April 14, 2024 • 30 mins
Have you ever faced the daunting challenge of building a startup from the ground up? This episode is a goldmine of guidance, as Dr. Adam Little shares insights around foundational steps for budding entrepreneurs to thrive.
Adam and Ira spend some time talking about de-risking the company, the problem with hiring too many people too early and why strategic partnerships are a huge waste of time for early stage companies in the veterinary space.
The biggest lessons don't come from success, they come from trying something that fails. If you are an entrepreneur, don't learn the hard way. Instead, take Adam's advice to heart and avoid these pitfalls.
Special mentions:
Mark Stephenson
Couto Guillermo
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ira (00:04):
Welcome to the Accidental Entrepreneur's Podcast.
I'm your host.
Ira Gordon.
Stacee is out this week, so I'mextremely excited to be joined
by our guest, Dr.
Adam Little.
Adam's also a veterinarian andone of the true thought leaders
in the world of innovation inanimal health.
On our last episode wediscussed his startup journey
and today we'll be diving alittle bit deeper to get
(00:24):
additional insights and advicefrom Adam.
Really thrilled to have you onthe show with me today.
Adam (00:34):
Yeah, thanks, Ira, glad to be here
Ira (00:38):
What have you been up to recently?
Adam (00:40):
Yeah, so came back from the Western Vet Conference not
too long ago now.
That was a really fun meeting.
Obviously, the first bit of anyyear is kind of filled with a
lot of travel, but Dr.
Stacee Santi and I wereco-hosting this workshop on
using AI to build your practiceplaybook and so trying to get
(01:02):
practices not just aware of someof these tools, but actively
kind of using them, getting yourhands dirty, which is a lot of
fun.
So that was how we kind ofspent our time there.
Ira (01:12):
Right on, right on.
Well, at the end of our lastconversation, we spun the wheel
and have our question to discusstoday, which is what is some
key advice you would give to anew startup.
Do you want to go first?
Adam (01:26):
Yeah, there's a couple that jump out at me because
these are things that I think,pieces of advice that we didn't
follow and that I think arereally important.
So I think one of them is beingable to, as quickly as you can,
de-risk whatever you'rebuilding.
(01:48):
And so are there ways that youcan get feedback earlier from
folks, before you spend a lot oftime, kind of building
something out and investing yourtime in it, and can you do that
without requiring a lot of kindof technical work?
Do that without requiring a lotof kind of technical work?
Either I'm going to bring on ahired developer or I'm going to,
(02:08):
you know, you know, contract abunch of coders, etc.
Um and so for me, that isthings like landing page tests,
that is things like surveys,that are things like using some
of these no code tools to maybebuild the first version of what
you're considering.
Just to understand, is thereany interest in this whatsoever?
And I think one of the thingsthat sometimes is a little bit
(02:32):
of a challenging path that I'veseen some startups go down in
the veterinary space is verymuch like hey, if I'm going to
build this thing and it's goingto work and integrate with these
tools and once it's integrated,we're going to get all this
value.
And what they kind of fail torealize sometimes is that like
well, actually getting thoseintegrations and having them
work in the way that you wouldlike is maybe really expensive
(02:54):
or maybe might not even bepossible.
And so is there a way that youcan create value that doesn't
require the permission of otherpeople?
And so that's kind of maybe thesecond one, where the first one
is like can you de-risk whatyou're doing?
But the second is can youcreate value without requiring a
bunch of these different people, organizations, to kind of
(03:15):
align in this perfect way?
And so that can be somethinglike understanding that, hey,
you know, if I need to get thisentire team to switch out their
piece of software and I needlike three different groups of
leaders and the middle managersand to all agree that this is
the thing that we're going to do, the amount of time and energy
it takes to kind of get acustomer, get a, get a user, can
(03:37):
be so significant to the pointthat all you're doing is in your
, all you are is in meetingswith people who ultimately won't
be the users of your software,and so I think that can be
really problematic as well.
And I think one of the bestexamples and this is one of the
reasons I'm kind of bullish onsome of these applications.
But you look at like the medicaldictation apps and I think what
people sometimes miss is thatit's the first kind of class of
(03:59):
applications in the veterinaryspace in a long time that has
been able to solve a problem ina way that you just need one
team member.
You can do it with one doctorwho just agrees to try it one
day without requiring the entireteam billing.
It doesn't require integrationwith the practice management
software systems to create valueand they are being able to
(04:21):
generate more revenue thanalmost any other piece of
software that veterinarianstouch.
And so those kind ofingredients where you're able to
like sell something to oneperson in the practice and
they're able to use it and getvalue out of it.
It doesn't require theseintegrations are changing the
entire workflow of the team andyou're able to get compensated
fairly for that.
For that that value is is quiteunique, so that's kind of
(04:41):
another piece there is quiteunique, so that's kind of
another piece there.
I think.
The third thing for me is likehiring too early, so I kind of
see this a lot where there'slike a particularly difficult
job Maybe it's like hey, I don'tknow how to get into corporate
groups and the founders aresaying, like we don't know how
(05:02):
to do this, and as opposed tofiguring it out, they kind of
try to sometimes get a shortcut,and that could be in the form
of hiring somebody or maybedoing a strategic partnership
deal.
But I think for a lot of early,early stage companies, these
are just things that you have tofigure out, and if they're
particularly hard for you likehey, I don't know how to get
(05:25):
vets to buy my product likehiring another salesperson to
then try to take on thatresponsibility is probably not
the right way to approach it,because if they're not going to
buy it from the founder, whousually is the most passionate
person, who knows the thingbetter, why are they going to
buy it from a rep, right?
(05:46):
And so I sometimes think thatyou know, oftentimes
organizations may be higherahead of where they need to, and
the reality is, as a founder,you probably will feel
overwhelmed and that you'rebursting at the seams, and
that's probably the time to hire, as opposed to hiring before
that, especially if you don'texactly know what that year will
(06:09):
look like and what successlooks like in that role.
And that maybe leads me tonumber four, which is that I
think that strategicpartnerships for early stage
companies in the vet space Ican't comment on every other
space, but like are a huge wasteof time.
I can't come into another space, but like are a huge waste of
time, with the reason being thatoftentimes if you are a small
(06:32):
company, you again are stillfiguring stuff out.
And I'll give you a specificexample that we kind of went
through.
