00:00Hi, I'm Amy Feldman, a senior editor at Forbes, and I'm here today with Sorby Sarna, founder and
00:09CEO of Collate, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate the paperwork required
00:14for life sciences companies. Welcome, Sorby. Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me. So
00:21nice to be here. It's delightful to have you here. So Collate is one of 25 companies that
00:26made this year's Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startups list, which came out earlier in the
00:30week. And that's interesting for a lot of reasons, not least of which you just came out of stealth
00:34in January. So can you tell me a bit about the sort of six months of what must have been
00:40just quite a whirlwind? Yeah, it's been an incredible year. And certainly the last six months have
00:47been more fun and, of course, more work than I could have imagined beforehand. But it's
00:55I don't know if there's ever been a better time to build, at least during my adulthood.
01:04I imagine when the internet first came onto the scene, this is how it felt. And so I think
01:12there are so many factors, both internal to my own personal journey and professional journey
01:19that have made the last six months incredible, combined with what it's like to be building
01:24an AI company and solving a real need for customers that, you know, at the end of the day are trying
01:30to get new products out for patients. It's quite the thrill. That's cool. Take me back to the
01:36beginning. Why did you decide to start it? What was the sort of aha moment where you're like, I need
01:39to start Collate right now? You know, I was at Y Combinator. And before Y Combinator, I had done a
01:46life science company working on early detection of ovarian cancer. And then join YC as their first
01:52general partner dedicated to the life sciences and software solutions for the healthcare industry.
01:59And I was really enjoying that. I mean, it was it's a being at YC is as a wonderful experience and
02:05being able to pay it forward and work with other founders that are looking to make impact in the
02:10space. But when I saw the ability of LLMs, and I equated that to the paperwork that I was buried under,
02:21I just felt like someone who has taken a product all the way from the back of a paper napkin to
02:29commercial readiness should start a company like this, you know, that can help with the full product
02:35development lifecycle, where I think a lot of folks that are working on documentation, their backgrounds
02:41come from a very specific part of the journey, versus looking at the whole thing holistically. So I did
02:47actually attempt to fund or find companies that were doing it first. But then, you know, I've never
02:55been an entrepreneur for the sake of being an entrepreneur or a founder. The idea has always
03:02occurred to me first. And then I've always felt so compelled that I then started the company. And
03:07that's what happened in this case, I stopped being able to sleep at night, I picked up coding again,
03:12and then it was just an eventuality that was going to happen.
03:17That's kind of amazing. I mean, and it's interesting, because some people are really more
03:20entrepreneurs, and some people are more VCs, like some people make that switch. And they're like,
03:24okay, this is cool. Now I'm just going to invest in companies and find companies. And then some people
03:28like you come back and realize this is kind of what they're meant to do.
03:31Yeah, I think it was, it was a really, really hard decision for me. And one that kept me up at night,
03:40but then eventually, at the end of the day, after I just I went through, you know, the checklist and the
03:46pros and cons, and you try to be analytical about the decision. And at the end of the day, if you're honest
03:52with yourself, and what's in your hearts, and just knowing what's going to make you happy on a day to day
03:57basis, it was then clear that I needed to get back into it, you know, and I, I exited my last company
04:05at 32. You know, and I think that I just wasn't done. I just hadn't scratched my entrepreneurial itch
04:11yet, you know? Yeah, we and we've talked previously, but I'm curious to talk more, you know, on this call
04:18about this company versus your your previous one. I mean, when you started the previous one,
04:23you talked before about, you know, having a little difficulty fundraising the first time,
04:27but it's all different once you sell. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how different it is, you know,
04:34going back to 2012, and attitudes, like, you know, towards women's health and doing a medical device
04:41diagnostic company. I was talking to a VC recently, who said, man, you really did your last company on
04:49hard mode, right? Because women's health diagnostic medical device, all of that, versus kind of doing
04:56something right now in a hotter space. The difference in fundraising, you know, has been
05:02pretty tremendous for me. But I like to think that I keep the scrappiness and the attitude of the first
05:10time, because the first time I didn't have the validation of VCs that I was on the right track.
05:16And I let the customers, the physicians, the patients be the validation of what I was working
05:24on. And I'm bringing that forward to this company, right? That's where the ultimate validation comes
05:29from is, what are the aha moments for customers that you are creating? You know, what reaction are
05:35you getting from them? So, in a lot of ways, this company is extremely different. You know, this is AI
05:41software, a completely different space, very different team makeups, and all of that. But the things that
05:46bring me the most joy and sort of my attitude towards how to build this company correctly,
05:52those things remain the same. That's interesting. It's interesting that being in this hot space,
05:57I mean, AI has kind of eaten everything just on this list alone, 20 out of 25 companies are in some way,
06:04AI companies now. How do you think about AI, both in terms of how you use it at Collate and in terms of
06:12how you see it changing healthcare and life sciences more broadly?
