Alfredo Andere - LatchBio: Revolutionizing Biopharma Data & Mastering Enterprise Sales (Part 4/4)

Intro - 00:00:00: This episode is brought to you by Excedr. Excedr provides life-sign startups with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to accelerate R&D and commercialization. Lease the equipment you need with Excedr. Extend your runway, hit your milestones, raise your next round at a favorable valuation, and achieve a blockbuster exit while minimizing dilution. Know anyone who needs lab equipment? If so, join our referral program. Give your friends $1,000 and in return, earn $1,000 for each qualified referral. Start earning cash today by going to E-X-C-E-D-R dot com and click the yellow button in the bottom right to get your unique referral link. Additionally, as a podcast listener, you can redeem exclusive discounts with a growing list of biotech vendors and get $500 off your first equipment lease by using promo code TBSP on excedr.com/partners. Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Exceder. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup from pre-seed to IPO with your host, Jon Chee. In our last episode, we spoke with Alfredo Andere about committing fully to biotech, what led him and his team to join an international incubator in Taiwan, and how their market research laid the groundwork for LatchBio's seed raise. If you missed it, be sure to check out part three. In part four, Alfredo explains how LatchBio's product evolved from a simple workflow solution into a broader platform, serving both biopharma companies and solution providers. He also shares his approach to sales, why speed and focus matter, and how strong relationships drive everything from product to fundraising.  

Alfredo - 00:01:56: So we start with that workflow orchestrator that I told you about, and we started building that and iterating with customer. I always think as a student or a new entrant into a category that you're not previously super familiar with, your best bet is to find an entryway. People call it a wedge. Find a wedge and then start iterating drastically as fast as possible with expanding the needs and the scope of the project itself, and then iterating with customers. And so that's exactly what we started doing. We had these six customers. They're willing to pay us for this one thing. And we built that out. Some of them liked it. Some of them were like, no, this is not enough, or this is not good enough. And then with the people that liked it, and the people that didn't like it, we start iterating on, okay, the people that didn't like it, why do you not like it? What else do we need to build to make it usable for you? But the people that did like it, we were like, okay, well, that data is coming from somewhere. Where is it being stored right now? Oh, here. It's like, well, that's terrible. Can we build a better one for you? And then started building. And yeah, no, seriously. And so that turned into Latch Data, which is a way to store the data. And then we're like, okay, well, the file is coming out, but that file is not quite human readable. It's better, closer, smaller, but not quite human readable. What do you do then? It's like, oh, I open a Jupyter Notebook, or I open a GraphPad. And it's like, hey, can we build tools for that? And really obsessively iterating over getting from the moment a file comes off your sequencing machine, or your flow side machine, or your, now we cover a few different machines, but really, let's say sequencing. From the moment the data comes off the sequencer to the moment the data creates an insight that a scientist can use for a go, no-go decision. We were just obsessed with building better tools for that whole process. And so we started with a workforce orchestrator. Then we expand into a data storage. Then we expand into downstream analysis. And then we expand into reporting, even for the C-SWIM, for the DEX, and for the reporting, and storing the metadata, and like, tracking historically the work that you had done. And so that's the way that we initially expanded. Now, it actually gets way more interesting when you start talking about the products from a customer perspective. So from a customer perspective, we really have two big verticals that we started covering. So initially, we started only with biopharma companies. And so we would sell to these biopharma. We'd be like, hey, you're currently processing things on AWS or in your local server. And you're having to schedule this communication between a scientist. And a bioinformatician. And you have these software engineers building all this infrastructure. What if we build this one platform that takes you from file all the way to insight? You can modularize it and customize it to whatever your science is. Well, not anyone, but a bioinformatician can. But we will give you this infrastructure. And they're like, oh, that's really great. We started kind of working with biopharma. Now, later on, we opened up our second vertical, which was, okay, that's what I just told you about is the biopharma companies. But there's also not just the biopharma companies, but the solution providers to the biopharma. So when you think about all this large data that we were talking about, so sequencing data, 80% of it coming from Illumina. The other 20% from Oxford Nanopore, PacBio, nowadays Element and Ultima are also kind of competing in that space. And then a few other players. But really, most of it is coming from a few sequencing solution providers. When you think about single-cell data, well, most of that is coming from 10x. And then you have Scale, Parse Bio, Fluent, CSG, Genetics, and a few others. And then when you think about spatial, you also have Akoya, Vizgen. Those are kind of the more imaging-based. And then you have the sequencing-based Curio, NX, and all these. A few solution providers. And so what was happening, what we saw happening a lot is, sure, biopharma has some of their own custom data. But most of the assays they're running, they're actually kind of looking back at those solution providers and being like, hey, you gave me the kit that generates this data. Do you also have the software to process that data into results? And these solution providers were like, no, we're molecular biology companies. We're not software companies. You figure it out. Here's a GitHub pipeline. Go install it in your server. It's like, I don't have people to install it in my server. And so you kind of saw this tension in between. And we started getting pulled from the solution providers being like, hey, can we use the latch platform to install all the tools that customers need to process our kit's data and then give it to the biopharma companies? I mean, we've always been super flexible and iterative. And we're like, yes, of course, you can do that. And we'll even white-labeled, l it for you so that they don't realize they're using latch. They'll think they're using whatever branding you want to put around it. And they're like, oh, my God, incredible. And that's kind of one of those opportunities where when people talk about market research, they're like, oh, well, if market research matters this much, then why do I need to build a great software engineering team if I'm building a software company? Why don't I just outsource my engineering to India? And it's like, there's a bit of a side tangent, but I get into it. It's like, well, because of stuff like this, no matter how much market research you do, you will not be correct on the first go. You will be like land somewhere and then have to iterate really, really fast to get to the actual high leverage wedge points. If we had had an engineering team that we have to very slowly iterate with, like, hey, can you build this feature? Can you do this? Oh, yeah, it's going to take me six weeks. It would have been very hard to also open up that vertical. But because we have a super talented engineering team that was able to just ship this white-labeled. And ship an organization feature and ship a permissioning feature within a week's timeline, then we iterated so fast that this ended up being our now over the last year, our fastest growing vertical. And so now we sell to really like a lot of solution providers, including Curio, which is one of the leaders in spatial, including Fluent Biosciences, which recently sold to Illumina. We're doing pilots with Scale 10X. We're working with Sequel. We're working with a little bit with Complete Genomics. We're working with all these solution providers, that then they sell to biopharma. And so for us, it's a much more leveraged motion. Anyway, lots of learning there, but it's the same product, just packaged in a way where the solution providers can white-labeled it and then give to their biopharma companies. And as we keep talking about latch, I'm mostly going to be actually talking about this product because it's a bit newer, but it's our fastest growing vertical by far. And it's a lot of what I think about these days as we think about how to continue expanding. 

