Avoiding and Overcoming the Biggest Pitfalls When Bringing a New Healthcare Idea to Market with Roxie Mooney, CEO and Health Care Commercialization Strategist of Legacy DNA: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Avoiding and Overcoming the Biggest Pitfalls When Bringing a New Healthcare Idea to Market with Roxie Mooney, CEO and Health Care Commercialization Strategist of Legacy DNA: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Saul Marquez:
Hey everyone, Saul Marquez here. Have you launched your podcast already and discovered what a pain it could be to keep up with editing, production, show notes, transcripts and operations? What if you could turn over the keys to your podcast busywork while you do the fun stuff like expanding your network and taking the industry stage? Let us edit your first episode for free so you can experience the freedom. Visit smoothpodcasting.com to learn more. That’s smoothpodcasting.com to learn more.

Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket everyone, Saul Marquez here. Today, I have the privilege of hosting Dr. Roxie Mooney. She helps health tech innovators uncover their most profitable and viable market strategies from early adoption strategies to pivoting. She transformed 20 years of business practice, seven years of researching over five hundred plus peer-reviewed articles, and one hundred and sixty plus interviews with health innovators into a repeatable method to go from an idea to full-scale adoption. She advises startups and emerging health care brands and has been involved in three successful exits. She currently serves as the CEO and Health Care Commercialization Strategist of Legacy DNA. She’s also the international best-selling author of How Health Innovators Maximize Market Success: Strategies to Launch and Commercialize Health Care Innovations, as well as a host of the podcast and video show, Health Innovators. In addition to her strategist role, Dr. Roxie is a sought out speaker and educator. She’s spoken at HIMMS and the Connected Health Conference and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Jack Welch Management Institute and an adjunct professor of Gender, Leadership and Coaching and a consultant at the Palm Beach Atlantic University. She’s also a board member of One Purse, a non-profit organization committed to restoring the lives and dreams of sex trafficking survivors. With a DBA, a doctorate in business from Walden University, she’s got a ton of phenomenal insights she’s going to share today. And with that, Dr. Roxie, really privileged to have you here on the podcast today.

Roxie Mooney:
Thank you so much for having me here. Glad to be here.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, absolutely. I love the work that you do, your focus on business and helping innovators find that success, those levers for success for their companies. It’s so important and so many people struggle. They have this passion and they want to do something in this space and they struggle. So we’re going to dive into a lot of the cool things that you’re doing, Dr. Roxie. But before we do, I’d love to just park on you for a second and tell us a little bit about you and what inspires your work.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah, so how I got here and what gets me up in the morning. So many years ago, I decided to go back to school and get my doctorate in business and they ask you, what is the business problem that you want to be married to for the next five to seven years of your life because you’re going to be eating, sleeping and drinking with this thing. And they weren’t kidding because I was. And what I found so fascinating is that through my experience in working in health care, I’d worked with a number of health care startups. So I was able to see that we were on this explosion of innovation that was happening. And this is kind of like, let’s say, the early mid 2000s. But I come across this alarming statistic that over 95 percent of innovations that are brought to market fail to reach any adequate level of customer adoption or financial ROI. And honestly, that just really struck me because I thought how in the world are we going to really fix the health care system if majority of the innovations that these brilliant entrepreneurs are bringing to the market aren’t going to get into the hands of the people that need them the most? And so that really kind of keeps me up at night, quite frankly, because, you know, we’re not talking about innovations in other industries where it kind of really doesn’t matter if we get the next iPhone 12 or 13 or whatever the next one is going to be, or even iPods, you know, any of that stuff. It’s personal, it’s health care. And it really could be our friends, our families or even ourselves, our lives that are at stake, our quality of life. And God forbid, we don’t have access to that just because an innovator in health care did not have the commercialization expertise to build a viable business. So that’s why I do what I do every day.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. Yeah, know. And you spent all these years dedicated to the cause. You got done with your doctorate and you’re still in the game. The passion is palpable. And for everybody listening, we we all know that the road of entrepreneurship within health care is bumpy.

