HTM On The Line with BRYANT HAWKINS SR.
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HTM On The Line with BRYANT HAWKINS SR.
From Clinics To Dental Repair: Uptime Health’s Game-Changing Approach
Curious about the journey from biomedical engineering to successful entrepreneurship? Our guest Jinesh Patel, a Texas A&M University alumnus, shares his inspiring story of Co-founding UptimeHealth in 2018. Discover how he educated venture capital investors on the critical importance of biomed technicians, securing essential support to revolutionize equipment management with innovative software solutions. This episode is a must listen.
Don't miss out on the upcoming Dental Fix/Uptime Services Summit in Nashville from October 3rd to 6th—an essential event for anyone in the dental repair and HTM industry. Register now and use discount code BRYANT5 to get a 5% discount. Click the link to secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/e9UMHgFF
We are immensely grateful to our partners— College of Biomedical Equipment Technology, A.M. BICKFORD, INC., UptimeServices, PM BIOMEDICAL and Talent Exclusive—for their support in making this podcast possible. Their dedication to advancing the Healthcare Technology Management industry is truly commendable. For more information about their contributions and services, please visit their websites.
Welcome back to another exciting episode of HTM On the Line, where we explore the world of healthcare technology management and the innovators shaping the future. I'm your host, bryant Hawkins Sr, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with someone who's not just a visionary but a true problem solver in the HTM industry Janesh Patel, the co-founder of Uptime Health. From leading a rapidly growing company to revolutionizing how outpatient care and dental practices manage their equipment, janesh's journey is filled with lessons of persistence, innovation and a relentless commitment to making a difference. Whether you're an HTM professional, an entrepreneur or someone passionate about the future of healthcare, this episode is for you. So get ready to be inspired as we unpack the story behind Uptown Health, its impact on the industry and the exciting Dental Summit coming this October. Welcome to another episode of HTM On the Line. I have the privilege of having a special guest today, mr Janesh Patel from Uptime Health. How are you doing today, janesh?
Speaker 2:Pretty good. Brian, Appreciate you having me on. I like listening to what you have to say about the HTM industry and looking forward to contributing here.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, appreciate you. So before we get started, we got to ask the generic question Tell everyone about you, give us a little background about you.
Speaker 2:Let's see, I'm nothing special. I grew up in Texas. I grew up in Houston, texas, and I went to Texas A&M for my undergrad and grad degrees in biomedical engineering. After that got my MBA from A&M as well and then went into clinical engineering management and I went to the Seton Healthcare System and I was part of the Trimedics family and I see that you're with them right now too so I managed that system, was their manager, did that for a little bit.
Speaker 2:After a little while, one of my best friends came and asked me if I wanted to build a company with him and I left that industry for a little bit of time to go build a company in a different space and we'll get into that in a little bit if we need to. And then I found my way back to biomed because once I learned how to build a company, there were some problems and some interesting things I wanted to help solve in the HTM industry and I wanted to use all the skills I learned on how to build a company and do it for the industry that we both love, and so I created Uptime Health. That was back in 2018. Today we're a rapidly growing company that serves the outpatient healthcare market and that's anyone like medical, dental, veterinary, eye care, anyone that does outpatient care, and we help them manage their equipment, find and write biomeds that are certified, trained, help train biomeds as well, and we can get into that. But I've been loving it ever since and I'm happy to be back in the industry man.
Speaker 1:That's great. Welcome back. Yeah, don't be leaving us and coming back like that. I know I should. Now uptime health. That's awesome. You created this company. Now, what are some of the biggest challenges you faced in your early days of Uptime Health and how did you overcome them? Because I know you mentioned you started a company that wasn't related to the HTM industry, but now that you created Uptime Health, I'm sure there were some challenges in the early stages. Can you share one of the challenges and what did you do to overcome it?
Speaker 2:Oh my God how long you got so many times. Pick a good one, yeah. Pick a good one, okay. I think a good one that every one of your listeners might want to hear about is how do you build an innovative new company that's venture capital backable, which means you have to be sexy. Exciting, fast growth in the old industry of biomedical engineering and probably one of the least sexy things that happens in a healthcare building. So I think part of the struggles at the beginning was getting people to listen and understand about why we need to help improve, grow and put attention on the biomedical community.
Speaker 2:And that was tough. You know, when we go out for a venture capital because we built a software platform and we give them that here whenever, when you'd like. But it's not easy and software requires a lot of upfront investment, so we had to go get some VC backing. And when you're going up against these people that are doing these AI projects and imaging you know these. You know patient workflow, patient communication, patient workflow, patient communication. There's all this stuff that these VC investors and what they call the health IT industry like to invest in. And then you see us coming in and saying what about the guys and girls who take care of the equipment that are living in the basements of these buildings, that without them we don't have healthcare, because we don't have working machines, we don't have calibrated machines. I was like, why are we not getting excited about improving this part of the industry?
