What we talked about
Welcome back to The PreVetted Podcast, where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world.
Show notes
Raudel Wilson joins the PreVetted Podcast for episode 12.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01.26) Welcome to PreVetted Podcast, a blend of tech and leadership. Our goal is to explore the journeys and stories of our guests, revealing valuable insights about engineering and business, and sharing them with our community. Our guest today is Raudel Wilson. How are you doing, Raudel?
Raudel Wilson (00:19.603) I’m doing great Federico. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I’m excited
Federico Ramallo (00:24.152) Great, great, I’m excited to have you. We were talking before turning on the mic a little bit about what you’re doing and it sounds pretty exciting, but I’ll let you tell us a little bit more about what you guys are doing.
Raudel Wilson (00:41.267) Absolutely. So as you mentioned, my name is Riddell Wilson, and currently I serve as the global vice president of sales for ASPE Labs. ASPE Labs is a independent lab that’s located in Tampa, Florida. And what we do is we actually test products that have health benefits for people to prove the health claims that these come that these products say they do. So a quick example might be if you go into a store and
You see a supplement that says, know, this will help with your memory or, know, this will help you with building muscle or maybe even help with a growing hair or reducing wrinkles. Well, those companies are supposed to have an independent lab like ours actually test those products on real people and attract the progress of the testing to ensure it really does what it says it does. And so we have a team of scientists.
that actually recruit individuals like you and I, and will have us take these products under a controlled environment, and will measure the results of them taking those products. So that at the end, we’re able to tell companies, hey, good news, your product does reduce wrinkles by 20%, or it does improve someone’s memory by 10%. And then those companies can confidently go and sell them to the public, and actually even in their marketing messages say,
This has been proven clinically by an independent lab to improve your memory or to clear up your skin or to help grow muscle. And so my job at the company is to find companies that sell these types of products and then have our team of scientists actually test them.
Federico Ramallo (02:29.384) very interesting,
Raudel Wilson (02:31.026) Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (02:40.038) But so we’re called ASPI Labs and ASPI is actually an acronym. So it stands for Applied Science and Performance Institute. So for short ASPI. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (02:49.75) Right, right. I’m going to make a comparison. Probably it’s unfair, have you seen this? I don’t remember the name of these companies that they take cars and they do crash tests, right? So it’s similar concept, right? But with medicine, right?
Raudel Wilson (03:07.632) Yes, that’s right.
Raudel Wilson (03:12.786) It is, it is. And it’s actually been shown, and I’ve noticed especially since COVID, that people are much more aware of their health and not only their health internally, but even like their appearance. So beauty, I would say people are more aware of that. And it’s been shown that customers, when they go into a store, you can go in and find, I’m sure probably two dozen different supplements that say they help improve your memory.
or they help you grow muscle. But the difference is some of them will say this has been independently validated by a company. And here are the results. you know, actually they don’t just say it, but they actually can provide the results. And then there’s other companies that for whatever reason don’t do that. And so it’s been shown that consumers now have become more savvy about when they’re making decisions, do I pick A or B? If A has clinical results have been proven that they’re more likely to buy that product.
even if it costs more because it’s been shown clinically that it actually does work and they’re not just taking a chance that this product will work. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (04:20.716) Right. Right. And the reason I mentioned these companies, I don’t remember the name, where they test crashed the cars, is because they started doing that in the nineties, I think, 95. And then it’s shown that cars became safer and safer and safer. So just by publishing the results of, we crashed this car and you get injured.
Raudel Wilson (04:35.164) Mm-hmm.
Raudel Wilson (04:40.902) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (04:50.508) And now, you know, that generated demand for, well, want safer cars, right? And the reason I’m taking this analogy is because it’s very, you know, more easy for people to understand, right? And I believe that the same happened with medicine, right? Because now, if a medicine is over-promising and under-delivering, right, and you can show that that’s the case, then that’s…
Raudel Wilson (05:04.016) Yes, of course.
Federico Ramallo (05:20.472) triggers more, you know, to improve the product and to the competitors to also do the same, right? And at the end, you’re getting, you know, the impact you’re having on societies, you’re helping get better medicine for the people.
Raudel Wilson (05:34.259) That’s a very good point because I will tell you as I talk to these companies, you know, I talk to some that do similar work or whatnot, but they’re definitely, when one company comes out with a clinically proven product, it pushes another company to do the same, but to do it better. Because once again, when they’re thinking from the consumer standpoint, if they just replicate, our supplement also helps you with 10 % memory increase. Well, you know, they want to do it better. So either a higher percent,
or maybe in addition to memory, it does something else. But at the end of the day, it’s great for the consumers like you and I, because now we’re going into these stores, maybe you’re going to like a drug store or a supplement store, and you’re gonna see better and more improved products, you know, and the prices get more competitive, you have more options. So from a consumer standpoint, it’s really good for people like you and I, because these companies are really, you know, trying to do better than the other one so that they can get a leg up.
And our services sort of help them do that. It’s part of the puzzle to help them put out a great product.
Federico Ramallo (06:41.334) Right, right. And I’ve seen, you know, in the recent years, I’ve seen that science become this…
you know.
Science has been abused in the sense that you see in the news that they say, a report says this and this and that, which is not representative. So being able to bring to the people, the consumers, a more digested and trustworthy report based on quote unquote real science.
Raudel Wilson (07:07.634) huh, sure.
Raudel Wilson (07:24.486) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (07:25.11) You know, I think that’s very, very important, right?
