Who's laughing now? The upside of a risky market strategy w/ Emrah Gultekin

Being a health innovator during the COVID-19 Pandemic can be difficult — dwindling funding, shifting priorities, and challenges with getting your message to resonate with the right audience can make it seem darn near impossible.

But what if it isn’t? Running a lean, nimble, and focused path during any crisis, from financial to biological, can help startups remain in the game while also providing a chance to pivot their product to fulfill a current need. Or sometimes, more importantly, a future need.

In this episode, Emrah Gultekin, CEO of Chooch.AI discusses how his company was able to reteach its AI to read radiology scans and provide a much needed, quicker diagnostic tool to the healthcare industry during the COVID-19 crisis. Emrah’s insights include:

• How crises can fuel innovation

• How the move towards human to technology interaction forced by COVID can help accelerate the adoption of technology-based innovations

• The importance of positioning your business horizontally so it can have options for growth, and be able to better navigate an unpredictable future

• How rapid cycle innovation can test innovation’s boundaries in positive ways

• Why staying lean and nimble can better position your company to survive some aspects of a crisis situation

• How the concept of “present bias” can hinder or help an innovator in times of uncertainty

Guest Bio

Emrah Gultekin is an entrepreneur, innovator and the co-founder and CEO of Chooch.AI. Chooch is a Silicon Valley start-up and visual AI solution that provides fast, accurate facial authentication and object recognition for the media, advertising, banking, medical and security industries. 

For those who want to learn more about Chooch.AI and how they may be able to help your company, you can reach out to them at  www.chooch.ai, or email them at hello@chooch.ai. 

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:17 --> 00:00:10:14

Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. COIQ listeners on today's episode, I have Emrah Gultekin with me, who is the CEO for Chooch AI. Welcome to the show.

00:00:11:19 --> 00:00:16:01

Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you very much, dr Roxy. I really appreciate being on the show.

00:00:16:20 --> 00:01:06:06

Speaker 1: So, you know, we were just talking a little bit how our show has shifted the conversation quite a bit in the context of coven 19 and so we're, you know, still being true to our mission and our purpose of helping health innovators, um, talk about business strategies and commercialization strategy so they can get their innovations in the hands of the people that need them the most, which is really not like no more important today than it was, you know, 30 days ago. But, you know, most of the conversation is shifting just a little bit where we're talking more about pivoting and change and, and you know, what's kind of happening in, in the, the thrust of this crisis that we're in. So before we jump into those details, just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what type of innovation or work you're doing.

00:01:07:01 --> 00:02:06:13

Speaker 2: Sure. Great. Yeah, we're definitely living in unprecedented times. Um, and as Chooch AI, what we're doing is, uh, we clone human visual intelligence into machines, uh, so that the machines can do what humans do, uh, at scale. Uh, and so we've been doing that for a while on the cloud. And, uh, we recently have been putting a lot of our models on the edge as well. And some of those cases are for healthcare. Uh, and so we've been doing a lot in healthcare recently in this crisis. Uh, so, uh, we've been, uh, basically able to clone those experts vision, uh, into machines, uh, so that, uh, they can count cells or they can know what's happening in the operating room, what's going on in the surgical cavity, what's coming out and so forth. So that there's some validation there on what's happening. And plus scaling that out, uh, to, uh, to make diagnoses, uh, quicker and faster and scale.

00:02:06:22 --> 00:02:45:00

Uh, so it really, you know, focused on, on that, that part of AI where it's all visual, where you take, um, the, the, the, the cameras and the, uh, any type of visual content. And, and have, have the machines tag on, on behalf of the humans. Uh, so that's really what our company's about. We're, we're in healthcare. We're, we're also doing a lot of geospatial, uh, we do a lot of safety and security as well, and also in media and retail. Uh, so very horizontal platform that can be applied to many verticals. Uh, but, uh, healthcare is definitely one of them.

00:02:45:11 --> 00:03:16:02

Speaker 1: Okay. So, um, so I think that's great because you'll kind of give us, um, maybe a little different context in our conversation where you're not just focused on the healthcare industry, but maybe have a perspective, um, from as an entrepreneur and innovator really, like you said, horizontally across all verticals. So, um, thinking about the healthcare industry and what you're doing there, how do you think the Kovac crisis is impacting entrepreneurs in healthcare?

