This episode of Hello Chaos features David Stefanich, the CEO and founder of Rymedi. Dave shares his entrepreneurial journey, which started with a background in inorganic chemistry and led him to work in the pharma industry. He later transitioned to integrating labs and diagnostic equipment, pursued a master's in software engineering, and obtained an MBA in Hong Kong. Dave discusses his work with a continuous flow pharmaceutical company making an impact in Kenya. Join host Jennifer Sutton (JJ) for an enlightening conversation with Dave about his diverse experiences and journey as a founder.
Enlightenment in Entrepreneurship:
Dave shared how his journey with Remedy has been a path of enlightenment. From academic success to building a global company, he emphasized the importance of continuous learning and adapting to evolving challenges.
Impactful Mission-Driven Work:
The focus on impacting lives and achieving wellness through Remedy's integrated digital backbone was truly inspiring. Dave highlighted the significance of staying mission-driven and ensuring that every life touched by their platform is a success story.
Awareness and Purpose:
Dave's advice on awareness resonated deeply. He stressed the importance of staying grounded, being aware of your purpose, and not losing sight of the core values that drive your journey.
Timestamps
[00:02:33] The inspiration behind Rymedi.
[00:05:42] Multi-jurisdictional compliant health platform.
[00:06:59] Enlightenment through observation and learning.
[00:12:52] Challenges of entrepreneurship.
[00:16:19] Aha moment.
[00:19:30] Leadership challenges in organizations.
[00:23:48] Full contact kickboxing hobby.
[00:28:42] Gender bias in STEM careers.
[00:31:19] Impact of hep C eradication.
[00:35:29] Scaling up business advice.
[00:41:40] Best advice received and influence.
[00:43:13] Awareness of success journey.
Jennifer Sutton: All right, welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds of founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. Every week we talk to founders from different industries, different companies, levels, stages, all shapes and sizes. We hear the real, the raw, the unbiased founder stories, and it's why our motto is where aha meets oh shit. Today, we have Dave Stefanich, the CEO and founder of Rymedi. And I'm your host, Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ, and I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and Bright Marketing. So welcome to Hello Chaos, Dave.
David Stefanich: Welcome. Thank you so much. Excited to be here. I think we're going to have an enlightening conversation. So I'm looking forward to it.
Jennifer Sutton: It's like, we're both, I was like, we're both high octane. So we'll have to figure out how to keep this thing focused. And our Taylor, our producers, I I've got a good edit button. All right. So just start us out, Dave, just to like level set, tell us how you started your entrepreneurial, your founder journey. And, uh, let's just go from there.
David Stefanich: Sure. Yeah. So, so a quick backstory to kind of bring it all together. So I first degrees in inorganic chemistry, I was working in the pharma industry for a while. And then I started being able to integrate labs and diagnostic equipment. So I went and did a master's in software engineering and during that stint, MBA out in Hong Kong. And the journey progressed is going through the traditional pharma world regulatory places. And I was working with a continuous flow pharmaceutical company. that's making a large impact in Kenya, it's called MedAdditus. They're working on the therapy treatments for HIV mothers giving birth to their child. And we're working at a place called the Medicine for All Program under the Gates Foundation, Virginia Commonwealth University. You may have heard of Dr. Frank Gupton. And I was in there working with Dr. Gupton and he explained to me that there was an individual that thinks he can go change the world. And I was like, well, then I'd love to meet him. And we were literally working in the lab and I walked out to the couch to meet Dr. Jason Cross. a former Duke faculty in anthropology, founded the Duke think tank. I did his JD in global IP law because it was just talk about global health policies. And Jay and I met four hours later, we formed Rymedi. And that's how the journey went.
Jennifer Sutton: And so what, what inspired Rymedi? Like what's to change the world? How are you guys going to change the world?
David Stefanich: You know, it was interesting. So when Jay and I were chatting, we had a common interest. Back in the early, mid eighties, Jason was in a playing in punk bands in Los Angeles, back in the CBGBs and the whiskey and all that stuff. And I played in bands as well in college. And we were talking about an old movie called Eddie and the Cruisers. Great things happen with words and music. And Jay and I sat down and Jay had a phenomenal relationship with the global health population, WHO, what's going on in Geneva. Our first project was in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. And he's like, you know, great visions need great executors. And he's like, well, your practical experience of the product and technology industry, it was a perfect compliment of co-founder building out an idea. And then 30 days later, I was freezing in the Gobi desert in a gear thinking, why the hell did I do this?
