A few years ago, cancer took the life of Sid Desai’s father.
The decline of his physical health, Desai explained, was expected. But what he hadn’t been prepared for was the mental distress cancer caused his dad. And when his family asked doctors for help alleviating this, they merely prescribed him pills — which weren’t that effective.
The experience left an imprint on Desai, and motivated him to launch Rocket Wellness, a Boston-based digital therapeutics startup that uses virtual reality to provide mental health treatment for cancer patients.
In a conference room at Epicenter’s headquarters on Nov. 4, Desai described the origin of his startup to a group that included Jan Bouten of venture capital firm Innova Memphis. If you didn’t know any better, it seemed like a preliminary meeting with a startup’s board of directors. But, as Desai said, Rocket Wellness’ board is currently a “board of me.”
This, instead, was a mock board session, an activity for companies like Rocket Wellness, which are participants in Epicenter’s 2021 ZeroTo510 Medical Device Accelerator.
“The objective of the hypothetical board meeting is to showcase the progress we’ve made to date, to get unbiased opinions, questions, and queries from different [mock] board members,” Desai told MBJ. “We want to prep our brains as entrepreneurs.”
This year's format
On Sept. 8, Epicenter kicked off the three-month accelerator, which helps early-stage medical device startups refine their business model and navigate through the startup process, while providing them with some funding. Participants receive up to $50,000 in investments from Epicenter and Innova.
Traditionally, the program has been held face-to-face in Memphis and required participants to relocate to the Bluff City for its duration. But because of COVID-19, this year’s offering has a hybrid model, with the bulk held over Zoom sessions, and two in-person sessions running from Nov. 1-4 and Dec. 7-9.
The Zoom sessions have featured nationwide experts across multiple disciplines — such as legal services, business, product development, regulatory affairs, and reimbursement — so the founders can learn about topics relevant to their startups. The face-to-face sessions have focused more on making personal connections, with the entrepreneurs learning more about each other, Memphis, and ZeroTo510 alumni.
For example, during the November period in Memphis, they visited manufacturing facilities. They met with Regional One Health president and CEO Reginald Coopwood, and the hospital system’s Center for Innovation director, Alejandra Alvarez. They toured the headquarters of SOMAVAC Medical Solutions Inc., an alum of the ZeroTo510 accelerator that’s found significant success since completing the program in 2016.
“It was amazing, the ZeroTo510 alumni network has just been incredible,” said Jared Meyers, a program participant and co-founder of the startup Augment Health. “It’s so cool to see how willing people are to help, even though they’re already incredibly busy themselves.”
Different companies, but with similarities
The five participating startups are developing a variety of devices. While Rocket Wellness is centered around virtual reality, Augment Health, which operates out of Memphis, is making a product that could improve the quality of life for people who have spinal cord injuries and use urinary catheters.
Houston-based Caridian Medical is developing a device that will better equip cardiologists to treat heart failure; and NeuraStasis — also based in Houston — is creating a neurostimulation device with the hope of significantly lessening the effects of strokes. TonoTech, based in Chicago and Durham, is working on a product that could improve the accuracy of eye pressure measurements, which are crucial to the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma.
But while the startups’ founders have different goals, most had similar responses when MBJ asked about highlights of the first in-person week — they all enjoyed having dinner together.
There was a deeper connection, participants said, that came with being face-to-face.
“We get the feedback, and all the learning, virtually, but it’s just so different,” Meyers said. “Once you meet them in person, it just makes more sense. … If you’re just meeting people in Zoom all the time, there’s this Zoom fatigue.”
Tyler Melton, co-founder of Caridian Medical, agreed.
“Everybody’s talking about their families, and their dogs, and all that stuff, and you can really get to know someone a little bit more,” he said. “It was a good example of people having the time to talk about themselves in a personal way, not just, ‘These are my business goals' … [We were] actually humanizing each other."
