Health Innovators
Health Innovators

Episode 74 · 10 months ago

Undertaking the risks necessary to grow your innovation w/ Frank Ricotta


Having 30+ years in the business can give you more insights than a person has a right to - but it won’t give you all the answers.

And when you’re trying to reshape the future of healthcare with a product that harnesses the power of machine learning and puts data back into the customer’s hands, you’re pushing limits.

Limits can be unforgiving, but humility and tenacity can win the day, hands down.

On this week’s episode, come hear how Frank Ricotta, CEO of BurstIQ, is changing the world - one data set at a time.

Frank’s honesty and candidness while speaking about the ups and downs of running a startup are enough to keep all of us inspired and ready to push our own limits.

Get comfortable, Health Innovators, because Frank is packing all the receipts on our latest episode!

Here are the show highlights:

  • Knowing when it’s time to take back the wheel and change direction (1:03)
  • Making big decisions and taking risks (2:34)
  • Recognizing that all feedback is important, even if it isn’t always correct (5:20)
  • Why staying grounded and balanced is so important for entrepreneurs (25:10)
  • You’ll learn more from your failures than you ever will from your successes (31:17)
  • You don’t need to know everything - transparency and vulnerability deepens trust (34:36)

Guest Bio

Frank Ricotta is the CEO of BurstIQ, a platform that combines the power of blockchain, big data, and machine intelligence and uses it to build a platform for a person-centric health economy.

With 30+ years immersed in empowering people and creating innovative solutions, he credits his professional success to three guidelines: Make a difference, have fun, and make money.

Frank earned his BS in Computer Science from the United States Air Force Academy, and his MBA in International Finance from St. Mary’s University.

If you’d like to reach out to Frank, you can find him on LinkedIn at Frank Ricotta, on Twitter at @FRicotta, or find him on 

IYOU're listening to health, innovators,a podcast and video show about the leaders influencers and early adopterswho are shaping the future of health care on your host. Dtor Roxy Movie. Welcome back to the show health careinnovators. Today I have Frank Ricoda with me: He is the CEO of Burst Iq.Welcome to the show Frank, oh I'm really happy t bigger. Thank you. So Iusually have our guest start off by telling us a little bit out about theirbackground, and you can certainly do that. But I want to kind of start offjust a little bit different. How are you changing the world? How are wechanging the world? That's an awesome question I mean one of the kind of oneof our foundational premises about Birshaq is that we really wanted toimpact tha the whole the whole problem, health, access and equity, but at thesame time really empower people with heir with their own data. I meanthere's so many people in the world just don't have access to health careand help and basic helth services, even even more- that have have no real documented identity as anexample and access to financial services. So we wanted to take a runand try to solve some of those problems, and so you started the company sixyears ago, yeah and the spring of two thousand and fifteen almost six years.It doesn't seem that long PLA start thinking about it. Plak timeflies. What has that germny been like for you? You'll start stok startups out theirreally. You know these highs and these really low lows of at some point intime and you kN W when we started started the company, nobody, nobodyeven heard of a term of blotkhchain. We use blacksaying technology through theplatform to enable some of our security services, but it was. It was somewhatlike living a dilbert cartoon. You know watching what I don't know what that is,and I don't like some of the other tech that emerges cloud you know. Are yougoing to put your date in the cloud yeah? I'm going to put my date in acloud. I don't know what that means, and so we started. We started down thatpath and had a big education round and people started to drying to drive usinto. You know something that we didn't necessarily. We were good at doing, butdidn't necessarily wantit to be our cort business and that was o k Ana youknow basic analytics and data and and so n mid two thousand and seventeenwe ecide, let's just rebaseline o business when we we turned off a lot ofour contracts at the time, are kind ofwound them down successfully delivered thim and rebased lign the business andwent back to ground zero and it was. It was a pretty traumaticdecision at that point time, but a good decision, I think yeah. So you knowjust explain what that was like. I mean that had to be a very difficultdecision to turn down business and risk. You know everything that you had builtso far and going in a completely...

