Surgical Superpowers made possible by Jessica Henry, Product Manager at Haply Robotics

Imagine how it would feel to think something is really there when it isn’t, to feel something that’s completely imaginary, all while being in another world. This crazy, sci-fi type science is a combination of haptics and virtual reality, and a combination of these two technologies can make you feel as if you’re in a whole different universe. And this month, we talked to Jessica Henry, the Product Manager at Haply Robotics, a company that creates haptic devices to simulate real life experiences, specifically surgery.

Her Journey 🦾

From a young age, Jessica always had an interest in biology, which led her to study mechanical engineering with a biomechanical specialization. Her first engineering job after doing her undergrad got her right into Marion Surgical, a similar company to Haply Robotics, where she works today. At Marion Surgical, haptic devices are also used to simulate surgery. It got her out into a space where she got to interact with different types of industrial designers, engineers, and even surgeons, giving her many perspectives on the problems the company were trying to solve. The job here really shaped her into who she is today, as it gave her real world experiences with getting their products into the market, pitching their product, and going to different events around the world to showcase their product. These experiences led her to Haply Robotics. She as a product manager figures out what success looks like for a product, pinpoints the customer need and identifies the bigger company goals that the product will address. Through her creative and compelling strategies, she sets forth to rally a team and make that mere vision a reality.

Her visit to the Michener Institute of Education at UHN, where she and her colleagues tested a Haply surgical telestrator prototype — it provides real-time video markup functionality for effective teaching instruction.

At Haply Robotics, Jessica has learned many new things about business and working in a small team.

And then mission wise, it’s really fun to work at a startup with a small number of people. We’re all kind of working together, are passionate about the same problem, have the initiative and the talent to solve problems as a team.” She mentioned that, when working with a small group, it exposes you to all of the different aspects of the business, which is more exciting, fun, and even eye-opening.

But all great times come with the bad, and Jessica has had her fair share of problems throughout this journey.

I’ve had challenges in like, just straight up logistical problems, like showing up at a place and the device I worked on doesn’t come along meeting expectations and then having to do the kind of smoothing over the customer relations in order to make that be okay. We faced in both companies issues where you have all of a sudden an employee who leaves and since it’s a small team, it’s a big impact.

She also uses a great analogy, which is that a business is like a person. The technology side is easy and straight-forward, but the people in a business are what complicate things. She explains how important it is to develop business relationships and manage your team well so that everyone stays motivated.

Another hard thing she’s gone through is moving from Toronto to Montreal to work at Haply — and the transitions from one city another are tough. The difference in culture, the unfamiliarity, and the difficulty to meet new people all make the process complicated. And having a fresh start at a new job makes the task even scarier.

But there are all the kinds of things where at the end of the day, once you feel like you’ve succeeded at it, it’s much more rewarding.

Advice from a Pro ✨

Through the years and as a result of learning about so many different sectors of business, Jessica had some great advice that will definitely come in handy for everyone.

1. Do something you enjoy and love. You don’t have to choose what that is right away, though. Give it time, try new things, and work at new companies to discover what you like to do, because you’re not going to be happy if you do something you hate.

So if you’re thinking, “I gotta do this, I gotta be a specific, you know, I’m the type of engineer to solve this super specific specific problem to be important,” I think that it’s not the right idea. Each part of the business, the human resources, the operations, they’re all important. So just do something that you enjoy and, and that will bring value to a team because you’re passionate about it.

2. Be happy for others’ success and always be there to celebrate with your friends.

3. Keep a goal to work towards — it’ll keep you driven and motivated.

We always have some mission or goal that I get to be a part of defining. It’s great to be involved in the strategy of where do we want to go. Seeing all of the kind of like-minded people work together and come together in the work-environment that we create here is just amazing.

4. Incorporate fun into work to help yourself and others make progress; in a way offering something to look forward to.

So one of our co-founders makes lunch every single day, just so that we could all eat together. That’s motivating to sit around down with your team in the middle of the day. We’ll do like a happy hour on Friday and everyone kind of comes together and can look back at their main highlights and then we do like demo days, for example, where you can see the progress. People being proud of their work and achievements for me is very motivating.

5. Set aside time to do things you love so that you actually have to do them. You can do this by taking a class or creating a schedule for you to sit down and have some quiet time.

I keep balanced by doing the activities I enjoy outside of work. I have my friends, I like to have dinner parties and play my sports, like soccer and do pottery. I do pottery classes and those kind of things mean that at certain times of the week I’m committed to putting time aside for just myself, for things totally unrelated to work. So I have a very good work-life balance because of my insistence on doing these things that I like just for me.

TL;DR 🙌

• Jessica Henry is the product manager at Haply Robotics — a startup that embraces virtual reality and haptics to help medical experts simulate real life experiences like surgery.
• She first worked at Marion Surgical, where she gained so many skills and insights into how the professional-world works.
• Her continued interest for learning and growing made her want to work in startups where she was able to build close-knit business relationships with her team.
• Logistical issues especially in startups can be extremally challenging at times, but Jessica was able to adapt quickly to changes in her surrounding work environment while prioritizing productivity.
• Having fun provides something to look forward to — a key factor to improve team performance and strive for company goals.
• Sometimes it’s necessary to not make work become your entire life. Go spend time with family and friends. Allocate time for your hobbies.

Rapid Fire 🔥

1. Who’s your biggest role model? Her parents
2. What’s your dream job if not at Haply Robotics? Being like Jane Goodall — studying chimpanzees
3. What’s your favorite hobby? Playing soccer
4. What’s your favorite store? The cozy bookstore in her neighborhood
5. What’s your dream destination? Japan
6. What’s your all-time favorite movie? Motorcycle Diaries
7. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning person
8. What’s the proudest moment in your life? First time shipping out new devices

Check out our podcast for this episode here:

If you’re interested in learning more about emerging tech, mindsets and lifestyle, then be sure to subscribe to our Medium and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts! 🚀