Bridging Science & Business: A Real-World Approach with Kevin Scanlon

Hey. Welcome to this episode. My guest today is doctor Kevin j Scanlon. He is a scientist, an inventor, an entrepreneur, an author, and an investment adviser. Not only that, he is from New York, lives in California, and has an Irish passport.

So we're gonna have a fun conversation. Let's get on with it. So, Kevin, thank you for joining me on this episode. Really appreciate you taking the time today to share with us a little bit about you and your expertise and what you've been doing lately. So let's start with that.

Tell us about yourself and and what you've been up to.

So I was born in New York City. I was educated in London, and I have an Irish passport.

Oh, wow.

So I I was trained in molecular biology and cancer research. I was, fortunate I was at Yale, trained with Joe Bertino in drug resistance in patients with cancer. And then I went into the pharmaceutical industry and ran a cancer program for a German pharmaceutical company. And when I finished there, I went into the investment community because I could speak science and I could speak business. And I wound up becoming chairman of the Pasadena Angels, and I was also with the the second group, Tech Coast Angels.

And I helped entrepreneurs and investors understand the risks of investing in science companies, technology companies. And when I after being chairman, I started teaching because I realized the entrepreneurs were so did not understand the process of getting funded by investors. So I wrote a book called the hybrid entrepreneur for the students so they could understand the process of starting a company and getting funding. And that's what I've been doing. So I've been advising companies and investors on good good investments for startup companies.

Interesting. So you'd you talked about risks. What were some of the key risks that you were trying to help steer them around?

It was an interesting problem. The scientists or technologists had no understanding of the vocabulary of the businessperson, and that scared them, raised their anxiety. The businessperson had no idea of what the technologist was saying because it sounded all gibberish to him. So his anxiety went up. So the point of the book was to help understand the process, help understand the vocabulary.

Once that was achieved, then you introduced the lawyers with their vocabulary, and everybody became anxious.

And confused and scared. Exactly. It's funny that this isn't an unusual conversation. I mean, actually, in marketing, we run into the same thing where you've got multiple people at the table speaking different languages from their area of expertise. And and and marketers have to try and crunch that and make that attractive and and the messaging reach the right audiences.

So I I can relate to that situation.

Yes. So it it it's important to understand. If they understand the process and they understand where each group is coming from, then it makes it easier. Not solved, but it makes it easier to communicate between three groups or more.

Right. And if you can let the if you can let the scientists focus on the science, then, you know, what they're actually trying to create will actually get better rather than distracting them with all this business mumbo jumbo.

Yeah. To a certain degree. Yes. That's true.

And the Opacity of the Angels is still up running. It's been going for twenty four years, I was reading. So tell me a little bit more about that organization.

It's it's a very interesting organization. It's about a 100 investors with domain experience, c suite experience that work together as a group to invest in early stage companies. We fund about 20 companies a year, and we review about 600. So that gives you a proportion.

Wow.

It's an involved process. What we try to do is we try to mentor the entrepreneur and help them because, as I've always said, if the company was perfect, there would be no need to go to angel investors.

Right. Of course. Good point.

So what we try to do is look at the company, see if it's a good fit for our members, see if our members can mentor or help or network to make the company successful in addition to helping them get funded. That's smart.

So you're actually so you're actually investing in their in the in the ideas behind the growth as well. Right?

Because Yes. If they're successful if they're successful, we're successful.

We're successful. Very good. Excellent. Wow. And you've been with that organization from from the beginning?

No. Not quite. Dwayne Peterson and Al Schneider started it in around February. I joined around 02/2004. They were fascinated that I could speak science and I could speak business.

So when they found that out, they the Tech Coast Angels immediately said, you're gonna join our group also.

Oh, right. It's okay. What's the name of that group again? Tech Tech Tech

Coast Angels. Yeah. The Tech Coast Angels.

Tech Coast Angels. Got you.

So and it's the largest investment group angel investment group in The United States. And so I had the opportunity to sit every month with the Pasadena Angels and see the companies they screened, and every month, sit with the Tech Coast Angels and see what companies they screened. And then I was able to listen to the investors' questions. And if I didn't understand the investors' questions to the entrepreneurs, I would go up to the investors and say, what why was that question so important to

you? Right.