Raudel Wilson (07:32.346) Agreed. I definitely agree.
Federico Ramallo (07:35.928) So what is the process that you guys do to test medicine?
Raudel Wilson (07:45.905) Yeah. Sure. So the process really starts, I’d say, kind of on my end, because my job, like I said, is first to find companies that, that produce a product that essentially has a health benefit for humans, you know, and most of the time we’re talking about supplements, know, nutraceuticals, but we also do cosmetic products, like I mentioned, like, so maybe clearing up your skin, growing hair, you know, maybe getting rid of redness in your skin, but
We can basically anything that has a health benefit for a human, we can test it. So stepping back, like I said, the first thing is for me to find a company or identify a company that makes these products. And then I end up talking to their internal science or research and development team. And most of the time I’m dealing with like a chief science officer, someone who’s in charge of the research department. And my job is to let them know about our services that we do this testing.
Once a company says, yes, we’re going to use your company, we’re going to use your services, our team will actually make it customized, what we call protocol. Like what are we going to actually do with your product? How are we going to test it? And once our team decides, okay, these are the sets we’re going to take, like let’s say ABC, they’ll also decide how many people they’re going to recruit, for how long the study is going to go for, and how often are we going to interact with people.
And that’s all driven by the product itself. Some products are very simple. Hey, you take this product and as long as you take it once a week, you’re going to see results. Some products are, you you have to take every day. Sometimes you take them three times a day. Some products take six months to see real results. So depending on the product itself is what will drive us to say how long the study is, how many people that we need for the study and how we’re going to interact with them.
Once we decide all that and we make that presentation to the client and they agree upon it, then we move forward. So our first job is to find people who could use this product. And, you know, so once again, if we’re, let’s say we’re talking about, you know, maybe increasing memory, you might find people who are, you know, have cognitive problems already. Maybe they’re an older population, maybe they’re pre Alzheimer’s. Once again, it sort of depends on the product, but
Raudel Wilson (10:14.288) we find we’re looking for people who will benefit from this supplement. Once we enroll those people and we screen them and make sure they’re eligible, then we actually go through the process of administering, they come to our labs and we administer the supplement to them. And it depends, they may be there for 10 minutes, they might be there for an hour. Once again, it kind of depends on the supplement to see like, is there adverse reactions or whatnot? And then basically we’re interacting with these people over the course of the
the study. So it might be a one week study. We’ve done studies that are sometimes six to 12 months long. These people are coming in, you know, every week or every month. And then our team is measuring the results. And depending on what the supplement is, that’s how we measure it. So if it’s literally hair growth, you know, we have certain instruments in our lab where we’re measuring like the length of your hair and if there’s any new growth, if it’s memory, we actually have like a whole battery of tests that people can take.
to show how their memory is. Maybe it’s a visual, like remembering one object or a word and then coming back to it. So there’s a variety of different tests that our scientists do. And once again, they’re measuring these results. at the end, let’s say we tested it on 100 people. They could say, nine out of 10 people showed this positive result. And that’s what kind of helps the companies who are making these products be able to say,
This has been proven clinically, you know, through these different methods that our product actually does improve your memory or does re help grow your hair or help get rid of, you know, wrinkles in your skin. So these studies, would say generally take anywhere from like six to eight months long to do from start to finish from the time that we start the study to recruit all the people. They’re coming in our labs and then we’re doing a whole like post study analysis where our science team actually writes up all the results and
These reports are somewhere like 40 to 50 pages long. They’re very, comprehensive. And then we present that back to the client. And then the next step for the client once we finish a study is they have two options. One, they could just take the information and they could start using it in their advertisement. They can use it when they’re selling to clients. The other option, which most of them really want to do, is that we can help them get those results published in a scientific journal.
Raudel Wilson (12:38.579) And that’s a whole other process because the science journal will then almost like scrutinize everything we did. They want to really make sure was this done right? Was it done on enough people? What were the real results? But once the science journal feels confident that this study was done correctly, that the results are legitimate, they’re willing to publish it. And that’s like the ultimate goal because now these companies not only can say, ASPI Labs independently proved that our supplement works,
Now there’s this scientific journal that actually did a news article on it to say, this is the product, this is the results. And usually these publications are pretty comprehensive. They’ll be like 10 or 15 pages long that list all the methods and the results. And that is like gold to companies because now they have like physical proof in their hands that their product works, not only for individuals like you and I, but if they’re trying to sell to like a really big company, you know, like let’s say they want to sell in Costco.
Costco is not gonna sell your product unless you have proven scientifically that it works and they wanna see like on paper, like let me read that a scientific journal has accepted this study and what did they say about it before they sell it in their stores, you know.
Federico Ramallo (13:50.476) Right. They do the due diligence to make sure that the product is safe and it does what…
Raudel Wilson (13:55.879) They do. Because if you go to Costco and you buy something and it doesn’t work, you may not get mad at the bottle. You’re going to get mad at Costco. Like, hey, I bought this at your store and you said it helps me and it doesn’t. So those companies, Costco, Walmart, like the big American companies, they’re very strict on what supplements they sell. And they require that these companies come in the door with all the science testing done already.
Federico Ramallo (14:00.302) you
Federico Ramallo (14:08.259) Right.
Raudel Wilson (14:23.563) You can’t just say, I have this great idea and this great formulation that works. They want to make sure it’s been proven by an independent company that it really does work.
