Interconnecting the Aesthetic Medical Device Market

Dr. Grant Stevens

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Technology of Beauty. Where I have the opportunity to interview the movers and shakers of the beauty. And today is no exception. We have two movers and two shakers. With us today is Brian Phillips and Sean Shapiro from Medshift. Thank you guys for coming all the way out here and joining us on the technology of beauty.

Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. It's great to see you. It's great to meet you. Thanks John for having us. Great to see. It's always great to see. Always good to see you. Let's start with this. Brian, where are you from originally?

Brian Phillips

Seattle. Washington. And moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1999 after school and started with Microsoft.

Started my career at Microsoft in Charlotte. Wait, where'd you go to? Washington State University. No way. You a Cougar. Cougar.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Wait a minute, this Go cougar. Okay, we're ending the whole thing. COOs. No way. You a cougar.

Multiple Speakers

You're duck, right? Go Ducks. Oh man. Man. There we go. This is rival go rivalry tower right now. There we go. No. So from, you went to Microsoft and you moved to Charlotte.

Brian Phillips

Yep. I started my career there, and really came up in the technology industry. Started a few companies after Microsoft. Tell us about 'em. All right. The the first company was a, consulting business where I did security and big migration projects for large enterprises.

I sold that one to a little bit bigger company that then we grew and sold to a, so Accenture. Oh, that's big time. It was good. It was great. That was in 2012. And after that experience I was looking for the next project, and that's when I was having some dinner with some good friends in Charlotte the Tillers Porter and Lisa Tiller, they're industry veterans.

Yes. And. and we started talking about what they were doing, and I thought it would be fun to merge some of the technology that I had been working on with these interesting aesthetic medical devices.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Interesting. And then how'd you get hooked up with this knucklehead ?

Brian Phillips

Oh, boy. It's a great story.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yeah, You go. So Sean Shapiro and I, full disclosure, have been friends for many years and we go back to Zeltiq and O therapy. And luminous. And luminous and we go back 20 years probably. Oh absolutely.

Sean Shapiro

Yeah. It's great seeing you. Thanks for having us.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Oh, it's my pleasure, Sean. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself. Where'd you go to school? I know the answer pisses me off.

Sean Shapiro

The University of Arizona Wildcats tonight. Sweet 16 champs.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Oregon beat Arizona, just

Sean Shapiro

for the record. Yeah, but you guys, aren't in the.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Oh, course. Let's keep going. We took the whole place.

Sean Shapiro

We keep going. College undergrad was University of Arizona. Born in New York. Grew up in Arizona. Father of three beautiful kids. Two. Luke, my new adopted boy. I have a six year old girl named Lila and a 13 year old girl named Scarlet. And I'm a great salesman and I've married a beautiful wife named Corey.

So you married way of, way of.That's

Multiple Speakers

how you can, that's how you can tell you're a good salesman by the wife. You have no question. You're a great father. Yeah. Oh, thank you very much. And I appreciate all that you've done for your family. You thank you. You're a wonderful father.

Sean Shapiro

I appreciate that. Yeah, so ultimately, so that you guys hooked up so my background from start was, I got into this through friendships selling gall wine.

There's a bunch of gallo wine people in our industry that have done really well. And so through friendships I got an opportunity to work at Luminous. And this was early two thousands and I was selling the Ipl, the first I p L, the light shear and the med spa boom started coming out. So I was doing, that was with Lumis for a long time.

And then I got an opportunity from there to work with Zeltiq. And that was early, early on in Zeltiq Freeze The Fat Baby. Freeze the Fat. That's when we first got across, that's when I met Erin and she was the first trainer for me. Dave Higgy hired me, Terrie Ross, all the, original all people on the show.

People on the show. Great people. And I got that great opportunity to work as a salesperson there and and did really well. And then from there I had an opportunity to meet with Matt Likens, who took me over to Altherra there and Jim Atkinson and worked there. And that was where I really started getting into leadership roles and things of that nature.

