Andrew Lacy On Raising $80 Million To Save Lives With Proactive Cancer Screening

Andrew Lacy sold his first company to Disney. Now he’s working to transform the healthcare system with his newest venture, Prenuvo. The startup has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Anne Wojcicki, Tony Fadell, Cindy Crawford, and Steel Perlot.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Diagnosing business ideas
• Why not to bet on second-time founders
• How Prenuvo is changing health and wellness
• Why having more investors may be better

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About Andrew Lacy:

Andrew Lacy is the founder & CEO of Prenuvo, a transformative healthcare company growing fast across North America. Simply put, Prenuvo provides members with incredible peace of mind about their health!

Prenuvo’s core innovation is a one-hour advanced medical screening using MRI that can detect solid cancer at Stage 1 and 500 other medical conditions. Our customers come from all walks of life, from Silicon Valley executives to people who feel let down by the existing medical system.

Prenuvo is a mission-driven company that every day is saving lives and improving health through early detection.

Prior to Prenuvo, Andrew has extensive experience taking digital products from conception to launch in both his own startups (Tapulous, Zap) and large corporates (Disney, Lebara, and various large banks and insurance companies).

Andrew’s experience across a range of industries helps him to bring fresh perspectives, appropriately challenge established practices, and to bring breakthrough thinking to under-innovated spaces.

Andrew’s education includes an MBA from Stanford University, a JD in Law, and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Melbourne, Australia

He specializes as a C-level executive and general management and advisory; business and corporate strategy; digital transformation; innovation; new product development and strategy; team-building and culture; customer acquisition; attachment and retention (growth hacking); consumer insights; digital insights, analytics, and business intelligence; engineering (node, PHP, iOS, Scala); ROI-driven performance marketing, revenue optimization, pricing, and monetization; business operations; web, mobile apps, chatbots, and voice-based products.

Connect with Andrew Lacy:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Zoominfo
• Twitter
• Facebook

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Righty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a very exciting founder I mean a founder that has done it multiple times you know done the whole you know cycle of building scaling financing exiting and I think that we’re going to be covering very interesting topics about. Starting companies. Why to start the company. Why not to start the company who to raise from you know or perhaps you know going through the process or the difference between perhaps starting a company in the us versus starting a company in Europe. So very very interesting and at the same time relevant topic so without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest today Andrew Lazy welcome to the show you so give us a little of a walk through Memory Lane Andrew you were born in Australia and obviously today as the people that are listening. They can sense the battle of the accents here are going on.

Andrew Lacy: Thanks Hell hunter. It’s great to be here.

Alejandro Cremades: But give us ah, give us a walkthrough memory lane. How was live growing up in Melbourne.

Andrew Lacy: Ah, look. It was pretty um I mean Melbourne and Australia is a great place to live and a great place to grow up. It’s on the 1 hand super um, just family oriented quality of life oriented. But then on the other hand. It’s just so far away from everything in the world and like most australians when I first left Australia as an adult I left for 2 years so we all tend to leave for a long time because it just takes so so damn long to get out of the country in the first place. Um, but no it it was ah you know I had a fantastic childhood there. Um, and and ah you know from you know, twenty years later now I’ve been out of the country 15 years and still have very fond memories of the place.

Alejandro Cremades: Now 1 thing that is very interesting I find on the on the culture that perhaps you know you grew up in there in Australia is that once especially at the time I think that now you know things are a little more open more open. You know at least you know and the way that people think about careers. But. The way that thing think people were thinking through things was you would finish school and then you become a lawyer or you become a doctor and in this case, you became a lawyer and and it was not what you had hoped for.

Andrew Lacy: Yeah in Australia They have this interesting University system where you don’t really need to apply to University that every year there’s a book that’s published and based on the score you got in high school you could choose any course that you had a score higher than what was required to get into. So if you did well in high school which is what I did. You can more or less just kind of choose whatever course you wanted to study as undergrad and so I ended up choosing law I thought it was interesting um to be able to solve problems in the context of cases I you know fell in love with um, all of the sort of courtroom drama that you see on Television. And I thought man this would be a great career.

