Anish Kaushal - Amplitude VC

[00:00:00] Giovanni Lauricella: Why the hell haven't you invested in something

[00:00:07] in your backyard?

[00:00:07] Anish Kaushal: The struggle that we have is that for MedTech, the most difficult part is commercialization. it's not necessarily product development.

[00:00:16] 'cause there's a lot of really cool products that look at that do really well. It's not necessarily getting regulatory approval, it's not necessarily going through the process, but it's how do you get somebody to pay for it? And also, not even just how do you get somebody to pay for it, but how do you then grow and scale when they pay for it?

[00:00:27] And the struggle, is like, there's great devices, there's great technology, there's unbelievable research and unbelievable imaging that's doing amazing. But the commercialization question is one that people do not think about, in my opinion as much as they should be.

[00:00:39] ​

[00:00:39] Giovanni Lauricella: Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

[00:00:44] Okay. This is gonna be a long-winded opener. We're currently at JPM 2024. We have known each other for over three years at this point. We are at the height of Covid networking. Voracious. Networkers together. You live in Toronto? We're down south of the border in the United States.

[00:01:11] For the past years we have sent deals to each other. Some of 'em got funded.

[00:01:15] Anish Kaushal: Yep.

[00:01:15] Giovanni Lauricella: We've discussed, we actually were on the previous podcast, MedTech Money together.

[00:01:20] Anish Kaushal: Yep.

[00:01:21] Giovanni Lauricella: You've accomplished so much. You actually wrote a couple books that we're gonna definitely dive into.

[00:01:25] Anish Kaushal: Mm-Hmm.

[00:01:25] Giovanni Lauricella: But the craziest thing is, is we've never met each other in person until right now.

[00:01:30] Anish Kaushal: Literally not. Yeah.

[00:01:30] Giovanni Lauricella: But we have talked about wine. I'm originally from Buffalo, New York. You're living in Toronto? Yep. We've geeked out over the Niagara County. Mm-Hmm. Niagara on the lake wine. Yep. Situation. Oh yeah. The area. And if you have, by the way, anyone who's listening in right now, right over the border north of Buffalo.

[00:01:47] Yeah. Niagara County. There's wine there. It's phenomenal wine. It's also south of Toronto, heavily recommend you go check it out. Yeah. Blow that up. It's amazing. Yeah. But right now we're drinking something outta California.

[00:01:59] Anish Kaushal: Mm-Hmm.

[00:02:00] Giovanni Lauricella: 2021 Exit West. I thought it was a cool name. It's a red blend.

[00:02:04] Anish Kaushal: Mm-Hmm.

[00:02:04] Giovanni Lauricella: So it says choose your exit. Well, you're a venture capitalist, so

[00:02:08] Anish Kaushal: ideally we get some.

[00:02:09] Giovanni Lauricella: Yeah. Hopefully you get some exits.

[00:02:11] Anish Kaushal: Course.

[00:02:11] Giovanni Lauricella: But, um, I'm super, super excited to be here right now.

[00:02:14] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:02:14] Giovanni Lauricella: Because not only are we meeting in person, this is going to be an additive to what we did on MedTech Money, which was a pure audio podcast.

[00:02:21] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:02:21] Giovanni Lauricella: Now we get to be in person together.

[00:02:23] Anish Kaushal: Yep.

[00:02:24] Giovanni Lauricella: We get to geek out over our wine thing.

[00:02:26] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:02:26] Giovanni Lauricella: We get to hear your story again, but even a longer version of it.

[00:02:29] Anish Kaushal: Yep.

[00:02:30] Giovanni Lauricella: And you've written books, which I've always wanted to do.

[00:02:32] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:02:32] Giovanni Lauricella: So. What I wanna do right now is jump into the MedTech startup podcast.

[00:02:38] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:02:38] Giovanni Lauricella: Where we're about to get inside your mind.

[00:02:40] Your heart and your guts of being a investor. You're both a life science and MedTech investor, but we're gonna qualify that. And, um, I think the best place to start is, besides knowing that you love the wine that's in your hand right now. And we're gonna have fun doing this. We wanna know who you are.

[00:02:56] So let's start with that. And then we're gonna go into some questions that's gonna educate the audience on what's going on in Canada. What does it mean to be a physician MD who turned into being a vc? How you make your investments, what do you invest in? How, what does it mean to write a book?

[00:03:13] And then like the, the value of media behind all this and this world that we live in. So let's just jump into it.

[00:03:19] Anish Kaushal: Cool.

[00:03:20] Giovanni Lauricella: You are Anish Kaushal. Investment associated Amplitude Ventures. Based in Toronto. And right now we're on the MedTech Startup Podcast. So Anish, let's start off with the basics.

[00:03:30] Who are you? Where are you from? How'd you build your life? What led you to getting into Amplitude? And once you get there, we'll ask you what Amplitude does.

[00:03:37] Anish Kaushal: Firstly, thank you so much for this. Um, it's, it's been awesome. The fact that we, to your point, are doing this for the first time in person is kind of nuts.

[00:03:44] I never thought we would buy bond over Niagara wine. And I remember you gave me a lot of tips, uh, when I went on a trip, actually, with a bunch of friends of mine. Uh, so I do really appreciate that and say that. So yeah, as you mentioned, name's Anish from Toronto. Uh, born and raised. Uh, grew up there my whole life, just outside of the city.

[00:03:58] Um, was a suburban, a suburb kid. Went to public school my whole life. Um, and, uh, yeah, I went to, so as I was finishing high school, um, you know, had this path really like science and math. That's kind of what you did. I had Indian parents, what do you do if you're in that situation? You get kind of pushed to go to medicine.

[00:04:13] Um, so that was sort of the goal. That was the idea. That was what I, I thought I wanted at the time. Um, and uh, and then I got to, uh, high school and I started taking economics and accounting, particularly economics, and I was like, oh, this is like really interesting and really cool. Um, and then also I ended up watching, and I dunno if you're familiar with it, uh, Wall Street too, with Shia Labeouf and, uh, Michael Douglas.

[00:04:30] Uh, and uh, that movie was like a, whoa, what the hell is this? And what's going on? Um, and so that was kind of my like, intro into, okay, could I, is there, like, is there this whole other world that I didn't know about or I wasn't aware of? I was like, okay, maybe I should take a look at that. So anyway, when I was applying to university, applied to like all the, a lot of business programs and all the science and and medicine programs, I think I ended up writing like, I dunno, a hundred applications or something, something really dumb.

[00:04:52] Um, but you know, it, it worked out and paid off at the end. So ended up getting into a lot of them. Uh, but I had got into medical school in the UK and so, you know, I was 17 at the time. I was 16 at the time when I got in. So very young. Um, and I was like, you know, if I had the opportunity to move, uh, to Scotland, uh, this new place I'd never been to before, um, and you know, didn't really know much about, um, and you know, get a medical degree in six years, uh, that's pretty cool and pretty interesting.

[00:05:14] So, you know, I decided to take the opportunity, um, moved there in 2012, uh, and spent six years there. So I was in St. Andrew's for three years, which, uh, people might know for the home of golf and also a lot of scotch and whiskey as you can imagine.

[00:05:26] Giovanni Lauricella: Nice.

[00:05:26] Anish Kaushal: Uh, exactly. And uh, and then, uh, went to Edinburgh for three years and uh, through that time also spent some time in Canada.

[00:05:31] So, um, I worked, I lived in Edmonton for four months. I did a bunch of clinical electives there.

[00:05:35] Giovanni Lauricella: But you're originally from Canada?

[00:05:37] Anish Kaushal: Yes. Okay. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Originally from Canada. Yeah. Canadian through and through. Um, and so yeah, I was in Edmonton and so that was my second last year of um, uh, before I was graduating.

[00:05:47] And that was when I really got to see what it was like to work in Canada and work in medicine because up till then you're kind of you student and you don't really get a lot of responsibility. Your job's not really there. Um, and so that's when I was kind of like, okay, this is like fine, but this is not what I want it, and like I'm not excited about it.

[00:06:01] Like I never once spoke up. Excited to go to the hospital, excited about what I was doing. It was just a job, uh, which is fine and there's a lot of people that do a lot of great things, but for me it was not it. And then, um, ended up applying to school, um, or sorry to residency after that, uh, and, uh, didn't get in and, you know, didn't do very well on an exam.

[00:06:17] Uh, and so I was like, okay, well what am I gonna do now? Like, I have this medical degree, I'm a doctor, but like, I can't practice in Canada, so like, what am I gonna do? Uh, so I conversation, interesting conversation with my parents, as you can imagine. Uh, and initially the goal was actually to go back to school.

[00:06:29] So I was gonna go, uh, do a master's program. Uh, it was a year I was in London and it was in pharma and drug discovery. And I had a friend who went through the program, got a job out of it, and I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. You got an industry job, like, you know, get to live in London, that'd be super fun.

[00:06:41] Um, so that, that kind of happened. And then. Uh, life happens in unique ways, in strange ways, and, uh, heard about the world of venture capital and I knew we can probably get into it at, at, uh, sort of later on in the conversation. Uh, but yeah, got introduced to this world. Um, ended up, uh, at a fund called M Ventures, uh, based in Amsterdam.

[00:06:56] So moved to Amsterdam for, lived there for seven months, which was really cool. Um, uh, was there, so it was, uh, uh, corporate venture capital fund of Meck, a very large pharma company. And so worked on the therapeutics team. Um, I was 23 at the time. I was like, I dunno what I'm doing here. This makes no sense, but I'm here.

[00:07:10] Um, and, uh, yeah, so that was really fun. And then as I was finishing that, I was only an internship program, so it only lasted six months and halfway through I was like, I really like this job, uh, but I can't stay. Like they don't have a job for me. So I reached out to like a hundred VCs around the world, spoke to everyone that would speak to me.

