A multi-company shareholder/director facilitating relationships between funding decision-makers and public and private healthcare firms. Helping startups related to the health sector by utilizing every possible way to raise funds. (Lee Mathias)

Grow A Small Business Podcast

In this episode, Troy interviews Dr. Lee Mathias, shareholder/director at Tend and Pictor. She’s based in Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Lee has an illustrious career, she served as a Principal Nurse at Middlemore Hospital, and she was a critical figure in the transformational changes to primary maternity services as the founder of Birthcare, now she is continuing her career as an entrepreneur by being a director at Pictor, an in-vitro diagnostics company that is still running strong after 13 years.

After seven years as a Principal Nurse, she took her MBA in ‘85 to ‘87’ an academic degree that she used to its full extent to manage multiple companies. Keeping Pictor afloat by valiantly finding ways to fund the business, such as various public sector funding sources, angel investors, series fundings, etc., whilst generating revenue to compensate for burning $700,000 a month.

Apart from all the things that Dr. Lee loves about growing a business, the one thing that she doesn’t is funding. Dr. Lee heavily emphasized the fact that when developing a business, “you need to have a pretty good idea where your money is going to come from.” to plan, determine how much money you have available to invest in new projects, hire employees, or expand operations.

This Cast Covers:

• The remarkable accomplishments of Dr. Lee Mathias throughout her career.
• Various public healthcare services.
• Developing your brand through transparency and empirical evidence.
• Exhausting every possible way to raise funds.
• The difficulty of running out of money in a business.
• Getting people to understand exactly what the product you’re selling is.
• Always having a process and method for your business.
• Celebrating achievements to build a sustainable culture.
• Heavily investing in your professional and personal development.
• Making sure to have the best hardware you can afford.

Links:

• Dr. Lee’s Linkedin
• Pictordx
• Tend Health Ltd

Additional Resources:

• Porter's Five Forces: Understand Competitive Forces and Stay Ahead of the Competition (Management & Marketing) by 50MINUTES
• Reinventing American Health Care by Ezekiel J. Emanuel
• The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials) by Peter F. Drucker

Quotes:

“If you have the entrepreneurial spirit, do not try, do not ever think, don't contemplate that you're going to deal with a large public company.” — Lee Mathias.

“It's important for anybody in small business to think about their education.” — Lee Mathias.

“You need your specialists and don't try and do everything yourself.” — Lee Mathias.

“You need to have a pretty good idea about where your money is going to come from because you can't live on silverbeet forever.” — Lee Mathias.

“The other thing you'd have to do is to keep reading.” — Lee Mathias.