Andrea Stefani, co-founder of OnCoSwab, is revolutionizing lung cancer detection through innovative, non-invasive testing methods. With lung cancer being the leading cause of cancer death globally, Andrea's work aims to simplify and enhance early diagnosis, echoing the success factors of COVID testing. Her journey began at a young age, fueled by a vision to impact global health, and she has already made significant strides as a recognized scientist in Europe. Throughout the conversation, Andrea shares her experiences as a female entrepreneur in STEM, the challenges she faced, and her commitment to inspiring the next generation of women in science. Join Jothy Rosenberg as he delves into Andrea's inspiring story of grit, determination, and the pursuit of making a difference in the world of healthcare.

Andrea's Bio

Andrea Stephany Díaz is a visionary entrepreneur and the Co-founder of OncoSwab. Selected as a top 100 young scientist in Europe, she stumbled upon a cancer screening idea that led her to start her first diagnostic company at the age of 24. Andrea pursued a Master’s degree in molecular biotechnology with a goal of making an impact in global health. Today, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world, fueling Andrea's strategic vision for early detection with OncoSwab. Andrea brings a wealth of expertise and passion to these topics, making her an engaging and insightful guest for discussions on entrepreneurship, healthcare innovation, and the transformative potential of OncoSwab. Andrea is also committed to inspiring the next generation of young people, particularly women, in STEM through her YouTube channel, DNAndrea.

Takeaways

• Andrea Stephany emphasizes the importance of early lung cancer detection for improving survival rates.
• The idea for OnCoSwab originated during a hackathon focused on cancer solutions.
• Andrea's diverse background and experiences shaped her entrepreneurial journey and resilience.
• She aims to destigmatize lung cancer, which is often associated with smoking-related shame.
• The company focuses on non-invasive testing methods, making lung cancer screening more accessible.
• Stephany's YouTube channel helped her develop essential science communication skills for her startup.

Sound Bites

"I was selected as in the top 100 young scientists."

"I want to make sure that it's like, or find out if it's viable."

"The survival rate for lung cancer is currently around 20%."

Links

Andrea’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreastephanydiaz/

Andrea’s OncoSwab site: https://oncoswab.com/

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

Site with all podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com/podcast

Jothy’s non-profit: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

02:51 Recognition as a Young Scientist

06:11 Startup Journey and Lung Cancer Diagnostics

11:47 Understanding Lung Cancer and Its Causes

15:12 The Vision for OncoSwap

18:57 Navigating FDA Approval and Clinical Trials

20:47 Empowering the Next Generation of Women in STEM

25:02 The Role of Grit in Entrepreneurship

39:13 Conclusion and Call to Action

Hello, I'm Jaffi Rosenberg, the host of Designing Successful Startups, where today's guest is Andrea Stefani.

What would be the simplest way on earth to get tested for a disease like lung cancer?

For that we had to compare what, you know, our ideas to what has successfully happened in the world.

So what is one disease that we all know that everybody got tested for?

Covid Andrea Stefani Diaz is a visionary entrepreneur and the co founder of OnCoSwab.

Selected as a top 100 young scientist in Europe, she stumbled upon a cancer screening idea that led her to start her first diagnostic company.

At the age of 24, Andrea pursued a master's degree in molecular biotechnology with a goal of making an impact in global health.

Today, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world, fueling Andrea's strategic vision for early detection with Onco Swab.

And here is Andrea.

Hi, Andrea.

Hi.

How are you?

My first question is always, where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Wow.

Well, so I am from Venezuela originally.

I was born in an island in the Caribbean, even though I am way too pale to be Caribbean.

I know, but that's where I was born.

And then my, I'm half German, half Spanish originally.

And then my mom decided to go back to Spain and take us back to Spain.

So we did that when I was around 12 years old.

So finished sixth grade and then moved to Spain, moved to Madrid, lived in Spain essentially my whole life after that.

So I, almost all of my memories are there.

So definitely when people ask me where I'm from, it's a kind of a long answer, as you can see.

And now that I now live in San Francisco, California because of obviously the.

Startup, one of your honors is that you were selected as a in the top 100 young scientists in Europe.

How did that come about?