And we got acquired by Merz and got through that and went over to Merz with the group and worked at Merz and helped with the Cellfina and Althera and the device business there. and as we were going through that, I had an opportunity to take a first vice president role to a women's health company, ViiV, which you helped me very much get off the grounds, but that's really where I met Brian

We were at a trade show, I think it was the first month into the job, and I met. Lisa Tiller also a co-founder of the company. And Lisa introduced me to Brian and we hit it off immediately and he was already in that, the women's health space with the other companies. And so we started talking about how can we grow the women's health space, talk about these conditions in a way that could get to the mainstream public.

And he had a part of the business called the Confidence. Which was really appealing to us to be able to do that. And so we started doing business with him right out of the gates. And Brian was awesome to work with. And he did represent about 60% of our business, the first two years of purchasing machines and getting into place.

So that's how I knew about Medshift. And then it's all incestual, as in this industry. That's right. Porter, Lisa's husband, who also is an industry veteran out in Charlotte. Good friends with Brian. Was looking to make a career change and I hired him as the, one of our first sales reps who, he became the the best director in the east for us.

And he ran all the east business. So we all became very close and we had great relationships. Great working with him. And When I obviously, I moved to Soluton was my last role. And that was a wonderful opportunity with Brad and the group there. And that's Brad Hauser. Yeah, Brad Hauser.

He and so we got purchased and that was awesome. And as we were finishing that up, Brian came to me and said, we're. We're growing this thing and I, and like you to consider it. And Matt Likens always gave me the best advice about decisions. He said, always make a decision. People first, opportunity second position third.

Dr. Grant Stevens

In that order let's go through this again.

Sean Shapiro

People first, opportunity second. No people First product, second opportunity. Third.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I think those are words to live by. Oh, and Matt Likens is a very smart man.

He's

Sean Shapiro

been my mentor.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I've wanted him on this show for many years. I want him here. So if you talk to Matt, I've talked to him. I've invited him here. I want him on this show. I'll tell him.

He's

Sean Shapiro

got a lot of us, a lot of things. He's a, he's wonderful. And so he shared that with me and it's always resonated through my moves in my career. So people, I knew Brian, I knew the tillers, I knew who they are as people.

I knew who they are with customers, how they'd run their business. So that was the biggest draw, clearly. And I was like, I wanna work with these people. And then obviously the opportunity that we'll get into about Medshift was. I knew 'em just from a device position on the other side. So they would buy devices me and we would put 'em back into the marketplace, right?

And they would be able to help promote that through the confidence and other things that they had in-house that they were doing and the technology and all of that. So I knew them from that side of the business, but now that I'm on inside of the business, I didn't. Brian's background of technology and understanding how to integrate things and all of that is tremendous.

And so that's where I was like, oh, the opportunity is completely here in regards to the other facets of our business there. And then obviously the co-founders of the Tillers. I loved working with them. I knew the quality of people they are and what they have done, and then I saw the numbers and everything else was like, okay, I wanna be a part of this.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you're in. So Brian, tell me about your business. What do you bring to the marketplace here in the aesthetic industry?

Brian Phillips

That's a great question. And what we noticed early on was there was some clear gaps I would say. The device manufacturers were really great at making wonderful systems that did certain things to tissue and created.

Excellent outcomes, but their focus was solely, on the device and on selling those devices. There was a gap around the technology that, for example, connected those devices and gave the manufacturer information about what those devices were doing. So in the early days of the company, that's where we filled in right away.

We built technology that could connect any manufacturer's device to our platform. read information in real time about what that device was doing. And in the early days, we did that because we were doing a pay per procedure model. And so we would take a normal device and turn it into a pay per procedure. And we to the physician. Correct? That's right.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you put the device in the office?

Brian Phillips

We did.

Dr. Grant Stevens

The doctor didn't buy it. You would put it in the practice? And then you would charge the doctor according to utilization?

That's correct.

Brian Phillips

That's the early model. That's the early model.

