big bets & bad calls with Eolas Dx

Welcome to Big Bets and Bad Calls, the podcast where we unpack our big ideas become real businesses and what it actually takes to build something new. Each episode we talk to the founders, the funders and the people shaping the next wave of innovation. They'll share the big bets that paid off and the bad calls they survived along the way. So join us as we dive into the stories behind the boldest moves in the business. Okay, so welcome to yet another Big Bets and Bad Calls. Hopefully mostly Big Bets, not so much on the Bad Calls with my incredible co-host Clint McIntyre. Hello. So Clint, I'll leave it to you to kick in with today's guest. And today's guest is Connor Hogan and Simon Silver from Latrobe University. And I'm going to get them to explain the alphabet soup a little bit later as well because they're involved in both limbs, best or threaten us not both. That's three. Limes best and Mobius. Sorry, I went like you know full matrix there for Mobius, but I'm like also professors and doctors. Also professors, Dr. Wow. Yeah. So we have our science nerd on today, right? We do. I'm going to try and do you nerd it a little bit? So people like me can understand this. Please include me. Please include me in this. Oh, sorry. I'm a professor, aren't I? Yeah. I forgot. Okay, guys, explain what you actually do to a five year old. Okay. So well, I'll explain our basis of our technology. Yeah. Well, that'd be good. It's going to be at a five year old level. At a five year old level. Okay. So you know your mom and dad's mobile phone. Well, actually, if you're a five year old, you probably have a mobile phone. So inside your mobile phone, there is some gosh, a five year old. Can I do that? It's hard. 10 year old. Yeah. Yeah. 10 year old. Inside your mobile phone, there's some hardware that deals with all the audio. Okay. Right. And that's for putting sound to your speakers and it's for measuring the current that flows to your microphone. Okay. We hack that and we use it to we use the voltage to pump a very special type of voltage into molecules and then we use the microphone to measure the current that comes back. But we we use an audio hack. Why would you want to do that? Well, the instruments that are on the market for doing the type of biosensing or electroanalysis that we do measurement measurements. I think it's a five year old. Okay. There are some small five year old that they're going to the microanalysis level, you know, with a little tiger kids out there, you know. But if you want if you want to measure some glucose in your blood, if you want to measure some heavy melt in your water or some sulfite in your wine, you buy an instrument and it's as likely as not going to be an electrochemical instrument. It's going to cost you a couple of grand at least, maybe 20 grand, maybe a few hundred dollars if you get a really tiny one that doesn't do much. This is an audio codec. This is a commoditized piece of hardware from the mobile phone kind of ecosystem and it does everything that we wanted to do. It's designed for doing audio but we've hacked it to make it do electrochemical analysis. So that's just a little larger than a fingernail. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. The point is that this is because it's part of the mobile phone ecosystem. It's made in millions. It's commoditized. So I bought this very affordable. So I bought this off Alibaba for $1.50. Okay. So the five year old Alibaba is not the dude with the car. And you know, the car. Exactly. Yeah. But the big electronics market place up in China. But so if you can do that with something that costs $1.50 instead of a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks, it's going to democratize by a sensing. But we think there's big, you know, we're starting with something small in the wine industry. But we think there's big implications for what we're doing for our core hardware. Fantastic. We are going to get to where this technology could go. Yeah. But let's kind of go high level, give us the last 10 years because I was reading your bios and I'm trying to piece it together in my head. Do you sort of signpost this journey? Then we can kind of step back and dive into a dive into. Yeah. And I think most importantly framing it out as an entrepreneurial journey because you've taken a couple of pathways here as well. And this is, I see this a lot with the researchers where you've got the licensing pathway, which is prevalent and it's been around for a long time. But also then the research translation, creative company, create value and it kind of feels like you've had like the bonus two for one and you've gone through all of that in the past 10 years. So maybe let's talk through that part of the journey. Well, unlike Simon, who was one of the new generation, I was one of the old generation who didn't really think about commercialization or even translation very much. That was an old school academic. In fact, you know, if you want to go back beyond the misty space of twice a thousand years, I had a good idea about 2011. But using my mobile phones for something called luminescence detection. And I published it. Right. And as you would because you had to be published. I did not paint it. And it was a great success academically because it got lots of sites and it ended up in the top 1% of citations worldwide in chemistry and brilliant. So how many other people made money out of your idea? Nobody. No, well, well, you know, it led on to a lot of other papers potentially. Yeah, yeah, for sure. What I remember going to a talk one time and a guy came up to me afterwards and he said, I presume you put a patent on that before you published it. I went, no. And he looked at me like I was an idiot. That kind of, that kind of stung. So I, I, from then I thought the next time I have a good idea, I'm going to, I'm going to put a patent on it before I publish it. He said, just wait there. We'll come back in. That's right. So and the next big idea was, was this stuff and well, we haven't published it yet. We're probably going to publish it in a couple of months. Yeah. I'm guessing your patents first this time. Yeah. The patent is locked in. Hey, you learned something. There you go. Yeah. That's it was a big learning. Let's step back a little so that's sort of the first part of the journey and the, you know, the licensing for a, okay. So what are you going to do? You've got a platform. You've got a hammer looking for an ale. What are you going to do? The person at the Trabue University who, who, who helps you commercialize stuff is a very nice lady called Natalia and she said, come on, Connor, we got it. We're going to do something like this. And the first application was sweat testing. Sweat testing. Yes. Sweat testing. Sweat testing. Oh, man, I'm about two minutes into the gym. I'd be right. So it'll be on a good day. Testing for hydration. And she helped me do some market research on that. And, you know, and that was, that was an interesting journey itself. But what we learned from that was that there was no market for it. And then we looked at heavy melts in water, testing water, using the same technology, which