Alejandro Cremades: So in in your case you know going into consulting you know I’m sure that that was pretty interesting. You know more than anything to um to really understand how to tackle problems and how to deal with problems. You know, perhaps grabbing a big problem. You know, breaking it down into small problems and then going one after the other. I guess he in your case, you know what What do you? think you know that experience at Mckinsey taught you.

Andrew Lacy: Yeah, so I guess the arc of my life in some ways was that I’ve always been solving problems so when I studied law this was about solving problems. The main thing I really didn’t like about law was that the problems that you were trying to solve were often things that happened 10 years in the past. Even when you were trying to win a case, you weren’t even talking about the law today you were talking about the law as it was at the time that something happened you know, well in the past and I found that deeply unsatisfying and and very shortly after getting into law I was exposed to Mckinsey which is a big consulting company. And ended up moving over there and becoming a consultant and here I felt was this fantastic blend of I was solving problems again but here rather than solve problems that happened in the past I was really helping companies figure out how to respond to what’s going on in the environment and my focus actually at Mckinsey was. At the time think back to the early the late 90 s and the early two thousand s was you know this threat of the internet and or the opportunity of the internet and what our clients could do to take advantage of that so I ended up spending most of my time focusing on that area.

Alejandro Cremades: Now you know 1 thing that thing that is very interesting is before mckinsey you were part of the whole you know, working with for the government taking a look at the innovation so you had already a glimpse of of that. So I guess you know being at Mckinsey you had that seed already planted because eventually you when. To ah Stanford to do your and Mba and I’m sure that that field things even more on on on wanting to perhaps you know doing something of your own but then eventually you had to go back because Mckinsey was obviously paying for the and Nba so I guess 2 questions here one. How was that experience of being in the land of innovation. You know with all these people starting all types of companies and what you got from that and then also how painful it was to get back to corporate.

Andrew Lacy: It’s really interesting I um, even before I went to study the Nba I had a brief period where I was dating someone who is living in Silicon Valley and I don’t know what this might say something about me or maybe this is an experience that even yourself had when you first came over but I remember this distinct. Distinctly? um roller blading down alkammina real in Silicon Valley again Twenty years ago and and we would rollblade by companies like Yahoo or ebay and for me I found it just so fascinating coming from aschea that there are actually companies like there are people sitting in offices. Doing something that you know ends up being a webp page that people interact with no matter where they are in the world and it was sort of like a big eye-opening moment for me and I sort of fell in love ever since and it took me several years to actually kind of get myself in a place where I could be founding companies but there was that energy and enthusiasm. Even twenty years ago in Silicon Valley that really makes the place really special. Um, it was hard. It was very very difficult studying an Mba in Stanford and seeing your friends go and start companies and not doing it yourself for whatever reason and I’m sure a big part of it was me just not having the guts. At the time. Um I was actually meant to go to Mckinsey and so in San Francisco I thought I would be so miserable being in the silicon valley and not being an entrepreneur that I actually rang around and managed to transfer my job to the madrid officer mckinsey

Andrew Lacy: And so I ended up working in Spain for 2 years just because you know at least then I would have an interesting cultural experience while I was sort of waiting down the clock at Mckinsey.

Alejandro Cremades: And hey you know having good wine and and Topas is not a bad thing at all so that was a good choice I mean obviously obviously I’m a little bit biased but they but anyhow you know this was the immediate step before you went at it and ah you took charge and and started your first company. So. How was that process like of saying you know what? let’s let’s go. It’s time.

