Combining Business & Impact with Nathalya Mamane, CEO & Founder of RT MicroDx

Today we had a wonderful conversation with Natalia Mamane. She's the dynamic founder and CEO of RT MicroDx and her background is really unique. She actually had a background in event planning and strategic facilitation and then made a complete pivot into the biotech industry. And I just found this conversation so inspiring. Welcome to Building Biotechs by Recredomics Consulting. We've helped over 90 biotech, life sciences and venture capital firms strategize and hire thousands of employees employees to scale companies that impact human health. We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground up. I'm Karina Klingman, founder and principal at Recruitomics Consulting. Enjoy the show. So we always love to start with asking our guests about their career path. So would you mind telling us what you wanted to be when you were seven, what you are now, and how did you get there?

So I don't remember what I wanted to be when I was seven, but a little bit after I was seven years old, my grandmother, my father's mom moved in with us. She lived in Israel and then she moved in our home and I got to share. We lived in a very small apartment and I got to share my little, my bedroom with her. So she was like my roommate in my own, in my bedroom for a long time. For a long time. And I got to know her very well and I got to hear all her stories. And the thing that I took the most is from her is the fact that she, her whole life was dedicated to mission work. In fact, in Morocco, where my dad was born, in a city called Rabat, they lived in a small, I'm going to call it, for lack of better terms, a Jewish ghetto over there. It was like a protected village behind like inside walls. And her mission was to help the, the poor and the sick. And she built this entire organization of finding money and recruiting girls to go visit the poor and the sick while she fundraised to help all these people in need of food, health care, medicine, whatever it is. And my parent, my father and my uncle there were just the two of them grew up in this environment of just supporting my grandmother in her mission. She got medals of honor. She was very well recognized for all her mission work. And when I was a little girl, my mission was to create impact the way that she created impact. And so everything that I've done was with the, you know, with the, with the hope that I'm doing things that has some kind of impact. But when I Was like, you graduate. I was just getting jobs, right? But in my. In my heart of heart, I wanted to continue in her footsteps. When I got into event planning, my hope was I can bring smile to people's faces, right? I can bring joy. And, you know, when I felt that I was bringing, like, it was almost like a drug. Like, the more joy I could bring, the more I wanted to do more of these events. But at one point, it wasn't fulfilling me anymore. I just felt like the impact was just too. Was superficial. It wasn't the kind of impact I wanted. So I decided then to pivot. And I didn't know how to pivot in a way that would be impactful and meaningful to me. And I decided then to go back to school and to earn an MBA in a school that combined business and impact. And how do you think about the triple bottom line in making things impactful and to. Not just the bottom line, to the people, to the communities and so on. And so I went to Babson, and I say it proudly, my banner is right up there. And while I was there, I came up with this idea of developing a home diagnostic solution. And the more I expanded on that, the more I said, hold on a second. I've had. I've had this, like, dream of mine to follow my mom and my grandmother's footsteps. And here I am developing something that can literally change the face of health care. And I didn't know that it was even possible. Like a little me with no scientific background thought, how can I even think about doing what I'm doing and changing the whole diagnostic space or the diagnostic space and making it home base when I have no idea what I'm doing? But in my whole world, it was all about, how can I take everything I learned from my grandmother, who started from nothing in her little village, in her little city in Morocco, and build something so enormous that changed so many people's lives and saying, I'm on my way to maybe do the same, right? And so that. So I don't know what I want to. To be when I was seven years old, but I knew I wanted to be like my grandmother.

She sounds fantastic. What a great role model. I love that story.

I would read a book about your grandmother.

She was amazing. She was amazing. She got two medals of honor. And I was the only. Of all my siblings, I was the only one who admired these. And recently I got a position of them. And I'm so happy that they're in my office and I get to see them all the Time. And, and it sort of like pushes me to keep, you know, fighting for this mission.

That's incredible. That's just amazing. And I love how you were able to parlay that into different industries too. You know, the event planning side of it, I love that because I've had similar, similar experience. You know, you plan an event, it makes you so happy, it brings people joy, it's excellent. And then, yeah, when you're kind of like done with that element of your.

