September 4, 2024 • 48 mins
Curious about the journey from biomedical engineering to successful entrepreneurship? Our guest Jinesh Patel, a Texas A&M University alumnus, shares his inspiring story of Co-founding UptimeHealth in 2018. Discover how he educated venture capital investors on the critical importance of biomed technicians, securing essential support to revolutionize equipment management with innovative software solutions. This episode is a must listen.
Don't miss out on the upcoming Dental Fix/Uptime Services Summit in Nashville from October 3rd to 6th—an essential event for anyone in the dental repair and HTM industry. Register now and use discount code BRYANT5 to get a 5% discount. Click the link to secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/e9UMHgFF
We are immensely grateful to our partners— College of Biomedical Equipment Technology, A.M. BICKFORD, INC., UptimeServices, PM BIOMEDICAL and Talent Exclusive—for their support in making this podcast possible. Their dedication to advancing the Healthcare Technology Management industry is truly commendable. For more information about their contributions and services, please visit their websites.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to another exciting episode of HTM
On the Line, where we explorethe world of healthcare
technology management and theinnovators shaping the future.
I'm your host, bryant HawkinsSr, and today I have the
pleasure of speaking withsomeone who's not just a
(00:22):
visionary but a true problemsolver in the HTM industry
Janesh Patel, the co-founder ofUptime Health.
From leading a rapidly growingcompany to revolutionizing how
outpatient care and dentalpractices manage their equipment
, janesh's journey is filledwith lessons of persistence,
(00:46):
innovation and a relentlesscommitment to making a
difference.
Whether you're an HTMprofessional, an entrepreneur or
someone passionate about thefuture of healthcare, this
episode is for you.
So get ready to be inspired aswe unpack the story behind
(01:08):
Uptown Health, its impact on theindustry and the exciting
Dental Summit coming thisOctober.
Welcome to another episode ofHTM On the Line.
(01:35):
I have the privilege of havinga special guest today, mr Janesh
Patel from Uptime Health.
How are you doing today, janesh?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Pretty good.
Brian, Appreciate you having meon.
I like listening to what youhave to say about the HTM
industry and looking forward tocontributing here.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh, man, appreciate you.
So before we get started, wegot to ask the generic question
Tell everyone about you, give usa little background about you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Let's see, I'm nothing special.
I grew up in Texas.
I grew up in Houston, texas,and I went to Texas A&M for my
undergrad and grad degrees inbiomedical engineering.
After that got my MBA from A&Mas well and then went into
clinical engineering managementand I went to the Seton
Healthcare System and I was partof the Trimedics family and I
(02:21):
see that you're with them rightnow too so I managed that system
, was their manager, did thatfor a little bit.
After a little while, one of mybest friends came and asked me
if I wanted to build a companywith him and I left that
industry for a little bit oftime to go build a company in a
different space and we'll getinto that in a little bit if we
(02:41):
need to.
And then I found my way back tobiomed because once I learned
how to build a company, therewere some problems and some
interesting things I wanted tohelp solve in the HTM industry
and I wanted to use all theskills I learned on how to build
a company and do it for theindustry that we both love, and
so I created Uptime Health.
That was back in 2018.
Today we're a rapidly growingcompany that serves the
(03:05):
outpatient healthcare market andthat's anyone like medical,
dental, veterinary, eye care,anyone that does outpatient care
, and we help them manage theirequipment, find and write
biomeds that are certified,trained, help train biomeds as
well, and we can get into that.
But I've been loving it eversince and I'm happy to be back
in the industry man.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's great.
Welcome back.
Yeah, don't be leaving us andcoming back like that.
I know I should.
Now uptime health.
That's awesome.
You created this company.
Now, what are some of thebiggest challenges you faced in
your early days of Uptime Healthand how did you overcome them?
(03:48):
Because I know you mentionedyou started a company that
wasn't related to the HTMindustry, but now that you
created Uptime Health, I'm surethere were some challenges in
the early stages.
Can you share one of thechallenges and what did you do
to overcome it?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh my God how long you got so many times.
Pick a good one, yeah.
Pick a good one, okay.
I think a good one that everyone of your listeners might want
to hear about is how do youbuild an innovative new company
that's venture capital backable,which means you have to be sexy
.
Exciting, fast growth in theold industry of biomedical
(04:24):
engineering and probably one ofthe least sexy things that
happens in a healthcare building.
So I think part of thestruggles at the beginning was
getting people to listen andunderstand about why we need to
help improve, grow and putattention on the biomedical
community.
And that was tough.
You know, when we go out for aventure capital because we built
a software platform and we givethem that here whenever, when
(04:47):
you'd like.
But it's not easy and softwarerequires a lot of upfront
investment, so we had to go getsome VC backing.
And when you're going upagainst these people that are
doing these AI projects andimaging you know these.
You know patient workflow,patient communication, patient
(05:07):
workflow, patient communication.
There's all this stuff thatthese VC investors and what they
call the health IT industrylike to invest in.
And then you see us coming inand saying what about the guys
and girls who take care of theequipment that are living in the
basements of these buildings,that without them we don't have
healthcare, because we don'thave working machines, we don't
have calibrated machines.
I was like, why are we notgetting excited about improving
this part of the industry?
(05:27):
And that took a little bit oftime to convince people to
listen and understand, and Ican't tell you how many times
people are like well, wait, whatdid they do today and why?
Why do you need to exist andand why is this a problem, you
know?
And so I think the struggleswere just all about people who
aren't privy to our worldlearning about why our world is
so important.
(05:48):
And it was actually fun to talkabout because I got to educate
people and see their eyes openup and say I never thought about
it that way, I never consideredhow important these people are
to the health care ecosystem andto me.
That created the sense of justpride to continue, just to go to
as many meetings, even though Igot a bunch of no's at the
beginning and that's what feltimpossible.
But then, when you got yourfirst yes, then you realize
(06:09):
people do care and people willcare, and then you got the next
yes, the next, yes.
So I think just getting thatinitial, I guess, buy in from
the people who are going to backyou with capital and believe in
you, because, at the end of theday, building a company is not
easy.
It's going to be a lot oflessons learned, a lot of trial
(06:30):
and error and somebody needs tostick by.
You think it thin through theups and downs and unless they
believe in you and what you'rebuilding, that's tough for them.
But I got investors to do thatand I'm happy to say that they
are so bought in that we're someof the you know, we're one of
their golden child kind ofcompanies where they just love
what we're doing and think it'samazing man, that's, that's
amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're right about people hearing what we do, but
actually believing in it is thechallenge, because even in the
hospitals, you can go out thereand fix one of the most
expensive pieces of equipment ctunit yeah and they know they
need that ct unit.
You get it up and running andit just be thank you, but let it
(07:07):
be down and the whole worldcomes to an end.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No, it's not even thank you.
It's where were you?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yes, that's amazing.
Now let's just switch it alittle, because I know you
mentioned you do a lot of workin the dental industry.
That's amazing how you eventhough dental repair is
something that people probablydon't consider by a man which it
is to us, we know that butyou've truly put the dental
(07:36):
repair industry because it does,to me, fall under healthcare
technology management, but itlooks like Uptime Health has put
technology into the dentalservice industry.
From what I'm listening and beenreading over lately, and what
could you say that?
Well, let me see.
(08:00):
How can I say this?
How would you say that UptimeHealth leveraged technology to
improve?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
dental service repair .
Yeah, if you don't mind, I wantto take a half step back and
just let people know who firststarted this company.
We actually were going afterthe outpatient medical part of
the industry, so we werestarting in urgent cares and
ASCs and dialysis clinics,because what we realized was
there was a gap from how peopletake care of equipment in the
(08:23):
big health systems in thosebuildings and how they take care
of it in these tinier buildings, you know where there's maybe
just a doctor, a nurse, someassistants, you know some PAs,
but there's nobody that knowsthe equipment inside and out
like a biomed engineer or atechnician.
And what we wanted to do iscreate a software that helped
automate a little bit of thosefunctions and understanding like
(08:45):
, hey, you have these machines,here's how you take care of them
.
Even if they have contractswith outside vendors, they're
not in the office checking tosee if people are doing those
more daily, weekly kind ofcalibrations or compliance
issues.
They hope they do them, butI'll tell you with some complete
certainty that most of themdon't.
And so we wanted to create aproduct that helped kind of
(09:05):
alleviate that mystery of like,how do I take care of these
machines to the best of myability.
And how do I make sure I'm onthe planned maintenance
schedules I need to be on?
How do I hold my techniciansaccountable to come in at the
right time, even though they doa good job?
But at the end of the day, it'sthe device owner's
responsibility to make ithappens.
So that was the idea is, let'stake what we do at the clinical
level of the health system andgive them a software version of
(09:29):
me to help these urgent caresand these ASCs that we had in
our health network that didn'thave really good compliance or
equipment management.
So when we started that, welaunched our first product into
market in 2019, in November.
It took us about a year and ahalf to get our ideas straight,
to get our first MVP built, soour minimum viable product, get
some funding to get that done.
(09:50):
And when we launched inNovember 2019, we actually
started getting, you know,urgent care signing up every
month, a few of them, and thenthe next month doubled the
amount and the next monthdoubled the amount.
And then we even had a pilotwith AmSearch, you know, inked
to go into the second largestsurgical group at the time to
help them manage their equipmentat a network level.
(10:10):
And then when COVID hit, that'swhen our market went away.
Even though we could help theseclinics manage their
ventilators a little bit betterand even make sure that if
they're broken like how to getthem repaired by local people,
people are trying to deploysoftware in a firefight.
They're looking for PPE andjust anything that's going to
(10:30):
help them get to the next day.
So we had to make a pivot.
We almost died a couple oftimes in that COVID era because
you know, every peak and valleygot you excited, then it got you
defeated.
You know when the case countswent down, we started growing as
a company before we pivoted,and then second wave, then third
wave, then Omnicron, then you,then it just kept feeling like
this is never going to end.
So we had to pivot industriesand then we realized as our
(10:53):
product was really well builtfor anyone that owns medical
equipment that doesn't have anin house expert like a
technician or an engineer andwhen you think about that
definition, it's dental offices,eye care, veterinary, optometry
, med, spa, even you know dental.
