to, genuinely down to ignorance, right? I'm going to, to this organization because they sell X or they're in Y field, they, they'll be able to sell my product. There's no due diligence. There's no research. You know, all the things that you do, people don't do. In my opinion, they, they don't. If you are buying a car, you wouldn't buy the first car that, that you saw, you, you'd, you'd investigate the engine size, the number of doors, the, the fuel type. Then you'd say, right, I've now got a short list from that short list. I want a three door car. Right. I've now got an even short list. Then you get to the car that meets your needs for that particular, particular, occasion. Distributors are not any different. Yeah. They, you could. You could go into, into a country and yep, this is the biggest, the biggest seller of X in this country. That doesn't mean they're the best distributor for you because they're, they have a wide, a wide brush. They're paint with a wide brush. It might be you go for the smallest organization in that country who have a very, very small brush. But that brush paints a lot of, a lot of pictures. So. That's it. It it's about due diligence. It's about understanding the, the distributor is the knowledge base within that country. You as the, the manufacturer, the inventor are the knowledge base on the product. There's gotta be, a gelling of, of the technical and the commercial. The chance of success, and you have to multiply that across continents, across countries, across whichever regions you are. You are trying to, to, access. I think that's very well put actually. I think that in terms of that gelling together and really understand, it's almost like bespoke, isn't it? Yeah. If you're getting the right distributor, right purposes. And they is, this is a challenge I have a lot with people. 'cause you go into a market and people say, oh, I've got this distributor. He's massive. Hakeem, can you speak to them and see, and you're thinking they might be right, but just because they're massive. Doesn't mean that they're gonna be the best distributors. I've had distributors, which are like two men, men, two men bands. And they become the biggest distributor across that portfolio. But by the same token, have had distributors who are multi-billion dollar companies and they're also great. It just depends on the market, which is what you said, and also what is it you want, as you said, do you need a car just to drive around and drop your kids off, or do you need a car because you drive to France every year and you need to, yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. You need two different types of cars, so you have to understand. You need. So, so from your point of view, if you were given advice to one piece of advice on distributor selection, and, and finding. So the listeners, what would it be? What, what would your abiding opinion be? Do your due diligence, speak to people like chambers of commerce, like embassies, those kind of things. They become your conduit into the marketplace. They can guide you. They can, they can point you in the right direction. But as you said, just because it's the biggest doesn't mean it's the best. It's about fit for me. It's all about what's the fit, what's the strategic fit. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's critical. So I think that's a perfect point on which to get into, a, a case study because, which I like to do 'cause it just brings it all together. So without names, I always say to people, 'cause I don't wanna get sued. Can you, can you sort, like, share a real world example of maybe a technically strong. MedTech business that you worked with that Struggl struggled commercially. Give it a bit of the context and, you know, what, what people believed the problem was and what the actual problem actually was, and how you, you, you unpicked it. Yeah. I, I think I, I've worked with, I've worked with mainstream businesses. I've worked with niche businesses. One example is a niche business whereby they, they started to lose traction. They started to lose visibility. Why? When I asked, they didn't know. They didn't know. And I think that was the problem. It was, we think we should be doing this, but we are not sure. So in terms of strategic direction, the, the str the strategy wasn't strong. The strategy wasn't researched well. So it became, a house built on sand rather than a house built on, on, on, on stone. So that was, that was the starting point, and I think where that led to. Was a level of, again, genuine ignorance around is this a value added product or is this a commoditized item? And what was a value added item very quickly turned into a commoditized item. By default, any of the premiums based around the value. Then became extinguished. Where does that take you? That takes you then to markets and positioning? The, there was a move from system leadership to being a, a lone voice, shall we say. So, so instead of being proactive and being able to, to advise. Consult, drive the market. It became almost a me too, where it was, yeah, okay, this is the way the market's going. We'll follow it rather than we think the market should be going this way, let's lead in this direction. It's easier to lead from the front than it is to try and try and catch up from the back. So where, where did that go then? It led to loss in sales, as you would expect. It led to reduced visibility. Now, which of those came first? I don't know. I don't know. I would say they came in tandem to be totally honest. As, as availability. Visibility was, was decreasing, sales were dropping off and the sales were dropping off, less and less resources being pushed in, into the, the products, and it became this sort of spiral of, of descent. How would we overcome it? We overcame it by reinvention in the true sense of the word reinvention in terms of these are the benefits, these are the holistic benefits, not these are the product benefits. If you use this, this, and this, they become siloized. However, if you put these together. You get a solution. Now, solution is quite often used in the wrong context. It's quite often widely used. However, we get back to something we spoke about earlier on is multiplayer effect. If you put 'em together, you get a greater number than the addition of those items. You get a multiplayer. So it, it came, it came round to. Reinventing the, the narrative and then pushing that narrative to down two roots, one existing customers to deliver reassurance. Look, we're still here, we still know what we're doing, et cetera, et cetera. But also for those customers that may gone or may have been with competitors, it was, this is a new way of looking at an old problem and this is the value that it brings. So that's sort of. Where it got to, why did it get there in the first place? I think reduced focus from the C-suite reduced focus from an executive level. It then became, it was part of a wider portfolio. It then became less and less, important as it decreased in, in value. So then it got into a bit of a spiral. What did that look like? Then it looked like an uphill task, which wasn't insurmountable. Looked like an uphill task to start Phoenix on the ashes, that kind of thing, to be able to start rebuilding. What, what had provenance. It had provenance, it had history. It just needed to come outta the, outta the ashes and start growing again. I just be just with you going for that. So were there any early signals? That were missed because I think this would be really useful for