Career, it is pretty incredible. It's funny because in my life I have, of all the people I know and my network's very large, I have the pre Babson life, right? And I have the post Babson life. And so the pre Babson people are thinking, what, like biotech, like what? And then the post Babson life in this world I'm in, they're like, what? You were in event planning, like, how is that, how could that be? So. So that pivot is really incredible. But if you think about it, the skills are exactly the same. When I had to build events right from nothing, I had to bring in the right people at the right time. It was all about putting the right team for the right project, whatever that is. Whether it was a 50 people event or 2,000 people event, it didn't matter, right? It was bringing in the right team. And what I'm doing now is basically the same. I'm not a scientist, right? So I had to bring the right people at the right time to fill the gaps that I need to get to where we are today. So one thing just led me to be better at this thing. It just, it just, you kind of like, it just helped in the overall growth, you know, I love that.

And I want to take particular note of what you just said because a lot of the folks listening to this are people who are coming into biotech without maybe knowing all the ways that they could contribute. And people get really stuck thinking this is their life path and this is the linear path I'm going to take. And I heard this described so beautifully last week with somebody who, like you had a couple of different, maybe vignettes of their career. And he described it as Forrest Gump moments. Because, you know, in Forrest Gump, Forrest has like such distinct careers. You know, he's running across the country and he's a bum with gump shrimp. And he does so well in each, you know, and each thing is such a distinction place, but it's all very Forrest Gump. I really want people to note that these pivots and the way you described that pivot and how you took those skills and transferred them, that is so beautiful. And that's something that our candidates struggle with if they're going to make a shift. So thank you for sharing that story. That was really impactful.

Yeah. And I'd love to kind of touch on the building of the team. So can you tell us a little bit about sort of what's going on with RT MicroDx right now? Sort of how many employees?

What's that?

What has that journey look like from idea and, you know, to where you are now? And how are you building your team out?

The one thing I would say to all the listeners is you can't be shy. Right. My thing is, you know, my philosophy is speak to anyone who listen, like, literally, and everyone that will listen. And so when I graduated from Babson from my graduate degree, I didn't even know where to start. I didn't know. So I got into an accelerator, which I think these are great because it gives you great structure as to what to do. And what these accelerators give you is the opportunity to meet people and to talk to people, because it just opens up a web of. If you think about a spider web, right. Everything is interconnected and your little here on your own. But as you, as you talk to people, that web kind of like spreads and gets bigger and bigger. And so that, that first accelerator opened the doors to me, to many people, people who validated my idea, to people who, you know, who cautioned me of what it would take. Right. People who discouraged me or like, people who encouraged me. Like, it gives you. It gives you a whole, whole range of type of people. And so from one person to another to another. And it's like, all right, so my mentor is, you know, is in late 60s, early 70s, he introduced me to his best friend from Harvard, who introduced me to his best friend, which ended up. And I ended up meeting with this guy called David Wolff. And David Wolf is a physicist who has been in the medical device space his entire career and was a professor at the medical school. And he's like, yeah, I can do this. And for a little bit of equity, I'll be your advisor. And I'm like, I'll take it. Like, whatever I can get for help, I'll take. And so he. And so he's like, okay, I can develop this. But in fact, you need somebody who can understand, who understands the science. So we need to meet somebody who's worked with me for many years, who's a molecular biologist. So I met him, his name is Dylan. And it was the same agreement for a little bit of equity. You'll, you know, we'll, you'll be my advisors and I'll, I'll take any help that I can get. And we've grown this amazing relationship with them and they're no longer my advisors, they're my executives. Like, they basically thought this was such a great project and there was such mutual respect between us that they felt that they wanted to see the end of this, they wanted to see the succeed. So that's essentially my team. It's the three of us now. From there, I've grown an advisory. And again, that comes down to talking to people. Showing your personality, showing, showing the passion, right. I'm very outward about the passion for this mission that I'm, that I'm going for. Right. So showing your personality, showing your passion and showing your dedication allows, like it attracts people. So instead of you going to people, it brings people to you. And over the past two years, it's allowed me to, to build like this great advisory of people who believe in me. Right. Even if sometimes I don't believe in myself because I don't have the background or the track record or all the things that make you credible in this industry. I'm still building an immense amount of supporters that want to be part of this mission as well and seeing it succeed. So David and Dalin are my executive team. And then from there we just grew from there. We have one full time employee that works in the lab full time and there's the three of us and the rest are all advisories. And I just feel like I'm again, taking all those skills that I've earned in my past is bringing the right people at the right time, filling the gaps that I need at that moment. If that makes sense.

