BoneChat #59 - Better storytelling to help orthopedic startups raise capital by Sarah Vancini.

Okay, welcome to Bone Chat discussion number 59 with Sarah Vancini, uh, with Stories with Substance. So Stories with Substance can help drive growth for orthopedic startups and hopefully help in fundraising by just telling better stories. Mark Maloney brought Sarah to us. I'm going to hand the mic over to Sarah. This should be really interesting. Welcome aboard.

Thanks, Tiger. Hi, everybody. Let me start by sharing my screen so you guys can see the pitch deck. Can everybody see my computer? Okay, cool. Well, welcome everyone. Today we are diving into how storytelling can transform your fundraising efforts. Whether you're pitching to investors or crafting your deck, weaving a compelling narrative into your pitch is essential to stand out and secure funding. As the CEO of Stories with Substance, I've seen how effective storytelling can turn your company's raw data and technical specs into impactful narratives. And this is really a must nowadays when it comes to raising capital because of how competitive the market is right now. So I'm going to start out with a little personal story. This year I invested in a software that generates marketing strategies, tactics, and deliverables, including white papers, within 5 minutes for orthopedic companies. And it has the potential to replace entire marketing teams and automate all marketing activities. So I could present this product to you by showing some impressive facts and figures. I might talk about the size of the market, the ARR, um, and how many marketing assets that we generated, which is impressive, right? But numbers like these don't connect emotionally. You might have zoned out while I read through all of these stats, and, um, this is where storytelling becomes really crucial. It gives context and meaning to those metrics and makes your pitch memorable for investors. So would you feel any differently if instead I presented this product a little differently to you? If I talked about how in 2021 I was working with a midsize orthopedic medical device company that was facing some challenges. They had developed an innovative robotic-assisted surgical device for spinal fusion, but their marketing efforts failed to communicate this device's value to surgeons and hospital administrators. Their sales stagnated, their market share dwindled against competitors, who had better marketing strategies even though their, their product was really inferior to my clients. So the company needed a solution to bridge the gap between their groundbreaking innovation and the stakeholders who needed to understand its benefits. Traditional marketing agencies were really too slow and costly, and internal teams lacked the resources to scale effectively. So PulsePoint AI was created to solve this problem. The founding team, inspired by the orthopedic company's plight, combined their expertise in healthcare marketing, AI, and software development to design an intelligent platform that automates marketing strategy and asset creation. And using proprietary algorithms, um, that we develop tailored messaging for surgeons and hospital administrators. And delivered ready-to-use marketing campaigns in days instead of weeks. So for you as orthopedic CEOs, you might be more likely or more excited about the software I shared based on the narrative slide, this last slide, than the first slide that was really just fact-based. And, um, that's largely because it might align with your everyday experiences as well as your pain points. When speaking with investors, you wanna create that same alignment. So think about what are the stories that they can relate to? What language do they use to describe the problems you're solving for? You want to meet investors where they are at and create a narrative that they would understand based on common life experiences and not necessarily like niche industry expertise. So why is this actually so hard? Why is it so hard to convey our value in a meaningful way? I think it's difficult to get out of our own heads and create presentations that are not about what we ourselves care about or value, but instead are what our audience, the investors, care about and value. The fact that you founded a company in orthopedics likely means that you have deep technical skills. And while this is highly valuable, it's highly meaningful, viewing your value prop just through this technical lens speaks to only what you value in your everyday experiences, not necessarily the experiences of investors or people who are not engineer-minded. So many startup decks fail because they focus too much on these features and technical details. They lack emotional connection and fail to communicate, communicate a clear value proposition. Investors don't want to sift through dense slides. They want to feel your story and understand the problem you're solving and see why your solution matters. Remember, it's not just about what you do, it's about why it matters. Medtronic, in their pitch deck, did a great job of this when they secured funding from Blackstone. So they frame their technology as meal detection for diabetes patients, and this is something— this is like a phrase that almost everyone can understand, and it's not necessarily based on industry jargon. So this is a little bit of a review of what you probably already know about pitch decks, which is like 101. Um, there's the typical elements that still need to be included, like market opportunity, team, traction, and vision. You have to tailor your pitch deck to showcase why these essentials, um, are important and answer the question of why the investors should invest in you. But focusing on these elements alone is not enough now in the highly competitive VC environment. Data informs, but stories really inspire. Investors are more likely to remember the narrative you craft, uh, than like a list of metrics. Augmetics, for instance, raised $82.5 million by framing their x-ray vision AR system as a technology that gave surgeons X-ray vision. The story wasn't just about the technology. It was about transforming how surgeries are performed and saving lives. And importantly, the concept of X-ray vision is something that most people can understand, whether we learned about it through superhero movies or comic books. By using this language and analogy instead of more like technical language or jargon, investors were better able to understand the product and they were able to secure funding. Another way you can craft your company's story is by infusing it with your own narrative, and this not only engages investors but also showcases how you're uniquely positioned to solve this problem. Your founder story is one of the greatest assets you have. Investors want to back people who are passionate and resilient. For example, Oso's VR Founders shared how their experiences as surgeons inspired a solution in gaps— to gaps in training, and they secured $66 million in funding through this. So your story should convey why you care deeply about the problem you're solving and how your unique perspective makes you the right person to tackle it. Your story is going to be hyper relevant if you or a loved one has suffered from the ailment that your device is helping. Or if you've worked on the clinical side and experienced the problem your company's solving for firsthand. So your value proposition— this is kind of like a summary— it should be clear, concise, and immediately compelling. Again, the x-ray vision for spine surgery that we talked about before that Augmetics used is a perfect example. It's simple, unique, and impactful. You can use these analogies or bold statements to capture attention and show how your solution stands out in the market, um, and show your value quickly to investors. In summary, data builds credibility, but it must support your story as well. Present your best metrics up front, like growth rates, clinical— clinical results, or user adoption, and then weave your startup into a narrative. Remember, investors need both emotional connection and rational proof to make their decision. For example, Augmetics, again, they led their investor presentation by highlighting 4K successful procedures with 97 to 100% accuracy in screw placement, but then they also incorporated their x-ray vision analogy to make the technology more tangible for their investors. This crafting of a narrative, maybe it's like daunting or scary, but likely it's not something completely new to you. You might have already been doing this when you're speaking to surgeons. It might be a little bit easier because surgeons care about clinical outcomes and might share some similar values to you and understand the technical jargon. While investors might want to hear about things like market potential and scalability. And that's why you may be able to more effectively portray your value, um, to surgeons today and might be struggling with investors. Um, but hopefully if you can use some of these skill sets, investors will be able to grasp the value that you're providing. So, um, the— all of these skills is not just like a one-and-done thing. Um, companies have to keep reinventing themselves, retelling their stories, telling different stories if they're going to expand their audiences or go through other rounds of funding. Um, so as you evolve your company, uh, it's important to reinforce your vision and remind stakeholders why they believed in you in the first place through storytelling. And this consistency and transparency keeps your audience and investors inspired in the long term. And I want to open that up for questions now.

