The Cereal Entrepreneur
Anna speaks to the founder & CEO of RhythmiaBreath Sherezade Ruano, who has a Masters of Science in cardiac nursing. RhythmiaBreath is holistic evidence-based programmes in cardiac rehab and secondary prevention. They work closely with highly renowned consultant cardiologists, psychiatrists, psychologist, psychotherapists, personal trainers, sport rehabilitation specialists and holistic therapists to develop methods that will support patients.
Sherezade goes into the details of breaking into the healthtech sector and how to build your startup offering sage advice for our startups about how to create success, from teamwork and developing your company to the importance of networking.
Anna Flockett0:01
Cereal entrepreneur.
Hello and welcome to the serial entrepreneur startup magazine's new podcast series. My name is Anna Flockett, your host, and I trust you all well and safe. Today we have an amazing and insightful episode for you, as I am chatting to sharee Renault who has a Master of Science in cardiac nursing, and also has extensive experience in the research field and therefore founded the startup arrhythmia breath, a prevention and rehabilitation platform of cardiovascular disease and mental well being that is actually aimed to synchronise and balance your mind, body and heart. sharee. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Speaker 10:43
Hello. Hi, Anna, thank you so much. I thank you for having me in this podcast. This is a pleasure. I'm very well. Thanks, Despite of you know what we're going through, but yeah, so I'm fine and well, thanks.
Anna Flockett0:55
Good. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate being a medtech startup this may be a very busy time for you. I thought maybe to start with there's a lot to cover today, we could talk a little bit about yourself and your story and how you kind of came to found Rhythmia breath.
Speaker 11:11
Absolutely fantastic and I'll try to summarise it as much as I can. So I am the founder and CEO of Rhythmia breath, as you mentioned, is a medical well being programme and digital therapeutics. I also work as an arrhythmia specialist nurse in the NHS at Imperial College, and I'm going to stress management therapist running a private practice in central London regarding riffing a breath. We offered holistic evidence based programmes to drive personalised techniques in cardiac rehab and secondary prevention, and our main focuses to improve the well being of patients.
Anna Flockett1:48
Wow, amazing. And where did the original idea come from?
Speaker 11:53
Yeah, so the it's an interesting story. So in 2013, I got a job in a cardiology and diabetes research study in reknown Hospital in central London, with whom at the moment was one of the Pioneer consulting cardiologists in the scene, I was beyond grateful to have the opportunity to present the first draft of my idea to him, which by the way, was very well accepted. And the idea was bringing holistic practices into the mainstream medicine for the prevention and rehabilitation of cardiovascular disease and mental well being. And a few years later Anna, this became this login became our USP, basically, a bit of a background about it. So the the idea of developing a well being platform was inspired by the many patients who were looking for a solution to a rigid medical system with very little time to dwell into anything that was not the numbers on their CT scan their calcium score, the figures or their blood pressure, blood pressure or the different ranges in the blood test. So patients were looking for a more holistic approach to improve their health. And interestingly, Anna, some of them did not realise for instance, that their lifestyle and well being could have probably been the root of the hospital appointment. So I found a gap honey, a
tremendous need. For something like this to be developed. This is how I became passionate about teaching preventative lifestyle methods. And that could also be implemented in rehabilitation and secondary prevention.
Anna Flockett3:39
Ah, that's amazing. And obviously being in the whole like medical and health tech industry can be really difficult. So how have you found that journey kind of coming through that industry?
Speaker 13:52
It I'm not going to lie. It was quite hard for me because my background is in in medicine, and also holistic therapists. So I had to learn so many things on the way and and I've faced few challenges along the way I can, the top of my head, I can perhaps Name three or four. The first and foremost when I initially pitched the idea, although it was very well accepted by the doctors I work with, I did find resistance and challenges to welcome the acceptance of the notion that combining holistic techniques, which were backed up by scientific research could work extremely well in certain settings in mainstream medicine, such as cardiology, where I was already and we're talking about almost 10 years ago, but I knew I was trying to solve a real problem in the healthcare system. And I was offering a different viewpoint on how to transform the patient pathway to achieve positive, subjective and objective outcomes. And so that's the that's the first chat hint it's you know, the Breaking in the market. And obviously, things have changed drastically. And now, a much higher number of cardiologists I tell my mission and the either one to collaborate or they agree that, you know, this programme has a very positive effect on their patients and they want to refer them to us. That's the most important one. The second one, which is I'm sure the most founders can also relate to this is the development of a team. And like most enterpreneurs, it's no strange to have a background of a failed team building experience, right? It was challenging to bring on board the right credentials and the right combination of skills in order to build a healthy team culture. So going a bit more personal after navigating a rough core both personally and in my business. I took some time off to reshape the business and plan its future. I studied the reasons why I failed and learn the necessary skills to spot talents and mixed qualities. That was key. For me. That was a very important point for me. And I also learned what essential skills I was missing as a founder and focus on building a team. Starting with experience, I was lucky now that I'm going to help tackle Matt Tech's pace, obviously, point number three probably is learning all tech related topics. And you can imagine that this was very challenging for me, and it was quite hard. And a CEO needs to understand the technology that the company is using and building right. And I did not have much of the technical knowledge but a few years of networking, and learning has taken me a long way. So what did I do back then? You know, it was me the idea No, no No tech experience and a team that wasn't even, you know, strong enough. So I learned, and I'm still learning the very basics, right? It's very unlikely that I'm going to be an IT or CTO. But as as I was lucky enough, so many of so you know, many skills. I learned the very, very basics right. And now I know that a great CTO can transform the picture, the project and sometimes the patient as well. So learning a bit of tech was incredibly important for me.
