Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Appearances
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Brainstorming is a bit of a warm-up. It definitely just kind of – I mean, it was fun. You were challenged to think laterally in different ways, but how many – True ideas that went on to be patents that went on to be sold ended up being invented in that room. I would say, I don't know. But did it get you thinking differently? Yeah, probably.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
The randomized control trial.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Yeah, it's very possible. You very, very possibly could be right. I know the process is sacred. So, you know, you got to trust the process to some degree. But that was my takeaway is like we talk about the most ridiculous things in there. You know, it'd be like, what if you use... you know, no gravity. What if we built an anti-gravity chamber?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And, you know, if we had a perpetual motion machine, it would, you know, it would work. So anyway, but it's all part of the process. I totally agree. And to be honest, sometimes it's just about the buy-in. You work so damn hard while you're there. You don't even realize how hard you'd be working at Biodesign. But if you remember those first like three months, we were all working until like
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
10 late at night thinking we were going from medicine to kind of an easy stretch and we'd be working all the time. We'd be doing a presentation. Remember, it would be every day we gave a pitch. Every single day you would have to update what you did and give a pitch during the identify phase. So it was so interesting going through the process.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
It was such a buy-in so much that by the end of it, you're like, well, I got to start a company. I've done so much work already. I need to take this through.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
What's your role now? Love to hear it.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
There's no doubt about it. You're definitely rebuilding the way you think. So anyway, it was a great experience, at least for me. Learned a ton from it. So got your points out of there. So tell us, after Biodesign, you started a company, well, Let's say, did you have a company coming out of biodesign through biodesign? And how did you get to Watershed, which is separate from biodesign?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So tell me, you've said this a bunch to me when we've had our conversations. You're unique in this because it's definitely kind of taking the other side of the equation. You are always looking to find ways to kill an idea or kill a company early on, right? Which most people, their bias is when you go in, you come up with an idea. You're like, this is a great idea. I'm a genius. Good Lord.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Let's rock this thing and go all the way to exit. you take the opposite tack. You love the idea, but at the same time, you're like, you've got to learn to stand on your own idea and you make sure that it stands the test of time before you actually put a ton of work into it. So talk about that just a little bit, because I think it is a bit of, it's counterintuitive.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
You're so positive. I love this.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Sweet. Are you practicing now? Any surgery, any medicine at all? Or is this is this full time CEO? I attempted to wear all of the hats for a while, but had to hang up my scalpel about a year and a half ago. All right, cool. So let's go to the early days for just a few minutes. So people get an idea of kind of your medical career and how you got into entrepreneurship.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So, you know, that's an example of a really easy one. I think it's really also just wrapping your head. I guess I'm going to go pun intended here, wrapping your head around this counterintuitive thought, which is when most people think of an idea, they become wedded to it, which is another bias that I've seen as a founder. You kind of have to be wedded to your idea.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
You don't want to think that your baby's ugly. And so that, because it takes that energy just to move through the whole process, you better love what you're doing or it's never going to work. So it is a bit, you have to pull yourself out of your current line of thinking to explore how are you going to kill it, right? And that's, it is very counterintuitive, but oh my gosh, if people just took...
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
a week, right? Or less even of just being like, you know, if this were not going to work, how is it not going to work? Like you said, put yourself in a investor's shoes because usually an investor, they're not going to give you 10 reasons why they think it won't work. An investor will tell you one or two and that's it. And those are generally all you need to really make a decision, right?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And if they did that and just You know, for a short period of time, I think a lot of people could focus on the right things, which I guess is probably what you guys are working on in your book, right?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So start off, how'd you choose general surgery? And then how did you get into entrepreneurship after that? Or during that, I guess I should say.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Yeah. Given if I just give this to you, like let's say it works perfectly. Is there really a there there? Is there really a market? What have you what are you not seeing in terms of risks of payers or reimbursement or the trend in the in the technology in the field?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Now what? Great. It really makes you move up to the next higher plane of value building. And that was always, you know, it was a Jay Watkins, right? Who came in to talk to us about value.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Jay Watkins was the, uh, med tech incarnation of Frank Abagnale. Sell me this pen. Yeah. You mean Wolf of wall street. Sell me this pen. Yeah, I guess I do. Yeah. Yeah. Same actor, but yeah, totally. That's exactly what it was. He was so good at that. All right. Sweet. And then, so you went through biodesign, you killed the biodesign actually originated company and you're looking for a new one.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Tell me, tell me how that came about and you met your, your co-founder clay, correct?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
You guys had been brainstorming for a while. He was already working on another company. He has this idea. You try to kill it. He likes your surgical expertise, biodesign, etc. You're looking for that opportunity. How did you guys decide to how did you structure it? So that you would come in and start working on this. Was he going to be CEO? Were you going to be CEO?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I could not agree more. It was the same thing for me. And that's weird to say. When I got into radiology, I was like, these are my people. Never would I ever have, like, I don't even know what that means, but it was true. You kind of just know. But if you had asked me in med school, if somebody, my best friend at the time told me, he's like, yeah, you seem like a radiologist.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
