January 7, 2025 • 43 mins
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Jane Zhang, CEO and Founder of Remmie Health about Scalable AI in Pediatrics. Jane progressed through her professional career as Biomedical Engineer, PhD Adjunct Professor, Big Pharma and it was upon living a very personal situation that she wanted be become a “builder": entrepreneurship was calling her.
Listen to Jane’s podcast, as she shares where this whole idea of building something for the people at home to be able to examine, share, and, in the future - get assistance in identifying ENT diseases- became very important to her. Jane shares how she has built a product and services for at home examinations of the ear, nose, and throat and her real experience of developing a FDA approved Class 1 device, now in clinical trials.
Remmie 3 is a FDA-registered and CE Marked next generation intelligent otoscope designed for patients of all ages.
You can find out more about Jane and Remmie Health at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeyzhang
https://www.linkedin.com/company/remmiehealth/
Remmie was present at MEDICA 2024, the most important international fair dedicated to medicine and hospital technology. The event will took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 11 to 14 November 2024.
https://www.ca-mi.eu/en/germany/01/2024/medica-dusseldorf-11-14-november-2024/
and at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 2024 ASHA Convention from December 5-7 in Seattle, Washington.
Transcript:
00:04
Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke
00:32
corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors.
01:01
As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you.
01:18
Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners, and I have as my guest, entrepreneurs and business owners, professional service providers, and corporate board directors who bring their own stories about building resilient, purpose-driven, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance.
01:47
I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And by bringing my guests to the podcast, they too want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium and large to create change for a better world. We're going to tell stories in this podcast today. And my guest is Jane Zhang. She's CEO of Remmie and she's joining us her
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
We're standing on the edge of something big.We're going to make some changes. Hi, I'm pleased
to announce something very special to me, anew subscription-based service through Next
(00:25):
Act Advisors that allows members exclusive accessto personal industry insights and bespoke corporate
governance knowledge. This comes in the formof blogs, personal book recommendations, and
early access to the founder's sandbox podcastepisodes before they released to the public.
(00:46):
If you want more white glove information onbuilding your startup with information like
what was in today's episode, sign up with thelink in the show notes to enjoy being a special
member of Next Act Advisors. As a thank youto Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use
code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% offyour membership costs. Thank you.
(01:18):
Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am BrendaMcCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast
in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners,and I have as my guest, entrepreneurs and business
owners, professional service providers, andcorporate board directors who bring their own
(01:39):
stories about building resilient, purpose-driven,and sustainable businesses with great corporate
governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs andentrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed
and resilient businesses. And by bringing myguests to the podcast, they too want to use
(01:59):
the power of the enterprise, small, medium andlarge to create change for a better world.
We're going to tell stories in this podcasttoday. And my guest is Jane Zhang. She's CEO
of Remy and she's joining us here from the stateof Washington. Jane and I go back almost, I
(02:20):
don't know, four or five years now. Jane wasat the UCLA MedTech competition. She had just
founded Remy in 2018 and then actually put somebones around it and financing into 2020 was
actually seeking external investment dilutivetype. And I couldn't help. but remember Jane's
(02:48):
origin story of why she started Remy. And we'regonna start with that. So Jane, I would love
for you to walk down memory lane with me andgo back to when we met in the campus at the
UCLA MedTech. And what was your origin story?Yeah, Brenda, I really appreciate this opportunity
(03:11):
and thank you for the great intro. It was. Itwas unforgettable why I, every day I'm reminded
of why I'm on this mission because my own son,who was a preschooler back then, had recurring
ear, nose and throat issues, especially earinfections. It was basically nonstop. A lot
(03:36):
of the weekends, my colleagues would ask me,what are you doing on the weekend? I'd be like,
My son is having a fever I'm taking next weekoff. So it happened four times. In the first
year he went to childcare. And one of the timeshe had a high fever, we went to the ER and
it took us four hours sitting there nonstopwith his crying and screaming. And the other
(04:05):
times we were referred to an ENT specialistwho was about to put in ear tubes in his ears.
And other times we were misdiagnosed becausehe had air nose and hands with mouse disease
where we were given antibiotics. I give him10 days and he's still spiking a fever. It
keeps on coming back. And the doctor said therewas a it was a moment of revelation where this
(04:30):
physician, my pediatrician told me, come, cometake a look by yourself. I was like, what?
Why? And he said the throat or the back of histhroat was all white blisters. So this was
not an air infection. um who gave you antibioticsthat was the question he asked me he said you
should be able to look by yourself and why weren'tyou doing that i was like what really i'm a
(04:53):
bio medical engineer by training by the wayum especially in low resource setting diagnostics
or like basically home diagnostic kits um heasked me why aren't you looking by yourself
i was like what am i supposed to look uh andwith what So that's where this whole idea of
(05:14):
building something for the people at home tobe able to examine, share, and in the future
getting assistance in identifying ENT diseasesbecame very important to me. Wow. So you had
at that time been working for a large pharmaceuticalcompany. As you said, you are a biomedical
(05:41):
engineer by training, and you just completedyour executive MBA, I think at UCLA. So what
made you make the jump? One thing is going tothe emergency room with your child time and
time again. You talked about your aha momentand how can I in a low resource, right? At
(06:02):
home. be able to actually diagnose and actuallytreat my child. What happened that made you
want to actually become an entrepreneur, Jane?One thing is working on the research side,
but becoming an entrepreneur, what made youdo that? It was very, so it was like everything
(06:24):
kind of lined up in a way, and it just, my background,I was an engineer by training. I worked as
a scientist, you know, like in all the way upto postdoctoral level research. And then I
took a turn into getting more into product development,business development, and commercial operations,
(06:46):
because I thought that was really going to helpme broaden my vision of the my view of how
things work, you know, that I'm basically acuriosity driven person. And at that point,
while I was working in a big corporate, in apharmaceutical company, I was sort of getting
more experienced in a commercial side of things.I figured I had two choices, probably one,
(07:12):
two, actually three choices I was considering,right? Like one is to go back to research and
become a faculty member. In fact, I did, youknow, that was kind of my way of rethinking
my whole, reorienting my whole career path.Um, the other one was going to become an investor.
Um, the third was to fund my own company andjust go on this path of building things. Um,
(07:34):
I, I thought, uh, this issue of my child's problemjust really was hitting at home that this is,
because it's after I talked to many people,I was not alone. I'm not the only person who's
going through this. Everyone I talked to said,Oh my gosh, that was me. Um, I was like, this
(07:55):
is a big deal. It not only impacts your child'shealth, it impacts your productivity at the
prime time of your life when you just had thechild. And it was just like really hitting
a home. I had to do this after a couple of yearsof hiatus in academics, in academia, as a faculty
member of engineering in University of Washington.After completing my MBA, in the meantime, I
(08:21):
decided being a builder. an entrepreneur isthe calling for me. Is the path, is the path
to shift. Amazing. Talk to me about the numberof ENT cases that you are addressing with Remy
today. Talk to me about that. I guess a strikingnumber was 70 million in the US, both adults
(08:50):
and children. A year, right? And it's reallyfast. A year. Yeah. suffering from some ENT
diseases. And this is not just specialty diseasethat I'm talking about, it's every day. Like
anything that you have when you have a sorethroat, a painful nose or ear infection or
cold and flu, it impacts these organs. The firstline organs being impacted are your ENT, but
(09:11):
it doesn't stop there, right? For children,it is very highly occurring. Like if you look
at the number of children who go see ENT issues,ear infections alone is... about 24 million
a year, that's 80% of any children before theage of eight or three, they've already had
one ear infection, not to mention 30% have morethan three a year. And adults, like when you're
(09:36):
thinking about, sinusitis, sore throat, strappedthroat, how all these impact the overall population
quite a bit. So what is the solution at that?Remy provides. You're going to walk us through
kind of the, it's AI powered ENT, so ear, noseand throat health platform. It has many components.
