How to navigate ViVE?

Bimal :

Hey Hugh How are you doing?

Hugh:

I'm good Mr. Bimal.  Good to see you today. Welcome to my domicile

Bimal : 

Aren't we living on the internet these days?

Hugh : 

Yeah, indeed. Thank goodness for zoom. We've never seen each other, I like your headset to look like you're ready for some space age.

Bimal : 

I like this one, it is a noise canceling one and sometimes is helpful. But otherwise after I moved to this suburb of Boston, there rarely any noises, before I used to live in near the city and there was always committed rails and vehicles honking and all the others you know, fire trucks, sirens and all of those things that I needed one and also it's I don't think it cancels out the noise from the background while through the mic though.

Hugh:

Yeah, I know I got kids yelling and screaming, you know, running through the house. Dogs barking Yeah, I felt the pain.

Bimal:

So yeah, I think ViVE is coming up. I think it's Sunday next week. And I was wondering as you have been to so many of these conferences in your you know, in your experience like how is ViVE  different? What excites your ViVE? And how are you preparing for ViVE? I'd love to know I'd love to understand your experience and your point of view.

Hugh:

No idea what it was but couldn't get in here. Yeah, ViVE is is is a really good meeting. Last year, we went to ViVE and health HLTH and they had the same flavor.ViVE. I like it even better. I mean, last year, it was in Miami. And it wasn't that big you know over time have gone to you know, packers and chime and hymns, all great meetings for different reasons. But ViVE was nice because it was focused on innovation acceleration on it had investors there at big focus on startups with like StartUp Health, you know, Rock Health, I mean, all of that Cedar Sinai Innovation Group United innovation, UNC innovation on so so the flavor, and the energy of it all was was just amazing. And that was held by extension similar to that, but but a fair amount bigger. But we had great success. I mean, persimmon itself probably had 100. leads. And I want to say all of which were very fruitful in either, you know, building our business or building our community percent, which is, you know, investors, innovators, incubators, accelerators, startup companies, you know, anywhere from, you know, Angel and seed to series A and B. So, now it's a good one, and I'm excited this year, it's in Nashville, because Nashville is great town. You know, it's just, it's not far from Atlanta, which is,

Bimal : 

That's awesome. Like, how long of a drive is it for you?

Hugh : 

It's about three hours. Yeah, that's, that's gonna be easy.

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Bimal : 

That's not too far. All right. Let me double click on something you just mentioned that persimmon had, we had like 150 leads coming out of ViVE , and that's a great outcome. So now what I want to know from you is, so that's the outcome. And I'm sure that must have been a lot of work, because I know that but I want you to spell out for our audience what was the hard work that went into before ViVE? During the ViVE and after ViVE, to crystallize that Holifield deletes?

Hugh : 

Yeah, it's almost like building a product, you know, just acclimating to what the market wants, the market needs, you know, what the competition is? who's attending, and incomes, you know, the product design, who are we, you know, what's going to be our message? Why are we there? But also the marketing of, you know, how are we going to pre market and what are we going to look like when we get there. So, thank goodness, I mean, persimmon health is at the very core of the core product engineering company. And we're used to building teams and doing sprints and building up to five then and now. It's been a sprint, where we were like, okay, great, who's attending, who, who cares about who we are, by the way, who are we what we try to portray that being, you know, product engineers that build amazing products, and we focus on digital health. So that means we're really good at understanding the market of being innovators from the napkin stage to design to prototype to MVP, as well as team augmentation for you know, we are your product, team, front end to back end, full services. So, a lot goes into that. It's, you get into this, you know, what's better, we just gonna ride LinkedIn really hard, which we do. Are we going to utilize the Vive platform, which we do? And what does an email campaign look like? Which, which we do, and, you know, everybody knows the science of emails, you could send out 1000 2000 get a decent open rate, but, you know, maybe 10 responses. So the science of building out the right message that that Pete, that will resonate with people and trying to figure out okay, you know, you know, what is what is their role? I mean, are they a CTO or product manager, they founders are the CEOs. I think everybody cares. But but, you know, it's all it's all about me, you know, what's gonna resonate with me? So sending out, you know, emails is tough. You know, I think it's good for branding, market recognition of who we are. But actually, you know, setting up meetings is tough doing that. So, it's heavy lifting, we have a great team that does.

