Yeshwanth Pulijala on Scaling HealthTech in the U.S.

Rick 00:00:01 Welcome to the Growth Elevated podcast, where we share real stories of entrepreneurs scaling their companies and the people who help them along the way. Today, we’re talking with about AI, an innovative company using AI computer vision to transform the surgical supply chain. Joining us today are scalpels CEO Yash Polygala, along with Julien Castelli, who is an operating partner at Mercy Ventures and has been working alongside Yash as Scalpel expands into the United States. Thank you both for making time for this today.

Julien Castelli 00:00:33 Thank you. Happy to be here, Rick.

Rick 00:00:35 well, yes. Let’s start with you. For those of you who don’t know. Scalpel. AI, tell us what your company does, who you serve, and where you are today in your journey.

Julien Castelli 00:00:44 Sure.

Yash Polygala 00:00:46 Well, my name is Yash. I’m the co-founder and CEO of scalpel. Scalpel, fundamentally, is a business that is transforming surgical supply chain. having the right instrument at the right time, right place is so critical to perform an operation correctly. and majority of the times today that doesn’t happen.

Yash Polygala 00:01:02 Basically leaving operating theatres, searching for the right tools. and, you know, nurses spend a lot of time outside the rooms, and device companies are having billions of dollars in equipment circulating every single day. You would wonder why this doesn’t happen. Well, we are, we are living in a world where logistics haven’t changed a lot in the last hundred years. So scalpel is here to transform that. We fundamentally use AI computer vision based validation of surgical tools at different touch points throughout the journey. So we ensure that everybody has the right tools, saving significant amount of time and money for everyone involved.

Rick 00:01:38 That’s very cool. Julien, let’s bring it to you. You’re an operating partner at Mercy Ventures. Tell us briefly what that role means and how you got connected with scalpel.

Julien Castelli 00:01:48 Yeah. Thanks, Rick. So I work with Mercier Ventures, which is a top UK venture capital fund, and I got plugged into them when I was working at a company called Vox Pop Me. And now I serve as an operating partner with them, and and I serve as a board chair of a couple of their companies, and I’m available to the portfolio to be to help help them as they they expand and go through the various stages of startup growth.

Julien Castelli 00:02:15 And as you know, I’ve got the gray hair to prove it. you know, I’ve done that a few times. And so I tried to, I try to work with, with exciting, you know, talented founders like Yesh and help them, accelerate to their vision of growth and, and sometimes, you know, avoid mistakes and see around corners and in particular because UK, because Mercia is in the UK, a lot of their companies want to expand into the US. And Mercia has a number of great resources to help them in the UK. But in the US it’s kind of like the wild frontier and and so that’s intimidating, that it’s a big country. There’s a lot of differences. there’s a lot of nuances that are different than, than Europe in the UK. And so Mercia felt it was valuable to have myself. And there’s another operating partner here in the States to be kind of a warm welcome for their companies and to try to try to do everything we can as a, as a firm to support the companies and help them succeed.

Julien Castelli 00:03:11 So I’m part of that team that tries to help our companies succeed.

Rick 00:03:15 That’s interesting. So one thing I think a lot of entrepreneurs will will be interested in is what’s unique about the way that you engage as an operating partner, compared with maybe a traditional consultant or advisor that an entrepreneur might hire from the outside?

Julien Castelli 00:03:30 Yeah. It’s interesting. So I would say that, you know, you typically will hire a consultant for a project or a very specific, you know, I need to fix X, right? And there are specialty consultants for fixing whatever part of your business needs fixing. I look at myself as more of a partner, and, and I engage deeply with the executive team and the founder, and then I, I try to help them along the journey. You know, for, for a more continuous part of time, a period of time. And it’s also like I’m not going away and doing a project and presenting a deck to Yash saying, hey, here’s. We’ve done this study like I used to be at McKinsey, and we did quite a bit of that, right? We’d go out and we do market research.

Julien Castelli 00:04:13 We’d do analysis, we’d present a deck to the management team and then we’d say, you know, good luck with this. You know, this is what this is what you should do over the next six, 12 months. you know, my my role is much more of an ongoing collaborative partnership where I’m trying to be a, a guide, so to speak, or a partner to to this executive team and to help them make decisions in real time. And then quite often when I can use my network because we’re engaging regularly and because, you know, a great partner like Yash is sharing with me his objectives and challenges, I can I can use that context to to dip into my network and my resources and say, hey, I know someone who might be able to help with this, or I know someone who might be able to do this, or and I can I can use my experience and my network and try to give as much of that to a partner. Like. Yes.