Jennifer Sutton: So tell me about, so what does Rymedi do?
David Stefanich: So Rymedi is an integrated digital backbone, but the seamless identification of the patient experience to the detection of a disease state, the delivery of a treatment, ultimately lead to wellness being achieved in a market, and it could be a market of a company, it could be a market of a country, or attacking a disease globally, such as the work we're doing with the Gates Foundation.
Jennifer Sutton: Okay, so for layman's term, like give it a practical example of how your platform solves somebody's problem, solves a company's problem.
David Stefanich: Yep, let's say that someone has a health condition and they need to go have lab work done and they think they have a condition and a lot of things are happening outside of traditional health care today. So, knocking a box down the street, let's say Jennifer goes down to one of our lab partners and you walk in, the first thing they do, they hand you a tablet. You sit down, you start filling it out and you're like, wow, this is about the 50th time I've done that. What Rymedi does is build the digital health identity for Jennifer so that anytime you're going back to location, never have to go through that whole process. During that process, you're also consenting to the treatment. And one of the controls for these labs is making sure they're managing consents when they're audited. So that's one of their major failures is losing the track of pieces of paper. When you talk to the receptionist, you see a wall of manila envelopes. That's probably a challenge when they start scaling. That way you can go and then your sample has chain of custody over to the lab that's executing it. the result coming back to you should they have a medical review officer reviewing or putting them into your health piece. And the nice thing, Jennifer, as you go between health systems, stocking of boxes, anyone on the Rymedi Network, it's a single aggregation point that's agnostic of the place you went. All that information is in your hand and then organizations can use that to mine public health conditions. You know, the CDC and CMS always want to know Is there a Hep C problem? Is there an STI problem in the communities? Those are all regulatory requirements that, you know, the patient doesn't always know, but the organizations have to do that seamlessly all the way through. So it just empowers you to be more flexible to fit your busy schedule, as you can shop multiple places for continuity of healthcare.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. And safety, protection, all of that.
David Stefanich: Yes. One of the trademarks of the Rymedi platform is we actually just got issued our first patents last month, so we're super excited about it. But we are known as the only multi-jurisdictional compliant health platform globally. So we speak North America, Europe, Australia, Kenya, because we have active clients in these markets. So that way, when clinical research and clinical trials are done, we hear about them in the U.S. from a Pfizer or a Gilead, but people don't realize they're really executed multi-jurisdictionally. Ireland, New Zealand, maybe there's a population that needs to be done in Europe. All that multi-jurisdictional information has to be brought back together. And that is how you accelerate innovation very similar to the Warp Speed Project during COVID. We all heard about the Moderna clinical trials that were done right here in South Carolina. Rymedi had part of that project and people don't realize they heard about it on the news.
Jennifer Sutton: Rymedi was in the background doing some digital work. Rymedi's platform was being used. I love it. All right. So if you had to sum up your entrepreneurial journey so far, what would that word be and why?
David Stefanich: I was thinking about that just this morning and part of my education experience, I'm a big fan of the literary naturalist movement, Samuel Johnson, Tennyson Coleridge, that whole age of enlightenment and learning through observation, Henry David Thoreau and all that. And I would definitely call it enlightenment would be that one word principle. When Jay and I sat on the couch, you know, I have half a career in A, building businesses globally. Dr. Cross had been dealing with health policies around the world. We thought we had the core pool set to be successful and what that means to us and is another topic altogether. However, as we've gone through the journey, there are just evolving regulatory conditions, aspects of a company. I can handle tech operations, conversion, launching things around the world. On the front side, you know, you and I have had a few conversations regarding, you know, marketing is a bit nebulous for me. We've always been able to sell our topic to people that are in our space. We have a vernacular, a nomenclature that many times have been told, Hey Dave, you can't talk about that at cocktail parties because no one knows what the heck you're talking about. But those are those aspects and the questions we didn't know to ask has been the most enlightening aspect for us.
Jennifer Sutton: Ah, that's a great word. And one that has not been said yet. We've done hundreds of interviews and everybody gives a different word. So I love it. I love asking that question. And that's a good word.
David Stefanich: Why don't I suggest you put a gong behind you so that when you have a new word, you can boom, you know?
Jennifer Sutton: Or someone's like, what are you going to do if someone repeats a word? I'm like, I don't know. Like gong, like find another word. So what's been the most rewarding aspect? I mean, you're in it, what, five years now? Six years this month. Six years. What's been the most rewarding?