[00:07:25] Um, and yeah, like Amplitude came by and, uh, they were a Canadian, they were a brand new fund. Uh, it was people that were really smart, doing really cool things in Canada. Um, and they gave me the opportunity to move home. And, uh, I, I was in Europe at this point for seven years. Lived there for a little while.

[00:07:38] Uh, really enjoyed it, really loved it. Um, but, you know, to come home to Canada, um, and eventually Toronto 'cause that was the goal, uh, where my family's from. That would be awesome. Uh, so yeah, moved to Amplitude. Started in 2019. I was one of the early employees there before we had any money. Um, and now we, uh, yeah, we're managing half a billion dollars and been there four and a half years.

[00:07:54] And, uh, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. So, yeah.

[00:07:57] Giovanni Lauricella: So now we know who you are.

[00:07:58] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:07:59] Giovanni Lauricella: There is a huge mic drop question that I'm just gonna jump out in front of and I'm gonna come back to Amplitude. But yeah. One of the cool things about our three years together is I've been sending deal flow to you.

[00:08:09] You've been sending deal flow to me. You're an investor. We're a recruitment firm. We've shared a bunch of contact power networking together. But Amplitude wants to make a MedTech investment.

[00:08:19] But they haven't.

[00:08:19] Anish Kaushal: We have not. Yeah. Not since I've been there. Yeah. Four and a half years.

[00:08:22] Giovanni Lauricella: That's where the story is stopping for right now.

[00:08:23] We're gonna come back to that question and because all you MedTechers out there who think that there's only a few investors out there, there's actually a lot more that they wanna invest in you we're gonna figure out why they haven't yet. Okay. Yeah. So there's something called limitations. We'll figure that out.

[00:08:36] Anyway. Amplitude.

[00:08:38] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:08:38] Giovanni Lauricella: What is Amplitude? It started in 2019. What do you guys invest in? What's the thesis? Why are you here at JPM?

[00:08:45] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, absolutely. So I maybe to give a bit of context for the history and then we can go into Amplitude. So it was started by our two managing partners, uh, Dion and JF.

[00:08:53] Uh, and then a few other people that worked at, uh, what was called the BDC. So it's the Business Development Bank of Canada. It's a, it's a Crown Corporation that's based in Canada. Um, and so their small team, we used to run the healthcare fund at, uh, BDC. Um, and so they actually had a number of successful exits, including a company called Clementia, um, where they were the first investor, the first check, and it got sold for a billion dollars.

[00:09:10] So, as you can imagine, they very well and so did the sort of the Crown Corporation. Um, but they wanted to spin out and do their own thing. So they left late 2018 to really spin out and try to do something. And then I was hired in mid 2019, so like June, July, 2019, uh, with a couple other folks. And we were the starting team and, uh, we had no money at that point.

[00:09:27] We were raising, we were like late stages of potentially getting our first close. Um, but yeah, you know, we were. You know, kind of even we're figuring out, as, as you, as you're talking about entrepreneurship, that's, uh, we were figuring flying the plane while like, you know, it's burning and you know, it's crashing and everything.

[00:09:40] Um, and so, so in terms of amplitude and the, and the thesis and really the idea was like, how do we leverage. And take really cool Canadian science, build really good companies and scale them on a world stage and compete with, you know, the rest of the world. Because Canada, just in terms of scale and size, it's not even close to the US right in, in no way, shape or form.

[00:09:56] But disproportionately, we have a lot of really cool science and a lot of really good research, a lot of really good talent, um, particularly on the early stage science, particularly you with the young people, um, but less on the executive management side. And so our thing was like, and also a lot of times as the company's in Canada.

[00:10:09] They don't necessarily get the amount of money and capital that they need to really grow and really compete with US companies. So it's like, well, can we raise a bigger fund, put in larger amounts of money into companies, help them really scale and grow, um, and then compete with US firms and, and then also go raise, uh, US capital.

[00:10:22] So, uh, the fund was started in 2018, 19, as I mentioned, $200 million Canadian fund with the first fund. Um, most of that was gonna therapeutics. And so initially when we actually went out to fundraise, we said we were gonna do two thirds therapeutics and one third other, and other included MedTech devices, diagnostics, digital health, and digital therapeutics as well.

[00:10:39] Um, but with the first fund we did, like you mentioned, we didn't make a MedTech investment. Um, I was one of the people on our team who I've seen every Med MedTech deal that came through because I was a MedTech guy in internally at, at Amplitude. Um, and so I, we, as you went over, we'll get to that later, but I guess we, we, we sort of looked at it.

[00:10:55] Um, and really a lot of it was just a function of timing and place and all these other factors. Uh, but predominantly we're biotech investors, so we, we do biotech stuff, early stage drug discovery. Uh, we start companies all the way from literally like ideal napkin work with entrepreneurs that we know. Um, sometimes it's spinning technology outta university.

[00:11:10] So as I mentioned like, you know, UFT and McGill and UBC, there's a lot of really cool tech with a lot of really cool people. And so how do you take those out of the university and start a company around it and really go help build and scale it? Um, and then also we do a lot of series A and series B investing.

[00:11:21] So like later stage clinical companies like preclinical. Um, we do every type of indication. Uh, we can kind of look at everything. I'd say the two major thesis around where we go after our precision medicine. Um, which is a very, you know, it's a very loose definition, which you can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.

[00:11:35] Um, and the other one is AI and machine learning. Um, and obviously, you know, we're going through an AI phase and craze now. Uh, we started investing in this in 2019. Um, so, you know, we've been looking at it for a little while. Um, I, I said my own thoughts on that and I'm sure you have too, uh, that that's, that's different.

[00:11:48] Um, but yeah, so that was our first fund, second fund that we're currently on right now. It's 200 million us, so a little bit bigger. Um, our LPs really happy with what we're doing. Uh, and so same similar strategy where it's two thirds biotech and one third MedTech another. But again, as mentioned and we will get to finding and figuring out the right opportunities is really difficult.

[00:12:06] Um, and it's really, really hard to, so yeah, that's probably the main, main kind of things about Amplitude. Um, but yeah, if other questions or responses happy to, to kind of fill in the gaps.

[00:12:13] Giovanni Lauricella: Yeah. So. While we're on that, I just wanna actually start telling the Canadian story, because there's a lot of things to unpack.

[00:12:19] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:12:19] Giovanni Lauricella: I think the, the audience listening in right now would be like, okay, there's an investor who actually has a fund that's a third dedicated to something outside of life sciences, but they're not pulling the trigger. Why?

[00:12:29] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:12:29] Giovanni Lauricella: So we'll figure that out.

[00:12:30] Anish Kaushal: Yep.

[00:12:31] Giovanni Lauricella: But, um, when Robin Williams was alive Uh, he, he did this special in New York City, I think it was early two thousands.

[00:12:40] And I've watched it countless times. And he, I

[00:12:42] find Robin,

[00:12:43] Anish Kaushal: he's hilarious.

[00:12:44] Giovanni Lauricella: Hilarious, hilarious.

[00:12:44] And, um, he had this one-liner and for all those Canadians listening in, I'm, I'm from Buffalo, so you can almost consider me Canadian. Maybe,

[00:12:53] Anish Kaushal: maybe.

[00:12:53] Giovanni Lauricella: Um, but he called Canada this loft department over a really great party.

[00:12:59] That was the,

[00:13:00] that was the one liner. It was a loft department over a really great party. Um, from MedTech, from life sciences, from this whole innovation ecosystem within healthcare. For all those who aren't in Canada right now and all over the world listening in.

[00:13:14] What, what's Canada good at? Like what's going on up in Canada? Like where are the hubs? What are some of the specialties? What are some of the benefits of being in Canada?

[00:13:23] Just tell the Canadian story.

[00:13:24] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. So there is, it's, I would say it's, it's regional specific in the sense of the, the, the major hubs right now are Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver.

[00:13:30] They, the three largest cities, I would say. Each of them has their own. Uh, advantages and things that they're really good at. So, for example, like Montreal, um, a lot of pharma used to be in Montreal, so they're really strong on chemistry, and it's particularly like small molecule chemistry, which is like oral drugs essentially.

[00:13:45] Um, so a lot of really cool, like biotech companies from a small molecule side have come out of Montreal. Um, Toronto is a lot of imaging and a lot of actually MedTech. Um, there's a huge, like, especially product development, early stage devices like biotech, like in terms of like, we have really good schools as well.

[00:14:00] So like a lot of the research and a lot of the ideas that come out of, you know, like the UFT and McMaster and Waterloo and all these other areas, uh, is really, really interesting. Less on the biotech side, I would say, um, relative to the rest of the country. And you have a place like Vancouver, which is like disproportionately done really well in cell therapy, antibody engineering, protein engineering, um, I mean, one of the companies called Celera, um, which was like, you know, during Covid, which I mean every company was overvalued, but like they got to a $15 billion valuation.

[00:14:24] Um, and they, you know, built the first antibody that was, you know, able to treat Covid. Um, so that's, that's in terms of splits as, as to how you kind of think about or how we think about sometimes each area. Um, that being said, like there's a lot of stuff happening in Calgary and Alberta as well. Uh, Edmonton's doing a lot.

[00:14:37] I think what's really cool is the government's done a lot of work to invest and figure out, okay, where do we, where do we do really well? And one of the things, and, and this is I would say across the country that's really strong disproportionately is AI. And we have a lot of AI and machine learning talent, a lot of really good programs.

[00:14:50] The government's invested a ton of money. Uh, we have the Mila that's based in Quebec. Um, we have the Vector Institute that's based in Toronto, and you have what's called AMI, that's based in Edmonton. Um, and so a lot of companies, particularly AI talent are coming and recruiting. So like a lot of the, you know, big tech companies as you can imagine, are coming up to Toronto and are coming up to Canada, um, to set up shop.

[00:15:06] The other thing is also way cheaper, right? Like the, the FX and the currency is disproportionately different. So when you guys come down to visit, like, you know, come up to visit us, um, it's like 30%, like it's 70, I think 70 to a hundred or 70 cents to, to a dollar. Um, so you know that there's a real value and especially if you raise in US dollars and then you come up to Canada one also.