(10:01):
What's the patient experience today that you'reattacking and how is it going to look in the
future? Walk us through the product, please.Yeah. I love that way of thinking and thinking
as a patient or a user of any anything thatwe are providing. So you already kind of heard
(10:23):
my journey of nonstop sort of rotation in likea spinning wheel among pediatrics office, urgent
care, ENT's office, and ER, right? And thenover again for another episode, if it's recurring
or chronic. The experience that we're tryingto provide is along the line of how the disease
(10:46):
progresses and how physicians examine. a quadrantor like a progression lifetime along that line.
What I mean is when you first have a pain orsome sort of discomfort, you would want to,
you know, a doctor when they examine you, theywould check, they would look, they would look
(11:08):
with a, right now they look with an otoscope,which is a glorified flashlight plus magnifier,
obviously very, very high fidelity. That's thefirst step. They look, they examine. And then
the second thing they do is, well, obviouslyyou have to be in person first with the physician,
(11:29):
right? So there's no sharing per se, which we'retrying to build towards is you can look, you
know, if a doctor is using an otoscope, whycan't the patient be taught how to use it?
It's very similar to a thermometer in a way,except it's a camera. So, you know, if a physician
is looking with their eye. we can make it digitizedas a camera for patients to use at home. And
(11:54):
if you have to be in person today, you shouldbe able to transmit this, whatever you're looking
at or collecting over the internet in termsof sharing. And then the third step of the
whole diagnosis journey is basically analyze.The physician kind of asks you how you feel,
they aggregate a lot of information about you,who you are, what you're going through and
(12:16):
your physical presentation of the symptoms.that should also be partly supported by AI.
So that's kind of what I'm working towards is,it's like a million doctors supporting every
single physician, every, you know, one doctorbeing supported by a million in terms of the
insights that's used to go into their diagnosis.And did I mention that the misdiagnosis rate
(12:39):
is about 40% on any day? Misdiagnosis meaningeither, you know, you're prescribed antibiotics
where you're not, you should not have been,or you're referred to a specialist where you
should not have been, or you went to the ER,because you did not receive the care in time.
(13:03):
I guess that's a broader sense of misdiagnosis,which means you missed the opportunity for
diagnosis in the proper setting. So, but that'svery prevalent in terms of misdiagnosis. So
we like to support anyone who's first examiningthe condition with AI tools, being a patient
(13:23):
or a primary care physician. Before we get intothe AI question that I have for you, talk to
me about some of the communities that can benefitfrom the use of an AI-powered ENT device. Yeah.
(13:44):
I. The first thing that comes to my mind ishome users, any general lay person at home
who may not have the resources to see a physicianin person.
It could be someone who's lack of access ina way that they are in a remote area, lack
(14:06):
of resources to pay for healthcare, or evenlack of time. Someone who is working, who has
a job but just doesn't have the time to. tosee a doctor. So I would think under underserved
communities, population who are at lack of resourcessuch as time, money, or you know, driving.
(14:29):
You know, driving is a hassle for a lot of familiesand just anywhere at home. Anyone who is, you
know, even I was talking to a bunch of undergrad,you know, college students are like, we're
so used to just sitting on our couch and seea doctor. That's possible. And that was really
the key moment when I was sitting as a judge.The first time I actually was exposed to you,
(14:56):
Jane, met you and heard about Remy, it was thepossibility that digital health, right? I'm
not having to go into a doctor's office. Andthe digital health to use preventatively, right?
To prevent disease. diseases to progress. Ithink, and then, you know, AI is just an added
(15:18):
layer on top, so that truly was a moment whenI thought everybody, well, at least there's
70 million cases a year of ear, nose, and throat,what this platform may offer for other disease
areas where we don't have necessarily to gointo the doctor's office. So it was fascinating.
That's what brought us into this relationship.So talk to me about, we've talked about the
(15:45):
platform, where you're going, how it's offered.What has been your founder experience? All
right, you decided you took a head issue andwent back to the academic world. You really
wanted to become an entrepreneur, started thecompany. You won a competition out of UCLA,
I think business case. That's about the timeI met you, right? Talk to me about how the
(16:08):
journey has been in terms of resources, theresources that you have received, non-dilutive
funding, where are you on that path, and howmany healthcare systems are currently either
testing or looking into the use of Remy? That'sa loaded question. So talk to me about the
journey of financing and where the product isbeing used today. Absolutely. The journey is
(16:37):
long and very, full of support, you know, likethat's, that's a very upfront, you know, support
from my very early days where my MBA classmateskind of joined force on this project, you know,
as in its infancy, the UCLA, which, you know,venture accelerator, which was my, you know,
(17:00):
first founder, basically, we, we came out ofthe incubator, equipped to talk to the world
about our business case. And we got $33,000overnight from the business plan competition,
NAP business plan competition, and the earlyUCLA founders who just showing overwhelming
(17:23):
support. And we, in fact, we sold our product,first 25 units of our, you know, the digital
otoscope in the early days before we graduatedand gotten our first 100K of investor check
before we graduated. So, That was when we hadto fund the company because we need to find
(17:44):
a place to park the money as students part-time.So this was all full-time working, you know,
professionals part-time on a weekend going toMBA. And then I, the past just went really
interesting because of the pandemic. There wasan overwhelming uptake of virtual care. telehealth
(18:07):
services, institutions who are looking at thisnew modality of care. And all of a sudden it
was like, there were like 800 telehealth companiesin the US at some point and they were all of
our potential customers. We started co-callingthem and we're getting quite a bit of feedback.
In fact, many of them were working today. Weare working with Rocket Doctor, for example.
(18:30):
They've gotten, they've taken over half a millioncosts in the past couple of years. in terms
of virtual care services. They have sites atpharmacies and enabled stations of remote care
for people who are not accessing an office inperson. We are working with five school districts
(18:51):
in five different states and these are schooldistricts which leverage Remy for all of their
nursing rooms and introducing it to their studentsand parents. And we are working So we got very
strong non-dilutive funding. Actually earlydays we had seed funding from Platinum Play,
(19:12):
we have seed funding from United HealthcareAccelerator powered by Techstars. We had in-kind
support from CTIP, which is consortium for technologyand innovation in pediatrics, which is a large
innovation, hospital innovation consortia of,I would say that's growing, you know, at least
(19:36):
children's hospitals in the West and Midwest.They are providing enormous support, including
clinical collaborations, partnerships, grantingservices, regulatory guardrail, they're FDA-funded.
