Transcript:

James Bell [00:00:02]: Welcome to the Bentonville Beacon, where we bring you success stories from business leaders and owners about their triumphs and growth in the Bentonville and northwest Arkansas community. You’ll hear about how Bentonville has been the backdrop for incredible growth, not only for businesses and their employees, but in their personal lives as well. Tune in, subscribe, and enjoy hearing about Bentonville, where you get more of what you want and less of what you don’t. Welcome back to the Bentonville Beacon podcast, where we’re sharing stories and advice from the entrepreneurs, business executives, and community leaders, sparking the rise of the greater Bentonville area, which represents one of the fastest growing and most dynamic cities and economies in the United States and is nestled in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas in the heartland of America. Hi, I’m your host, James Bell, and this episode is part of a special three part series highlighting the latest fuel for your health accelerator cohort, which is based here in Bentonville at the ledger. To get started, let me introduce you to Darian Harris, who is Fuel’s director. Darian, welcome to the show. Darian Harris [00:01:13]: Thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be on. James Bell [00:01:15]: You bet. Well, let’s just jump right in and, you know, you’ve been on some episodes before, but share what you want, uh, with the Bentonville Beacon audience about what you want them to know about yourself. Darian Harris [00:01:26]: Yeah, I would just say, um, first of all, it’s, it’s been an absolute pleasure to be a part of the fuel accelerator. Um, I come from both a startup background and a Walmart background, so I’ve played a little bit on the startup side, played a little bit on the enterprise side. Um, and so I’ve gotten to see a lot of different things and, uh, getting to be a part of other founders journeys and being a part of this has been an absolute blast. James Bell [00:01:48]: You know, I was just thinking, as you said, that you can say something that the vast majority of people in the world cannot say, is that you’ve been part of the smallest company in the world and the largest company. Darian Harris [00:02:01]: That is very true. James Bell [00:02:02]: I think that’s one of those things that can only happen here. Darian Harris [00:02:05]: That can only happen here. And it’s been an interesting journey right in the last, I guess, eight or nine years, having done a little bit of both or a lot of both, you could say, kind of gives it a unique perspective. James Bell [00:02:18]: Yeah, you bet. Well, will you talk about the fuel accelerator? What’s it all about? Darian Harris [00:02:22]: Yeah, so the fuel accelerator is, like James said, based in Bentonville, Arkansas. We’ve seen now over 50 companies. And so we’re starting to grow quite quickly. We’ll see about 30 companies this year, just for some context of over the last six years, seen 51 companies, and we’ll see 30 just this year. So that speaks to the growth that we’re seeing, and I think it speaks to the growth of northwest Arkansas, the growth of fuel accelerator, and the kind of the impact that we’re able to make, thanks to people like you and the groups that we get to work with. But we’re a startup accelerator. We bring in companies from around the world, really focused, typically in the seed to series, a kind of phase. You’ve already got some enterprise business, you’ve got some one or two large customers, and it can be more usually in a few hundred thousand in revenue, up to several million. Darian Harris [00:03:09]: That’s really where we can take those companies, bring them into the region, introduce them to key players in the area, be it Walmart, Target, JB Hunt, arkbest, to name a few. But it’s an extremely target rich environment here that you may not expect to see for a region that’s got 600,000 people or so, but we’ve got large players and all the supporting cast. We always say it’s a target rich environment that is very valuable for startups to get connected into. And one of the things that we hear often that I think is really special is we’ll bring in companies from literally as far as Singapore, South Korea, as close as Texas. Right. We’ll bring in companies from all over the world. And in almost every case, you’ll hear them say, unsolicited. You’ll hear them say, I’m more connected here in a few short weeks than I’ve ever been at home. Darian Harris [00:03:55]: And I think that speaks to what is unique about bentonville. People genuinely want to help and get to. The opportunity to play a part of these founders journeys is, uh, not something that Tom or I take lightly. It’s, it’s a special experience. James Bell [00:04:08]: Excellent. Well, before I jump into this next question, I didn’t give you any warning on this, but realized I should ask it. How can folks reach you, and how can they find out more about fuel? Yeah. Darian Harris [00:04:18]: Uh, darian@startupjunkie.org. Uh, that’s dash a r, dash I a n, or on LinkedIn. Darian Harris. Um, I try to get back to everybody as fast as possible. James Bell [00:04:27]: Great. And what’s fuel’s website? Darian