In our fifth installment of the PharmaBrands Podcast, Neil sits down with Papercurve CEO and co-founder, Jeff Kent. Jeff's commitment to his clients comes through loud and clear in an episode that covers everything from AI to eFax!
Thank you to our Season 1 partner Papercurve. To find out more about how Papercurve can transform your content review and creation process, visit www.papercurve.com.
This episode was produced by Darryl Webster, with music by OLD KID.
[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I know years ago we were saying, are we going to run out of great big new things to work on?
[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just doesn't seem to stop.
[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Really it's the discipline of always listening to your customers and seeing where the needs are.
[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: As long as we have that connection, and as long as we're paying attention,
[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_01]: we'll have an endless supply of ideas of what to try out next.
[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Season 1, Episode 5 of The PharmaBrands Podcast.
[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Neil Fallon.
[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I've loved the most about launching both The PharmaBrands event series and the podcast
[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: is connecting and reconnecting with so many interesting people.
[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I've always found that marketers, entrepreneurs and brand leaders in the Canadian healthcare industry
[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: to be some of the most committed, curious and creative there are.
[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And today's guest is no exception.
[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I've known about Papercurve for a while now,
[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's really over the last six months or so that I've gotten to know today's guest.
[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff Kent.
[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff has been a big supporter of PharmaBrands, most notably as our lead partner for the podcast.
[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And as you'll hear in today's episode, he's also a committed listener of the show.
[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff's commitment to his customers, our industry and innovation
[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_00]: came through loud and clear in our conversation.
[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to bring you all today's show.
[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, thank you very much for joining us today.
[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to cover a whole bunch of stuff here,
[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: but let's start with a little bit of an overview of Papercurve just so people can kind of orient themselves
[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: with the product.
[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm going to go back.
[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear a little bit more about you and how everything started and where you are.
[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But let's start with what is Papercurve?
[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I can start with the origin story.
[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was on the Pharma side, I was with a biotech company that was incubated in the Mars incubator.
[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And as we grew, we had to buy various software systems
[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: as we expanded from six to 60 people preparing for a launch in the U.S.
[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that we found is we needed a way to collaborate
[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and review all of our scientific communications.
[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We were pre-commercial at this point.
[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And we went with Viva.
[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: That was sort of the standard industry choice at the time.
[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was in charge of sort of getting it stood up
[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and getting people using the system.
[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was such a negative experience for me that we found at Papercurve.
[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So basically, we found with Viva, we had to have months to set it up.
[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We need a third party IT company to help configure it.
[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And then in the end, after a year, the user adoption was fairly low.
[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, Viva was so difficult to use that our senior management
[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_01]: who wanted to be involved in a lot of the approvals and sign-offs
[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: just found it too inconvenient to use.
[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't use the system.
[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And as a result, user adoption as a whole in the company was terrible.
[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I have been frustrated with software products, a lot of hardware products,
[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of services in my life.
[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Never have I thought, OK, I'm going to go and build one of those on my own.
[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: How does one go about saying,
[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, I was in pharma pre-commercialization in a startup
[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think I'm going to step away from that
[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm going to start up a software company?
[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a software background?
[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Like those two things don't seem intimately connected
[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of maybe skill set.
[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: How does one go about saying,
[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, I'm out. I'm going to go start up a software company?
[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's a really great question.
[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So yes, I've had a very varied career.
[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So prior to being in pharma,
[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a law degree at the University of British Columbia.
[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I actually worked at the Faculty of Law, Artificial Intelligence Research.
[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the 90s, so it was very primitive back then.
[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Did a variety of things, worked doing software
[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: for the financial services sector and hedge funds and so on
[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: up until the financial crisis and then pivoted into healthcare after that.
[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've definitely been around software.
[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the technical person.
[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: My co-founder and partner, Antonio,
[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: is sort of the brilliant mind behind all the technology.
[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But certainly I've been around it enough to know that technology can help.
[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: It can also be a barrier.
[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I've heard from people in the pharma industry
[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: how frustrating it is that they're continually being asked
[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: to learn a new piece of software
[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and they're at their wit's end.
[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, there's so many different siloed pieces of software out there.
[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And really, paper curve was founded under the concept of
[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: customer happiness first and then software disappears.
[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So the software really should basically be somewhat invisible.
[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It should be in the background.
[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It should help you do what you want to do.