00:03:18:06 --> 00:04:28:12

Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. I wait. We're definitely, this is unprecedented, and I don't think we've seen anything like this, not even nine 11. Um, but, uh, the, the, the, what's, what's, what's negative and what's positive about this, if we put it into two different buckets, um, maybe talk about the negative of that. Uh, the negative impact is, uh, what we're seeing in, in, in, in our Safier is the, uh, the, the, the closure of basically funding period from VCs and PE companies, even for healthcare, uh, uh, entrepreneurs. It's, it's a, it's a time of uncertainty when, uh, VCs and, and, and, and investors getting really scared. Uh, so we're seeing, um, we're seeing that as an issue, as a negative impact, uh, at, that's one of the negatives. Uh, the, we've focused on some of the positives. The positives out of this is that we see how behind in tackling these issues, whether it's a pandemic or is another type of emergency, we see how unprepared we are, uh, for this.

00:04:28:12 --> 00:05:33:08

So that means opportunity for entrepreneurs. Uh, so whenever there's a crisis, it's actually accelerating some innovation. And we see that in, in previous crises as well. Uh, 2008 crisis, the financial crisis, it also.com. And previously before that and all of these crisis. So what we're going to, what we are seeing as, as a company is sort of the acceleration of the impact of AI into these different, into industries. And healthcare is one of them. So if we take it from a human to human interaction, so that's kind of the classical interaction between, uh, people to, to actually come to some sort of, uh, understanding or some type of decision. We're seeing a move towards human to machine interaction. People are afraid to, the interaction. We're seeing that schooling, education, we're soon going to see in healthcare more. Uh, and we're seeing it across different verticals.

00:05:33:22 --> 00:06:33:17

And so that's going to accelerate the adoption of AI. And you know, you've, you've seen a lot of these negative things about AI, uh, over the past, let's say five, five, six years. Uh, I think all of those, or most of those would go away, uh, as we see the positive impacts of AI. So if we had AI today, uh, we wouldn't be stuck at our homes because we would know exactly what is happening to each person. Uh, and that doesn't mean mass surveillance. It just means sort of like transparency of what's going on and to be able to test quickly, uh, to be able to trace quickly, to be able to mitigate quickly as well. Uh, so if we know, if we know more about our communities and what ha what's happening in, eh, for each person in each person we could, we were able to, uh, we're able to, uh, live our lives, you know, in a normal, in a normal sentence and the like locking everyone down.

00:06:34:09 --> 00:07:44:10

Uh, one of the issues is currently testing. There is a problem and we know from China and some of the Asian countries is that people have tested kids at home and we don't. And so people would get tested. They test themselves maybe every week. Okay. And then they go outside. If they're sick, they stay home. Are there, no, so we're seeing this, uh, we're going to see this shift in the West as well, uh, for these types of things. I think for entrepreneurs it's really important to focus on some of these problems and uh, and, and, and, and solve some of these problems right now. Uh, and this is not like it's not going to happen overnight. Uh, it's going to take years for us to develop these capabilities. But definitely that's, that's one of the positive impacts I think we're seeing out of this crisis. Uh, it's still early. I mean it's still very early in this crisis. We don't know how long it's going to last and what we'll have on the economy, what not. But in terms of accelerating the adoption of AI and some of these automation tools, I think we're, we're gonna see that accelerate very, very quickly.

00:07:45:03 --> 00:08:43:18

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, you know, based upon the context of this show and what we talk about here is, is that that is, I think like the, the greatest silver lining in this terrible situation that we're facing is that I think coven 19 is going to be a catalyst for significantly increased adoption really across the, you know, AI as, as, as well as a lot of connected health and digital health. And remote monitoring. I think that, um, that human to machine connection like you just described is, is something that, you know, a lot of the population, whether it's B to B or B to C, have been opposed to, or resistant to for a long time. And we're all just as a society as a whole being thrust into this kind of, whether we like it or not. And I think that a lot of people will find out that they, they like it. Like, Whoa, wow. I don't know why I was so resistant to this for so long.

00:08:44:05 --> 00:09:41:01

Speaker 2: Right, right. I, I think, I think, um, the resistance is, is kind of like a, uh, it's, it's more a habit rather than that rather than it away. Uh, but, uh, you know, this is all about efficiency at the end of the day, right? I mean, we're trying to be more efficient at what we do and human to human interaction is very, very important. It's important for our minds or characters or our wellbeing. Uh, but if you're, if you're creating, um, uh, if you're, if you're trying to do things quickly and at mass, uh, you need the machines to help you. And it's just, it's just, you know, and we can do it. We have the capability to do that today, uh, with, uh, you know, all the cloud services, uh, and, and the cloud, remember, uh, the cloud services kind of expanded after 2008 crisis. I mean, it was, have the cloud before then.