we knew we could do as well. Market for that was fairly small. Right. It has changed now. It has changed now. Yeah. Yeah. Especially heavy metals in blood is now significantly better. But then eventually we not came across this idea of, so I did some training at La Trobe in this whole area of commercialization. And they said you've got to look for a pair of a pain point. Yes. So we found a pain point in the wine industry measuring sulfate and wine. And that was like accidental because you're at the bar on the front. So how many bottles to find that? Yeah. That's how Clinton I come across most about. I do. Yeah. It's our lab. No. It's wine bottles. Yeah. No, it was actually a former La Trobe professor of oniology, but he was Jeff Schollary. He said, he said, you know, Connor, you know, if you could do sulfite in wine, he said, you'd make a lot of people very happy. And started looking into it. They're talking to a few wine makers and told Natalia, and I said, well, I can this is what we do. And that's kind of where the journey started. Interesting. And then we started developing it. We started getting good results. Natalia said, let's do some media stuff to show that you can do this interesting thing with a mobile phone. A large multinational company saw some of that media stuff. Him knocking on our tour, licensing deal, ensued, then development with the company, over COVID, quite difficult, but we got there. And then a couple of years ago, that big multinational company changed their focus and said, actually, we don't want this anymore. It was very sad for me. It was like years of development. Wow. So this is how far into the journey? That would have been five, six years of development, I reckon. Wow. So this is totally excitement. Got some big multinational, you know, really enthusiastic about the tech. You're working with them for five or six years, like I could wear in great shape. And then Lucy pulled the football dropped it. And just like pulled the rug and said, that's it. We're done. That's it. But you know, oh, that was, I was kind of working with you then as well. Or that was before the Simon era. So a pre-signment. Okay. We'll wrap you in a minute. Simon's coming soon to save the day on these white horse quickly. How did you feel when that happened? I was good to be honest. I put a lot of my time, I've devoted a lot of my time to doing that technology. I pushed it and pushed it through times when it wasn't much. One day inch by inch and stuff like that. And I felt like, come on guys, we're practically there. Right. What they didn't want because they had shifted focus to another area. They didn't want to do that one anymore. And it was a business decision they said. And I said fair enough. So you were the first, you know, it's the first time you saw that it's not a priority for us anymore. Right. And personnel had changed. We had been dealing with a couple of guys in that company who were quite enthusiastic about the technology. And then they retired or moved on over COVID. And then when the new guys were there, they were like, hmm, you know, they didn't quite get it. And so that was the beginning of the end of our journey with that company. Wow. So does that mean you're sitting there one day and you're like, I don't have a job or you're still with the company? Well, I wasn't working. It was a licensing deal with the company. So basically it was just like they said, okay. We funded a PhD student. We funded all this stuff. But now we've decided not to go ahead. It's kind of perplexing for me because they put so much money into it. You know, yeah. This is the challenge from the research perspective. It's like you've got the sunk cost. We're almost there. There's nobody else in the world doing this. Why would you pull the pen? And you probably know the answer. There's always more than one reason why they pull the pen. Sometimes it's the lack of sponsor. It's the someone who thought it was a good idea. It doesn't want to do it. Someone realizes we have a $20,000 unit that we sell. But if we have this one here, it's going to cannibalize our $20,000 unit. There's all those sort of factors that come into play, right? Yeah. It's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. But it turned out to be a good thing in the end. Yeah, it sounds like it. So we love a happy pivot. Oh, absolutely. I love happy pivot. Yeah, walk us through that. Which is a, you get this devastating news. You're like, I'm frustrated. This is annoying. And you go, all right. But there's a silver lining here. I mean, I guess it just dawned on me that, you know, we're over the Valley of Death. Pretty much. The tech is now pretty much developed. Right. They've helped us. They've basically funded us through the Valley of Death. And under the terms of the licensing deal, they had to hand everything back. OLEIP, you know, everything returned to the university. Love that. And so, you know, it was like, it was a gift. Yeah, free shot on the wall. So I thought, hang on, this isn't bad news. That's when Simon came along. Now we're into the Simon era. So before we jump into the Simon era, why don't you guys quickly summarize your incredibly deep scientific backgrounds in three or four sentences? Because you're both, you're both chemists at heart, right? And chemistry, right? So, you know, Connor and then Simon, quick intro and that. So the body of work you've done is substantial. And you've been at it for a while. Sure, sure. So I'm an electrochemist. I'm who specializes in analytical chemistry, specifically in the area of biosensing. Means I like to measure molecules. But all big words. Yeah, all big words. That means he has really small senses. Dimension molecules. I'm guessing. Well, it means the measure molecules rather than say temperature or pressure or something like that. Like a physical sense. Yeah. That's, that's basically my background. I guess my chemist who specializes in that area. I guess what drives. He is wanting to recently wanting to make devices that make it easier to do analytical chemistry. Take it out into the laboratory. We're both analytical chemists. And part of our training is being a lab using big machines. But our big mission. And I think that's where we come together. It's how we can we do those same type of measurements without the big machine. Using a device that people can take to the fields, where to the bedside of hospitals, and do the more the measurement on this point. And yeah, electrochemistry basically we measuring the quantity of a molecule or a substance using. We convert that amount into an electrical signal that we can measure and then quantify. So it sounds kind of like we're from the same background, but actually there's so much diversity in our field. That what Simon does compliments what I do quite well. For example, he has a lot of experience in optimum technologies. Interfacial science. Interfacial science. I specialize in hacking stuff, I suppose. And a few other things. And just complementarity there. But really the eye out for me was when Simon came along was he had this industry focus. He would he would think about designing sensors. From the point of view of are they