So now we're working with them in terms of aclinical study site in Lowery Children's in
(19:59):
Chicago, which is one of our primary sites testingout not only REMI, Otoscopes, but REMI-AI,
funded by the NIH, which is National Instituteof Health under the Small Business Innovation
and Research Grant at 3.5 million so far. Sooverall, there was overwhelming support also
(20:22):
from my state, I'm from Washington. So the LifeScience Institute of Washington also kind of
invested. And last but not least, I have tomention TIE, T-I-E, which is an angel funding
investor group that has given us enormous supportin terms of networking, in terms of fine tuning
(20:45):
the business plans, mentorship sessions. Itjust goes on. There are a few other investors
that we've been working with and overall we'veraised about... 4.75 million in non-delutive
funding, non-delutive, and then about anothera million in the deletive. So this has gone
into a clinical study phase where we're lookingat success outcomes in terms of technology
(21:12):
readiness, validation of performance of AI clearancethrough FDA as a class two device in a couple
of years. And then commercially. being ableto facilitate telehealth services already.
In addition to allowing the patients to seeand examine, we're enabling physicians remotely
(21:33):
examine and prescribe. And in the future, assistingboth the physician and the patients in terms
of prescription and receiving the accurate diagnosis.I'm looking at the, heading the all, I guess,
health care or the goals of health care today,the five aims, I believe, at least, you know,
(21:59):
cutting costs, improving quality, increasingaccess. Yeah, all of that. Amazing. And as
of today, so you've raised about 4.75 non dilutive,you're no longer raising dilutive funding until
you get through the clinical trials. When willthat be happening?
(22:25):
The study with Children's Hospital, Lurie Children'sis happening now actually, so it's underway.
And we are looking at in a year that we willhave some tangible, really good results in
terms of both the patient satisfaction, physiciansdemand and performance of the technology. And
(22:50):
what is the desired outcome? Because I got reallyexcited too, because this will be maybe not
the first, but one of the earliest FDA approvedClass II devices jointly with AI, correct?
Yes, that's a very hot topic right now in termsof the use of AI, the governance of AI, who
(23:21):
benefits from it and who pays for it. Ultimately,the AI that we are developing would be augmenting
the physician's decision making. in the meantime,directly benefiting the patients because they
can potentially receive pre-screening alertsand results faster and earlier before they
(23:43):
go or even while they're waiting for the physician'sappointments. So I would say that the outcome,
first and foremost, is the satisfaction of thepatient and the physicians. We would like to
work alongside with, you know, really key influencerin the medical field, medically validating
(24:07):
the performance and understanding the bias ofthe data. What would it be if we manipulate
bias at one way or the other in terms of thealgorithm development, right? Whether or not
we're collecting comprehensive population-baseddata, have we looked at cases of one way or
(24:29):
the other, you know, like in general, understandingthe algorithm development and the AI readout.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding aboutAI these days, right? People generalize it
to be generative. But AI has been a conceptthat is, you know, it was a different name
back then. It was data analysis, it was imaginganalysis, it was big data. For a while, the
(24:54):
algorithm is evolving, the capability is evolving.Um, the, I guess before one investor was asking
me, what, how do you handle data hallucinationor AI hallucination, which basically means
the AI is starting to give out fake results,um, based on ungrounded, um, facts or cheating
(25:16):
or lying to you. Um, and there's also anotherdifferent kind of AI, which was data driven
or validated. Uh, it won't tell you anythingthat you don't tell it. to, you know, it's
kind of limited or confined to a set of outcomes.For us, it is the former at this point, it's
less generative. We understand the ins and outsof the data that's going in and we know why
(25:40):
it's, you know, spinning out the results whilewe are the other on the outcome, on the output
side. I would say generative has got a lot ofpotential, but within health, healthcare, we
just need to catch up a lot. a lot faster forit to be widely applicable. Currently, is it
(26:00):
fair to say that Remy does have the largestdatabase of imaging within ENT? We are one
of the top in the world. The data size as theuse case grows, as the user base grows would
(26:23):
be growing. The data are aggregating and beingapplicable to algorithm training in an aggregation
basis or the identified anonymized. It's aninteresting part about the platform we're building
is the users can benefit and they know whattheir, they benefit early, you know, rather
(26:49):
than just being, benefiting from AI tellingthem what to do or assisting them. They're
benefiting from non-AI capabilities of the technology,facilitating their visits, shortening their
distance from their pain to a prescription,for example, or diagnosis. already, early on.
(27:10):
So we sort of de-risk the path to AI. And AIbecomes more of a later phase. But it is definitely
going to augment and assist the human journeyall in all. Excellent. And so while sticking
with the actual platform, and one of the thirdelements that I was particularly interested
(27:36):
in when we did invest from the Thai fund wasthe lack of the shortage of primary care physicians,
and specifically even pediatricians in the UnitedStates at this time. Talk to me a bit about
how as the tech, that platform of Remy buildsout, will this enable doctors will it substitute
(28:03):
doctors? What's the what's the how will thisaddress this? actually, it's tsunami that is
now on us of this shortage of doctors in sucha common disease area. Yeah, yeah. I definitely
think that it is a tsunami coming at us justfrom my experience of having to book out. My
(28:25):
wild child checkup is like four months out.I was like, by the time I get my son's appointment
for his 11 years old checkup, he's 12. Yeah,so just to give you. idea and then I got a
letter from my in the mail saying that I'm quitting,you know, my physician is quitting real life,
right. So I basically think that the AI willbe enabling the physicians to free up their
(28:53):
time, you know, from some non acute or issuesthat they so in the meantime, providing the
quality of care that patients need not to sacrificethe quality. to free up their time and become
more efficient in a way. Especially I can thinkabout ER avoidance, right? As a big use case
(29:15):
for Remy and referral pre-screening, right?Specialty referral pre-screening, both of those,
you know, are gonna free up quite a bit of our,you know, healthcare resources in terms of
leaving them for those acute cases and reallyneeding, you know, attention of the physicians.
