Getting Past Rejection as a First-Time Medical Device Entrepreneur: Interview with Derek Herrera, Founder of UroDev and Habit Camera

In this episode of Medsider Radio, we're catching up with Derek Herrera, who has an incredible story to share. He’s a decorated Marine veteran who’s turned a major combat injury into a mission to help other patients with spinal injuries. Derek is the founder of UroDev, originally Spinal Singularity, as well as Habit Camera, the first low-cost, wireless camera purpose-built for skin inspection and telehealth.UroDev is on the cusp of bringing its Intelliflow device to market, a product uniquely designed for spinal injury patients who have urology conditions like a neurogenic bladder that require extensive catheter use. Today, Derek and I are going to chat about his journey from the military to the medical device space and get into what he’s learned about becoming a first-time entrepreneur with a big idea but not a lot of funding or experience.  First, here’s a bit more on Derek’s background: He graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served as a Marine Infantry and Special Operations Officer for over eight years. In 2014, he was medically retired due to combat injuries and left paralyzed from the waist down. Since this injury, Derek has earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and founded both UroDev and Habit Camera. He also serves as President of the Board for the Marine Raider Foundation.  Before we jump into the conversation, I wanted to mention a few things:If you’re into learning from proven medtech and healthtech leaders, and want to know when new content and interviews go live, head over to Medsider.com and sign up for our free newsletter. You’ll get access to gated articles, and lots of other interesting healthcare content. Second, if you want even more inside info from proven experts, think about a Medsider premium membership. We talk to experienced healthcare leaders about the nuts and bolts of running a business and bringing products to market. This is your place for valuable knowledge on specific topics like seed funding, prototyping, insurance reimbursement, and positioning a medtech startup for an exit.In addition to the entire back catalog of Medsider interviews over the past decade, Premium members get exclusive Ask Me Anything interviews and masterclasses with some of the world’s most successful medtech founders and executives. Since making the premium memberships available, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people have signed up. If you’re interested, go to medsider.com/subscribe to learn more.Lastly, here's the link to the full interview with Derek if you'd rather read it instead.