Well, that was great. Nice, short and sweet. And I think all our wheels are turning. It's funny you mentioned Augmetics. I interviewed the founder on my podcast like 4 or 5 years ago, and he just talked about technology, technology, technology. You know, he's from Israel, but obviously the leaders did a better job of telling the X-ray story later on. And I, I invented the, the, I interviewed the Ossovr founder too. And he, I remember him telling me the story about doctors solving their own problems. Great. How would somebody, so every startup's got a deck that they use and they're always changing it. So what would be the mechanics of taking a dry deck that's not working and weaving it into a better story?

Uh, I think it's— it depends on the company. There's not like a one-size-fits-all. Um, I recommend that people go through an exercise called the STAR model, where you think of an anecdote, a way of your company helping an individual, and you describe the situation, the task, the action, and the result. And by framing a story like that, an anecdote like that, it can be very impactful. I would also tap into your own story, right? So in particular, if you were, if you received the benefits personally for this device or like a family member did, if you worked on the clinical side, those are, are, amazing, like, anecdotes that you can share with investors. Interesting.

What if you're not a good storyteller?

I, I have worked with a lot of people who are anxious about presenting or, um, want to really just lean on the stats. I think, again, the STAR model like even if you present something in a very dry way, but you have the flow based on the STAR model, people will still resonate with that story.

Well, a lot of founders—

so, Colleen, so, um, what, what are your thoughts on, um, including a financial forecast in investor decks?

That's a great question. I, I don't feel like I have the background to speak on that, so I'm, I'm not going to answer that.

But yeah, well, it can sometimes sidetrack a conversation if it's the first conversation you're having with a potential investor. You know, when I was raising money for TrackPatch Health, we had private equity investors, but we were looking for outside money and they had us put so much financial data in the deck that it, you know, our story got lost basically is what happened. So I'm not a big fan of, if the first time you're speaking with a potential investor, I mean, you can certainly, you know, the TAM, the, you know, traction, all of that starts to speak to the opportunity financially.

