Today we’d like to introduce you to Carl Natenstedt.
Hi Carl, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Hospitals in the United States throw away $5 Billion worth of medical and surgical supplies every year due to expiration. Z5 Inventory was founded with the mission to reduce that waste to $0. We help hospitals use more of what they already have by providing analytics and staff to help them identify how much excess they have on-hand, then find an outlet for it by moving supplies between hospitals, selling it, or donating it to a number of great charities that provide care to vulnerable communities worldwide. I’ve personally been in healthcare’s supply chain for more than twenty years, so after witnessing the waste problem firsthand for so long, it occurred to me that, if I didn’t try to fix it, maybe no one would.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest struggle in any business – especially a software-as-a-service company like Z5, who’s not always offering a physical product that solves a problem – is convincing the customer that they have a problem in the first place. We’ve put a lot of effort into showing our work. We’ve got the industrywide studies that show the overall waste in healthcare. We’ve got our own data and results that we can point to. But it’s still tough at the highest level for a CFO to hear, “You’re going to throw away $400,000 worth of product before you can use it.” And it’s tough at the local level for a surgeon to hear, “You’re going to throw away this box of sutures before you can use it.” Because it’s something far off that might happen, expiration is a hard pill to swallow. If you’ll excuse the phrasing.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’ve been an entrepreneur for the majority of my working life at this point. My first businesses were based in California, where I grew up and went to college. But the very first time that I traveled to Austin, I knew I was someplace special. I was drawn to the attitude of the businesspeople that I met, and obviously I loved the food. I don’t know how anyone could not. There’s something uniquely relaxed about Austin, and I immediately started talking to my wife about moving here. We’ve raised our sons here and gotten very involved in Westlake High School because of them. And now, when I bring people to Austin, I get a chance to show off all the things about this city that drew me to it in the first place, and I get to see them enjoy the atmosphere. And the food. Obviously.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
I saw a lot of businesses’ success hinge on the clarity of their product. When I started my first venture, I was part of a group of several start-ups overseen by a central investor, and the ones who made it made it because they had a good grasp on what they were offering. They’d had a good grasp on it from the beginning, which is why they built their products the way they did. I like to think that I was successful then – and that Z5 Inventory is successful now – for the same reason. It’s not all about buzzwords and optimization and synergy. It’s identifying a real, quantifiable problem and addressing it with a real, provable solution.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@Z5Inventory.com
- Website: https://www.Z5Inventory.com/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVMEJSREDhhkVIGddb7zgOg
Image Credits
Z5 Inventory
