Angel Invest Boston is sponsored by Peter Fasse, top life science patent attorney.
Launchpad, Boston’s leading angel group, has published a polished collection of stories that illustrate the success and failure of their portfolio companies over two decades. It is titled “The Entrepreneur’s Journey”. Listen to my interview of authors Ham Lord, Christopher Mirabile and Joe Mandato to learn more about this valuable resource for angels and founders.
Click here to read episode transcript.
Highlights from the interview:
Peter Fasse of Fish & Richardson Sponsors the Angel Invest Boston Podcast
Boston’s Answer to The Three Tenors, The Three Super-Angels
“…back in 2012, started working with some of the members within Launchpad to understand why some of our companies succeeded and why some of them failed.”
“But there was something about that team that we just couldn't disengage.”
“…it was one of these software purchases ... unlike a lot of enterprise software ... that immediately paid for itself.”
“…if we had looked at Mobius and said, "No, hardware company, we're not investing," we would have lost out on an investment that ultimately is going to be a 35x return.”
“…Intuitive Surgical, where it violated every principle of venture investing. Right?”
“…it was a 10 year, 35x. That is a beautiful, beautiful investment.”
“…I could sort of hear myself in some of these stories, and I've changed the approach that I'm taking in certain areas.”
“We included as much failure as success in this book. Every theme is illustrated by both companies that got lucky and got it right, and companies that didn't.”
“…One of the challenges is the timeline. For VC, the timeline, it's so long with the biotech's and that's really become problematic.”
Transcript of, “Entrepreneur's Journey”
GUESTS: joe mandato, ham lord, & christopher mirable
Peter Fasse of Fish & Richardson Sponsors the Angel Invest Boston Podcast
Sal Daher: Hi, this is Sal Daher of the Angel Invest Boston podcast, which is sponsored by Peter Fasse, a patent attorney at the firm of Fish & Richardson. Peter's practice is principally in the life sciences and he serves clients ranging from startups to multinationals. If a really strong patent strategy is important for the future of your company, do get in touch with Peter. My recommendation of Peter is backed up by unsolicited testimonials of people enthusing about his work. He's just tops in his field.
Boston’s Answer to The Three Tenors, The Three Super-Angels
Welcome to Angel Invest Boston, conversations with Boston's most interesting angels and founders. Today, I have an all-star team of angels. These are people who have amazing experience building really remarkable technology startups. And I have the privilege of having with me today: Joe Mandato, Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile.
Now, Christopher and Ham are old-timers on the podcast. Christopher's on the fourth time, Ham is on the second time. Joe is a first-timer. These gentlemen have just created an extremely valuable manual on how to build a startup company. It's a book called The Entrepreneur’s Journey, by Hambleton Lord, Christopher Mirabile and Joseph Mandato. I'm holding it in my hand. I have a well-thumbed copy of it. I'm going to show a copy of it on the show notes. And this is a kind of book you have at your night table and you dip in every once in a while you want to find out stuff about ... Oh man, leadership. Oh, I'm failing leadership. How can I learn about leadership from Joe Mandato?
So anyway, let's kick it off guys. Don't be bashful. Tell us who you are, Christopher.
Christopher Mirabile: Hey, so thank you for having us, for inviting us back. It's always a pleasure, we always learn so much when we talk to you.
Sal Daher: Four-time alum, Christopher Mirabile.
Christopher Mirabile: This is the first time I haven't been in your awesome den of a recording studio. As you said, I'm Christopher Mirabile. I'm a Boston-based angel investor. I run Launchpad Venture Group, which is a large active network of angels focusing on science and technology-driven startups in the Northeast. And I also spend a lot of time on the board at the Angel Capital Association. And I am one of the newest members of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee. So that's when I've done a whole ton of startup investing, probably ... I don't know ... 65 companies, or something, I've invested in myself over the years. So I've made every mistake you can make, Sal.
Sal Daher: Absolutely. The term super angel is quite applicable here.
And, Ham Lord.
Ham Lord: Hey Sal, how are you doing? It's great to be back on the show. So for those of you who don't know me, again, my name is Ham Lord. My background: I was a computer scientist. I have co-founded four different software companies over the years. Back in the early 2000 timeframe, I helped co-found a group called Launchpad. And Christopher and I have been running Launchpad now for many years. For me, it's almost 20 years. For Christopher, what, 10 or 11 coming up?
Like Christopher, I've been active in the angel community here in Boston. I've invested in, probably, somewhere between 65 and 70 companies. Number of successes, a couple of which are talked about in the book, The Entrepreneur’s Journey. And some interesting failures as well.
