Founder Tim Spong is back to update us on how vistaPath.ai went from product discovery to real-life operations. Our first interview was part of my due diligence for this digital health investment that is now VC-backed. A really instructive and fun chat.
Highlights:
Sal Daher Introduces Tim Spong
VistaPath: What is It?
"... You're using machine vision AI to give superpowers to the lab technician and to make his or her work more efficient, and also much more reliable, and much more accountable..."
"... What you're doing is massively, massively consequential. A mundane thing, but that could have huge consequences..."
The Spouse as an Unofficial Co-Founder
"... When I say that my dad, my family, taught me perseverance, I think that he didn't teach me computer vision, he didn't teach me AI, but he taught me the ability to get over those moments..."
Learn More at vistapath.ai
ANGEL INVEST BOSTON IS SPONSORED BY:
Transcript of “VistaPath 2”
Guest: Tim Spong
Sal Daher: I'm really proud to say that the Angel Invest Boston Podcast is sponsored by Purdue University Entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish & Richardson. Purdue is exceptional in its support of its faculty, faculty of its top five engineering school in helping them get their technology from the lab out to the market, out to industry, out to the clinic. Peter Fasse is also a great support to entrepreneurs.
He is a patent attorney specializing in microfluidics and has been tremendously helpful to some of the startups, which I'm involved, including a startup that came out of Purdue, Savran Technologies. I'm proud to have these two sponsors for my podcast.
Sal Daher Introduces Tim Spong
Welcome to Angel Invest Boston, conversations with Boston's most interesting angels and founders. I'm Sal Daher, an angel who's very curious to figure out how to best build technology companies, life science companies. Today we are very privileged to have returning, Tim Spong. Welcome back, Tim.
Tim Spong: Great to be back.
Sal Daher: Tim is the founder of VistaPath Bio, which is a pathology startup working to improve the workflow for samples, things like tissue samples from people's prostates and things like that, and how to make that work. I first invested in them a year and a half ago. The company has gone through a major transformation. That's going to be the subject of this conversation. Tim's first going to talk about what the original vision was and where they are now. Take it away, Tim.
Tim Spong: Happy to. Again, thanks for having me on. Always love listening to the podcast when I'm not on it, certainly.
Sal Daher: I'm honored that you listen.
Tim Spong: Well, it's a great resource for not just earlier-stage founders, which is very helpful, but it's also investors or people working in the space. It's been harder to network through COVID. Getting this information virtually at least from good solid people is critical to running a good company.
Sal Daher: The thing about podcasts, it's very hard to pretend or to fake it for a long time. The truth outs in the long format. Maybe you can fool people in 30-second snippets. You can't fool them in 30-minute snippets and not over episode after episode. The truth emerges. Listening, you learn tons. Anyway, so VistaPath Bio.
VistaPath Bio: What is It?
Tim Spong: We are a very unique company in the pathology space. My background is in what's called histology, which is effectively the process of turning tissue into a microscope slide. A pathologist will read that microscope slide, they'll look at it under a scope, or they'll look at a digital scan of that slide, and they'll make a diagnosis. I think there's a lot of public understanding of that pathologist step and certainly a lot of momentum in the industry with companies delving into AI in that diagnostic step.
A lot of people don't realize the amount of work and effort and money that's spent in actually making those slides is actually turning that tissue into a product that a pathologist can then give you a report saying you're healthy or you have cancer or you have X. This work is called histology, and it's really critical. If it's done incorrectly, that pathologist will never be able to render an accurate diagnosis.
That's the world I come from. Worked in histology for 15 years before starting VistaPath and was really prompted to start this company from some serious errors and issues that I saw occurring in those labs. Ultimately, histology has been done the same way for 100 years. If we were going to solve the issues that we were seeing in histology and really making this a patient-focused, safe, efficient process, we would've done this 60 years ago. We have checklists and training and paperwork.
There needed to be a technology component. I started VistaPath to be one of the first companies, if not the first company, to really bring AI and automation into the histology space in a really real way. I think when we last talked about 15 months ago, we were right on the edge of bringing our first product into market. We can talk a little bit in a second. We've since done that. We raised our seed rounds. The company is really growing. It's doing great. It's really been a pretty interesting ride the last 15 months.