Rick 00:05:04 That’s that’s really cool.

Rick 00:05:05 one question that comes to mind is how do you balance being supportive without taking the wheel? a consultant sort of knows their you know, their place. They’re giving the plan and letting. Yes, maybe run with that. But how do you how do you keep from stepping too far?

Julien Castelli 00:05:21 Yeah. You know, I don’t think that’s been a real issue. as I, as we talked earlier. Yes, yes. Works 24 over seven and is super involved in everything. you know, we we speak several times per week and sometimes, you know, like, we’re, we’re excited. We’re going to spend several days together, at one of his client sites, in a few weeks. And so, you know, I don’t I don’t think that that’s a that’s been a challenge. they’re providing feedback, advice. Sometimes they’ll say, hey, Julian, can you handle this? And that’s where I actually get this, like, hey, I can handle it this time, but I can’t handle it regularly because I’ve got a lot of other clients to work with.

Julien Castelli 00:05:57 But, you know, sometimes he asked me to grab a sub wheel somewhere in the company, and I’m happy to do that when I’m able to. But in general, I’m there to help. Help ensure that yes and his team are as successful as possible. Making. Making connections. Helping, advising and coaching.

Rick 00:06:14 That’s awesome. yes. Back to you. Before Julian got involved, what were some of the challenges you and your team were facing with us? Expansion?

Yash Polygala 00:06:22 Sure. before I answer that, I think just follow up to your previous question, Rick, about, you know, taking the real situation. the founders at our stage have just so many things to worry about. And we are. I think one thing we cannot worry about is, like, anybody taking a wheel right now, situation is like, there’s so much to do. And if, if you are able to take anything off our plates and give us that strategic time to think through, I think that’s that’s crazy good. And, you know, Paul Graham says, hey, I’ve found a mode that resonated with a lot of founders there.

Yash Polygala 00:06:55 it’s important to, to bring consultants or advisors, but people like Julian are not only that, I think they are. they’re your co-pilot while you’re driving in the. In the journey. So it’s extremely important to have that Yoda kind of guru next to you to say, like, you know, bounce off ideas. Hey. And it’s not I do not think of any one category that we work on. so now going back to your other question before Julian got involved. Like, I mean, technically we were we have been having this sudden surge in our commercialization strategy and in our in our go to market traction from the US starting 2023, where it’s now going like rocketship mode going fully up. So we couldn’t have handled all of this without proper. you know, I would say building up that strategy so far, it’s almost like, before Julian came in, we were almost attacking problems as they come, almost firefighting every single time. And that basically made us to not focus on some core visionary things that we should be doing as a company.

Yash Polygala 00:08:01 So I think that’s as all founders. I think that’s number one. not having that structure also meant that people were spending time where they should not be spending. so for example, finance was spending in sales or technology is spending somewhere else. So I think that’s that’s one part of the story. Then the the other part is hiring a great team is a very big component of this. Hiring in the UK is a lot different to hiring in the US. I’ve been learning that quite closely now. attitude is different. People showing up as you know, really confident in the US, versus actually being able to deliver is a lot different in the UK or Europe, where people, portray themselves in a very low mode. But they, you know, their ability to deliver is really high. So you have different types of that. So we’ve been working with Julian on some of the key hires in the company, like, you know, head of commercialization as an example. where, you know, his, his operational mindset.

Yash Polygala 00:09:02 His experience from the past working with other startups was, I think, huge value to us. but I think even generally the US operations like figuring out your taxes, figuring out your bank account, figuring out like, hey, transfer pricing because we’ve got products coming in, you know, being manufactured in the US, some software being, you know, brought from the UK, while you’re building a company, scaling it and building the vision for transforming surgical supply chain, I can’t be thinking about, hey, is the payroll on time? Is everything, you know, running for the US employees? So I think building that discipline, building that structure is something that he and I managed to do in the last, I would say 9 to 10 months. Julian. So I really love that journey.

Rick 00:09:48 Yeah, that’s that’s super interesting. I’d love to double click on the domino effect that you kind of alluded to, where you have a problem. You don’t have a person dedicated to solving that problem. So you have a finance person working on sales, a sales person working on marketing and so on and so on.

