#369: Advice to Medical Device Inventors
Ron Richard, author of 'Someday is Today' and a medical device expert with 35 years of experience, advises inventors on navigating the path from concept to commercialization. He emphasizes the critical importance of a concise 30-second elevator pitch to secure initial funding from family and friends, validating ideas through stakeholder focus groups, and choosing evolutionary 510(k) pathways over risky revolutionary PMA submissions. Richard also details the financial realities of medical device development, warning that projects often require twice the expected money and four times the time, urging founders to maintain strict burn rates and clear cap tables to survive the 'chasm' to market.