Saul Marquez:
And so it’s critical to have somebody that’s focused on health care, like Dr. Roxxy here on your side, somebody that you could learn from, somebody that that could help you uncover those pitfalls and opportunities. So talk to us a little bit about how you add value to health care companies, Dr. Roxxy.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah, so great question. I would say that research shows that the number one reason why innovators fail is that there’s no market need for the solution that they want to bring to market. And the number one reason why innovators succeed is because they’ve achieved product market fit. And so we’ve really focused on strategy products that are geared towards helping people avoid failure and maximize their potential for success. And that can be done in a number of different ways, helping innovators validate demand or that customers are willing to pay for their solution, and these things are, you know, they may seem really obvious, but when you’re the innovator and you’re so passionate about solving a particular problem, it’s really easy to get blindsided by our own biases and assume that there’s a market need because it’s so obvious to you. And maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. But really being able to validate that early on in the process can save folks millions and millions of dollars, some of them their personal 401K, their kid’s college tuition. So being able to do that work upfront is really important. And just because you have something that maybe even solves a problem doesn’t mean that people in health care are going to be willing to pay for it or the right people in health care will be willing to pay for it. So so that’s really important, helping people secure their pilot customer or their first paying customer. We’ve got strategic frameworks that are geared towards each one of these milestones in the innovation process.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. Yeah. And if you build it, they won’t necessarily come.

Roxie Mooney:
Ninety-five percent of the people out there believe that they would and they get stuck in those pitfalls and those obstacles. And so we’re here to help them circumvent those.

Saul Marquez:
I love that and I’m guilty of it. You know, I built several things and the customers didn’t come. And, you know, you learn and hopefully, you could listen to this podcast and not have to make that mistake. You know, it’s easier said than done. But I hope that you listen to this and you say, you know what, I’ve got a lot of blind spots. There’s something I could do here, potentially value that could be added to me and my company and the people that need me on my A-game. Yeah. So what would you say makes you different and better than what’s out there today?

Roxie Mooney:
So I would say that there are tons of resources out there for entrepreneurship that aren’t health care focused. And we know that health care is a different animal. And we’re not just saying that. There’s so many regulatory and reimbursement hurdles and just having a multisided market makes it really complex. So being focused on health care for so long is really valuable. But I also think that no one else in this country that I’m aware of, probably even around the world, has a doctorate in Commercializing Technology Innovation in health care. So for me, when I came across that statistic, it made a decision that I was going to dedicate the rest of my career to this single business problem. So when we think about business strategies, you hear companies being focused maybe on different vertical markets or maybe even horizontal positioning where they’re focused on specific services. Very rarely do you have someone so granularly focused that they are singularly focused or laser-focused on solving a specific business problem. And so I think that that makes us really unique because we are so focused.

Roxie Mooney:
We see all of the patterns for the clients that we work with and the folks that I have on my video and podcast show. And you just see data and you see patterns much differently, and then you leverage that to be able to into these systematized, repeatable frameworks that then can help people in a really unique way. The other thing that I will say is that not too many people have an early adoption strategy. And research shows that the only way that you can be successful with the mainstream market is to be successful with the early adoption market. And most people look at that as a homogeneous group. They might segment based upon payors, providers, patients, but they don’t go deeper into that, into creating a specific strategy for the early adopters and winning those folks over and then leveraging those early adopters to help cross the chasm and then kind of start penetrating the mainstream market. So that strategic lens is something that I think is also really rare in the market and can make a big difference between success and failure.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, I always enjoy speaking to people that are awesome and what they do. And oftentimes it’s that focus that drives excellence. And you’ve mentioned a couple of things that resonate with me a lot, specifically identifying those niche entry areas, understanding the continuum from early adopter to crossing the chasm to that mass adoption. And so having a thought partner is critical, having a thought partner that understands the business of health care is priceless, right? So everybody listening today, I mean, the work that Dr. Roxie’s up to is right up your alley. I’d invite you to consider checking her out. She’s got a ton of podcast interviews. So you’re listening to this podcast because you love health care podcasts and the Outcomes Rocket. I encourage you to check out the Health Innovators show. That’s Dr. Roxie’s show Legacy-DNA.com. You’ll find it there. But just type in type in legacy DNA into the search bar of Outcomes Rocket and we’ll leave a link there for you to check her out, subscribe, because she’s got some really, really neat shows out there that you should listen to. And so as you think about some of the ways that you’ve improved outcomes for some of the business leaders, you helped Dr. Roxxy, give us an example. I love to hear an example. And you could anonymize or make up a different name, but I’d love to hear one of those from you.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah. So just kind of going back to the show for a second here, I think that that is one of the things that we do to contribute in a really big way, being able to give folks like you, like you’re doing here, a platform to be able to share their story. It’s so empowering and it’s so important. Years ago, when I was kind of scanning the landscape, I was seeing that there were a lot of shows out there that were talking about tech because it’s sexy So they’re talking about A.I. in virtual reality and Bitcoin and all of these wonderful things. But really, no one was having the conversation about the business strategy, about the commercialization strategy and how you were going to be successful in bringing those wonderful technologies to market. So if, you know, dialing into the show and listening to some of those episodes, it’s just priceless to hear your peers and the strategies and tactics that they’ve deployed that have helped them be successful. And I try to create a safe space for people to feel really comfortable and being candid about the arduous journey that the reality of what it’s like. And so I think that’s really inspiring for folks too to be able to say, you know what, I’m not the only one that’s struggling here. Maybe nothing’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s just hard. And I just need to keep pressing in to what I’m doing. And so I kind of think of those as sharing insights and encouragement in that being a real powerful vehicle on how we’re helping the industry.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, I love it. I totally agree with you. I think it’s phenomenal to really hear the stories of all the people that are going through the things that we’re all going through. And there’s an opportunity for us to learn. Just if you walk away with every single interview, just with one thing, I mean, you’re that much better and you’ve got quite a bit of content out there. So kudos for you and the dedication to this resource that you’ve put together.

