Hearing Tech Breakthroughs: Cochlear Implants and Medical Device Leadership with Brent Lucas

In this episode of The Healthy Enterprise, Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, shares his journey from lawyer to medical device executive and the evolution of Envoy’s pioneering hearing technologies. He discusses the challenges of leading innovation through clinical trials, navigating the shift from private to public, and the importance of community engagement. Brent also reflects on leadership lessons from sports, family entrepreneurship, and the power of patient stories in driving impact.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Envoy Medical and Brent Lucas
01:01 Brent's Journey in the Hearing Loss Industry
05:03 Transforming Envoy Medical's Product Line
09:04 The Impact of Cochlear Implants on Quality of Life
13:01 Navigating Clinical Trials and Market Readiness
15:10 Transitioning from Lawyer to CEO
18:03 Leadership Challenges and Personal Management
22:07 Family Influence and Entrepreneurial Spirit
23:35 Going Public: A Strategic Decision
24:24 Navigating the Public Market: Opportunities and Challenges
27:39 Community Impact: Building Jobs and Relationships
30:10 Leadership Lessons: From Sports to Business
33:58 Overcoming Obstacles: Personal Growth and Imposter Syndrome
36:19 Innovating with Technology: The Future of Medical Devices
41:41 Marketing Strategy: Organic Growth Through Patient Stories

Guest Information:

• Guest's Name: Brent Lucas
• Guest's Title/Position: Chief Executive Officer
• Guest's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-lucas-envoy/
• Company / Affiliation: Envoy Medical https://www.envoymedical.com/
• Guest's Bio: Brent  Lucas is CEO and Board Member of Envoy Medical, an early-stage medical device company pioneering fully implanted hearing solutions, including the Esteem® active middle ear implant and the investigational Acclaim® cochlear implant. A principled medical device executive with a legal background, Brent brings 15+ years of leadership across enterprise functions—spanning strategy, finance, compliance, stakeholder engagement, and product development. Known for his transparent and motivating leadership style, he has guided Envoy through organizational turnaround, fundraising, and global commercialization efforts. With a track record of building inspired teams, streamlining operations, and driving patient-focused innovation, Brent is dedicated to improving quality of life through breakthrough medical technologies.

Takeaways:

• Envoy Medical is a 30-year-old startup focused on hearing loss solutions.
• Brent Lucas became CEO during a pivotal transformation of the company.
• The company specializes in fully implanted hearing devices without external components.
• Cochlear implants can greatly enhance the quality of life for users.
• Navigating clinical trials is a lengthy but necessary process for product launch.
• Brent transitioned from a legal background to a leadership role in a medical device company.
• Effective communication is crucial for leadership success.
• Family influence played a significant role in Brent's entrepreneurial journey.
• The decision to go public was strategic for the company's growth.
• Brent emphasizes trusting instincts in decision-making as a CEO. Going public provides liquidity options for investors and employees.
• Community engagement is crucial for company culture and job creation.
• Leadership lessons can be learned from unexpected places, like sports.
• Imposter syndrome is a common challenge for leaders.
• Innovating with technology is essential in the medical device industry.
• Patient demand for fully implanted devices is expected to be high.
• Organic marketing through patient stories can be powerful.
• The transition to public markets comes with both opportunities and challenges.
• Maintaining focus on core products is vital for success.
• The surgical process for the new device is outpatient and efficient.
  
  

Creators and Guests

Host

Heath Fletcher

With over 30 years in creative marketing and visual storytelling, I’ve built a career on turning ideas into impact. From brand transformation to media production, podcast development, and outreach strategies, I craft compelling narratives that don’t just capture attention—they accelerate growth and drive measurable results.

Guest

Brent Lucas

Brent Lucas is CEO and Board Member of Envoy Medical, an early-stage medical device company pioneering fully implanted hearing solutions, including the Esteem® active middle ear implant and the investigational Acclaim® cochlear implant. A principled medical device executive with a legal background, Brent brings 15+ years of leadership across enterprise functions—spanning strategy, finance, compliance, stakeholder engagement, and product development. Known for his transparent and motivating leadership style, he has guided Envoy through organizational turnaround, fundraising, and global commercialization efforts. With a track record of building inspired teams, streamlining operations, and driving patient-focused innovation, Brent is dedicated to improving quality of life through breakthrough medical technologies.

Producer

Meghna Deshraj

Meghna Deshraj is the CEO and Founder of Bullzeye Media Marketing, where she partners with eCommerce brands, healthcare institutions, and small businesses to scale profitably without outside funding. Under her leadership, Bullzeye has driven over $580M in annual growth and more than $1B in collective direct revenue for its clients. With a background spanning corporate strategy, IT, finance, and process optimization, Meghna brings a unique blend of data-driven marketing expertise and operational leadership. A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt with deep experience in program management and business transformation, she has successfully led global teams, large-scale integrations, and organizational change initiatives. Her superpower lies in marketing strategy and consulting, fueled by a passion for helping businesses grow through innovation, efficiency, and strong client relationships.

What is The Healthy Enterprise?

Join host Heath Fletcher on The Healthy Enterprise as he explores how healthcare leaders and innovators are transforming the industry from the inside out. Whether you’re a provider, tech entrepreneur, marketing strategist, or industry executive, these conversations deliver actionable strategies, innovative solutions, and human-centered insights to help you grow, lead, and make a lasting impact.