(11:15):
It goes into tons of differentkinds of industries and we
picked dentistry at the timebecause we saw it was a giant
industry that I think nobodyreally talks about.
There's over 120,000 dentalpractices.
Can you believe that there'sonly 10,000?
Or 10 to 15,000 urgent careclinics, depending on what
(11:38):
article you're reading?
So it's like 10 times as manydental offices as there are
urgent cares.
And I feel like I see an urgentcare every block, especially in
Texas when I was growing up, andso that kind of was an eye
opening moment to me, which islike if there's that many
clinics, that means that manypeople get care in these kinds
of buildings.
And we all know oral healthcare is a gateway to other kinds
(11:59):
of diseases and medicalproblems and if they need our
solution let's go see if theywant to buy it.
And that's when we started in adentistry and went heads down
and we started growing.
So, even though we kind of cameout of that COVID slump, we
found so much footing andtraction in dentistry.
We stayed in there and werealized how far behind, even
medical they were when it comesto the kinds of trainings,
(12:19):
education, equipment managementthat they do.
And that's why we wanted tostay there, because they had a
bigger problem to solve and weneeded to make sure those people
had their help before we kindof continue on to the next
vertical.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Man, that's awesome.
You mentioned there's like over120,000.
Yeah, Now, I just Googled whileyou were talking.
Man, there's over 1 millionworldwide.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
That's what you're doing man, yeah, yeah, just
getting started.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know this is just the warm up phase.
Yeah, it's amazing, and I wasjust thinking too while you were
speaking.
What about orthopedic clinics?
Because there's plenty ofequipment there and I guarantee
you there's no software.
We have software because wetake care of our orthopedic and
they have a lot of equipment inthere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
So you got dermatology.
You got PT oncology clinics,these dialysis clinics Like it
really was a earth shattering inmy mind list that I was
creating Cause I just never,ever did that exercise before,
as weird as that sounds.
And then there's a ton ofpeople who need this kind of
solution.
Let's go figure the biggest oneand go tackle that.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, you would think dialysis would have that.
I remember I did dialysis wayback, but that was before EMR
systems.
We used to have the manilafolders in the cabinets and,
like each equipment was a pieceof was like a patient, each
medical piece of medicalequipment.
So that's how we maintained andit was all handwritten.
(13:43):
So it's amazing to be a 2018,2020, and you have places that
don't have any type of softwareto manage their equipment and
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Like you said, dialysis clinics actually do a
good job because they're suchinvasive machines and the care
that they provide, but at theend of the day it's more about
how do we take care of it.
And the manual part was thepart that was tough, because
think about the person who knowsthat manual system.
What if they get sick or theygo on PTO or they get hit by a
car?
You know, unfortunately, butlike then a lot of that
(14:17):
infrastructure just crumbles andthat's why having a software
tool helps just make thosemoments simpler, especially for
something as serious as dialysismachine, yeah, even, even some
of the RO systems.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
When we're talking about dialysis, I have a couple
of friends that's in theindustry and they'll tell me how
.
The water system company willcome in there and they'll give
them a service report, but itdoesn't have a serial number on
it, it doesn't have a modelnumber so they're like, well,
what is this?
And some secretary typed it upin the office and sent it to
them.
So it's obviously they don'thave technology to put out the
(14:51):
proper service report, soprobably a need there too.
But that's just amazing thatyou just I guess your HTM
background probably gave youthat to look for that type of
thing in the industry.
I'm surprised there are notmany other companies out there
doing the same thing or they maybe, I don't know.
I just heard you.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But, brian, you're right there.
That's the thing is, when Ilooked around, I didn't go out
trying to build uptime healthbecause I was looking to get
rich.
I couldn't find a solution formy urgent care clinics or even
my family.
Some of them own their ownpractices practices, right, and
that's kind of part of how itall came to be, which was there
wasn't a solution.
We have, obviously, theseaccruance and these nivolos and
(15:33):
we have all these other greatcms tools that are purpose-built
for technicians and runningtheir day-to-day, but there
weren't a lot of ones that werepurpose-built for the device
owner being the primary driverof maintenance management and in
the outpatient setting, becausethe clinical engineers aren't
in the buildings, right, theyneed a tool to help them better
(15:53):
manage it, because they can'trely on me or you or somebody
else, and so I couldn't find onethat was purpose built in that
capacity and that was easy touse, and that's why I don't
believe we have any realcompetitors at this moment.
I mean, I hope more come along,because I love iron, sharpening
iron, I love competition, butuntil then, my goal is just to
solve the problem.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what you're saying is so true because I can
recall working for a company andit was an imaging company and
they wanted us to use theirsoftware for the biomed work but
it was completely difficultbecause they didn't have any
type of codes we can use for ourerrors, because all the codes
was for imaging equipment.
So it was real difficult forthe biomed to do a work order
(16:38):
because they didn't have thesection for us to put our stuff
into.
So I can see where you canreally tweak it to work for the
dental or the urgent cares.
And man, that's amazing Justsitting there thinking about it,
because you can fine tune it ifit needs to be and it's not
just stuck in stone.
You can go in there and fix itto where it can work for any
(16:59):
type of practice, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it doesn't change depending on what
industry you're in.
It's all built very flexible soyou can make it what you need
it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And does the software ?
Does it have a name for thesoftware we're talking about?
Is there a name you have for it?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So we call it Uptime Controller Because we always
know that was the number onemetric for us, and so I called
it Uptime Controller because ithelps you control that.
And, to be honest, we don't saythat name enough.
Internally we always call itUptime Health Software, but
that's technically what it'scalled and that's technically
the URL that the web app'shosted on.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Uptime Controller that's a nice name for it.
Man, it's just amazing to seemy brain is going so fast
because I'm looking at it andthinking, wow, this is so great
Because, as you mentioned, thereare urgent cares.
I kid you not, I'm justthinking in my head.
Right now there's three urgentcares in a half a mile radius.
I ride down the street rightnow from my home.
(17:58):
So, all those places didn'thave any type of software to
manage their equipment.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
No, they would use excel sheets, paper.
But here's a test for you, andthis is how I realized the
problem was so bad.
You know how, like one of thebiggest things that we need to
manage is, as biomeds was justan accurate equipment roster,
you had those issues wheneveryou had to go.
Just do the inventory checksand we have these.
(18:27):
All these do not locates andwhatnot.
So like if you go to an urgentcare today and you ask them do
you have a list of everything inyour office?
They cannot produce one.
Wow, not even if it'sinaccurate.
They just don't have it.
And so it's like how can youmanage what you don't know?
You own own, and that's kind ofpart of that's half the problem
(18:49):
is they're just like well, Ihave a guy that comes in every
every year that takes care of mystuff and if it breaks I'll oh,
you know, they'll fix it.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's like, well, that's not management, that's
like break, fix mentality, kindof stuff yes, and if you throw
in a dental industry theequipment they have, oh my god,
my God, you could lose ahandpiece and not even know it's
gone.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, that's part of the problem.
They're like I don't know whatwalks out the door any given day
.
We just know we keep buyinghandpieces and I was like, yes.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
The service guy may be taking it out with him, who
knows, yeah, accidentally, orbringing in some from another
place.
I mean that's amazing, amazing,wow, that's eye-opening.
Have there been any expansionsto Uptime Health since you
created it, or founded, rather?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So one of the biggest things wedid this year in 2024, april,
we bought a company calledDental Whale.
As I was mentioning, we'regetting really deep into
dentistry and we kind of have abig market there or market
capture there.
But we realized was, as peoplewere trying to dispatch service,
because you can dispatchservice to our products, so not
(19:53):
only can you manage what you own, make sure you're doing the
maintenance compliance of whatyou own, but you can dispatch
service either for pm or forjust any kind of repair,
unplanned down event through thetool.
And what we also try and do iswe create like a marketplace for
people to find localtechnicians that they might not
know about, to get servicefaster.
(20:14):
There's a lot of times wherethey might have a big contract
with somebody else but becausewe all know the biomed shortage,
it might be a week beforesomebody gets out there.
And being able to find a surgeresource on our marketplace is
really important to get downtimeat an absolute minimum.
So we're all about uptimeanyway.
Shape form and in the dentalindustry it is crazy, brian, I
(20:37):
did not know this, but there'snot a lot of technicians and the
ones that do exist.
They predominantly belong tothese big companies called Henry
Schein, patterson, benco andthen a few that are independent
in these mid-tier groups.
But I also found this groupthat was called Dental Fix and
(20:58):
it's a call it, a franchisedbased technician organization.
But they also had otherindependents that worked for
them.
But it was truly an independentservice network with the Henry
Shines, patterson's and theother distributors.
They would only really servicethe equipment that they sold you
, you know traditional.
So.
But this independent fleet wasjust saying we'll service
(21:20):
whatever is there.
We're just trying to help outand get revenue and also do
repairs.
And I realized that that was avery valuable piece to growing
this business inside ofdentistry.
So we bought that company so wecould train them.
We can make sure that weactually grow the number of
independents that exist in thatworld.
We actually started a school.
(21:41):
You know how you have to go tothe CBET or like some of these.
You know training programs.
I know the Air Force has abunch like, but to get the
certification of being a biomedyou actually have to go through
like a school and a training andget a certificate.
In the dental world today thatis not a thing the way that
these technicians exist indentistry is they usually either
(22:04):
learn on the job because, youknow, their brother is a dentist
and they just kind of come inand fix things and they'll
figure it out and they're verymechanically inclined and they
and they become a technicianthat way, or they've worked for
one of these bigger distributorsand went through one of their
local schools as part of youknow, henry schein or patterson
or benko.
They might have their owntraining school only for their
(22:25):
own technicians.
So there's no way for somebodywho is curious or who is
interested in becoming a dentalequipment repair technician to
get that kind of educationoutside of working for one of
the big guys.
So what we decided was to buildthe first dental equipment
repair technician school in theUnited States and we're doing
(22:48):
this in conjunction with theCBET program, so the College of
Biomedical Equipment Technologygroup out of San Antonio, texas,
and we're getting thisaccredited, you know, through
Amy.
All of this to say is, our hopeis that more people who are
interested in repairing maybedental equipment that they
wouldn't have access to beforeor they wouldn't have that
(23:08):
access to the training or evenparts or anything like that.