Jon - 00:08:20: That's a great insight. Because I think, you want to like shorten the feedback loops as much as you can. And I think part of the latch solution enables the wet lab to get to quicker feedback loops. Because I give, like you said, if you're just like a thumb driving someone, some like data, that feedback loop is way, way, way longer. Because like the time it takes to get some sort of go, no go is super long. So anything we can do to just like shorten it and then just make a decision, like go with it or kill it. Like you got it. Like that's the thing. I think the life sciences, broadly speaking, is working towards like slowly, but it's like this big like aircraft carrier of a thing that just takes a little bit of time to like get everyone resituated. But I love that because like, I think people underestimate the importance of speed. Like speed is really, really important. And you even talked about it when you were just getting started. It's like these insights, there's someone else might just like try and race you up to it. Time is of the essence. And also from the wet labs, time is of the essence too, because patients need it. So like we do need to move fast. Obviously life science is a heavily regulated industry. So it's not necessarily the whole Facebook thing of like break things. Like let's try not to break things. Cause like these are people's lives on the line, but like, let's go as fast as we reasonably can within these parameters, because then you can start getting these feedback loops that just like really start to like compound on each other. And I love seeing that, that's kind of like, what you're been kind of working on. There's something beautiful about working in a specific niche, where you come to these, like insight. Like if you are more like kind of, what are they call it? An InTech horizontal? 

Alfredo - 00:09:50: Yeah.  