So that was actually for a program that the European Commission organized to bring 100 young scientists from all over Europe to come up with solutions to societal challenges.

All linked to the Horizon Europe mission.

Right.

So like sustainability, oceans, smart cities, and of course cancer.

So I applied to participate in the Cancer mission program of that program.

And honestly, it's an interesting story how I ended up there.

I saw an Instagram ad.

That's how it all started actually.

I was scrolling through Instagram and then I saw this ad, something like, something like disruptive minds needed.

That was what the ad said.

I was like, sure, I'll click on it.

And then I saw it was for this very competitive competition, like a hackathon, if you will.

And I hesitated because up until that point I was 24.

Then up until that point, I was the kind of person that would apply to like summer programs and internships at like the best places, et cetera.

And I never got.

I never got in.

So I was like, why are we gonna apply?

I know I'm not gonna get in.

And then the last day, like nearly the day of the deadline, I decided to apply.

And I just gave it my best.

I.

I did the application, but with full of storytelling.

So it wasn't just a yeah, this is my background.

I studied biochemistry and this is why I wanted to be in the cancer mission arena.

It was all about like my personal connection to the mission and my personal connection to wanting to create bigger impact, something that's bigger than myself.

And I got in.

And that's how all of this started.

That's literally the reason why we're talking today.

So I'm very glad I applied.

Did they care what language you applied in?

I think it has to be in English because then they do a peer review selection process which wants to mimic, I guess, the.

How science works in general.

And I.

And every.

All of us, all of the participants or the applicants, we had to read other applicants application in the other missionary.

So they all had.

They were all in English.

And you have almost no accent.

You must have started learning English at a very young age.

I did, yeah.

My parents, that's something that they knew they wanted.

They were like, my kids have to speak good English and multiple languages.

I speak four languages.

Everybody in my family speaks, like in my dad's side of the family, which is German, everybody speaks like three to four languages fluently.

So that is something that I was very lucky to grow up in.

You talked to me about the first thing you did in terms of a startup or, you know, an idea for a startup was when you were 24, just like when you were applying for that honor.

And.

And that was a.

The first diagnostic start.

I mean, it was the first startup you did.

I guess you told me that you stumbled onto that.

Yeah, so I can say I did.

It was a team work and it was all actually a product of.

There's a hackathon.

So that's how we stumbled upon the idea.

We were at this program which was completely focused on giving us the scientists that Everybody was under 35.

So like young scientists with at least a master's degree.

So it was between Master's and PhD.

They were giving us the tools to design solutions, essentially just like design thinking.

Right.

And first we had to identify problems, in our case, within the cancer space.

To us, that problem was the late diagnosis of particularly lung cancer, because lung cancer is that disease that is the number one cancer killer on the entire planet, but is not talked about as often, unfortunately, in comparison to other cancers.

And the number one issue with that cancer is definitely the late diagnosis because of the nature of the organ.

Right.

It's just it takes too long for it to show symptoms.

So if there was a way for us to make it incredibly simple for people to get tested for lung cancer, those statistics would automatically change, like, no questions asked.

So what we did at this hackathon was reverse engineer the problem, if you will.

So we said, what would be the simplest way on earth to get tested for a disease like lung cancer?

For that, we had to compare what, you know, our ideas to what has successfully happened in the world.

So what is one disease that we all know that everybody got tested for?

Covid.

So what are the success factors in COVID testing?

Non invasiveness, ease of use, cost efficiency, proximity to your house.

All of those things are what made it so easy for people to get tested for Covid.

If we had to do the same process as we do now for lung cancer, then not as many people would have gotten tested.

Right.

Well, and of course, it was mandatory for a lot of us to get tested, but still.

Right.

So then we took all of those success factors, and we said, okay, what if we applied that to lung cancer diagnosis?

And that's when the aha moment happened.

I remember it was like 11pm or like 1am it was super late that day.

And we were all working there at the hackathon.

We're like, a nasal swab.

A nasal swab for lung cancer.

Not knowing if it was even viable or feasible biologically at all, we just had the idea.

The least we could do is give it a try.

And after the hackathon ended, I remember that night I couldn't sleep.

The night after, I couldn't sleep.