David Stefanich: You know, the two things that stick out when you ask that question, and the first one was when Dr. Cross and I were working in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. And we, when we sat on that couch outside the Medicine for All program, Jay and I wrote down 12 axioms of what we thought success was in the DNA of a country, of a company. And certain things like, no topic is sacrosanct, never put a dollar before a life, you know, thinking about what it is to achieve wellness, not just treatment, but wellness and market. And we were in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and I mandate when we go play Benoni, South Africa, I can walk up and say Simbona and Jani. If I'm in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, I can say Sabino because the cultural barriers get broken down and I think health and wellness is a personal thing. And we were working with a family and they had a small child and I have four daughters. And I could tell the daughter's eyes were concerned about what we were doing with the parents. And you could see the comfort of the parents as we were helping them determine if they had hep C, how to get treatments and all those things. But the comfort we were able to convey to the child was something that was amazing. And I didn't think I was ever going to get to experience that again. And I was sitting on a plane actually in Greenville and two parents walked by and they saw I had a remedy mask on at the time, it was during COVID. And they're like, are you affiliated with remedy? And I was like, well, Are you angry or happy? Let's figure that out real quick." And I said, you know, I'm the CEO, founder, and I work closely with Clemson. And they said, we just wanted to let you know that our daughter is able to attend college, which is fulfilling her dreams. And more importantly, we as parents can sleep at night knowing how well she's being cared for. And that getting translated back to an early stage growth company like Rymedi fulfills those axioms that we decided outside the Medicine for All program sitting on that couch many years before. And those are those moments that define success and money will come, but the intangible, that je ne sais quoi, which defines greatness in our own minds, is something we need to appreciate when those moments happen.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. So what's been the most challenging?
David Stefanich: The most challenging.
Jennifer Sutton: Because you've gone like, I mean, you guys went zero to a hundred very, very quickly.
David Stefanich: Right. It, you know, it's, it's interesting. And when you look, when you look at how you take a company from an idea, and there are two different kinds of early stage companies. Hey, we spun out of a company and they don't have to go through some of those challenges. And there's a company where like Rymedi, I wrote a check and then Dr. Cross and I thought maybe we should get an email address. So that's how our Genesis moment first day went. And we still laugh about that today. In the world of entrepreneurship and building companies, it's sometimes it's presented very sexy. I want to go make my $500 million. It's going to happen in 90 days. And I'm like, that's cool. Buying a t-shirt and putting your company logo across the chest doesn't guarantee success. And I always explain to people, they're like, Hey, we hear all these great things about Rymedi we want to be a part of. And I, and I do my best to talk them out of it. This is not for the light of heart. Yeah. I think you and I have talked about that.
Jennifer Sutton: I think there's a lot of myths, misperceptions of being a founder.
David Stefanich: Well, I think I shared that one story with you where I was asked, you know, what is that business principle that, you know, is the backbone of what you do? And I was like, unfaltering, focused will. And the gentleman asked, who said that? And I was like, well, John Wick. Because sometimes you just got to cowboy up and go at it. That's right. You know, everybody's like, how are we doing today? And I'm like, well, this morning I thought we were bankrupt. This afternoon we're worth a billion dollars. Right. That is the amplitude of your emotional swings. You need to have a strong confidence for that.
Jennifer Sutton: It's not for the weak of heart. It is not. I think founders and especially if scale up CEOs that are, that are truly, you know, growth companies, high impact companies, the resilience that, that we have to, to, to create within ourselves is right. You learn a lot about yourself not just about like how to run a company, but you do become way more self-aware of strengths and weaknesses and people I think Respect of running a business is I used to every day that I was in the office by myself I would keep a coffee cup and I'd set it above the Microwave and I ended up with a collection of coffee cups and someone came in and
David Stefanich: And they're like, why do you, why do you keep it all this? You're being a hoarder. And I'm like, no, that's a visual reminder that every day that when I was here, um, bearing that yoke of responsibility to our, our patients, our participants in clinical trials, our small children in emerging markets, that if I tap, their quality of life suffers. And, um, that reminder goes back and it helps focus the company on, you know, Receiving monetary compensation is part of why people choose to work at Rymedi. But I think the intangible fulfillment aspect of what you do and understanding being mission-driven and here, you know, it's my fiduciary responsibility to understand that these families are… And it's a big aspect to make sure that it's there and how we do these things and not everybody's willing and capable of carrying that yoke.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. You never forget about it. Yeah. We call it like, you know, it's that grit that we want people to, you know, especially in a scale up, you really need people that embody that trait. That's not for the light of heart. What is it they say? Grit is the intersection of where passion and perseverance comes into play. And it's hard to find people with that grit. I know mission-driven, if you get people that are on the same mission, like-minded mission people will really help scale up people. And I think you've been fortunate to find some people to join on your mission. And you've got board. I mean, you've got advisors. You've got a lot of people in that network. I think that you've built relationships over time. You've got some good cheerleaders.