And so really, if you were to look at the business today, this is six and a half years later. We have three divisions. One is the device division where we're still buying devices and we're placing them into service with with talented doctors across the United States. The second is the technology bucket, and that's where we have different platforms that we mostly sell these platforms up to manufacturers.

So on the device side of the business, the devices go down to the doctors, right? On the technology side of the business. Most of those things get sold up to the manufac. So we took the connected device technology, for example, and we are now selling that to manufacturers so they don't have to invest a million, 2 million, 3 million.

Building a technology team who understands all of these complex things like encrypted cellular communication and cloud computing platforms and PCI compliance and HIPAA compliant data storage. They don't have to build that cuz we already built it so they can just use our technology, plug it into their system.

Okay. instantly connect their medical device.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So if I'm a manufacturer of a device That's right. I hire you now. I'm the manufacturer. I hire you to do all that.

Brian Phillips

Correct. We already built it, actually. We've invested. I'd say going on. Do they pay per device?

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yes. As a subscription. How's that work for the manufacturer?

I'll get to the doctor in a minute, but Great question. I'm a XYZ company. And I have a new widget. I come to you and I hire you, do I pay you a subscription or

Brian Phillips

Correct. How's that work? It's really simple and it's very inexpensive. We're talking about $20 per device per month, kind of thing. Yeah, it's a.

Sean Shapiro

And so I'm gonna try to raise that price.

Brian Phillips

Good at it. We invested in the platform in the beginning for our own use so that we could see the procedures that were occurring and we could charge per procedure. So now we just, now we're on our third version of that platform, and now we're just creating the opportunity for manufacturers just to subscribe to it. We already built it.

Dr. Grant Stevens

You said three, I just remembered you. You had three. Part three

Brian Phillips

buckets. What's the third bucket?

So first bucket is device, right? Second bucket is technology. The third bucket is consumables. So a lot of the devices that we have in the portfolio require consumables. Sure. So we buy those in large quantities and we offer them at discounted levels to our doctors who have our devices.

Dr. Grant Stevens

No, wait a minute. No way. So if I want to buy cool sculpting cycle cards, I can buy 'em cheaper from you than Allergan? Yeah, because I would think Allergan wouldn't like that.

Brian Phillips

No, but we buy them from the manufacturers. And in large quantities, pallet loads of consumables, we work with the manufacturer to determine what those are allowed to be sold at.

And we're in lockstep with the manufacturer. So on the consumable side though as well, we have a wonderful partnership with Merz, patrick and Bob Ratigan. Bob.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yes, of course. Also friends of ours. Been on the program.

Brian Phillips

Oh yeah. They're excellent, excellent product set and really wonderful in injectable portfolio. We've now incorporated that into the consumable lineup as well, so now our device customers can get access to Merz injectables. We can bundle those.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So the doctor, me, I own my practice. The doctor's watching this, we would buy Radius for instance, from you, correct?

Brian Phillips

That's right. So we run programs in conjunction with Merz that offer nice discounts. to the consumer to the injectable products. Merz, Radiesse, Belotero. And and then also additive features. So different benefits within the program, different access to different trainings that we host.

In combination with, for example, some of the devices that we have. Both, it can go both ways. Ah, so it's mutually beneficial.

Sean Shapiro

So think of it as this as well, grant to expand on that is it's, we're like, we're a GPO that's controlled by the. I see. So the manufacturer wants it.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Wait, define what a GPO is for all the people watching.

Sean Shapiro

A group purchasing organization. So we're that group purchasing organization that we work with the manufacturers on what they want.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So for, do the physicians pay you for a subscription or a membership to be in your gpo? [No. No.] So there's no upfront charge to the docs?

Brian Phillips

No. No. On the, and Sean's speaking specifically to the injectable business. Now, the injectable business is is built just like that. But we. Different than a lot of GPOs that are in market selling independently of the manufacturer. We work with the manufacturer, so the Merz sales reps, there's 150, 160 sales reps in the United States. They actually bring the customers to Medshift because the additional benefits our program provides.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Ah, so it's symbiotic.

