[00:00:00] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Are great businesses built on great ideas or great execution
[00:00:17] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I'm Richard Gearhart.
[00:00:19] Elizabeth Gearhart: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your hosts.
[00:00:21] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the road to entrepreneurship. We have a very special guest, Dr. Joseph A. Puma, founder of Sorin Medical, and on how groundbreaking technology and AI are shaping the future of heart care and helping patients live longer, healthier lives. But first, what's new with you, Elizabeth?
[00:00:40] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, every time I turn on the TV the last couple days, it's been, AI Is going to kill us all.
Human extinction is on the horizon.
[00:00:49] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Someone's going to get you eventually, right? I don't know what death by AI looks like.
[00:00:53] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I asked Gemini and it gave me some pretty scary scenarios.
[00:00:57] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Oh, really?
[00:00:58] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah. But we can talk about it during the real AI Use cases section of this. But I do want to say the alarm has been raised, and luckily raised loudly enough now that I think that people are starting to pay attention. So there was an incident with this company called Hugging Face.
Hugging Face is where a lot of developers share code. So it's basically a repository for developers code. And the AI agents OpenAI were taxed with solving a problem, and they were able to hack. They should not have been able to escape the sandbox.
[00:01:31] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: They snuck into places where they weren't
[00:01:33] Elizabeth Gearhart: supposed to, and they teamed up together. That's the scary part.
[00:01:37] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:37] Elizabeth Gearhart: So they snuck into Hugging Face, and then I read today that that wasn't the first time that's happened.
[00:01:42] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Wow.
[00:01:43] Elizabeth Gearhart: So I'm like, it's too much to get into right now.
[00:01:46] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: But, yeah, I mean, that's pretty crazy. And I look forward to the discussion later. But now it's time for something completely different.
National talk, like a Pirate day.
[00:01:57] Elizabeth Gearhart: Okay, Richard, so how would a pirate say increase revenue?
[00:02:02] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Aye, bring me more treasure.
[00:02:05] Elizabeth Gearhart: How would a pirate say, you're fired?
[00:02:08] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Hey, maybe walk the plank.
[00:02:11] Elizabeth Gearhart: Okay, well, that was.
[00:02:13] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I practiced before the show, so it was a lot of fun to try that.
[00:02:17] Elizabeth Gearhart: That was very entertaining. Thank you.
[00:02:19] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Okay, well, we're gonna have to do a lot more pirate talking here on the show today. I'm afraid so. So.
[00:02:25] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, one thing I'm excited for, I always love the change of season. So fall's coming, and we decided that we were going to really decorate the front of our house for fall. We usually decorate for Christmas, but now we want to do fall too. So we've got some exciting things. Their garden center came. They're putting together all sorts of stuff, and it's fun.
[00:02:42] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I love autumn. Really looking forward to the new decorations, but it's taken a long time for them to get there. Right. We talked with the.
[00:02:50] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, the window boxes took a long time to come.
[00:02:53] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: And so I'm beginning to wonder, are we losing our ability to be patient? Right.
[00:02:59] Elizabeth Gearhart: I've never had it.
[00:03:01] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I know, but it's sort of like if you try to upload a website and it takes more than 30 seconds, you kind of get a little frustrated. I get that feeling. And last week, I was at the post office, and the guy was. He was really nice. He was serving and doing what he was supposed to do do at the post office. And then he disappeared in the back for like a half an hour. Right. And I was just like, are you, like, watching a TV show or something? And. But it drove me nuts. And I think, you know, all of the technology is just making us even less patient than we were before it.
[00:03:36] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, different people treat time differently, I think.
[00:03:40] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Yeah.
[00:03:40] Elizabeth Gearhart: So some people are always in a rush, like me, and some people just want to be rushed.
[00:03:45] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I guess that's really. If you feel like you've got a lot that you want to do in general, then I think you get impatient. And if you're more in the moment, then I think you're more okay with it. Probably I should try more of the latter. So Besides the impressive Dr. Puma, who else is going to be on the show today?
[00:04:02] Elizabeth Gearhart: So we have somebody returning who we haven't seen for a few years, actually excited to catch up with him. Brian Fried, the inventor coach.
So he's helping people take their products to market. Can hardly wait to see what he's doing these days.
[00:04:16] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Man after my own heart.
[00:04:18] Elizabeth Gearhart: Everything's changed. And he's kept up with the changes. He's ahead of the changes, I think. And then John Schwind, inventor of the strapless ready mask. This is a very innovative, cool invention. He'll explain it much better than I can, but I promised him that I would put one on during the show on video.
[00:04:34] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Okay.
[00:04:35] Elizabeth Gearhart: And coming up later on, it's Noah's retrospective along with Secrets of the entrepreneurial Mind.
[00:04:42] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: But first, it's time for your new business journey. We'd like to ask our panel, when you look back, what was the one decision or moment that most changed the trajectory of your career or business, and what did it cost you to make that decision? So, Dr. Joseph A. Puma welcome back. Good to see you.
[00:05:02] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Thanks for having me. Rich. It's great to be here. Elizabeth, thanks again.
That's a great question. I think for probably, you know, I'm a physician, I'm an interventional cardiologist. But in many ways I have an entrepreneurial spirit. And I think for any entrepreneur, sometimes it's, you have that idea and it's time to jump into the water. In my particular case, I felt pretty convicted that I had the right approach to true health and wellness prevention, heart disease. And we'll talk about that more later. But I live in a world where there's, you know, huge academic giants all around us, and they didn't seem to think it's the right idea. So walking away, I was a clinical chief of cardiology at a major hospital here in Manhattan. Walking away from that and financing it and creating it myself, I think that's that's been the biggest decision, you know, subsequently, as we'll talk, we validated it. But you don't know that before you start.
[00:06:04] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: No. That must have taken an enormous amount of courage.
But it paid off, right? And you believed in yourself, and you've brought a lot of health to a lot of people. So that's amazing.
[00:06:16] Elizabeth Gearhart: Amazing.
[00:06:17] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Brian, what was your decision that changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:06:22] Brian Fried: Well, as an inventor, I now have 15 issued patents. When I first started, there's so many different journeys that you can actually take when you come up with an idea. And going down that road, there's plenty of twists and turns along the way.
One that really stood out to me that changed my life was when I went to a trade show. I had a bag of my inventions, and I ended up meeting a buyer from qvc and I showed her some of my products. And I was at the point where I said, you know what? Am I going to license my inventions to earn royalties or am I going to manufacture? I didn't really expect to manufacture at that point. And then all of a sudden, I met the buyer. She invited me to QVC headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Remember it very well. And I pitched my products, and I had one in the bag that I left behind because it was a prototype stage. And I pulled it out. I said, this is what I'm working on. And she said, I want that.
And all of a sudden, at that point, I went from thinking about licensing to earn royalties to actually starting to invest and produce my product and sold millions and millions of units. I was on QVC on air for about three years with multiple products and also representing other inventors products. And that was something that really stood out to me, and I'm proud of.
[00:07:43] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Well, congratulations. That's an amazing story, too. And I can see how being on QVC and getting the attention of the buyer changed everything. So what a great story.
[00:07:55] Brian Fried: Thank you.
[00:07:55] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: John Schwind, welcome to the show.
[00:07:58] John Schwind: Thank you. Richard. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for inviting me, Elizabeth, as well.
[00:08:02] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: What was the one decision that you made that changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:08:07] John Schwind: Well, I've been at this for over 28 years, and don't know if it was necessarily a decision or a time. And the time was February 5th of 2020, and my phone started ringing, and it was about COVID and my name was on the CDC website as having a certified N95 respirator.
And after that. And Covid was bad for everyone, but it helped people understand more about respiratory protection. And. And over the last number of years, that's what our focus has been. Has been educating people about how do we keep things out of our lungs, the bad things, and what's important in a respirator.
[00:08:53] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Wow. So, okay. Well, I mean, so I guess the event was really Covid. Right. And since you were in the business of supplying masks, the unfortunate incident resulted in more attention to your company. Right. So, absolutely. Yeah. Elizabeth.