Sal Daher: Ruffling through the pages here.
Ham Lord: Yeah.
Joe Mandato: Joe Mandato. I'm sitting in San Francisco, where it's raining. Which we desperately need. I spent the early part of my career as an entrepreneur, raising money, trying to building companies. And then, later in life, figured out there had to be an easier way, and that was on the investing side. And so I was a partner at a venture capital firm ... which we're winding down ... I've been advisor to two private equity firms, and I'm an angel investor. Certainly not at the same level as my esteemed colleagues, but I'm learning.
Sal Daher: Well, gentlemen. All of these guys are way too humble. They are just all-stars. Usually I have one guest who knows more than I do, I have three now. So I'm completely outnumbered.
So, gentlemen, let's start with the origin story. How is it that the idea behind The Entrepreneur’s Journey came about?
“…back in 2012, started working with some of the members within Launchpad to understand why some of our companies succeeded and why some of them failed.”
Ham Lord: So, this came about several years ago. Christopher and I, back in 2012, started working with some of the members within Launchpad to understand why some of our companies succeeded and why some of them failed. So we did a little bit of research, at the time I think we had had 25 companies that had exited. About half had failed and the other half had succeeded. And as we went through and tried to figure out what went wrong in the failures and what went right in the successes, there were a number of themes that kept popping up over and over again. Some of them related to leadership, some of them related to product-market fit. And there were a variety, ultimately we came up with eight different themes, of which five of those themes we talk about in the book.
With that early research that we did, we put together a course that we teach at Launchpad on the lessons that we've learned. And we thought, "You know what? These are some interesting lessons, maybe we should get that out to a wider audience." And doing that in book form seemed like a great way to go.
Christopher Mirabile: That's the short version Ham, the long version is we taught that course for many years in a lot of different contexts and continued to rack up exits. And that body of knowledge sort of kept evolving and growing. And, I guess, to our comfort, the patterns stayed the same and we kept seeing the same kinds of issues come up and categories of issue come up. So, at some point we said, "We got to do something here that's not a textbook."
Sal Daher: This is very far from theoretical; this is sort of beautifully crafted narratives. They're not case studies, they're a sort of narrative about particular investments. And a couple of them I actually knew pretty well. Maybe we could talk about the case of Gravyty, which is a company that brings me joy and brings me tears. Because I saw Adam Martel, one of the co-founders, pitch at Walnut Ventures ... the angel group that I belong to ... and I was incredibly impressed. But one thing and another, I have multi-family real estate and I think we had frozen pipes or something, and I never got back to Adam Martel. And I missed the opportunity to invest in this tremendous founding team.
So, who would like to give us a precis of the Adam Martel ... trying to remember the name of his co-founder...
Christopher Mirabile: Rich Palmer. So that was the story that I was closest to and took the lead or on getting that first draft together. And Ham and Joe helped refine that draft. This book is based on very detailed interviews, Sal. Each story, we really work to bring the story out by working with them. And that was a fun one because I knew the guys so well. Ham and I met Adam around the time you did; really, really early in the process. And it was really just an idea. And both Ham and I were sort of scratching our heads a little bit. We were impressed as hell by the guys, but struggling to get our head around the product and get our head around the market.
“But there was something about that team that we just couldn't disengage.”
But there was something about that team that we just couldn't disengage. And so, we continued to talk to them as that seed round was coming together, and then Launchpad ended up sort of anchoring that seed round. And then really helping them, I joined the board of the company. And these guys, they'd never had those kinds of roles before, they'd never had a board, they'd never been in a board meeting. And there was a lot of basic stuff to do and there was some real challenges in terms of getting the technology to sync with some of the big players in the industry. And these guys just had the best attitude, they had humility and drive to learn. They just had a lot of pluck.
To fast forward the story, one of these companies where ... Ham, what did they do? It was a triple, triple, triple. Right? They tripled their revenue from year zero to year one. And they tripled it again from year one to year two. And they put together a forecast to triple it again for year three. And they were approached very early by a private equity firm, a very big private equity firm, that basically gave them a preemptive offer. It was early to harvest the company, but these guys ended up getting acquired for 10x of revenue forecast they hadn't even achieved yet. It was halfway through the year.
Sal Daher: I'm imagining that the revenue exceeded what they raised from the angels?
Christopher Mirabile: Oh yeah, yeah. They were doing nicely. I mean, they started from a small base but there's some fascinating product lessons in there. There's too many stories here to get into them, but they really learned-
Sal Daher: Actually, Christopher, why don't we get a little bit into the story? At least tell the listeners what Gravyty does.