Roxie Mooney:
Thank you. I love it. It’s kind of one of my favorite parts of the week is just to meet new people, just like you’re doing here. Right. And having those conversations and hearing people’s journey, especially when they’re really transparent and vulnerable about what it’s like to be out there in the wild, wild west of health care innovation.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. So back to the question around give us an example. You know, we’d love to hear how you’re helping entrepreneurs. Oftentimes, the end of one tends to be the most powerful story. So I’d love to hear an example of that.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah. So one example that comes to mind and there are so many but one of them that comes to mind that I really see commonly is a physician innovator who has worked in a health care system for a number of years and of course is able to identify problems everywhere. And they decide that they’re going to embark upon this journey of entrepreneurship and solve the problems that they themselves have been facing and feel really strongly that their colleagues have been facing as well. And so it’s just kind of a no-brainer business for them to get into. And some of them this one particular one I’m going to talk about is someone that’s still a full-time physician. So they’re doing the business on the side and pouring their heart and soul into building the solution. And unfortunately, they have been building the product for four years now without any strategy, without any consideration for demand or an ROI. And it’s kind of turned into a hobby. And so one of the ways that we’ve helped them is to be able to have a very candid conversation about, listen, you need to really ask yourself, is this a hobby or is this a business? Because those are two different things. What are we doing here and how much money do you want to continue to pour into this labor of love? And as we kind of look under the hood, we’re able to see that there ten or more products that have been kind of all rolled into one, but now it’s just going to take us time to unwind that and figure out which of those features and functionality are most viable and the highest priority to go to market with now. And so just being able to stop the bleeding, if you will, from that just continuous product development and really being, like I said, transparent and candid about these biases that we were talking about earlier and trying to help them get out of their own way.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s a great example. And it happens all too often. And it’s important. If you’re on the stage, you know, if you’re listening to this and you’re in that stage right now, that development stage and you still don’t know your product-market fit, definitely something to consider legacy DNA for. By the way. Tell me about the name Legacy DNA.

Roxie Mooney:
Yes. So, you know, this is kind of one of those you know, I came up with this name because I was really passionate about it. Legacy is something that’s really important to me, really. Even early on in my career, I was already thinking about legacy and what kind of legacy I was going to leave behind my mark on the world, but probably even more importantly, our clients. So if we’re working with businesses, business leaders in health care and helping them fulfill their dreams and help them leave their legacies and how they might change the world with whatever they’re bringing to market. So legacy was just kind of a no-brainer to fit into the equation there. And then DNA early on when I started the company, we were focused on being a health care marketing agency and digging into the DNA of the target customers and digging into the DNA of the company and being able to bridge the gap to help them with their brand story was something that was unique and different 10, 11 years ago. And so that was really important. Quite candidly, that makes it the company name all about me and my passions and my story instead of my target audience, which is not what I preach. I’m always telling our clients it’s not about you. You shouldn’t be the hero of the story. Your customers need to be the hero of the story. And so it’s interesting because I still really love the name and I’m not planning on changing it after 10 years. But if I had to do it all over again, I’d come up with another name that was more tuned in to the value and the benefit that we had to offer our target audience. So they wouldn’t even have to ask, what’s the story behind that name? What the heck does that mean?