[00:15:23] Um, you don't have to pay as much as you in San Francisco and New York and Boston. Um, and also there's lot of tax incentives, um, and you get a lot of money back from the government and through irap and there's a number of programs on the grant side where like you can get a lot of funding early or especially early stage.

[00:15:36] Um, that can really, really help drive and accelerate you. So from a cost perspective, also from a valuation perspective, right? Like we're not, we're not paying, we're not overpaying compared to US companies. Um, so yeah, that's a little bit about how we think of sort of Canada and the advantages of it. It's cold.

[00:15:48] That's the only other thing, as you can imagine being from Buffalo, that's, that's one of the things that's not great. But I do have to say Toronto and obviously I'm biased 'cause I'm from there. It's one of, I've been around the world as you and I both talked about before, Toronto in the summertime on a nice day.

[00:16:00] It's one of the best cities ever.

[00:16:02] Giovanni Lauricella: So thanks for breaking down the, the Canadian ecosystem.

[00:16:06] What about the venture scene and like you talked about the innovation, like is there money there?

[00:16:09] Anish Kaushal: There is, there's not as much as we obviously like to have. I think a lot of that is structural. A lot of that is policy driven in my opinion. A lot of that is we don't have, the LPs I don't think are doing enough as much as I think they could be.

[00:16:22] And the reason I say that is because like Canada's some of the largest pension funds in the world, right? In the world, like C-B-P-I-B, Canadian Pension Plan is like half a trillion dollars of assets under management. Uh, case they pose another one in Quebec. And to be fair to them, the Quebec scene and life sciences scene and government and pension funds there do a ton of work to help invest in the ecosystem.

[00:16:40] And honestly, our ecosystem in Canada would not exist if they weren't around, which is, but you know, you then look at, you know, the case they po you look at like, you know, governments like Ontario has their own fund and BC has their own fund in Alberta and all these other places. Um. And, you know, traditionally, historically West Canada has done really well is we've done a lot of real estate.

[00:16:55] We've done a lot of mining and energy, and so like disproportionately, that's where people are going. I think the other struggle too is the fact that, you know, for LPs to sell, especially biotech and biopharm, which is a bit different than MedTech, um, you know, people think it's so hard and it's difficult and the exits are not there, and it takes 15 years to develop a drug, so you can't exit at the time.

[00:17:12] Um, you know, and you and I were talking about this just before, like you get companies that are, you know, multi-billion dollars that are like, you know, have existed for a couple years and as acquisitions are happening like that all the time, um, that's significant. There's real value there. Sure. Right. Um, and so I think from a, from a funding perspective, there are definitely a lot of funds like ourselves, um, like Versintis is up there who's also now a multi-billion dollar fund and they really like Canada because of all the things that I've mentioned.

[00:17:32] So they're actually building companies like I was talking to actually one of the guys yesterday, um, who, who met them as a lawyer that's working with 'em. Um, and they have this thing called Ridgeline that's based in Switzerland. Um, but all the companies that they're building out are all in Canada and there's a reason for that because they know and there's a lot of advantage to it.

[00:17:45] So ever since there Lumir is there. CTI, is there. Um, I'm sure there's a few other ones that are, that I'm, I'm probably missing, um, Genesis as well. Um, and those are more on the life sciences side, but the thing is, is we don't have the scale because like, even though we have all this government money and all these pension funds, they're not investing into like life sciences and venture, um, tech is, there's a little bit more like there's, you know, bigger funds that are doing really well, but we just don't have the size and scale of the US So it's like, and that's the other thing that's harder for us to compete, right?

[00:18:10] Is like, how do you compete with US funds where it's like, you know, like I, I met a, a bunch of people yesterday where they're like, minimum check is 25 to 50 million bucks us for initial first, and they can put in 200 million per company. Like the, it's like, it's unimaginable. Like, you know what I mean?

[00:18:23] That's our fund size. Like what are we doing here? Um, but that's the thing. The US just has that size and scale that we just don't in Canada. So that's the one thing that it's there. The venture ecosystem is there, especially on the early state side. There's a lot of, there's a lot of benefit, like I mentioned on the tax breaks and the incentives and a lot of grant money that's there.

[00:18:37] Um, but really the struggle we've always had and we've always talked about is the scale to grow and really build, like, anchor massive, huge companies. Um, we just don't have it right now, so hopefully that changes, but you know, that's a big part of it.

[00:18:47] Giovanni Lauricella: You mentioned that there's tax incentives and in general there's other incentives with good talent, et cetera.

[00:18:52] Anish Kaushal: Very good talent. Yeah.

[00:18:53] Giovanni Lauricella: That, that exist in Canada.

[00:18:54] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:18:54] Giovanni Lauricella: Are you seeing international companies, US companies, that at least have a footprint in Canada Yes. But still run their

[00:18:59] operations elsewhere?

[00:19:00] Anish Kaushal: Yes. So a lot of them will do R&D in Canada. So like we've seen a lot of, uh, options, especially in the biotech side where like they'll run R&D or they'll have like an R&D team that's based in Canada and do a lot of work there because of all the incentives I mentioned where a lot of the executives will be in the US.

[00:19:12] So they'll just travel back and forth. We be, and to be fair, like to, even for us, like when we think about company building. Um, so a lot of our money is dedicated towards Canadian opportunities, but we know that to grow and scale, those companies are gonna need to have a US presence, right? Like you need to be in Boston, you need to be in New York, you need to be in, unfortunately, and also more just because of, you know, the infrastructure and the people and the money and the bankers and you know, all the things that happen.

[00:19:33] Um, but yeah, we are definitely seeing the other way too, where people are coming to Canada and setting up a lot of shops just because to your point, the talent is there. You don't have to pay as much, and you get a lot of tax breaks. And so it's like, well, that's pretty good. If you're a startup and you're always thinking about money, um, there's a lot of value to, to be able to do that.

[00:19:47] Giovanni Lauricella: Uh, I, I think it's a fun question, but don't overthink it. Yeah. I think to set the tone for people rationalizing what's happening Um, is it possible to start, grow and exit a company in Canada without ever relieving the borders?

[00:20:05] Anish Kaushal: Uh, it's possible. It's difficult, uh, but it's possible if that, so that's the simple answer.

[00:20:11] Um, but yeah, I would say. Start for sure, grow for sure. Scale and exit. Uh, it's a bit harder, I think then you need a bit more international and you need to have your sort of networking, tactical. And that's also why like, you know, working with people like ourselves, like that's our job, right? Like fundamentally is like for example, one of the things that we, we've sold it when we were doing fundraising is for every dollar that we put into a company that we were a part of, we, those companies raised 10 x the money and most of that was from international US investors.

[00:20:34] Okay. So that's pretty significant, right? So that's part of what we are sold as well.

[00:20:38] Giovanni Lauricella: Would it be fair to say then, in terms of any other country outside of Canada There's a heavy reliance economically on the future of companies from Canada on the US? or, or is there another country that you guys do so much more business with outside of the United States?

[00:20:55] Anish Kaushal: No, I would say, I would say definitely in the US is like the, is still the focus. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we we're spending a bit more time in Europe and I think there's a lot of really cool stuff that's happening, but until you have boots on the ground and even then, like I was, you know, I'm speaking to a bunch of people over there, they wanna come here too.

[00:21:07] Right? Like and also just even like, especially when we're getting into MedTech on the MedTech side, like the, the market's here, like the commercial market is here. So even companies that we wanna build in Canada, excuse me, US market access is the number one goal. And if they don't have it, just, it doesn't work.

[00:21:19] Yeah. Like the incentives don't make sense. Yeah.

[00:21:21] Giovanni Lauricella: Okay. So I'm gonna do some simple math. Toronto is the imaging and MedTech hub

[00:21:27] Yeah. Of Canada. Yeah. I would say. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You are

[00:21:29] based in Toronto. Yeah. Now the big question we want to answer on this is, yeah. Why the hell haven't you invested in something

[00:21:36] in your backyard?

[00:21:37] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, it's a great question. And again, I do wanna caveat this with that. Our team has, so like, you know, at the BDC, actually some of our most successful exits were in MedTech and you know, our, my partners, like my bosses have been MedTech investors for 20 years. So we definitely have an interest. There's definitely there.

[00:21:52] The struggle that we have one from a, from a, where we are in our stage of our fund and how we operate is that for MedTech, the most difficult part that I think is highly underestimated, at least that I've seen looking into is commercialization. And it's not like, in my opinion, it's not necessarily product development.

[00:22:10] 'cause there's a lot of really cool products that look at that do really well. It's not necessarily getting regulatory approval, it's not necessarily going through the process, but it's how do you get somebody to pay for it? And also, not even just how do you get somebody to pay for it, but how do you then grow and scale when they pay for it?

[00:22:22] And the struggle, because we are in that, in that in that world, is like, there's great devices, there's great technology, there's unbelievable research and unbelievable imaging that's doing amazing. But the commercialization question is one that people do not think about, in my opinion as much as they should be.

[00:22:35] Um, and then also just from my function in terms of why we haven't invested is we're a very specific mandate in terms of looking at MedTech of like what we call later stage. So commercial products have approval, been in market, have probably like, you know, three to five plus million dollars US in revenue and really have growth scale to like get to 10, 20, 30, 50, a hundred.

[00:22:54] Um, because that's the other thing too is, you know, I spend a lot of time looking at MedTech exits and talking to bankers and people that are really involved and you know, we always ask like, you know, what stage does an exit or what stage could you get IPO or what stage get acquired and what could you do?

[00:23:06] And you almost need a 10 to $20 million in revenue, right? Recurring annual to for have like the bigger guys be like, okay, let's take a look at it. Um, and then the other thing that's unfortunately, but it's just, you know, we were talking about this before, is the size and scale of MedTech from a valuation exit.

