Adam Torres and Peman Montazemi discuss Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Peman Montazemi, Founder & CEO at Finally Quiet, Inc., explore the Finally Quiet, Inc. journey and Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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About Peman Montazemi
An accomplished executive with a multifaceted background, Peman brings strategic leadership to the forefront of the medical device and In-Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) industries. As a visionary technology leader, he is dedicated to driving digital business transformation, leveraging the latest innovations to propel organizations forward. With a proven track record, Peman excels in accelerating time to market and streamlining execution, ensuring efficient and successful product launches. His expertise lies in navigating complex landscapes, fostering growth, and delivering value-driven solutions that meet the evolving needs of the market. Peman firmly believes in focused execution using critical thinking, and with the precious support of his teams, he has had the privilege of successfully commercializing 9 successive medical devices, in-vitro diagnostic instruments, and nuclear software of medium- to high-complexity in global markets.
About Finally Quiet
Finally Quiet! aims to enhance the treatment experience for dental patients while boosting treatment efficiency and working towards the prevention of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL).
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I am in Irvine, California at the Medical Innovation Forum, and I have Peyman Montezemi on the line.
Paymon, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. So, I like that name first off, Paymon. How did you tell me to remember how to say it? Oh, pay me on Monday. There we go. So, so what brings you out to the forum today and to the conference? Sure. So the founder and CEO of Finally Quiet, and I’ll be presenting basically Finally Quiet tomorrow at 1030, you know, local.
Mm. So talk to me a little bit more about Finally Quiet. Sure. Absolutely. So my wife is a dentist. And then, so 11 years ago, she stepped into our car. We were very lucky to carpool at the time. And then she basically banged on the on off button of the radio. And she said, you know, I can’t tolerate a single sound.
So I’m like, okay, did you have a bad day? Did you have a difficult patient? Did you get into a fight with a co worker or whatnot? And she said, you know, I have tinnitus, which is ear ringing in one ear. In the beginning of that, I have a huge headache. You’re a biomedical engineer. Why don’t you do something about it?
And the rest of the trip was completely silent until we got home. I promise you that. Oh, so were you an entrepreneur before this company or like? Yes, absolutely. Go a little bit further back. Like tell me a little bit about that. Sure. So I’ve been in medical devices for 24 years. I’ve been extremely fortunate to be, you know, part of four companies that have exited, you know, between 10 million and 2 billion.
And then, so I saw an opportunity, you know, to make a difference because most of, you know, products that are coming out On the market including, you know, active knows canceling headphones. They only work up to 1000 Hertz, which is low frequencies. And then, so we covered 19 times more frequencies that are all the high frequency generated by dental instruments.
And she called the solution basically finally quiet because she said it came from the heart. So your wife was it. Sending you on a wild goose chase, you had experience. You’ve been doing things before she wasn’t like, so, so she’s telling you, okay, here goes your next company. Exactly. Pretty much. And it took us 11 years to come up with a solution that protects, you know, the hearing of dentists and you know, any kind of operator that is in the clinic.
In addition to the patient. So the patient has also a piece and now we have two pieces of real estate in place and we put them in communication with each other via AI speech recognition. You can put the patient into conversation. You can have them leave and listen to music. You can talk to the front desk.
And that’s how basically finally, you know, came alive. Yes. A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives, a lot of CEOs out there that watch this, and I’m always curious, you say 11 year journey, this is only a, you know, seven, 10 minute interview. So we don’t have it all today, but. What are some of the things that got you here today?
Like, that’s a long journey of perfecting your technology. Sure, absolutely. So, number one is, you know, at the pace of burning, you know, how much of your personal funds you have? You know, my wife and I, we have, you know, spent 330, 000 of our personal funds, of every single penny that you could think. You can’t do something, you know, Kind of halfway, you know, and you have to be either all in or nothing.
So, man, so you got to say, maybe you should have that radio lower in the first time. so expensive. Radio, right? Go ahead. Exactly. And then of course, as you create, you know, your first prototype, you have to gather, you don’t have the knowledge all yourself. You have to gather a small team who’s willing to maybe even part time, you know, to contribute, you know, to your cause and little by little gain momentum until you get into the clinic in our specific application.
You know, Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum is, you know, very much focused and so that’s why we, that’s where the product, you know, belong to be. So it’s very important at the end of the day to visualize exactly where the product is going to end. And so that’s why we are here at this conference, it makes sense.
And of course we have released our first prototype for the first time in human history, it’s a 300 year old problem nobody has ever solved. Since the drill was born, the problem came with it and he stayed. Wow. And then so we are. How does that feel to get to the part of like the prototype? Like to finally be there?
How do, how do you feel? We feel amazing first of all, because we’re the first team in human history, you know, to come up with a solution. But the other thing is that when we look at the patients and how, you know, people, you know, you have to roll them in some of the patients, you know, with dental phobia, you have to roll them in, in a wheelchair.
That’s how, you know, and there, there are 75 million people in the United States alone that have anxiety and phobia. And then, so therefore, Seeing a patient for the first time in a chair that is quiet, that is calm, and the doctor is calmer, the doctor is more, and the doctor is protected, so their hearing is protected, and we put them in communication, it meant the world to us.
We had even a few patients actually having tears in their eyes, you know, because they just couldn’t get a dental, you know, normal, normal dental treatment like any others. It’s tricky for the people that have that, I know. I had, I won’t say I had the full experience. Full phobia, but I had a version of it.