Christopher Mirabile: Sure. I should have done that to start with. So they're making, what I like to refer to as applied artificial intelligence software. And they focused on the higher ed and nonprofit space. And what they were trying to do is help frontline fundraisers be more productive, in terms of raising money. And their original conception was that, like every tech person, "Oh, I'll just build a dashboard and people see their data and everything will become clear."
And the reality was, that that wasn't good enough. Right? It just wasn't enough and customers didn't want another screen to log into. And their real breakthrough was saying, "It's not just about who on your donor list you should call. But here, let me create a first draft of what you should say to them based on all the signals I'm reading. And let me stick that first draft in your inbox, where you're sipping your coffee first thing in the morning, so you can just edit it. And I'll learn from how you change it and make my natural language processing smarter for next time, so I can mimic your writing style better. And then, when you send that email, I'll update the back-end database," which is something that fundraisers are terrible about ever doing.
“…it was one of these software purchases ... unlike a lot of enterprise software ... that immediately paid for itself.”
So, it was just a huge leap forward in productivity, and it was one of these software purchases ... unlike a lot of enterprise software ... that immediately paid for itself. So the ROI was very, very strong and that's what really drove the growth. In addition to Adam's unbelievable competitiveness.
Sal Daher: Yeah. Beautiful story. I interviewed Christopher Mirabile and Adam Martel together in another episode. And so, if you want to get into Gravyty, go and take a look over there.
But this is just one of dozens of stories that have been crafted specifically for teaching people to understand one of these really, really important determinants of success and investing. I also liked the story that talks about Joe's experience at Walter Reed Hospital, his first job in the armed forces. Talking about leadership and so forth, and explaining how you learn from people who are really good at what they do.
Joe, do you want to talk a little bit about that story?
Joe Mandato: Sure. Sure. Way back when, I was about to be drafted into the service. So I joined up in order to have my choice of military occupational specialties. And so I went through the combat medic training, had my orders to Vietnam. And I was plucked out of the line and asked if I would consider going to officer school. I said, "Sure." Along with it, we ripped up the orders to Vietnam, I went to officer school. Then was assigned to the Pentagon. Went to the Pentagon, spent about 10 minutes there and the commanding officer said, "You're going to Walter Reed to be interviewed by a new general. He gets aide-de-camp and we'd like to propose you as a candidate." So thus far, I'd had three jobs in the army without ever having done any of those jobs.
So, I was interviewed by the general, he offered me the job on the spot. And he was an extraordinary man. He was a thoracic surgeon by training, now he's wearing a star and he had to command this 1,000 bed hospital during the wartime, which also provided all the service for the Senate, the Congress and the White House. It was an extraordinary experience to spend time with him.
And the first major lesson that I learned was ... he'd get there quite early. I figured out that I should get there quite early as well. And soon after he showed up, he disappeared. He went walking the corridors. And so I asked if I could join him and it was really a fascinating experience, because remember the old theory about managing by walking around. Right? And this was a perfect example. He observed everything that was going on. He saw what was being done well, not so well. He visited all patients in the hospital, VIPs. He went to ward one, which was the orthopedic ward. So he had all these wounded troops from Vietnam that he'd visit with. He just did so many things that an effective leader did. And to watch him do that, you couldn't have had a better education on what it takes to be an effective leader.
Like Christopher said, this guy was humble, he was transparent, he was very patient with his people. He was very demanding, but very patient. He empowered people to do what they were supposed to do. And yet, always knew right from wrong, skilled from not so skilled. And where people didn't meet his standard, they would not work there anymore. So it was an extraordinary experience.
Sal Daher: That is tremendous.
Ham, would you care to talk a little bit about one of the stories that you were involved with when you were investing?
Ham Lord: Sure. Yeah. One of the companies that's sort of one of my favorites, a company called Mobius Imaging. Mobius is a Massachusetts-based company. Their initial product was a mobile CT scanner. So we're talking about a pretty big device, pretty complicated device. And what they were looking to do was sort of two key things: One, the scanner had to be mobile so you could move it from operating room to operating room. And two, it had to have a really big central bore so, while the patient was still on the operating table, you could slide them in, take images, et cetera. And they had to do all of that for under $1 million price point.
When the entrepreneur, the founder of the company, Gene Gregerson, came up with this idea, shortly after he approached myself and few other members of Launchpad. I had known Gene for about 15, 20 years prior to that and we had kept in touch over the years. So when he first came and presented to me and to other Launchpad folks, it was basically Gene, a partner, and a PowerPoint presentation. And he was trying to do something, build from scratch a CT scanner that large companies like GE or Siemens would take 10 years and $100 million to do.