Harris [00:04:29]: Uh, fuelaccelerator.com dot. James Bell [00:04:30]: Perfect. Easy to remember. Will you give an example also of how fuel partners with other organizations? Darian Harris [00:04:37]: Yeah, so we are extremely fortunate to have a lot of great partners. We’re supported by the Walton Family Foundation, Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Having groups like that support is really crucial to us being able to facilitate these activities and bring on the right team to be able to do so. Also, Bentonville Chamber, different groups that get involved and do things like this to help our startups get the word out right. It’s really important that they feel connected, like I said before, and are able to have access to the right players. And so you’ve been a great help for the companies. James Bell [00:05:09]: Well, thank you. Darian Harris [00:05:09]: Just getting them plugged in, making sure they know the right people. And when you’re in Bentonville, when you’re in northwest Arkansas, you’re one person away from, really anyone, maybe two people away in some cases, but you can’t say that for everywhere. James Bell [00:05:25]: Excellent. I feel like we’ve already told a couple of these, but I’m going to get you to tell another. And that’s the hashtag because Bentonville story, what’s something that you look back at and you think, boy, that could only happen here? Or perhaps it describes the essence of Bentonville. Yeah. Darian Harris [00:05:41]: So I’m actually going to pivot away from what you thought I was going to say here. I think a really good example of this. I mentioned earlier how we’re growing really fast at fuel. We’re continuing to grow. We did one cohort a year for, I think, four or five years. We did two last year. We’re doing three this year. For those of you that don’t know, we’re in the health tech space, which was new last year. Darian Harris [00:06:01]: We’re going to continue that. We’ve been in the AI space for now, five, six years now. So we always joke that we were in AI before it was cool. Now it’s in base layer of everything that’s going on. But we’re actually launching cybersecurity this summer. And I think my because Bentonville story is a cool one. It was not really on our radar to do a third cohort. It wasn’t really on our radar to do cybersecurity. Darian Harris [00:06:26]: And we had the unique opportunity to have one of our mentors, Sajan. He was a mentor, former ciso at Rvest, and at the time was the ciso at rvest. And just the level of people that are engaged in the program, mentors and supporting these startups opens up doors left and right for the companies and for us to be able to create more impact. And so when we looked at what would be sort of the next space. Sajan was getting ready to transition out of arvest, and we were talking with him about, hey, we had two cybersecurity companies that were a part of our AI cohort last year that saw a lot of success, one of which, we all know Dexter moved his headquarters here, never even left. Week ten of the program, never left. I think that’s a really cool story and a testament to where cybersecurity companies are seeing success here. We went to Sajan and said, hey, I think that we have a really unique opportunity to bring on another cohort, bring in cybersecurity companies here, and talk to large enterprises. Darian Harris [00:07:24]: And then the last thing I’ll add to that, that sort of is a because Bidenville story, you’ve seen healthcare have issues with cybersecurity. James Bell [00:07:34]: That’s right. Darian Harris [00:07:34]: And it’s sort of timely for us to sort of jump into space kind of before that happened. But now that it’s happened, we’re now seeing sort of this really cool overlap where you’ve got all of the major players in healthcare here, including Alice Walton, making a major push into healthcare AI. We have some of the largest enterprises in the world. Well, now we see cyber sort of as this blend. Right? Healthcare needs that. Large enterprises need it. And so now we’re starting to see a blend of the networks that we’re able to create. And I think you just don’t. Darian Harris [00:08:05]: For an area this size, I mean, growing rapidly, but for an area this size, you just don’t see the amount of opportunity that you can have here in other places like this. James Bell [00:08:16]: That’s right. That’s absolutely true. Darian, thank you so much for coming on and helping me set this up. So get ready. You’re going to meet some of the fuel for your health accelerator cohort companies. Darian Harris [00:08:28]: Thank you, James. James Bell [00:08:29]: Thank you. Okay, let me introduce you to Tyler Zannon, CEO of Endoshant. Tyler, welcome to the podcast. Tyler Zannon [00:08:44]: Yeah, thank you for having us. Very excited to share more about ourselves and our team soon. James Bell [00:08:49]: Well, I’m thrilled to have you here. So will you share with the audience what it is that you would like them to know about you? Tyler Zannon [00:08:55]: Absolutely. So I’ve been lucky enough to be in medical device development for a little less than a decade at this point. And what’s really fun is coming from, historically, an industry being on the