the, the listing audience, but the, if, if they'd been picked up, you'd never found yourself in this position. Yeah. I, I think, I think, distance from the market, distance from, from trends and that kind of thing, just not market visibility, market research. It was just, it wasn't a priority. It, they were conflicting, conflicting. Priorities within the organization that wasn't a priority. So I guess the simple answer would taking the eye off the bull. Yeah. That's probably the simplest way to put it. Yeah. Which, which, which often happens, especially if you're so, so this product's a market leader at one point and it does start to slip or, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that and, and, and that is because obviously a lot of the people we talk to, or I talk to, are not in that lot market leadership position, although I've worked with lots of people that are, so that's a different problem. But, and everyone hopes to get to that market leadership. But once you do get to that market leadership and if's the same if when you're growing. Basically what you're saying, if you need to keep your eye on the ball, you need to keep close to the market. You need to know what's happening. You need to know what the changes are, hopefully before they change, so that you can be ahead of the curve rather than following in the wake when, when something changes and then you go, oh. Why they're not using my products anymore. Would that Absolutely, yeah. I think, I think the key thing is, we spoke earlier on, is the system leadership is, is you, you become the system leader. Yes, you are a supplier of goods into, for example, a hospital environment, but you, you don't stop at the door of the stores. You go in, you go to physically and metaphorically, you visit the departments. You understand the whys. Not just the whats but the why that product brings value to each of those levels. And then it becomes self-fulfilling, self prophesizing. Because as you have those conversations, you, as you said, you might not be the market leader, but you be, it, we, we get into Darwinism, it's, it's not the smartest, it's not the strongest or the most intelligent. It's those most adaptable to change. So if you adopt a Darwin, Darwin is a model. You then go in and you can pivot as, as a small organization, you can pivot, you can be agile, and you can say, yep, okay, we understand. Right. Our, our r and d team is three people and we can. Work with you to develop a solution for this problem. Not withstanding what we said about, multiple products and multiple colors, et cetera earlier on, but where, where value is is needed. We can come in and we can rapidly develop a, a product for you. We can rapidly develop a solution that will increase productivity efficiency, reduced waiting times, et cetera, et cetera. That's where the value comes from. No, I think that's really important. And, and just to wrap it up slightly, if or what would your advice be to somebody who's listened today, clinical founder who've just launched a product, or in the process of launching a product? What's the first uncomfortable question that they should ask themselves tomorrow morning? It's a very uncomfortable question, and I think it's, is my product sustainable? And by that I mean two things. One. Is it sustainable in terms of of growth? Is it gonna gonna give me the return on investment? But two, is it sustainable in terms of the technological advancements? So have I made something that is gonna be fine for a year, then all of a sudden technology changes and I'm outta business because my product's obsolete. So sustainability is probably the, the. The one answer that binds those two together, the one statement that binds those two together enough. A, a very, good question, question to ask, and probably one. It's very uncomfortable for people because firstly they might not know how to answer it, which again goes back to what we discussed. It's about research and understanding your marketplace before you can answer it. And then there's gonna be some people, sadly, who are gonna answer that question and think, oh, actually, yeah, it's not really, sustainable, but the positive is. The fact that you've been, that you'll answer that question will save you a lot of pain at the backend. And it may lead to just a, an innovation, or an adaptation to what you've currently got, rather than scrapping it. It might just be, actually I've now looked at it, that actually isn't, that isn't gonna be that sustainable. So I need to do x, y and to make sure it's sustainable. But you, you should never. Not ask the difficult questions because you're worried about what the answers are gonna be. 'cause that way madness lies and that leads to businesses going outta business actually. Yeah, the ones, the ones that survive are the ones that continually ask those difficult questions to themselves. So, no, thank you very much for that, mark. I can't believe how quickly the time has. I think that's been really useful to actually get behind the layers of what you should, be asking and what you should be doing to make sure that you move from that innovation to building a business. And I, I really like what you said right at the beginning when I asked you what, what are the key things? And you said feasibility, availability and, and is it, those are the questions that you need to be asking yourself as well. We leave, I've got, I've got a little scenario that I always like to put the end of my episode, and then I answer the, the, the, that, that decision making scenario in the next episode. So, this is, everybody's homework. You're a clinical, or shall I say, you're advising a clinical founder. They have regulatory approval. They have two pilot sites with good feedback. So far. They've got one distributor who's very keen but unproven, and they've got a limited runway. I don't got that much cash. And they've got 90 days before, board pressure starts to kick in and start being asked very uncomfortable questions. Now you can only choose one primary focus for the next 90 days. So question is, what do you prioritize and why? You know, multiple choices to make it a bit easy for everybody. So, a, if you push hard on signing and onboarding the distributor to accelerate your reach, b, you double down on converting one of those pilot sites into a fully scaled case study with hard data. C you hire a commercial lead to build a structured pipeline, a messaging or d. We find a commercial narrative and commercial case before pushing further. Now, mark is and has agreed that he'll answer this for us based on everything that we've just been talking about. He's not gonna answer it now, he's gonna answer it. And then in the next episode, I will then go through that, with Mark's answer and then possibly some of my own, comments on top of that. So make sure you stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you very much, mark for coming on. Thanks ake. And if you find that your MedTech export plan looks sharp in PowerPoint but falls apart, the moment buyers start to push on price or terms, you don't really have a strategy, you've got a story. And the story will only lead to eroded margins, store launches, and an endless cycle of firefighting. So if you are ready to move from a story to a robust export strategy, book a free healthcare export Accelerator discovery call with me I'll personally audit your export strategy and give you the exact next steps. To accelerate your global growth book your free call. The link is in the show notes