Founder Interview: Lucas Takahashi, Medmo

Below is the transcript of my recent interview with Lucas Takahashi, founder of our (C2 Ventures) portfolio company, Medmo. I hit an unexpected gold mine with one of the questions, but you’ll have to read on to see what I mean.

Hope you enjoy it!

[00:00:00] Matt: Welcome back to our founder interview series with Lucas Takahashi of Medmo today; welcome, Lucas.

[00:00:14] Lucas: Thanks for having me, Matt; I’m excited to be here.

[00:00:17] Matt: I’m glad to have you. Before we kick off, can you give the listeners the quick and dirty on Medmo?

[00:00:24] Lucas: Yeah, absolutely. Medmo works in the medical imaging space. It’s a fundamental piece of healthcare, with over a hundred billion dollars spent annually in the states alone. And it’s only 5% digital today. Most of it is done over phone, fax, and email. Patients get their images, usually on a CD run like a disc. As. a result, patients pay much more money than they need to. Imaging centers have a lot of unused capacity that goes to waste, and providers struggle to administer this. So it’s very costly for everyone. Medmo is the connective tissue within this market to help navigate patients to the best imaging center and create an excellent patient experience. By doing so, we are removing barriers like cost and access and improving patient outcomes for imaging centers. We’re increasing the utilization and efficiency of their machines.

[00:01:20] Lucas: And for the ordering physicians, helping them take care of their patients and get them back in the office for follow-up care. Medmo works with partners like virtual health groups and ordering physicians directly. Plus, we have a pretty big direct-to-consumer model, which you can see on our website, where patients can easily order and navigate the site.

[00:01:40] Lucas: Our goal is to take a pretty big, sometimes scary or unfortunate piece of a patient’s healthcare and make it easier, and most importantly, cheaper for them so they can get the care they need.

[00:01:53] Matt: Awesome, thanks for that. So tell me, what was your worst business idea that you considered pursuing or pitching?

[00:02:16] Lucas: I actually have an answer right off the bat for this. By the way, I could still see it working out one day, but a buddy and I were thinking about a side project for fun. A company called Future Mail. And The concept is tourists or people traveling around countries could write a letter to themselves in the future. So they could write the letter, hand it to us through a Future Mail envelope, and pay a dollar per year to hold it. And then, years later, we mail it to them. So I think it has some merit, even if it’s not the best business idea.

[00:03:09] Matt: (Laughs) Lucas, we love you, but you may need to go to a different VC firm for that one.

[00:03:15] Lucas: (Laughs) Yeah, we pivoted pretty quickly, even though there was a project plan around it.

[00:03:21] Matt: Oh God, I love it. What about a business idea you wish you had run with because someone else did it, and it’s crushing?

[00:03:37] Lucas: Yeah, there’s two of them. One is concerning student debt and how people finance education. Six or seven years ago, we were thinking about this idea of pitching to a pool of investors, “Hey, I want to go to Penn State. This is what I’m interested in, and here’s my background. Will you give me X dollars to fund my education?” Then you don’t start paying the dollars back until you get a job with a specific salary.

[00:04:16] Lucas: Many students leaving school have to take jobs that might not be best for their careers just to pay off debt. This leads to adverse outcomes, and no one wins. Whereas this model gives students the flexibility to find the proper role, investors or these institutions might be offering something like that. It incentivizes them to help get good jobs as well. And there’s a whole bunch of excellent content around it. And the math kind of works. A company called Upstart began that way. They’ve completely pivoted, now they’re a public company, and there are a few others.

The other idea is around housing. I think a company called Rhino is already doing this. So you have to put down a deposit of three months’ worth of rent when you lease an apartment in New York City.

Many people can’t afford that, so Rhino built a model where instead of doing that, you just pay a monthly subscription, similar to insurance, to offset that deposit. The landlords no longer have cash balances like receivables or liability because they can’t use that money. So it’s a way for them to get income from these groups. I wish I had pursued that, but I’m happy where I am today.

[00:05:31] Matt: Those are two excellent ones. But I think tackling the medical industry’s inefficiencies is about as deep of a pool as you could jump into. Remind me, is this your first time as a founder?