Jon - 00:09:50: Right. So, it's like, uh, like notion, like notions, like super horizontal. You don't really get those insight because like, the use cases are so broad. Like, you know, you have someone who's using, like, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to like, beat up Notion or anything. I love Notion. But just as a product kind of archetype, right? You're like, there's someone using it for a to-do list, like a personal to-do list. Another person's using it for like an Asana replacement. Someone is like using it for a company wiki. Someone's using it to, they made Notion somehow work like Excel. Like, right. You know what I'm saying, right? There's like so many of these use cases. And like, I can't imagine if you're trying to figure out what is the next product to build. Like, well, the users are coming back and it's like, this person's like building it, using it for this way, using it, this person's using it for that way. And there's like, you're just kind of like out of this paralysis. But if you're like, for, you know, what I'm at least hearing is like, by niching down and working really close with the stakeholders in life science, you kind of can come to these insights and you're like, ah, this is worthwhile. And we would have not have discovered it if it weren't for us working so closely. And so iteratively with the end user that there could be a world where we never got there. If we were just like doing, if your latch was like across all equipment, like equipment, that's not a life science. You could, maybe you're doing aerospace or like, you know, maybe you're doing equipment in, I don't know, oil and gas, whatever. Right. Just like equipment, broadly speaking, you kind of don't come to those insights because you're like, it is impossible to go that deep when you're like trying to do everything and boil the ocean. Like you just like straight can't do it. So I love hearing that. And, and we find that on our side too. You'd imagine, that leasing, you know, leasing is like one of the oldest business models known to man, like people have been financing and renting things since like forever, but I'm still learning things to this day, like every day, it's like learning more and more about the new- And it's because we only serve the life science community that like, we are able to craft like our product to the specific needs of a life science company. And it's still, it's just constantly evolving. We're like 15 years in. And so it's just like, for anyone out there, don't under, like, I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with doing the horizontal play. Like there's nothing wrong with that, but don't underestimate niching down. Like you would be surprised, like how deep it goes, like that rabbit hole, how deep the rabbit hole goes, because like people oftentimes like ask me, it's like, isn't leasing like a solved problem? Like, right. Like there's like a 3000 banks in the United States that finance things. Why the hell are you going on that business? Like, and for like you, I was like, like for me, my like finance peers are all bankers. That's like leasing. Like, and I'm not a banker. Like I, I, I don't have an MBA. Like I, I'm a bench scientist at heart. And it was, I had that similar to kind of energy where I was just like, I can learn this. I can figure this out. But it's again, it's just like being as close as you can to the end user as possible and getting their feedback, whether it's like, we like it or don't like it. Take that feedback and start iterating and being quick because that is when you, you get to these kinds of like pivotal kind of like, Oh, you get your fastest growing product line, whatever it may be. So that's freaking awesome. And now that you've kind of like have your, your biopharma side, your solution provider side, you sound like you're already like quite far, like in terms of galvanizing these partnerships with solution providers and biopharma, can you just talk a little bit about how you're interfacing with them differs? Like, I mean, obviously, there's a- With the solution providers, there's an actual like sales motion to this thing, but like, what is a typical engagement with Latch maybe, first on the biopharma side and then on the solution after that solution provider side? 

Alfredo - 00:14:01: Totally. I mean, it's actually not that different in a way, like it is quite different when you get into the details, but as we're starting just this topic in general, it's all going to be enterprise sales. So I, I kind of lead sales for our company. So I've gotten really deep into sales over the past year, two years, but mainly I started leading it after some changes, like not that long ago. And really, I always like to kind of mention this in conversation about sales, because I think sales gets a really bad rep. Like you probably know this too. And to be clear, I also hate kind of your typical CV character, like car salesman, kind of like suit, like nice, like suit, like slinging around these kind of like deals, like making the customer feel like, you know, like, dumb. And it's like, it's really this weird stereotype around sales where that is not really what sales is in enterprise technology. And when you look at what it actually is, good sales is about, in my opinion, two things. The first one is extremely diligent qualification. I always tell this to my team, extremely diligent qualification is your number one step. If you're going to have any amount of success, you need to qualify, you're not there to convince someone that they need something. That is what, again, TV shows of sales have made you believe. You are there to ask someone questions, to see if they have the problem that you solve. So you're there to figure out if they need a thing, not to convince them of anything. And that's the number one step that people get really wrong about sales. The number two thing that then once you do figure out that they need it, you still are not going to try and convince them that your product is the best. You're going to act as a consultant to their problem. You better be really, really knowledgeable about the space that you're selling in because if not, at least in biotech and in my experience with enterprise sales, you're not going to have any success if your customer doesn't trust you as a consultant to the thing that you are talking about. And at that point, then it becomes, okay, I know a lot about biopharma, bioinformatics. I know a lot about there's different analysis options about the different architectures. I know a lot about solution providers and what their specific needs are. And then I can act as you as a partner because, you seem to have this problem. Let's just talk about solution providers. You seem to have this problem where your salespeople are being slowed down in their kits, in their sales of new kits. Because the past kits that they sold have not been able to get analyzed yet. And so that slow down in the analysis process means that your salesperson is waiting six months instead of three to sell their next kit. Do you have that problem? If they're like, yes, we experienced that problem, whether it's their machine or their single-cell kit or their spatial kit. It's like, yes, we have that problem and we have felt it's like, okay, then we should talk. If they're like, no, actually, and I get this a lot, by the way, it's like, there's certain, kind of instruments that are really incredible to this day, but they just don't produce the type of data that is this high throughput. People are like, no, we don't really have that problem. Okay, that's awesome. Hey, here's some more info about latch if this ever becomes a problem. But meanwhile, I don't want to bore you with, you have a lot of problems, I'm sure, as we all do building companies. I don't want to bore you with like a problem we don't really solve. And so once you do that qualification and you get into the kind of consulting, then you'll be like, okay, well, what are you currently doing for your customers? And it's like, well, we are sending them a GitHub pipeline that they then need to install in their own server. Or we are giving them some software that we built in-house with one software engineer that is kind of works, but kind of doesn't. And then I'm like, oh, well, okay, where do you think that is slowing down the customer? We can start getting into the nitty details. And it's only once you approach it that way from a consulting view that you really, they're going to listen to you and trust you and tell you about their problems. And you're going to be able to approach these varying stakeholders, knowing the problems that you solve, listening. And that's the other thing, listening. Like you probably know this. I know you probably do a lot of sales yourself, but like a lot of people, like when I interview someone for a sales role and they just like walk the whole call without asking, like asking qualification calls, or I see someone in a sales call and they're just like monologuing the whole call. I'm like, that is, again, one of those kinds of TV stereotypes that is a terrible, terrible practice. Like a good sales call, the sales person is actually talking less than 40% of the time. I think that's like a stat. That's like, I usually check for that. And my, when we record these sales calls, I check for like, how much is it less than 40%? Because you're listening to their problems. You're like acting like a combination of a therapist and a consultant to this pain point that they have. And so I guess how we approach each varying stakeholder depends, but this is just something I wanted to get out there about sales that I think is a huge misconception and hopefully we can fix in the future.  