[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course there's a lot of talk about AI
[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and AI is really well positioned to do just exactly that.
[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so looking at, of course,
[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: with an industry like pharma that's somewhat risk-averse
[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and usually not an early adopter,
[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: sometimes there's some clear entry points where you can say,
[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, this is ripe for disruption.
[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a better way to do this.
[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need months to set up a software system anymore.
[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It should be intuitive and easy to use.
[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: User adoption should be something that should be
[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: fairly easy to be successful at if you focus on it.
[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's definitely not easy,
[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: but the opportunity is there.
[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, decided to go for it.
[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Back in the I'm going to go for it moment,
[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: what was the original feature set
[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: when you think back to the genesis of paper curve?
[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a napkin somewhere with your,
[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, I want this software to do these four things.
[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: What did you say this thing has to do?
[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And it has to do it really simply and seamlessly.
[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: What was the core functionality that you started with?
[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the use cases was key opinion leaders,
[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: people who are let's say outside of the organization
[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: who you needed them to review something
[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: and they don't really want to learn
[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and create another password.
[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to learn how to use another piece of software.
[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: No, and that is also a stakeholder group
[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: that you do not want to frustrate.
[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: They're sort of like you can't force them to take training
[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and they won't take training.
[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was sort of we realized like,
[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: that's the Holy Grail.
[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If we can basically have a process
[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: and a system where you don't need to train people
[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_01]: extensively to use it,
[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: they can give their approvals,
[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: they don't need to create a password
[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: if they don't need to
[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and just make it easy to use.
[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the essential goal.
[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the software disappears
[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and the customer happiness.
[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So that would be the napkin that we started with.
[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And as you went,
[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: did you have sort of a group of your own kind of KOLs
[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: as it were who were your early adopters,
[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: early user group?
[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Did you build this in a bit of a vacuum
[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and get ready for launch?
[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how did you vet the Jeff thinks this is easy to use
[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: or Jeff and Antonio think this is easy to use?
[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: How did you kind of vet your early assumptions
[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: around what was right?
[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And were there surprising moments where you went,
[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: oh maybe that's not as intuitive as we thought.
[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great point.
[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You need a lot of humility and you need to listen.
[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, I have to give credit
[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: to some of your previous guests
[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: like Dr. Mohammed Mbamdani mentioned this.
[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you really have to listen
[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and reach out to and embrace the end user.
[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to understand what their problems are,
[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: how they use your software.
[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So we had to do a lot of user testing.
[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So you can start a company with a brilliant idea,
[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but yeah, you definitely can't listen to me
[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_01]: and my ways of this is how I think things should work.
[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You really do have to reach out to end users
[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and get their feedback.
[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And one thing that we found is agencies were a great,
[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: great source of feedback
[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_01]: because they work with so many clients.
[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: They see so many different use cases and problems.
[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: They're really hands on with setting up ad boards
[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and dealing with key opinion leaders and so on.
[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So we found we got a lot of great product feedback
[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: from agencies on how to improve things
[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and processes and so on.
[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a very multi-stakeholder environment.
[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is probably looking for something
[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: a bit unique or a bit sort of customized
[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: to their own needs in all of that.
[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I also have to imagine that feature bloat
[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: can be an issue as well.
[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just what's included.
[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: It's also, okay, well, where do we stop
[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of features because sure,
[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: that might appeal to one user in a specific user group,
[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but too many options is also a problem.
[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So was there some discipline around
[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: this is either good enough for beta
[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: or this is good enough for the next release
[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: or we're not going to include these kind of features?
[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to imagine that is also a bit of a unique challenge
[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: when you're deciding where a product begins and ends.
[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.
[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to do a lot of thinking
[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and you have to do basically we go through
[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: a complex analysis process where we say,
[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: okay, what's the reach of this update?
[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it going to affect a lot of people
[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: or is it just a niche or a subset?
[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what's the impact?
[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it high impact or not?
[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the confidence, how confident are you
[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: that you've got those numbers nailed down
[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and then the effort it's going to take
[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: to actually build that feature.
[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And then of course you have to monitor
[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: the end usage and saying like,
[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: is this something that people are actually using?
[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it is an art.
[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_01]: The one great thing about of course being a startup
[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and being in smaller scale is you can't,
[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: you just don't have the money and resources
[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_01]: to build everything all at once.
[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to start off with that minimum viable product
[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's embarrassing.