And he would explain it. So I had an education in 200 people with their background and knowledge.

So you're like a liaison between investor and and company owner or founder or whatever. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't that interesting? What were some of the what were some of the the key hiccups around that?

Well, it was personality. It was personality. It was it was fascinating. One of the things we like to do is we like to see the interaction of the management team in the presentation to the investors Right. Because that tells us a lot.

In in the book I I wrote, there are usually two reasons why companies fail. They run out of money, or the culture does not change with the growth of the company.

Very interesting. Great.

So what we like to look at is the dynamic. Is the dynamic good? Are they listening? And, you know, you're sitting in a room with 50 to a 100 investors who have anywhere from ten to fifty years experience, who have enormous networks. And if the entrepreneur tries to BS any of these people, it's just it's ridiculous.

So we're we're there to help you, and you have to be honest and say, look. My company has a floor or weakness, and this is what we need. Can you help us? So those were the most receptive entrepreneurs that we tried to work with. Conversely, there were other entrepreneurs that said, no one could understand my product better than me.

Yeah. Red flag.

Yeah. Red flag. So we passed on them. So it was a question of developing a connection, a personal interaction with the entrepreneur, with the investor to help mentor them, to open them up to the the investors' networks, to make them successful. And, if they were successful, we would be successful because our priority was get a good return on investment as soon as possible so we can reinvest again.

What I realized was that the entrepreneurs did not really understand what was going on with the investors. And the investors were just like, why doesn't this entrepreneur get it? And that's why I wound up at when I became emeritus chairman at Pasadena Angels, that's why I decided to write the book. I thought the biggest contribution I could make would be to help the entrepreneur understand the process, understand the vocabulary to be more successful. And it's worked to a certain degree.

Right. The and, of course, that's what you were teaching too. Right?

Yes. I I was fortunate. I I moved to Boston for eight years, and I wound up in the business school without an MBA, which annoyed a lot of people. And I taught a course on entrepreneurship. There wasn't a lot of entrepreneurship going on.

So what we did was I I taught about 600 students, and we actually took a 100 university companies and put them into the course. So I'd have the students form a team. They would then go to the CEO, talk to the CEO, find out what the product was, come back, and then for fourteen weeks, do research on the company, the product, the business model, the finances. And at the end of the fourteen weeks, the CEO would get business plan, customer survey, PowerPoint presentation to investors, and a term sheet Wow. For free.

For free. That's just like a, yeah, a free think tank.

Yes. So and it was a win win for everybody because the students got to be a team and evaluate the company. The students we had four to six companies each semester, so they would see four to six different companies with different problems, and then the CEO would get it. Now at first, they didn't the CEO didn't believe it was free, and then didn't believe that they could do anything of any consequence.

Right. What a huge learning experience for those students, though, to actually work with a real company with a real CEO and yeah. What a great opportunity.

Yeah. So it it the majority of the students really appreciated it.

I bet.

And the majority of the CEOs really appreciated it. So I

had because I now learned go ahead.

Go ahead. Some CEOs actually hired the students into their company.

Oh, wow.

But I had other CEOs that looked at it and said, there's no way that they could understand more than I know about my company and my product, and they would throw it in the rubbish bin.

Wow. Red flag.

Exactly. This is leftover from the investors.

Exactly. That's the same guy.

Yeah. Probably was.

So then all that learning for you, I was learning for you too and pulling all that information was what actually helped you put the book together too.

Yeah. What was really fascinating was each semester the book took about six years to write.

Right.

Each semester, would go back over the questions that the students were asking, and I would say, that question really doesn't make any sense to me. Why is it so obvious to me but not obvious to them? And then I began to realize where they were coming from and what they knew and what they didn't know. So that helped a lot by going over the questions. So I I evolved the book into addressing a lot of those questions that someone early on in their career being an entrepreneur faced the same sign kind of questions or needed that information.

So that that helped a lot.

Right. So what you're talking about we're talking about personality and culture. You said that's kind of one of the top issues that people look for look out for when they're looking to invest. And and, you know, you you identified that that same problem, you know, with the students working with these CEOs. How if if we're talking about one of these CEOs who just thinks that no one else can solve my problems, no one else knows my what I do better than me, how does that person, that CEO, how do they succeed?