How did the team form and what issues did you run into?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
When you say the best way to structure it, that was the best way, what did you mean exactly?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
I was like, what is wrong with you? You know, like, that's like an insult, you know? But it's totally true. When you go hang out with the folks who do radiology, I was like, yep, you're my people. So-
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
That's great. Okay. So you decided to put this structure together for the company. You've got a basic idea. Where do you go next?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Yeah, what are these experiments? Are you injecting stuff? Yeah, these are stupid little things like... A Ziploc baggie or something?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Six point something. Great. And then so what I see is kind of this, you know, it's a cascade, as you said, you piece the story together early on, you de-risk the biggest risks and then you just start knocking them down and then you build momentum. What were some hinge points, some pivot points that you guys went through?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Basically, where things didn't go as planned or maybe they did, but in a different way. And what were those? Maybe pick out one of those and take us through that.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Yeah, it's just she met you, right? She's like, you're a general surgeon? Oh, no. Yeah, totally. Okay, cool. So when did you start? When did you know, I guess, you know, or when did you get involved with entrepreneurship and basically improving things in healthcare, right? That's generally where most people start. They're like, there is a problem and I must fix it, right?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Okay, so where are you guys now? You started with pig bladders or cow bladders, and now where are you?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And when you say bladder disease, what market are you guys going after? And how did you choose that?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Are you guys raising funds right now by chance?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Awesome. Well, all right. I'd love to ask you, you're an author as well. Give us a little intro on the book and I'd love to bring you back and go and do a deep dive, but I'd love to just get a taste here on what that book's about.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Awesome. All right. I want to wrap up with one very important question, okay? Probably the most important question of the interview. And that is, what's Halloween look like this year in the Kinsella household?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And then I...
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So I never know what she's going to suggest. So the horse you can reuse, but Ninja, do you do homemade stuff or is it a lot of like store trips? Are you doing store bought costumes or are you still using your homemade skills?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
I love it. I love that. Are you going as anything this year? Do you trick or treat as well or are you just Topher? I have some very large dinosaur heads that I've made in the past. I tend to put one of those on and walk around. Love it. Awesome. Well, Topher, that is a great place to end. Thank you so much.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
I think we're definitely I'm going to we're going to bring you back and talk more about Hidden Wombat. I want to dig into that. But with this, I think it was such a great intro hearing about Watershed and what you guys are doing, your thoughts on biodesign. So, all right, let me let me run through my summary really fast.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And then if I say something that you think needs an addendum, please just interrupt me and we'll go from there. Okay. Alright, so number one, solve problems you can't buy your way out of. I like that a lot. It means if you would pay to solve that problem, but you can't, there's an opportunity there.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Surgical simulator for you for carotid endarterectomy was that first kind of light bulb moment that you couldn't buy it. Next, have a bias to action. I think I'm putting this one out here because that's what I see what you did. You called the CEO and you're like, hey, you need a surgical simulator. Not everybody would do that.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And I think a lot of successful entrepreneurs, they have a bias to action. We learned that at Biodesign, right? Josh Macauer would always talk about that. Just pick up the phone and do it. Don't wait. And you contacted the CEO and you got the ball rolling. He asked you if you could build it and you said, sure, yep, totally.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And you weren't sure you could do that, but you leaned into it, so to speak. And I think taking that risk has made a big difference. Walk the plank. This is just me putting words in. You went into debt 60K, then broke even in six months. I'm not advocating for people to do anything like that. What I am saying that taking risk gives you buy-in that will help see you through when times get tough.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So, you know, we both took a year off of clinical medicine to do biodesign. That's a big risk. Not a lot of people would do that. But what it did was show me that, and probably you, that you can take risks and you'll be okay. And you might find something at the end of that rainbow that you like even more than what you're doing at that time.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
So kind of put yourself in some calculated risky situations because sometimes it can be a great motivator. So what biodesign will teach you? A couple of things you said. If you have an unmet market where they can't buy your way out, right? That's the number one thing you said. You'll be successful if you solve it. And then next, inventing is the easy part.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Really, once you've identified your market, you've honed in, you've put your constraints around what the solution kind of has to do and in what way, shape and form and cost, oftentimes the solution will jump out at you. So if it's not jumping out at you, you probably don't understand your clinical need as well as you thought. Find your key risk early on and stress test your ideas. Try to kill it.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Think like an investor. If you were acting as an investor and somebody brought you this idea, don't try to be right. Which risks are you as an investor willing to pay for and which one are you not? I like that. fall in love with the need and the unmet market, not the technology. You should be able to, you should be willing to throw away your invention. It shouldn't matter.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