Speaker 2:And that took a little bit of time to convince people to listen and understand, and I can't tell you how many times people are like well, wait, what did they do today and why? Why do you need to exist and and why is this a problem, you know? And so I think the struggles were just all about people who aren't privy to our world learning about why our world is so important. And it was actually fun to talk about because I got to educate people and see their eyes open up and say I never thought about it that way, I never considered how important these people are to the health care ecosystem and to me. That created the sense of just pride to continue, just to go to as many meetings, even though I got a bunch of no's at the beginning and that's what felt impossible.
Speaker 2:But then, when you got your first yes, then you realize people do care and people will care, and then you got the next yes, the next, yes. So I think just getting that initial, I guess, buy in from the people who are going to back you with capital and believe in you, because, at the end of the day, building a company is not easy. It's going to be a lot of lessons learned, a lot of trial and error and somebody needs to stick by. You think it thin through the ups and downs and unless they believe in you and what you're building, that's tough for them. But I got investors to do that and I'm happy to say that they are so bought in that we're some of the you know, we're one of their golden child kind of companies where they just love what we're doing and think it's amazing man, that's, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:You're right about people hearing what we do, but actually believing in it is the challenge, because even in the hospitals, you can go out there and fix one of the most expensive pieces of equipment ct unit yeah and they know they need that ct unit. You get it up and running and it just be thank you, but let it be down and the whole world comes to an end.
Speaker 2:No, it's not even thank you. It's where were you?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's amazing. Now let's just switch it a little, because I know you mentioned you do a lot of work in the dental industry. That's amazing how you even though dental repair is something that people probably don't consider by a man which it is to us, we know that but you've truly put the dental repair industry because it does, to me, fall under healthcare technology management, but it looks like Uptime Health has put technology into the dental service industry.
Speaker 1:From what I'm listening and been reading over lately, and what could you say that? Well, let me see. How can I say this? How would you say that Uptime Health leveraged technology to improve?
Speaker 2:dental service repair. Yeah, if you don't mind, I want to take a half step back and just let people know who first started this company. We actually were going after the outpatient medical part of the industry, so we were starting in urgent cares and ASCs and dialysis clinics, because what we realized was there was a gap from how people take care of equipment in the big health systems in those buildings and how they take care of it in these tinier buildings, you know where there's maybe just a doctor, a nurse, some assistants, you know some PAs, but there's nobody that knows the equipment inside and out like a biomed engineer or a technician. And what we wanted to do is create a software that helped automate a little bit of those functions and understanding like, hey, you have these machines, here's how you take care of them. Even if they have contracts with outside vendors, they're not in the office checking to see if people are doing those more daily, weekly kind of calibrations or compliance issues. They hope they do them, but I'll tell you with some complete certainty that most of them don't. And so we wanted to create a product that helped kind of alleviate that mystery of like, how do I take care of these machines to the best of my ability. And how do I make sure I'm on the planned maintenance schedules I need to be on? How do I hold my technicians accountable to come in at the right time, even though they do a good job? But at the end of the day, it's the device owner's responsibility to make it happens. So that was the idea is, let's take what we do at the clinical level of the health system and give them a software version of me to help these urgent cares and these ASCs that we had in our health network that didn't have really good compliance or equipment management.
Speaker 2:So when we started that, we launched our first product into market in 2019, in November. It took us about a year and a half to get our ideas straight, to get our first MVP built, so our minimum viable product, get some funding to get that done. And when we launched in November 2019, we actually started getting, you know, urgent care signing up every month, a few of them, and then the next month doubled the amount and the next month doubled the amount. And then we even had a pilot with AmSearch, you know, inked to go into the second largest surgical group at the time to help them manage their equipment at a network level. And then when COVID hit, that's when our market went away. Even though we could help these clinics manage their ventilators a little bit better and even make sure that if they're broken like how to get them repaired by local people, people are trying to deploy software in a firefight. They're looking for PPE and just anything that's going to help them get to the next day.
Speaker 2:So we had to make a pivot. We almost died a couple of times in that COVID era because you know, every peak and valley got you excited, then it got you defeated. You know when the case counts went down, we started growing as a company before we pivoted, and then second wave, then third wave, then Omnicron, then you, then it just kept feeling like this is never going to end. So we had to pivot industries and then we realized as our product was really well built for anyone that owns medical equipment that doesn't have an in house expert like a technician or an engineer and when you think about that definition, it's dental offices, eye care, veterinary, optometry, med, spa, even you know dental. It goes into tons of different kinds of industries and we picked dentistry at the time because we saw it was a giant industry that I think nobody really talks about.