Andrew Lacy: Well I was still a bit reluctant even after leaving Mckinsey I came back to the bay area to hopefully join a high tech company and my background having a law degree having worked at Mckinsey and having an Mba were not valued at all by any tech companies twenty years ago it was um these are red marks on Europe. Ah, resume. So I actually found it easier to start a company than it was to work at another company back then? um and my first company was ah was a company called tapulous and it ended up being a really fantastic and fascinating journey. It was the very very first iphone company. So two months two or three months after the Iphone launched it started getting hacked by um, young kids actually out of Europe who had sort of hacked into it and learned that they could put other apps on the phone and we saw my partner and I saw this tremendous underground activity. Was happening on the iphone and we realized I think earlier than anyone else that this was ah going to be a whole new platform. This wasn’t just another phone and so we started the company. We ended up running the underground app store before the real app store launch we had over 10,000,000 installs um, and you know saw this new platform emerging well before anyone else.

Alejandro Cremades: And how do you guys go about capitalizing the business.

Andrew Lacy: Ah, it was very difficult. It was this was one of these companies that um, you know when you see something before anyone else does it actually makes fundraising quite difficult and we went to. We went up and down sand hillll road and we um, we pitched a bunch of vcs and almost every single one of those vcs said no they said if you’re not developing for a blackberry or Nokia then you’re not. You know like you’re not going to get any funding and this includes all of the vcs that later on maybe six months down the track started iphone focus funds. Um, so it’s amazing. What a little head start can do both in creating an opportunity as an entrepreneur but also in making it really difficult to get funding and it’s the sort of fine balance. So we ended up bootstrapping it and having a bunch of angel investors actually um that you know wrote us some small checks and from that we were able to build that company.

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s talk about this company too because you know definitely first company first exit. So pretty nice. So you guys sold it to none other than than Disney so that’s incredible I mean what was that process like of of going through that transaction and. And yeah I mean give us give us kind of like an insider you know access there are insider scoop of of what that journey was.

Andrew Lacy: Well I think too many too many times entrepreneurs think that they’re building something to exit it and I think our philosophy always was we want to build something that’s going to be a big hopefully world-changing company and our focus always is you know how do we make their company bigger and bigger. And so we were actually outraising a series b by this stage we were. You know we had survived the global financial crisis of 2008. Um, we had managed to turn the company um into something that was you know, modestly profitable. And we build a story around a whole bunch of other products that we’re going to bring to this mobile this new mobile ecosystem and when we’re out there fundraising as series b disney actually approached us um to see if we were interested in an acquisition. Ah um, and that process was. The first time I went through m and a with a large company I think Disney is probably even a more complicated business as it relates to acquisitions a lot of due diligence a lot of personal due diligence. Um, and. And it was really just at the very last minute that we decided that we would sell rather than raise that series b.

Alejandro Cremades: And what was that process like going through that transaction because as they say going through an acquisition is like experiencing a loss in the family you know people talk about like you know how amazing is doing the exit and all of that stuff. But. You know it? Also it’s It’s kind of like you you experience the loss because especially on your first company to certain degree I mean we are all entrepreneurs and and on that first go at it. You really feel like you are the company you have like like your identity is there. So So how was that for you as well.

Andrew Lacy: Well, it was the unusual situation. You know, like most companies I had a cofounder and I was the Ceo and the cofounder was a Ceo. So if we disagreed on a decision. Um, you know he had sort of the carrying vote. Should we say and so. When we sold the business he obviously he he was more interested in selling than I was he had had a couple of really big. Um I like hyped businesses that ended up not um, exiting and so I think he was a little bit more nervous about that for many years I had some resentment about it. You know because we saw subsequently how much bigger the mobile market actually grew and and I’m sure the company may well have been bigger had we held on but I’ve also you know now at the more mature version of myself realized just how how hard a decision that was for for my cofounder. Um, and just how kind of easy it was for me to be able to say well whatever happens. Not my fault. You know I can sort of have it both ways and I thought that was a little bit unfair. Um and subsequently and I sold companies where I’ve been the Ceo I’ve really felt like I understood a lot more that tension if that makes sense.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case, the transaction happens you joined Disney and you were there for a little bit over a year perhaps you know working on the integration and then eventually you moved to Paris and I think that Paris gave you great things. You know he gave you your wife he gave you knowing you know coding you know. You taught yourself how to code and then also it gave you you know the possibility of starting your next business because as an entrepreneur you’re always an entrepreneur so tell us about this next thing go at it.