Bimal : 

So what I would double click on, as, you know, so last year, I understand there were 5000 attendees. And I'm sure this year is much more than that. And now I'm comparing with, you know, building a product, as you said, and then you can build a product for everyone, you have to break for a specific course or a specific segment, especially in the early days of it. Now, what's the process? To do that exercise of okay, this is the target market, I want to reach out to this is not the market I want to reach out to in a how do you sit through the signal to signal from those of those noises? Any tips on that?

Hugh : 

Oh, wow. If that's, you know, in our case, that's, that's really hard. Because, okay, defining who we are, also includes as to who out of all these companies will resonate, and, you know, we use CrunchBase, we use HubSpot to curate and control messages. And so we have tools that do that to try and narrow the focus. A lot of it is cross triangulation of like, who's attending, who are they, what are their, their sectors, I think the thing with persimmon health as an example is we can we can do anything from, you know, pharma, to health systems to care navigation tools to digital therapeutics, so we cross cross role and healthcare, we cross over all those verticals. So, you know, we conserve all of those companies, which actually makes it hard for us. And, and all of those companies, whether they know it or not, could use, you know, product expertise that we have, no matter no matter what stage of the journey, you know, they need teams to move faster, even if they're Series B, or if they're just starting off, and they need somebody for design and prototype. So on, it's tough, and we've got a good team, product, business development team, that is really good with Excel. And, long out and messaging those people prior. You know, what I would add to that is, you know, the collateral it takes to as to the branding, like our booths, I thought were pretty good. And I love that vibe and help both have the branded booths. This year, we're so busy. We're not bringing a large team. We don't have a booth, frankly, but we are interested in the right kind of collateral, you know, who are we and why should it resonate with everybody? And we can't be all things to all people. But I tell you what advice we are, you know, it's a crowd that appreciates an innovative team, and that understands healthcare. That is purpose built for health, health care, to get up and, you know, with expertise move at speed to deliver products.

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Bimal : 

Awesome. I think you brought up a very interesting point about collateral. You know, everyone talks about going to conferences, people talk about collaterals , people read goodies, people call about his two eyes and so on. So far, right? And I think all of those things are important. Especially like, depending on what stage of company you are, in what budget you have, like, what was the thought process behind? Okay, what swags tag what good is to tag or what collaterals to build securely explained that? And what did you ultimately, ultimately decide on taking it home? And why that? And I'm asking that as if I don't know the answer to all of those things, but I already know answers to all of those things. But you know, is it spelled out loud for our audience?

Hugh : 

Yeah, so, so right, do you, you know, give away bottles of beer, you know, do you offer coffee, you, you make, you know, really cool swag, you know, trips to Hawaii, Hawaii, you know, whatever. You know, we, you know, it's really funny if we got a big, big basket of mints. And we didn't even put it in the spot, anything special outside of the jar came in. And that was a big hit for bringing people in, to be honest with you, as was the branding that in the Vyasa, center, you know, larger boots, I mean, we really had fun with that, because we're able to brand, you know, similar to where our website looks and where our collateral looks. But no, like, the way we look at it from a marketing standpoint, it's, it's, you know, serving our community. So the collateral this year is, is on one side, you know, just just showing how important the community is, is to us from founders and investors and, you know, anywhere from an angel investor, to founder of a larger, larger company, you know, understanding their journey, and understanding the impact that makes for healthcare. So, so the collaterals, that let last year, we went to great lengths to to curate all the data related to the people who are attending to put them into Okay, here's all the folks that we think are in digital therapeutics, here's all the folks that are in telehealth, and people seem to really appreciate that because it's, you know, it's about them. And that's what the collateral around it is like, here's, here's our view. It's kind of like the CBN sites type marketing. But we enjoyed doing that it took a little time. It wasn't easy, but people really appreciate it. So we did something similar this year, but related to the community that we built over the past year of investors and incubators, and it's awesome.

