Torrey Smith - Vision

Torrey Smith - CEO     torrey@endiatx.com      M.805.234.6575      https://endiatx.com

 The next twelve months of your life are
going to be traumatic
● I grossed $37K in 2020
● Depression is real. Don’t be in denial!
● Build a founding team that is resilient to human drama
● Most days will feel like a failure
● You must work to wrap up your current traction into a
package that can be invested in by investors, even if your
tech is a potato
● For every founder that quits, you level up.

● If you feel like you’re all alone on another

planet, remember Perseverance
Founder Institute rips off the bandaid that is your comfort zone 3
► Incorporated - March 2019

► Graduated Founder Institute - April 2019

► Initial prototype “PoolBot” - May 2019

► $185K F&F Funding Lab - Spring 2019

► 5 patents (3 US, 2 Int.) - June 2019 Priority

► “PillBot” and “Pill Surgeon” Trademarked

► First-in-Human - June 2020

► $250k Angel Round target, oversubscribed @ $840K

► 18 bots through humans and counting!

► $1M VC commitment - Nov 2020

► MIT live swallow demo - Jan 2021

► SXSX Finalist announced - Feb 2021

[Insert mentor disclaimer here]

● Currency from here on out is Interesting, Authenticity & Perseverance

● Foul Language
● Cavalier, “shoot from the hip” space cowboy attitude
● Utter lack of politically correct speech
● Drill sergeant attitude
● May insist that you literally slap yourself in the face on Zoom calls
● My goal is to prepare you in advance for the shitstorm that is coming so
that you will not give up when things get extremely hard.
Technology Push vs. Requirement Pull
“Vision/Opportunity” “Problem/Solution”
A12 / SR-71 / tiny robot pills :P Su-15

Bold. Risky. Future Tech. Safe. Built from existing parts.

Both of these aircraft first flew in 1962.

Problem: Jackie’s endoscopy story is typical

● Presented with stomach pain

● A year of gatekeeping
○ Transferred from doctor to doctor
○ 6+ visits to the hospital
○ Food restrictions
○ Various medications (made it worse!)
● Endless co-pays, hassles, travel, missed work

● All of that to get 10 minutes with an endoscope in her belly!

There must be a better way.
Solution: PillBot™ turns all of that into a single video call

● PillBot™ is like a “moving eyeball in your stomach”

● Cheap, safe, easy to use
● Drink some water, swallow the pill in your living room
● Your doctor controls it over a video call while you watch
● A mass-market screening tool for the upper endoscopy market

● PillBot™ gives the next Jackie that year of her life back
Competition

Endoscopes
PillBot™
Doctor
Experience
Magnetic Capsule

Passive Capsule

Patient Experience
A reality check 9
● Your idea itself has zero value - Value comes with Execution.
○ Many prospective founders have a hyper-inflated sense of the value of their brilliant idea
without understanding that you have to build your company piece by piece over time.
○ Your patent alone is worth nothing. All your patent can do is give you protection as you build
your company.
● You must be a central component in building your tech. If you yourself don’t have something
major to contribute, you will not attract investment.
○ If you tell me that you are outsourcing literally every component of your tech, I will start to
wonder why you even need to be involved in the first place. I want to see some combination
of raw passion, prototypes, and relevant credentials.
● If you’re looking for a quick easy win you should leave now.
● You need to build a team with compatible values, and it is your responsibility to create a healthy,
safe, and non-toxic culture
Swing for the Fences 10
● People are drawn to huge ideas and passionate teams. Endiatx closed our Angel
round in the middle of COVID because we were able to hook with vision.
● If you do a medium-sized idea you will do it alone. It will still take everything you
have.
● If you do a huge idea people will come from all over the World to be a part of it.
● Fail publicly. Get right back up and continue even more publicly. People will notice.
 Self-delusion or genius?

