#1956 Founder Story: Insulin in the Window
Founder Story: Insulin in the Window
John Wilcox was diagnosed on his ninth birthday, noticed insulin pooling in his pod window, and turned it into a company. He talks about building Diatech Diabetes, selling it, and running marathons with type 1.
Jump to a moment
- He was diagnosed on his ninth birthday, in 2005. John describes showing two photos at Friends for Life — a scrawny kid with a Lego set two hours before the hospital, and the same kid a week later at a re-staged birthday, visibly annoyed because he'd just pre-bolused for cake. Twenty-one years with type 1, MDI first, then pumps ever since.
- The company started with something he noticed on his own body. Insulin pooling in the window of his Omnipod — something plenty of pod users have seen. Researching it in an undergrad diabetes lab, he found it was insulin escaping the infusion site because the cannula had shifted and broken the seal, meaning doses that appeared to be delivered were not.
- The first fix was chemical, the real fix was data. Version one was a compound that turned the adhesive pink or blue when insulin leaked onto it. It worked but was crude, so they licensed it to the university and pivoted to fluid pressure — an algorithm reading a pump's occlusion sensor that could tell not just whether a site was failing, but whether it was leaking, dislodged, or partially occluded. That became Diatech Diabetes and its SmartFusion software, published in 2024. By Diatech's own published figures, roughly 97% of pump users experience infusion failures.
- Seven years, and roughly two and a half of them unpaid. John is candid about the funding gaps, the debt, the raises that fell apart at the last moment, and the 2 a.m. walks back to a hostel after conference days where he and his cofounder Luis would ask each other honestly whether they were okay. His advice to young founders: get non-dilutive funding where you can, and validate the problem with clinicians and patients before you ask anyone for money.
- He is also a marathon runner who just qualified for Tokyo. Ten races so far and three marathons planned for next year. He describes wearing two hats — technologist and athlete with type 1 — and having to learn the running side as its own body of knowledge. Diatech was acquired by Sequel and DEKA, where he now works on engineering commercialization; he is clear that SmartFusion is not in any shipping pump software today.
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Diagnosed on his ninth birthday1:53
Thanks, Scott, for having this conversation. It's I've been following the podcast for a long time, and I you'll be able to answer this question, obviously, after the introduction. But I I can't remember when you got started, but I've known about your content for, like, almost a decade now, at least, even going through, by getting involved in the industry, kind of starting off as a young guy in the tech space, working with these, philanthropies. So, yeah, just getting started. My name's John Wilcox, and, I am a person with type one diabetes.
I've been living with it for the last twenty one years. And, really, my background outside of just being a person with type one diabetes is being someone who's really passionate about diabetes technology and and also fitness. And so, you know, starting my career, I actually started a company called Dietite Diabetes. We led that over the last seven years, and we're recently acquired by Sequel and DeCA, specifically DeCA, their engineering division. And so we led that startup.
I was the CEO, cofounder, went through a ton of crazy journeys and and just different experiences with that, raised funding from breakthrough t one d, the NIH, private capital, and developed out a product that helped monitor for infusion site failures for people utilizing insulin pumps and infusion sets. And so that was really the start of my career. Now I work for our acquirer, DECA, and help out with the engineering commercialization of their diabetes products. But on the side, again, I said I'm passionate about athleticism and fitness. I grew up as a runner, and it's really cool to kinda take all this technology that we've worked with, both with pumps and CGMs, and kinda put them to the test in a lot of these races that I've done over my my career.
And, you know, I'm a marathon runner, so I've done just about 10 races and signed up for next year, I'll be doing about three marathons. Tokyo Marathon, just qualified for, so I'm really excited about that. And, just fully engaged in the diabetes space. Love it. And, yeah, it's just an amazing amazing group of people, community, and industry.
A kid who took things apart4:14
Yeah. Twenty one years with type one. How old were you when you were diagnosed?
Yeah. I was diagnosed on my ninth birthday.
Okay.
So, quite literally the day. It was funny because when I was doing the intro talk for the Friends for Life conference a few weeks ago, I showed this photo of me the day of my birthday right before quite literally, like, two hours before I went to the hospital, and it was crazy. It's just like this scrawny little guy with a Lego set that he got for his birthday. And and then I showed another photo about a week after I got off to the hospital. It's just this face of dread of just re celebrating a birthday that is two weeks late.
And there's all these people like, hooray. Happy birthday. I'm just, like, frustrated because I just pre bolus for a piece of cake. Yeah. I'm just, like, sitting there.
It's a really funny photo. I'll have to show you something. I've already got to see. That whole diagnosis story happened back when I was nine, 2,005.
Okay.
Started off with MDI and then switched over to insulin pumps and been using those systems since.
Biology, chemistry, and a diabetes lab5:15
Tell me a little bit about growing up with type one and why do you think about I mean, obviously, you're following you follow your passion where your intellect lies, but how do you blend it together with diabetes? What about your upbringing drives you in that direction?
Yeah. Yeah. So I I was always a builder, someone that liked to tinker with tech and things. I grew up, you know, taking alarm clocks apart, looking at components, trying to, like, put them back together. I was huge in, like I mentioned earlier, into Legos.
So I was, like, always building things. And, you know, I I I always was interested in engineering and medical technology. And so, you know, going into when I was going into college and and I during that time, after I'd, you know, grown up with, you know, all of these, like, again, kind of builder toys and, like, messing around with these trinkets and stuff. When I went to college, I studied biology and chemistry and worked in and and also a diabetes lab. And so I was able to kinda mix the understanding of the human body with, like, diabetes research, and I was also working at the biomedical engineering department at, in undergrad.
And those kind of all just formed this really cool trinity of opportunity and got me into working with insulin pump systems Yeah. And mainly in research. And that's kind of what kick started everything.
I love that the thing you did is so important, but it feels like minutiae. Do do you know what I mean? Like, the sensing for the I I I wonder where that came from. Like, was it a problem you were having personally or something?
The insulin in the pod window6:56
It's a crazy story.
Yeah. Please.
Yeah. So I so yeah. So, again, grew up being really just, like, tech minded, playing with all these different things, playing taking apart stuff. And, again, got to college, got into a diabetes lab, and then they were basically saying, like, hey. We don't really have any more funding for this current project that we're doing.
You can stay in the lab, and you can have space. But this is gonna have to be, like, a self led project. And, of course, I was an undergrad, so I wasn't really needing to get funded or anything. They're just, like, kind of let you, you know, work in our lab space. You can run your own project.
Maybe you can get some grants from the university, but we'll sponsor you. But you're not gonna technically be working on a designated research project. So that was crazy because, you know, I I didn't really know what to do, and I obviously wanted to stay really involved in research at that time in undergrad. So to your point, you know, I had been volunteering at a pediatric endocrinology clinic. And through my own experiences too, I've been having a lot of conversations with people, and we've been noticing the windows of our Omnipods having medication that had been accumulating.