Bimal : 

I think I can add a few things here. So especially my thought process beyond last year, Well, you know, what collateral design was, essentially it comes down to what values that we have, right? As a team that were well, the value that we really, really carry is that we want to be givers, not takers, takers, you know, we want to be very missionaries, but the mercenaries kind of people. And then for what not to bring in it was like, Okay, we are going there for the first time. And then a lot of people have their, you know, the swag, T shirts, mugs and whatnot, I think we really want to stand out. And if you did the same thing and tried to stand out, it's going to take hell a lot of money to do that. And I think of it as going there for the first time, let's not do that. Therefore, what is something that every attendee would find valuable? And was alright, it seems like something is missing, something like if I was walking on the floor, or there are startup companies out there, right? It's kind of dispersed that how do I synthesize a simple, you know, since that is the point of information, and which I would say if there is company, a other consumer companies to be in that field, for example, you said about digital therapeutics, right? There is company A and desilter. Rose, what other companies are there? It seems kind of difficult now that we get that. And we were like, Oh, why didn't we actually be a broker in credit infographics, who's going to synthesize all the information in a very nice, visually pleasing infographics and give you not, and that was a huge hit. And I saw people taking out people sharing feelings about it, people, you know, like carrying into the carrying, like falling into keeping the market and taking them away. And that was, and that's what it was like to have those who are listening to you, right? Yes, those swags are important. I think the squeeze balls and all of those things, right? I take them because it's exciting to take them. But as soon as I come home, I throw them away. Nice, doesn't have that kind of long term value. Whereas something if we can create something of long term value that will be really interesting that people can take home. And that was really interesting. That was taught.

Hugh : 

I think we should. I think next year we should give away shoes inserts because unless you have really super thick carpeted boots, man, my feet start to hurt like crazy. So shoe inserts and Redbull being okay. I'm taking like in preparation. It's like, okay, how can I do? Should I sleep for three days before I go? Or should I not sleep to prepare myself and drink a lot or something? So my livers are ready for the parties at night? I don't know.

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Bimal : 

So yeah, now I think you like this the right time to segue into what to do ‘during’ right? I think for me, I can start with sharing mine. For me it was for the first time, it was a bit overwhelming, it was very bad. It was like a lot of people there, a lot of people moving around their booths right all along. How do I navigate that fast? The first one of one thing is that during that time, and the second thing is, you know, it's like running a marathon, right? I think for three or four days. We can't be sprinting, sprinting, sprinting and gas out very soon. And how do you manage the interfaces so that you can make all of those three days or three and a half days very productive.

Hugh : 

So I'm a little old school, in a sense that, like I try and get the first person there, like, and I try and try and create as many scheduled visits as I possibly can of those folks who we do curate who really aren't a good fit. So like, I know that I got something that's and I get something to do I get something interesting before. And that includes all the roundtables and presentations and other things that are also so important to meet the thought leaders in all so, you know, it's a lot to do and to schedule. But I think you mentioned that you need to leave time for serendipity. And I love that. Because yeah, as you walk around booth to booth or you go to the many scheduled social events, that's when you really get into, wow, you do this, this is so interesting, tell me about it. And I think the serendipity of going to the right presentations is poignant for what you do. And, you know, try and try to create opportunities to meet these thought leaders and create partnerships with some of the other organizations. It's, it's, it's really important, it's exhausting. You know, it's three days of Go, go go. But I love it, I really do, so I get there early, and I stay late, you know, to me, it's being on the floor all day from like eight to five or so taking breaks. But then you know, being ready to go at night to be honest with you, you know, from from six, seven to 11 at night, but also taking enough time to stick my head outside and get fresh air or, you know, meet people you know, outside of the exhibit hall for a cup of coffee. I think that that's helpful as well, just to kind of get away, sit down for a little while and have a meaningful conversation with somebody.