We're trying to unlock that sohopefully we can incentivize
more dental equipment repairtechnicians, because that world
is actually more strenuous thanthe medical world.
As hard as that is to believe,it's just because there's too
many barriers to entry there.
So that's why we bought thatcompany, because it's helping us
solve a problem, but it alsohelps us build this school,
(23:31):
because it gave us a lot ofcredibility, and look at what
the trainings we've done withthis kind of company before.
They built these independentfleets all on their own.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Now let's professionalize it man, that's
amazing and once again you cancan see your HTM background
coming into play.
So you, technically, you keepcoming back home.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
You may go over here, but you keep crossing back over
.
Oh yeah, I'm here to help.
I'll put it that way Whateverthis industry needs, I'm here to
help.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean getting uptime services no doubt probably even
expands an impact of reach onuptime health in the industry,
because working hand in hand, Imean that's just, it's like a
great match almost.
I say that you two doing thisand then you couple in the
school CBET, which is a greatorganization.
I'm very familiar with the teamover there.
(24:24):
I'm very familiar with the teamover there.
Now can you I know it's notbeen too long since you
purchased these dental companies, but can you share a success
story, maybe, or a case studywhere uptime services have
bought uptime health and uptimeservices has improved an outcome
, or with one of your clientsthat you can probably share?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, sure.
So I mean in the, just like inmedical, in the dental world
there are some pieces ofequipment that can shut down a
whole office or shut down theoperations of a of an office.
So if, if, if you ever work indentistry which my plug is I
highly recommend you check outsome education we have If you do
want to work in dentistry to toget you some access there.
(25:04):
But if you come across acompressor failure or a vacuum
failure, compressors and vacuumsare the things that drive.
You know the suctions in the,in the water lines that run
through all the dental chairs.
So you know when you get thatwhirring sound or you get that,
so someone's running a drill orthey're spraying that water or
sucking out that liquid in yourmouth.
(25:26):
All those are driven by asingle unit in the back office,
in the mechanical room.
So if that goes down, all thechairs are done.
They can't do dentistry.
So there's one time a client andI won't name names here to kind
of protect whoever, but at theend of the day we came to the
rescue where their compressorwas down and it wasn't in a very
(25:47):
easy to reach area and theirtechnician that they
traditionally rely on which youcan dispatch anybody through our
software, whether it's ourtechnicians or your own or your
brother, who knows.
But they couldn't come out forat least three to four days, and
every day in that dental officeis about $10,000 of production.
So that's $30,000, right thatout the window.
(26:11):
And it's not just that missedrevenue, it's also the fact that
they couldn't take care of thatpatient.
So the patient suffers, theyhave to back up all their
schedule, so they have to stillreschedule these patients, even
if the patient wants to comeback to them.
Who knows, maybe they lost themforever at that point.
So it creates all this demandpinch.
(26:32):
It creates a lot of burden forthe operations team.
So it's always a nightmareevent.
But we were able to find one ofour technicians that was local,
get out there in three hours.
They had a replacement unit intheir van fixed.
It got them back up and runningand so we basically saved two
(26:54):
and a half days of downtime.
From what they were quoted, andto them we're their heroes,
right Like, and that's all Iwant to do is is help those
kinds of moments either lessenor create a quicker solve than
what they're provided, becauseif they're technicians I know I
can get out there later today.
Great like, that is the answerI want.
I don't want to be the heroevery time, but if, if you need
one, I want to be that personthat's great.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Now I love that story , by the way, also.
Now how can you I mean, it'syou consistently doing great
things but how can you ensurethat uptime services will not
slack?
You mentioned that there is notype of compliance in place, but
how do you ensure that uptimeservices consistently delivers
(27:38):
high quality service to yourclients?
Do y'all have anything in placewhere you can make sure your
standard is being met orexceeded and it's not going
backwards?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Part of this school is to helpensure our technicians are
always educated and trained andhave access to a knowledge base,
even an online learning system,creating a community where
people can support each otherwith questions.
Part of it is just creatingthat core community that cares a
lot about each other withquestions.
Part of it is just creatingthat core community that cares a
lot about each other and caresa lot about the clients is going
(28:10):
to create a strength that willbe hard to disrupt and go
backwards and regress in any way.
The other thing we're doing iswe're putting out surveys, like
at the end of every right nownot the end of every, but right
now we do a spot survey where wekind of ask clients how was
that service event, how did youfeel about that cap?
We've done better and we'retrying to get that real time
(28:31):
feedback.
We're also going to start in thevery near future put like in
real time surveys about specificevents, Like how did that
repair go for you?
There was a technician,knowledgeable, you know all
these things to make sure we'recapturing any kind of person or
thing that might be notupholding our standards and
(28:52):
correcting it in real time byjust adding the software, really
just the accountability reviewthat we're trying to build out,
and so that's really how we doit.
Think about it like your Uberdriver, essentially, like you
can rate them each time.
I'm not saying that that's howwe're going to scold you or like
monitor you, but at the end ofthe day gives you a good
indicator on average.
If this person is consistentlyscoring low, that's not a good
(29:14):
sign.
There are going to be timeswhere somebody scores low
because the person the doctor,the whatever is just having a
rough day and they're taking itout on their technician, which I
know happens a ton.
So we're not saying like it's aone-time thing, but if we see
it as a trend, then there mightbe something more there.
So that's kind of how we'redoing it.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Great.
I love the case study youmentioned about how you were
able to help this client out inthree hours.
That's unbelievable, even forthe biomed world.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
That's why I was like that, and so it's one where I'm
like okay, I remember that one,that's why I was like that.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And so it's one where I'm like, okay, I remember that
one no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, I think one is we will service anybody.
We're not here to just servicewho we sold equipment to or who
our existing clients are thatuse our software.
If you need help with service,you can dispatch our service
team, whether you give them aphone call or you do it through
our system.
That's one thing that sets usapart.
We really do care about ourtechnicians, and I think some
(30:22):
other groups not all I'veactually.
I shouldn't say this because Ithink it's a bad
characterization, but I think alot of times the sales reps or
whatever in these biggerdistributor companies feel like
their service team is a goodweapon to say like here's why
you need to buy our stuffbecause we have a great service
team.
But it's really they'reutilizing them as like a tool in
a pond to like get morebusiness done for us.
(30:44):
We care about the service team.
We don't have to sell theequipment.
We just want to say we havegreat service people and you
should utilize them.
I think it's that extra levelof care and the fact that you
have somebody like me and myteam, who really have lived and
breathed this space, buildingthis company and this product.
It gives us an extra likereason to get things done, or
(31:07):
allows us to see beyond just themetrics, because we're not here
driving, you know, an equipmentsales company.
We're driving a uptime company.
I think that's really thepositioning that we take in
every decision we make.
That makes us a little bitdifferent.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Now, what are your long-term goals for Uptime
Health and Uptime Services?
I don't know if you're going togive away any secrets, but how
do you plan to achieve thosegoals?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
My goals are never secret because, again, I'll
invite the competition, becauseI want more people to care and
innovate in this space.
You know what I mean.
And so I just want, I believe,I'll do it better.
So I'm not, it's not a cockything, it's just a we, we care
and we're already doing a thingand I believe for me, my future
(31:51):
and the company's future and ourteam's future, all is about
getting this kind of technologyinto the hands of more people
and improving the lives of eventhe technicians who are working
with us and how they support ourclients.
So one of them is want toexpand into different verticals.
We talked about all the kindsof clients that we can work with
.
Well, we want to go back in themedical world, we want to go
(32:14):
into eye care, we want to gointo veterinary, want to expand
our software into thoseindustries industries and then
eventually do what we did indentistry with our technician
network, with our school,everything else to build out the
industry and the ecosystem.
And do that in eye care, dothat in veterinary, do that in
medical.
Now, medical already has apretty good infrastructure, but
how can we support more peopleapplying or becoming biomed
(32:38):
technicians?
Like what do we need to do?
Do we need to lobby thegovernment?
I'll go do that.
Do we need to get biomedtechnician as part of a STEM
curriculum program, like just togive it more visibility for
these kids coming out of highschool?
I will do that.
So I think part of that is myvision is expanding the
technician base, but expandingthe verticals that we operate in
.
The other thing that we'regoing to do is we're working
(33:02):
closer with industries andgetting closer to the machines
themselves.
So in the dental world right now, we're actively integrating
connected equipment to ourequipment management platform,
and this isn't about patientinformation.
This is all about equipmentinformation.
Is it overheating?
How many cycles did it do?
What error codes and logs andfaults is it recording?
(33:24):
And if our product ismonitoring and managing those
one, we can create trend linesand we can actually see things
happen before they happen and wecan activate a service tech to
maybe replace a part that'sabout to fail, because we see
the voltage increasing and weknow, because we work directly
with the manufacturer, what thatmeans and how to fix it, or if
(33:44):
it's error code abc and errorcode abc can actually be
resolved with a reboot exercise.
What we can do is we can serveup because we now know this
because we're working with theactual, you know manufacturers
we can serve up a task in ourproduct, send that to the office
manager or that device managerthat's local, and say do a
reboot exercise and we'll clearthe code and we'll put you back
(34:05):
up and running so it doesn'tcreate an urgent request for a
technician to come out forsomething that they, you know,
had to give up a more urgentrequest because it was a little
further away.
They can go take care of bothpeople because one solved their
own problem and they got to takecare of another client at the
same time.
Or if it's, you know, knowingwhat part to have in hand, if we
(34:26):
know the error code 1, 2, 3 iscomponent you know X Y Z that
needs to be replaced.
Well, we will put that in theservice ticket saying it's error
code.
This here's the data points.
Bring part X Y Z in hand, justin, because it's 95% going to
solve your problem.
So it's going to create lesstruck rolls, it's going to make
more first time fixes.
(34:46):
It's going to make you moretimes the hero for your clients,
you know, for the techniciansout there.
So it's about automating themanagement and the maintenance
side of that world with theequipment data itself and
working directly with themanufacturers.
That's one thing that we'redoing that nobody else is doing.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
What advice you can give to, say, an entrepreneur
who wants to start his companyin the HTM industry.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I advise a lot of companies today and the number
one piece of advice I giveeveryone before they even start
is know your why.
Is why money?
Is your why to solve a problem?