Yeah. ER avoidance, basically you go, beforeyou go to the ER, while you're waiting in the
(29:40):
ER, you can perform a test or some sort of avisit with Remy using the Remy technology and
specialties per screening. Per screening couldbe like, while you're waiting for the specialist
appointments, which might be three, four monthsout, you can get the insights that you need
already. So both use cases, I think, will freeup quite a bit of our time. both from pediatricians,
(30:06):
nurses, mid-level providers, and specialists,EV doctors and specialists. Oh, Remy. Can you,
for my listeners, talk about where they canfind Remy today? Yeah, we are, we're in, on
Amazon, if you search Remy, we are website,remyhouse.com. We have a very convenient e-commerce,
(30:34):
shipping and handling protocols. So you shouldbe able to order on Friday, receive on Monday,
for example, or even faster than that. And thenwe are, we are at your clinic. We're maybe
at your clinic, maybe at your school district,we are working with a few of these. physicians,
clinics, there are logos on our website. Ifyou're one of the patients of the clinics,
(31:00):
you will get these at a discount, easily accessiblerate. And if you visit us at the exhibits,
in terms of commercial and marketing exposures,we are gonna be at Medica in Germany. That
is next week, November 11th to 14th. in Dusseldorfin Germany, we are part of the Washington State
(31:25):
Pavilion to exhibit there. And then we are publishing,you know, academically we are collaborating
with United, sorry, University of Southern California,USC in the speech and speech hearing and language
pathologist community, especially in collaborationwith USC. We are publishing a poster there
(31:52):
that's going to be December 5 to 7 in Seattle,Washington. Excellent. Let's switch to the
founder sandbox. I'm passionate about workingwith company owners on their purpose, their
scalability and their resilience. And I havea founder here in the sandbox with me today.
(32:18):
You're into what your sixth year of being aCEO. Tell me, what does resilience mean to
you? Jane. Oh my gosh, there are so many placesyou just have to hold on to. Hold on to the
idea. I think first and foremost, it's somethingthat you believe. There is some belief that
(32:43):
this is there. You know, like it's worth yourtime. It's worth the effort. It's worth. Keep
going. Right. So if you give up, it's probablyyou don't believe in it enough. Right. At some
point, because of, you know, all the failuresand problems that comes up. Yeah, don't get
(33:03):
me started. And then the belief is there. Ithink this is the future, the calling. It's
historically inevitable, right? If it's Remyor someone else, it should be done, right?
So that's my belief. And it's driven me everyday when I wake up. And then when I think about
(33:25):
resilience, I also think about when I'm fundraising,talking to investors, I get... 99% knows, right?
And then 1%, yes. But does that mean that I'mnot a good company, a good founder? No, it
just means we're not good fit, right? Like investorshave their own thesis, their goals to fill,
their speed, stage of company, check sizes,everything has to meet perfectly. And even
(33:52):
personality wise, those investors are gonnabe with you for a while. You trust each other.
So that's fundraising. And then just keep goingat it. And product wise, people say no to my
product. Oftentimes for various reasons, customersare always right. Again, does that mean that
(34:16):
I'm not a good product or services? No, themore I talk to them, the more nos I get, the
more yes I will get as well. So again, that'ssort of on the market research or understanding
the general target, you know, like as you'relooking for the product market fit, you know,
again, the keyword here is fit. And then thethird piece is, is just interpersonal, you
(34:42):
know, like, people, oftentimes, I mean, likeor dislike each other for a reason. And there's
nothing wrong with, you know, knowing knowingmore getting more so I have a very big mentor
community I reach out to them every time I needan answer and they're just all willing to help
(35:05):
that really helps with the mentality the resilienceas well you know I know I'm being supported
I know I know people love me like my productsare being loved my services are needed and
my mentors really support me so that's whatreally helps with the positivity yeah excellent
thank you for those four nuggets your own wordsabout what resilience means to you. Thank you
(35:30):
for talking about your product and believingin the future of telehealth with Remy or not.
It's very, very humble. And I loved, so thekey word is fit, right? Fit with your investor,
fit with your customers, what they're wanting,fit with the belief. Take that to the next.
(35:55):
question, fit or purpose driven? Are you fitfor purpose? What is purpose driven enterprise?
All right, so this goes beyond the resilienceto enterprise. Purpose driven, what's that
mean to you?
I think I started the journey caring about sortof mental house of women, you know, that's
(36:19):
like, you know, besides children's health, right.So, and I spent my whole journey, whole research
doing underserved community health diagnostics,right. So I've been working on, you know, the
the worst diseases you can think about HIV,tuberculosis, these pathology pathogens, right?
(36:45):
I was kind of in a class three bio lab, workingwhile I was pregnant, tuberculosis. So you
name it, right? Like any sort of crazy thingsthat happen to people, I have really strong
sort of desire to help them or address it. Alsosomething that's probably rooted in my family.
(37:13):
You know, like I don't talk about that a wholelot, but my dad came out of sort of this pure
poverty, right? Like he, my grandpa was a shepherdand he sort of, I guess long story short, my
dad was also kind of a, would be a beneficiaryof Remy. He had a perforated eardrum because
(37:33):
he listened to English radios too much beforehe came to UK for study, you know, as a first
generation college student from his family.So nowadays he still has a deaf ear, right,
like perforated eardrums. So I'm still thinking,you know, is there something I can do for him?
But overall, I felt as a, like, just to echowhere I started in the beginning, you know,
(38:00):
as a woman in the prime years of, you know,career. you know, where I wanted to be, you
know, I was earning good money, I was havinga good corporate job, I was caring for my child,
you know, which really kind of pampered my productivityat work. I think that's kind of an issue that
(38:21):
nobody really talks about because everybodywants top performers, you know, like you need
to be working when your child is sick or somethinglike that. But, you know, overall, it's kind
of issue that's there and near to my heart aswomen and children's health, especially for
underserved communities. Thank you. Thank you,Jane. Wow. Scalable growth. Take that resilience
(38:48):
plus your purposefulness and scale it. Is ittruly what the platform will become scalable?
What does scalable mean to you?
(39:13):
how, you know, help the physicians in a way.You will, I will scale really well if I can,
you know, bring benefits to ease their work,ease their stress at work. There are patients
coming in, they're getting text messages fromthe patient, hey, what's going on with me if
I can see this image? I was like, that's crazy.Like, how do you respond to that, right? Like
(39:34):
in a way that polite and shows that you're ahuman, you care, but if you get 300 of those
a day, how do you... How do you do that? Andthen they say, oh, they send them to my charts.
Again, that's losing or like the patient justwaiting. How do you address this mismatch of
(39:55):
having physicians providing care at top qualityand efficiency while being a human to the patients
and then the patients are satisfied and gettingthe needs met. I'm trying to make my story.
or resonating with physicians that they canbe, just to give you an example, right? A physician
(40:18):
mentioned that 50% of my, this was a specialistwho said 50% of the patients who came to me
should not have been in my office because Iwanted to help those who can, they need me
for a procedure most of the time. If they cometo me for diagnostics confirmation, I could
(40:38):
have done that. with their information gatheredin front of me already, before they come. So
that's kind of the point. And it's almost likewhenever they're open or free, aggregating
physicians time across all these physicianswho have time, whenever they have time to care
(40:59):
for patients aggregated across all these issues,whenever they have an issue, we're trying to
build sort of a bridge the aggregation wouldreally help address the problem of mismatch
of asynchronous visits or waiting and not gettingthe answers. I don't know if that's too abstract.
(41:24):
No, I get it. And you know what? Kind of alongthe lines of purpose, your purpose, caring
about mental health for mothers, you also bythe adoption of Remy Health in settings with
the patients using it from home. or being screenedearly on, you're clearly affecting the mental
(41:45):
health of our caregivers, our physicians. Andwe do know that tsunamis here, there's a high
level of attrition. Doctors actually just quitting.And if through tech enabled or AI powered,
intelligent aggregation of data informs thedecisions to reduce number of visits. or have
(42:11):
them more productive while in the setting, theclinical setting can move the needle, so be
it. So thank you, Jane. This has been absolutelyan amazing interview. I have one last question.