Anna Flockett7:33
And women in tech is one of my favourite things to talk about. So to speak to you is such a pleasure. How have you found being a female in tech Do you think it's harder being a female than it would be a male in your position,
Speaker 17:48
I was also recently interviewed by a magazine. It's about women in in tech, an enterpreneur. And to be fully honest with you, and our I am aware that we face big challenges, right? Just because women, it's a very new and exciting journey, right? But women, we were not used to be exposed in the same way as men, right? However, my personal experience as of today can change tomorrow. But as of today, I know it's been quite soft and smooth. And I tell you this because I've, I've had a huge amount of help by male founders in the tech industry, I've had a tremendous support from you know, from both the women's but women and also male. So I haven't really faced that, you know, uncomfortable position, you know, of saying, I'm a female founder, and I'm facing this, you know, this difficult time. So I have to be honest, and I have to kind of, you know, shift the, their perception of of that as well because being extremely lucky. I think,
Anna Flockett9:02
Of course, it's amazing to hear some positive stories. And you know, that is not all challenges. And it's not all negative out there.
Speaker 19:10
But I also think that I am in a, in a very lucky position now, especially in 2020, because they've been so many women already pushing this movement forwards that you know, they've already opened the doors. So I'm kind of like swimming and navigating through these challenges in a very different way. And my networking as well, is full of both female and male founders. So I'm not one of this founders that because I'm a female only want to be associated or related to women, because there's so much to learn from from both right.
Anna Flockett9:48
Of course, you can't segregate yourself off the same is to cut your nose off to spite your face.
Speaker 19:54
Yes. And that going back to the networking that that is probably the last challenge, I want to share, it's thinking big rather than small networking and creating, you know, contact with all the founders as well creates a vision into what you can develop. Right? So thinking big, and I used to think small. So that was another challenge.
Anna Flockett10:20
Amazing. And, of course, moving forward with the whole medtech situation, the current climate we're in is obviously a big time for for you guys. And I believe that Rhythmia Breath has unquestionably changed the way it works, and you found the COVID-19 situation to be a time to kind of evolve and adapt. Could you tell me a little bit about the work that you guys are doing right now in terms of the COVID-19 situation?
Speaker 110:47
Of course, as and this is a really important question as everyone that has direct contact with patients and clients, I had to adapt to the situation to all of us. Rhythmia Breath. So for example, the clinic services are obviously close when most patients are receiving their services or sessions, either via telephone conversation, or video. Due to the nature of covert, I have counselled those of patients who are anxious about their physical and mental health. We're talking about postponing important cardiac procedures, rehabilitation sessions and appointments that are crucial for the reassurance so I actually spend a lot of a lot more time interacting with patients remotely, but on a positive side. This is helping us to validate our digital model. Another important topic is social distancing and how this has affected our business. Social distancing is realised or new ways of working as a team as well, right we we had the culture of meeting face to face and interact with each other so more discipline needs to be in place in order to ensure that the time we spent together on video calls are valuable have maximum benefits in regards to that last statement, fundamentally, communication is skill. And the tools available have progress sufficiently to make remote communication effective and still enjoyable. And I really hope that, you know, big companies such as the NHS, consider this long term restructuring of remote working and digital very, very of health services as something serious. I have no doubt that there is a huge an interesting future regarding digital health ahead of us,
Anna Flockett12:34
Of course, and talking about the NHS, I believe you guys have worked on an online platform to deliver a free online course to all NHS, clinical staff and health care professionals. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?