manufacturing. I never really thought about that. That's what you need to think about. You're taking all the design path to do head away design and deliver a solution to meet a need versus how do I create generic technology. And that's probably no simplification. And I'm fair, but that's quite true. He's a new generation on the old generation. I always think about the end user and all that going to be. In terms of usability and how can I actually manufacture in large scale. Because that's part part of my journey comes in that sense. So when I was doing my postdoc training. I licensed similar to corner. I went through the same path of licensing and technology to accompany. And part of that licensing deal was that I was going to spend some time at the company helping them to translate and commercialize. Okay. And before that, everything that I did was in the lab using micro prepats preparing everything by hand. And I could prepare for example, ten test strips at time, maximum 100. So I got to the industry. They said, oh, let's produce two thousand test strips. So we can test our producer, your method is and I was like, oh, the proteins that I use are quite expensive. We got a per per solution. How we can make sure that we can dispense in the same amount of solution in each test strip. So it's reproducible. And that got me thinking, okay, when we're doing something in the lab, we've got to do something also that is. And upscale that and manufacturing large scale. So I can a lot of that was trying to understand how we can translate what we do in his most game the lab in a large scale manufacturing context. So that brought me a completely different perspective on how we do research as well. Because if you go to the literature, there's a lot of fancy fancy science and a lot of things that are very cool when. Unlock a lot of different capabilities, but when come to Tim off turned out in for product, it's not very feasible. Right. So that's what I'm trying to shift a little bit my mindset in that regard. So this is interesting. I want to tie all this together. So yeah, so we've got, you know, I feel like we're going to a joke here that you know an Irishman me to. I'm going to be a bit more of a joke. But finally, because we had both similar experience, license of the technology to both didn't up well. One dropped the other one for me was not where I wanted to get in the end and the technology didn't make to the market for a number of different reasons that the time I didn't do the proper due diligence. And the company also shift. Actually, let's double click on that a little bit. So kind of had the what I call the pathway, which was we got it licensed. You can always declare victory, but five years later it was kind of a doughnut, you know, like, okay, great. But oh, but I got my toys back, right? Yeah. That was kind of okay. You had the other journey, which was you went down the path, you worked with commercialization, you've got the product you're taking it and it didn't make it. You didn't make it yet. Still going. Still going. Well, one of the research perspective was still doing a lot of work on that technology, which is in the cancer diagnostic space. I still want to push that into the market. But we still are. I'm now we realize that we have a little bit of way to go. As you guys know, anything in the magical space. It's a longer pathway. Very much so you get to the market. Yeah. So yeah, you've got these sort of dual pathways. You kind of have learned a lot from different experiences and then you're getting together. So, you know, before we lose our six players in the audience here, we got to tell them what best limbs and mobius are. So maybe you sort of frame that up and how you came. And I think also just a little bit about your back story as well, because you came over what in 2010, 2010, 2010 type timeframe to Australia. Yeah. Yeah. I moved to Australia in 2013 to do my PhD in chemistry. At the time I was living in Sydney at UNSW, did my PhD, of course, in sensing and biosensing space using electric chemistry as. The technique and then moved just to swimwear and university Melbourne in 2018 and that's when I started thinking how I can develop something that I can translate into a product and I sense which we just spoke about before. Yeah. But then in 2023, I moved to let Rob. Yeah, this is another formation of the dynamic duo and the whole bit so we're getting to the limbs and I'll be waiting for this. Yes, the best in Mobia. So explain into those three. So we have a yeah, this three initiative. So let's show Institute for Molecular Science is an institute that has a very multidisciplinary focus, but everything that we do is around molecular science. Okay. So we have our research focus are in six front. So we have cancer. We have digital biology. We have space biology. We have biosensors which corner and I a part of this program. We have cardiovascular health and we have immunology and infection. So these are our focus in research. So it's. We need to release three of those so make another amazing these days playing so you can keep up with good work. So we have people from all different backgrounds working to address problems in these areas, which is a very interesting environment to work. And because on the day to day we're talking to engineers, people that comes from more fundamental science backgrounds, from clinicians and so on. So that's the electro institute for molecular science. Parallel to that will have what we call the best research center, which stands for that's not like just a good one. Better one. So it stands for the biomedical and environmental sensing technology research center corner came up with that name. Nice. Like an academic with good acronym. And then with this research center, we have about 26 research groups. About 34 PhD students in a number of postdocs and everyone is pretty much working towards the goal of moving the analytical measurement outside the lab into the field using point of care or point of need devices. And successful result of best and limbs was the ARC funded research hub called Mobius, which corner is the director of the gym name of Mobius. So was that somebody else. It was one of my colleagues I go called giraffe. He came up with that name. It sounds like one of those evil organizations in a best. Not the matrix. Is it that? No. It's off the matrix. Oh, there is a mobius. Yeah, maybe that's what he was thinking. Well, I'll be red blue. But in there, Mobius is molecular sensing point of use Mobius. Kind of struggling with the big there a little, but I'm it's not a place for. I got it. And love it. Again, this center that corner is the director is very translational focus. So we have five universities part of this consortium, but we also have more than 20 industry partners and all the projects that we work with Mobius are towards translation and commercialization. We've named us repartanous. Yeah, the goal is basically try and shift the biosensing industry in Australia and try and get academics and industry working more together in this space to try and get more translation. Like biosensing is as we know by sensing an Australia from an academic