David Stefanich: Yeah. It's interesting. the tenacity of what it takes. You know, I had some earlier employees that were worried about work-life balance. And I'm like, you know, you're articulating that to me like work is bad, home is good. And I think when you blur that line to say I'm enjoying what I'm doing, it's fulfilling my life mission, there isn't work-life balance, it's mission driven. You know, early stage companies are, hey, it's 8 to 4.30. And I'm covering, what, roughly eight countries. So, you know, I'm on a four-hour window. So, you know, again, not for the light of art, but I think some of the sexy side of it, oh, I'm going to, you know, I'm this unicorn. A lot of companies don't make it as long as we have, and we're very grateful for that. But if we lose sight of what we are here to do… Patient outcomes, right?
Jennifer Sutton: People's lives.
David Stefanich: Improve that patient experience.
Jennifer Sutton: Um, okay. So what has been your greatest, I call it, we call it the, the aha moment. Um, some breakthrough moment that you were like, this had a significant impact on our business or like your way of thinking about running the business. What was your biggest aha moment?
David Stefanich: I would say when I'm an educated chemist, a software engineer, you know, finance business guy. Right. Coder. Programmer. And I'm very methodical about what we do. And a while back, I had a conversation with a colleague, and we talked about listening between the lines. And what's being communicated to us may be there in their face challenge. between the lines, look to the white space out there that says access to quality medicine is the challenge, an unhealthy population escalating healthcare costs. People can't outpace healthcare rise outside of the U.S. and inside the U.S. by being cost-conscious. It doesn't work. And when we finally realized a lot of the program success was based on interpersonal communication and breaking down the barriers of mistrust. You know, I always remind people, at times, people are concerned about fear, compliance, and safety. And then I look at those that Malcolm Gladwell approached to mindfulness and then say, the technology is an enabler to the regulatory landscape change and they've got to address it. People are dying. How do we handle that? We're going to bring treatments to market. How do we do it in a safe manner to achieve what that goal is? And rarely do they ask or articulate the white space, but I think that's where wellness success is achieved. And that's what we listen for. So we listen for the white space.
Jennifer Sutton: That is a great aha. We're going to record that. Lock that in use that what's the most then what's what was been your biggest like? Oh shit I've hit a I've hit a barrier hit a wall or something that really like oh shit surprised you what's been one of those moments? Maybe maybe you've had multiple, but like what's the most significant?
David Stefanich: One of the one of the pieces when you go through a series and I When you have academic success in your career and you're thought of as a thought leader in industry and these aspects, that doesn't constitute success in a company. One of the challenges throughout my career, I've had global staffs here and there and so forth, and I would like to do a 360 review. I don't believe anyone has a malice intent, but at times they're not understanding what's going on with their organization and it's going to get feedback. And a couple things is they can talk really fast, you leave people behind. You're an aficionado in certain subject matters and you talk over people. And we don't doubt you'll be successful, but if you look behind you and you're there by yourself, you missed the boat. And those pieces are not my intent, just the way that I'm wired. We were joking about it earlier about it being high octane. So when we're doing a VC race, for example, I heard this more than a few times. We're not sure what the hell you're doing, but you're a brilliant guy, so we're pretty sure we need some.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Because they're investing in you.
David Stefanich: Yeah. And that's not scalable. And that is, how does an organization scale? It can't be the Dave and Jay show, and Dr. Cross and I on stage are as entertaining as I've heard. the value and to make the impact back to those 12 axioms that we talked about in the beginning. The only way those are going to be achieved is that there's multiple advocates reading from the same hymnal, not just on the business development, but on business delivery and ultimately circling back to make sure wellness was achieved. And I think that's been an interesting thing on the fundraise. It's been an enlightenment for delivering in populations and ultimately Even Royal Health Programs here in South Carolina, being chairman of SC Bio, I get a lot of access to the Lieutenant Governor's position on what's important. The Governor stating this manufacturing, workforce development, and digital health. Hopefully we represent that across the state. Seeing health disparities in our own backyard are the same challenges that I run into in Kissimmee, Kenya. How we can do that across the board has really been an aha moment in that aspect for us.
