Commercialize Your Medtech with Craig T Ingram | Ep. 15

In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, hosts Trevor Slattery and Christian Espinosa are joined by Craig T. Ingram, a seasoned veteran with 27 years of experience in the MedTech industry. Ingram shares his extensive background, which began with starting his own medical distribution company as a sophomore in college, followed by a tenure at Johnson & Johnson, and a successful career leading multiple venture capital-backed companies. Now a consultant, Ingram focuses on guiding MedTech and healthcare technology companies through the perilous process of commercialization, aiming to prevent them from becoming part of the high-failure statistics that plague the industry. Ingram’s central argument is that the vast majority of startups and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) fail not because of a bad product, but due to low customer adoption, which is a direct result of an ineffective commercialization strategy. He posits that commercialization is more of an art than a science, a nuanced process that many companies misunderstand. According to Ingram, nine out of ten companies he audits lack a cohesive and comprehensive commercialization roadmap, often mistaking sales or marketing plans for the whole picture. He explains that his consulting method involves 'lifting up the hood' of a business to identify the 'kryptonite' in their processes—the key issues that stifle growth and lead to financial ruin. The discussion also delves into the psychology of sales and the shortcomings of the prevalent 'show and tell' approach. Ingram advocates for using 'emotional persuasion dialogue' to help potential customers rationalize their need for a product. When questioned about the role of cybersecurity, often seen as a burdensome expense, Ingram refutes this perspective. He frames cybersecurity as a critical, non-negotiable component of regulatory affairs and, by extension, commercialization. Comparing it to insurance, he argues it is an essential safeguard against malicious actors in an increasingly digital world, not an 'evil' to be minimized. Finally, he critiques the 'move fast and break things' ethos popular in Silicon Valley, stating that unless a business operates in a field where speed is paramount, such as trauma or motorsports, this approach leads to hastiness, ineffectiveness, and ultimately, failure.

Trevor: Welcome back to the Med Device Cyber podcast. Joined here by the Blue Goat CEO and the co-host Christian Espinosa. And we have a guest today, Craig. Craig, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Craig: Sure. So, my name is Craig Ingram. Uh, people call me Craig T. Um, I got that nickname nickname a few years ago when I was able to uh speak at a business conference with uh Keyfer Southern and uh, um, Kevin Costner. So, uh, that's how they gave me this little nickname. So it's kind of interesting, but uh 27 years in the Medtech industry I started my own medical distribution company when I was a sophomore in college. And uh, then went to Johnson and Johnson and then started my venture capital supported uh career from back to back to back multiple companies over the years and and recently over the last um, year and a half I have been uh doing Medtech and healthcare technology consulting to companies to help prevent them to be quite honest from going broke. Um, you know, the, the statistics are very, very high for startup and mid stage, small medium enterprise companies have shut their doors just because of low, uh amounts of customer adoption, uh unfortunately, because commercialization is more of an art than a science and, um, unfortunately, the the the the deck of cards are stacked against companies when they uh form and try to commercialize their products and services they offer. Christian: Thanks for the intro. Uh, and it seems like almost everybody had worked it's one of the large organizations. uh, the previous guest on our podcast worked at Johnson and Johnson as well. So it seems like everyone's coming from striker or Johnson and Johnson or something. Craig: Yeah, I mean those are the large strategics, right? So they, they they're the ones that take a gamble on people that don't have a lot of experience, right? To gain that experience. And without those large strategics that that, you know, literally bring in billions and billions and billions of dollars annually, um, very few companies would gamble on somebody fresh out of college or in college, uh even. Christian: Yeah. What, what something you said in the intro is interesting to me because I I would think from a business roadmap perspective, if I'm a startup, I'm getting investors, I would have thought about the customer adoption of, client adoption of my product early on, right? Isn't that part of what investors look at and isn't that something that should be thought of? Because I mean, if you don't understand your total addressable market and how it's going to be used and how you're going to get it to that market, then like you said, you have a pretty high degree of failure, right? Like isn't that pretty typical though when an early startup's road map? Craig: They're going to tell you yes, but just like a car that's not running well and a mechanical look under the hood and start tinkering around with the engine. Um, that's what my company does. We lift up the hood and inspect the engine of the company and we find that nine out of 10 companies do not