Sal Daher: Tremendous. Would you please describe the product that you're offering, the service, and the product that you're offering?
Tim Spong: Yes, certainly. Our first product, excited to use the word first now when I describe our product and not just the product, but our first product that we've now released into the market, FDA certified and ISO compliant, is a AI-equipped imaging station for histology labs to do the first part of the histology process which we call accessioning and grossing.
Tissue samples are received into a lab, that patient information from that sample is entered into what we call the LIS, the Labs Information System, and then that tissue is grossed by human. When we say grossed, we mean a human will look at that tissue, they'll say this is the size, the color, the important features of that tissue. We do that because that tissue will go downstream for other processes, and it's often manipulated in that process. We want to keep an original record.
Today in most labs that are using VistaPath, this record is simply a tech's report, a couple of sentences on your pathology report, that will give, again, the dimensions and the color, and whether it's soft or firm. What our product does is actually automates most of that process and makes it a more safe process for the patient. By that I mean, we use AI and imaging to actually detect the tissue and generate that gross report.
We can do it at the same amount of time that your phone takes to take photographs, which is significantly faster than the minutes that it takes a human now. We're also watching the human work.
Sal Daher: You're recording the process.
"... You're using machine vision AI to give superpowers to the lab technician and to make his or her work more efficient, and also much more reliable, and much more accountable..."
Tim Spong: Correct, and not just recording it, but actually doing live quality on that sample as the human is working on it. If you put the wrong label in, it will actually detect that and tell the human technician, "Something's going wrong. I'm seeing some mismatch on the patients." If for subsequent steps, the tissue needs to fit a certain profile, a certain thickness, or a certain type, we can actually detect that now too and give a heads up to the technician, hey, this sample needs to be bisect, cut in half, to be processed downstream better.
Unfortunately, have some NDAs now, so we can't discuss minute details, but we're really transitioning from this one product in a very acute use case within pathology labs now to moving to more analytical and diagnostic, I wouldn't say diagnostic, but more analytical and more qualitative understanding of the tissue as opposed to quantitative. I'll be excited to come back on in the near future, but are releasing a couple more products both before and after, or upstream and downstream, of our current process in the coming months.
Sal Daher: This is really exciting. You're using machine vision AI to give superpowers to the lab technician and to make his or her work more efficient, and also much more reliable, and much more accountable.
Tim Spong: That's right. I mean, we really make every lab the best or every tech the best possible tech they could be. In fact, just yesterday I was at one of our customers down south, we were expanding out our capabilities and our deployment in this lab, and the techs were excited because they-- I'll say this. When you bring automation into a space, a lot of the, I'm going to say pro-clutching, often used dismissively, I don't use it in this sense. A lot of the concern comes from technicians that think you're going to take your job.
That's not VistaPath's understanding of the situation. When we deploy, and after-techs use it, what we hear and what we hear yesterday was, this just makes me feel so much better about the process. I'm not going home worrying, did I mix up two samples, did I ink something wrong, is the system supporting me doing my job really well? Then the pathologists and these lab managers and directors feel great because they obviously count on their techs now.
They really have the documentation and support for those techs if they've wanted for a long time. It's a great feeling for us to go down there and see that thing.
Sal Daher: It allows the techs to concentrate on the things that humans are distinctly good at, and less the machines support the techs and things where human beings are fallible, mixing things up like others. Machines don't do that, they're very consistent, but there are other things that are more subtle that machines don't understand and that human beings can do. That's an important part of the process.
I see this a little bit of a parallel in a startup that I invested in and we had an exit from them. One of their products was basically helping grade the AP exams, the written AP exams. It was platform to improve the efficiency of the graders. The technology behind those in effect could also be used to help high school teachers who are teaching kids to write, to have the kids to correct the essays and have the kids write a lot more essays.
Basically, it doubles the capacity of the teacher. Therefore, the teacher can assign twice as many writing assignments. Kids will grumble, but they'll learn more and the teachers will be more efficient. It gives them superpowers. I like that idea of AI enhancing the human abilities of a professional.
Tim Spong: I really agree. Obviously agree pretty strongly with that approach. There may be a day where total automation is coming into this space. I think right now is too much nuance to histology, in particular, to really lean on that at the moment. I think that you're right. There are things that humans are really great at. We can allow them to be even greater at it.