point of view is, you know, top of the charts, you know, interesting, but all that research are 99% of that research ends up in the library. So when the IP museum, yeah, we've discussed this before. That's the one like the last scene and rate is a lost arc that you park all that incredible IP into and dust it down every now and then. So, but let's sort of flip to the, you know, the big bat and everything that you're going down it now, but you're not just, you know, you're not parking the IP. You've got the idea now and you're going on a different journey, which is not a licensing journey or a. Yep, and that's when all is DX was born. So we are, we are the EOLIS and with this amount of accents on the podcast. Yes, between us, we probably got to spell it one Clinton. I think you probably get the easiest, you know, easiest accent. Probably. I don't know. Be careful. The oldest DX, EO, LAS, but it means knowledge. All this means knowledge knowledge knowledge. And you know, that's what a buy sensor gives you, right? Give you information data information knowledge. So this is about 2024 2023. You know, connect and you're like, you know, like 2023. Let's start this. Let's let's go with it. Yeah. And we were kicking around names and we actually tried to make support to give you. We tried to make 40 years away. Yeah, I don't know. Well, they got the soccer, you know, so they say, cool. Very good. So, yes, so you start this journey. Now you're start up. Yes. Yeah, it's one of these pinouts of Lithuania University. And again, our focus is our main mission is to deliver accurate measurements at the point of use and make it affordable and accessible to everyone. Very good. I want to have a little bit of fun with the what I call the founder of the entrepreneur entrepreneurship hygiene. Yeah. So, you know, the moment that you sat down together and said we're going to do this, what would that conversation look like? You know what? It kind of felt like it was meant to happen or something. You know, it would. Everything just felt into place. We could have just said, oh, yeah, we should definitely do this. It was like, it was almost like, yeah, of course we should do this. Yeah. Because looking at the immediate technology for one testing is one thing. Right. But then looking at the other possibilities for the technology, combining and with the kind of stuff that Simon does, it was just like a no brainer. Yeah. So I guess that's, you know, that would have tangent off. But I mean, when you got something as big as an mRNA biosensor, you can go in a hundred different directions, can't you? Absolutely. Is that the hard part? Actually, that thing I said about, you know, hammer looking for a nail. That can be really difficult. We see the audio deck or the mobile phone technology as a platform. So there's so many different things we can do. Of course, the first technology or the first product, we're being do a wine space, measuring so fights. Because that's where we first found the need. We went and talked to a lot of people in the industry to end users to other players. And we saw that there's a market and a need for it. We've got to get it right. Because there is technology in the market, some of which is not great. And you don't want to muddy the space. You know, you want to make sure yours is the one that they can depend on. So you know, you're a little down the better mouse trap. Yeah. Rather than the, we got a new mouse trap or a re-inventing. I know a mouse trap that, you know, can do the same thing in one minute that it usually takes 20 minutes. That's a dramatic reduction. And I guess is a cost reduction as well. There is because of this idea. Yeah, that strikes me that that's and that was just. The hardware cost is gone basically. Yeah, you know, that plugs into the port and the iPhone or the. Yeah, it plugs into your. USC. Just your SPC. Yeah. And there's a little. You. Supposedable test trip. I don't want to be that guy, but I think some of the listeners are thinking this for you. You're not dipping the phone in a glass of wine, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So there's the disposable test report you put the wine on it. Right. Do the measurement. Yeah. Similar to the blood test used. That's right. In some ways. Similar to the glucose test strips. Yeah. Okay. So this technology is not new in many respects. It's been around. This is the application of the technology because something like this is in use with a CGM monitor with the blood, for blood sugar and glucose, isn't it? Yeah. Not be a mobile phone, but at least electrochemistry. Electric chemistry. So yeah, so electric chemistry is the technique used for glucose. And the glucose monitor devices has been the most successful case in the electrochemistry field. For a number of reasons and it's been around for quite a while now. But we said quite well. It's only like five years, right? And the continuous monitoring. Yes. But we have the finger prick. Yeah, finger prick forever. Yeah. So the technology is kind of the same. The wearable that you stick on the arm and I look like I'm a lab rat when I'm at the gym. Yeah. As I get all my stuff on the ground. The question for you, how long can we stay with the patch when you have that? Oh, I've told I had to do it for like two weeks, right? Two weeks. And then you have to remove and get a new patch. Remove it and put a new patch. Yeah. But it's mostly because I'm a lab rat, not because I actually have diabetes or anything. And also, I mean. A lot of people are using these days to. The diagnostic for diagnostics and also to understand the impact of exercise and diet on your health. Correct. But glucose is a very easy molecule to measure because it's present in high concentration. Right. So. It's very easy. It's accessible very easily. So sulfide. So. to measure or is it a trickier one? You got to take the chance to be around the last. Very hard. Yeah, what red wine is the worst, worst in blood, I reckon? Yeah. Worst in any biological kind of fluid. Red wine is the most complex matrix we've ever had to work with. It's a huge problem. Yeah. That's what there's no really no good solutions for this that are easy on the market. Yeah. So yeah, so glucose is present in higher concentration. I asked the question how long you live it. It's probably because the sensor doesn't last more than two weeks. Right. And that's caused by things that we should have we call falling or boil falling. So there are other things in your blood or in your plasma that are going to start sticking to the sensor and that leads to loss and response. Okay. And glucose, the mechanism of detection, we use an enzyme that basically converts a very sophisticated reaction into the actual measurable signal. And that's not doable for many other molecules. So the technology's been around for a long time. Right. But translating that to other targets, there are more challenging to detect. That's what's being pitting of such technology being pivot to other applications. So as Gornathed, wine there's a lot of different things that are there that could interfere with your response. And that could lead to false positives. Yeah, I mean, the chemistry