have a commercialization roadmap or plan. They have a business plan, they may have a sales plan, they may have a marketing plan, but the sales plans and the marketing plans fit into an overall commercialization plan. And very few companies can literally pull one out that they've created and typed out and and is in written format. And yes, that is what investors look at. But when people think of commercialization, they only think of marketing, meaning to let their total addressable market know the products and services they offer, and then selling which unfortunately, the vast majority of sales professionals and even the leadership sales professionals are showing and telling. They're not actually selling and using the psychology of selling to get the potential prospect or potential customer to rationalize why they should own the product or service that's being offered. Christian: so the psychology of selling and I've heard this before, people talk about, you know, the product and the features but they don't really understand like how that solves the problem for the the and look at it through the prospects, you know, lens. And there's some psychology behind that obviously, it's emotional intelligence. Christian: what does that mean? Emotional because I we do social engineering in and in cyber security which is sort of cunning people using some of these techniques. I'm just curious like emotional I think you said emotional persuasion dialogue? Craig: Yeah. So emotional persuasion dialogue has to do with tonality, the words used, and the total framework of the sentence of the questions that are being asked in the conversation that is being um enacted with a prospect, right? Because they're not really a customer until they buy. And once they're a customer, then the goal of that company is to turn them into a client, right? Customers buy once, but clients buy over over and over again. And so, the biggest challenge with effective commercialization is is multifaceted. Number one, there's 10 components of commercialization. The vast majority of chief commercial officers don't know the 10 components. They don't. I've asked them. I've I've asked hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of chief commercial officers, um, which of the 10 which which which component of the 10 commercializations do they struggle with the most. And the vast majority of the time, they you can tell they're very uncomfortable answering that question because they're thinking it's just selling or marketing. But they don't think about regulatory. They don't think about um product design, right? Or or production or alliances and and and partnerships, right? They they don't think of those different components. Um, and when it comes to emotional persuasion dialogue, it's the messaging, it's the interaction with the customers, it's the interaction within the team, being able to understand what is being communicated to our audience that would A, attract them, B, make them want to learn more, and C, pull the trigger, pay for that product or service that's being offered. Too many corporate and company leaders don't think that way without customer adoption of the products and service they offer, companies go broke. And the data from the SBA, Small Business administration, is only up to only 40% of companies are ever profitable. That's a problem. out of that, there are 32.8 million small businesses in the United States. Now, that includes every industry, every size of company, everything from a revenue standpoint. But what the SBA has defined as a small company, and also there's not an investment firm, there's not a uh, private equity organization that disregards with this. But according to the SBA, a small business is considered 500 employees or less. No matter what the revenue is, the revenue could be a trillion dollars a year. But if they have 500 employees or less, they're still considered a small business because it's not revenue based, it's employee size based. And so out of 32.8 million companies in the United States in 2024 for example, um, that employs 99.2% of the US population. But here's the problem. 50 to 55% of companies literally shut their doors because of low customer adoption of the products and services they offer within five years. 72 to 77% of companies shut their doors before they get to blow out their, you know, 10 candles for their 10th year anniversary. So the the the stack is is is the deck of cards are stacked against business success. And people say, well, Craig, business is is more than just the financial success. No, it's not. Because if the business is not sustaining itself, it cannot serve the world in the products and services that these people need. So if a business is failing financially, it's always, always, always due to two things. low customer adoption of the products and services they offer or mismanagement of expenses. That's what it boils down to. Christian: Uh, speaking of expenses, so one of the things that Trevor always says, and I'm curious your take as well, Craig, he always says that cybersecurity is a necessary evil because most organizations think that as a an expense that it doesn't actually add any value. I'm just curious like your take, Craig, from uh your experience in the industry, do most medtech manufacturers think that cybersecurity is a necessary evil? Or do they think, okay, this is a value add, so my device is going to be maybe adopted more because it's proven secure over somebody