06:16From my perspective, and of course, I'm bringing a lot of bias into it. But I just have to remember
06:22that I'm a scientist by training, and all of the other, I will call them fads that came and went and
06:28that sort of thing. I never jumped ship to them. They never really changed my view of how the world
06:33should function. But in this specific case, I am extremely confident that if someone builds the
06:43right product, the healthcare landscape will improve. And we'll be able to get medical devices,
06:51drugs, diagnostics to market. I know it, I say five times faster, because 10 times sounds like an
06:59exaggeration. But I think it will literally be that. I think that AI is going to enable large
07:05companies to do multiple filings in different countries simultaneously, that when new standards
07:12come out, AI will be able to adjust your paperwork automatically. I just think that
07:18this is kind of what this industry needed. You know, I'm really excited about the impact.
07:26Yeah, I mean, it's kind of amazing to think about, because the paperwork is mind boggling
07:32in life sciences. Nobody really wants to do it. But if you don't do it, you don't have that
07:37life saving drug or life saving device, or it just it all has to happen. And so that is kind of an
07:43amazing change. And the way the paperwork works, it's all tangled up, cross functions and all of that,
07:52right. And so that's where building this whole deterministic platform around different AI
07:58workflows is so important, you know, to kind of bring down those silos between functions and that
08:04sort of thing. And someone has to be willing to have the patience to build such a big product,
08:10you know, but I'm here for it. I would love to dedicate the next 10 years of my career to this.
08:16Yes. That's cool. Since you since you've started, have there been things that have been surprising or
08:23unexpected, you know, starting this company? And what have those been?
08:28So, you know, being a life science person through and through myself, I actually thought that I was
08:34going to go into this with way more skepticism than I've received so far. I'm not saying that skeptics
08:41don't exist. I'm just saying that there are more believers than I thought they were. There are other
08:48people, other leaders at large companies, certainly at startups, who see the promise of this that
08:54understand the ROI of it, you know, before I walk into the room. And I think if you're someone that
09:03is coming from the life sciences and understands that patient safety is always prioritized over everything
09:09else. And sometimes that means purposely adding friction into your software, right? You always
09:14talk about frictionless software that doesn't really work with the life sciences, you need checks and
09:18balances everywhere. And they know they're talking to another life science person who is trying to help
09:24who's done the same workflows who sat in their seats, who's thought about the same P&L.
09:31This is the attitude is much more open than I thought it would be. I think that's, that's been the most
09:35surprising to me. It's interesting. And I wonder if that's, you know, largely because it's an AI
09:41company. And right now the market and consumers also were very open to AI is going to help us and
09:47help us with all of these hard things. Yeah, I think it and especially if someone has been a power user
09:53of AI personally, that has a lot to do with how they might be willing to adopt it professionally,
09:58right? So I definitely see that correlation as well. For other founders who might be watching
10:06this, what advice would you give to them, especially other life sciences founders?
10:11All I can say, so I guess your question was directly directed more towards founders. Maybe if you don't
10:18mind, I can address people who are thinking about starting companies right now. The water is warm,
10:23you've got to get in. It is so fun and rewarding to create entirely new classes of software that didn't
10:31exist before to reimagine problems that our customers are facing in a way that you just simply could not
10:38do before. And not to mention the customer facing part of it, but how much your engineering teams are
10:46empowered by AI tools, how much senior tenant, you know, you take a 10x engineer, and you give them all of
10:53the right tools. And all of a sudden, they're 100x engineer. And we're seeing that at Coley, you know,
10:59so all I can say is, it is just so fun and so rewarding. And of course, so much work, but then it
11:07just doesn't, it doesn't, it's a bit of a cliche, but doesn't quite feel like work when you're having
11:11this much fun and seeing this much progress, you know. So I would say, take the plunge, there's never
11:17been a better time to build. That's an amazing note to end on. Are there any final thoughts before we
11:24wrap up? No, I would just say that, thank you again so much for the great coverage. I'm extremely
11:34grateful for it. I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity, you know, to build and help folks that
11:41are trying to help patients. There's nothing more rewarding. We're glad to be able to feature you. And
11:46thanks for joining us today. And we'll look forward to continuing to follow the company.
11:50Perfect. Thank you so much again, Amy. Wonderful to be here.
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