of wine is probably the most complex. And very whole. Yeah. And especially from an electrochemical point of view, everything that's an interference in there is there in higher concentrations. And so this is it was nightmare. So part part of the novelty of our wine testing was we figured out a way of just taking the sulfite out of the wine by volatilizing it. I'll give away too much. Okay. Okay. Basically we make the sulfite come out of the wine and we measure it above the wine in the space where there's nothing else that we're just measuring the amide. And all the other goop and stuff and molecules that are in the wine, we don't see them. But we get a perfect selectivity. That's incredible. Yeah. So you mentioned you got to get it right. Now close, are you do you think like if you had to put a percentage on it, are you? Oh, our accuracy, you know, depending on the way we do it can be as little as 1.5 to 2%, which is, you know, way better than what's on the market, that's on the market. Yeah. We have bench marked. Stessively, I guess, other products out there. And it's, you know, we can plot error. We can plot a graph of error measure. We can take a wine sample, measure it with air tech, measure it with the standard laboratory method, which takes 20 minutes. Right. And we plot, you know, each sample on a graph and it just makes this perfect wine right through the middle. That's fabulous. Nice. So look, so I know it's geeky, but it's lovely to look at. So walk us through the journey a little bit. You know, it's like, okay, we've got this idea, got some traction. We've figured out what we're going to pursue. What does a go-to-market plan look like now? So it was like, okay, have we got fine? Who do we partner with? You know, you're not really heading down or down Murphy's Hill. You're heading over to South Australia or out in the Yarra Valley, right? That's right. So yeah, it's been a little bit of a journey to get. Yeah, but we're just about to, we just raised our first one, Mealin. So that's very exciting. Was that like breaking news? And we kind of announced more information coming soon. And to do that, we went through a process of building the business plan and the commercial plan and mapping out the next steps. So we have the technology that works very well. So the next the agent now going to be validating the technology in the field with a couple of wineries, but we also have on board the Wino Strada Institute or Dostraden Wine Institute and Wino Strada as partners. Oh, that's a big deal. So we've been working together with them because they understand the three well. And so for now one, it's basically for us, we got to do supply chain. We just about in the process of looking for a business, a BG person for the company as well. And it's about now getting the product out there and testing and getting the feedback and making for that it is delivering what we wanted to deliver and what they need. Because what we learned from the industry, it's they talked with each other in the wine industry. Oh, yeah. So it's very challenging in terms of not challenging, but you've got to get the, if the technology doesn't work and someone tested and doesn't work, the word going to get out there and that could be. Are we going to be spot on? So the big founder conversations are flipping the coin to who's going to Kernawara, who's going to Mnurum. I'm going to add a way to this week. And so if you need someone to do some testing, so you're in. You're in. You're in. You're in. You're in. Okay. You only device but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So what's the team look like? You're talking, better is it you to is it more full five? What are we talking? Yeah. So at the moment it's the two of us in terms of they start up itself, but we also have a researcher that are doing all the experiments in the lab. Yeah. And she's being phenomenal. And as I said, we're in the process of getting a BG person. We wanted to keep the teams more at this stage. Yeah. There's a lot of the development. It's already done. We want to focus really on the business side and building that front. So a couple of years into the journey so far. Yeah. I'm assuming not 100% of everything was perfect. So or bad call stuff. Yeah. We got it. Good. It got a lot of little bad calls in here. Although we started with a bunch of bad, you know, you have a bunch of bad calls in the front end. So I don't want to overweight that conversation. But what kind of hasn't worked so far that you think, oh, we learned from that. And you know, because you, you know, you don't exactly nearly minted entrepreneurs, but what advice do you have for other folks on I learned this long the way? So many bad calls. No, a lot of good lessons. I mean, my first bad call was the one I mentioned was not commercializing my first good idea, but yeah, I'm more or less for people working in a university environment like this. So the first one would get to know your BD team in the university and build their relationship with them. Yeah. Because as Quarnes said, we have this amazing team at the TROB and they'd be super supportive on day one. And they helped us go and talk to investors, go for grants or non-dilutive funding that is in this space of translation commercialization. And you make them non-dilutive grants and funding as well. Yeah, we're hoping to see your applications written and you're waiting. Yeah, never saying that. So that's that I'd advise the first one. But in this process as well, I told you the other day that I went and talked to 20 co-founders in Australia in the Mad Tech space. And the love that you did that, by the way. Yeah, that was I went and talked to 20 co-founders in the Mad Tech space that people ranging from different stages of commercialization, but also had people from that are commercializing AI assisted imaging software, but also people commercializing point of care diagnostics was different a mix of different areas in the Mad Tech, the big Mad Tech space. But what I found is there was six common lessons that no matter the stage that they were interesting and no matter the specific technology that they have that always emerge. And the first one is something that we already talk about. You is about falling in love with the problem and not with the technology. So all the co-founders that I talked to, they said go out there and find what's the problem that you're trying to address. Make sure that you ask a lot of questions engage with at least 100 stakeholders. Because if you understand the problem the rest will follow. That was the first lesson that I think that were new entrepreneurs who would be a very valuable one. If that's a golden rule. That's the golden rule. Yeah. Talk to the market, not the whiteboard. That's right. Because if you don't do that, you might end up with a technology that no one needs. Yeah. But that was the first lesson. Then the second lesson was when you develop especially the Mad Tech space because you do everything according to the regulation. So prepare everything in regards to plan everything in regards to if you're submitting something into the TGA or FDA and then work on backwards. One of the strategies