Yeah, it absolutely does. I love that and I love that, you know, people have gone from like, oh, yeah, I'm like kind of interested in this to being full blown, like, I'm all in. Let's do this. Which leads me to my next question. Can you tell us about what you're building? Like, what is the product? I obviously know I'm very excited about this. So I think it is. I think what you're onto is an absolute game changer. So can you, can you share?

When I was in Babson, when I was in Babson, we had to come up with a new business idea for one of the classes. Right. And all that is so much in the past, but really, like where it all Started now, very, very long years ago, when I tried to remember how many years ago it was not even as a planner. I think it was in even my earlier life. I went to a breakfast networking event with hundreds of people, and the speaker was a founder of Waze. And he started his whole talk with, I hate being in traffic. And so I built something that allows me not to be in traffic, right? He said, like, the best ideas come from the biggest pain points. And I don't remember hearing anything else from that talk, just that. And so. And I never had to, like, think about it again until we had to come up with a business idea in my MBA program. And I thought about, what's my biggest pain point? My biggest pain point. I'm not even kidding, like, over, like, crying babies or anything. As a parent, a 4 is taking my kids to the doctor for a strep test. Like, it truly is a painful one to me because as a parent, you know, you kind of know if it's strep and whether your kid's sick enough that needs, you know, treatment, and you kind of know when it's not. But you have to make sure, right? And the process is so. It's. It's so awful. Like, calling the doctor. I mean, we're all familiar with it, right? Calling doctor, one of the doctor, Going to the doctor, waiting in line, whatever, waiting in the waiting room, getting the antigen test, holding on to your kid as they throw up the throat and they're crying and whatever. So I came up with this idea of doing an. At a home strep test. And that was my idea. I'm like, biggest pain point in my life, strep testing my kids. We have to have a home strep test. But I was like, I want something as easy as a pregnancy test. Like, you know, you pee on the stick and you get your result. I was like, you have to spit into something and get your result. It needs to be as easy as that. I don't want to use a computer. I don't want to use an app. I don't. I just want a pregnancy test for strep. And so that was my North Star. Like, that was like, we need this as parents. We as parents and patients. Like, we need this. And so I was so fully dedicated in doing that. And that's what I started off with. I was like, we're going to do a strep test, and our strep test is going to be as efficient, as reliable as the throat culture, which is the one, the throat swab that they test in the lab, it has to be as reliable as that. It has to be a result at home and it has to be, it has to show the results the same way as a pregnancy test. And at the time you didn't have as many Covid tests, right? But now I could say it looks like a COVID test. So it has to be that one line, two line result. You know, everybody understands it. If it's one line you're negative, if it's two lines you're positive. You get it? We've all done it. And that was my North Star and I had no idea if that was possible. Like no idea. And so that's what we went on to do. Now the cool thing is that two years later it works. Like we made it work. We made, we developed a small device that is as small as business card size where you will spit into something and you will get your result on a simple strip. It's one line, two line strip. And the results are as reliable as going to a PCR test. And it works. We're very excited to say that it works.

I have a sick child upstairs right now, so I'm like, yes, I feel all of this very much. I am just waiting to have to take her over to an urgent care and do the throat swab thing. So are these, are the tests available now? Where is the, where is like the production of the actual, like at home strep test? Can, can I go buy one?

So it's not available yet. I mean, I can show you it's going to look similar. Like this is how small it is, it's tiny, it's not available. This is still in prototyping, prototype, prototyping phase. So now we're just raising funds to make this into an actual consumer product. But you know, we know this works. It's very exciting. And, and, and I mean I had so many things in my North Star is like, I want a pregnancy test for strep. I want it to be cheap, I want it to be at the pharmacy. I want, I want, I want, right? I want all these things, otherwise I'm not doing it right. If it needs an app, I don't want it. If it needs to plug into a wall, I don't want it. I mean, if we're going to invest all these things all this time and all this money, I need it to be for this huge mission. And what's my mission? My mission is to make diagnostics affordable and accessible. And how do I make it accessible? It has to be price for retail. And what's the price for retail? Probably around 30 bucks. That means I need to produce these for really cheap for it to be priced for $30. Give or take, right? Give or take. 30, 25 to $35. So all these things that I'm pushing for, I have to say, like, with the help of my team and all this mutual respect that we have for one another, they've been pushing their own envelope to develop something that is possible, and that's what we're going for. So it's not yet in the pharmacies. I wish it was. I wish it was in manufacturing, but not yet. We still have some ways to go, but not that much. Weighs some.