How do they move forward? Do they just at some point, do they have to get out of the way?

Yeah. We've seen a lot of this in the investment community. We've so, like I said, if if an an entrepreneur behaves like that, that's a red flag to us, and we just move on to the next company. Sometimes we have CEOs, entrepreneurs that will accept it, they have to kind of trust you so that that the trust becomes the issue. Will the CEO trust a bunch of old white guys over 60 years old with domain experience.

And, you know, that's the biggest challenge for the entrepreneur. So it's really finding the right fit, finding the right fit of the investment group, the right fit of the mentors, and the right fit with the entrepreneur. And if you can put that together, then you can usually have a successful company.

Right. Right. It's interesting you brought up trust too because as much as it you might be thinking, well, that that entrepreneur just has too big of an ego to work with. But it may not be as much that as much as they don't trust anybody. Right?

Which could actually feed into the culture of their staff as well. If they don't trust an investor, how are they ever gonna trust a a staff member or a man or someone on their management team. Right? That could be the core issue there is that they just don't trust anyone to have their product or service or business in in in their on their hearts.

So What what we saw a lot, especially because I looked at all the technology companies, the science companies, it was patent issues. So a lot of times with early stage companies, entrepreneurs have filed a patent, but it's not been issued.

Right.

So they're very paranoid that somebody can steal their ideas.

Right. Very protective. Yeah.

So from their point of view, I I can understand that. So what I always use to say is, look. I don't wanna know the patent. I don't know wanna know the claims. But can you tell me what your company does, what your product does in a way that doesn't disclose confidential information?

And that was a big trick for me because if they couldn't do it, then I knew this was not gonna be a good company that I was gonna be able to run with.

Right. Right.

So they you know, I gave them the opportunity to explain in layman's terms why their product was so important without disclosing confidential information. Most of them could, some of them couldn't.

And did you ever run into an entrepreneur who had such a great idea, had such a such a worthy investment, but maybe kinda had some of these neuroses about not letting anyone in or not, that you just actually couldn't let them go, that you really tried to get them through the other side?

So we had a rule in the investment community. We would rather fund a first class team and a second rate product than a first class product and a second rate team. And the and the reason for that is most concepts, most minimum viable products are going to ultimately change by the time it gets to the market and the customer. And so the team has to be able to pivot. Pivoting was is very critical because most concepts to product is very rarely a straight line.

So we need a team that can pivot, that can evaluate, and be self critical, and find the best product for the best cup customer for the best market.

A team that can see its own weaknesses and faults and and areas that need improvement. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah.

That's a wise rule.

Read my book.

Did you follow it? Did you follow it well? It

was Well, that that is a good question to ask.

Did you follow your own rule?

That is a good question to ask. The joke among the investment community is if you have an MD or a PhD, you're the worst investors in the group. So I had to be really careful because I was very critical of the science. I mean, people came to me all the time with a cure for cancer. And I I knew that it would be very, very rare if it was true.

So I had to be calm and and stay focused.

Right.

There was once or twice. The problem with science is it's early stage science is a gamble. Is it gonna be the product that you think it's gonna be, or is it gonna bomb? And the science, as most scientists know, a lot of the experiments fail. So twice, I was caught with falling in love with one, the idea, and second, the data was, early stage data was very encouraging.

Right.

Bombed. Darn. Ugh. And I would have a lot of the investors come to me and say, Kevin, what do you think? What do you think about the science?

So I developed a system where I would say, this is what I think is strong. These are the positive aspects of this product. These are the weaknesses, and here's the risk.

Right.

So if you're willing to take the risk, then so that's the only way I was able to survive twenty years as an investor.

Right. Well, it's it that's an educated decision then. And once you know all those things, then it's an educated decision. And, you know, like you say, high risk, high reward. Right?

So if you're willing to throw the dice and you have the bandwidth to to do it, then, you know, take a shot.

Yep.

But if you're looking for something a little more sound, a little more reliable, then you kinda gotta you just use the information, like you said, to make your decision.

Well, there's another interesting problem.

Okay.

So if you wanna do a therapeutic or a medical device, you have to go through the FDA.

Right.