else's uh in a healthcare delivery organization. Craig: Number one, it's not evil. What's evil is there's people's hearts and minds and motives that want to hack and crack into other people's secure um lockbox in their company, let's say, and do something malicious, steal something that's not there. And so number one, it's not evil, it's critical. And is it an expense? Yeah, but so is insurance. right? Are people willing to gamble without health insurance, vehicle insurance, homeowner's insurance? Cyber security relatively speaking is an inexpensive insurance to prevent somebody from breaking into your company's data house and stealing something that's not there. But because we have evil people in business where the word integrity is the latest buzz word, but they don't follow it. They're willing to walk into someone's home and steal their stuff. So cyber security is your armed guard to take care of the your your data home. So, no, I don't I don't think it's evil at all. I think it's critical. It's unfortunate we even have to have it, but we have to have it. Trevor: I wish people that we interacted with had the same view of things. It's often one of those things that's pushed to the back. And I like the analogy to insurance. And it even can tie right into cyber security like ransomware insurance. That's something that's popped up recently. A lot of companies are having to get that, be compliant with that. To get ransomware insurance, there are a lot of boxes you have to tick. The same way, to get health insurance at a decent rate, you can't be a smoker, you can't have heart conditions, stuff like that. If you want to get ransomware insurance, you need to do penetration tests. You need to have cybersecurity compliance in your product. And it is unfortunate that it's something that's required. Uh but, you know, like you said, there're a lot of bad guys out there taking a look at how can we try to steal anything we can? Um, Christian and I were just talking about how when you stand up a product or an AWS instance or something out on the internet, within like an hour, you've already gotten scanned 5,000 times. And that's no exaggeration. It's literally about 5,000 times. And so, people are doing anything they can to just grab onto anything that's left out there. If it's not nailed down, someone will take it. And so, sure. It's inconvenient, it's expensive. There's a lot that goes into it, but is it more expensive to pay for a penetration test or is it more expensive to, you know, get find by violating HIPAA compliance? Things like that. So, a lot of it's a balance, but you know, obviously, doing it right, it's the same as paying an insurance premium. You hope you never need it. But when you do need it, you're really happy that you got that penetration test. You have all those controls. You have your SOC 2, type 2, whatever it is. Craig: Yeah. Yeah, when we're dealing with people, you know, we deal with people that that aren't perfect, and then we deal with people who choose to be malicious, right? There's a difference between accidental uh mistakes and intentional, um maliciousness. And I think from a standpoint of, um, you know, regulation for example. So regulation is or regulatory is the third component of commercialization and people go, what do you mean? Well, if you're in healthcare in any way shape or form, and you're going to be offering your product to a health care patient treatment entity like a hospital, surgery center, you know, you know, any long-term rehab facility, or even even if it's somewhat potentially over the counter, you're dealing with regulatory processes and you have to be cleared or approved in order to offer that product or service, you know, to the marketplace. And from a regulatory affairs standpoint, cyber security fits right in to commercialization component number three and that's regulatory. Right? Because you want to be compliant, because you mentioned HIPAA, right? Whether I agree with HIPAA or not, there there's some rule, like if I get cancer and somebody finds out I have cancer, who cares? You know? Like it doesn't it's not going to cure my disease, right? Like I just it doesn't matter to me who who knows. What matters though is some of the intricate detail, like social security numbers and things like that that it's in that it's attached to that people can be malicious with. So, yes, it's cyber security in a digital-based age is is 100% critical, especially in commercialization component number three, and that's regulatory affairs. Trevor: I think you bring up a really great point there. Um, when I'm first meeting someone, if they ask, you know, hey, what do you do? While, of course, what we're doing is cyber security, I typically default more to saying regulatory affairs. And the reason for that being is, you know, cyber security is, I guess the action and regulatory affairs is the actual goal. Nobody would come to get cyber security services. No one would come to get penetration testing on their devices, have all the documentation that they need if it wasn't required by the regulations. Um, well I won't say nobody there are some manufacturers out there and they're super proactive about cyber security, even if they have a cleared device and they've already done their annual pen test, they go, yeah, we're just, you know, want to be sure, stuff like that. And so I'm not saying it's an absolute rule, but it is all at the root of regulatory requirements. Penetration