Rick 00:10:03 Like. Do you have any examples of how you’ve been able to, address that particular issue that you could share?

Yash Polygala 00:10:10 Yeah. So one of the biggest things that I would say, like in the early days, I’ve, I’ve had so many advisors from the beginning of scalpel. But one thing that is starkly different with Julian is he just doesn’t advise. He actually does something like as a follow up right after the meeting, he sends me like, for example, let’s say, hey, Julian, I’ve been having this trouble with, you know, understanding one of these two hires, which one is actually good for this company, right. So he gave a he gave a scorecard to me as an example, like, hey, here’s how I would think about, qualifying different candidates. And, till that point I’ve had scorecards, but I’ve never had that level of detail. And I’ll give you, one thing that we changed as a company is since seeing that we’ve adopted that scorecard on every single row, and we actually work with our internal team, hiring managers, anybody like, hey, we are following the scorecard.

Yash Polygala 00:11:06 We are not making any judgments which are qualitative. We are going through this process. So I think that’s a pretty big turning point for, you know, bringing great candidates into the company. Like, otherwise we were all trying to make our own decisions. Like you had a hiring interview on a Thursday. Then, you know, a weekend came in and then on Monday morning we were like, hey, who are the candidates? What did we like? People are then thinking about it or looking at their number. Yeah, you can’t remember. And everyone is kind of having qualitative feelings about, hey, I think this candidate is right or not, but that’s not the best way to make a data driven decision. So, you know, thanks to Julien, we build that structure. Maybe one other example I would give you is on our finances. And so we’ve been working quite closely maybe in the last few months, primarily on transforming our finances to the place where it is, you know, series B, series C level, you know, ready for a company because what you are at a series A, level three, series A is a lot different to where you will be at series B, series three.

Yash Polygala 00:12:08 And that rigor, that level of audit readiness, that having that mindset of, you know, thinking, thinking well ahead of the curve, that requires a discipline. And again, rethinking how we’ve been working this through and again through Julian’s advice. And, you know, he he’s got this very interestingly. He’s not he doesn’t try to solve every problem by himself. This is another interesting thing I found in Julian. Like he works with you, he understands the problem. And then he thinks, okay, who else can come in and solve this problem for, for yes or for this company? And he brings the right resource at that time, he almost like when he brings a resource, I know that it’s the right resource because he’s already thought through the problems with me. and I think that did a phenomenal job with kind of setting up our ourselves for success with, you know, putting our financial financials to the place where we can actually think it from an investor first lens, not from a founder first lens, like, what are the investors looking for? Just to give you two examples.

Rick 00:13:05 Those are great examples. What was conjuring for me was almost like an operating Sherpa, someone who’s out there guiding you to the things. And in some cases, it could be a shortcut to a tool like a rubric for hiring. Or it could be a shortcut to a person who has the expertise that can help you solve the problem. Julien, I’m curious what made scalpel AI a good fit for your involvement? And how did you decide where to focus first?

Julien Castelli 00:13:33 yeah. So? So, scalpel. When I first learned about it, obviously, the the problem is a is a big problem. And it’s an exciting problem. So that that was pretty, pretty neat. And I got excited about it. I’d also been doing some some work with Computer Vision at another company that I worked with. And so I really I really liked the problem. and then what what made it a good fit was when I met with Yash, there were so many things that that the company had to do to expand and grow its us us efforts that are.

Julien Castelli 00:14:06 I felt like I could help. And so, you know, as Yash mentioned, I think several examples there. You know, just just the mechanics of setting up in the US and is, you know, you know, poor Josh was spending his time trying to do it. Right. Like setting up a bank account setting, where should we register as what type of company and how do we how do we offer, stock options to US employees and how do we do payroll? Right. And so, you know, you asked me earlier to say, you know, when I drive versus one I advised, you know, that’s something, you know, fortunately, I’ve had the experience of working with a couple of UK companies coming to the US. And so, so no, I, I’m not going to go set up the bank accounts. I don’t have the time or the expertise to do that, but I do know several, resources that specialize in doing exactly that. And that was where I was able to make an introduction to Yash, to a group called us expansion partners and that’s that is their specialty.