In Southern California, they're way adverse to medical way adverse because of the FDA, they're not familiar with the FDA. Conversely, in Boston, which is a hotbed of medical research

Right.

They don't think twice about funding a therapeutic.

Okay.

And so when I moved to Boston, I was sitting with one of the angel investment groups, and the chairman was next to me. And we were talking, and they went through eight companies, medical companies. And in Southern California, we would see one a month, and here I'm seeing eight.

Eight. Jeez. Wow.

What a to the chairman, and I said, this is a lot of medical companies that you're reviewing. And I said, at least every company has one someone associated with MIT. He looks at me and says, yeah. He says, only fund MIT. Right?

Science.

Oh, really?

Which again yeah. MIT science is really, really strong, and the high probability of a product coming out is very, very strong. And, yes, if you're gonna put your money in, the odds are that you're gonna get something. But Right. In Southern California, if you talk FDA, they don't wanna hear about it because they would rather do some electronics, which you will know in six to eighteen months when the product and the customer is working, whereas a therapeutic would take ten years.

Amazing. Can you tell me this may be slightly off topic, but there seems to be a lot more, flexibility in the laws in the medical health care world in Arizona than other states?

Well, first, you have the FDA and the National Institute of Health.

Right.

So it's out of federal

across the board. That's Across

the board. That that's that's the standard for the country. Right. Then individual states do have different criteria and different standards.

Okay.

So and I will tell you, there's a big difference between East Coast and West Coast. Yeah. Even taking an example of COVID, How Boston dealt with COVID and how Los Angeles dealt with COVID were completely different.

Is that right? Yeah.

Now you have to remember that Boston has 10 medical institutions with, you know, a high level of biotechnology going on.

Right.

So it's very easy to consult with the doctors at Harvard, Mass General, all of the different hospitals, and get an an opinion that's very good. Whereas it's a little bit more limited in in California and Southern California.

California.

So Arizona may have different criteria.

Oh, okay.

Just not familiar with it.

Okay. Alright. That was a side a side jar. So you there's another organization I saw on your on your profile called International Bioscience. What's that all about?

A long time ago in a faraway place.

In a faraway galaxy?

Yeah. Something like that. I I decided I've been invited by many countries to advise on their science and their business and their entrepreneurship and their angel investing. So places like Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, Japan. So that's why I made I just made the company for that because I Okay.

Consulted for companies. So I've been to New Zealand about a dozen times.

Is that right? I've been there too. I love it there.

Spectacular. It's just and the people are so nice. And the the government was faced with a problem after they their major export to was to England. And when England joined the EU, they got crashed. So that interestingly, the treasury department in New Zealand was the one that organized innovation entrepreneurship startup to encourage the universities.

Oh, wow.

Conversely, in Ireland, the government went to the Department of Education and said, no. No. No. What we're gonna do is we're gonna educate our students into the pharmaceutical industry to make it a place for the Americans to bring their industry.

And each

con each country approached it very differently. I I found that's the thing I found most interesting, on how to survive economically and keep their country ahead of the economic changes that were going on in the world

Right.

In the '20 over the last twenty years.

What are some of the most fascinating stories that came from that? If if one doesn't pop out, don't worry about it.

It was fascinating. Each country had their own culture. And what they would accept and what they wouldn't accept because I was able to compare several different countries, governments. Why it would work in one company wouldn't work in another company. I it made no sense to me at that level.

And then when the government decided to push down into the universities, it was a completely different ballgame. Nobody wanted to listen to the government.

Free will to the universities.

Yeah. So they bring in these experts. They, you know, they talk to them. I mean, I met with the faculty in several different countries, And they some of them just blew me off. Like, you don't know what you're talking about.

This is this is my country. I know what's best, you know, just like entrepreneurs.

Right. Right. It sounds like a familiar story.

Yeah. There's no way that you could know more about this than I do. So there was a lot of pushback there, but there was some acceptance and some people and I still have contacts with them. But, like, in China and Japan and Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, they it's it's human nature. That's all I

can Yeah. Human nature. Yeah. You're right. Okay.

Coming back to Tech Coast and Pasadena Investment Groups. When you guys were how did how did an entrepreneurs present? Was it kinda like a dragon's den, sharks den kind of approach? How did they how did they what how did they prepare and how did they actually get in front of you?