Right, so we would work with,you know, pharma, nutrition
partners around rewards, and sowe have this rewards program,
and so they would say, hey, wehave all these clinics, we can
talk to these clinics andmention this program, and that
will be good for both of us.
I have never seen significantgrowth and I haven't really
(06:53):
heard of significant growth fromother companies kind of going
through that process, and Idon't think it's because these
partners are bad partners, butbecause a little bit of like a
misaligned expectation.
So one of the things, justpractically speaking, is that
these clients are really busy,right, and so they might
represent that we have reallystrong relationships with these
practices.
But the reality is mostly theseclinics are saying look, I am
just trying to focus on my workand you're just like more people
(07:14):
may be distracting me fromdoing that.
The second part is now you'retrying to somehow get this
middle person to translate youroffering to this customer.
So not only are they maybedistorting, changing it around
then you have to go to correctbut you're actually missing an
opportunity to speak to thatcustomer.
And then the other reason iswhere they kind of place you in
(07:36):
the hierarchy of things thatthey want to talk about is not
the first thing that they'retalking about.
They're talking about the stuffthat matters to them.
And so you end up in thissituation where you end up
relying on these partners.
That, you think, gives you afalse sense of product market
fit, because the partner issaying this is really
interesting and they have accessto a lot of clinics.
But just because they haveaccess to them and their legacy
kind of brands and products doesnot mean that that customer is
(07:57):
going to translate to you and insome cases their sales reps or
their field might not feel thesame way about your product or
might not be the target customer, and you're not getting that
feedback then directly from thepractices.
And so I see a lot of earlystage companies that spend a lot
of time on partnerships and I'mlike, look, unless you have
really clear definition on like,what makes them successful, you
(08:43):
have some minimums, you havesome ability to enforce this,
you have some leverage.
You are going to spend a lotonly to find out that, hey, that
just wasn't a successfulchannel for us and, if anything,
we've maybe missed a bunch oftime and opportunity to grow our
business in other ways.
Ira (08:53):
So those are a few.
Yeah, no, that's great, I mean,I think I agree.
Well, they're all good advice.
Great, I mean, I think, um, Iagree, well, they're all good
advice.
Um, the last one, I think Imight sort of modify it and
maybe just having really goodclarity on what, what your
expectations are from from apartnership, and that those
expectations are aligned withyou know what the business
really needs right now.
Um, I definitely did not makethe mistake of hiring too early.
(09:16):
We actually had to eventuallybe convinced that you can hire
people.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
There's a way to find people.
Ira (09:23):
If you don't know them, you could put an ad up.
We didn't know that, but wedefinitely did make the mistake
of building a pretty robustinitial product.
So we thought that we couldn'tput something on the market that
was kind of a half-baked testprep product, and I don't think
(09:45):
that was.
I don't think it was true, butthat's what we thought.
And so we thought we had tokind of reach this threshold of
having, like, this needs to becomprehensive enough that, like
almost any user should find alot of value in it and it can
help with their goal.
Almost any user should find alot of value in it and it can
help them with their goal.
And the only reason that workedis because we just guessed
(10:06):
right on product market fit.
Like everybody needed thisproduct, and I think the key
advice that I would take fromthat is not that you need to
guess right, although you do.
(10:31):
It's not that you need to guessright, although you do, but the
reason that we had a betterchance of guessing right is that
we set out to and we knew thatthere has to be something, that
other people are using bettertools to do this than what we
have available to us, andeverybody complains about what
we have and wishes there wassomething better, and that gave
(10:52):
us a lot of confidence to say,if we can build that, people
will pay for it.
And I think it is a much tougherask to sort of set out from the
sort of perspective of well,yeah, I want to create something
of value and I don't know whatthat exact problem is that I'm
looking to solve and I'm goingto try to figure that out.
I think that that leads you onsort of this much more
(11:16):
challenging path of trying tofind the right value proposition
for your customers, and atleast my perspective is it's
also a lot less fun and lessrewarding to sort of be maybe a
bit detached from the problemthat your business is setting to
conquer, and so I think,although it may not always be
(11:37):
practical, my advice would be toset out to solve a problem that
you know intimately well, and Ithink that will give you a
really big leg up on a lot ofother would-be competitors.
What do you think about that?
Adam (11:52):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
I have a follow-up question foryou.
Did you have people thatthought or told you, like, hey,
this isn't needed because someof those other solutions exist?
Like you it sounds like you hadreally spent time with
quote-unquote the competitorsbut like other tools, that might
have been options, and you'resaying, hey, like these are
(12:13):
suitable or they aren't workingfor me, but maybe from more of a
layman's perspective, somebodywho's more distant from it, they
might be.
Look, it seems like this isalready a solved problem.
I'm just curious what was kindof the reaction for people who
didn't know the space as well ormaybe weren't as familiar with
that problem.
Ira (12:30):
So I think there certainly were test prep books that were
out there and schools typicallydid they probably still do have
board review sessions where theyhave professors come in and
sort of like a you know who doyou guys think you are that
you're going to do a better jobthan these experts?
And we certainly weren'texperts.
So I think we did get a littlebit of that.
(12:51):
But and maybe the biggestsurprise when we launched the
product was we got like a littlebit of weird backlash initially
, like in the first two or threeyears, from the vet schools and
we didn't really get it.
But it was sort of like uh, youknow, it's our job to prepare
(13:12):
students, uh, you know, um pasttheir boards and it's not like
your job.
Like, why, like, why should wehelp you get this message out
that you're here to help ourstudents pass forward?
Like well, because we're hereto help your students pass
boards and um, and weirdly and Ithink this is maybe more of
just a, a sign of it beingdifferent times than sort of, uh
, an ongoing learning but um,this was sort of relatively not
(13:38):
like the early days of theinternet, but sort of somewhat
early in terms of the way peoplewere using the internet and
about a year and a half prior tous launching our test prep tool
, there was actually a scandalthat people were sharing board
questions online and that's abig no-no.
(14:00):
That's breaking a lot of rulesand you get in a lot of trouble.
And if a school was involved inany of that, then they're going
to be in a lot of trouble.
And somehow the fact that, like, we had kind of created this
online repository of board studyinformation got a little bit
conflated with this idea thatlike, oh, like they can't do
this Right.
(14:21):
Like, yeah, like this is, thisis unethical for them to be
putting this information online,when of course it wasn't.