Created and produced by Bullzeye Growth Partners — let’s make something great together.

Heath Fletcher (00:12)
Hello there, welcome to The Healthy Enterprise. If you're a return listener, thank you for coming back. And if this is your first visit, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode. My guest today is Brent Lucas. Brent has spent most of his professional life in the hearing loss industry, originating in a family-owned business with his parents. He worked alongside them for several years.

At some point the company transformed into Envoy Medical as it is known today. He's been there for 18 years and nine years ago became the CEO when they made a major transformation and are in the process of now of delivering a new product to the market. It's going to be an interesting story. So I hope you enjoy it and ⁓ let's meet Brent.

So Brent, welcome to this episode. I really appreciate you joining me and ⁓ get, I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to listeners and about where you got to where you're at now as CEO with Envoy and talk about Envoy and what you're doing in the hearing loss ⁓ industry right now.

Brent Lucas (01:23)
Well, great. Yes, pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation. Yeah, so the best way to describe Envoy, and I guess my journey is to start from the beginning. Envoy is a 30-year-old startup company. It was founded in 1995 when I was a middle school kid going into high school. quite, you know, I'm a 44-year-old man now, so this has been quite a journey. My father was

one of the first outside investors of that company in 1995. that company back then was called St. Croix Medical. They were coming together, a group of former Medtronic folks were coming together to create the world's first fully implanted device, for a hearing device, world's first fully implanted hearing device that did not use a microphone but used the ear to pick up sound. That was sort of the founding idea of Envoy Medical. From there,

the company started to grow and I became involved in the company in about 2007. Actually working for the company when I was then in law school. Started working here in the summers as an intern, doing some marketing work, some nonprofit work, slowly getting into a variety of different things around the business. That process led me to understand there were a lot of opportunities for the company to where I could really contribute.

a lot of openings, if you will, that were not being filled that I felt I could add value to the overall organization. And since my father and my mother had invested so much of their hard-earned money in the company, I really wanted to see it come to fruition. So in 2009, I passed the bar. I became the lawyer for the company and House Counsel. I was doing that for a little bit.

then decided I didn't want to be a lawyer, which I always kind of knew I didn't want to be a lawyer. You who does want to be a lawyer, I guess.

Heath Fletcher (03:25)
or a marketer, you start with-

Brent Lucas (03:28)
We've got to find ourselves in these positions, right? The world sort of leads you in a direction and there you are. ⁓ But it got to a point where the company was struggling commercially and really didn't make sense to me, frankly, because it is such an amazing technology, our device, that I didn't understand why it wasn't doing better. So I wanted to move and go into the field. And so I did that.

and started, you know, sort of carrying a bag, if you will. We called it business development, but it's really more of a sales rep role, traditional sales rep role, going around and really talking to customers, trying to understand what's going on. And from there, got a much better sense of the company and company's challenges, who our customers were. But then the company went through a period where we weren't really sure if we were going to keep going. So in 2015, the company

got to a point where we looked at ourselves and said, boy, should we really continue beating our head against the wall with this first product or should we do something different or should we go bankrupt or should we sell ourselves? So the company was at a crossroad in 2015 and what happened was I essentially went to our largest investor at the time and said, I have a fantastic idea but it's only gonna cost you $20 million to fund it.

Will you go forward? And shockingly, he said yes, I became the CEO. And that's what we've been up to for the last 10 years, basically.

Heath Fletcher (05:03)
Wow. So, ⁓ explain the product at that time. Where was it at then and what was your idea? How did you morph it to the next stage?

Brent Lucas (05:16)
So, Envoy is, when you break Envoy down to what is it, why are we here, and why have we been able to survive 30 years of ups and downs, it comes to the fact that we make fully implanted hearing devices that don't use a microphone but actually use the ear to pick up sound. So, our first product, it was called the Esteem. It's a fully implanted active middle ear implant. And what we did was we took the sensor that was in that Esteem and put it with a cochlear implant, essentially.

So for people who aren't familiar with the hearing space, middle ear implants are very niche market right now. Cochlear implants are an accepted therapy that have been out there. They have existing reimbursement codes, existing market acceptance, and it's just a very well-known therapy. So we said, let's take that sensor that everybody's been telling us is wonderful and put it with a cochlear implant. And that's what we did in 2015. So that is now called the Acclaim.

It's a fully implanted cochlear implant. are in pivotal clinical trials right now at seven investigational sites across the US. And we're positioning ourselves to disrupt, or I believe disrupt, the current players in the market because their current technologies are partially implanted and have a large external on the outside. So essentially, guess, looking back 2015, we said, we've spent 20 years on something that's pretty great.

and we know the technology is good. Commercially not a viable product because there was a lack of insurance reimbursement for it. Plus we have made some other mistakes, but let's just throw most of the blame on the lack of insurance. But let's take that sensor, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater if you will, so let's take that sensor that everybody's been telling us is a golden implantable microphone, take that and put it with a cochlear implant and now you got yourself a real product.

And that's what we've done and we're really positioned quite well to take advantage of it.

