In this interview, the co‑founder of Endiatrics recounts his four‑year journey from dreaming about tiny pill‑size robots to finally taking action by joining the Founder Institute (FI). He describes a period of complacency and depression, the moment he saw a Facebook ad for FI, and the stark reality of the program’s demanding environment—mandatory homework, cold‑calling GI doctors, and quitting his job. FI’s structured accountability forced him out of his comfort zone, helped him build a team, and advance the technology, culminating in a prototype called PoolBot. After graduating, the FI funding lab enabled the startup to raise $185,000 in weeks, providing the capital needed to move toward live human trials. He concludes that while FI may not suit everyone, it was instrumental for a founder with a long‑held vision of tiny robots, offering guidance and resources to turn that vision into reality.
Chapters
Or maybe what was one thing for you, a major thing that changed for you in your startup or a challenge that you overcame way back when you were actually going through the Founder Institute program yourself?
I'll start off. So the biggest thing was, you know, taking the plunge to join FI was a big deal for us because I literally sat on the idea of tiny pill robots for, for over 4 years. I had told all my friends all the time that one day I would found a company making tiny robots. And finally, 4 years later, you know, I had done nothing and I was very complacent in my career. And I was entering a pretty gnarly depression realizing like, oh man, you know, like the arc of Tory is just like on the down here. You know, where is this going? I see a targeted Facebook ad that says practice pitch your idea at the Founder Institute. And I walk into this janky office on El Camino in Palo Alto, and I'm like, oh man, this is depressing. This isn't like, you know, I'm walking into the castle on the hill of Silicon Valley and they're going to anoint me as the next champion. It was more like, listen, son, you're going to be starting from scratch and building your empire brick by brick on your own. However, we'll tell you which brick to pick up and we'll tell you where to where to place it. And having that guidance to have people walk me through the process of launching Endiotics was huge because I didn't necessarily feel like I was worthy of that at the time. Some of the things that I was asked to do, that I was forced to do, were so far out of my wheelhouse and comfort zone. I wasn't even sure people would take me seriously if I called them up and asked them, you know, a GI doctor, an extensive list of questions on a cold call. You know, there were times when I didn't have the self-assuredness to do that. With Founder Institute, none of that is optional. It's like you do your homework or you fail, right? Incorporate or fail, you know, launch your business or fail, quit your job or you fail was one of my homework assignments that I was pleased with. So, so while that was all going on, though, if I could say one thing on top of that, monologue is you need to build your team and you need to have your tech moving forward in the background while you're launching your company. So when we, when we graduated the Founder Institute, we, we were just on the verge of having PoolBot here and we entered the funding lab that Founder Institute offers to graduates. And based on this pool toy, which is really not as sophisticated as what you see here, we raised $185,000 in a matter of weeks. And that gave us all the money we needed to get to what you see here, which is now on the verge of live human trials. So I don't know if Founder Institute is right for everyone, but I do know that it was, it was right for a kid who had always dreamed of tiny robots, and needed a little bit of guidance in making that a reality.
