I recently shared this exchange with a Medical Devices Group member over chat. He gave me permission to share it with you.

Do you agree with my assertion he’s in for a long road ahead?

Website address: http://medicaldeviceevents.com/

Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia

Chat transcript:

Joe: hi! We honeymooned in your fine country.

Joe: might you be at the 10x Medical Device Conference so we can meet in person? do you make it out to the states at all?

Visitor: yes, that sounds good

Joe: With whom am I speaking?

Visitor: Ash Collins from telemedicineAustralia.com.au

Joe: I recognize your name. we exchanged emails, yes?

Visitor: OH,,YES,,I REMEMBER

Joe: you left your email on a chat box

Visitor: Yes

Joe: I took a look at your site

Visitor: i have written a telemedicine program and is currently under development. i was talking with my legal advisor and she mentioned that my business models are not quite right—i should be able to make more models for such a product.

Joe: it’s a tough business… highly competitive as you well know. tough to gain a critical mass of adoption.

Visitor: that is right, very tough,,,very new in Australia,,,a lot of resistence to adoption by practitioners in particular

Joe: most will fail or be bought out on the cheap

Joe: practitioners can be stubborn longer than you can be solvent… let’s just say, I wouldn’t want to invest my money there

Visitor: that is what i told to my legal advisor—i don’t want to raise the cost for user. That will help with more adoption

Joe: adoption won’t happen without A LOT of spending on your part… and time… which no amount of spending will accelerate

Visitor: that is correct

Joe: so, do you have that kind of money and patience?

Visitor: perhaps yes–currently what we do it just to raise awareness at the practitioners level and public. since TMA established, we have not had a good decent revenue from telemedicine

Joe: this is unsurprising

Visitor: instead we spend our time to raise the awareness

Joe: do you have other revenue streams?

Visitor: except few sporadic sales, no other regular revenue, unfortunately

Joe: nervous for you… what else do you have to fall back on?

Visitor: but I am sure my new solution would revolutionised the sector, at least in Australia

Joe: a hard sell… I believe *A* solution will revolutionize but (no offense) probably not yours, which I would say to anyone trying telemedicine

Visitor: why not me? 2 years of writing a program—and i am a GP myself

Joe: good for you… but the market doesn’t care about your investment of time and resources

Joe: the odds are against because many players and only one or two will win

Joe: Ash, I am underinformed. you have spent much time on this. I’ve spent 10 minutes chatting with you but I’m seeing the same phenomenon in America

Visitor: ok

Joe: “everyone” knows this is the right thing to do and that it will happen but we haven’t reached the tipping point and the best product may not win. The best MARKETED product and the best FINANCED product will win

Visitor: i know that, which is why i am looking for partner on that… i have the best product but now i need the best finance so i can the best marketing on that

Joe: I hope you do and, yes, encourage you to list yourself on the Medical Devices Group discussion

Visitor: i will

Joe: Ash, this has been a good conversation, do you mind if I share it with some of my readers?

Visitor: no problem, thanks for the contact, i may see you in the conference in May

Joe: I’d like that a lot. And thanks, I’ll send you a link to it when published.

Visitor: have a great night

Bo Clawson
boclawson@mac.com
My answer to telemedicine involvement will be different.

I would not want to skate to where all the existing players are gathering for generalized telemedicine as the competition is going to be brutal with deep pocket players.

I would make sure my medical device a patient uses can store and upload its own testing information to where it is needed easily following HIPPA rules so a patient can present his data to his clinician as needed.

John Strupat
john.strupat@sympatico.ca
The Australian member identified the one key player that many from the consumer product world are not paying enough attention, the practitioner.
I sense that adoption of telemedicine means that some will be “winners” from the experience and some will be “losers”. Adoption of many of the telemedicine products will only be achieved when the majority of practitioners are comfortable.
As in, not risking direct or future loss of income, or by increasing exposure to malpractice.
Opening the door to this technology is viewed as having many potentially negative aspects to the practitioner.
Would like to hear some good ideas on how to change that?

Rich Theriault
Richtspd@gmail.com
Hi Guys,

I think that marketing and funding are necessary to be up to a threshold level to succeed. They both are over rated however. As an example, IDEO is one of the largest contract product development firms in the world. They are expensive, so their customers are well funded and have the “best” marketing and well connected mgmt money can buy. Yet look at the percentage of products that succeed. Not many.

The main thing I believe is timing. That timing needs to be considered in the Eco system you will be in.

That is much harder to assess because there are many subtle things you don’t know about in the Eco system and especially as to how it is changing. So that means you need to morph your product in response to changes as they occur. A couple of masters at doing this can be found in consumer products in Jobs and Bose. They were more than anything else masters at timing.

One way to improve your chances in this regard is to raise money from your likely customers and stay close to them during the whole process. That is why crowdfunding done right (highly focused with end to end process in place) can be huge as a listening post. Does not yet exist. But will.

The other way element is to be very humble as to what you don’t know in regards to timing so that you can be open to change.

The third element is that the company needs to be constructed with great respect around these points. Traditional organizational structures as well as traditional thinking will not be as productive in our new flat world.

Rich

Kevin Busto
kdbusto@vegatecgroup.com
Yes, he is in for a long haul in Telemedicine. I have seen two Telemedicine companies fail over the last 5-7 years in the US. I wish I really could be more positive. I recently connected with an optics company to sell their microscopy optics for Smart Phones. They are designed for various Smart Phones, both Android & IPhone. This is where Telemedicine is going.