[00:23:19] Perspective relative to biotech. It's just not the same. You know what I mean? Like there's not, there's like, there's, you just can't get the, it's just like the math is not there. Right. And that's the struggle. That's the struggle as an investor because like, yeah, there's a lot of really cool companies doing a lot of amazing things.

[00:23:31] But like, again, my, the way our firm is designed is we are a VC firm. We have a job to make money for our investors. And so our incentives are to make sure we can maximize and give that the best opportunity to do that.

[00:23:42] Giovanni Lauricella: Yeah. Okay. So then let's dig into that. Mm-Hmm. I mean, that makes sense. If you need to make money, which investors, VCs are supposed to do.

[00:23:48] We were talking about the numbers earlier. Biotech dwarfs.

[00:23:53] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:23:54] Giovanni Lauricella: Or biopharma dwarfs MedTechs.

[00:23:55] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:23:55] Giovanni Lauricella: So you're talking billions regularly versus millions.

[00:23:58] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:23:58] Giovanni Lauricella: Sometimes in 10. Sometimes in the half.

[00:23:59] Anish Kaushal: Which is great. Which is awesome. There's money. There's real money. Yeah.

[00:24:02] Giovanni Lauricella: But you're talking about massive money that we just don't really talk about that much in MedTech.

[00:24:07] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:07] Giovanni Lauricella: Something that's over a billion dollars is like making more than headlines. People talk about it for a long time.

[00:24:12] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:12] Giovanni Lauricella: Billions is.

[00:24:14] Anish Kaushal: Bio's like every, yeah, there's a lot of activity that's happening.

[00:24:17] It's still, it's still huge, but it's, it happens more often.

[00:24:19] Giovanni Lauricella: So then my thing is, you mentioned that you have a thesis, two thirds and a third.

[00:24:24] It's quite obvious. I mean, if you're going to make money in biopharma and a dwarfs MedTech, go for it. But then what do you see yourself doing with that other third?

[00:24:31] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, so the other third, and, and that's the other thing that's really nice with LPs is they've been very aware of, you know, we're, we don't, we are not mandated to invest that third.

[00:24:39] So that third is there to say that we want to do it and we have the availability and we have the capital and we can look at it, and we are spending time doing that. But that's not to say that, that we have to do it. And that was a big conversation, especially with fund one and the first one that we went to where, you know, and, and I would also say within that third bucket, what we call other, right?

[00:24:53] So like ai, machine learning companies, manufacturing companies, and CMO companies. Um, stuff that like, you know, gene delivery for example, that's like a bit outside biotech and biopharma. Those are all I would say in the same bucket. So it's not necessarily just a third MedTech as much as it is like all these other things as well.

[00:25:07] Um, but yeah, the, the, the thing that has been nice is that there's no mandate from LPs to be like, you absolutely have to invest X amount into MedTech. It's like, we think there's an opportunity, here's what we think, here's why it's good. Um, but there's no, like, you know, pressure of us to be like, you have to do it.

[00:25:22] Which is, it's, I think it's good, like, because then it's up to us to make decisions and invest good companies. And like I said before, like I've gone to many, I've gone later stage with a lot of MedTech companies and I wanna make investments and, you know, timing and luck and circumstances and all these other things happen.

[00:25:35] Um, and then the other struggle too is also because we're in Canada, right? Our, our mandate is we have to invest a certain amount of our dollars into, um, Canadian companies and how many Canadian companies are there that have US market access five to 10 million in revenue are commercial. Yeah. I would say zero or, or, or a few.

[00:25:51] And we know them and have talked to them and are aware of them. Yeah. Right. So that, and that's the other struggle. Okay. Um, is just finding the right opportunity. And then also, like, I think the us, I mean, the MedTech ecosystem is so vibrant and there's so many other things that are happening, but like, we're not boots on the ground.

[00:26:03] Right. So like, until we get it, like if we get a recommendation from an investor or a colleague that we know really well, or we've worked with for a long time, um, which is why, you know, talking about the power of networking and what, what we do is to us that is way more valuable Right. Than us, like going to source and find an opportunity that we will like, you know, see from somebody.

[00:26:17] Um, it's just, it's much harder Yeah. Than somebody who's like, yeah, I'm in this company. We've been here for a long time. Here's a sell, here's what we're doing, here's how we're building, here's a revenue. Like all of that's like, okay, that's much more helpful for us. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of, hopefully that gives you a little bit of answers into No, I'm understanding the dynamics behind it.

[00:26:32] Giovanni Lauricella: It definitely does. And, and I think this is an interesting question that I can't wait to hear your answer on. Um, so I was talking to a European VC within probably the past, we'll call it six weeks.

[00:26:44] And they were, they're in a very similar thesis as you guys are. Mm-Hmm. Um, but it's really interesting 'cause they have to deploy capital.

[00:26:51] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:26:51] Giovanni Lauricella: Especially on great deals.

[00:26:53] Anish Kaushal: Yeah.

[00:26:54] Giovanni Lauricella: But this is, this is where like investing comes down to human behavior. and like feeling

[00:26:59] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:26:59] Giovanni Lauricella: Emotion.

[00:27:00] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:27:00] Giovanni Lauricella: They said to us, or said to me, um, if there's a company in the United States who's revenue generating or even like if it's a PMA product in clinicals and they're doing a pivotal Exactly. They've made it that far, for example. And they're coming to us, a European VC for money. Our red flag goes off. Yeah. Because like why Wouldn? Wouldn't they be a great deal for a US investor? Yeah.

[00:27:22] Anish Kaushal: Which is true wholeheartedly. And I actually got told that from my bosses. Yeah. Which you probably never think about. That's

[00:27:26] true. Right.

[00:27:27] Giovanni Lauricella: That's, you know, but so then there's this catch 22. So if I'm an entrepreneur of a me tech, exactly. Like I'm super frustrated, right. Because my job basically is 85 to a hundred percent raising capital.

[00:27:35] I got a story, I got a technology, I got a team to run. It all sounds good in my eyes. And I'm super passionate about it 'cause I'm leading the company. And I gotta find money. And then, you know, my friend ends up introducing me to a niche or some VC over in Europe, et cetera.

[00:27:48] And I'm tick all their boxes. And they're telling me. Well, why isn't, why isn't someone in your backyard?

[00:27:53] Anish Kaushal: That's human psychology, yeah.

[00:27:54] Giovanni Lauricella: Investing in you that like, what's smelly about this deal? Yeah. Why are you coming to me for money? Yeah. And why didn't you know someone else marquee name in US?

[00:28:02] Anish Kaushal: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:03] Giovanni Lauricella: That's a real thing.

[00:28:04] Anish Kaushal: It's a real thing. It's definitely a real thing. And it's more of a, to your point, it's a human behavior. Fundamentally, every business and everything that we do is relationships and it's psychology. And like, to me, one of my unlocks and, you know, speaking about the book and all these other things that we're, we will get to, um, that's been a super helpful thing just to see because you see it.

[00:28:18] And also at the end of the day, VC is a FOMO business. Um, and you see it everywhere. I'm sure you see it just as much as I do. Um, and the, there you have, you wanna work with VCs who know what they're doing and have done n have track record and talked to you and, and build relationships, but also like who actually do the work because there's a lot of VCs that don't.

[00:28:35] Yeah. Um, and we'll just tack along and I mean, I've spoken to, I was talking to a CEO actually, uh, a friend of mine, um, she's from, she's Canadian, uh, like, you know, born and raised in Toronto, did her PhD, but she moved to SF. Um, and started a biotech company. Um, now she's a CEO. She's running it. She, you know, got a big deal, um, and she's doing really well.

[00:28:51] And, uh, it was so funny because the first time I met I was just like, you know, a Canadian like guy like myself just talking to you as a person. And she was like, you don't understand how rare it is to meet VCs who are like, actually helpful and say what they do and like are nice and are not assholes and you know what I mean?

[00:29:05] And I was just like, to me, I was like, shocked. 'cause I was like, what do you mean? Like, that's my job. Like, that's what we're supposed to do. Um, and she's like, you don't understand. Like, that's not how it is here. And I was like, weird. Okay. Did not think about that. But to your point, a lot of it is still psychology and a lot of it is still based on that.

[00:29:20] Giovanni Lauricella: And I never understood that. Like, I don't know how this industry has taken the venture capitalists and propped them up on this.

[00:29:27] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, I know why. Yeah.

[00:29:28] Giovanni Lauricella: At the end of the day, if we call spade a spade, right? Like, call it what it is, these middle men and women Are taking money from somebody else and waving their magic wand and where that money goes. And that's it. Yeah. And all those VCs listening in right now, I know that you do a lot more. You're supposed to do a lot more.

[00:29:45] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. I want to. I understand. But I agree with you. You're right.

[00:29:46] Giovanni Lauricella: But it's like you're taking other people's money and investing in someone else, and for some reason you're a Demigod.

[00:29:50] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. I don't know why.

[00:29:52] Giovanni Lauricella: I don't know why. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. That's, you're,

[00:29:55] Anish Kaushal: that's true. Yeah.

[00:29:56] Giovanni Lauricella: I'm glad that you're a boots on the ground able to talk. And actually tell people what it is that you do.

[00:30:00] Anish Kaushal: It's also just honesty too. Like I believe that a lot of, like, I'll tell you how I feel all the time, and I'm like, to me it's like if you're a nice person, if you work hard, and if you just tell people how you feel, those are like, that's like disproportionate.

[00:30:11] Like you'll be successful in anything. To me, that feels basic, you know what I mean? But like for a lot of people, that's not how it works. And I'm like, how, what, what, what were I living here? Right?

[00:30:19] Giovanni Lauricella: So what else is supposed to work within our industry of healthcare? Going back to who you are. You're an M.D.

[00:30:26] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:30:26] Giovanni Lauricella: Right?

[00:30:27] Anish Kaushal: Yes.