That's amazing. So is that price point sort of in line with a copay for taking, you know, a child to the doctor? Is that where you kind of came up with that? Yeah. Okay. I was thinking $30, that's what I pay, right.

So there's, you know, but some people pay nothing. Right. And some people could pay upwards of $50. And what's my average? Right. My average is about $30, which is where, like, if you pay 50, you'll definitely buy the test. If you pay nothing, then you have to look about, you have to think about, well, how much will it cost me to go to the doctor on top of, like, the copay that I'm not paying for $30, I felt was a good, a good average. And the truth of the matter is, when I had my daughter 25 years ago, I paid $30 for pregnancy tests. Now they're 10 bucks. Right. So it has to start somewhere. And that price point allows me to get into the mass market and scale it and then bring the cost down from there.

And, you know, the groundwork is laid now with the COVID tests because we're all so used to just having a few of those in the cupboard just in case, you know, and I'll. I'll take one if I'm not feeling very well. And, you know, hopefully it's negative and you don't really get upset if that. That $30 because you didn't have to go to the doctor.

Correct, correct. And with the, you know, with. The problem with, with physicians today is that, you know, we have a big health. We have so many problems with access today. Access, you know, health for, for good health care. We, you know, there's a multitude of access issues. One of them is the fact that we're losing our physicians. We're losing them to retirement. We're Losing them to, you know, depression, to over overload. We're losing them. In a few years, we're looking at a huge gap of over 100,000 doctors that will be missing within the US to sustain all our health care system. So how do we. How do we bring diagnostics? How do we, like, test people and diagnose people in a way that's efficient and giving people a little bit more control? Right. So you knowing that you're not sick eliminates so many doctor visits and so much need for doctors. Now, I don't think this test is going to fix everything. Let's be clear. Like, I don't think I'm changing the world, but I'm making a dentist, right? And that dent is what I'm shooting for.

I never really understood how dangerous strep can be, but if you don't diagnose strep and you let that go and you think, oh, just a cold, whatever that is, actually, strep is actually very dangerous. So I think I would argue that by putting that in the hands of people who maybe can't get the time off work, who maybe have a fear of doctors, you know, I mean, there's a myriad of reasons people wouldn't go to a healthcare setting. I would say that is changing the world, or it's certainly changing some people's.

World, because the more we can empower.

People to take control of their own health, I mean, that's a massive impact.

It is. And, you know, I think strep is a big issue. I mean, my daughter, who's 25, she had undiagnosed strep. And the bacteria can lodge itself in different places if it's not treated right. I mean, treating for strep is easy, right? Simple antibiotics, we all know it. But if you're not treated for strep, that bacteria can kind of move in your body and lodge itself in different places. Many people die of heart failure because of strep, because it lodges itself in the heart. My daughter's undiagnosed strep bacteria lodged itself, which I didn't know, in her lower back. And she was an excruciating back pain for two years. And I think what happened is that she probably got treated for something else that ended up treating that bacteria, but literally, like, she couldn't even go to class. It was so bad that we checked every single doctor. We couldn't figure out until one doctor was like, you had some kind of, like, strep bacteria back there. So not diagnosing is a problem. So what happens is, which is another problem is the fact that many doctors don't want to test. And I think that it's happening in the US it's really happening a lot in, in Europe, where they don't diagnose, they don't test at all. And what they do is they just prescribe. So if you have onset of symptoms, all they do is prescribe. And then you have a, you know, you have this resistance to antibiotics. And that becomes another problem because how do you then treat other things that need treatment? So there's problems in different parts of the world that I think this becomes a catalyst. Now we talk about strep, but the cool thing about this technology is that this system that you see here is not proprietary to just strep. Depending on the formulation I put in here, it's a mono test, it's a flu test, it's an RSV test, it's a, It's. This is a true platform technology that allows for me to test about anything. So no matter what I. I put for the formulation of the detection that we want. So if we want to detect for strep, we'll put a formulation for strep. And now this is a strep test. But I can do that for a multitude of different indications and different samples. So right now I'm focusing on saliva. But over time, we can use blood, we can use urine, we can use other types of samples as well to test for other things. The opportunity that evolved from this strep idea has now exploded into this very exciting solution.