Speaker 2:There's over 120,000 dental practices.
Speaker 2:Can you believe that there's only 10,000?
Speaker 2:Or 10 to 15,000 urgent care clinics, depending on what article you're reading?
Speaker 2:So it's like 10 times as many dental offices as there are urgent cares.
Speaker 2:And I feel like I see an urgent care every block, especially in Texas when I was growing up, and so that kind of was an eye opening moment to me, which is like if there's that many clinics, that means that many people get care in these kinds of buildings. And we all know oral health care is a gateway to other kinds of diseases and medical problems and if they need our solution let's go see if they want to buy it. And that's when we started in a dentistry and went heads down and we started growing. So, even though we kind of came out of that COVID slump, we found so much footing and traction in dentistry. We stayed in there and we realized how far behind, even medical they were when it comes to the kinds of trainings, education, equipment management that they do. And that's why we wanted to stay there, because they had a bigger problem to solve and we needed to make sure those people had their help before we kind of continue on to the next vertical.
Speaker 1:Man, that's awesome. You mentioned there's like over 120,000. Yeah, Now, I just Googled while you were talking. Man, there's over 1 million worldwide.
Speaker 2:That's what you're doing man, yeah, yeah, just getting started.
Speaker 1:You know this is just the warm up phase. Yeah, it's amazing, and I was just thinking too while you were speaking. What about orthopedic clinics? Because there's plenty of equipment there and I guarantee you there's no software. We have software because we take care of our orthopedic and they have a lot of equipment in there.
Speaker 2:So you got dermatology. You got PT oncology clinics, these dialysis clinics Like it really was a earth shattering in my mind list that I was creating Cause I just never, ever did that exercise before, as weird as that sounds. And then there's a ton of people who need this kind of solution. Let's go figure the biggest one and go tackle that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you would think dialysis would have that. I remember I did dialysis way back, but that was before EMR systems. We used to have the manila folders in the cabinets and, like each equipment was a piece of was like a patient, each medical piece of medical equipment. So that's how we maintained and it was all handwritten. So it's amazing to be a 2018, 2020, and you have places that don't have any type of software to manage their equipment and that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Like you said, dialysis clinics actually do a good job because they're such invasive machines and the care that they provide, but at the end of the day it's more about how do we take care of it. And the manual part was the part that was tough, because think about the person who knows that manual system. What if they get sick or they go on PTO or they get hit by a car? You know, unfortunately, but like then a lot of that infrastructure just crumbles and that's why having a software tool helps just make those moments simpler, especially for something as serious as dialysis machine, yeah, even, even some of the RO systems.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about dialysis, I have a couple of friends that's in the industry and they'll tell me how. The water system company will come in there and they'll give them a service report, but it doesn't have a serial number on it, it doesn't have a model number so they're like, well, what is this?
Speaker 1:And some secretary typed it up in the office and sent it to them. So it's obviously they don't have technology to put out the proper service report, so probably a need there too. But that's just amazing that you just I guess your HTM background probably gave you that to look for that type of thing in the industry. I'm surprised there are not many other companies out there doing the same thing or they may be, I don't know. I just heard you.
Speaker 2:But, brian, you're right there. That's the thing is, when I looked around, I didn't go out trying to build uptime health because I was looking to get rich. I couldn't find a solution for my urgent care clinics or even my family. Some of them own their own practices practices, right, and that's kind of part of how it all came to be, which was there wasn't a solution.
Speaker 2:We have, obviously, these accruance and these nivolos and we have all these other great cms tools that are purpose-built for technicians and running their day-to-day, but there weren't a lot of ones that were purpose-built for the device owner being the primary driver of maintenance management and in the outpatient setting, because the clinical engineers aren't in the buildings, right, they need a tool to help them better manage it, because they can't rely on me or you or somebody else, and so I couldn't find one that was purpose built in that capacity and that was easy to use, and that's why I don't believe we have any real competitors at this moment. I mean, I hope more come along, because I love iron, sharpening iron, I love competition, but until then, my goal is just to solve the problem.
Speaker 1:And what you're saying is so true because I can recall working for a company and it was an imaging company and they wanted us to use their software for the biomed work but it was completely difficult because they didn't have any type of codes we can use for our errors, because all the codes was for imaging equipment. So it was real difficult for the biomed to do a work order because they didn't have the section for us to put our stuff into. So I can see where you can really tweak it to work for the dental or the urgent cares. And man, that's amazing Just sitting there thinking about it, because you can fine tune it if it needs to be and it's not just stuck in stone. You can go in there and fix it to where it can work for any type of practice, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't change depending on what industry you're in. It's all built very flexible so you can make it what you need it.