Sal Daher: Good. I understand your products have found some important customers.
Tim Spong: Unfortunately, like I said, I can't discuss all of them. We do have some NDAs with most of them. We were fortunate enough to announce over the summer that we had first clinically validated our product at a company called PathAI. They are a much later-stage startup here in Boston doing AI-based diagnostics on whole slide images. They recently acquired a lab about a year ago, actually about the same time we were doing my last episode with you. We were really fortunate enough to work with them.
I think, oftentimes as a CEO you hear a lot about the importance of you got to get customers, you got to get revenue, you got to generate revenue. Although, yes, obviously that's great with customers like PathAI. I'm just really thankful for the customers that we have beyond just obviously building a business and bringing in revenue. Our customers, PathAI, in particular, have just been excellent. Excellent supporters of the company, provide us with information, support, contacts, believe in the vision and want to improve pathology as a whole and understand that this path is an important part of that. I can't say enough. Again, I'm fortunate enough to say PathAI, but there are other customers if they're listening to this podcast.
Sal Daher: You're under NDA in those cases.
Tim Spong: Yes.
Sal Daher: You can't make it public yet. It's interesting about PathAI. I saw Andrew pitch at MIT Angels years ago, and was very interested, and wanted to invest in the company, but for logistical reasons, I never did. It's been a regret ever since because PathAI has had unbelievable trajectory looking at these tissue samples and detecting cancerous cells and so forth.
They've actually acquired a lab. They raise money to acquire a working lab so that they're taking their AI into a real workflow with very substantial numbers of cycles being done. A lot of samples coming through will only improve their AI and will help them figure out how to do this at scale. They're really the cutting edge of the pathology world. It's great that VistaPath is working with them.
Tim Spong: As impressive as Andy and Aditya, his co-founder who actually recently left, but that whole team at PathAI is so impressive, so smart, and really I think most of all understands how to be really successful in this market. Also, frankly, the lab they acquired is fantastic too. That lab is now called PathAI Diagnostics.
Sal Daher: What was it called before?
Tim Spong: It was called Poplar.
Sal Daher: Oh, Poplar.
Tim Spong: Poplar Healthcare. The CEO over there, Jim Sweeney, Joe Davis, who runs their operations, just really great people that I think are really passionate about making this a much better process for patients. It's just great when you're early to have these customers. Again, it's not just PathAI but we're fortunate enough to be able to mention them by name, but these customers that align with your vision is actually really helpful and really important I think when you're early on.
Sal Daher: Phenomenal. When I think about companies that I'm investing in these days, they're really two buckets. One is the wet lab biology companies, and the other one is the software eats bio type of companies. One is bio eats the world, and the other one is software eating bio. You're in the software eating bio bucket. It is very powerful to apply this massive software technology that's been developed to this very mundane problem that has been problematic since its inception because it's a very tricky thing to be doing a routine thing that's very high value, of extreme importance.
You relate the story of a mistake with a patient sample that caused a 42-year-old patient to lose his healthy prostate and a 72-year-old patient not to have his prostate cancer followed up as soon as it should have been because samples got switched. With machine vision involved the chances of something like that happening just disappears. It's extremely powerful. Very good.
Tim Spong: I lost my grandfather largely to prostate cancer after that error had occurred. It's those sort of things. You know, and I'm sure many of the people that have been on this podcast and many of your listeners too, early-stage companies, particularly early stage in the healthcare environment or hardware can be a real challenge. There are very hard days that you have to survive through.
I think if you're starting a company because you see a hole in the market or you see an opportunity to exit in X number of years at this amount, I think it's hard to really do that. You have to be grounded in a vision. I think your team has to be there with you. I think they have to understand what you're doing and why it's important. I think to really be successful, particularly in, not just pathology, but in healthcare, and in medical devices, and in AI, they are challenging spaces to be in.
"... What you're doing is massively, massively consequential. A mundane thing, but that could have huge consequences..."
Sal Daher: Yes. Now it should be said that prostate cancer, I think the likelihood of a man getting prostate cancer is 70% during a lifetime. We've got 35% of the population is likely to get this. This is a massive, massive thing. If you could improve the process of detecting cancer early-- My dad had prostate cancer and probably killed him. This is also something that's every family is touched by prostate cancer.