that I remember one of the co-founders said we have a three-layer process where it comes into understanding the regulatory pathway. We have like a broad-based knowledge in-house because usually there's more teams. But we understand that like the big picture of the TGA process or FDA. We also have a trusted consultant that understands in-depth how it works and knows every single detail that whenever you need to we can go and ask and ask help for. And the third one. was work together with accredited labs, 'cause a lot of these startups, they don't have access to labs. So it is like we do inside, universes, but also sometimes you need accredited labs that have ISO accreditation, also one. And when they do this three layer, I found out that the co-founders that had that model, they saved at least one year, then later on having to work backwards, worth quality systems and redoing again. - Yeah, correct. So that was the second advice. - Yes, yeah. - And then the third one was in terms of raising capital, in Australia, it's quite different from the US, the US you have that mentality, like raise as much as you can as quickly as you can. So here they prefer to do step by step. And the reason for doing that is because how things work here. So first one, you can keep like the team focus on steps so that it gives you like a purpose of works, words, and mouse tone. The second one that creates like a proof track record, so then it can raise more. And also to make sure that you're not diluting the company all at once. So this is a three of the advices. The other one was kept your prototype or your device at the hands of the end users as quick as you can, because that is going to give you insights of the usability or how feasible the technology is or not. So you can then pivot if needed at early on and harder than and up with a lot of features that one serve for clinical purpose and so on. The other one that's to me the most that came in all conversations is about building the cohort. - Interesting. - That we don't have here in Australia that I've been quite a lot in the US, for example, because you have this technology hubs, everyone working around the same space. So if you need something, you'll reach out. So they strategy that people do here in Australia is trying to find mentors in different areas. - Yeah, actually you're raising a really good point. I think this is one I totally resonated within our conversations is the, the idea that the work is done because you found one mentor is just wrong. I'll put my US lens back on, we learned very early in the game, you've got a rapid entire team and then a cohort that's going together through that journey because in their comparing notes on what they're doing and how they're working together. So it literally takes a small village, not a one specific mentor or one specific advisor. It's creating that sort of that environment to succeed. Not one human or one advisor, that's interesting, but so what? Because you're all going through different things, at different steps, at different, and you're learning things locally in the market as well. Because you've got a lot of the literature as you know, is web based in its US and a lot of media coming out of the US about how to build and start companies. It's just like, well, it's really interesting. I know how we do it here. - Doesn't apply to our reality. - Yeah. - Yeah. You're right, the color of the gas on that planet is a little different, right? - That's right. - But it kept it at the chemistry level there. - Yeah. - That's right. - And then the final device was be aware of the missing gap and the between prototype and manufacturing. - Interesting. - They all also raised that point. There's a big gap of you having a prototype that was done in a lab where something that you can give, and users to play with, and then having something that can be manufacturing. - You touched on that earlier in the podcast where you were talking about, you know, producing 10, 2000 tests which is 50 to 100. - Yeah. - That's, you know, it's just a different level of scale and also quality specification as well, right? - Yeah. - Okay. - And yeah, getting something manufacturing in a GMP facility, it's quite hard and cost a lot. And we've got to be ready and have budget to be able to re-engine you, to do all their supplier audits and so on. So we are, I think preparing for that missing, yeah. Cap, it's quite important as well. - Got it. Man, look at that. We've got a bonus six pieces of import that we can wrap and it's fully documented here, bought to you by Simon. Thank you for doing the research there. Love that. - Any other bad calls? - Bad calls, listen. - Gosh, I mean, a lot of small bad calls, that if I could go back and do the whole thing. - Go back in time. - Go back in time. - Yeah. - If you do the whole development again, there's 100 left in right terms I wouldn't have taken, but that's research, right? That's research in development. - Right. - Right down. - Yeah. Bad calls, I can't think of any other ones. I mean, I'm sure we've had some. Now, but it's been all good. Teaming up with this guy was a good call. - Good call. - That was a good call. - Yeah. - It sounds like it's been a good one. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's been a definitely a fine ride. - It's been a fine ride so far. - I mean, we just started having fun. - It's just they start. - Yeah, it's just the start, you know. - Maybe if we'd come back in like two years time, I would've thought, - That was a bad call. - Absolutely, we're, - Well, we'll have, - We don't get one shot at this. - Oh yeah. - Well, I think we'll have six other applications. - I think we'll be doing real time wine testing on the next one. - Oh, I see. - We'll make it an evening podcast. - I think it's definitely an evening podcast. - Probably we'll have the single more whiskey testing that's still there. - Oh yeah, beer. - Oh yeah, that's just a beer. - We can do beer too. - You know how we work on that one, please. It's two fingers, right? - Yeah, yeah. - So it's two fingers. - That's the beauty of the technology because they've met it. We can measure soul fights, not only wine, but also beer and annual beverage. - This is probably the segue. We've been whining for us like the tech can go everywhere. - Yep. - Are you thinking about that now? Are you saying, let's not, let's, - It's hard not to think about it. - Yeah, of course it is. You know, we've got wine nailed at least for, you know, the prototype and stuff like that. But as you said, there's a lot of work to do to get it to a manufactured product. So we got to focus on that. But in the meantime, we have proof of concept on five, six other things. - Your calculations. - Oh, you know, we've shown that we can measure, we can do DNA detection, we can do drug testing. - All right, so number one is forensics. - You. - Potentially. - Well, the application works in working with defense on this application, which is for biosecurity, measuring bio threats. So that a first responder or a soldier and take a sample and know if it is nasty, biological agent X or Y or whatever. - Wow. - And that's, you know, it's not early, early