Sean Shapiro

Correct. You're not competitive with those. Correct. And I think what's important here, it's the transparency. So for example, In other GPOs that manufacturers don't like, it could be the rep in one area. Absolutely doing a phenomenal job. Cause they're pushing everything through the Jeep, but it's going through all the United States and so the other reps in the other areas are working, are not getting credit for that.

Or so on. And that's not from a culture, from a Salesforce, that's not what any manufacturer or team wants. What we have done from the technology side of Brian's brain is we, our dev team, our development team in-house development builds with the manufacturer a D. Through, whether it be their Salesforce or whatever their CRM is, and we'll show them clearly on their trans with transparency where everything's going so that everyone gets credit.

And the manufacturer loves that because hey, here's an opportunity for some of the lower tier offices that love to get and buy a hundred thousand or $200,000 worth of radius, but they're not gonna get there cuz they're just starting out or that kind of the lower tier. But they would love to get the benefits they can get into this program.

They can get the benefits of that. The rep gets credit for it. It's all transparent to the manufacturer. They know where everything's going cuz we build all that system for 'em. And then on top of that, because who we are, we can create trainings and show ways to do those treatments that the manufacturer can't.

So for example a butt lift with radius, how you do that. And so our KOLs will come on and we'll show that through our training session and all that. So it's a great program that we can provide as well as if another product, let's say Althera with the injectable, we wanna show how those benefit together.

We can do that. And that's another added benefit that we do, or any other one of our manufacturing partners, which we have 17 of the largest manufacturers working with us, which is very exciting.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So I want to make a point here what Sean just said is that they can actually teach procedures and technologies that the manufacturer might be limited to teaching.

So alternative uses of products, and that's something that happens all the time. If you will, off label. And this is a way in which doctors and providers for non-physician providers and so forth can actually learn how to optimize the patient experience. Would you, would that be hundred, a hundred percent.

And otherwise the manufacturers have their hands tied and I'm not sure everyone understands that.

Brian Phillips

So I think Sean touched on something that's really critical to our business and a lot of our customers' businesses, and that's inside the technology. where we are effectively digitizing a lot of manual processes that the manufacturers are.

Bogged down with, so for example, at Citra is a customer of ours. They were upgrading their ERP platform, their enterprise resource planning, their back office system. They're upgrading it to Oracle Fusion. And they were gonna have to pay Oracle tons of money, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to add some of these modules.

That would've helped them a lot. We came in and evaluated what they were going to do, and we could do the same thing for a quarter of the cost. And because we understand the industry and we have developers inside the business, we have 15. Very hardcore software developers that write code for aesthetic companies only.

That's what we do. So we digitized all kinds of systems. For example, at Citra, their payments platform. Now customers can pay an invoice. On the internet, instead of texting a credit card to their sales rep or calling the corporate office and, and over the phone or the FDA registration process for implantation, for Citra, when a plastic surgeon completes a implant, they have to register, right?

The device. ID with the FDA that now is going to be all pre-programmed inside of our system. So we're taking the manual process out of the out of system. And you trim the cost Trim. Trim the cost. Oh, greatly. That's fantastic. So those in, in many examples, you'll see a manufacturing company paying very high fees to process credit cards.

And because our platforms, integrate those procedures right inside we're doing hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions, so our cost is much lower and we pass that right through to the, to, to our customers.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you do credit card processing too?

Brian Phillips

Yeah. Oh oh, big part of the business.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Oh, be darn. I didn't realize that. I didn't catch Is that the third? You do? It's inside the, Caroline Van Hove, the chairman of the board, she's been a guest here on this program. And Sientra's a fantastic partner of the Aesthetic Society. They're great. So I didn't realize we were helping them with that software and the credit card processing.

Brian Phillips

Yep, that's right. And also the customer purchasing experience, traditionally you can't order the product. without talking to a sales rep or emailing somebody or doing it in a manual way. Now for many manufacturers, We run the e-commerce platform. So now the practice can simply just log in and order the stuff they want.

