"The biggest challenge right now are global risks outside of our control."
Branislav Vajdic, Founder and CEO of HeartBeam, Inc., has dedicated the past 17 years of his career to developing life-saving cardiovascular devices.
With a background in chip design at Intel Corporation, Vajdic has harnessed his expertise to create a groundbreaking solution for rapid, accurate heart attack detection outside of a medical setting.
HeartBeam’s AIMIGo device is a credit card-sized 3D VECG device capable of providing a 12-lead ECG, enabling cardiac patients to assess their chest pain symptoms anytime, anywhere.
As HeartBeam moves towards FDA clearance, Vajdic reflects on the challenges, successes, and future vision of his innovative company.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Branislav Vajdic: I am Branislav Vajdic, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of HeartBeam, Inc. I spent the first half of my career as a chip designer with Intel Corporation, where I designed the first Flash memory and contributed two patents that transformed Flash from an idea to a product.
I have spent the last 17 years focusing on cardiovascular devices with a vision to enable rapid, accurate heart attack detection outside of a medical setting. HeartBeam has developed a system that can be used by patients at home to help their physicians assess whether chest pain is the result of an MI.
For the first time outside of a medical setting, physicians can determine with a patient-friendly device if chest pains are due to a heart attack.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Branislav Vajdic: We have built, with our development partner, first series of our credit card-sized 3D VECG device, HeartBeam AIMIGo device, capable of providing a 12-lead ECG.
Having this device in a patient’s wallet anytime and anywhere is crucial for cardiac patients who can experience symptoms, sometimes life-threatening, anytime and anywhere.
HeartBeam AIMIGo device will be submitted shortly for a FDA clearance. HeartBeam was started with the mission of solving one of the most difficult medical problems: how to detect a heart attack outside a medical setting with a patient-friendly solution.
The solution of a difficult technical problem that enabled our solution and the subsequent product development have been very much a team effort. Even the greatest ideas do not go very far without a great team!
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Branislav Vajdic: Innovation is met with a lot of inertia and conservatism in the field of medicine. It is understandable as any change could have undesirable side effects and could adversely affect patients.
That is why the journey of a product that will be put in the hands of clinicians and their patients often takes much longer than planned.
We have an FDA submission that is being considered by the FDA for a 510K clearance and we are also filing a new application next quarter for our HeartBeam AIMIGo solution.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Branislav Vajdic: As a manager, I was trained at Intel when Andy Grove was the CEO. He wrote a book titled “Only the Paranoid Survive.” That is the book that influenced my management style the most. Its main message is that no matter how successful you are you cannot afford not to improve and innovate.
If you do not, somebody else will catch up with you and leave you behind. The history of some of the most successful corporations is full of examples how, especially in the technology sector, corporations rise, reach a peak and decline in some cases as fast as they rose to the top. Why?
In Andy Grove’s words they were not “paranoid” and did not improve and innovate, allowing often much smaller companies that were clearly behind to get ahead of them, resulting in decline and even obsolescence.
That is the book that I have gifted the most as it teaches a lesson that makes a difference between continued success and inevitable failure.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Branislav Vajdic: The biggest challenge right now are global risks outside of our control. Federal fiscal policies and their influence on the health of our banking system are very much a challenge for all of us.
While the immediate ripple effects of SVB failure were contained we worry that all risk factors in this area have not been substantially reduced.
Global geopolitical risks in an increasingly polarized world seem to be increasing as well. As a small company, we see these risks as the biggest challenges for year 2023 and potentially beyond.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Branislav Vajdic: COVID pandemic had an unexpected effect on our economy and may have actually created a “bubble.” The labor market, the stock and housing markets have shown unexpected strength and a period of prosperity in the middle of a pandemic.
2023 may prove to be a year when we see downward trends, a complete burst of the bubble, and maybe even a recession. This is the time to focus on creating new value with minimal capital expenditures.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Branislav Vajdic: As the founder of HeartBeam I view the company success very much as my own success. Vice versa is true as well, 2023 is year when HeartBeam could, and I believe will, have a few significant events and start showing the impact it will have on the field of cardiovascular medicine.
Our success and my own success will be measured by how many lives we save, how we improve quality of our patients’ lives, and in direct proportion to these successes how we create value for our shareholders.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Branislav Vajdic for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Branislav Vajdic or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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