tests have to be done in a specific way. It has to be done this way for the FDA, it has to be done this way for HIPAA, it has to be done this way for SOC2. So everything goes to those regulations, you know, at the core. Craig: Yeah. It it's interesting, right? Because you think about, you think about cyber security and you were just talking about when people say, well, what do you guys do? Who who who's Blue Goat Cyber? Right? If you guys hired me as as somebody to to work on your commercialization, right? I would say, you know what we do? We prevent malicious activity in people from coming into your data house in your company. That's what we do. We are the Fort Knox for your data. Christian: Yeah, so it's interesting because this is one of the conversations Trevor and I have a quite a bit is uh and we've talked about data a little bit, but from the FDA lens and from our lens, it's like the data is almost secondary. The real thing we look at is like if I can hack into a medical device, what harm can I cause the patient? If it's a surgical robot, can I cause it to paralyze somebody? If it's an IVD system, can I give it cause it from a true positive diagnosis to a, it looks like a true negative for something like sepsis and you know, kill somebody. You know, so we look at it through that lens and it's like the data, you know, we we have HIPAA and all that other stuff to protect the data supposedly, but the data is almost like secondary. I mean, it really is secondary to the patient harm. So I I always look at it through that lens, yeah. Craig: I look at it through that lens. I would agree with you. That's a great lens to look through, right? Let's be honest. Surgical robots are here to stay. Again, everybody can comment on do they shorten recovery time, do they give a patient a better outcome. There's there's there's valid points on on on both sides. But here's the truth. If a surgeon is at a council and they're doing surgery and if if somebody was able to hack in through the means necessary and take over the controls while the surgeon and the surgeon is like fighting against the other person on the other line, let's be honest, um trying to manipulate it, 100% that would cause harm. And so, you're right. Cyber security is not just about data, but but it's it's about preventing malicious activity. Whatever that activity may be. There may be 4,000 different types of activities. And that's why it's important, right? And so as as as a um somebody who chooses to be a chief commercial officer, it is part of their job to make sure that cyber security is part of that commercialization strategy, working obviously with the IT department and everything, to make sure that that there are safeguards in place because whether it's the EU MDR which is like the, you know, version of the US FDA or the FDA here in the United States for example, they're going to need to know that there's some type of Fort Knox security within that platform. Whatever that platform may be. Christian: It's a lot of uncommons. Because it is. Trevor: I have one question for you Craig. Um, what do you think about the whole Silicon Valley mindset that startups are trying to adopt, move fast and break things? Just try to get something out, make it happen. Don't worry about the road blocks. If problems come up, fix them later. How do you think that mindset becoming so prolific in Silicon Valley, in America and startups everywhere really is impacting companies road maps towards proper commercialization. Craig: That's a heavy question because I could talk for that about three hours, especially if I'm on stage, right? Um, I call that the Kryptonite in your that's one of the Kryptonites in in the business, right? There's never going to be a perfect product or service. However, good enough shows a condition of the heart that is somewhat manipulative to the consumer or the customer that would buy the product because if the people that are in the startup world are recipients of good enough, they're not going to like that. So I think it's a condition of character and integrity, right? Not just being the word of the day or the word of the season or the word of the year, but actually doing it and striving for excellence. And people say, well that but that can that can add three more million dollars, you know, until we can launch the product. Well, Do you want to be good enough? Or do you want to be great? It is a choice. People say, wow, failure is not an option. Yeah, it actually is. It is an option. And unfortunately, people choose that that option way too often, um, not knowing because they try to circumvent things. I always say and this didn't come from me. This is come from multi nine figure and two liquid net worth billionaires that I have relationships with in business that own companies in multiple different industries. And none of them had experience in any of them and yet they're some of the most wealthy human beings on the planet which just goes to show you you don't have to have experience in a widget or you know, sector of an industry in order to be super successful in business. You just got to have wisdom. But they've said there's two industries where speed is critical for businesses to thrive. Trauma and motorsports. Any other business speed will create hesitance which will lead to inefficiency. Trevor: Sounds like uh all the Silicon Valley guys have got to start moving on to Formula 1 racing. Craig: Well, I mean at the end of the day, unless you're