Jon - 00:19:11: Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting that you bring this up because the last conversation I had was with Michael Paliotti at MilliporeSigma. And he said that same philosophy. This is a different sale. It's a different sale. They sell consumables, but it is all about qualifying. And when we say qualifying, it's like, basically it just means, is this a fit or not? And does the problem exist? And exactly what you said that really resonates with me. It's just like, I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you for even being willing to take time with me right now. In an effort to be respectful, just here's some questions that will help us find our way here. If there is no overlap, no harm, no foul. That's totally cool. I will give you back your 15 minutes here. It's kind of that thing. And I think everyone has seen it or have gone through it when you get that pressure sale on a car lot. My wife and I were like YouTubing, like, what are these sales tactics used at a car lot? So we don't get, we don't get gone. Like basically the fact that we even had to YouTube that was just like, dang, like that, that reputation is so pervasive. And I think it's really toxic. Like, unfortunately, you know, people also don't realize when you're embarking on this startup journey, especially if you're like the early team before like departments or groups or, you know, kind of like responsibilities get more segmented, but it is all sales. Every single thing is sales. And I would even not call it sales. It's just like effective communication and finding alignment. That's like really what it is, right? Like, it's like when you are trying to bring on a rock star onto your team, like I'm going to imagine you have to sell them. Like you got to, because they're like, I got like 10 offers. Like I got Perplexity and OpenAI. Hanging on my, on my door. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, so like when you're trying to hire the best people, like you got to like, it's competitive, it gets competitive and you got to be good at this effective communication and finding alignment and also inspiring. Right. Like there's another aspect of like, I think sales too, is like, you definitely got to do the proper qualification. You definitely got to be consulting, but also like getting them inspired and like fired up to work with you. And like being a fun person is also important because if they become a customer, that means they're probably working with you. 

Alfredo - 00:21:33: Yeah.  

Jon - 00:21:33: It's commitment. It's a joint commitment. Right? 

Alfredo - 00:21:36: Yeah. 

Jon - 00:21:36: It's a commitment. And so if you're committing to anyone or anything, at least this is how I would evaluate it. It's like, is it the right solution? And is it the right people who are providing the solution? Like, if I call you up, we went all the way back to the top of our discussion. You're talking about your team preempt, like saw a problem coming and solved it before it even became a problem for your customer. Right. That's the type of person that I would want to be like, have that customer relationship with it's like, you're going to do right by me. And I think also it's just like life is short. You want to work with people that are like good people and fun to work with. Life's too short to work with assholes, frankly.  

Alfredo - 00:22:13: Honestly, that's, that's a huge one. People miss. It's just like being an enjoyable person to like be around. Uh, it's like basic, like EQ stuff. It's just like makes all of life so much easier. Uh, you still need the hard skills, but we just have being like generally enjoyable. It doesn't mean you can't be contrarian, it doesn't mean you can't be like ambitious or like to the point, just having that high EQ, just, I personally think makes, makes life much, much easier. And then you have to add the hard skills on top of that.  

Jon - 00:22:44: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That is not enough, right? It's kind of like, it's necessary, but not sufficient kind of situation, right? You're kind of just like, okay, that's like, okay, good. Check one box. Here's the other box where we have big problems like that this thing needs to solve and we need this box to be checked. And I think, you know, like I said, like sales, like for founders out there, it's like, you also have to, you know, one, internally sell internally, you got to sell new hires, you got to sell to customers and also like investors too, right? You're doing qualifying on investors too. And I'm going to imagine for you, like you mentioned at the very beginning, it was like a pretty like oversubscribed kind of like busy process. So can you like talk a little bit about, you know, I, you know, you have gone through multiple rounds of investment now. Can you just talk about what is your philosophy on like fundraising, generally speaking, and how did you pick the right people to bring onto the bus? 