Speaker 1:And does the software? Does it have a name for the software we're talking about? Is there a name you have for it?
Speaker 2:So we call it Uptime Controller Because we always know that was the number one metric for us, and so I called it Uptime Controller because it helps you control that. And, to be honest, we don't say that name enough. Internally we always call it Uptime Health Software, but that's technically what it's called and that's technically the URL that the web app's hosted on.
Speaker 1:Uptime Controller that's a nice name for it. Man, it's just amazing to see my brain is going so fast because I'm looking at it and thinking, wow, this is so great Because, as you mentioned, there are urgent cares. I kid you not, I'm just thinking in my head. Right now there's three urgent cares in a half a mile radius. I ride down the street right now from my home. So, all those places didn't have any type of software to manage their equipment.
Speaker 2:No, they would use excel sheets, paper. But here's a test for you, and this is how I realized the problem was so bad. You know how, like one of the biggest things that we need to manage is, as biomeds was just an accurate equipment roster, you had those issues whenever you had to go. Just do the inventory checks and we have these. All these do not locates and whatnot. So like if you go to an urgent care today and you ask them do you have a list of everything in your office? They cannot produce one. Wow, not even if it's inaccurate. They just don't have it. And so it's like how can you manage what you don't know? You own own, and that's kind of part of that's half the problem is they're just like well, I have a guy that comes in every every year that takes care of my stuff and if it breaks I'll oh, you know, they'll fix it.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, that's not management, that's like break, fix mentality, kind of stuff yes, and if you throw in a dental industry the equipment they have, oh my god, my God, you could lose a handpiece and not even know it's gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's part of the problem. They're like I don't know what walks out the door any given day. We just know we keep buying handpieces and I was like, yes.
Speaker 1:The service guy may be taking it out with him, who knows, yeah, accidentally, or bringing in some from another place. I mean that's amazing, amazing, wow, that's eye-opening. Have there been any expansions to Uptime Health since you created it, or founded, rather?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. So one of the biggest things we did this year in 2024, april, we bought a company called Dental Whale. As I was mentioning, we're getting really deep into dentistry and we kind of have a big market there or market capture there. But we realized was, as people were trying to dispatch service, because you can dispatch service to our products, so not only can you manage what you own, make sure you're doing the maintenance compliance of what you own, but you can dispatch service either for pm or for just any kind of repair, unplanned down event through the tool. And what we also try and do is we create like a marketplace for people to find local technicians that they might not know about, to get service faster. There's a lot of times where they might have a big contract with somebody else but because we all know the biomed shortage, it might be a week before somebody gets out there. And being able to find a surge resource on our marketplace is really important to get downtime at an absolute minimum. So we're all about uptime anyway.
Speaker 2:Shape form and in the dental industry it is crazy, brian, I did not know this, but there's not a lot of technicians and the ones that do exist. They predominantly belong to these big companies called Henry Schein, patterson, benco and then a few that are independent in these mid-tier groups. But I also found this group that was called Dental Fix and it's a call it, a franchised based technician organization. But they also had other independents that worked for them. But it was truly an independent service network with the Henry Shines, patterson's and the other distributors. They would only really service the equipment that they sold you, you know traditional. So. But this independent fleet was just saying we'll service whatever is there. We're just trying to help out and get revenue and also do repairs. And I realized that that was a very valuable piece to growing this business inside of dentistry. So we bought that company so we could train them. We can make sure that we actually grow the number of independents that exist in that world. We actually started a school.
Speaker 2:You know how you have to go to the CBET or like some of these. You know training programs. I know the Air Force has a bunch like, but to get the certification of being a biomed you actually have to go through like a school and a training and get a certificate. In the dental world today that is not a thing the way that these technicians exist in dentistry is they usually either learn on the job because, you know, their brother is a dentist and they just kind of come in and fix things and they'll figure it out and they're very mechanically inclined and they and they become a technician that way, or they've worked for one of these bigger distributors and went through one of their local schools as part of you know, henry schein or patterson or benko. They might have their own training school only for their own technicians. So there's no way for somebody who is curious or who is interested in becoming a dental equipment repair technician to get that kind of education outside of working for one of the big guys.
Speaker 2:So what we decided was to build the first dental equipment repair technician school in the United States and we're doing this in conjunction with the CBET program, so the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology group out of San Antonio, texas, and we're getting this accredited, you know, through Amy. All of this to say is, our hope is that more people who are interested in repairing maybe dental equipment that they wouldn't have access to before or they wouldn't have that access to the training or even parts or anything like that. We're trying to unlock that so hopefully we can incentivize more dental equipment repair technicians, because that world is actually more strenuous than the medical world. As hard as that is to believe, it's just because there's too many barriers to entry there. So that's why we bought that company, because it's helping us solve a problem, but it also helps us build this school, because it gave us a lot of credibility, and look at what the trainings we've done with this kind of company before. They built these independent fleets all on their own.