Yeah. So that’s kind of the beginning to end. know, like I said, it’s, it’s, starts with me on, you know, I guess the outreach side, the little doggy. Okay. So it starts with me with it. then he goes, he’s got to protect the house. It’s okay. So what I was saying is just circling back is that
Federico Ramallo (14:44.91) I have my dog with me and he’s very protective. Every time somebody rings the bell, he’s like, alert, alert, alert. Sorry, I apologize, I interrupt you. You’ve got to protect the house, yeah.
Raudel Wilson (15:02.884) It starts with me doing the outreach. Our science team gets involved and then they execute the study. And then these companies benefit from having all the data and all the clinical proof that their stuff works.
Federico Ramallo (15:20.13) Right, right, that makes sense.
Raudel Wilson (15:23.216) Yeah, and the companies I help actually, so our company was founded about 15 years ago. We’re a single site in Tampa, Florida. There are plenty of other companies that do what we do, you know, and there’s some real big ones, there’s some small ones. We’re just a single site. We’re privately held by two scientists who started the company about 15 years ago. And a lot of our clients, especially starting out, were American companies. In the past,
two or three years I’ve expanded to reaching out to companies all around the world. And now we have clients in Italy and in Germany and in France and Spain. We actually have companies all around the world for two reasons. around the world, clinical testing in the United States is considered like the gold standard. The rules and laws in the US are much more strict about what we can or can’t do.
And so people know if you’ve had a US based company, a lab test your product and they say it works, they consider that like the top level. So a lot of companies around the world will use us, even if they’re selling their product in Italy or France or Spain, because the companies there are excited, are happy that we did, they did in the US. The second reason they use us is because if those companies want to sell their product in the United States, most, most American companies are going to require
that the testing be done in the United States on US citizens. So even if they’ve done the study somewhere else, like I’ve actually had companies say to me, hey, Riddell, we actually did this study in Italy. We did it on an Italian population. It works great. We hear all the positive results. But we need to do this same study in the US. And so we can replicate that study. Sometimes we need to make some tweaks based on our laws. But we can take that study and replicate it in the United States on a US population so that when they go to
Federico Ramallo (16:54.179) Right.
Raudel Wilson (17:18.906) Walmart and Costco and these other companies that they can show that a US based company reviewed their product and proved that it works. now, like I said, not only do I have companies in the US, but I have companies all around the world that I work.
Federico Ramallo (17:35.936) Interesting, very interesting. Yeah, I know that in the US the medicine is much more regulated than anywhere else, right?
Raudel Wilson (17:45.327) It is, it is. The main thing I would say, what’s interesting, what I’ve learned working with companies in other countries, what people are allowed to say their product does is stricter in the US. like for an example, you can’t say this cures Alzheimer’s. Now you could say it improves your memory. You could say this. So basically most of the time in the US, they allow companies like these to say it helps in
Federico Ramallo (17:47.203) And that
Raudel Wilson (18:14.802) But they cannot say it cures a condition. That’s a no-no. In fact, if a company that’s not a pharmaceutical company, like I’m talking about a supplement company, if they start saying that something cures something, they’ll actually get in trouble. Like the FDA and the US government, if they find out they’re saying that. And sometimes people will come to us and they want us to prove that their product cures something, but it’s usually because they don’t understand or they don’t realize that in the US you’re not allowed to.
So sometimes when I’m dealing with clients, it’s a little bit of education because some companies come to me and they’re very familiar with clinical testing. In fact, sometimes their scientists may have come from a lab or they’re very familiar with these things. Other times they’re not. They either just don’t have the resources or they don’t have the staff that is that educated on clinical testing, but they know they need to get it done. So part of our job is to sort of educate them and walk them through the process.
And so sometimes they’ll say to me, know, this product here’s this, this, or this. But we’ve got to tell them, well, we can’t say that. But we could say it improves a certain condition. And we kind of help them that way. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (19:23.97) Right, right. In Mexico, the laws for medicine are much less strict and they have a lot of ads, right? One of them says, nine out of 10 dentists recommend this. I never met any of those dentists, right?
Raudel Wilson (19:31.472) Yes.
Raudel Wilson (19:42.395) Of course.
Raudel Wilson (19:46.387) That’s right. It’s very true. actually live art. So I work remotely. I live in San Diego. And so I go to Tijuana or other place in Mexico. And it’s funny when I go into the drugstore, I do see a lot of ads for products that they say cure this, this, or that. But I know if we were to test them in the United States, we wouldn’t be able to say the same words. We could say, it helps, but we can’t say cures. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (20:07.265) You
Federico Ramallo (20:11.276) Right, right. It’s a dichotomy. So what happens is if you have a lot of regulations, you know, then you kill innovation, right? But if you have a lot of innovation, then you have a very, you know, excited doctor or lab that creates a new medicine and they take risks, right, by just, you know, cutting corners.
Raudel Wilson (20:24.753) Yeah, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (20:40.654) pushing to a market sooner, So being able to, as a scientist, being able to observe and not put our own bias, right? Like, I expect this result, right? And then just being able to observe, build a repeatable, we start with a hypothesis and we…
Raudel Wilson (20:40.806) Yeah, very true.
Federico Ramallo (21:08.084) we built a procedure how I’m going to test or validate my hypothesis and then I observe the results, right? And then the results are what they are, right? They don’t care about your feelings, right?
Raudel Wilson (21:20.828) Very true, very true.
Federico Ramallo (21:23.298) Right. So and then you mentioned the process of publishing to a scientific journey and the from what I understand and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s you know, the the challenge is that now you need peer review, right? Other people, other scientists reviewing your work and being able to say, OK, what your
Raudel Wilson (21:32.913) Yes.