Saul Marquez:
Oh, that’s cool. I hear you. And you know what? It’s a great point. And I appreciate your willingness to say that we all make mistakes. And, you know, the great part about it, Doctor, actually, is that you owned it. You didn’t dwell on it. You focused on making the company valuable, you know, and you just marched on with success. So.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah, yeah. And then lesson learned. Not going to do that again. And that’s the key. Right. So you don’t want to just continue making the same mistake over and over. That’s just kind of insanity. Right. But if we those mistakes can be really valuable. If we actually learn from it and we take it with us into our future decision-making.

Saul Marquez:
Without a doubt. And, you know, there is a lesson in place by you keeping the name. You know, you can tell that story and say, hey, don’t do what I did.

Roxie Mooney:
Here’s an example of what not to do. I’ve got a roster of those I could make and don’t make a whole series about that.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. Now, on that topic, yeah, we learn more from our setbacks than our successes. Tell us about one of yours and a key learning that came out of that.

Roxie Mooney:
Yeah, so this is really interesting, Right. where we talk about all of these things that are just so much easier to teach and preach and so much more difficult to practice. So not that long ago, I was developing a new strategic product and felt like I was acutely aware of what the target market was encountering and knew what the problem was, and knew what I needed to create to help them solve it. And so within about three weeks, I had several team members. We kind of just like dove into the the the darkroom there, if you will, and just innovated the strategy products, brought them to market and it’s crickets, crickets. Now, the irony here is what I was developing was this co-creation framework that I help innovators co-create with their target customers.

Roxie Mooney:
But I did not co-create. Is that not that the funniest thing? And it took an outside business coach to say, you know, did you actually talk to your customers and have them co-create this co-creation framework with you? No. Why would I do that? And so we think about lessons learned. You know, sometimes we really do need to learn them multiple times before we really learn. But for years now, I have been speaking around the country around co-creation and advocating for getting your stakeholders, your target customers involved in the product development process early and often, not being an afterthought, not building something, and then going, hey, what do you think? Don’t you like it? But way before you even make that investment, you’re involving them in. So this is kind of going beyond a little bit earlier than even the design thinking philosophy that we might be familiar with. And there I was creating the co-creation strategy product and not creating.

Saul Marquez:
Unilaterally. Well, I think that it’s like you said, ironic. But nevertheless, you know, you had the smarts to say, all right, there’s something I’m not seeing here. And you went to a business coach to help you. And that’s where the kudos goes for you to have been able to say this didn’t work. Let me take a step back. How did you feel when you made that epiphany? Like, what does that feel like?

Roxie Mooney:
Ok, so what the business coach told me to do, he said, OK, after we had our little session there, he said, just take about 30 minutes and download, like just type up everything that you’re thinking and feeling right now. And I said, OK, and I you know, I’m kind of like a dear diary and I’m so I’m just kind of processing like, well, why didn’t I cocreator and what am I thinking and feeling about all of this? And what came out of that was all of the mental obstacles, barriers that I was thinking of, like, well, it’s going to take too long and I just want to do it now? And I mean, every day it was like I was crawling into the skin of my target audience. Right. Because when I talk to health innovators and I’m telling them that they need to create, they’re like, wait, why? No, no, no, no, no. I like I want to go to market like in 30 days or 90 days or whatever that looks like. And that just sounds like a really long process. And for years now, I’ve been like, no, you need to do it. And here’s why. Advocating for this. And so then doing that download it was that reflection was extremely powerful for me to be able to get closer to our target audience. And then kind of after I had my tantrum, I did like, OK, twenty-four hours later, OK, here’s why it makes sense. And that was just just really incredibly powerful.