And I'm sure a lot of people with Omnipods can agree with this that sometimes that you can see insulin that has quite literally kind of got stuck in your window. Yeah. And if you jostle it around, sometimes it can leak out onto the adhesive. So I was experiencing that a lot, and I never really knew what it was. And after doing a lot of research on that, we found out that it was actually insulin that was seeping out of the infusion site.
One, because you've been wearing the infusion set or the the pod, and it caused the cannula to jostle so it breaks that seal. And so the pressure inside the skin was higher than the pressure to let release of the insulin. And so you'd have these situations where on day two or three, the medication would quite literally come out of the site and leak onto the pod. And so the pods were not catching this, and this also happens I mean, not to call Omnipod out, this happens with a a lot of other infusion sets as well, and I would notice that too when I would wear those. And so having those conversations with patients, the endocrinologist I was working with, and then my own experiences, I got started on this infusion site solution that would essentially it would it was a it was a a a chemical component that would react with the phenols and the insulin concentration.
Because there's more than just insulin and, you know, a vial of insulin. There's zinc, phenols, you know, stabilizing agents, excipients.
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From a color-changing adhesive to an algorithm11:48
And so when the insulin would leak out on the adhesive, we had made this compound where it would turn the adhesive pink or blue. And so because insulin has such a high volatility, you know, it can evaporate quickly. That's why you smell it, but, you know, it's kinda hard to see. And so it was a first stab at the the problem. Right?
We could see that the adhesive had changed color, and then we would know, oh, okay. My, you know, my infusion set or pod was leaking, so I should change it. But it had a lot of constraints. And so we went ahead and licensed it to the university, sold that. And at that time, I started working with a collective group of biomedical engineers at Florida State, and we took more of an engineering approach.
And instead of utilizing a chemical and, you know, maybe adding it to the adhesive in the manufacturing process, we looked at fluid pressure and being able to take data from a fluid pressure sensor and use that in a better way to see if a bolus or micro bolus was successful. And that was the start of our company, DiaTek, where we kind of pivoted away from this mechanical and kind of crude detection method to what was now an app that had an algorithm on it that could then connect to a pump's occlusion sensor. And then we could essentially be able to run our algorithm against the data we could pull from the occlusion sensor and get a better understanding of the infusion site. And and that then led us to be able to not just know if it was failing or successful, but if it was failing, if it was a a leak or if it was dislodged or if it was partially occluded, it gave us a lot of specificity and sensitivity to different types of failures.
And then what can you do with that information when it feeds it back to you?
Yeah. It's I mean, so the first thing is is is just reducing false positives and false negatives. And so for pump pumps, a lot of them have very dumb occlusion detection systems. And if they're triggered, you know, it causes a person to have to change their infusion site. If they are triggered, they can cause unknown spikes in hyper for hyperglycemia, and you might not know as to why, and so there's a lot of guessing.
And so removing that was priority number one, was making sure that these these alarms and alerts were were more accurate because we actually did a study we published back in twenty twenty twenty four that showcased what would you know, SmartFusion, that was our system that we had built. You know, how many false positive and false negative pumps on the market could have compared to our system? And and and this was really fascinating stuff because different pumps have different thresholds for pressure detection.
K.
It's kind of like a tire gauge.
Mhmm.
So ones that have really high thresholds, you can get a lot of, occlusions that don't reach that, that required threshold to set the alarm off. And so that can cause hyperglycemia because you're not getting your insulin and it's not getting detected. Mhmm. And then, alternatively, if you have pumps with really low thresholds, we often at times see larger boluses that were actually successful could bypass that that set threshold. And so now you're changing your infusion set.
You don't have to
Right.
Even though it's a successful bolus. So with all this to say, there was a lot of need for improvement for and and still today, there still needs to be improvement in these methods for detecting failed sites. And, you know, they're not incredibly common, obviously. People have different rates of this. We also did a study on how often this occurs, and I think it was about forty percent of people experience one or more per month.
But at least ninety seven percent of people had experienced infusion set failure at least one time while wearing a pump.
So Can you
is it is important.
Can you tell me the difference or if there is one technically with an occlusion? And what you're talking about is tunneling. Right? It's commonly called tunneling where the the liquid goes in, like, it makes its way back out up the sides of the of the infusion. So Yes.
But an inclusion is a blockage.
Yes. Yeah. So so there are definitions that for different types of failures. Right? Like, we kinda have this umbrella term of infusion site failure, but, really, there are multiple multiple types.
Right? We have, of course, an occlusion, which can be partial as well. A total occlusion is and we have X rays of this because we would take do tissue and fluoroscopy imaging. We would literally put an insulin pump on a model, like a a swine model, and we would do a bolus of insulin with a contrast dye in it, and we would take an X-ray. And we could see a three d model of the infusion into the skin and tissue is amazing stuff.
And, again, some of that's published work that we've done. But occlusions, you'd you know, it's totally blocked up. Partial occlusions, maybe the volume field that had been delivered is not what would be expected, so it's maybe a little bit less insulin. Still plugged up, though, the majority of it in the rest of the line. You then also have kinks, which technically is an occlusion, but that can often occur because of either improper insertion or maybe a muscle bending the cannula.
You have leaks, which are commonly occurring because of these tunneling impacts from a lot of activity, putting it into muscle, high pressure environments that cause it to geyser out. Mhmm. You have detachments and dislodgements, which injecting into air, the pump cannot detect. And so, you know, again, a whole bunch of different failures that manifest, yet you only have a sensor that can detect occlusions. So, again, that was priority number one with developing out the system was being able to not just detect occlusions more accurately, also broaden the landscape of detection for other types of failures.
How can it not detect even a dumb sensor, how can it not detect that there's no resistance? Like, pumping the
vehicle. That's crazy. Exactly. Yeah. This is exactly what is the the main way that we can use to detect that type of failure.
And so, yeah, you're you're thinking exactly right. You know, a lot of these systems, though, on the market don't utilize that type of sensing technology, but it's really exciting. There's lot of awesome stuff coming out that I think is now even going to be used for what and to your original question is, like, what, you know, what were we trying to do with this essentially? You know, one, increasing the accuracy of occlusion detection. Two, increasing the types of failures we could detect.
The other ones were making sure that these systems could measure up to the FCL that is coming out in these systems that are becoming more hands off. Mhmm. And, you know, it's really interesting because, of course, your system's only gonna work if your conduit is actually working correctly, right, for your fluid delivery. So we wanted to be able to have a better detection system for more advanced hybrid closed loop and fully closed loop systems. And, also, finally, being able to have something that could be used for assessing maybe when to take it off if you're going to a full seven day wear or even longer.
Okay. I remember interviewing who was it? I think it might have been Kowalski. Okay. It it could have been a really a really long time ago.
And it stuck with me. It was him. It stuck with me that he said when I asked him how can we make people's outcomes better, the one thing he said was to make cannula material better.
What site failure actually costs you20:02
Mhmm.
And and I and I I it seemed like such a nothing at first when he said it until I stopped and thought about, you know, it goes in and then people have bad reactions to it. The sites are inflamed. I didn't think about this side of it though. And and so when you when you when you're chasing it down initially, when you have the thought and you think, oh, I can work on sensing technology, do you think it's an academic endeavor? Do you think it has actual application when you first start, or do you learn the application as you go?