Alfredo - 00:23:38: Totally. Everything is sales. I actually totally agree with that. And especially at the beginning, and then it's, it's sales and building. And what I mean by that is initially, like, I remember my co-founder, my co-founder, CTO, Kenny, he's like way more of an engineer than me. He's like, really a magical engineer, just so good with computers. He could do anything with and to a computer and really like incredible. And so for him, it was actually like even more painful than for me in the early days when we were like, Hey, we're actually not going to build anything. He was like, what he was very up for it. He's always been like, whatever it needs, whatever needs to get done. But at the end of the day, he still loves programming and building things. And so for us to be like, Hey, actually, we're just going to go have 300 conversations. He was like, Oh no, like, what is this? And he was super down with it and was one of the best people to do it because of how technical he is and how deep he can go in these conversations. And he's super willing to do it. But honestly, you can both be very good at it and be very willing to do it and still be the most painful for him to do it of like, we're not going to code a single line until we have like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, six people wanting to pay us. And so that was a very kind of painful process for him because it was all sales. It's all sales. It's just convincing people to get on the phone with you, qualifying them, hearing about their problems, and then building comes in. And I always like to tell young early stage founders or even early stage students who are thinking of working at an early stage company or even founding one, there's really only two things that matter at an early stage company. There is selling and there's building, or really the other way around, but building and selling. And if you're not building and selling, you're an expense to the company and you're probably not that important in the early days. Now, obviously as companies grow, different things develop and there's very important needs, but in the very early, like greasy days, it's building and it's selling. And so that's kind of one thing to emphasize, but obviously, yeah, the hard skills to actually build the stuff are incredibly important and you cannot do almost anything without it, depending on your business. Now, up to the qualification part, like when I say in selling, again, it is not the car salesmanship of convincing someone to work for you. It is like qualifying whether someone wants to work with you and whether you want to work with someone, whether you each have the right complimentary skill sets, qualifying the customer and whether they have the pain point that you want. And then when we get to investors, which you asked about, qualifying, hey, is this person even worthwhile talking to you? Because do they fund similar stuff? And do I like them enough where I would take their money? And do they seem to like me enough where they would kind of invest in this idea? And so in the early days, I would say my generally kind of more practical advice is the early days are very vision and team driven. People underestimate that. When you get to a certain age, past success starts being pretty good at estimating your future success. And so the early days are a lot about spray and pray in terms of investment, in my mind. You really kind of have to like go out and explore as many partnerships as possible. And also just create that word of mouth about kind of what your startup are doing, who are the people that are interested, because investors are very kind of herd driven in many ways. And they like ideas to be mildly consensus within their community of investors. And so really, it's okay to just go. I actually recommend, I mean, Paul Graham has a great article on this on how to raise money, but it's like just... Concentrating on all your investor meetings into like very little time in the early days, I think is very, very good. That's one. And just like creating that FOMO and that like traction around your fundraising round. The second tactical stuff is just when you're not doing that, do not think about investments. Don't get that dinner with that VC because like a year down the road, you might need their money. Don't like, it's not helpful. Like investors at the end of the day, care about your traction. Just go focus on your customers, go do the things, around don't cargo cult around building a company. Investors are not going to make your company. They're going to help, but they're not going to make your company. And so that's kind of the second point where it's like, don't cargo cult like the decks, the investors, the dinners, the events, they don't matter. What matters is building something that customers really, really want. And so that's the other thing. And the third thing is the team thing I've said. And so in the early days, it's all going to be around your team. And so you really have to put and highlight that at the top, like, hey, like a lot of Berkeley students I talked to on advice. I'm like, no one in your deck didn't say that you went to Berkeley. They're like, Oh yeah, well, all my peers went to Berkeley. I'm like, yeah, but within the realm of the world, that's actually something very impressive. And this internship that you did is very impressive. And so people are going to be like, Hey, you've done impressive things in the past. Hopefully that will mean that you will keep doing impressive things. And for people that haven't done that and then go out to race, and then they're surprised like, Hey, there's other company raised with the same traction as me, but they raised way more. They were able to race and we weren't. It's like, well, let me look at the track record. So the people, they seem to have way more of a track record. And that's why you see second, third time founders kind of raising way more money. It's like, if they actually did one company, probably is that they're going to raise a second company that they're going to be able to just do a second company. Now, the other thing is as it gets more later stage, it ends up being way more about relationship building for investment rounds and about traction. So like, yeah, sure. Team is important in the, in the beginning, but by the time you got to a series, a series B it's way more about, the traction that you have as a business, your revenue, your numbers, you got to know your numbers cold. By the time you're in like a series B territory, I would say kind of depends on the business, the vertical, the upfront investment, but like, you got to know your numbers. You got to be focused on your numbers. You got to know your customers. I'd say it's first and simple, all about the team. Then it's all about the customer love. And then at some point it just becomes a private equity, like Excel sheet by the time you're like series C or D. And then the relationships end up being more important. too, so it's not just about the Excel sheet, but it is, it's not going to be like, let me just race all this money in like a week funding round. It's going to be like a two week funding round. It's going to be like, Hey, I've known this guy for like two years. He really trusts me or she really trusts me. I really trust them. And so we're going to go in on this round together because we've been developing this energy and this ideas together for the, for the past year. So initially start spray and pray, really kind of focus on the team and the vision. Then like, get that customer love in the middle, kind of for the series, say people are not going to be looking that much at hard metrics. It's also going to be a lot about, can I call your customer? Are they going to say you're the best and their best product that they use? And then by the series B, C and D, you start being just a private equity kind of Excel sheet that people are going to plug in numbers to and think about, Hey, is this person my friend? So do I trust them deeply? And so that's what I would say is how I view as least the venture capital funding steps. 