Speaker 1:Now let's professionalize it man, that's amazing and once again you can can see your HTM background coming into play. So you, technically, you keep coming back home.
Speaker 2:You may go over here, but you keep crossing back over. Oh yeah, I'm here to help. I'll put it that way Whatever this industry needs, I'm here to help.
Speaker 1:I mean getting uptime services no doubt probably even expands an impact of reach on uptime health in the industry, because working hand in hand, I mean that's just, it's like a great match almost.
Speaker 1:I say that you two doing this and then you couple in the school CBET, which is a great organization. I'm very familiar with the team over there. I'm very familiar with the team over there. Now can you I know it's not been too long since you purchased these dental companies, but can you share a success story, maybe, or a case study where uptime services have bought uptime health and uptime services has improved an outcome, or with one of your clients that you can probably share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I mean in the, just like in medical, in the dental world there are some pieces of equipment that can shut down a whole office or shut down the operations of a of an office. So if, if, if you ever work in dentistry which my plug is I highly recommend you check out some education we have If you do want to work in dentistry to to get you some access there. But if you come across a compressor failure or a vacuum failure, compressors and vacuums are the things that drive. You know the suctions in the, in the water lines that run through all the dental chairs. So you know when you get that whirring sound or you get that, so someone's running a drill or they're spraying that water or sucking out that liquid in your mouth. All those are driven by a single unit in the back office, in the mechanical room. So if that goes down, all the chairs are done. They can't do dentistry.
Speaker 2:So there's one time a client and I won't name names here to kind of protect whoever, but at the end of the day we came to the rescue where their compressor was down and it wasn't in a very easy to reach area and their technician that they traditionally rely on which you can dispatch anybody through our software, whether it's our technicians or your own or your brother, who knows. But they couldn't come out for at least three to four days, and every day in that dental office is about $10,000 of production. So that's $30,000, right that out the window. And it's not just that missed revenue, it's also the fact that they couldn't take care of that patient. So the patient suffers, they have to back up all their schedule, so they have to still reschedule these patients, even if the patient wants to come back to them. Who knows, maybe they lost them forever at that point. So it creates all this demand pinch. It creates a lot of burden for the operations team. So it's always a nightmare event.
Speaker 2:But we were able to find one of our technicians that was local, get out there in three hours. They had a replacement unit in their van fixed. It got them back up and running and so we basically saved two and a half days of downtime. From what they were quoted, and to them we're their heroes, right Like, and that's all I want to do is is help those kinds of moments either lessen or create a quicker solve than what they're provided, because if they're technicians I know I can get out there later today. Great like, that is the answer I want. I don't want to be the hero every time, but if, if you need one, I want to be that person that's great.
Speaker 1:Now I love that story, by the way, also. Now how can you I mean, it's you consistently doing great things but how can you ensure that uptime services will not slack? You mentioned that there is no type of compliance in place, but how do you ensure that uptime services consistently delivers high quality service to your clients? Do y'all have anything in place where you can make sure your standard is being met or exceeded and it's not going backwards?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. Part of this school is to help ensure our technicians are always educated and trained and have access to a knowledge base, even an online learning system, creating a community where people can support each other with questions. Part of it is just creating that core community that cares a lot about each other with questions. Part of it is just creating that core community that cares a lot about each other and cares a lot about the clients is going to create a strength that will be hard to disrupt and go backwards and regress in any way. The other thing we're doing is we're putting out surveys, like at the end of every right now not the end of every, but right now we do a spot survey where we kind of ask clients how was that service event, how did you feel about that cap? We've done better and we're trying to get that real time feedback.
Speaker 2:We're also going to start in the very near future put like in real time surveys about specific events, Like how did that repair go for you?
Speaker 2:There was a technician, knowledgeable, you know all these things to make sure we're capturing any kind of person or thing that might be not upholding our standards and correcting it in real time by just adding the software, really just the accountability review that we're trying to build out, and so that's really how we do it. Think about it like your Uber driver, essentially, like you can rate them each time. I'm not saying that that's how we're going to scold you or like monitor you, but at the end of the day gives you a good indicator on average. If this person is consistently scoring low, that's not a good sign. There are going to be times where somebody scores low because the person the doctor, the whatever is just having a rough day and they're taking it out on their technician, which I know happens a ton. So we're not saying like it's a one-time thing, but if we see it as a trend, then there might be something more there. So that's kind of how we're doing it.