Right. And I think, um, it's not just about the financial forecasting data. It can be about data related to your clinical results. You know, it— when you have really dense decks that are just filled with data and not based on an anecdote, um, people zone out. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, it seems like you could not include the financial data on purpose just to get the hook in their mouth and then come back for a second meeting. Um, that's really interesting question because they, they like to jump to the, the exit. They want to see how much are they going to make, 3x, 5x if everything comes out right, and they, they skip over the, the story.

Yeah, I think you can, you know, hint at the potential exits just by, you know, a separate slide that talks about what some strategics are doing without providing too much data.

Interesting. Does storytelling have to be done in person? Can it, or can it be done over video, or can you even Can it even be— can you even email a presentation that has a story that sticks?

Yeah, there's lots of different mediums. You have to be careful and mindful of what medium you're using, um, to, to make sure that you're grasping attention. For example, if you write a really long narrative in an email, that's a cold email, that might not be the best strategy. They might just put your email into spam. Um, but yeah, you could— there's lots of different ways. Social media.

Um, yeah, it's like all great, all great startups have a great story, like the FedEx, you know, is— I don't know if everybody's read the book Absolutely, Positively Overnight, but Fred Smith couldn't make payroll and he flew out to Vegas, put it on the roulette wheel twice, made payroll, and came back. And that was, that was a great story for FedEx in the early days. Go ahead, go ahead, Mark.

Yeah. What? Yeah. What if he lost?

Well, I think the back— the backside is he came from a very wealthy family. I think his dad would have written a check.

But yeah, so, you know, one of my side projects is a nonprofit for veterans, and we support— we just gave a check to the Atlanta History Center for this, and it's called Share Your Story. And basically it's aimed aimed at veterans to come in and share their veteran story or their experience. It's videotaped. So I mean, so I guess the reason I asked Sarah is that I don't think there's anything more powerful to us as humans than to hear a good story. And I think we've been doing it since we sat around campfires and basically just clicks and grunts. And, uh, I don't think that everybody is a great storyteller. And I think that the compelling message to me, to a CEO, founder, fundraiser, is that, you know, if it is, if it is your most important job to tell a story a good story for to raise money or to sell your project or whatever, then I don't think that you should stand in your own way. You should seek, you know, somebody else's campfire and, you know, hear them tell your story or ask them how to tell your story. And then, you know, if part of your, if part of your story is your own background, then you should obviously present it yourself. But, um, and I think to, to me, today's message is that, uh, there's hardly anything more important to a founder than the ability to tell that story, to tell it well and be— make it compelling, so to speak. There's a little tiny company up in Pittsburgh called Easy Whip, and I met the founder of that company. Her name is Leah Winter. On New Year's Day at 2 o'clock in my office. They were in town for personal reasons, and I had reached out to them based on somebody else's request. They said, hey, we're, you know, we're here on New Year's Day, can we, you know, can we talk? I said, sure. So I met him over here, had a cup of coffee with him, and the one of the most compelling parts really of their little, you know, their new, their nascent company It were their own personal stories of why they did, why they made that product, and why they as classmates in MBA school got together and became partners. And I think personally and professionally, it all can really— we wove together and just a really good story. So hats off, Sarah, for that presentation. I think it's a, I think it's a, it's a great contribution to people that, you know, are trying to raise money and trying to grow a company and so forth to realize how important that is.

That reminds me of the Danek story. I'm sure everybody knows, or Eric knows it inside out, but, you know, in the early '90s, there was a class action lawsuit about pedicle screws. And Danek, instead of, instead of capitulating, they said, no, we are right. The surgeon has the right to use bone screws in the pedicle. We're gonna fight every lawsuit one at a time. And they eventually, you know, prevailed. And the surgeons became super loyal. They said, you're the only company in my entire career that's ever stood up for the surgeon. And so, and Eric can probably add to this, but, they became super loyal and that became the story of Danek, you know. I think the second chapter.

Exactly like that.

Go ahead, Eric.

I was there at the meeting. I forgot what meeting it was, but there was a very small panel. Danek was saying, no, we're not going to give in. We're going to protect the surgeons. And then who was it with ACMA? Jim Robson? I think that was with Ackerman, but he, he got up and said the exact opposite thing. And it was like the, the surgeons that were all there, like, you know, turned their back. You could, you could see that, that the change in the mood immediately. And, and yeah, that was, I think, you know, the, the backbone of, of Danek and, and how they did so well and had such a loyal following.