...different direction. Yeah you! You knowwhat I found was hat. I just I was I was actually I could. I know exactlywhere it was Oi was walking walking that you know down one of the streetsin New York City. They just just finished talking with a potentialinvestor and saying you know we're just not really happy I an this. Isn't thisis a Floatin, my boat, I'm not I'm, not feeling we're really accomplishing whatwe said out to accomplish with the original premises, and I took a stepback and I know there there's different ways of people talk about it. What'syour why you know? What's your massive transformative purpose and I went back to the hotel room and kindof wrote, it wrote a little two page or two to my team and particularly mycofounder and said you know, let's get Le'sreconnect back to what what gets USexcited and when it was hard to make the decision, because we knew it wasgoing to be a little tough for the next few months. You know particularlymaking payroll. We were selffunded and yeah, but once we did it, it was like aburden was lifted. We were able to to really reenergize lots of aspects ofthe business and that that really turned it around from there. We got acouple cornrstone clients, pretty quick and mover than we thought and the reall been on that journey sinceworth the risk. Yeyou know and that's such a fascinating challenge oropportunity that you just describe, because I think health innovators facethat often maybe in different situations. It could be an investor.That's trying to guide you in a different direction. It could be areally key customer. You know it could be a cofounder, ateam member, and so really, I think, like you, said, being able to documentwho you are and who you want to be and what you want to offer to the world ginthat kind of as a rudder to guide. You seems like that's going to be reallyimportant. That's right and you an you know when you have a when you have yourwhat you know, the the: how the how can can kind of shit go in differentdirections and Chu because, like you know, the challenges is stay true toyour values and what you want to do, but not get so focused that you missedopportunities to get there and a so that's why the? How the how in in termsof how you get there, you need to be very student, what's happening in themarket, a where you know where your open field is and really try to run. Ithat open field, where you start seeing some adoption, whith your what's you'rdelivering. You know it's funny that you mentione that, because I hear youknow in my conversations with health innovators, I hear this dilemma oftenof how do I know. When is the time to stay true, to who I want to be into totrue to our course, and when am I actually listening to feedback? That'sreally incredibly valuable feedback. where I may need to pivot my businessin juggling between nopes Tay Focus.

They might think you crazy, but you'reonto something versus like n n N. No, no, you need to you turn a Boart aboard, so you you don't always want to be. The captain goes Dow with the ship,that's for sure and and that'. That's why I Hav you knowit's, always a bunchof markesy back. You know I had a friend of mine once T TELME is thathalf the battle startups is still being their play and, as I say you can, you can grab a holdof your your big grod vision and where you want to be and where you want totake. The company like for us is dealing with this self dequity Ani and access problem on a broader basis,but then decide. Okay, am I going to do it from a nee be perspective as astarting pone or BC? So it doesn't. You know you don't have to compromise kindof the internal values to be successful in the marketplace, and you know thatthat feedback and Habaloty backs important. Not all of is correct,because everybody has an opinion that you have to. You have to be astudent enough to listen and to self evaluate on constant with Gurng bases,so help us understand what this funding journey has been like for you, becauseyou've raised, you know some good money before the pandemic. Yeah. What I you know, I'm thinking that was a bigblessing for us to close to close our series around back in September withelsewhere partners. An El sort partners been a phenomenal than a phenomenalinvestor from the standpoint extremely supportive have some extended resources that havebeen helpful for us and and that's really one of the keys. We had you nowwe we are on and off again looking a raise te money for a year and a half.You know we started. We raised two hundred fifty thousand in a seed roundback in two thousand and fifteen and had not raised any money from thatpointing forward in anything of significance and and for us it was all about. Can wefind a good partner, not just money? Yeah I've been down a path where I've close son are it. Benningcompanies are like comforted to close, some investments and investor wasactually destructive and we didn't want to do that. We, you know we were wewere. We were so focused on really somebody to be a creative to what we'retrying to do, and I think we found that in elsewhere. So what what recommendations do you havefor folks that are in the trenches today that are raising money? You know and trying to weigh those options andwhat's going to be the best path for them and who they're going to bepartnering with what were some of those key decisions for you? Well, I you know, investors havecriteria, you know who and what they want to invest in. You know whatgeographic region and they want to invest in you should you should do the same thing.You know as an entrepreeur you should you should have your list of what youwant from an investor, what you're looking for from an investor and and pursue that, and it's not all abouthow much money you is or what...