Shark Tank.

Shark Tank. Okay.

The producers of Shark Tank came to our investment group and said, we're gonna do a TV series on Shark Tank. How do you guys work?

They asked you.

They no. They came and they watched.

Wow. That's what they you were the you were the the test pilot. Yeah. Wow. Interesting.

Yeah. One of the producers asked me, would I be interested in being on, you know, one of the judges? And I said, no. No. And then they said, well, didn't do it.

No. Absolutely not. And then they said, well, you have a company. Do you wanna put your company forward? I said, no.

Absolutely not. What? So yes. So for the last, what, ten years, fifteen years, everybody comes to me and says, is that what your investment group is like, Shark Tank?

Isn't that funny?

And I go, no. Sorry. It's not. That's TV.

But Shark Tank is a is a is a somewhat of a representation of what you process. Right?

So you have four anywhere from four to eight people, and they only present the entrepreneur presents for, like, two minutes, five minutes. Yeah. Our process is we screen every company that submits to the website, Then we have a committee the next week that reviews all the applications, and then we pick the top four. And the top four come and present to the preliminary group. And then we we have one or two go on to the main monthly meeting to present.

And of that, then we move on to due diligence. It's a whole month process.

Quite a process.

Yeah. Yes. So we we we don't shoot from the hip, and we don't. No. We do a lot of due diligence.

Well, going from 600 applicants to 20 recipients is quite a big step.

Yeah. We have to make sure that, you know Yeah. We what they're saying is right, what they're documenting is right Mhmm. That they are protected. And if we put money into the company, you know, we're not putting it into some less than honorable investment.

And I'm I'm sure once they're awarded, then there's obviously some sort of criteria and milestones and ongoing back and forth over during the as part of

the process. That's what we've introduced in the last ten or twenty years is we have milestones, timelines, and investment. And sometimes if we're a little nervous, we tranche the money matching the milestones and the timelines.

Right.

Now I will tell you, whatever they say they need is never enough.

Double it.

Yes. That's that's what I always used to say. Whatever you're telling me, you need twice as much. And then I say, how long is this gonna take? And they go, oh, six months, twelve months.

We'll have it done by eighteen months. And I said, nope. It's gonna take twice as long.

Double it.

And and I was the most optimistic investor. And the track let let the track record show, yes, it went even longer and cost more money. Right. But, you know, it's to be expected because they're doing unknown things.

Yeah. And you're probably introducing a lot of steps and variables and checkpoints that they never even thought of. Right? Exactly. They're just like, let's get to market.

And and you're like, okay. Hold on. Hold on. We got a lot of we got some other things to consider along the way. So Yeah.

She and sometimes they just like to take the money and run. And we got Right. No. No. No.

We've done that before. It doesn't work.

Yeah. You so you learned along the way too.

Oh, we yeah. It's the growth curve was exponential.

Yeah. No doubt. Well, I mean, you got the experts at the table. It's it makes sense to actually have that sort of magnifying glass on what these what these people are doing with with the money that's being funded to them.

So Yeah. What surprised me the most is over the ten years that I was actively involved with Pasadena and Tech Host Angels, of which we looked at 1,500 to 2,000 companies, you know, every couple of months. Never did we have a company present that in the audience, there wasn't an investor that was a domain expert.

Really?

I I was most impressed with that. They would. Every entrepreneur that came before the group, there was always somebody in the group that was a domain expert on the product customer market.

Interesting. Well, that's what you need, really.

Exactly. Exactly. And so everybody would turn to the person and say, what do you think?

What do you think? Yeah.

And then let me check my network. Let me see what we got.

So now they're in the mix. They got awarded. They've been selected. There's all these, there's a plan in place for rolling this out. Where do you find where do you find often is there's a roadblock for them?

Assuming they're almost to market, where do you find they where is there where there's almost a roadblock?

The two factors. They run out of money. We have to do bridge funding, or what's happened in the last five or ten years is the venture capital has now derisked some of those investments, so they co invest with the angels to keep things going. Mhmm. So angel and VC investors with a company for bridge funding till they get the product to market, that's usually the best.

Mhmm. But the second problem is the team that starts initially, and then they start growing the team to a point where, you know, they have enough money to get the product to market. We find one of the biggest problems is a cultural difference.