And I was just thinking about what the world would look like if you.

I mean, back then, that was the idea back then.

Now, of course, we've pivoted from that.

If you, let's say, go to a COVID testing facility and you tick a box and you're like, yes, test me for lung cancer as well.

Wow, that would be incredibly easy.

So I said to my team, I want to do this.

I want to at least give it a shot.

I want to make sure that it's viable or find out if it's viable.

And Then now my now co founder Pablo, who was doing a postdoc at a time, his second postdoctoral, he was like, I'm, I, I'm in like I also can't sleep.

I also can't stop thinking about it.

And then him and I started what.

Is now I had lung cancer when I was 19, but I think it's different because mine was just a metastasis from the, the bone cancer.

So I'm pretty sure that it, but just check me on this, that it would be behave differently than the most of the types of lung cancer you're trying to diagnose.

Yeah, we focus on primary lung cancer.

So cancers that originate in the lung.

Is the reason that it's the number one cancer killer because of smoking?

That's a fantastic question.

So 80% of the lung cancer cases are caused or directed or related to smoking.

So yes, smoking is a hugely contributing factor, which is incredible to think about.

It's, it's, it's incredible to think about the fact that the number one cause of cancer death could be completely avoided.

That being said, it's such a big problem in our society, lung cancer, that that remaining 20% is still the number 5th most common diagnosed cancer in this country, meaning non smoker lung cancer is still the number fifth most common cancer.

So yes, smoking is a hugely contributing factor.

However, it's important to understand that not all of it is related to smoking.

And the reason why I think it's important is because it helps us destigmatize lung cancer, which has been the case for decades.

People are smoking way more than what we're seeing now in the United States.

Well, there's a couple of things here.

First, despite the fact that in the United States there has been tremendous progress on reducing smoking rates, it's still not the case in every state.

Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas still have incredibly high rates, especially lung cancer, because of the smoking habits.

And then another thing is, again, despite that fact, lung cancer is causes more death in the United States than prostate cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer combined.

So it's still a very, very prevalent issue in this, in this particular side of the world now in Europe.

You're completely right.

It surprises me as a young person.

I am with my friends in Spain and we're a table full of 12, 15 people.

My mom smokes, my sister smokes.

Like it's, it is a big issue.

You're right.

I really hope that awareness in this Space changes this when I obviously I'm my friend's worst nightmare because I literally do long cancer research for a living and every time I'm with them and they're smoking, I just give, I just have to tell them, but I just need to tell them, obviously.

And everybody says the following.

And I'm sure you've heard this.

Oh, when my grandma smoked 17 packs a day for 95 years and she never, she never got lung cancer.

And then another, my neighbor never smoked a day and had lung cancer.

Like people just cherry pick the statistics again, because it's not something we talk about often because there's so much shame.

So I really hope to see.

Well, actually we are seeing increasing amounts of awareness done in this space because of that same reason.

Now, again, smoking is not the only cost.

There is actually increasing numbers of women in their 40s that have never smoked that are getting lung cancer.

This number particularly is increasing and we still cannot pinpoint the exact origin for this situation.

Hi.

The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book, Tech Startup Toolkit, how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

It's like a memoir of my entrepreneurial journey.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers and also from the publisher@manning.com.

i hope you like it.

It's a true labor of love.

Now back to the show.

So, Uncle Swab, am I saying it right?

You are.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, good.

If you're successful with this, which I'm sure you will be, you're one of the top 100 young scientists in Europe.

How will that change the world?

I mean, what kind of describe for us what that will mean?

So the survival rate for lung cancer in the United States is currently around 20%, which is an all time high.

In other countries, including Europe, it's even less than that.

Right now.

If somebody comes to you and says, I've been just, I've just been diagnosed with lung cancer, it's terrible news.

It's news that nobody wants to hear.

However, when it's detected at stage one or even stage two, the probabilities of survival can be up to 90%, 95%.

That means that it's not a deadly disease when diagnosed early.

So the vision we have for Onco swab is for it to become so widespread and in Poll's early diagnosis, to get to a point in society where if somebody goes to you and says, oh, I had, I've just been diagnosed with lung cancer, you're like, okay, so what are the next steps?