Jennifer Sutton: That's fantastic. If you could do anything different, if you look back and said, I wish I could have relived this moment. Do you have any of those, uh, redos?
David Stefanich: You know, I think we've, we've continued to evolve. I think Dave sitting here today is not Dave who thought we can pull this off. This should be an M&A deal. Um, you know, I look back and you know, at six years in, it goes quick. It truly goes quick.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh my gosh, it goes so fast.
David Stefanich: I've been very blessed to have all of my daughters have worked for Rymedi. Two of them graduated from college in the tech field, and it's exciting to know that we've impacted those lives. A woman that had a big impact in my life ran a school for handicapped children where I spent most of my childhood. And I learned early on, you don't get it till you give it away. And it was a big impact. And we, as an organization, try to work closely with some of the charitable organizations, the Sweeney Foundation, some of the halfway houses. And I think looking back, I think we would have taken a little more time to balance the impact we could have leveraged through that network you made reference to across the state. We grew globally quick. And you want to make sure the cobbler's kids have shoes.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right.
David Stefanich: It's hard. We are absolutely refocusing on some of the mental health issues that are happening across South Carolina. I'm working closely with Thornton Kirby from the South Carolina Hospital Association, Lieutenant Governor's Office, MUSC. And I think we can, some of the wins we've had globally, let's bring them home. And, you know, let's make South Carolina that center of excellence in that evolving of digital health, health and wellness programs for obesity and mental health. which attracts economic investment, but also has sister states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, contacting us and saying, what are you, what are y'all doing? Cause we're hearing that buzz. And, uh, I think as Rymedi progresses to be the company, I'm very proud of what we've done globally. Um, but South Carolina is my home and I want to be sure that we spread the value creation and those mindsets across the state as much as we do globally.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh my goodness. That's very noble of you, Dave. I love it. All right. So what would, this is something that is not on LinkedIn or your resume or whatever, but what would our listeners be really surprised to find out about you? I know one thing, but I want to hear what you say.
David Stefanich: One of my favorite hobbies is a full contact kickboxing. Uh, we keep a heavy bag on the, on the porch. When I'm frustrated with the, uh, engineering problem, I still like to go spark. I have colleagues in town that know this. There are videos of some of my fights online and I have learned in the past that people can search my name and then I walked into a meeting and saw a video of me in a ring, which is hilarious. Um, but, uh, yeah. Work-life balance, Jennifer, we touched on it.
Jennifer Sutton: I call it balancing the imbalance.
David Stefanich: There is no work-life balance. Exactly. There's just aspects you have to keep. Personal wellness, health and wellness is a key part to the journey. That's right. It's one of those things where if you ever go by the porch down at Rymedi in a heavy bag swinging, it's probably me out there thinking about a contract.
Jennifer Sutton: Like, come on. All right. So if you could pick two things about your business that you would change today, what two things would you change?
David Stefanich: First and foremost, I think it would be evangelizing the mission out, um, more so. Um, we are very fortunate to have a, a strong presence in our market and people that know us. Um, we are getting, we get calls and things like that today. Um, But on the flip side, we are emerging markets, there's things going on in Australia that we're super proud of, the stuff in Kenya. But there's other places around the world we don't have visibility, and I would love to be able to evangelize that population, patient, participant. We always say internally, it's a living, breathing biobag, and they're referred to by four different names, but it's still a person. I'd love to get that message out. We've had a litany of interns come through and we've helped people go to law school and Dr. Krause and I write reference letters. I would love to be able to spread the message more so. I'm starting to become a professor at large for Clemson University and exploring, taking some of the patent work we've done and finalizing an IP. And I do enjoy teaching lectures and Jay and I have done that around the time, but I think giving back to the people that are excited about our industry. Typically, you know, having four daughters in the STEM industry, they've run into challenges that I just didn't know existed as a dad. And I think we continue to open those avenues up and give back would be the two things of sharing the message. My success isn't kept inside the four walls.
Jennifer Sutton: What were some of the things that you as a dad of four girls that got in, like, what were their STEM challenges that kind of may be an aha moment for you there?
David Stefanich: So my first daughter got her bachelor's in software engineering from Tennessee Tech. Great engineering school up in Cookville. My second daughter did a degree in creative writing, marketing and math. She'll be a technical writer. And my first daughter, I always encouraged him to work during college. So he started learning time management responsibility. And my first daughter was working the support desk, training a young man to start working. And somebody walked up and said, yeah, I need some tech support. And my daughter started answering. And he's like, no, no, I need to hear from him. And then it was the first time she ran into me. And she called me. She's like, how do I handle that, dad? And you know, dads have a different opinion on how that would be addressed.