Speaker 1:Great. I love the case study you mentioned about how you were able to help this client out in three hours. That's unbelievable, even for the biomed world.
Speaker 2:That's why I was like that, and so it's one where I'm like okay, I remember that one, that's why I was like that.
Speaker 1:And so it's one where I'm like, okay, I remember that one no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Well, I think one is we will service anybody. We're not here to just service who we sold equipment to or who our existing clients are that use our software. If you need help with service, you can dispatch our service team, whether you give them a phone call or you do it through our system. That's one thing that sets us apart. We really do care about our technicians, and I think some other groups not all I've actually.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't say this because I think it's a bad characterization, but I think a lot of times the sales reps or whatever in these bigger distributor companies feel like their service team is a good weapon to say like here's why you need to buy our stuff because we have a great service team. But it's really they're utilizing them as like a tool in a pond to like get more business done for us. We care about the service team. We don't have to sell the equipment. We just want to say we have great service people and you should utilize them. I think it's that extra level of care and the fact that you have somebody like me and my team, who really have lived and breathed this space, building this company and this product. It gives us an extra like reason to get things done, or allows us to see beyond just the metrics, because we're not here driving, you know, an equipment sales company. We're driving a uptime company. I think that's really the positioning that we take in every decision we make. That makes us a little bit different.
Speaker 1:Now, what are your long-term goals for Uptime Health and Uptime Services? I don't know if you're going to give away any secrets, but how do you plan to achieve those goals?
Speaker 2:My goals are never secret because, again, I'll invite the competition, because I want more people to care and innovate in this space. You know what I mean. And so I just want, I believe, I'll do it better. So I'm not, it's not a cocky thing, it's just a we, we care and we're already doing a thing and I believe for me, my future and the company's future and our team's future, all is about getting this kind of technology into the hands of more people and improving the lives of even the technicians who are working with us and how they support our clients. So one of them is want to expand into different verticals. We talked about all the kinds of clients that we can work with. Well, we want to go back in the medical world, we want to go into eye care, we want to go into veterinary, want to expand our software into those industries industries and then eventually do what we did in dentistry with our technician network, with our school, everything else to build out the industry and the ecosystem. And do that in eye care, do that in veterinary, do that in medical. Now, medical already has a pretty good infrastructure, but how can we support more people applying or becoming biomed technicians? Like what do we need to do? Do we need to lobby the government? I'll go do that. Do we need to get biomed technician as part of a STEM curriculum program, like just to give it more visibility for these kids coming out of high school? I will do that. So I think part of that is my vision is expanding the technician base, but expanding the verticals that we operate in. The other thing that we're going to do is we're working closer with industries and getting closer to the machines themselves.
Speaker 2:So in the dental world right now, we're actively integrating connected equipment to our equipment management platform, and this isn't about patient information. This is all about equipment information. Is it overheating? How many cycles did it do? What error codes and logs and faults is it recording? And if our product is monitoring and managing those one, we can create trend lines and we can actually see things happen before they happen and we can activate a service tech to maybe replace a part that's about to fail, because we see the voltage increasing and we know, because we work directly with the manufacturer, what that means and how to fix it, or if it's error code abc and error code abc can actually be resolved with a reboot exercise. What we can do is we can serve up because we now know this because we're working with the actual, you know manufacturers we can serve up a task in our product, send that to the office manager or that device manager that's local, and say do a reboot exercise and we'll clear the code and we'll put you back up and running so it doesn't create an urgent request for a technician to come out for something that they, you know, had to give up a more urgent request because it was a little further away. They can go take care of both people because one solved their own problem and they got to take care of another client at the same time.
Speaker 2:Or if it's, you know, knowing what part to have in hand, if we know the error code 1, 2, 3 is component you know X Y Z that needs to be replaced. Well, we will put that in the service ticket saying it's error code. This here's the data points. Bring part X Y Z in hand, just in, because it's 95% going to solve your problem. So it's going to create less truck rolls, it's going to make more first time fixes. It's going to make you more times the hero for your clients, you know, for the technicians out there. So it's about automating the management and the maintenance side of that world with the equipment data itself and working directly with the manufacturers. That's one thing that we're doing that nobody else is doing.
Speaker 1:What advice you can give to, say, an entrepreneur who wants to start his company in the HTM industry.
Speaker 2:I advise a lot of companies today and the number one piece of advice I give everyone before they even start is know your why. Is why money? Is your why to solve a problem? Or is your why? You know you want to accomplish something and you don't know what that something is, but you just want to accomplish something, whatever. That why is?