Jon - 00:31:13: Interesting, interesting. And I think too, that I love the idea of just like, in the early days just like condensing, down the time of the meetings because, I think sometimes what ends up happening is like, founders starts to forget that the job is not fundraising, is a means to getting the job done, right? 

Alfredo - 00:31:13: Exactly. 

Jon - 00:31:13: Who said, kind of work on the product, like you're right, you gotta actually work on the product at some point in time and like takes a lot, it can be very very time consuming to just be constantly fundraising the whole time. So like whatever you can do to just like chunk it out and then get back to work where you can is like imperative. And I think too, like, again, the relationships matter. Like I think in 2020, 2021, for a moment, the relationships didn't matter. Like, because like sometimes you forget, like, you know, when everything's going well, you might not even be talking to your investors, but definitely when things aren't going well, you're going to have a conversation and you want to know that how that conversation is going to go as much as you can, as much as you reasonably can. So I think for anyone out there, it's like, remember the relationship in that aspect is like, what do you want that phone call to be like? Because sometimes it's like, if you pick the wrong relationship, you might not even get a pickup. 

Alfredo - 00:31:58: Right. 

Jon - 00:31:59: Right. You like, first off, it's like, will they take the call? Like, right. Because like, you know, VCs, investors, generally speaking, there's a lot of things competing for their time and portfolios are largely, or it can be. And you want to make sure that when you need help, everyone needs help eventually, that you can get the help that you need. So I think the 2020 kind of realm, I think we've kind of, it's in a more healthy place where it's just like, we're now remembering that relationships matter. And we're all humans here. And like, you know, so we kind of, you need someone, you know, and I've always thought about that too, is just like, just like your co-founder, like co-founder group, this is a 10 to 20 year investment. It is the same commitment, like on the VC side, you know, I think they might, people might have talked about it, but it's, it resembles a marriage, like it resembles a marriage, right. But you're just like, we are making a commitment to each other, but God dang, you want to make sure that whoever's on the other side is that someone that you can commit to. And again, you're going to have hard conversations too. It's not all puppies and rainbows, but like you want it to be constructive, productive, respectful, and there's got to be an underlying amount of trust to all of this. So I think that's a great way to think about it. And for those who are like on the therapeutics, fundraising kind of path, similar lessons kind of apply here. What investors want to see is how much are you de-risking this thing? Like, can we de-risk this idea as much as we can? And I think when you had that stack of like 200 pages of notes, that's a decent amount of de-risking. 

Alfredo - 00:33:27: Right. 

Jon - 00:33:27: Right. And you can do the same if you're doing a therapeutic place. What have you done to de-risk this thing? Have there been proof of concepts? Have you talked to your tech transfer office? Has the tech transfer office even said that they're good with spinning this thing out? Like, you know, is this going to be a deal killer, like for us to even try and commercialize this thing? So there's like these little things that you can do to de-risk the idea. And also just like, again, de-risking the team is the aspect of what you were talking about of where did they work before? Like, have they done this at all? That's a de-risking of the team. And then you have like the research that you just like de-risking of the product and the pain and the problem. And you can do that in every business. And then I like what you said, it starts to get into a more quantitative thing. Like as you start, you've clearly got traction is like how quickly can we, like in therapeutics, it's like how quickly can we get to the clinic? Like, is this data, like, do we have enough data, credible data that we're going to like willing to put a boat back up the truck money-wise? And actually dose someone. So it's kind of like, it's a similar thing much with like SaaS, right? It's kind of like this traction, how quickly can we get to that point? So I love those tips. And for everything I'm hearing, like this journey, like it's just like, it's kind of reminds me of your math 1A experience. It's like condensed, like just like condensed learning, like just condensed learning. So it's like, I'm going to learn this all because this is a lot of like, really, really valuable insights. But as you are looking forward 1 year, 2 years. what's in store for you and what's in store for LatchBio? 