Yeah. I mean, luckily, we had some some really, really great team members. I think that, you know, when we talk about, like, creating an idea and, like, building something, the most important part, and this is, I think, foundational for anything you wanna accomplish in life, is is having a good team. And and that was what we had at DietTech. I mean, myself, you know, we had a lot of personal experience, a lot of work with clinical research in diabetes.
My cofounder, Luis Blanco, had also a family member that utilized an insulin pump, was very familiar, but he also worked in microfluidics. So being able to combine that, his personal experience, and then, of course, our other two cofounders had family connections to diabetes as well and an engineering background. So all of us, you know, had a huge learning curve to understand, like, how pumps worked at first, but we already kinda had a baseline. And having this idea, you know, it it made it easier for us to get started because we could really focus on the physics, really focus on the problem design around our product. And, of course, we have to give credit to our early supporters.
I mean, the reason why we went out of being in lab idea to something that would eventually get acquired, you know, six, seven years later, no joke on that Jeez. Is is is the fact that at our very first year, you know, we were really fostered in our university startup environment. We got several nondilutive grants, some early stage patent work that we were able to utilize as students. And so we really try to maximize as many university opportunities as we could while we were in college. And then right after we got out and we saw we were making momentum on our research and, again, going to industry events, connecting with people.
They were validating what we had, getting key opinion leaders on our team to confirm what we were doing. Wasn't really trying to create a problem and solve it, but, you know, identifying
Yeah. That's the hardest thing to do is find find an actual problem and address it. Right. Not easy.
Yeah. These KOLs are early adopters, our board. And then, ultimately, you know, we were funded by the National Institute of Health through a program called the SBIR phase one program, and that just catapulted us. We got that funding, and it was very academic, like you said, very heavy research. But, you know, we did that.
We did a medical device accelerator that kinda, like, amped us up a little bit more on how we pitch and make a product, commercialize it. Yeah. So combining those two, like, focus areas, we really made a lot of progress. And, eventually, we got funded a million dollars from breakthrough t one d, and that was a huge award for us. And that sustained us with some extra funding.
And so originally academic, slow to learn the commercial processes of this industry, but it was humbling, and I'm very grateful for that.
It's interesting because to to hear a person like yourself talking about it, and I'm I'm putting myself I'm I'm making some assumptions, but you didn't have a business degree. You weren't you weren't a guy who's like you weren't running around you know, everybody says they're a founder nowadays. A couple a couple of years ago, it was everyone said I'm a digital creator. Now everybody's like, I'm a I'm waiting for somebody's Etsy to say founder of my knitting company. You know?
So you're not running around trying to do that. You're trying to you're trying to work in a lab. You're trying to take your skills and apply them to something meaningful. And then you realize this has implications outside of here. And that's when you gotta look up and say, hey, business people.
I don't I don't know how to get this out of this laboratory. It's it's super
interesting. Totally agree.
Yeah. It doesn't I
totally agree with that approach. I think that I think that when when starting a company and and getting a product built, I think, you know, the foundations of knowing business is is is is equally important as r and d and product design. But to get the fire started, I think that it's easier to be maybe an engineer and someone who is able to understand the problems and the complexity of that problem and then, you know, be humbled
Yeah.
By the business requirements of running a start up. So I'm not really saying that, like, one or the other is better to start off as. But for us, you know, I think it would've been harder had we been entrepreneurial or business minded and then tried to learn all the engineering requirements to build a product
Yeah.
Versus the other way. I know. So I'm grateful that was our journey, and we had a lot of help. Like
Yeah.
So much credit to our
The people who come and to us. Yeah. Sure. I I don't know if this will seem apples to apples to you or not, but when people ask me because right now, the it's a you know, the creator culture is is is crazy right now. And a lot of younger people ask me, like, how my thing is popular.
And I always tell them, I started off by trying to help people. The business thing happened. I didn't I didn't want it to happen. I didn't try to make it happen. It was I couldn't stop it from happening.
And if you start off with how do I make money at this, I think you are going to fail. Like, unless unless you're just brilliant or really a shark, you know what I mean, or really know how to, like, navigate the whole thing, you actually have to bring you have to bring a solve to people. You have to bring some solace or some comfort or some happiness or betterment or something. Or otherwise, you're you're just propping your it's vaporware being propped up by more vaporware. Mhmm.
I I one of the things that I'm I don't doesn't seem to be a thing maybe that you you'll have a lot of interaction with. But one of the things that makes me maybe more upset than anything else of the things that I don't have any control over and I probably shouldn't worry about under that category are people on YouTube making videos about how successful they are and how you can be successful too, but their success is in telling you that you can be successful. I that there's literally nothing there making an in making an industry. You know? And
Yeah. I I I think that, again, for me, it's all about making sure that the problem that you're trying to solve is an actual problem. Yeah. And your product will fit that. And, again, at the beginning of Diatek, we had a lot of questions of whether or not we were doing something like that.
Like, is infusion site really something that that is that big of a deal to build a product out of? And, you know, we had to stay committed because we knew the impact that this had on people's diabetes management. And, again, I we ended up running a survey. It was, like, over 1,100 people we did with d one d exchange. It's, like, one of the largest surveys for for this topic, and it was really interesting to see.
Again, a lot of people had this problem. Now, you know, how do you commercialize that then? That that was a challenge. Right? Because we never went to the b to c route.
People with diabetes, like, we're not gonna pay for an app. Like, even if it's, maybe if it's, like, solving some, like, crazy pharmacy access challenge or something, but, like, it has to be a really big problem for us to, like, pay for a UI UX app. And so that went out the door for us, and we realized quickly that we had to go down a b to b route for the use of our system with a manufacturer implemented in the device before it's sold to a patient. So then So that's that was that was a huge learning curve for us, for sure.
Getting it in front of the right people28:17
Yeah. Oh, I I I've lost count of the people who have told me that they have an app that's gonna change diabetes. It just
Yeah. I'm like Yeah. We we started with that idea and and quickly, quickly changed because we did, like, a 100 person interview series, like, hour long interview
Mhmm.
And we, like, transcribed it. This was all before ChatGPT. So we were like You were actually transcribing? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, like and they told us that. Right? They're like, don't build an app for this. Like, please I don't need another
thing to do.
We have a a platform for diabetes management. We don't want that to change. We want you to be integrated into that. Yeah. Do it that way.
And I don't know how your business moved on. I'm learning it with you. But, like, I'm from my perspective, I'm thinking this isn't a sell this to one person idea. This is a sell this to everybody idea. Right?
That was the initial goal. Okay. We were developing out a nonexclusive software licensing revenue model that would essentially allow us to operate maybe kind of like how, you know, other standard software packages can be. Like, you can purchase this as an enterprise. You utilize this, and you pay us royalties.