Or is your why?
You know you want to accomplishsomething and you don't know
what that something is, but youjust want to accomplish
something, whatever.
(35:30):
That why is?
If you don't care and care isnot part of your why you're
going to have the hardest timein the world building your
company, because there's goingto be so many obstacles that
you're going to run through andthere's going to be so many
times you want to quit.
And if you don't have that carepart behind you, you're going
to quit.
So I would say really trulyunderstand what you're trying to
(35:53):
build in the why behind it,write it down, think about it,
keep writing it down every day,expand on it and if it's still
the same, why?
After about a month, then jumpin, because by then you'll know
a little bit more every time.
You think about it, like, howdo I get to that why?
How are other ways toaccomplish it?
Because there's no cookiecutter way to accomplish any
(36:14):
goal.
We see other people buildcompanies and we see how they do
it, but it doesn't mean that'show you have to do it.
So, as long as you care, youcan find the different avenues.
Whether it's building asoftware tool, whether it's
building a product widget,whether it's building you know,
we're just building a servicescompany.
Whatever it might be, as longas your why is consistent, your
pathway will start unlockingitself.
(36:35):
And just keep that as yourNorth Star and it will help
guide all your decisions.
And just keep that as yourNorth Star and it'll help guide
all your decisions.
I know it's a very vague answer, but it helps a lot of people
and it turns a lot of peopleaway from even building a
company, because it's going tobe a lot of struggle and money
without any reward and you'regoing to hate it.
So you'd rather hate it butlove what you're doing
underneath it while you'restruggling getting it done.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So that's my biggest advice for anybody.
Oh, my God, man, because I wishwe was on camera.
You would have been seeing me,hands going up, clapping,
because I tell everyone that youhave to know what your why is.
When I started doing thispodcast, I kid you not, the only
views I had was me and I waslike man, but I enjoy this
industry so much yeah, I don'teven look at analytics anymore,
and it just started slowlygrowing.
And they'll ask me well, man,what's the drive?
(37:27):
It's my why.
I mean, it's why I do it andthat's man.
I live by that, honestly.
That's my.
You don't have a why, then youwill fail at anything in this
world.
And, man, that was amazing.
You hit it right on the head.
If you don't have a why,because a lot of people think
they're going to get rich, yeah,no, it's not that easy.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That's not a good why you can go get rich being a gas
station owner.
Go do that.
You know what I mean.
You can get rich in so manyways.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
So, because it's going to require some hard work
and hard work works.
There's no shortcut.
Some people think there's ashortcut.
No, and it's your why and thatwill wake you up every morning.
You won't need an alarm clockto get up.
You, your why will wake you up.
Yeah, that's, that's amazing.
I loved, I love, love thatanswer reflecting on your
(38:20):
journey.
I mean, you've been in the HTMindustry, got out of the HTM
industry, but let's just look atthe uptime health, uptime
services.
If you can go back in the handsof time with the knowledge you
have today, what do you thinkyou wish you could have known
when you first started UptimeHealth that you know now?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Oh my gosh, wow, I think I don't know.
That's a great answer.
That's a great question becauseI honestly operate in a way and
this is going to sound crazy,maybe terrible, maybe accurate
(39:06):
to some where I don't profess toknow anything that I'm doing
ahead of when I do it, operatewith like I don't know how to
solve this problem, but my goalis to try and solve it.
And because I operate with thatmentality, it actually helps me
(39:32):
create clear answers, because Ithink through a variety of
solutions and I find the onethat I like the most, versus
thinking it has to be done thisway.
So pre-knowing might hurt myprocess, and that's kind of why
I'm struggling to answer this,this question.
Maybe it would just be how muchtime it was going to take to get
where we are and being morepatient with myself and getting
(39:55):
there and letting everybody elseknow the timeline as well,
because when you're starting acompany or anything, you think
things can happen fast and youcan make impact overnight, and I
think everyone kind of goesinto that at some level.
You know there's going to beeffort and energy, but you just
don't know how much and how long, and so I think, just having
(40:16):
that understanding, it's goingto be three years, janesh.
It's going to be five years,janesh.
That would help at least guidemy own pace Instead of being
frantic.
I don't right, you can't see meright now, but all the gray
hairs I have on my beard notthat look old because of that
(40:38):
stress.
So I think that might be theonly thing I would.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I would like to change, but I do appreciate my
approach because it has helpedme get where I am today.
Dental Fix company you acquired, and Uptime.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Services has a summit coming up.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Let's talk about that for a quick minute here Now.
Who is the target audience forthis summit and what can
attendees expect to gain fromparticipating?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, so that's a great question, brian.
So basically you're right, wehave a summit coming up, we're
extremely excited about it.
It's October 3rd through 6th ofthis year and there's even an
early bird pricing at thismoment, so I'll put that plug in
there.
So if you go and look up thedental fix summit I know you've
been helping post about it, butand you have a code, I believe
(41:22):
as well, so I think yes, I'llput it in the link of this
podcast too, for anyone.
Perfect.
So basically it would be foranyone who's already a dental
equipment technician or thosecurious about expanding their
skills to service dentalequipment.
So you could be a regularbiomed not regular, that's a
(41:42):
rude way of saying it you couldbe like a biomed who operates on
traditional medical equipment.
You could be a biomed thatworks in the eye care space.
You could be a student comingout of school, whatever it is,
but if you're curious about thedental industry and how to start
servicing those devices, that'swho this is for.
We want to expose you to theworld of here's how this world
(42:02):
works.
Here are some manufacturers.
We're going to do sometrainings there and because
we're doing trainings there,we're also going to show you how
to expand those trainings andget into the right schools and
the right certifications to dothe work there.
And the other thing that I wantpeople to know, especially the
bio-meds on this podcast thatare looking to expand their
business there's so many dentalclinics out there like you
mentioned 120,000, and they allneed help.
(42:24):
And in this industry, the ratesyou can charge are a little bit
higher than in the traditionalworld because there's so much of
a demand and less supply.
So I just want to let peopleknow, like go there if you're
curious, If you want education,you want to be around
like-minded people.
It's built for techniciansbeing the audience or engineers
(42:47):
being the audience.
It's not meant for the doctorsor anybody else in the industry.
It's meant for you and it'scurated for you, and so if
there's anything we can do toimprove, even if you do go,
please let us know, Because it'smeant to be for you at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
That's something that seems really exciting man.
I always look to the future.
My brain works that way.
So I'm thinking one day it'snot going to be called the
dental repair industry, it'sgoing to be HTM Everybody's
going to know about dentalrepair.
It's going to be htmeverybody's going to know about
dental repair.
It'll be just like a iv pumpdental repair x-ray, and that
(43:27):
way it can all be.
Because I'm telling you I'mit's just.
It just blows my mind.
I'm constantly talking aboutthe biomed industry.
It's not, nobody knows about it.
I didn't think we had a littlecousin that nobody knows about
either.
You know, nobody knows about it.
I didn't think we had a littlecousin that nobody knows about
either.
And it's amazing that dental,like you say, it's in the
hospital and it's not a hugepart.
(43:49):
Like if a piece of dentalequipment break, we're not
running down the hallway, likeif it's a heart and lung machine
.
It's that much importantbecause, like you said, a family
has come there I work at achildren's hospital, so they're
bringing their kids in to getsome dental work and the
equipment's broken.
My dental department managershe is very intense with her
(44:10):
equipment.
Now I see why.
I just don't know why she getsso frantic when my equipment
breaks.
It makes sense to me now.
Yeah, she came from the privatesector and now she's working in
a hospital and she's like Ineed this done.
Now I need this particularcompany because I don't like
this one, I don't like that one,I just like this one only and
I'm like, well, we just caughtone of them.
(44:31):
But the more I'm getting intothis, I see that she has her
favorite, because that's themost dependable one.
I just thought she was justthis person with lack of
patience, and it's not that,it's like she's just she's got
trauma because there's neverbeen support and so she has to
be that way and I hopefully oneday see that all going away.
(44:52):
And if I could join you inhelping write this word, man, I
feel like it's almost my honorand privilege to join you
because what you're doing isamazing.
But this is one final questionI want to ask you.
We all work hard and we allwant to have a good name.
Hopefully we put out a goodHonest Days work and people
(45:13):
respect what we're doing andleave a nice legacy for way down
once we've gone from this place.
What would you want UptimeHealth and Uptime Services
legacy to be in the HTM industry?
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I want it to be known as a company who hears you and
cares about you and I'm talkingdirectly to the HTM community.
I want to put you and us on themap.
I want to make us an industryand a people that others talk
about.
They see, they hear, theyunderstand the value, they
(45:53):
respect you and what you do, andthat's part of the reason why I
actually love being venturecapital backed.
It's not an ego thing, but whatit did is it put all these
people with money that invest inthese I'm going to use the word
sexy again these sexy, fastgrowing, you know exciting
companies and they look at usand they look at you and they
(46:15):
look at this industry and theyfinally see there's value there.
I think that this needs to beput on the map and I hope that
if we become successful, it willinvite more companies doing
things in our industry andinnovating in our space to exist
, to find the right backing, toget the money they need to build
what they need to build.
(46:35):
And, at the end of the day, Iwant to also be like a safe
haven if, if whatever, somebodyneeds to protect that industry.
You know, if it's how we'repushing things, if it's right to
repair debates, whatever it islike.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
We got your back and and that's how I want us to be
seen oh, nash, I appreciate youcoming on and you're welcome to
come back often as you like.
Great talking to you.
I mean, we probably can goanother three hours.
Honestly, I had to pull backsome questions so we don't go
off onto a topic that might takeus there for another 30 minutes
(47:09):
.
But we definitely have to gettogether again, man, because I
really appreciate you and yourconversation was amazing no, I
appreciate, brian.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
thank thanks for giving us airtime.
Thanks Thanks for giving us avoice.
I appreciate you and what youdo and you're always welcome on
this side, and I'm lookingforward to continuing to build
our relationship together.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
What an incredible conversation with Janesh Patel.
His insights into the future ofHTM and his unwavering
dedication to solving real-worldproblems serve as a reminder
that true innovation comes froma deep sense of purpose.
If today's episode inspired youto explore new opportunities in
(47:51):
the HTM and dental repairindustries, then you won't want
to miss the Dental Fix UptimeServices Summit happening this
October 3rd 2-6.