Julien Castelli 00:15:04 That is what they do. And and I know because I’ve worked with them and I’ve done diligence that is going to be cost effective for a company the size of scalpel. Right. Because, you know, if you go and just go to your lawyer and say, hey, can can you can you set up all these things for me? They might say yes at their billing rates, but that’s not going to be a good solution. Right. And so this was a this was a right sized, right time vendor that I was able to to connect. Yes. With. I’ll give you another example. you know, Yash is a you know, as we describe, we’ve hired ahead of customer success and we’re working together to hire a head of head of commercialization and sales. And we went through the process after a few difficult meetings where we were comparing mental notes. That’s that’s when I shared the framework. And I think I think we especially when you’re, you’re we’re eight hours apart, you know, half the year.

Julien Castelli 00:15:54 And so we used that framework and we were able to kind of work asynchronously because we were being data driven and we were being structured. And so that that allowed us to work together and I think collaborate and even have board members collaborate and other other resources and yes, universe to be able to collaborate on the same, same challenge. you know, another example that I think was really helpful, was, you know, I’ve been through the early stages of, of trying to get the product market fit. And I see Yash out there having the most exciting conversations with clients. Right. And he comes back and he’s just on fire because, you know, they’re so interested in the product. And then I just know the, the the enterprise sales process that lays ahead. And I’m like, oh my goodness. This is going to be really, really difficult. And yes, if you try to follow every step, you’re going to kill yourself. And so that was where you know, but but at the same time, we’re too young of an organization to, to bring in a chief legal counsel or a chief contract negotiator.

Julien Castelli 00:16:54 Right. But I just knew I said, look, we’re going to build a commercial organization and we can always decide on this later. But I know that right now we have to close 3 to 5 deals, and we need someone to bear dog that and be all over these contracts. And yes, if you try to do it yourself, you’re going to kill yourself. So that was an example where fortunately, I just knew an expert sass contracts negotiator who works hourly and is very reasonable. Right. And so that was an example where I said, hey, let’s, let’s, let’s bring this resource in to help as part of our virtual team. And now all of a sudden we’re building scaffolding to build the building, you know, real time, right. And so those, those, those are some examples that I think were well timed. And I was I was very happy to be able to participate in.

Rick 00:17:38 That’s really awesome high impact stuff. Do you have any thoughts on how your relationship evolved from like initially starting to work work together to today? I mean, I think one of the challenges a lot of entrepreneurs are thinking is, okay, Jillian is part of the investor that, you know, and, how do I trust him with my dark, you know, dark secrets? do you have any any thoughts there.

Julien Castelli 00:18:04 That you’re touching on a really good point, Rick. And I’ve got two points to make. so I work with Mercy Adventures and I get introduced to a lot of the portfolio, but quite often people don’t know how to work with me. and quite, you know, so we have a call intro call or two, and then it kind of just fizzles out because they’re not quite sure. I would say the first thing is yes. And I after maybe 2 or 3 calls, you know, I think Yash was just very open. He, he, he was willing to share, you know, he took a risk, right? He doesn’t know me. We’re talking on zoom. We’re thousands of miles apart. He took a risk and was just very open and shared with me like, hey, here’s what we’re doing. Obviously, it was an exciting challenge, but he also was able to share the challenges he was having very quickly. And so I would say number one, he was very open.

Julien Castelli 00:18:50 And number two, he was very open to feedback. He very much wanted to hear, you know, what I, what I had to offer. And so, you know, yes, this is incredibly, a smart guy. And he’s very open to coaching. So I think that’s why we bonded right away. And that was very helpful.

Rick 00:19:08 Yes. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Yash Polygala 00:19:09 Yeah, that was a great question, Rick. because.

Multiple Speakers 00:19:12 A lot of times, people get, you know, a lot worried about it. In fact, I think I was even asked like, hey, do you think this is like, going to be a challenge? but I would I would think about it, slightly differently. In fact, him being on the investor like, Mercier side, and also working on the startup side is really good for the company because if there is anybody like, you know, a lot of times investors have discussions without us in the room, right, without the founders in the room.

Multiple Speakers 00:19:43 And we really need, we need people who who are thinking for the greatness of this business, like, where are we going? Right. How big can this business be? And in that process, I found, Julien to be quite helpful.