Yeah, every, every great company's got a— and, and the Arthrex story is we are more in touch with customers than any any other sports medicine company. And they, they did it. I mean, Mark's worked with them, I'm sure.

If you stop using the product, you get a personal call from Reinhold. I mean, honestly, yeah. Doctor, hey, this is, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, why aren't you using our products anymore?

Wow. And he's worth $10, $20 billion and he's calling. Yeah.

I mean, at least, you know, he used to do that. I don't know if he still does it.

So, so I, I have a question, you know, uh, maybe a couple months ago, you know, I, I presented this, the, my SPINUS process plate that I, I developed. Um, there's really not much story behind that, you know. I, I, I developed it for, you know, for, for Medtronic. Um, you know, it, it got sidelined because it would, you know, take away pedicle screw business. Um, I think it's an awesome design. I think the thing works, works really well, but I have no personal story, no, no stake in anything like that. Does, does that doom a product? Is it, I mean, if you don't have such a story behind it, you know, is that an indicator of, you know, a lack of success?

Well, tell Sarah a little bit about what, you know, why it's a better device. Just give her a little context.

Yeah, so the device, you use it to supplement a fusion. So if a surgeon is putting in an anterior interbody device, you want to stabilize it. A lot of surgeons will put in pedicle screws and rods, you know, to do so, but it's relatively invasive, you know, a lot of dissection. If you put a spinous process plate, which would just hold, you know, spinous, processes from, from moving. It's a much smaller incision, smaller surgery, takes a whole lot less time, and it's far less dangerous. So that's, that's what we're talking about. Everyone has these, these plates. They just, they're not very elegant. They, they are fiddly. So I have a design that, that's less fiddly, a lot quicker, that, that type of thing. But that's it. There's, there's no, you know, great, you know, saving lives kind of story behind it.

It's a better mousetrap.

Yeah.

Yeah. How would you weave that, Sarah?

Okay, so this might be a hot take, but I think if you don't have a story to tell, then you're not creating value at all. So what you just shared with me, especially with your work with Medtronic, that they don't want to bring this product to market. Because it cannibalizes other business. That's a story to me, um, that you're still pushing for this. You can look at— I'm sure you know, like, stats and figures or anecdotes related to side effects from the invasive procedure that would not have occurred if there was a less invasive way, uh, to provide treatments. So I see a pain point there. I see a, a way that you're creating value and helping people, and I would own that narrative.

So yeah, you— I can, I can find that story within there. It's just, it just wasn't a, you know, a deep personal one, you know. But, but I see that what you're saying, find that story.

Yep. And you're not always going to have founder story available to you, right? It might be, you might have to use a patient anecdote like Tiger was telling me about a patient anecdote that was really helpful for his business. So it doesn't just have to be your story.

I love that, Eric. It's this, this device was so compelling that Medtronic thought it would cannibalize its own business, so they didn't develop it. I mean, that's a great story.

I agree. I like that.

I, I have a drawer full of them.

I don't know if you can say— I don't know if you feel comfortable saying that, you know, is the only two investors. That's going to get you fired.

But he's gone from, you know, and, and you can build that, you can turn that into a positive instead of a negative.

Interesting.

Kyle.

Thanks, Sarah. So you kind of just hit on what I wanted to ask you to talk to you about with your response to Eric there. But would you say the key here is not necessarily that it's specifically a founder story or that it's something tremendously compelling about the background, but just that it's something memorable and emotional and the best way to land on that is a story.

Uh, I think it— I think that there are various benefits to storytelling. Yes, and one of those is being memorable, but it's also showing your value, right? You're not going to tell a story that's tangential to the value that you're providing just so the person remembers you. It needs to showcase what you're bringing to market.