Speaker 112:49
Of course, and it's something that I am so excited about. So when this difficult time around COVID started, I had to focus on what's new And how we could help my colleagues in the NHS as a way of giving back I am, as I said at the beginning of the interview, a stress management consultant, an expert, therefore, I do have the tools and the knowledge so I wanted to help and it is important to recognise I know that healthcare professionals are never taught the skills around building emotional resilience to help them manage challenging situations, like the ones that we are facing at the moment, right. And COVID is very likely to impose greater daily challenges and stress on the stuff. So it is true that addressing your breath, we've always focus on delivering our tools for cardiac patients, right and for those struggling with mental health, but it was now time to focus and evolve and expanding our horizons to support the carers and therefore I decided to launch an online platform for healthcare professionals and it just stuck with adapting seeks to enhance the well being of healthcare professionals focusing on building emotional resilience, understanding trauma, and using mindfulness and breath work to recharge from the devastating effects that COVID-19 is leaving behind. So the platform started originally with an on site session right with on site sessions and workshops, offering talks in three different NHS hospitals. They all belong to Imperial College and I delivered the programme which was based on stress management techniques backed up by scientific research, and proven to be effective in trauma and post traumatic stress disorder as well as anxiety and stress. Basically, everything that you know, our healthcare professionals like going through and after that we we launched the online platform and we currently had so many wonderful feedback from NHS staff and from consultants as well as from from doctors. We are are very very grateful. And I'm just so I'm really happy that this is helping our our NHS stuff and all healthcare professionals as well we we are expanding in we are looking at ways in which we can expand and one of them is translating the programme in different languages at the moment, we will be translating it in three languages Spanish, Chinese and German. And we are in conversation with different organisations in different countries for us to even put it in their curriculums. It's it's all for free, but we just want to reach as many people as we can.
Anna Flockett15:37
And it's fair to say obviously, that the last six weeks however long we've we've been in this situation now must have been extremely busy for you. How would you explain the last two months or so since it all kind of started
Speaker 115:52
Quite challenging and I'm not going to I'm not going to lie to you as Yes, it's been it's been quite challenging. And maybe I can because I am a therapist, so nice to have a little knowledge about how the mind operates. But then at the very beginning, we were shocked, like most people, but instantly straight away, I had to find the ways to know to move forwards rather than, you know, finding the way out. If we have some time I can explain that there's a really interesting topic in in psychology, which is called self transforming mind is a theory right? And, and it's really, really interesting because when we, when we evolve or when we faced adversity, right, we don't really recognise sometimes like a crisis can become an opportunity, right? So at the beginning of the lockdown, I had no choice, but to quickly find ways to be resilient and look for ways as I said, little waist forwards rather than way out. So going back to this self turn forming Mind theory, it is a very similar concept, to Buddhist concept of evolving self, right a personality that it's in constant flow and ever changing, right. And this happened when we stopped being tied up to a particular identity or role, which is deeply rooted in our conditioning. And an effort to protect our beliefs, basically, in other words, is recognising the life circumstances reshape us as much as we try to reshape and create our life. So it's a very interesting concept. And I decided to put into place straightaway, both in my personal life and in my business, as an arrhythmia specialist in the NHS, to help my colleagues and as a founder and CEO, to create that culture in my team. So the self transforming mind theory is something that we, we do, we preach, and we do our I showed the powerful woman coming through and taking control.
Anna Flockett18:04
And like you just said, You are a arrhythmia specialist at Imperial College. So obviously a bit of an expert right now with what's going on, in your opinion, how bad is the situation that we are going through? And how is the situation for you in terms of you know, being at Imperial College as an arrhythmia specialist,
Speaker 118:26
we are all facing very challenging times. I know. Right? And I can't, you know, repeat enough times that seen at home, it's so it's necessary, right? And we also need to feel blessed because we are at home we can just we feel safe, right? I'm also very lucky that I'm in a position that I can carry on with my clinics over the phone, right. And I can counsel patients via you know, video or phone. I am not directly in contact with patients with COVID-19 wide but it is expected that as a specialist nurses with all our knowledge and expertise right it is expected that we go and help the NHS as I said, I'm very lucky that I can still have work in the office right and so I've dedicated my my time in two different ways. One is calling patients running the clinics over the phone and counsel the high risk and secondly is supporting my colleagues because what people are not seeing is that it's it's really not only intensive care and a&e right our hospitals have transformed itself completely. So when you walk in there is not anymore and outpatient department is not anymore. It Reno department, dermatology department, everything is around covered and everything and everyone is ready to help with with this uncertainty. also gotten a bit more into the emotional side of things is the device and what you can actually inhale. It is not very nice. It's full of you know, and despair and uncertainty, sadness and fear and anxiety, right? So that's why I thought I need to do something with this and as much as I can I want to help.
Anna Flockett20:23
Yeah. And you are doing so much. You make me feel guilty that all I do stay at home.
