Pitch Please

00:08.15
mike_flywheel
What's up everybody. It's Mike and we're back here on the pitch please podcast today. We've got unice from a cepha they make it easy for pharmacists to integrate Ai driven solutions into their daily tasks if you know me, you know I love ai. And I love talking about healthcare care. So I'm very curious to learn today. But before we talk about a cepha we're going to talk about unice ununices welcome to the show. Maybe give everyone a quick introduction about yourself and your role at a cepha.

00:33.26
Eunice
Yeah, for sure. Nice chatting with you today. Ah, my name is eunice I'm co-founder and Ceo of Acefa. We create Ai infrastructure for pharmacy companies. Essentially my day-to-day tasks is. Talking to the outbound clients meeting new investors we essentially are a pretty new company. So there's a lot to set up but I'm really glad that I have a great team behind me in building this company.

01:04.90
mike_flywheel
That's amazing. Well let's talk a little bit about you know where this journey started for you and if we go way back to you know, maybe school or some of your earlier jobs.

01:06.94
Eunice
Um, yes, yeah.

01:15.33
mike_flywheel
Did you sort of go jump straight into business and entrepreneurship or where did this journey sort of start for you since it sounds like you might even have a background in in the pharmacy space. So.

01:23.71
Eunice
Yeah, for sure I definitely do have a background in the pharmacy space I think anything in healthcare people are more stringent in terms of what are your qualifications. What's your background in this area. So I have a doctor of pharmacy degree from Ubc which is a university in Canada. And having this degree. That's what allowed me to build more so in this space given that I am a younger age. There's a lot of question like I get a lot of questioning in terms of my credibility. So I think having this degree has been really pivotal in terms of how fast we move in this space. Um, I've actually was working on a couple other companies since I was around fifteen years old and that was kind of how I got into entrepreneurship so when I was 15 I self taught myself how to do a lot of design programs. And through there I started working with a startup that did brand management for a lot of social media personalities as well as some metgala designers fashion designers and that's how I got my introduction into business. So when it came time to apply for university I didn't really want to study business because it was like. I'm already kind of working in this area. Do I really need a degree. Let's do something else. Let's go for pharmacy. Um, so it was a bit. Yeah a little bit I will say I think the first thing I wanted to be as a kid was a pediatrician actually but um, given that.

02:38.68
mike_flywheel
Just like random spin of the wheel or like was there something to it.

02:47.97
mike_flywheel
Okay.

02:51.81
Eunice
I come from a very traditional family and my parents are they care a lot about in terms of oh they don't want me to be stressed in the future and doctors are notorious for having overnight shifts. They wanted me to have a more relaxed career I went for pharmacy because there's more stable hours. Ah, but now as an entrepreneur I would argue that my schedule is a little bit worse. So I think it kind of backfired on them with their intents in the hair. Um, yeah I went through 6 years of studying drugs that that's kind of what we're coming to.

03:23.34
mike_flywheel
And then you did a full pivot. So I think we're going to learn about that. But like you obviously before it's interesting because I don't think this is always the case. You actually were pretty entrepreneurial and working in the in the business space.

03:28.80
Eunice
Um.

03:34.68
Eunice
And then.

03:42.75
mike_flywheel
And then sort of like parked that to the side and decided to go down the the path of studying to become a pharmacist. Um, along that journey tell us about maybe some of the businesses that you worked at or worked in or worked for yourself on that.

03:49.50
Eunice
Are.

04:01.78
mike_flywheel
Sort of solidified this notion of entrepreneurship and maybe brought you Maybe that was part of the piece that brought you back to this what sort of stood out for you as part of that journey.

04:11.29
Eunice
For sure. Ah so I started with the digital media side but that actually originated from me creating art I used a lot of these design programs to create custom pieces and that became my own business that I was selling online. Through there I got a lot of commissions I started working for various companies like I did a lot of real estate websites. Um, a lot of branding and such for cpgs as well from there I moved more into um ecommerce side. And then from some of my ecommerce connections I got involved in a Amazon private equity type of company where they help other people start. Ah this conglomerate of Amazon businesses and this is what I was doing throughout school as well. So I think. When I was in school I looked really busy and I think people thought I was a great student but honestly like my first day. My first question was what is my minimum grade that I need 60 okay so I was that person who who got consistently 61% just to be safe. Um, but I definitely wasn't the best student. And I think I knew throughout my pharmacy education that this isn't really the path for me, but the knowledge that I'm gaining from this experience is really pivotal. Um, so I always made the joke of hey I really can't work in pharmacy for the sake of my patients and their safety. So.