Did you have fun in the sandbox today? Yes.Absolutely, Randa. I really, really appreciate
(42:37):
the opportunity. It's wonderful to every timeI talk to you, it's wonderful, but especially
interesting when we're like in this settingand you know, podcasting to more to a greater
audience and really appreciate what you do forthe community. Thank you. Thank you. So to
my listeners, if you'd like this episode withJane Tseng, CEO of Remy, resilience and scalable
(43:05):
and purpose-driven life story, as well as theorigin story, as well as the product. Remy,
sign up for the monthly release where foundersand business owners, corporate directors and
professional service providers provide theirown stories on how to build with strong governance,
(43:28):
a resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companyto make profits for good. Sign off for this
month. Thank you for joining us.
We're standing on the edge of something big.We're going to make some changes. Hi, I'm pleased
to announce something very special to me, anew subscription-based service through Next
(00:25):
Act Advisors that allows members exclusive accessto personal industry insights and bespoke corporate
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If you want more white glove information onbuilding your startup with information like
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(01:18):
Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am BrendaMcCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast
in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners,and I have as my guest, entrepreneurs and business
owners, professional service providers, andcorporate board directors who bring their own
(01:39):
stories about building resilient, purpose-driven,and sustainable businesses with great corporate
governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs andentrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed
and resilient businesses. And by bringing myguests to the podcast, they too want to use
(01:59):
the power of the enterprise, small, medium andlarge to create change for a better world.
We're going to tell stories in this podcasttoday. And my guest is Jane Zhang. She's CEO
of Remy and she's joining us here from the stateof Washington. Jane and I go back almost, I
(02:20):
don't know, four or five years now. Jane wasat the UCLA MedTech competition. She had just
founded Remy in 2018 and then actually put somebones around it and financing into 2020 was
actually seeking external investment dilutivetype. And I couldn't help. but remember Jane's
(02:48):
origin story of why she started Remy. And we'regonna start with that. So Jane, I would love
for you to walk down memory lane with me andgo back to when we met in the campus at the
UCLA MedTech. And what was your origin story?Yeah, Brenda, I really appreciate this opportunity
(03:11):
and thank you for the great intro. It was. Itwas unforgettable why I, every day I'm reminded
of why I'm on this mission because my own son,who was a preschooler back then, had recurring
ear, nose and throat issues, especially earinfections. It was basically nonstop. A lot
(03:36):
of the weekends, my colleagues would ask me,what are you doing on the weekend? I'd be like,
My son is having a fever I'm taking next weekoff. So it happened four times. In the first
year he went to childcare. And one of the timeshe had a high fever, we went to the ER and
it took us four hours sitting there nonstopwith his crying and screaming. And the other
(04:05):
times we were referred to an ENT specialistwho was about to put in ear tubes in his ears.
And other times we were misdiagnosed becausehe had air nose and hands with mouse disease
where we were given antibiotics. I give him10 days and he's still spiking a fever. It
keeps on coming back. And the doctor said therewas a it was a moment of revelation where this
(04:30):
physician, my pediatrician told me, come, cometake a look by yourself. I was like, what?
Why? And he said the throat or the back of histhroat was all white blisters. So this was
not an air infection. um who gave you antibioticsthat was the question he asked me he said you
should be able to look by yourself and why weren'tyou doing that i was like what really i'm a
(04:53):
bio medical engineer by training by the wayum especially in low resource setting diagnostics
or like basically home diagnostic kits um heasked me why aren't you looking by yourself
i was like what am i supposed to look uh andwith what So that's where this whole idea of
(05:14):
building something for the people at home tobe able to examine, share, and in the future
getting assistance in identifying ENT diseasesbecame very important to me. Wow. So you had
at that time been working for a large pharmaceuticalcompany. As you said, you are a biomedical
(05:41):
engineer by training, and you just completedyour executive MBA, I think at UCLA. So what
made you make the jump? One thing is going tothe emergency room with your child time and
time again. You talked about your aha momentand how can I in a low resource, right? At
(06:02):
home. be able to actually diagnose and actuallytreat my child. What happened that made you
want to actually become an entrepreneur, Jane?One thing is working on the research side,
but becoming an entrepreneur, what made youdo that? It was very, so it was like everything
(06:24):
kind of lined up in a way, and it just, my background,I was an engineer by training. I worked as
a scientist, you know, like in all the way upto postdoctoral level research. And then I
took a turn into getting more into product development,business development, and commercial operations,
(06:46):
because I thought that was really going to helpme broaden my vision of the my view of how
things work, you know, that I'm basically acuriosity driven person. And at that point,
while I was working in a big corporate, in apharmaceutical company, I was sort of getting
more experienced in a commercial side of things.I figured I had two choices, probably one,
(07:12):
two, actually three choices I was considering,right? Like one is to go back to research and
become a faculty member. In fact, I did, youknow, that was kind of my way of rethinking
my whole, reorienting my whole career path.Um, the other one was going to become an investor.
Um, the third was to fund my own company andjust go on this path of building things. Um,
(07:34):
I, I thought, uh, this issue of my child's problemjust really was hitting at home that this is,
because it's after I talked to many people,I was not alone. I'm not the only person who's
going through this. Everyone I talked to said,Oh my gosh, that was me. Um, I was like, this
(07:55):
is a big deal. It not only impacts your child'shealth, it impacts your productivity at the
prime time of your life when you just had thechild. And it was just like really hitting
a home. I had to do this after a couple of yearsof hiatus in academics, in academia, as a faculty
member of engineering in University of Washington.After completing my MBA, in the meantime, I
(08:21):
decided being a builder. an entrepreneur isthe calling for me. Is the path, is the path
to shift. Amazing. Talk to me about the numberof ENT cases that you are addressing with Remy
today. Talk to me about that. I guess a strikingnumber was 70 million in the US, both adults
(08:50):
and children. A year, right? And it's reallyfast. A year. Yeah. suffering from some ENT
diseases. And this is not just specialty diseasethat I'm talking about, it's every day. Like
anything that you have when you have a sorethroat, a painful nose or ear infection or
cold and flu, it impacts these organs. The firstline organs being impacted are your ENT, but
(09:11):
it doesn't stop there, right? For children,it is very highly occurring. Like if you look
at the number of children who go see ENT issues,ear infections alone is... about 24 million
a year, that's 80% of any children before theage of eight or three, they've already had
one ear infection, not to mention 30% have morethan three a year. And adults, like when you're
(09:36):
thinking about, sinusitis, sore throat, strappedthroat, how all these impact the overall population
quite a bit. So what is the solution at that?Remy provides. You're going to walk us through
kind of the, it's AI powered ENT, so ear, noseand throat health platform. It has many components.