Speaker 120:30
No, but you're not doing enough by staying at home because you're by yourself at home. You help people like my colleagues find out for example, only last week, two of my colleagues had to go there, brilliant specialist, and they actually had to go over there. And I'm still very lucky because, you know, I work with Rhthmia Breath that I can say 90% of my time, but I only work part time in the NHS. So I want to help and support as much as I can. But yes but but you're saying how are you helping my colleagues to be safe so thank you for that.
Anna Flockett21:06
No, it's the least we can do I wish just more people would do it but after this hopefully all blows over which it will do of course we just don't know when yet what do you guys, Rythmia Breath have planned for the future?
Speaker 121:21
Right in terms of this capability perhaps of the platform at the moment we are still offering our sessions online via video or phone call as I said, right, and until we can resume all our activities are linear, right? So we still need to operate in that way. So going moving forwards now we are exploring partnerships opportunities with an collaboration with NHS Trust and Clinical Commissioning Groups and to make the service possible safe and streamlined for patients. We are also very, very excited about what if Bringing, I'm sure it's gonna be fantastic. But basically our our mission is to lead the world to healthier hearts and minds. And it's about driving change and using data driven approaches, right? It's about spreading the word about patients feeling empowered, knowing that they can help themselves so much by implementing the right strategies and coping mechanisms. So one of our main visions is to have an impact on people's life. So a quick example and imagine if you could spot gradual gradual deterioration of your health before it's too late. Alternatively, imagine having a treatment plan that was uniquely tailored to your needs and lifestyle, which truly maximises you know the effect of your treatment. And finally, imagine a patient feeling empowered to contribute equally to manage their health. So our next step is to launch cardiac rehab digital service in 2021, following our mission and purpose, we are also in conversations with very clever IT consultants to develop our own wearable. But that's something that, you know, we still cannot disclose so much. But yes, and we will increase, you know, the efficiency, the safety, the business as such. So, yeah, that's in a nutshell, our future and we do have a plan for 5, 10, 15 years and the future is very exciting. We're also in conversations with two different hospitals to develop a pilot study. Obviously, everything needs to be proved by research study. Yes. So the future is bright. So hopefully Covid decided to leave us quite soon,
Anna Flockett23:50
of course, and in terms of like your 510 year 15 year plan, you must have had this in place before the COVID crisis has the corona Situation Excel your plans like how do you think it's moved you forward? And the healthcare industry in general? Has it, you know, pushed us 10 years forward in two months sort of thing?
Speaker 124:12
Absolutely. Especially when we talk about the dice they digitally sation, sorry, I have products, and one of the positive sides of the situation with all the respect in the world, right, is that it has a move us forward. And I can say like, six, eight months down the line, because because of this time, we are proving and showing that our method does work in a digital way too. Therefore, we don't need this extra month for us to improve and test and convince that this is a situation so it has kind of, you know, push us forward and we can straight away go towards a pilot study or in conversations with CCGs and your conversations with the government. In our wearable, so yes, that's that's one of the unfortunately positive.
Anna Flockett25:05
Silver lining of the whole situation. And so to conclude today, Sheree, do you have any advice for any other startup founders out there? It could be to do with health industry Coronavirus or just just startup founders in general, what would your message to them be?
Speaker 125:22
I think it would be pretty much like you know, the same message that you know, every entrepreneur will will give but number one is, please use your resources effectively. I make that mistake as well. Right. One of the challenges is not realising the amount of opportunities that you have around you. So use your resources effectively. Number two, could it be just probably tattoo this word on your skin is Push. Push forward on and validate your idea. Find the good team. believe that it's possible, you're gonna face imposter syndrome. yes, oh yes, unless you're superhuman, but you have to push and go forward with your idea, right until the day that it collapses for whatever reason. And then probably, and in my opinion, one of the most important ones that both go side by side. One is your team focused on developing a very strong team and hire people or get people in your in your platform or your project that has that does not have your skills. Basically, whatever you are lacking, that's the person you need very strong thing can push the project forward with no limits. And number two is the within the same topic is network. I know how difficult it can be from people you know, for people to network, and tell your idea and unexplained what you do. But if you don't really want to talk that much at the very beginning of the networking, you know, side of things. Listen, attend all type of, you know, summits and meetings, from all the entities you know, with all the entrepreneurs, but network, build a strong team and use your resources efficiently and push.
Anna Flockett27:17
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It was amazing to learn all the work that you're doing and thank you so much for all the work that you are doing. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. And I'm excited to see all the plans that you guys have for the future so we'll keep an eye.
Speaker 127:34
Thank you, Anna. Likewise, it's been a pleasure being on this podcast
Unknown Speaker27:39
Cereal entrepreneur