Hey there. Just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out, quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace. But we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the a tech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show. That was my next question is, where does this go next? This does seem like a really versatile platform. So how are you thinking about that? And this may be too soon to Ask. But how are you thinking about that in terms of your next steps, in terms of getting funding and all of that? You know, that comes next.

So we are already working on the design of the formulation for mono and I think mono is the next indication that doesn't get the treatment that it needs. Right. So mono is rampant in colleges and by the time you get tested and diagnosed for mono, you've already spread this thing like 10 times over because they don't know that it's mono. Right. So you think, I mean, you, you get tested for strep more often than you get tested mono because it needs treatment. But testing for mono is just as important because it's highly contagious. You need to really isolate and some people get sick for a really long time. So, you know, what's the death toll on mono? I don't know that. I don't know that that gets that far. I think people generally just get better from mono. But it could take months. It could take months of you not going to school, months of being in pain, months of being like completely debilitated from mono. So I think that that is something you don't want to spread yet. You're not tested that often for mono. So mono is another sort of illness that we feel is the next indication that we want to address because it's a big market, right. You put this in the hands of all these students. Just test whenever you're sick. So it'll be test for strep, I mean, test for flu, I mean Covid or flu or strep or mono. And then one of them will go. But the also like the magic in using this is that over time we're hoping to have a multi panel device where we'll, with one sample we'll be able to test more than one indication which was, you know, the top ones. And so we're looking very far ahead, but it's not that far because once we have strep done, to then take this and make it another test is going to be very quickly, very quick, right? It's the, the system is already built for just creating a new indication.

I mean, I just keep thinking about, imagine like the day comes where all these kids are going to school or university or wherever they're going and it's like, you know, welcome pack, here's your orientation, here's a couple of these tests. Keep them when you don't feel good and don't come to class. Thank you very much. Like, I mean it would be incredible. It would be amazing because Also, I think the number of times where people don't feel good, but they push it, right, like, well, I don't know if I'm really sick, so I'm going out. And we've all experienced this because of COVID And I think that's where the work from home thing became so interesting. And people saying, well, like, don't come into work if you're sick. I mean, but sometimes it's hard to tell. Sometimes it kind of is like, am I run down or is it mono or is it strep or is it the allergies? I mean, so I think the empowerment of knowing, like, I'm good to go out in the world, or, like, oh, I'm taking a couple days is so important. I think this is just amazing. I love it so much. So you've heard my feedback. What about, you know, other customer feedback? Have you guys gotten to the point where you're hearing sort of a lot of, you know, insight on the product development? How have you kind of taken that into account as you built this out?

So the funny thing is that, you know, when I talk about what I'm doing and saying, as soon as I say, oh, and my first indication is stress, I almost feel like if I had a script and I. And I gave it to anybody that I spoke to, they would read off the script because everybody is saying the exact same thing. Oh, my God, that would be so great. Whether it's physicians, whether it's parents, like, they all say the same thing, like, I need this or I needed this or, yeah, the throat swab born of the doctor for no reason. Like, if I'm telling you, if I had a script of all the things that I am doing this for, it's almost like that's exactly what's regurgitating to me each time I talk about what I'm doing. So I get validation for this need. Time and time again. Where we are struggling a little bit is on the fundraising side, but it's a tough market to begin with. It's a. It's tough to be in diagnostics because diagnostics has a bad reputation from just the history of diagnostic solutions gone bad. And so it's just a question of, like, pushing, pushing, keep pushing, keep fighting until we get to where we want to be. And I'm not going to stop. I'm just not going to stop. What people don't know about me is that I am, you know, relentless. And I think that that is something that anybody that wants to go in this business or any Business for that matter, is you have to be relentless. Over the weekend, I was walking my dog and I was asking myself like, you know, when will I quit? Right? And, and you know, there were some bad days, some tough days. I won't say bad, but tough draining days last week. And you know, and I keep asking myself, like, what if I don't get the money or what if, you know what, all these what ifs. And I, and I said to myself, I said every. I can't look at what's going to happen in two months or in three months or in two weeks or in one week. I can't think about how, like, what if, for that far, I have to every single morning get up and say, can I fight today? Right? If I can fight today, then tomorrow I have enough strength to fight another day and I can reassess. And so things are hard. It's hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done some hard things along with having four kids. That's not easy. But this is hard. And you know, this. I, there's, there's always a door for me to get out of, right? I can end this if I want to, if I'm too tired, but you know, if. As long as I can fight one more day, I'm gonna keep going. And I'm relentless. So it's not about not quitting, it's about keep fighting. And that there's a very big difference between the two. Right? You can look at ending it or you can decide to just keep fighting and keep moving forward. And that's what I'm deciding to do every single day.