Sure. So, but for Eric's case, like we were just talking about, reminded me of essentially the story we ended up putting together for Sonoma for the clavicle nail that they had. It wasn't a great market to necessarily be in, but the, the, the story ended up being tremendous where you could talk to a doctor and say, now I want you to imagine, doc, that patient comes to you with a smashed up clavicle. And you go in and you fix it, and this thing is in pieces, and you avoid all the— you do a great job avoiding all of the vasculature there, and you put it back together and it's perfect. Your reduction is as anatomic as you can get. They go home and they heal in a matter of weeks, and then they come back and all they do is complain about the size of the scar. And that's why you want to use a minimally invasive pin. And so that was like a kind of a hypothetical story of of the pain you would experience of doing your job perfectly, but the patient doesn't see it that way because they're thinking about something different. And so that's the sort of thing that Eric, your, your comments reminded me of is you're, there's not something about the founder. There's not, so it's really a story about the experience of the doc. And I think that falls in line with the type of thing you were talking about, Sarah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Um, I think you have to be mindful because those stories are impactful when you're speaking with the doctor, but how are you going to frame it when you're speaking with an investor, right? They don't have patients. They don't— they— that's not their everyday experience. So how do you make it relatable to them? How do you show your value to them? Right. And I could give you examples. I'm just not 100% sure what your product does. Can you give me a little bit of background?

Talking to Kyle.

Kyle froze, I think.

No, I'm here.

I'm thinking.

He was sitting very still.

I don't have a product at the moment.

Oh, okay.

So I think, you know, I think turning it around to investor story for my example, I think you have to, you know, where's the money? And there's significant OR, you know, cost savings, maybe not significant, but there's OR cost savings and things like that that aren't necessarily patient stories, but You could make it about the physician and you could make it about the money savings.

Maybe that sounds— well, I mean, for sure you need to have that data. You need to have financial value that you're providing, but that's not enough, right? Because it's so competitive today. You also have to display the problem you're solving in a way that investors are going to understand. And I haven't touched on this yet, but that shows alignment with values as well. So the investors are not only investing in you because it's a good financial decision, they're also taking that risk because it aligns with their values as well.

I can, I can tell you as an engineer, having done several investor presentations, they, they They're some of the most frustrating things I've ever done. Because they're definitely not thinking the way I am. You know, I can sit there, talk about technology all day, you know, and why this widget's designed better than another one. And it's just, it's not what they're caring about. It drives me nuts. You know, you could sell them a device that doesn't work as long as, you know, it has the right, you know, financials behind it.

Right. Yeah, yeah, you really could, and they would have no idea. Um, but I think it's also helpful too to talk to people who are out of industry, so figure out, you know, how they interpret your product, what stories they find compelling, because your investors are, are not going to be the users of the product. They're not going to know the industry jargon. And if you can tell a story that almost anyone can relate to, investors are probably going to understand as well.

I was at two startups early, and both startups, VCs wanted to hear surgeons say it in person that I believe in this device, I would use it, I would tell other surgeons about it. That's what they wanted to hear. And we had to get to, we had to prototype and iterate the design until they, the surgeons were believers, and then the believers would tell the board directly. And that was, I found that very powerful.

Yeah, that was the advice I got from Dr. Tony Russell on one of my early startups. And he, he taught me the phrase, doctors sell doctors. But they also, in this case, would probably sell fundraisers, or I should say, you know, capital allocators.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of times they want to hear the early adopters say, I believe in this, I would buy it, I would pay that price, I would use it over and over, and turn it into a story, you know, that And then that turns into financials where, you know, we can get 5% of the market by— with this viral, uh, communication. That's really interesting.

And go ahead. I've always thought, I've always thought the market will tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not, or the audience in this case will tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not. So, you know, what's a safe way to test your pitch in this case besides BonJour?

Uh, I would— I mean, again, like colleagues, friends, and family, especially out of industry. I think it's important.

So out of medical, just— I mean, could you go all the way to consumer goods or something, or just you go to, you know, pulmonary instead of ortho.

Um, I, I think it depends on the background of the investors that you're trying to get to buy in, right? So whoever that— whatever background that audience has, depending on what round of funding you're in, try to find people with similar backgrounds. Oh, I like that.

Maybe on the other hand, there is no safe way. Maybe you just got to jump in, and the early targets are the ones with maybe the least potential, so you don't squander the big fish.

Mhm. Yeah, go to people you know are going to say no and pitch— try different stories.

I like that.