But we did get like a weird bitof backlash about that aspect
of what we were doing initiallyand, you know, we overcame it
and ultimately had greatpartnerships with many of the
schools.
But yeah, that was what Iremember hearing about that yeah
(14:41):
, I know that that's superinteresting.
Adam (14:44):
I guess the the point.
So I I agree what you were justwas saying wholeheartedly.
I think the other thing too isthat when you are really close
to a problem and you develop avery specific solution to it,
maybe on, like, at a high level,it might look very similar to
other competitors or what haveyou, but, like, when you
actually use the product, it's acompletely different experience
.
And and I think that speaks tothe fact that, like, even in
(15:08):
those spaces where there is anexisting solution, the way that
you actually solve that problemmight look completely different
than the way that this companydid, this company did, did, and
there's always kind of anopportunity, I think, to make
something better.
And so I kind of hear thatsometimes where, well, you know,
I don't know if there's a placethat we can focus on because it
(15:30):
looks like it's prettycompetitive, but like, are the
people that are using thoseproducts like happy?
Like, do they use them to theirfull effect?
Like, practice managementsoftware can do a lot of things,
but if 50% of the users areonly using 20% of the
functionality, like, there'sprobably an opportunity there.
So I do think that, like, theknowledge and the depth of how
(15:52):
you can explore a problem andhow does that problem manifest
itself for different people atdifferent times and different
roles can really drive a levelof kind of specificity in the
solution that can make all thedifference Right and and so
that's, that's reallyfascinating, it's really
fascinating.
Ira (16:11):
Thanks.
I wanted to follow up with youon something that we talked
about on the previous episodeand I just didn't have time to
kind of dive deep on.
But on a prior episode I wastalking to have time to kind of
dive deep on.
But, uh, on a prior episode Iwas talking to Stacy about, um,
the challenges of having to firesomebody and um, and then you
brought up during yourexperience that you actually had
to go through two rounds oflaying off you know 50 or so
(16:34):
business and I mean I thinkthere's there's a difference
between having to terminate anemployee because of cause, if
you will or even maybe becauseyou're shutting down a part of
the business or shiftingdirections and having to lay
people off.
And when we had thisconversation I sort of reflected
(16:58):
that almost everybody I've evertalked to that has been laid
off has sort of reflected andsaid it wasn't so much that I
was laid off, but it was the wayI was laid off that, just you
know, really kind of rubbed methe wrong way.
And I am I'm sympathetic to bothlot of sympathy for the way
people and their lives areimpacted when these decisions
(17:20):
get made by businesses, and alsohave sympathy for the leaders
at companies that have to dothis.
Because it's not.
I imagine when you started abusiness, you never thought in
your wildest dreams that you'dhave to be letting go of like a
big group of your team and thenall of a sudden, that's that's
the reality that you're facedwith.
And then all of a sudden,that's that's the reality that
(17:41):
you're faced with.
And so, um, I mean I may be toomany questions rolled into one,
but sort of sort of curiousabout how you, how you, went
through that process, how youthink it was received, as well
as anything you learned from itum, I've maybe a quick question
and then I can respond.
Adam (17:53):
Sure, for the people that say it was how I did, it did
they describe how they wish itwould have been done?
Ira (18:00):
I think the most common thing that I hear is that, um,
you know, they were sort ofblindsided by it, right?
Um, and I think that can be alittle bit more of a necessity
in a layoff situation than adetermination for an employee
that's not doing well, and and Ithink in other cases it could
be related to, you know, thefact that they, you know, maybe
(18:23):
felt entitled to more severanceor compensation than the company
was able to provide, or maybehow you know.
Yeah, I think.
I think those are the mainthings that I've heard.
Yeah, go ahead.
Adam (18:38):
Yeah, no.
So yeah, I think it is a veryto your point.
I think it's really challengingwhen you kind of realize, as a
founder, that this kind ofdrastic action is needed,
because you know lots of thingsgo through your head.
Be one of the points to addressis like people had no idea it
(19:06):
was coming.
I think that starts with, like,do people understand what
success looks like, and are thegoals that you're setting for
the team, um, aligned with theprogress that you need to make
to be successful, right?
And so what you don't want is asituation where people are like
I'm hitting this out of thepark, but you're like, oh, like,
the park that we're actually inis way bigger than you think,
and so these hits don't make adifference whatsoever, and so I
(19:27):
think that could be reallychallenging.
Like, obviously, if everybodythinks it's really great and
then all of a sudden, like theylose their jobs, like that is
there's something that'smisaligned there.
So I think in our cases, it wasstill pretty surprising to some
people, even if there maybe wasevidence that, hey, these
things aren't going as well.
I think preparation is actuallya particularly important aspect,
(19:50):
and a lot of that's likelogistics, so like having what
is ready for them, being able tocollect information should they
wish for you to make contactsto other employers or push that
on LinkedIn or what have you.
Because this is, you know, mybusiness partner, mike.
He had kind of more experiencein this and he was like, look,
(20:11):
you know, we're going to get inthis meeting and we're going to
tell them, and like they're notgoing to hear a lot more after
that, right, like it's going tobe really.
And so he was kind of likedeliver the bad news quickly,
which I think was actually theright decision in part, because
if you're having like, like ifyou're having a half an hour
meeting with somebody and youwait 15 minutes to tell them
(20:32):
that the actual point of thisconversation is x, right, that's
not going to be a good feeling,and so for us it was quite
direct, but it was fought, itwas followed with like very
clearly, like this is what this?
And then also following up withkind of written confirmation of
all of that and being able tobe as prepared as possible for
the questions that people wouldanswer and the information that
(20:54):
they would need.
You know, we've had people thatwere kind of going through
divorces or had medical needs orwhatever, and so things like
you know when your benefits will, and those sorts of pieces of
information I think are really,are really critical, because for
different people, differentpieces of information will mean,
mean everything.
And so that was kind of how wewent about it, where when we did
(21:18):
it, we we kind of came in, itwas fairly direct, it was fairly
, you know, fairly short, buttrying to support them with the
resources around it and thenalso giving them an opportunity
to kind of come back.
Should they come back with morequestions, should they, should
they wish.
But I think a large part of itis like what is the?
(21:38):
So that's kind of that process.
But you have to also reallythink about the other team, the
other side of the team, right,because now you're in a
situation like I'm not suresomeone who's not getting like
let go, like my confidence inthis business, am I next?