[00:09:08] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, it was years ago, and I was working as a patent agent at Gearhart Law, and we could not get a marketing agency that could get things right.
So because intellectual property is so nuanced, you know, I. People don't understand it unless they're swimming in it. So Richard said, well, why don't you become the marketing person at Gearhart Law?
And I had never done marketing, but. And I never.
[00:09:32] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: But she was a good communicator, so I knew that she.
She intuitively would have a grasp.
[00:09:38] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I talked to a lot of marketing people, and it's all comes down to a few basic things. As we all know, you have to tell your story, right? And then you have to get your story out there. So.
But what's interesting about that is that now I'm doing, how do we show up for AI for Gearhart Law? How does Gearhart Law show up for ChatGPT? And the things we've been doing, and this show is a big part of it, too, have been working because we are getting inquiries from the different LLMs for Gearhart Law.
So I never realized that going into the marketing would thrust me into the middle of the whole AI revolution. Right. Like, I use it all the time because I have reason John and I were talking yesterday, and he's like, well, you kind of have to have a reason to use it. Right? So it gave me a very strong reason to use it.
[00:10:28] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: No, that's great.
When I started doing more networking, my business improved. Right. And so this is a more recent activity for me. I've gotten to the point where my team can take care of most things related to the practice of law.
And now I'm spending my time getting out and making connections and forming relationships with people, which I really enjoy.
And it has a lot of benefits for the firm and benefits for our clients, because the more people that I meet, the more referrals I can make. If somebody needs an accountant or cardiologist or invention coach, I know who to talk to or who to refer them to. And so I'm enjoying the process, and it's been absolutely great. So now it's time for our main guest, Dr. Joseph A. Puma. He is the founder of Sorin Medical. What if the most common heart tests people rely on are no longer the best option? So Dr. Puma is going to be talking to us about advanced imaging and AI and how they're transforming heart disease and how it's detected, not necessarily transforming heart disease, but how it's detected.
And this happens often before the symptoms become apparent. Tell us about the new technology and why it's so important.
[00:11:52] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yes. Thanks again, Richard. But you are right. It's transforming. I think you're using the right word. We're in the midst of a great transition, and I'm looking forward to our conversation later about AI in particular.
In our practice, we use AI every day. Probably one of the most beneficial ways AI is functional today is actually in body imaging. And on the coronary side, the heart side, it's as advanced as in any other part of the body. So now we have the capability, if we can get a high quality snapshot of the heart, which we have with the most advanced CT scan in the world, and then reconstruct that and use, we have, a partnership with heartflow as the most advanced AI. But what their AI can do is, is it not only gives us an angiogram of the arteries so we don't have to do an invasive procedure, it can tell us if there's any plaque there and analyze that plaque with such incredible detail on whether it's calcified, hardened plaque, soft plaque, or even plaque that's ready to rupture and cause a heart attack. And then the third part is, if there's any plaque or blockage, it can assess with incredible precision if that blockage is severe, what cardiologists call significant, a greater than 70% blockage. So why is all this important? Because we're now going from. Historically, all treatment for heart disease has been symptom driven. Okay. And that's unfortunately why many men wake up at 4, you know, when they're in their 40s, at 4 or 5 in the morning having the heart attack that ultimately kills them.
Okay. At this point in the world, that should never happen. What we've done at Sorin Medical, and I think the big leaping off point for me is realizing that there's a lot of technology in disparate places. All I really did was have the foresight to put it together in one place.
So change the way we approach diagnosing heart disease. And then what we did is work with a small group of researchers around the country through heart flow, where we now. And we'll be presenting it next week. If you follow our approach to scanning the heart, applying the AI software and then treating the patient's LDL levels based on a protocol that we developed, we actually, for the first time in the history of the world, can prove we can reduce heart attacks.
[00:14:23] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Wow, that's significant.
[00:14:24] Elizabeth Gearhart: So that's huge.
[00:14:26] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Well, it's interesting, Elizabeth, because, you know, we're in an era now, post Covid, where nobody trusts anybody.
And, you know, it seems like all our friends and family are on the Internet every day looking at wellness and longevity and peptides and all of this stuff, none of which have any proof, but all they're really showing is their anxiety. Because there's only two things we can do in medicine, right, Is make people feel better or live longer. And I don't think people want to live forever. I think they want to feel as good as they can for as long as they have. But we now have the ability to transform the way we approach heart disease. We can now see it, predict it, and treat it before any damage occurs to the heart, before those kind of end stage problems occur. And that's what we've done at sorum. We've created that, that platform now. And the approach, we did it all just blood, sweat and tears in our own financing. And now we're in the process of planning, planning to try and figure out how to scale it and bring it national.
[00:15:28] Elizabeth Gearhart: That's what I was going to ask you is, well, of course Richard goes and sees you at your office in New York.
And I should probably do that too, because I don't know that my doctor is giving Me the greatest advice. But everybody's going to want this, right? So how are they going to get it?
[00:15:43] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's the challenge right now. If you go online, you know, there's already companies that do full body MRIs.
And it's not that there's not value in that, but it's not targeted. And so we get finding that just like doing when you do mass screenings. The problem with mass screenings are they're costly and it's never really clear who to treat.
And so you end up doing lots of additional tests or procedures. With heart disease, it's the number one killer.
As many people as we think have it, we really don't know what the true denominator is because we've never had a simple scan. Our scan takes three minutes. The AI process, you know, Richard, you've been through it.
[00:16:24] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I was just gonna say it's very quick. Dr. Puma's staff is amazing. They're delightful.
And you go in, it's a few minutes and in minutes you can see a three dimensional picture of your heart and the surrounding veins and arteries. I had a higher calcium score than I felt like I should have. And the calcium score, really, correct me if I'm wrong, measures the plaque on the veins and the arteries. Right. And, and that's what causes the blockages which ultimately leads to the heart attacks.
And by looking at the scan, I could see that the way the plaque was distributed, it wasn't really harmful.
So it reduced my anxiety level because I realized that even though I have this terrible calcium score, it wasn't dangerous or unhealthful.
[00:17:13] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: So that's absolutely right.
Even when you take our scan and our approach to the scan with the AI software and then couple it with your lab values, your cholesterol profile, inflammatory markers. Right.
So you're hearing these words, inflammatory markers, things that if you go on wellness websites or longevity websites, these are all the rage, but nobody really knows what to do with them. Right. And you know, there's these new websites that'll charge you $150 a month subscription fees to get blood tests every three months. And they do all these panels. But what does that really mean? I think the difference between our wellness and longevity platform with the Sorin heart scan is the fact that we've coupled it with very clear research.
We have proven efficacy. Efficacy.
Okay. And so it's personalizing the therapy, Lipid lowering therapy, anti inflammatory therapy, treatment of blockages, it's personalizing it for everyone. So whether you're normal, have mild to moderate disease, or Severe disease, because every day we see patients come in, even minimal symptoms, and they end up needing bypass surgery, stents. It's pretty remarkable.
[00:18:28] Elizabeth Gearhart: That's what I was going to ask you. So if somebody comes in and you go, wow, you got a lot of this, a lot of these plaques, do you send them to the emergency room or schedule surgery for as soon as possible?
[00:18:39] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: So we typically. That's a great question. We typically schedule their procedure intervention within 24 hours. As you know, where we have our heart scan and our platform is an ambulatory Surgical Center. On February 19, the New York State Department of Health, after we worked to educate them, I founded Society three years ago, the New York Ambulatory Cardiovascular Society. So now New York State on February 19, approved coronary interventions in ambulatory surgical centers.
So soon you'll be able to have your stents right there, Right there, pacemakers, things like that. Now, nationally, already 26 states approved it because really, the approval comes from the federal governments, from Medicare, cms, but then each state has their own guidelines and regulations. So there's a great transformation taking place, Richard, right now through innovation, technology.
[00:19:33] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: And when we talk about trust, I will say that being able to visualize your heart and your circulatory system around it and see the plaques, seeing is believing you can see it. It's a lot different than some theoretical test that has a lot of numbers on it. And I think the visual just reinforces the credibility of the whole process. And there's something fascinating about seeing your own heart. I mean, I think the procedure is great, and I hope that many, many people can eventually take advantage of this on a national and global scale.