It's an incredible opportunityto network, learn and dive
deeper into the world of dentalequipment repair with workshops,
(48:12):
trainings and certificationsthat can open new doors for you
in this expanding field.
Mark your calendars, takeadvantage of the early bird
pricing and be sure to check outthe link in the podcast notes
for more details.
Thanks for tuning in and, asalways, stay motivated, stay
(48:34):
committed and keep elevating theHTM industry.
Welcome back to another exciting episode of HTM
On the Line, where we explorethe world of healthcare
technology management and theinnovators shaping the future.
I'm your host, bryant HawkinsSr, and today I have the
pleasure of speaking withsomeone who's not just a
(00:22):
visionary but a true problemsolver in the HTM industry
Janesh Patel, the co-founder ofUptime Health.
From leading a rapidly growingcompany to revolutionizing how
outpatient care and dentalpractices manage their equipment
, janesh's journey is filledwith lessons of persistence,
(00:46):
innovation and a relentlesscommitment to making a
difference.
Whether you're an HTMprofessional, an entrepreneur or
someone passionate about thefuture of healthcare, this
episode is for you.
So get ready to be inspired aswe unpack the story behind
(01:08):
Uptown Health, its impact on theindustry and the exciting
Dental Summit coming thisOctober.
Welcome to another episode ofHTM On the Line.
(01:35):
I have the privilege of havinga special guest today, mr Janesh
Patel from Uptime Health.
How are you doing today, janesh?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Pretty good.
Brian, Appreciate you having meon.
I like listening to what youhave to say about the HTM
industry and looking forward tocontributing here.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh, man, appreciate you.
So before we get started, wegot to ask the generic question
Tell everyone about you, give usa little background about you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Let's see, I'm nothing special.
I grew up in Texas.
I grew up in Houston, texas,and I went to Texas A&M for my
undergrad and grad degrees inbiomedical engineering.
After that got my MBA from A&Mas well and then went into
clinical engineering managementand I went to the Seton
Healthcare System and I was partof the Trimedics family and I
(02:21):
see that you're with them rightnow too so I managed that system
, was their manager, did thatfor a little bit.
After a little while, one of mybest friends came and asked me
if I wanted to build a companywith him and I left that
industry for a little bit oftime to go build a company in a
different space and we'll getinto that in a little bit if we
(02:41):
need to.
And then I found my way back tobiomed because once I learned
how to build a company, therewere some problems and some
interesting things I wanted tohelp solve in the HTM industry
and I wanted to use all theskills I learned on how to build
a company and do it for theindustry that we both love, and
so I created Uptime Health.
That was back in 2018.
Today we're a rapidly growingcompany that serves the
(03:05):
outpatient healthcare market andthat's anyone like medical,
dental, veterinary, eye care,anyone that does outpatient care
, and we help them manage theirequipment, find and write
biomeds that are certified,trained, help train biomeds as
well, and we can get into that.
But I've been loving it eversince and I'm happy to be back
in the industry man.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's great.
Welcome back.
Yeah, don't be leaving us andcoming back like that.
I know I should.
Now uptime health.
That's awesome.
You created this company.
Now, what are some of thebiggest challenges you faced in
your early days of Uptime Healthand how did you overcome them?
(03:48):
Because I know you mentionedyou started a company that
wasn't related to the HTMindustry, but now that you
created Uptime Health, I'm surethere were some challenges in
the early stages.
Can you share one of thechallenges and what did you do
to overcome it?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh my God how long you got so many times.
Pick a good one, yeah.
Pick a good one, okay.
I think a good one that everyone of your listeners might want
to hear about is how do youbuild an innovative new company
that's venture capital backable,which means you have to be sexy
.
Exciting, fast growth in theold industry of biomedical
(04:24):
engineering and probably one ofthe least sexy things that
happens in a healthcare building.
So I think part of thestruggles at the beginning was
getting people to listen andunderstand about why we need to
help improve, grow and putattention on the biomedical
community.
And that was tough.
You know, when we go out for aventure capital because we built
a software platform and we givethem that here whenever, when
(04:47):
you'd like.
But it's not easy and softwarerequires a lot of upfront
investment, so we had to go getsome VC backing.
And when you're going upagainst these people that are
doing these AI projects andimaging you know these.
You know patient workflow,patient communication, patient
(05:07):
workflow, patient communication.
There's all this stuff thatthese VC investors and what they
call the health IT industrylike to invest in.
And then you see us coming inand saying what about the guys
and girls who take care of theequipment that are living in the
basements of these buildings,that without them we don't have
healthcare, because we don'thave working machines, we don't
have calibrated machines.
I was like, why are we notgetting excited about improving
this part of the industry?
(05:27):
And that took a little bit oftime to convince people to
listen and understand, and Ican't tell you how many times
people are like well, wait, whatdid they do today and why?
Why do you need to exist andand why is this a problem, you
know?
And so I think the struggleswere just all about people who
aren't privy to our worldlearning about why our world is
so important.
(05:48):
And it was actually fun to talkabout because I got to educate
people and see their eyes openup and say I never thought about
it that way, I never consideredhow important these people are
to the health care ecosystem andto me.
That created the sense of justpride to continue, just to go to
as many meetings, even though Igot a bunch of no's at the
beginning and that's what feltimpossible.
But then, when you got yourfirst yes, then you realize
(06:09):
people do care and people willcare, and then you got the next
yes, the next, yes.
So I think just getting thatinitial, I guess, buy in from
the people who are going to backyou with capital and believe in
you, because, at the end of theday, building a company is not
easy.
It's going to be a lot oflessons learned, a lot of trial
(06:30):
and error and somebody needs tostick by.
You think it thin through theups and downs and unless they
believe in you and what you'rebuilding, that's tough for them.
But I got investors to do thatand I'm happy to say that they
are so bought in that we're someof the you know, we're one of
their golden child kind ofcompanies where they just love
what we're doing and think it'samazing man, that's, that's
amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're right about people hearing what we do, but
actually believing in it is thechallenge, because even in the
hospitals, you can go out thereand fix one of the most
expensive pieces of equipment ctunit yeah and they know they
need that ct unit.
You get it up and running andit just be thank you, but let it
(07:07):
be down and the whole worldcomes to an end.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No, it's not even thank you.
It's where were you?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yes, that's amazing.
Now let's just switch it alittle, because I know you
mentioned you do a lot of workin the dental industry.
That's amazing how you eventhough dental repair is
something that people probablydon't consider by a man which it
is to us, we know that butyou've truly put the dental
(07:36):
repair industry because it does,to me, fall under healthcare
technology management, but itlooks like Uptime Health has put
technology into the dentalservice industry.
From what I'm listening and beenreading over lately, and what
could you say that?
Well, let me see.
(08:00):
How can I say this?
How would you say that UptimeHealth leveraged technology to
improve?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
dental service repair .
Yeah, if you don't mind, I wantto take a half step back and
just let people know who firststarted this company.
We actually were going afterthe outpatient medical part of
the industry, so we werestarting in urgent cares and
ASCs and dialysis clinics,because what we realized was
there was a gap from how peopletake care of equipment in the
(08:23):
big health systems in thosebuildings and how they take care
of it in these tinier buildings, you know where there's maybe
just a doctor, a nurse, someassistants, you know some PAs,
but there's nobody that knowsthe equipment inside and out
like a biomed engineer or atechnician.
And what we wanted to do iscreate a software that helped
automate a little bit of thosefunctions and understanding like
(08:45):
, hey, you have these machines,here's how you take care of them
.
Even if they have contractswith outside vendors, they're
not in the office checking tosee if people are doing those
more daily, weekly kind ofcalibrations or compliance
issues.
They hope they do them, butI'll tell you with some complete
certainty that most of themdon't.
And so we wanted to create aproduct that helped kind of
(09:05):
alleviate that mystery of like,how do I take care of these
machines to the best of myability.
And how do I make sure I'm onthe planned maintenance
schedules I need to be on?
How do I hold my techniciansaccountable to come in at the
right time, even though they doa good job?
But at the end of the day, it'sthe device owner's
responsibility to make ithappens.
So that was the idea is, let'stake what we do at the clinical
level of the health system andgive them a software version of
(09:29):
me to help these urgent caresand these ASCs that we had in
our health network that didn'thave really good compliance or
equipment management.
So when we started that, welaunched our first product into
market in 2019, in November.
It took us about a year and ahalf to get our ideas straight,
to get our first MVP built, soour minimum viable product, get
some funding to get that done.
(09:50):
And when we launched inNovember 2019, we actually
started getting, you know,urgent care signing up every
month, a few of them, and thenthe next month doubled the
amount and the next monthdoubled the amount.
And then we even had a pilotwith AmSearch, you know, inked
to go into the second largestsurgical group at the time to
help them manage their equipmentat a network level.
(10:10):
And then when COVID hit, that'swhen our market went away.
Even though we could help theseclinics manage their
ventilators a little bit betterand even make sure that if
they're broken like how to getthem repaired by local people,
people are trying to deploysoftware in a firefight.
They're looking for PPE andjust anything that's going to
(10:30):
help them get to the next day.
So we had to make a pivot.
We almost died a couple oftimes in that COVID era because
you know, every peak and valleygot you excited, then it got you
defeated.
You know when the case countswent down, we started growing as
a company before we pivoted,and then second wave, then third
wave, then Omnicron, then you,then it just kept feeling like
this is never going to end.
So we had to pivot industriesand then we realized as our
(10:53):
product was really well builtfor anyone that owns medical
equipment that doesn't have anin house expert like a
technician or an engineer andwhen you think about that
definition, it's dental offices,eye care, veterinary, optometry
, med, spa, even you know dental.
(11:15):
It goes into tons of differentkinds of industries and we
picked dentistry at the timebecause we saw it was a giant
industry that I think nobodyreally talks about.
There's over 120,000 dentalpractices.
Can you believe that there'sonly 10,000?
Or 10 to 15,000 urgent careclinics, depending on what
(11:38):
article you're reading?
So it's like 10 times as manydental offices as there are
urgent cares.
And I feel like I see an urgentcare every block, especially in
Texas when I was growing up, andso that kind of was an eye
opening moment to me, which islike if there's that many
clinics, that means that manypeople get care in these kinds
of buildings.