What you're doing is massively, massively consequential. A mundane thing, but that could have huge consequences. You want to talk a little bit about the differences between being a pre-revenue and a revenue company?
Tim Spong: Absolutely. When we last spoke, I think we had a little money coming in through really more pilot agreements with customers really assessing the technology. That was great. A lot of lessons learned. There's a huge difference in both how you need to operate as a company, but who is at your company, what capabilities in hand you have when you move into a post-revenue phase.
We have revenue coming in now and have for the last say four, five, six months. If you are selling a product to a customer and they are putting it into their lab and they are giving diagnostic reports to a patient, not necessarily based on the data you're providing, but the data you're providing is helping interpret or generate that diagnosis, you no longer get to be the scrappy startup.
You have to be able to provide a strong product. It has to work, and not work 99% of the time, it has to work 100% of the time. You have to have quality practices behind the scenes to test the device, to know the software will work all the time, to know the hardware doesn't have any issues. You have to have a sales and marketing team to support the customer with collateral materials.
It's a very different thing than when I would, as the CEO, go into a customer and install devices and train techs. I think that's a necessary step. I think customers do get excited about the new cool thing, but if they're putting real money down on the table and our customers do, you have to be a company that can support that.
Some of our customers are Fortune 500 companies. These are national or worldwide companies. These are large organizations with a lot of moving pieces. You have to expand that team. You have to find really excellent team members, again, that both support your vision but are competent, and you'll be successful. As a founder or founders, you can't do it all. You really have to bring amazing people on to support you, and thankfully, at VistaPath, we do.
Sal Daher: Well, I think as someone who managed pathology labs for a living for decades, you're particularly well suited for this. Not just because you're familiar with the discipline, but you're familiar with the extremely high standards that are required and with really high expectations, how seriously things have to be done, which is not necessarily the case of someone who comes from a software background or something like that. They really have no clue what it means to have a reliable product.
Moving from an MVP to an actual product for software founders frequently is difficult because they just don't have that life experience of repeating a mundane process over and over and over, but doing it at a level that's reliable enough so that medical decisions can be made on the basis of the data coming from it. That probably helped you a lot, having that mindset. Your expectations were very different than from someone coming from a purely software background.
Tim Spong: Again, I think you bring up a really interesting point which is as a founder and a founder from this space, it's really easy to understand your customers' problems really well. There are other things from a service site that VistaPath provides that no other companies in our space, competitors or not, direct competitors or not, provide to our customers.
Just a lot of really cool support that we provide, because I think I understand this problem really well. The interesting thing is it can be easy to be a little over-empathetic towards your customers and you develop a product and you want it to be a perfect fit for every single person. We ran into the issue, I think early on, and to my engineering team's credit, they suffered through this with me, but as a founder and someone from this space, you want the product to fit with everybody. Here's 19 features we have to deploy right now because--
Sal Daher: Featuritis.
Tim Spong: Featuritis is a perfect name for it. You at some point will come with those features, you will do that, but you also have to get the core benefits of this product to a customer. That's what they want. You can't be over-empathetic or you can be. Listen, get those ideas down, work with your customers, be very open with them about when you think you can have this done and to them.
I think if your core value propositions are sufficient, which they are with this VistaPath, people will adapt to that. Again, you can be very explicit with them. Listen, this is going to take us nine months, this is going take us three months, this is going to take us a year.
Sal Daher: In the meantime, our baseline offering is extremely powerful and it'll help you with 80% of the cases. That's already a big help. It'll contribute to the bottom line in speeding up the process, lowering, reducing errors. You have a currency to bargain with your clients. Then the promise of future customization, to provide that particular feature in a way that doesn't subject you to featuritis.
Tim Spong: You will develop that skill as I think I have and really work with your engineering team and your product team to understand that well from a company level. Definitely, I think there's also this image of a founder as you should have a clear and 100% concise vision of what the product needs to be, and the market will bend to your will. That's how this works. This Elon Musk syndrome.
I personally think that's a large part of it. You should have a vision. If it's a strong one, people will come with it. Listen to your customers. They will tell you how to be successful in your space. Listen to them and translate that information effectively to the rest of the company I think is really important.