[00:20:09] Elizabeth Gearhart: I just wanted to ask you. So will insurance cover it? Does it cost a lot?
[00:20:13] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Insurance covers it. Number one, Medicare reimburses about $265 for just a basic heart scan, but also reimburses for the AI software. And that's where really the win is right. So you have this technology now that's reimbursable. It just depends on what the indication is. So if you have symptoms, even if it's atypical symptoms, that could be your heart, the insurance will cover it. If you're coming in to get it just for prevention and you want to check, your insurance may not cover it, but that's where the transition is. Eventually, that's all starting to change. And. And as our research gets out, our data that shows that we reduce heart attacks, you can't go to any of those blood test sites that are doing those blood tests or Any of those. Well, on longevity or have any peptide injected into you that can make any true claim that they make you feel better or live longer.
[00:21:09] Elizabeth Gearhart: So, Dr. Puma, we were talking to somebody in the hallway, and they said that somebody that they knew that was a patient of yours was scheduled for open heart surgery in four days. And after he went to you, he didn't have to have it.
[00:21:23] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's correct.
[00:21:24] Elizabeth Gearhart: What happened?
[00:21:25] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: First of all, this particular person is, you know, typical human being. It, you know, oftentimes people deny their symptoms.
[00:21:32] Elizabeth Gearhart: Right?
[00:21:33] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's. That's not a big surprise. You know the old doctor joke, doc, it hurts when I go like this. Doctor says, don't go like this.
[00:21:39] John Schwind: All right?
[00:21:39] Elizabeth Gearhart: So that's what my doctor says.
[00:21:41] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: To me, that's not medicine.
[00:21:44] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Right.
[00:21:45] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: I don't know what that is. That's more like a Groucho Marx skit. But that's not the way medicine ought to be. But the truth is, when we don't feel well, our body autoregulates, right? Unless you're having a heart attack, which is this severe, dramatic symptom. Symptoms are often subtle. You start getting a little short of breath, can't carry groceries in like you used to, or maybe you're a little more tired. But as we get older, we think we're getting older. So this particular person ignored symptom for quite some time, you know, typical denial, and then found out there was. Came in, had a heart scan, the. But when we did our heart scan, we were able to see in detail, you know, Richard, as you've seen the arteries. We were able to see inside the arteries, the level of calcification, and felt that with stents, we could treat all three arteries, and we did. And he's doing amazing. I bumped into his wife actually, recently at an event here in the city a couple of weeks ago, and she said, he's doing amazing. Taking his medicine back to normal activity, normal energy level. And what I often hear afterwards, he didn't realize how bad he was feeling.
Now that.
[00:22:56] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: And he's feeling better now, too.
[00:22:57] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Oh, he's feeling amazing now. Now that he's treated, his activity level, energy level is way up.
[00:23:03] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Well, that's great.
[00:23:04] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Without open heart surgery.
[00:23:05] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Without open heart surgery.
[00:23:06] Elizabeth Gearhart: Wow, that's huge.
[00:23:07] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So we need to take a commercial break. We'll be right back with more of passage to profit, Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt, and also Dr. Joe Puma.
[00:23:16] Elizabeth Gearhart: Do you hear that? That's the sound of uncertainty lurking under your hood. You know the feeling? I know I do. That sudden sinking sensation. When you see a check engine light or your car unexpectedly breaks down and you're faced with sky high repair bills, it's time to shield against unexpected repairs with Karshield. Karshield is America's most trusted auto protection company and has an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. Don't let the fear of a breakdown keep you up in Trust the shield Car shield and say goodbye to terrifying repair bills and hello to peace of mind. Your plan also comes with 24. 7 roadside assistance, courtesy towing, rental car options, and so much more. Don't wait till it's too late. Call Carshield now before a breakdown. Protect your wallet, protect your car with car shield. Get our best protection ever. Call now. You'll thank me later. 8002-6121-7680-0261-2176. That's 800-261-2176.
[00:24:15] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Have you outgrown your health insurance plan or just not happy with what you're paying for? The number one reason we all change our health insurance is price. Are you paying too much for your health insurance? Would you like to have better coverage at a better rate or at little or no cost to you? You, your life needs are always changing, but have you done anything to improve your health insurance for you and your family? Health insurance laws and coverage are always changing and getting better. It's impossible to do all the research yourself, but now it's all done for you for free. So regardless of your age or medical condition, take a few minutes right now and find out if you can save money or even qualify for zero cost health insurance in your state.
[00:25:00] Elizabeth Gearhart: Call now paid for by cheaper health insurance. 8006-5214-7080-0652-1470.
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[00:25:15] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Now back to passage to profit once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our
[00:25:20] Elizabeth Gearhart: special guest, Dr. Joseph Puma, who is just pushing the boundaries of medicine and saving lives.
It is been amazing talking to him, but we're not done talking to him yet. So we were talking during the break about what happened to Lindsey Graham. So he was a senator who just suddenly died unexpectedly. I thought, I mean, I was shocked when I heard it. What happened to him?
[00:25:46] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah, again, I didn't treat Lindsey Graham, so I don't want to talk about the specifics, but what the news media reported is he had a, a dissection or what's called a tear.
What you can consider a Tear in the major artery in the body, the aorta.
So every time the heart pumps, the pumping chamber of the heart pumps blood through a valve that go. And then it goes into an aorta. And think of the aorta as kind of the tree trunk of the body. And every, every other part of the body gets its blood flow from a branch off that aorta. But when that aorta tears, it's a medical emergency and it needs to be recognized quickly and then treated quickly. And the treatment is emergency open heart surgery. Now, the most common cause of those tears is high blood pressure. And oftentimes these patients will have had an acute rapid rise in their blood pressure for some reason.
[00:26:41] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Wasn't he just returning from a trip or something? He was like negotiating something with Ukraine or had something to do with the war.
[00:26:49] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's exactly right. But usually these people also have high, you know, will have high blood pressure in general and be on.
[00:26:55] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Yeah, on top of that.
[00:26:57] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's exactly right.
[00:26:58] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Right.
[00:26:59] Elizabeth Gearhart: So if, if he had come to your clinic a month before, what would you have done? Would you would have done the scan? Do you think you would have seen it?
[00:27:06] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Well, ours, our heart scan, when we do a heart scan for the arteries of the heart, we're capturing the aorta as it comes out of the pumping chamber. And. And we capture it actually up until about the diaphragm, even below the diaphragm, to be honest, because sometimes we get part of the liver in there. And so you can see what's called the descending aorta, because the aorta starts up here in your chest, out of the heart, and will go all the way down to about your belly button before it breaks into two different arteries that go down into the pelvis and into the legs.
[00:27:40] Elizabeth Gearhart: So you would have seen it.
[00:27:41] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah, we capture all of that. And if we had any issue or reason to or indication or as we talked earlier, people get full body scans. You would have captured it in a full body scan? Without question.
[00:27:55] Elizabeth Gearhart: And what would you have told them to do?
[00:27:57] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Depending on the size of it and the extent of it, surgery is the treatment for that type of problem. Open heart surgery, where they actually put a graft in, in the aorta there and then replug in the arteries to the heart so that the area that's torn or where there is a tear or if it's gotten dilated, what we call an aneurysm, gotten too enlarged, there's a weakness in the wall of the artery when that happens, and that puts you at risk for rupture.
[00:28:23] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So you mentioned full body scan. So is the technology that's been developed for the heart scan, is it the Sorin scan? Is that what you call.
That's the.
[00:28:31] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah, we trademarked it the Sorin heart scan.
[00:28:34] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: And so is that same technology applicable to the whole body?
[00:28:38] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: The CAT scan angiogram is the AI software is not. The AI software is fundamental just to the heart arteries.
[00:28:47] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Got it. So we were talking during the break about other innovations. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about some of the other projects you're working on.