[00:05:39] Lucas: Yes, definitely.

[00:05:48] Matt: So what’s been your biggest positive surprise?

[00:05:53] Lucas: It’s rewarding to build a team with great people. Coming into the office and working with amazing people who believe in the business and each other and work well makes it so much fun. You think it will be fun when you hit these big milestones, like raising tons of money or helping many patients; that’s all great.

[00:06:24]Lucas: But I underappreciated the day-to-day, small wins, and the small challenges and getting through those with a fun group of people. Also, being able to control the team culture. So I think that’s been the most rewarding, surprising, and positive thing.

[00:06:42]Matt: What about the biggest negative surprise so far?

[00:06:45] Lucas: If you decide to raise capital through the VC/Investor game, there’s much to learn. Some things are frustrating, and no one’s doing anything wrong; it’s just how the market works. Both from the investor’s and the founder’s side. But the amount of fundraising, an ongoing process, has been fun and exciting but sometimes very frustrating.

[00:07:36] Matt: That makes sense. I would say the same thing about raising venture funding money. So let’s move on to your number one customer pet peeve.

[00:07:50] Lucas: Part of being in the healthcare space is selling to physicians. I do not have a healthcare background, so in the healthcare world, long before COVID, you sold into these groups by building relationships in a very old-school way.

[00:08:16] Lucas: And I mean, you show up with lunch and things for the physicians. There are still some legacy mentalities today that expect stuff like that. And that’s totally fine, but I think the pet peeve for me is that I’m here to try to help you. They will not hear a potential opportunity because we don’t do all these bells and whistles. That doesn’t make sense, and it’s not how business is really done, nor do I think it’s appropriate.

[00:08:50] Lucas: So that’s always been a point of contention and a little frustrating. That being said, I see their side of it. They get bombarded with other services, some of which are really bad or great. They don’t have a lot of time because they’re helping patients.

[00:09:08] Lucas: They’re not executives who are supposed to be doing meetings all day. So I see their side of it. But at the same time, it’s frustrating because the go-to-market is challenging with some clients due to historical mentalities.

[00:09:24] Matt: What about your number one hiring pet peeve?

[00:09:33] I’m probably a pretty bad interviewer because I like everyone. So I have a great team that’s good at recruiting. So this is probably my one Achilles heel, not being prepared. It doesn’t take much to even come off as prepared, but when you’re not, that really drives me nuts. It reflects how you will handle other things, your true interests, and maybe the role. My advice to anyone interviewing is to have a couple of questions ready. So if someone asks, “Do you have questions?” Have some generic ones that you can always use that apply to any company. It’ll show that you’re curious, which is, I think, is one of the most important elements and DNA that we look for is curious people who want to know more.

[00:10:35] Matt: All right, last of the pet peeves, number one VC pet peeve?

[00:10:42] Lucas: (laughs) That’s a good one. There’s a lot in that, but one of the qualifiers is we’re early. Revenue is a new and exciting thing for this year. Prior years when we were raising, revenue wasn’t such a qualifier as the first metric that an investor looks for. But there’s so much underneath the hood, right? For example, are the margins negative or zero on that? Or are they 90%? Is it recurring? How is it recurring? What’s the cost to acquire that revenue? There are so many other things, so I’ve always thought it was interesting that revenue is the main thing. So I totally get that it reflects a good proxy of the business’s maturity.

[00:11:31] Lucas: So it’s fair to ask, but I’ve had many great conversations with investors who do not care about revenue. They wanna understand the business and what we’re doing in the market. And I’ve had a lot of bad conversations with people who are really focused on the revenue story. And then they don’t really ask about the rest of the business and what we’re doing. So, it was interesting that the first question is, where are you at, and like run rate when there are so many other things to ask. I don’t disagree that it is a pretty standard proxy and probably a good understanding of the maturity of the business.

[00:12:11] Matt: It turns out that is my number one VC pet peeve, focusing entirely on revenue, and without thinking about where it came from or how efficiently it was acquired.

[00:12:24] Lucas: Well, hopefully, it’s a benefit for us in a couple of months, and I’ll be happier that people are asking about revenue.