Sal Daher: Absolutely. It's a generational marker here that you mention the Elon Musk attitude of creating a product that the market will follow. To me, it's Steve Jobs. It used to be Steve Jobs, now it's Elon Musk.
Tim Spong: Despite maybe some personality issues with Steve, he actually brought a lot more really substantive products to the market.
Sal Daher: They created categories, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. They thought of doing things that other people had been doing, but they thought of doing them in entirely different ways that completely changed the business. Both of them are capable-- With SpaceX, with Tesla, there were electric cars before, there were rockets before, there were MP3 players before. What Steve Jobs did, there were computers before Steve Jobs, I mean, he was pretty early on, but everything he touched, he's set the bar.
Excellent. Very, very good. Tim, I just want to do a very brief promo for the podcast, and then let's get into the spouses' perspective because this week one of the founders' company I'm involved with mentioned that his wife was very supportive. It occurred to me that I think, at some point, we should think about having a discussion with the spouses.
I want to say to listeners who are enjoying this conversation that you can support us by going to Apple podcasts, or Google Play, or wherever you can leave a review, and leave a review, leave a brief written review is really powerful. You can be very direct and honest in your review, but give us five stars, because that really helps promote the podcast, helps more people to listen.
You don't have to write a lot. A little bit of writing helps the algorithm figure out that people actually care about the particular episode. If you have a chance, and you really liked what Tim is saying, or even if you really hated what Tim is saying, and you want to leave your perspective, do give us five stars, but then be as direct as you want to be. I can't imagine anyone hating what Tim is saying. It's so spot on.
The Spouse as an Unofficial Co-Founder
Anyway, Tim, Çağrı Savran and I were having a conversation this week, I'm on the board of Savran Technologies, and he was saying how supportive his wife, Zainab, is of his effort, and how he could never do what he's doing without her support. This has come up before. For example, Federico Cismondi, who is the founder of doDOC, a very successful startup, excellent, he told me how much having support, having the family buy-in, in this case, not just his wife, but his kids, and everybody buy into what he was doing as a founder is so important.
It occurred to me that it's probably a good idea to talk to the founder. I'd like to have your wife whom I've met because we live in the same neighborhood, Tim and I, I'd like to have her perspective on this whole business of being the spouse of a founder and ups and downs. What do you think?
Tim Spong: Well, I think it's a great idea. She is not only more photogenic but considerably smarter than me. I think she may be even better guest than I would. Interestingly enough, we met in a histology lab. She is a hysto-technician too.
Sal Daher: Wow.
Tim Spong: We met many years ago at Tufts, down in Boston. Now she works for a later-stage startup in the pathology space. I think that not only does she-- First of all, yes, let me say, first, I couldn't have done it without her, and not just helping with the kids, or when I'm late, making dinner or doing the dishes or something when I've got a conference or something to go to, but I just really rely on her experience, both in the space, but also, as a former tech, here's what we're thinking about the products, is this the right direction we should be taking it, who do you think is the best possible customer for this?
That's really important to me. She's more than just a sport but also a professional counsel. I think you're 100% right. I think if you have a family, being a founder, especially through COVID was a real challenge. The kids were not in school, and you're trying to manage a business and you bet my wife was at a startup and everybody's trying to adapt and manage these really new circumstances. Our kids were a little older, thankfully, so I think they understood, but it was a challenge for everybody.
As a founder, obviously, or maybe as a spouse, or a founder, you want to support your spouse, you want to support them on this. This was a real dream of mine to start this company, and I'm really passionate about VistaPath, obviously. I think sometimes it can be difficult to want to support that vision, but also be like, "I need your home at 6:00 tonight. You got to take Elliot to soccer practice. I want a date night."
Sometimes you can even be there and not present. I think I try to be aware of that. As we get a little bit more mature as a company, I think it's become a little bit easier to have a little more work-life balance when you have people to support you at the company, but I do owe my wife a lot. I'll make sure she listens to the podcast. I know that she does. My parents and my kids, they've all just been such a support and I hope that-- One last thing is, and I think we may have even discussed this at some point, you and I, but growing up my dad worked at Kodak in Rochester and got laid off. Rochester experienced a lot of tribulations, and so had trouble finding working.
Sal Daher: Just to set context here for the audience, Eastman Kodak was this technological giant leader in the photography space. They made film. The whole photography industry was developed basically by Eastman Kodak and everybody else was an also ran. They just disappeared from the scene with digital imaging.