05:36.35
Eunice
Um, when I was in my last year doing my practicum at a hospital that's actually where I came up with one of the inspirations for what a cepha is today.

05:46.64
mike_flywheel
Interesting. Okay well I'm going I Want to learn about that. But so you've always sort of been this entrepreneur and you knew you were going to come back home to entrepreneurship. Um, you just like took this like side side trail if you will along the way into pharmacy.

05:56.55
Eunice
Um, in some way.

06:03.75
mike_flywheel
Um, did you think that it was going to bring those two things back together or did that happen more by chance and.

06:09.53
Eunice
It happened more by chance honestly because at the time I did most my businesses alone or barely with the team like I've I've started some nonprofits with a team that I met through my University experience. However, I Never really expected myself to be in the tech space or Ai space and integrating pharmacy in and it wasn't until I Met my co-founder who brings that Ai experiences when we came together and started ideating on this Space. He brings a lot of he's. Completely opposite skill set to me which is amazing because we don't have any overlap but because of that we are able to think very differently and be able to find this niche where not a lot of players are currently in the space.

06:54.87
mike_flywheel
It's actually a good nugget that you you mention there and I just want to park on it for a minute. Um and and learn a little bit about how you and your cofounder met and some of the things of maybe the idea came first or you started meeting and talking about problems. But this notion of very different skill sets and I think the way someone described that one of my previous podcasts were ideally if you can do it to find a cofounder with very different skilletss to you because if you have similar skilletss while you'll be great at balancing ideas. You lack the ability to bring in a different perspective and you're going to have to go higher for that other skill set. So sometimes you can go further faster. Um, with with you know, a very different skill set on on the team but maybe talk to us about how you met your cofounder.

07:35.11
Eunice
Are.

07:47.49
mike_flywheel
And was this chicken before the egg Greg before the chicken when it came to the the idea that became a cepha.

07:51.62
Eunice
Yeah, for sure we met in a very abnormal way I will say most founders that I met they either met because they were like long-term friends or met through school or something we were abnormally placed in a petri dish which is called an accelerator. Ah, it's called next canada so they essentially took 36 people from around the country and put them together in a room and said hey find your co-founder here? Um, but it worked for us I will say it didn't work for most people but I was lucky enough to have found a match that is. Ah, relatively the opposite of me and also interested in the space that I'm working in of course he wasn't interested in pharmacy per se but he was looking for to create something related to Ai in a space with high barrier to entry and luckily enough. Pharmaccy is one with very high varied entry these number one. The credentials number 2 the regulation and having that compliance in your technology these are large factors that deter a lot of players from coming in this space. Ah we met in I think. January of this year so it hasn't been that long. Yeah and then we had no idea how to evaluate who would be the best co-founder at the time. So amongst the people in the accelerator I think I talked to around half of the people we were trying personality tests we were trying to see like who would be a good fit.

08:59.66
mike_flywheel
Okay, so pretty recently.

09:18.45
Eunice
And admittedly I think he was 3 timing me at the time so he was talking to like 2 other potential co-founders but I kind of knew that hey I want this person on my team I could see the amazing skills at that he had I could see the drive is like okay I'm going to figure out a way to steal this person and poach them for myself. So I did that? um. And then we actually started by building more of a chatbot product. But um, slowly through ideation and knowing more from his tech experience. We were able to pivot more towards the Api side going back to what you said about co-founders I agree that um, it's It's definitely beneficial in terms of having to hire less. But I think hiring would be the least of our concerns. Especially if you have the capital to hire out. It's more so like the interpersonal um how you work together. Because the number 1 reason it's been studied but the number 1 reason for business not working out is actually co-founder disputes or issues and if you don't have a lot of overlap in your skill set like for example, if you had 2 marketing people. They definitely have different theories on how to go about that. Um, the lee. The less overlap that you have the less debates that you have because for us, it's like anything technology I might have an opinion but I do trust his expertise and I won't push back as hard and then anything in terms of marketing and design. He won't push back much on me. So I think it decreases.

10:41.16
mike_flywheel
I Think it's a great perspective.

10:44.47
Eunice
Yeah, and it's also optimization of capital right? because in your company we're we're fifty fifty split but if there we were both again like we both had a tech background or we both had a marketing background that would be too much overlap and not a good use of that capital, especially since like later stage. Oh sorry about that.

11:01.54
mike_flywheel
No noise.