Heath Fletcher (07:19)
And it's, it in the market now? People are, you're still, you said you're still at clinical trials right now?

Brent Lucas (07:26)
Yes, so currently we're in pivotal clinical trials. There's including our feasibility study and then our pivotal clinical study. We have 13 patients implanted. Things are going quite well. ⁓ Obviously we need to go through the full study to really talk about the data and hopefully prove our primary and secondary endpoints and see where we land. But I feel very good about things. I feel like we made the right choice.

Boy, I tell you that, you know, the hearing, medical device industry, and then you throw on top of that, the hearing industry, it's not for the faint of heart. So it's been quite a journey, but I feel like we're, well positioned now to take advantage of the future.

Heath Fletcher (08:04)
Well, and particularly when you were at a fork in the road where you were like, well, what do we just stop here? Or do we keep going? I you're probably at the point where it's like that, that step to the next level was a giant leap was a faith to take it to this, to go this route. Right.

Brent Lucas (08:20)
Right. mean, if you think where we were in 2015, I used to have these numbers well memorized, but paid in capital at that point, probably around $150 million to $175 million. And then to say at that period of time to say, you know what, let's basically start over with a new product and take an additional capital and have to raise more. Now we're at about $250 million in paid in capital.

⁓ So again, these medical devices are not for the faint of heart. You really do need to be committed, but the opportunity is quite large and the ability to impact people's lives is really second to none.

Heath Fletcher (09:04)
And this, so this device, the new one, once you get through that, it's actually available to people. So the level of ⁓ hearing loss, is it for complete loss? Is it for partial loss or all of the above?

Brent Lucas (09:19)
So the cochlear implants and ours, I'll just really talk about ours because there's a little bit of varying indications among the different manufacturers. But our device is for severe to profound hearing loss. So these are people who have worn, typically have worn hearing aids prior in their life. And those hearing aids are no longer doing enough for them because they have progressed to have such a higher degree of hearing loss that they need something different.

So the way I talk about it is if in the United States we have about 40 to 50 million people who have some form of hearing loss that's impacting their life. So they notice it. Of that 40 to 50 million, probably two and a half to four million people could be cochlear implant candidates. So these are truly people that have no other therapeutic option at the moment. aids are not doing it for them. So they really have the choice. I either just do nothing, right? Keep doing nothing.

or I keep spending money on these expensive hearing aids that are really not doing it for me because they can't give me enough signal or I move to a cochlear implant. And now what we're saying is we can offer patients the opportunity to have a fully implanted cochlear implant, but there's nothing on the outside of your head at all. You can wear it 24 seven, you can wear it in the shower, you can wear it when you go swimming. All of the benefits of sort of a typically normally hearing person, know, quote unquote, normally hearing person.

you can have that even though you're profoundly deaf. So I think we're going to be in a really good position to take advantage of where the patient wants the industry to go, even if the industry itself is not yet moving there.

Heath Fletcher (10:58)
Yeah. That's a substantial change in the quality of their life. mean, when you go from, mean, unless someone's actually experienced it and knows what it's like to live with that kind of a hearing loss. I mean, that that's a dream come true, right?

Brent Lucas (11:13)
I think so. I've talked to enough patients over our first product, even though it wasn't a commercial success, we did implant about thousand patients with that first product. And their reaction to having a fully implanted system, they talk about their shoulders sort of dropping, right? So when you're constantly trying to hear through your hearing aids or your head hearing loss, you kind of tighten up. You're always trying to pay attention to what somebody's saying to you and that level of anxiety and stress.

So when you can hear again without having something on the outside, you don't have to give that listening effort as they call it. So that's a quality of life improvement. I also point to things like single parents. So if you have a young child or maybe you're not a young child, maybe you're out of your home, you're an elderly person and you're in your home by yourself, being able to hear at night, we all take it for granted, but being able to hear at night is a huge deal. So traditional cochlear implants and many hearing aids,

you have to take them off at night. And people forget that very simple point that they've taken off their hearing, they've set it aside. You're wearing glasses, for example, I don't know the level of your vision loss, but my father, if he took his glasses off and put them on the bed stand, if he had to wake up in the middle of the night, he better find those glasses or he's gonna run it.

Heath Fletcher (12:30)
Yeah, the same way. Yeah, there's no, can't, I can't drive. can't, you know, yeah, exactly. You're, you're disabled basically from being able to see anything. So yeah, same idea. Yeah.

Brent Lucas (12:43)
Right, so we really feel like now we're going to give people the opportunity to address their hearing loss without being tethered to that hearing loss and at least have the option for that. know, they don't have to move their device, but now they have the option and I think this is going to be a big deal and that's why I'm so bullish on our future.

Heath Fletcher (13:01)
Yeah. So the projection would, uh, how far are you away from being in the market? You know, is it a year or less?

Brent Lucas (13:08)
⁓ Unfortunately, these pivotal trials take a while and the hearing aid or sorry, the hearing implant way that these trials are run is typically a 12 month follow up period. So ⁓ we've done 10 patients in our first stage of the pivotal. Now we have to wait a couple of months. FDA agreed to our IDE with a staged clinical trial, meaning we'll do 10 patients, wait a little bit, make sure everything looks okay, ⁓ and then expand it into the remaining 46. ⁓

56 patients. So hopefully we're going to get that expansion into the second stage in the fall, late fall, which will allow us then to go out and plant those 46 patients and follow them. So if you put all the math together and I put it on a timeline, you're going to see us commercial hopefully at the end of 2027 or beginning of 2028.