Andrew Lacy: Yeah, so I um I moved to Paris during my time working at Disney I actually were running some of their studios over in Europe and so I was traveling frequently through. Um. Various different cities in Europe and on one of those trips I met the person who is now my wife um I ended up moving to Paris I thought I would just do angel investing and just sort of hang out and not do very much but I quickly found that that was for the stage I was at in my career was something that was actually really boring. Ah, and so I did the 1 thing that I felt was missing in my entrepreneurial portfolio which was I wanted to really understand how to build product and that meant I had to learn how to cope so I sat down and started teaching myself I even employed. Another couple of engineers a frontend engineer and a backend engineer to teach me frontend and backend engineering and of course because I don’t like learning lessons sort of in the abstract all these lessons were in the context of building a new company that was a voice activated search company called za. And I remember about six months into doing my own coding education that I looked up and around me I had 4 or 5 people and I realized that I sort of accidentally started another company and and so I worked on that for a couple of years over there in Paris.

Andrew Lacy: Which was an interesting challenge relative to Silicon Valley

Alejandro Cremades: And what was what was what was the challenges. What were some of the challenges that you saw on building a company in Europe versus you know building a company in the Us.

Andrew Lacy: Well I think the thing that people don’t really talk about is just the effect of culture on people inside the company. What do I mean by this so and there’s good and bad to this by the way this is not sort of ah there’s no right answer but America really has a culture of you know we. You have sort of like making your own luck working hard following your dreams and you know if you start a company in America and you tell your friends and everyone around you. They’re really excited if you join a company that’s potentially changing the world. Everyone that you tell is really excited about that. They understand that you have to work hard. When you moved to France I found even you know there’s a younger generation of people that absolutely have this entrepreneurial energy and I would say the same probably is true of Spain from what I know about spanish culture too. Um, and they’re really excited and they’re actually building really cool stuff. The problem a little bit. Um for me was. You know when you bring on people as employees in those markets. Um, they’re still in some way affected by the culture around them and so you know I’ll give you a simple example of this. Um, when you have a web business. You know it’s on twenty four seven if a website breaks. You know the business is closed and someone needs to go and fix that and I remember oftentimes you would reach out at like seven o’clock on a Friday and say hey the website is broken and we need to fix it and it would just be impossible to find the engineers or if you did they were very grumpy about doing it and I learned afterwards.

Andrew Lacy: 1 of them actually confided in me that they were really excited to help and work hard but all their friends around them were telling them just how silly they were that you know this company was taking advantage of them and that’s like the difference of culture I think is if everyone around you just doesn’t value sort of like company building and um. And you know the effort that goes into that it becomes really hard I think it’s really difficult for employees to sort of give the same way that they do in the Us. Um, so so it was a different culture. It’s changing for sure the other big difference was the the fundraising environment at least in in France. Um. Back then which was eight or nine years ago. Just really didn’t exist. There are so maybe 2 or 3 angel investors. Um, and the way they invested was very different to the way they did in the us in the us people want to understand what your story is what your vision is how you’re gonna change the world. In Europe I found that people really wanted to see your 5 ive-year cash flow statement and you know understand all of the numbers behind business which fundamentally are irrelevant. Um, when it comes to investing I think that’s slowly changed as we’ve got like more successes coming out of Europe or Australia or these other secondary markets. But still the bias is there for you know, looking at investments the same way you look at financial investment which is just not the right way to think about startups.