Speaker 2:If you don't care and care is not part of your why you're going to have the hardest time in the world building your company, because there's going to be so many obstacles that you're going to run through and there's going to be so many times you want to quit. And if you don't have that care part behind you, you're going to quit. So I would say really truly understand what you're trying to build in the why behind it, write it down, think about it, keep writing it down every day, expand on it and if it's still the same, why? After about a month, then jump in, because by then you'll know a little bit more every time. You think about it, like, how do I get to that why? How are other ways to accomplish it? Because there's no cookie cutter way to accomplish any goal.
Speaker 2:We see other people build companies and we see how they do it, but it doesn't mean that's how you have to do it. So, as long as you care, you can find the different avenues. Whether it's building a software tool, whether it's building a product widget, whether it's building you know, we're just building a services company. Whatever it might be, as long as your why is consistent, your pathway will start unlocking itself. And just keep that as your North Star and it will help guide all your decisions. And just keep that as your North Star and it'll help guide all your decisions. I know it's a very vague answer, but it helps a lot of people and it turns a lot of people away from even building a company, because it's going to be a lot of struggle and money without any reward and you're going to hate it. So you'd rather hate it but love what you're doing underneath it while you're struggling getting it done.
Speaker 1:So that's my biggest advice for anybody. Oh, my God, man, because I wish we was on camera. You would have been seeing me, hands going up, clapping, because I tell everyone that you have to know what your why is. When I started doing this podcast, I kid you not, the only views I had was me and I was like man, but I enjoy this industry so much yeah, I don't even look at analytics anymore, and it just started slowly growing. And they'll ask me well, man, what's the drive? It's my why. I mean, it's why I do it and that's man. I live by that, honestly. That's my. You don't have a why, then you will fail at anything in this world. And, man, that was amazing. You hit it right on the head. If you don't have a why, because a lot of people think they're going to get rich, yeah, no, it's not that easy.
Speaker 2:That's not a good why you can go get rich being a gas station owner. Go do that. You know what I mean. You can get rich in so many ways.
Speaker 1:So, because it's going to require some hard work and hard work works. There's no shortcut. Some people think there's a shortcut. No, and it's your why and that will wake you up every morning. You won't need an alarm clock to get up. You, your why will wake you up. Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I loved, I love, love that answer reflecting on your journey.
Speaker 1:I mean, you've been in the HTM industry, got out of the HTM industry, but let's just look at the uptime health, uptime services. If you can go back in the hands of time with the knowledge you have today, what do you think you wish you could have known when you first started Uptime Health that you know now?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, wow, I think I don't know. That's a great answer. That's a great question because I honestly operate in a way and this is going to sound crazy, maybe terrible, maybe accurate to some where I don't profess to know anything that I'm doing ahead of when I do it, operate with like I don't know how to solve this problem, but my goal is to try and solve it. And because I operate with that mentality, it actually helps me create clear answers, because I think through a variety of solutions and I find the one that I like the most, versus thinking it has to be done this way. So pre-knowing might hurt my process, and that's kind of why I'm struggling to answer this, this question.
Speaker 2:Maybe it would just be how much time it was going to take to get where we are and being more patient with myself and getting there and letting everybody else know the timeline as well, because when you're starting a company or anything, you think things can happen fast and you can make impact overnight, and I think everyone kind of goes into that at some level. You know there's going to be effort and energy, but you just don't know how much and how long, and so I think, just having that understanding, it's going to be three years, janesh. It's going to be five years, janesh. That would help at least guide my own pace Instead of being frantic. I don't right, you can't see me right now, but all the gray hairs I have on my beard not that look old because of that stress. So I think that might be the only thing I would.
Speaker 1:I would like to change, but I do appreciate my approach because it has helped me get where I am today. Dental Fix company you acquired, and Uptime.
Speaker 2:Services has a summit coming up.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that for a quick minute here Now. Who is the target audience for this summit and what can attendees expect to gain from participating?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a great question, brian. So basically you're right, we have a summit coming up, we're extremely excited about it. It's October 3rd through 6th of this year and there's even an early bird pricing at this moment, so I'll put that plug in there. So if you go and look up the dental fix summit I know you've been helping post about it, but and you have a code, I believe as well, so I think yes, I'll put it in the link of this podcast too, for anyone.
