Bringing ideas to life – Picmonic co-founder Adeel Yang

 

Picmonic Co-founder – Adeel Yang MD

Have you ever had a great idea? Something that could change everything? Maybe it’s a great idea, but you aren’t really sure how to bring it to life. It’s even more difficult when you are in the medical field. Your ideas can truly change the world, but how do you manage to build a business with limited time focused on learning medicine? Enter Adeel Yang.

Adeel is the co-founder of Picmonic, one of the biggest companies in the health education space. More importantly, Adeel is an  example of someone who not only has great out-of-this-world ideas, but someone who brings them to life. Learn from this amazing guest. 

Adeel is an important figure, entrepreneur, and leader in the healthcare and education technology space. He is the president and co-founder of  Medumo and co-founder of the company Picmonic. Picmonic is a visual storytelling platform that helps students remember vast amounts of information In less time. Picmonic has already revolutionized medical school, nursing, and other areas of education. Meanwhile, Medumo, is a startup with a mission to transform patient education by guiding patients using automated instructions and checklists throughout their care.

In this episode, learn how Adeel brought Picmonic to life, how you can bring your own ideas into fruition, Adeel’s take on improving healthcare, and much more! Enjoy learning from this awesome guest!

Learn more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeelyang/

https://www.medumo.com/

https://www.picmonic.com/

Top Points

1. On creating new ideas: The goal is to not  try to do everything at once, but to pace yourself, and to actually think about the idea fully, in terms of a structure. For example [ask]: how many people can this actually help? How big is the market? thinking about if I were to do this, how much time will it really take me? Do I have to take time off from school? How do I manage, the time commitment?
2. Find mentors: Surround yourself with people who have done it [whatever your goal is], advisors, mentors, other entrepreneurs. I think what is really important is to leverage that moment of creativity and go talk to people who have done it, have patented ideas, have innovations, done research from bench top to bedside and talk to those people… get them to help you manage the rest of the process… And then, time manage of course
3. Sharing the idea: I’ve learned so much from talking and sharing the idea and not being afraid to disclose everything you are thinking. Use that excitement to bring other people in to collaborate. Ideas are a dime in a dozen and it’s ultimately about execution. So for every idea you have, there are millions of others out there, so… there’s really in essence nothing unique about one idea, but the way you share it and execute on it is how you become successful.
4. Finding a community: Every major city seems to have kind of these startup or entrepreneurial activities and events, we started enlisting ourselves in these programs and events. This gave us an opportunity to access some serial entrepreneurs who have actually built and sold companies. We then grew from there.
5. The definition of happiness: For me happiness is about finding a mission or a purpose that you can achieve, and working hard to achieve it, and in that process staying motivated, healthy, and knowing you are making a difference in this world.
6. Check out Adeel’s routine for staying productive below- effective and simple.
7. The reality of a job in medicine: I think most people go into medicine and thinking back, would have been a little bit naiive if you will, of what medicine is and what being a doctor is like. There is a lot of glorifying the profession. In reality, it’s a pretty tough job, and it comes with a lot of sacrifices. I think if you have the right expectation early on, and then made the right decision to go into medicine, I think you have a much happier outlook, and much happier journey
8. On exploring and speaking to those ahead of you: You are doing yourself a disservice if you do not talk to ten-twenty people in the profession and really objectively try to assess if the feedback is positive. A lot of the physicians I talked to, I think now looking back, were trying to communicate with me what medicine really is.
9. Look at the section:  “How do we elevate the space of healthcare?”
10. Look at the section:“Exciting new technologies in the healthcare space”
11. Look the closing section: The grass is always greener and enjoy the journey

Transcript

*Note: I bold areas that I find important as I read them. Please comment if you find this distracting, and if so, I will not bold future posts and only comment in the top points section

Note: text was edited for easier readability, which doesn’t remove the primary meaning of the content.*

Being exposed to the entrepreneurial side of medicine

-I Grew up in Taiwan and was brought up in traditional Asian family. I was told medicine was the path I should go on. I Really didn’t discover interest in medicine until after college when I joined a biotherapeutics investment company; they invested in early stage innovation and medical technology. That peaked my interest because it opened my eyes to opportunities in medicine and the creative side of medicine.

-The business side of medicine was something I had never been exposed to before so shortly after that I decided I wanted to go into medicine to foster innovation and build businesses.

-That led to medical school where I attended the University of Arizona, where I also went to undergrad.

The Birth of Picmonic

-In medical school, two years into it, I started Picmonic with a classmate of mine because we were trying to be creative and study things better, and as you know, there is a ton of information you are supposed to learn and remember. At times it felt like it was humanly impossible to do. So what we did was we [Adeel and his friend] would go to the gym together and hangout all the time, we would come up with ridiculous stories and images to remember the different, bugs, drugs, and diseases that we had to master.