Alejandro Cremades: So in this case, you know for you guys I mean it sounds like the 4 year Mark you know what’s ah important one for you because 4 years in you know you decided that it was time you know to um to to perhaps you know turn page and and in this case, you guys you know, went through a transaction. A company called Avara that the. But the business and you also did the you know vesting and resting with them. You know helping with the integration now in this case, you know with this experience. What was the lesson that you that you took with you.

Andrew Lacy: Well I think the original sin of the set. My second business was really two things. The first is when you have a successful startup as an entrepreneur you can tend to assume that a lot of that’s the sort of the The main reason why that company was successful was you and you completely discount the effect of luck or timing. Um, and so when you go out and then build a second company as an entrepreneur that’s exited the first one I think. You can. You’re much more likely to commit the second sin which is really focusing on something that I was very passionate about which at the time was travel and ignoring completely the market dynamics and so that second company um really was sort of doomed from the very beginning. By my sort of the mental approach I brought to the business itself and the space and we were very lucky that we were able to turn it into a slightly profitable company and able to exit exit it handily. but um but really it taught me in some ways that. Ah, you know I would probably never invest in a second time entrepreneur who’s had a success the first time because they’re just way too cocky and secondly it. It made me very skeptical about the idea of like investing or investing yourself your time in businesses that you are very passionate about I think being a little bit.

Andrew Lacy: Having a little bit of distance from the idea is actually really valuable and it’s hard to do if it’s space that you you you just are really into um so so I’ve often tell people I tell myself and I tell people who ask me for advice that it’s often a little bit dangerous to follow your passion 100%. Um, And that for me at least my passion was yeah I’ve I’ve learned that my passion is really in building businesses and solving problems and ah not all problems are created equal.

Alejandro Cremades: I hear you I think that that emotional attachment can be dangerous too. So um I guess I guess for you once this was said and done and you finalize you know doing the integration then you decided it was time to pack up the backs and come to the Us. So. What trigger that and and what happened next for you? yeah.

Andrew Lacy: Well, that was easy at that point I really felt like I’d learned some lessons and I really wanted to apply them in the context of another company. So and and having had a difficult time at least myself personally in Europe I I thought that it was time to do that back in Silicon Valley so in 2017 I moved back? um. Even though I thought I’d learnt the lesson about not working on something you’re passionate about I immediately started working on a genetics company that was an area that I was very fascinated by and again had very bad market dynamics and I remember I was only three months in I’d not raised any money. Thank god and I just looked at myself in the mirror and I’m like oh man, you’re doing it again. Um, and. And that moment I said I will build another company but for this company and from this point on I will never build an I will never build a company That’s my idea. Um, and so I I basically sent an email to all my friends everyone on Linkedin and said I am. I want to build something I don’t know what it is if you’ve heard anyone that has an idea looking for someone to help build it or or you’ve heard a great idea reach out to me and dozens of people reach back and connect to me with ah as tons of really fascinating and tremendous people I explored 2 or 3 things and eventually. Just fell in love with the company or the technology that’s now my current company called perneuvo.

Alejandro Cremades: So so one one question there when it comes to ideas. You know how have you you know come to the point where you’re able to really validate or see whether an idea has legs or not.

Andrew Lacy: Well I think to start with again if it’s not your idea you don’t have any skin in the game and I even train myself during that period I said I would go to the Starbucks every day and I would think through an idea that someone had presented to me. So someone that had messaged me or emailed with said. Okay I got you know this idea and I would actually think it through as if I was an investor. what do I like about the idea what do I not like about the idea would I invest in the idea because fundamentally as an entrepreneur the decision that we’re making is you know where are we gonna invest that time for x number of years. And that’s kind of the that’s the finite commodity that we all have to invest with and I found that that mentality was very freeing because at the end of the day I could just say actually you know what? I don’t think this is gonna work and then the next day I would start again on some other idea and. And and because they weren’t my ideas I was much more open to getting feedback and talking to folks doing a lot of due diligence before I sort of jumped in pernuvo my current business I probably due diligence for like two or three months before I even got involved talking to tons of doctors and. Investors and entrepreneurs and um and you know and it was only through that process that I really came to see the opportunity.