11:03.34
Eunice
Later stages. Um, it really matters How much equity a founder holds and like if it's going to be an investable business.

11:09.89
mike_flywheel
Yeah, well can you just sounds like you. You know you were the final winner of the cofounder match game. What and not everyone gets placed in a petri dish but lots of people are trying to figure out that right? co-founder.

11:16.86
Eunice
Comes the faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:27.19
mike_flywheel
What did you do to figure out who is the right fit that you think maybe worked So in case someone else is going through this and they don't know where to start and what were your um you know strategic methods of convincing this 3 timing cofounder searcher to to come join a cepha. Which wasn't called a Cepha at that time. Yeah.

11:48.24
Eunice
Yeah I was not called to stuff at the time I don't know what if you he listened to this is like oh my God I got played. Yeah I think at the time. Um I think everyone kind of has a sixth sense So when I was talking to everyone.

11:51.94
mike_flywheel
You may as well know might as all know.

12:02.18
Eunice
There were certain people I did want to partner with but then they didn't want to partner with me or they had someone else in mind or a different idea in mind. We really tried very random methods like there is 50 cofounder questions online that you can do with your cofounder to get an idea of what they want with a business.

12:05.50
mike_flywheel
But.

12:20.41
Eunice
Um, there's personality tests which we actually didn't do until recently and we found out that we're the same mbti which is a little bit weird just by coincidence. Um I think it generally comes down to what are your values in terms of building a business and that's something that we really really aligned on early on so that's. Kind of where I got my sense and I think they could get that sense as well where it's like hey we want the same thing from this business. What our goals are and also I think the way that we view life and those those values are really important. Actually the funny thing is and then ah. Think two days ago we had a conversation talking about. Oh what do you think it would be like what would would we do the day that we finally exit or what would we do? if it's the day that we finally fail this business either extreme and we realized that um. Even if we exit a company or if we fail. The only thing we would do is probably just grab a beer that day and it really was interesting that we both knew that that's exactly what we would do together and whether or not we we succeed or fail I think just having that alignment with your cofounder is the utmost most important part. Um, in terms of how I was able to steal this person and convince them to join me. Um I don't know I think as long as you take initiative and show them other people. It doesn't apply to just co-founders just like your team in general as long as you show other people. How committed you are and.

13:51.16
Eunice
Um, showing that you take initiative and go above and beyond that's enough to convince people to come on board with your vision, especially if you're a c-suite level or like someone who is running a business. That's very important in terms of motivating your team at the time I think we were very indecisive about what idea to go with. We're debating between what we're working on now with like self-driving robot car with a kitchen inside of it and like some translation ai service like there was a lot of ideas on the table. But. Think the point where I was maybe I was a little bit pushy with this but I essentially that night I surveyed like 20 people and then got some data on hey this is a real problem and presented it to my team the next day and then I think that was the factor where it's like oh no one else really did that survey I have this data now we should probably go along with it.

14:42.96
mike_flywheel
And I like it so it was the the hustle and the proactiveness that that really did go a long way and finding a personality fit and a difference of skill sets was was incredibly important. Well let's talk now about a cepha.

14:51.98
Eunice
Business. Yeah.

14:59.88
mike_flywheel
I Want to hear your you know we're on a show called the pitch please Podcast. So we're going to have to hear your best pitch. But after that we can definitely go into the industry and since your story is a bit unique. Um I Think what might be interesting sounds like there's a survey, but. You obviously had to pick an area 2 survey So I want to learn about that. But before we do eunice your best pitch please.

15:21.22
Eunice
For sure. So I'm part of a cepha we create Ai infrastructure for pharmacy companies. So using our infrastructure our clients can create multiple agents that serve various use cases. From patient-facing activities such as appointment scheduling or follow-ups to industry activities such as competitor insights or compliance checking our goal is to streamline clinician workflows to provide more efficient care as well as increased patient adherence by. Improving the connection between the provider and the patient.

15:54.77
mike_flywheel
This interesting and I'm very curious to even start to break down how this works. Um, but I mean you went to school for pharmacy and to become a pharmacist I imagine that sparked some of the problems that you saw.

16:02.10
Eunice
The.

16:09.55
Eunice
Yeah, yeah.

16:11.69
mike_flywheel
But how did that make its way into next thirty six. What were some of these problems that you were seeing that sort of started the snowball here if you will yeah.