What does this mean?
And so you need to be able toensure that those layoffs are
(22:04):
for a purpose that can help, Ithink, somehow breed confidence
and clarity for the remainingteam, because otherwise it just
looks like complete dysfunction.
And so that was something thatfor us was really important as
well where it's like okay, likewe want you to hear from us what
this plan is, and so what thatactually means is like for for
(22:26):
us.
You know, we had those series ofone-on-one conversations.
We talked to managers or peoplethat were responsible for those
reports, and then, um, andinclude them if they wanted to
be included, uh, but also beingable to then meet as a team, uh,
the remainder of the team andsay like, look, these are the
decisions that we had to take,and and and while.
(22:46):
This was necessary and how wethink that we can be kind of
stronger moving forward, and Ithink that that was also
important.
Ira (22:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think that a lot of good points there related
to sort of handling thosesituations and I've kind of
resolved that maybe the bestthat you can sort of hope for as
a leader is that the, thepeople that you're impacting,
that they you know, that theyknow that you do sort of care
(23:18):
about them and that you cancommunicate that not only in
words but in sort of the actionsthat you have sort of leading
into and following those, thoseconversations you alluded to,
like trying to help them findtheir next position and the like
.
But what's a little tricky is,I think I mean I often say
businesses don't care aboutpeople, but when a business
decides to lay somebody off,like the likely reaction from
(23:39):
somebody is going to be like I'mkind of mad at that business,
right, and and when you are theleader of that business, like
how to like, how do you like?
Adam (23:51):
Can you even sort of separate, you know, you the
person from you the business,right, like I, I don't know yeah
, I, I think that we wereactually able to to do that
pretty well in our case, rightlike I, I I'm not going to say
that we're best friends witheverybody that we kind of let go
um, but I, we had people thatwere like this is the most fair
that I've ever had in asituation like this, right, um,
(24:14):
and they I think the other thingtoo is like a degree of
authenticity can kind of go along way, like, yeah, they, they
knew that.
I'm not going to say it was likewe felt the same, but they,
they knew that it it hurt, um,for, for this situation, I think
the other thing too is, to yourpoint, like what you give them
(24:35):
in terms of severance, likemakes a big difference.
Like those are numbers thatthey can attribute to, and so I
I think there was a grief,humanity to it.
Like I, I like to think that,despite us having some really
challenging times, like our teamalways felt like we were good
people that were trying our best, and that, I think, helped.
Ira (25:07):
At the end of every show, we like to recognize an
important tool book mentor quote, something that you found
really helpful in your time, sowhy don't you go first?
Adam (25:21):
Yeah, I spent a lot of time on Loom as a remote kind of
first worker and with a remoteteam.
I found that Loom, which islike a screen capture tool, is
like the best way for me toarticulate concepts, ask for
feedback, and I do that humanelement.
So whenever I'm finding myselfhaving conversations about
(25:42):
things where I need feedback,that's what I kind of go to.
Conversations about thingswhere I need feedback, that
that's what I kind of go to.
Um, um.
In terms of books, the heart,uh, I would say that there's
kind of a couple that I reallylike.
Um, the lead startup for me hasalways been like one that I
revisit a lot.
Um, in part because you takeyou take different things from
books if you reread them atdifferent points in your life,
(26:03):
and that's one that, like, Ithink, for me, the, the lessons
of experimentation and how to dothat in a data-driven way,
certainly hit differently aftercoming through it.
And then maybe I'll give a shoutout to Mark Stephenson, who was
my first boss at LifeLearn andhe was the first person who he
(26:25):
always kind of been in my corner.
We did a lot of work together,but at some point he was like
look, you know I think I've kindof taught you and impressed
upon you like everything that Iknow, and for you to kind of get
some of this other experiencefrom different people, like I
think you need to kind of maybelearn at the feet of others, is
kind of how he uh made me feelabout point.
(26:45):
But it was just like thisdegree of like humility and like
really a boss that like reallywants what's best for you, even
if it means it's going to bechallenging for them or it means
that they're going to have togo on a different part of the
journey, and I think that thatfor me always kind of stuck out.
So, yeah, that's great.
Ira (27:04):
Well, I am going to give give a shout out to a doctor
named Guillermo Couto, and he isa medical oncologist that I
actually only worked with forabout a year when I was an
intern at the Ohio StateUniversity, and what I remember
about him the most was that hewas just brilliant, kind, was
just brilliant, um, kind ofbartered in life personality,
(27:27):
great communicator.
And I remember we had this casewhere, you know, this dog came
in and and it had a biopsy.
That just kind of like itseemed weird and um, and
unexpectedly to me, like he saidlet's walk over and talk to the
pathologist, um and um, andwent over and talked to the
(27:47):
pathologist and he kind of wasexplaining how he got the biopsy
.
He said, let me look at thebiopsy with you, so we'd go look
at like one of thesemulti-headed microscopes.
We started looking at thebiopsy and Koda starts saying,
well, what about this thing overhere?
What about this thing overthere?
And he's like, well, I thinkthat this is, you know, actually
suggestive of of a differentdisease process and through that
conversation, like actuallybasically he convinced the
(28:08):
pathologist that like what hethought he saw was not what he
saw, and um, and we're walkingback over to the clinic, I was
kind of like shaken because,yeah, I'd sort of been brought
up at that point to kind ofbelieve like, yeah, like the
gold standard of like thediagnosis is the biopsy.
Like you can run all these othertests and they tell you like
well, it's probably this or it'sprobably that, but like no, the
(28:29):
biopsy, like that's the answer,that's the answer key, right,
and like you can't question theanswer key.
And and I then I remember himsaying something along the lines
of he says Ira, if you have apiece of data telling you one
thing but your patient istelling you something else,
(28:50):
always believe your patient, orat least spend more time being
critical of the data than youare a patient, right, um, and
and I think that lesson had atremendous impact on sort of
high practice medicine, but italso like has an impact about
like how I think about businesstoo right.
Is you know, sometimes you knowyou actually need to not only
(29:13):
sort of question you know thebusiness self, but question sort
of the data that's informingthat business that you otherwise
might think of as like well,this is infallible data, but all
data is valuable.
And so he was probably theperson that had the biggest
impact on kind of changing theway I think about that, and so,
(29:33):
even though we didn't worktogether for a long time, I
think about him a lot.
