The Key to Startup Success? Isolating a Unique Challenge and Continuing Despite the Odds
Swift Medical CEO, Carlo Perez, shares the ups and downs of his journey to building a health tech startup that’s dominating the market
By Lauren Jane Heller
You’ve likely never thought about it, but there are more people suffering from chronic wounds than lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and leukaemia combined. Treatment has historically been difficult to monitor because wound measurement has always been extremely imprecise. That is, until the team at Swift Medical decided to tackle the problem. Building a world-changing startup is all about identifying a problem that can be solved in a unique and scalable way. Using visualization technology and AI, Swift has created a wound measurement and management system so effective that within a couple of years, the Toronto-based startup has cornered the market. We spoke with Swift Medical co-founder and CEO, Carlo Perez, about the technology, his entrepreneurial journey, and any advice he has for other entrepreneurs.
What’s your elevator pitch?
In a couple of years, Swift has been able to build the world’s leading digital wound care management platform, adopted by over a thousand organizations across the United States. It’s an app that allows doctors and nurses to automatically measure and assess wounds using their smartphones. All that data then goes into the backend on the cloud and allows administrators to manage wound risk, cost and compliance.
Can you describe the challenge Swift Medical decided to focus on?
The basic challenge is that the nurses and doctors measuring a wound couldn’t get exact measurements. There was an average of 44 percent error from one measurement to the next — a really startling statistic for a hole in someone’s body that could lead to infection, amputation and death. Doctors and nurses often just don’t know if a wound is closing or not because [manual] measurements are not accurate enough.
Did you have any experience in entrepreneurship before you started Swift Medical?
I am classically trained as an engineer so I knew how to build things more than I knew how to build businesses. I was teaching at Humber College when I started working on my first business, an online marketplace for home renovations. Through that process, I met some of the folks at Real and I started to figure out some of what to do, but mostly what not to do in a business.
We did 48 Hours in the Valley with that company, which was a great learning experience. I ran that business from the Valley for about a year with a team of about ten. We eventually ended up sunsetting that business and starting Swift Medical immediately afterwards. It’s been a highly circuitous path and it took a long time to figure out how to get here but ultimately we couldn’t be happier where we are today.
Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs?
Just focus. There are millions of things that we can apply the [Swift Medical] technology to, and we just have to say no. Saying no over and over and over has allowed us to stay focused on wound care, which is something people think is not big enough, but is so massive a challenge that staying focused allowed us to dominate.
Also, be really stubborn — not arrogant stubborn — not “I know everything” stubborn. Take everything in, understand it, but when you get knocked down, if you’re stubborn enough to keep going, and eventually if you pull all of the pieces together and bring all the right people around you, then you can dominate.
Can you name a few of the highlights of the entrepreneurial journey you’ve had with Swift Medical?
Highlight number one was landing our deal with PointClickCare. They sell their software to over 65 percent of all nursing facilities in the United States, so they have massive land share. We won that deal away from some very well-funded companies, so it was a really great win for us.
Inflection point number two, to be honest, was engaging with Janet and Alan at Real in late 2016. That was our seed round led by Real Ventures. I see that as one of those really transformational moments in the company where we didn’t just raise capital — we raised it with Real Ventures. We raised it with Alan, in particular. With expectations that were so high, Real pulled us forward in a way that we could not not live up to.
A third key milestone was raising our Series A. It was a really fast and tight process and Real Ventures really supported us the whole way. Bringing Real Ventures together with Data Collective cemented, in my mind, that Swift Medical was now poised to create a positive shift in the state of healthcare on the planet in a tangible, real way. That’s what Data Collective invests in. To have those visions of Real and Data Collective merge, and to have the backing to become one of the biggest companies in the world and make a massive change in healthcare — that moment was massively important for the company in terms of being able to realize our overall trajectory and pathway.
How about the worst experiences you’ve had as an entrepreneur?
I think one of the most challenging things for founders and a founding team is to continue to believe in how big you’re going to be — that you will find the investor who believes in your vision and will take you there.
As much as I think that we have done a lot and made a massive impact — we’re almost 10x the next competitor in just one year of growth — on the back of that has been handling no after no and the people who say, “There’s no way that you’re gonna make it.” Being able to bear that constantly, no matter what stage you’re at, no matter how successful, I think is the heavy burden that is the always challenge or low point for entrepreneurs.
Let’s get back to your technology. How does it work?
There are three core components. One is called Swift HealX which is an FDA-registered biocompatible medical device. But if you’re a toddler, like my daughter, it’s basically a highly scientific little blue sticker. You take that and you place it beside the wound. It’s the only solution of its kind that calibrates the image in terms of lighting, colour and size. The second component is the Swift App. You take your smartphone and take a picture with the Swift HealX inside the image. What you’ll get is a measurement of wound length, width, surface area, and also colour. Plus, we are the only solution in the world that measures depth — with any smartphone. The third component is Swift Dashboards. The data from the Swift App transits from the smartphone to our cloud-based backend. So it’s really those three components — our Swift Dashboards cloud backend, the Swift App on any smartphone, and and the little dots themselves called the Swift HealX.
Are there other products similar to what you’ve built?
Basically, there are two classes of companies out there and we see ourselves as a bit of a hybrid. There is the medical device startup approach of imaging and measurement on the one side of the fence. On the other side is the old-guard of companies that have just digitized the patient charting system — electronic wound charting, essentially. Our unique capabilities have been in merging the best of what each of those classes of companies does into something brand new.
Is there anything else you want to share that could help other founders?
Accept no less than the best possible human on the planet for the jobs that you are looking at filling in your company and be sure that those people know that you’re out to build the best team and the best company in the world for the problem you’re solving. This changes the lens through which you operate. It all comes down to the team.
This interview was edited for length and clarity. Follow us for more inspiring founder Q&As, in-depth looks at entrepreneurship and fundraising deep dives.