They didn't figure out how to get into that space, but Kodak was just a powerhouse in Rochester, New York, it's location. It was a company town, a little bit like Polaroid here in Boston, except that Kodak is much bigger than Polaroid was and Boston is much bigger than Rochester. I can imagine what it must have been like.
Tim Spong: Yes, exactly. More people I think worked, it seemed, at least, more people worked at Kodak in Rochester that didn't-- When the company tanked, it was really difficult on my family and my dad. I really learned a lot of lessons from my parents about perseverance, working hard. With my kids, I hope that they're learning those lessons too, but also learning regardless of whether VistaPath is a success or when it's a success, learning that you can forge your own path, you can be dependent on yourself, you can build something yourself.
Really be independent in that way in many ways I think is really important. I think, at least from my kids' perspective, I think they're learning both of those lessons, and the company and Boston, this ecosystem, I think, or I'm very hopeful rubs off of them because I have two brilliant kids and I think they could-- Who knows what they're going to build in the future?
Sal Daher: I know. I look at my grandkids and I say, "What are they going to be building?" I see their talents and so forth, and I think, "I have a little startup team here in the making." Perhaps this is too personal a question, but do you suppose if your father had never suffered a calamity of being laid off as an employee at Kodak in Rochester, New York, do you suppose you'd be as motivated to be a founder as you are?
"... When I say that my dad, my family, taught me perseverance, I think that he didn't teach me computer vision, he didn't teach me AI, but he taught me the ability to get over those moments..."
Tim Spong: Well, I think, well, dad, if you're listening, maybe I'll point him here, and not just my dad but my whole family, but let's use him, I think as a very specific case. I am of the opinion that with many companies, the reason that they fail, especially early on, is because there's a lot of opportunities to give up. It seems like there's an issue that is insurmountable.
We've had a few of those. When you're in that moment, it feels like there's no way to turn it around or it's going to be very difficult to turn it. What is the cost of being able to turn this around? When you look in the future at those moments, those are the really transformative moments at your company. When I say that my dad, my family, taught me perseverance, I think that he didn't teach me computer vision, he didn't teach me AI, but he taught me the ability to get over those moments.
Yes, he built his whole career at Kodak, and it fell apart, and he had to really find totally different ways to move on and support the family. He was supporting the family with my mom too. Those are really important lessons that both-- Obviously I learned from him, but I also think it's really important to pass on to my kids. I do advise some startups in the area and try to teach them it's okay to take a deep breath. All right, things are bad. We can figure out a way. We've got smart people. We know this problem better than we think we do. It's important.
Sal Daher: As an angel investor, when I'm evaluating an investment opportunity, the most important thing is to understand how committed the founders are to the venture. They may give lots of other reasons, but in reality, most startups fail because the founders give up because they could have figured something out.
If they really burned their ships with their back against the wall, they would've figured something out, but what's the point of doing that when you can get very attractive employment, someone with your background can very easily go off and make more money, have a more much better work-life balance and everything else by just giving up and just going and getting a job? This commitment of the founder is really the most important thing in getting that startup off the ground because you can change a technology, you can restructure things.
This is what I admire. I look at Çağrı Savran talk about a committed founder, unbelievably committed, and his family right behind him, even his little boy. His boy just turned 12, "Dad, I'm helping you too. I'm on board." Another curious question. I am a very curious person. When you told your wife that you wanted to start a company, what was her initial reaction? She's like, " majnun! crazy man. What are you doing?" Or was she like, "Oh, that's a great idea"? What was her initial response?
Tim Spong: Great question. I remember back to these days, we had moved back to Boston. We had been in Chicago for a number of years. I was running the pathology labs at Cambridge Health Alliance for those folks in the area, really amazing community hospital.
Sal Daher: Tremendous.
Tim Spong: Certainly liked my job, liked who I worked with, but got involved with the MIT community and proposed what I wanted to do and was very supportive. Did the nuts and bolts of new ventures over there and joined the entrepreneurship club. It was going to happen. I was so into it and really wanted to take this jump and my wife was not working full time. We moved back to Boston to really give our kids the opportunity to have a stay-at-home parent there 24/7 and she had the opportunity to do that.