Raudel Wilson (21:46.962) Absolutely.
Federico Ramallo (21:52.578) what you’re saying, it’s accurate, it’s verifiable, it’s something that is repeatable, right? And then we can add it to the knowledge of science, right?
Raudel Wilson (22:02.876) That’s correct.
Raudel Wilson (22:06.704) It’s very true. And that’s, like I said, that’s a whole other service that we offer is publication services because it’s, once you finish the study, like you mentioned, these scientific journals, their job is to sort of hold their integrity. You know, they don’t want to just publish anything. And so they do, they scrutinize everything about the study. And so part of those services is that our science team will interface with the scientific journal and answer all their questions.
So we don’t expect our client to do that. We do all of that. we’ll actually, know how to, we do like a draft publication. We’ll write what we think we’d like them to say, but they’ll come back to us with their edits and to say, we’re okay with saying this or, you know, ask us a bunch of questions. And so that whole process actually is sometimes takes two to four months of back and forth with the journal, depending on how complicated the study is or how many questions they have. But I would say like, that’s part of like,
I would say our strength. Like I mentioned, we’re a single site, basically family owned company, right? We’re owned by two scientists. And so we take a very hands-on approach. Most of my competitors are very, very big companies. And so there’s not a lot of customer service, there’s not a lot of hands-on, it’s sort of more transactional where a company would say, hey, here’s our product, they’ll test it, they’ll give them back the data, this works or doesn’t work, and that’s kind of the end of
our clients, the reason they use us is because we’re very hands-on. You get to know all the executives of the company. You get to know the scientists. You’re not calling like a 1-800 number or like a generic email. Most of the time people, they can either call me directly. They’ll know the science, the head scientist who’s running their study. They can call or email them directly. And so we stay very hands-on. And then once we’re done with the study,
We don’t just hand the data to them and say, it worked, good luck. We usually will meet with them and sometimes members from their marketing team to talk about the positive results and then our ideas of how they can use it in the marketplace. At the end of the day, it’s their choice, but we do a much more hands-on approach. then so our clients end up staying with us for years and years and not only do they do a study after study with us,
Raudel Wilson (24:27.932) but they come to us kind of in the early formulation stages. They’ll say, hey, we’re kind of working on this cognitive supplement and we think it could do A, B and C. And we’ll give them ideas. Sometimes we’ll say, okay, that’s a good idea. Or like, I would really focus on A or we’ll tell them, hey, we’ve seen that in other companies that it didn’t work. we consider ourselves like an extension of their science team beyond just literally doing the clinical studies.
I have people who call me all the time. That’s the other part too, is that my company likes to send me to industry expos, where, know, sometimes there’ll be one, 2000 of these companies that are all in one space. And I go and meet with, you know, I meet with my clients, meet with prospects, but I’m also there to kind of see what’s new. What are people inventing? What’s the latest trends? What are people excited about? Because my clients will call me up.
they’ll know when I go to a show and they call me afterwards, okay, hey, what did you find? What did you learn at the show? Because they can’t always send their people. They don’t have the time or the energy, the resources, but they know we go. And not only do I go to ones domestically, but I go to ones internationally as well. And so that’s sort of like one of the things that we bring as a laboratory that’s hard to put on paper, you know, cause like it’s, it’s, and we don’t charge for the service. It’s just part of being one of our clients is that we’re happy to share.
what’s happening in the marketplace, what are other companies doing, what are people excited about. So I go to probably four to six shows a year, about half of them here in the US and then a few overseas that I meet clients and also learn what’s going on in the marketplace.
Federico Ramallo (26:12.46) Right, right. Yeah, that’s very true. mean, once you start like, you know, going to conferences, talking to people, learning more about the industry than being able to, you you learn a lot about what’s going on and being able to share that with your customers, that’s a really great added value, right?
Raudel Wilson (26:32.485) It is, it is. And the other part they like, you know, we’re pretty quick. know, of the time when you work with a really big company or you can even do these like with universities, universities do lots of clinical research, but they’re very slow. And so, you know, most of my clients, of course they want it done right away. You know, most people aren’t saying, most people aren’t saying like, can we do this study in two years? You know, they want to, can we do this study in two days? You know, so our team, because we’re
independent and we’re flexible. Sometimes I’ll come, I’ll find a client who really needs help immediately. Like, hey, we got to start this like this month. Our science team can reprioritize and move things around to try to help them. Whereas, you know, if you said that to university, hey, we need to start this month, they’re going to say, I’m sorry, like our next opening is in 18 months. So they just and even sometimes bigger labs, because they’re just so big and they’re doing so many projects that they can’t even maybe they want to but they say, hey, we can’t fit you in for six more months.
Federico Ramallo (27:22.146) Right.
Raudel Wilson (27:30.886) Whereas with us, we can move things around if we need to. So sometimes some of my clients have really enjoyed the speed of our operations, how fast we get started, and then just the whole being a consultant, really kind of helping guide them with the studies and what we think they could do in the marketplace. They make the final decisions, but we kind of tell them what we know is going on with customers and what people are excited about.
Federico Ramallo (27:57.644) Right, right. I think that’s one of the best benefits of working in a small organization that you can, you as a contributor, but also the whole organization can adapt very quickly to whatever is needed, right? Whereas if you have a bigger organization, what happens is that you start having these fossilized structures, you know, like…
Raudel Wilson (28:14.993) It is.