08-08-2008, with all three launches

failed so far and money running out
Founding is like playing Cards 12
● You start with an idea. Congratulations you have an empty hand!
● Recruit Co-Founders
● Interview Customers
● Gain Advisors
● Quit your job (or get yourself conveniently laid off)
● Pitch Pitch Pitch: Make your own luck! Do guerilla demos!
● Raise Money
● Build your Tech
● File patents - Engage a great law firm early on and build a long term relationship
● Lean into Regulation
● TechCrunch, LinkedIn & Coffee
● Should you stay or should you Exit? (The choice may be yours)
Torrey Smith
Co-Founder & CEO
Aerospace Engineering, Cal Poly, SLO
14-year med device designer
3 exits: Ensure Medical to Cordis: $110M,
AtheroMed to Volcano: $150M, Volcano to
Philips: $1.2B
Design & art featured intl & Smithsonian
Alex Luebke PhD
Co-Founder & Chairman, CTO
PhD Aerospace Engineering,Stanford
20+ years in Military & Aerospace;
Google X, C level roles
BOD multiple startups
James Erd
Co-Founder & Principal R&D Engineer
Automata and biomechanical motion
Expert Machinist & Maker
Master on 60,000lbs of machine tools
Founder, ERD Machining
Vivek Kumbhari MD PhD
Director of Advanced Endoscopy,
Department of Gastroenterology and
Hepatology, Mayo Clinic
Formerly Advanced Endoscopy Fellow,
Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine
Bu'Hussain Hayee PhD FRCP AGAF
Senior Gastroenterologist
GI, King's College Hospital
Fellow, Royal College of Physicians
King’s Institute of Therapeutic Endoscopy
Fellow, American GI Association
Lt Col Benjamin Bonnes MD
Advisory Chair
ER Physician, Kaiser Permanente
Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine
Flight Surgeon & Chief of Clinical
Services, 144th
Advisors: offer ‘em 0.10%

Lt Col Benjamin Nancy Lincé Oren Abramson, Liz Hwang, MD

Bonnes, MD Regulatory, Clinical, and MD Gastroenterology
Quality
Chairman of Advisory Gastroenterology Assoc. Chief of

Board 20 years of exp for RCQ for Gastroenterology @ Santa

Pediatric Gastroenterologist
medical products Clara Medical Center
ER Physician Kaiser Permanente
160 submissions & extensive Clinical Affl. Assoc. Professor
Johns Hopkins University (Oren is currently assisting
FDA negotiations @ Stanford School of
Flight Surgeon & Chief of Clinical Endiatx on an informal basis)
Medicine
Services, 144th
Transplant Hepatology Fellow
from Columbia University
14

Paul Escudero Adeo Ressi Mike Suprovici Seth Warhaftig

Medical Device Industry Fundraising Advisor Business Development
Select Portfolio
BS Computer Science, Cornell
Co-Founder - AtheroMed CEO & Founder - Founder Founder Institute -
Life Sciences Technology
(sold to Volcano)) Institute Entrepreneur in Residence
Executive
Philips, Ensure, Abbott, Founder - TheFunded Founder & CEO - Explorence
Perclose Board Member - XPRIZE
Cal Poly - Mechanical
Engineering

Matthew Ilya Polyakov Todd Huffman Nathan Altman

Goodman Robotics Industry Biotech / Deep Tech Tech / Art / Finance
World Bridge
Embedded Firmware
Head of Hardware - Doordash VP Prod Mgmt Prellis
Co-Founder & CTO - Revolve Biologics Partner, Altman Investments
Co-Founder - 3Scan
Robotics Co-Founder & CEO - 3Scan BCM, Purdue University
(M&A with Strateos 2019)
BattleBots Computational Biosciences
PhD., Biomedical Engineering
Co-Founder, Icarus art Neuroscience
Co-Founder - Orage/Coup de
collective
Foudre art collectives
 15
Interviewing Customers
● Leave your comfort zone. Cold call. Email. Show up. Call your Ex(s).
● People get impressed when you can tell them how many interviews you’ve done.
● Identify differences between customers (ex: older docs vs. younger docs).
● Note recurring feedback.
● Begin to identify your Customer Champion. Someone who really likes your idea
and is connected to their community.
● They may all be wrong. Do they really want a faster horse? You must have faith in
your idea or GTFO.
● (Occasionally listen to reason)
Define your authentic networking hook

● What makes you a celebrity in your community?

● “I make robot pills and swallow them” gives me a reasonable
license to reach out to ANYONE in the tech community
● You will need to create a similar tagline for your countless cold
LinkedIn connection requests
● People don’t have to accept your invite, but it must be authentic in
order to avoid being perceived as a cold-calling salesperson
● Your connection hit rate will start very low (1-5%), but if you are
relentless, you will build a powerful network over time
Network like a champion (break the rules)