[00:12:31] Matt: I think you’ll be fine regardless. Let’s move on to the meanest and/or funniest feedback your company or product has received from friends, family, investors, or customers.

[00:12:44] Lucas: Early on, it was, this doesn’t make sense, or no one really cares about this. In the past, one of the funniest things from clients is that we’ll call them and say, “We’re Medmo,” and they’re like, “Oh, we know Venmo. My wife uses Venmo.” So we got confused with Venmo a lot, which I thought was really funny. And we probably need a branding exercise in light of that. But, the big one was with investors; I call it investor goggles. We are in the business of helping patients save money; we’re negotiating special rates, filling used time slots, kind of like that price line model. So many investors were like, “Look, if I need an MRI in the hospital, someone just sends me downstairs, and I get my MRI. So having to explain to them, that’s great for you because you have great insurance and can afford to go to a hospital. But that’s the most expensive place for a lot of people.

[00:13:50] Lucas: 40% of Americans cannot afford more than a $300 or $400 expense when it comes to this. So there are investors that resonate with that. But others didn’t think it was a problem.

[00:14:11] Matt: Now we’re going deep on who Lucas is. So be excited. What is your last meal request?

[00:14:22] Lucas: I’m half Japanese and grew up with many Japanese foods, so it’s going to be Katsu. It is a well-known Japanese dish, like a pork cutlet with cabbage and rice. It sounds simple, but if you go to Japan, you have to get that. It’s like my favorite dish, 100%. So I’m going out on that for.

[00:14:49] Matt: So I’ve been to Tokyo twice, and I managed to not have that.

[00:14:53] Lucas: You’re gonna have to go back.

[00:14:58] Matt: We’ll have your exit party in Tokyo in a couple years.

[00:15:05] Lucas: I would love that.

[00:15:06] Matt: Awesome. All right, what is your least mainstream hobby?

[00:15:09] Lucas: This is so random, but at a younger age, my parents were totally freaked out by this, but a friend took me skeet shooting. My mom was terrified by this, and I don’t even know how they allowed me to do it.

[00:15:28] Lucas: At 14 years old, we met someone who said, “Hey, there’s this junior tournament out at Long Island. You guys should go. You’ll meet many other kids who shoot, et cetera.

[00:15:48] Lucas: All it took was for my mom to meet one person who said, “ Oh, I have a full scholarship to whatever school because I shoot skeet.” A couple of years later, I’m in the game and became an All-Americans skeet shooter in the summers.

[00:16:08] Lucas: I would travel all over the country. And my mom and dad started shooting for fun. I go to the range every once in a while as a hobby. So that would probably be the weirdest hobby to have, but it is fun.

[00:16:22] Matt: Lucas, that is incredible. You just made all of these interviews worth it. That’s why we ask these questions because I did not see that coming at all.

[00:16:30] Lucas: I was waiting for you to take me to the range for fun and I was gonna hustle you. Don’t tell Chris to watch this.

[00:16:40] Matt: I won’t tell Chris, and even better, there’s a beach club here in town that Chris belongs to, and in their off-season, you can shoot skeet. We will have to do this.

[00:16:57] Lucas: Let’s hustle, Chris.

[00:16:58] Matt: We’ll tell him you always wanted to try it. Could you still go and compete and do well in a competition?

[00:17:13] Lucas: I don’t know; I’d probably do okay. I was shooting a lot back then, and it’s kind of like the repetition. Still, it’s definitely a mental sport. Hitting one clay vision isn’t that hard once you know how to do it. It’s like shooting a hundred straight without missing. So it’s more of like a mental thing. I’m not good enough to win a competition, but good enough to hustle Chris hard. So we’ll be in good shape.

[00:17:37] Matt: You don’t need to be any better than that. Okay, moving on, you have a table for four and access to any person living or dead. So who are your three companions, and why?

[00:17:51] Lucas: Oh, that’s a tough question. I would love to put a bunch of weird characters together and see what happens. Maybe Benny Hunt, or it would definitely be a Bill Murray situation. I would love to throw Jackie Chan in the mix. If you watch a YouTube video of that guy’s career and what he’s done, he’s crazy with all his stunts and stuff. So respect, I love Jackie. We’ll put him in there, and then just to mix it up with someone hilarious, I’ll put like a Vin Diesel. You know Jackie, Bill, and Vin to see what’s going on?