...thevaluation is. There's lots of otherfactors that go into those kind of deals because you O, we actually hadhad a couple opportunities that would would have not deluded us as much. You know a little better evaluation, but it justwasn't a good cultural fit for us. So you have to kind of wait, wag thoseoptions but know what you want and it's just not about who shows up to say. Yes, have your own filters an and, and whatI found over the years as well, is that it's like it's like anything else,selling investors start getting more interest when e interested when theythink they're going to miss something, and so you have to kind of create alittle bit of that buying frenzy as well. But do so on your terms is thebig thing. So how has this global pandemicimpacted Your Business Ma? I guess I guess yeah, but ask tothis kind of ton o cheek, who hasn't is impacted. Ight Right, yeah there'vebeen aspects in the market that that have been very positive. You know, overall, from the standpoint of moredottion of virtual care, kind of techniques and greater awareness on digial identity inthe form of health passports and how you do business in in he electronicspace. Those of all help to us in terms of getting over some of the education,education and early adoption fears. But again we had we had another littleshift. I mean we were really a post investment. We wre focused on on a fullenterprise, enablement strategy and that market pretty much went intostacis period. Etwe, see most health health systems start focusing on howthey're going to deal with COVID. They know not a lot of new projects, so we took a step back and munched aninitiale called research, foundery really built up a lot of the datacollaboration, parts of the platform, a D and really created a new opening, andso we're coming out of the back end of that and well see if that was a gooddecision on on the as it translates into revenue, NBusiness Growth. Well, global health definitely is more. I think folks are more interested andpaying attention to global health. I mean obviously more so than ever before. I think, asespecially as Americans. You know wevwe've really viewed. Oh that'shappening over there. Oh Man, that's terrible and then kind of back tobusiness as usual, and I think you know if I look back and one of the lessonslearned is for all of us that you know what happens across the country. I meanacross the world, impacts us a lot more than we realize. Oh yes, here does Imean if you don't, if you haven't come to the realization that we're allconnected the pandemic should have done that for right, right, yeah, we'rewereas, you said an Isiae n. What part of the world turning into GOL COMpandemic that impacts every aspect of...

...our lives. An it's been profound inManyways, Yeah Yep. So what do you think is what are some of the keydecisions that you've made that have led to your success? It sounds likewhat you start, what you started out as has evolved over time to where you are today, and so, as youkind of look back at that journey, what are some of the decisions where you'relike? Oh you know what that was really a game changer, whether you realized itat the moment or not wel. I talked about one kind ofrebaseal hinting and it wasn't. You know the interesting it wasn't doingmuch different at the core. The technology is really okay. Where werewee going to take it at that point, so you know looking forward and someaspects is there's always an immediate immediacy in front of you and sometimesthat's good, and sometimes you got to look at okay. Can I dress that or do Ihave to look two to three months down the road, and I think that was a gooddecision on our part to really emphasize some other aspects of heplatform really start taking in a different direction. It it connected usto the international world in many ways itallowed us to start working with orginzation such as OECD and Writtinterms of regulatory guidance and both on the financial services side and thehealth side, a connected us back to Department of Commerce for thatstrategic relationship. So it was really good decision for us to kind ofshift shift that way, and then I think I think the second one was whenwe decided pretty early on is to hey: let's accelerate this date ofcollaboration side of the platform for research foundry, and I just justyesterday. We actually announced the winters of the project we hadundertaken with American hiher association and a tacter around thedayty challenge for Covid, and it's impact on minority populations andanoucee. Two winners, which is University of Michigan and Alamama. So was awesome. That'sgreat! So tell us a little bit about that that challenge yeah th the wholefocus was to to create a create an innovation challenge, really arounddata to understand, brought TTo understand more broad, broadly, theimpacts of covid on certain segments of our population, particularly you know, less fortunate. Lessfortunate aspects of population, minority populations such as AfricanAmerican populations, native American populations, and and really reallyunderstand why you know why that they were getting getting yet harderthan everybody else and the results. Now I love to say I could summarize allthe results they gettin pretty technical for me, but yeah Er. This isnonatest they're in the process of getting pererviewed and all those results are going to be published soon under theOsposites of American Hart Association.