16:22.66
Eunice
For sure. Um I think this has a large thing to do with the timing of next 36 as well as my pharmacy schooling so in the program started around January and then January to. Say april -ishsh around there is when I was in my practicum so I was currently at a hospital in vancouver and then that's when I was ideating with my cofounder and exploring ideas. And I always knew that navigating clinical information was really difficult because it's largely unstructured and there's 35000000 of these unstructured documents because I knew this was a problem that's kind of why we decided to go into it. But I think if I wasn't on practicum at the time in that hospital. Wouldve gone for a different route like I always imagined myself doing some kind of cpg product. Not really in terms of healthcare or tech number one because I don't like health like I'm not as passionate in healthcare and number two I don't know tech so it's really interesting that I'm here. But I think one. Ah, the reasons why I didn't go straight into the healthcare stream is because I could see the people around me in my schooling and they were extremely extremely passionate about healthcare. It's not that I'm not It's just that I think that other people who I was studying with could provide much better care than I ever could.

17:45.57
Eunice
So Then the idea became how can I also contribute to these patients without directly contributing to these patients and the answer seemed to be hey I can make a difference in terms of technology and the the software that we have in order to provide these patients more efficient care and this might be a better use. Of my skills rather than me being there directly caring for these patients.

18:07.10
mike_flywheel
That's interesting. So let's talk tell me understand pharmacies and pharmacists and you know some of the challenges they face that you were seeing that you know ignited the spark.

18:12.35
Eunice
This is.

18:21.29
mike_flywheel
Around a Cepha What? What are some of the common areas or challenges that you were seeing that you thought you could make an impact against.

18:28.46
Eunice
For sure. Um, right now there is around a 15 % shortfall of healthcare workers to the number of patients who need care I think 1 instance that stood out a lot is because I had this patient who was telling me that they had to travel 4 hours to see their nearest family doctor. And the issue is pharmacists at the time could not have a lot of flexibility in terms of their role so that we would have to contact the doctor for any change. Even if they forgot to write like milligrams on the prescription. We would have to call them even though we know we can fill it in. And top of that we have years of schooling where we know the medications sometimes better than the doctors and we know a lot of the information like oh if they have a comorbidity or a drug interaction. What can we actually switch this to and we're usually the last check before the patient actually receives a medication. Um. Now as of this year there's new regulations allowing pharmacists to prescribe which gives us a lot more flexibility and be able to provide better care to these patients because if we identify an issue we can make that change automatically and then provide that medication right away. But even then there's still a large issue because a lot of the pharmacies I was working at. I often got the highest volume pharmacies in Vancouver. Um, and there the wait time to receive a medication can be between an hour to a day which is a little bit ridiculous and because of the regulations sometimes I had a patient come in. It's like hey I have really bad asthma I need.

19:59.15
Eunice
Ah, some medication to help me breathe and the the problem is like I knew how to treat it I knew which medication to give I could not legally give it to them without myself being in trouble so I could not help this person quite literally breathe. So there's something majorly wrong with that. Um, kind of system. Unfortunately I can't. Necessarily change the system. But what I can do is allow these pharmacists to prescribe it and work faster in order to treat these patients more efficiently. Um, that was the inspiration that came to to building a cepha and on top of that we realized that it's not just a pharmacy. Specific problem. It's also a pharma specific problem pharma is the manufacturers of this these medications and they provide a lot of insights into the space. But 1 issue with pharma is that there is really low patient adherence most of the time because patients don't understand medications. Or understand how to treat their side effects or if it's a permanent side effect and this is an issue that pharma has in terms of communicating that information to these patients that are taking the medications. So. Overall, there's a large barrier between healthcare professional to patient whether it's time or understanding. And these are the 2 areas that we thought we could use Ai to solve.

21:18.85
mike_flywheel
You got it. So you're very specifically ah tackling the challenges of time and efficiency now are you doing So for the you've mentioned the patient quite a bit.

21:21.58
Eunice
Listen.

21:28.69
mike_flywheel
Is is Acepha patient facing Clinician facing or or both in that regard and and soon maybe we'll talk about how it actually works. Okay.

21:35.72
Eunice
For sure. It's clinician facing as well as pharma- facing. It's not patient facing them and that's for a couple reasons. We might actually go into patient facing later on but be more so providing a product to pharma that they can enable for their patients as.

21:40.60
mike_flywheel
Okay.