[00:30:27] Giovanni Lauricella: So you got your doctorate degree. And you were telling your story and how you fell into VC. Reiterate whatever you want on that one. So how does an MD and why should an MD think about becoming a vc? But when you become a vc Yeah. How it, in this life science, biopharma, MedTech world that we live in. What's the value add of having an md be a VC?

[00:30:44] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. So I, I'll start with the, how I got in and then I can answer the second part. So for me it was, first of all, uh, there was no design in trying to do this. Like, literally, I did not know what venture capital was before I got into it. Like, no idea, no context.

[00:30:57] Thank you very much. Uh, I'm going through this too quickly.

[00:30:59] Giovanni Lauricella: That's a problem. Not at all. Yeah, that's what I meant to do. Be drunk.

[00:31:03] Anish Kaushal: Exactly. And, uh, so, so yeah, so when I, so when I was in medical school, I had literally no idea. No idea about entrepreneurship, no idea about innovation, no idea about venture capital.

[00:31:12] Literally the only thing I knew about it was the show, Silicon Valley. I dunno if you know the one on HBO. And, uh, that's it. Like, and, and even then I was like, this is weird. These people are weird. VCs are weird. And it's not that far off, especially in the tech world. I've heard. Um, and so like, I didn't know what it was.

[00:31:26] And literally what happened was, I, I was in the summer, as I mentioned, like I graduated, I didn't get into residency, so I was thinking about going back to school. I applied to do that. I got in, but I had time off like in the summer. And so, excuse me, I got advice from my dad. And so I was applying to every job. Like I was, I was emailing people, I was messaging people. I think I sent, before I looked at the VC side, I think like I was looking at consulting firms, I was looking at banking, I was looking at all these other things. I think I sent like 75 to a hundred emails and job applications and went nowhere. Zero.

[00:31:50] Um, I actually had two interviews. One with a firm, a consulting firm, LEK in London, and then Jefferies in New York. Um, that's a whole crazy story too. 'cause like, I actually found out, I had an interview like three days before, and I was on a grad trip in Hawaii, and then I had to learn all of investment banking like in a day, like on a plane, like then to go to New York and they asked me all these questions.

[00:32:07] I was like, because I, I didn't do any maths, right? Like I went to medical school, like, you know what I mean? Like, I had no finance, like zero finance background, like nothing. They're like, yeah, tell me about enterprise value. And I was like, ah, good question. So anyways, that was, that was this whole story. So, so, but then to get into VC, my dad's like, Hey, you heard this thing called venture capital?

[00:32:21] And I was like, oh, you mean in tech? Like that's only what they do. And he's like, no, in healthcare. I was like, what? I am not like, no idea. Like zero. Right? And I think that's the other thing too, is like a lot of the, the, the reasons why I wanna write the book and I wanna talk about this is like it's, people don't know this exists.

[00:32:35] Like most people around the world have no idea what we do, why it's important, what matters, why, why this is, and I think even, I mean the stuff that you're doing is amazing. Like the fact that we can just get it out to people and talk about like, hey, this is happening, this is what's going on. Um, I think it's really cool.

[00:32:47] I think we've really been in an awesome industry. Um, and so anyway, he told me about that and I was like, okay. So basically what I did was I found the top 75 VC firms in healthcare around the world. And I just cold emailed them. It was like a Sunday afternoon. It was in August, like, I think it was like 16th.

[00:32:59] I remember the day. And I was just like, fuck it. Like I'm just gonna send an email. It's like, Hey, my name's, I just graduated medicine. Um, drove into a chat. I would love to. Uh, and so as you can imagine, a lot of people don't respond. 'cause you know, that's how the world works. Uh, but a few people did, and some people wrote me emails, some people wrote me messages.

[00:33:12] Uh, and then one person, uh, you know, they're like, Hey, we saw your application. Uh, we actually have an internship program. And the internship program at the time wasn't advertised, so I didn't even know it existed. It wasn't like a, oh, I'm doing this to get that program. I literally had no idea. And they're like, Hey, do you wanna go through interviews?

[00:33:26] And I was like, yeah, but I'd interviewed already, as you can imagine, I've been rejected. I was like, yeah, of course I wanna interview, but like, I'm not getting this job. Um, and so I did three rounds of interviews and then, yeah, two days before I was about to move to London for the masters, um, is when I got into Amsterdam.

[00:33:37] And so yeah, two weeks later I was like, on a flight and uh, and move in. Yeah. Life changed just because of that. Um, and so to your point about, you know, why MDs are so valuable or, or what makes this different, I think, and it was, it was stuff that I learned when I was in Amsterdam, but even like my boss has always reiterated to me too, is there's not a lot of us.

[00:33:53] Um, and the difference is for what we do is we've been in a clinic and we've been in a hospital and an operating room and seen patients and treated them and understand. And if you're a scientist, if you're a technologist, if you're an engineer, if you're somebody that comes from any other world, until you've been in a system and seen it operate and seen it work, you don't really know.

[00:34:11] You know what I mean? Like healthcare's slow. Healthcare is hard. Doctors don't like to change, like every technology and every app under the sun that like is gonna change your life doesn't work because they don't want to use it. Nobody adheres to medication. So how are you gonna get them to hear me? Like all of these things.

[00:34:23] That to me is basic, or what I think is basic. People are like, wow, I never knew that. You know what I mean? Like, I talk to, you know, sometimes I'll talk to my bosses or I'll talk to scientists like, oh, I didn't think about that. And I'm like, again, and, and this is why I think the value is right, is like if you've been on the end, end, end side of things and you've seen that, it's super helpful for me because my thing, and I, it is funny, I was actually talking to a uh, um, ophthalmologist yesterday who's a surgeon and she actually left, did her MBA, did her PhDs now work in the innovation ecosystem.

[00:34:48] And she was saying the same thing and she's like, you know. People just don't get it otherwise. But once you've been there and then you come to this side, you're like, oh, this makes sense to me now. Like of course, like, okay. And I think that perspective is very helpful because nobody else has it. Um, and there's a lot of value.

[00:35:02] And like, and, and that's the other thing too, is like, I think when you go through medical school, you only have this idea that there's only one path, it's become a doctor. Um, but that skillset, that mindset, that critical thinking, that drive, that energy, that ambition, if you apply it to any other thing, like the amount of success you can get is unbelievable.

[00:35:18] Um, and so yeah, that's, that's part of why I think, you know, MDs are so valuable. And I think also comp like investors know that too. Like I've been told, like they, they literally in all of Canada, in venture in terms of like the number of MDs who are venture capitalists is like me. It's like, it's like, it's like me.

[00:35:34] And there's literally, it's like, it's like me. And then there's one other guy who is like a partner and he's been around for 40 years. So it's like very different. Right. Um.

[00:35:41] Giovanni Lauricella: But when you interact with the entrepreneurs, Do you see like this glimmer in their eye of wow, he understands he gets it. I can have this.

[00:35:47] Anish Kaushal: Yes, a thousand percent. Because they like, and and that's the thing is like fundamentally, I know for entrepreneurs it's all storytelling. And I know they've had so many conversations with people have literally no idea what they do. And that education initially is a lot for them to do. For me, I immediately know, you know what I mean?

[00:36:02] Like, it's like, oh, you're a neuro and this is what you do. It's like, okay, I know. I, even if I don't know the answer immediately, I know I can find it. I know it's quick. I know what the symptoms kind of are. I know what the side effects are. And also like I still, all my friends are, my best friends are still in medicine, so you know what I mean?

[00:36:15] Like I can go call any of them and be like, Hey, what's going on here? Like, what's happening? And they'll tell me like that. And that is a big advantage too, especially as an M.D. If you come out of it, having all your friends that you know and people that you know to be like, Hey man, I just would love to like double check like this is actually real or not.

[00:36:28] Um, that like insight, especially from when you're in the hospital and in the physician's office, you can't get that anywhere else. Um, so that's a big game changer for sure.

[00:36:36] Giovanni Lauricella: So there is life after medicine.

[00:36:38] Anish Kaushal: There is it does exist. It does exist.

[00:36:41] Giovanni Lauricella: Did you enjoy this?

[00:36:42] Anish Kaushal: Awesome. The best.

[00:36:43] Giovanni Lauricella: Cheers.

[00:36:44] Anish Kaushal: And we got to do this too.

[00:36:45] Giovanni Lauricella: We did. Yeah. We got in person.

[00:36:47] Anish Kaushal: In person, exactly.

[00:36:48] Giovanni Lauricella: Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing this wine, being in this amazing this dungeness studio apartment, somewhere in San Francisco.

[00:36:54] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:55] Giovanni Lauricella: Finally meeting in person.

[00:36:56] Anish Kaushal: Yep. Yep.

[00:36:57] Giovanni Lauricella: And disseminating your story. So thank you very much for listening. . Thank you for tuning in.

[00:37:01] Thank you. Cheers. Cheers, man.

[00:37:02] Anish Kaushal: This was fun.

[00:37:03] ​

[00:37:03] Giovanni Lauricella: So, um, want to jump into the speaking of media. Mm-Hmm. Um, we've known each other long before you did it. Yeah.

[00:37:12] Meaning write the book. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe a lot of people feel this way, some people feel this way. I know that there's some people who are like, no, I never wanna write a book. Yeah. But I've run into a lot of people who are like, oh, I would love to write a book.

[00:37:23] But there's been like this feeling inside of me personally where it's like, you know, I wouldn't mind writing a book. Yeah. I mean, not that I have anything crazy important to say, it's not about like my life memoir and all that stuff, but it's like, it would be interesting to have your thoughts on some beautifully blinded, colorful thing.

[00:37:40] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. Thing that exists in the real world that's physical and you can see and it was yours and idea and Yeah.

[00:37:44] Giovanni Lauricella: And when we die yeah. Yeah. It will be left behind. Yeah. And, and you know, wherever you stand on legacy, how long that's gonna list. Yeah. But it is something that's you that is left behind. And I, I've had a huge amount of respect for that.

[00:37:57] And so, yeah. You know, I'm sitting here holding Yeah. Your two books.

