Key Learnings From Konrad’s Experience
- Plan your fundraising efforts around achieving significant milestones, such as getting FDA clearance, that reduce risk, unlock new sets of investors, and increase your startup’s fundability.
- Don’t try to understand everything on your own. Reach out, whether it’s to experts who have navigated similar paths, or to investors who have experience in your domain. Asking for help is a good trait, but be mindful when evaluating the advice you get.
- It’s important to move through the product design phase swiftly – to demonstrate value to stakeholders and minimize your cash burn before getting to the next milestone. Utilize available resources, such as incubators, but don’t hesitate to use unconventional methods like recruiting trial subjects through Craigslist, as an example.
When Konrad Morzkowski applied to Stanford, his plan was to build AI applications for healthcare. But there was a different adventure in store for him by way of an introduction to a brilliant group of scientists that ultimately became the co-founders of his current company WearLinq which is building the platform that healthcare algorithms will eventually run on.
WearLinq develops EKG recorders, which are essential for diagnosing arrhythmia, a condition that can lead to stroke and heart failure. In this particular niche, there are already consumer solutions like the Apple Watch and Alivecor's Kardia that provide temporary EKGs. Then, there are continuous EKG recorders, like Holter monitors and patches. But they require a prescription, so they’re not readily accessible to consumers.
Konrad and his team have improved upon the legacy Holter monitor and filled the consumer-facing EKG wearable gaps in the market with their first product eWave, which is a wireless, multi-channel wearable that provides continuous monitoring.
eWave received FDA clearance at the end of 2022. Recently, WearLinq acquired AMI Cardiac, which is expected to boost patient access to the device. Currently, eWave is actively commercializing along with next-generation models in the pipeline.
Konrad Morzkowski is an engineer from Sweden and a member of Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.. After obtaining an MS at Stanford – where he met his co-founders and raised his first round – Konrad dove right into entrepreneurship. Today, he’s the CEO of WearLinq, a company commercializing consumer-facing digital healthcare solutions with an initial focus on ECG monitoring.
Achieving Milestones is Crucial to Raising Capital
It’s not easy to raise capital for an idea, especially if you’re a first-time founder. Konrad praises SBIR Grants, especially when your startup is first taking off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option for the WearLinq team as they are non-US citizens and don’t meet some of the other criteria. They had to secure capital through traditional means, which they did – $6.7 million from SpringTide Ventures and several other investors. Konrad’s key takeaway from their eventual success is that fundraising is primarily about storytelling.
To tell a good story, first, you need to understand how VCs evaluate opportunities – which is mostly related to risk. “As a first-time founder, telling VCs we need X to achieve FDA clearance doesn’t sound believable,” he explains.
In medtech, it’s harder to de-risk an idea compared to domains like B2B SaaS. Here, you have multiple major risk factors such as regulatory, hardware development, supply chain, and reimbursement. These challenges limit the amount of VCs who are even willing to talk to a medical device startup in the first place. Nevertheless, “as you de-risk, you become more fundable and those challenges become moats” Konrad explains.
A key strategy is to structure fundraising around milestones that make your company more fundable, and in his words, “unlock a new set of investors.” For eWave – and many other medtech startups – that meant getting FDA clearance. To achieve that, Konrad looked at experts in his domain, instead of trying to solve it himself, which gave him a clear path of requirements to follow. However, even with experts on your side, you need to work together with regulatory bodies and ask questions to get definitive feedback. Don’t be afraid of engaging with FDA. “Worst case, you get a lot of feedback,” says Konrad. And if there are concerns, you can address them with additional testing or rationale.
Another milestone that de-risked the venture and eased the minds of potential investors was WearLinq’s acquisition of AMI Cardiac, an independent diagnostic testing facility (IDTF) with expertise in ambulatory cardiac monitoring. Its capacities, like being a Medicare-regulated entity with its own NPI number, allow the WearLinq team to directly bill patients' insurance carriers. There are two main advantages that AMI Cardiac brought to the table. The first is more access to patients. The second is that it addressed the VCs' concerns about how eWave gets paid. Thus, it promises WearLinq a smoother revenue pathway for the company's future endeavors.
Don’t Be Afraid of Reaching Out for Help
Konrad is a young entrepreneur, which makes him a first-timer in many areas like product development, regulatory affairs, and raising capital.
His first instinct wasn’t to try to understand everything himself. Rather, Konrad sought help from those with experience. He says, “There's always someone who has gone through it. Find those people and get their help to get you to where you need to be going.”
Regulatory was a priority for WearLinq, an area that can be very confusing for a green entrepreneur in medtech. What made it easier was getting support from regulatory experts who had filed 510(k)s for devices similar to WearLinq’s predicate devices. These domain authorities guided the team through the process and even invested in WearLinq. The eventual approval of eWave made WearLinq’s case much more appealing to investors.