Federico Ramallo (28:23.99) we’ve been doing this because this is how it has been done, Kind of thing. and then you have a lot of bureaucracy, red tape within the organization, right? That maybe somebody in the organization wants to take a new project or wants to do something different. And because, you know, now you have this behemoth of people, you know, that takes a lot of effort to, you know, to make those changes, right?
Raudel Wilson (28:27.602) Mm-hmm.
Raudel Wilson (28:47.868) Uh-huh.
Raudel Wilson (28:53.691) It does, it does. I think we’re, I mean, we’re like a, basically a boutique, you know, lab, you know, like I said, single site, we have a team of scientists, we have, you know, about 25 people who work for us. Most people are in the science scene because they’re actually productive doing the clinical studies. You know, my job and a few other people do sales and marketing, finding new people, kind of customer service, if you will. But yeah, that’s why people like really working with us because most of time,
I would say time, speed of operations and customer service really stands out from our competitors. Pricing wise, I’d say we’re probably middle of the road. By no means are we the cheapest lab out there, but you get very, very high quality work from us and you get a very hands-on approach. Why still keeping the prices decent? We’re very conscious of pricing because every conversation I have, of course it comes down to cost.
But it’s these other things that we add that are hard to put a price to that other labs and universities just can’t or won’t. And it is an expensive process. Clinical studies are done all around the world. In the United States, they are the most expensive for a variety of reasons. Like I said, the regulations are tougher, the cost of living is higher, the cost of goods is higher. So it does cost more to do a study in the United States.
But like I said, we try to keep that in mind when we’re helping people. These studies generally, they really start around $250,000. And you could easily do a study for a million dollars. mean, depending on what you’re asking us to do, the cost can go up very quickly. So that’s another part of my job is for me to understand what does the client have to spend on this study? And then based on their budget, our science team will keep that in mind when they’re…
writing a customized proposal for them. Because if you told me, hey, Riddell, my budget’s 250,000, and then I come to you back to you with a proposal for 500,000, I probably have just wasted everyone’s time. You don’t have the money. I spent time on it. My science team spent time on it. So it’s really important for me to understand your budget so that when my team understands, they’ll make sure they’re only putting in tests and procedures that they’re hoping keep within your budget.
Raudel Wilson (31:19.01) Or, you know, unfortunately there have been times where someone will tell me a budget, even let’s say 250,000, but what they’re asking us to do is really a $400,000 project. And so my job also is to come back to them and explain to them, this is the cost to do what you’re asking us to do. These are the reasons why. And then they have to decide internally. Like, are we going to reallocate the money so we can get this done? Or are just, you know, are they going to do something else or not do it? But.
So it’s always a process when talking about the budget, but it’s a really important part of the discussion because it’s expensive endeavor for the company to do. Which is also why we take this hands-on approach because our CEO likes to tell people, when we’re doing this study, we treat your supplement like it was our own and how we would want the study done and the results we’re looking for and what the budget you’ve told us. We’re not trying to waste your money. We’re not trying to waste your results.
We want you to walk away with really positive results here because you’re spending so much money with us. And so, like I said, my job too is also not to try to get someone to do the biggest contract they can do because I’m really looking for long-term relationships. So, you know, we’re willing to be flexible on our costs because we really want you to stick around and do study after study after study with us, not just one and I never talk to you again.
Federico Ramallo (32:40.192) Right, right. And you were talking about the founders of ASPI from what I gather, it seems that they are scientists first, entrepreneurs second, right?
Raudel Wilson (32:52.955) Yes, that’s a great way to put it. actually, so they used the two of them used to work at a university in Florida where they were doing clinical studies for this for the university. But but they got frustrated because, like I mentioned, universities are very slow. They’re very expensive. They didn’t get to have control over who they worked with. And so they decided to start their own company. And now they get to work with innovative companies, brand new companies, new inventions.
They work with other scientists, you know, so it’s, they’re very excited and they’re very curious, you know, so it’s, I enjoy working for them because it’s pretty fun to meet a company who’s doing something really new and innovative and then come back to the science team and they get really excited to hear about it, what they’re working on and they want to be a part of it. You know, they get to do the clinical testing. So it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty fun. And, and what’s really cool too is that, like our company, like I mentioned, employ scientists who have been trained to do this work.
So we actually have, like a lot of times people will ask me, well, what’s your expertise or what’s the one thing you focus on? But we actually focus on several different areas because we have different scientists who work with us who have different backgrounds and different educations. So we’ve done studies, we’ve done cognitive studies, we’ve done gut health, we’ve done health and beauty, eye studies, bioavailability studies.
Like people are kind of surprised when I go down, I have like a short presentation about our company and studies we’ve done. And it’s about probably 12 different areas that we have expertise in and people are usually really blown away. They’re like, I didn’t know you did this and this and this and this, you know, I think a lot of labs and rightfully so they’ll say, hey, we test cognitive studies. That’s what we do. That’s our specialty. have scientists who that’s their background, but our approach has been to do a variety of things. So I have.
It’s, and it’s fun for me too, because I don’t talk to the same type of companies over and over again. We, almost any type of product that has a health benefit for our science team usually has either had the experience or can do a study that helps prove the benefits, you know? So, and they’re always looking for new things. Like there’s, they’re internally curious. So like I said, when I bring them new companies to look at, they’re always really excited to hear about these new inventions, new supplements, new ways of doing things.
Raudel Wilson (35:19.071) because they’re curious too. So they’re just waiting for me to bring them to them. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (35:23.97) Right, right.