[00:38:02] Anish Kaushal: That's crazy. And you and I says that to me.

[00:38:04] Giovanni Lauricella: And you and I had a Zoom call not even that long ago. I mean, I think we caught up. Up. Well, we caught

[00:38:09] up recently and then Yeah. But before it was like a month before everything. And you were telling me that.

[00:38:12] Yeah. And I'm like, you wrote not only a book, you wrote two Yeah. In summer. Yeah. So I, I need to tell this story now. Yeah. Because I, like I said, I'm, I'm genuinely, hopefully someday in my life I'm gonna write a book. You will. I would love to. Yeah. You've actually made introductions to, what are they

[00:38:29] called?

[00:38:30] Publish publishers Independent. Yeah. Independent agents, publishers.

[00:38:32] So you made two introductions. I've had the phone calls. They're super interesting. Yeah. I'm learning more about like, what it actually means to write a book. Yeah. But, you know, I'll take my time and figure it out. Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, is like you wrote two mm-Hmm.

[00:38:43] In less than a year. Mm-Hmm. And I wanna know, what is it like, describe to the world, what does it feel like to write a book? Yeah. What does it take to write a book? Yeah. What's the process of writing a book? Yeah. And what's the process today versus how it used to be? Yeah.

[00:38:59] A lot of things there. Okay. Let's start with just go rant.

[00:39:01] Anish Kaushal: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. Because I think they, they're all reasonable questions. It's like, it's hard. Because I think I, to your point, I had this idea before I got into actually doing it of like what it looked like or what it took. I think, you know, historically it was you have to, you know, and again, nonfiction is different from fiction.

[00:39:15] So that's a, that's another caveat. I don't know enough about the fiction world, but I know it's like, you know, you need outlines and agents and blah, blah, blah and whatever. Uh, but nonfiction is, you used to need an agent. You need a publisher, you just need to like, sell a certain number of copies. You just have to like buy most of them.

[00:39:28] Um, and also on nonfiction side, like if you don't really have a huge audience, they won't public, they won't touch you because they're like, we're not gonna sell. Right? Because for them, again, it comes down to incentives. It comes down to economics. It comes down to like, can we actually push this out? Can we do this?

[00:39:40] And so what I like about how the world has changed, now you can go independent. Now you don't need anyone. Like, you can literally work in an prime publisher, which is, you know, all the people I've introduced you to, um. And, and what's interesting is, especially one of the people I sent, uh, I, I introduced to Meme, um, who I actually met in, uh, over the break.

[00:39:54] I was in Hawaii. She lives in Hawaii. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I actually met her for, we met her for drinks 'cause she was actually staying at the, uh, hotel next to us again. Crazy, random occurrence. Uh, but I, we spoke to her and like, I remember talking to her at the time when I was writing this and she's like, don't work with a publisher.

[00:40:07] And I was like, that's so weird. Why would you say that? Like, she's like, yeah, she, and she's written bestselling books that are on the New York Times bestselling list and, and all that. She's like, don't do it. She's like, one, the economics are not there. And two, you don't control your message and you'll control your ip.

[00:40:17] So like, if any point you wanna do something different or if you wanna change it or take it or you know, want to go do it, you have no control. That's not your book. It's their book. And I was like, wow, never thought about that. 'cause I would never think about this 'cause you, what do you mean? Like, it's their book.

[00:40:28] Like I wrote the book. They're like, no, no, that's not how it works. And so like hearing that was super helpful 'cause I was like, okay, like I can do it. And to me that's the other thing too, is like, she was telling me a story of somebody who, you know, this is a female entrepreneur that was like super invested in AI and had been in the AI for a long time.

[00:40:42] And you know how fast AI is going as we do every single day. Like that is nothing. And the publisher, she wrote the book, like, finish the book, finish the manuscript. I was like, yeah, we're not gonna publish this for another year because like, you know, our timing of like, when we need to release and announce and put all the marketing and all this stuff.

[00:40:55] And she's saying there like, literally this book is obsolete in a year. What do you mean you can't publish it? Like it's done. Like it's, the book is done. Um, and so hearing that, I was like, whoa, okay. Like, and what I liked about this process was like you get to control everything. Like whatever book you wanna write and whatever style and whatever you wanna do.

[00:41:08] And obviously what, what I like working with independent publishers is like they'll help coach you at the end of the day. It's up to you. Like you have to decide that this is important. I have to have to do it. In terms of the process of kind of how I started and how I got introduced and, and wanted to do this, it was.

[00:41:21] And I've heard this on other podcasts too, 'cause I think it's important is like, it, it's almost like it's such a burning desire in you to do it that you like have to, it's almost like a, a pull, right? Like you're like, I need to do this. And the reason, especially for the career one, this book's still in thoughts when, to your point, even though technically I wrote the book in two years, this is more a collection of poems I've already written.

[00:41:38] Um, so I got very randomly into writing poetry a year ago. Um, you know, you and I have discussed this before. I started writing as a hobby side thing that I did many years ago in 2018 when I left medicine. Um, I write about everything and a lot of things. Um, and so poetry was just one of those weird angles that I decided to take and I had no idea why.

[00:41:56] Um, and so this was just a collection then, but this one was literally like start to finish, like brand new. Tell me about

[00:42:00] the, the, the book

[00:42:01] real quick that you're holding. Yeah. So stolen, it's called Stolen Thoughts. Uh, it's a book of poetry. Um, and like if you wanna take, I mean you can like take a look at it.

[00:42:07] Basically every poem is in a specific, um, style. Uh, they're all different topics. They're all about different, unique things. You basically start off with like a word or an idea and you just basically take it and see where it ends up. Um, so this is like, I've, I've written like 110 poems now. There's like 40 of them.

[00:42:23] So

[00:42:23] Giovanni Lauricella: Do you know this book backward and forward?

[00:42:26] Anish Kaushal: Uh,

[00:42:26] not all of them. Uh, but I, I obviously, I, I read outta

[00:42:29] Giovanni Lauricella: Do you have a favorite?

[00:42:29] Anish Kaushal: Uh, I do. I do

[00:42:30] Giovanni Lauricella: You have a favorite? I do read it right now. Okay.

[00:42:35] I want you to read it. Okay. You want me to read The favorite? I want everyone riding to work right now, or being a couch bum watching this on YouTube or whatever it is you're doing, how you're digesting this information.

[00:42:46] Yeah. I want you to hear one of the poems that Dr. Anish Kaushal has written.

[00:42:51] Anish Kaushal: Okay. It's, uh, okay. I don't know if a lot of people are gonna like it, but you know what, it's, it's one of my

[00:42:56] Giovanni Lauricella: I don't care.

[00:42:56] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. Which is, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It's called Religion Is, oh, do it.

[00:43:02] Giovanni Lauricella: So, yeah, not contentious.

[00:43:03] Anish Kaushal: It's, yeah, not at all. Okay. Uh, religion is, religion is confusing. Religion is odd. Religion is strange. Religion is questionable. Religion is controversial. Religion is routine. Religion is shared. Religion is community. Religion is family. Religion is tribal. Religion is traumatic. Religion is violent. Religion is ruthless.

[00:43:38] Religion is propaganda. Religion is indoctrination. Religion is stubborn. Religion is painful. Religion is a grift. Religion is dying. Religion is an addiction. Religion is powerful. Religion is hopeful. Religion is purposeful. Religion is personal. Religion is moralistic. Religion is principled. Religion is transforming.

[00:44:15] Religion is helpful. Religion is volunteering, religion is giving back. Religion is illuminating. Religion is believing. Religion is faith, religion is important. Religion is.

[00:44:37] Giovanni Lauricella: So, I don't know how you all feel about that. Yeah. Clap louder. Producer, who's also a physician. Um, that was amazing. I mean, I, I don't know how long those types of poems take you.

[00:44:48] I mean, it's obviously clearly a definition of multifaceted definition of religion, but anyone who's religious in their own capacity and, and belief I do. Yeah. Very strong. Yeah. So thank you very much for sharing that. Thank you.

[00:44:59] Anish Kaushal: No, I appreciate that. That's great.

[00:45:01] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:01] Giovanni Lauricella: And now you got a little bit of a, a little bit of a, an "AD" out there for

[00:45:04] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. For another one,

[00:45:05] Giovanni Lauricella: but about the book itself, stolen thoughts. Yep. You were talking about the production or Mm-Hmm. The writing process of this? Mm-Hmm.

[00:45:13] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. So this one, as I mentioned, this one was a collection. Okay. And then this one was brand new. Okay. So in this one, the reason why I wrote this one again, like I said before, of like the pull of like, I had to do something like this, which was, I had so many con, I had so many conversations with young people who don't like where they are and wanna figure out how to get into a new place.

[00:45:28] And when I was going through all the things that I went through, I had no, there was no book, there was no playbook, there was no guidebook, there was no person, there was no idea. Um, that was it. Um, so to me that that thing was, that that was very huge to be like, okay, I'm talking to all these people.

[00:45:42] Clearly this conversation comes up all the time. And like to me, there was a step-by-step process, and nobody ever told me the processors thought about it. And I was like, I feel like I can tell someone about this. Um, and also use it as a way to talk about my own story. Because my own story, as I mentioned and talk to you about like.

[00:45:55] I think there's value in hearing story because people don't learn with, you know, logistics and data and graphs and all that. It's story like, story is like the most, one of the most powerful things. Um, and so also because I wanted to do it where it was like very bare bones, it's very direct, it's very concise.

[00:46:09] Like, like literally the, the, the feedback I've gotten so far from people have read it is it's such a unique, it's, it's so, it's like so concise and so direct that they love that like, oh, they like, would like to read this. Like, it flows really well and it's unique and it's, and it's different. And so to me that was honestly the reason why.