[00:28:55] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah, I think one of the biggest issues right now is high blood pressure. And I think that, you know, I think the medical community is starting to question many assumptions. For instance, I think we mentioned it before, when you have high blood pressure, first of all, most of the time we don't know why people have high blood pressure. 95% of the time we develop it. As we age, our arteries get stiffer, but we know it's modulated through the kidneys and the kidney nerves. Okay. That's where the hormones get released that modulate elevated blood pressure. That's number one. Number two, historically we give patients medication and if their blood pressure is not controlled, we keep adding more medications.
And what we do know today is that all these medications cause side effects.
[00:29:39] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yep.
[00:29:40] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: And the older we get, the more likely we are to have side effects. And patients with high blood pressure, almost half of them are not compliant with their medicine because of side effects. And so what I think is a great innovation now is we have the ability to treat the nerves. A one time procedure where we put a little catheter or a tube in an artery or vein down near the hip and it takes about 30 or 45 minute treatment in to treat the nerves in the kidneys. Okay. Outpatient procedure. You go home a couple of hours after procedure and slowly over about two or three months, we see blood pressure slowly come down. And so in patients who have severe high blood pressure, difficult to control, A, we're able to get them controlled. But in patients even who have been on three or four different medicines just for high blood pressure, and let's remember, we start getting older, we're on medicine for osteoporosis, cholesterol, blood pressure, a blood
[00:30:46] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: thinner, throwing a few vitamins on top of it.
[00:30:48] Speaker H: Right.
[00:30:49] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: So, you know, I often have patients, Elizabeth, walk in the office with 15, 20 bottles of medicine.
[00:30:54] Elizabeth Gearhart: I don't want to be there.
[00:30:56] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: And so this procedure allows us to cutting back on these pills. And high blood pressure is the most common risk factor for atrial fibrillation, irregular heart rhythms which increases the risk of stroke by five times. Congestive heart failure. And in fact in the black community, hypertension, high blood pressure effects on the heart are more common cause of death now than blocked arteries. So I think there's a huge opportunity to educate folks, use this new technology to treat them.
[00:31:29] Speaker H: Right.
[00:31:29] Elizabeth Gearhart: Do you do that in your office?
[00:31:31] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yes.
[00:31:32] Elizabeth Gearhart: The reason I'm asking, asking for a friend.
But seriously I really am. We have a friend who's healthy, he's not fat, he exercises, he eats well and his, he tells us his blood pressure is through the roof and there's nothing he can do about it.
[00:31:48] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Well, there is something you can do about it number one. Number two, this treatment now is approved for ambulatory surgical centers. So you don't have to go into a hospital, it's outpatient. You know the procedure itself takes about 45 minutes. The recovery is about two hours afterwards.
So about four hours of your time. And then you know we tie that actually with other technology where we monitor folks blood pressure, we give them a blood pressure cuff and it's cellular so whenever they check it, we assign a nurse to them whenever they check it. It comes to us on a website so we can monitor pressure. So there's lots of ways now to use kind of high tech approach to improving patient care and patients lives.
[00:32:34] Elizabeth Gearhart: So how do people get a hold of you if they want to come and see you?
[00:32:38] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: You can reach out at Sorin Medical S O r I n medicalny.com you can sign up for a heart scan right on the website. It literally asks for just four pieces of information.
We accept insurance. We've tried to take every barrier out of the way. Even if you don't have insurance, if you just let us know. @infors medicalny.com we take care of everyone that asks us for help. You ask us for help, we help you.
[00:33:05] Elizabeth Gearhart: So you have to support yourself. But I don't get the feeling you're doing this for the money.
[00:33:10] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: No, I think that at this last stage of my career I think, you know, you asked the question earlier, what's the kind of, the one thing you kind of. I saw this, you felt it jumping into the water and doing it, it's been incredibly rewarding. I think we've helped a lot of people and it's, it's been great to see and now we really feel like we're onto something that, that actually you used the right word Richard is transforming healthcare. It's transform the way we approach our patients.
[00:33:39] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well thank you, Dr. Puma. But don't go away because now we're going to go into real AI use cases.
And I know you have a lot to say about that.
[00:33:46] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Thank you.
[00:33:47] Elizabeth Gearhart: So this is really AI Use cases Business Owners Roundtable. I'm going to start with Dr. Puma. I'm going to ask everybody one way they're using AI and then we're going to go into a roundtable discussion. So Dr. Joseph A. Puma was. Soaringmedicalnewyork.com what is one way that you're using AI?
[00:34:04] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah, so we talked about the imaging side, so I want to talk about the other way we use it. We get about 3,000 phone calls a week into our office. That's usually the number one complaint for patients they can't get through. So we have an AI agent that answers calls for us and tries to manage patient requests, appointments, prescription refills. So that's the primary way we're using AI right now. And we use it every single day.
[00:34:30] Elizabeth Gearhart: Wow, that's excellent. Yeah.
[00:34:32] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So does it work? Well? I mean, they don't get sent to Timbuktu, right? I mean they get.
[00:34:37] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: That's a great question. And the answer is it does not work well.
[00:34:40] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Okay.
[00:34:41] Elizabeth Gearhart: Not yet anyway.
[00:34:43] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: 70% of the calls have to then be transferred to a live agent. And it's really basic stuff that they can't figure out. It's actually, it's almost anti AI. What we've been sold AI is they only are able to manage about 30% of the calls. So right now we are looking at AI other than imaging as just added expense but no real roi.
[00:35:08] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, I've heard that. So, Brian Freed. Brian Fried. That's F R I E D dot com. What's one way you're using AI in your business?
[00:35:18] Brian Fried: When I come up with an idea describing what it is that I'm coming up with and I'd like to see what is similar that's out there, what I can compare my idea to and help me to make better decisions and then do some research.
What does the market look like? Is this something that I can really penetrate the market? Is it enough of a difference mine compared to what's already existing? But then what I also do is I do a patent search with a patent ability opinion to make sure that it is something that I can call my own and I'm not infringing or working on something that anybody else can make.
[00:35:54] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Just out of curiosity, do you use a closed system or do you use the open AI tools? Because you have to be careful about disclosing ideas where other models could train on them. And I assume that you're sensitive to that.
[00:36:10] Brian Fried: Absolutely. What I do is, like I mentioned, I describe my idea. I don't necessarily get to exactly what my idea is. So I'm kind of going around what it is so I can see things that are existing that are similar but not quite my idea.
[00:36:25] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Oh, okay.
[00:36:26] Elizabeth Gearhart: Okay. So, John Schwinn with Ready Mask. I want to make sure I spell this right. R E A D I mask dot com.
What's one way you're using AI?
[00:36:37] John Schwind: So, yeah, you did spell it correctly. The majority of people that are wearing our respirators have compromised immune systems.
They're wearing it for MRIs or in settings in medical situations. And it's difficult for us to have images of people that are wearing our respirators in those situations. So we're using AI to generate images and videos of people in those settings. And it's for privacy reasons to use in your marketing. Absolutely. And that's been one of the most difficult times.
They depict actual usage of it for privacy. Excellent.
[00:37:17] Elizabeth Gearhart: Richard Gearhart with Gearhart Law intellectual property firm. It's one way you're using AI well
[00:37:23] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: along the theme of networking. I think that AI is a great tool. Do research on people that you want to meet and connect with. So I'll put in a list of characteristics. Maybe attorneys that have health care practices that I think could be synergistic with Gerhardt Law. And I'll find those people and then I'll use AI to find them, but then I'll reach out to them on LinkedIn or via email or some other way. So it's pretty simple use, but I think it's very powerful and saves a lot of time when you're trying to find the right people to help build your business.
[00:38:01] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yes. And for me, Elizabeth Gearhart with Gear Media Studios, I've been. I was fighting with it yesterday. There's a little glitch, but I.
[00:38:10] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: You fight with AI?
[00:38:11] Elizabeth Gearhart: I do fight with AI.
[00:38:12] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: You know, sometimes I hear you guys and you're. It's not pretty.