So it's really pretty awesome yeah.What a proud moment for the work that you guys are able to do. Yeah I was it was. It was a good combination, I'm. I wasreally really happy with that, but it you know, but the other aspectof that which is which is we open up the platform to, as you know, for free access forresearchers and researchers and innovators, and wewanted we wanted them just to just deleverage things. We've done.Hopefully, you know to move covid, covid research faster forward and faster, but what weended up but ended up happening as well as we really energize a wholeinnovation community and you know, went from o fifty ishprojects on a platform to well over two hundred now d, several hundreddevelopers gathered around the world really all focused on on producing some,some really cool projects, and we've got a great team in Tha, a great partner in Ageria as an examplein Australia and they're just doing some fun, indincredible things so wh.What do you think is next like? What's on the horizon? How do you see yourplatform being used in the future? Oh Wow, I mean that's, that's a great! That's a greatquestion mean you hot, a great question. So if I have my druthers, you know itwould be kind of the next grate, the next big platform. So you see all thesesocial tech platforms on really becomes. It becomes this kind of universal datechange platform and there's there's some emergent. You know there'ssomergent technology, a I think's going to accelerate that adoption, I'mparticularly around the WTHREE C consortiums with what is nown as Virthaverify credentials. That really begin to mobilize a lot of this kind ofstructured and Verifi data that we would that we curate and let youexchange it. So I'd really love to see us see us be one of those platformswith one exception you know I don't we never want to really own and controlthe underlying datasets. We rearly value individual privacy and ownership.Big Difference, Frank! That's a BIDIFFERENC yeahwe're, not not a big fans, not abig fan of that yeah. So you know when you think about the the global impactthat you in in Bersiq team is having. Let's just talk about commercializing your solution in different parts of theworld. You know, I think that as innovators, you know we're alwayslooking at you know best markets that we can serve and because you know mostof us that are on the show in the audience is in the US. We have atendency to kind of think of you know America first for commercialization,and maybe some of these other markets...

...around the world after the fact. ButI've had a lot of conversations with folks who have had much more success inEurope or in Asia. Then they have in the US and then they use that successto kind of come back and use that to drive the sucsets here in their ownbackyard, so help us understand what that journey's been like for you. Well, you know the. I think I think a lot of our excesssuccess early on really started overseas because from a US perspective you know quite frankly, we're bit latelate to the game around blockchain we not saying technologies- and you knowearly on it was a lot of the CRYPTA currency phases. So the SEC put a lotof roadblocks in place for companies to pursue fundraising in that capacity andand so a lot of the innovation started happening outside of the Yout, theUnited States and a lot of the really more advanced regulatory pushes and and friendly jurisdictions. You knowstarted popping up everywhere, but here and because you know we ere pretty goodwith that underlying technology, we starte getting a lot of visibility inthe in these other jurisdictions and which allowed allowd some earlyadoption in those areas versus versus here. You know here we had to somewhatdownplay some of that and now pick up early customers, but Ithink I think blackshame for us. You know open the door internationally,particularly were we're still one of the few companies quarrerly focus inthe health space with the technology and and and have have quite a quite anumber of years in utilizing it. So so my next question for you, youknow, I think that I'm talking about apples and oranges here when we'retalking about warp, speed and being able to fasttrack these vaccinations. But I think that that as well as just many otherfactors with the pandemic has has really shown, probably not us as muchas some of the bureaucracy that we've had to deal with, that we can actuallydo better. We can be a lot faster and we can do some things that maybe wethought we couldn't do for another ten or twenty years. You Know How do you think that that'sgoing to affect adoption going forward adoption and what sense Isi in any innovation, in disruptiveinnovation in the incremental in reimbursement models- and you knowthings like blockchain in any type of innovation- that maybe we even haven'tdreamt of yet do you do you have any sense of how like? Maybe this has beena springboard for new things on the horizon when it comes to the ecosystemthat we've been kind of forced to play in for a while yeah? You know, I think I think, there's two aspects,you: What Ther Theyre Withal all the...