(10:01):
What's the patient experience today that you'reattacking and how is it going to look in the
future? Walk us through the product, please.Yeah. I love that way of thinking and thinking
as a patient or a user of any anything thatwe are providing. So you already kind of heard
(10:23):
my journey of nonstop sort of rotation in likea spinning wheel among pediatrics office, urgent
care, ENT's office, and ER, right? And thenover again for another episode, if it's recurring
or chronic. The experience that we're tryingto provide is along the line of how the disease
(10:46):
progresses and how physicians examine. a quadrantor like a progression lifetime along that line.
What I mean is when you first have a pain orsome sort of discomfort, you would want to,
you know, a doctor when they examine you, theywould check, they would look, they would look
(11:08):
with a, right now they look with an otoscope,which is a glorified flashlight plus magnifier,
obviously very, very high fidelity. That's thefirst step. They look, they examine. And then
the second thing they do is, well, obviouslyyou have to be in person first with the physician,
(11:29):
right? So there's no sharing per se, which we'retrying to build towards is you can look, you
know, if a doctor is using an otoscope, whycan't the patient be taught how to use it?
It's very similar to a thermometer in a way,except it's a camera. So, you know, if a physician
is looking with their eye. we can make it digitizedas a camera for patients to use at home. And
(11:54):
if you have to be in person today, you shouldbe able to transmit this, whatever you're looking
at or collecting over the internet in termsof sharing. And then the third step of the
whole diagnosis journey is basically analyze.The physician kind of asks you how you feel,
they aggregate a lot of information about you,who you are, what you're going through and
(12:16):
your physical presentation of the symptoms.that should also be partly supported by AI.
So that's kind of what I'm working towards is,it's like a million doctors supporting every
single physician, every, you know, one doctorbeing supported by a million in terms of the
insights that's used to go into their diagnosis.And did I mention that the misdiagnosis rate
(12:39):
is about 40% on any day? Misdiagnosis meaningeither, you know, you're prescribed antibiotics
where you're not, you should not have been,or you're referred to a specialist where you
should not have been, or you went to the ER,because you did not receive the care in time.
(13:03):
I guess that's a broader sense of misdiagnosis,which means you missed the opportunity for
diagnosis in the proper setting. So, but that'svery prevalent in terms of misdiagnosis. So
we like to support anyone who's first examiningthe condition with AI tools, being a patient
(13:23):
or a primary care physician. Before we get intothe AI question that I have for you, talk to
me about some of the communities that can benefitfrom the use of an AI-powered ENT device. Yeah.
(13:44):
I. The first thing that comes to my mind ishome users, any general lay person at home
who may not have the resources to see a physicianin person.
It could be someone who's lack of access ina way that they are in a remote area, lack
(14:06):
of resources to pay for healthcare, or evenlack of time. Someone who is working, who has
a job but just doesn't have the time to. tosee a doctor. So I would think under underserved
communities, population who are at lack of resourcessuch as time, money, or you know, driving.
(14:29):
You know, driving is a hassle for a lot of familiesand just anywhere at home. Anyone who is, you
know, even I was talking to a bunch of undergrad,you know, college students are like, we're
so used to just sitting on our couch and seea doctor. That's possible. And that was really
the key moment when I was sitting as a judge.The first time I actually was exposed to you,
(14:56):
Jane, met you and heard about Remy, it was thepossibility that digital health, right? I'm
not having to go into a doctor's office. Andthe digital health to use preventatively, right?
To prevent disease. diseases to progress. Ithink, and then, you know, AI is just an added
(15:18):
layer on top, so that truly was a moment whenI thought everybody, well, at least there's
70 million cases a year of ear, nose, and throat,what this platform may offer for other disease
areas where we don't have necessarily to gointo the doctor's office. So it was fascinating.
That's what brought us into this relationship.So talk to me about, we've talked about the
(15:45):
platform, where you're going, how it's offered.What has been your founder experience? All
right, you decided you took a head issue andwent back to the academic world. You really
wanted to become an entrepreneur, started thecompany. You won a competition out of UCLA,
I think business case. That's about the timeI met you, right? Talk to me about how the
(16:08):
journey has been in terms of resources, theresources that you have received, non-dilutive
funding, where are you on that path, and howmany healthcare systems are currently either
testing or looking into the use of Remy? That'sa loaded question. So talk to me about the
journey of financing and where the product isbeing used today. Absolutely. The journey is
(16:37):
long and very, full of support, you know, likethat's, that's a very upfront, you know, support
from my very early days where my MBA classmateskind of joined force on this project, you know,
as in its infancy, the UCLA, which, you know,venture accelerator, which was my, you know,
(17:00):
first founder, basically, we, we came out ofthe incubator, equipped to talk to the world
about our business case. And we got $33,000overnight from the business plan competition,
NAP business plan competition, and the earlyUCLA founders who just showing overwhelming
(17:23):
support. And we, in fact, we sold our product,first 25 units of our, you know, the digital
otoscope in the early days before we graduatedand gotten our first 100K of investor check
before we graduated. So, That was when we hadto fund the company because we need to find
(17:44):
a place to park the money as students part-time.So this was all full-time working, you know,
professionals part-time on a weekend going toMBA. And then I, the past just went really
interesting because of the pandemic. There wasan overwhelming uptake of virtual care. telehealth
(18:07):
services, institutions who are looking at thisnew modality of care. And all of a sudden it
was like, there were like 800 telehealth companiesin the US at some point and they were all of
our potential customers. We started co-callingthem and we're getting quite a bit of feedback.
In fact, many of them were working today. Weare working with Rocket Doctor, for example.
(18:30):
They've gotten, they've taken over half a millioncosts in the past couple of years. in terms
of virtual care services. They have sites atpharmacies and enabled stations of remote care
for people who are not accessing an office inperson. We are working with five school districts
(18:51):
in five different states and these are schooldistricts which leverage Remy for all of their
nursing rooms and introducing it to their studentsand parents. And we are working So we got very
strong non-dilutive funding. Actually earlydays we had seed funding from Platinum Play,
(19:12):
we have seed funding from United HealthcareAccelerator powered by Techstars. We had in-kind
support from CTIP, which is consortium for technologyand innovation in pediatrics, which is a large
innovation, hospital innovation consortia of,I would say that's growing, you know, at least
(19:36):
children's hospitals in the West and Midwest.They are providing enormous support, including
clinical collaborations, partnerships, grantingservices, regulatory guardrail, they're FDA-funded.
So now we're working with them in terms of aclinical study site in Lowery Children's in
(19:59):
Chicago, which is one of our primary sites testingout not only REMI, Otoscopes, but REMI-AI,
funded by the NIH, which is National Instituteof Health under the Small Business Innovation
and Research Grant at 3.5 million so far. Sooverall, there was overwhelming support also
(20:22):
from my state, I'm from Washington. So the LifeScience Institute of Washington also kind of
invested. And last but not least, I have tomention TIE, T-I-E, which is an angel funding
investor group that has given us enormous supportin terms of networking, in terms of fine tuning
(20:45):
the business plans, mentorship sessions. Itjust goes on. There are a few other investors
that we've been working with and overall we'veraised about... 4.75 million in non-delutive
funding, non-delutive, and then about anothera million in the deletive. So this has gone
into a clinical study phase where we're lookingat success outcomes in terms of technology
(21:12):
readiness, validation of performance of AI clearancethrough FDA as a class two device in a couple
of years. And then commercially. being ableto facilitate telehealth services already.