in trauma or motorsports, what does speed do for you? but create more challenges that could be, many of them, not all of them, but many of them, unnecessary challenges. right? And so what we're missing in the business world is wisdom. Intelligence doesn't breed wisdom. But wisdom is the proper use of intelligence. And that's what we're missing. We've got all these people with all these educations and MBAs and PhDs and you look at how they run a business and you put your hands in your head and you go, you're an educated idiot. You're ignorant. You know? And and it's like we have to start using wisdom if we want our businesses to thrive, right? And that includes the products and the services you guys provide, that's the services I provide and the services other people provide. If businesses want to start thriving, they have to stop doing stuff, half way, it's just good enough and fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Christian: Yeah. I think I think the I think the angle Trevor was coming from, and I I agree with what you're saying, Craig I think if I'm trying to come up with a new product, uh, and I want to get feedback, I think that may be part of the angle he's coming up with like, you know, if instead of like waiting to develop the perfect product and the consumers don't like it, if I can have an iteration, get some feedback, and then tweak it and you know, constantly do that. Uh, that makes sense from, I guess it's not really a speed perspective. That's just more of an iterative process though. Um, so yeah. Craig: Yeah, but there's too many founders that are in love with their widget. Christian: True. But if nobody, like you said for a commercialization perspective, if nobody else want the widget, who cares if how much you love it? Craig: You You dude, you are spot on. I literally talk to a VC last month, and I spoke with two of the founders in one of the portfolio companies of this VC because VCs are now starting to call me and saying, we need help with with some of our portfolio companies. This, this this company has been around for six years, but they've been commercialized they they they they launched their product to sell the hospitals and surgery centers and free standing emergency rooms and a lot of that. 19 months ago. They have less than $100,000 in sales in 19 months. Yet, these people came from two very, very large strategic. And these people did really well um in those large strategic. But because startups and mid stage growth companies and small media enterprise companies don't have time tested processes and and and and and um what I'll say uh, road maps, you know what I mean uh you know, in place. People don't know what to do. And so the VC managing the main manager partner of this VC is like Craig, is there a way that you and your team could come alongside of us and help this portfolio company start getting, we're not at this point, we're not asking for high levels of customer adoption. We just need some decent customer adoption. And in lifting up to the hood, under the hood, I lift up the hood, right, and I started inspecting the engine just like I was at the beginning of of this of this broadcast. Um, there are some serious cryptite in their commercialization process and it's unfortunately not just one or two components of the commercialization process. Um, my suspected assessment is is is probably six out of the 10 are are really affected unfortunately. And so from my standpoint I said, folks, you're going to need the bridge audit. We're going to need to come in and audit your whole commercialization process and and and give you a report specifically on in each one of the 10 components where the crypto is that's stealing your effectiveness. Christian: I like that. Well, we're coming up on time here so I like to ask people for some parting words of wisdom. So I'll start with Trevor and we'll see if he says the same thing he always says. I put him on the spot sometimes. Trevor: Well, you know, last time I had to mix it up but uh I think that the reason I always go back to the same thing is cybersecurity isn't something you can leave to the end. And it goes back to the 10 components of commercialization regulatory is one of them. It's number three, right? Yep. Sure is. There you go. So it's a top priority. Cyber security is for regulatory compliance and the regulations say you need to do it at the beginning. You can't wait until the end. So cover it early, cover it often and make sure that cyber security is at the forefront of everyone's mind as they're trying to build a product. And don't go fast and break things unless you're in trauma and motorsports. Christian: Perfect. All right, what do you what do you got? What's your last uh the part youson Craig. Craig: You know I, I I always on a regular basis tell leaders in companies. there's no kind of. You're either effective in business or you're not. Which one do you want to be? Do you want to get it right or do you want to be right? If you want to be right, most of the time you're going to get it wrong. And just like the Titanic, the water will come up to your knees, but the orchestra will still be playing saying nothing's wrong. And unfortunately the boat sinks. And unfortunately, at five years, 50 to 55% of boats sink. Both meaning the companies, right? And 72 to 77% of companies don't even get to blow out their their 10th, you know, year anniversary birthday cake candles. And so, commercialization is an art. It's