...ugliness of covid nineteen, an thepandemic and the human impact and suffering there's been a few thingsthat have come out that have been positive is one. It's broken down a lotof traditional traditional bearers in terms of hin a bit inhabitions to collaborate,so were. Do you mention Worsse, that's a great example of a public privatepartnership that worked and- and I think we're going to see a lot more ofthose kind of partnerships in the advancements of health that don'tnecessarily aren't necessarily confined to a geographic region, ornation stateregion. I think it Stad of its set a really solid precedence to how toaccelerate when we put our minds to it, how innovation could come to the marketreally quickly and when you see things like blockchain and and those kind oftechnology is supplied right as we applied it allows it allows researchers and organizations to reallystay focused on on are not having to worry about. Am I going to get my IPcompromise? Can I collaborate without without prossing this Barror? Will ithelp still help me the competitive space and so we'e seen a lot more willingness tocollaborate and cooperate, particularly at the data datasharing side of life,and I think all that's a really positive positive momentum, I think was a good level set on on take taking down our artificialbarriers and working working together. Yeah I mean I definitely agree. I thinkthat we've leape fronged, I mean we've done like ten years worth of adoptionin about six months so and then that regard that is a huge silver lining forus and I'll throw another one out for you,because this had. This is one of those two sides of the coin: good good andbad side, and I think I think the situation is reallypushed this whole. The whole n need, or it's put a spotlight on the knee forreally solid, verified digital identity, and we see some some. You know someparts in the United States actually actually starting to to get behind that that notion, butfrom a broader sense of you think, from covid health and commerce of nowintersected, yeah you're going to get on my airplane. Do you have yourvaccine or have you been tellused if you're entering my country? Are yougoing to be quarantine or can o allow you to come in without quaranting? Sothis this ability to represent aspects of ourselves in a verified way, as nowas now, really as really took to cruid and You'e, going to see that grosssignificantly downside. We got to breally, be conscious of the privacyside of this, and it t doesn't doesn't get used for the wrong reasons. YeahYeah so true and I think we'll probably seemore and more and more of those two sides of the coin, as things continueto unfold yeah yeah. So you know, I think that you guys are doing somestuff. That's pretty awesome and pretty revolutionary when you think that, toyou know your commercialization, and...

...maybe in the past and now and even inthe future, how are you finding those earlyadoptors that are looking toembrace something new and innovative? Like your platform? Oh well, you know. If you go, you go backto to the whole crossing. The chasm notion, I think, when you just staysquare in the black chain, space outside of rcrypto currencies and Hamand just a handful of cryptocurrencies- you W, really hasn't crossed over thatchasm in many ways, so you still whill people are more familiar with it,there's still little trepidation. But what what your? What you're sayingnow is that, because of some of the early doctors are willing to try it andreally push for for meaningful projects, and even some of the constordiums thathave that have pulled together that from large companies yeah the supportinfrastructure, as well as the techn. The technology ecosystem is reallymature, quite quite significantly, and so now we'restarting to see the first, the first beach heads in the other side of thechasm where it's not just pure early innovators. It really is the earlyadoptors that are looking to do something new and innovative in theirbusiness or creatiny market opportunities. Yeah yeah, that's greatgreat, great analogy, great story, so you know you talked about how youknow being an entrepreneur has his upsins DAA ups and downs. How do you stay motivated and inspiredduring this journey? Oh you know a couple couple words of advice, NSOmatter. How old you are, you know, gets yourself a mentor and somebody you canconfide in the Amentor, because teaching andconveying what you do is helps actually helps you grow. And then you got tohave a good group of peers around you that are going to challenge you and notbe afraid to to wack you in the head. When ne be so that's one and then thesecond thing is, there's got I you got to stay balance,you got it thereve been times in my my life in some of my early companies wasso consumed on the companies that other aspects of my life and my health andeven in my personal relationship suffered, and if you don't, if we don'tbalance that Ole mind body spirit side of life in in your personal, it's hardfor you to be the best person you can be in your company and it's worth taking those times. In fact,when you think you don't have time it's exactly his time, you need to needtotake to co and that the red flag right, I don't have time- I don't have timeWhoa. We need an intervention here. I've been there, that's for sure, so sowho have been some of those mentors and advisors for you. That's made o hugeimpact. Man. That's a that's an awesomequestion.