[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're past, we're five years in now
[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: so we're a bit past it.
[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we look back at our original product
[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: that we launched with and we're like,
[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: wow, that was a minimum viable product.
[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just the basics.
[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you work on expanding it.
[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's true, one thing that we found
[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: is with our clients, they do say,
[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: well, you know, PaperCurve now does all of this for me.
[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It works really well.
[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I know how to use it.
[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: We've had people who are using it.
[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you also do this?
[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So can you expand your feature set?
[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we have expanded beyond the, you know,
[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_01]: the core medical, legal, regulatory review.
[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We had a lot of requests saying,
[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_01]: but I need to create content quickly.
[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I need, you know,
[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: can I create content on the platform?
[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So we built PaperCurve Office
[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_01]: which about allows you to create content
[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: on the platform as well as then put it
[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: through the review process.
[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And then of course, on the other end,
[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: we had commercial ops teams and so on saying,
[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, I need to, you know,
[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to take this content that's been approved
[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and I want to share it.
[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to keep,
[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and I want good analytics on who's opening it when,
[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and then I want help with the next best action saying
[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_01]: this person's opened up these types of documents.
[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01]: What content should I send them in the future?
[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: What's the next thing I should do
[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: or my sales rep should do to reach out?
[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's how we expanded over time.
[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's very, you have to be a really good listener
[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and be very client-driven.
[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the discipline.
[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: You definitely can get into trouble
[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_01]: if you start to think you're the smartest person
[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: in the room.
[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I am very fortunate.
[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I have never felt that way.
[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: With the people that I've worked with,
[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: it's my previous job as well as now,
[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01]: the people that you talk to.
[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's so many people with advanced degrees
[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and are so brilliant at what they do.
[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of your guests that you've had on the podcast,
[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01]: like they've had such great insights.
[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That yeah, if you're a good listener
[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and you're listening to the clients
[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and you can really understand what the problem is,
[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: you can be very focused.
[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're not a good listener,
[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01]: sometimes you can jump to conclusions
[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and you can build something that in the end
[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_01]: is maybe not exactly what this client
[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: or let's say the broader universe of client,
[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: potential clients need.
[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: As you're evolving some of these feature sets,
[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: so let's talk about your paper curve office for example,
[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I imagine you have to have an eye on the competition, right?
[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You have to be looking at what other folks are doing,
[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: what other platforms are doing,
[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: but you probably can't have too much of an eye
[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: on the competition or else you're sort of going to be
[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: defining your feature set by there.
[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So it must be a bit of a tricky balance to say,
[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: okay, we're going to create the ability
[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: or whatever enhance the ability to create content
[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and we want to do it in our way,
[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but we also want to do it being mindful
[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: of what else is out there in the market.
[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's got to be a bit of a needle to thread.
[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the ways it came about was clients would reach out
[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: to us and say like I'd have this,
[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: we have to create content quickly.
[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we're on a deadline here.
[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It could be commercial ops would be things
[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_01]: like allocation notices or back orders and so on.
[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they need to be compliant,
[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_01]: but you're sending them out at a relatively high volume
[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: potentially and you need to do them relatively quickly.
[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_01]: That's where the content creation comes in saying like,
[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_01]: oh, an AI in particular can be very helpful
[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01]: in this case of saying,
[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01]: oh, you want to do a product allocation notice.
[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, okay, well give me the SKU number
[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and I can basically give you a product allocation notice
[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: for that SKU or that DIN number.
[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's pretty good.
[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's pretty accurate, pretty fast
[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: and really helps to speed things up.
[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Other use cases we found is that certain reviewers,
[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: particularly the legal team that's fairly expensive.
[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_01]: One complaint they would have is they'd say, well, you know,
[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_01]: my word is kind of final.
[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I would rather not comment on something
[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: or request a change than have to wait
[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: to see the change come back and see if it's correct.
[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd rather just make the change and say that's it.
[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's correct.
[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It can now move on.
[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So we saw those two use cases of saying,
[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, this is somewhere where we could really increase
[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the speed of the cycle time and improve the accuracy
[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and make sure that like there's fewer errors,
[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: there's fewer back and forth.
[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: The content's more compliant, it gets out faster.
[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's where we've focused on.
[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And we think in particular with generative AI,
[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: it is one place for example,
[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01]: not everyone is playing right now.