And Gene said, "I think I can do this in 4 or 5 years, for less than $20 million." And we were crazy enough to believe him. And Gene was an amazing enough engineer and CEO to pull it off. Through a combination of just his sheer grit, his talents in selling, his talents in building product, he was able to pull together a team and successfully deliver the product.
And the interesting thing to remember about this, he started building this company at the beginning of the last financial crisis in the 2008, 2009 timeframe. So it was really hard to raise money. But one of the interesting things during a time period like that is there're are a lot of layoffs, so some interesting talent becomes available. He was able to bring people onboard that he might not have been able to get under other circumstances. And some of the companies that he needed to partner with, that were supplying parts to his CT scanner, he was able to negotiate good deals with those companies. So Gene was able to do a variety of things that are really challenging for a complex hardware company. He was able to do it on time, on budget. And that's a very rare skill set for an entrepreneur to have.
Admittedly, he wasn't a first-time entrepreneur, this was his third company. And I think he had learned a lot of lessons along the way. But I really appreciated working with Gene, fun to work with. And ultimately, Mobius Imaging was acquired last year, actually almost exactly a year ago in November of 2019, by Stryker, a big medical device company. And it was a $500 million exit. Needless to say, it was a great return for all of us early stage investors.
Christopher Mirabile: You know that expression, Sal, you sometimes hear musicians saying: A musician's musician? Ham used to refer to Gene as an engineer's engineer. I mean, Gene just got stuff done.
Sal Daher: So, it's interesting that you have this brilliant success with Mobius Imaging. But one of the featured topics in your book is the hurdles of investing in hardware products. And there's nothing more complicated than building a CT scanner, a mobile CT scanner. So having lost quite a bit of money investing in device companies, already in my career I've invested in about almost 60 companies at this point, I can attest that that is really hard. So Gene Gregerson's success in this is really even more laudable.
Ham Lord: Yeah, we like to kid around and say, "Hardware's hard." I mean, that's just kind of a silly joke. But another way to think about it is, we, at Launchpad and a lot of other folks, but not everyone, prefer to invest in bits versus atoms. And that's really sort of the difference between investing in a software company that's just having bits flying around, versus a hardware company that has a physical product and a physical supply chain and all sorts of other challenges and issues that hardware companies have.
“…if we had looked at Mobius and said, "No, hardware company, we're not investing," we would have lost out on an investment that ultimately is going to be a 35x return.”
So, many software companies had certain advantages of hardware companies. That said, if we had looked at Mobius and said, "No, hardware company, we're not investing," we would have lost out on an investment that ultimately is going to be a 35x return. So, just saying, "Because it's hardware you don't want to touch it," I think really what you have to start to look into more closely is the quality of the management team, their experience, and is this going to be truly an unique product going after a large market opportunity?
Christopher Mirabile: Yeah, that's something that Joe really knows and learned very well. And don't tell your listeners Sal, but the key is: if the hardware product is very hard to do, it does something that nobody else can do, and it's got a $1 million price point, there's a little more wiggle room than if it's a commodity item.
Joe Mandato: Right.
Sal Daher: Oh, tell me about it.
“…Intuitive Surgical, where it violated every principle of venture investing. Right?”
Joe Mandato: The other example we cite in the book was Intuitive Surgical, where it violated every principle of venture investing. Right? It was hugely complex, nothing's every been done like that before. It had a bill of materials of 3,000 parts. And it was essentially competing with a scalpel. "Doctor, instead of that $20 scalpel we'd like you to buy a $1 million robot, and then we'll figure out what to do with it." Right?
This was something that we invested only because a) robots are used in every major industry in the world where precise repeatable motion is the standard. And if there's any place where precise repeatable motion is critical, it's in doing a prostatectomy, if you will. Right?
Sal Daher: Yes. Yes.
Joe Mandato: And so-
Sal Daher: For wearers of prostates.
Joe Mandato: Yeah. Right.
Sal Daher: And we [inaudible 00:20:51] [inaudible 00:20:52].
Joe Mandato: Ditto. In fact, I was talking to a urologist and he said, "I'd never use that. I don't need it," blah, blah, blah, blah. This guy was in his late 60s, early 70s. I gave him a laser pointer and I told him, "Point it at the wall." And you saw this little red dot going like this. Well that little red dot represented the motion of a 70-year-old man operating on somebody's prostate. Not mine.