Right? And it was a little naive, and it was actually really naive because what we didn't realize is that in the diabetes industry, and I'm sure some people might chuckle hearing me say this because I've I've said this a lot to a lot of people, it's a very, very unique medical device. In how you access it, purchase it, and it's very competitive. I mean, we have at least 10 patch pumps that are coming into the market now via established and new players. We already have a ton more options.
And so what they look for now are the and them as in the companies that we're trying to sell to are now competitive features that they can utilize to improve the UI UX, improve the clinical care. And so so what I'm saying is here, my point is is that the the insulin pump is kind of, like, almost kinda goes into that consumer product market for as a medical device. Whereas, like, other medical devices, it's you've kinda given it. Right? And I think we might have talked about this, but, like, an orthopedic rod.
Like, you don't pick which one you get when you go through surgery. Right? And so, like, as a device, you you have options. You have to choose that as a patient but as a customer. And what separates a device over another one?
Well, maybe the the design of the the patch Mhmm. Or maybe the software that it has. And so that's what we really tapped into for our final business model, which we found out quickly was it's actually probably gonna be more sort of an exclusive model. One manufacturer is probably gonna purchase this, and this was really at the end.
Because someone's gonna want because it stop me if I'm if I'm mischaracterizing what you're saying, but every other medical device is just that. It's a knee brace. It's something an insulin pump is a uniquely personal thing that's also a medical device. So when you're selling it, you're selling lifestyle as well as as well as functionality. And so And absolutely.
So someone is gonna be willing to pay you more for your idea because it's a it's a not only does it make their device better, but it's a marketing issue, and it stops other people from being able to say, oh, we have that too.
Yeah. I would I would say that that's definitely true. Mhmm. And, obviously, there's, like, you know, different opinions on this, but, you know, you see certain patch pump companies, certain tube companies that have really bought into, you know, you know, marketing that lifestyle instead of just marketing your clinical results, and they've they've done really well. Yeah.
You know, their their their patient adoption is huge. You know, they have the scientific and engineering backing behind it, but they're kind of providing their system more so like you said, it's a lifestyle tool instead of just a medical device. And so having any type of feature that can, I think, make that more work better, improve the UI UX, That's really what we saw at the end of Ditex? Because now when we were going through, you know, discussions with manufacturers that we had partnered with for, you know, regulatory filings and all these things, they were like, wait a second. Like, we actually don't want you to embed this in other systems.
Like, we want this for ourselves. And so that's that was just a huge again, another learning moment in the journey. It was just how competitive these these manufacturers are At that for these types of systems.
Yeah. At that I bet you this is interesting for people to listen to. I hope I hope they're as interested in it as I am. But
because We're really getting in the weeds here.
So But the this is this is a this is a thing you use all day long. Every day, it's something that if you're online, you're faced with constantly. You know? Like, every listen. I don't know how I worked it out, but I think every pump company buys an ad on my podcast.
And I the way I think of that is is that I turned my little podcast into something that almost felt like a little more like a public trust. And then it felt like I really had to have everybody's voice amplified literally just through an advertisement so that everybody can hear about it. Because, I mean, I could do the same thing. I could make it I I could pick one company and just say, look. I won't sell to anybody else, but you're gonna have to pay me more.
And instead, I just go, look. I think I've found a delivery system here that you're all gonna benefit from. Let's give people choice. Let's let them look and see what's going on. I'm wondering how you got through that quagmire.
Yeah. In regards to and maybe just to clarify in regards to us eventually exiting as a device company or
just Well, either doing that or just saying to yourself, I wanna set ourselves up so that everybody uses it. I get, like, that kind of like, or or do they get into the world where they're like, look. I'm not gonna use it if they're using it. So then that doesn't work for you anyway. Is that part of how
this goes? This was kind of a a main kind of decision point when we were we were if you know, again, at and you're more so the intern of our company was realizing that the manufacturers that we had partnered with, again, at that time were more interested in having it themselves as a competitive feature, something that can benefit their own systems versus that then being something that was available to all. And even like, I'm not even talking about the personal side of this. Like, you know, we had been this at at this for seven years. We had an opportunity in front of us.
And and so in addition to that, you know, it really matched up with the timing for us as having built this company to this stage, finding the right partner, coming to the conclusion that, you know, this is the dynamic for a b to b business for us and our stage at for our business model, which was, again, being put into a situation where exclusivity was probably the main thing for this product. And so we realized that. We had good timing, and it was very interesting too because at that time, like, you know, we're we're learning about all of these comp pump companies that are coming out with these new products. And so we really use that also as a as a as a, like, opportunity because we're saying, hey. Like, for those of who are working with us, look at all these new pump companies that are doing all these really innovative things.
Full circle, back to the first pump36:22
Yeah. How are you matching up to
that? Right.
So yeah, really trying to drive those conversations.
So so you you said in the beginning, now I'm trying to get a better context on it. You're so the company is sold to who?
We were sold we were we were bought last year, quite literally, I think, I'll double check this, like, almost a year to date
Oh, no kidding.
By, by DeCA, research and development, which is, technically the its own entity, but is the manufacturer of the SQL Twist pump. Okay. And then SQL is the commercialization, go to market, and and and manages FDA, things like that for the business. And so so yeah. So DECA DECA is technically the company that acquired DietTech.
Got it. So is the thing that you and your founders developed, is it living in a twist pump right now, or is that a future idea?
Yeah. So it's not currently in the software version that's available to people with die people with diabetes or people that use the the pump now. Mhmm. We're we're you know, so we're we're working on that, and we're really excited about some of the updates that we're gonna be providing for that system. But yeah.
No. As of right now, it's not currently available, but we've been utilizing it really awesome as a tool internally and then again for some future products that we'll be building as well. So it's it's it's stay tuned. That's all I can say.
So this even though this seems like such a big deal and and such a hill to to conquer, it really is more of an entree into more things. Yeah? Yeah. You were nodding along there for a second, but okay. Alright.
And did you get to keep your group together? Did you all go to DECA or only some of you?
So I went to DECA. Mhmm. My cofounder, Luis him and I were the only two cofounders that went all the way from day one to zero. Our other two ended up amicably leaving the company during the seven year period that we had started, and those were really easy transitions, and it was good for them too. So Luis and I were the only two cofounders at the end, and myself went on to work at DeCA.
And then Louis ended up going and starting a PhD at UC Santa Barbara, where he's at right now. So he's working in pump development, microfluidics, and he's really enjoying sitting up there on the beach. So I'm like, that's probably not a bad idea. Maybe
I was gonna say, I I haven't seen a beach in a while. How far back in your history do you have to go to find you before you find a version of John who would be absolutely stunned that any of this happened? At what age did you not have any understanding of your path?
Man, that's that's a huge question. I I mean, I'll be honest with you. Like, I did not want really anything to do with diabetes over the first couple years of me having it. Mhmm. Mainly because of the fact that I was in a in a care situation where I was only utilizing MDI, primarily.
I I had been introduced to the Omnipod system, my for my first system that I used when I was short after I was diagnosed. But, again, the majority of my care was on an MDI therapy. And so during that time, I was like I was like, man, I just I hate this. Like, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that moment too, where it's just like, this is my new reality. Yeah.