21:55.22
Eunice
I I can't go too much into our plans later but it'd be more so to help with communicating that information but it'd be more so selling to pharmacy I don't think we would ever do b to c for a couple of reasons and one of the major ones is because ai in health care is just not ready. As a technology to be used autonomously in healthcare and it won't be for a while because the expectations for accuracy like any other field such as design like if someone's rendering an ai portrait of themselves that can be at like 80% accuracy and and be amazing. Um, but even for healthcare if it's not at 99.9 accuracy. Maybe that's not even enough it can't be used autonomously issue is if it's facing a patient you have to get very very creative in terms of what use cases you're building out. But even for clinician-facing. That's a really difficult one because you can't just create a chatbt for clinicians and expect them to use it because myself as a clinician I know I've never checked the references whenever I'm reading information. So especially since our workflow is so so chaotic and busy. So that's why a lot of the um health gp apps right now are they're kind of suffering as a company is because the technology simply isn't there. Our thesis is that we can build technology in a way that we have more creative solutions that force.

23:25.84
Eunice
Clinician interaction and then when the technology is there then we can create solutions that can be used more autonomously. But until then I don't think it will be happening for a couple months maybe a year so we just have to find ways to work around it at the moment.

23:38.29
mike_flywheel
So interesting. Okay, well let's maybe talk about how it works then give us some like very real examples of of where a cepha fits into the the workflows of a let's let's do a clinician ah a pharmacist. Um I assume this is for Canadian Pharmacists us pharmacists agnostic okay

23:57.58
Eunice
Anywhere actually we are. We are quite international, especially since a lot of the pharma companies are international. Our information is not specific to 1 country and it's because we built our infrastructure keeping mind that it has to ingest any type of information and be able to understand it. Um. Given that clinical trials are very unstructured. We can't just parse that information. We also want to provide the capability of other people uploading their own guidelines or their own information their own research documents like we work with a research lab that has their own structure. Our algorithm. We knew that it had to understand this so because of this we have been doing a lot of r and d and our algorithm is now at 91.87 accuracy for general use cases. But if it's something very specific. For example, we want it to specifically answer covid vaccine information then we can. Tailor it to more ninety Eight ninety nine percent accuracy. But for general use case. Overall it has tested this accuracy on the canadian licensing exam for pharmacists. So this involves medical information, ethics and laws and regulations of the country. Um, for reference chat Dbt tested around 70% Google par tested around 68 and other healthcare competitors. We tested quite a few of them. They are around seventy five to eighty four percent accuracy the reason there's a disparity is because a lot of them. Don't use grounded generation so they have a layer of gbt in between that. Um.

25:28.14
Eunice
Gets the right answer but clearly does not reference the correct resource because it can pull something random but still get the answer correct again. That's not acceptable for Healthcare um, and because they rely on paid Data sets. So There's a couple companies out there that sell their data for its cost like $100000 us per year. Um, which is great for the accuracy at the moment. But then if you have a client who wants to upload their own documents. Very low accuracy because it relies on that that clear structure so algorithm is able to read that structure from any type of resource. Um, yeah, specific use case-wise um. I can't go into too much detail with some of them because we are in development with other companies just to Clarify. We don't provide. Um, we don't come up with the in most cases we don't aren't the actual solution. We provide the Ai infrastructure for that solution.

26:04.64
mike_flywheel
Okay, yeah.

26:17.69
mike_flywheel
Okay, ah.

26:20.88
Eunice
So there's a company that we work with who provides software to Twenty Nine Thousand Pharmacists at the moment and then they're going to be using our infrastructure in their system. So one of the tools that we're creating is to help with follow-ups in appointments. And being able to streamline that process a lot smoother.

26:39.68
mike_flywheel
You got it so you actually aren't sitting as a solution that's necessarily always bought by the pharmacist. So my understanding now is evolving so you actually sell to people that have platforms that service pharmacists and you provide the capability. So if they are a software company.

26:44.54
Eunice
Yeah, no.

26:58.40
Eunice
Yes.

26:59.14
mike_flywheel
Targets pharmacists they don't have to fully bake their own ai solution. You allow a scale of Ai capability and model that can support pharmacist-based scenarios and allow them to append it I'm super simplifying this. But.

27:12.74
Eunice
Yes, yes, yes, please. Yes.

27:17.48
mike_flywheel
Appended to whatever they have for pharmacists and like what are you don't have to name like your customer names unless you want to but like what are examples of these types of companies that would take advantage of this. This could be you like naming all the ones you want to work with you know, just okay.

27:31.60
Eunice
But sure. Ah, we are solely B 2 b So we work with companies that provide software to PharmaciesDigitalHealth platforms Therapeutic Side. We have customer customers there. Um, as well as Pharma companies and agencies that represent the top pharma companies as Well. Those are more so our demographic of customers. We are actually view ourselves more so as a software company rather than a Healthcare company.

