Martin Frost, CMR Surgical
HOW TO: BUILD A PURPOSE-DRIVEN STARTUP & EMBRACE MULTIDISCIPLINARY SKILL SETS
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“I am a very firm believer in purpose-led company. Understanding the why is fundamental to how I want to lead the company.”
This week on CUTalks we are talking to Martin Frost, co-founder, former CEO and now non-executive director of CMR Surgical. He has a background in history at Cambridge, had career stints in accounting, audit, IT and now has become a tech entrepreneur. CMR Surgical is currently building medical devices for surgeries. Martin emphasizes the importance of having multidisciplinary skill sets such as design, economics, human factor analysis to engineering in building a medical company like CMR Surgical. He also talks about the early days of CMR Surgical and how they managed to overcome the insurmountable challenges that might not be obvious in hindsight. Martin gives insights on what it takes to bring a product to a global market as well.
This episode was sponsored by DesignSpark: design tools and resources for engineers to help make their ideas happen. The podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.
Jump to the following topics:
Personal and Career Background - 1:02
From Cambridge Medical Robotics to CMR Surgical - 4:35
The importance of motivation and multidisciplinary skill sets - 6:55
The early days of CMR Surgical and how things are not as smooth as what people think in hindsight - 12:10
How CMR Surgical managed the overcome the initial barrier of commercialization - 16:30
On globalization strategy and how to adopt to local demands - 21:40
Planned vs emergent strategy - 28:00
Martin’s thoughts on some of the top startups recently - 34:40