Alejandro Cremades: And why did you feel or at what point did you realize that the opportunity was meaningful enough for you to jump.

Andrew Lacy: Well this is sort of an interesting one. It’s funny because for your listeners that don’t know who preneuvo is so we do cancer and disease screen using very specialized mri. So. My first company was the first mobile company that ended up being a mobile gaming company and my current company is ah is a. Very medically focused um lifesaving screening company both these companies ah could not be more different and could not be more similar. They’re both. They were both really kind of creating these new categories. So whereas we saw a tapulous that the mobile phone. Was going to be that the iphone was more than just a phone. It was a whole new platform. Um, what we learned at prenuvo was that these machines that these mri machines that people typically use to diagnose problems like Mris of the shoulder or the knee or the head after a car crash or something like this. Actually there’s this other use case for this product which is 100 times bigger which is screening um and just like my first company when I went out and spoke to a lot of investors I got a very very um, ah sort of like broad. Um.

Andrew Lacy: I Guess kind of like diagnosis for want of a better word of the underlying business idea and I’ve come to learn that actually as an investor and as an entrepreneur you can think of almost every company as fitting on like a normal distribution. Um, so.

Andrew Lacy: What I found is. It’s quite easy to tell the good companies from the bad companies. It’s actually really really really hard to tell the standout amazing companies from the worst companies that you’ve ever heard and so the first lesson I sort of or the first sort of Lesson I taught myself was well where is this company in the spectrum. Because if it’s in the in the meat of the normal distribution in the middle part. It’s not going to be a transformational company. It has to be in the tails and then the difficulty is figuring out which tail is it in and you know I’ve been lucky enough in Silicon Valley to be to see some of the early pictures of companies like uber. For example, where. You know you’re like this is the worst idea ever. No one in California would want to sit in someone else’s car. You know everyone drives and has their own cars. Um, and you know so you know that that’s you know? So so so I had a very visceral negative reaction. Um, and I think I’m looking for that as a signal. You know some people love it. Some people really hate it then you know that you’re somewhere in the tails of that distribution and then it’s up to you to figure out which tail you’re in.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, know that’s ah, that’s definitely a tough 1 You know when you are creating categories. Um, so 1 thing here you know that I think will be great for the listeners I mean you were you were touching on it and and and some of the good stuff that you guys are doing but just so that they’re able to get it. What. Ended up being the business model of preneur. How do you guys make money.

Andrew Lacy: Sure. So um, so we ah it’s a pretty straightforward business to be honest, um, but we take we took this technology mri that’s usually focused on just imaging one part of your body at a time in a diagnostic way and we decided. We’re going to build an entire business around screening you from head to toe and and through that screening we’re able to diagnose cancer at stage 1 aneurysms that could also kill you and about 500 other conditions so we can really help you understand. Um, you know what’s going on with your underlying health in a way that the health system which is very reactive cannot um, that’s the idea is very simple. The execution idea is very hard. It involved rebuilding hardware software business models and ah.

Andrew Lacy: And figuring out if there’s a market for this and are people willing to pay for it. So It’s um, it’s It’s been a very difficult challenge but at the same time.. It’s been the most rewarding time in my life because I get to see directly the impact of what it is that we’re doing on people’s lives. And there’s nothing more rewarding than that.

Alejandro Cremades: And and also you guys have raised quite a bit of money. So hey you know this is not your first rodeo. So I’m sure that you were very picky when it came to, um, you know, making sure that you got the right people you know in the journey with you. So.