What are you going to do?

When are you going to start treating?

It is not a death sentence anymore.

That is the vision we have with OnSwap.

And we are very certain that by bringing people closer to lung cancer detection and not expecting the other, the other way around to happen, that's something that is very, very feasible.

When you detect it that early, do they even do surgery or they just do a, A, a chemo treatment?

Um, so it depends.

This depends on the size of the nodule.

This depends on the stage.

Um, it can be resectable if it's small enough, if it hasn't been spread at all.

So the surgery is definitely an option.

And that is really the best option because then the tumor is removed and that is the best scenario, really.

Um, other.

Otherwise they do start chemo.

But that again will depend on the stage of diagnosis.

Because, because starting chemo, you know, the earlier the better, for sure.

But then you want to have the tumor as localized and as control as possible because that will of course, increase the likelihood of success of the treatment.

And how far along are you on the creation of the, you know, the nasals, the nasal swab test, and you know, what, false positives, false negatives, where stage is it at?

Yes, the stage is very, very early.

We have preliminary clinical data, a proof of concept that was conducted in lung cancer patients and in healthy individuals.

And now we're taking that proof of concept data and exactly the same technology and applying it to the first intended, intended use population, which is patients with pulmonary nodules.

What does that mean?

That means that maybe, let's say somebody falls off a bike or they have a car accident, something completely unrelated to anything that has to do with lung.

They will likely be taken for a CT scan or some sort of imaging, chest CT scan, something, something of the.

Like, what if that person is seen to have a nodule, a little shadow in their lung?

That person is going to be told that that might be lung cancer, although it probably isn't, especially if it's a young, fit, healthy person.

Right.

It probably won't.

But that means that now the patient will have this worry of, do I have lung cancer?

Like, is there a chance I have lung cancer?

And also that nodule, that patient with a nodule is added into the system.

And now a doctor has to review manually each case and decides and decide which ones will go to biopsy.

Okay, which ones will go to biopsy, which ones will be observed.

What happens right now is that 50%, around 50% of biopsies could be avoided, meaning that the patient is subject to a invasive.

An invasive procedure, but then it's not cancerous, it's a benign.

It's something completely different.

It can be even pneumonia.

It can be tuberculosis, less likely, but it could be other things other than lung cancer.

So that is our first application because that means that our test will be able to help risk, stratify the risk of that nodule being, to answer your question about false positives, false negatives, we are still very early in the process and cannot disclose yet any information about the clinical trials.

But once that is achieved, the bigger clinical trials achieved around maybe in a year.

For now, we'll be able to talk about more publicly about sensitivity and specificity data.

Because this is non invasive, your FDA approval path is not very difficult, isn't that right?

Well, I don't know if I would call it not very difficult or my investors would like me to call it that.

Yes.

So it's easier than if you compare it to therapeutics.

Therapeutics company, 100%.

If you compare it to a company that's doing like bromcoscopy analysis, like the sample needs to be taken during bronchoscopy.

100%.

It is very noninvasive.

However, we need to think about the possible outcome of the patient.

If the patient is told to be negative for our test and is not subject to biopsy, that will be detrimental for the patient.

Right.

If the patient is said to be positive for the test and is subject to a, an invasive procedure that could have otherwise been avoided, it's also detrimental for the patient.

So that is where risk relies.

That is why we need strong, good, thorough data to help us with our FDA case.

So if that is good, if the data looks good, if the data is solid, the clinical trial is successful, then yes, and we have a good case.

Yeah, you're still very young, but you're already thinking about the next generation and you've got some ways in which you're trying to positively influence the next generation of women, in particular around STEM.

And maybe that's another chance to change the world 100%.

Well, it all stems, no pun intended, from the fact that I feel like I grew up with a lack of role models, female role models in this space, in the space where I'm currently at.

And I feel like there are so many incredible female founders that are changing this in my goal.

I remember one of the first interviews I ever did for a magazine, they asked something about female founders.

And I think the article was about female founders.

And I said in one of the questions, honestly, I really hope that there is a day where we don't have to say she's a female founder.

Like, this is a female founder.

She's founder that happens to be a woman, happens to be a man.