You know I've had I've had a couplethat have been steady for me over the years. You know one one, one gentlemanin particular I mean we're. Probably he's probably gone on twenty five yearsand W N. When I really need some soundwords of wisdom, I call him up andhe's a retired KPMG partner, an he was a oetpmgn when I stuk when I set out torun my first company and one of one of the start running a company from a personwho started a prettysizable venture firm, start running he he introduced meto him. He was my TMCO and we've been friends ever since, and I've looked tohim on and off over the years and he's been solid. Actually, a gentleman who's Ha Seo oneof our customers. Now I V, you know I've been his customer he's been mycustomer he's been on my poorrs. I've been on his advisor records. It's beena really good, synbiatic relationship there and and he's another kind of go to person,and then my cofounders, an awesome, an awesome balance for me and on thepersonal side can discount my wife. She keeps me level and, and my and both I'm going to give Kudos to my mom,because you know she broke a lot of conventional norms and has that entrepreuur streak in adifferent way. enly a great example I mean she's predominantly been ineducation, but she's been such an innovator and education is on numerousawards and up being a super intendent of a school district. She's is anamazing lady, so always give her counos. You know that's really fascinating,because I've studied a lot about different, successful entrepredeuersand innovators, and almost all of them have a great mom story. You know youthink the eight Steve Jobs you know you know my dad' Sid, my my Dad' side,so dads weren't great also. That's all that I'm saying ot always tought me. You know, guardyour integrity of you, you. Nobody can take youhave to give it away and so akey lesson at you know. But on hisside you know my I'm GOINTA say mygrandmothe. I mean they started up the immigrated heres you know open to open.I O was he liquor store open. The liquor's door was a had a wholeentreneut onro bent ten, so I think it runs into blood somewhere. Besideseducation teaching, Yep Yep, just crazy enough to think that you can change theworld right. So I'm a big learner. I think that you know tes muchinformation as we can put in and consume and kind of take what we needat that moment in time. So do you have any books, podcasts or any anyresources that are kind of like your go to that you think would be a goodrecommendation for our listeners and viewers. Oh, you know I'm a I try to consume as much as possible,so... know trtheyre guys a handful Grat podcastsom some in the some in the health spase, but I would say, if you're kind,of a teorian person you know the a sixteen Z is a good one. Yeah first ofall, people should be Listeng to your podcast. So Thai, thank you for thatplug andsandrecent, horror would say: They'v Always had a great series ofpodcast fromround different emerging tech. So that's a good one, Tho kind ofstat, because it's hard it's hard. When you'R focus on what you're doing to seewhat thepressof the woles doing and and somefriemds you got to learn fromadjacen space and then I'm a big businesswise, it's old school,but I love drunker Peter Dructor. I think there's nothing better than Thadrucker and then there's a series of good as series good books on platform andplatform business models, if you're interested in kind of, if your businessmodel takes you that way, I think there's a good series. There hope that Ma yeah. I think it is it theone that I read recently is platform Revolution Yeah. Well, there's one is blaonrevolution. The taps gods have a series of books onblockchain revolution, Soif Youre, justor watchingin. Those are good and cash have a couple years. So you know the machine platform and crowdtrack, Tims, a good one for startups in terms of kind of disunderstanding. Howhow you jamp through some of the business side of life. I think thoseare all really good. So you know our audience is a mixtureof startups as well. As you know, large companies that are still innovating,whether it's you know within that big Bahemeth Company, whether it's aseparate business unit, so just kind of thinking about them and in mind whatadvice or lessons learn. Do you want to share with them before we wrap up,don't be Afai afraid to fail? You know, fell S, not the end of the world. Imean too often and ent on the large side of life, large company side oflife. You know, people view failure a as you know, putting their jobs at risk.But if, if you feel, if you fell rapidly or small little fellures, youlearn faster and you're able to have great erdigger, successis Odol, don'tbe afraid to try and onbe afraid to challenge as the norm from the startupside sane same thing, I mean it's all about it's all about getting out there and trying andlearning and trying again Fella I've learned more from myfailures hand, I have fom my successes and just don't ever shy away from them.You know, I'm so glad that you brought that up. I was just writing about thatthis week and you know one of the things that I find fascinating is wetalk a lot about? Oh, it's, okay, to fail, failures, the path to successright. It's breakthroughs are found in failure, but it's really hard to admit. WEVFAILED! I especially when it's like yesterday, like if it's like five yearsago, it's like Oh yeah. That was a...