Jennifer Sutton: How did you answer that question?
David Stefanich: He just gave me his name. I'm fine. I'll go find him. But on the flip side, you know, teaching and sharing with them confidence and to their own self be true. getting my daughters connected with people that are doing amazing things in the life science. Yeah. Lindsey Kalka within Quora, the wearable rings, and Erin Ford over at SC Bio. That's right. We're getting them examples of Luke Kennedy's of the world, showing them what success is outside of gender. Yeah. And the predispositions of what's going on out there. But, you know, that's an important aspect coming into this field.
David Stefanich: There are glass ceilings and there are stereotypes and I think it's important that people are aware. And then you can make a mistake but knowing in your cognizance that you did. Again, I'm a 50-year-old guy and there are certain things that I do say because I grew up that way and my daughters remind me quickly like, today, dad, you can't say that. No. So I think a little benefit of the doubt sometimes but knowing people's intentions is what we're coaching my daughters. how to have a productive STEM career.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, well, I think that's so relevant. And especially we see that gender bias in not just bioscience or health care or life science. It is we see it in manufacturing. We see it in market. I mean, it is I don't think it's indicative of any one industry. I think we see that a lot. And it's a challenge. And we talk about it like female empowerment, women empowerment, how do you build that confidence? And we've also seen a trend, though, of a lot of CEOs and founders, especially. And it's kind of why we love the community that we're building. CEOs and founders are, we feel are more empathetic than a, or embrace like radical empathy, active listening, kind of really, I'm walking in their shoes. I want to have more of an inclusivity or inclusive environment. We hear that more often in founder communities. And CEOs that have grown up enough, you know, as a founder versus a CEO that was just applied for the job and, you know, and kind of climbed the corporate ranks. And I, I don't know, I think that's, I think the more that we shout that the better I think that the business community will be. Cause it is, it is there and you've got four girls that are going to be entering in all different industries and spaces. They need, they need that support.
David Stefanich: And I'll warn you, my youngest is 16 and she's a rising junior and she puts up a zero shit. So if she's out there in the market, I'm just warning everybody now, don't mess with her.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. Yeah. That's like my 13 year old is my spirit animal because she is, she's, she's quite the mouth. Like she got my mouth, but I, and I find that I have a hard time filtering as Chandler's like, yeah, you do. Uh, but she has no filter. She has no shame. All right. Okay. So if we met a year from now, what will we be celebrating?
David Stefanich: we would take a moment and reflect on every life we impacted in the last 12 months.
Jennifer Sutton: Really? Okay. And it would be, is that going to be like a million, 10 million lives that we're impacting?
David Stefanich: Um, so we are approaching roughly 2 million lives that we've touched over the course of the company. And then, you know, there's millions of transactions and all those things. Um, something from a global perspective, um, two countries have the highest infection rate of hep C in the globe. One is Mongolia, the other one is Egypt. And Fargo Pharmaceuticals was founded in Egypt and Dr. Cross has worked closely with them. Mongolia is rapidly on pace to be the first country to eradicate hep C for their entire population. There's a wonderful foundation called the Onan Foundation that's over there and he's the director because hep C leads to liver cancer and just long-term health conditions. to hear that maybe we might have played a small part in the realization that an entire country is Pepsi-free would bring a certain fulfillment to what Jay and I said on that couch. That's right. The Gates Foundation discussed that day.
Jennifer Sutton: That would be a wonderful celebration. And it would be on your birthday, so you would be turning one year older. We'll celebrate with some cupcakes.
David Stefanich: Yes, wonderful.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. All right. So who's been your greatest cheerleader?
David Stefanich: That would be the president of Clemson University, Jim. Okay. Jim and I have developed an amazing friendship. You know, the academic arena has its own challenges. You know, colleges are focused on grants and research papers and those types of things, Jim's brought an incredible mindset to what Clemson University is. We've actually helped that university turn cost centers into profit centers and expanding their research. Clemson University Precision Medicine Initiative is one of the largest growing biobanks in the Southeast, being headed up by an amazing researcher, Trudy McKay. They're doing collaborative work with Amgen and that around the world. And, you know, Jim and I have a lot of good conversations about, you know, the challenges in the academic world, uh, what it is to be in the business world. Um, the, the partnership between us and Clemson, um, you know, they're our oldest customer, uh, biggest advocates. Um, we, we spend a lot of time working closely with them and, uh, those are those challenges that anywhere around the world, uh, uh, Jim always takes time and I always appreciate that.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. That's amazing. So yeah, you guys are both on that. What can we do from here to change the world? Right.