And just like an Amazon experience, they get it shipped right to the office. It's integrated to the, of course, the CRM system that the manufacturer utilizes for their sales team. So they get notified that an order came in right away, the transaction is processed at the lower cost and the shipping is integrated, and the whole w.

Environment is all tied together through, through our platforms. So the enterprise software side of our business, because it's focused on aesthetics, is a. Very unique product and can provide a lot of advantages.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So that's the part. So you're doing this with consumable, so you're also doing it with capital. And capital Acquisitions, right? That's right. So walk me through that a little bit. I want to buy x, y, Z laser. Or whatever, some capital acquisition. I'm buying it from you now, not from the manufacturer. How's that look? What does that look like to me as the doc?

Brian Phillips

So on the device side of our business, we will buy those in bulk from the manufacturers, the devices. And then we'll add services and other value added items around that device. We'll build a program. Cool. And it's unique per device and per manufacturer. So we'll buy these, we'll build a program, and then the sales team will introduce us to the practice and say, instead of getting a loan from the bank or paying cash, you could.

Take a look at this Medshift option, and it's a fixed monthly fee for 36 months, or 48 months or 60 months, and instead of just getting a loan and buying the equipment, you now get the equipment, you get the manufacturer's support, but you also layer in Medshift support. And because our whole company is focused on aesthetics and we're building unique models around these devices, it's value add and it's basically the same price as you would pay the bank for the lease.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So there's another company I'm thinking of right now, and I'll tell you in a moment, but do you also optimize the practice experience? Like the gal who's answering the phone or the conversion from the contact? Are you teaching that sort of management? , or, and or do you have a dashboard system where the practice can evaluate itself against other practices or against themselves? Month to month, day to day, week to week, and so forth?

Brian Phillips

We're not getting into that layer of the practice. We allow the manufacturer to do the regular trainings that they do, and what we do is layer in specific marketing campaigns for. Paid campaigns. That drive, that help drive patient flow to the practice that you've learned from experience.

Correct. Because if we have, let's say we have a hundred OLS that Okay that are in market, we know how to pretty specifically drive some patient flow for an ulthera practice. And we create that content and we publish it as part. Program, a practice would get access to a content library that's updated all the time. So that's one benefit for example.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So that's the value add if they buy from you, do you also sell that in the open market?

Brian Phillips

No, we don't. Ah, it's just for our subscribers. Interest on the device side.

Sean Shapiro

Yeah. The other thing that's really important here is cuz we're not a bank and the way the contract is set up as a subscription and service provide provided it's a completely off balance transaction.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So why is that so great? So think about, explain that to our listeners and watchers.

Sean Shapiro

So that's really a key point here. It's a very key point. This off balance sheet transaction with our program. And why that's so key is so you can think of it for multiple ways. So you're looking to buy a new house or buy multiple other practices.

You need your leverage to, to loan more money. Have that lever credit to do that. This will never show up on that. So you. Preserve your ability to raise more cash and to do other things because it's under subscription service. And that's really key. Think about private equity. So a lot of private equities in our field right now buying up dermatology and plastic service practices, so on and so forth.

Private equity doesn't want, wants to keep their. Money so that they can buy more practices and everything. And so it's difficult from the manufacturer, from an equipment standpoint to get into private equity cuz they wanna see multiples on that purchase. If it's an off balance purchase, they don't need to see those multiples and the true roi.

Of services can come into play. So we fit that market extremely well. And so that is a big benefit. And also by partnering with the manufacturers, we look at other things like additional warranties, free shipping and things like that. So we pa that's part of also our package. So we're this, we're not a.

but we're another option to create a subscription program that allows you to bundle these things an off-balance transaction and typically warranty shippings and things like that, that are free, that really show over the period of time of the money cheaper or a little bit more expensive than a bank loan.

Okay. And so it's been a great partnership. And the other thing, I think key to it the, our team is, so we were in the shoes of the. So I did this for years. The tillers had done this for years. So when we connect with the sales team and everything, we understand speed of a transaction and the importance of what matters to the practice and what matters to the rep.