00:09:41:14 --> 00:10:21:10

And so now that we have this base of the cloud, it appears as though it's time for AI to, you know, uh, to come to the, a picture, to the next, it's the next stage of this. And this is across across verticals. So healthcare is definitely one of them. And I think number one, one of the issues with healthcare is it's heavily regulated and, uh, that regulation creates, uh, sometime for things to be adopted, uh, quicker than other verticals. But, uh, then you have a crisis like this and you're like, okay, well, who cares? Like, we have to get this done. And you're seeing that you're seeing this now. Yeah.

00:10:22:01 --> 00:10:25:07

Speaker 1: Yeah, we are. We're seeing a lot of that. Can you think of some examples?

00:10:26:00 --> 00:11:07:06

Speaker 2: Hmm. Well, some examples, and I don't want to get too, uh, too controversial here, but was with, uh, with the treatment drug, uh, malaria drug and, and just, you know, okay. It's not a vaccine. Uh, no, let people use it if it's working and if there are no real side effects, uh, you know, we're not, we're not, we're not healthcare professionals. We're not doctors, so I don't want to talk too much about that, but it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's just common sense, uh, to, uh, in a time of crisis. Uh, you do what you need to do with what you have at hand, uh, and, and, and reduce the red tape.

00:11:07:16 --> 00:12:07:05

Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think that that's a really important topic for us to talk about as well. Um, you know, just a few weeks ago, a lot of red tape came down for telehealth. Um, a lot of legislation and regulatory obstacles were just completely removed overnight, um, for this kind of like groundbreaking history breaking moment. And, um, you know, it wasn't one of those things where we had to worry about, um, people's safety, um, or, or even like the efficacy of telecom and really all that stuff was already there. And so that I, um, I think that's, um, an example of, of what you're describing here. Um, so, so let's talk about where you are in the innovation process, just so we can kind of set stage, um, you know, through the lens of health care, you know, um, obviously it's not just an idea. Um, so where are you in that and you've launched, how long have you launched? What does that look like?

00:12:08:01 --> 00:13:16:02

Speaker 2: Yeah, so we, we launched our product, um, to the public. We made our dashboard and our AI public, uh, it was last March, uh, two to 2019. And, uh, it was, it was, we did our first healthcare, uh, project in September. And that was, uh, that was a combination of, uh, uh, cell counting, uh, so detecting cells in microscopy and then to find a type of cell. And that is as crucial because you know, these machines do that, but everyone doesn't have a machine and, uh, they need to be sent to these machines. And what we're doing is we're processing on the cloud and on the microscope itself. Uh, so be able to do that real time live was very important for biomedical researchers. We did that for a, uh, biomedical research company in San Diego. And, uh, we also did a operating room, uh, action detection. So being able to understand what's happening in the surgical theater. Uh, so the surgeon come in when his patient,

00:13:17:01 --> 00:13:17:10

Speaker 1: okay,

00:13:17:13 --> 00:14:10:22

Speaker 2: when does it, when does a patient at SSIS, what goes into the surgical cavity? What comes out of the surgical cavity? Uh, when does the operation stop? Uh, you know, all that kind of stuff we were able to do on our AI and these two cameras in the operating theater looking at, um, the, uh, one of overhead and it's looking right at the, uh, the surgical area. And the other is looking at, in general, in the happening in the operating room. And what it's doing is it's collecting, um, information. Uh, so it's saying, okay, this is when anesthesia started. This is when it stopped. Uh, this is when, uh, the surgical, uh, area was, uh, was uncovered, uh, when it went, what goes into the surgical cavity, what comes out of the surgical County to gauzes and so forth, forceps, you know, all kinds of stuff going on there.

00:14:11:13 --> 00:15:05:04

And it logs all of those actions in the data. And then what happens is it sends an alert to the people that any anomalies going on. So if anesthesia was supposed to start, uh, is stop in 45 seconds and it lasted 60 seconds, it'll send such an alert to the people there and say, Hey, no, you need to, uh, there's something going on here. And it's also to a certain, and to share best practices. So let's say a sort of certain surgical team is doing really, really well and you want to know why they're doing so well. And so you would share that best practice with other, um, other surgical teams as well. Because it might be, you know, it might be the stroke, the surgeon, it might be none of this at this time. And so that's the type of stuff we're doing in healthcare.