David Stefanich: We've had global health programs that we've actually introduced the university to, and they went from an R2 to an R1 school from a research and they continue to be a center of excellence and what that research is. And knowing that the Rymedi platform has something to do with that journey and that accreditation. I mean, just this year, I think it's public knowledge, but there's roughly 60,000 applicants for 4,000 slots. Oh my gosh. That's what's happening in this state, yeah.
Jennifer Sutton: That is fantastic. Does that qualify or help qualify Clemson to get into the AAU, what is it, the American Association of Universities? There's like 69 universities that are in.
David Stefanich: There's a lot of criteria associated with it. There's research publications, Rymedi's positioning itself to be the backbone for the research. We do clinical trials all over the place and Doing that across different universities is a big deal. We're speaking with the vet school that's being developed up there. Tracking a human life is the same thing as tracking an animal life.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
David Stefanich: And we've learned that over the last five months. A living, breathing bio bag has many names, but the amount of care and ensuring the wellness of an animal is very similar to the human being. That's right. And, you know, having those opportunities out there and some of the accreditations, research projects, we've done multiple NIH grant submissions together. Um, getting some work for, um, there's a state program, the SC Quantum, um, grant program is a $15 million grant at the state level for quantum computer initiatives. We've helped Clemson do a couple of submissions to that. Again, it's just great collaboration.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. That is fantastic. All right. So you you've had to raise funds. You've had to then, you know, also organically grow the company. What advice would you give somebody that is in that scale up? They've got this great idea. They they hear the momentum of like, oh, I want in. I want in. Like, what advice would you give a founder or another innovator of like how to navigate the space?
David Stefanich: The biggest lesson I think we've learned is don't spend today based on the forecasted growth. Stay within your guardrails. And it is easy to talk about market share attainment. It's easy to talk about, Oh, I'm going to go close these deals. I don't adjust our SG&A expenditure until it's in. And that is a mistake I made. Luckily, we've been able to organically grow as well as manage investment dollars. But I have seen several companies in our, in our ecosystem. Oh, we're going to infuse capital, which facilitates growth and believe the life. Yeah. Influx of capital provides you the opportunity to build growth. your ability and your wherewithal is predicated on your ability to deliver.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Yeah, go ahead.
David Stefanich: Well, it's like when you're in a class and you get an A on your first test, it's easier to keep an A all semester than to do poorly and then dig your way out. And with the volatility we talked about, just related to the nature of the kind of organization we all run, you don't want to add to it. There's only so many spiritual cycles in a given day that you can afford to allow worry to fill your mind and stagnate the innovative mind. And you need to be very aware of that.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. No, that's great advice. And I was, I was just going to add of like, we see that a lot with companies that get this infusion of capital to do then this, the scaling X, but there's not a intentional plan in place to be able to execute on that. Uh, which, you know, it's because a lot of times these, you know, companies it's chaos, right? I mean, you are, you're, you're banging on a lot of different, uh, using a lot of different levers and banging a lot of doors and it's, um, can be quite chaotic. So it's like, where do we focus time, money, and attention to get to that?
David Stefanich: A great example is they're like, Oh wait, Dave, you have a patent. You have a patent portfolio. You have an IP mode, recognized brain recognition, customer references. a finished product, you know, with the advent of downloading apps on a mobile device, people are not open to hear about, oh, I'm going to give you an MVP, then tomorrow we'll deliver you a product. That sales cycle doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. So you are literally building the car, hoping the market wants to drive that car. Right. And when you're, it's like Clayton Christensen, the innovator's dilemma. Yeah. You know, when you're forging in a place where we're, you know, in the, multi-jurisdictional protocol world, we have guardrails that say we're going to stay within the regulatory world, but the innovation we're trying to introduce is there. But unforeseen things, you know, inflation or a global contract, right? All of a sudden, budgets are done. We're done spending for the year, Dave. I'm like, we just spent 14 months getting to a contract and now you're going to kick it five months? No, no. I got my round. My growth is already plain. Didn't they tell you? Right. Right. You know, one of the extraneous aspects that impact your success is why you don't adjust cash expenditures until you have a dollar.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's right. That is. That is great advice. Everyone should heed. All right. You're high octane. You are, you know, extreme levels. Are there daily routines or disciplines that you use other than your punching bag to help you, you know, mindset or just to stay focused?