And we all know oral healthcare is a gateway to other kinds
(11:59):
of diseases and medicalproblems and if they need our
solution let's go see if theywant to buy it.
And that's when we started in adentistry and went heads down
and we started growing.
So, even though we kind of cameout of that COVID slump, we
found so much footing andtraction in dentistry.
We stayed in there and werealized how far behind, even
medical they were when it comesto the kinds of trainings,
(12:19):
education, equipment managementthat they do.
And that's why we wanted tostay there, because they had a
bigger problem to solve and weneeded to make sure those people
had their help before we kindof continue on to the next
vertical.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Man, that's awesome.
You mentioned there's like over120,000.
Yeah, Now, I just Googled whileyou were talking.
Man, there's over 1 millionworldwide.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
That's what you're doing man, yeah, yeah, just
getting started.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know this is just the warm up phase.
Yeah, it's amazing, and I wasjust thinking too while you were
speaking.
What about orthopedic clinics?
Because there's plenty ofequipment there and I guarantee
you there's no software.
We have software because wetake care of our orthopedic and
they have a lot of equipment inthere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
So you got dermatology.
You got PT oncology clinics,these dialysis clinics Like it
really was a earth shattering inmy mind list that I was
creating Cause I just never,ever did that exercise before,
as weird as that sounds.
And then there's a ton ofpeople who need this kind of
solution.
Let's go figure the biggest oneand go tackle that.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, you would think dialysis would have that.
I remember I did dialysis wayback, but that was before EMR
systems.
We used to have the manilafolders in the cabinets and,
like each equipment was a pieceof was like a patient, each
medical piece of medicalequipment.
So that's how we maintained andit was all handwritten.
(13:43):
So it's amazing to be a 2018,2020, and you have places that
don't have any type of softwareto manage their equipment and
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Like you said, dialysis clinics actually do a
good job because they're suchinvasive machines and the care
that they provide, but at theend of the day it's more about
how do we take care of it.
And the manual part was thepart that was tough, because
think about the person who knowsthat manual system.
What if they get sick or theygo on PTO or they get hit by a
car?
You know, unfortunately, butlike then a lot of that
(14:17):
infrastructure just crumbles andthat's why having a software
tool helps just make thosemoments simpler, especially for
something as serious as dialysismachine, yeah, even, even some
of the RO systems.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
When we're talking about dialysis, I have a couple
of friends that's in theindustry and they'll tell me how
.
The water system company willcome in there and they'll give
them a service report, but itdoesn't have a serial number on
it, it doesn't have a modelnumber so they're like, well,
what is this?
And some secretary typed it upin the office and sent it to
them.
So it's obviously they don'thave technology to put out the
(14:51):
proper service report, soprobably a need there too.
But that's just amazing thatyou just I guess your HTM
background probably gave youthat to look for that type of
thing in the industry.
I'm surprised there are notmany other companies out there
doing the same thing or they maybe, I don't know.
I just heard you.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But, brian, you're right there.
That's the thing is, when Ilooked around, I didn't go out
trying to build uptime healthbecause I was looking to get
rich.
I couldn't find a solution formy urgent care clinics or even
my family.
Some of them own their ownpractices practices, right, and
that's kind of part of how itall came to be, which was there
wasn't a solution.
We have, obviously, theseaccruance and these nivolos and
(15:33):
we have all these other greatcms tools that are purpose-built
for technicians and runningtheir day-to-day, but there
weren't a lot of ones that werepurpose-built for the device
owner being the primary driverof maintenance management and in
the outpatient setting, becausethe clinical engineers aren't
in the buildings, right, theyneed a tool to help them better
(15:53):
manage it, because they can'trely on me or you or somebody
else, and so I couldn't find onethat was purpose built in that
capacity and that was easy touse, and that's why I don't
believe we have any realcompetitors at this moment.
I mean, I hope more come along,because I love iron, sharpening
iron, I love competition, butuntil then, my goal is just to
solve the problem.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what you're saying is so true because I can
recall working for a company andit was an imaging company and
they wanted us to use theirsoftware for the biomed work but
it was completely difficultbecause they didn't have any
type of codes we can use for ourerrors, because all the codes
was for imaging equipment.
So it was real difficult forthe biomed to do a work order
(16:38):
because they didn't have thesection for us to put our stuff
into.
So I can see where you canreally tweak it to work for the
dental or the urgent cares.
And man, that's amazing Justsitting there thinking about it,
because you can fine tune it ifit needs to be and it's not
just stuck in stone.
You can go in there and fix itto where it can work for any
(16:59):
type of practice, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it doesn't change depending on what
industry you're in.
It's all built very flexible soyou can make it what you need
it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And does the software ?
Does it have a name for thesoftware we're talking about?
Is there a name you have for it?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So we call it Uptime Controller Because we always
know that was the number onemetric for us, and so I called
it Uptime Controller because ithelps you control that.
And, to be honest, we don't saythat name enough.
Internally we always call itUptime Health Software, but
that's technically what it'scalled and that's technically
the URL that the web app'shosted on.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Uptime Controller that's a nice name for it.
Man, it's just amazing to seemy brain is going so fast
because I'm looking at it andthinking, wow, this is so great
Because, as you mentioned, thereare urgent cares.
I kid you not, I'm justthinking in my head.
Right now there's three urgentcares in a half a mile radius.
I ride down the street rightnow from my home.
(17:58):
So, all those places didn'thave any type of software to
manage their equipment.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
No, they would use excel sheets, paper.
But here's a test for you, andthis is how I realized the
problem was so bad.
You know how, like one of thebiggest things that we need to
manage is, as biomeds was justan accurate equipment roster,
you had those issues wheneveryou had to go.
Just do the inventory checksand we have these.
(18:27):
All these do not locates andwhatnot.
So like if you go to an urgentcare today and you ask them do
you have a list of everything inyour office?
They cannot produce one.
Wow, not even if it'sinaccurate.
They just don't have it.
And so it's like how can youmanage what you don't know?
You own own, and that's kind ofpart of that's half the problem
(18:49):
is they're just like well, Ihave a guy that comes in every
every year that takes care of mystuff and if it breaks I'll oh,
you know, they'll fix it.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's like, well, that's not management, that's
like break, fix mentality, kindof stuff yes, and if you throw
in a dental industry theequipment they have, oh my god,
my God, you could lose ahandpiece and not even know it's
gone.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, that's part of the problem.
They're like I don't know whatwalks out the door any given day
.
We just know we keep buyinghandpieces and I was like, yes.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
The service guy may be taking it out with him, who
knows, yeah, accidentally, orbringing in some from another
place.
I mean that's amazing, amazing,wow, that's eye-opening.
Have there been any expansionsto Uptime Health since you
created it, or founded, rather?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So one of the biggest things wedid this year in 2024, april,
we bought a company calledDental Whale.
As I was mentioning, we'regetting really deep into
dentistry and we kind of have abig market there or market
capture there.
But we realized was, as peoplewere trying to dispatch service,
because you can dispatchservice to our products, so not
(19:53):
only can you manage what you own, make sure you're doing the
maintenance compliance of whatyou own, but you can dispatch
service either for pm or forjust any kind of repair,
unplanned down event through thetool.
And what we also try and do iswe create like a marketplace for
people to find localtechnicians that they might not
know about, to get servicefaster.
(20:14):
There's a lot of times wherethey might have a big contract
with somebody else but becausewe all know the biomed shortage,
it might be a week beforesomebody gets out there.
And being able to find a surgeresource on our marketplace is
really important to get downtimeat an absolute minimum.
So we're all about uptimeanyway.
Shape form and in the dentalindustry it is crazy, brian, I
(20:37):
did not know this, but there'snot a lot of technicians and the
ones that do exist.
They predominantly belong tothese big companies called Henry
Schein, patterson, benco andthen a few that are independent
in these mid-tier groups.
But I also found this groupthat was called Dental Fix and
(20:58):
it's a call it, a franchisedbased technician organization.
But they also had otherindependents that worked for
them.
But it was truly an independentservice network with the Henry
Shines, patterson's and theother distributors.
They would only really servicethe equipment that they sold you
, you know traditional.
So.
But this independent fleet wasjust saying we'll service
(21:20):
whatever is there.
We're just trying to help outand get revenue and also do
repairs.
And I realized that that was avery valuable piece to growing
this business inside ofdentistry.
So we bought that company so wecould train them.
We can make sure that weactually grow the number of
independents that exist in thatworld.
We actually started a school.
(21:41):
You know how you have to go tothe CBET or like some of these.
You know training programs.
I know the Air Force has abunch like, but to get the
certification of being a biomedyou actually have to go through
like a school and a training andget a certificate.
In the dental world today thatis not a thing the way that
these technicians exist indentistry is they usually either
(22:04):
learn on the job because, youknow, their brother is a dentist
and they just kind of come inand fix things and they'll
figure it out and they're verymechanically inclined and they
and they become a technicianthat way, or they've worked for
one of these bigger distributorsand went through one of their
local schools as part of youknow, henry schein or patterson
or benko.
They might have their owntraining school only for their
(22:25):
own technicians.
So there's no way for somebodywho is curious or who is
interested in becoming a dentalequipment repair technician to
get that kind of educationoutside of working for one of
the big guys.
So what we decided was to buildthe first dental equipment
repair technician school in theUnited States and we're doing
(22:48):
this in conjunction with theCBET program, so the College of
Biomedical Equipment Technologygroup out of San Antonio, texas,
and we're getting thisaccredited, you know, through
Amy.
All of this to say is, our hopeis that more people who are
interested in repairing maybedental equipment that they
wouldn't have access to beforeor they wouldn't have that
(23:08):
access to the training or evenparts or anything like that.
We're trying to unlock that sohopefully we can incentivize
more dental equipment repairtechnicians, because that world
is actually more strenuous thanthe medical world.
As hard as that is to believe,it's just because there's too
many barriers to entry there.
So that's why we bought thatcompany, because it's helping us
solve a problem, but it alsohelps us build this school,
(23:31):
because it gave us a lot ofcredibility, and look at what
the trainings we've done withthis kind of company before.
They built these independentfleets all on their own.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Now let's professionalize it man, that's
amazing and once again you cancan see your HTM background
coming into play.