–Those stories and pictures, we started sharing that with our classmates. We put it online and realized students enjoyed it. We took it one step further and actually developed the software to deliver the images and stories in a more interactive way, and that was the birth of Picmonic.

–From there I took a leave of absence from school, we went out and we built a company. We raised some grant money as well as venture capital money. In total we raised $5,000,000 and then built a team of about 30 people and really grew the company to serving hundreds of thousands of students around the world.

-That was really exciting and really solidified my passion for wanting to do something non-traditional.

-I dragged myself back, finished medical school and then went back into the business world of Picmonic.

-I recently started another company in Digital Health using a software technology and education technology to help patients understand instructions so that’s me.

How did being exposed to the entrepreneurial world of medicine influence you?

-I had a major in economics but it wasn’t in business training and I didn’t go to business school.

-The concept of how things worked financially, how to build a team, and all of the stories you read about for founding companies, I only thought I knew what it meant… until I actually did it. But, that peaked my interest when I was working for this venture capital firm, and saw investing in early stage ideas and founders, which helped companies go out and serve millions of people. That really opened my eyes to what I really wanted to do.

How does a medical student actually take an idea and create a company?

–I kind of wish medical education included in its curriculum more creative classes to give people exposure to that side of medicine and the business side of medicine.

-I think for most medical students, from day one, it’s about getting through these blocks and get through these exams. it almost feels like you can’t even lift your head up and breathe, so to ask to do more, is almost impossible.

-However, I think that part of the reason I was able to create Picmonic while I was is because… I think that with most medical students, there are times when the creative juices start flowing, and you have this idea. The goal is to not  try to do everything at once, but to pace yourself, and to actually think about the idea fully, in terms of a structure.

–For example [ask]: how many people can this actually help? How big is the market? thinking about if I were to do this, how much time will it really take me? Do I have to take time off from school? How do I manage, the time commitment?

-Thankfully I was exposed to this early on, so I was thinking about these things as the idea came about.

-Other areas to think about are really surrounding yourself with people who have done it, advisors, mentors, other entrepreneurs. So in that, I think for medical students who have creative ideas and have an epiphany, and want to do something crazy out of this world, my suggestion is to not burn out, not to do everything all at once, because that is typically how the fire goes out. I think what is really important is to leverage that moment of creativity and go talk to people who have done it, have patented ideas, have innovations, done research from bench top to bedside and talk to those people, and get them to help you manage the rest of the process. And then, time manage of course

-in retrospect these are what we were able to do to keep going

Taylor: I like what you said. When inspiration comes in, there is this feeling of having it and saying go go go, I need to create this now, you get really excited. You are suggesting not to lose the fire but to tame the excitement and really manage that into a realistic, actionable, way of creating this project and really bring it into fruition over time.

Sharing your ideas and finding mentors

-that point about seeking mentors… I remember, call it a rookie move, we came up with the idea and we were so excited about it, we were afraid [if they discussed the idea], that people would run with it, that insecurity that comes with the beginning of most entrepreneurial ideas. That’s something I have learned to really throw away, if you really want your idea to be successful. I’ve learned so much from talking and sharing the idea and not being afraid to disclose everything you are thinking. Use that excitement to bring other people in to collaborate. Ideas are a dime in a dozen and it’s ultimately about execution.

-So for every idea you have there are millions of others out there, so there’s really in essence nothing unique about one idea, but the way you share it and execute on it is how you become successful.

-That’s the other aspect is don’t be afraid to share your idea.

-Then about mentorship, the way we seeked out our mentors, a lot of people who are immediate… professors, and people that every medical students knows, professors who have done a lot of great things in his or her life. We started by talking to some of our closest mentors and professors just at the medical school, which then led to more introductions, which led to more introductions, and more… and for me, I was also very proactive online and finding mentorship opportunities within the city.

-Every major city seems to have kind of these startup or entrepreneurial activities and events, we started enlisting ourselves in these programs and events. This gave us an opportunity to access some serial entrepreneurs who have actually built and sold companies. We then grew from there.

Taylor: One, I liked the idea of using your community and two, reaching out to entrepreneurs in the city, gave you different aspects of business and expand your ability to look at business and develop your perspective.

Expanding a company

-When we started, we just wanted to do something for ourselves. Some of the greatest business start out from some personal struggle or experience. When we developed it, it was based on my co-founder Ron who had some experience in learning and memory research, who knew some of these techniques.