[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So Viva is sort of preoccupied with,
[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_01]: it's getting divorced from Salesforce.
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's standing up its own CRM.
[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So they basically acknowledged,
[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, they're not developing any generative AI capabilities
[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_01]: nor are they looking to buy any right now.
[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we basically are able to fill that gap.
[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: We were able to use Viva's direct data API
[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: for any Viva customer that uses Viva Vault,
[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: we can plug into Vault and train our large language models
[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and train our generative AI.
[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's something that's sort of like,
[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah, we're pushing the boundaries further ahead.
[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of interest from smaller pharma
[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: as well as big global pharma as well saying like,
[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, this is a use case
[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: where they see some real value saying using generative AI
[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: in the MLR process and then saying,
[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: how can we move on to things like auto tagging content
[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and copywriting, like actually not just reviewing
[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and editing copy and getting suggestions on references
[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and tightening the product claims,
[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: but actually writing the copy.
[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And with us, we see an approach
[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: of having a human centered approach to AI.
[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So basically having a prompt saying,
[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: tell your AI what you want it to do.
[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: We don't think that's the best path forward.
[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We think it's better when the AI can sense
[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: contextually what's going on and make suggestions.
[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So very similar to what Dr. Mamdani was talking about
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: with ChartWatch, basically the AI is monitoring
[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: all sorts of variables.
[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when certain things happen,
[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: it alerts the human end user to say,
[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, something's happening.
[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: You should do something about it.
[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01]: In the clinical setting with Dr. Mamdani,
[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: of course this person is likely at high risk
[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: of going to the ICU or dying in the next 48 hours.
[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: With us, it might be the next best action saying,
[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, based on these open rates of content engagement,
[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: what people are interested in and behaviors,
[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01]: we recommend this is the next piece of content
[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you should send out.
[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the next thing you should do
[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in terms of outreach.
[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And is that live in the latest product release
[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_00]: or are you working on it?
[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: The one thing I think that happens a lot
[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: when people talk about AI in their products
[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: is what AI might be able to do in their product
[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: versus what AI is actually doing in their product.
[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Where are you on the adoption scale
[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and the integration scale?
[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So we do have AI that's been up and running
[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: for a few years now in terms of helping identify
[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and correct product claims
[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and also referencing documents.
[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the next step with our CRM,
[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_01]: that's scheduled, that's in beta right now.
[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we are scheduling to go live with our CRM
[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and our AI that's powering it in 2025.
[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So it is an evolution.
[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The AI is getting trained now as we speak.
[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, like everyone in pharma in the AI space,
[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: we only use the customer's data.
[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So it reduces the chance of hallucination by saying,
[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, we're not gonna pull data
[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_01]: from anywhere available on the web.
[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We're only gonna use your data.
[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It trains faster.
[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's more effective.
[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You do have to be aware of costs.
[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that we're working with clients on
[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_01]: is saying, hey, we can do all these wonderful things,
[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01]: but there's also a cost factor where you say,
[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: well, if you're calling on the large language model
[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_01]: all the time, it can get pretty expensive.
[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we're working with partners like CentML
[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_01]: that are really effective at saying,
[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, we can really start to optimize the cost
[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: of using AI for these types of situations
[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and make it more cost effective.
[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's one thing that you have to keep in mind too
[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_01]: is like, can you actually do it?
[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what's the cost when you do it at scale?
[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you mentioned evolution
[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and I don't think that there's a,
[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: now we have AI and we're done.
[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be a constant evolution and iteration.
[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And as new generations of models come out,
[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: it's gonna be a journey,
[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_00]: not a discrete kind of product release, I'm sure.
[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.
[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And this again, this is when the customers
[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: are really important.
[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're in pharma,
[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01]: like you really need to be clear
[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and working with companies,
[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: technology companies like PaperCrit that listen
[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: to say like, hey, is this the problem,
[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the biggest problem that needs to be solving?
[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Often you hear with new technologies like AI
[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: that it's us people, the technology companies
[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_01]: come up with solutions that are looking for a problem to solve.
[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And really you want to be focused on the business objectives first.
[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to say like, hey, what do I need to do?
[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think I remember from that great conference
[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_01]: you put on the age of AI,
[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: a letter Brandle mentioned a use case
[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: where she was saying,
[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, how can AI help with PAB submissions?
[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Like reducing the back and forth,
[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: speeding up the passage of content through PAB.