David Stefanich: What do you, what do you drink like a gallon of coffee? I'll share a quirky thing. that Jason and I both laugh about and my staff does. I am geospatially not gifted. So what that means, I have been in a car going to an event where I have to go speak, pulled out of the hotel, forgot to reset the mapping destination, drove around for 10 minutes and pulled back into the hotel. That happens quite frequently. So my keys are in the exact same spot every day. I keep a bag of clothes in the back of my car in case I have to stay at the office all night. So I'm incredibly regimented on the superfluous things. There's an old adage where Albert Einstein had five brown suits, so every day he didn't have to figure out what he was going to wear.
Jennifer Sutton: It's just a uniform. Don't waste your mental energy around that, right?
David Stefanich: Yes. So those are the things that I do to mitigate unnecessary addition to the the mental challenges of the day. I like easy and simple, and it's kind of an oxymoron based on what I choose to do for a career. But, you know, you control what you can control, you influence what you can influence, and you learn a way to cope with what is unknown and navigate those waters, keeping the destination in sight.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, that's a good, that's a little quote that we need to capture. All right, last question here before we go. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received and how did that influence your own decision making, whatever? What advice that you've been given that you're like, man, that really set in?
David Stefanich: This is from a long time ago. So I was raised from an immigrant family, came in from Eastern Europe. So my grandparents immigrated up towards Ohio and I've had an interesting international upbringing, to say the least. And I remember I was 29 years old, just became CIO of a company. We did some acquisitions for a billion dollar company. And I go back to the traditional Eastern European Sunday dinner and there's, you know, 12, 15 people around the table. I'm sitting next to my uncle Mike, who lives up in Lorain, Ohio still. And I'm like, geez, what a CIO of this company. Wow, look at all this cool shit. And he looks at me and he goes, your second generation peasant stock, don't take yourself too seriously. And that has stuck with me through and through. You know, don't do not get grandiose on your achievements. Right. To thy own self be true. And stay humble. I still tell him that story today. That's an important part. You know, he just said you were provided opportunities and what you did with those opportunities is on you. Yes. But you had an opportunity.
Jennifer Sutton: So that's right. Oh, that's great. Okay. Is there any piece of advice that you've kind of internalized to go, all right, that was what I get received. And you're sharing, what's a good piece of advice that you would want to give out to our ecosystem?
David Stefanich: Awareness. Awareness of what you are embarking upon awareness of what Success feels like, looks like, sometimes it's clouded. Awareness of when the journey's there. Everybody talks about these grandiose exits and so forth. And I remind everyone, I adopt a debt-free lifestyle. $4 million interest-bearing account is more money than I need. I'm good. We're going to go make a hundred million. Is four enough? And then once you cheat it, you have a sense of peace because then you're playing with house money. So I think awareness of why you're here, what you're doing, what you are, those 12 axioms, I keep them on my desk and I read them all the time. I never want to lose sight of why.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. And that what we we've been put on this earth because it's more purpose driven. Have that have that purpose driven life and and you feel more fulfilled and satisfied. So I think that's that is valuable, valuable advice. OK, so we're out of time. I always like shocked at how fast these things go. Dave, I hope this wasn't very painful. But how do you want people to connect with Rymedi or with you if they have questions or you know, they want to follow you and watch your success.
David Stefanich: Yeah, so we have a LinkedIn profile that's out there. Anyone that knows Rymedi and is fulfilled with the ecosystem, there's a wonderful woman by the name of Elizabeth Yarborough who pretty much handles my entire life, who I'm getting in contact with her through our site. I think there's a contact link on the website as well, Rymedi.com. And then Ms. Elizabeth will reach out to you and she does the on the thankless task of dealing with my calendar.
Jennifer Sutton: Dealing with you and your calendar. And it's Rymedi and it's R-Y-E-D-I. And we'll tag all that and stuff in the episode, but it is Rymedi, R-Y-E-D-I. Dave, thanks for hanging out with us today. I appreciate it. And good chat with you. And for everyone listening and watching, thank you for joining us. This podcast episode will be published coming, what, this Sunday? And so give us a like, a shout out, a share, and help us grow a more connected entrepreneurial community. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. We're a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. Just your email to join the community. One-stop content hub just for founders and an innovative digital zine experience. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send an email to hello at orange whip.com. Y'all thank you for tuning in to hello cast. It is where I meet so shit and we'll see you again next week.