Q&A: Lessons learned from VVC
Written by Elisa Danthinne, Linh Dang, and Nirban Bhatia
Edited by Megha Gupta and Giancarlo Nero
Four students, five months, one client. ViTAL Ventures Consulting, or VVC for short, has spent the summer breaking new ground for both ViTAL and Northeastern’s healthcare and entrepreneurship communities. Led by Co-Directors of Ventures Linh Dang and Nirban Bhatia, what began as an idea in May 2020 has transformed into a long-term vision for ViTAL to drive inspiration and learning into impactful, hands-on action. VVC is ViTAL’s healthcare consulting group that connects interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate Northeastern students with healthcare startups. Teams conduct multimodal research and provide recommendations to address pressing challenges that these businesses actively face.
This summer, VVC, including both directors as well as analysts Shibangi Saha and Shashank Madhu, took the first step in making this vision a reality: demonstrating the power of a student-driven VVC in tackling salient challenges of an early-stage orthodontic imaging startup linked with the Health Science Entrepreneurs (HSE), called Phimentum.
Q: Can you walk us through what VVC did this past summer?
Nirban: After VVC came together with a vision, we looked for experienced people to hop on board (including ViTAL alumni Shashank and Shibangi), figuring out a framework and proposal to pitch to companies to demonstrate what we had to offer. Then we sourced companies, selected Phimentum from four other options, and jumped into the project.
Linh: We wanted to work with a company who already had some kind of idea about what they wanted to do and what type of customer they wanted to go after. We were new to healthcare consulting and needed structure regarding the client’s needs, and it’s great we found Phimentum. They are super passionate about what they want to accomplish within their business and where they want to go.
Nirban: The key was really finding that passion within people, that mutual energy along with a solid project idea. Once we got that, we needed to think about: How should Phimentum market their product? What should their go to market strategy look like?
Linh: Research focused on customer discovery and market assessment. Questions we needed to address included: What does the dentist population look like? Who is our target customer? The important step was when we presented our initial quantitative research, based on publicly-available data, to our advisors, but they brought up that our findings hadn’t been confirmed within the field. We needed to have the important conversations to confirm our thoughts and talk to dentists to understand the process Phimentum’s product addresses and what providers care about when they make recommendations to patients. Along the way, we received a lot of support and guidance from HSE, Dr. Scanlon (ViTAL’s advisor), and Phimentum’s mentor at HSE.
Nirban: It was definitely a very fast-paced project, but along the way we learned to better manage the timeline together to efficiently manage other projects. Managing with COVID was an added challenge — we’ve never actually met each other in person!
Linh: To help the project move along as smoothly as possible, we divided certain workstreams into questions that a person would be assigned to. We ended up spending a combined 40 hours a week, more at the end as we made our proposal. We both enjoyed the project, but learned that you have to be open minded, flexible, and adaptable — meetings will be delayed, people will be late, that’s the way things go.
Takeaways — For their first-ever client Phimentum, VVC spent 6 weeks producing:
- Customer Discovery Report, highlighting the target customer profile and other relevant findings from market research and analysis.
- Go-to-market Strategy Outline, identifying key markets of interest and barriers to market entry while providing tangible solutions for effectively tapping into the market and exposing Phimentum to the appropriate audiences.
- Recommendations on how to enhance and position the Phimentum pitch deck for investor presentations.
Q: What did you learn? What did you not expect?
Linh: First, you have to be creative in getting what you want and working with what you have. The second key is adaptability: You have to expect there will be changes. We needed to focus on our communication skills, as we liaised with a variety of advisors and experts in the subject matter. To meet our fast-paced timeline, we had to manage time effectively and push through to get everything done.
Nirban: I’m not a business guy — a lot of this stuff was new to me. Personally I learned a lot outside of the classroom. Like Linh said, it reinforced teamwork and communication skills further. There were times where some of us would disagree and have different opinions on what to do, but we would talk through opinions and rationale for why they were doing something — being able to have a discussion and share opposing opinions, but then coming together to work towards a mutual goal and solution everyone was happy with. This experience was almost an extension of school — it was learning by doing in the flesh.