So we, we take that at heart and we move very quickly. We're probably. 10 times faster than a bank in approvals and how we look at how we approve things.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And again, I want to emphasize you're not screwing the reps, right? No. They're getting credit things. They're getting to go to President's Club. They get credit.

Sean Shapiro

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Because in other programs similar to this, the reps get screwed.

Sean Shapiro

No. So That's a great point, grant, because obviously that's where my background is. And and. So what we have done is we've actually purchased the machines at a higher price so that they get maximized their commissions.

Yeah. Because we know Interesting. They're our sales force. We don't have an internal sales force.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Did you say you working, you're working with 17 companies, is that what I heard you say? Correct. So can you walk me through some of them? And I don't mean to be exclusionary. No, no problem. Can you give us a feel, because we talked about Merz and we, that's injectable and they also have devices.

You talk about therapy, are you more towards device? Are you more towards consumables? Are you equally blended? Is it all aesthetic? Is it's a great question. Walk us through that.

Brian Phillips

So it's in the past it's been a hundred percent aesthetic. These are manufacturers like Luminus, Syneron, Viveve on the women's health side, Apex, or the Renuvion device, Merz and their portfolio, Cartessa and their wide portfolio, and their team. And so on the device side, we've always traditionally purchased devices, btl, for example, we've purchased devices from these manufacturers and we in effect are a customer of theirs in in that realm. But now that the technology has really the platforms have been built and completed and we're launching those.

Where we were the customer. Now we're servicing the manufacturers in a different way. We are actually providing services up to them, right? So Apex, for example, not only are we buying 75 Renuvion this year because that technology is really killer. We actually run their e-commerce store where the doctors buy all their consumables.

We run their payments platform where all their money is processed. We run their shipping integration back into their warehouse. We're doing the whole thing. In addition to the connected device, the next version of their generator has our technology built into it, into the device. So they'll have real-time visibility into their entire fleet of devices.

And what's happening with them. Remote error reporting, alerts. They can do things like upgrade the software. worldwide. You know that technology on the cloud? Through the cloud, through our platform. So Apex now.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you don't have to send a rep out to the machine or service to our surface person. It can happen.

Sean Shapiro

So think about the savings and the time and the manage. So you know how many times? Yeah, it's unbelievable. Think of all the devices I have. Think so. Cool. Connect was really the one that, yeah, I was gonna say, this is cool Connect. This is on steroids.

That's exactly a great way to say it. This is Cool connect on steroids. So what I thought Brian was amazing. One of the devices, what we call the card or the board that integrates into the system and can create all functionalities. Like cool, connect, how many procedures are going on. But it also can do the service upgrade.

It can do a lot more. It's Cool Connect on steroids that goes into the system, but we know there's hundreds of systems out there. And to go do that's an undertaking. Tremendous, hundreds of thousands of systems out there. Even think about your office alone, right? So what Brian and the team did, I thought was amazing is they found a way to retrofit all devices through a power cord and power surges.

And that's what we. Our cord device. So we could go out there and replace a standard one 10 or two 20 outlet cord. And we can now report where it is in the world when it's turned on, what treatments are being done. So think of those. That's incredible. Think of those advantages, like CoolSculpting found it, they got multiples off of it.

Yep. It, it changed the way the sales reps sell. They can say, everybody around here is doing this many procedures. And it's true, think about that with all the devices and the sales and the value, and now the service opportunities, training opportunities, upgrades like the one that I think The barrier Repairs.

Yeah, repairs. I know from launching a lot of devices, Training is always difficult, right? And you hire a training people and you come in and sometimes, you're getting share of mine and you're busy, they forget things or they don't do the treatment for months. So you could see with this connection whether or not they're doing the right procedures and fig figure out, I should send a trainer in there, or why is their utilization down?

