The CTO Podcast

What does it take to be successful and have longevity as a a CTO in healthcare tech today? In Larry Heminger’s case it takes optimism. Larry is the CTO of Sapiens Data Science, a company committed to increasing people’s life span through healthcare tech breakthroughs. On today’s CTO Studio, we talk about how and why Larry joined the team at Sapiens, why he’s attracted to companies that are making a difference in people’s lives and what his Design for Success approach is all about. Join us for this illuminating discussion on today’s CTO Studio.  In this episode, you’ll hear:Why doesn't he see himself retiring - ever?How many years does it take for a medical breakthrough to make it to family physicians?As CTO, how to make decisions that stand the test of scaleWhat is his Design for Success methodology?What is the Snowflake Computing approach, and why did Larry choose them?And so much more! Larry is the CTO of Sapiens Data Science. Our very first topic is a dive into his journey of becoming their CTO. Larry tells us about his interesting ride; he had been working with ecoATM Gazelle for about 7.5 years and had been apart of their organization from their ealy start-up days. Larry experienced a full 360 degree business cycle with ecoATM, going public through acquisition and then back to being a private company again.  The work they did (and still do today) was in the field of automated retail: recycling of cell phones.  Even though the work was amazing, he felt it was time to look for something new and different after his 7+ years with them. He wanted to do work that was meaningful and of benefit to everyone. Using his experience with a previous healthcare start-up, Larry found a few new opportunities in San Diego that were health tech related. Sapiens specifically interested him because of their CEO, Brad Perkins. And Larry became even more enthusiastic after meeting with Brad, hearing of Brad’s passion and learning of their mission - Sapiens is in the business of adding more birthdays to people's lives. They help people live longer through the burgeoning fields of genomics and data science. Next I asked him to describe his mindset coming from ecoATM, a company that was retail-focused, and then going into the health tech space with Sapiens. Larry says there are many similarities and of course some differences. For him the key was and is feeling like he is doing something good. Like most of us, Larry spends so much time at work that he wants to feel like he's having an impact on people’s lives. For him it is not just about paycheck, it’s more the opportunity to help build a new, amazing company. He goes on to say he believes healthcare will look very different in 10 years. One area in particular is the speed at which information becomes available to physicians, he says this will be sped up exponentially. Instead of taking almost two decades for your family physician to find out about medical breakthroughs, it will happen much, much faster. Patients will also be empowered with their own data and information. My next question for him was where does Sapiens hit roadblocks with regulations and stereotypes? Those are definitely challenges they face as any healthcare company is going to be challenged with regulations, data privacy and security. Those aspects are all very important to the success of a healthcare company in tech and outside of tech. Larry explains the basic strategy, something he calls design for success which applies to start ups as well as larger companies. It goes like this: If you assume your company will be successful, and you draw out the architecture of your company with that succesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ctopod.com

What is it like to handle both hardware and software development needs? Anh Nguyen is a hybrid CTO of hardware and software and she’s here tell us all about it.Anh is the CTO of Creative Electron where they build imaging systems that use creative electrons for the purpose of inspecting samples for defects. On today’s show she’ll explain how their equipment works, what she thinks about the state of women in tech today and her journey to the United States from Vietnam when she was a child. Hear that and more on today’s CTO Studio.In this episode, you’ll hear:Do their products create image renderings in 2D or 3D?Are their offerings all custom-made? Why or why not?How does their annual preventative maintenance work?y/What was it like to participate in Hacking for the Homeless?Why women should embrace being women CTOs and not just CTOs.And so much more!On of my first questions to Anh is whether they are mostly a hardware company or a software imaging company. Anh responds by telling us what her CEO likes to say: "What we are is a software company that delivers our product in a hardware box."Although that sounds like something a sales person would say, her CEO actually has a background in EE and an MBA. He has come up with a lot of their ideas and how they have productized those ideas.He works with her and their COO to come up with solutions that work for their customers.Who are those customers exactly - who makes up their customer base? PCB manufacturers, electronic manufacturing services. She goes on to explain how their products work and why they are safe to use without protective gear!My next question was about her responsibilities as CTO. Does she preside over a hybrid of hardware and software? Yes. Because software is managing the hardware they are very intertwined. As far as what hardware is going to be used and how things are integrated those decisions are all under the software stack. Anh and her team make suggestions on what is compatible or not.We dive into the world of X-rays a bit deeper including Anh's explanation of how their imaging systems work in a variety of settings before talking about her journey to becoming CTO.Was she hired to become CTO or did she advance into the role from a different position within the company? She became one. Her original title within the company was VP of Software Development. Then last year she became CTO. They have been growing and because software is so intertwined into their products that originally her focus was on maintaining and developing the software side of things.But over time her CEO realized they needed to have a tighter relationship between software and hardware. He said it made sense for her to be CTO and to think about new strategies they can deploy and new technologies they can start implementing to grow their software along with their hardware.Does she have direct reports from both hardware and software? She does and when asked how she manages both she laughs and says you just do it! She says it's the equivalent of working at a startup essentially. Making good software they do have to understand what is happening with the hardware so managing both hardware and software is a natural evolution. Because they are a startup you just have to dive in and figure things out. The main advice she would give others is to simply do it.From here we get more into the mechanics of how Anh "CTOs". She doesn't have VPs she manages directly. She has three direct reports and then she will also talk to the manufacturing team. The person who does all of the CAD designs will come to her and her team to ensure everything they are creating can be fully integrated; they all want to be sure the software performs up to the levels the customers need which means having repeatable results and being abSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ctopod.com