-What we did, we took advantage of that technique, and knowing that there is scientific knowledge backing it’s efficacy, and effectiveness, we took it, ran with it. We realize it worked for us, and then the expansion happened after we established some traction and success with medical students. We realized nursing students are also struggling with topics, and learn similar bugs, drugs, diseases, and procedures, etc. This was a natural progression, and we saw the natural progression to nursing students, to PA students, even pharmacy students. We allowed the market to guide us and expanding this particular product and idea into other markets.

-In terms of the methodology, we have iterated on it, fill fast and iterate. You build a product, put it out there, and as you start to collect data, feedback, from users, you can see what is working and what is not working.

Backing Picmonic with research

I don’t know if you know, being nerds, we love doing research and digging into the science into all of this.

-We did an IRB approved research study with Midwestern University in Arizona. We put together a legitimate study comparing students using this method compared to students doing powerpoint delivered lecture notes. We found a statistically significant difference in the efficacy of using Picmonic and it’s methodology.

-With that research backing, we started iterating more specific ways that we delver the image.

-From there we started expanding into active learning.

-We then made a picmonic creation tool, so students can develop their own picmonics. Once you start gaining traction with users, then you have the ability to experiment and improve upon the product.

-We got lucky having early users excited in what we were doing, and then from there we were able to build the momentum, grow, and iterate.

Adeel on happiness

-For me happiness is about finding a mission or a purpose that you can achieve, and working hard to achieve it, and in that process staying motivated, healthy, and knowing you are making a difference in this world.

-That’s where I, in the last 5-7 years, have realized everyday I am waking up, thinking about the companies that I am building, and the people I am affecting, and I feel very motivated and driven. It allows me to focus and at the end of every day, it allows me to find something meaningful. For my limited lifespan that I have so far, I’ve definitely experienced that and am very grateful for.

Adeel’s daily routine and staying productive

-You know it’s interesting I was recently reading an article about this, and there definitely is a pattern for people who are in the entrepreneurial space and are able to juggle these high-stress tough schedules and stay on top of it. For me I’ve learned a lot from other people who have been able to be productive and effective in what they do.

-Somethings I’ve learned to do is, I always wake up early. I think that’s one of the key things that has changed in the last 3-4 years. I also get a very short and efficient workout session in, it’s my natural caffeine for the day (I actually weened off of coffee).

–I drink a lot of water, it sounds simple but it keeps me going through the day.

–I actually try not to sit in one spot more than four hours, I’ve noticed consistently my productivity goes down when I’m starting at a screen, sitting in one position for longer than four hours.

-I also always try to have food and interaction during lunchtime, that is really healthy and productive for me (so I schedule lunch meetings or schedule time to engage people).

-During the afternoon, I stay pretty focused from after lunch to 4-5, then I get another workout session in.

–My workouts are no longer than 40-45 minutes.

-Of course by then, I am winding down, then I do a lot of reading before bed, and that’s it.

-I’m a pretty routine kind of guy.

-Taylor: What I’ve learned reading about successful people is the early morning workout, or way to get that morning energy. I also interestingly do two workouts and have found that to be tremendously more effective.

Tools and technologies to stay organized and motivated?

-They are mostly related to the companies I am working with. One tool that has been central in my life is slack (https://slack.com/is) – use that for pretty much everything we do, it’s a communication tool for companies that have different projects and different people working on multiple projects. It’s a way to streamline the different types of conversations you are having with different people. I’ve been using that for the past three years and it’s been incredible.

-Personally, I use a lot of Apple Apps to keep reminders for anything personal.

-I try to keep my personal to-do separate from my company to-dos.

-Company task-managing tools include: asana – https://asana.com/ , another tool called podio – https://podio.com/site – these are designed to organize company teams.

-Personally I use the reminder tools on my phone, and checklists I build for myself to make sure that I stay on top of my own schedule.

-Other than that, nothing too fancy.

What would you tell a younger Adeel, tips you wish you would have heard sooner

-I think that the advice I would give myself, is different than the advice I would give to someone entering medicine for the sake of becoming a physician.

–I will start with myself, I think I regret chopping up my medical education into pieces. I took a leave of absence to build a company and really force myself to come back, that process was a messy process. A lot of administrative hassles [happened]. I would have told myself to stay focused, finish one thing before you start another.

-I think with medicine, it’s one of those fields where once you get away from it for a little bit, it’s hard to get back into it. That’s what I would tell a younger Adeel

-The advice I would give as personal advice ten years ago, I would have told myself to learn more about coding, and be a little more technology savvy.

-For anyone going into the medical profession would be to really really try to explore other areas, other professions, and talk to other people in professions.