Sal Daher: Yeah. Yeah. For me, the robot. Everybody else, "Na, the hand, the hand is fine."
Joe Mandato: I know. No question.
Sal Daher: Because the reason is that a slight nick on a nerve somewhere.
Joe Mandato: Not there.
Sal Daher: Catastrophic results, shall we say. There's not a lot of room for error.
Joe Mandato: That's right.
Sal Daher: And the prostate is a gland that's deeply embedded in a very complicated place.
Quick question, just out of idle curiosity, Ham: When is it that you guys invested in Mobius?
Ham Lord: It was 2009.
Christopher Mirabile: And it was at the one engineer, a PowerPoint, and a dog stage.
Ham Lord: Yeah.
“…it was a 10 year, 35x. That is a beautiful, beautiful investment.”
Sal Daher: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So 2009 to 2019, so it was a 10 year, 35x. That is a beautiful, beautiful investment.
Ham Lord: Yeah.
Sal Daher: Okay. You guys are entirely open to discuss anything that you want, to say anything you want to say. I mean, this is your forum.
Christopher Mirabile: Ham, you owe me five bucks. No, just kidding.
Sal Daher: Why? No. No. No. No. No. No. I mean, something that is of general interest to the audience, not settling scores. Leave that for Splitwise, one of my portfolio companies.
Joe Mandato: Let me finish up, if I could, with that Intuitive story. So at the end of the day, this was an example of where a good leader, a great leader, literally caused that company to succeed. Without this person, this particular person, and his skill set, that company would not have succeeded. The company now has a market capital of $50 billion. We seeded it, essentially. Right? So it was a great story. I would not recommend it to everyone. But it was a very important product, it's the future of surgery.
Sal Daher: So, I think, so far, I've detected a theme. You invest in bits and you invest in the jockey?
Joe Mandato: Absolutely.
Christopher Mirabile: Yeah. That's true.
Sal Daher: Bits and jockeys.
Christopher Mirabile: That's true. That's true, those are some of the themes.
If we could get a little bit meta, I'd love to hear Ham's thoughts on sort of what he was trying to do, who he thinks this book is for and what he was trying to do differently. And I'd like to get Joe's experience, his feedback on what it was like to get involved in this project as someone who had not had a chance to do a ton of writing.
Joe Mandato: That's correct. Right.
Ham Lord: Yeah. If you want to look at what the target audience was, let's take a step back and look at some of the things that Christopher and I have written before. A lot of our prior writings have been sort of the technical dos and don'ts of angel investing. How to do diligence, how to read a term sheet, how to understand a cap table. Things that you would really find in more of an academic textbook, sort of a classroom type environment.
Sal Daher: Ham, where can all of that excellent content be found?
Ham Lord: Sure. The website is Seraf, S-E-R-A-F, -investor.com. And we have an area we actually call the Seraf Compass, which is essentially the publication arm of our company. And so, all that content that's related to early stage investing and the mechanics of it, the challenges you face, is on that particular website.
But, as we were developing that content, I think both Christopher and I really had an urge to do a slightly different kind of writing. We enjoyed the mechanical writing, but we also really loved talking to entrepreneurs. And I would say, my favorite part of writing this book was the time I spent interviewing the individual entrepreneurs and hearing their stories. Why they got started, the successes and failures that they have along the way.
Sal Daher: Ham, why didn't you record those interviews and play them here? I swear.
Ham Lord: You know what-
Christopher Mirabile: I have all my recordings if you want them?
Ham Lord: Yeah. Yeah. Some of the language in there wouldn't be appropriate for ...
Sal Daher: Oh. The grammar problem, huh? The grammar problem.
Ham Lord: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
”…I could sort of hear myself in some of these stories, and I've changed the approach that I'm taking in certain areas.”
So ultimately, this book was written for investors. It was written, though, for entrepreneurs, to kind of hear the stories of others. And one of the people who bought the book recently, emailed Joe and myself and said, "I was reading this and I could sort of hear myself in some of these stories, and I've changed the approach that I'm taking in certain areas." We could talk about the areas that he talked about in another segment, but he definitely was impacted by the book and has made some changes in how he's operating his business. So it's for angels, it's for entrepreneurs.
And then, entrepreneurship has become sort of a big topic across the country. So, people love reading stories about people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, et cetera. Really successful entrepreneurs. Well, we're writing sort of the common man’s entrepreneurs stories. Although, I will say that Intuitive Surgical's not exactly the common man story.
Sal Daher: No. A $50 billion company is not a common man story.
Ham Lord: It's definitely not.