[00:18:39] Matt: Oh, that’s awesome. Bill and Vin Diesel would be really interesting because Vin could be incredibly entertaining or just a huge disappointment. I love it.

[00:18:58] Matt: Now, you can go back in time and witness any historic event in person. What would it be?

[00:19:01] Lucas: My heart wants to do a huge natural phenomenon, like dinosaur stuff. I. But I’ll try to think of something interesting. I heard a recent story from someone that is completely true, which I think is fascinating. I think in New York City, in the sixties or seventies, a World War II veteran had too many drinks in a bar, and was talking about his experience flying planes in the war.

[00:19:32] Lucas: And a guy bet him that he couldn’t land a plane in the streets in New York City. He went to a Northern New Jersey pilot school at 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM in the morning. I don’t know if he was a teacher or coach, but he stole, probably intoxicated, and landed it on the upper east side of New York. And I would love to see that. And it’s not done yet. He did it two years later after that, again, in another drunken bar bet.

[00:20:11] Matt: Just ice cold, having not flown in between?

[00:20:13] Lucas: I believe he was not flying in between; it’s a Googleable thing; check it out.

[00:20:38] Matt: Now we’re going to do some marooned on a desert island questions. So starting off with, you can access music from four artists/bands on this island. Who do you pick?

[00:20:54] Interesting and tough. There are the top four in different categories. I’m a huge Cut Copy fan, an Australian band, I like the Future Islands a lot, and cringingly, I grew up loving Third Eye Blind.

[00:21:16] Lucas: So I’ll throw that on the list and one Disco-type thing. I’d put Daft Punk on there as well. That would probably do me well on an island for some time before; hopefully, someone saves me.

[00:21:35] Matt: Those are definitely four-for-four that have not been mentioned in prior interviews, so good. Next thing, you can bring four movies and/or TV series with you on this island. What are they?

[00:21:54] Lucas: Well, on an island, I would go for a movie called The Wackness with Ben Kingsley. Its main character’s name is Lucas. Great, great story about New York City in the eighties. Fun stories. Then Children Of Men would be next. Kind of dark and gloomy, but way ahead of the game. Me, Myself, and Irene is probably one of my favorite comedies, so I’d also add that just for fun. Then I’ll add Happy Gilmore in there as well.

[00:22:32] Matt: Cannot go wrong with Happy Gilmore, and Children of Men is a great movie too.

[00:22:36] Lucas: Yeah.

[00:22:37] Matt: Alright. You can have one Twitter follow on your island; who would it be? Or alternatively, Twitter is a cesspool of human misery.

[00:22:49] Lucas: Yeah, I don’t use Twitter. I just never got into it. Everyone who uses Twitter also says how much they hate it, but I understand they use it for news and updates. I probably sound like a grandpa describing the internet right now, but I’ll get into the Twitter game one day.

[00:23:11] Matt: I use Twitter because I have to for promotional purposes; you’re not missing much. All right, we’re down to our last two questions. You can access one social media platform on this island; which do you pick? Or, you know, none of them is perfectly acceptable.

[00:23:32] Lucas: The one platform I do use is Instagram. and I’m already trying to stop following people. Once I deleted accounts, I guess Instagram started showing me random accounts. So there’s no hiding. But I would say I use Instagram to keep in touch with friends a little bit farther removed. So I would have Instagram while listening to Daft Punk and watching Happy Gilmore.

[00:24:04] Matt: Awesome. Final question, this is the person who you can listen to Daft Punk and watch Happy Gilmore with. You have to share this island with one C2V General Partner; which one is it? Keep in mind, you may be there a while. You can absolutely choose Chris. It would be a mistake, but you can do it.

[00:24:33] Lucas: Yeah, Matt, I would go with Chris because I need that much time with him to figure out how he got so lucky getting you as a partner.

[00:24:47] Matt: Wow. What a solid answer. That was a great one. Nicely done, Lucas. That’s all we have for you here. Thanks very much for doing this.

[00:24:56] Lucas: Yeah, thanks, Matt; it was a lot of fun.