...failure that thing I did five years ago,but man it is so hard to be that transparent and vulnerable of like yeah.I just fell down flat fate that faced yesterday and it's I wonder like ifthere's any science between how much distance do we need for us to feelcomfortable and saying yes, I failed, but you know I don't know I mean. Ijust know that people wil jump in the startups, don't like to fail. Yeah,that's the nature of life and and we all tend to be overly criticalof ourselves. You know, and probably our own worst and harshess critics attimes and OS. Actually, I think a level of insecurity that that is a motivating driving factor.You know that insecurity to prove people wrong or to say I'm right- areto really to really achieve achieve a milestone, because you said you can andand so when something happens, it changes. That course is really hard toaccept. I mean you know the the little ones are easy.You know wow, okay, we tried that din' worklet's try. This is the big onesthat take take a while to to really level set, and I mean it took me while even talke about myfirst big one, and you know I have really successful company going Yo hado crash in the early twosands, a company just splattered, and they endedup in in some pretty significant debt. A at the end of that. Even though we'reable to sell some of the tech and boy took it took me, it literally took meyears to recover to kind of regain confidence. It should have been a lotfaster, but you know that's kind of the perils of youth, I guess beingyoung and naive at times and but again it's part of life right, beover Te, N Yeah. You know, and it's I think it'sironic because you know like if I'm pitching an investor pitching aprospect, a customer. You know we tend to think that if we say that we haveall the answers we have it all figured out and we've got it all put together thatthat's going to make people have confidence in US and trust us, and thenwe're going to be able to win and we're going to be able to move forward andwhat I've found in life is actually the more honest I am. I mean I'm not makingup failure stories. They've got plenty of real ones, but transparent andhonest. I am about what I don't know and about those failures. It actuallydeepens trust and deepens credibility, much more than if I was trying to puton a perfection, sof facade what you come across a lot more genuine. I know.I know this just style of our little company is that iways tell people don't be afraid whenyou're inractor with a customer, don't be afraid to say hey. We don't do that.We're not good at that part of it. We're good at this part because at theend of the day, they're going to find out anyway- and you know when they'reinteracting with you and your you can... honest about yourself and I'm notyou know, there's a difference. Between being being humble, the you can be humble,with confidence Y H right right to be able to to Acknowledge Tho sng, it's not a badthing. You know and in fact people like it's a lot of customers and people Howork with find that pretty refreshing. You know without having to stay soguarded all the time. Yeah Yep. I couldn't agree with you more well.Thank you for your humility and transparency and candidness with ustoday. If any of our viewers and listeners want to get a hold of you,what's the best way to get in touch with you, oh you can, you can find meon Linkein F feel free to connect with me on Linkin a you know, twitters atEffri Coda or come find me a birthdiy q first tucom ur, St Iqcom. Thank you somuch for being with me today, frank appreciate it Orok. I was a pleasurehow to had a great time thanks for Avinme Ebet. Thank you so much for listening. I knowyou're busy working to bring your life changing innovation to market, and Ivalue your time and attention to get the latest episodes on your mobiledevice automatically subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast tap likeapple podcast, spotify and stitcher. Thank you for listening, and Iappreciate everyone who shared the show with friends and colleagues, see you onthe next episode of Health, innovator.

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