Federico Ramallo (35:29.688) What I’m wondering is, without sharing any, probably saying NDAs, so without mentioning any names, what is the funniest anecdote that you had with clients?
Raudel Wilson (35:41.555) Well, I think part of like when I meet with people and rightfully so, they’re very excited about their product. know, like I don’t think I’ve ever met with someone who says like, yeah, we made a supplement and it kind of works. you know, they always say, hey, this is, there’s nothing better on the market than what we’ve created, you know. And that’s great because they’re very enthusiastic about it. They’re excited. They’ve worked very hard. Sometimes this has been three or four or five years, research and development.
Federico Ramallo (35:56.643) Ha ha!
Raudel Wilson (36:10.322) before we even got into the stage of talking to me. So this has been like a long project for a lot of people. So part of my, I think, initial discussions with them is understanding how excited they are and their enthusiasm, but then also drilling down to the details and understanding how the product works and what have they done differently that sets them apart from the competition. Because our science team needs to understand that too.
Federico Ramallo (36:13.016) Wow.
Raudel Wilson (36:39.655) But it is fun. Like from my standpoint, I get to meet with all sorts of interesting companies and lots of different types of products. We sometimes we meet with people early on. Like I’ve met with lots of people who are still in the formulation stages. And so some of these products haven’t come to the market yet, but it’s been really cool to hear about what they’re trying to do. You know, some people will say like, hey, we have this theory that this formulation is going to do this for people, but they’re still early on. You know, they’re still sometimes six, eight, 12 months out.
But I enjoy having those conversations with people because you kind of hear about these really cool inventions coming out. And then anything that we’ve published is like public work, like we could share people. But a lot of the work we do is under an NDA and is secretive because people don’t want to share their trade secrets or they don’t want to share their formulations with the public. So sometimes we are doing things that are quote unquote secret. And actually, that’s something I always talk to new clients about is that
we take privacy very seriously. So I would never advertise or tell other people who I’m working with or what they’re doing unless they’re giving us that permission. And some people do, like some people are totally fine with us talking about their company and their products. And like I said, it’s been published. Once it’s published, anyone around the world can read about it. But if they don’t want those things done, then we don’t share that information. And we would only talk more in general.
terms as opposed to specifics about companies or their products. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (38:07.714) Right, right. Yeah, I’ve been doing something similar in software development with building software development teams for…
and I work on HIPAA compliant projects, is very, we had to go, it’s very thorough the process to, the HIPAA compliance and certifications are very thorough because you’re dealing with data of clients, of patients, right? So that’s very sensitive, right? So we had to make sure that,
Raudel Wilson (38:18.567) Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (38:22.764) yeah, yeah.
Raudel Wilson (38:41.126) Yes.
Absolutely.
Federico Ramallo (38:48.074) nobody could access, not even us, right? At one point, right? Or if we do, then everything has to be locked. And it’s very challenging. And that’s with patient data, right? But when we’re building software, we’re also doing this, walking this thin line of what is public, what is private, right?
Sometimes we build open source components, right? So if we’re building an interface where we have a calendar, right? We usually use an existing component for a calendar, you know, date picker or whatever. And then based on what the client needs, then we can improve that library, right? So, you know, sometimes people wants to do a date range, right? Of choosing date from date.
Raudel Wilson (39:19.858) Hmm, okay.
Raudel Wilson (39:36.379) Okay.
Federico Ramallo (39:44.628) date right and sometimes they have rules you know you cannot choose dates in the past right if you’re booking a flight right for instance or you know things like that so we when we’re building we try to take some of this generic functionality and implement it on the component and release that as open source because it’s not going to it’s going to improve the
Raudel Wilson (39:49.456) Yeah, sure.
Federico Ramallo (40:14.766) the component that we are using, right? So we save time to a client. So, you know, it’s fair to share it back, but also respect the privacy of the core business, right? There’s some functionality that is, you know, specific, right? Everybody’s using a date picker, so that’s generic, but then we have specific workflows, business rules that we cannot share, right?
Raudel Wilson (40:41.884) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (40:44.844) So, and we have the contracts that allow us to do that, right? But also we need the clients, you know, acknowledge permission to do it, It’s a very difficult thing to do because sometimes you can, without realizing, you can go on one side or the other side, right? You know, if you do our private, then that’s fine.
Raudel Wilson (40:55.718) Yeah, makes sense, makes sense.
Raudel Wilson (41:07.634) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (41:13.186) The issue is that you had the opportunity to help the community and you miss it, right? And if you go too much on the other side to do too much open source project then, or contribution, then you might expose something that is confidential, right? So.
Raudel Wilson (41:31.57) It’s a good point. What’s interesting in my business, which I’ve learned, you know, doing this for the past five years is that not every lab and especially not universities don’t, they consider when they do a clinical study for somebody that it’s their data, it’s their IP, it’s theirs to have. And so what happens is sometimes for whatever reason, a company won’t want to have the results published. Let’s say maybe the results weren’t as great as they thought they’d be. Maybe they’ve had it.
change internally on marketing, or maybe this is to build up to a different study so they want to keep this quiet for now. The problem is with some labs and definitely universities, they will publish the results because it’s in their best interest to say like, hey, we do 50 studies a year and we publish 100 papers every year. And so I’ve actually had clients who’ve come to me that have told me they did a study with somebody and they did not want it published, but the company told them, well, I’m.