it's it's not a science. Because if it was a science, we'd be able to follow that recipe like a uh, you know, cookie. Christian: Yeah. I think it's a lot of uncommons. Because it is. Trevor: I have one question for you Craig. Um, what do you think about the whole Silicon Valley mindset that startups are trying to adopt. Move fast and break things. Just try to get something out, make it happen. Don't worry about the roadblocks, if problems come up, fix them later. How do you think that mindset becoming so prolific in Silicon Valley and in America and startups everywhere is impacting company's road maps towards proper commercialization? Craig: That's a heavy question because I could talk for that about three hours, especially if I'm on stage, right? Um, I call that the crypto night and that's one of the crypto nights in in the business, right? There's never going to be a perfect product or service. However, good enough shows a condition of the heart that is somewhat manipulative to the consumer or the customer that would buy the product because if the people that are in the startup world are recipients of good enough, they're not going to like that. So I think it's a condition of character and integrity, right? Not just being the word of the day or the word of the season or the word of the year, but actually doing it and striving for excellence. And people say, well, that's but that can that could add three more million dollars, you know, until we can launch the product. Well, Do you want to be good enough or do you want to be great? It is a choice. People say, well, failures not an option. Yeah, it actually is. It is an option. And unfortunately, people choose that option way too often. um, not knowing because they try to shortcut things. I always say, and this didn't come from me. This is come from multiline figure and two liquid network billionaires that I have relationships with in business that own companies in multiple different industries. And none of them had experience in any of them and yet they're some of the most wealthy human beings on the planet. Which just goes to show you you don't have to have experience in a widget or you know, sector of an industry in order to be super successful in business. You just got to have wisdom. But they've said there's two industries where speed is critical for businesses to thrive. Trauma and Motorsports. any other business speed will create his which will lead to inefficiency. Sounds like all the Silicon Valley guys have got to start moving on to Formula 1 racing. Well, I mean at the end of the day, unless you're in trauma or motorsports, what does speed do for you? but create more challenges that could be, many of them, not all of them, but many of them, unnecessary challenges. Right? And so what we're missing in the business world is wisdom. Intelligence doesn't breed wisdom. But wisdom is the proper use of intelligence. And that's what we're missing. We've got all these people with all these educations and MBAs and PhDs and you look at how they run a business and you put your hands in your head and you go, you're an educated idiot. You're ignorant. You know? And and it's like we have to start using wisdom if we want our businesses to thrive, right? And that includes the products and the services you guys provide. That's the services I provide and the services other people provide. If businesses want to start thriving, they have to stop doing stuff, halfway, it's just good enough and fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Yeah. I think I think the the angle Trevor was coming from. I, and I, I agree with what you're saying, Craig. I, I think if I'm trying to come up with a new product, and I want to get feedback, I think that may be part of the angle he's coming up with. Like, you know, if, instead of like waiting to develop the perfect product and the consumers don't like it, if I can have an iteration, get some feedback, and then tweak it, and you know, constantly do that, uh, that makes sense from, I guess it's not really a speed perspective. That's just more of an iterative process though. Um, so yeah. Yeah, but there's too many founders that are in love with their widget. True. But if nobody like you said from a commercialization perspective, if nobody else wants the widget, who cares if how much you love it? You you, dude, you are spot on. I literally talk to a VC last month, and I spoke with two of the founders in one of the portfolio companies of this VC because VCs are now starting to call me and saying, we need help with some of our portfolio companies. This this company has been around for six years, but they've been commercialized they they they they launched their product to sell the hospitals, surgery centers, and free standing emergency rooms and things like that. 19 months ago. They have less than $100,000 in sales in 19 months. Yet, these people came from two very, very large strategic. And these people did really well uh in those large strategic. But because startups and mid-stage growth companies and small medium enterprise companies don't have time-tested processes and and and and and um what I'll say uh, road maps, you know what I mean uh you know, in place. People don't know what to do. And so the VC managing the main manager partner of this VC is like Craig, is there a way that you and your team could come alongside of us and help this portfolio company start getting we're not at this point, we're not asking for high levels