[00:46:23] Um, and sometimes of the actual process itself, basically like I sketched out an outline. I had an idea of like the step by step process. Um, I wrote, I wrote like a first draft. I basically just went through it. I wrote like the steps and had the outline. Um, and then one of the um, uh, the independent publisher I was working with, she was like, actually like, you know, you write a lot of personal stuff too.

[00:46:38] Like, I write a journal and I've been doing that for many years. And she was like, why don't you add that to it too? Um, and so like, basically the way the book is set up is every chapter, the initial chapter is. Um, an idea about, uh, like what to do, basically. Like, here are the steps, here's what you need to do.

[00:46:51] Here are the things that I've learned, here's what's good and bad. Um, and then the end of the chapter is a journal entry of like me talking to my younger self as if I was 16. Being like, Hey, this is like really how I feel and really what's going on. And what's cool is like, all the feedback I've gotten is like, oh, the personal stuff is way like, that's like, I remember that.

[00:47:05] Like, I'll remember that. And so, um, so yeah, anyway, that was a process. I started basically in June. Um, because I write, I think a lot of this too is like I write all the time anyway. So to me it was not like, like it was like almost like I need to get it out there. 'cause like, it was like not easy, but like I knew what I wanted to do before I even got there.

[00:47:20] Um. And then, yeah, it was a lot of editing manuscripts, sending it back to like I sent to a bunch of people to take a look at, gave me some really helpful feedback. Um, and then went through the publishing process and put it out and yeah, it's, it's really fun. 'cause what I like about this is like, this is mine.

[00:47:32] And you know, to your point, like, this is something I've created and this is something that's unique to me, but I get to decide how far this goes. Like, you know, if I don't talk about this till the end of time, this still exists, but I don't do very well. Versus I think like, especially now today, like we're in a situation where like 2024 is gonna be a really weird year in general.

[00:47:47] We have an election coming up that's just here, but the, there's war going on the, the entire world is going through a lot of shit and unfortunately the way cycles work in History Works is for every up that will be a down. And we've gone through a massive absence 2008 and we haven't really seen the down Covid was kind of there, but basically like everything,

[00:48:01] Giovanni Lauricella: I really

[00:48:01] feel like there's a lot of entrepreneurs who are heavily disagree with you after raising capital in 2023.

[00:48:06] I can imagine. Yeah. Like it was allegedly a shit storm in 2023. Oh. However, if you're saying there's a further pit that we're gonna fall into,

[00:48:14] Anish Kaushal: could be. Which is,

[00:48:15] Giovanni Lauricella: I hope you're wrong though too. I hope I'm too. I'm buckled up too. I hope I'm too. I'm buckled up.

[00:48:18] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. And again, the only reason I to say this, like, I think especially not even just entrepreneurs as much as it's like people where they are in their careers, like I don't think we're gonna have, you know, like we think of our grandparents.

[00:48:27] Like if I think of my grandparents and parents generation where they worked at one firm for 35 years and like that's all they did, and they showed up. That's gone. Like doubt disappeared, right? Gone. And I think we're going into a world where like, you know, figuring out your story, figuring out how to sell yourself, figuring out how to like pivot into it, but also like you have choice and direction.

[00:48:41] And also all the tools right now are available. Like you can find whatever job you want. Like LinkedIn is an unbelievable resource. Oh yeah. And Google is an amazing resource and if you use it in the right way, you can find all the answers. Yeah. And also being able to talk to people, having a conversation, reaching out.

[00:48:53] And also, like a lot of people, if you. If you do it the right way and you send them the right messages, people love talking about themselves. I've learned that for a long time. Um, and there's a lot of value in like hearing somebody's story and then also just asking like, Hey, do you know anybody that does this?

[00:49:05] Do you know anybody? And if you make a good impression, they do a lot to help you. Um, so that's, that's honestly that, that was the reason why I wanted to write the book and yeah, how it kinda happened.

[00:49:12] Giovanni Lauricella: So a couple questions on that. Thank you for sharing that. Yep.

[00:49:15] Are we good on time, by the way? Yeah, we're

[00:49:17] definitely good.

[00:49:17] Yeah. Yeah. Um, so my, my questions are, you have this Word document that you open up on your laptop one day, right? Yep. Go down and you just start writing and writing and writing. Writing. Is there a discipline that you took? Like you hear sometimes just start writing or you have to write a page a day? Yeah.

[00:49:36] It's, did you have a discipline for writing your book?

[00:49:38] Anish Kaushal: This one, I would say yes and no, but it was more like a self-discipline. Like, I kind of told myself like, like, so basically the way it worked with the publisher I was working with was like, we met every week. Right. And so like I just wanted to be able to produce something for it to be like, I worked on it this week, I promise.

[00:49:50] And there were like, there were two weeks where like I didn't do it like I was traveling and I couldn't work on it. So I was like, I'm sorry, I like can't do it. You know what I mean? Excuse me. I just don't have the time. But there's other times where like literally I would just sit at the computer for like three hours and I would write like four chapters.

[00:50:02] Um, and again, I think the important thing is like when people get in their head is like you have to remember your first draft is gonna suck. Like this. Your initial, when you start, it will suck. It doesn't matter. The point is to get it out there. And then as you go you'll refine and refine and edit and you get feedback and you know, this doesn't make sense.

[00:50:16] This does okay. Spend more time on this. Spend more time on that. So I think that the struggle to your point at the beginning is people are like, I don't want to write. I don't what to start. I don't want to do it. And again, it sounds like a just start thing, but it's really like, even if it sucks, even if it's horrible, like there's a backspace button, you can delete it.

[00:50:29] It's no problem. But to get your thoughts out there and to put it out there, even if it makes no sense, even if you're the only one that understands it. I mean, I think the other thing I go back to too, just in terms of writing is write how you speak. If you were to tell somebody this, and I think the thing sometimes with a lot of, a lot of people is they make it technical, they make it complicated.

[00:50:44] They make it like, oh, you know, here's the five points of data that you need to Sophisticated, obviously. Yeah. Like, oh, look how happy I am. Like, no. At the end of the day, the best writing is to me, simple writing, direct writing, concise writing. Clear writing. Yep. And if you do it how you speak to someone, people will be, respond to that.

[00:50:57] Yep. In my opinion. So that, that's the way I, I've thought about it and the

[00:51:00] way it works for me. Yeah.

[00:51:01] Giovanni Lauricella: Okay. So you, you, when you write something in a Word document Mm-Hmm. And you say you put the last period there. Mm-Hmm. We call that a manuscript. Yep. Just for all those listening. Yep. Concisely. Yep. You have your manuscript.

[00:51:13] Yep. In the modern day of now, 2024. Yep. What does self-publishing really mean? Like how did you take that word document with the last period? Yeah. To me, holding this book with your

[00:51:24] sexy photo on the back.

[00:51:26] Anish Kaushal: Yeah. Uh, so, so I, I had the benefit of working with an independent publisher, which, you know, I've introduced and told you about.

[00:51:31] I think that was a super helpful process as I went through it. Now going forward, do you necessarily need them? Not necessarily, basically, what you can do now, and I think there's a lot of people that do this is like. Fiverr and Upwork, which are freelancer sites that people can go on. They do a lot of editing.

[00:51:43] Essentially. Once you have the manuscript, you have to figure out how to send, like, format the book properly into what you kind of wanna do. Um, and then Amazon, right now they have this thing called Amazon, KDP, like the independent publisher where you literally submit your manuscript, you submit a title page and a cover page, um, which also the publisher helps with in terms of formatting and design and all of the other things, which is super helpful.

[00:52:00] Um, and then they'll run the books for you. And what's great about that is like, you know, traditional publishing houses you used to, you used to need to buy or, or like a certain number of copies or you need to, like, when they go for a publishing one, it's like, oh, we need 10,000 copies because we have to sell at Indigo or whatever, you know, Barnes and Noble or all these places that are all over.

[00:52:16] And the independent publishing with this is like. It only gets made when you order it. So like, I don't, there's no, I don't have to hold 5,000 books in my house, like to make sure that it goes through. Um, and to your point, that's an asset that like now exists forever. And so from, from the process of starting the manuscript to getting there, it took time in terms of like, you have the manuscript, you need to get it edited.

[00:52:34] You need like, either you can work with a professional. I sent it to a lot of friends of mine that I trust. I just got comments from like 10 or 15 people that I know. Um, I, you know, put their names and like added a lot of their comments and feedback. And so I did a lot of the editing myself, which I don't know if it's good or bad, but just how it was.

[00:52:46] Um, and then, yeah, from that point you design the cover. Then honestly on Amazon right now, literally you can do it. And that was the other thing that I asked, this other person made me, who I mentioned to you, she was like, yeah, that's way better to do it. Like, that's the, the amount of value and upside and also the economics, um, because like, it doesn't, as you can imagine, it doesn't cost a lot to sell this or like to make it, um, it's a couple bucks and it's a couple thing, but like you theoretically in terms of value, you can sell it for and you can decide on pricing and how much you wanna do.

[00:53:09] And so for me, like especially, um, on that note, like I wanted to make this something that like anybody, like a student could buy, you know what I mean? Like a high school kid can spend 15 bucks and buy this book. Like that was the goal. Yeah. Um, and to me that that was super important. 'cause I get to control that versus if you're at an independent one, like you, like, I'm sorry, a, a traditional publishing house, like you don't have a lot of control.

[00:53:26] Yeah. Like, it's outta your hands.

[00:53:27] Giovanni Lauricella: So Yeah. So

[00:53:29] signing off on that particular topic for all those people out in the world Yes. Who has ever even had a shower idea of Yeah. Writing their own book. Yeah. Writing their own story, whatever. It's

[00:53:39] very possible.

[00:53:39] Anish Kaushal: Very possible. And also what I would say first is, um, one, it's hard in general anything.

[00:53:45] Life is hard. Um, I think it really needs to be like a pull, right? Like, I, I don't, and again, it's funny 'cause I actually heard this, uh, um, I was listening to, to a podcast with a guy called Tim Ferris, I dunno if you're familiar, but you know, very multi bestselling author who's done a lot of things. And he, he said this comment, he was like.