00:15:05:04 --> 00:16:19:06

And recently we just a train of public public datasets for code 19. And we made that a public, uh, so lung x-rays, uh, we are able to detect detecting lung injury instantly and, uh, that we made public and we gave basically free, uh, to the medical world. And we also waived all licensing fees, uh, for, to, for medical researchers on our platform recently, uh, for coven 19, which means they could trade models very quickly and deploy them, uh, with the, the content that they have. And what does that do? Helps, let's say you're, you're one person looking at radiology and now you can, you can proliferate yourself and say you're a million people looking at the same thing to, uh, quickly classify and identify issues you want. You don't do diagnosis. So the AI won't do a diagnosis. They'll just say, Hey, this is this, this is in this category. It might be lung injury, it might be pneumonia, it might be something else. Uh, but then you can classify them and make sure that the people who have, who need urgent care, uh, are taken care of very quickly. So these are the types of things.

00:16:20:02 --> 00:17:04:23

Speaker 1: Yeah. So, so let's kind of just pause and talk about that for a minute. Um, being able to pivot your product strategy and reframe it in a way that, um, solves a, you know, a problem that we have in healthcare that we didn't have 30 days ago. What was that like? Help us understand, you know, when did you have, you know, what was it like, when did you have this Eureka moment like, Oh my goodness, I think we have an opportunity here. Here's the need. Here's how we could solve it. Here's how we could adapt our solution to, um, contribute to this healthcare, um, issue that we're all facing,

00:17:05:07 --> 00:18:09:18

Speaker 2: right? Yeah. So we took a strategic decision, uh, at the beginning of the company, uh, to make sure that our AI was horizontal enough so that it could be used in different fields. The strategic decision we made, uh, despite a lot of people telling us to focus just on one area. And we did that on purpose because, uh, we're unsure about the future. I just the markets, uh, but also like just socially and like a company, you don't want to put everything into one basket. and so we did that initially. And what happened was when the COBIT, uh, we had healthcare use cases and since we're able to use any type of imagery, uh, to do visual AI, it did, it didn't matter if it was radiology or infrared or you know, even synthetic aperture radar, it doesn't really matter. You able to train the AI to understand what's happening in those images instantly.

00:18:10:17 --> 00:19:26:14

So we said, Hey, you know, this is, you know, we were thinking of doing radiology, but you know, this is an opportunity for us to actually train AI on radiology. And so we look for public data sets and people have been working on pneumonia and ears now. And, but you know, training an AI is, is very, very special. It's, it's, you need to have it. You need to have a system there in place. So we had a system there. We took, uh, publicly available datasets. Uh, one was Datical and, uh, and, and, and another one was also a publicly available one. We took that, those data sets, which were like 6,000 images of, uh, lung x-rays that were already labeled as, you know, pneumonia or not pneumonia. And we put that into the system and we trained our AI to recognize that. And it happened. It happened instantly. And then we say, Hey, it's working. And we, uh, we also tested it with, with, uh, with, with our medical colleagues. And it was working, uh, to certain degree. And so we made it public to people. I mean, it's, it was just, and it was over a weekend, uh, before the lockdown, uh, I got a call, I got, I got a call from my CTO and I said, Hey, we got to do something.

00:19:28:13 --> 00:19:52:12

Speaker 1: So, so that's, you know, I think the heart of, um, you know, what I think is most valuable for our listeners is, is that, um, you know, we're seeing rapid cycle innovation be, um, you know, tested, right? Um, even what we thought might've been rapid cycle innovation previously is being tested of like the boundaries of can we just innovate in a weekend?

00:19:52:23 --> 00:20:16:15

Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. So it was like, you know, I CTOs girlfriend, she was like, Hey, you got it. You guys gotta do something here. You know, this is, you gotta do something for humanity wasn't for the company. It's like, you know, we're, we're fine as a company, but you know, you've got to do something. And then CTO is, okay, let's, let's look for some, uh, public data sets and we'll train them. And it would happen instantly over a weekend. It was one Saturday

00:20:17:11 --> 00:20:18:12

Speaker 1: using AI.

00:20:18:20 --> 00:21:02:21

Speaker 2: Yes. So why not do it? Why, why not? Why not do it? Why not help these people and demonstrate, demonstrate that it's, you're able to do it. That we are able to do it. We are able to do it as humans. We have the technology here today and we just need to make sure it's distributed properly. So we did that and we show it to the world that we'd launched the site. Um, uh, I think it was Monday. It's a Covid-19 response and we've been getting very good response from, from medical people and uh, it's, it's pretty incredible, uh, the speed of how we are able to take that, those data sets, train them, and then deploy them in the market.

