Tim Gleeson, like many entrepreneurs, got the idea for his new company from experience in his previous career.
The Australian native and partner Joe Andrew, as sales managers for medical-device conglomerate Covidien Ltd., sought ways to educate clients on how to use their products.
“We were managing the West Coast for a large part of Covidien’s business,” Gleeson said. “Ultimately, what we found was that there were no reliable sources to really help us with the education.”
Gleeson and Andrew soon also realized, “The more you sell, the more you have to stop selling and start educating,” he recalled.
From those discoveries was born Novasyte LLC, which the duo started in the garage of Gleeson’s Huntington Beach condominium in 2008.
Novasyte, now based in Newport Beach, was one of five companies honored at the Business Journal’s annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards luncheon, held March 21 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine (see related stories pages 1, 5, 6 and 9).
Clients
Novasyte works with medical-device makers to provide in-person and online product education, training and other support services. Novasyte was able to secure clients, such as Covidien and Chicago-based Baxter International Inc., because of an absence of companies supplying those services, Gleeson said.
“We’ve been able to not only create a level of comfort with our customers—because we sat where they sat—but [also] to develop a continuum or ecosystem of support.”
The company’s Novasyte 360 curriculum and video materials teach users of medical devices such as doctors and nurses how to use the products.
Gleeson’s father, Christopher Gleeson, formerly was chief executive of Tucson, Ariz.-based diagnostic company Ventana Medical Systems Inc., now part of Switzerland-based Roche AG. Today he serves as Novasyte’s chairman and also as chairman of GenMark Diagnostics Inc. in Carlsbad.
“The biggest challenge we’ve had is not having good understanding of financials,” Tim Gleeson noted.
Paternal Guidance
So his father “sat down with me in my garage office and said, ‘Let me walk you through a P&L, a balance sheet and a cash-flow statement,’ ” Gleeson recalled. “[He] gave me the most tremendous amount of guidance and support that any dad could absolutely give.”
Gleeson said Novasyte targets $7.5 million in revenue this year, en route to a goal of $10 million in revenue.
The company—which sold an unspecified minority stake in the company to angel investors in 2009—uses trade shows to seek out potential clients.
Novasyte also has an office in San Jose, where Andrew—the company’s chief operating officer—works. The company has 15 full-time workers and about 400 consultants in the U.S. and Canada.
Novasyte has a seven-point recruitment process for recruiting consultants, who are recruited and screened by telephone and online.
“We ask them behavioral questions,” Gleeson said. “We’re not just looking for a clinical guru. We’re looking for a clinically minded person who has soft skills. … That doesn’t come from being a clinical know-it-all. It comes from having good clinical background and being a personable person.”