Adam (29:37):
That's cool.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Ira (29:39):
Right.
Well, I really appreciate youbeing on the show with me, Adam,
and look forward to connectingwith you soon.
Adam (29:46):
Yeah, thanks, ira.
Ira (29:46):
Cheers Take care.
Welcome to the Accidental Entrepreneur's Podcast.
I'm your host.
Ira Gordon.
Stacee is out this week, so I'mextremely excited to be joined
by our guest, Dr.
Adam Little.
Adam's also a veterinarian andone of the true thought leaders
in the world of innovation inanimal health.
On our last episode wediscussed his startup journey
and today we'll be diving alittle bit deeper to get
(00:24):
additional insights and advicefrom Adam.
Really thrilled to have you onthe show with me today.
Adam (00:34):
Yeah, thanks, Ira, glad to be here
Ira (00:38):
What have you been up to recently?
Adam (00:40):
Yeah, so came back from the Western Vet Conference not
too long ago now.
That was a really fun meeting.
Obviously, the first bit of anyyear is kind of filled with a
lot of travel, but Dr.
Stacee Santi and I wereco-hosting this workshop on
using AI to build your practiceplaybook and so trying to get
(01:02):
practices not just aware of someof these tools, but actively
kind of using them, getting yourhands dirty, which is a lot of
fun.
So that was how we kind ofspent our time there.
Ira (01:12):
Right on, right on.
Well, at the end of our lastconversation, we spun the wheel
and have our question to discusstoday, which is what is some
key advice you would give to anew startup.
Do you want to go first?
Adam (01:26):
Yeah, there's a couple that jump out at me because
these are things that I think,pieces of advice that we didn't
follow and that I think arereally important.
So I think one of them is beingable to, as quickly as you can,
de-risk whatever you'rebuilding.
(01:48):
And so are there ways that youcan get feedback earlier from
folks, before you spend a lot oftime, kind of building
something out and investing yourtime in it, and can you do that
without requiring a lot of kindof technical work?
Do that without requiring a lotof kind of technical work?
Either I'm going to bring on ahired developer or I'm going to,
(02:08):
you know, you know, contract abunch of coders, etc.
Um and so for me, that isthings like landing page tests,
that is things like surveys,that are things like using some
of these no code tools to maybebuild the first version of what
you're considering.
Just to understand, is thereany interest in this whatsoever?
And I think one of the thingsthat sometimes is a little bit
(02:32):
of a challenging path that I'veseen some startups go down in
the veterinary space is verymuch like hey, if I'm going to
build this thing and it's goingto work and integrate with these
tools and once it's integrated,we're going to get all this
value.
And what they kind of fail torealize sometimes is that like
well, actually getting thoseintegrations and having them
work in the way that you wouldlike is maybe really expensive
(02:54):
or maybe might not even bepossible.
And so is there a way that youcan create value that doesn't
require the permission of otherpeople?
And so that's kind of maybe thesecond one, where the first one
is like can you de-risk whatyou're doing?
But the second is can youcreate value without requiring a
bunch of these different people, organizations, to kind of
(03:15):
align in this perfect way?
And so that can be somethinglike understanding that, hey,
you know, if I need to get thisentire team to switch out their
piece of software and I needlike three different groups of
leaders and the middle managersand to all agree that this is
the thing that we're going to do, the amount of time and energy
it takes to kind of get acustomer, get a, get a user, can
(03:37):
be so significant to the pointthat all you're doing is in your
, all you are is in meetingswith people who ultimately won't
be the users of your software,and so I think that can be
really problematic as well.
And I think one of the bestexamples and this is one of the
reasons I'm kind of bullish onsome of these applications.
But you look at like the medicaldictation apps and I think what
people sometimes miss is thatit's the first kind of class of
(03:59):
applications in the veterinaryspace in a long time that has
been able to solve a problem ina way that you just need one
team member.
You can do it with one doctorwho just agrees to try it one
day without requiring the entireteam billing.
It doesn't require integrationwith the practice management
software systems to create valueand they are being able to
(04:21):
generate more revenue thanalmost any other piece of
software that veterinarianstouch.
And so those kind ofingredients where you're able to
like sell something to oneperson in the practice and
they're able to use it and getvalue out of it.
It doesn't require theseintegrations are changing the
entire workflow of the team andyou're able to get compensated
fairly for that.
For that that value is is quiteunique, so that's kind of
(04:41):
another piece there is quiteunique, so that's kind of
another piece there.
I think.
The third thing for me is likehiring too early, so I kind of
see this a lot where there'slike a particularly difficult
job Maybe it's like hey, I don'tknow how to get into corporate
groups and the founders aresaying, like we don't know how
(05:02):
to do this, and as opposed tofiguring it out, they kind of
try to sometimes get a shortcut,and that could be in the form
of hiring somebody or maybedoing a strategic partnership
deal.
But I think for a lot of early,early stage companies, these
are just things that you have tofigure out, and if they're
particularly hard for you likehey, I don't know how to get
(05:25):
vets to buy my product likehiring another salesperson to
then try to take on thatresponsibility is probably not
the right way to approach it,because if they're not going to
buy it from the founder, whousually is the most passionate
person, who knows the thingbetter, why are they going to
buy it from a rep, right?
(05:46):
And so I sometimes think thatyou know, oftentimes
organizations may be higherahead of where they need to, and
the reality is, as a founder,you probably will feel
overwhelmed and that you'rebursting at the seams, and
that's probably the time to hire, as opposed to hiring before
that, especially if you don'texactly know what that year will
(06:09):
look like and what successlooks like in that role.
And that maybe leads me tonumber four, which is that I
think that strategicpartnerships for early stage
companies in the vet space Ican't comment on every other
space, but like are a huge wasteof time.
I can't come into another space, but like are a huge waste of
time, with the reason being thatoftentimes if you are a small
(06:32):
company, you again are stillfiguring stuff out.
And I'll give you a specificexample that we kind of went
through.
Right, so we would work with,you know, pharma, nutrition
partners around rewards, and sowe have this rewards program,
and so they would say, hey, wehave all these clinics, we can
talk to these clinics andmention this program, and that
will be good for both of us.
I have never seen significantgrowth and I haven't really
(06:53):
heard of significant growth fromother companies kind of going
through that process, and Idon't think it's because these
partners are bad partners, butbecause a little bit of like a
misaligned expectation.