[00:38:16] Elizabeth Gearhart: I try to get it to do things it's not quite ready to do yet, but I'm trying to use it to automate a process. So I've been using Perplexity and we had talked to someone who said, ah, nah, you know, Perplexity is not that great for what I'm doing with it. Perplexity is pretty cool because it sets agents on my task and it's almost like using an AI agent, but just telling it what to do. So right now I'm automating the Real AI Use Cases podcast. I'm trying to automate every piece of that, uploading it to YouTube and to the distribution site and getting all the information that we need from it to do the marketing with it. So I think that AI will act as an agent for me. I think that Perplexity will undo that.
[00:38:56] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Yeah, sounds like as long as we're all still alive to read the marketing materials that you're generating.
[00:39:02] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I wrote a blog post on that. I got some information from Gemini. It's all up to us humans.
[00:39:08] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I think that's probably a bigger danger than AI itself, like creating a robot that crushes us or something.
[00:39:15] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I could talk with you guys about this all day long. If you're listening to this on the radio, we had a really much longer discussion than you're going to hear. But you can find it on our Real AI Use Cases podcast. And we have two fascinating entrepreneurs coming up with amazing companies. So don't go away. And it's time for a break. We'll be right back.
[00:39:33] Speaker I: Here's a real life story that affects 50% of all of us out there. It's called divorce. If you've gotten divorced and now you're struggling to pay your bills and your credit card debts are completely out of control, you need to call this special debt relief hotline right now. We help people with all kinds of money problems caused by different life challenges. A divorce, a job loss, even heavy medical bills. All these life events can sometimes financially stress you out and cause you to get out of control. We help people get their lives back by showing them ways to consolidate and reduce their debt. In some cases for a fraction of what they owe. If your credit card balances are more than $10,000, call us and learn how to reduce your credit card bills and monthly payments. Now here's our number, paid for by Debt.com.
[00:40:17] Elizabeth Gearhart: call now at 800-8100-880081-00857.
800-810-0857. That's 800-810-0857.
[00:40:33] Speaker J: Streaming TV is where it's at. It's not about cutting the cord anymore. That's old news. It's all about your customized TV options. With the best and cheapest high speed Internet and your own TV subscriptions. We've got your dream TV TV lineup. Between wired and satellite, Internet and tv, you now have tons of options. Save money and get more Internet speed and better TV today by calling the whole home connect. We scan your location and offer you the best TV and Internet options. And we always have specials and promotions. So when you call, ask about that. Take five minutes of your time. Make this free. Call now and learn to how how to save money and get better Internet and TV for your home anywhere in the US make this simple and free. Call now.
[00:41:20] Elizabeth Gearhart: 8002-5736-7280-0257-3672 800, 257-3672. That's 800-257-3672 passage to profit continues with
[00:41:35] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:41:37] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Quick shout out to our friends at WJCW 9:10am in Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol, Tennessee. Thanks for listening and if you're new here, Passage to Profit is a top ranked entrepreneurship podcast and radio show heard on 41 stations. It's a place where founders share what really works. And now it's time for Intellectual Property News. AI Learned from Us Now It Doesn't Want Other AI learning from it can an artificial intelligence company build its technology by learning from other people's work and then object when another AI company learns from it? That is at the center of a new controversy involving Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Anthropic claims that several Chinese technology companies used a process called distillation to copy Claude's most valuable capabilities.
Distillation involves using a powerful teacher model's answers to train a smaller student model. Anthropic alleges that companies associated with Alibaba, Deepseek and others secretly generated millions of exchanges with Claude, sometimes using fake accounts to evade Anthropic's restrictions. Anthropic says Alibaba was connected to more than 151 million exchanges.
These are Anthropic's allegations, not court findings. But here's the ironic part. Anthropic has itself faced major copyright lawsuits accusing it of taking other people's work to train Claude. In the court case Bartz vs. Anthropic, a group of authors alleged that Anthropic used pirated books to build its training library. The judge ruled that training an AI model using lawfully obtained books could be fair use, but described Anthropic's downloading of millions of books from pirate websites as piracy and not fair use. Anthropic subsequently agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement. Anthropic was also sued. In Concord Music Group vs. Anthropic, music publishers alleged that Claude was trained on copyrighted song lyrics and could reproduce those lyrics without authorization.
And in the newly filed Sony Music Publishing vs. Anthropic case, Sony and Warner Chappelle allege that Anthropic illegally downloaded, scraped and copied thousands of music compositions to develop Claude. Anthropic denies those allegations and says it will defend itself in court. This presents an uncomfortable question for the AI industry.
AI developers argue that their models do not merely copy music, books and artwork. They study those materials and learn patterns from them. But a competing AI company could make a remarkably similar argument. We didn't steal your computer code. Our model simply studied your model's answers and learned from them. Anthropic may still have claims based on breach of contract, fraud, trade secret misappropriation, or computer security laws, particularly if fake accounts or stolen credentials were used.
But copyright generally protects original works of expression, not ideas, methods, or reasoning abilities. That is the central contradiction in the AI revolution. AI companies want broad freedom to learn from the world, but strong protections against the world learning from them. I find it annoying that tech companies feel entitled to a special set of rules just for them. So who gets to decide when learning becomes stealing? And should the same rule apply to everyone? And that's IP News. And if you have an idea or invention you want to protect, the team at Gearhart Law helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into protected assets. You can visit learn more about Patents.com or learn more about Trademarks.com for a free consultations and practical guides to get you started later. Secrets of the Entrepreneurial what successful founders think about that most people people never
[00:45:48] Elizabeth Gearhart: see and now it's time to talk to Brian Fried. I've been so excited about this segment. So he has spent nearly two decades helping inventors transform big ideas into successful businesses. That's hard to do and you really do need someone like Brian to help. So welcome Brian. Tell us what you're doing and how you're doing it.
[00:46:09] Brian Fried: Thank you very much. I'm an inventor with 15 issued patents and I've licensed products that have earned royalties. I still have some products today that I receive royalties. I manufacture products locally and overseas and I've been doing the same thing as the inventor coach for 20 plus years now. So the hardest thing, Elizabeth, is when people have an idea, they're thinking about it from an emotional perspective and not a business perspective and they're excited so they're making those kind of decisions. So what I do is I help them to figure out if it's something that they should work on or not and then take them through the steps of what it takes to actually see your product to market, whether it's through licensing or manufacturing. And through my journey, I've built the National Inventor Club. I have about 15,000 members. I created an app called Inventor Smart Community which has about 2200 inventors in their subscribers right now. And I've authored three books. My latest one is how to make money with your invention idea. Like I said earlier, I was on QVC for about three years and just keep coming up with new ideas myself. But most of the time I'm working with other inventors to keep them moving forward with their big ideas.
[00:47:19] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, do you think because I'm kind of lazy in some ways, do you think it's better to license your invention and let somebody else do all the work and just give you a royalty, or do you think it's better to make it and sell it yourself?
[00:47:31] Brian Fried: I would say that there's no textbook answer to that because every person, every product, every industry, every company that you're going to attack is different.
So I learn about you as the inventor coach. I learn about you, I learn about your idea and I help you to make a better decision. So is this something that you want to turn into your full time job? Is this something that you'd like to be just a side hustle and do you have the time, do you have the money? Is this something that you want to be knocking on doors and making those calls or do you want somebody else to do it? Are you a risk taker? Are you tight on cash? Those are the decisions that I go through with people. And it's hard because a lot of people start off with doing it one way or they think about licensing. And listen, anything is possible. But not every product is licensable. It's got to be an A product. It's got to be enough to sell enough of them to make it worth your while and the company that's licensed it their while otherwise, you know, making $50 every three months royalty checks just isn't going to work. But I could say that one of the hardest things is thinking about what your idea is and is there a big enough window of opportunity. So just a very quick example, when I was on QVC before I went on, I came up with one of my products, it's called Pull ties. And I, I came up with it because I didn't like the twist ties and the plastic tabs that went on the end of the bread. They annoyed me. So I said, you know what, this is going to be great for bread. I came up with this loop and has a button. You pull it up and it seals it tight. So I started to ask people, do you use bread? Do you like bread? Do you eat bread? Maybe yes, maybe no. A lot of people eat bread. But I said, okay. Instead, what I would do is say, all right, what other uses can I do for this or use this for?