[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's sort of specific to Canada,
[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: but that's something that AI is really well suited to.
[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just localizing content to different jurisdictions,
[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's also saying, hey, you know,
[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: it's easy to identify in a previous PAB decision.
[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This copy was approved.
[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: If it's more or less an exact text match,
[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: it would be called pickup copy and wouldn't,
[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: it would expedite the review process.
[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And AI is like,
[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that's something we can do out of the box right now.
[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's very, you know, very easy.
[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would recommend that's like,
[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: that's a great entry point for a lot of companies.
[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, don't,
[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I have to give again,
[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: credit to Chris Weber from Takeda at the Age of AI conference,
[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_01]: who suggested this.
[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, start small,
[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: like start with your team,
[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: sort of basically do a proof of concept or a pilot project
[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and prove the value.
[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So like do something that's within your budget.
[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you can take that to your bosses
[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: in the higher ups and present it and say, look,
[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I found a use case for that AI really works in it.
[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not vaporware.
[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually, you know, it's actually working.
[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_01]: We actually have concrete results that we can show you.
[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you can see, you can build from that.
[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: What are the barriers in terms of, you know,
[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: getting to yes when you're talking to a potential client?
[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to imagine that some clients are saying to you guys,
[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: well, I'm sorry, you know, we've,
[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_00]: we've already gone with Viva.
[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've done this massive install.
[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're sort of stuck with them.
[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: We can't get divorced.
[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what are the barriers that you hear from clients
[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and then how do you address that?
[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a critical piece of business software
[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: that they need to say yes to.
[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure there's a whole bunch of layers of approvals
[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and a whole bunch of kind of objections
[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_00]: that you guys get all the time.
[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So talk to me a little bit about kind of,
[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: what do you hear from customers?
[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And then how do you guys get over that to get to a yes?
[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great question.
[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I have to give a shout out to Jennifer Meldrum
[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_01]: who I think touched on this as well.
[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So with the really big pharma,
[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: yes, you go through an RFP process.
[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're constantly doing that.
[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the RFPs are very long.
[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of, you know,
[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_01]: you need a lot of resources to sort of fill them out.
[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And the only advantage I'd say is since AI, for example,
[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: is relatively new,
[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_01]: you don't have a lot of incumbents
[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: that are clearly dominant.
[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You have the ability to say like,
[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, this is pretty new.
[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We're focused on this area.
[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_01]: We're pretty good at it.
[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But like you said, when you say,
[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, we have an alternative to another piece of software,
[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: when you're paper curve
[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and you're relatively new in the market,
[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_01]: one of the things that's built into your DNA
[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: is you have to integrate with everything else they've got.
[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So we are almost never the first piece of software
[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: that a company purchases.
[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And so basically in the make of our company
[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: is like we have to integrate.
[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have DocuSign set up,
[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_01]: if you have Viva Vault set up,
[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: we have to work with them.
[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: There's virtually, there's very few companies that would say,
[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah, you know, I've just set up this system
[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_01]: for a few hundred thousand or million dollars
[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm ready to throw it all away if you're better.
[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That just doesn't happen.
[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, you basically have to plug into a lot of systems.
[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it's tricky.
[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: The older and more antiquated it is,
[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_01]: the more ripe it is for disruption.
[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's often trickier, right?
[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: The technologies can be quite old, but you find ways.
[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So a funny thing, like we,
[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I know we've been talking about all the cool new stuff
[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and AI and so on,
[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: but you know, we have clients in commercial operations
[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that part of their outreach is a E-facts.
[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_01]: They say, look, it's HIPAA compliant.
[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, our customers, our stakeholders use it
[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and I can vouch for that.
[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I saw my family doctor
[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and yeah, to fill in my prescription,
[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_01]: she was basically hopped on her computer
[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and like filled out an E-facts form
[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and sent it to the pharmacy.
[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So E-facts is still out there
[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and oftentimes clients will say,
[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_01]: look, we don't have permission to email these clients.
[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_01]: E-facts is the only thing we've got.
[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you integrate that into your platform
[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: so we can have one central location to send stuff out,
[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_01]: whether it's verified email or E-facts
[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and have some kind of centralized reporting.
[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Basically you have to do it
[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: because that's the problem that the client has
[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_01]: is they say, look, I'm sending things,
[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: messages out by E-facts.
[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sending it out by email.
