Stacie Depner - Succeeding In Micro MedTech Startups

In this episode of MedTech Snapshot, Stacie Depner, VP of Product Development Operations at PhysCade, joins us to talk about what it really takes to thrive in the earliest phases of product development—when culture, speed, and flexibility aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re survival tools.

Transcript:

Travis: 
Welcome back to another MedTech Snapshot. We are the one-question, one-answer medical device podcast, and with me today is Stacie Depner. Stacie is the Vice President of Product Development Operations for PhysCade. 

I'm really looking forward to getting into some nuances of the startup world today with Stacie. We'll be talking a little bit about how do you sort through the product development life cycle, early phases, phase one, two, and three, as well as, how do you actually succeed in these micro environments? So stay tuned. 

How do you succeed in a really small environment? The term I'm using this micro environment, right? Small business, less than 10 people, I guess. What are your thoughts on what you've seen there? 

Stacie: 
So in a, in a micro environment like we're in, to be successful and work in, in that small of an environment, first of all, you have to have an amazing culture. Culture can get a little bit softer when you grow up. But being this small, we have to all get along. We have to all like each other. We also have to like what we're doing and how we're doing it. 

If any one person out of 10 turns sour, it's going to sour everything. And then we again, we need to move quickly, turn things around, and help each other out.  

But it is—it's fun. And yet, I know that there's always that point where something could turn, in terms of the culture—but it's fun to be able to have this much control over the culture and really build what we want it to be together as a team. So being conscious of that, talking about it as a team is important to keep at front of mind. 

But also, it's not just about the side of culture where you want it to be fun and engaging. It also needs to go very fast. And that can be a contradiction in some people's minds.  

So, finding those people that really thrive on the speed, and that is the excitement and fun to them—it's super core to being successful and being able to navigate that environment. 

So there's the culture side of it. And, again, we have to have the right people from a breadth standpoint. Think about if you're 1 of 10, you're going to wear many hats. 

So, I'm hiring for specific skills, but looking at what other things that people have done. I just hired someone from a previous company that I had hired previously. He's an engineer, he's a program manager. He has enough skills and background to also be a product manager. And that's exactly what I needed. I hired for one role, but I needed all three. 

And so that's what you're really needing to do to be able to grow and expand without constantly changing people out or paying high rates for contractors all the time. 

Travis: 
But your point on this discussion we're having right now about how to succeed in a micro environment, it's really tough. Not everybody's built to work within that kind of a small company micro environment. And where in our industry—in the device world—where I really look at this is, you're free Series A, you know. You're still on personal, or maybe even family office dollars. So institutional funds haven't come in yet. 

 The folks who I see who really succeed in these environments, they have a good attitude, they can take feedback, they can pivot and adjust. They're solutions oriented and have a really good ability to utilize critical thinking. 

Stacie: 
Yeah, yeah, I've been noticing that a lot. I didn't quite think about it when I first started. And now I see so clearly how we have some really high level thinkers in our group, and it's exciting to see that if you give them a little bit of time to think about something—giving them the right understanding and background—to be able to solve problems overnight. 

They come back and go, 'Hey, you know, I'm seeing that there's going to be a problem here' or, 'Hey, here's a solution we didn't even know we needed.' And it's been amazing how much they're coming forward and solving problems that, again, we didn't know we had, and we're really helping to accelerate us through the development.