“We included as much failure as success in this book. Every theme is illustrated by both companies that got lucky and got it right, and companies that didn't.”
Christopher Mirabile: The other constituency Sal, is we wanted to write this for investors and for entrepreneurs, but also for the people who love them. Because this is one of the worst jobs in the world, trying to run a startup. We included as much failure as success in this book. Every theme is illustrated by both companies that got lucky and got it right, and companies that didn't. And it really gives you a pretty palpable sense of how hard it is to navigate all the way upstream and actually manage to spawn. A lot of these companies don't make it, they get eaten by bears on the way.
Joe Mandato: Right.
Sal Daher: Yes, they do. They do.
Joe Mandato: Christopher asked about my experience in working with the boys to come up with this book. As we were winding down our fund, I was spending more and more time teaching, I teach over at Stanford. I've been doing that for a number of years. And I started doing a lot of writing. And the areas of my interest were primarily board governance, having served on so many boards. That's a whole discipline in and of itself. And also, the responsible delivery of quality health care. Right? And for all of us in our particular demographic, we've experienced the not so great delivery of great health care. Right?
So, when I was introduced to the guys, they were so kind as to invite me to work with them on the book that they were going to come up with. And I had so many examples that I felt like would make good listening, good reading and good learning, that I jumped in. And a year and however much time later ... boy. And a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and a lot of rewrites. I remember Ham calling me, I was at a board meeting of Save the Children, which is a large nonprofit I work with in Westport, Connecticut. I had just finished a chapter and he said, "You've got to redo the whole thing." I said, "Oh my gosh, the whole thing?" Well, we got it done, and it was the right thing to do.
Sal Daher: Just tremendous.
Ham Lord: One of the things that was great for us bringing Joe in to be a co-author on this, was he brought a different perspective than Christopher and I. Christopher and I, we're based out here in Boston, we're primarily software people, both of us have spent good chunks of our career in enterprise software. And although we have invested in health care companies, it's not our core focus.
So, what did Joe bring to the equation? Well, he brought a West Coast focus, and we know those folks are very different than us East Coasters. He brought a career in health care, with a whole variety of life science companies. And I think that combination of the three of us, some West Coast and East Coast influence, some health care, some software, et cetera. That combination makes, I think, for a much wider collection of stories to cover. And a different sets of entrepreneurs, et cetera. So it was a good perspective to bring Joe in as part of the author team.
Christopher Mirabile: And this project, Sal, took more than twice as long as the longest book we've ever done. This was a birthing process.
Sal Daher: I can tell you, it's very polished, no typos. I mean, this is tight. This is very tight. This is very tight. I can tell you that editing has declined. Even in the press, the professional press, you see typos that are just ... you know? But this is a beautifully polished book for the ages.
Joe Mandato: Absolutely.
Sal Daher: I think this is something that, 20 years from now, entrepreneurs will keep it around and discover it.
Question: have you guys considered creating an audiobook for this, to make it accessible to people who may not have the time to actually sit down and read the book? For me, I've read quite a bit of it. If I had it on Audible ... because I walk for two and a half hours a day. If I didn't, I'd be like 300 pounds. Plus taking a product called Plenity, which is one of the six startups that I invested in, which has done extremely well. It's actually FDA approved treatment for weight loss. Fat tech is one of my specialties, I know a little bit about weight loss. All these other three gentlemen don't have the problem that I do with weight. And I struggle with weight my whole life. I can just imagine, in my two and a half, three hours that I walk every day, I could have knocked off 100% of the book instead of a good chunk of it.
Christopher Mirabile: We look up to you, Sal, as a leader in podcasting, as a pioneer. Ham and I have talked a lot about different mediums and formats. Our content is available as articles, and as e-books, and as physical books, and as webinars, and we do a lot of remote teaching. And video and audio are two formats we've thought a lot about. And I think this book would be particularly well-suited to a podcast medium or to an audiobook medium, because of the strong narrative structure in each unit.
Sal Daher: Excellent. It's an excellent medium, yes.
Christopher Mirabile: Ham, I defer to you. I mean, I don't know what's involved in that? I think that would be an interesting project to try.
Ham Lord: I don't know, sounds like you're really into it so maybe you should take charge of it and you can crank it out.
Christopher Mirabile: Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. I will have it for you soon, Sal.
Ham Lord: Okay. Okay.
Sal Daher: I would love to help in any way; to help promote it, to be involved with it. I mean, one way we could do it is to do a serialization, we could do a serialization of the book. We could have periodic episodes, where one of you reads a chapter. And then, whoever's reading the chapter, and I, can chat about it and say: this is what I got from it. And I'll talk about it because I'll have read the chapter. And so, that's another way that you can sort of put the book out there in a different medium, you know, remix. It will not be the entire book.
