Insurance paperwork is delaying treatment for patients who don't have time to wait. One founder built a company to fix it.
In this entrepreneur interview, Dr. Joshua Upshaw — founder and CEO of Hidalgo Technologies and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience — shares how a family health crisis pushed him from academic research into healthcare entrepreneurship, why he trusts his gut more than any spreadsheet, and how he built his team around mission alignment instead of resumes.
Whether you're still validating your first idea or figuring out who belongs on your founding team, this conversation will change how you think about intuition, feedback, and timing.
Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open: Trust Your Gut
0:22 Welcome to the Startup Junkies Podcast
1:02 What Is Hidalgo Technologies? Fixing Insurance Prior Authorization
1:54 From Neuroscience to Health Tech: Josh's Origin Story
2:59 The Family Story That Sparked Hidalgo Tech
5:35 Why Josh Calls Himself a Problem Solver, Not a Scientist
8:57 Validating the Problem Through Customer Discovery
11:36 Building the Team: Finding the Right Technical Lead
14:55 Why Mission Alignment Matters More Than Skill
16:10 Handling Feedback, Ego, and Doubt as a Founder
19:00 Following Your Gut: Sifting Signal From Noise
21:09 Who Hidalgo Tech's Ideal Customer Is
21:56 Funding the Company: NSF Grants & Raising Capital
25:32 The Next Five Years for Hidalgo Tech
26:23 Advice to His Younger Self
About Joshua Upshaw: Founder and CEO of Hidalgo Technologies, reducing administrative overhead in insurance prior authorization so patients get treatment sooner. PhD in cognitive neuroscience and an alum of the University of Arkansas's New Venture Development program and Health Tech Arkansas.
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What is The Startup Junkies Podcast?
Candid conversations with the founders, operators, and investors building companies in Northwest Arkansas and beyond.
The Startup Junkies Podcast is hosted by Jeff Amerine, founder of Startup Junkie, a Northwest Arkansas organization that has provided no-cost consulting, programs, and events to entrepreneurs for more than 15 years. Each week Jeff and the Startup Junkie team sit down with people who have actually done it: first-time and serial founders, small business owners, investors, accelerator alumni, and the ecosystem builders working alongside them.
Expect real stories, not lectures. How they got started, how they found their first customers, how they raised money or chose not to, what nearly broke them, and what they would do differently. Topics range from validating an idea and finding capital to hiring, marketing, leadership, scaling, and selling the business.
With more than 450 episodes since 2015, the back catalog covers nearly every stage of building a company in Arkansas and the Mid-South. If you are starting something, growing something, or helping founders do either, this show is for you.
This feed also carries Querido Emprendedor, our Spanish-language founder series, and the Fuel Podcast, featuring companies from Startup Junkie's Fuel Accelerator.
New episodes weekly. Show notes, transcripts, and the full archive at startupjunkie.org/podcast.
Startup Junkie's mission: improving lives through innovation and entrepreneurship, from Northwest Arkansas around the globe.