In addition to allowing the patients to seeand examine, we're enabling physicians remotely
(21:33):
examine and prescribe. And in the future, assistingboth the physician and the patients in terms
of prescription and receiving the accurate diagnosis.I'm looking at the, heading the all, I guess,
health care or the goals of health care today,the five aims, I believe, at least, you know,
(21:59):
cutting costs, improving quality, increasingaccess. Yeah, all of that. Amazing. And as
of today, so you've raised about 4.75 non dilutive,you're no longer raising dilutive funding until
you get through the clinical trials. When willthat be happening?
(22:25):
The study with Children's Hospital, Lurie Children'sis happening now actually, so it's underway.
And we are looking at in a year that we willhave some tangible, really good results in
terms of both the patient satisfaction, physiciansdemand and performance of the technology. And
(22:50):
what is the desired outcome? Because I got reallyexcited too, because this will be maybe not
the first, but one of the earliest FDA approvedClass II devices jointly with AI, correct?
Yes, that's a very hot topic right now in termsof the use of AI, the governance of AI, who
(23:21):
benefits from it and who pays for it. Ultimately,the AI that we are developing would be augmenting
the physician's decision making. in the meantime,directly benefiting the patients because they
can potentially receive pre-screening alertsand results faster and earlier before they
(23:43):
go or even while they're waiting for the physician'sappointments. So I would say that the outcome,
first and foremost, is the satisfaction of thepatient and the physicians. We would like to
work alongside with, you know, really key influencerin the medical field, medically validating
(24:07):
the performance and understanding the bias ofthe data. What would it be if we manipulate
bias at one way or the other in terms of thealgorithm development, right? Whether or not
we're collecting comprehensive population-baseddata, have we looked at cases of one way or
(24:29):
the other, you know, like in general, understandingthe algorithm development and the AI readout.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding aboutAI these days, right? People generalize it
to be generative. But AI has been a conceptthat is, you know, it was a different name
back then. It was data analysis, it was imaginganalysis, it was big data. For a while, the
(24:54):
algorithm is evolving, the capability is evolving.Um, the, I guess before one investor was asking
me, what, how do you handle data hallucinationor AI hallucination, which basically means
the AI is starting to give out fake results,um, based on ungrounded, um, facts or cheating
(25:16):
or lying to you. Um, and there's also anotherdifferent kind of AI, which was data driven
or validated. Uh, it won't tell you anythingthat you don't tell it. to, you know, it's
kind of limited or confined to a set of outcomes.For us, it is the former at this point, it's
less generative. We understand the ins and outsof the data that's going in and we know why
(25:40):
it's, you know, spinning out the results whilewe are the other on the outcome, on the output
side. I would say generative has got a lot ofpotential, but within health, healthcare, we
just need to catch up a lot. a lot faster forit to be widely applicable. Currently, is it
(26:00):
fair to say that Remy does have the largestdatabase of imaging within ENT? We are one
of the top in the world. The data size as theuse case grows, as the user base grows would
(26:23):
be growing. The data are aggregating and beingapplicable to algorithm training in an aggregation
basis or the identified anonymized. It's aninteresting part about the platform we're building
is the users can benefit and they know whattheir, they benefit early, you know, rather
(26:49):
than just being, benefiting from AI tellingthem what to do or assisting them. They're
benefiting from non-AI capabilities of the technology,facilitating their visits, shortening their
distance from their pain to a prescription,for example, or diagnosis. already, early on.
(27:10):
So we sort of de-risk the path to AI. And AIbecomes more of a later phase. But it is definitely
going to augment and assist the human journeyall in all. Excellent. And so while sticking
with the actual platform, and one of the thirdelements that I was particularly interested
(27:36):
in when we did invest from the Thai fund wasthe lack of the shortage of primary care physicians,
and specifically even pediatricians in the UnitedStates at this time. Talk to me a bit about
how as the tech, that platform of Remy buildsout, will this enable doctors will it substitute
(28:03):
doctors? What's the what's the how will thisaddress this? actually, it's tsunami that is
now on us of this shortage of doctors in sucha common disease area. Yeah, yeah. I definitely
think that it is a tsunami coming at us justfrom my experience of having to book out. My
(28:25):
wild child checkup is like four months out.I was like, by the time I get my son's appointment
for his 11 years old checkup, he's 12. Yeah,so just to give you. idea and then I got a
letter from my in the mail saying that I'm quitting,you know, my physician is quitting real life,
right. So I basically think that the AI willbe enabling the physicians to free up their
(28:53):
time, you know, from some non acute or issuesthat they so in the meantime, providing the
quality of care that patients need not to sacrificethe quality. to free up their time and become
more efficient in a way. Especially I can thinkabout ER avoidance, right? As a big use case
(29:15):
for Remy and referral pre-screening, right?Specialty referral pre-screening, both of those,
you know, are gonna free up quite a bit of our,you know, healthcare resources in terms of
leaving them for those acute cases and reallyneeding, you know, attention of the physicians.
Yeah. ER avoidance, basically you go, beforeyou go to the ER, while you're waiting in the
(29:40):
ER, you can perform a test or some sort of avisit with Remy using the Remy technology and
specialties per screening. Per screening couldbe like, while you're waiting for the specialist
appointments, which might be three, four monthsout, you can get the insights that you need
already. So both use cases, I think, will freeup quite a bit of our time. both from pediatricians,
(30:06):
nurses, mid-level providers, and specialists,EV doctors and specialists. Oh, Remy. Can you,
for my listeners, talk about where they canfind Remy today? Yeah, we are, we're in, on
Amazon, if you search Remy, we are website,remyhouse.com. We have a very convenient e-commerce,
(30:34):
shipping and handling protocols. So you shouldbe able to order on Friday, receive on Monday,
for example, or even faster than that. And thenwe are, we are at your clinic. We're maybe
at your clinic, maybe at your school district,we are working with a few of these. physicians,
clinics, there are logos on our website. Ifyou're one of the patients of the clinics,
(31:00):
you will get these at a discount, easily accessiblerate. And if you visit us at the exhibits,
in terms of commercial and marketing exposures,we are gonna be at Medica in Germany. That
is next week, November 11th to 14th. in Dusseldorfin Germany, we are part of the Washington State
(31:25):
Pavilion to exhibit there. And then we are publishing,you know, academically we are collaborating
with United, sorry, University of Southern California,USC in the speech and speech hearing and language
pathologist community, especially in collaborationwith USC. We are publishing a poster there
(31:52):
that's going to be December 5 to 7 in Seattle,Washington. Excellent. Let's switch to the
founder sandbox. I'm passionate about workingwith company owners on their purpose, their
scalability and their resilience. And I havea founder here in the sandbox with me today.