startup side of that, where you get to really push the needle on innovation. And I’m just beyond grateful for the team that we have, the product that we’re putting together, and the impact that we’ll be able to make in healthcare sometime in the near future. James Bell [00:09:17]: Wonderful. Well, let’s talk, then, about endoshunt. What problem is the company solving? Uh, who do you solve it for? And then how do you do that? Tyler Zannon [00:09:26]: Absolutely. So, have you ever had a burst pipe, by any chance? James Bell [00:09:29]: Oh, yes. Tyler Zannon [00:09:30]: Okay. Unfortunately. Unfortunately is right. Um, the way that we deal with that right now is you may wrap a towel around the outside to put pressure on it to stop water from coming out, or you just turn off water entirely. And what’s terrifying about that is that’s actually how our trauma surgeons right now are empowered to stop abdominal hemorrhage. They either pack a bunch of sponges or gauze on the outside of the injury, which gets in the way of them actually making real repairs, or they stop blood flow with things like clamps or balloon occlusion. Uh, while that’s okay and water works, if you stop blood flow, you start, you stop oxygen flow. And if we are the patients, that can lead to complications as serious as blood poisoning, amputation, organ failure, all in as little as 30 minutes, and as the time keeps going, potentially even death. Tyler Zannon [00:10:13]: And so what we do is we give surgeons the ability to gain targeted, temporary control over hemorrhage through a size adjustable shunt that’s deployed inside the aorta or the IVC. So their patient’s bloods will be flowing to where it should be and not out of where it shouldn’t. James Bell [00:10:30]: Evan, that’s. That’s perfect. Everybody needs to keep their blood in them, right? Darian Harris [00:10:33]: Yes. Tyler Zannon [00:10:33]: That’s a requirement of life. James Bell [00:10:36]: Yeah. I’ve actually observed some of this in the before, so fully recognize what you’re saying. You’re. You’re solving. I mean, you’re solving a real problem. And it. It is strange how there’s so many archaic things left that we do in healthcare, and this being one of them, isn’t it? Yeah. Tyler Zannon [00:10:55]: The last true innovation for this field was scary enough, world war two. And since then, we’ve just been making the mousetrap a little bit smaller. And so what we’re looking to do is our device is designed by and for trauma surgeons, and so it’s really meeting them where they are so that they have what they need to successfully save these patients lives and improve their outcomes. Cause while a burst pipe may be chaos, that has nothing in comparison to abdominal hemorrhage and an or. James Bell [00:11:21]: Absolutely. Uh, Tyler, you’ve been here, uh, in, uh, Bentonville for a few weeks. The fuel for your health accelerator. Uh, will you share how fuel for your health and Bentonville and northwest Arkansas have been helpful to you and. And, uh, endoshun? Tyler Zannon [00:11:36]: Yeah, absolutely. So what’s really nice about this program is the connections and the lessons. And so I’ll start with connections and then turn over to the latter, if that’s okay. What I love about the community down here is their willingness to help. Um, if you ask for something with respect, of course you’re likely to gain someone giving you feedback that doesn’t just respond to an email, but actually helps you move forward, learn something, de risk something, improve upon something, really progress your company and yourself in a manner that’s going to be seen in the future successes that you have. And that goes for the actual fuel team themselves, too. I think we’re about halfway now. Don’t audit my math here. Tyler Zannon [00:12:18]: I think we’re about halfway now. But even the growth that we’ve seen in these first handful of weeks versus some of the strategies that we are implementing and how we’re going to improve upon those and the future of our commercialization are going to really make sure that when we get to market, we’re ready. And that in doing so, we can make sure we’re helping these surgeons save as many lives as possible. James Bell [00:12:36]: And that’s perfect. If somebody wants to reach you or get to know more about endoshunt, how do they do that? Tyler Zannon [00:12:43]: So we do have our public facing website. There’s, of course, the general info at Endochant, more human based. You can always email me directly@tylerndoshant.com. And we’re very open to engagement with whether you’re on the healthcare side, the entrepreneurial side, whatever it may be. We’re really seeing successes because of the network that we’re lucky enough to be a part of. And if we could give back to anyone on any side of that coin, we’re happy to do so. James Bell [00:13:08]: Excellent. All right, only have one more. We’ll make that two more questions for you because I want to slide an extra one in for you. And that’s hot takes on Bittenville. This, in fact, is not your first trip to Bentonville, so will you talk about that? Tyler Zannon [00:13:20]: Yes. So I actually joined Endershun in March of last year just for setting the stage. And my third week in the company