Because right now we are the minority.

So we have to, we have to clarify that it's a female founder because it's out of the ordinary.

But I think that we're slowly changing that.

So, yeah, to your question about the next generation, I started a YouTube channel forever ago.

I barely have any time to post there anymore.

But it was this passion project of mine that, believe it or not, helped me a lot with the startup.

And I'll tell you why in a second.

This YouTube channel, DNA.

Andrea, it's a funny name.

I started when I was in college originally to talk about my experience studying biochemistry.

And I don't know what that looked like, what you could do after studying biochemistry.

Etc.

My first video, which is really, really painful to watch and I hope I never have to again, is about.

Yeah, that is very.

Called Estudio Studying biochemistry.

It started in Spanish and I switched to English.

That was like for some reason my most watched video because a lot of people wanted to know about what it is like, like what do you do in that degree and what you do afterwards, et cetera.

Is it hard?

What do you need to do, et cetera.

So.

But a big, big desire of mine was for women, young women, maybe girls that are in high school still or middle school, to see that there's a lot of us girls that look like them doing this right now.

I've transitioned to, of course, talk more about my entrepreneurial journey, which again is something that is one of my goals for next year.

To do more of that just because I feel like again, back to my lack of role models when I was younger.

I'd love to share my journey building this company as a young female and as a person in general, but especially targeting young females to see what this is like and to see that they can also do it.

Why?

Because I remember being 16 or so.

I was living in Canary Islands at the time.

I moved a lot.

I've lived in many places.

I didn't include that in my introduction, but I.

We've moved around a Lot.

Um, I was in the Canary Islands in high school, daydreaming about my future.

And I always saw myself as this successful businesswoman I knew I wanted to be in science, but somehow, like, my God was telling me I was gonna be a businesswoman, and I didn't.

I didn't know how to connect the two, to be honest.

But I just.

That's just how I saw myself.

And then when I started getting very.

Getting into this, the world of entrepreneurship and starting companies and all of that, I started following every podcast I could, reading every book I could, following every YouTube channel I could.

All men, all guys.

Especially in this space.

In biotech, there were like zero women.

The one woman was Elizabeth Theron, Elizabeth Holmes with Theranos.

And we all know how that ended.

So that's like, truly a shame that the one young woman in biotech that we know, I mean, now, now there are more, luckily, but back then that was like, the only example that the world knew of.

So I feel like it was hard for me to envision myself doing what I'm doing now just because it was.

I didn't see anybody else doing it.

So I thought, okay, I will eventually start a company, I will eventually create a business, but because there's nobody else doing it, it must be really, really hard.

Which means that I need a lot of credibility.

And for credibility, I need time.

So I'm going to get a PhD postdoc in the industry, work, blah, blah, blah.

And when I'm 50 and people believe me, then I'll start a company.

That's what I thought by then.

And then, you know, obviously that's not what ended up happening.

So I'd love to, you know, of course, inspire if I can in any way.

The next generation of, yeah, we make.

A YouTube from this and as well as the Apple and Spotify and, and, and you can, you know, spread these to all the places where you.

You think you can, you know, inspire and influence on my podcast.

I think we're right.

About 50% of the guests are startup founding people who happen to be women.

Thank you for saying it that way.

I am very happy to hear that.

That's awesome.

I saw that in your podcast.

I saw it in your website.

I was curling bells.

Like, there's a lot of women.

I'm so happy.

I noticed, you know, and the interesting thing is that when you're a woman, that's the first thing you notice.

And the reason I know is because I always compare this with my co founder, who's a man.

Like, we were in Chicago at a business dinner with like 20 people in a table and I was the only woman, the only woman.

And nobody noticed.

And I told five of them, I'm the only woman.

It's like, oh, that's true.

I think that's the first thing I see, you know, so I'm.

Congratulations on that, by the way.

I was, I was going to tell you for how the YouTube channel helped me with my startup.

And I can tell you, but if you want.

So one of the reasons, and the most important one is science communication skills.

I had never thought it was going to be so helpful what I did in my YouTube channel.

I have not that many videos, like over 30 or 40 videos.

What I do is I study a very, very complex topic and I simplify it to make it very easy for people that not don't necessarily have a background to understand.