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Bimal : 

And that's, that's, that's awesome. I think. So how does that differ? When you're going alone versus when you're going to a team? You know, how do we divide and conquer? So could you just elaborate on that dividing and conquering part as well?

Hugh : 

Yeah, good question. When alone, yeah, you're just you're you're probably moving a little bit quicker. And when you're manning a booth, that's a little bit different, too. So having a team is key, you know, you want to have somebody out there moving around, checking out all the booths attending, what presentations we think are good roundtables, thought leaders. But yeah, it's it's, it's about scheduling and managing, you know, people who are good at what they do. So you know, last year we had Chris our CEO, we had yourself who's so awesome, and innovation and product consulting and all of that. And we also had health like one of our principles, who's just an incredible entrepreneur, and thought leader from the tech side himself. And I think we did a nice job of manning the booth and getting people out on the floor. And because I could say anything about health and Vive is that it is super collaborative. And everybody no matter what level of leadership that ran is they to love the collaboration and the innovation and The commitment to healthcare get healthcare transformation is palpable. I mean, you can taste it, it's just fantastic. And I would say that it really defines why Vive is so good. You know everybody's committed to health care, transport, transformation, digital health transformation, and just innovation. It's not an easy task, healthcare is a super big challenge. So you can you just see that from meeting to meeting to meeting the excitement, and the commitment all the folks have to, you know, meeting people

Bimal : 

Having fun, I think, a few things to add there, especially when you talk about serendipity, right? I think meetings in life can happen through serendipity, a few things I tried to do myself is not to go for a lunch, or tea, tea or coffee, or something like that with, with my own teammate, as I go along. So that like you, I have to talk to someone who, who is I feel sorry for you. And then maybe one of those things. But however, like, for example, you go to go go for lunch, and you're lining up and you have somebody behind you. And if you go with a teammate, you are just conversing, having a conference with him, but you are going alone, if I force myself to have a conversation with somebody else, right? And then that's part of the conversation, especially when I go for, for, for the Speaker session I put in during a speaker session, you can engage with another one. But I did go to one of the lunch sessions for speaker systems, followed by lunch. And then in that scenario, I was interested in age tech. So how do you know by I was interested in the topic, I went there. And then when I was there, I listened to that conversation in a panel discussion. And we're learning a few. There was some common shared experience, a common topic to talk about, and I think that Spark Spark sparked a conversation as well, right? Not necessarily that may, that may not be a direct deal, per se. But again, a lot of the things that happen, as we are building community, it happens through serendipity through community for relationship. And actually, those kinds of serendipitous encounters can, you know, spark different very interesting conversations. Another example. And I was in a breakfast table, that you are there as well. But I was there before that. And there are very one gentleman and and we started talking about the we started asking you where you're from, and then hit I call him from Paul, and it was like, hey, mountains, and all those things, and shad hitting off talking about that, you know, 14 pigs that came out last year on the documentary about it, so and then right. So yes, we also therefore work. But also we are also there to collect personal connections. And when we go along, trying to come up with a comfort zone, we are already our comfort zone going into a big conference. But again, going adding a step for going along to these places where this can spark a different serendipitous encounter.

Hugh : 

 I'll never forget, like this is the first day when I met because like we actually met at  ViVE right out of Miami, and it was like, Oh, this guy. And you're like so. So we were asking, we were kind of going through the same type of thing. You have to kind of build up to ViVE, it's like so now what we do, and we were at the welcome reception, and I said it's just it's just like, it's like a big, you know, it's like a it's like a wedding. You know? And you're right. If you're alone, you're kinda like, you know, Uncle, uncle stand in the corner. They're like, well, let's go to local um, you know, you kind of people are more inclined to speak to you perhaps. But no sooner did I say that. It's kind of like a wedding. You just have to turn around, say, Hey, where are you from, you know, bride or the groom side, or whatever it is. I turn around the watch. And I turn around to a guy right behind me. And I shake his hand and I say, Hey, where are you? Yeah. And he's from the park. Yeah, originally it was like, Oh. You're from the Paul, I'd like to.