Saul Marquez:
Wow. Like you stepped into the shoes in a big way. Yeah. Yeah. It’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, good for you and folks you know, as you listen to this awesome interview, you’d think to yourself, are you co creating and what opportunities are you missing by doing it? Maybe not not the best way that you can’t or by not doing it at all. Something to think about. You know, I was going to ask you something. I was going to ask you on your website. You have this a CO IQ test. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what it’s for? What does the acronym stand for?

Roxie Mooney:
Yep. So this is another one of those things where it was kind of all about me, Right. CO IQ. So the conceptual framework that I used in my doctorate work was commercialisation of innovation. I didn’t make that up. That’s the thing. It exists. You can Google it. And so I use the COI framework. And so as I started doing my work after I graduated and kind of thinking about like, how am I going to be able to serve the community with all of my new game knowledge, I thought I wanted to be able to elevate everyone’s understanding and intelligence, if you will, around these specific phenomenons or concepts that I had studied and these pitfalls and then what could be meaningful for success. And so just kind of melded these two ideas together of CO IQ. And then I thought, OK, let me come up with this free tool that health innovators could take to really be able to kind of get an assessment of where are they in their knowledge. And I think what I’ve seen over the last couple of years is that when a health innovator takes this assessment, if they score a roughly an 80 or above, they’re usually on a trajectory for success. If their score is below that or way below that, that usually tells me that there is a pretty significant knowledge gap between the strategies and tactics that they’re currently deploying and where they need to be in order to be successful and so it’s free, anyone can take it on the website, it takes maybe about twenty minutes to do. And so even if you never work with us and you never do anything with it, you will get a customized report that will tell you here’s some gaps or areas that you could improve upon and some things that you can do to help increase your chances of success and maybe increase, not just to increase your score Right., although that would happen, but to increase your chances of success. Very little Right. everything’s about moving the needle. How do we help more people be part of the five percent that succeeds?

Saul Marquez:
That’s fantastic. I’m glad I asked. And folks, again, we’ll have a link to Legacy DNA’s website, go to OutcomesRocket. Health, legacy DNA in the search bar boom. It’ll get you straight to our interview with Dr. Roxie. We’ll have all the links that we’ve discussed today, including a transcript and the entire show notes. So fantastic. I have enjoyed this very much. Oh, what are you most excited about today?

Roxie Mooney:
Hmm? Well, as we roll into the new year 2021. Yeah, I am extremely excited about the accelerated adoption of digital health. Health care is something that almost every human being is talking about instead of just the people that are in the industry. Right. So there’s a silver lining there. And I think that we are we still have a lot a long way to go, but we are breaking down barriers, regulatory barriers and reimbursement barriers more quickly, more successfully than we would have prior to 20, 20. And so that’s exciting to see us be able to start making some more inroads, to be able to really help solve these problems that in health care that we’ve all been facing and dealing with for so long and helping these innovators become more successful.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, I agree. You know, health care has become that center point. The adoption is a lot quicker, you know, and I’m excited about that. And it is it does create hope. Yeah, I’m with you there. I’m with you there in a big way. And obviously, if you’re listening to this, you also have the belief that there’s the need for a better tomorrow and health care. And if you want to have some help, obviously, Dr. Roxie is here for you. And obviously, you keep tuning into the podcasts. You get a lot out of this, take advantage of the people we actually have on here. On that note, what would you say is the best place for people to reach out to you? And the last thing would be give us a closing thought.

Roxie Mooney:
So the best way I think to get a hold of me is to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’d love for your listeners and your audience to connect with me there. I’m really active pushing out content like it’s my job as it is. So there are lots of resources, assets that we’re giving away there. So it would be a great place to connect. And my closing thoughts are, is just to remind everyone that there’s someone or someone on the other side of their innovation. So keep pressing on and keep pressing in because we need you to stay the course so that we can together link arms and really transform the health care industry in a mighty and powerful way. And we’ll only be able to do that together.

Saul Marquez:
I love that, Dr. Roxie. Stay with it. Everyone stay with it. This is going to be a phenomenal year for health care. And Dr. Roxxy, thank you. This has been great.

Roxie Mooney:
It’s been great. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me today.

Saul Marquez:
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