Jon C. Warner_E15: Acceleration of AgeTech [9/28/2020]
Jon C. Warner, PhD, CEO of Silver Moonshots in Palm Springs [9/28/2020]
Note: References with links are listed at the end of the show notes.
INTRO:
1:00 Talks about Silver Moonshots Accelerator and the Older Adult Community. Shares experience of running a virtual accelerator. Points at a lack of Entrepreneurs in the space. His objective is to make them more investable.
3:00 Monetizing traction and growth is key, and discusses his SLAM [Startup Lean Assistance Map] book and how he uses it in the program. Talks about inspiration of LEAN startup principles, and how it ties into the book.
5:45 Talks about derisking versus the lean approach in the early stage. Points to validation prior to turbocharging through deep product discovery. Send startups to talk to a minimum of 50 customers in a 6 week period. Invalid fits are good results, as it prevents overspend to hit PMF. Talks about Stickiness articles written by Superhuman CEO.
SECTION1: The Author
16:45 Shares story of working in a publishing company, and a life long passion for reading. Shares the practice of writing every day, as a ‘discipline of doing it’. Wrote books every 6 months at one point. Has written across a topic range in business.
18:45 Talks about crowdsourcing as a way to connect with the writing about broader topic base.
19:40 Points to reading, and ‘reading widely’ as a way to improve writing quality. Responding and commenting on articles we see are core skills to improving writing. Talks about two-way street idea in behavioral psychology, and how he practices it in his writing. Also finds the two-way street as a health care problem, and how to put incentives in place to create a more consistent practice of growing as a person.
22:30 Discusses the democratization of information. Jon also shares the credibility of sources and the soundness of informational quality. Discusses platforms like YouTube and how they can lead to both greater and lesser informational pathways. He cites the story of Elon Musk learning about space on YouTube for days, when he first got started with SpaceX.
SECTION2: Age Tech
24:00 Shares background of AgeTech and division between LongevityTech ( life sciences / genetics ) and DigitalHealth ( telemedicine / care for older adults / wearables / AR / VR ).
28:00 Talks about the long horizons in Longevity Tech and why he focuses on Digital Health. Shares interest in human health data, and how lives thrive and survive. Thinks that health data treatment psychosocial and social, along with genomics could be informed by having much better population health data space.
30:00 We discuss the changes in economics. Jon unpacks the affordability space from a VC lens. He discusses the assisted living small population. The aging in place population is much larger, and may be the bigger opportunity set. He points to the monetization difficulties in the non-obvious places. The trick is to find something to compelling in VC. Points to money in AgeTech space being largely driven by not enough Entrepreneurs in the space.
34:00 Answers questions from listeners, on intergenerational cooperation, and timelines and realities in scaling businesses.
38:00 We discuss older populations around the world, and opportunities for AgeTech to scale internationally with land-and-expand opportunities. Why private equity may be waiting a bit longer to enter the space.
SECTION3: Digital Health
40:00 Discusses vulnerability of metabolism with older population, and how COVID has impacted the population. Also shares the adult daycare centers with congregate meal services suffering. Also
42:00 Around 40% of older population not on the internet, and how some people have had difficulty around knowledge and training.
43:00 Discusses understanding of issues as core value for those interested in entering the impact space. Also shares ideas around empathy.
44:00 Shares insights around appreciation for depression and loneliness. Talks about pejorative terms around aging, and words such as “anti-aging.”
46:00 Shares stories about collaboration, and organizations that are helping during the pandemic. Mentions Food Nutrition, Mental Health, Population Data, and companies like Health Personas.
47:30 Shares startups he currently likes, in DigitalHealth and AgeTech.
SOURCES:
-Jon C. Warner [LinkedIn]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joncwarner/
-Jon C. Warner [Twitter]: https://twitter.com/joncwarner
-SLAM Book: https://www.amazon.com/SLAM-startup-business-Startup-Assistance-ebook/dp/B07VYBVLT5
-SLAM Website: https://www.slamprocess.com/
-Silver Moonshots Accelerator: http://silvermoonshots.org/
-AgeTech Into the Future [Conference LA]: http://www.agingintothefuture.com/
-On Superhuman, PMF: https://medium.com/@soumitra.sharma5/what-can-you-learn-from-superhumans-product-market-fit-playbook-8eb6a3bda6a0
-Dr David Sinclair [ Longevity Talk Google ]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nXop2lLDa4
-Dr. Aubrey de Grey [ Google Talk ]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ARUQ5LoUo
-New A16z Longevity Tech Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bio-eats-world/id1529318900
-AARP Age Tech Statistics: https://longevityeconomy.aarp.org/?CMP=RDRCT-PRI-OTHER-LONGECON-111319
-Age Tech Landscape: https://www.thegerontechnologist.com/
-Health Personas [Hawaiian Startup]: https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-health-persona/
-Proventia [ Startup ]: https://www.proventia.com/
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Song Credit: The Croft — By Joakim Karud
[ No Copyright on Music and Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 ]