● Network for today, but also for tomorrow, and for other founders
● The power of a cup of coffee & LinkedIn
○ (This is great for when you are depressed and feeling weak)
○ Cruise cool TechCrunch etc. articles pertinent to your company
○ Add the founders as a fellow founder
○ Add the VC’s who funded them. And their EA’s.
○ Add the journalist who wrote the article
● Be recognizable in public: “Hey it’s the pill robot guy!”
● Be at the important conventions and make everything about your company
○ “Yes I am” (but be polite)
● Always have a tangible version of your tech on hand. PillBot got me $100K 5 minutes after I
handed it to a guy in a parking lot.
● Be active on LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok / FB / Insta / etc.
● Define your public CEO persona and act like the leader you are
● You are building a network worthy of being a VC ;)
Inspiration: where do ideas come from? 18
Torrey’s Founder Mindset (Rave/Adeo) 19
Professional
Success Art

Team
Inspiration Friends

Creativity Perseverance
Burning Man

“Hey let’s build the World’s “Hey let’s make tiny pill robots
biggest solid-state Tesla Coil” revolutionize medicine”
 I built my Team at Burning Man 20
Sextant Endiatx is a group of friends who like to
do weird stuff in the desert Silicon Valley. It
turns out there are a lot of interesting people in
the desert Silicon Valley.
(Investors too!)
Torrey Smith
Co-Founder & CEO, Endiatx

Aerospace Engineering, Cal Poly, SLO

13 years designing med devices, 3 exits:
Ensure Medical to Cordis: $52M
AtheroMed to Volcano: $115M
Volcano to Philips: $1.2B
Find or create a kick-ass Market
$7B (US + EU + China)
GI Tract endoscopy
devices market: $1.75B (US + EU + China)
PillBot™ goes into Colonoscopy
space and beyond
Stomach endoscopy
devices market:
PillBot™ is aimed at this market

New Category:
Microrobotics $810M Global
Inside the Human Body: Smart Pills:
Endiatx becomes known as the
$500 reimbursement
SpaceX of med device
codes and predicate
FDA pathway
(Global endoscopy devices market for entire
human body is $67B)
 22
Market : Revenue : Multiplier : Exit
● Look for big markets to disrupt, OR:
● Create a new market (“Category” such as tiny robots in the body)
● Manage your public excitement level:
● Are you a 5x multiple like a tired 5x med device company, or are you
20x, 50x, 100x+
● Endiatx is trying to add the sexy component of “Frontier Tech” to a
relatively boring status quo in order to go from 5x to more like 20x
● Also, are you actually creating anything new or are you just trying to cash
in on an eddy in the markets?
Start with an MVP and build your way to your dreams

PILLBOT ™ PILL SURGEON ™ MICRO SURGEON

► MVP ► Remove small polyps ► Pill Surgeon the
► Sedation-free ► Tissue biopsy size of a rice grain
upper endoscopy ► Cauterize bleeds
in a pilL ► And more
You are not alone! (Depression = Real & OK) 24

I’ve been fired from

every company I’ve
worked at in this
business park!
(Velomedix, AEGEA)
Welcome to the Emotional Rollercoaster 25
Angels: we’ll 100% oversubscribe
your Angel round!
Yay first-in-human!

Monday: VC: we’re in for $1M

(CTO strangely feeling a lot
better for some reason)

Graduate FI:
“who am I?”

VC’s: but the video Sunday: CTO: I’m feeling tired

is so grainy! after 2 years and I need a break
 26
How we can help each other
● Endiatx has a full machine shop, 3D printers, etc.
● Add me on LinkedIn
● Warm introductions to investors in network
● Technical advice from team & network
● Meeting space for networking events coming soon
● Cry on the phone together. Or on Slack. Or Zoom
● Ask me about my intoxicated mystery deck pitch nights
Advice for the coming months 27
● Start sending a Company Update email on Bcc on the First of the month.
● Add the Mentors on LinkedIn while they still remember you from the session!
● You can survive without an income longer than you might think.
● Apply for grants now. Make your co-founders write the application.
● Your Tech is going to suck for a while, and that’s OK.
● People are impressed to hear that you (and your Co-Founders) are full-time.
● If you get laid off, ask for Severance and then negotiate for more. (don’t get what you don’t ask for)
● Quit your job and launch this company! Join the community of Founders, not the community of people who took
night classes and then quietly returned to their comfort zone.
● Help your fellow Founders. Give rides, loan cars, give airline miles, offer your couch. Spend time with your fellow
Founders socially; they are your new family.
● Lean on your fellow Founders.
● It is OK to have a full-blown existential meltdown.
● Arnold’s rules.
● Do. Not. Give. Up. Your perseverance will ultimately be your greatest asset (monthly update!!!)