You should be able to replace it with something else if it solves the need better. As you said in biodesign, assume invention, assume it works perfectly, right? And at that point, what's next? You know, does the market really absorb what you, what you built, what you solved for, or does it not? And that honestly is a level up understanding of device development.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Next, a company not formed on a solid basis doomed immediately. You said Peter Thiel, right? Team is really, really important. Getting in on solid footing at the beginning is critical. Splitting equity equally is rarely the right idea. Equity is earned, not owed.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Dividing it up into chunks of work that needs to be done, not work that has been done, work that needs to be done, and then divvying it out in that way is often very reasonable. Piece the story together early on. So when you're first doing it, you solve one problem at a time. I bring this up, I swear, every third podcast. I think of The Martian, right? You know that movie, Topher.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Think of the Martian. I think of Matt Damon at the end when he's like, you solve one problem and then you solve another and then you solve another. And if you solve enough problems in a row, you get to come home. And in this case, if you solve enough problems in a row, whether it's market tech, team, whatever, reimbursement, any, all of it, then you get to get your product to market. right?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
You get to see it affecting multiple patients in a positive way. And I think having a big vision is important, but always keep your gaze directed towards the next problem. I'm out. What do you got? Anything else you would add to that? I think those are fantastic.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Okay. I think that's actually a very interesting way of putting it. I think a lot of investors probably think that way as well. That's great. Awesome. Topher, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm definitely going to have you back and chat a little bit more. But with that, awesome chatting with you and really appreciate it. See you, Brian.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Social media and PR by Chi Ding. Administrative support provided by Judy De La Cruz.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And is this like a mannequin? I mean, we say trainer. Describe to me what you're talking about.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
It was good enough to take people through the surgery. So you built this thing and you practiced on it. And when did you find out like, hey, maybe other people would want to use this and could you sell them?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
This is Brian Hartley, who's the host this week. I'm a radiologist living in Nashville and co-founder of an early stage device company in the imaging space. I'm very excited to introduce our next guest on the show, Dr. Chris Kinsella, a.k.a. Topher. Topher is an author, general surgeon, and entrepreneur.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And that ended up becoming my first company. Awesome. So hold on. So did you have this company with this guy or with the CEO? Or are you like, this is that, you know, I'm now going to sell this. It's like, how did that work out?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
That is awesome. I love that. And then at this point, is this when you decided to go to Stanford to do the biodesign program? Because you wanted to take it to the next level or what?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
His early days of entrepreneurship were centered around developing lifelike simulation dolls for medical training. He's now the CEO of an early stage drug device combo blattery drug delivery platform, it's a mouthful, called Watershed Therapeutics that has some exciting early results. He's also an author of Hidden Wombat, which he will elaborate on, I really hope.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And that's what led me to Stanford. Awesome. At Biodesign, what do you think, you know, within five minutes, a couple minutes, can you just say what were the takeaways from Biodesign that you think other folks should know? I know we've had an episode we had Todd Brinton on. We've talked about Biodesign before, but just in your mind, what do you think Biodesign did that was super helpful?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
The most important thing you learn at Stanford.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Yeah, I couldn't agree more in the sense that you know that if you understand the problem well enough, the solution almost jumps out at you. You know, you're almost like this is, there's only really one or, as you said, one or two ways to solve it. And I couldn't agree more. Really, how many times, and let's talk about this.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
How many times did we go into those brainstorming rooms during the invention phase? So for those listening, there's three phases. There is identify the clinical need. That to me is the most important part by far is identifying the need, vetting it, do the math, mark it, all of it.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
And then there's inventing where you go into caffeine and candy fuel, you know, hazy and, you know, brainstorming with hundreds of ideas and all that. And then there's implementing. So that inventing to me, how many times did we go into that room and just throw out random the most? What did we talk about? What would you always say?
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Like whenever you said lasers or magnets, you knew you were kind of like you've reached the end of your road. But how many good ideas actually came from that brainstorming? I'm just kind of, this is my kind of idea that I just say the brainstorming part is almost kind of self-serving a little bit because I didn't notice many good ideas at all come out of those brainstorming works.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
Maybe you think differently, but that's what I thought. I thought generally the idea popped when you understood the market and you had insight, it was obvious you didn't need a brainstorming. I think about the brainstorming now as stretching.
BackTable Urology
Ep. 196 Biodesign Insights: Embracing Risk and Innovation with Dr. Christopher Kinsella
He's also an expert on building custom Halloween costumes, so I can't wait to hear what's in store this year. Finally, he's a great friend of mine, which in my humble opinion is his biggest claim to fame. With that, Topher, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Brian. Awesome. So great to have you. Always like to start out. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of background.