Alfredo - 00:34:59: We are super, super excited about this solution provider vertical that I'm telling you about. And I mean, there's a lot in store, but really can be summarized around, can we build the best in class product for this? When you think about the biopharma, that's a much bigger market, obviously. But so you can build the best product around certain verticals, at least medium term. Long term, we plan to build the best cloud computing platform for all of biopharma. But short term, you need to focus on these verticals. But for solution providers, it is a small enough space where we truly believe within the next year or two, we can have the undeniably best software platform for solution providers to wide label and give to their customers. And give to their customers, which is all of biopharma. And so that is very exciting because then at that point, it starts kind of like connecting both verticals into a way where they kind of like play along with each other. We have a lot of providers that kind of work in between them to serve certain biopharmas. And so we are super excited about like the next one to two years, just focusing on just building that white-labeled platform that will really give these solution providers that next step in their journey of growing and competing on a very competitive market and allowing them to really focus on what is best for them. And so, yeah, we're just going to focus on that for the next year or two and continue to growing as fast as we can. Obviously, like we are in a venture backed growth trajectory, and that gives us certain responsibilities that we take on when we raise capital. And that is both very exciting because it's an extremely hard challenge, but it's very clear on at least output wise what we have to do, which is not super useful to tell you what inputs you have to put in. But that's kind of the whole you wake up every morning thinking about like, what are the right strategies? What are the right decisions that will lead us to that growth that will ultimately just impact these solution providers, which, in my opinion, are doing some of the coolest work in biopharma. And to be fair, they are privileged that they get to do a lot of the sexy work because it's like all the single-cell, the spatial, the sequencing, all the core state of the art technologies are kind of happening at these solution providers. And so if we can empower them to have the best software, I find that just extremely exciting. And so if in two years from now, it is very clear that kind of we. We talk again, obviously, we'll talk a lot more between. But if in two years from now we talk again and latch is seen as the clear best software data analysis platform for solution providers to give to their customers, I will feel extremely fulfilled. And the business side and the outputs and the revenue, I'm sure that will come with time as we give extreme love to these customers and we work with them to please their own customers. But just if we are able to provide the best product in that category, I will be extremely, extremely fulfilled from a business perspective. 

Jon - 00:38:00: Hell yeah. And it's crazy that the way you kind of described it is the way we think about it at Excedr too. You know, I started Excedr because I was like, I couldn't even get access to the equipment. Right. 

Alfredo - 00:38:10: Wow. 

Jon - 00:38:11: Right. Like that's the hard part. Like next-gen sequencing, NovoSeqs are not cheap. Ultimately, everyone at the bench wants to use it. Right. And we want the tool to work the best way possible and most optimally. And so from our perspective is the same thing. It's just like, how can we get the right tools, the best tools into the hands of researchers quicker? Like quicker because like I told the story a number of times, but it's just like I was the dude running up to Stanley from PMB, like up to Stanley. 

Alfredo - 00:38:42: Yeah. 

Jon - 00:38:43: Because the flow core is up there.  

Alfredo - 00:38:44: Oh, wow. 

Jon - 00:38:45: So I was running up and down with literally like a pizza box. 

Alfredo - 00:38:48: Yeah. 

Jon - 00:38:49: Running, running like 96 well plates like up there.  

Alfredo - 00:38:52: I think I know what flow core you're talking about too. 

Jon - 00:38:55: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that was the start for Excedr because it's kind of the equivalent of you seeing how people are just like, how they're handling their data, hard drives, GitHub, send an email, here's a CSV folder. All right, we're crunching it now. Like, and there's gotta be a more efficient way. So like, I think, again, kind of like a kindred spirit, I feel the exact, like, you know, they get that same, like, how do we get. The best tooling, the best analysis software into the hands of researchers so they can do their best work, which ultimately leads to improved patient outcomes. So I think that's really exciting. And really, I'm stoked to just like, I'm an observer in the stands. I'm really like, I'm rooting for you. That's like freaking awesome. One, first off, thank you for spending so much time with me, Alfredo. 

Alfredo - 00:39:36: Thank you. 

Jon - 00:39:37: Yeah, you're being incredibly generous with your time. I know you're a busy man. But in traditional closing fashion, we have two closing questions. So first is, would you like to give any shout outs to those that supported you along the way? 