Another strategy Konrad tapped into was cold emailing. “Eventually, over 90% of our capital came from cold emails,” he shares. While warm intros are ideal, they aren’t always possible. To follow Konrad’s steps, don’t be afraid of just reaching out with an email. “Just make a big list of investors potentially interested and start sending emails," he says. You can use tools like Crunchbase and PitchBook to find people who might be interested in what you do.
“I believe you should also cold email people who could be helpful as advisors or sounding boards. I've received a lot of help from random people,” Konrad shares. He is very good at reaching out to people and asking for advice. However, Konrad also underlines the importance of discerning what advice to follow. “One of the big jobs of a founder is filtering advice," he emphasizes. “Many people will tell you what to do, and it's your job to determine what is true and what isn't. Ultimately, you need to find the best possible solution.”
Moving Swiftly Through Product Development
The early design decisions for a medical device are crucial, as it must pass safety and usability testing before it hits the real testing ground – the target market.
WearLinq’s team kicked off their product development efforts by researching existing devices and understanding user feedback. Konrad and the team looked at Facebook support groups for arrhythmia to get a feel for what people liked and disliked about current devices. They built their solution based on this feedback, but also borrowed ideas from other industries. For instance, the eWave has a magnetic attachment mechanism similar to Apple’s MagSafe technology. The team refined and iterated many times until the device reached a simple and elegant form that is suitable for home use.
All three co-founders of WearLinq understood how to deliver on an MVP. They split responsibilities in terms of development, supply chain, software, and clinical viability in accordance with their unique strengths, and were able to move swiftly to design freeze. Locking down the design of the hardware as soon as possible allowed the team to simultaneously focus on other aspects.
In this phase, the team had some resources to leverage, such as Stanford's incubation hub Venture Studio and StartX. “It was helpful to have a network as someone who just came to the US,” Konrad shares.
Another thing that made product development smoother was, again, reaching out to those with experience. The team recruited the right people instead of relying on large-scale contract manufacturers that can make lots of promises with a low delivery rate. “Make sure you get the right person to work on your thing,” Konrad reiterates.
However, this doesn’t mean you have to be in such a hub to find the people who can help you. Cold emailing is one of the many other options. And when the traditional methods don’t pay off, don’t hesitate to get creative. For example, Konrad and the team used Craigslist and Amazon gift cards to recruit study participants when traditional methods didn’t work.
Key Learnings From Konrad’s Experience
- Plan your fundraising efforts around achieving significant milestones, such as getting FDA clearance, that reduce risk, unlock new sets of investors, and increase your startup’s fundability.
- Don’t try to understand everything on your own. Reach out, whether it’s to experts who have navigated similar paths, or to investors who have experience in your domain. Asking for help is a good trait, but be mindful when evaluating the advice you get.
- It’s important to move through the product design phase swiftly – to demonstrate value to stakeholders and minimize your cash burn before getting to the next milestone. Utilize available resources, such as incubators, but don’t hesitate to use unconventional methods like recruiting trial subjects through Craigslist, as an example.
When Konrad Morzkowski applied to Stanford, his plan was to build AI applications for healthcare. But there was a different adventure in store for him by way of an introduction to a brilliant group of scientists that ultimately became the co-founders of his current company WearLinq which is building the platform that healthcare algorithms will eventually run on.
WearLinq develops EKG recorders, which are essential for diagnosing arrhythmia, a condition that can lead to stroke and heart failure. In this particular niche, there are already consumer solutions like the Apple Watch and Alivecor's Kardia that provide temporary EKGs. Then, there are continuous EKG recorders, like Holter monitors and patches. But they require a prescription, so they’re not readily accessible to consumers.
Konrad and his team have improved upon the legacy Holter monitor and filled the consumer-facing EKG wearable gaps in the market with their first product eWave, which is a wireless, multi-channel wearable that provides continuous monitoring.
eWave received FDA clearance at the end of 2022. Recently, WearLinq acquired AMI Cardiac, which is expected to boost patient access to the device. Currently, eWave is actively commercializing along with next-generation models in the pipeline.
Konrad Morzkowski is an engineer from Sweden and a member of Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.. After obtaining an MS at Stanford – where he met his co-founders and raised his first round – Konrad dove right into entrepreneurship. Today, he’s the CEO of WearLinq, a company commercializing consumer-facing digital healthcare solutions with an initial focus on ECG monitoring.
Achieving Milestones is Crucial to Raising Capital
It’s not easy to raise capital for an idea, especially if you’re a first-time founder. Konrad praises SBIR Grants, especially when your startup is first taking off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option for the WearLinq team as they are non-US citizens and don’t meet some of the other criteria. They had to secure capital through traditional means, which they did – $6.7 million from SpringTide Ventures and several other investors. Konrad’s key takeaway from their eventual success is that fundraising is primarily about storytelling.