[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I might be trying things on social media
[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and text messaging as well
[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and I need to pull all that data together
[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and figure out, okay, what do I do next
[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_01]: when I get a response?
[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, like I said,
[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that's where then you can start bringing AI
[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and saying, hey, can aggregate all this data
[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and start giving prompts as to saying,
[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: this is when you should reach out.
[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But certainly, you know, for us,
[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like you do have to really lead with the fact
[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01]: that you can plug into any system,
[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_01]: any major system that you've got.
[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course you can't do them all,
[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: but over time you say like,
[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: okay, I can plug into Cavytrack,
[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I can plug into Viva Vault,
[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I can plug into DocuSign and you know,
[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_01]: SharePoint and so on.
[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, that's the kind of thing where over time,
[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_01]: you just make sure it's not a problem for the clients.
[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you can take care of it
[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and make sure that things work relatively seamlessly.
[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's at that point, after you build up trust,
[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: when you have that narrow sort of entry point,
[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: you do get to expand where someone says,
[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, I think I could use PaperCurve
[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: to completely displace or replace this old piece
[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_01]: of software that people don't like using anyways.
[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And we, that's how our sales cycles work.
[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So we come in with a very specific need often
[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and then once we build up that trust,
[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: we start to expand to other business units
[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and then other use cases.
[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Jeff, just listening to you,
[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder like how do you sleep at night?
[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Whirly.
[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, like, you know,
[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: just in this conversation we're talking about like,
[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, listening to client needs
[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and evolving the product.
[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got, you know, as your client base expands,
[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00]: you've got more listening that you need to do.
[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You also need to ascribe
[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_00]: to that kind of Henry Ford quote a little bit.
[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if I asked my clients what they wanted,
[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: they would have said, you know,
[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: a faster horse where, you know,
[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: you need to be anticipating and getting ahead of needs
[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: a little bit before they even come up from a client,
[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but you can't get too far ahead.
[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got a wildly dynamic kind of technological environment
[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that we're living in right now with AI
[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and AI adoption rates and the way AI is scaling.
[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got RFPs that you're dealing with,
[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: real old school in a lot of ways,
[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_00]: one-to-one relationships where you're talking
[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_00]: to human beings in those businesses
[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that have problems that need to get solved.
[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, how do you allocate just as a human being?
[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how do you allocate your time
[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_00]: across all of those things?
[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there something as we talk today
[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_00]: that is really top of your list where, you know,
[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: man from a jobs to be done standpoint,
[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: if I could just tackle this,
[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_00]: that would be a huge hurdle that we're getting over.
[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how are you managing all of that?
[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And sorry if I'm like touching on all
[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: of the entrepreneur pain points in one question.
[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a great question.
[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You do have to juggle a lot of things.
[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course you can't do everything well.
[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's things where you have to really learn
[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_01]: how to focus on what the key things are.
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Luckily I have my co-founder Antonio
[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_01]: is brilliant on the technology side.
[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I do have a great luxury
[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_01]: that a lot of startups don't have
[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: where I can be involved in a startup.
[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't really have to worry
[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_01]: about the technology very much.
[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Like Antonio is great at having the master vision
[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: of where we want to go.
[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a much better listener than I am,
[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01]: which is something that I'm constantly working at.
[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd say, you know, it's just like really not trying
[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: to jump to a solution too quickly
[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: and really trying to tease out
[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and elicit from the clients.
[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what are their pain points
[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and why are they doing these things?
[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So a great example is, you know, E-faxes.
[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, you could easily say
[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_01]: like faxes seem somewhat antiquated.
[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Why are you still using them?
[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_01]: The solution is to stop using them.
[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But when you talk to the clients, you say like,
[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: oh, okay, well that's the preferred method
[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_01]: of contact for a lot of your stakeholders
[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and they don't want to change.
[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what they want to use.
[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a variety of reasons
[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01]: once you understand that, you're like,
[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_01]: okay, so I need to incorporate that in.
[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you have to like the challenge for sure.
[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: There's lots of, there's definitely lots of challenges.
[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I would say with the pandemic,
[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the one thing that I found was
[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01]: although our software is uniquely well-suited
[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: to remote working and to, you know,
[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01]: geographically dispersed teams,
[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_01]: the sales process and pharma,
[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01]: like you really do need that human touch.
[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wish I could clone myself or,
[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: well, not myself, maybe someone better than me.