Andrew Lacy: What we had again very similar situation though as we did with tapulas so when we first started raising money. We were located just in Canada and 1 clinic in Vancouver. So good luck trying to get a Vc to go up to Vancouver to go and even experience the thing. Um, you know we tried to raise money from vcs even you know vcs I knew that had invested in me before and they went back to the people that they considered experts which were either their personal physician or they had a gp in the fund that was a physician and the physician’s view was that mri is just for diagnostics. Screening is a silly idea the same way you know ten years ago people thought that the iphone was just another model of ah of mobile phone so we ended up bootstrapping we got bank loans. We opened up a clinic in Silicon Valley and it was then when we were screening all of the vcs that they could sort of so. Been their disbelief that they could suspend the sort of the you know what they had been hearing from their physicians and realized just how transformational the idea really was and and at that from that point on it was quite easy to raise money.

Alejandro Cremades: And you guys have raised money from really amazing people. How much capital have you guys raised today.

Andrew Lacy: Are close to 80,000,000 total so most of it was in this last round that we did the 70000000

Alejandro Cremades: And I mean you have felici. You have a an wojiski from 23 and me founder of 23 and me Tony Fowel you know they they guy behind you know all the amazing Apple products. You know that work closely with the with Steve Jobs even Cindy Crawford I mean you have like all types of ah. Interesting profiles in there. So how do you How were you able to ah to meet these people and and get them on board.

Andrew Lacy: Well, it’s funny like yeah if you ask people and I’m sure you do on your show. Ask people for advice on raising money I think the normal advice is try and raise as much money as you can from as fewer ah investors as possible because.

Andrew Lacy: You know there’s this idea that investors are mainly annoying things on the path to building a great company. We took a different approach with preuvo we. We just said we’re building this really amazing technology and it can really impact lives in a positive way and once you screen enough people you start to see I mean people start to know someone whose life. We’ve saved and and you know so we took this off but off approach which is you know we we’ve welcomed in a lot of investors I think we have 30 or 40 investors that really are massive champions of the business and they really help us um out there in the market change sort of hearts and minds. And introduce this new concept of preventative health to a much wider audience. So most of it I have 2 or 3 financial investors. Most everyone else is an entrepreneur or a successful business person or a celebrity who is just really passionate about what we’re doing.

Alejandro Cremades: So what have you learned about activating your investors to be able to get the most out of them.

Andrew Lacy: Ah, it’s I mean if I’m being totally honest I think the primary lesson here is it’s really up to the Ceo and founder how much you leverage the investor network that you have I don’t think I would not give myself an a plus. At this I have a network that is fantastic when I need them. But I don’t reach out anywhere near as much as I should um and ah and I I think too often people completely ignore um, ignore. Investors as a sounding board for what you’re working on or a way to connect you with other folks out there. So we’ve started to do this a lot more as we’ve grown the business across the us um, but it’s actually our my to do list to do a much better job of this.

Alejandro Cremades: So imagine you were to go to sleep tonight Andrew and you wake up in a world where the mission or perhaps the vision of preneuvo is fully realized what does that world look like.

Andrew Lacy: Oh I mean that’s what keeps us up at night to be honest I mean the company is super mission driven. Everyone is really excited about what’s going on. Um, which as Ceo just makes it such a joy full place to be running. Um. You know the fundamental thing that we’re trying to solve here is that our health system in the us is 96% reactive care so out of a four point five trillion Dollar budget 96% of it is spent on people that are already sick in hospitals and and. So what we wanted to do was not just offer some incremental improvement but offer a completely different view of how healthcare could be um, the screenings that we do. You know they started a thousand dollars they go to 2500 but if I even just focus on that Thousand Dollar scan I think about a costa providing that we could probably screen every person in the us every adult I should say every 2 years for under $50000000000 which is a huge amount of money but at the same time we spend about one hundred and thirty billion just on Latestage Cancer drugs ah so imagine a world where we caught every cancer at stage 1 and you didn’t need any of those drugs or we caught any chronic condition which is the other big money pit of our health system at an early stage then you wouldn’t necessarily need to spend all that money and and I think what does that future look like it’s a future where um.

