Hello Hannah!
Thank you for joining us for another issue of Global Leader Today magazine!  When you last joined us, you had just won the 2015 America’s Top Young Scientist award. Since then, you’ve continued your education and have gone on to blaze new amazing trails, especially by founding a medical tech company called Golden Hour Medical. Thank you so much for finding a little time in your crazy busy day to talk with us.
We’d like to start out by asking you some questions, if that’s okay?
 
1.    So, what inspired you to start Golden Hour Medical, and what problems were you passionate about solving?
I think the seed was planted to start solving the problem of blood loss back in 2018. A mass casualty event occurred just down the street from my school that impacted my community. Then in 2021, I learned about the current state of the art for tourniquets and how the traditional tourniquet has an 84% failure rate immediately after training, so it’s not adequate for most people to use. So, that got me thinking about how we can reimagine the conventional tourniquet and make it into something that a bystander like me, with limited medical training if any, is able to use. That’s the idea behind AutoTQ, and now it’s on the market. It’s the AED of tourniquets, where once you are trained on the device, you are equipped to use it. We found 100% success rate compared to 16-20% in other tourniquets, so we’re very excited about implementing these around the country and the world.       

2.    Can you share a moment when you realized the potential impact your technology could have on the world?
I realized the impact after talking to customers. The final design of AutoTQ was something that was iterated on for over a year by my team and I before we settled on the device as it is now. I think every iteration we started to realize more and more that the impact is for the civilian. It’s for the bystander who wants to do something and who is equipped because they’ve been trained on this technology and because it’s so easy to use. I think Paramedic Sarah Franklin is a great example. She is one of our advisors. She was one of the first people that really encouraged me to go forward with this because she is a SWAT paramedic. She often sees the firsthand impact of an effectively applied tourniquet, and so she encouraged me that this is something that could be very helpful for people. I think that hearing from her and from lots of different people that encouraged my team and I along the way has really instilled that confidence that this is going to be something that saves a lot of lives.    

3.    What was the most significant challenge you faced in the early stages of your startup, and how did you overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge was just the combination of learning curves that I had to go through. The medical device industry is highly regulated for good reason. Learning the FDA process, the patent process, manufacturing, and more has been such a great education. I think learning what the major categories of things I need to know and how to learn them quickly was an initial challenge. I was able to overcome that because I have the best team and the best advisors in the world. It’s really been amazing to see teammates and advisors come at the exact right time. I’ve been very fortunate to have people come in and say, “You can do this. It’s not impossible,” so I’m very grateful for that.    

4.    How do you handle setbacks and maintain motivation when things don't go as planned?
I think for me there’s wisdom in the council of many and so when I have a problem or when I’m facing something that I don’t know how to deal with, I call people that know what they’re doing and seek their advice on it. I think that leaning on my advisors and investors, and especially my team members that I work with every day has been the most important way to handle setbacks and overcome them.   

5.    How has your leadership style evolved since starting the company, and what key lessons have you learned?
This is a harder one just because I’m still so young and so new at this but I’ve been very fortunate to work with friends who are very smart, so I think my leadership style has always been: find really smart people and trust them to do what they excel at. I’ve been very blessed to have just a brilliant team who gets it done and we’re are able to work together very collaboratively. There’s a lot of, “How can we solve this problem together?” When you work on a problem like blood loss, you have to stop the bleed within minutes. It’s a very humbling thing. I think that we feel the weight of the responsibility that we have, and that’s something that we’re all very excited about the opportunity to do, so there’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of teamwork. It’s a lot of fun.  

 
6.    What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs who are just starting their journey in the tech or medical fields?
I would say: find advisors who can help and guide you. I’ve noticed being an entrepreneur there’s this whole code amongst entrepreneurs where if you reach out to someone who’s done it before they’re almost always willing to sit down with you and help you if you ask. I love that about the community and being a part of it. I’d say, just reach out to people who inspire you and who you look up to and often times, they will be willing to sit and give you advice. I have so many examples of that and as a young entrepreneur, I’m excited for when I can give back to other entrepreneurs as well.   

7.    What drives you personally to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in medical technology?
I think for me, I first really encountered the medical field in high school and college. Both of my parents had late-stage cancers within a year or so of each other. From a young age when I was a teenager, I was in hospitals a lot. I was around medical devices a lot, and I started thinking about the different devices I would see them using and say, “Oh, that seems like it could be better, you know. It seems like there’s room for improvement here,” and so I think that sparked my interest. And having been a family member of two patients… I remember the range of emotions that occur. When people are going through these moments that are life or death, what they want is good treatment and hope. Being able to assist those who serve patients is just the honor of a lifetime and I’m very grateful to have found what I love to do at a young age.          

8.    How do you balance the demands of running a company with maintaining your personal well-being and passion for the work?
I think that’s a challenge for all entrepreneurs but I’m very grateful to have an amazing support system of friends and family. I have an amazing church community. I attend church a lot and I get to be around my friends and family there quite a bit. I love to run, I train for marathons so I do my best to maintain a healthy balance in my life between all those things. Many of my teammates at GHM and I have known each other since middle and high school, so most of the time it feels more fun than work which helps me to stay passionate about it.

 
9.    What skills or mindsets do you believe are most important for the next generation of innovators and leaders in the medical tech field?
I think being able to solve problems is really important, and not being satisfied with what is currently available or offered. For example, tourniquets were antiquated technology before AutoTQ. They were invented 2,000 plus years ago, and they haven’t changed much since then. For me, looking at that problem and saying, “Maybe this is something that we can fix.” The students of today need to have that confidence to try to attempt to solve the problems. I’ve learned how to do that through science fairs where there’s a lot of failure and there’s a lot of, “I don’t know if this is a solvable problem,” but over time, you learn the different skills that are required to do what I’m doing now, to start a company and to solve problems over and over. I think that problem-solving and resilience are probably some of the most important skills.         

10.    If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Maybe I would just say to enjoy the moment and keep working hard because hard work does pay off and just enjoy it because it’s worth it.

 
11.    Where do you see your company in the next five to ten years, and what role do you hope it will play in shaping the future of healthcare?
I think in the next five to ten years, I would love to see AutoTQ next to every AED in public access kits. I think it would be incredible to see the device save a lot of lives. I think that’s the most important rule for me and the goal I’m focused on every day.  

12.    What excites you most about the future of medical technology?
I think maybe just seeing technology advance over time. Also seeing the changes in manufacturing technology. There were inventions that I worked on previously that just weren’t manufacturable, so thinking of how manufacturing technology is going to advance over the years is very exciting to me because I think that the more you can bring products to life, the more you can help patients and solve problems in that way, so that excites me a lot.  

Thank you so much, Hannah for your time and thank you for sharing with our readers!

To follow Golden Hour Medical, visit: https://theautotq.com/ or on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/goldenhourmed/