Federico Ramallo (42:18.862) you
Raudel Wilson (42:29.584) I’m sorry, it’s our decision and they publish it. And so, or they advertise it or they say we’re working with, you whatever company we don’t. So there’s been many times where people have come to us with that concern. And we always tell them that’s we will never publish or advertise anything about your company or the results or the testing without your permission. So it is a pretty big deal in this industry. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of companies just won’t keep that privacy. And so it’s it’s one of our strengths for sure.
Federico Ramallo (42:59.884) Right, right. And at the same time being fair and honest on the study, right? Because that’s a very important aspect of it, right?
Raudel Wilson (43:06.415) Absolutely.
It is. It is. That’s a good question. I when we’re meeting with people for the first time and we’re talking about their product and what they’re hoping it does or what they want to prove, sometimes we have to discourage people from doing certain things because we’ll tell them, you know, based on what you’re telling me, I’m not sure you’re going to see the results you want to, you know, and what I don’t want to happen is someone spends two or three hundred thousand dollars with me and at the of the day, the results aren’t what they want, you know, because that’s not good for them.
I’m sure their boss won’t be happy. And on my end, I’m sure there won’t be back ever as a client. So I think part of like our bringing on a new client or even an existing client with a new product is really understanding that product, what it does, what they want to show it does, and then making sure that there’s actual processes that prove that. Of course, you don’t know until you do it.
Federico Ramallo (43:41.518) Right.
Raudel Wilson (44:04.562) But based on our experience and based on our research, we can give people a good educated guess. Like, hey, this sounds great. And we think if we do this process, it’s going to come with good results. But like I said, many times we’ve had to tell people like, I don’t think we should go down this road. We need to reconsider this because you’re going to spend the money and you’re going to get bad results. So that’s part of our process too, which once again, I’m not sure if other labs or universities do that. I think a lot of times they’re more like order takers. They can say, hey, I want this done. They say, sure, I’ll do it.
And then whatever the result is, it is what it is. But we like to talk to people and make sure that they’re spending their money wisely and that we’re hopefully bringing them on as a client for years to come.
Federico Ramallo (44:44.654) Yeah, I mean, what you’re talking about is mostly on being proactively setting the right expectations, right? And trying to take care of the money as if it was your own, right?
Raudel Wilson (44:56.337) Yes.
Raudel Wilson (45:05.252) Absolutely. That’s a great way to put it.
Federico Ramallo (45:07.852) Yeah, yeah. that’s very, you know, most companies don’t do that, right? that’s a very…
Raudel Wilson (45:14.586) Yeah, yeah, they just want to make the sale. Hey, if you’re willing to pay me 250,000, we’ll take your money. And they don’t really care about the result. And we’ve just found if we take a more approach where we do care and we treat it like our own, that it really does build long lasting customers for us.
Federico Ramallo (45:18.572) Right.
Federico Ramallo (45:34.114) Right, right. Sorry. I’ve been in companies where the sales team over promise, right? And then, know, on the engineering side, know, yeah, yeah, now we have to work hard to get whatever, and it’s tough, right? So, and…
Raudel Wilson (45:35.772) Yeah, it’s okay.
Raudel Wilson (45:45.777) huh, of course.
Hey, we can’t do that. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (46:02.982) we were talking about John Clinching, right, before. And, you know, I learned this before I met him, but basically he goes through, he talks about the, on his books, about, you know, how to sell without being a jerk, this is one of his books, right? So, you know, and, you know, he talks about this philosophy of, you know.
Raudel Wilson (46:07.09) Yeah, that’s right.
Raudel Wilson (46:23.447) yes, that’s right, that’s right, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (46:32.082) The sale is understanding what the client wants and trying to help them get what he wants, rather than just pushing the sale.
Raudel Wilson (46:43.507) Agreed. And I like that approach to myself. I’ve worked in sales, you know, now for over 30 years and in a variety of different industries. And I’m really happy with this company because they support relationship building. And so I have found that if I build relationships with people, I’m sincere, you know, I show them that I really care about their product or, you know, about how they spend their money.
that people will choose us, you and not only do they choose us, but they stay for a long time. And so I enjoy that and I’m glad that my company supports that. it’s almost like they support me if I, the builder relationships, because they knew that they know the sales and customers will come as opposed to just trying to close, just bring anybody in and we don’t care about the results. To me, that’s just, it’ll be a burn and churn. You’ll just be bringing in one time customers over and over and over again, where instead of building a base of people who will stay with you for a long
Federico Ramallo (47:39.63) you have a vested interest to reduce churn as much as possible.
Raudel Wilson (47:44.623) Absolutely. Yeah. And so it’s a good it’s a good it’s a good partnership with me and my company because like I said, that’s my personality. That’s how I like to build relationships with people. And I have worked in some companies where that’s they don’t foster that, you there’s just about, you know, close, close, close, close. Whereas I have found in my success in my career has been building relationships. So this company supports that as well. So it works really well. I enjoy working there. They enjoy my work. And the customers are all happy at them.
Federico Ramallo (48:14.562) Right, right. It’s not the always be closing. Not always, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I understand. completely understand. Being small, you can afford to just have turn, right? You want to make sure that every client goes through happy.
Raudel Wilson (48:19.408) Yes. Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Not always, not always, you know, so it’s yeah. Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (48:38.257) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (48:44.888) you know, when that builds relationship, right? And then it’s, that’s the long, you you build, you play the long game.