So I was in the freezer. The freezer bags are left open. The club bags that are French fries or the vegetables. Then I went into the pantry and I saw plastic bags and then my cereal. How annoying is that when your cereal is stale? So I came up with all these purposes, and when I was on air on qvc, I basically had to say, how many people have a kitchen? So are you coming up with something that's niche and that's okay, but is there a big enough window of opportunity for it? And is it something that you can call your own?
Because you're going to invest time, money, energy, effort into it, and if it's somebody else's invention, you're going to probably get stopped somewhere along the way. Or if it's something that's not patentable, then somebody else can do it just like you.
So these are the things that I go through with an inventor, or just a lot of people don't even call themselves an inventor right away. You come up with an idea, what do you do next?
[00:50:11] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So what are the steps that an inventor should consider if they are seriously considering taking a project forward, being real?
[00:50:19] Brian Fried: So search with your eyes open instead of closed. And there's more than just going down the aisle of Walmart saying, oh my gosh, I don't see my invention out there. I'm going to be a gazillionaire. So first take a deep breath. Look to see if your idea is out there or not. And like I said earlier, you can use AI these days, but you can also do a simple Google search and Yahoo and Bing and go on and just put in descriptive terms of what your idea looks like and click on images and you could see a lot of what's already existing from a visual perspective.
So then what I do is I take what I find and I give it to a patent attorney or agent to do a professional patent search with a patent ability opinion, comparing what I have to what's already existing out there, and is it something that I could call my own, or am I hitting a brick wall and I'll wait for my next idea? Because if you're in that zone, you'll come up with another idea. Again, so take that step of doing that search knowing that you could call it your own. But again, it's just an opinion because you don't know what the patent examiner is going to find. So you want to give it its best shot. Then what I do is I make it real. So I'll come up with the idea and I will try to make a prototype. I'll take things apart, I will find things that already exist. I will get as close as possible to what I'm envisioning and then make a decision if I'm going to move forward with it or not get some sort of patent protection. Maybe I'll file a provisional patent application, which you all know gives you the right for one year to say your patent pending while you're exploring the market. Before the year is done, you convert it to a non provisional patent application or utility patent, or you file a design patent, which is ornamental. Right? I'm teaching you. This is your lesson.
[00:51:57] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: This is great. I'm learning a lot.
[00:51:59] Elizabeth Gearhart: This is your lesson, to talk to somebody who actually knows this stuff, besides
[00:52:05] Brian Fried: just, it's, it's off the cuff at this point because it's just something that is very important to me to make sure that people get the right information and to make decisions and to move forward. Because I spoke to a professional football player recently, I get, I get a chance to speak to celebrities that have ideas also that contact me. And he had this amazing house behind him, his daughter sitting next to him, and his wife was into it. And he just showed me something that already existed. I found it and he's like, but mine is like, it's not enough of a difference, but if you want to do it, we can. I said, you see a little girl right next to you, Save your money, put it in her college fund, whatever you were gonna spend on that, and let's work on your next idea together. And ultimately he's the boss. Whoever it is that I work with, they're the boss. But I really want to make sure that they understand what they're in for, if it's something that they're gonna manufacture themselves or if they're gonna licensing opportunity. But after you come up with that idea and you do your search and you make a prototype, now you also have to figure out, those are the questions with the licensing or the manufacturing. You got to make some decisions of what you're going to move forward with or not, and then you enjoy whichever way it happens. You know, a lot of times when people are trying to license it to earn Royalties, they hit a brick wall. And it's not because your idea stinks or I stink representing it. You got to find the company at the right time that has the pipeline that they need to add another product to. You don't know if they're filing bankruptcy tomorrow, or maybe you're just speaking to somebody that had a terrible day, and they don't care what you show them, and they're not interested. So do you stop there? Do you go to B or C players that aren't going to sell as many because you want to go after the players? The next step is the potential of manufacturing and starting your own business. And that perspective. A lot of people think that it's a gazillion dollars that you need. But I have some really interesting stories of people that I've put into business for themselves that didn't realize that that's all they needed. And it was small. You could test small, explore the market, and then if it works out, you hit it. If not, you just break even.
[00:54:12] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Why don't you give us an example of somebody who took that route?
[00:54:17] Brian Fried: So I had this lady, she had this hair care product, and she was so into trying to license it, and we were wheeling and dealing and maybe some interest and this and that, but they just didn't feel like it was enough of a market. And I said, you know, at this point, you really wanted to be the brand behind it. You. You love your product, you want to talk about it, so why don't you manufacture it? Well, I don't have the money to do that. Well, what do you mean? How much you think it is? I don't know. Well, how do you know you don't have the money for it? Take a guess. So she says. I said, let me. Let me get some quotes. China us, you know, trying to figure out. So I said, take the guess. So she said, I don't know. I probably need about 25,000 for the mold, for the tooling, and then how much per unit you think? Maybe three, $4. Okay, we got the pricing. It was $600 for the mold, $0.80 per unit. But, Brian, how many units? I got to do? 50,000 units. No, 3,000 units to start. 3,000 times 80 cents. $2400, $600 to mold, three grand. A little bit of shipping here and there. 3,000 units sold. 5,000. And now she could go back to that company also, which she has for a licensing deal, to say, hey, you would have, could have, should have, but here, now I have some proof, and that's actually happening to me right now. I have a really interesting product that nobody wanted to license because, look, I can easily manufacture things, but I'm at a point where I would like to see it in major retail stor and I'm okay with earning percentages of royalties. So I have this product called a paper towel topper. I actually have it in my bag here. It's a whole paper towel holder. So I ask people, usually when your hands are wet or dirty, you're putting it on top of the paper towel roll, right? Here's a paper towel roll. So when your hands are wet or dirty, you pull it on top and you pull the sheet off. And I asked my friends and family to take a picture of the top of the paper towel rolls and it was disgusting. So what I did was I came up with this cap that goes into the inner tube of any paper towel roll. So now when your hands are wet or dirty, you put it on top, you pull the sheet off, and it stays clean and dry. This product, I have a design patent on it that's issued. It's simple and people didn't realize that they needed it. So people were like, you know what, it might not be a big enough window of opportunity, but you know what? I found out that people have paper towel rolls in their bathroom, in the kids playroom, in the garage, and here and there. So people are buying four or five, five, two, three at a time. And the people who said no, they're not interested. Now I have major retailers that are interested and now I'm working a deal for a licensing. But I've been selling thousands and thousands of this product on Amazon and my personal website and something simple, but it's effective for everybody.
[00:57:02] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, because it makes sense because you're going to use a paper towel so that you don't use something germy to dry your hands with, right? And so then if the top of the paper towels are all germy, you defeat the purpose.
[00:57:15] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Well, if you put pressure on the tile too, does it make it easier just to pull off one tear? Because that's one of my big issues is I pull on the roll and then three sheets come out, right? And I'm like, well, I only wanted one.
[00:57:27] Brian Fried: Yeah, well, you're absolutely right because that's what many users discovered. And I put it in my description. But I have, I think I'm up to almost 600 reviews on Amazon and I'm at 4.7, 4.8 when I'm inventing something. I'm coming up with ideas, most of the time that annoy me or I'm watching something that somebody else is doing that's annoying me. And that's when I come up with my ideas and I sit on it for a while. I try to come up with different things. A lot of times I let it go. But am I a woulda, should a person? Woulda, should have, could have, or do I take action? And the ones that I think have a good window of opportunity, good marketability, and something that is a good opportunity out there, I take advantage.
[00:58:08] Elizabeth Gearhart: That's a great idea. Do you have a question, Dr. Puma?
[00:58:10] John Schwind: I have a comment. I started my journey 28 years ago, and I wish I had met Brian 28 years ago. Ideas are really easy. Everybody has tons of ideas, and they think they can change the world or do something with it. They need to consult you, they need to read your books before they go down that path. We get passionate about things, and you can come at it from a real place of knowledge, place of experience, of what works, what doesn't. What's the path going to be? And show them the path. Because us inventors, we don't know what the path is until we're neck deep in it.