was the Heartland challenge put on by the University of Arkansas. And so three weeks into the company, I am flying down here for the first time in my life to give my 1st 15 minutes pitch on a company that I’ve been a part of for 15 business days. And that’s one business day per minute of pitch, which actually is not that bad of an equation. So, remember landing late, I think maybe 11:00 p.m. Just came from our first animal study and had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, because we were so busy and backed up. And I shot Deb from University of Arkansas on email, and the first thing that resonated me was that she actually responded. Tyler Zannon [00:14:07]: She made sure I got to my hotel okay, that I wasn’t lost or stranded at the airport, and that was going to be set up in a way that was going to help improve our chances of success for the rest of the programming. And then throughout the events, which were incredible, seeing the different areas, including crystal bridges, which I cannot wait to go back to this weekend, the events, the people, and the. I would be as bold to say as friendships that we made during that weekend were second to none that we’ve seen in other competitions. Similar. James Bell [00:14:39]: Excellent. Well, I had the opportunity to be an ambassador. We paired up ambassadors with each of the teams, and I was Endoshant’s ambassador, I’ll tell you that. I specifically requested you all because, in fact, that was not my first contact with Indo shut in this weird world we live in here. I’ve been in here in Bentonville a little over three years now, but before here, I was in Memphis, and I was part of the. What was the life science, Tennessee or the biotein mentored network. And when Endoshant was basically coming out of Vanderbilt, I believe I was set on an intake panel for that network. I’m not sure that endoshunt actually went through it, but. James Bell [00:15:19]: And then did a little bit of mentoring with the original founders as well. So it’s funny how the world comes full circle. Tyler Zannon [00:15:27]: Yeah, absolutely. And I still remember the first day we landed striker, yourself, me, and a slurry of individuals that you planned for us to meet with all back to back to back succession. You did a phenomenal job as the ambassador to northwest Arkansas when we were down here. Andy Olson [00:15:43]: Glad to help. James Bell [00:15:44]: I’d love to add that, in fact, fuel was one of that. Was part of that group that you got to meet. Tyler Zannon [00:15:50]: First time I met Darian, actually, before our, if I’m not misremembering before our actually judged pitch, Darian was instrumental on giving us some feedback, some tips on ways we could potentially draw the crowd in a little bit more, get the judges to be more emotionally invested, but also interested in avoiding sometimes which any healthcare startup falls into from time and again is. Is sometimes being too technical. So he really helped us level set that make it a little more general and hopefully a little bit more inspiring. James Bell [00:16:17]: Perfect. Well, I have one last question for you, and that’s for a hashtag because Bentonville story, that’s something that happened where you look back at it and you think maybe that could only happen in Bentonville or it describes the essence of Bentonville. Tyler Zannon [00:16:30]: That’s, I know the rest of the cohort has some good prompts on this. So this one hopefully lives up to everything else we’ve heard so far. But because of that weekend when I was coming down here for the original heartland challenge, I, right before actually just closed on a condo. And to this day, what I said on that stage about potentially wanting to look at real estate down here is pretty true. And it’s because of the community. It’s because of how engaged everyone is to helping those around them. And it is truly inspiring. And so don’t air this before this weekend, please. Tyler Zannon [00:17:03]: But I’m flying my girlfriend down this Thursday to hopefully start to move the needle on what a future here could look like over time. So, yeah, we really, from the first weekend that I was here, was blown away by what it is that’s being built down here and it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of it. James Bell [00:17:22]: Absolutely. Well, I think that’s a great place to end this segment. Tyler, thank you so much for coming on the show. Tyler Zannon [00:17:27]: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. James Bell [00:17:29]: You bet. Let me introduce you to Beth Gall, who’s vice president for cells at Rainfall Health. Beth Gall [00:17:41]: Hi. James Bell [00:17:42]: Hey, Beth. Welcome to the show. Beth Gall [00:17:44]: Thank you. James Bell [00:17:45]: What would you like the Bentonville Beacon audience to know about you? Beth Gall [00:17:48]: Well, I’m one of this group, so I’m a hillbilly, born and raised about an hour and a half north of here. And I got connected with rainfall health. Our founder and CEO is also, I call him hillbilly. I don’t know if he likes that term as much as I do, but he’s from northeast Arkansas and his story is around healthcare access and medical deserts. James Bell [00:18:11]: So nice. Beth Gall [00:18:12]: That’s how rainfall health came to be. James Bell [00:18:14]: Excellent. Well, I gotta, maybe you’ll tell me in a moment how the founder of a company is a Hillbilly and the company’s based in Berkeley, California. Beth Gall [00:18:26]: That’s where the discrepancy lies. James Bell [00:18:27]: Yeah. Andy Olson [00:18:28]: Yeah, exactly. Beth Gall [00:18:28]: And I’m based in Kansas City. We’re kind of all over the place. We’ve got a lot of folks in the Bay Area, and then we’ve got some east coasters, too. And we’re all remote, but we do get to see each other in person every once in a while. So that’s really connects the dots there. James Bell [00:18:41]: So you’re basically all Bentonville, is what you’re telling me. Beth Gall [00:18:43]: We are all Bentonville. James Bell [00:18:46]: So let’s talk about rainfall health. What is the problem that you solve? Who do you solve it for, and how do you do that? Yeah. Beth Gall [00:18:54]: So we know that today there are about 67 million people who live in rural and underserved communities or medical deserts. Again, the rainfall health is to, to support medical deserts. And in those communities, there are only about 10% of the nation’s providers actually practicing in those communities. So we’re trying to connect a better way for folks to give and receive care. We are a dual sided referral network platform. So providers get into our platform, payers health systems. We’ve got the patients coming in referred into our platform again to connect with those providers, and it’s all interoperable with health systems. So we’re just, we’re trying to streamline the whole healthcare ecosystem. James Bell [00:19:34]: Oh, wow. Okay. Beth Gall [00:19:35]: It’s a big task. James Bell [00:19:36]: That is a big task. Awesome. When was the company founded? Just out of curiosity? Beth Gall [00:19:42]: 2018. James Bell [00:19:43]: 2018. Okay, great. So just before the pandemic. And who knew that the pandemic would probably force that right along? Beth Gall [00:19:51]: Yeah, well, actually, we’ve reached branded recently, too. We were valorant Health. We had a big government agency support to start, and we found that we were serving a lot more than just those government agencies and felt like we needed to rebrand into rainfall health. James Bell [00:20:07]: I think that’s a cool name. Thank you. Beth Gall [00:20:09]: I like it. James Bell [00:20:10]: Yeah. Beth Gall [00:20:10]: The folks here locally know us as making it rain, but I don’t know if that really make it rain for healthcare, I guess. James Bell [00:20:17]: That’s perfect. Beth Gall [00:20:17]: We started something. James Bell [00:20:18]: I love it. So here you are in the fuel for your health cohort. How has fuel for your health in Bentonville and northwest Arkansas? Have we treated you? The question I’m really asking you is, how are we helping you along? Beth Gall [00:20:31]: Yeah, I am totally impressed with this program. I should also say I’m relatively new to rainfall health. So I came in and they’re like, okay, we’re going to Bentonville. And I was thinking, okay, and now that we’ve been here, we were in a room with like minded individuals, and we’re able to be extremely vulnerable and understand what’s working and what isn’t with our messaging, our entire sales process. And as a sales person, you know, I think you’ve done this before. You kind of think that you know a lot, and then you get in and able to pick it apart and, and to speak with other. With health system leaders in the community and with that vulnerability, I’m not trying to sell you something. I’m trying to sincerely get your opinion on. Beth Gall [00:21:11]: This has been amazing for I. I know this is going to be beneficial for our company. So I’ve been really grateful for that opportunity. James Bell [00:21:20]: That is. That’s always huge when you get those experts in a room to help you, and it’s a no risk situation. Darian Harris [00:21:27]: Right. James Bell [00:21:28]: I always love that. So, um, how can our audience, uh, Beth, how can our audience reach you or get to know more about rainfall health? Beth Gall [00:21:35]: Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. Beth gall. I have a lot of gall there. There it is. Um, I am also. You can look at our website, ww dot rainfallhealth.com, and those are probably the best ways to reach us. James Bell [00:21:49]: Perfect. One last question for you. Will you share a story? And this is going to be a hashtag, because Bentonville story, it’s something that happened where you look at it and you think maybe that could only happen in Bentonville or it describes the essence of this place. Beth Gall [00:22:02]: Yeah, I’m going to. I’m just going to say the community here is very magical. And having grown up around it, I’m a little bit biased. Um, but I know people who’ve relocated here, I’ve heard their stories, and getting to reconnect with those people has been awesome. But to just sit in a room of people who are so invested in their community. I mean, again, I’m in Kansas City. We have a lot of that, but not necessarily in the same room and running at the same pace. So I’ve been so pleasantly surprised with that and