Yash Polygala 00:19:57 And actually, it’s a vote of confidence from Mercier on. Like, if Julien is doing something with me, you know that that basically should be convincing to Mercia or any other investor, right? Like, okay, so there is somebody of his expertise willing to work with the startup, which is growing really fast. You imagine the other way around. If Julian, goes to Mercia and says like, hey guys, not interested. These guys are like, I’m not sure. And then like, what would their impact be? So I would actually think that’s a very positive thing, that you are having that mindset. And I also feel like there’s what we don’t know, as a founder at this stage is just so much more than what we know. What we know is, like very, very limited, right? So let’s not get lost in everything feeling like we know everything here and we know how to solve it.

Yash Polygala 00:20:46 It’s not the case. There’s just so much to learn, so much to grow. And it’s about the speed. How quickly are you learning this stuff? And it is better with, you know, guides like Julian than without. So I would actually take it as a very positive thing.

Rick 00:20:59 That’s awesome.

Julien Castelli 00:21:00 No, Rick, I want to just follow up. I forgot the second part of my answer, which was, a critical distinction that I that I make. You know, Murcia has invested in three operating partners. And and what’s critical to understand is we are not part of the investment team. We are part of the mercy umbrella. So we are part of the group. But yes, we can have a confidential conversation with me if he says, hey, Julian, this is just between us. I’m not going to go back and talk to to Mercia about it. and, you know, typically I don’t write. I will share my opinion with Mercia when they ask me because they know that I’m embedded, but they know that I’m working with a relationship with.

Julien Castelli 00:21:38 Yes. They’ve hired me as an operating partner to sit as an adjunct or an adjacent to their investment group. So I don’t get invited to the investment discussions. I don’t get a vote on whether they’re going to invest further. In fact, because I’m there and because I’m kind of a a somewhat neutral third party. I mean, I’m affiliated with both, but so when when when when, yes, she’s going to go to the investment committee and ask for capital, I can actually give him feedback saying, hey, yes, I’m not on the inside. But you know, here’s what I picked up from my conversations. And I can maybe give you some advice. And it’s the same on the other side, right? They might say, Jillian, you know, what do you think? You know, how would you invest in this? Right. But but I don’t get a vote. I’m not part of that group. I’m not part of the investment team. And so that’s that’s a good separation.

Julien Castelli 00:22:22 I think that gives me a little bit of of neutrality.

Rick 00:22:25 That makes a lot of sense. I’d love to wrap up with a question to both of you. Maybe. Yes, you could go first. I’m interested in, you know. Yes. What what advice you have for other entrepreneurs working with operating partners. And then Julien is a quick follow up to. Yeah. Like any advice that you have for entrepreneurs working with on operating partners?

Yash Polygala 00:22:43 I would say the first thing that we should do is what are we good at and what are we not so good at? And that’s I think I would ask every entrepreneur to think about that. there are many things that we are not necessarily good at, or we are trying to do stuff which, you know, somebody else could do a better job at. that will help us to see the gaps in our, our own capabilities. And as a team, what should we be thinking about? The second important thing is, be very clear about your top three priorities.

Yash Polygala 00:23:14 I think that did not change from our first of all, Julian, because we said, like, hey, in the next 12 to 24 months, we have these customers to convert. We have this team to build, we have these operations to evolve. And then we kind of went into the process and saw like, you know, where children could actually help and how is it actually going to take ownership and responsibility of certain actions. So yeah, I would think about those two. And most importantly, when you look for an operating partner or growth advisor or you, you know, whichever title you give, I would look for somebody who takes ownership and who actually is accountable for certain actions, not just someone who gives you advice and only adds more work and reporting on your side.

Rick 00:23:55 Yes, I agree.

Julien Castelli 00:23:57 Julian, do you have any room for that? For sure.

Rick 00:23:59 Yeah. Julian, any any additional thoughts before we wrap?

Julien Castelli 00:24:02 Yeah. So I think the biggest thing I would say, and that was that made this relationship successful, is it’s not a one call or a two call thing.

Julien Castelli 00:24:11 Right. So I would say commit to, you know, a month or two of discovery. Right. And and I don’t charge anything for discovery. I, you know, when I, when I met, we probably had 6 or 7 calls before we ever got into an engagement. And I said, look, let’s if you’re open to talking about what your, your, your plans are, what your opportunities are and what your challenges are, it’s not a one call. And then, okay, we know what to do next. Right. You know, mercy is spending the money for me to be on staff, to be there of counsel. Right. And so you can have six meetings with me and just talk to me about what’s going on. And there’s no there’s no risk. There’s no there’s no cost. There’s no, it’s a time cost. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a trust cause to say, hey, am I willing to share some of my biggest challenge with this person? And that’s where Yash differentiated himself.