Bimal : 

So sorry, I think, therefore, going to the speaker events going to you know, there's long sessions going into this and after parties, welcome parties and beers and coffee meetups and all of those things right? Sometimes. Therefore, therefore, what I'm saying is, yes, schedule it. Most of the things, but at the same time, you know, leave something for the serendipitous meetings as well. I don't know, who knows? Where will that serendipity will take you?

Hugh : 

Yeah, yeah, you got to, you know, net net, you have to, you know, make sure everything is kind of, you know, ready to go from work work standpoint. So you can really collaborate, socialize, engage, you know, go to the meetings, then intrigue you to go to the presentations you given. But definitely attend the networking things. Wear good shoes.

Bimal : 

And drink a lot of water

Hugh : 

A lot of water, get sleep where you can, you know, I, you know, it's not a firm rule, but I try and say, okay, 11 o'clock fits it. I gotta, I gotta get some me too.

Bimal : 

I have a habit of meditating. And you know, doing those conferences and your conferences? No, actually, my schedule goes out of whack, especially like when you're going to help. So it was the three hours of you know, jetlag, right. I'm different. Because of the kind of jet lag, it's kind of three hours of jetlag is kind of weird, in a way that so I wake up early in the morning to get the flight and then get there in the evening and then dinner party is going on, even is 11pm there for me, it's 2am The next day for my body clock, and I get really get tired. So for if, but however, a lot of balls and energy I need to mentally sharp, I make sure I meditate morning and evening, right? Even even five to 10 minutes, because a lot needs to be done. Because I usually do half an hour in the morning and evening. But like in those times that you're short of time, but I make sure I do like five to 10 minutes. It's to me now, after waking up and before going to bed so that this might mentally clear. And if that's a good practice to have, like I recommend folks doing it, because when there's loud noise you know, as I said earlier, sometimes that was noise and what signal is difficult to pass through. But the media doesn't tell the steering synchronize that.

Hugh : 

Yeah, yeah, you definitely need downtime. Eat well. As hard as it is right? You know, you don't have your eyes. It's like, okay, wait, they could drink a lot of

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Bimal : 

I think one more thing which I want to cover is we covered before going to ViVE or prep during, during the ViVE that meet people serendipity is, a lot of energy, right time man is divide and conquer. Now let's move on to the after ViVE part. Because no 150 You talk about? I'm sure after work activities are crucial as well. Could you walk me through what the activities are, what the goals are? And how do you orchestrate those activities?

Hugh : 

It's a good point. I mean, that's a lot of you know, curation as well, from the sales, business development and the partnership level, you have to kind of sort through what's real and what isn't. And if you take copious notes, and or, you know, you either have the lead system at five, or you have your own lead system, taking pictures that whatever that is copious notes are key as to who you have to follow up with and how soon. In our case, it's, you know, Product Engineering, people want to build products, and they want to move fast. And they're there. First up, and as I mentioned, we had a lot of leads, and they were all good. So they go into hot, warm end or cold or partnership, and we're investors and or, you know, startup companies. So again, it's a matter of curating all that data, getting it into our CRM. In our case, HubSpot, and just doing all the follow up, which we had very, very rich follow up following both Vive and health knee, we're still in that process for both of those engagements, especially health most recently, so on, you know, it's it's exciting all the friends, partnerships and customers that we've had come from five unhealthy. So it's important for us to nurture that. And that too, is where even if they're not going to be buying from us in the near term, they become part of our community. And we have a podcast, which I think is amazing. And staying in touch with thought leaders and building that community is very important to us because we're very committed to digital health transformation.

