Falling Straight Into the Lean Launchpad Model
Our first two weeks into the Biodesign Immersion Experience are wrapping up; let’s review what valuable insight we’ve gained!
Firstly, a brief overview of our clinical problem. Hydrocephalus is a neurological disease where there is an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain. This is usually a result of blockage of drainage systems that further lead to increased intracranial pressure (ICP). The current standard treatment for hydrocephalus is the surgical placement of a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS), which directs the CSF in the cerebral ventricles into other body cavities that can absorb it more easily. However, most cases would fail at least once post-insertion, mainly due to obstruction by blood clot formation. Further, it is currently difficult for surgeons to diagnose shunt failure through available imaging modalities. As a result, it is common for hydrocephalus patients to have repeated surgeries after the placement of VPS. Therefore, there is an urgent need to solve such obstruction problems or to develop a system for diagnosing blood clot formation early and accurately.
With this focus, we did our first interview with a capstone alumni Amanda Fazakas. Her group, during the Fall 2019 semester, worked with Dr. Kim to develop a solution for the VPS clotting issue. Through the interview, we gained a better understanding of the technical aspects of their minimum viable product and the steps they took to come to this final solution. A surprising discovery we had was that universities, companies, and researchers have tried to solve this problem to no avail for 50 years. Amanda’s group, however, was able to develop an ultrasonic cavitation unclogging method that was considered to be feasible and have high potential. At the end of the interview, she also referred us to several other people and companies that are relevant to the project, which would be very helpful in expanding and pushing forward our customer discovery process
Besides conducting customer interviews, we delved into the Lean Launchpad Methodology, where customer discovery and understanding are the utmost priority when it comes to creating a startup. We were introduced to the Business Model Canvas, a tool to organize our thinking when searching for a scalable, reproducible business model. With our engineering-based backgrounds, these novel ideas to put aside the actual technology and listen to our stakeholders were a mindset changer. Rather than sitting in an insulated room guessing what clients would like, we interviewed BioE 192 capstone project alumni about their device and their reasoning for creating it. In addition, we spoke with Dr. Sunghoon Kim, a pediatric general surgeon at UCSF, where we talked about his new device that may make it easier to treat hydrocephalus. After our interviews, we reiterated our Business Model Canvas.
Our next step is to reach out to more stakeholders and conduct more interviews to gain additional business model insight.