And when I transitioned full time to a pump, that's when I really my life improved. And, obviously, we didn't have AID systems back then, but even just going from the injections to that was just such a game changer. And I remember I think at that moment when I transitioned in my first couple years from MDI to pump full time, that's probably the moment to answer your question because I'd be like, well, I'm getting this this, like, this, like, thing that, like, goes on my body and, like, keeps me alive. Like, whoever made that, that's amazing. Yeah.
And, like, to think eventually that, you know, I'd be, you know, working on this topic. And even more specifically, to answer that question, my very first job I ever had was working in the research lab at at in Yale New Haven. And so I worked in Bob Sherwin and Bill Tamberlin's office and rest their souls, but, you know, amazing investigators. And I remember being in Bill's office one time, and the auto syringe, which was made by DECA and one of the first trial insulin pumps, was on his shelf. And I remember asking him, like, what is that thing?
Like like, you know, it's a syringe with a piece of, you know, wood, essentially, or plastic. Like like, just it's very, very you know, as it should be, it's the first insulin pump, essentially. You know, very interesting design. And he was like, oh, that's the first insulin pump. And so to to to think about that moment too where I was like, My first job working at Yale, seeing that thing, and being like, that eventually will be the company that's going to buy your company that made that.
Yeah.
Those are probably two moments in my life where I was I would I would honestly probably be really proud of, like, what we've done at Dietrich. You know, transitioning to the pump, seeing how amazing that system was when I was first diagnosed and and just being fascinated with it. And then that second moment where, you know, I'm in my first, you know, job in diabetes, and and I'm seeing the very first insulin pump and knowing eventually that'll be the company I sell DietTech to. So we sell we'll sell DietTech to. So That's pretty awesome.
Staying on one path42:33
Crazy.
I I I have to commend you on staying on a path too because it's I mean, especially, like, now I talk to young people all the time. Like, most young people are like, I don't know. How do I get rich? How do I do it quickly? You know what I mean?
And it's a lot of focus like that. Not a folk I mean, your thing is, like, so like, it's not you weren't saying I'm gonna make a new insulin pump. You weren't saying I'm gonna make an you were like, I'm gonna come up with a way for a system to track if your policies go in, and that's gonna make people's lives better, and there's value behind it. And there's value behind it because it's important. You you know?
And that's a lot of foresight. Did you ever did you ever have a moment where you thought, like, oh, let's just sell it off here or, like or did you ever think of bailing on it that it wasn't viable?
The years they didn’t get paid43:18
I mean, there were some really, really, really rough times during our startup journey. Like, unbelievably rough. Like like, we did not get paid collectively. I think two and a half years out of the seven years spread over, you know, those seven years, but, you know, we didn't get paid.
Gaps of time. Yeah.
You know, we took on debt and and and but kept pushing because we would eat we get this milestone that would, like, reinvigorate our flame. Right? And they were just phased out enough for us to, like Keep you going. Not just die yet, and then we got it. And then we're like, oh, okay.
Here's some new life, you know, pumped into our souls to keep doing this. So yeah. I mean, you know, we had several funding opportunities that we had full expectations of closing that fell apart. And, yeah,
they're they're
just I don't think I'll be honest with you. Like, I think that we and, again, back to that point about having a really good team. You know, finally, Luis and I, as cofounders and we, you know, we had other team members too that we brought on. We we we had, you know, systems engineers and and data scientists that we hired on as well along the journey. But Luis and I were, like, in it the whole time, and I would always have to ask him.
I'm like, hey, man. Like, we'd have these conversations, like, walking back from an ATT dinner. It's, like, 2AM, and we're in, like, you know, Florence or something or crazier. We're in San Francisco for an ADA. And, you know, it's, like, 2AM.
You know how these conferences go. You you spend all day working the floors, then you go to dinners, then you go to the, you know, social events after. And so we're walking back to our hostels, typically where we would stay, you know, miles away from the conference centers. And we would always have these checking conversations and be like, man, I'm like, are you like, be honest with me. Are you good?
Like, is this is this, like, not no jokes aside. Like, we have to do this, like, six more days in a row. Yeah. Like, this type of thing. Are you good?
And both of us would ask that question, and we would all always answer super, super truthfully. And I think, you know, we never really said that we weren't good. We always said maybe we need something, more help with something. But, yeah, we'd have those types of conversations, and I think it's really important. Like, if you're gonna do something crazy like this, like, you need to have people that are bought into the idea of being vulnerable, telling you exactly what you need because lack of communication is just gonna lead to a breakdown in the whole Everything.
Idea or system or whatever. So yeah. Listen.
I I haven't been to many of those things, but I gotta tell you, I get done. I go right back to my hotel room. I eat, I go to sleep. I I when when people are like, I'm going to dinner. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking I just I know.
I just talk for eight hours in a row. My brain's on fire.
Yes. But So much. Yeah.
But in those moments, John, you're out there explaining and explaining and explaining again, waiting for someone what to look back at you and go, oh, that's a good idea. I'm interested in that idea. Like, that's really it. Right? You're just throwing a fishing line in over and over and over again.
“I hated being called a founder”46:41
That's gotta be a As young founders Yeah. I think the biggest mistake that I've seen and, like, it was funny because I always hated being called a founder because there's that, like Yeah. No. I know. You know, there's that stereotype.
Right? Like, I was just like, I I'm just we're we're scientists. You know? We're we're doing this thing. Like, maybe you're innovators.
I don't know. Like but, like, please, like, let's let's separate the, like, Silicon Valley mantra from, like, what we're doing here. Like, we're trying we're trying to do something like. And and so, yeah, going to people as 23 year olds with this ambition to create something was incredibly challenging because you don't have the credentials. You don't have the experience.
You just have an idea. And maybe that idea and a way to solve a problem. And maybe those things are good, but most of the time, sometimes they're bad. And so what we did at the beginning to and give us a little bit more credit was to find those key opinion leaders that we could ask honest questions about, what are we doing wrong? And and well, there are two.
It was the key opinion leaders, like I said, in those interview sessions. And so at the very beginning, we could then turn to data that we had collected from, you know, hundreds and hundreds of interviews and say, like, this is what at least a subset of people are saying with diabetes. We can publish on this. And then these are also what key opinion leaders in the space, like leader leading endocrinologists, leading into industry experts, previous founders of large companies that were able to successfully exit. And so we try to pull in these the support from, you know, the diabetes community and then also leaders in the diabetes community.
And that gave us just a lot more, I think, confidence and ability to speak on this problem because we had these amazing people backing us. So that was, I think, a huge strategy for us at the beginning was validating what we're building with leaders and the community Yeah. And then using that as
And staying on focus of getting you you used the word exit, but the an exit's finishing with something that somebody values enough to buy from you. I do see sometimes some companies seem like they're professional capital raisers and no and no desire to actually get to the accent. Yeah. Yeah. That could happen.