She was teaching yoga. She's obviously a very talented smart person. She's teaching yoga, but she's also a biochemist. She runs product development. I needed to go to her and say, like, "That is something very real and impactful we are going to have to give up." Elliot and Logan, our two sons, are not going to have you, necessarily, home every day.
We're going to have to maybe get a little support here and there. That was actually a really difficult decision to make. We talked about it for a while before we actually made the leap, but it's funny, we just had that other discussion, now moving to this, her rule was always you just don't half-ass it. If you're going to do this, really do it and really make an effort to be successful.
That's the only thing she wouldn't forgive if I just got interested for three months and then quit my job. You mentioned it, it was lucrative and I did enjoy and did this. I remember that often when things have been difficult at VistaPath that I told her I would go all in. We did.
Sal Daher: That's a great story. Her response wasn't, "Don't do it." It's like, if you're going to do it, go all the way. Don't do it halfway and don't quit in the middle of the thing.
Tim Spong: Yes. I had the prototype built at that point, and she came from the industry. She was like, "I understand the value of what you're building so go do it. Get it out of your system." That actually led her to a career in startups and a change for her too.
Sal Daher: The reality is that she's just thinking, "Oh, finally he's going to declutter the basement and get that stuff out of there into a proper office."
Tim Spong: Only if that happened. That did not.
Sal Daher: Yes. If you found a company, his hobby is going to get out of the basement. I'm going to have some room down there to store stuff.
Tim Spong: It only generated two younger versions of me now making two separate messes.
Sal Daher: Oh, that is so funny. They leave room to make messes.
Tim Spong: That is true. They do that very well.
Sal Daher: This is an extremely valuable conversation, Tim. I'm very grateful to you for doing that. I would be very grateful if you could put me in touch with your spouse. We've met actually in the neighborhood, and I recognize that she's probably related to you because of the dog. I recognize the dog. She was walking with your two boys, and I'll bet you she's Tim's significant better half.
Tim Spong: That is true.
Sal Daher: Tremendous. At this point, is there anything else that you want to mention to the audience?
Learn More at vistapath.ai
Tim Spong: I guess one thing if you'd like to learn more about VistaPath, we have recently rebranded and have a great new website. You can go to. It's vistapath.ai now. One of my passions is just having people understand this process. Go to vistapath.ai or learn a little bit more about histology and pathology. It's a huge part of healthcare. The more people I think that know about it and support of it, it's great for us, obviously, great for the industry, but also I think really important for people's health and well-being because you will at one point go through a pathology lab. You should know what that means.
Sal Daher: Absolutely. vistapath.ai, we will link to it on the show notes. I will go and look at the website right after we finish recording. Tim, I'm very grateful to you for making time and for being such a good sport, and for being just such a dedicated founder. Really, you've had a vision, the Steve Jobs/Elon Musk idea of vision of what you're going to create. You respond to market conditions. You've changed directions and so forth in response to that. I can tell that the vision is there and that you have a plan that you're adjusting your plan to the reality and implementing it in a very impressive way. Hats off to you.
Tim Spong: Thanks. I look forward to coming back on in a year and saying why this version of me was so wrong on a couple of things.
Sal Daher: [laughs] No. It's a bit like Zen storyteller. Every turn, the sun is shining, and then the next third of the story it's a horrible storm and calamity and so on, and then things are bright again, and so on. That's how life is with startups. Matt Singer, who's a founder of a company that exited, they were bought by Squarespace.
He's a musician, came from music space. He used to say, he's a little bit of a philosopher too, so Matt used to say, "There's no magic carpet ride. You raise money, and you think everything's perfect. It only ups the ante. You have to enjoy the process." You have to appreciate-- You have to have a life in the meantime. You can't just be putting everything on hold until that magic carpet ride to perfection is going to happen because it doesn't exist. You're always going to be struggling even if the company ever goes public or whatever, it's still going to be really challenging.
Tim Spong: Well said.
Sal Daher: Hats off to you and for your determination.
Tim Spong: Well, thank you. It means a lot. Appreciate that.
Sal Daher: Thanks a lot. Tim Spong, founder of VistaPath Bio, to be found at vistapath.ai. This is Angel Invest Boston. I'm 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 Woodman-Maynard. Our host is coached by Grace Daher.