So it's a benefit both ways and I, it's a really cool way to really see, and they, because of Brian's background and the team that we have, the dev team they're smart guys. They're, they've found the way to do this on steroids is the best way to say it. And we're launching that and some of our partners are just starting to do that, and it's been tremendous for us.

Dr. Grant Stevens

That is really exciting. Brian, how'd you come up with this idea? What were you thinking about? It's brilliant. I absolutely love it. I've been involved in this business for a while. I used to drive a, ride a Tyrannosaurus Rex to work in the Marina. That's how old I am. This is a brilliant idea. How did you come up with it?

Brian Phillips

Quite frankly, in the early days we built our first connected devices so that we could literally invoice our customers every month because ah, that was the need. That was the impetus. That was the need.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And then we said you had to bill, you had to bill your clients. They used, you had to look under the hood Yeah.

To bill 'em, right? Oh, that's right. Exactly. You were doing it, you were billing 'em per use. So you had to know otherwise they'd be doing it and they wouldn't be paying you. I get it.

Brian Phillips

And. We developed it into such a robust platform that we said, why not just offer this to manufacturers because they don't have it today and they don't want to spend money to build a team to do this in house.

They wanna spend money on really smart engineers and physicists to build a better technology. Technology. They wanna build a technology. That's right. And it, it's worked out really well. We have major manufacturers who are. Implementing either the cord the power cord version of the connected device or the board, which is fully integrated, to, to the system.

We have major manufacturers doing that. And those devices are coming out across the next, really five years.

Dr. Grant Stevens

That is really exciting. So speaking of the next five years. So I see you brought your crystal ball with you. I saw it underneath your jacket there. So what's the future look like?

What, and you look 1, 3, 5 and even 10 years down the line, I can't even imagine. 10. Let's say 1, 3, 5. Brian. This is ingenious what you've come up with. What are, what's the future? What are we looking at?

Brian Phillips

I'll tell you what, in the near term, it's great to be talking about the technologies and the things that we're doing to help manufacturers.

There's a huge unmet need there inside of the aesthetics industry, specifically where there's so many inefficiencies and there's so much additional cost being spent. Just dollars on manual processes, we can help automate and we're really looking forward to, in the short term, letting manufacturers know that these services are available and getting the discussion started with them.

And. and optimizing optimizing their business, to give the, their customers a better service. So in the short term, we're really looking forward to that. I think in the long term for us three years and five years we plan to be shipping a few thousand devices per year Okay.

On the device set of our business. And in the technology side, we'll probably be processing. Two and a half billion annually of of card credit card processing dollars. And on the consumable side, we'll probably be doing around 75 to a hundred million dollars a year of consumable consumable volume.

And that's injectables and device consumables. So the additional value that we're gonna be able to bring to the general. at that purchasing level is significant. Because we're just sitting in the middle of the aesthetics industry and we help manufacturers upstream and then we help the doctors downstream.

So we're in a unique position to deploy some very exciting technology, save a lot of money for both physicians and manufacturers, and couldn't be more excited to have Sean on the team.

Dr. Grant Stevens

This is extremely exciting. Thank you. And I can think of a few other companies that I'd like to hook you up with that would actually optimize you as well as you optimizing them.

That sounds great. And I love these synergies. What you're bringing to the marketplace is truly unique and beneficial. I can see that this is going to rise the tide as we talk about the rising tide raising all boats and all right, I can see where this is a true value add for both industry as well as the consumers like me, the consumer doctors.

Yep. And then it translates into the consumer patient experience because we're optimizing and it more efficient and so forth, thank you very much for coming out here from Charlotte. You got it flying all the way out here to LA and being our guest.

I wanna thank you once again and I encourage you to come to the Aesthetic Society meeting, which I know you are. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Where the best and brightest of aesthetic surgeons hang out. And you know that, Sean. Oh so welcome to the family. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate all you do. Thank you very much.

And I'd like to thank all of you for joining us again on this fabulous show. I'm sure you all learned a lot. I know I did. And I want to thank you and I welcome you next Tuesday for another show of the Technology of Beauty.