[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you really do need to meet people
[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and talk to them and build up that trust.
[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know,
[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember Jennifer talking about this
[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_01]: in her talk as well.
[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, and that is really having
[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that human touch and listening and having advice.
[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's certainly something that we can offer.
[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the part that really energizes me anyways
[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_01]: in saying like, oh, I love solving problems.
[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I love making the client's life better.
[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's, you got to,
[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_01]: if you didn't get that sense of accomplishment,
[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be very, very daunting.
[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there must be something nice
[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_00]: about the scale that you guys are at now.
[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I'm sure you want to be larger scale,
[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: but where you're very much a going concern,
[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you've got a bunch of clients,
[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_00]: you've got product market fit,
[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but you're not so big that you can't name
[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00]: most of your clients or pick up the phone
[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and call key stakeholders.
[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you're not sort of sitting
[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: in an office just looking at a dashboard.
[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You're actually still connected with the humans
[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that are using your software.
[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true.
[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess, I mean, at some point, like you said,
[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_01]: ideally I'd get to a point where I couldn't talk
[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_01]: to every client and prospect at any time,
[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_01]: but at this stage you still can.
[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I do love those conversations.
[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And certainly with AI, we get lots of people saying
[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01]: like, I hear it's coming.
[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_01]: What can it do for me?
[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a conversation where you say,
[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: well, what are your biggest problems
[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and how can we solve them?
[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's AI, maybe not.
[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like AI is very buzzy.
[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We didn't start out as an AI company.
[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_01]: We started using AI because it was such a good fit
[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_01]: for some of the problems that we were facing,
[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: but certainly gratifying to,
[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you have to have that sense.
[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I love the Canadian market
[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_01]: because one, I'm Canadian,
[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's often neglected.
[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And when you have situations like you have,
[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_01]: let's say, you know, pad reviews,
[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like who in the world,
[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_01]: what companies in the world out there right now
[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_01]: are focusing on that and trying to come up
[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: with solutions.
[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, well, it could be us.
[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, ah, you know,
[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: it'll just be for Canada.
[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But we do get a certain amount of satisfaction
[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_01]: saying like, hey, this is something that we can do.
[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And then of course, you know,
[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_01]: if you can really have a niche product that tailors,
[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01]: that works well in one market,
[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_01]: it means you've got the ability to do it again and again
[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: in other markets as you expand.
[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's something about,
[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Canadian health care market is so unique
[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: in so many ways that I think Canadian marketers
[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and clients are relieved when they talk to people
[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_00]: who eat, sleep, breathe, and live in this market
[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and aren't sort of the US sales rep that's been assigned
[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_00]: to go talk to Canada.
[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that there's a real connection there.
[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And your focus right now is on Canada.
[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_00]: You're a Canadian, kind of born Canadian bred business.
[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you often eyes start to glance south of the border?
[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a market that is larger.
[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_00]: The exchange rate surely is a nice thing to have.
[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Are US expansion plans part of the critical path
[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_00]: the next little while, or is it a,
[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_00]: let's just keep focusing on Canada
[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and doing what we're doing here?
[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Canada is always near and dear to our hearts,
[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01]: but to have a successful company,
[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01]: you obviously have to be in the US.
[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So we do have US clients
[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're fairly active in the US
[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're talking to Europe as well.
[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But again, similar to some of the other people
[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: who've spoken, it's like where we tend to win
[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: is that she's been hired from,
[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_01]: let's say a bigger pharma company
[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: to help launch a drug or enter a new market
[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in a smaller company and has used other products before
[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and has the ability to say like,
[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_01]: oh, I can build my team
[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and pick the tools that I want to use.
[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_01]: We tend to win there the fastest.
[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And so Canada offers a lot of that opportunity.
[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's often easier to win and land those deals
[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and move forward quickly than it is
[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_01]: with the sort of the really big pharma that's like,
[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01]: well, I don't even know who in Germany
[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: or in the US would approve this
[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01]: and sign off on this.
[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So that is a challenge, but yeah, I love working in Canada.
[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And certainly I was blessed with the experience
[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_01]: of I was in a Canadian based startup
[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: that launched in the US.
[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had that experience of like, wow,
[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the budgets are bigger in the US,
[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01]: the market's bigger, but being in Canada,
[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: you recognize like, oh, it's different in Canada.
[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like your budgets can't be quite as big.