28:00.79
mike_flywheel
So.

28:02.99
Eunice
And I think that's a big differentiator in terms of a lot of the people who are building in this space use themselves as a healthcare company but the issue is with Ai being so New. There's so much research coming out every single day new updates if you aren't a software company focusing on all these updates you will eventually be replaced. By the larger companies or other startups who are focusing more on the infrastructure side.

28:27.72
mike_flywheel
You got it? Um, super fascinating. It's It's interesting that you you know in in a world to your point where people maybe are just building for the pharmacists. You took an approach that said we're going to be a B Two B solution that empowers people that already Target pharmacists.

28:45.72
Eunice
Um, yeah, yeah.

28:45.92
mike_flywheel
And we're going to help them move into an era of Ai in a much simpler form with more accurate data than just ah, a openaii gp plugin to whatever they're doing because to your point there needs to be a higher degree of accuracy reference ability that sort of thing.

28:55.72
Eunice
And.

29:03.27
Eunice
Yeah I think it's oh yeah, it's very much a purple ocean I think some people view Ai as a blue ocean. However, given that the technology is so new.

29:05.37
mike_flywheel
Um, it sounds like oh God Yeah yeah.

29:17.84
Eunice
I Think Purple Ocean is the way to go in terms of our approach at least.

29:20.74
mike_flywheel
Can you describe just in case, anyone's not familiar with it. What what? purple ocean is.

29:25.11
Eunice
Purple Ocean is a mix of blue ocean and red ocean where you take a proven business model but apply newer developments and find a way to innovate on top of that. So finding existing businesses For example is what we do and we essentially create this new feature. Or this new Avenue that you can build into with existing companies.

29:48.79
mike_flywheel
Got it makes total sense instead of building something completely like Net New you work within an existing space. Um, so you've been working on this I mean it sounds like you got the petri dish in january.

29:51.81
Eunice
This.

30:02.87
Eunice
Um, and.

30:03.38
mike_flywheel
Did some working so how long where where's aepha at in its journey. How long have you sort of been working on this. Um, are you live starting to now collaborate and and what's sort of your your milestones today and.

30:17.77
Eunice
For sure. So we I met my cofounder in January but we didn't actually start the business until end of March I like to say early April because he actually got covid right after so we didn't even start building the product until then but um, around may is when we had a working version. 1 um, and then I started fundraising because we had some interest but looking back that was way too early to fundraise. We had absolutely nothing to show the product barely worked um but we actually were able to close some investment by Mid -july nd the product worked by then. Um. Since then we got recruited for join techstars toronto. So it's another accelerator in toronto and then we finished that program recently we were revenue generating starting september um, and then now we are. Excited to have some new contracts coming in early twenty twenty four

31:10.92
mike_flywheel
Amazing. Well you know what I want to talk about something you mentioned there which is like when is too early to fundraise or what were some of the things that looking back you maybe would have changed it obviously sounds like you were still successful in that path but you had some realizations through it.

31:19.69
Eunice
Um.

31:24.61
Eunice
Are.

31:30.12
mike_flywheel
If someone else is starting their idea and looking to fundraise what sort of advice that you would share now and now knowing having gone through this and.

31:35.44
Eunice
Yeah, for sure I'm looking back I actually don't regret fundraising that early like at that time we were like a one and a half two month old company and it's absolutely ridiculous to be fundraising at that point given that we're. Younger and not like repeat founders who have exited in that case that would be more reasonable to fundraise that early. Um, but it was actually really helpful because all these investors have been working in the field for so long. They understand various aspects of the business model. You should be looking at and 1 thing that we took away there was hey what is our technical defensibility. Ah, like I said we started as more of a Gpt wrapper like a chatbot and that's when we had the revelation and understood. Um some of these assumptions that we have to make as in hey healthcare is not ready for ai to be used autonomously. Then we moved away from the chat bot more into the api side. We've tried no code builder side I think we're at a stable point now where our business idea I think we've evolved it in a way where we've thought about most of the aspects of the business model at the time. I think we thought it was a pretty good product but through these investors that's how we learned hey we have to think about defensibility. We have to think about how will this be replaced. Ah what are the new updates from Microsoft and Amazon that are going to go over what we're creating and that's sorry I think that's when we started thinking about hey we can't build for what the technology is right now.