The other thing to think about is the whole book in Audible which is, what I think is probably the best thing.
Christopher Mirabile: Yeah, I'll look into that. I don't know too much about it, but let's keep this dialogue open Sal, and I'll do a little bit of research and we'll circle back. You've been very generous in your support for our work over the years and we're really grateful, so-
Sal Daher: I learn so much from you guys. My investing approach is a little bit different from yours, in a sense that you guys are looking for bits. I'm looking for stuff that has intellectual property, that is easily defensible, and that can be moonshot. I'm looking for moonshots that can be extremely successful. So SQZ Biotech, which had its IPO at the end of October. A company like Gelesis, which got FDA approval for its weight loss treatment. Akili Interactive, which got FDA approval for being the first video game to treat ADHD. And that's the kind of company that I'm looking for. I'm kind of zeroing in on something that I like to think about, this is something that Jeff Behrens ... you guys know Jeff Behrens?
Christopher Mirabile: Yeah, we know Jeff well. Yeah.
Sal Daher: Okay. Yeah, his doctoral thesis on funding of life science companies, he identified a sector there. He calls them the scrappy biotechs. And there's going to be a lot more scrappy biotech's coming down the pike. Back in 2011, Marc Andreessen talked about software eating the world. And you guys have been playing in that pond of software eating the world. We're about to really experience biotech eating the world. I mean, we're speaking right now, just as we've heard about, really, the first messenger RNA vaccine for an infectious disease become successful. To the point where it's 95% effective in Phase 3 trials.
Joe Mandato: Extraordinary.
Sal Daher: And there's a lot more coming down those pikes, okay? There's cell therapy of all types. There are all kinds of CAR T-cells, which is this technology that's tied to the messenger RNA, because they use messenger RNA in Car T. All kinds of gene editing, and so forth. My focus is to raise money and help. And these companies are not getting VC funding, okay? They are not getting VC funding. Now, SQZ managed to get VC funding. But there are a lot of interesting companies that are just fantastically, fantastically attractive that the VCs won't touch, or at least not the big VCs.
Christopher Mirabile: Here's an investing tip for you buddy boy.
Sal Daher: Yeah.
Christopher Mirabile: If you like the scrappy biotech's, pay attention to the microbiome, the gut biome. I think this is going to be the decade of the biome.
Sal Daher: I was an early investor in Vedanta Biosciences, are you familiar with them?
Christopher Mirabile: I've heard of them but I don't know too much about them.
Sal Daher: Okay. They have C. diff treatment in clinical trials. One of my sons in law works for Finch Biotherapeutics. Not that he tells me anything, but I kind of read up on Finch. I've read up on a Seres a little bit. So I've been involved with the microbiome space for quite a while. And actually, the microbiome has shown up in this podcast before via Jeff Arnold. He has a weight loss company that's also trying to alter the microbiome.
You're right, Christopher, that's one of the many areas that's really tremendous.
“…One of the challenges is the timeline. For VC, the timeline, it's so long with the biotech's and that's really become problematic.”
Joe Mandato: Yeah. One of the challenges is the timeline. For VC, the timeline, it's so long with the biotech's and that's really become problematic.
Christopher Mirabile: And angels can be more patient, so they can be a better fit in some cases.
Sal Daher: Joe, I beg to differ. I beg to differ. There are things you can do. As an angel, I could accept long holds, but I have to limit how much money I can play with. Okay? If they need more than $5 million or $6 million to get a major inflection, that's beyond my reach.
Joe Mandato: True.
Sal Daher: I could never put together ... However, I could sit around for 10 years, which is the case with Gelesis, for example. I've sat on Gelesis for 10 years to let them get their FDA approval. That could be a multi-billion dollar company.
On the other hand, you can look for things that have a higher likelihood, if you have bigger chunks of money to play with, have a higher likelihood of shorter-term success, smaller multiple, and so forth. So my point is, that we're just about to see a hockey stick growth in the number of interesting companies in the life sciences.
Christopher Mirabile: You heard it here first, Joe.
Joe Mandato: Yeah, I hear it.
Christopher Mirabile: Get your money together.
Sal Daher: So, listen for this. But anyway, gentlemen, you guys are a little bit rushed for time, so is there anything else that you want to touch on, that we talked about, this really outstanding book?