[00:58:44] Elizabeth Gearhart: I have a question for you, Brian.
What product is the best one that you've ever helped somebody develop and sell?
[00:58:51] Brian Fried: Well, I have some top runners. The pull ties on QVC was fantastic. I actually have the pull ties here, but I also have another one. I came up with this idea, you know, when people used to put out bowls and you used to stick your hands in the pretzels and the potato chips and all that skeeve me out. So what I wanted to do is replicate. You know, I'm so happy we have a doctor in the house, too.
[00:59:13] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Anyway, I'm ready to make a referral for you. I know a good psychiatrist.
[00:59:18] Brian Fried: What can I say? Anyway, what I did was I wanted to replicate the kind of scooping mechanism of my hand. So I came up with this sphere that has an opening, and it opens up this way.
[00:59:30] Elizabeth Gearhart: Oh.
[00:59:30] Brian Fried: And you dip it in and you take it and you scoop. And then you can eat from it. And if you want to put snacks in here for the kids, you want to put.
[00:59:36] Speaker H: I love that.
[00:59:37] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I mean, she's always mad at me because I just reach into the bag and grab stuff from the bag.
[00:59:41] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, you don't wash your hands before you do it.
[00:59:43] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: You see what I'm saying?
[00:59:44] Elizabeth Gearhart: You know where those hands have been?
[00:59:46] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I guess we need one of those. And the towel Topper and the.
[00:59:50] Brian Fried: All right, I got more. I got a collapsible egg tray in there called Extra Space too. We could do this all day.
But anyway, this one was a really big seller for me, Elizabeth, because I thought it would look cool to have a face on it because it was like a mouth that opened up. So I was at another, again at a trade show, and I went to a company that had storage containers and he saw my idea and he said, you know what, Brian? I'm in the middle of working a deal with some major brand property licensing. And sure enough, he said we were doing a deal. And now, well, then my products have Elmo, Cookie Monster with Sesame street and all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first two shows, the ninja movies that were out there. So I have Ninja Turtles and these were sold to major retailers. Walmart crushed it. Unbelievable. So every time. And just a quick lesson with licensing. So I do product licensing and then the licensee did brand property licensing. So every time one of my inventions sold, they had to pay me and they had to pay Sesame Street. So I was very proud of this product too.
[01:00:56] Elizabeth Gearhart: What I think one thing I'm seeing here that I like about your products, these must not cost a ton of money to manufacture. Right. They're very simple. But I think that's where you think if you spend too much on manufacturing, you're not going to make money. Very impressive. And I think people that are looking to start companies. Inventors. Should go talk to you. How do they find you?
[01:01:17] Brian Fried: You can go to inventor coach.com. my information's there. I do quick 10 minute calls so I can help to figure out if it's something that I can continue with. Or maybe they have a quick question. But my national inventor club, you know, the reason why I'm here today and what I do, I don't have to do it, but I do it because I want people to find my information first. Because I know that I'm giving the right information, listening to people on a daily basis and knowing what they do, I can help give a good educated advice and decision to keep people moving forward. So, again, thank you for having me.
[01:01:52] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah. Well, one thing I love about what you do and the way that you do it is you don't rubber stamp everything that comes to you because you just want the money. And that's so important.
[01:02:00] Brian Fried: Totally.
[01:02:01] Elizabeth Gearhart: So thank you.
[01:02:02] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhart.
[01:02:05] Elizabeth Gearhart: Now we're on to John Schwind with Ready Mask and pull out your mask. John, let's Go.
[01:02:12] John Schwind: So you said you were gonna wear one?
[01:02:13] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, I did.
[01:02:14] John Schwind: So this idea started in 1998, and this was after the first World Trade center bombing. Some friends had this idea for, you know, something to help them, and we came up with this idea of wet terry cloth, and it was giving me a cigar tube, something used in an emergency. Well, that was a huge failure. I got involved. We tried to put adhesive around it in a wet environment, and that didn't work until we hit on a dry filter. And then we added an eye shield to it, and we had two different products. But having a great product without a tremendous demand is very, very difficult. And I was passionate about this, so. And Brian could have helped me out, you know, a long, long time ago with it. The reason to make it strapless is for one reason, one reason only. It's about the seal. So we use adhesive around the perimeter of it to create a seal. Because if a mask does not seal, the things you're trying to keep out are going to find a way in. And that's the difference between our mask and every other mask on the market. People use straps to pull it tight against your face, and then you have to pinch that nose, and hopefully you have a good seal.
[01:03:22] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: There's no real way to know if you're using a typical mask, if it really is sealing, right?
[01:03:29] John Schwind: Yeah. For the average person, it's very, very difficult to know whether they have a seal. There's different ways you can seal. Check with ours. When ours is not completely sealed, you feel the leak, and that's what makes it really different. So you can seal up that leak just by adding a little pressure to it.
[01:03:45] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So does a mask with straps.
Is there any benefit at all to that? I mean.
[01:03:50] John Schwind: Oh, there's tremendous benefits if you have the right mask that fits you. And the doctor and I were talking about fit testing. He had to be fit tested annually to make sure that he was wearing the right mask.
And if you don't have the right mask, the things are going to go around the outside.
[01:04:06] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So, like, during COVID people, we talked about the effectiveness of masks, and probably one reason why they weren't as effective as we thought they were is that people weren't using them properly or they weren't fitting properly.
[01:04:19] John Schwind: One of the big, big problems we had with COVID was education, you know, telling people, surgical masks, we're going to do things, protect you where things were going around the outside. And so it really was educating the public about it.
[01:04:32] Elizabeth Gearhart: So who's using your masks today?
[01:04:34] John Schwind: We're direct to consumer. I would say probably 75% are women who are either caregivers for somebody else or have compromised immune systems themselves. Probably they're 50 years old or older and they're wearing it for MRIs because our mask does not contain any metals.
[01:04:55] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: So what about industrial applications, like, you know, in factories or any place where there's a lot of particulate? Any market there for you?
[01:05:03] John Schwind: There is tremendous amount of market. There's a lot of things in silica. That's problematic. Bakeries is a real problem with the flour getting into the lungs. Any place where people are trying to keep particulates out of their lungs, our mask can work for, you know, you think about it. You can wash the stuff out of your hair, you can wash all your clothes, but when it gets into your lungs, it's hard to get it out.
[01:05:28] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I worked in the chemical industry and that was always a challenge for the people in the plant because they wanted the men to wear masks, but a lot of the men had facial hair and they tried to make them shave to wear the mask if they wanted the job and they didn't want to shave. Would your mask work over facial hair?
[01:05:46] John Schwind: Do you know? So we've tested our mask with guys having two to three days worth of stubble, and they get a great seal. But if there's too much facial hair, then you don't get a real good seal with this mask or any mask.
[01:05:59] Elizabeth Gearhart: Any mask.
[01:06:00] John Schwind: And there's the problem. The other problem we have is guys are tough and we don't want to wear a mask. And it's an attitude that we have.
[01:06:09] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: I had a friend who was a woodworker. He used to turn bowls, and he turned these beautiful bowls. He was famous artist, and he stopped turning because he had breathed in so much sawdust over the years that he was getting some sort of arrhythmia, I guess. Is that what they call it? But he was getting sick and he had to stop because he couldn't expose himself to that anymore. If he had worn these masks, it could have made a big difference.
[01:06:33] John Schwind: Yes, not only our mask, but any mask. If you can cut down on the things that are going into your lungs, that's a good thing. One thing that's different with our mask, we don't get pressure points with our mask, which you do with other ones with straps. And the pocket that ours forms is a little bit smaller, so you're exchanging more air. Nurses have been wearing this in ORs for eight or 10 hours, and they don't get headaches. And the reason is, I believe, because they're not rebreathing their own air.
[01:07:01] Elizabeth Gearhart: Can you put one on now?
[01:07:02] John Schwind: I can put one on. And then if you would like to. You can.
[01:07:05] Elizabeth Gearhart: I can try it?
