Maximize Market Opportunity, Minimize Feedback Loops

Make Sure the Juice Is Worth the Squeeze

In medtech, developing a product that can enter clinical trials or full-scale market launch requires not just significant financial outlay but also a long-term commitment – easily spanning nearly a fifth of one's career, even under the best circumstances of a "fast" return.

That’s why the market's capacity and potential to sustain the investment is paramount. "When we started, we were comparing idea booklets. We had 20 or 30 ideas each, some in medtech, some in the consumer space," Rafaël explains. They ultimately chose a crossover between medtech and consumer health. "For the more challenging ideas, we thought, ‘Okay, this has to be able to revolutionize the way everyone interacts with their health. Otherwise, it's not really worth it.'" In other words, they knew that they needed a market that’s large enough to justify the venture-level investment.

What the SAVA team did to ensure their device would be viable was to address three key pain points over existing CGMs: improved user experience, lower costs, and multi-molecular monitoring beyond just glucose. This way, SAVA can truly transform wearable biosensing.

Once you decide to go down a certain road, you have to find ways to do more with less. This includes being as resourceful and scrappy as possible. This also means actively seeking help, leveraging existing resources, and exploring every possible avenue with the goal in mind to stretch every dollar and use what is readily available to your advantage.

A medical device often stands out because of a few key features. Renato suggests asking yourself, “What is the critical thing that you have to demonstrate to have people believe in your idea? When you start painting the picture about what is truly unique about your product, you can distill it to a core few things, and that's the only thing that you have to focus on.” In many cases, you don’t have to demonstrate every feature – especially with an MVP. A common pitfall is over-diversifying your efforts, such as investing heavily in peripheral aspects like a sophisticated app, before the main features are fully developed.

Rafaël acknowledges that certain medical device classes, like stents, face stringent guardrails. However, there are still ways to adopt faster iteration processes. For instance, as a company developing a Class II medical device in both the U.S. and Europe, SAVA optimized development speed by co-locating cross-functional teams within a single building. Housing researchers, material scientists, and engineers together shortened their iteration cycles significantly. “You can literally go from one floor to the other and just close that iteration loop,” Rafaël says.

Finally, while developing your key functionality, Rafaël and Renato emphasize that you shouldn’t neglect the data aspect. Hard evidence is a must for proof of concept. Ultimately, you’re trying to show that you can achieve what others have questioned or failed to do.

The Right Time to Exit Stealth Mode

Rafaël and Renato built SAVA in stealth mode for five years because, as they put it, "Once you go public, the expectations become much more concrete, and in the early stages of science, it’s tough to be precise about those expectations. That’s just the nature of creating something that’s never been done before."

According to them, the timing of a medtech company's public debut should be planned strategically. During the initial development phase, keeping a low profile keeps external pressures at bay, letting you focus on proving your core technology. On the other hand, going public raises awareness of your company – you can’t really run a marketing strategy in stealth mode. 

For Renato and Rafaël, there's a crucial moment when a company shifts its focus from R&D to commercialization. That’s also when you reach a clear, predictable path in the project's development, where major scientific risks are mitigated, and the technology has been de-risked. This is when it’s easier to manage stakeholder expectations, compared to the initial R&D phase where you’re working on proof of concept. “We chose a moment to come out of stealth when our route to market and to launch is on a linear path more than it has ever been,” Renato shares.

Having said that, even if you choose to operate in stealth during the development phase, you shouldn’t isolate your company from your key stakeholders. “Being in stealth does not mean that you're not speaking with people. It's just that you're not shouting on a microphone” says Renato.  It’s vital that early-stage backers and the core team are aligned on the long-term vision and the challenges involved. Active communication with key stakeholders – end users, market participants, and investors – is critical. However, the nature of your project should determine how discreet you should be. Most of the time, focusing on gathering feedback without widely broadcasting project details is a good idea.