Julien Castelli 00:25:02 He very quickly started bringing me in and telling me what was happening. And and then we were able to quickly identify, okay, you know what? I might be able to help you with this, or I know someone who could help you with that. So it requires a commitment on both sides to say, hey, let’s let’s have 4 or 5 meetings, you know, like they’re virtual, they’re an hour, 45 minutes, whatever they are. But let’s, let’s, let’s spend time doing the discovery. If you’re open to do that, then almost always in those scenarios we can find ways that that we can help. And, you know, it may be an engagement. It may just be just help or it may be, you know, as we said, like, hey, you know what? Why don’t you just well, let’s stay in touch. Let’s connect on LinkedIn. In fact, why don’t you come to Utah and come to Growth Elevated and meet me, great other entrepreneurs like Rick, and expand your network.

Julien Castelli 00:25:49 And so I think if, if, if entrepreneurs are just open minded, say, hey, I’m going to I’m going to commit to 4 or 5 meetings of discovery. There’s no cost to me. I can only there’s there’s only potential upside.

Rick 00:26:01 That’s awesome. Any final thoughts from either of you?

Yash Polygala 00:26:05 No. I think a real pleasure to work with you, Julian. Look forward to the next meeting. I don’t know. Tuesday.

Rick 00:26:12 Back to.

Julien Castelli 00:26:13 Work. It’s been. It’s been great. Yeah. I’m excited about your company. And you know what? Yes. I’m excited about your move to the United States. we’re, you know, I’m here to welcome you. The whole growth, elevated community is is here to welcome you. And we hope you can join us in January.

Yash Polygala 00:26:28 Thank you. We’ll do that.

Rick 00:26:30 Well, thank you both for joining us and sharing scalpels story today. This is a great example of how operating partners can make tangible differences in scaling companies for listeners. If you’re interested, you can learn more about scalpel AI at scalpel AI, and you can learn about learn more about mercy at.

Rick 00:26:51 Luke. Thanks for joining us on Growth Elevated.

Julien Castelli 00:26:54 Thank you. Thanks, Rick.

Multiple Speakers 00:27:01 Let’s see here. Let me just stop.

Introduction to Growth Elevated and Guests (00:00:01)
Host introduces the podcast, Scalpel AI, Yash Polygala, and Julien Castelli.

Scalpel AI Overview (00:00:44)
Yash explains Scalpel AI’s mission to transform the surgical supply chain using AI and computer vision.

Julien’s Role at Mercia Ventures (00:01:38)
Julien describes his background, role as operating partner, and how he supports portfolio companies.

Operating Partner vs. Consultant (00:03:15)
Julien contrasts his ongoing, collaborative approach with traditional consulting.

Balancing Support and Leadership (00:05:05)
Discussion on how Julien supports founders without overstepping or taking control.

Challenges Before US Expansion (00:06:14)
Yash shares challenges Scalpel AI faced before Julien’s involvement, especially with US expansion.

Building Structure and Team (00:08:01)
Yash discusses the importance of structure, hiring differences between UK and US, and Julien’s impact.

Addressing Role Confusion and Hiring (00:10:03)
Examples of solving role confusion and improving hiring processes with Julien’s frameworks.

Financial Discipline and Investor Readiness (00:12:08)
How Julien helped Scalpel AI upgrade financial processes for future investment rounds.

Why Julien Chose Scalpel AI (00:13:33)
Julien explains why he got involved with Scalpel AI and where he focused his efforts.

Practical Support and Resource Connections (00:14:06)
Julien gives examples of connecting Scalpel AI to the right resources and building operational scaffolding.

Evolving the Working Relationship (00:17:38)
Discussion on building trust, openness, and the evolution of their partnership.

Investor-Operator Dynamics (00:19:12)
Yash and Julien discuss the benefits and boundaries of having an operating partner who is also investor-affiliated.

Advice for Entrepreneurs: Working with Operating Partners (00:22:43)
Yash and Julien share advice for founders on leveraging operating partners effectively.

Commitment to Discovery and Building Trust (00:24:02)
Julien emphasizes the importance of multiple discovery meetings and building mutual trust.

Closing Thoughts and Farewell (00:26:01)
Final reflections, gratitude, and podcast wrap-up.