[00:53:59] If you like. There's a lot of mediocre crap that's out there. There's hundreds of thousands of books that are out there that never do anything. Um, and you really need to feel like it's something that you need to say or need to talk about, you don't see out there. And that was what this was for me. Like, I never saw, I didn't see this, so I was like, well, I don't see this.

[00:54:13] Like I, I'm sure there are people that this would be helpful for. Um, 'cause it was helpful for me. Like that's how I got here. Um, and I've told this to other people who's worked for, like, I remember even my brother, so my brother right now, he's a physician too, but like, I gave him all the steps and I was like, this is what you need to do.

[00:54:25] He ended up getting like, consulting interviews with firms like around the world, like in two months based on like exactly what he was doing. And this is a guy who was in medicine and again, like different career, no background, no context, never done anything like that before. Um, and so, but, but again, that information wasn't there.

[00:54:38] And so I felt very grateful that I went through the process. I was gonna give it to somebody else. Um, and so that was the kind of reason. So yes, it's definitely possible, but I would say you need to have a lot of, like, there has to be something there that's like, I have to do this. Like I have to tell someone about whatever it is that you wanna do.

[00:54:51] Um, and also I think the biggest thing too is like construct an outline. Like figure out like, okay, how would you format this? How would you, the structure of the flow, where would you want to do it? And then through that process you'll see like, okay, am I missing something? And also also give it to like friends.

[00:55:03] Give it to like people that you know, like give it to your parents, give it to your friends of yours. Give it to colleagues and be like, Hey, what do you think about this idea? Or like, what I'm doing? Like, would this be valuable? Would this be helpful to you? Yeah. And I think getting that feedback is really helpful as well.

[00:55:15] Giovanni Lauricella: Where can we buy these?

[00:55:16] Anish Kaushal: Amazon. So you can Amazon, if you look up my name, uh, Anish Kaushal um, or you can look up the books, it's called, one of them is called From Here to There, Anish Guide to Career Transitions.

[00:55:24] And then the other one's called Stolen Thoughts. Um, the poetry book. Yeah. Stolen thoughts and then the career book. So, and yeah. And then also if there's other people in your life, like, particularly, like to me it's really young people. It's like high school students, it's university students, it's master students.

[00:55:37] Um, it's people that are not happy where they are, or you know, is their kids or you know, cousins or anybody. Um, especially this one. This is, this is the one that more like, I just really, I just really want people to read this. 'cause I think my goal is like, I wanna get to a place where a year or two years from now, I have somebody come up to me and be like, Hey man, I've read your book and I changed my life and now I'm in a better plot and thank you so much.

[00:55:55] And that's it. That was, that is the goal. That is success. That, that is what success is for me. So yeah, if you have people in your life, feel free to tell 'em about it. But, uh, yeah. Thank you.

[00:56:02] ​

[00:56:03] Giovanni Lauricella: Mic drop. Last question for you as we sign off on this whole thing. Mm-Hmm. You and I have bantered on this idea, and I know you have very big visions of it. What is the value of media

[00:56:15] Anish Kaushal: Today? I think it's infinite. If I respectfully, if I have to say that. I think especially as an independent, because media is, unfortunately, we spend way too much time on our phone.

[00:56:26] We spend way too much time listening and talking and you know, looking at videos and scrolling through different things. Um, most of it's garbage and most of it's not gonna help you. It's not beneficial, it's not gonna do anything. But if you can educate people, if you can talk about what you do, and you can talk about the value of it, um, that's super helpful.

[00:56:43] And also, the other thing that I think people forget is media. If you make something online. It lasts for a long time. So like for like even the thing, for example, we did the interview, right? That, that was, uh, two years ago now, maybe three years ago now. Yeah. Um, that we did it. I had a friend of mine reach out to me and that was like, oh, that was a great interview you did.

[00:56:57] I was like, my man, I did interview like three years ago, but you know what I mean? Right. And like, I know I've talked to you and I've talked to, you know, some of your colleagues that worked on MedTech money and it's like, yeah, we get, you know, asked about ideas that we do like years ago, like, oh, we heard a podcast that was here and oh, this person that does this.

[00:57:12] And that's super helpful. And I've heard this from somebody else too, where, you know, there's this guy who's actually a, a good role model is a guy called David Sra and he does this podcast called Founders. And I think I've told you, I mean, I've told you about it and it's, it's a solo podcast, which is the goal of what I want to eventually do and build as well.

[00:57:26] And so only him, there's nothing else. And all he does is he read books and he talks about them. That's it. There's nothing complicated about it. There's no thing. All he does is he reads biographies of the best entrepreneurs in history. That's it. There's no, there's no, there's no complicated extra whatever.

[00:57:38] And he said, he's like, and I remember listening to him talk and it was just a couple years ago and he was like, yeah, I have people come up to me that are like, oh, I heard your podcast you did like two years ago. And like it was amazing for me and I'm a super helpful thing. And that's the other thing with, I think if you take timeless content and the stuff that you're doing and like listening to people talk about like ideas that last a long time is.

[00:57:55] You'll have people who have never heard your name that in five years from now are not in this industry that will hear you and listen and learn. And that could be helpful and that could change your life down the road. And I think if, like, I always come, we were talking about this before, the long term mindset.

[00:58:06] Like I come in this like, I don't need to solve your problem today, but like at one point in time in your life, if you struggle or go through or something and you know, or have heard or have done it something and you come back to that person and you trust that person and they like, they show you your track record, that's super valuable.

[00:58:19] Yeah. Um, and I think there's a lot of inde, especially independent media. Like I have a, I mean there's a reason why Rogan and Tim Ferriss and Lex Friedman and you know, even Tucker Carlson, who like, you know, people have like, you know, he was obviously the biggest one on Fox. He's now independent and he knows the value of it because it's international.

[00:58:32] I think that's the other thing too, is scale right? Is traditional media. You are in certain markets with certain access, with certain advertising, with certain messaging to do whatever with the internet and you are everywhere, right? Like, and Integra talked about this. I remember hearing on a podcast, he was like, he's like, I forget how big the world is.

[00:58:47] And he's like, oh, I'll go to like Spain, Argentina, and like all these people know exactly what I'm talking about and are up to date with everything that's going on. There's a lot of downside to that too. And that's the other thing with media, you have to sometimes be careful about. Um, but I think it's like if you, if you give, if you teach people, if you educate people, like I'm, I'm, my whole thing is education.

[00:59:03] My whole thing is like, how do I, like, literally it comes down to how do I teach myself what I wish my 16-year-old self knew? That's it fundamentally like that, that is the person I'm writing for. That's my audience, that's who I'm talking to. Um, but I know there's a lot of people that just don't, never got the access, don't have it.

[00:59:17] And to me it's like if you can make it free, if you can do it in audio, if you can do it in video, if you can do it in books, if you can do it in writing, there's a lot of value in my opinion. So yeah, to your point, and I, I mean, you've done this with a podcast, right? You can tell me as much as I, I can tell you like, how valuable was this?

[00:59:29] Just, just starting the podcast and doing MedTech money and how many opportunities and how much business opportunities and how much, all the other things. So, um, yeah, there's a ton of value. I, I see massive amounts of value and I think it's only gonna get bigger. Um, yeah.

[00:59:41] ​

[00:59:41] Giovanni Lauricella: What's your future hold?

[00:59:44] Anish Kaushal: Uh, the short answer is I don't know, because I think that's what I've learned in my life is.

[00:59:49] You have plans and ideas and uh, life happens and then you have to figure it out as you go. Um, media will definitely be a big part of it. Um, I'm doing a lot of stuff. I'm actually, actually, it's funny you say this. I was talking to a guy yesterday about a podcast potentially starting at Amplitude, um, and to work with, like, work to do some stuff in the biopharma world, exactly what you're doing in MedTech, but do it in biotech.

[01:00:07] 'cause I think there's just massive opportunity and nobody's really doing it really well. Um, uh, I'm thinking about where I'm, I might be starting another podcast on macroeconomics in VC that's like with another friend of mine. Um, I have my own thing. Um, I've been writing for a long time. Um, the goal this year really is to like, how do I get my writing out there more.

[01:00:22] Um, so like the poetry stuff is like one small component of everything else I do and talk about, um, I mean, I started writing in 2018, um, and then really started releasing it as a blog in 2021. Um. And since that time and in 2021, my goal is to write a hundred blog posts in a year. I wrote 500. So very busy, as you can imagine.

[01:00:39] Um, and to date, I've written now 883. Um, and that was in three years. And so to me it's like, well, if I'm, I, and this is all working full time and writing a book and doing all the other things that I'm doing. And so it's like, well, if I can do that. And then the goal is if I can take all of those, put those into audio, put those into video.

[01:00:55] Do I think one of them is good. Yeah. So that's it. That's, and and to me it's all you need is one, like Mark Cuban used to talk about in his book. It's like all you need is one idea, one person, one change, one thing. Um, and the more you put stuff out there, the more you like, you know, you just go and go and go.

[01:01:10] It comes back. It really does. And we were talking about karma before. I'm a huge believer in that. And I just know, like I've been working so hard at this for so long in silence Now it's like, okay, I gotta be out there now. Like that's the goal. Which is scary in its own way. 'cause I don't really like being out there.

[01:01:23] But I also know that in order for like people to hear this, I have to, so it's like a pull. It's again, the pull it comes back to like, I just have to do it now. ​

[01:01:30] So John, um, I wanna say the MedTech startup podcast is super blessed to have a M.D. be a podcast producer.

[01:01:40] Did you think going to medicine would lead you to becoming a media production agent?

[01:01:45]

[01:01:45] John Souza: Absolutely not.

[01:01:48] Giovanni Lauricella: How valuable is it to be an MD on a medical podcast?

[01:01:54] John Souza: Hugely.

[01:01:55] Giovanni Lauricella: Awesome. Back to you Anish.

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