In fact, I, for the first time ever got a shot in my mouth at the dentist. Like six months ago, first time ever in my entire life. I was too, I had all these phobias around it. So, and by the way, he didn’t know that when we came into this interview, he’s like, wait, what are you talking about? I’m talking to him right now.
That’s true. No, nor does my audience know. So that’s kind of funny, but that was my dentist knows. Cause after the fact, he was like, what Adam, are you kidding me? I’m like, man, it’s. It’s hard for me to come in here. So that’s awesome. I can relate to what they’re going to be going through. Right. And then on the flip side is that, you know, not only we protect, you know, the hearing and provide a calmer experience, it’s actually a lot more efficient for the doctor too, because patients who have actually anxiety, they tend to prolong basically the duration of the treatment because you have 400%
You know, a lot less efficient basically for, for a five minute treatment. So we also have a, you know, operational effect that, that happens there where we significantly reduce the anxiety and hence, you know, the duration of the treatment and make it more efficient. So talk to me about what happens after you present tomorrow.
Like what are some of the plans going forward on the rollout? Well, that’s an excellent question. So right now, you know, of course we have a fundraising that’s ongoing, et cetera, which is, you know, very well. And going very well. And the next step for us is to complete our minimum viable product. So that first, you know, study that we did, what’s going to happen is that it came back, you know, up with over 82%, you know, satisfaction rate.
Wow. But I don’t see it that way. I see, you know, in an efficiency of 18 percent that we need to complete and make it a product that everybody’s going to love. Was that within your budget? In your expectations when that came back with that blown away, actually, I said, you know, that’s a frankenstein to me.
And of course, my engineering team doesn’t like me, you know, call it that. But I said, until for us to get to a full comp product, you know, complete that we are still a long ways to go. However, You just showed me how desperate the market is because they’re spending right now 622 million on solutions that don’t work like active noise cancelling, like earbuds and whatnot, but you just simply don’t work on high frequency with your initial tests in the market or even just taking out there and conversations like what’s the response been?
I’ve been very grateful. They said, okay, when can we get this into our office? That has been the biggest response. So we have 10 clinics that are lined up for testing our MVP. They’ve been waiting for about, you know, two and a half years now. And then, so now we’re just a year away, you know, from that. So what do you hope that the the audience in the crowd tomorrow at at the Octane event, what do you hope they get out of, out of the system?
Out of out of your talk and about learning about the technology, what do you hope they walk away with? Sure, sure. That’s an excellent question. So number one is to recognize that there are over 60 diseases that are directly linked, you know, to oral hygiene. That’s the number one thing. Yeah. And these are some of them are terminal diseases.
Right? Yeah. So. The lives are at risk. Right, right. And then number two, remember last time they visited the dentist? Yeah. And how was that experience? And you know, did they have anxiety or not and what not, were they uncomfortable, what not, and of course depends on the person. But then the next thing is to live through the life of a person like my wife.
You know, then there’s not only have, you know, twice the amount of hearing loss and tinnitus compared to the general population. They have 2. 5 times the amount of anxiety, panic disorder and depression, and they have 17 times the amount of suicide rate compared to other health care providers. Oh, wow.
And I unfortunately lost one of my very good friends to that specific incident. So she committed suicide. She was a dentist back at the University of Virginia in 2008. And that’s why Dr. Kyle Stanley, who sits also on the board of Pearl. sits on our board of clinical advisors because he travels with 25 cases of dental suicide, and the reason why is because of this constant, you know, dump of anxiety from patients on them.
Wow. You know, you and I, we go there So that energy is, that’s a thing. Exactly. It’s on them. And then you’re torturing live, and you have to keep a smile. Oh, honey, you know, I’m doing this in your mouth. You’re doing great, etc. But You absorbing all the negative energy, et cetera, and back and back to back, you know, you and I, we go there and we’re done six months later.
We see you. Bye. You know, you got one injection into your life and so much for sharing. But for them is 8 15 8 30 8 45 and everything is dumped. So the quantity and then like, yeah, and it’s not like there’s a break there. Exactly. And so therefore we believe by also penetrating that specific anxiety loop with removing the sound, et cetera, we’re going to calm down the patient and hopefully when they feel better.
Reduce basically the dump and of the anxiety, you know, on the care provider. That makes total sense. And then their longevity, not just of course of life, but career of satisfaction. And then you think about how that, how that, you know, carries over to their families and their families love. Cause then you go, it’s, it’s natural.
We’re all humans. So then they go home and that, that can’t be good. Absolutely. Yeah. We have actually, you know, three year old twins and my wife, when she comes home, you can’t touch her. You can’t talk to her, 12 years of practice. For an hour, she has to go in her own space, take a shower, calm down and come back, et cetera.
And, and, and those stories are hidden from us. And there are 500, 000, you know, dental care providers in United States and those stories, we don’t hear them. And so we’re here to make a transformation, you know, of the, of the field, you know, in that way. Love it. I’m so happy to have you on here today. Thank you.
That being said, what I want you to do is, how do people follow you? How do they follow the journey of the company? Sure. Like, how do they follow up? Basically, we have a website, you know, finally quiet. com. Mm hmm. And then and the name comes because my wife said, you know, it came from the heart. Yeah.
And then, so finally quiet. com. And then, of course, you know, on LinkedIn, you know, you can find me. You know, we’re there. And then we’ll gladly, you know, answer any questions that the folks have, you know, and thank you so much for all your support. Amazing. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put the links to the website in the show notes so that you can just click on it and head right on over.
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