So one of the things, justpractically speaking, is that
these clients are really busy,right, and so they might
represent that we have reallystrong relationships with these
practices.
But the reality is mostly theseclinics are saying look, I am
just trying to focus on my workand you're just like more people
(07:14):
may be distracting me fromdoing that.
The second part is now you'retrying to somehow get this
middle person to translate youroffering to this customer.
So not only are they maybedistorting, changing it around
then you have to go to correctbut you're actually missing an
opportunity to speak to thatcustomer.
And then the other reason iswhere they kind of place you in
(07:36):
the hierarchy of things thatthey want to talk about is not
the first thing that they'retalking about.
They're talking about the stuffthat matters to them.
And so you end up in thissituation where you end up
relying on these partners.
That, you think, gives you afalse sense of product market
fit, because the partner issaying this is really
interesting and they have accessto a lot of clinics.
But just because they haveaccess to them and their legacy
kind of brands and products doesnot mean that that customer is
(07:57):
going to translate to you and insome cases their sales reps or
their field might not feel thesame way about your product or
might not be the target customer, and you're not getting that
feedback then directly from thepractices.
And so I see a lot of earlystage companies that spend a lot
of time on partnerships and I'mlike, look, unless you have
really clear definition on like,what makes them successful, you
(08:43):
have some minimums, you havesome ability to enforce this,
you have some leverage.
You are going to spend a lotonly to find out that, hey, that
just wasn't a successfulchannel for us and, if anything,
we've maybe missed a bunch oftime and opportunity to grow our
business in other ways.
Ira (08:53):
So those are a few.
Yeah, no, that's great, I mean,I think I agree.
Well, they're all good advice.
Great, I mean, I think, um, Iagree, well, they're all good
advice.
Um, the last one, I think Imight sort of modify it and
maybe just having really goodclarity on what, what your
expectations are from from apartnership, and that those
expectations are aligned withyou know what the business
really needs right now.
Um, I definitely did not makethe mistake of hiring too early.
(09:16):
We actually had to eventuallybe convinced that you can hire
people.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
There's a way to find people.
Ira (09:23):
If you don't know them, you could put an ad up.
We didn't know that, but wedefinitely did make the mistake
of building a pretty robustinitial product.
So we thought that we couldn'tput something on the market that
was kind of a half-baked testprep product, and I don't think
(09:45):
that was.
I don't think it was true, butthat's what we thought.
And so we thought we had tokind of reach this threshold of
having, like, this needs to becomprehensive enough that, like
almost any user should find alot of value in it and it can
help with their goal.
Almost any user should find alot of value in it and it can
help them with their goal.
And the only reason that workedis because we just guessed
(10:06):
right on product market fit.
Like everybody needed thisproduct, and I think the key
advice that I would take fromthat is not that you need to
guess right, although you do.
(10:31):
It's not that you need to guessright, although you do, but the
reason that we had a betterchance of guessing right is that
we set out to and we knew thatthere has to be something, that
other people are using bettertools to do this than what we
have available to us, andeverybody complains about what
we have and wishes there wassomething better, and that gave
(10:52):
us a lot of confidence to say,if we can build that, people
will pay for it.
And I think it is a much tougherask to sort of set out from the
sort of perspective of well,yeah, I want to create something
of value and I don't know whatthat exact problem is that I'm
looking to solve and I'm goingto try to figure that out.
I think that that leads you onsort of this much more
(11:16):
challenging path of trying tofind the right value proposition
for your customers, and atleast my perspective is it's
also a lot less fun and lessrewarding to sort of be maybe a
bit detached from the problemthat your business is setting to
conquer, and so I think,although it may not always be
(11:37):
practical, my advice would be toset out to solve a problem that
you know intimately well, and Ithink that will give you a
really big leg up on a lot ofother would-be competitors.
What do you think about that?
Adam (11:52):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
I have a follow-up question foryou.
Did you have people thatthought or told you, like, hey,
this isn't needed because someof those other solutions exist?
Like you it sounds like you hadreally spent time with
quote-unquote the competitorsbut like other tools, that might
have been options, and you'resaying, hey, like these are
(12:13):
suitable or they aren't workingfor me, but maybe from more of a
layman's perspective, somebodywho's more distant from it, they
might be.
Look, it seems like this isalready a solved problem.
I'm just curious what was kindof the reaction for people who
didn't know the space as well ormaybe weren't as familiar with
that problem.
Ira (12:30):
So I think there certainly were test prep books that were
out there and schools typicallydid they probably still do have
board review sessions where theyhave professors come in and
sort of like a you know who doyou guys think you are that
you're going to do a better jobthan these experts?
And we certainly weren'texperts.
So I think we did get a littlebit of that.
(12:51):
But and maybe the biggestsurprise when we launched the
product was we got like a littlebit of weird backlash initially
, like in the first two or threeyears, from the vet schools and
we didn't really get it.
But it was sort of like uh, youknow, it's our job to prepare
(13:12):
students, uh, you know, um pasttheir boards and it's not like
your job.
Like, why, like, why should wehelp you get this message out
that you're here to help ourstudents pass forward?
Like well, because we're hereto help your students pass
boards and um, and weirdly and Ithink this is maybe more of
just a, a sign of it beingdifferent times than sort of, uh
, an ongoing learning but um,this was sort of relatively not
(13:38):
like the early days of theinternet, but sort of somewhat
early in terms of the way peoplewere using the internet and
about a year and a half prior tous launching our test prep tool
, there was actually a scandalthat people were sharing board
questions online and that's abig no-no.
(14:00):
That's breaking a lot of rulesand you get in a lot of trouble.
And if a school was involved inany of that, then they're going
to be in a lot of trouble.
And somehow the fact that, like, we had kind of created this
online repository of board studyinformation got a little bit
conflated with this idea thatlike, oh, like they can't do
this Right.
(14:21):
Like, yeah, like this is, thisis unethical for them to be
putting this information online,when of course it wasn't.
But we did get like a weird bitof backlash about that aspect
of what we were doing initiallyand, you know, we overcame it
and ultimately had greatpartnerships with many of the
schools.
But yeah, that was what Iremember hearing about that yeah
(14:41):
, I know that that's superinteresting.
Adam (14:44):
I guess the the point.