really excited to be a part of it. James Bell [00:22:33]: Running at the same pace. I’m making myself a note here. Maybe this is stuff I can actually use as a recruit folks here. No, that’s really cool. That is. I’m starting to see a theme here with investment in the community, but also this theme of speed that I’ve had the same conversation with some of your cohort members, which is so vital to a startup, is going at speed, and this place does. Beth Gall [00:23:01]: We all have things to do. We’re excited to make a change, not just for this community, but for wherever we can. James Bell [00:23:05]: You bet. Well, Beth, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Beth Gall [00:23:09]: Yeah, thanks for having me. James Bell [00:23:10]: You bet. Let me introduce you to Andy Olson, who’s the co founder and CEO of inherent biosciences. Andy, welcome to the show. Darian Harris [00:23:24]: Thanks, James. Andy Olson [00:23:25]: It’s great to be here. James Bell [00:23:26]: Hey, what would you like the Bentonville Beacon audience to know about you? Andy Olson [00:23:29]: Well, I’m the oldest of eight kids, and my parents had eight kids in ten years. My dad’s a pediatrician, and I grew up in the healthcare environment. He was the pediatrician in our town. I grew up in Spokane, Washington, so a smaller metropolitan area, and he was the pediatrician in town that took care of all the kids that nobody else really would take care of. So he had a lot of kids that had rare and undiagnosed disease and different things like that. So I kind of grew up with that background and wanted to do something in healthcare because of that. That’s why my career has kind of gone in that direction. James Bell [00:24:09]: That’s really cool. I have to ask, eight kids in ten years, were some triplets or twins? No, no, I love it. That’s really cool. Well, you tell me about inherent biosciences. What is it that you do? Or let me ask it this way, what’s the problem you solve? Who do you solve it for, and how do you do it? Andy Olson [00:24:30]: Great. I’ll tell you a story that. That answers that question. So in October of 2018, I was in Salt Lake City and moved back to Salt Lake City from St. Louis, and I was looking for the next clinical problem that needed to be solved. And I met Emily and Bronson. They’re a young couple in their twenties. They had been married for two and a half years, and they were. Andy Olson [00:24:56]: They’d been trying to get pregnant for two of those years, and they spent about $80,000, mostly out of pocket. And their fertility doctor had diagnosed them with unexplained infertility. They were really frustrated, and that’s what caught my attention. My background has been in this area of molecular diagnostics, where you use, like, DNA technology to diagnose a clinical problem and guide better treatment. And so that caught my attention when their diagnosis was unexplained, and, like, that’s the diagnosis. I mean, there’s got to be. There’s a clinical problem here that needs to be solved. And so started looking into that and found that there’s a lot of focus on the female partner. Andy Olson [00:25:40]: She gets extensive and invasive testing and treatment. And yet 50% of infertility is due to male factors. One in six people experience infertility. So you probably know someone that has gone through it. If you don’t, they’re many people. This is a very common issue, and unexplained infertility as a diagnosis is also very common. So what we’ve done is looked at the male side of the equation because it’s really been overlooked. And today, up until now, the way people have assessed whether or not there’s a male infertility issue is really using like 6th grade science. Andy Olson [00:26:20]: It’s using a microscope to count how many sperm are there and how many are swimming, and that’s pretty much it. And so I saw that opportunity and I said, this is where we can make a difference. We can apply some molecular technology, some DNA based testing, to identify if there’s an issue with the sperm and revolutionize, really, the field of male infertility, because it’s really been overlooked. So that’s, that’s what we’ve done. And we’ve developed a proprietary test to analyze the DNA of the sperm and really determine if it can do its job. Can it find the egg, bind to the egg, penetrate the egg, and fertilize the egg on its own? If it can’t do that, then it needs more help. And we can get those couples to the treatment that’s going to help that sperm do its job, get into the egg and fertilize the egg and help them have a baby. That’s really the end goal there. Andy Olson [00:27:14]: So that’s what we’re doing with our technology today. James Bell [00:27:16]: That’s really neat. Can I ask what kind of results you’ve had so far? Andy Olson [00:27:19]: Yes. James Bell [00:27:20]: Yeah. Andy Olson [00:27:20]: So we find 20% of men that have a male factor that is going undiagnosed by just looking at their sperm with a microscope. So those 20% of men in those couples, they’re going through the fertility journey with a male factor. And when men are undiagnosed, women are going through, being put through these treatments that aren’t going to work. James Bell [00:27:45]: Hmm. That