00:21:03:07 --> 00:21:41:16

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, so let's kind of go back a little bit. I, I want to dig deeper into what you're talking about now, but I want to go back a little bit to something that you mentioned earlier around, um, you know, talking about how is Kovac impacting your business. And you talked about, you know, the financial piece. So is is in your experience where in, uh, investors have just completely put the brakes on, or are they, um, looking at opportunities, you know, just through a different lens? Or is it like, there's just so much uncertainty? We're not doing anything right now until we wait and see what happens.

00:21:43:05 --> 00:22:09:20

Speaker 2: As for, so for us, we raised the around in December and, um, we're lucky because we're, we're very lean company, uh, and we're nimble and where you were, we're horizontally integrated into different verticals. So we don't have our eggs in one basket. But having said that, I mean, there is a shift in the way investors think about investing right now and we're a Silicon Valley company. So

00:22:09:21 --> 00:22:16:05

Speaker 1: that's why I'm asking you because you know, you're kind of in the hub, right? So what are you hearing? What's happening?

00:22:16:14 --> 00:23:48:22

Speaker 2: Well, we, we w so what you hear and what, what's really happening are two different things. So what we're hearing is, you know, uh, it's business as usual. Um, but in fact what's happening is there's, there's a shift in the way investors are thinking about these investments and the efficacy of these investments. And I think it's going back to basics of like, you know, like it needs to be a real business. Uh, and not just an idea. I think seeing that a bit, uh, but I think what, what's happening in the investment world is people are, are, are triaging their, their current portfolios and making sure that they're healthy and we have that way, you know, people are making sure that their, their current companies are, are going to survive this. And so there's a lot of focus on that today. Uh, so, but new investments, uh, I think people are just trying to understand where this is going to lead and definitely they're going to be opportunities coming out of this. Uh, I think, I just don't think that we know where, where they are right now. And I don't think the investment community does either. So focused focus on their credit portfolios, make sure that, uh, they are surviving and thriving during this period and then a new investments. I don't think, you know, they're probably, uh, what we're, what we're feeling is that new investments are, are they're gonna take their time to make those decisions rather than jump on, jump on a train.

00:23:49:08 --> 00:24:31:12

Speaker 1: Yup. So one of the things that I was reading about recently was that investors were looking for businesses that were coven proof and um, you know, so those that were able to, to survive this crisis, it's really interesting is that horizontal strategy that you took, um, which, you know, doesn't necessarily guarantee a coven proof business, but it's not a bad strategy to, you know, go, okay, so the travel industry is not working right now, but we've got these other verticals that are like exploding. So let's, you know, make some magic happen here.

00:24:32:02 --> 00:25:22:11

Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. So there are two things, right? And we come from a very hard business background and we're not, we were not born and raised in Silicon Valley. Uh, you know, we come from another country, we're immigrants, uh, you know, zero generation immigrants to the U S uh, so it was, it's always like, Hey, don't put all your eggs in one basket type of thing. And, uh, that's why we took a horizontal approach to AI, uh, to visually AI. And we, we, we took a lot of heat for that, uh, initially. And, uh, that was, that was an issue. We didn't back off from it because we just realized that, you know, this is if we can, if we could count cells in microscopy, you can also count assets from satellite imagery. It's the same thing for us. So why not? Why not say yes if someone comes along and says, Hey, can you do this?

00:25:22:11 --> 00:26:22:22

Yes, we can't remember. And the second thing was, uh, being lean as a startup is, is really crucial as well. I mean, being a low burn, uh, having a runway to survive these types of things is really crucial as well. So we didn't raise that much money. We'd had a lean team. We're about 20, uh, only six in the U S uh, and, and then we have two in Turkey. We have one in London and we have 11 full time engineers in India. So we, we created a lean and global team, uh, that could work remotely. Uh, for us. I mean, we're remote already, so nothing really changed. And our burn is, our burn is very low compared to our competitors. Uh, I'd say our nearest competitor has five to seven times more burden than we do. And so raising a lot of money was, you know, that's, that's a, that's that's a blessing and a curse at the same time.

00:26:22:24 --> 00:27:34:09

It's a curse when these things happen because you already have like a hundred employees or 200 employees and you need to, you know, triage and make sure that you survive this and then you're also reliant on those employees to create business right now or to create the product, you know, or refine it. So you can't really do that much with it. So those are the two things. One was keep it horizontal. Don't put everything into, into one basket. And then to have a long runway, be very lean and nimble as a team. Try and do everything internally. Uh, take, it may take a long, longer time to do. It may not be 100% perfect, but if you, if you get to 95% or 90%, it's good enough for people to use. And that's really the, uh, the, uh, the strategy we took. And, uh, we've been very lucky with that and I think we kind of lucked out with this, with this, uh, uh, with this crisis because, uh, it showed that we could survive and a lot of our competitors may not be able, it may, may not be in the same position.

