Julián Ríos, Eva | Building Products That Challenge the Status Quo, When to Pivot, and Getting the Best from Your Team [Ep. 95]

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

At 16, one usually thinks about school, parties, trips, or other things, but not about building a company that could change the world.

Today we spoke with Julian Rios, CEO and cofounder of Eva Tech, a platform where radiology doctors can store, analyze, and send the results of studies such as MRIs, ultrasounds, and sonograms. Eva includes artificial intelligence tools that help doctors make diagnoses, and it is up to 50% cheaper than the traditional software on the market.

Eva went through 2 major pivots of product and business model, and Julián told us the reasons and the lessons from that process. We also talked about the strategy, the mindset, and the risks required to create truly innovative products, and about how to create, lead, and recruit in order to get the best out of your team.

Stay until the end, because Julián told us about his experience working with investors such as Tony Robbins and Leonardo Di Caprio.

Youtube Timestamps*

[1:25] - Lessons from Pivots

How did Julian arrive at the fascinating world of startups?
Eva has gone through 2 major pivots to arrive at its software. What was Eva’s evolution and the business reasons that led them to pivot on both occasions? And what is it that keeps the team together?
In another interview, Julián said that selling a little is worse than selling nothing, because the entrepreneur, being an optimist, believes they are close to their product taking off. How did this optimism show up in Julián during the stage before the last pivot?
How does Julián process and face failure, which usually pushes someone to make a pivot?

[22:22] - Product

Julián has also talked about the “problem of deferring the future,” alluding to entrepreneurs who have a vision but start with a product very different from what they want to do in the future. How does Julián avoid falling into “deferring the future” when designing and planning your product?
Challenging authority and the status quo has been present throughout Julián’s life, from his beginnings in astrophysics to questioning a study on breast cancer detection done at Stanford in the 1980s. How is this mindset reflected in the way they build product inside Eva? How do they identify when to follow the data and when to challenge it?
Given Julián’s experience in hardware and now software, how does he think about investing resources in bets where there is data, versus the bets that require a “leap of faith”?
Eva’s vision is “returning the patient to the center of healthcare systems,” but unlike its 2 initial products, the bras and the centers, today its customer is no longer the patient, but the healthcare provider: the lab, the clinic, the hospital, etc. How does Julián align his product team to build for the patient and prioritize the patient?

[45:20] - Leadership and Culture

Carlos Pendas told us about Julian’s ability to lead teams and get them to execute well above their personal level. How does Julian get the best out of his teams? And how does he balance being a leader with a high demand for quality, but without neglecting the human side?
When hiring, how does Julián measure a candidate’s passion for his vision?
Julián said multiple times that his way of learning is with books and the internet, but this way of learning is harder to apply with people. What has been his approach to learning interpersonal leadership, for example: hiring, team management, and communication?
Julián has a list of star investors, from Leonardo Di Caprio and Tony Robbins to Khosla and Kaszek. How does he actively involve his investors to get the best out of them?

[1:07:20] - Rapid-Fire Round

Books recommended by Julián
Changes Julián would like to see in Latin America’s startup ecosystem
Entrepreneur Julián recommends interviewing

Episode Mentions

You can find Julián on LinkedIn

Recommended books: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler