The importance of confidence<\/strong><\/h3>\nLooking back, Ronchi says if he could go back in time one of the first tips he\u2019d give himself is to be confident.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcknowledging your personal strengths and working on your weaknesses is an important quality for any start up founder,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
When Startfish Ventures first invested in dorsaVi, Ronchi says they were less than impressed with how one of their first wearable devices looked.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they said that they loved our determination and the street smarts we\u2019d shown to get through those early development days,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Networking with founders who have been through the journey you\u2019re about to take is an invaluable way to prepare for the next phase.<\/p>\n
\u201cConnect with as many different startups that have launched in the US as you can and learn from them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had sought more mentoring from the existing start-up ecosystem in the US it would have made us more efficient in that first year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before launching in the US, Ronchi says they decided to go Europe first to validate its potential for global markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompared to Australia, the US is a large, expensive and competitive market so we chose to go to Europe first and get major hospital, sporting brands and clinical sites committed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In entering the US, Ronchi found the FDA approval process to be one of their biggest challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts a complex and time consuming process so we were fortunate to have mentors and investors who understood the space having been through it before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Ronchi says they strategically selected to link up with Starfish Ventures, whose co-founder Michael Panaccio is highly experienced in taking life science companies through international clinical trials and regulatory processes.<\/p>\n
With the VC firm’s help Ronchi says the startup was better able to navigate international expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo startup wants to waste money flying to and from major cities so do your due diligence first,” he says.<\/p>\n
Follow StartupSmart on Facebook<\/strong>, Twitter<\/strong>, LinkedIn<\/strong> and SoundCloud<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Melbourne wearable tech company making waves in the US market says confidence and connecting with the right people helped<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20,18,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}