33:03.21
Eunice
We have to make assumptions for what area. The technology is going in the future and start building for that assumed future. Um I think for anyone who's trying to fundraise. At this point I definitely have a reasonable business to to pitch in the first place. Um, but. Essentially a lot of networking getting your name out there. We got all of our interest from inbound so we did a lot of Linkedin posts. We went to pitch competitions. We got I would say all of our investors we've I've never done a single coldt call before which is really great because we had a lot of exposure from. Um, accelerators as well as Linkedin posts. Um, it's honestly a full-time job I think everyone will say it's a full-time job. You have to receive like 60 rejections before you get to 1 um, feeling discouragement. That's something that you have to get used to. Um, and just because one says no doesn't mean it's no forever just keep interacting with them keep building off of it and take the feedback as well. I think I've seen a lot of companies in the healthcare space who don't take the feedback that they get from pitch competitions and investors and they continue to build and that's.

34:17.92
Eunice
You're essentially of course um you think about the business more than anyone else will, but especially if you're new to building a business sometimes you have to take their feedback into consideration because they've seen like 10 of your company before.

34:31.48
mike_flywheel
And that's actually a piece I'd love to get thoughts on which maybe there's no perfect answer. But when you think about the amount of feedback that you get right? like I have never been at a pitch competition.

34:40.20
Eunice
Um, yeah, yeah.

34:46.94
Eunice
So.

34:50.52
mike_flywheel
Where everyone wasn't critical of the idea. It's almost their job to point out all the flaws or potential flaws and the reality is they're not always right like they know the industry to your point Sometimes they don't know no elements. How did you go about balancing that feedback of which things do you pivot for. Which things do you hold your ground on because the reality is I Don't think you always get bit ah beat up when you're you're pitching right? No One's like that's a brilliant idea I have no questions for you like I've never seen that So How do you.

35:15.12
Eunice
Yeah, and.

35:23.29
mike_flywheel
Sift through that and determine where and when to to make modifications or changes and how did you you tackle it.

35:27.35
Eunice
Yeah, it's honestly a skill you have to develop in terms of what feedback you take and what feedback you ignore because good feedback can be pivotal to your business. Bad feedback can distract you from the main goal. Um I think evaluating where that feedback is coming from and what it's about is really important. For example I've had investors tell me is like oh I don't think this is a big problem in pharmacy I don't think this is a big market that feedback I ignore I know the space better? Um, but if it's something like hey the technical defensibility is not there. There's like 20 other companies like this. That's feedback I would take more into consideration because I know these investors like when they're doing their due diligence. They've talked to like ten copied companies of you. They know like what their weaknesses are they probably are asking the question because it's like a weakness in our business and that's actually great for us because then that's when. We get some insights into who else they're talking to as well. Once you know the space you can kind of pick out who they're talking to is super interesting. Same thing implies for like cofounders again like choosing who like has that expertise who you should be listening to. Um I think 1 thing that's really helped us is um.

36:24.46
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah.

36:38.76
Eunice
When you have a co-founder and you're at these pitch competitions have someone else taking notes on all the feedback and that's something that we've done I get very critical feedback right? after any pitch I have for my co-founder.

36:43.40
mike_flywheel
Me.

36:52.22
Eunice
And it's funny to the point like it's It's great between Nas because it's something that we've established like we're very direct with each other. We're very open with each other. We know any feedback is because we want to improve but it's funny because I've we've had other people hear the feedback that we give to each other and they're like whoa you guys talk to each other like that and we're like Yeah. You got to be Clear. So I mean just a lot of reflection is needed whenever you you hear about anything don't just implement it right Away. Um, really think about where their concerns are coming from and if that's an area that you have to worry about.

37:26.81
mike_flywheel
So I really like that tip about you know, have someone or some way of taking notes during these pitch competitions and broader feedback sources so that you can debrief and analyze on it later so they don't get caught up in the recency like oh I heard this thing. It's like well we heard a whole bunch of things.

37:38.90
Eunice
The.

37:45.53
mike_flywheel
Let's like evaluate it on on scale and determine what you know what makes it through the filter and and what doesn't which is which is really great advice. Um, if people are interested in and learning more and it sounds like it's a B Two B audience but I'm sure lots of people are curious.

37:46.19
Eunice
And we yeah here.

38:04.26
mike_flywheel
Where should they be going to to find out more and usually with that I find it's also helpful to to just ask. Is there anything that if someone's listening right now where they could help ah part of whatever you're trying to achieve in the year ahead um what would that be.