And that on its own is a skill that now as CEO of a biotech company, I do every single day of my life.

And it's helped me tremendously.

And you said your first one that you put up there was in Spanish, but then the others in English, I.

Think most of them are in Spanish.

And then that was a bad idea.

I don't think this applies to anybody listening.

But if anybody's thinking about doing a YouTube channel or has a YouTube channel and want to reach a broader audience and wants to switch to English, don't do it.

Because it just messed up with my algorithm and my audience wasn't writing Spanish.

I was being suggested to people in Spanish.

Those videos in Spanish were doing very well.

But then I felt like, you know, I then moved to Germany, I was working in English, I was doing everything in English and I kind of wanted to talk about these topics in English and also wanted to reach a wider audience.

But the opposite ended up happening.

And I definitely had a very big niche in the Spanish.

Spanish speaking market.

So for.

For me to like be exposed to.

So yeah, I ended up switching to English.

But maybe.

So talk a little bit about the company itself.

It's called Ankos Oncoswab.

Yeah.

For oncology.

It's very self explanatory what it is all about.

Right.

It's good.

And how many people and where are you sort of in terms of a stage?

Yes.

So we incorporated the company had the idea this hackathon.

Then it was just Pablo and I wandering around the world, figuring out what to do.

We were completely lost.

It was honestly a miserable time.

I remember the first six months as being extremely painful.

Just because it was really hard not knowing what to do but wanting to do it all and being highly motivated by nobody paying attention to you as it is at the beginning we had nothing, just had an idea.

Zero money, zero, no company, nothing.

So that was definitely very tough.

But we made it out of there.

Um, then we decided to Register a company.

Right.

Like seeing that there's case.

After we had talked to doctors that were interested, after we had talked to some payers, after we had done some market analysis and realized this was actually heading somewhere besides the science.

Um, we raised the pre seed earlier this year, January, we're raising a seat now as we speak.

Investors are coming in as we speak.

So it's actually picking up now.

It's going really well.

As I said, we did the concept and now preparing to do clinical trials also as we speak.

So like all of the doctors, we're starting off in Spain with hospitals in Spain and all of the doctors are like fully and super committed.

It is such a blessing to be working with doctors that are extremely motivated to be a part of it, to bring the technologies to reality.

So that's the stage of the company.

The plans for all of next year is to do a clinical trial for the nodules and have a version of the test that is ready to launch in a very release approach, in a very limited release approach.

Sorry to what will be our first adopters.

That part of the strategy is a bit kind of.

We kind of not disclose it so openly.

But the part of the stage of the company we're at is, I would say, yeah, seed preparing for clinical trials.

What we've done so far is also recruit top professionals in the space, both lung cancer and liquid biopsy.

As far as our advisory team and the team in itself were four, about to be five, so super tiny.

But I love it.

I actually love our company size.

I was talking to an investor this morning about that and he was asking about our next hires and I was like as little as possible.

Like honestly, you don't need to hire more people if you don't need it.

I think we are completely overworked, but we're doing fine.

We're laser focused and I feel like increasing the team size in a way that doesn't relate to the stage you're at can be more of a distraction than a solution.

So we're probably going to keep the team size fairly small.

Maybe hire one or two more people for the next round.

Yeah, that's where we're at.

And you're finding investors where in California, in the San Francisco area?

Everywhere, yes.

So definitely mostly here in San Francisco.

But so some of the VCs that we're talking to, I just don't want to disclose too much, but some of them are in North America, some of them are in the uk, some of them are in Germany.

And I think that's about it.

All of the countries that we're covering.

And then we also have angel investors that are coming in at this round or that have already come in at this round.

And those are also the countries I mentioned, plus Europe, like other countries in Europe, like Switzerland, like Spain for example.

And have you, have you.

Are you bringing in any strategic investors at this early stage or are that's going to be for later or, or maybe not.

No, no.

100% super interested in strategic investors.

We are talking to them, but we're not bringing them in yet just because it's a little too early.

In general, however, despite the earliness, it's important for us to know what they want, what they want to see, which is why we're talking and also see if there is a market at all.