So you, technically, you keepcoming back home.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
You may go over here, but you keep crossing back over
.
Oh yeah, I'm here to help.
I'll put it that way Whateverthis industry needs, I'm here to
help.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean getting uptime services no doubt probably even
expands an impact of reach onuptime health in the industry,
because working hand in hand, Imean that's just, it's like a
great match almost.
I say that you two doing thisand then you couple in the
school CBET, which is a greatorganization.
I'm very familiar with the teamover there.
(24:24):
I'm very familiar with the teamover there.
Now can you I know it's notbeen too long since you
purchased these dental companies, but can you share a success
story, maybe, or a case studywhere uptime services have
bought uptime health and uptimeservices has improved an outcome
, or with one of your clientsthat you can probably share?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, sure.
So I mean in the, just like inmedical, in the dental world
there are some pieces ofequipment that can shut down a
whole office or shut down theoperations of a of an office.
So if, if, if you ever work indentistry which my plug is I
highly recommend you check outsome education we have If you do
want to work in dentistry to toget you some access there.
(25:04):
But if you come across acompressor failure or a vacuum
failure, compressors and vacuumsare the things that drive.
You know the suctions in the,in the water lines that run
through all the dental chairs.
So you know when you get thatwhirring sound or you get that,
so someone's running a drill orthey're spraying that water or
sucking out that liquid in yourmouth.
(25:26):
All those are driven by asingle unit in the back office,
in the mechanical room.
So if that goes down, all thechairs are done.
They can't do dentistry.
So there's one time a client andI won't name names here to kind
of protect whoever, but at theend of the day we came to the
rescue where their compressorwas down and it wasn't in a very
(25:47):
easy to reach area and theirtechnician that they
traditionally rely on which youcan dispatch anybody through our
software, whether it's ourtechnicians or your own or your
brother, who knows.
But they couldn't come out forat least three to four days, and
every day in that dental officeis about $10,000 of production.
So that's $30,000, right thatout the window.
(26:11):
And it's not just that missedrevenue, it's also the fact that
they couldn't take care of thatpatient.
So the patient suffers, theyhave to back up all their
schedule, so they have to stillreschedule these patients, even
if the patient wants to comeback to them.
Who knows, maybe they lost themforever at that point.
So it creates all this demandpinch.
(26:32):
It creates a lot of burden forthe operations team.
So it's always a nightmareevent.
But we were able to find one ofour technicians that was local,
get out there in three hours.
They had a replacement unit intheir van fixed.
It got them back up and runningand so we basically saved two
(26:54):
and a half days of downtime.
From what they were quoted, andto them we're their heroes,
right Like, and that's all Iwant to do is is help those
kinds of moments either lessenor create a quicker solve than
what they're provided, becauseif they're technicians I know I
can get out there later today.
Great like, that is the answerI want.
I don't want to be the heroevery time, but if, if you need
one, I want to be that personthat's great.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Now I love that story , by the way, also.
Now how can you I mean, it'syou consistently doing great
things but how can you ensurethat uptime services will not
slack?
You mentioned that there is notype of compliance in place, but
how do you ensure that uptimeservices consistently delivers
(27:38):
high quality service to yourclients?
Do y'all have anything in placewhere you can make sure your
standard is being met orexceeded and it's not going
backwards?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Part of this school is to helpensure our technicians are
always educated and trained andhave access to a knowledge base,
even an online learning system,creating a community where
people can support each otherwith questions.
Part of it is just creatingthat core community that cares a
lot about each other withquestions.
Part of it is just creatingthat core community that cares a
lot about each other and caresa lot about the clients is going
(28:10):
to create a strength that willbe hard to disrupt and go
backwards and regress in any way.
The other thing we're doing iswe're putting out surveys, like
at the end of every right nownot the end of every, but right
now we do a spot survey where wekind of ask clients how was
that service event, how did youfeel about that cap?
We've done better and we'retrying to get that real time
(28:31):
feedback.
We're also going to start in thevery near future put like in
real time surveys about specificevents, Like how did that
repair go for you?
There was a technician,knowledgeable, you know all
these things to make sure we'recapturing any kind of person or
thing that might be notupholding our standards and
(28:52):
correcting it in real time byjust adding the software, really
just the accountability reviewthat we're trying to build out,
and so that's really how we doit.
Think about it like your Uberdriver, essentially, like you
can rate them each time.
I'm not saying that that's howwe're going to scold you or like
monitor you, but at the end ofthe day gives you a good
indicator on average.
If this person is consistentlyscoring low, that's not a good
(29:14):
sign.
There are going to be timeswhere somebody scores low
because the person the doctor,the whatever is just having a
rough day and they're taking itout on their technician, which I
know happens a ton.
So we're not saying like it's aone-time thing, but if we see
it as a trend, then there mightbe something more there.
So that's kind of how we'redoing it.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Great.
I love the case study youmentioned about how you were
able to help this client out inthree hours.
That's unbelievable, even forthe biomed world.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
That's why I was like that, and so it's one where I'm
like okay, I remember that one,that's why I was like that.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And so it's one where I'm like, okay, I remember that
one no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, I think one is we will service anybody.
We're not here to just servicewho we sold equipment to or who
our existing clients are thatuse our software.
If you need help with service,you can dispatch our service
team, whether you give them aphone call or you do it through
our system.
That's one thing that sets usapart.
We really do care about ourtechnicians, and I think some
(30:22):
other groups not all I'veactually.
I shouldn't say this because Ithink it's a bad
characterization, but I think alot of times the sales reps or
whatever in these biggerdistributor companies feel like
their service team is a goodweapon to say like here's why
you need to buy our stuffbecause we have a great service
team.
But it's really they'reutilizing them as like a tool in
a pond to like get morebusiness done for us.
(30:44):
We care about the service team.
We don't have to sell theequipment.
We just want to say we havegreat service people and you
should utilize them.
I think it's that extra levelof care and the fact that you
have somebody like me and myteam, who really have lived and
breathed this space, buildingthis company and this product.
It gives us an extra likereason to get things done, or
(31:07):
allows us to see beyond just themetrics, because we're not here
driving, you know, an equipmentsales company.
We're driving a uptime company.
I think that's really thepositioning that we take in
every decision we make.
That makes us a little bitdifferent.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Now, what are your long-term goals for Uptime
Health and Uptime Services?
I don't know if you're going togive away any secrets, but how
do you plan to achieve thosegoals?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
My goals are never secret because, again, I'll
invite the competition, becauseI want more people to care and
innovate in this space.
You know what I mean.
And so I just want, I believe,I'll do it better.
So I'm not, it's not a cockything, it's just a we, we care
and we're already doing a thingand I believe for me, my future
(31:51):
and the company's future and ourteam's future, all is about
getting this kind of technologyinto the hands of more people
and improving the lives of eventhe technicians who are working
with us and how they support ourclients.
So one of them is want toexpand into different verticals.
We talked about all the kindsof clients that we can work with
.
Well, we want to go back in themedical world, we want to go
(32:14):
into eye care, we want to gointo veterinary, want to expand
our software into thoseindustries industries and then
eventually do what we did indentistry with our technician
network, with our school,everything else to build out the
industry and the ecosystem.
And do that in eye care, dothat in veterinary, do that in
medical.
Now, medical already has apretty good infrastructure, but
how can we support more peopleapplying or becoming biomed
(32:38):
technicians?
Like what do we need to do?
Do we need to lobby thegovernment?
I'll go do that.
Do we need to get biomedtechnician as part of a STEM
curriculum program, like just togive it more visibility for
these kids coming out of highschool?
I will do that.
So I think part of that is myvision is expanding the
technician base, but expandingthe verticals that we operate in
.
The other thing that we'regoing to do is we're working
(33:02):
closer with industries andgetting closer to the machines
themselves.
So in the dental world right now, we're actively integrating
connected equipment to ourequipment management platform,
and this isn't about patientinformation.
This is all about equipmentinformation.
Is it overheating?
How many cycles did it do?
What error codes and logs andfaults is it recording?
(33:24):
And if our product ismonitoring and managing those
one, we can create trend linesand we can actually see things
happen before they happen and wecan activate a service tech to
maybe replace a part that'sabout to fail, because we see
the voltage increasing and weknow, because we work directly
with the manufacturer, what thatmeans and how to fix it, or if
(33:44):
it's error code abc and errorcode abc can actually be
resolved with a reboot exercise.
What we can do is we can serveup because we now know this
because we're working with theactual, you know manufacturers
we can serve up a task in ourproduct, send that to the office
manager or that device managerthat's local, and say do a
reboot exercise and we'll clearthe code and we'll put you back
(34:05):
up and running so it doesn'tcreate an urgent request for a
technician to come out forsomething that they, you know,
had to give up a more urgentrequest because it was a little
further away.
They can go take care of bothpeople because one solved their
own problem and they got to takecare of another client at the
same time.
Or if it's, you know, knowingwhat part to have in hand, if we
(34:26):
know the error code 1, 2, 3 iscomponent you know X Y Z that
needs to be replaced.
Well, we will put that in theservice ticket saying it's error
code.
This here's the data points.
Bring part X Y Z in hand, justin, because it's 95% going to
solve your problem.
So it's going to create lesstruck rolls, it's going to make
more first time fixes.
(34:46):
It's going to make you moretimes the hero for your clients,
you know, for the techniciansout there.
So it's about automating themanagement and the maintenance
side of that world with theequipment data itself and
working directly with themanufacturers.
That's one thing that we'redoing that nobody else is doing.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
What advice you can give to, say, an entrepreneur
who wants to start his companyin the HTM industry.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I advise a lot of companies today and the number
one piece of advice I giveeveryone before they even start
is know your why.
Is why money?
Is your why to solve a problem?
Or is your why?
You know you want to accomplishsomething and you don't know
what that something is, but youjust want to accomplish
something, whatever.
(35:30):
That why is?
If you don't care and care isnot part of your why you're
going to have the hardest timein the world building your
company, because there's goingto be so many obstacles that
you're going to run through andthere's going to be so many
times you want to quit.
And if you don't have that carepart behind you, you're going
to quit.
So I would say really trulyunderstand what you're trying to
(35:53):
build in the why behind it,write it down, think about it,
keep writing it down every day,expand on it and if it's still
the same, why?