is wild. I keep going in my mind back to unexplained infertility, which really sounds like it means, and this seems a little bit opposite of the way healthcare typically happens, where it’s the female who’s ignored. That’s right. Now it’s the male who’s being ignored here, and you’re solving a real problem. Andy Olson [00:28:06]: That’s right. Yeah. It really is kind of mind blowing. And as we’ve gotten into this, my co founder, and she’s a PhD in this field of the technology that we’re using is called epigenetics. James Bell [00:28:19]: Okay. Andy Olson [00:28:20]: And so epi means above or on top of. And then genetics is the DNA. All of our cells have the same DNA. You can think of it like having the same hardware. James Bell [00:28:30]: Yeah. Andy Olson [00:28:31]: But each of the cells has different software. James Bell [00:28:34]: That’s right. Andy Olson [00:28:34]: Or epigenetics. And that’s what’s turning on and off the gene expression of that DNA. And so that’s the technology that we use. And she is just, she didn’t have any background in reproductive health, but she had all this background in the science that we’re using. And we have just been astonished at the lack of innovation, research and product development on the male side of this equation, which half of it is the male, I mean, and so it’s a really a big opportunity and thing to see the difference that we’re making for patients. Darian Harris [00:29:11]: Good. Andy Olson [00:29:11]: Is really rewarding. James Bell [00:29:13]: Fantastic. Well, here you are in the fuel for your health accelerator. How has the last few weeks with fuel for your health here in Bentonville, in northwest Arkansas? How’s that been? Or how have we helped? Andy Olson [00:29:25]: It’s been amazing. I keep telling people we are meeting the most amazing people, so people back home. And when we were accepted to this program, my co founder and I kind of looked at each other, said, should we do this? We don’t know anything about Bentonville. We’ve got a lot going on right now in our company, and this could be just a big distraction. And so we, frankly, we said, we need to talk to some people who have done this before. And Tom Douglas and Darian Harris. And Darian really got back to me real quickly and said, sure, we’ll give you some people. One of those people is Dexter Caffe. James Bell [00:30:05]: Oh, nice. Andy Olson [00:30:06]: Yeah, and Dexter. So. And then there was a couple other that we had, too. And so Dexter told us about his experience in the fuel health accelerator, and my co founder looked at me and said, this sounds too good to be true. And then we had another conversation. We had a conversation with Andrew Bart, and both of them had done technology companies here in the accelerator. And after the conversation with Andrew Bart, my co founder looked at me, Kristen looked at me, and she said, I’m sold. We got to go do this. Andy Olson [00:30:37]: And we just have to make it happen. We have to make it work with everything we have going on in our company. And I keep telling people, they keep asking me how this is going and what’s been your experience? And I just keep telling, we are meeting the most amazing people in this ecosystem. And it’s not like you meet someone and you have to follow up proactively with them. They are following up with you. James Bell [00:31:02]: Sure. Andy Olson [00:31:03]: And they’re sending me a message on LinkedIn and saying, hey, when can we get together like, this has never happened before in anything that we’ve ever done in our company at any networking event. So that’s been amazing. James Bell [00:31:16]: I’m glad to hear that because a lot of times in many other places I’ve been, what I’ve seen is that people don’t move at the same speed as startups. Right. They don’t get it. They don’t understand the speed you need to move at. And so I’m glad to hear that people are proactively following up with you. Andy Olson [00:31:33]: Yeah. The other thing about this program is that the next step in our company is the number one question that we get from fertility doctors who are recommending our product to their patients. And that is, can we get this paid for? And so that’s the next challenge that we really need to solve because right now the patients are having to pay for our testing out of pocket. And so this program has really helped us in the methodology of how you go through that process of working with a large corporation, a payer, whether it be an insurance payer or a self insured employer, to pay for this kind of healthcare for their employees or the members that they’re covering under an insurance program. So the things that we’re learning, the connections that we’re making in the ecosystem associated with getting this paid for have been instrumental and profound. Like, we’re five weeks, this is week five in this program, and we’re so excited about the traction that we’re getting there. And like you said, it’s way faster than in other parts of the country, even, you know, or parts of the world. It’s just what we found. James Bell [00:32:50]: Cool. Well, I’ve got a couple of people. I’m going to introduce you. Insurance space, one local, one not. How can our audience reach