Yeah. There's an, another theme is surgeon ego. So surgeons wanna feel like they're superheroes in the operating room. They wanna have a technology or something that nobody else has. And I think that's what Augmetics, what you did with Augmetics is, you know, I've got x-ray vision now. Instead of just another tool in the, in the spine surgery. Another, there's a, there's a microfracture startup that, they've got a product called, I think it's called SureShot, but it creates little tiny microfracture holes in cartilage. And they didn't get a lot of traction until they renamed the tool a, a gun. And then all of a sudden surgeons wanted to use the gun. You know, in, in the operating room instead of just a poker or whatever they called it. And so that, that speaks to the surgeon's ego, right? Yeah, that's really interesting. That's partly branding. Um, you know, I'll never forget this. I went to a marketing meeting a long time ago. There was a, there was an online book company called Computer Literacy They couldn't get anybody to notice them. They were the second largest online bookseller in the world, Computer Literacy. Nobody cared, couldn't get acquired. And they had this marketing, they hired a marketing agency to rename the company from Computer Literacy to something else. They came up with hundreds of ideas and the one that stuck was Fat Brain and They all came back the next day and they said, I can't, can't get fat brain out of my head. They said, I, I was all night long, I was thinking about fat brain. And they changed the company to Fat Brain and got acquired by Amazon like weeks later.

Same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, you can't really do this for a pitch deck, but oftentimes when I'm working with clients on marketing, I work with a research organization that will pull your target demographic. So for that, like, gun example, they would— they might have the original name of the product and then the product, the new name with the gun nomenclature, and they would poll the surgeons and see, like, what they like so that you're informed before you go to market.

That's interesting. Mhm.

What's the—

remember the company, you know, the company salesforce.com?

Oh yeah.

Okay. Remember when they first got started?

No, it was 20 years ago. Long time.

It was a long time ago, but it was, you know, like in the '90s. And the— he would walk through the airports and you would see, you know, the posters, the murals on the side, the advertising. For salesforce.com. I could not tell you what that poster said, but I will— I can tell you that salesforce.com was the big message. You know, it was, it was kind of like, that's their story, that they're, they are CRM for sales and a force, and they're on, you know, and .com, they're on the internet. Which was in the '90s, that was kind of like the common thing, right?

Anyway, I remember those posters.

Yeah, the company did—

what'd you say, Eric?

I said, but, but I never knew what the company did. But yeah, I do remember that name really well.

Yeah, web-based CRM. And they, they— I used to pay for Salesforce. They had a, it's hundreds of things you can do with their software. You know, I got to go to the Nike headquarters once and, you know, Nike was famous for not talking about their products and, but they celebrated athletes. That was, that was their thing. We celebrate the athlete. We, and nope, they didn't even talk about the rubber or the stitches or anything and they still don't. It's just incredible.

I think, I mean, bringing it back to investment, because the environment is so competitive, it's very bold to say that your product, your investment is the one, is the best, you know, pitch that they're going to hear in terms of numbers. So that's why I think you really need to rely on your story to stand out because there are you know, there's always going to be a— might be like a better product for them to invest in. And, um, also if you look at and kind of research who you're pitching to, like that particular firm, the types of products that they've previously invested in, what their website says, you can tailor— or I would recommend that you tailor your story to what you kind of see values or investments that the firm is already engaged in.

That's a good point.

So a project that I'm doing right now is revamping our website. It's probably like 10 years old, and there is absolutely no story to it. It's a bunch of tabs that, you know, talk about the technology, how great it is, which works great for me, but I can tell that it has no story behind it. For websites, you know, and we need money and we need surgeons. You know, website is one website. How would I best tailor that such that it works both for, you know, surgeon customers and investors? Is there a way to do that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's an art for sure, figuring out that balance. Some of my clients have two landing pages, so page for investors and a page for surgeons. But you can— yeah, I mean, most of the time I would say you would need to have separate landing pages.

Um, a, a tab within the website for investors only, does, does that work or does that confuse everything?

No, I think that's a pretty common thing that there's a, there's a, on the main menu, a tab for investors. Um, yeah, and again, it's, it's complicated and there's like checklists that I use that I figure out, okay, how do you tell the story in a way that gets surgeons to click on this page, this, um, like journey, whatever, different pages or blogs for surgeons, and gets the investors to click on more investment, uh, minded pages. But yeah, that's kind of an easy workaround if you don't have a professional marketer working for you right now. Great.

Yeah, if you have 5 slides in your pitch deck, which one is most important?

What did you say, Mark?

You have 5 slides or 3 slides or 10 slides, which one is the most important?

I don't think any slides are really important. I think here it's how you present yourself, your story, um, what you say that really matters.

Okay, I agree with that.