Right? You could you could say, well, people are interested enough. They'll throw some money in. This will keep us going a little longer. We don't necessarily have to deliver anything at the end.
We can just always look like we're trying.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's Yeah. We were very, very, very intentional about how we raise capital or dilution, the mechanisms at which we raise, you know, different types of convertible note mechanisms, safe notes, early stage equity capital agreements that we had. And in regards to our strategy for that, which it wasn't a question, but it just gets me excited because whenever buddy somebody talks to me about raising money as a startup founder, you know, we really try to maximize non dilutive funding as much as we could as a science like STEM.
Obviously, not every startup has access to these resources, but luckily, in the diabetes med tech space, you do. And so, again, that NIH funding was incredible. We probably would have gone for a phase two, which is like a follow on funding award from the NIH. Mhmm. But managing that, you know and and then, of course, breakthrough t one d and then a bunch of other things that we were able to, you know, accumulate other little grants and stuff.
We try to keep it as nondilutive as possible Yeah. Versus relying solely on private equity and capital. We did raise that, but we we never got past the series
a Okay.
For our private capital raise.
I wonder how many people listening understand this only because of Shark Tank.
Yeah. Basically, for if if if if anything leaving my mouth right now can be understood from raising money, we tried to raise more free money than we did money that we would have to pay back. Yeah. And Or give away as as that.
Or give away a piece of the of the the idea of the business too. Yes. Exactly. Was stressful time, personally? Were you did you have a lot of free time?
Was this a very encompassing thing?
I I have to, like, just show off my wedding ring because my well, back then, girlfriend, we met, like, right when I was making the decision on whether or not to accept the medical school acceptance that I received. I'd taken the MCAT. I know. I didn't really talk about this, but, like, I took the MCAT, got in to a medical school option. Instead, I'm like, look at this little lab designed project that we
What if I made a UI that measured whether or not insulin comes out of a hole when it's not supposed to?
Yeah. And she's like, what do you mean? I'm like, and we're gonna build into this company. And, like, look at all my friends over there. We're all, like, smelly.
Like, just like
I'll bet you own a house in ten years maybe, or I could be a doctor, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so she stuck with me through that decision and was the most supportive person I could have ever asked for.
Well, John, I don't wanna not give her credit, but on top of being incredibly smart articulate, you're a handsome man. So I was assuming yeah.
She She thank you. I I I I I she has seen me in my ugliest state. So I was, like, the best, you know, to have her in those moments where I was, like I looked like Gollum and, like, and, like, stayed up for, like, two or three nights, like, working on stuff. But she
Yeah.
Yeah. She was a huge support system and, yeah, was just instrumental in making sure that I was able to, you know, still bleed You
don't have to explain it to me. In in a handful of days, I will be married thirty years. And if it wasn't for that girl Amazing. I would live I'd probably work in a sheet metal shop still. So
Man, that's awesome. Congratulations to you. Yeah. Thank you. That's that's huge.
We're we've we've only been together technically for two years, if you wanna say. I say ten because that's how long we've been together, but, like, technically, it's two years of marriage.
So I'll I'll give you a tiny bit of advice that you can use or not use
Yes. That you're not that you're
not asking for. People say, how did you stay married for thirty years? I say, you have to willfully not get divorced at least twice if you wanna make it for thirty years. You have to
I will take that. Yeah. You you have to I'll take that advice.
You have to believe that some years are good years, and some years are okay, and some are great, and some suck. And then in the aggregate, it washes out. You can't expect to be happy constantly like gleefully happy all the time. You really do have to have other people's best interests at heart because stuff is gonna go wrong for each other and you're gonna have to like you're gonna have to cover. And then the only thing I can tell you is if you ever have a baby, everyone who has a kid is gonna tell you to appreciate it because time goes by faster than you think and you are gonna think that they're just yelling a t shirt slogan at you.
But it's the most honest thing that anyone's ever said to me. You will look up and be my age and not know how it happened. It's Yeah. Really is something. So
I mean, I I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Yeah. You can't stop time is the worst part of of finding a family and loving people, honestly. So
Well, I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to hold on to as long as much as possible, and, you know, we've we've made a really good life for us. Now we're in Atlanta. She works for Chick fil A and exec, and she's just an amazing person. So
It's awesome. Yeah. You did skip over a couple of things there. Like, you just kinda said yell off the side of your mouth like it was no big deal, but I felt like maybe things were going okay for you coming out of Cal. Where did you go to undergrad?
Marathons, and running with type 155:00
Yeah. Yeah. Go, Knowles. I went to Florida State. I'm an incredibly depressed college football fan right now, but I am a huge college football fan, but depressed one at that.
So I got to see us, you know, in the national win the national championship season my freshman year Wow. Which was amazing, but now we stink.
So,
yeah, I did all of my research undergrad, You know, worked in that research lab I talked about with the colorimetric method detection and where we also then eventually started DiaTech. Did that at Florida State. But while at Florida State, I did some summer research experience or internships at Yale New Haven, again, with the Sherwin and Tamberlin Labs. And then, you know, was premed, but ended up fully committing to diet tech. Yeah.
And yeah. And then funny enough, I actually got a master's while doing diet tech, which I do not recommend doing. That was, like, the craziest experience. I'm like, oh, my life's not hard enough. Like, just just add this.
But it was a health sciences degree in MS at in at Columbia in in New York. How to Did it help you is what you were doing? Yeah. Absolutely. Huge in helping with, obviously, physiology, understanding, and, obviously, a lot of things in regards to academic research, publishing, clinical research, regulatory approvals, processes.
So it's it was a really amazing program. But yeah. Yeah. Did that. It's impressive.
And I'm in Atlanta. Yeah.
Well and that's is that where your company is, or do you work remotely?
So I work remotely as of right now. Deck is actually based in Manchester, New Hampshire. Oh. So I go back and forth between there when I can make it, and then I also do a lot traveling for work as well. So
Yeah. So Can you tell me what it is you're doing for them and what you see as your future? Because, I mean, you're you're in a really unique situation. You're 30 years old, but you've already developed something that's actually valuable for humanity, sold it. I'm assuming you're you're reasonably comfortable now, but you're still working for them as much of that as you're comfortable sharing.
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of amazing new technologies coming out in the landscape, you know, that we know with, like, FCL, longer wear time, adhesives, you know, interoperability with a bunch of different systems, utilization of of of closed loop systems with other types of medications and indications. I mean, we also we know a lot of people that use GLP ones with with their pumps, but, like, you know, how does that impact device usage, you know, different insulin administration methods like a frizz, and how does that get employed into a closed loop system. So ton of really amazing stuff. And then, of course, always just improving the hardware, and software of existing pumps.
So working you know, it's a lot that's a lot of things to work with, but there's, like, a real future, I still think, in diabetes technology innovation. And so I'm, you know, looking to stay involved with that as much as possible. And so at DECA, you know, working with a lot of those types of initiatives, projects, that's what I'm currently doing. And it's been an awesome, you know, opportunity. I can say that just the engineering talent at that company is just incredible, and they've been so welcoming and and supportive.