So I believe that after the first set of data we get, then we could talk about a partnership or investment, but not for the time being.

I think anybody who's been watching this, including me, would say you're very gritty.

You've got a lot of grit.

Right?

You would agree?

I would say so.

I would agree.

Where do you think it comes from?

Because it sounded like you had it when you were 24, you probably had it before that.

So where do you think it came from?

Oh my God.

So I have to say it has to come from.

If I have to say one reason, it's probably being a third culture kid.

So being an immigrant, becoming an immigrant at such a young age, always feeling like you don't belong.

Like every city I've been in, every place I've lived in, I've always felt like an outsider.

And that is sounds like something bad, but it's a blessing truly because that allows you to see things differently.

So as I said, have German, have Spanish, just born in Venezuela.

I was literally born in a third world country where you can either be rich or poor, there's no in between.

And if you have access to a foreign currency, then you live like a king or queen, literally.

So I.

That's.

That that was my childhood.

Like I was very well off.

And then I moved to Spain with a mom that was a Single mom, a little sister in me.

And it turns out we were no royal family.

We were just like regular citizens.

In fact, honestly struggled a lot throughout my, my teenage years.

Lots of like, mental health issues in my family, layoffs, financial problems.

We moved a lot again, for those same reasons.

By the time I was 23, I had already lived in seven different places with, again, different languages.

So it's that ability to constantly adapt one thing.

And the second thing is I think that it's funny when I talk to people about what I'm doing and I hear the comment, which I'm sure you've also heard a lot in your journey, it's so unbelievable, the risk you're taking, it's so honorable, you're so brave, which is super well meant and I really appreciate it when people say that.

But to me, I.

I've never fully understood that comment, you know, like the risk, the risk I'm taking.

What risk?

I have been through a lot in my life.

I really, I've grown up without having much.

So what would be the worst thing that could happen out of this incredible journey that I'm in?

What happens if I lose it all?

It's okay.

I've been there.

I'm young, I can reinvent myself.

There's no risk.

To me, the bigger risk would be not starting at all, you know, So I think that's a little bit where it comes from.

Having seen so much of the world and throughout so many different lenses, feeling like the sky isn't even the limit.

Like there is no limit, you know, And I'm so, so, so grateful now.

You know, in hindsight, seeing every.

Everything I've been through is for a reason, because it's made me the person I am today.

I hope that answers your question.

Well, it's a phenomenal answer to my question and a very inspiring answer.

That's great.

I wish some of the people who are against all immigration would hear what you're saying.

Actually, it's a pity, because immigrants, the whole thing with immigration in the us it's a whole topic on its own.

Where I'm from, in Spain, it's a huge topic as well.

And when you're an immigrant, you're raised differently.

When you're an immigrant, you see the world differently.

You have to fight to survive regardless of how well off you are.

Like, let's say you immigrate.

Like, for example, I immigrated to Spain with a Spanish passport.

I consider myself incredibly lucky because of that sole reason, because I was able to be a citizen of the country I was living in, that is luxury.

Still, you're an immigrant.

Still, you're an outsider.

Still, you need to adapt.

That is an incredible skill that you take for the rest of your life.

The first time I saw that is when, again, I was 24 starting this company.

And all of a sudden I was at the J.P.

morgan conference, the healthcare conference, in rooms with people that were twice my age, had 30 more years of business experience than I did, that actually knew what they were doing.

And I was in the same room as them.

And I had to somehow impress them.

I had to somehow convince them to help me with something that not even I knew what I was doing, right?

But it's that ability to adapt that I've had my whole life that made me succeed in those roles and actually somehow convince people that are important to give me time of the day.

You know, I would not have had that if I would have lived my whole life in the same city and I would have been handed everything I had in my life that would have simply never happened.

Listeners are going to love hearing your story this episode.

I really hope so.

And if anybody watching wants to know more, if anybody's in a similar position where they're thinking, oh, I really want to start something.

But I don't know, I'm scared.

I'm too afraid.

What if?

What if?

I'm always happy to pop in a call, talk about it, vent if you will.

So very happy to tell.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Designing Successful Startups podcast.

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This is Jothy Rosenberg saying TTFN ta ta for now.