00:27:35:04 --> 00:28:47:13

Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's just talk about that a little bit. You know, from my perspective, you know, it's the ideal and you know, we kind of have the reality and the ideal, the ideal is an 18 to 24 month runway. So that way you don't have to worry about funding and you can really focus on the business. But that's the ideal. That's not the reality that a lot of the people I talk to live with. Um, you know, what do you think, you know, again, just kind of thinking about our listeners that are in the trenches right now. I mean, is there even, um, you know, like if you only have three months of runway left, um, you know, what do you do now in the crisis versus, you know, when, you know, you had all these plans to raise money and all these different pitch competitions that were, all these conferences that no longer exist, completely dried up overnight. Um, you know, what's, what's the, how do you triage that versus somebody that has a much low that, you know, whether they didn't predict this was going to happen, but they just luckily are more prepared with a longer runway.

00:28:47:22 --> 00:29:58:10

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think, nobody knew this was going to happen. Nobody. It's a black Swan event. Totally black Swan event. So no one's prepared for this. But what, what we would do was we would do two things, right? And we've done this in the past because we've been in a similar position in terms of not being with raise money or, uh, you know, not having enough traction or, you know, just having some issues. Um, we'd hunkered down, um, and a focus internally, uh, just decrease our costs as much as possible, hunkered down and focus on the product and the clients that we currently have. So that's what we do. And that's the number one, uh, number two, it reach out to whoever's invested in us in the past and say, Hey, you know, uh, we're in this position. Uh, and uh, usually what happens is if, if, if they're angel investors, they can help, uh, if they're VCs, they can help as well.

00:29:58:20 --> 00:30:45:23

Um, you know, we had the same situation where, you know, we had our investors call us up when, when this started, they were like, Hey, are you guys okay? And if you're not okay, let, let us know and we'll, and we'll, we'll, we'll help. We'll help you guys out. Uh, so two things, hunkered down, focus, decreased costs, hunkered down, go back to your current investors and say, Hey, we're in this position. Be very open about it and say, Hey, we need, you know, this amount of money by this time and just be very, very open. Do not hide. Um, the problem, the more you hide it, the worse it gets. Uh, and people don't appreciate, like if you're out of money in like 10 days and then you're like, Oh, I need money.

00:30:50:20 --> 00:31:38:03

Oh no, just just say, Hey, we've got this issue. We are going to run out in two months or three months. Um, and we need, you know, X amount of money. It'd be very open about it. Just do an email blast, uh, call people up. Um, if you have investors, if you, if you, if you have bootstrapped, it's a different, uh, it's going to be a difficult game. I just go back to basics. Um, and you could still ping people in and pitch. Uh, I think people open to that. Uh, you might be surprised as well. I mean, we've had some, a couple investors reach out, uh, because remember the, the investment community still needs to deploying money. They just want to make sure that, yeah.

00:31:38:13 --> 00:32:02:15

Speaker 1: So when they're reaching out to you and, are they reaching out to you because they, you know, um, kinda know that. No, you already know that. I'm sorry for horizontally focused or did they get wind that you have some type of Covid solution so it makes it a little bit more, not necessarily certain but maybe a little bit more viable for them?

00:32:03:12 --> 00:33:10:02

Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, they, they, they, a lot of these people, they've known us from the past. Uh, so we, we reached out, so I was on a panel the other day and it was about fundraising. It took, they asked like how long did it take you to raise your first round? And it was like, it took us two years and that was when the economy was booming. And uh, they were like, how many investors you talk to? Well, over 300. Yeah, over 300 investors. So a lot of the, a lot of these people already know us to some degree and they're reaching out and like where we're pinging them and like keeping our relationships up. And that's really key as well to have to be able to do that. But having coven and COBIT proof, as you mentioned, is, is important. But we don't know what that is really. I mean, it could be, you know, airlines are down, but like the restaurants are down too. And so it might be utilities are down in a month because, you know, or something else. So we don't know where this is going to go.

00:33:10:10 --> 00:33:15:03

Speaker 1: How will we zoom it down? But I guess anything is possible, right?