Bimal : 

Awesome. So I think what I've figured out is building communities. Yes. You know, when you meet a lot of people at once, I don't know for me it may be different for other people for me at least right? I tend to forget, where did I meet this person who made the person because I have When hundreds of people have been spelled P days, right? So it's really difficult for me to, you know, remember, so what I do is I take, I take a picture and take and take notes. And then there I kind of tie, okay, what is the, you know, the urgency level priority and all those things so that I don't have to remember in the past, and this goes to the IV use hotspot and, and then and then tracking system because it's really easy. And then it gives me some pointers to remember. So then and then, okay, these are pointers that this person is registered this particular thing, and this is why we talked about, you know, note taking, and I think that discipline of Note taking is crucial, after, you know, after this, everything, this will note taking the curating and parsing out what's real and what's not real. It sounds like all these other things that we talked about told me, it's like, there is no magic to it. But it's about, you know, it's very thorough discipline. And it's about being, you know, very, very disciplined.

Hugh : 

Yeah, discipline, yes, you know, defining who you are, you know, making sure you're marketing your message, how you are, uniquely defining yourself in the market, and then aligning yourself with, you know, your, your clients, your potential clients and partners. There's, yeah, that's, that's heavy lifting for everybody, you know, try trying to get that right, and then bending over backwards to get those meetings where you can, and then and then being tenacious. You know, just just, you know, again, you know, we've talked about this, it comes down to the sales process, you know, engaging people, creating a coach a champion, digging in deep as to where the fit is, you know, in our case, coming up with a solid proposal slash so w, that serves the client, you know, that that's, that's our first product that we built for you is the s o  w because we paint a picture as to architecture, timelines, cost, and, you know, realistically, you know, get you to a point in an MVP as an example, where you can pilot and then you then you really start to find out about yourself. As things change, features change, the architecture changes, potentially, but it's fun, and we love it. And we're really good at it.

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Bimal :

Hey Hugh How are you doing?

Hugh:

I'm good Mr. Bimal.  Good to see you today. Welcome to my domicile

Bimal : 

Aren't we living on the internet these days?

Hugh : 

Yeah, indeed. Thank goodness for zoom. We've never seen each other, I like your headset too, looks like you're ready for some space age.

Bimal : 

I like this one, it is a noise canceling one and sometimes is helpful. But otherwise after I moved to this suburb of Boston, there rarely any noises, before I used to live in near the city and there was always committed rails and vehicles honking and all the others you know, fire trucks, sirens and all of those things that I needed one and also it's I don't think it cancels out the noise from the background while through the mic though.

Hugh:

Yeah, I know I got kids yelling and screaming, you know, running through the house. Dogs barking Yeah, I feel the pain.

Bimal:

So yeah, I think ViVE is coming up. I think it's Sunday next week. And I was wondering as you have been to so many of these conferences in your you know, in your experience like how is ViVE different? What excites you for ViVE? And how are you preparing for ViVE? I'd love to know I'd love to understand your experience and your point of view.

Hugh:

Hang on a second , got one of those interruptions right now. No idea what it was but couldn't get in here. Yeah, ViVE is is is a really good meeting. Last year, we went to ViVE and health, HLTH and they had the same flavor.ViVE, I like it even better. I mean, last year, it was in Miami. And it wasn't that big you know over time have gone to you know, packers and CHIME and HIMSS, all great meetings for different reasons. But ViVE was nice because it was focused on innovation acceleration on it had investors there at big focus on startups with like StartUp Health, you know, Rock Health, I mean, all of that Cedar Sinai Innovation Group, United innovation, UNC innovation on so so the flavor, and the energy of it all was was just amazing. And that was held by extension similar to that, but but a fair amount bigger. But we had great success. I mean, Persimmon itself probably had 150 leads. And I want to say all of which were very fruitful in either, you know, building our business or building our community percent, which is, you know, investors, innovators, incubators, accelerators, startup companies, you know, anywhere from, you know, Angel and seed to series A and B. So, now it's a good one, and I'm excited this year, it's in Nashville, because Nashville is a great town. You know, it's just, it's not far from Atlanta, which is,

Bimal : 

That's awesome. Like, how long of a drive is it for you?

Hugh : 

It's about three hours. Yeah, that's, that's gonna be easy.

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