Yeah, you can see it. It's your determination writ large. I love it. I have a post it note on my desk that just says you can do hard things, love me. And it's something that every day, you know, it is, it's every day, you have to just say, today I'm going to do my best. I'm going to get my, get myself out there. And you are doing the right things because we came across you at a networking event. We've seen you at multiple networking events. Like, you are definitely out there, which is great. And, and it is a relentless pursuit. So we're rooting for you too.

And it is hard out there right now. This has been a really, this has been a challenging time. So you're also not alone. That is, you know, the recurring theme that the, that keeps coming up as we talk to different guests too. It's just like, oh, this Market has.

Been such a battle.

So the good news is I think there's brighter days ahead. I think we're starting to see the shifts and so I'm really optimistic about that. But yeah, you are not alone. And it is, it is, it's a. You gotta fight every day.

But, you know, when I started two years ago, I met this, this guy. I don't know how I found him, but he's an amazing guy who's been such a great supporter of mine. And, you know, we met a couple times. You know, he had a doubt. I didn't have much, you know, in my backpack. Like, I didn't have much of anything other than great idea that I thought was a great idea. And then he told me, he says, natalia, are you ready to fight the next 10 years and possibly fail? And I said, I need to ask you a question. Is this possible? He says, no, it's possible. It'll be hard. I said, all I need is possible. That's all I need. If you told me it's impossible, then I'd be like, reconsidering. But as long as I have possible, I have fight in me. And every single day that I, we come up with new, you know, with new ideas or, you know, or, or new data or whatever, I can see the possible get bigger and bigger. And so that's what I'm going for.

So great. I mean, I have. There's no follow up to that. You are an incredible guest. This has just been like, oh, I just love your energy so much.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah. You've hit all the high notes of all of our questions. What pivotal piece of advice would you offer somebody on the cusp of launching their own biotech venture?

I've gotten an enormous amount of support. Right? I've gotten it. They say it takes a village, and everybody does take a village. And you don't know where your village is going to come from and you don't know how it's going to get to you. You just, you don't know when you start something, right? It's like when you're giving birth to a little baby and you feel all alone in your house and you're like, well, will I ever feel okay again? Or. And then one day your neighbor comes by and gives you, whatever, a plate of something for dinner. And then you realize, you know, your, your village is kind of growing that way. And it's the same thing when you build a company. You just, you're just, you're just, you just, you're all alone. It's very lonely. It's very lonely. But you go to all these events and you talk to people and you get. And people, like, reach out to you, and you realize your village is growing and growing and. And, you know, the message I want to give out is I would be honored to be part of anybody's village that needs it. Right. I've had the opportunity of having great supporters, and I'll tell you, I don't know if I'll. I don't know if I'll succeed. Right? You. You know that at the end of the day, no matter how well you do and how hard you work, this can fail. You know that, right? But that's not what you have to look at. You have to look at, you know, the. Today, and today it's working, and tomorrow you keep fighting, but it gets awfully lonely. And I think that the message I want to put out is I've had the. The. The. I'm grateful for the village that was built. That I was built around me right. Organically. And if anybody needs me to be part of their village to. To just reach out, because, you know, it's all about giving back and paying it forward, forward. And that's the only way that I know that I can do it is. Is to. To help in the support of somebody who wants to, you know, if I can help, I will help, and I want to be part of that. So that's one. The other one is, is if anybody has interest in making this happen, please let me know, because I am looking for support, more support in financial ways. You know, I want to see this happen. I want to bring, you know, I want to. I want to change people's lives. And until I can get, you know, you know, I will be happy when I will feel like I've accomplished something when someone. And I probably will never know who that person is. Right? But if someone who is hourly worker and has a sick child can test and know that it's fine to go back to work, right? It's like, it's. That's what. That's what this. This is the impact that I'm hoping to bring into this space. And so, you know, that's sort of like my success, and I'm. I'm hoping I can bring people along with me for the ride, so.