stages. It's, you know, we have proof of concept on that with our technology. - Yeah. - We're working with police. Simon's project lead on that, you know, to do drug testing. - Yeah, detection of illicit drugs in saliva. So they're constantly using road tide testing. - So this is the complement to the booze bus, right? - Yes. - So we low cost the, so it's a good example there because normally there'd be a sample and hit off to a lab, right? - Yes. Yeah, they do send the sample. They do have like the rapid antigen test. I both think that they do on the road, but if that comes positive, then they have to send the sample for a better. - The same sample for the road. - Yeah. - Interesting. - Also drug testing at festivals you could do. - Yep. - Essentially. - Yeah. - Or like at work environments, people that are driving big trucks and mining companies, there's endless. - Yeah. - God the robots are gonna take over on that. - Yeah. - And then we do, we can do glucose. Not sure if we, if the market for doing the glucose, the way we do it or not, but we can do it, then we have, - What are the other things we have? - We have the microRNA. - MicroRNA. - We can do that. - That's more in the diagnostic space. - Heavy metals, of course. - Heavy metals. And as I said, heavy metals. - We know heavy metals in blood. - Yep. - Heavy metals in blood, my choice. - Yeah, in fact in America at the moment, there's some areas because there's all the old pipes. And it's catching heavy metals in the water. - Yeah. - And lead. - Lead. - Yeah. - Copper eyes, well, popular in Detroit, that test. So there's some areas where they're having to measure heavy metals. At school, at kids. - Yeah, that was the biggest challenge in Detroit. It was the lead pipes in the water supply. - Yeah. - And how do you pull it back out? I think it was, it only ever, people are probably crucifying history here. But, you know, it once had actually got to the Ford factory in the F-150s. Because it was the water that was going into the whole process is there that actually started to cause real problems as well. And then they realized, yes, there were health issues and water issues. So, and I think this is probably a big one. And the water and waterways around the world as well as we've got more population. - Yeah. - You have more sensitivity on the water and the water supply system, right? - Yeah. - Interesting aspect of that, of course, is, number one, we're doing it with our technology, which makes it super cheap. - Yeah. - Which makes it as cheap as doing it with, you know, a dip piece of paper, dip test. - Right. - It's quantitative and it's much more accurate. But it brings it down to that level of cost. But this is this idea of democratizing by sensing, you know, if you bring down the cost low enough, you can give it to everybody and everyone can do it. And then it's on a mobile phone. But what else is you got in your mobile phone? You got GPS, time stamp, you got all that metadata. - Right. - Imagine, I think there's somebody testing for lead in their local creek. Imagine a group of people, - Oh, we're gonna create a source. and you can give them more resources. - Yeah. - This is right. - Give them like $2. - I'll give you that one for free. $2 a dollar per test, right? - Right. - And you touch it to your mobile phone. They all pick a spot on the local creek and they make a measurement press a button. And what are you've got a map of contamination in that creek all along the stretch of that area? You know, something like that. You can do similar ideas with health testing. - No. - So the big idea here is, you know, we've just got better sensing and measurement techniques and with more data we can apply better science and better solutions. - Because you're using a mobile phone, you can use all of really advanced tech that's already in the mobile phone. - Yeah, it's already been frustrating. - Communication's in everything else is all in place, right? - And people know how to use it. So we don't need to scale it. - That's a good idea. - We've got a few members in my family that maybe use it less than others. (laughing) But generally pretty much everyone's there, right? - Yeah. - It must be hard not to keep thinking about the use cases. - Oh my goodness. - It is hard. - We think of one thing that we've ever, every week, because then you're working one. - Oh yeah, testing the first one. You're like, oh, we could do this now. - But that's one that's how sometimes they have to come back to their commercial lens. 'Cause like we've got to focus right now. - That's right. - And this right. - Yeah, let's get this one right. - Yeah, so who's, you know, you're doing well with the wine institute and others, right? So who are your big target customers or the people that you wanna get in with? Is it actually the wine makers? Is it the, you know, the, and then the wine makers who also then do the work across multiple vineyards and-- - It's, it's wine makers and it's big wine makers. - Yes. - Big wine makers and this is one of the things we learned. They already have technology for measuring so-fight in wine. - Right. - But they would also like some-- - So they have their own labs. - Right. - But they would also like something to do quickly on the spot, right? - So this is not a necessary replacement. It's an augmentation. - Exactly. - Right. So I can now precisely-- - But then there's this whole swath of small to medium sized wineries, especially in Australia, who don't have labs, right? - Who do not? They have kitchens. They do their testing in their kitchen. That's what we learned. - Oh yeah, which we're careful. - You know, the kitchen closed. - The councils listening. - Yeah. - They're not kitchens. - Okay. - But they do send their samples to lab testing. - Yeah, right. - Okay, right. - Yeah. - And they would invest in this if the cost, if the price point was correct for them. - Okay, so you are actually opening up market. That's opening up market opportunity as well. So I want to be that guy who can be the science nerd for a minute, like, okay, I detect something. What can I do about it? What if I'm finding something about the sulfides? What are the things at the top? What are the top three things I'm finding about at sulfides and what do I do about it? - So sulfide is a preservative. - Right. - And it's at a different stage of the wine and making process. - Right. If you add too much sulfide, the taste of the wine is not gonna be nice. - This is the rotten egg. - Yep. - Yep. - And you might get headaches next morning as well. - I've heard about that. - Yeah. If you add too little sulfides and then the wine may expire or go off very quick. - Right. - So the amount of sulfides that you add to the wine is to be correct and precise. And each stage require a different measurement. - Right. - Because it keeps changing. - Yeah. - Because the chemistry changes. - Chemistry of wine is so complex. - Yeah. - And sulfide is slightly volatile. - Right. - So that you're losing sulfide some of the time. And it's also binding to some of the organic components in the wine. - So it's very dynamic. - Right. - So for a single batch of wine, you could be testing your product 