Andrew Lacy: No one has to die from advanced disease because everything is caught early and our healthcare system is probably half the size in terms of budget because we’re catching stuff so early when the interventions are not only more successful but they’re actually a lot cheaper as well. So so you know and. And on a more on a more personal and day-to-day level. What that looks like is you know saving lives day in and day out which is what we’re doing right now.

Alejandro Cremades: I love that. So imagine if I was to now let’s let’s talk about the the the past because we’ve been talking about the future. So let’s talk about the past but do it with a linch of reflection of reflection imagine I put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time. Maybe to that time that you were miserable going back to Madrid you know and obviously miserable at least you know drinking good wine and and having good tapas but to that moment where you know you were wondering you know hey I want to do something on my own too and imagine you had the opportunity of going back. And being able to sit down with your younger self. You know, maybe you were able to to have a sit down there at Plafa Maioi Madrid you know beautiful scene and let’s say that younger self you know, actually listen. So imagine you know you were able to give that younger self one piece of advice. Before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Andrew Lacy: Um, and it’s such a good question. It’s hard to have a really short answer to it. Um I think I mean I just would have wanted to I mean do it being an entrepreneur is sort of like jumping off cliff to some extent. You know it’s almost impossible to. Arrive at being an entrepreneur through some sort of rational spreadsheeting of like what are the pros and cons of doing what I’m currently doing for longer and being an entrepreneur financially the expected value of becoming a director at Mckinsey was way higher than. Working as an entrepreneur and so often people reach out to me from Mckinsey or from law firms and say I really I love to have a coffee. Let’s talk about being an entrepreneur. You know what you know I’d love to be an entrepreneur Can you talk me into it and I have such a hard time doing that because it is sort of a leap of faith. Does that make sense and either you’re sort of your brain is sort of wired for that in some ways or it’s not and I’m so lucky that I actually you know for me that leap of faith was because no tech company wanted to hire me when I came back to Silicon Valley after mckinsey so I was you know I’m very grateful for them for not hiring me because I may well not have made that leap. So. It’s a really really hard thing. It’s a decision that someone would never regret but I understand it’s really hard and the people in particular that are sort of vacillating over this question tend to be people that are high achievers. Um, and you know their low risk path is not a bad you know doesn’t lead to bad outcomes.

Andrew Lacy: And that makes it harder and harder. Um, sometimes you know more specifically what I would tell myself is when you are young, um, the normal sort of financial advice that people give you is invest in stocks not bonds. You know, invest in high risk assets don’t invest in Lowris Assets when you’re retiring invest in bonds and not stocks because you know if you get wiped out. It’s a much bigger problem I think that philosophy also is a valid one as we think about our career I think when you’re young, that’s a time to actually take risks with your career. Because if you wipe out you got plenty of time to recover. Um, and I don’t think people I don’t think I thought myself as a younger person about my life that way does that make sense and and that’s the general advice I give other younger people and I would give my younger self which is you know. This is a time to take risks when you don’t have family when you are you know you can if you need to you can eat 2 minute noodles um and this becomes harder and harder to take those risks for various reasons as you get older and older in life.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow very profound Andrew I love it now for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so. So.

Andrew Lacy: Ah, they can find me on Linkedin They can message me for free there. That’s probably the easiest thing and then I’m also on Twitter my handle is my name and I’m pretty active there, especially if people have questions about. Ah, you know entrepreneurship or the kind of the company preneur that I’m currently working at.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Well hey Andrew thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. There has been an on earth to have you with us today.

Andrew Lacy: Thank you I Really wish I wish you the best and also I wish your listeners the best as they sort of think through this decision around you know what impact they’re gonna leave on this earth in the one career that they have and you know I think. I’m super excited for this next generation of companies that are coming out now.

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