To tell a good story, first, you need to understand how VCs evaluate opportunities – which is mostly related to risk. “As a first-time founder, telling VCs we need X to achieve FDA clearance doesn’t sound believable,” he explains.
In medtech, it’s harder to de-risk an idea compared to domains like B2B SaaS. Here, you have multiple major risk factors such as regulatory, hardware development, supply chain, and reimbursement. These challenges limit the amount of VCs who are even willing to talk to a medical device startup in the first place. Nevertheless, “as you de-risk, you become more fundable and those challenges become moats” Konrad explains.
A key strategy is to structure fundraising around milestones that make your company more fundable, and in his words, “unlock a new set of investors.” For eWave – and many other medtech startups – that meant getting FDA clearance. To achieve that, Konrad looked at experts in his domain, instead of trying to solve it himself, which gave him a clear path of requirements to follow. However, even with experts on your side, you need to work together with regulatory bodies and ask questions to get definitive feedback. Don’t be afraid of engaging with FDA. “Worst case, you get a lot of feedback,” says Konrad. And if there are concerns, you can address them with additional testing or rationale.
Another milestone that de-risked the venture and eased the minds of potential investors was WearLinq’s acquisition of AMI Cardiac, an independent diagnostic testing facility (IDTF) with expertise in ambulatory cardiac monitoring. Its capacities, like being a Medicare-regulated entity with its own NPI number, allow the WearLinq team to directly bill patients' insurance carriers. There are two main advantages that AMI Cardiac brought to the table. The first is more access to patients. The second is that it addressed the VCs' concerns about how eWave gets paid. Thus, it promises WearLinq a smoother revenue pathway for the company's future endeavors.
Don’t Be Afraid of Reaching Out for Help
Konrad is a young entrepreneur, which makes him a first-timer in many areas like product development, regulatory affairs, and raising capital.
His first instinct wasn’t to try to understand everything himself. Rather, Konrad sought help from those with experience. He says, “There's always someone who has gone through it. Find those people and get their help to get you to where you need to be going.”
Regulatory was a priority for WearLinq, an area that can be very confusing for a green entrepreneur in medtech. What made it easier was getting support from regulatory experts who had filed 510(k)s for devices similar to WearLinq’s predicate devices. These domain authorities guided the team through the process and even invested in WearLinq. The eventual approval of eWave made WearLinq’s case much more appealing to investors.
Another strategy Konrad tapped into was cold emailing. “Eventually, over 90% of our capital came from cold emails,” he shares. While warm intros are ideal, they aren’t always possible. To follow Konrad’s steps, don’t be afraid of just reaching out with an email. “Just make a big list of investors potentially interested and start sending emails," he says. You can use tools like Crunchbase and PitchBook to find people who might be interested in what you do.
“I believe you should also cold email people who could be helpful as advisors or sounding boards. I've received a lot of help from random people,” Konrad shares. He is very good at reaching out to people and asking for advice. However, Konrad also underlines the importance of discerning what advice to follow. “One of the big jobs of a founder is filtering advice," he emphasizes. “Many people will tell you what to do, and it's your job to determine what is true and what isn't. Ultimately, you need to find the best possible solution.”
Moving Swiftly Through Product Development
The early design decisions for a medical device are crucial, as it must pass safety and usability testing before it hits the real testing ground – the target market.
WearLinq’s team kicked off their product development efforts by researching existing devices and understanding user feedback. Konrad and the team looked at Facebook support groups for arrhythmia to get a feel for what people liked and disliked about current devices. They built their solution based on this feedback, but also borrowed ideas from other industries. For instance, the eWave has a magnetic attachment mechanism similar to Apple’s MagSafe technology. The team refined and iterated many times until the device reached a simple and elegant form that is suitable for home use.
All three co-founders of WearLinq understood how to deliver on an MVP. They split responsibilities in terms of development, supply chain, software, and clinical viability in accordance with their unique strengths, and were able to move swiftly to design freeze. Locking down the design of the hardware as soon as possible allowed the team to simultaneously focus on other aspects.
In this phase, the team had some resources to leverage, such as Stanford's incubation hub Venture Studio and StartX. “It was helpful to have a network as someone who just came to the US,” Konrad shares.
Another thing that made product development smoother was, again, reaching out to those with experience. The team recruited the right people instead of relying on large-scale contract manufacturers that can make lots of promises with a low delivery rate. “Make sure you get the right person to work on your thing,” Konrad reiterates.
However, this doesn’t mean you have to be in such a hub to find the people who can help you. Cold emailing is one of the many other options. And when the traditional methods don’t pay off, don’t hesitate to get creative. For example, Konrad and the team used Craigslist and Amazon gift cards to recruit study participants when traditional methods didn’t work.