Heath Fletcher (13:38)
⁓ I see,

Yeah. I mean, that's a big leap, right? That's there's a lot of time waiting there, collecting data. Yeah. That's a test of patience.

Brent Lucas (14:06)
You're right,

I get, so we're a public company now, which is the whole story in itself. I go around and talk to investors and bankers and ⁓ analysts. It's interesting because the hearing industry is not well known in the US. ⁓ I was just reading an article about the Danish companies, they call it the Silicon Valley of sound because there's three hearing aid companies in Denmark.

⁓ in that area. And then you have the implant companies that exist right now are in ⁓ Australia, Switzerland and Austria. So there's really not an American implant company. So people don't really understand the process. But as we go through this, yeah, it's a lot of waiting, but the barrier to entry to get into this is pretty substantial. So once we're all the way through it, we're going to have quite a head start on folks.

Heath Fletcher (15:10)
So talk a bit about your personal experience going from the lawyer to the CEO. ⁓ there ⁓ a big step for you to make that transition and how did that work out?

Brent Lucas (15:25)
So I started law school, you know, sort of not in, I didn't know, I didn't think, again, I didn't want to be a lawyer. I didn't really think I was going to be a trial lawyer. It's not like I was reading John Grisham novels and hoping ⁓ to be litigating in court. But I looked at it as sort of my version of an MBA. So as I was going through the process, I really spent a lot of time learning about

corporate law, healthcare law, because I was just sort of preparing myself for eventually I want to go into the medical device field, healthcare field. ⁓ This would be a good way of doing that. So the best part about law school is it really helped me learn how to advocate for a certain position. It really helped me learn to communicate via writing, ⁓ you know, effectively.

These kind of things we sort of take for granted, but if you're a leader of an organization and you can't do that, you can't communicate effectively, you got bigger problems, right? So I think that was the best part of law school for me was learning that. Outside of that, going from where I was as the lawyer, because it was a startup company and we were doing, know, everybody wears so many hats, it really wasn't that big of a transition because I hadn't been exposed to so much of it. But I would say probably the biggest piece of it is when you become the CEO,

Heath Fletcher (16:42)
Right.

Brent Lucas (16:47)
you're responsible for everything. So you get the credit, but you also get the blame. ⁓ And it's a pretty lonely position at times. So that was probably the one big change, is just learning that you're really responsible for the organization. You don't have anybody else. You have the board, obviously, but you don't really have anybody else to help you make the right decision.

Heath Fletcher (17:12)
What do you do to help to get yourself through those moments where you're feeling on your own and you're kind of, yeah, you get brought every problem that comes across the table. how do you personally manage that stuff? Because that can be sometimes a bit of a burden to take on for the entire corporation, right? So what do you do?

Brent Lucas (17:34)
Well, I have a great wife at home that makes, you know, our personal life is always in great order ⁓ and she's a very intelligent person that can help me sort of come back to earth when I get a little too stressed out. So that's very important and great. I'm surrounded by an excellent team of people here in the building, but also I have a great board of directors and some very key advisors. But in those moments when it's, you know,

Okay, a decision needs to be made and not every decision can be made by committee. I really try to trust my gut. You know, I've been around long enough. I've been the CEO now for about 10 years. I've been at the company since 2007, been around it in one form or another since 95. So my DNA is envoy. You know, I bleed blue to some degree, right? Yeah. So I try to trust my gut because when I really do what's right,

for the patient, for the company, and put everything together, I have a pretty good sense of the decisions that need to be made. I think my decisions have gone poorly if I try to think about, you know, what would somebody else do? Or what would a big company do in this situation? Those are when we make mistakes. One of our biggest strengths right now is that we're a startup company. We can move quickly. ⁓

you know, we're 50 people, if a decision needs to be made, we can make that decision in five, 10 minutes, you know, on a fast side of things, where, you know, company like Medtronic, if they want to change the font in a particular IFU, for example, they're gonna, it's gonna take 100 people and take them three, four weeks to do that process, right? So, we can move quickly and we try to take advantage of that. And I try to really listen to my gut and ultimately that comes down to,

know, pointing ourselves in the direction of what's best for the patient and that takes care of most of

Heath Fletcher (19:32)
Yeah, interesting that you've got the, you've got the experience behind you that may have infused those instincts that you have. And you talk about you're a startup, but you're a startup with like 30 some odd years of experience behind you. Right? So there's ⁓ maybe a startup with confidence, maybe is that fair to say.

Brent Lucas (19:53)
Sure, that's fair. you know, I would also my so my father was a an executive at a company called R &D Systems that then became Techni, which now calls itself biotech me. It's very successful biotechnology company here in Minnesota. And I saw him when I was very young, in grade school and middle school, I saw them going through and him going through a period where it was very

quiet, know, people were very unsure, is this going to work out? The stock for their company was quite low for a period. And then you start to get signs of success, right? And it starts to just ratchet it up slowly, but the belief has to be there the entire time. And so that self-confidence or that confidence in our mission to do what we're after, I think I saw it once and I saw it, I saw the movie, right? I saw it, saw it's happy in the end. I saw it's got a good ending.