Alfredo - 00:39:49: Well, before you get into shout outs, I just wanted to add one more thing to ask. I feel like I keep doing, but yeah, 100%. I think long-term, I want people to look at biopharma. Like in my version of the correct world, people look at biopharma and they are jealous. Like the ad optimization people are jealous about the data infrastructure that biopharma has for processing and creating new therapeutics. That is the world I want to live in. That is the world I want to create. That is the world we all want to create. And that is more of the 10, 20 year vision. But it just feels like the correct world to live in. And that is what we'll keep working towards. In terms of the shout outs, I think, I mean, the first one just have to go to my co-founders, Kyle Giffin, Kenny Workman. Like I couldn't have done any of this without them. And then our founding engineers, Aidan Abdulali, Max Smolin, and our founding designer, Nathan Manske. And the list really goes on. Like I am hopefully the least important person in this team. Everyone out there is just really doing God's work to make this mission possible. And so I'm just so grateful to be able to work with them. Apart from the mission, the thing that excites me the most every day is just working with them and waking up in the morning to get to figure out problems with them. And then the last one is just to my mother. I would not be anywhere without her. And so obviously that's a, that's a cheesy one, but it's a really, really real one. I just, my mother is extremely special and I am everything I am because of her. So yeah, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to her. 

Jon - 00:41:16: Not cheesy. That's real. I would feel the same way. So not cheesy at all. And looking back, if you could give any advice to your 21-year-old self, what would it be? 

Alfredo - 00:41:25: I think focus is extremely important. I think the current world pushes young people to overemphasize optionality, overemphasize edging, just overemphasize a portfolio that is safe and that is conservative. And I really think that focus and commitment and loyalty to niche ideas that make you feel like you're sacrificing a lot of other stuff outside of that has huge payoffs, not only because that is how you build hugely valuable ideas into real world concepts, but that is also because everyone else in the TikTok era is valuing this extreme optionality. And so this focus and really, really narrowing down to the core of the ideas. And if we apply this to startups, it means focusing on a niche, which everyone knows, but doesn't take seriously enough. And then not scaling the business until you truly find a niche that is pulling you. And that is really like you feel that pull from it and then you scale. And I think we've done the mistake of scaling too early before, building out too early. And we talked about that before with the EEG headsets. And so first of all, don't hedge, don't just optimize for optionality. Like, everyone else is doing that. Really commit and be loyal to whatever you want to work on, to your family, to your friends, to your girlfriend. Really, in this world of over-optionality, going all in on certain things that you love and are passionate about has huge, huge returns. And then don't Scale things before it's too early. Really focus on nailing down what are the product and the market fit, and then, after you find that scale. In many ways, we're still trying to do that. In some ways, we figured it out. But we will keep on churning until we do that. And we will keep on committed and loyal to this problem until it's solved. And that might be the next 20 years, but I'm ready for that. I'm super excited. And yeah, last thing is just thank you so much for having me, Jon. This has been an incredible conversation, I'm super excited. I'm a big fan of the pod. And so it's really a pleasure to be able to come in here and talk to you. And yeah, I really appreciate your time and so much dedication to this project that you've brought into the world. 

Jon - 00:43:46: I'm deeply flattered, deeply flattered. And I had a lot of fun. So it's my pleasure, honestly. I always have to pinch myself like, dang, I actually get to do this. I actually get to do this. It's like I'm super grateful because your passion is very clear. And every conversation gets me super fired up. It helps me. I always try to bring some of that energy with me back to Excedr. And I think I love your advice in focus, just focusing. And I think sometimes people worry. It's almost like that Munger, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett. It's about concentration, even in investing too. It's just like when you see something that has a lot of potential, and you have some conviction into it, there's a lot of value in just backing up the truck and just doubling down on it. Because those opportunities don't come about frequently. But when you see it, and you find and you feel it, it's usually a good thing to do. And two, there's a compounding Element to it as well. It's like, if you stay in a niche for a long time, and then you do it for a long time, and most people come and go, you're just going to know more. You're just going to know more about that thing, and so I think for young folks out there who are optimizing for optionality, just don't forget that put your eggs in a basket and watch that basket carefully is a very viable strategy. And especially if you're young, not to say that there are founders who are later in their career and not successful. There are clearly folks who've found their groove later. But if you're young, and you're thinking about doing the entrepreneurial journey, when you're younger, you have less to lose. A lot less to lose. So when you don't have a mortgage and a family, you can really swing for the fences. And the kind of the asymmetric outcome is like, you might actually just hit the Grand Slam or a super Grand Slam. And if it doesn't work out, you don't have the mortgage and a family that's like relying on you. So there's an element to that, that is something that I think I reflect on. It's like starting that journey early can actually be to your advantage. And again, not to say that founders who are later in their career, and who have those things are, it's not impossible by any means. I've seen it time and time again. But it's like, time is in your favor. And then those dynamics are in your favor. So Alfredo, I can keep going hours and hours and hours and hours with you. And we'll meet for a beer, we'll grab a slice of pizza. But again, thank you so much for your time. I'll talk to you again soon. 

Alfredo - 00:46:21: Yeah. Thanks so much, Jon.