Tiger Buford and two others discuss how an orthopedic implant startup can launch in 12 months. Start with contracted reps, not full distributors. Use cheap LinkedIn buzz to build awareness, but surgeons still need personal relationships to adopt new products.
I mean, if you're, if you have a startup and you've got a better mousetrap and it solves a problem, there's hands, it's, it works. Okay. And the price is okay. And it's reimbursable and you're gonna be commercial in 12 months. What do you, how would, how would you do it? I mean, there, there's different sales channels. You know, relationship selling is different than it used to be. Sometimes patients can, you know, tell the doctor, I want this implant or this solution.
It's, it's definitely a, uh, Patrick and I speak about this often, but it's, it's gathering the relevant information first, you know, what's, what's, um, you know, what the market interest is going to be already. If it is truly like a differentiator, then what's going to be your, um, what's your runway? Are you, are you establishing your, um, say your strategic, we'll use a, you know, like an implant product. And then, you know, do you just start with those markets, right? You know, we'll find you a contracted sales rep where you don't even have to enlist a distributor because your capacity and your runway is still not ready for that. And then if you can create enough buzz and especially with the LinkedIn dynamic that we have, if you're, you know, that we're kind of blessed with at this point that it's low cost. Right? You create the buzz and then it kind of attracts for you. It's like you're not— it's costly and it's frustrating and chasing distributors and trying to drive numbers and you start adding people and you add people too soon. So it definitely is something that has almost like a scoring sheet to it, um, where you're just kind of going down that checklist and, um, and, and weighing those variables.
Yeah, there's, there's a million different variables at play here. And, but it, it really is like, like all, all options could work or all options couldn't work based on like the specifics of the, the product and the, the companies. And this is my own opinion, not everything, but most things still have to be sold. Like there's very, very few at least orthopedic products that like, or at least surgeon products that surgeons buy. I should maybe just preface that there's very few things that orthopedic surgeons buy that they're just like sitting around on the internet and they're like, I gotta figure out where to get this thing and how to get this thing. Most things in orthopedics work well enough that even though you can improve things and you can offer a better option, you still gotta like get in front of that person and talk to them about the, like, their, their option. And that puts you in a situation where you— most things have to still be sold. It can be done with a lighter touch, um, than, than even 5 years ago, let alone 10, 15, 20, um, years ago. But my experience is that, like, the Something still has to be sold, and therefore someone has to do the selling.