So, yeah, love to work continue working on projects with them for their pump systems or the twist pump. And, yeah, we'll see where that goes after that.
It's awesome.
I hope that's a good enough answer.
No. I think that's a fantastic answer. Listen. I'm gonna pitch my idea to you right now because I don't think I have the smarts to get it to anywhere. But and I also have no idea if this is technically or scientifically possible.
But I think that people who benefit from a GLP would benefit from taking doses of it more the way that you take insulin and less of the once a week. I would love somebody to either develop an insulin that already had the had it mixed in or that was giving you a microdose of it once a day maybe. That's my idea. I've I've Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's co co formulation thing is is definitely really interesting, like, having the GLP with the insulin and having, like, a stability that allows for that. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a ton of amazing, I think, research that's going in on that. Specifically, what I think is really interesting with the use of that is the possibility of how our infusion sites and our health is with our infusion sites and the length we can wear our infusion sites for when we utilize something like a GLP with an infusion set or a pod.
Because one of the primary issues, I would say, with infusion site health is quite literally volume being infused into the site. Yep. One, there's, like, a mechanical issue, obviously. Like, more stuff you pump in there, the more things get, like, jambled up. Right?
Like, so if you're pumping a lot more insulin into a site, quite literally, the tissue is gonna, you know, be more altered if you were to pump less. And so, yeah, there's a lot of fascinating research that's going on right now about, okay, if we use, you know, maybe different insulin amounts pumped in the same spot Yeah.
Then don't the sites last longer?
The sites could possibly last longer. Right. Right. And so utilizing a GLP with that, you know, there's there's hypotheses that maybe we can really extend or prevent things like lipohypertrophy or extend the the sets for a lot longer because we're literally infusing less insulin.
Yeah. My daughter must use 30 or I mean, sometimes I think it could be 40 less insulin when she's using a GLP versus not using
I'd be very interested to know what her sites would look like, like, versus if she was doing her full total TDD insulin requirements for the three or however many days she wears her
Yeah.
SATS four versus it with the
Oh, can't tell you how many things I think are benefiting. I think she has joint pain that's not as bad when she's on a GLP. I think her inflammation goes way down. She looks healthier. I was describing to somebody earlier today.
I've been using it for three years. I have a mental clarity now that I just couldn't explain to you before. I don't even wanna like, I I don't mean, like, jacked up running around like a lunatic, but I don't I go to bed because I know I should go to sleep. But there's things I wanna do, and I could keep doing them. And Yeah.
I did not live like that prior to this. So, I mean, I I I John, I would never do this, and I mean that, but I would be lying to you if I haven't thought to myself, I wonder if we could just mix this stuff together, put it in the pump, and see what happens. I wouldn't I I'm I wouldn't do that science experiment on my kid or somebody else, but it's I think someone smarter than me is gonna figure it out is what
I'm saying. Have to get in touch with Luis because he does a lot of of, like, insulin aggregation research.
Yeah.
Basically, looking at, like, is what infusing through the pump aggregating and causing clogs or issues? And so Mhmm. Maybe that's a a science experiment for Luis at some point if you guys ever get in touch. I have to make That would as well. He's always looking for amazing projects to, like, apply for grants and stuff with.
But yeah. No. It's Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I just know
that It's amazing.
Having these conversations with people really does allow me to see kinda bigger picture what everyone's talking about and what's working for people. It's almost I mean, it it makes me feel like sometimes having this podcast makes me feel like, what if we all went to the same AI and told us told it our life stories about type one? Would it start drawing lines to things? But we never have those conversations. And there's nobody who's in charge of remembering that seven weeks ago, a lady told me that her kid's bipolar issues lessened on GLP.
Like, that's a thing you say out loud, but nobody nobody clocks it. You you know what I mean? And then I get to have enough conversations over and over again that I interview a woman the other day, and she's talking about some stuff. And I realized, oh, she just said the same thing the lady from six months ago said. That's not a coincidence.
I'm not gonna do a study on it, John, because I make a podcast. But I but I can say it out loud for people like you who are listening to maybe, like, have an idea.
I can't wait to see in the next diabetes care article that is primarily authored by Scott. He's amazing. He's amazing. That
would be insane.
Findings. Yeah. No. I listen. I a drug where you continuously see FDA approvals for co indications for diabetes, weight loss, I mean, dementia as well, or things that they're working on.
Like, it just goes to show, like, the mechanisms of action of this drug is is pretty profound.
And we don't know what we're talking about. I always bring up the fact that you that anesthesia works, but we actually don't know how it works. I think that's fascinating. We there's a thing we can give a person and make them unconscious and then turn them back on again and ask somebody to describe how that happens and they go, I don't know. We just know it works.
So
Yeah. It's it's it's it's really, really interesting. And, obviously, everyone brings up, you know, the you know, what it will be in the long term use case for this, but I listen. I think there's studies that showcase that. I'm not very apt in that, but, you know, for what it's worth, how it's providing, like, really great outcomes for people that use it in the type one diabetes space Mhmm.
Is really awesome to see. And, you know, I'm all about options. You have an option to care for yourself and make your life better. Like, Go for it. Cool.
I will share one thing with you, then I'm gonna ask you a last question. The thing I'll share is that I've said before, if I were to grow a horn out of my forehead that said Eli Lilly up the side of it, I would put Christmas lights on it and tell everybody how proud I was of it because of all the because of all the good things that have happened to me. But in the very beginning, you said you feel like you've been listening to the podcast for, like, ten years, and you said you you had a question, but you didn't ask it off me. So do you remember what that was? Or
Yeah. Actually because well, when when did you start the podcast specifically?
January 2015.
Okay. That makes sense. Because I remember I remember when you because right after that, Medtronic got their first FDA approval for a closed loop system. Right? That was, like, in 2016.
Okay.
And I think that was about the time I remember starting to listen to
your Really? That's crazy.
Yeah. Yeah. I I've always been aware of you producing, and you've kinda been, like, one of the original diabetes, again, content creators in our space. So
I wrote wrote a blog I wrote a blog for eight years before I started making the podcast, actually. Yeah.
That's yeah. I I just I guess, like yeah. My question was when you when you started the podcast, because that makes sense. That was, like, about the time I think I remember Mhmm. Hearing because I I'm a nerd.
Right? Like, I listen to the like like, I I pay attention to a lot of things in the industry and stuff. And, like, you know, I think there's a lot of crossover between community and industry in the diabetes space. So Yeah. Yeah.
It's just super cool to have, like, people like you be able to come out and, like, produce these types of, like, dialogues and people to learn about things too. So, yeah, that's awesome. In another life, if I was more confident, I would have this. Like, confident with my tech. I I like, like, this type of thing.
I I would I would I would love to, like, do something like this.
But
yeah. Listen. I'll leave it to the experts.
You can get it set up for you. Listen. If you wanna come on here and talk about technical stuff, you can come on as much as you want. If you're just looking for a place to put your voice. But yeah.