So I I agree what you were justwas saying wholeheartedly.
I think the other thing too isthat when you are really close
to a problem and you develop avery specific solution to it,
maybe on, like, at a high level,it might look very similar to
other competitors or what haveyou, but, like, when you
actually use the product, it's acompletely different experience
.
And and I think that speaks tothe fact that, like, even in
(15:08):
those spaces where there is anexisting solution, the way that
you actually solve that problemmight look completely different
than the way that this companydid, this company did, did, and
there's always kind of anopportunity, I think, to make
something better.
And so I kind of hear thatsometimes where, well, you know,
I don't know if there's a placethat we can focus on because it
(15:30):
looks like it's prettycompetitive, but like, are the
people that are using thoseproducts like happy?
Like, do they use them to theirfull effect?
Like, practice managementsoftware can do a lot of things,
but if 50% of the users areonly using 20% of the
functionality, like, there'sprobably an opportunity there.
So I do think that, like, theknowledge and the depth of how
(15:52):
you can explore a problem andhow does that problem manifest
itself for different people atdifferent times and different
roles can really drive a levelof kind of specificity in the
solution that can make all thedifference Right and and so
that's, that's reallyfascinating, it's really
fascinating.
Ira (16:11):
Thanks.
I wanted to follow up with youon something that we talked
about on the previous episodeand I just didn't have time to
kind of dive deep on.
But on a prior episode I wastalking to have time to kind of
dive deep on.
But, uh, on a prior episode Iwas talking to Stacy about, um,
the challenges of having to firesomebody and um, and then you
brought up during yourexperience that you actually had
to go through two rounds oflaying off you know 50 or so
(16:34):
business and I mean I thinkthere's there's a difference
between having to terminate anemployee because of cause, if
you will or even maybe becauseyou're shutting down a part of
the business or shiftingdirections and having to lay
people off.
And when we had thisconversation I sort of reflected
(16:58):
that almost everybody I've evertalked to that has been laid
off has sort of reflected andsaid it wasn't so much that I
was laid off, but it was the wayI was laid off that, just you
know, really kind of rubbed methe wrong way.
And I am I'm sympathetic to bothlot of sympathy for the way
people and their lives areimpacted when these decisions
(17:20):
get made by businesses, and alsohave sympathy for the leaders
at companies that have to dothis.
Because it's not.
I imagine when you started abusiness, you never thought in
your wildest dreams that you'dhave to be letting go of like a
big group of your team and thenall of a sudden, that's that's
the reality that you're facedwith.
And then all of a sudden,that's that's the reality that
(17:41):
you're faced with.
And so, um, I mean I may be toomany questions rolled into one,
but sort of sort of curiousabout how you, how you, went
through that process, how youthink it was received, as well
as anything you learned from itum, I've maybe a quick question
and then I can respond.
Adam (17:53):
Sure, for the people that say it was how I did, it did
they describe how they wish itwould have been done?
Ira (18:00):
I think the most common thing that I hear is that, um,
you know, they were sort ofblindsided by it, right?
Um, and I think that can be alittle bit more of a necessity
in a layoff situation than adetermination for an employee
that's not doing well, and and Ithink in other cases it could
be related to, you know, thefact that they, you know, maybe
(18:23):
felt entitled to more severanceor compensation than the company
was able to provide, or maybehow you know.
Yeah, I think.
I think those are the mainthings that I've heard.
Yeah, go ahead.
Adam (18:38):
Yeah, no.
So yeah, I think it is a veryto your point.
I think it's really challengingwhen you kind of realize, as a
founder, that this kind ofdrastic action is needed,
because you know lots of thingsgo through your head.
Be one of the points to addressis like people had no idea it
(19:06):
was coming.
I think that starts with, like,do people understand what
success looks like, and are thegoals that you're setting for
the team, um, aligned with theprogress that you need to make
to be successful, right?
And so what you don't want is asituation where people are like
I'm hitting this out of thepark, but you're like, oh, like,
the park that we're actually inis way bigger than you think,
and so these hits don't make adifference whatsoever, and so I
(19:27):
think that could be reallychallenging.
Like, obviously, if everybodythinks it's really great and
then all of a sudden, like theylose their jobs, like that is
there's something that'smisaligned there.
So I think in our cases, it wasstill pretty surprising to some
people, even if there maybe wasevidence that, hey, these
things aren't going as well.
I think preparation is actuallya particularly important aspect,
(19:50):
and a lot of that's likelogistics, so like having what
is ready for them, being able tocollect information should they
wish for you to make contactsto other employers or push that
on LinkedIn or what have you.
Because this is, you know, mybusiness partner, mike.
He had kind of more experiencein this and he was like, look,
(20:11):
you know, we're going to get inthis meeting and we're going to
tell them, and like they're notgoing to hear a lot more after
that, right, like it's going tobe really.
And so he was kind of likedeliver the bad news quickly,
which I think was actually theright decision in part, because
if you're having like, like ifyou're having a half an hour
meeting with somebody and youwait 15 minutes to tell them
(20:32):
that the actual point of thisconversation is x, right, that's
not going to be a good feeling,and so for us it was quite
direct, but it was fought, itwas followed with like very
clearly, like this is what this?
And then also following up withkind of written confirmation of
all of that and being able tobe as prepared as possible for
the questions that people wouldanswer and the information that
(20:54):
they would need.
You know, we've had people thatwere kind of going through
divorces or had medical needs orwhatever, and so things like
you know when your benefits will, and those sorts of pieces of
information I think are really,are really critical, because for
different people, differentpieces of information will mean,
mean everything.
And so that was kind of how wewent about it, where when we did
(21:18):
it, we we kind of came in, itwas fairly direct, it was fairly
, you know, fairly short, buttrying to support them with the
resources around it and thenalso giving them an opportunity
to kind of come back.
Should they come back with morequestions, should they, should
they wish.
But I think a large part of itis like what is the?
(21:38):
So that's kind of that process.
But you have to also reallythink about the other team, the
other side of the team, right,because now you're in a
situation like I'm not suresomeone who's not getting like
let go, like my confidence inthis business, am I next?
What does this mean?
And so you need to be able toensure that those layoffs are
(22:04):
for a purpose that can help, Ithink, somehow breed confidence
and clarity for the remainingteam, because otherwise it just
looks like complete dysfunction.