Kyle, so you've talked about, or you mentioned with my last comment, something along the lines of How does it relate to an investor, which is clearly an important comment. Do you think that there are a certain range of themes or areas to land the plane when it comes to telling a story that will be impactful to an investor? I mean, other than, you know, hey, here's the hockey stick chart, you're going to make a jillion dollars. That's—

I mean, Right. Uh, well, I would say rarely, if ever, your story is— the emotive part of your story is going to be related to money. Like, that— your financial argument, that's baseline. That's like, that's part of the essentials that I was talking about. Um, the story is going to come from anecdotes. It's It will come from yourself, surgeons, your patients. I, I mean, there's general themes in storytelling, different like emotions that you want to evoke, and all of that can be fine-tuned, like especially if you work with a, with a marketer to figure out like what sort of story arc you wanna tell. If you, if you're not in that place where you can't, you know, you're not gonna work with a professional marketer yet, I would recommend again using that STAR model where you're talking about that pain point and then the result as like an easy workaround for now.

What is the STAR model? What are you talking about?

Situation, task, action, result. Oh yeah, pain.

Solving a pain. That's interesting.

Yeah, and, and it's funny, like, I had a lot of questions during this call that are like, oh, I don't feel like I have a story. And that's wild to me. Just so you guys know, I think you're in an amazing position and have one of some of the most compelling stories, right? Think about some of the companies I might have worked with previously that are in like consumer goods, like consumer packaged goods. What story am I gonna tell with that, right? What you're doing is literally saving lives and helping people, and that's really hard to beat in terms of impact.

Yeah. And orthopedics and spine, we generally help people get their life back. You know, they, they can, I mean, you hear these stories all the time. I can pick up my grandchild again. You know, I can, I can walk to the store again. I can play golf again. You hear those are, but they're everywhere. You know, it's, I mean, there's thousands of companies that, that kind of do the same thing. Um, Alyssa's not here today, but a couple weeks ago she talked about how the VC money is kind of gone and she's focusing on family office money now. And one of the— well, I think one of the hacks with family office money is you can do research and figure out if anybody in the family has had the ailment that you are fixing. And then you can really put a story hook in there. You know, if your grandfather had had this device, they may not be disabled right now, or whatever. Um, that's got to be— but that would be a unique story for almost every family office pitch. Would be a lot of work, right?

I was— I've thought about that too. I think you have to tread lightly because Yeah. People are, um, very sensitive about—

because you look like a stalker—

their stories. But if you open it up, if you ask questions and they share it with you, yeah, for sure.

Well, you could, yeah, maybe you could pull it out of them with some soft questioning, you know, during the meeting.

Um, especially if you share your own story first, then I find people are more willing to share their story.

That's, that's a good tip.

Mm-hmm. And Eric, by the way, I still have, have your story in my head. I like can't get it out that, that you have this thing that's gonna help people and there's no reason why it's not being, uh, instituted other than money.

That's, yeah. And I was just thinking about that based on what you're, you're saying. Um, Yeah, it's what we do, you know, every day. So we get lost, you know, in that a little bit that, hey, you know, this thing could really help people. You know, we get lost in the technology and the minutia that way. But I also would, you know, just recently I worked on a due diligence project for an investor. They wanted to invest in a medical device company. Um, you know, I was like digging into the technology and all this, and that didn't impress them nearly as much as, you know, what this could do for people. I, you know, I originally wasn't touching on that at all, you know. I dove right in. Um, so, so I think you're, you're right that, that just because we're in deep in this, you know, we, we were seeing, you know, the trees Not necessarily, right?

And think about it too, if the roles were reversed. What if the investment firm was pitching to you about why you should partner with them, but what they did is they showed you a bunch of slides of like the financial reasoning, their investment strategy, used a bunch of jargon related to investment that you don't use in your everyday life? Like, would you rather work with that investment firm, or would you rather work with an investment firm that starts with like an anecdote about how they helped a company exactly like your company. I think that's just like how we relate to each other and get inspired.

That's really well said. And the other thing, by flipping the roles, I mean, these VCs, and I mean, they're seeing 200, 300 pitches a year and they can't even remember them all, you know, they probably will remember 2 or 3 and those were the really good storytellers. You know, they had an emotional connection. Um, you got to raise a— you got to raise yourself above all the noise somehow. Another thing you said was really resonated, Sarah, which, which was there— you should— the— your story should come from you speaking, not from the slides. Um, I had a marketing presentation expert help me years ago with a big presentation to hundreds of people. And she convinced me that nobody cares about the slides. Just put very few words, an image. You, that you want the audience to look at you and connect with you. They can read faster than you can talk anyway. So just minimize, get it down to 5 words, 10 words max per slide, and maybe a, a picture. And tell, you know, tell the story yourself in different words. That was really compelling. And then I learned a lot of body language. She, she would videotape us presenting and then play it back silent. And you could, there was body language that came through. You were either confident, you were scared, you weren't sure of your material. I mean, it just came through without any word. It was like, it was fascinating.