So now I can say we just really need to continue moving forward and we have a real shot to have that ending for ourselves.

Heath Fletcher (20:59)
Yeah, I mean, it's cool. Your parents must've instilled, you know, ⁓ a really good perception of what their work life was like. Cause often you hear that people grow up around entrepreneur families where they have a family business and you know, it's like, my God, I do not want to work at my family business or I do not want the life my parents had. So your parents must've actually presented, you know, their experience as entrepreneurs and business owners. ⁓

was maybe an attractive option for you once you got to the point where you're ready to decide what to do.

Brent Lucas (21:37)
I you know, I had some of those feelings where, I don't want to do what my dad did. Yeah, and he was working quite a bit. So I didn't get to see him all the time. He put in a lot of hours and, I travel a lot. I, I have two kids. I understand, I understand the sacrifices and the trade-offs, but I also saw the ability for him to impact so many lives, even just the amount of jobs that that company has been able to create.

Heath Fletcher (21:41)
Yeah, we all do.

Brent Lucas (22:07)
the economic value he was able to bring to our family and family and friends around us who believed in him, you realize that you have a really great opportunity. So the struggles in the short term, I've seen it pay off in the long term and I'm really trying to embrace that. But I would say in the moment, boy, I didn't want to become my father and I'm slowly but surely becoming my father in a lot of different ways. ⁓

But hey, there are worse things in the world.

Heath Fletcher (22:38)
Yeah, your father, but a new and improved version perhaps, right?

Brent Lucas (22:43)
Right, that's the goal, right? Yeah. That's my goal.

Heath Fletcher (22:46)
And

that's the goal for every parent too is like, long you turn out better than I did, I did my job, right?

Brent Lucas (22:51)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So just one step above, right? No, and I, um, but it was, it was great to see that success. And if I didn't see that, I do think it would have been difficult for me at this point in time. You know, we, the envoy had some tough, tough years there, especially that 2015, 16, 17 period where I was like, boy, what are we going to do? Um, you really,

You need to have some success stories where you can point to and say, we just need to do that. And if we can get to that point and we can tell people our story, eventually it's going to catch ⁓ on. the product works. There are people out there that want it. We just need to get it there.

Heath Fletcher (23:35)
Was going public one of those solutions during that timeframe where it's like, you got to decide, uh, well, we're going to have to go public here. So, you know, was that a tough decision or w did it work out?

Brent Lucas (23:46)
It was a tough decision and I would say whether it worked out or not is ⁓ TBD, right?

Heath Fletcher (23:53)
Yeah, the ending isn't here yet. We're still in the middle of the story.

Brent Lucas (23:57)
Right,

exactly. This is the middle of the book. I would say we went public for a variety of different reasons. One of them was we were at that point a 28 year old startup company, And there are people who had been investors for 28 years who would really be nice to have some liquidity in this. And then we had employees coming to us saying, it'd really be nice to have more.

equity that I could see appreciate. you know, why should I stay with this startup company when Medtronic, which is 15, 20 minutes away, you know, offers package X. Right. And so having that, having options in a public company is a valuable asset for us to retain talent. ⁓ and I'm not saying go public just so you can do that because it's, there's a lot of headaches that come with it. Sure. The other part of it is, ⁓ we have a very, we have,

an angel of all angel investors in Glenn Taylor, who's a billionaire investor here in Minnesota. And he's been supporting us almost single-handedly now for the last 15 years. ⁓ And we got to a point where, you know, that we knew that can't continue forever for him, for the company. It's just, we needed other people. getting to that public market allows people to get on and off the train a little bit faster. So

You know, can have a small retail investor who wants to take a position in the company. We can raise capital through secondary offerings. We have a few more tools in the tool belt being a public company. The downside is, ⁓ you know, there's a lot of compliance related to it. So there's additional costs and then you have to be transparent. So your competitors know where you're at. Had I, if I had a perfect

you know, could I do it all over again and I can choose where we went public? I probably would have gone public closer to the FDA approval process just because there wouldn't be this sort of gray area where we're waiting for it. But a lot of biotechnology companies go public early. A lot of drug companies go public early preclinical. So it's just, it's not as usual for medical device, but it's there. But so far I think it was the right choice.

It's just some days, boy, I have to beat my head against the wall to say, my gosh, we have to do, you know, spend time doing this. This doesn't really add value to the company. We're only doing it because we're public. On days like that, I get a little frustrated, but ultimately it was the right choice for liquidity purposes for our investors who had been around for so long, but also for the employees.

Heath Fletcher (26:40)
Yeah, well, essentially you bring up a few things because you guys have a track record. you have some, yeah, you have a resume as a company ⁓ in that field. So going public, that was probably something that a lot of people would have done their research on and understood that this is a space that you guys occupy already. You're not a startup that is brand new to the market or brand new to the industry. So that would, I also really enjoyed. ⁓

that you talked about, um, that your parents provided, um, not only a product for end users, but also created, um, jobs and, and invested in your own community and provided, you know, much more. I think a lot of people forget about that, that sure, you're providing, you're creating a product, uh, for an end user or, whether it's a customer or another business, but you know,

as a company, as an organization, you're actually creating a place for people to make a living, to build a family, to grow into a community, and that's a really important part of that. as a company, are there things that you can participate in as a company at your local level, community level, or anywhere else like that?