Speaker 2:Perfect. So basically it would be for anyone who's already a dental equipment technician or those curious about expanding their skills to service dental equipment. So you could be a regular biomed not regular, that's a rude way of saying it you could be like a biomed who operates on traditional medical equipment. You could be a biomed that works in the eye care space. You could be a student coming out of school, whatever it is, but if you're curious about the dental industry and how to start servicing those devices, that's who this is for. We want to expose you to the world of here's how this world works. Here are some manufacturers. We're going to do some trainings there and because we're doing trainings there, we're also going to show you how to expand those trainings and get into the right schools and the right certifications to do the work there.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that I want people to know, especially the bio-meds on this podcast that are looking to expand their business there's so many dental clinics out there like you mentioned 120,000, and they all need help. And in this industry, the rates you can charge are a little bit higher than in the traditional world because there's so much of a demand and less supply. So I just want to let people know, like go there if you're curious, If you want education, you want to be around like-minded people. It's built for technicians being the audience or engineers being the audience. It's not meant for the doctors or anybody else in the industry. It's meant for you and it's curated for you, and so if there's anything we can do to improve, even if you do go, please let us know, Because it's meant to be for you at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:That's something that seems really exciting man.
Speaker 1:I always look to the future. My brain works that way. So I'm thinking one day it's not going to be called the dental repair industry, it's going to be HTM Everybody's going to know about dental repair. It's going to be htm everybody's going to know about dental repair. It'll be just like a iv pump dental repair x-ray, and that way it can all be. Because I'm telling you I'm it's just. It just blows my mind. I'm constantly talking about the biomed industry. It's not, nobody knows about it. I didn't think we had a little cousin that nobody knows about either. You know, nobody knows about it. I didn't think we had a little cousin that nobody knows about either.
Speaker 1:And it's amazing that dental, like you say, it's in the hospital and it's not a huge part. Like if a piece of dental equipment break, we're not running down the hallway, like if it's a heart and lung machine. It's that much important because, like you said, a family has come there I work at a children's hospital, so they're bringing their kids in to get some dental work and the equipment's broken. My dental department manager she is very intense with her equipment. Now I see why. I just don't know why she gets so frantic when my equipment breaks.
Speaker 1:It makes sense to me now. Yeah, she came from the private sector and now she's working in a hospital and she's like I need this done. Now I need this particular company because I don't like this one, I don't like that one, I just like this one only and I'm like, well, we just caught one of them. But the more I'm getting into this, I see that she has her favorite, because that's the most dependable one. I just thought she was just this person with lack of patience, and it's not that, it's like she's just she's got trauma because there's never been support and so she has to be that way and I hopefully one day see that all going away.
Speaker 1:And if I could join you in helping write this word, man, I feel like it's almost my honor and privilege to join you because what you're doing is amazing. But this is one final question I want to ask you. We all work hard and we all want to have a good name. Hopefully we put out a good Honest Days work and people respect what we're doing and leave a nice legacy for way down once we've gone from this place. What would you want Uptime Health and Uptime Services legacy to be in the HTM industry?
Speaker 2:I want it to be known as a company who hears you and cares about you and I'm talking directly to the HTM community. I want to put you and us on the map. I want to make us an industry and a people that others talk about. They see, they hear, they understand the value, they respect you and what you do, and that's part of the reason why I actually love being venture capital backed.
Speaker 2:It's not an ego thing, but what it did is it put all these people with money that invest in these I'm going to use the word sexy again these sexy, fast growing, you know exciting companies and they look at us and they look at you and they look at this industry and they finally see there's value there. I think that this needs to be put on the map and I hope that if we become successful, it will invite more companies doing things in our industry and innovating in our space to exist, to find the right backing, to get the money they need to build what they need to build. And, at the end of the day, I want to also be like a safe haven if, if whatever, somebody needs to protect that industry. You know, if it's how we're pushing things, if it's right to repair debates, whatever it is like.
Speaker 1:We got your back and and that's how I want us to be seen oh, nash, I appreciate you coming on and you're welcome to come back often as you like. Great talking to you. I mean, we probably can go another three hours. Honestly, I had to pull back some questions so we don't go off onto a topic that might take us there for another 30 minutes. But we definitely have to get together again, man, because I really appreciate you and your conversation was amazing no, I appreciate, brian.
Speaker 2:thank thanks for giving us airtime. Thanks Thanks for giving us a voice. I appreciate you and what you do and you're always welcome on this side, and I'm looking forward to continuing to build our relationship together. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:What an incredible conversation with Janesh Patel. His insights into the future of HTM and his unwavering dedication to solving real-world problems serve as a reminder that true innovation comes from a deep sense of purpose. If today's episode inspired you to explore new opportunities in the HTM and dental repair industries, then you won't want to miss the Dental Fix Uptime Services Summit happening this October 3rd 2-6. It's an incredible opportunity to network, learn and dive deeper into the world of dental equipment repair with workshops, trainings and certifications that can open new doors for you in this expanding field. Mark your calendars, take advantage of the early bird pricing and be sure to check out the link in the podcast notes for more details. Thanks for tuning in and, as always, stay motivated, stay committed and keep elevating the HTM industry.