Yes. And I learned this when I was in business school. My colleagues that were the best presenters were teachers. So if you have anyone in your network that's a teacher that can kind of help coach you on that presenting, I think that's really helpful.

That's interesting.

I have a story. Yes, Tiger, I have a story. Um, on one of the startups that I was in, it was our first potential million-dollar deal, okay? And it was for the Orthopedic Clinic of Arizona in Phoenix, and they invited their administrator and their practice president doctors came up with an idea where we would all gather in this one restaurant room, all the doctors, the decision makers, and they invited the top 2 companies that they were considering. And so at the beginning they said, who wants to go first? Who wants to go last? Of course I wanted to go last, but so we flipped a coin and I, I, I actually won. So I was gonna go last. So I loaned the other company my, my slide projector. This is how long, this is 19, I'm sorry, this is 2001, okay? We're still using slide projectors, and they broke it at the very end of their presentation. They broke the damn slide projector. So now I'm getting ready to make my presentation, and I can— I don't have any slides. I can't show them. So what I did was, um, you know, I told everybody in the room, I said what, what had happened. I said, I'm not going to use actual slides, I'm going to use word pictures. And so I talked them through the presentation, sort of, you know, chapter by chapter, story by story, and, um, I got the deal with no slides.

Wow, they were looking at you and they engaged rather than looking at a screen.

I guess, I don't know if that's sort of a, a good story on the, you know, the power of, uh, you know, having them listen to you as opposed to just look at slides. But it, for whatever reason, it worked.

And your story follows the STAR method perfectly.

I can't, but it was in our, in our, it was our first million-dollar deal, so it was legendary in our company. Awesome. We never used another slide projector. Wow, that's funny.

Anyway, I, I worked for a company and we were pitching. I didn't go with the executive team, but they were pitching, you know, every day was for money. And they got so boring, they were do— they did 100 pitches, different cities. Got so boring that they would meet for breakfast every morning and somebody would throw in a word that the presenter had to use. And so you'd say the word elephant. And so you'd have to put elephant in your pitch somehow. The next, next morning it would be banana. You had to say the word banana in your pitch. It was, it was, and the joke, you know, very few people in the room got the joke, but, um, that was funny.

I like that.

Yeah, just kept it a little more interesting. Um, well, this is great, Sarah. So I appreciate your time. So if somebody needs help with, um, either they're improving their story or maybe even looking at your software, your marketing software, where should they find you?

I'm gonna put this information in the chat for everyone. Um, my email is sarah@storieswith substance.com. And then I'm also going to share my personal phone number, so if you guys need anything, you can text me if you have particular questions. Um, I love working with startups, so anything that you need, any way that I can support you, I am here.

And I gotta ask you, how did you get involved? How did you start this? What did you do before?

Uh, it's a really long story. I'm gonna try to use the STAR method, but, uh, so I, I previously worked for very corporate companies like CVS Health, um, Mass General, the Brigham,, and I was very inspired to shake up the healthcare industry. Um, I think a lot of the problems we're having are related to the way that money moves within healthcare. So instead of like going to get my clinical degree, I went and got my MBA in health sector management. Um, I started a business that failed, hired someone to write my resume to go back into industry. And he ended up inspiring me and telling me that he would quit his job to start another company with me. Um, so that's the company that I have now, is, uh, the person I hired to write my resume, now my business partner. Yeah, so crazy, but, um, I guess God and fate works in Yeah, in wild ways.

I mean, there's certainly a huge need for storytelling and nobody knows it. It's like a, it's like a blind spot that, you know, I see so many pitch decks and they're so dry, you know, here's our, we talked about this earlier, here's my management team, here's our technology. This is, you know, here's our clinical results. We need $20 million and it's just, you know, just there's no connection there.

Right. Right. People are going to zone out. And, and you, again, almost every single product within orthopedics has an amazing story that you can share. Like, you should not, not take that opportunity for granted.

Right.

Yep.

Well, thanks for your time. We know where to find you. Stay warm up there.

Yeah, I thank you. I'm my space heater, so I'm trying to. All right, bye guys.

Thank you for—

thanks, Tiger.

Anything. Thank you, Mark. Bye.

You're welcome.

Bye-bye.