Brent Lucas (28:01)
Yeah, ⁓ so the company, we have ⁓ a growing number of young families in our company, you know, which is really great to see, feel like I'm slowly becoming the old guy in the company. I can't believe. So we have people that are like, I'm turning 25. my goodness, I can't you know, or getting married is geez. ⁓ So, but it's really

Heath Fletcher (28:16)
Don't you love that?

Brent Lucas (28:30)
It really warms my heart when somebody says, you know, I want to come work for Envoy and I believe in you. I believe in the company. There's this sense of responsibility to those employees is pretty high. I love when we meet, you know, their spouses or their significant others at or their kids even at, you know, we have holiday events. We do sporting events together. And when we see those people and we get to talk to them, that's really, that's a lot of fun.

And it's also, but it's also a great responsibility to think, okay, going back to when you're making those decisions, the impact of those decisions ripples through a tremendous amount of people's lives. ⁓ But that's actually a part I really like. I really like that responsibility. And I think it makes me make better choices. ⁓ We're in Minnesota. ⁓

White Bear Lake, is about 20 minutes north of the Minneapolis airport. We are trying to grow within that community. ⁓ We have a headquarters here. People are starting to move and live around the company. I think right now we're about 50 people involved a little bit with the University of Minnesota, involved a little bit with Mayo Clinic, which is in Rochester, Minnesota.

I believe that as we grow, we'll be able to add hundreds of jobs in this area and really get more connected to the community. ⁓ Interns, summer interns for some of the high schools and colleges and things like that. So we do plan to be really weaved into the fabric of Minnesota ⁓ in the short term and in the long term.

Heath Fletcher (30:10)
For you, a big part of being a CEO is ⁓ you're the leader. You are leader of not only your management team, but your leadership infuses right down to whoever sweeps the floor. ⁓ What is it about your leadership that you think is appealing to everybody in your organization and where do you get your

leadership inspiration? know, do you have mentors? Do you listen to lot of podcasts? Like what do you do to keep yourself sort of in the current as far as your leadership style?

Brent Lucas (30:56)
Well, I think part of it for me has been I played high school football ⁓ for one of the worst teams in Minnesota. We just would get smoked all the time. And I tell you the lessons that I learned on that football field about even though the score is not going in the right direction, or even though the game is not necessarily there, we're not going to go to state, you know, you're really

You gotta look around, you're doing it for yourself, like the performance of yourself, but also the people around you. There are some great lessons that I learned there that I've tried to take forward. ⁓ One of them is, is you're ask anything of anybody, you better be willing to do it yourself. ⁓ You have to walk the walk. ⁓ You can't just be one of these people, and I've worked for a few people, or been around them, where they, you I went to such and such school, and I got such and such degree from that school.

you're all going to listen to me now. That doesn't go very far. And people don't think very highly of you. So you have to be willing to do it. We go to happy hours. You know, if, you're around me for too long, I'm definitely going to use a lot of curse words at some point. you know, I just tried to, I'm just a normal guy and I'm not putting on airs. And I think, I think that helps me connect with folks, but I really believe that they know that I'm honest too. At the end of the day, I don't,

I'm not known to be full of it and I try to be honest, tell it the way it is, good or bad. And ⁓ that seems to go pretty far. In terms of mentors, I have a great board of directors. Glenn Taylor has been around. He's a billionaire who's built a lot of businesses himself over the years. Just his approach and how he listens to everybody, I've really tried to take that in.

I don't force myself into a conversation. don't try to control the conversation. really let it come to me. And I got that from him. ⁓ My father was great in making sure you value the other people around you. Try to be the dumbest person in the room. I'm pretty good at that most of the time. just taking those little bits and pieces. Podcasts listen to all the time.

I'm really more into comedy podcasts just sort of take a mental break. So I can't say I can't really ⁓

Heath Fletcher (33:23)
Yeah

Brent Lucas (33:27)
But no, it's great to hear stories like this. I'm also in a, like I keep saying, I'm from Minnesota. There's an ⁓ email group of about 30 or 40 of us, sort of small company CEOs. We pick each other's brains, get together every once in a while. And that's been really great as well.

Heath Fletcher (33:46)
If you can pinpoint one of your biggest obstacles in your career, what was it and, ⁓ and what did you, ⁓ what did you do to get past that?

Brent Lucas (33:58)
I would say there was a period, and I'm to have to be careful how much I say here, because you've to buy the book eventually when this is all out.

Heath Fletcher (34:07)
Any names were used were not the real people's names

Brent Lucas (34:14)
When I was here ⁓ first as the lawyer, what I left out in my journey a little bit there is I actually resigned for a year because, ⁓ kind of voluntarily resigned because I didn't see eye to eye with the management team at the time. ⁓ Was away for a year, that management team was replaced and then I came back. That was a very difficult period. ⁓ And I

I'm glad that it happened because it really informed part of who I am and what I want to be. ⁓ But it was very difficult. mean, these are difficult, sometimes very personal situations where you love a company or you love what they're doing and you're not in a position to make a difference. It can be difficult. ⁓ And I would just say to continue going forward and

You know, things tend to kind of work themselves out, which they have for us. ⁓ But that was a big obstacle. I think imposter syndrome, which gets thrown around all the time. But, you know, for a period of time there, I would go into talk to an investor. I'd go talk to a group of people and I would think, they don't really want to hear from me because who am I? But after a period of time, you start to realize, they...

