"In the simplest terms, an entrepreneur is someone who identifies a problem and creates a marketable solution."
Dr. Alex Young Tweet
Dr. Alex Young — an NHS trauma and orthopedic surgeon by training — is the CEO and founder of the digital training platform Virti. Virti develops immersive training tools to improve human performance in organizations around the globe. Passionate about improving human performance, Alex built and sold his first company whilst at medical school, before boot-strapping and scaling an award-winning medical education company while still training in the NHS.
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Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Dr. Alex Young: I’m Dr. Alex Young, a doctor, entrepreneur, founder, investor, and content creator. I’m currently based in Bristol, England, but I divide my time between the UK and the US.
I’m the founder and CEO of Virti, a digital people performance platform powered by AI, which learners can use to access immersive, interactive training simulations on mobile, desktop, and mixed reality headsets. The platform is not just for medics looking to upskill; it’s for any professional or student who wants to learn more quickly and retain that knowledge for longer. Platform users can expect to achieve up to a 230% increase in knowledge gain and a 52% reduction in skill-fade.
Today, world-famous universities, multinational companies, and healthcare organizations use the Virti platform to onboard and upskill their remote or hybrid teams. Over the past year, we’ve seen revenues grow by nearly 1000% and our team has expanded to over 35 people as we continue to pursue our vision of improving human performance on a global scale.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Dr. Alex Young: Because I wanted a career that would challenge me and allow me to help people, I studied medicine at university, trained in the NHS, and became a doctor. But although I loved surgery, I soon realized that medicine was not the only career through which you can make the world a better place. Using my coding skills and with a focus on solving real-world problems, I started building and selling my own businesses and discovered a passion for entrepreneurship.
A few years later, whilst working as a Trauma surgeon, I noticed how the confidence and proficiency of my fellow healthcare professionals were suffering from a lack of repeated, realistic practice opportunities. For most students, gaining relevant experience depended on being in the right place at the right time, a situation that was impacting their confidence and on patient outcomes.
I knew that there had to be a more effective, scalable, and consistent method of delivering key skills and communication training to medics, and also a better way to provide them with meaningful, data-backed feedback on their performance. I partnered with talented developers to build Virti, and in 2018 I took on the role of CEO full-time in order to focus on scaling the company.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Dr. Alex Young: At Virti, despite our remote work policy, we really make an effort to get to know everyone in the team and to connect on a personal as well as a professional level. I also share a lot about my experiences and passions on my blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. So there’s not much left for me to share that would surprise my team!
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Dr. Alex Young: In the simplest terms, an entrepreneur is someone who identifies a problem and creates a marketable solution. This means that anyone can become an entrepreneur; you just need to spot that opportunity, pursue your killer idea, and persevere when the going gets tough.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Dr. Alex Young: I firmly believe that a culturally-aligned, happy and motivated team is one of the most important things that a leader can ask for. According to data from Glassdoor 77% of job seekers consider a company’s culture before applying, so it’s important that founders and business owners take time to ensure rapid growth doesn’t come at the cost of cultural integrity. And ultimately, the well-being of your team determines the well-being of your company,
As CEO, I’m constantly exploring new ways to build a more supportive and inclusive culture at Virti, such as our 1:1 mentoring programs, honest feedback system, and flexible working policies that help every team member to flourish. If I were to offer a piece of advice to other CEOs on culture building, it would be that your cultural values need to be bought into and upheld by everyone in your organization. The best way to ensure everybody understands what these values are, and why they’re important, is to build scalable, reliable hiring and onboarding pathways, which support new hires to build a deep understanding of your culture and work ethic.
Spend time building out a hiring process that goes beyond “hiring for culture” and analyses prospective hires through a data-driven hiring process to pull out key characteristics. In addition, ensuring that everybody in the team knows (and is reminded of) their worth will help build a trusting and supportive culture, and will likely improve peoples’ performance, too.
At Virti, we decided to go beyond simple alignment tools like OKRs and created our own tool called the Virti Operating System (VOS2) which tasks employees to align their value, strategy, and goals to their team’s quarterly focus and the overall mission of the company. This helps people to focus, prioritize and understand that what they are doing is hugely beneficial to the overall company vision.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Dr. Alex Young: The pandemic served to disrupt the normal order of society entirely, and over the past two years it’s been incredible to watch a whole new cohort of brave, creative, and adaptable leaders emerge into a very new and unstable landscape. Being disruptive in 2021 (and beyond) is not about breaking things and tearing up the old norms, it’s about moving fast, seizing this unique post-Covid-19 energy, and creating something new, bold, and amazing.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Dr. Alex Young: I lead a team of people who are all working to help people learn new things, become better at their jobs, and feel more confident at work.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Dr. Alex Young: When I raised our $10M Series A investment round at Virti, I found myself in the unexpected position of having to choose a lead investor out of a number of offers. This was a very difficult decision, as I was committed to selecting an investor who was passionate about the Virti mission, who understood our technology, who had good communication skills and was founder-friendly, and who had strong feedback from their other portfolio companies and the wider investment community.
I took my time doing research and background checks so I could be certain I’d made the right choice. Thanks to this, Virti now has a lead investor who is fully aligned with our values and is committed to helping us succeed.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Dr. Alex Young: I’m a huge video game nerd – I’ve been playing since I was a teenager! Some people might call gaming a useless talent, but it was my early love for video games that inspired me to learn coding and eventually build my own businesses in the tech sector.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Dr. Alex Young: Lessons from the startup rollercoaster: what growing a $10m tech startup taught me about entrepreneurship.
This title encapsulates the journey I’ve been on over the most recent period of my life, as I’ve pursued my ambition to scale Virti full-time. It is also aligned with my commitment to sharing all the knowledge and lessons I’ve learned along the way; I want other entrepreneurs to benefit from my experiences and share my success.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Dr. Alex Young 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 Dr. Alex Young or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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