Ham Lord: Yeah, so I think if I were to sort of sum up what we try to get across in the book is, looking at a handful ... and by handful, I mean five key things that all entrepreneurs and investors need to be aware of. The importance of leadership. The importance of finding product-market fit, which is not always easy to do. We talked a little bit about the challenge of hardware being hard, do you invest in bits or atoms? The importance of timing, you could have a great idea, but if your timings off there's not much that's going to happen with that. And then finally, the fact that, at some point, your investors ... and including you ... are probably going to want an exit. And exits don't just magically happen. And so it's up to the entrepreneur, and his or her board, to understand what it takes to get to an exit for the investors, for the management team and the employees.
So those are the five key themes that we were looking to bring out. Interesting stories, talking to interesting entrepreneurs, both successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs, so that the reader gets a snapshot view of the things that they will face if they're an entrepreneur or an investor. Or that they can understand what it's like to be an entrepreneur.
So that's the core of the book, that wade through the points that we try to get across. And we hope our readers enjoy it. And we're always interesting in hearing from our readers, their feedback, et cetera. So they can get to us through our website. They can also put reviews up on Amazon, so we're happy to see those as well.
Sal Daher: Yes. Yes.
Christopher Mirabile: Ham, I just want to call dibs on having George Clooney do my sections of the audiobook.
Ham Lord: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Got that. Done that.
Sal Daher: That's a good idea to get a professional to do the reading, because it is a tricky thing.
The website being seraf-investor.com.
Ham Lord: Correct.
Sal Daher: And the book is: The Entrepreneur’s Journey, by Hambleton Lord, Christopher Mirabile and Joseph Mandato. And it is 217 pages of just beautifully crafted wisdom. Accessible, no typos, no jargon.
Joe Mandato: [crosstalk 00:39:40] [crosstalk 00:39:40].
Sal Daher: Polished. These are not flashy guys, but these are guys who tend to do their homework. So this is really beautifully done. I salute all three for having put this together. I experienced my business partner putting together his book, his biographical book about his life. He was one of the five people who started emerging markets investing back in the 1970s. And I observed how painful that is with one writer and an assistant writer. And I could imagine, with three writers, it must have been really quite an adventure?
Joe Mandato: Hmm.
Ham Lord: Oh, it was.
Christopher Mirabile: It would have been easier if Joe and Ham had followed instructions.
Joe Mandato: It worked remarkably well. We had a process.
Sal Daher: Do you guys have any other thoughts?
Ham Lord: Sal, I think we're good. We really appreciate, though, you inviting us on. And it was fun actually, because of COVID I haven't seen Joe as much lately. He's been spending more time there out on the West Coast, a little less time on the East Coast here. But we're all looking forward to actually having a big book party the next time that people can actually fly and travel.
Christopher Mirabile: And it-
Sal Daher: Invite me. I'm dying to attend a party, I haven't been to a party in ...
Joe Mandato: No, I know.
Christopher Mirabile: Sal, if you need any help on the podcast, if you need an introduction to anybody or any ideas, you know you can always rely on Ham and I, we're big fans of the podcast.
Sal Daher: [crosstalk 00:41:06]. Guys, standing invitation. You guys can always come back on anytime you want. You can come back on with a founder that you really like. I tell you, the episode that Christopher Mirabile and Adam Martel did together was a huge hit. It was such a beautifully done ... I mean, he's a star, Christopher is tremendous.
Ham Lord: It must have been Adam that pulled that one off, right?
Sal Daher: No, I know.
Christopher Mirabile: I carried him on my back, Ham.
Sal Daher: I mean, we all love to josh Christopher, okay? But Christopher is hugely, hugely knowledgeable. And Adam is just, I mean ... So let's do that. Ham, if there's a founder that you like, that you want to come on with him or her, or just the founder alone, same thing Joe, let me know. I'm always interesting in compelling stories. You guys, the reason I do the podcast is the same reason that you guys are teaching this course, it's knowledge. It's a way of getting knowledge.
So, I thank all three of you for making time.
Christopher Mirabile: Thank you, Sal.
Ham Lord: Thank you, Sal.
Joe Mandato: Thank you very much.
Sal Daher: Thanks. [inaudible 00:42:12].
Christopher Mirabile: Good to see you, Joe. Take care.
Sal Daher: I hope the listener enjoys this really great interview and reaches out and gets The Entrepreneur’s Journey, because these guys have put a lot of work into this and it's really valuable.
This is Angel Invest Boston, and I am Sal Daher.
I'm glad you were able to join us; our engineer is Raul Rosa. Our theme was composed by John McKusick. Our graphic design is by Katharine Woodward-Maynard. Our host is coached by Grace Daher.