Linh: It was different from other jobs or co-ops because we got to work with stakeholders on developing an MVP — minimum viable product — and the project was really student-driven.
Nirban: The ability to guide yourself and not constantly have direction is important and gives you that self growth. When a group of students are honed in on a bunch of questions, it’s interesting to see how to compartmentalize the problem and break up responsibilities. This was definitely more involved than a lot of internships. We truly made an impact.
Takeaways — VVC became a platform to learn and explore:
- Solve complex problems. Learn how to find appropriate solutions for complex issues, even in areas you are not familiar with, using a defined structured approach.
- Develop great communication skills. Learn how to communicate properly with everyone in a company from new hires to C-levels.
- Reach challenging goals with a set time frame. Learn how to achieve fast-paced deadlines and achieve the objectives required.
- Be resourceful. Be able to adapt and approach hurdles creatively, and cast a wide net when conducting research.
Q: This is the first time ViTAL has ever done anything like this. What inspired you to take it on?
Linh: I was always interested in entrepreneurship, and the vision the directors had for ViTAL really resonated with me. ViTAL already had a speaker series and case competition, and the ventures team is just an extension of that. It’s time to do something with it. VVC is a great opportunity for students to come and have that experiential learning, and work on critical business problems that professionals are facing in real life.
Nirban: For me, I founded a startup in high school and was really into entrepreneurship when coming to college. Innovation has defined me as a person, and I’m involved in other entrepreneurship organizations on campus. I wanted to be involved in something I could help steer the direction of. Ventures consulting seemed like a logical next step — it was a great mix of timing and people.
Takeaways — ViTAL is ripe to take on VVC and set the stage from hands-on consulting experience in the healthcare startup space.
Q: What’s your vision for VVC moving forward?
Linh: In the next year, we’ll start recruiting for new members in Spring 2021. We have several events lined up at the moment: a fireside chat in November with Phimentum, and a session in October about market research and project outcomes.
Nirban: Then, next semester, it’s all about talking about consulting and VVC and giving a little taste of what we’ve been doing. Come spring, we are going to get that hiring going. We’d like to get multiple disciplines to join the team, which Phimentum also suggested to help expand the scope of our projects. My ultimate, long-term vision is that we reach a point where we’re working with established startups through and outside of HSE, and have 2–3 teams working through the summer. We want to bring more attention to how excellent Northeastern students are — they have the skills to tackle those pressing business problems in the real world.
Linh: As we work towards that goal, we’re going to build out curriculum for students, reflect on experience with Phimentum to see what projects to take, and look into customers to work with.
Takeaways — To get in on the action:
- Learn from fireside chats and workshops this fall
- Apply to be a part of VVC in the spring
Q: Why should new students join VVC?
Linh: VVC is really about the experience and impact you can make. It’s a great opportunity for students to get hands-on experience and make a real impact in product and strategy startups may take on down the road. We’re looking for a wide cross-selection of students from different disciplines — business and computer science backgrounds are definitely big.
Nirban: VVC is an experience to build skills you cannot acquire from the classroom. It allows you to work in a smaller environment so you can have a deliberate focus in honing your skills. Because it’s more involved and student-driven, VVC can also help with self-growth and personal growth. VVC gives an opportunity to work with people who have similar goals as you but also very different experiences. Not only will you learn from the people and peers, but also about the project scope and things you may have never thought about. The thing to realize is that when you take classes, you don’t apply that knowledge right away or in the near future. VVC is a mode through which you can apply your knowledge and see the tangible products of it.
Takeaways — Join VVC to make a real, visible impact in the healthcare entrepreneurship space and develop personally and professionally.
* conversation edited and paraphrased for readability
Learn more about VVC on our website. Interested in getting connected? Contact VVC at vitalventuresconsulting@gmail.com.
