Sridhar Iyengar has been around the innovation block. Several times. With his business partner Sonny Vu, he created the diabetes-care company AgaMatrix, then Misfit wearables, and now he’s the CEO and Founder of Elemental Machines. In a wide-ranging conversation with Continuum SVP Kevin Young, Iygengar’s intelligence shines through, illuminating the worlds of medical devices, consumer health, and tech entrepreneurialism. Among the many wise words of this podcast, you’ll hear these:
· “We did predictive analytics before the phrase was sexy.”
· “What we thought with Misfit is—let’s do something in health and wellness, where we can iterate really quickly without having the regulatory burden. And once we understand the UI and the user experience, we can then put a quality system together and then move that into medical.”
· “We had to design the product in such a way that the Apple decision-maker would fall in love with. So, of course, we mimicked the Apple design language. We actually got a very nice compliment by one of the folks there saying, ‘Wow, this looks like something we would’ve designed.’”
· “Quite simply, our market research involved one intern sitting in front of a laptop for two weeks, and reading every negative review on Amazon for the competing products. We told her: just tell us what the top three complaints are.”
· “There’s no de-bugger for physical processes—and that’s kinda what we’re doing at Elemental Machines.”
· “As somebody runs that assembly line over and over and over again, our system learns where the critical variables are, and then alerts them and basically guides our customers to say: ‘OK, step number 14—the variability there is what’s causing quality problems in your product.’”
· “One of the best ways to spot an opportunity is to solve a problem that you’ve had yourself.”
· “Solving an existing problem is generally not as exciting as working on a new technology. But if you solve an existing problem, it gets a foot in the door, you can build a business, and then you can start investing in the new sexy exiting things that are swirling around.”
Host: Pete Chapin
Editor: Kyp Pilalas
Producer: Ken Gordon
About the Author
Kevin YoungHead of Product ExperienceKevin is responsible for maintaining the health of and planning for the growth of EPAM Continuum’s Product Experience business. He also leads programs and project teams directly, working with clients to solve their most complex challenges.
Kevin is deeply invested in connected consumer health. His work brings together the necessity of strong healthcare products, effectiveness of good design, and the coming ubiquity of the Internet of Things.
Kevin graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a BID in industrial design. His product design successes have resulted in 14 design excellence awards and 18 U.S. patents.
More from Kevin Young
Ken GordonChief Communications SpecialistKen makes EPAM Continuum’s work visible to the necessary people. He creates superlative content, works with colleagues to do the same, and employs social networks to share it widely.
A card-carrying humanist, Ken co-founded QuickMuse, the improvisational writing website, and JEDLAB, the Jewish education community. He has written for TheAtlantic.com, the New York Times, and many other pubs.
Ken has an English degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in English from the State University of New York at Albany. He framed both diplomas long ago, but can’t seem to find them now—a fact he considers all-too-human.
More from Ken Gordon