–I think most people go into medicine thinking back, would have been a little bit naiive if you will, of what medicine is and what being a doctor is like. There is a lot of glorifying the profession. In reality, it’s a pretty tough job, and it comes with a lot of sacrifices. I think if you have the right expectation early on, and then made the right decision to go into medicine, I think you have a much happier outlook, and much happier journey.

-I think the friends that I had, who had a different expectation of medicine as a career looks like, are the ones who struggled with happiness throughout medical school and their residency training.

Taylor: Although arguably speaking, you might not always know what you are getting into unless you are experiencing it…

Adeel: Yes I agree, but I think, thinking back, people used to tell me: “make sure you go shadow physicians,” right? And it always felt more like a chore than something I really needed to do. I would think “Oh, I’ll shadow a physician and maybe get a letter of recommendation from that person,” but midway through medicine I realized, that could be the life-defining opportunity if I realized how important it was.

-You don’t really know what you want unless you experience it, but if you talk to enough people and the right people (this happens in business, to understand what people want as a product), to try to figure out what you want to do in your life… you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not talk to ten-twenty people in that profession and really objectively try to assess the feedback is positive. A lot of the physicians I talked to, I think now looking back, were trying to communicate with me what medicine really is. But I think because I was, already set in applying to medical school, I blocked it out. I blocked out an opportunity to try to understand and learn what it means to be a practicing physician.

Taylor: It’s not too late for students to reach out to doctors in different fields and get a taste of what it’s like life is actually like and learn from those experiences.

How do we elevate the space of healthcare?

-Let’s start with the policy scale. I think there is a lot of changes happening, there is a huge transition from fee-for service to value-based medicine, bundle payments. I think it is creating the right kind of incentive, for people to focus on quality of care rather than the number of patients you see. I think that policy will continue and improve a lot of the work-flow issues that physicians are facing, which is “I gotta get through 30-40 patients,” to be economically viable. You know that’s a problem that has been around for ages. I’m excited to see where that goes, and I do not think the new administration there because everything I have read shows that policy is staying.

-In terms of doctors who can make policy changes, I think there is a huge problem with residency being underpaid and overworked. I think that is something a lot of people are trying to push for but everything I know about the affordable care act still pressures residents even more. I think it is pushing a lot of pressure downstream and it’s not helping people get into the profession

-I think the bigger problem should be how we increased residency slots to meet the demands that are currently in need in the world and in our country. That needs to come from the top (administration).

-From my perspective doctors should agree that more productive residents, more residency positions, and more fair pay for residents are going to create better doctors and incentivize more gifted students who want to go into this profession.

-On an individual level, I think it’s really important that people do not see medicine as a chore, a job or a game. I have seen that happen a lot in medicine where people make decisions based on test scores, or make decisions based on needing to get a better evaluation, or this is how much I need to do to meet financial incentives.

-On an individual level if people can understand that medicine is not a career you go into to amass an enormous amount of wealth, that is not the case. There are a lot of professions that allow you to do that if that is what motivates you in life. I think the right attitude is going into medicine to devote a lot of your life to improve the lives of others and the more we have people that think that way, I think the better as a whole this profession and this working environment will improve.

Exciting new technologies in the healthcare space

-We can start with the education technology industry and then we can talk about health technology. Both industries have been really exciting to watch, a lot of investment dollars going in, a lot of attention here. There is a huge shift now in the industry of elevating the importance of innovation in both of these industries.

-In education technologies, it’s not new but it is gaining a lot of momentum and is growing, the concept of personalized learning and adaptive learning. To put it simply it uses technology and smart algorithms and machines to detect on an individual level how well you are doing and how well you are learning. Information is then delivered in a way that is tailored toward your needs. That is happening a lot in the K-12 space, and higher education space, not happened enough in the medical education space. Medical education is sort of this really ancient immovable rock, where rules have been established for decades, we are still going into the anatomy lab. There is a great deal of tradition, it’s hard to break.

-There are a few companies heading in this direction: osmosis (https://www.osmosis.org/) – they are using interesting technology and space-learning algorithms to help students better find information that is important to them and help them specifically. I think personalized and adaptive technology is a really exciting technology to watch.

-Of course, the idea that you have to learn the same way the student sitting next to you do, now is a complete fallacy, and we all know that is not true.

-I am excited to see more blending learning and flipped-classroom models where student can learn on their own with their own style at their own pace that they need to do, and then still have opportunities to come into the classroom, interact with professors, to ask questions, and to practice more interactive skills. I think this model will be a new innovation that is really exciting to watch.

-Of course there are all these devices and tools available to learners on the go, so that’s really exciting with mobile technology.