(32:18):
You're into what your sixth year of being aCEO. Tell me, what does resilience mean to
you? Jane. Oh my gosh, there are so many placesyou just have to hold on to. Hold on to the
idea. I think first and foremost, it's somethingthat you believe. There is some belief that
(32:43):
this is there. You know, like it's worth yourtime. It's worth the effort. It's worth. Keep
going. Right. So if you give up, it's probablyyou don't believe in it enough. Right. At some
point, because of, you know, all the failuresand problems that comes up. Yeah, don't get
(33:03):
me started. And then the belief is there. Ithink this is the future, the calling. It's
historically inevitable, right? If it's Remyor someone else, it should be done, right?
So that's my belief. And it's driven me everyday when I wake up. And then when I think about
(33:25):
resilience, I also think about when I'm fundraising,talking to investors, I get... 99% knows, right?
And then 1%, yes. But does that mean that I'mnot a good company, a good founder? No, it
just means we're not good fit, right? Like investorshave their own thesis, their goals to fill,
their speed, stage of company, check sizes,everything has to meet perfectly. And even
(33:52):
personality wise, those investors are gonnabe with you for a while. You trust each other.
So that's fundraising. And then just keep goingat it. And product wise, people say no to my
product. Oftentimes for various reasons, customersare always right. Again, does that mean that
(34:16):
I'm not a good product or services? No, themore I talk to them, the more nos I get, the
more yes I will get as well. So again, that'ssort of on the market research or understanding
the general target, you know, like as you'relooking for the product market fit, you know,
again, the keyword here is fit. And then thethird piece is, is just interpersonal, you
(34:42):
know, like, people, oftentimes, I mean, likeor dislike each other for a reason. And there's
nothing wrong with, you know, knowing knowingmore getting more so I have a very big mentor
community I reach out to them every time I needan answer and they're just all willing to help
(35:05):
that really helps with the mentality the resilienceas well you know I know I'm being supported
I know I know people love me like my productsare being loved my services are needed and
my mentors really support me so that's whatreally helps with the positivity yeah excellent
thank you for those four nuggets your own wordsabout what resilience means to you. Thank you
(35:30):
for talking about your product and believingin the future of telehealth with Remy or not.
It's very, very humble. And I loved, so thekey word is fit, right? Fit with your investor,
fit with your customers, what they're wanting,fit with the belief. Take that to the next.
(35:55):
question, fit or purpose driven? Are you fitfor purpose? What is purpose driven enterprise?
All right, so this goes beyond the resilienceto enterprise. Purpose driven, what's that
mean to you?
I think I started the journey caring about sortof mental house of women, you know, that's
(36:19):
like, you know, besides children's health, right.So, and I spent my whole journey, whole research
doing underserved community health diagnostics,right. So I've been working on, you know, the
the worst diseases you can think about HIV,tuberculosis, these pathology pathogens, right?
(36:45):
I was kind of in a class three bio lab, workingwhile I was pregnant, tuberculosis. So you
name it, right? Like any sort of crazy thingsthat happen to people, I have really strong
sort of desire to help them or address it. Alsosomething that's probably rooted in my family.
(37:13):
You know, like I don't talk about that a wholelot, but my dad came out of sort of this pure
poverty, right? Like he, my grandpa was a shepherdand he sort of, I guess long story short, my
dad was also kind of a, would be a beneficiaryof Remy. He had a perforated eardrum because
(37:33):
he listened to English radios too much beforehe came to UK for study, you know, as a first
generation college student from his family.So nowadays he still has a deaf ear, right,
like perforated eardrums. So I'm still thinking,you know, is there something I can do for him?
But overall, I felt as a, like, just to echowhere I started in the beginning, you know,
(38:00):
as a woman in the prime years of, you know,career. you know, where I wanted to be, you
know, I was earning good money, I was havinga good corporate job, I was caring for my child,
you know, which really kind of pampered my productivityat work. I think that's kind of an issue that
(38:21):
nobody really talks about because everybodywants top performers, you know, like you need
to be working when your child is sick or somethinglike that. But, you know, overall, it's kind
of issue that's there and near to my heart aswomen and children's health, especially for
underserved communities. Thank you. Thank you,Jane. Wow. Scalable growth. Take that resilience
(38:48):
plus your purposefulness and scale it. Is ittruly what the platform will become scalable?
What does scalable mean to you?
(39:13):
how, you know, help the physicians in a way.You will, I will scale really well if I can,
you know, bring benefits to ease their work,ease their stress at work. There are patients
coming in, they're getting text messages fromthe patient, hey, what's going on with me if
I can see this image? I was like, that's crazy.Like, how do you respond to that, right? Like
(39:34):
in a way that polite and shows that you're ahuman, you care, but if you get 300 of those
a day, how do you... How do you do that? Andthen they say, oh, they send them to my charts.
Again, that's losing or like the patient justwaiting. How do you address this mismatch of
(39:55):
having physicians providing care at top qualityand efficiency while being a human to the patients
and then the patients are satisfied and gettingthe needs met. I'm trying to make my story.
or resonating with physicians that they canbe, just to give you an example, right? A physician
(40:18):
mentioned that 50% of my, this was a specialistwho said 50% of the patients who came to me
should not have been in my office because Iwanted to help those who can, they need me
for a procedure most of the time. If they cometo me for diagnostics confirmation, I could
(40:38):
have done that. with their information gatheredin front of me already, before they come. So
that's kind of the point. And it's almost likewhenever they're open or free, aggregating
physicians time across all these physicianswho have time, whenever they have time to care
(40:59):
for patients aggregated across all these issues,whenever they have an issue, we're trying to
build sort of a bridge the aggregation wouldreally help address the problem of mismatch
of asynchronous visits or waiting and not gettingthe answers. I don't know if that's too abstract.
(41:24):
No, I get it. And you know what? Kind of alongthe lines of purpose, your purpose, caring
about mental health for mothers, you also bythe adoption of Remy Health in settings with
the patients using it from home. or being screenedearly on, you're clearly affecting the mental
(41:45):
health of our caregivers, our physicians. Andwe do know that tsunamis here, there's a high
level of attrition. Doctors actually just quitting.And if through tech enabled or AI powered,
intelligent aggregation of data informs thedecisions to reduce number of visits. or have
(42:11):
them more productive while in the setting, theclinical setting can move the needle, so be
it. So thank you, Jane. This has been absolutelyan amazing interview. I have one last question.
Did you have fun in the sandbox today? Yes.Absolutely, Randa. I really, really appreciate
(42:37):
the opportunity. It's wonderful to every timeI talk to you, it's wonderful, but especially
interesting when we're like in this settingand you know, podcasting to more to a greater
audience and really appreciate what you do forthe community. Thank you. Thank you. So to
my listeners, if you'd like this episode withJane Tseng, CEO of Remy, resilience and scalable
(43:05):
and purpose-driven life story, as well as theorigin story, as well as the product. Remy,
sign up for the monthly release where foundersand business owners, corporate directors and
professional service providers provide theirown stories on how to build with strong governance,
(43:28):
a resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companyto make profits for good. Sign off for this
month. Thank you for joining us.
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