you or learn more about inherent biosciences? Andy Olson [00:33:02]: Best thing to do is go to our websites. We have two websites, one for the company, which is inherentbio.com, and we have a contact form on there. You can reach out through there. And then the other website is path P dashfertility.com, path fertility. And that’s our product website. So that’s where we market the sperm testing that we provide@pathfertility.com. Dot. We also have a contact page there. Andy Olson [00:33:27]: And any patient that is going through a fertility journey can order our testing through that website. We pair them up with a physician who then provides recommendations and talks through the results with them when they get the test results. James Bell [00:33:41]: Perfect. Okay, Andy, I have one last question. Darian Harris [00:33:43]: Okay. James Bell [00:33:44]: Can you share, you’ve been here a few weeks. Can you share a hashtag? Because Bentonville story, that’s something that happened where you look back at it and you think maybe that could only happen in Bentonville or describes the essence of the place. Andy Olson [00:33:55]: So I’m a big cyclist, okay? I ride a lot on the road in Utah where we’re based. And when I came out here, I heard about the cycling scene here. And I’ve had a mountain bike in the past. I’ve ridden mountain bike, but I hadn’t ridden mountain bike in probably 15 years, really, to any extent, you know, and the technology now is so amazing. So the, my hashtag only in Bentonville story is that I had a mentor meeting on a mountain bike. And it was I, at the end, we were together for 2 hours riding mountain bikes in the most amazing trails. I mean, the trails that you can downhill on here and at the end of that. So his name is Rajat Paria, and he is working on an amazing technology as well. Andy Olson [00:34:48]: He’s ex google, Stanford educated, just again, amazing person. And he’s talking about our business and helping us think through some of the ways that we present the information and the economic value and things like that. And I’m riding a mountain bike with him. And at the end of it, after 2 hours, I was riding back to the building that were in ledger, which is also amazing. And I turned to Rajat and I said, rajat, my cheeks hurt because I’ve been smiling this whole time that we’ve been riding together on the trails of Bentonville, Arkansas. And I thought, how is it that I’m having a mentor meeting here on a mountain bike? And I. So when you asked only invent Bentonville, I think that’s pretty, you know, a pretty good example of only in Bentonville. And it was just awesome. Andy Olson [00:35:42]: I can’t wait to go right again. James Bell [00:35:44]: I believe that would only happen in Bentonville. That is very hashtag because Bentonville. And you said something else that reminds me of a guest that we had on this show, Rafael Rios, who’s one of our local, said one of, because there’s several, one of our local James beard semifinalists, and he described this place as, you can just be happy. Yeah. Which is not true in a lot of places that happiness is. This. This place causes happiness. Andy Olson [00:36:12]: Now that you say that, I do think. I think about how much I’ve been smiling while I’ve been here. And that’s a unique, that’s something that’s unique, I think, to this place and just walking around looking at things. The museum, Crystal Bridges museum. Incredible. The people that you meet again. We met a volunteer there named Joe who talked to us for probably 20 minutes and just kept telling us story after story about the area, the people here, the museum, the art. And I walked away. Andy Olson [00:36:51]: I was like, I wanted to keep talking to Joe because I can’t wait to hear the next thing that he’s going to tell us about this amazing place. So it’s been a very welcome surprise and really enjoyable to be here in Bentonville. James Bell [00:37:06]: I’m glad to hear that. Hey, Andy, thanks for taking a moment to jump on the show. Andy Olson [00:37:09]: You’re welcome. Thanks, James. James Bell [00:37:14]: Thank you for joining us and being part of these inspiring conversations. I hope you’re as thrilled as I am about how the greater Bentonville area is helping these founders, how the people and organizations here are guiding and supporting them, and about the opportunity they have for a long term relationship with and in our community. The Bentonville Beacon podcast is brought to you by the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce, where I serve as vice president for economic development. If you enjoyed hearing from these founders from the 2024 fuel for your health accelerator, make certain to check out the other two episodes in this special series. Remember to share this episode with those who appreciate the intersection of entrepreneurship, community, and growth. And whether you’re watching on bentonvillebeacon.com or YouTube, or listening on your favorite podcast player, hit that subscribe button and stay updated with our latest conversations celebrating the people and ideas, fueling the rise of the greater Bentonville area, and making our community a beacon of progress and inspiration. See you on the next episode.