SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Stress Free Way to Launch Startup In Red Tape Industries with Jarie Bolander of Lab Sensor Solutions
19 Jan 2016
Chapter 1: What is Lab Sensor Solutions and what problem does it address?
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Chapter 2: How did the founders come together to start Lab Sensor Solutions?
You're going to love our guest today. His name is Jari Bolander. Now, he is an engineer by training, an entrepreneur by nature, and a leader by endurance. Presently, he's the founder and COO of Lab Sensor Solutions, a company bringing sensor technology to healthcare to prevent medical errors. Jari, are you ready to take us to the top? Yes, I am. Okay, let's do it.
So first things first, talk me through your focus at Lab Sensor Solutions.
So Lab Sensor Solutions is focused on the clinical laboratory. That's the place where you get your blood drawn. So I'm sure everyone that's listening has had their blood drawn before. We make sure that the blood that gets drawn from your arm doesn't spoil. So we use our sensor as a service platform to track the temperature and location of blood, tissue, urine, so that those samples don't spoil.
Got it.
Chapter 3: What is the equity split among the founders?
Okay. And were you one of the original founders of the business? Yes, I'm one of the original founders. So how'd you guys get into it? I think it was, was it you and Daniel and Jeff, right? Along with maybe Brad?
Yeah.
Yeah, so there was five founders, Jeff, Daniel, myself, Marv, and Bill. And we'd all worked together before at various other startups. We were focused on, in one of them, we were focused on the medical arena, trying to literally track every individual blood tube on the planet, which we were building a technology to do. Unfortunately, that didn't work out as well as we would have liked.
But we kept in touch, and When this opportunity came about, there was a lot of people that were trying to figure out how to make sure that these really precious samples don't get lost or don't spoil. We came together and we said, hey, let's start a company and figure out what we can do, and here we are. How did you guys get it started?
Chapter 4: What is the sales process like for Lab Sensor Solutions?
When there's five people starting the business, how do you think about how equity split up?
Well, for us, we split it all equally.
Oh, really? You just cut it right down the middle?
I very rarely hear that. Yeah, well, we've been doing startups for a while. And the only real fair way, at least in our founders, when we were talking about it, was that all of us are equal partners. We all were equal founders. We all contribute. That's the reason why we're, you know. coming together. We just all get an equal share.
As things move forward, if people fall out and don't come all the time or need other things to do, we've set up a schedule where you get that amount, but it vests over time. There is an incentive, obviously, to stay and contribute.
Now, out of curiosity, I hear all kinds of different vesting schedules.
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Chapter 5: How much funding did Lab Sensor Solutions raise and from whom?
What's your guys' vesting schedule at Lab Sensor Solutions? So it's four years. Okay, four years. And is there like a cliff? So if people leave before the first year, they don't get anything?
Uh, for, for founders, no, there wasn't. Okay. For normal, you know, normal, uh, options, there is a cliff.
Okay. So for your vesting period. So what really gets me curious about lab sensor solutions is the sales process. Who's, who's the head of, well, first off, I imagine this is really capital intensive. So I bet before you even make your first sale, you guys must've raised money or somehow.
Yeah, we have raised a seed round right now. The one thing that we do, as opposed to probably some of what your listeners are into, is we ship atoms through the air.
Chapter 6: What challenges do they face in the healthcare industry?
That's really freaking sexy. People will love that. Exactly. So we have sensors that we have to deploy to our customers. So there is a hardware component. Our gross margins are exceptional, so it's not as big. What's exceptional? Above 80, above 90? Above 85%. Wow. And it's a service. So customers don't really own the hardware. They kind of rent it per month, so to speak.
And that lets us provide this complete platform. But we do have to build them.
Chapter 7: How does the Affordable Care Act impact Lab Sensor Solutions?
And we are talking enterprise sales. So we are doing business to business, and we're in healthcare, which… adds another layer of complexity. But it's been a great journey so far. It's not as capital-intensive on hardware as, say, building a semiconductor chip like a chip in your cell phone or something like that. It is way more, obviously, than just a pure SaaS play.
But for us, there's a big advantage to having the hardware and we have a mobile app as well and obviously a cloud SaaS solution.
So Jari, let's step back for a second. So what was the size of the seed round? How much did you guys raise? We raised $420K. Okay, $420K. And was that from you guys or was that from outside investors, angels? It was friends and family. Okay, friends and family.
Chapter 8: What advice does Jarie Bolander have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Okay, so that was the first thing I wanted to understand. And then walk me through a sale price. It's B2B, it sounds like. Who's actually buying from you? And on average, what do they spend and what are they getting for that?
Yeah, so our main customers are clinical laboratories or hospitals and courier networks. Anytime you get your blood drawn at a remote site, it has to go to a core lab. The core lab is anywhere from five to 100 miles away from where they actually drew the blood from your arm. So couriers throw it in literally an igloo cooler filled with ice.
jump in the back of their Toyota Corolla and drive it to the lab. No, they don't. Seriously? Yes, they do. Absolutely, yeah.
No doubt. Bucket of ice, back of a Ford pickup truck, driving down a dirt road with my blood in the back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. That's why they need what we're doing to make sure that they know where it is and that it's not too hot or too cold. So what are they paying for that? So we have a monthly subscription. Each sensor that we place to monitor is $25 per month per sensor, and that includes the full platform.
Since it's an enterprise sale and there's a level of redundancy and sophistication, you have to provide a pretty robust service because they're depending on it to make sure that their samples don't spoil.
Yeah, I know that makes a lot of sense. And how old is the business? When did you guys launch it?
So we actually started launching sales at the beginning of this year, so January, February timeframe. We've been working on the platform for the last two years. Wow.
And how are sales so far? What are you guys doing, I guess, on a monthly basis?
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