No. I I wrote that blog I wrote that blog from two thousand seven, January. I mean, I still have it. I put something up on it the other day. And then I was probably one of the handful, like, OG diabetes bloggers.
There were people out before me for sure. Scott Scott's with Blue Circle Health now, guy named George, few people like that. And then I just noticed that people weren't reading. Like, people were just trending out of the platform. And I kinda I kinda panicked a little bit.
And I thought, oh, I help all these people. Like, they're gonna stop reading, and then I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be my space before you know it. And I happened to write a book for about being a stay at home dad that led me into meeting Katie Couric who told me I was good at talking to people. Oh, okay. Then I see Wow.
That's crazy.
That's a weird yeah. So I pivoted. I I literally bought a microphone, and I thought, well, Katie Couric said I was good at talking to people. And I grew up listening to Howard Stern. Like, I could probably pull this off.
And, like, this really was it. And then I started making the podcast. But it wasn't long before the the space kinda came after me a little bit because I was talking about how we were managing Arden. And people were like, you can't tell people how you do things. It's dangerous.
And when I saw people telling me that, I thought, well, I'm doing the right thing. And and so it's
Exactly. Yeah. Like, like, you have all these archaic, like, thoughts and, like, approaches to diabetes management
Mhmm.
Especially probably at that time.
Oh, sure.
And you need to, like, shake that up. Right? Like, you're creating content that is more relatable, I think more what's the word I'm looking for? Yeah. It's just it's not the standard experience that I'm sure we all had more so before.
Mhmm. Maybe, unfortunately, some of us do today as well. Oh, sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Of going to the doctor and having a really, really just terrible time on how you're educated or how you learn about technology or how you learn about anything in our industry.
The way I
think all shout out to amazing endocrinologists and health care providers today. We have so many that have just totally changed that, and I'm so grateful for them.
I I tell you, there's there's fast fascinating fabulous people all over the space, and there's some people who have horrible experiences. And I think that if you look at almost any human experience, you're gonna see, like, brake pumpers, people who are just, like, scared, risk averse, and then nothing moves. There's people who don't wanna, like, pay attention at all and just run forward. That's not okay. The middle is where you need to live.
Right? Because if not, then everyone ends up listening to authority, and then you get 15 grams of carbs, fifteen minutes, and then test again. And then that's and then thirty years from now, your a one c has been 9.5 or 10 for your whole life, and you have all kinds of problems. And then we say, oh, well, it's okay. Like, know, we were being safe.
That's not safe. You you know? So, like, I just thought, like, I see what's working. We should tell other people so that they can go try to figure it out for themselves. And that's to what I said to you earlier.
I don't know if I said it while we were recording or not. But when I was giving advice to somebody, was like, if you wanna be valuable in this space, like, just help people. And then, you know, you'll stick around longer. So Yeah. This is my Absolutely.
My twelfth year. And I I've never said this out loud before, but prior to me starting the podcast, there were a couple of people doing something called blog talk radio shows where you would literally pick up your home phone and call into a number. And you'd both be and it would be recorded on a third at a third party place. Then the the originator of the call had access to the recording, which was terror. It sounded horrible.
But I was on a number of those. And I remember people saying, like, hey. You were really good on that or that was interesting or that was fun. But the people hosting them, god bless them, were all just like, you know, they stuck the same couple of questions over and over again. They never really stretched out or anything like that.
And then there was this guy named Tony who had one that was pretty popular. He had type one. And I I later said to him, I should find him and have him on here. I later said to him, I'm gonna start a podcast. And he said, you're gonna run out of stuff to talk about.
And I said, I don't think so. And now I almost and now I almost have 2,000 episodes.
Exactly. Yeah. There's so much more than just
The running influencer1:11:49
You you'll run out
of stuff to
talk about, John, if you only talk about the same crap that everybody's talking about all the time. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Exactly. Like and it's funny because, you know, my entire career is built mainly around diabetes technology. But, you know, a side thing that, like, I love to do, again, as we mentioned, is fitness and running. And so, like, that has its own entire just field of knowledge and products and everything Yeah.
Related. So it's so cool to see those two. Like like, every little part of this diabetes community that we have, there is just this open world of, like, knowledge and topics. And and so, yeah, it's just it's just crazy. Like you said Yeah.
There's so many things you can talk about all the time. I often, like when I put my two different hats on between being a technologist or, like, an athlete with type one, I'm just like, woah. Like, I there's so much like, there's a learning curve, like, for me. Like, I I have to accept and and, like, taking all this knowledge about, okay. Well, like, what are strategies of running with diabetes?
Like, do how you do a marathon? How do you do an ultra? How do you do a five k? Like, how do people do all these other things? So, yeah, there's all these topics, and I'm just trying to stay ahead of it as much as I can.
It feels like you're changes every day.
It feels like you're doing a good job. Let me I'll tell people let me tell people a funny story, then I'll I'll let you go. So somebody put us together at ADA, but we didn't get a chance to talk. And so we met up at Friends four Life, and I was we you texted me. I I can talk now.
And I was at lunch with a a table full of people. But if you know at Friends four Life, like, unless you can fill a table with 10 people, you might be sitting with people you don't know. And so I'm sitting and having lunch with a few people I do know, and there's a family on the same table who we're chatting with, but I have no idea who they are. And I said to the guy, I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. I gotta go.
I'm gonna go have a chat with John Wilcox. And he goes, who's that? And I started talking about who you were. And the woman goes, oh, I thought he was a running influencer. So so Exactly.
This fantastic like, you're this guy. You just you just explained this entire, like, thing from college to, like, making this great device, an idea, and bringing it out into the world and everything. And there is a lady somewhere who is like, oh, that my kids love him. And then I swear while he was talking about the father opened up his phone, opened up Instagram. He goes, I follow him.
And hold and and I started and I was like, how do you know who he is? And she and he's like, oh, he's a guy with type one who runs. That's the only way they knew you. It's really I thought that was fascinating, actually.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, different hats and Some pretty different hats. I know.
It is. I know. It's it's it it is it is rooted somewhat in masochism. Right? Like, there's, like like, running is painful.
Doing a startup is painful. Maybe that's, like, the synergy between the two
of them. I I didn't wanna be a I didn't wanna be your therapist, John. I didn't wanna bring that up.
But Yeah. No. It's it's that you could see how I I I process my my challenges. Right? I do chat these challenging things.
No. I I I I I love I love that. And, yeah, I just it's been awesome. I know we didn't really talk more about the running, but it's it's really good to to dive into, like, into the career aspect of this whole journey. And
I find this very interesting. I appreciate you being willing to sit down and talk about it. I'll have you back again. We'll talk about the running some other time.
Oh, yeah. No problem. Yeah. I'd love to. And, no, Scott, thank you so much.
This is always this I'm I'm honored to be on here. Like I said, a longtime fan, so thank you so much for this. It's always great to have a conversation.
It was great to have you. Hold on one second for me. Okay? It seems that the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by Tandem Diabetes Care. Learn more about Tandem's newest automated insulin delivery system, Tandem Mobi with Control IQ plus technology at tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox.
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