38:19.80
Eunice
For sure. Yeah, if you want to find out more. We have a website Wwwww.acepha.ai. We don't have a public product so that's actually something interesting that we've done in the past we've we've made around like 13 versions of our product now. Um, the first couple versions were all public for you so we actually still have some users on it like we we checked the other day and we're like oh my god people actually use this. Why? Um, but our product now is very private because we realized that the ux and the the way that way you're doing things is part of our ip. And that's something that we don't want to reveal publicly yet. So it's more so stealth and only revealed to our current customers. Um, but um, we do have a website that outlines some of our basic information in terms of what we're looking for I would say just more connections in the healthcare space specifically in the pharma.

39:01.24
mike_flywheel
Interesting.

39:15.66
Eunice
Manufacturing and these larger companies we are looking more towards partnerships in 2024 we have a couple lined up but it'll be more so focused on that distribution of the product.

39:29.69
mike_flywheel
So got it and just for anyone we'll put in the description. But it's a SEPHADot a I just don't don't throw the f in there or are you gonna get really confused. Um, this is super interesting. Actually there's a piece you just talked about.

39:33.86
Eunice
Me and.

39:46.28
mike_flywheel
Which I don't think it's come up on too many of my podcasts that I would just love to noodle on for a minute or two before we sort of wrap up but this notion of operating in stealth. Can you tell us like what that is and why or why someone wouldn't why or why not someone would do that. Okay.

40:01.23
Eunice
Yeah, for sure. Um, so it's it's really interesting. We were I think we're a very public company. We like we post demo videos that we I guess weren't supposed to post but it was good lead generation for us like it got a lot of reactions on Linkedin. That's how we got a lot of retraction and got well known in Toronto. Um, but an interesting part is we went to some conferences and we realized that some of our competition were copying our ui so it was funny because. Ah, quite a few of them. They have the exact same filter system the exact same resources. We've had people ask us where we're getting our information how we're doing things what our tech stack is so it's just a little bit too public but um at the time it didn't really matter that much because it's like oh yeah, anyone can build in this space. I think when the business got a bit more serious is when we made that pivot to a little bit different product more so the Api and infrastructure side. That's when we became a lot more private so we realized that even the layout of how we're doing things is very much so with our ip because that's.

41:05.66
mike_flywheel
E.

41:05.76
Eunice
A lot of research that we've done with our customers and the industry is say hey how do you prefer things done. How do you prefer this layout What kind of features are upcoming. This is all research that we've done and by making it Public. We're essentially exposing the research that we've done. Even like a podcast like this the assumptions that I'm talking about is also Ip that like someone else could be taking into their business and allowing them to accelerate further just because um, ai space. It's so new I think everyone's bouncing ideas off each other and I'm always glad to share ideas I Love hearing other people's ideas. But there are some key assumptions in our business and why we've built our business model this way I think those ones we should keep private for now. However, we do plan to publish a lot of Tech Nicole White papers in terms of research that we've done into the Pharma space.

41:54.84
mike_flywheel
You that's cool and appreciate you sharing as much as you've been able to today I think it's just an eat concept. But it is true like this is a fast movinging space and so you know the democratization of Ai takes 1 step and so actually there's the.

42:02.54
Eunice
Are.

42:12.87
mike_flywheel
The margin of where you add value can potentially be a little bit thinner in some areas and so it sounds like retaining that value is even more critical now than maybe in some other times before um, well eunice. Thank you so much for joining us today on the pitch please podcast I've had fun learning about this solution.

42:16.34
Eunice
Um, the the.

42:32.61
mike_flywheel
About your journey from you know businesses to pharmacy back to pharmacy businesses. Um and operating in the public eye to operating in steals. How to you know course or or court. You know your your ideal cofounder Tons of amazing.

42:38.86
Eunice
Um, kind of fit.

42:50.60
mike_flywheel
Um, thoughts along the way but want to make sure that you got the last word here. Any final thoughts from your side to our audience as we kind of wrap up.

42:57.90
Eunice
Yeah I think I've I've covered a lot in the party because I just wanted to say. Thank you for having me here and it was great chatting and also the experience has been amazing.

43:08.25
mike_flywheel
Amazing. Well thank you again. Thank you everyone who who tuned in hopefully this motivated you to you know come build some cool stuff. No matter where you you are at no matter what industry you're at um and thank you again for for listening in today have a have a great day evening morning. Whatever you're kicking into. And we'll catch you on the next episode of pitch. Please thanks.