-From the healthcare standpoint there’s been a huge wave of innovation and investments going into digital health, obviously the wearables. Think about everything now from things you can wear on your wrist, things you can wear as part of your clothes, things that are implantable. What is happening now that because cloud computing and how data is being collected is so advanced now, I think we are just catching up now with the potential of data and what we can do with that data.

-What I mean by that is, imagine, that all of the people with cardiac diseases have wearables that are monitoring their heart. That data used to be, if there is an event, let’s do something about it.

-But, I think we are coming to an exciting time, where thousands of thousands of patients can generate millions of data points everyday.

-We can now take all of that data and run artificial intelligence and machine-run algorithms to identify patterns and correlate patterns to the ultimate outcome of the patients.

-That predictive analytics ability, will completely transform the way we think about preventative care, avoidable cost, and the way we think about interfering or helping patients with their adherence.

-What I do with the second company Medumo is we actually have a platform that delivers instructions to patients, via email and text message. The patients through text message and email can actually open up additional information and material about what they are supposed to do at the right place, and the right time. They can interact with the content and collect data to predict whether the patient is going to successfully complete the treatment, complete the preparation for their procedure, or what their post-operation and follow-up instructions that they are able to carry through and not have a potentially life-adverse outcome. So, really exciting innovation from a data standpoint happening all throughout the healthcare space, and of course, how people are taking advantage of how people are using AI. I think is the next phase of innovation we are going to see.

Recommended resources for students and doctors to check out

-Obviously I am more on the business side and start-up side. There are a few people in the startup world that I follow and organizations as well:

-Ycombinator is one (https://www.ycombinator.com/), an incubator based out of San Francisco that have been the early investory in great companies like AirBnb. I think following their blogs, posts, and podcasts has been really exciting.

-I think there is another in Boston, called Pulse@MassChallenge (http://boston.masschallenge.org/pulse), an accelerator specific for Digital health

-for me it is staying in tune with what is happening in the healthcare industry.

-There are a couple of twitters I follow and blogs from the accountable care organizations and policymakers that are affiliated with the government, constantly now it seems.

-I definitely think, for me it is staying in tune with the news and what is happening in my space (digital health), but I really enjoy subscribing to some of the start-up podcasts that are helping founders get through tough times.

– Some of the founders I look up to are Ben Hurowitz (@bhurowitz), and everybody’s favorite Elon Musk (@elonmusk), and one that I personally admire is Tony Shay who is the founder of Zappos (@tonyhsieh)

-In the medicine space, I think it is more specific to the different specialties and fields, I will defer that to the medical specialties and practicing.

-add on resources:

1. The Pitch is a really fun podcast (https://thepitch.fm/)  

2. How to start a startup – (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-start-a-startup/id922398209?mt=2)

Adeel’s professor who showed him what having a “calling” really meant

-I think for me, I had a mentor… Dr. Rappoport – almost every medical student I know, even after years of being a surgeon or educator), he has this little office in the back of the building. He doesn’t mind it at all, and he interacts with students on a daily basis.

-He took me in an off-site clinic that he uses to volunteer and practice, a clinic for addicts and an underserved population.

-I remember going to that clinic with him and realizing, that’s what calling really means. He exemplifies what I would want every medical student and doctor to have, in terms of the passion of wanting to treat patients. I think that was a moment of inspiration for me.

-Every time I think how tough medicine is, I think of Dr. Rappaport and then what he still does on a daily basis, it puts everything into perspective.

In closing: the grass is always greener and enjoy the journey

-I think my advice would be that medicine is a tough road. My wife is still in residency, and some of my closest friends are still in training. When I talk to them, they are always very curious about what I do. I am on a non-traditional path of building companies that are in the healthcare space, and I’m not seeing patients on a day-to-day basis reporting to work. I think the best advice I can give is “the grass is always greener”.

-When you are on a really tough path of medicine, you look at people not in medicine and you start to regret and think “I could have done this, or could have done that differently.” I think being on the other side of the fence, I sometimes look at medicine, and think “man I wish I was seeing patients, I wish I was still in an environment where everyday I have a chance to use my trusted skill set that would be valuable to people”. So the grass is always greener.

-The advice I can also give is there is light at the end of the tunnel, for the medical students and residents, and don’t keep staring at the light and wanting the tunnel to be over. Be open-minded and enjoy the journey, it’s okay to pause for a second if you are too stressed out, it’s okay to try something new. It’s okay to take a year off and do research, or do something you want to do, start a company, or explore an idea with a mentor about an innovation that can be world-changing.

-The advice I would give is, don’t let the tunnel define your life. Harness the creativity and talk to people and take breaks.

-For physicians, remember the little people.