Heath Fletcher (35:18)
yeah, yeah.

Brent Lucas (35:35)
They do. They want to know about this company or they want to know about your technology and there's nothing wrong about talking to them about it. So I would say those are kind of the two things that stick out.

Heath Fletcher (35:49)
When you're talking about the technology side of things, ⁓ this new product of yours is obviously innovative. You're using some new technology. ⁓ What other technology are you leveraging right now? mean, AI has made an infusion into almost everybody's industry and business. Automation. Is there anything else you're tapping into with this new product now that you're middle of ⁓ bringing it out?

Brent Lucas (36:19)
So we haven't tapped into the AI directly into our product. And part of the cool part of our device is that you can use the ear to pick up sound. So because you can use the ear to pick up sound, you can put things in your ear. And so we're actually sort of banking on AirPods, hearing aids, other things progressing on the AI side very, very quickly. And then our device being able to sort of leverage that, right?

Heath Fletcher (36:46)
Okay

Brent Lucas (36:47)
So we'll build the device that lets you hear through the ear and then we'll let those consumer electronic companies really, because they're going to be able to go way faster than we are. you know, real time translation, things like that, like just let them put it in your ear. So we intend to piggyback off some of that. I think it'll be a good symbiotic relationship and we intend to piggyback off some of that. ⁓ We have a rechargeable battery. you know, we will be looking for

updates to technology related to battery life, ⁓ how fast you can charge a battery efficiently and safely, things like that. Those will be on the front of our minds. ⁓ And then very specifically in hearing, telehealth or teleaudiology is a topic that keeps coming up. So we will continue to be interested in how rules and regulations change around that because that's a big thing for our industry and I hope that continues to evolve.

Heath Fletcher (37:47)
⁓ Interesting too, you brought that up. was medical sensor sensory devices too about ⁓ devices that can pick up things like body temperature, heart pulse, things like that to advance this telehealth, telemedicine and sort of ⁓ full spectrum analysis of a person's personal health and wellness day to day lifestyle.

and collecting data for that aspect. Is that something you could possibly venture into too?

Brent Lucas (38:24)
We filed some IP around the ability to do some of that. ⁓ It's not in our current device, but you can figure out that if you're implanting it in, you got an implanted device. It's already in there. It'd kind of be a shame not to try to pick up some other things if you can't one way, right?

Heath Fletcher (38:44)
Especially around the head, maybe with neuroscience and things like that.

Brent Lucas (38:50)
Exactly. Body temperature. There's a lot of interesting things to think about, about what we can do. ⁓ And then the combination of technologies eventually. mean, you could have a, right now we're hearing therapy, but just throwing a crazy idea out there, there's epilepsy monitor devices that are implanted. Well, maybe you could do both or diabetes devices, diabetes monitor. mean, there's a lot of, as you start to think about it,

Heath Fletcher (38:51)
Bye.

Brent Lucas (39:19)
can get very interesting very quickly. I really try to keep the team though highly focused on what we're set out to do because it is such a large lift already, like let's not get too carried away. But once we're commercial and we got approval for the hearing implant, you can start to think about bells and whistles to add.

Heath Fletcher (39:37)
percent.

Yeah, interesting. And maybe someone I'll come up with a pattern. You know how you can charge your cell phone on a tablet? You have a pillow that does that.

Brent Lucas (39:52)
Yeah, yeah, I'm really sorry about it.

Heath Fletcher (39:55)
HIP

Brent Lucas (39:56)
We've thought about it. know, one of the technologies that's that it's, it's not there yet because cookler implants use so much electricity that you really need a, you need a lot of energy. But what will be pretty cool eventually is, know, just having a charger that you sort of set in the room somewhere, not even on your pillow, but say across the room. And while you're sleeping at night, your, your implantable devices are being charged. That'll be pretty cool. They need a lot more hurdles to get over to get there. But I know some companies are working on it.

Heath Fletcher (40:27)
Yeah, innovation is not, there's no shortage of people coming up with crazy cool ideas out there right now. It's just, it's out of this world. Yeah. It's like from the pages of science fiction, you know, when, when we were kids, it's like a lot of the things that are happening right now. It's like we're in books and movies and, comics, you know, it's like, we're now with the future is here.

Brent Lucas (40:50)
Absolutely. mean, the bionic man, right? It's coming and it will, I think, trickle. mean, the hardest part or the slowest part of this process is the regulatory pathway. mean, is. have to obviously make them... Coming up with the idea is one thing, putting it in form and function and going through the process is another. hopefully we all get better at doing that more quickly and we should be all right.

Heath Fletcher (41:18)
So once you get to the point where you can actually take this to market, then you can go back to your marketing roots and ⁓ take those up and then you can start marketing. So how are you going to approach that once you get to that point? When it gets to the time, so fast forward, we're ready to go, what's that look like for you? How do you want to approach that?