of customer adoption. We just need some decent customer adoption. And in lifting up to the hood, under the hood, I lift up the hood, right? And I started inspecting the engine just like I was at the beginning of of this of this broadcast. Um, there are some serious kryptonite in their commercialization process and it's unfortunately not just one or two components of the commercialization process. Um, my suspected assessment is is is probably six out of the 10 are are really affected unfortunately. And so from my standpoint I said, folks, you're going to need the bridge audit. We're going to need to come in and audit your whole commercialization process and and and give you a report specifically on in each one of the 10 components where the crypto is that's stealing your effectiveness. I like it. Well, we're coming up on time here so I like to ask people for some parting words of wisdom. So I'll start with Trevor and we'll see if he says the same thing he always says. I put him on the spot sometimes. I think the reason I always go back to the same thing is cyber security isn't something you can leave to the end. And it goes back to the 10 components of commercialization regulatory is one of them. It's number three, right? Yep. So, it's a top priority. Cyber security is for regulatory compliance and the regulations say you need to do it at the beginning. You can't wait until the end. So cover it early, cover it often and make sure that cyber security is at the forefront of everyone's mind as they're trying to build a product. And don't go fast and break things unless you're in trauma and motorsports. Perfect. All right, what do you what do you got? What's your last uh the party with Craig. You know I, I I always, on a regular basis, tell leaders in companies. There's no kind of. You're either effective in business or you're not. Which one do you want to be? Do you want to get it right? Or do you want to be right? If you want to be right, most of the time, you're going to get it wrong. And just like the Titanic, the water will come up to your knees, but the orchestra will still be playing saying nothing's wrong. And unfortunately the boat sinks. And unfortunately, at five years, 50 to 55% of boats sink. Both meaning the companies, right? And 72 to 77% of companies don't even get to blow out their their 10th, you know, year anniversary birthday cake candles. And so, an art, it's it's it's not a science. Because if it was a science, we'd be able to follow that recipe like a uh, you know, batch cookies. Yeah. I think I think the I think the angle Trevor was coming from and I I agree with what you're saying Craig I think if I'm trying to come up with a new product and I want to get feedback, I think that may be is part of the angle he's coming up with like, you know, if instead of like waiting to develop the perfect product and the consumers don't like it, if I can have an iteration get some feedback and then tweak it and you know, constantly do that, that makes sense from I guess it's not really a speed perspective. That's just more of an iterative process though. So yeah. Yeah, but there's too many founders that are in love with their widget. True. but if nobody else like you said about commercialization perspective, if nobody else wants the widget, who cares how much you love it? You you, dude, you are spot on. I literally talk to a VC last month and I spoke with two of the founders in one of the portfolio companies of this VC because VCs are now starting to call me and saying we need help with some of our portfolio companies. This this company has been around for six years, but they've been commercialized they they they they launched their product to sell the hospitals, surgery centers and free-standing emergency rooms and things like that. 19 months ago. They have less than $100,000 in sales in 19 months. Yet, these people came from two very, very large strategic. And these people did really well um in those large strategic. But because startups and mid-stage growth companies and small-medium enterprise companies don't have time-tested processes and and and and and um what I'll say uh, road maps, you know what I mean uh you know, in place. People don't know what to do. And so the VC managing the main manager partner of this VC is like Craig, is there a way that you and your team could come alongside of us and help this portfolio company start getting, we're not at this point, we're not asking for high levels of customer adoption. We just need some decent customer adoption. And in lifting up under the hood, under the hood, I lift up the hood, right? And I started inspecting the engine just like I was at the beginning of of this of this broadcast. Um, there are some serious kryptonite in their commercialization process and it's unfortunately not just one or two components of the commercialization process. A, my suspected assessment is is is probably six out of the 10 are are really affected unfortunately. And so from my standpoint, I said, folks, you're going to need the bridge audit. We're going to need to come in and audit your whole commercialization process and and and give you a report specifically on in each one of the 10 components where the kryptonite is that's stealing your effectiveness. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Craig for being a guest on our podcast. Uh, we, we enjoyed our discussion and thanks so much everyone for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.