[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got to be a little bit more cost conscious,
[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit more sort of responsible
[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: with your spend and making sure you're getting results.
[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not a bad way to grow a company
[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: is to have that focus.
[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think I've been lucky with my background
[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and yeah, certainly being in Canada right now,
[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: like the access to the United States is fairly easy,
[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's great to, you know, with the OPMA,
[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: such a phenomenal organization and the networking events.
[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I highly recommend them for anyone listening.
[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they are so great to go to
[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and just to talk to other people
[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and to learn what's going on in the industry.
[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Certainly we've enjoyed them
[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think it's a great thing for anyone
[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01]: who's in pharma to try and attend.
[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I echo that.
[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I think Jed and the team have done just an amazing job
[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_00]: at really kind of resuscitating
[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and breathing new life into the OPMA.
[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've talked a little bit about, you know,
[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_00]: where you've been and where you are.
[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: We've talked a little bit about kind of AI
[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and where things are going.
[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: What else is in the pipeline
[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_00]: as we sort of come to the end of the conversation
[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're looking forward?
[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_00]: What are you excited about in terms of the product?
[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: What are the plans?
[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: What is the next kind of maybe,
[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I won't even say 24,
[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: because that's probably way too far out.
[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_00]: What are the next 12 months kind of up in store?
[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's actually,
[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_01]: there's quite a bit going on.
[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So of course, AI is the buzzy thing right now
[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're very deep into it.
[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So with our generative AI,
[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_01]: we are working with big multinational pharma companies
[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_01]: on proposals to sort of roll it out worldwide.
[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's, you know, that's very exciting.
[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_01]: That's sort of like our core product.
[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And at the other end,
[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01]: we've been working with commercial operations teams
[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_01]: on outreach and we're working towards launching
[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: a full-fledged CRM in 2025 that also leverages our AI tools.
[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're pretty excited about that.
[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_01]: There's some great opportunities in the market
[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: with things that are happening with some of the competition.
[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're really, we see a lot of opportunity.
[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_01]: We're, yeah, we're quite excited.
[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know years ago we were saying,
[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_01]: are we going to run out of great big new things to work on?
[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just doesn't seem to stop.
[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Really, it's the discipline of always listening to your customers
[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and seeing where the needs are.
[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_01]: As long as we have that connection
[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and as long as we're paying attention,
[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: we'll have an endless supply of ideas of what to try out next.
[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, as to your point,
[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_01]: we're not always successful at nailing saying like,
[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_01]: oh, this is the big one.
[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But as long as you're always moving forward
[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and always innovating,
[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a good path to be on.
[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I think Dr. Mamdani mentioned like,
[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like, oh, you know, not every project is successful.
[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, and that's true for, you know,
[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01]: not every feature we launch is a blockbuster
[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and not every move that we make is a huge moneymaker.
[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_01]: But as long as you're constantly innovating, moving forward,
[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the future looks pretty bright.
[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_00]: That is a very positive and a perfect way to end the conversation.
[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_00]: We've talked a lot about you listening and connecting with customers.
[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_00]: How can customers, potential customers, find you
[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: so that you can chat with them and give them a listen?
[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_00]: How do people find you?
[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want more information on PaperCurve,
[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_01]: just go to papercurve.com.
[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to reach me directly,
[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_01]: it's jeffrey.kent at papercurve.com.
[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I'd be looking forward to hearing from you
[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_01]: as well as any live events like the OPMA.
[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast today,
[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_00]: being a part of the podcast as a partner.
[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I look forward to seeing you at an OPMA event or at our next conference.
[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're really looking forward to both.
[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And thanks so much for your time.
[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I must say, I've loved the podcast, so I can't wait to see who you have on next.
[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00]: As we wrap up today's episode,
[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to say a huge thanks once again to PaperCurve
[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_00]: for helping to get this podcast off the ground
[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and to bring the first five episodes to you, our listeners.
[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm now excited to introduce Metrix as our partner
[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00]: for the second half of season one.
[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Metrix is an agency that helps life science companies
[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_00]: market their products to healthcare professionals,
[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_00]: support their patients and train their employees.
[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to learn a lot more about Metrix over the next few episodes,
[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_00]: but if you're keen and you want to get a jump on things,
[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_00]: check out MetrixGroup.com.
[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's M-E-T-R-I-X Group.com.
[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great end of August, everybody.