Well, we will do our best to support you, and we are part of your village, too. I'm honored to be part of your village. And hopefully, you know, somebody listening to this podcast has some ideas. We certainly are connected with Quite a few folks in the funding space. So, you know, we'll be beating the drum for you.

You know, somebody once told me there's two ways of building a company, right? There's you have a problem, you find a solution or you have a solution and you find the problem for that solution. And so I don't know which one's easiest, I don't know which one is the better evil. I have no idea, right? So I had a problem and I went out searching for solution. I think that the most important thing in either one of these directions you take is you have to love what you're doing, right? You have to love the solution or the problem that you're addressing. Whether it's the science part, whether, and that's the solution. You have some kind of like science related, you have whatever that is and then you're looking to build it in, you know, to apply it into a problem. You have to be, you have to love this and you have to kind of like, like imagine the change it could make. And in my case is I have a problem and I, it's a real problem, right? I am so passionate about addressing this problem. And so thinking about, you know, thinking about, oh, I want to get into biotech space, I'm looking for an idea. Then if you're there, you're not ready, right? I don't believe you're ready. You have to be ready when you, when you take, when you like you breathe and dream of and you're constantly thinking about the thing that you're building and trying to find something because you want to be in the biotech space until you feel it, you're not ready. So you know, somebody came to me and said, you know, I want to be in this space. And oh, I know that, I know who it was. It was, I was in, I was in the MIT 100k finalist and I came in as one of the runner ups. And so somebody who did not win, you know, split up from his team and then came to me and says, you know, I want to be in that space. And I'm like, well, what do you want to do in that space? He's like, I don't know, I'm searching. And I'm like, then you're not ready, right? You have to do what you're doing. He was, I don't remember what field of medicine he was in, but keep doing what you're doing, grow into what you're doing. And then at one point something would click. Something were like, we need to fix that, right? And once you, once that you hit that nail, then you're like, then you shoot for it. And you know, and I think that that is what I think people should think about. Like, if you can't just come into the space, I mean, you can, but, but you would be spinning a lot of wheels, a lot of time. Whereas you can spend that time in growing in what you know best until you find it. And I can't tell you how long it could take for you to find it, but one day you will. And once you do, then you shoot for it. And that's what I might. That's my advice, if it's worth what it's worth.

I really like that though, because I think that kind of brings us full circle back to the beginning where we talk to people, they want to be in biotech, they think, but maybe they're not entirely sure of the path or maybe they don't know if they want to be in biotech. But this idea that things are nebulous, you know, really very few people ever pick their path and they stay on it. And so if you have a vague idea, just, you know, it's okay to take your time. You don't necessarily have to just jump into it because that's what you want, right? Then just kind of percolate on it and keep growing, keep developing your unique skill set. And then it, like you said, it will come together, right?

I never knew I was going to be in biotech. Like, I, I, I, sometimes I wonder, I, like, what am I doing? Right? I'm like, and even though I introduce myself, oh, what are you doing? I'm a, I'm like this, I'm a biotech founder. What? Right. I have a hard time even, like, even like believing that that's what I'm doing because I never thought, like, you never think about the, like, I never thought about it, but I had a problem to address. It was my personal problem. And the problem was so many people, right? And then when I looked at the so many people, then your problem is no longer what matters. It's the, it's the right, it's the, it's the global problem that you're trying to address. So I, I can't say, you know, I wanted to be in biotech my whole life. That would be a lie. I came upon it because that's the solution that I was building for, for. So whatever, whether you're in biotech or whether you're in consumer product or whether you're in whatever, right? I think that what's important is that you truly feel passionate about the thing that you're building. And so that's what I think is the most important because those are the one that are resilient and relentless. Because if you don't really feel it in your gut and you want to fight for it, then you can take that exit door anytime.