20, 30 times. - Okay. - So a medium-sized winery in the test in the right season would be doing numerous sulfide tests every day. - Okay. And this is the difference between having a good batch and a bad batch in many respects. - Right. - The big thing in the back of their minds is batch loss. - Yeah. - They lose a batch. - Yes. - Yes. - And it's not a bottle. - It's not a bottle. It's not a pellet. It's a batch, right? Okay. Cool. - Yeah. Okay. Interesting. But you can help save that on that journey. - Right. - Let's tweak it here. Let's do this. - Yep. - Give them the confidence that the level of sulfide is just right. - Yep. - So that they don't have to worry about batch loss. That's basically-- - That's interesting. That's good news for everyone. - Keeps me happy. It'll good. (laughing) Yep. Let's kind of bring it home now with the rapid fire. - Couple of questions. - Let's try it. - We'll appreciate all of it. Over to you, Clay. - Yeah, it says nothing short. Best advisor or ecosystem backer, you've had so far on your journey. - All the love of the problem and not with the technology. - Oh, person. - Oh, person. - Oh, yeah. Best advisor. - How do I do? - I'll give you bonus one. That was the first question. It was best advice. - Yeah. - That's good. - Number two, we're gonna say who's the best advisor? - I think for the whole journey, from start, from the very start going back six, seven years, Natalia. - Yeah. - Definitely. - Okay. - So, Natalia Elvarez Lopez at LaTriba University and she is an absolute jam. - You're done. - He's fabulous. - Best hack you've learned beyond the audio jack back in the day. - Oh, but that's, yeah. - Yeah, I know. - I'm gonna give you, I got that one. - Yeah. - All right. - Anything you've learned on your journey? Like here, a good hack or short cut? - Good hack. - Not working ski. - Networking ski? - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, yeah. - Yeah, that's an accelerator. - Yeah. - It truly is. - Oh, yeah. - You gotta do it. - You do it frequently and often. - And as much as you can. - You're talking to the master here. - I used the master. (laughing) - And networking, he doesn't come naturally too. - Academic is very often. - Especially, yes. - No, in fact, if anything, it's, you're promoted to focus on the work and the outcome. It's just thing from focusing outwitly. - Absolutely. - Yeah. - Interesting. - And Kim is there no for being weird. - That's right. - But he's good at networking, better than me. So there's complementarity there as well. - Oh, I like it. - All right. Well, I mean, the rapid-fly part of this is, okay, what's your favorite wine slime? - Oh, yeah. - Type of wine? - Yeah, what's your favorite wine? - Sanjabez. - Sanjabez, I love that. All right, Connor. - And you can't say, you can't say single malt. - No, I'm very good. - I like a nice peanut or. - Mm-hmm. - Okay, a region. - Any particular region. - I would go south of Australia, perfect. Okay, all righty. We're not gonna go to the, no, we can't have been here anyway. - My wine on next question. - Yeah, I'll say, if you're down to the, let's wrap it up with the last question and, Lucas, - We usually ask where you would bet $10,000, but I reckon I know where they're gonna invest that. Is there a best bet you've seen someone else make on this journey, whether it's another startup or someone, you go, oh, they did that really well. - There is one or two startups in the electrochemical space. - I think Nutromics. - Yeah, Nutromics. - Nutromics. - Nutromics? - Yeah, it's kind of inspiring. - They've been really good in showcasing amazing work they're doing. - Yeah. - Like you talk to anyone in Australia in this space, they know who Nutromics is. - Nutromics fabulous and incredible startup here in Australia. - Yeah, I have to celebrate all these strides. - And they have their mission and goals very clear. - Just to clear on what they wanna do. - What they wanna do. - And their tech's amazing. - But just the way they've brought some market, I think is fabulous. And it's kind of, you know, if you're an electric chemist like us and you're into biosensors, I mean, - I've been so, - I think that's successful is inspiring. - Short explanation for our six listeners and you know, out there is basically it's a biosensing patch that you can put on your, you know, put in your body and it's just monitors many, many tests around the body, freely available, raise some nice money, getting great traction. So if you think CGM monitor is just for glucose, Nutromics is a patch for multiple tests concurrently. - Out of here, Adam Melbourne. - Out of Melbourne. - Adam Melbourne, - Yeah, they're basically Brandswick. - Brandswick, we could walk there from here clean, but we won't disclose where the studio is here. - Yeah. - Are you an investor in this competition? - No, I wouldn't be surprised. - That's not one of the ones I've invested in. Sorry, there's a miscalculation on that one. - I was gonna say the studios in Collingwood, but I'm a carton fan, I just can't bring this in, I just said the word Collingwood. - How I did it twice, how no? - Well, maybe I should ask the next question so you know where to put your next 10 grand. - Absolutely. - Is there anyone up in Cumming where you would go? Oh, if I had a good investor, I would. - Startup? - Yeah. - Oh gosh. - Then we may not know of. - Yeah. - Trying to find Andrew's next bet. - I'm gonna talk about Electrope. We got AliSense. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. - Comforting that, they're commercializing a simple, they turn a glass slide into a diagnostic device for a breast cancer. - Wow. - It's, it's AliSense, A-W-L-L-E-S-E-N-S-E, also out of the trope. - Yeah. - And I guess we're not gonna forget them until the podcast is over. - You see, there's a huge biosensing ecosystem developing out of trope. - There is three of these, I think actually. - There's just some amazing stuff coming out of Melbourne. - It truly is incredible. And I think this is what we wanna do here is celebrate incredible entrepreneurs and what was actually happening here because I think it's Australia's best kept secret. And we gotta let the world know, we gotta get it out there. And with that, We're just a little about the end of time here. - Yeah. - So I think what we got to do is thank both Connor and Simon. - Thank you so much. - It's so cool to have you on today. I feel like my science nerd got a little bit of an exercise today. - Yeah, he did. - Did you? - Yeah. - I was just trying to keep up. I'm fine. Any shameless plugs before we go. And I thank you. People can go to the website. Anything you want to call out? - Yeah, check our LinkedIn page, all this DX. Our website as well, coming up soon. - I'm watching this space. - Yeah. - One of those is a lot of good stuff coming. - So the quick summary is everybody jump on board. Let's help them get really successful because apparently wine. - Wine. We want better wine. - Wine first. - Wine first. - Wine first. - And then everything else. (laughing) - Thank you so much. Incredible journey, only starting and wish you the best of luck. - Thank you. - Thank you for having us. - Thank you. - It's been great.