Accomplished entrepreneur Graham Stanton helped build one of the most successful digital fitness companies in the world. Tune in as Peloton’s co-founder and former SVP joins his old high-school classmate, Justin, to talk about the wild ups and downs of Peloton’s success, his experience as a young tech entrepreneur, and what he is doing now in accounting software, as CEO and co-founder of Avise.

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(2:49) - What got Graham hooked with programming and technology - “I liked the logic of it. I liked the ability to create things without, you know, starting not with much. So yeah, that captured my interest when I was fairly young.”

(08:21) - Graham’s thoughts on the role of college and MBAs in today’s day and age - “There's a definite mismatch if you're viewing college purely as preparation. But yeah, I’m not gonna be like Peter Teal going out there saying that college is evil and a total waste.”

(14:34) - A little bit of luck and a little bit of skills: How Graham got into a general management position at gifts.com - “One of the reasons I went that route rather than working for a really big company as a software engineer was that I knew I get exposure to all aspects of the business.”

(16:20) - How Graham got involved with Peleton - “We're all internet technology people and then here we were starting this hardware and content company but from the technology standpoint.”

(22:24) - The early days at Peloton - “I mean this was technology, but most of the VCs just couldn't connect that. Even the ones who could, were nervous about hardware.”

(26:58) - What kept Peloton going through tough times - “We never had a doubt. For us, there was never a moment of like, maybe this wasn't a good idea after we know the product's really good and that was an objective thing because we were all using it.”

(31:24) - The big leagues: How Peloton grew and how it changed - “I think the thing that really, stood out to me from that time, is that it felt like every six months the company was a completely different company and that was just keeping up with the growth.”

(38:38) - Peloton’s impact on health - “In my time there, it was very important to us that we never talked about Peloton as a weight loss device and not just for like regulatory reasons, but just because that wasn't the purpose. We kind of took it on faith that this would be good for you.”

(41:08) - Graham’s advice for people in the growth stage of their startups or business - “In our situation, the general approach that I think worked was just making sure to keep enough gas going.”

(44:17) - The inspiration for Avise (+Pizza talk!) - “Let's find something that's been overlooked, get really into it and make it better for people.”

EPISODE RESOURCES: 

Connect with Graham on LinkedIn

Learn more about Avise

Learn more about Peloton

Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

The Slice is produced by Sterling Shore and Rachael Roberts at StudioPod Media, and Shauna Davis at Osso VR. Engineered by nodalab. 

Being an entrepreneur and a physician is no easy task, but Dr. Benedict Nwachukwu is proving that success in both business and medicine is possible. Dr. Nwachukwu is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). He has spent much of his career caring for athletes and professional sports teams, including the Brooklyn Nets, NY Liberty, Chicago Bulls and the White Sox. He is also the co-founder of the digital health platform, Best In Class MD (BICMD), and the Team Physician of the Brooklyn Nets & NY Liberty. Tune in to hear how  Dr. Nwachukwu balances his busy medical & entrepreneurial career.

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(01:49) - Ben’s early inspiration - “When I had the opportunity at 16, I volunteered in a hospital in my mom's hospital, actually, where I assisted in certain patient care duties and started immersing myself in healthcare and really got the bug there.”

(05:28) - Making the decision to get his MBA - “I knew that that actually was something that made it the right decision because ultimately change is hard and to do the right thing you often will meet resistance. And so that gave me the courage to do it.”

(09:06) - What it takes to be an innovator - “I would say that if I could go back to a younger me, and if I could give advice, I would say take better advantage of cultivating the relationships and the networks at business."

(18:31) - Betting on yourself: The challenges and failures Ben had to face to get where he is - “You know, up until this point, and even this very day, you have sort of your micro failures and macro failures that you have to push through. ”

(23:04) - Best In Class MD: Ben’s new platform and how it came to be - “I had been thinking of this idea in residency, around the idea of how do you improve connectivity in orthopedic surgery, ”

(32:59) - Walking both worlds: Finding the balance between being an entrepreneur and physician - “We do track to make sure that, you know, I'm still a good doctor while I'm still a good entrepreneur, so you have to balance and you have to hold yourself accountable to be a good doctor.”

(32:29) - The next steps (+Pizza talk!) - “I think that at this point we are a great solution for, you know, expert medical opinions, medical record reviews. Our goal is to evolve, to be a care manager, care management company.”

EPISODE RESOURCES: 

Connect with Ben on LinkedIn

Learn more about Best in Class MD

Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

The Slice is produced by Sterling Shore and Rachael Roberts at StudioPod Media, and Shauna Davis at Osso VR. Engineered by nodalab.

On this episode of The Slice, Dr. Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer at the American College of Cardiology and Director of the MGH Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program joins Osso VR CEO Justin Barad, MD to discuss her early foray into telemedicine, including the hurdles and challenges with implementation and utilization, as well as how the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic dramatically changed perceptions of remote care.. Dr. Ami also shares her inspiring life’s journey, where passion and focus have been central to becoming a fearless leader and highly determined innovator. 

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(00:58) - Introducing Dr. Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer at the American College of Cardiology and Director of the MGH Adult Congenital Disease Program: “Such a wonderful thing, right? That it's recognized as a field and it needs focus and it needs attention, and it needs people to train in it and understand how to do it and talk to each other.”

(04:37) - Building a new field: “The adult cardiologist hadn't really seen this before. This was a new field. It was a blossoming field of people who had grown past age 18 and now needed care.”

(09:34) - Passion and focus: “You can have passion about a hundred things, but at some point, you need to focus to really get something to the next level. And I think it's probably that combination of what I was raised to think about that ended up making me who I am.”

(14:00) - Innovation in Telemedicine: “There's that phrase necessity is the mother of invention. Right? And I feel like my phrase is a little different. It’s desperation is the mother of innovation.”

(17:31) - Empowering patients: “You say you want patients to be motivated. You want them to be empowered, but if you keep stripping their power, putting them in a blue gown, putting 'em on a table and in a nice cold room, you can't empower people if you keep stripping them of their power.”

(24:53) - Ami’s path to Chief Innovation Officer: “When you start getting good at something, people expect it to be perfect. And it's never perfect. There's always the next challenge.”

(30:44) - The importance of technology in healthcare (+Pizza talk!): “It falls on us to get them excited, to teach them, to help them understand why a lot of the things that we're doing makes sense for the patient, makes sense for the system and in fact, makes things better.”

EPISODE RESOURCES: 

Connect with Ami on LinkedIn 

Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

The Slice is produced by Sterling Shore and Rachael Roberts at StudioPod Media, and Shauna Davis at Osso VR. Engineered by nodalab.