[01:07:05] John Schwind: You can try it, but I'll demonstrate it first.
[01:07:08] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, if I could do it, anybody could do it.
[01:07:09] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: We're curious about what'll happen if we put a mask on my wife.
[01:07:14] John Schwind: So you would peel off a release liner just like you would a band aid. We hold it horizontally under our eyes and we'd slide our fingers down the sides. And now I'm completely sealed in. I'll put my glasses on. And the glasses don't fog because I have a complete seal. Oh, and you can hear. Audio communication is great with this. My jaw can move freely with it and I can breathe easily. It also works on the exhalation. Okay. So since it's a sealed mask, everything still has to go through that filter, which is what you want it. You want it to go through the filter on the inhalation and on the exhalation. Many masks have to have an exhalation valve because they get so hot.
[01:07:56] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: This one doesn't. Well, you know, it's amazing because your audio volume hasn't changed a bit.
[01:08:01] John Schwind: No.
[01:08:02] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: And lots of times if you're wearing a more conventional mask, it makes you softer. So you can still communicate using this mask?
[01:08:10] John Schwind: Absolutely. And we have a lot of people report they wear them traveling on airplanes. They fall asleep with them on the airplane, you know, so it's very, very comfortable.
[01:08:18] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Can you get a color different than yellow? Maybe like black or something? You know, that is one of the
[01:08:24] John Schwind: things that people have really, really requested. We will. The next production runs are going to be coming out with a gray mask, which we had in the past. These were originally used to help people get out of an emergency. That's why the yellow color came in, you know, and we make one with an eye shield. And anybody that goes into a hotel or travels or goes on a subway should carry one of these with them at all times. We've had it tested in smoke filled environments. The ability to see and breathe is amazing.
[01:08:53] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: I could say that you should be proud of yourself. You were definitely on this journey. And people don't realize how much went into that. They see it and, you know, they talk about the color or wearing it or not wearing it. But the tape has to be a certain approval to stick to your face. The mask itself has to be certified. It has to be made in a certain factory that is approved and then all of a sudden, the packaging, marketing, everything else. So congratulations. I know there's plenty of iterations and next generations of what you have, but congratulations where you are, Brian.
[01:09:30] John Schwind: Really appreciate that. And I'd like to say we became an overnight success after 22 years.
[01:09:38] Elizabeth Gearhart: So where are you selling these? Are they on Amazon? Are they.
[01:09:42] Speaker H: We're.
[01:09:43] John Schwind: We sell them direct off our website.
[01:09:44] Elizabeth Gearhart: Okay.
[01:09:45] John Schwind: @readymask. R E A D I mask.com.
[01:09:49] Elizabeth Gearhart: great. Well, thank you very much, John Schwind with ReadyMask. Now it is time for a break. We'll be right back.
[01:09:55] Elizabeth Gearhart: Do you hear that? That's the sound of uncertainty lurking under your hood. You know the feeling? I know I do. That sudden sinking sensation when you see a check engine light or your car unexpectedly breaks down and you're faced with sky high repair bills. It's time to shield against unexpected repairs with Car Shield. Car Shield is America's most trusted auto protection company and has an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. Don't let the fear of a breakdown keep you up at night. Trust the Shield. Car Shield. And say goodbye to terrifying repair bills and hello to peace of mind. Your plan also comes with 24. 7 roadside assistance, courtesy towing, rental car options, and so much more. Don't wait till it's too late. Call Car Shield now before a breakdown. Protect your wallet. Protect your car with Car Shield. Get our best protection ever. Call now. You'll thank me later. 800-2612-1768-0261-2176. That's 800-261-2176.
[01:10:54] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: It's passage to Profit.
[01:10:56] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
[01:10:59] Elizabeth Gearhart: Noah Fleishman is our producer here at Passage to Profit, and he just has a way of putting his best memories in perspective.
[01:11:07] Speaker H: Got my keys. I've always kept them in my left pocket ever since I was a kid. That's the one thing that hasn't changed since then. We still use our keys to lock up and get into our homes. At least most of us in the cities do. Oh, I know all about those computerized home systems where it's all face and voice recognition. But if something in that computer goes the wrong way, heaven forbid, you could be sleeping in the car for a couple of nights. That's if the car will let you back in. Keys are probably just as old as doors, and you don't have to reboot them. And with more traditional structures controlled on the Internet nowadays, we'd better cherish it. I visited one of those modernized offices recently and I stepped out to use the restroom. When I was just about done, I leaned over and looked around and realized there was no handle or button to, you know, finish the job. So I quietly stepped out and asked the concierge and she said, oh, no, there's no handle or button or anything. I'll just log in and flush it later.
That was some restroom. Good thing I remembered to return the key.
[01:12:05] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Now more with Richard and Elizabeth. Passage to profit.
[01:12:09] Elizabeth Gearhart: Now it is time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. Dr. Joseph A. Puma, founder of Sorin Medical Interventional Cardiologist. And his website is soarin medical ny.com what's a secret you can share?
[01:12:23] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Oh, it's, it's actually pretty simple. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have it. We're blind to the failures and just keep persevering and, you know, believe in it's eventually going to work out. I don't know if that's a pathology or not, but I think that that's probably the biggest thing. It's that. And I don't want to say perseverance because perseverance makes it sound like a positive thing.
[01:12:44] Elizabeth Gearhart: Right.
[01:12:45] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Because sometimes you keep pushing forward even when all the data points tell you to stop.
[01:12:50] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay, Brian Fried with BrianFreed.com what's one secret you can share?
[01:12:57] Brian Fried: I think that no matter what you do in life, you should always do research, especially with inventing. You're passionate, you're emotional about this idea, and somebody tells you, now you just need to fork over $10,000. When you do construction on your house or you're buying something, you probably get a referral of reference. You go in and check things.
Just because somebody tells you that something's great and amazing and wonderful doesn't necessarily mean that you're committed or obligated to them. So I think it's very important for people in life and it's much easier these days we spoke about with the segments of AI to do your own research and make better decisions and trust the people that you know when you've done that research and just keep moving forward. I think a lot of people in life go through the path and there are a lot of twists and turns and obstacles along the way. But if you know where you're going, then you could get back on track and with the right help and resources and tools available, you could get there.
[01:13:56] Elizabeth Gearhart: Excellent. Thank you. John Schwinn with ReadyMask.
[01:14:00] John Schwind: So I want to mirror what Dr. Booma said, and it reminds me of Kenny Rogers and the Gambler. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them. I'm not the kind of fold them guy. And, you know, I wish I had known, as I said earlier, Brian and what he's doing because that, that helps you determine if you have a good hand or not.
[01:14:22] Dr. Joseph A. Puma: Yeah.
[01:14:22] Speaker I: Excellent.
[01:14:23] Elizabeth Gearhart: Thank you. Richard Gearhart with Gearhart Law.
[01:14:25] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: My secret this week is treat every customer complaint as market research.
So if somebody complains, don't take it personally, number one. Number two, you know, make sure you investigate and you understand where they're coming from. And if it's reoccurring, then you have an issue in your system and it's the system that needs to be fixed. So customer complaints are to be welcomed.
[01:14:50] Elizabeth Gearhart: And for me, Elizabeth Gearhart with Gear Media Studios, mine is be reliable. So I've had people that say they're going to help and they just disappear. People, ghost people.
That's not a way to be a business person person. I think you need to, if you're going to say you're going to do something, do it. So that's me.
[01:15:07] Richard Gearhart, Esq.: That's great. And that's all for us this week. Thanks for listening. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing on 41 stations across the U.S. thank you to the Passage to Profit team, our producer, Noah Fleishman, our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey, and our social media powerhouse, Carolina Tabares. If you'd like to hear this broadcast again or share it with your friends, look for our podcast tomorrow. Anywhere where you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X, YouTube, and the iHeart app. And for all your patent, trademark and copyright needs, our firm, Gerhart Law, offers free consultations.
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[email protected] and while the information provided during this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without first checking with your legal professional. That's it for us. We'll see you again next week on Passage to Prophet.