Mhmm.

And the expectations are different. So if we have three founders, the three founders start quibbling with each other.

Oh, right.

Because, oh, I I did more than you did. Or, you know, I should have a third of the company.

They're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and they wanna Right.

And then as as the company cult grows, the culture becomes more and more fractionist. Mhmm.

Now you've got a now you've got toxic culture at the top.

Yeah. So now we have fighting.

And Yeah.

That that's just not good. And that's a red flag.

Yeah. No doubt. Do you ever find that when you're close to getting to market, all of a sudden entrepreneurs now become graphic designers and website developers and Yeah. Professional marketers. All of a sudden, they just have this hidden agenda and creative streak.

You have no idea how true that is, both for the entrepreneur and the investor.

Oh, my gosh. Both of them. Yeah. No doubt. Yeah.

Hey. I've been thinking of a logo for this for the last nine years.

Yeah. So we have that problem with the startup company that everybody thinks they can do everything. Yeah.

Right.

The the biggest challenge I had as chairman of the Pasadena Angels was marketing people thought they were IP attorneys.

Oh, yeah. That too. It goes the other way around.

The IP attorney thought that they were marketers.

Oh, yeah.

I I would have to call time out, and I would say, why don't we leave that to the expert?

Yep.

But, yeah, everybody's everybody's got their own opinion. Everybody's got their own idea, and everybody wants

to

it's an opportunity then for them to talk. So I was managing cats in an investment group with a 100 investors. And, you know, everybody everybody had to have their time.

Yeah. The framers are working on electrical. Electricians are working on the plumbing, and plumbers are putting in insulation.

It would seem reasonable, wouldn't it?

Why not? You know? How hard can it be?

Yeah. The the biggest flaw that we saw in a lot of the companies was financial.

Yeah.

So a lot of the scientists and technologists were very good at what they did and the product and the need for the customer. But when it came to giving me a financial strategy, it a lot of times, was just BS.

Right. Right. And that's a tough that's a tough spot to be in.

Yeah. So we try to help them with financial guides or, you know, say, look, you know, this is not gonna fly. Before they present to the the group, you're gonna have to work on your financials.

Right. Oh, yeah. That's a good that was a good question. So you have this you have these 600 applicants, 20 make it through, then you got 580 who still have these ideas. Do you ever go back to the ones that, you know, that almost made it?

You know, the 579? Or

What we do is if we like the company, but they didn't make the cut in that month's screen, we take someone who's a domain expert, an investor, and then we match them up and say, why don't you mentor this company for six or twelve months and then come back? So we always leave the door open. You know, the company has an opportunity to mature.

Right.

And we try to give them and we try to give them up, our investors, who have domain experience to help them.

So they can re they can resubmit?

And Yeah. Yeah.

Do you feel like you can name a few of your favorite outcomes, favorite products or businesses over the years?

One of my favorite, and I wasn't involved in this, It was after I joined, was a company that wanted to make credit cards. So you would have cash. You would have credit cards. And the strategy was that parents could give that little credit card to their kids when they were off to college, and they would have cash and control the volume. And the CEO was a DJ and pulled together some people and worked out of a garage and put this money together.

And he worked on it for about two years, and he was not getting any traction at all. And what happened was he went to New York to a VC to get some money. It was like Friday night. It was raining. The VC said, no.

I'm not interested in that at all. He'd been around for two years trying to get money. Calls his wife and says, it's over. We're gonna have to sell the house. Company's not gonna make it.

Comes home. On that Saturday morning, he gets a phone call from a Tech Coast Angel member and says, is that deal still on the table? And the guy goes, well, it's almost closed, but we can work something out for you.

As he's like

Yes. So Tech Coast Angels went in for a small round about 10 or 15 investors for about $250,000, got them up, got some good mentoring, got them out of the garage.

Amazing.

Kept going, came back for another round, kept going. They did an IPO for a billion dollars three years later.

Wow. No kidding.

That was a home run.

There's a success story. Wow.

So I go I go to everybody that invested. I go to the people that didn't invest, and I said, why didn't you invest in this? You got a 100 200 fold return on investment. He said, are you kidding? He was a DJ.