Brent Lucas (41:41)
I want to approach it from a very organic place, I believe. think I have a very strong, again, trusting my gut here, I have a very strong belief that the patient demand is going to be off the charts for a fully implanted hearing device, especially a fully implanted cochlear implant. I think the stories, the patient stories that come out of that are going to be very powerful. So really relying on that sort of organic process of the patients going through the process.

telling their story, explaining why it's important, we'll touch other patients that go through this. Until we really have a competitor that has the same or similar device, and right now I don't think that because the partially implanted devices are fundamentally different, and the other people coming after us with fully implanted cochlear implants, they do it differently, and I think they've made some design choices that are gonna really allow us to differentiate ourselves.

So I'm not going to be forcing the topic down people through, you know, aggressive ad campaigns or anything like that. Really trying to look at letting the patients tell their stories and then getting that message out there. think that's going to be where we start. ⁓ Also very controlled release. So for us, we do not need to sell hundreds of thousands of devices. We only need to sell a couple of thousand in the beginning to do very, very, very well. So we will focus on

quality and going deep with our surgeon audiology partners at certain centers, making sure they get very good results and then helping replicate that at new centers. So we'll be going, ⁓ that's kind of the idea and really letting the system slowly build into something great and not making any unforced errors. I think that's where companies like Envoy can set themselves back is getting too carried away and creating some unforced errors.

Heath Fletcher (43:36)
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, that's a good strategy. You'll have 50 some odd stories to tell at the end of the... Yeah, 56. Yeah, exactly. 100%. 100 % positive stories to tell.

Brent Lucas (43:45)
That's right. 56.

Well, even if they're not 100 % positive, there's always a very interesting like, why didn't you get a partially implanted cochlear implant? Like, just tell us why. And one of the most powerful things somebody says to me is, I would have never gotten a cochlear implant if I had to wear that thing on the side of my head. Well, you know, tell me why. And just that alone.

makes me feel very strongly that Envoy's got a really great opportunity. Because if somebody was foregoing hearing because they did not want that external device, and now we can bring it to them, ⁓ I'm feeling pretty good about life.

Heath Fletcher (44:29)
Just curious, the implant process, how long is that? it an in and out thing? Is it in hospital for a couple of days? What does that look like?

Brent Lucas (44:41)
It's an outpatient procedure, so no hospital stay unless for some reason they have an adverse reaction to general anesthesia. So there is a chance, but almost never happens. The surgery itself, skin to skin is about two and a half hours. they're in and they're out. Not a terribly, or not, let me put it this way, not known to be a terribly painful procedure. Obviously people have different pain thresholds. ⁓ Some people talk about just needing an aspirin to sort of get over the head, the numbness.

other people it is kind of a pain to they feel like they were hit by a truck spectrum of that but in and out and in a day and then back to work in a couple of days it's it's it's not something where you're like need to take a month off and reorganize your life.

Heath Fletcher (45:28)
Interesting. Better than a hip transplant.

Brent Lucas (45:31)
Yes, and my mom had a knee, two knee transplants. It's far easier than that.

Heath Fletcher (45:36)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the outcome is instant to turn it on the next turn it on and away you go. Right. Interesting. Well, awesome Brent. This has been a awesome conversation. Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Do you have any final thoughts or takeaways for anybody to top it off with?

Brent Lucas (45:57)
You know, just say if people are interested in following the story, go to EnvoyMedical.com. You can follow us, you know, ⁓ our ticker to COCH if you're interested in following the company. I'm on LinkedIn. I talk probably more on their updates, more regular. So if you're interested in sort of seeing if the story ends happily, like I hope it does, follow us along. But no, I really appreciate the time and kind of having a long form chat here to talk about things. So thank you for the invitation.

Heath Fletcher (46:27)
Yeah, you're very welcome. yeah, I'll follow up with you. I want to hear what happens too. So we'll talk again maybe if I have a podcast in three years. see. If not, who knows. It's been a pleasure and I really appreciate your time and taking a chance to come on here and be on this episode. So thanks a lot, Yeah, great to meet you.

Brent Lucas (46:36)
Yeah.

Absolutely, thank you.

Heath Fletcher (46:54)
Okay, so Brent's one of those people that have the opportunity to join a family business and actually embraced it as opposed to running the other direction as some of us would. you know, he's gone into the medical device industry, which he says is challenging, but offers great opportunity. Some other takeaways was that Brent's law background actually helped him in corporate communication. And that's interesting too, because a lot of people do go to school for one thing.

but end up going in a completely different direction. But in almost every case have said that even though the education that they originally went for isn't field they're in, help them regardless. So that's a good advice to remember. Also trusting your instincts. He does tend to fall on that for making tough decisions, particularly when it came to going from private to public, which

for him was really important to provide liquidity for investors and employees, which is a good consideration when wondering if that would be a route to go. Community engagement is crucial for company culture. And he said, you can find leadership lessons in some of the most unexpected places. That would be a good quote.

So anyways, great conversation with Brent. I really appreciate learning from him about Envoy Medical. ⁓ Feel free to check out their website and connect with Brent on LinkedIn ⁓ if you need more information. Thanks for listening again to another episode of the Healthy Enterprise. Stay healthy and we will see you again soon. Thanks.