Medical Device Consulting: R&D Engineering | Manufacturing Engineering | RAQA
Home  >  Resource Library  >  MedTech Snapshot Podcast

MedTech Snapshot Podcast

Alex Cooper - Why Your First Startup Hires Are Everything

5/13/2025

 
​​In this episode, Alex Cooper, CEO of Relief Cardio, shares what most startup founders learn the hard way: your first few hires make or break your momentum. He breaks down how he thinks about fit, trust, and why early teams should never be more than one degree apart.
Travis: 
Welcome back to another Med Tech Snapshot podcast, the one question, one Answer medical device podcast where we bring in folks to talk about their backgrounds, their
 and their experiences. 
And with me today, Alex Cooper, CEO of Relief Cardio. 

Alex is going to take us through a little bit of a ride of what it's like to be a first-time founder and a startup, but then also navigating, you know, how do you bring in the right people and how do you move that business forward? So stay tuned. 

All right, Alex. So, you know, thinking about the startup world, I'd love to learn a little bit more about what your strategy is for hiring the right people within your startup, right. And the things that you have to go through to ensure that that individual coming in helps move the culture forward and not backwards or behind. Any thoughts on that? 

Alex: 
Yeah, I mean, your first couple hires are in incredibly critical. I mean, even if you just think of it from like a pure numbers game, if you hire two people and one of them is a poor fit, then half your team is a poor fit. 
And so it's honestly like a level of stress and criticality that's kind of hard to overstate. 

So, I would just say honestly, your first 1-2, maybe even 3 hires strongly encourage that it's somebody that you've worked with before, or at least know secondhand just to really make sure. 
And of course, like when you're interviewing them, you can use all the usual strategies to kind of pull out like how they work, how they handle stress, their skills, their knowledge. 

But my personal experience has been like those first few hires don't go more than 1° of separation because yeah, like it can really drag things down if you got a bad fit in the early days. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    The MedTech Snapshot Podcast, hosted by Square-1 Engineering’s Travis Smith, features quick insights from industry executives on topics like startups, funding, product development, finance, manufacturing, and more.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025

    Categories

    All
    2023
    2024
    2025
    21 CFR 820
    Acquisition
    AdvaMed
    Agile
    Artificial Intelligence
    Breakthrough Moment
    Career
    Clinical
    Clinical Trials
    Compliance
    Contract Manufacturing
    CRO
    Cyber Security
    Embedded Systems
    Entrepreneur
    FDA
    Finance
    FMEA
    Funding
    Global Operations
    Government
    Healthcare
    Hiring
    History
    Industrial Design
    International
    Investor
    ISO
    ISO 13485
    Jp Morgan
    KPI
    Leadership
    M&A
    Machine Learning
    Management
    Manufacturing
    Medical Device
    Medtech
    Medtech Snapshot
    Networking
    Operations
    OUS
    Outsourcing
    Podcast
    Policy
    Private Equity
    Product Design
    Product Development
    Production
    Professional Development
    Project Management
    Quality Assurance
    Quality Systems
    RAQA
    Regulation
    Risk Management
    Root Cause Analysis
    Sales
    Scope Creep
    Snapshot
    Software
    Southern California
    Startup
    Strategy
    Supply Chain
    Talent
    Tech Transfer
    Term Sheets
    Top Grading
    Trends
    User Experience
    User Needs
    Venture Capital
    Voice Of The Customer

    RSS Feed

White Papers &​ Articles

Picture
Check Out the 4-Minute Medical Device Podcast
Picture

Site ​Navigation

Home
Services
Case Studies
Medtech Snapshot Podcast
White Papers/ Articles
​Contact Us
Picture

Contact Us

1-844-300-SQR1
Web Content Copyright  ©   2016-2025
  • Services
    • Consulting >
      • Product Development
      • Regulatory and Quality Compliance
      • Validation
      • Manufacturing Engineering
      • One-Day Gap Assessment
    • CAD for Medical Devices
    • Technical Training >
      • Medical Device Training
  • Project Execution
    • Case Studies
    • Problems We Solve
    • How We Engage
    • Project Expertise
  • About Us
    • Vision & Mission
    • Our Team
    • Careers >
      • Careers - Marketing Generalist
  • Resource Library
    • Medtech Snapshot Podcast
    • White Papers and Articles
    • Southern California's Medical Device History
    • Recommended Business Reading
    • The Business Wingmen Podcast
  • Contact Us
  • Services
    • Consulting >
      • Product Development
      • Regulatory and Quality Compliance
      • Validation
      • Manufacturing Engineering
      • One-Day Gap Assessment
    • CAD for Medical Devices
    • Technical Training >
      • Medical Device Training
  • Project Execution
    • Case Studies
    • Problems We Solve
    • How We Engage
    • Project Expertise
  • About Us
    • Vision & Mission
    • Our Team
    • Careers >
      • Careers - Marketing Generalist
  • Resource Library
    • Medtech Snapshot Podcast
    • White Papers and Articles
    • Southern California's Medical Device History
    • Recommended Business Reading
    • The Business Wingmen Podcast
  • Contact Us