00:33:15:17 --> 00:33:18:20

Speaker 2: Well, we know, we know that the cloud companies are up,

00:33:19:13 --> 00:33:22:11

Speaker 1: right, right, right. Exactly. You stock is up

00:33:24:13 --> 00:34:22:04

Speaker 2: cloud streaming. These are up. Uh, so, so it's, it's too late. It's too late. Uh, I mean it's, it's, it's too late to do something for COBIT if you want to, uh, pivot. Eh, well, you need, what I think we need to do is focus on, on more, um, uh, more, uh, horizontal products, uh, that will, that will be, uh, that will, uh, be B proof to anything in the future going forward. And that's really, it's, you know, today's a pandemic tomorrow to financial crisis. Uh, next year it might be, you know, an earthquake, a wildfire here, you know, whatever, it's, there's always something going on. So you need to have these, these, these, these strategies built out, uh, early. If you're focusing on covet right now, it's probably too late, uh, to do that.

00:34:22:15 --> 00:35:38:02

Speaker 1: So, you know, say that because I cannot tell you how many times how many innovators I'm speaking to like you, where it's, it's not like they were like so early in the innovation process that they just had an idea. But I'm, I'm, I'm just really surprised at how many, um, are able to pivot and, you know, over a weekend, over a week, over two weeks and come up with a solution. And it's not something like, Hey, you know, let's figure out how we can just make some more money and sell some stuff. You know, it's, you know, to keep the lights on. It's not bad at all. It's more of like you described where there's this new need or this new priority that we weren't maybe weren't on our radar before. Um, and, and now let's turn this on a dime. Um, and, and see if we can't really help and solve problems. And, and it's remarkable the size of the company. Um, how flexible and nimble health innovators are to actually pivot where it's like, whether it's like a true business pivot, it may not be like their business model completely change, but there's some pivoting happening. Um, and it's,

00:35:38:04 --> 00:36:57:13

Speaker 2: you know, to me that's also part of what's exciting right now. Right, right. Yeah. I mean these innovation happens in sprints. Yeah. It needs to be pushed. Like it doesn't happen by itself. I mean, this is not like the universe is an entropy. So if you let it go, it's going to go to, you know, nowhere. So it needs to be, it needs to be triggered by things and, and, and these crisis trigger that innovation and people start to work on them. So these sprints happen. I mean, you see this in the past, historically it's always been that way as well. I mean, it doesn't happen overnight. What happens during, uh, during the period is, is an innovation of science, uh, happens, uh, during, during a, uh, uh, that, that, that's, that's, that's fairly stable and would happen. It happens, you know, in pretty much in a linear way. But distribution, engineering, uh, that happens in real spreads and that's what we're seeing today. It's just like, you know, people pivoting as you say, companies saying, okay, we got to solve this problem, hunkered down, you know, do your sprint and make and make it happen. And people working like, you know, they've never worked before like 24, seven right now to solve some of these problems. And we haven't really seen that, uh, for a long time.

00:36:58:15 --> 00:37:33:18

Speaker 1: It's, it's really incredible. Um, the rallying that's happening, I think that, you know, I don't know if it's because we have so much, um, time on our extra time on our hands. Uh, we, you know, we don't, maybe don't have as many distractions as we had before. Like, you know, there's not as much, uh, entertainment like outside entertainment on the calendars. So I've got some free time. Why don't I just create something? Um, but you're right, there's a lot of that happening where you're just seeing people come together, um, and, and solve problems in a real deep, committed way.

00:37:34:04 --> 00:38:26:16

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's focus as well. I mean, what, what's on mind happens on paper. So, you know, when, you know, when you're focused on something, you're thinking about it all day long and you're, you're, you all, you have an expertise in your own domain and you're like, how do I, how do I put that together and make something happen? You're focused and you really genuinely want to do something and help this problem out, and you also want to save your company or make sure that your company thrives during this period instead of failing. Right? So all that, all that whole combination makes people work very, very hard. It's, um, it's, it's, it's, it's fight for is, it's, it's, you're, you're fighting for your survival and that survival instinct creates a lot of, you know, strange innovation and sprints that you weren't able to do in years you can do in weeks.

00:38:28:08 --> 00:39:03:09

And, uh, I think that's, that's, that's sort of the good that's coming out of this. And yeah, if we focus on the positive aspects of it, lots of negative, I mean, people are dying, people are getting sick. So it's, it's a, it's a tragedy. Uh, it's, it's a, it's a huge tragedy for humanity. Uh, but on the other hand, you have people trying to solve it and uh, and, and, and innovate. And so that, I think that's going to make us better in the future and create better externalities for everybody to, uh, to thrive on.