If you saw a need or an opportunity outside of your industry would you recognize it? Our guest did and he’s here to tell us about it. Alan Leard is one of the co-founders of Limelight Health, a quoting, underwriting, proposal platform that started as an idea for an app. You'll hear the origin story of Limelight Health today as well as how it has evolved, plus Alan's thoughts on having four co-founders and making the transition into the CTO role. Join us for those insights and more on today's CTO Studio!In this episode, you’ll hear:Why four co-founders is the best number to have.What are the three questions I ask every CEO before I join a startup?When did he know it was time to make the transition into CTO at Limelight Health?What are the ways they mitigate risk?Why are the technical challenges of Limelight Health so attractive?And so much more!When I asked Alan to tell me what Limelight Health does he explained Limelight involves everything that needs to happen from the moment an employer says they are going to get insurance for their employees through the point when the employees are actually choosing the health insurance right for them.The process is about providing accurate information on what plans are available and quote them accurately, as well as apply contribution modeling as far as how much the employer is going to pay and how much the employee is going to pay.All of that gets wrapped up into a proposal that helps the employer make a decision. But how Limelight got its start goes back to one of Alan's first businesses: a make-your-own wine bar.Before he and his wife had kids they wanted to do something together, they wanted to run a business together. When they came across the idea of a make-your-own-wine wine bar it seemed perfect and they set about making it happen. They ran their bar together through all the ups and downs that entailed.That bar also led Alan to meet one of his future fellow co-founders of Limelight Health. It started after the wine bar had been up and running for about four years. Alan realized he was putting in 12 hours at the wine bar then coming home and making mobile apps as a hobby on the side.Along the way he also met Garrett when Alan hired him as a musician to play at one of the bar's Wine and Roses events. Alan had also gotten hired with Accelerator in a support role - he mainly offered support for other developers using that platform. When Garrett began talking to Alan about an app idea he had Alan's ears perked up.But Alan was no stranger to app ideas, he had so many people approach him with ideas that Alan had a series of questions he asked everyone who talked to him! The first was does that app already exist? Have you checked the app store?If they had and the app wasn't already made (which was the case with Garrett’s idea) then he had a follow-up question. That question was do you know what user stories are? Garrett didn't so Alan explained to him what they are.A week later Garrett came back with full-on wireframes and had written out user stories. So they built that app together, it was an app meant to help people find local artists online. After that Garrett saw the potential in his everyday line of work: insurance brokerage. This was about the time the Affordable Care Act was coming into existence and Garrett wanted to be able to help his families find the right options for them.So they turned it into a lead gen app: you would plug in your household size, your income and location. The app would then tell you what your insurance was going to cost. There was also an in-app purchase which would allow brokers to have their customers quickly get an idea of what they were going to pay and then the brokers would help the customers sign up for a plan straightaway.And that is how they found thSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ctopod.com