So we normally ask people where they see themselves in the next phase of their career, but you are firmly entrenched in this. Do you have, yeah. Do you have any thoughts about that? Or are we just, we're going for.

This all, all the time. I, you know, I'm celebrating 50, I'm celebrating my 50th birthday in a month. And I asked myself, you know, how, how, you know, what's, what happens next? Well, you know, in my, in my heart of hearts, I feel like I'll never stop, I'll never stop working ever. I don't know how long this is going to last. I don't know if it's going to succeed and I'll grow it into this big thing or I don't know if it'll get acquired and I won't have any access to it or I don't know if it'll ever go anywhere, right? So I think about it. But like I tell my kids all the time, I've told my kids this all the time. I said to them, I said, you only cross the bridge when you see the bridge because the bridge may never come, right? And so until then you just keep moving on ahead. Don't think about the bridge. Don't think about whether it comes or whether it's not going to come or what will you do if it's there? You just deal with it when it comes. And right now I'm in the point where, I'm in the point of this venture where I can't see that far. I think about it sometimes, but I can't, I don't even. So I kind of like keep it in the back because you know, that's a bridge that may never come. When it comes, you know, I may just do this until forever. Like I may not. I have no idea. So I, I don't know.

Obviously, I mean, I can't even imagine how much of your day to day and just your headspace is just taken up by thinking RT, MicroDx and all of the many things that come with building the company. But when you take time for yourself, when you go off and do things just for you, what do you like to do?

So I I'm a huge entertainer, believe it or not. We just celebrated Rosh Hashanah, which is a Jewish New Year. And I hosted a lot of people. I think in all, there must have been 60 people over four meals at my house. And I cooked and entertained. I cooked and baked for. For every meal and loved every single one of them. Enjoyed the time I had with just our little, you know, family, or we're family of seven or the table of 20 that I had. Right. It doesn't. It didn't matter. I love it. I love to see happy faces here celebrating with us. So I love to do that. And so when I'm not working, I'm usually in the kitchen, especially this time of year. But I also love to run. I use running to clear my head. I use running for inspiration as well. Sometimes when I'm stuck, I'll go running and things sort of like, kind of give me clarity and I can. I get it. Like, how do I address this or how to respond to this? And then, you know, running allows me to do that. Balance is hard right now. I can't say that, you know, I can't say I'm a workaholic. Like, I'm not working through the night like some founders told me it would be. I don't do that. I do check out at a decent time to watch a show with my kids or to watch a football game with my son. I believe in finding some balance. I. My head is spinning all the time, so I want to work on being more present at times. But, you know, I do find. I try to find things that keep, you know, that kind of, like, give me that balance with my family. So, yeah, running, cooking, entertaining.

I mean, you're really putting that event planning to use. That is a massive amount of people to be hosting and cooking for. That's incredible. I bet that was just an amazing weekend.

Yeah, it was a great weekend. It was a great weekend. Covid was hard, right? Covid was hard on all of us. And my daughter got married during COVID like, at the Thick of COVID She got married July of 2020, so. So when there were no weddings happening. So she had a very small 20 people, you know, little thing in somebody's backyard. It was a very draining, exhausting experience. And I believe today that for all of us who have survived it and came out on the other side, which is, you know, most of us, we have to celebrate every celebration. We just. We just have to. So nothing should come in the way of celebrating, of being together, of gathering and of finding joy whenever you can. So nothing is going to come, you know, in the way of finding the time to do that. I believe in that.

That's beautiful. Thank you so much. This was a really fun conversation and I think.

Thank you.

So I think our listeners are going to really resonate with you. You're very authentic.

It's. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much for coming on. Natalia, where can people find you if they want to connect with you? Is it LinkedIn, email? What's the best way for someone to find you best?

Well, they can. They can find me on LinkedIn. They can email me. It's natalia@rtmicrodx.com Natalia It's n a T H A L Y A. I know it's weird, but that's how my father decided. And yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I really make myself available to talk to just about anybody who wants to talk, share and, and support so they can find me. Yeah.

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