And so that was something thatfor us was really important as
well where it's like okay, likewe want you to hear from us what
this plan is, and so what thatactually means is like for for
(22:26):
us.
You know, we had those series ofone-on-one conversations.
We talked to managers or peoplethat were responsible for those
reports, and then, um, andinclude them if they wanted to
be included, uh, but also beingable to then meet as a team, uh,
the remainder of the team andsay like, look, these are the
decisions that we had to take,and and and while.
(22:46):
This was necessary and how wethink that we can be kind of
stronger moving forward, and Ithink that that was also
important.
Ira (22:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think that a lot of good points there related
to sort of handling thosesituations and I've kind of
resolved that maybe the bestthat you can sort of hope for as
a leader is that the, thepeople that you're impacting,
that they you know, that theyknow that you do sort of care
(23:18):
about them and that you cancommunicate that not only in
words but in sort of the actionsthat you have sort of leading
into and following those, thoseconversations you alluded to,
like trying to help them findtheir next position and the like
.
But what's a little tricky is,I think I mean I often say
businesses don't care aboutpeople, but when a business
decides to lay somebody off,like the likely reaction from
(23:39):
somebody is going to be like I'mkind of mad at that business,
right, and and when you are theleader of that business, like
how to like, how do you like?
Adam (23:51):
Can you even sort of separate, you know, you the
person from you the business,right, like I, I don't know yeah
, I, I think that we wereactually able to to do that
pretty well in our case, rightlike I, I I'm not going to say
that we're best friends witheverybody that we kind of let go
um, but I, we had people thatwere like this is the most fair
that I've ever had in asituation like this, right, um,
(24:14):
and they I think the other thingtoo is like a degree of
authenticity can kind of go along way, like, yeah, they, they
knew that.
I'm not going to say it was likewe felt the same, but they,
they knew that it it hurt, um,for, for this situation, I think
the other thing too is, to yourpoint, like what you give them
(24:35):
in terms of severance, likemakes a big difference.
Like those are numbers thatthey can attribute to, and so I
I think there was a grief,humanity to it.
Like I, I like to think that,despite us having some really
challenging times, like our teamalways felt like we were good
people that were trying our best, and that, I think, helped.
Ira (25:07):
At the end of every show, we like to recognize an
important tool book mentor quote, something that you found
really helpful in your time, sowhy don't you go first?
Adam (25:21):
Yeah, I spent a lot of time on Loom as a remote kind of
first worker and with a remoteteam.
I found that Loom, which islike a screen capture tool, is
like the best way for me toarticulate concepts, ask for
feedback, and I do that humanelement.
So whenever I'm finding myselfhaving conversations about
(25:42):
things where I need feedback,that's what I kind of go to.
Conversations about thingswhere I need feedback, that
that's what I kind of go to.
Um, um.
In terms of books, the heart,uh, I would say that there's
kind of a couple that I reallylike.
Um, the lead startup for me hasalways been like one that I
revisit a lot.
Um, in part because you takeyou take different things from
books if you reread them atdifferent points in your life,
(26:03):
and that's one that, like, Ithink, for me, the, the lessons
of experimentation and how to dothat in a data-driven way,
certainly hit differently aftercoming through it.
And then maybe I'll give a shoutout to Mark Stephenson, who was
my first boss at LifeLearn andhe was the first person who he
(26:25):
always kind of been in my corner.
We did a lot of work together,but at some point he was like
look, you know I think I've kindof taught you and impressed
upon you like everything that Iknow, and for you to kind of get
some of this other experiencefrom different people, like I
think you need to kind of maybelearn at the feet of others, is
kind of how he uh made me feelabout point.
(26:45):
But it was just like thisdegree of like humility and like
really a boss that like reallywants what's best for you, even
if it means it's going to bechallenging for them or it means
that they're going to have togo on a different part of the
journey, and I think that thatfor me always kind of stuck out.
So, yeah, that's great.
Ira (27:04):
Well, I am going to give give a shout out to a doctor
named Guillermo Couto, and he isa medical oncologist that I
actually only worked with forabout a year when I was an
intern at the Ohio StateUniversity, and what I remember
about him the most was that hewas just brilliant, kind, was
just brilliant, um, kind ofbartered in life personality,
(27:27):
great communicator.
And I remember we had this casewhere, you know, this dog came
in and and it had a biopsy.
That just kind of like itseemed weird and um, and
unexpectedly to me, like he saidlet's walk over and talk to the
pathologist, um and um, andwent over and talked to the
(27:47):
pathologist and he kind of wasexplaining how he got the biopsy
.
He said, let me look at thebiopsy with you, so we'd go look
at like one of thesemulti-headed microscopes.
We started looking at thebiopsy and Koda starts saying,
well, what about this thing overhere?
What about this thing overthere?
And he's like, well, I thinkthat this is, you know, actually
suggestive of of a differentdisease process and through that
conversation, like actuallybasically he convinced the
(28:08):
pathologist that like what hethought he saw was not what he
saw, and um, and we're walkingback over to the clinic, I was
kind of like shaken because,yeah, I'd sort of been brought
up at that point to kind ofbelieve like, yeah, like the
gold standard of like thediagnosis is the biopsy.
Like you can run all these othertests and they tell you like
well, it's probably this or it'sprobably that, but like no, the
(28:29):
biopsy, like that's the answer,that's the answer key, right,
and like you can't question theanswer key.
And and I then I remember himsaying something along the lines
of he says Ira, if you have apiece of data telling you one
thing but your patient istelling you something else,
(28:50):
always believe your patient, orat least spend more time being
critical of the data than youare a patient, right, um, and
and I think that lesson had atremendous impact on sort of
high practice medicine, but italso like has an impact about
like how I think about businesstoo right.
Is you know, sometimes you knowyou actually need to not only
(29:13):
sort of question you know thebusiness self, but question sort
of the data that's informingthat business that you otherwise
might think of as like well,this is infallible data, but all
data is valuable.
And so he was probably theperson that had the biggest
impact on kind of changing theway I think about that, and so,
(29:33):
even though we didn't worktogether for a long time, I
think about him a lot.
Adam (29:37):
That's cool.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Ira (29:39):
Right.
Well, I really appreciate youbeing on the show with me, Adam,
and look forward to connectingwith you soon.
Adam (29:46):
Yeah, thanks, ira.
Ira (29:46):
Cheers Take care.
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