Entrepreneurship in Utah: Blackrock CEO Andy Gotshalk (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What was the thought process behind your taking this one on and not growing the other one? Is this one a higher potential opportunity?

Andy Gotshalk: Yes, it has a higher potential. There’s a greater market for this technology. Another reason is that it is part of my desire and philosophy of where do I want to get at the end of the day. At the end of the day, I want to be delivering new technology to the field that’s going to help patients. I want to impact patient care. Blackrock Microsystems is still more of a pure technology company that’s bringing technology to researchers. They’re doing great research to better understand the brain. Blackrock Neuromed takes that next step and implements this technology into hospitals. We still have a long way to go.

Sramana Mitra: Who finances this company?

Andy Gotshalk: We did a fundraising round in 2012 and some of the investors had also invested in the first company. Then, we brought on some new investors.

Sramana Mitra: What do your investors expect would happen from these companies? Or what do you expect would happen in terms of financial outcomes? Are you guys looking to sell the company at some point or keep going with it? What is the thought process?

Andy Gotshalk: There are two components there. One is on our philosophy of building businesses in a smart way so that we can get to profitability, sustainability, and cash flow positive as quickly as possible. Yes, our long term goal for the investors is to get some kind of return. They’re not going to invest in the company unless they can see a return. How do we envision that return? There could be some exit through potential acquisitions.

For me, if I build the company the way that I described, that in itself is going to drive the value and that’s going to give us plenty of opportunities to be able to exit, potentially sell, liquidate through an IPO, or through some other private equity firm. It’s a different way of looking at it. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that look at driving value in other ways, but can have good exits because of the technology there. I take a different approach. I’m more of an operational guy. I think by building a strong solid business, all those other opportunities are going to come.

Sramana Mitra: How do you categorize the businesses you’ve built? Is it more a bioscience business or is it more an informational technology business? Where is the intellectual property of the business primarily?

Andy Gotshalk: The first business is categorized more as biotech. The second business is categorized as medical device.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you very much for taking the time.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Entrepreneurship in Utah: Blackrock CEO Andy Gotshalk
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