What did he know about finance? I went to the

other group. See?

I went to the other group, and I said, well, why did you invest? And some said they liked him. Some thought it was an interesting idea. Some said, I had some extra cash on the table, so I I just invested in it.

And and he must have had a bit of passion. You know? I mean, when you talk about person and it's like we're He

was able to keep everything together. Yeah. It was just amazing. I met him a couple of times and had lunch with him, and the guy was just a really well down to earth guy. Nice.

And he Yeah. No matter what hit him, he just kept going. Yeah. It was just amazing.

And he gave it everything. He invested everything he had into it, which is really, you know, at the end of the line, what a call to get at the end of that out

that day. And he listened. And he listened. That was the key. Listened.

He listened to the investors. He listened to the mentors. He listened to Mhmm. And he pulled it together. It took him about five to seven years.

But worth it in the end.

It was. It was definitely worth it.

Wow. Wow. What a great what a great story. And so the these organizations are still bringing in, taking in applications. It's it's it's not stopping anytime soon.

So anybody that's got an idea. And the other thing too is that it's not it's not as any specific types of businesses or industries or you you're kind of open to a lot of different ideas.

We we prefer technology. We prefer intellectual property around it. We don't do pizza restaurants or bowling alleys.

Oh, right. Yeah. Of course. Yes.

But, you know, if it's technology and it is protected by intellectual property, we're very happy to look at it, talk to you, ment to you, keep involved with you, and follow on with you. You know? Sometimes you're not quite ready, so, you know, get back to us in six months. Tell us your progress.

And that's that goes for both Pasadena Angels and Tech Coast Angels. Yeah. They're both the same philosophy.

That's good. They're starting to develop now incubators to bring companies in to incubate so that we can watch them.

Smart idea. Yeah. That's a smart idea. Now Tech sorry. Go ahead.

Tech Coast Angels has an incubator that they can follow the the companies very closely.

See, that's a great idea. And I was just looking at the book too. Hybrid is your book. The Hybrid Entrepreneur.

Yes.

Available on Amazon. I'm gonna get that. There it is. Of course, I need a signed copy.

I'll be glad to send you one.

Well, Kevin, this has been really fantastic. I really appreciate your time with me today. Great stories, great insight. I'm sure there's a lot of takeaways on this. Any last words or comments you wanna pass on to people?

Your your character is your destiny. It's written in in Delphi, Greece, the entrance to Delphi. And I think that's the most important yeah. Your character is your destiny.

I like that. That's a great one to end with. And besides your own book, any other books or or things that you find are helpful in people in your in in in in investing or becoming an entrepreneur?

You have to go back and look at why was Apple so successful? Why was Microsoft soft so sick oh, why was Hewlett Packard so successful? It's the combination of business and technology.

Right.

Genentech had a professor of molecular biology at University of San Francisco and an investment banker forty years ago sit down and have a cup of coffee. Can you imagine what the conversation was like?

Wow. No kidding.

They were able to communicate. The investment banker was able to convince the scientists that they could commercialize gene cloning. They made the insulin gene. They cure helped cure diabetes, and they created Genentech. These are people of different cultures.

Completely different planets, basically.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And if they can do it

Yeah. So you just found a common thread and and went with it.

Yep.

And then, of course, like we said before, personality and character, again, that ties back to what we were talking about before. So great takeaways from this and great advice. Kevin, thank you so much for being with me here today. Good. And we'll talk again soon.

What an awesome conversation I just had with Kevin. Great guy. Great sense of humor. That was fun and informational. I learned a lot.

Hope you did too. Particularly, if you're an entrepreneur looking for money, there's a couple organizations you can look into, Pasadena Angels and Tech Coast Angels. But remember, they are looking for personality and character. Character is your destiny, and, you need to be aware that they are watching to see how you engage with your management team and if you are, able to trust other people with your product, business, or service that you are, and your vision. It's a very important, aspect of all business, actually.

If you can't trust your investors, you can probably can't trust your employees. And there go your culture in the process. So lots to learn as an entrepreneur and don't forget to pick up Kevin's book, The Hybrid Entrepreneur, a novel career in science and business. That's a good read. I'm gonna get that book.

It sounds great. Thank you for listening again, and stay tuned and stay healthy.