After about a month, then jumpin, because by then you'll know
a little bit more every time.
You think about it, like, howdo I get to that why?
How are other ways toaccomplish it?
Because there's no cookiecutter way to accomplish any
(36:14):
goal.
We see other people buildcompanies and we see how they do
it, but it doesn't mean that'show you have to do it.
So, as long as you care, youcan find the different avenues.
Whether it's building asoftware tool, whether it's
building a product widget,whether it's building you know,
we're just building a servicescompany.
Whatever it might be, as longas your why is consistent, your
pathway will start unlockingitself.
(36:35):
And just keep that as yourNorth Star and it will help
guide all your decisions.
And just keep that as yourNorth Star and it'll help guide
all your decisions.
I know it's a very vague answer, but it helps a lot of people
and it turns a lot of peopleaway from even building a
company, because it's going tobe a lot of struggle and money
without any reward and you'regoing to hate it.
So you'd rather hate it butlove what you're doing
underneath it while you'restruggling getting it done.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So that's my biggest advice for anybody.
Oh, my God, man, because I wishwe was on camera.
You would have been seeing me,hands going up, clapping,
because I tell everyone that youhave to know what your why is.
When I started doing thispodcast, I kid you not, the only
views I had was me and I waslike man, but I enjoy this
industry so much yeah, I don'teven look at analytics anymore,
and it just started slowlygrowing.
And they'll ask me well, man,what's the drive?
(37:27):
It's my why.
I mean, it's why I do it andthat's man.
I live by that, honestly.
That's my.
You don't have a why, then youwill fail at anything in this
world.
And, man, that was amazing.
You hit it right on the head.
If you don't have a why,because a lot of people think
they're going to get rich, yeah,no, it's not that easy.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That's not a good why you can go get rich being a gas
station owner.
Go do that.
You know what I mean.
You can get rich in so manyways.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
So, because it's going to require some hard work
and hard work works.
There's no shortcut.
Some people think there's ashortcut.
No, and it's your why and thatwill wake you up every morning.
You won't need an alarm clockto get up.
You, your why will wake you up.
Yeah, that's, that's amazing.
I loved, I love, love thatanswer reflecting on your
(38:20):
journey.
I mean, you've been in the HTMindustry, got out of the HTM
industry, but let's just look atthe uptime health, uptime
services.
If you can go back in the handsof time with the knowledge you
have today, what do you thinkyou wish you could have known
when you first started UptimeHealth that you know now?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Oh my gosh, wow, I think I don't know.
That's a great answer.
That's a great question becauseI honestly operate in a way and
this is going to sound crazy,maybe terrible, maybe accurate
(39:06):
to some where I don't profess toknow anything that I'm doing
ahead of when I do it, operatewith like I don't know how to
solve this problem, but my goalis to try and solve it.
And because I operate with thatmentality, it actually helps me
(39:32):
create clear answers, because Ithink through a variety of
solutions and I find the onethat I like the most, versus
thinking it has to be done thisway.
So pre-knowing might hurt myprocess, and that's kind of why
I'm struggling to answer this,this question.
Maybe it would just be how muchtime it was going to take to get
where we are and being morepatient with myself and getting
(39:55):
there and letting everybody elseknow the timeline as well,
because when you're starting acompany or anything, you think
things can happen fast and youcan make impact overnight, and I
think everyone kind of goesinto that at some level.
You know there's going to beeffort and energy, but you just
don't know how much and how long, and so I think, just having
(40:16):
that understanding, it's goingto be three years, janesh.
It's going to be five years,janesh.
That would help at least guidemy own pace Instead of being
frantic.
I don't right, you can't see meright now, but all the gray
hairs I have on my beard notthat look old because of that
(40:38):
stress.
So I think that might be theonly thing I would.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I would like to change, but I do appreciate my
approach because it has helpedme get where I am today.
Dental Fix company you acquired, and Uptime.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Services has a summit coming up.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Let's talk about that for a quick minute here Now.
Who is the target audience forthis summit and what can
attendees expect to gain fromparticipating?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, so that's a great question, brian.
So basically you're right, wehave a summit coming up, we're
extremely excited about it.
It's October 3rd through 6th ofthis year and there's even an
early bird pricing at thismoment, so I'll put that plug in
there.
So if you go and look up thedental fix summit I know you've
been helping post about it, butand you have a code, I believe
(41:22):
as well, so I think yes, I'llput it in the link of this
podcast too, for anyone.
Perfect.
So basically it would be foranyone who's already a dental
equipment technician or thosecurious about expanding their
skills to service dentalequipment.
So you could be a regularbiomed not regular, that's a
(41:42):
rude way of saying it you couldbe like a biomed who operates on
traditional medical equipment.
You could be a biomed thatworks in the eye care space.
You could be a student comingout of school, whatever it is,
but if you're curious about thedental industry and how to start
servicing those devices, that'swho this is for.
We want to expose you to theworld of here's how this world
(42:02):
works.
Here are some manufacturers.
We're going to do sometrainings there and because
we're doing trainings there,we're also going to show you how
to expand those trainings andget into the right schools and
the right certifications to dothe work there.
And the other thing that I wantpeople to know, especially the
bio-meds on this podcast thatare looking to expand their
business there's so many dentalclinics out there like you
mentioned 120,000, and they allneed help.
(42:24):
And in this industry, the ratesyou can charge are a little bit
higher than in the traditionalworld because there's so much of
a demand and less supply.
So I just want to let peopleknow, like go there if you're
curious, If you want education,you want to be around
like-minded people.
It's built for techniciansbeing the audience or engineers
(42:47):
being the audience.
It's not meant for the doctorsor anybody else in the industry.
It's meant for you and it'scurated for you, and so if
there's anything we can do toimprove, even if you do go,
please let us know, Because it'smeant to be for you at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
That's something that seems really exciting man.
I always look to the future.
My brain works that way.
So I'm thinking one day it'snot going to be called the
dental repair industry, it'sgoing to be HTM Everybody's
going to know about dentalrepair.
It's going to be htmeverybody's going to know about
dental repair.
It'll be just like a iv pumpdental repair x-ray, and that
(43:27):
way it can all be.
Because I'm telling you I'mit's just.
It just blows my mind.
I'm constantly talking aboutthe biomed industry.
It's not, nobody knows about it.
I didn't think we had a littlecousin that nobody knows about
either.
You know, nobody knows about it.
I didn't think we had a littlecousin that nobody knows about
either.
And it's amazing that dental,like you say, it's in the
hospital and it's not a hugepart.
(43:49):
Like if a piece of dentalequipment break, we're not
running down the hallway, likeif it's a heart and lung machine
.
It's that much importantbecause, like you said, a family
has come there I work at achildren's hospital, so they're
bringing their kids in to getsome dental work and the
equipment's broken.
My dental department managershe is very intense with her
(44:10):
equipment.
Now I see why.
I just don't know why she getsso frantic when my equipment
breaks.
It makes sense to me now.
Yeah, she came from the privatesector and now she's working in
a hospital and she's like Ineed this done.
Now I need this particularcompany because I don't like
this one, I don't like that one,I just like this one only and
I'm like, well, we just caughtone of them.
(44:31):
But the more I'm getting intothis, I see that she has her
favorite, because that's themost dependable one.
I just thought she was justthis person with lack of
patience, and it's not that,it's like she's just she's got
trauma because there's neverbeen support and so she has to
be that way and I hopefully oneday see that all going away.
(44:52):
And if I could join you inhelping write this word, man, I
feel like it's almost my honorand privilege to join you
because what you're doing isamazing.
But this is one final questionI want to ask you.
We all work hard and we allwant to have a good name.
Hopefully we put out a goodHonest Days work and people
(45:13):
respect what we're doing andleave a nice legacy for way down
once we've gone from this place.
What would you want UptimeHealth and Uptime Services
legacy to be in the HTM industry?
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I want it to be known as a company who hears you and
cares about you and I'm talkingdirectly to the HTM community.
I want to put you and us on themap.
I want to make us an industryand a people that others talk
about.
They see, they hear, theyunderstand the value, they
(45:53):
respect you and what you do, andthat's part of the reason why I
actually love being venturecapital backed.
It's not an ego thing, but whatit did is it put all these
people with money that invest inthese I'm going to use the word
sexy again these sexy, fastgrowing, you know exciting
companies and they look at usand they look at you and they
(46:15):
look at this industry and theyfinally see there's value there.
I think that this needs to beput on the map and I hope that
if we become successful, it willinvite more companies doing
things in our industry andinnovating in our space to exist
, to find the right backing, toget the money they need to build
what they need to build.
(46:35):
And, at the end of the day, Iwant to also be like a safe
haven if, if whatever, somebodyneeds to protect that industry.
You know, if it's how we'repushing things, if it's right to
repair debates, whatever it islike.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
We got your back and and that's how I want us to be
seen oh, nash, I appreciate youcoming on and you're welcome to
come back often as you like.
Great talking to you.
I mean, we probably can goanother three hours.
Honestly, I had to pull backsome questions so we don't go
off onto a topic that might takeus there for another 30 minutes
(47:09):
.
But we definitely have to gettogether again, man, because I
really appreciate you and yourconversation was amazing no, I
appreciate, brian.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
thank thanks for giving us airtime.
Thanks Thanks for giving us avoice.
I appreciate you and what youdo and you're always welcome on
this side, and I'm lookingforward to continuing to build
our relationship together.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
What an incredible conversation with Janesh Patel.
His insights into the future ofHTM and his unwavering
dedication to solving real-worldproblems serve as a reminder
that true innovation comes froma deep sense of purpose.
If today's episode inspired youto explore new opportunities in
(47:51):
the HTM and dental repairindustries, then you won't want
to miss the Dental Fix UptimeServices Summit happening this
October 3rd 2-6.
It's an incredible opportunityto network, learn and dive
deeper into the world of dentalequipment repair with workshops,
(48:12):
trainings and certificationsthat can open new doors for you
in this expanding field.
Mark your calendars, takeadvantage of the early bird
pricing and be sure to check outthe link in the podcast notes
for more details.
Thanks for tuning in and, asalways, stay motivated, stay
(48:34):
committed and keep elevating theHTM industry.
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