Mavericks as Innovators: How Daring Leads to Discovery

In this episode, pediatric airway surgeon Dr. Michael Rutter and our host Dr. Eric Gantwerker discuss risk-taking and effective market analysis in entrepreneurship.

Dr. Rutter shares about his career path from medical school, to orthopedic surgery training, to his current hybrid role in otolaryngology and device entrepreneurship. Interestingly, his experience in orthopedic surgery has inspired him to adopt orthopedic tools and techniques in solving complex ENT cases. He elaborates on this idea of borrowing concepts from other fields, saying that he cultivates a congenial OR environment and often seeks ideas from other team members with different areas of expertise. These problem solving-driven conversations often result in pioneering of new airway surgery techniques.

As we transition to discussing product development, Dr. Rutter outlines his twelve year journey of creating a balloon dilator for the trachea, explaining how he obtained intellectual property rights, cleared FDA regulations, and marketed the product. When in a competitive marketplace, he highlights the benefits of conducting a non-inferiority (“Pollyanna”) study combined with attractive value propositions. Finally, he discusses the reality that some good ideas will not necessarily be successful, due to insufficient market size or extremely high costs of research and development. We conclude on the point that an entrepreneur must evaluate the balance between benefits gained and losses incurred when bringing their product to market.