00:39:04:00 --> 00:39:17:09

Speaker 1: So the last question that I have for you, MRI is, we were talking earlier and you mentioned present bias. How, talk about that a little bit for our listeners. What is present bias?

00:39:19:02 --> 00:40:20:13

Speaker 2: So a personal biases is, is, is a, it's an economic construct. Actually. It's a, you, you spent today, uh, you think a dollar today is, is more valuable than a dollar tomorrow. Uh, so, um, and that's how it started economics. But it's also a social construct as well. So we think that today, or our current situation is, will lot longer than it is. And that is when even in failure or in success, so you think you're, you think you've failed and you know, we have this problem now. We've failed as, as a civilization right now. That's how we feel. We think that that failure is constant. And that's what present biases is. Like, you know, we think this situation is gonna last. And, um, because you're, you're in a state that's, that's how the human mind works. It's, you're in, you're in the state and you, you think that the state is going to last longer than it actually does.

00:40:21:01 --> 00:40:54:01

And as success as well, you know, when you, when you succeed in something, you think, Oh, I've done it, and you know that success is going to last as well. So that's, that's what present president biases. And, uh, we, I, it's very hard to get out of that mindset. Uh, we're humans, you know, we're social animals. Uh, and, uh, uh, we have, we, we, we, we judge things based on right now actually very present. Um, and so it's, it's hard. It's hard to think of what these, these days will pass. I mean, we're going to reach a new equilibrium.

00:40:54:20 --> 00:41:02:13

Speaker 1: So how does that present bias either hurt or help an innovator right now in this moment?

00:41:04:08 --> 00:41:33:21

Speaker 2: Well, if you, if you, it's, so, uh, let's say how it hurts, it hurts. It innovator is if you, if you get discouraged, uh, because of the situation and you think, you know, this is the end of the world. I mean, a lot of people do believe that right now this is the beginning of the end. Uh, and that's not the case. I mean, that's not happening. Uh, because we have this present bias and so you get discursion not do anything or be very, you know, it, it'll affect everything. Your whole life are domestic

00:41:34:03 --> 00:41:46:18

Speaker 1: beer right here, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to wait and see what happens. I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and just wait and see. And meanwhile, that non-decision is a decision and your business is just crumbling.

00:41:47:01 --> 00:42:43:01

Speaker 2: Right? Exactly. Exactly. And, and, and how it, how it, how it helps is you think, you know, this is, you're like, Holy moly, this is like, you know, this is the, this is the ultimate problem and let's, let's work on and focus on it. So that also helps because you're like, Hey, you, you also think that this is going to last longer, um, or you know, we're not going to reach equilibrium and it's all about reaching equilibrium. Remember after nine, 11, uh, flights were canceled and so forth. Uh, but were flights canceled forever? No. You up up, you, you up the security and you reach a new equilibrium and this will, you will reach a new equilibrium here as well. Uh, we don't know what that will look like exactly, but we will and uh, and, and that's, you know, we'll get, we'll get over this hump in a way, in one way or another. Yeah,

00:42:44:12 --> 00:43:23:13

Speaker 1: I think that's just a great, you know, ending comment for, for our listeners is that, you know, you know, our audience is dedicated to healthcare innovation and most of those people are rebels. Changemakers pioneers like you who want to change the world and want to shape the future of healthcare and there's no greater meaning and purpose. Then if you can contribute and some small way to being able to shape the future of health care, making it a better place in some form or fashion during this crisis right now.

00:43:24:03 --> 00:43:43:24

Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, we're all in the same boat here and we need to help each other. Uh, we need to support each other. It's time for solidarity. So there's not time for panic, not, not time for discourage mint. It's time to innovate. Uh, this is an opportunity for all of us, uh, to shape up.

00:43:44:20 --> 00:44:05:14

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. Um, I think it's going to be just incredibly beneficial to our listeners. And, um, so before we wrap up, how can folks get ahold of you if they want to connect with you about the church solution or just, um, about anything that we talked about today?

00:44:06:08 --> 00:44:52:15

Yeah, great conversation. Uh, they can find us, uh, at, uh, www.ai. Uh, hello at dot. AI. They can get in touch with us. Uh, we're willing to help anybody in this field, um, uh, deploy AI for their specific use cases. Uh, whether that's healthcare or any other vertical. And, uh, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll support them, uh, in deploying these and training the AI and making sure that they can, they can make their companies more efficient and make their processes more efficient with, with the help of visual AI. So, hello at dot AI, uh, get in touch with us. We'd love to support what you guys are doing. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.