Raudel Wilson (48:52.921) Exactly. And you know, not only do the clients are happy and they stay around and do more work with us, but I get referrals, which is awesome too. So I’ve gotten referrals from people who’ve said, Hey, I’ve been told I need to call you and talk to you. A lot of my clients are at these expos I go to. And so even, know, I just going and seeing them and seeing how happy they are and introducing me to everybody in their team. And then sometimes I’ve been at shows where they I’ve been pulled into like a
meeting to say like, hey, I want you to meet this so-and-so from this other company, because I told them how good the work you guys do. So that relationship building has helped me build not only my clients, but also help build in new referrals as well. So it’s great. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (49:31.18) Right, right. You know, I make another comparison with my company because, you I find that we share a lot of the same values, right? But one of the things that I mention to potential clients is that we have 98 % success rate. And it sounds made up, right? It’s like, it’s too good to be true,
Raudel Wilson (49:44.145) Uh-huh.
Raudel Wilson (49:54.386) Hmm. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Federico Ramallo (49:59.19) on both sides, because we have the engineering side and then the engineer manager side. And what I do is I proactively set the right expectations. if we get a position with X amount of requirements and we find somebody that doesn’t quite meet the requirements,
I’d rather be upfront, you know. This guy, this candidate seems like a good candidate. We do a thorough screening. We screen the best 2 % of software engineers, so it’s very thorough. But then I said the right expectation. He doesn’t know about this tool or this, whatever requirement they have. We discussed this with this person. We built up a plan of how to, you know.
Raudel Wilson (50:40.956) Yeah. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (50:58.562) how he or she can get to where he needs to go, right? Like to learn. And then, you know, we can offer 25, 50 % discount, know, six months, you know, plan so that that person can be up to speed and fulfilling all the requirements, right? As a software engineer, I know I can learn. I can learn that tool in a month, right?
Raudel Wilson (51:12.242) Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (51:21.074) That’s great.
Federico Ramallo (51:29.002) I already talked with the engineer, we set a two months plan, right? But then we do six months, right? So we have a lot of buffer, right? To meet the client expectation, right? Sometimes they’re hesitant, right? Managers are hesitant because it’s like, well, I need what I need, right? And that’s fine, we have other candidates that could, but the candidate that it’s…
Raudel Wilson (51:46.29) Yeah, of course.
Federico Ramallo (51:59.384) Considered, know given the opportunity and We help we help them, you know On the upskills, right? So he’s not alone He’s more he appreciates the opportunity more than a more senior engineer, right? So it is a it is a bet right? Because you’re you’re betting that that the person is going to get to the to the level right? So I’m betting
Raudel Wilson (52:15.59) Yeah. Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (52:26.044) course.
Federico Ramallo (52:28.93) the engineer is betting his, yeah, yeah, he’s putting the skin in the game, right? Because now he has a stronger commitment. And what happens is that sometimes the manager says yes, and then it’s a win-win for everybody. And then we follow that process very, very carefully. then after six months, sometimes the client says in month four it’s like,
Raudel Wilson (52:33.106) I’m myself.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (52:58.89) he’s exceeded my expectation. And I said, great, that’s great. Now you have two more months of saving. We keep the discount, it’s great. So it’s great for the client because he appreciated that we being upfront. I’ve seen other companies throwing bodies at it.
Raudel Wilson (53:00.53) That’s awesome.
Yeah, right, exactly.
It’s really good.
Raudel Wilson (53:24.421) Of course.
Federico Ramallo (53:25.742) you have this requirement and then they send whatever people that, because they look for keywords on the CV, right? Like, they require this, we have this, boom, it’s connected, right? We do it more thoroughly, right? And then if we find that an engineer is having performance issues, I prefer to be the person coming up with the problem, coming up to the manager before he realized,
Raudel Wilson (53:38.866) course.
Raudel Wilson (53:42.386) That’s great.
Raudel Wilson (53:52.314) Okay, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (53:54.84) that there’s an issue, right? So, my clients appreciate that because it’s transparency, honesty, right? And we take care of them, right? But then on the other hand, I’m also taking care of the engineers, Because I want them to do better, right? So, right, right. So when I detect low performance issues, can…
Raudel Wilson (53:55.91) Yeah, yeah.
Raudel Wilson (54:06.118) yeah, for sure.
Raudel Wilson (54:13.926) Yeah, that’s right. Get better.
Federico Ramallo (54:20.214) work with them, you know, is this a personal issue, you know, is there something we can do, right? How can we help? Right. And then we build plans. So we, give them as much opportunity as possible for them to, do better. Right. Most of the time they do, sometimes they don’t. Right. But, but anyway, that, that’s how we come up with this 98 % because we’ve seen all the people that we presented throughout the years. And then, you know, every person that, that
Raudel Wilson (54:21.383) Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (54:47.59) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (54:50.498) that we position, you know, they work great, right?
Raudel Wilson (54:54.556) That’s great. That’s great story. Yeah, I like it.
Federico Ramallo (54:57.932) Yeah, yeah, so it’s very interesting, right? And I feel that our companies are sharing similar values, That it’s quality over everything else, right? And building relationship, Over quantity, yeah, yeah.
Raudel Wilson (55:07.216) Yeah, sounds like it.
Raudel Wilson (55:12.466) Quality over quantity. Yeah. Yeah, agreed.
Federico Ramallo (55:17.954) Yeah, very interesting. So I want to ask you a question, a more personal question. How is it working from San Diego with a company in Florida, right?
Raudel Wilson (55:26.897) Yeah, sure.
Raudel Wilson (55:33.299) You know, it’s great. actually, so I grew, was born in San Francisco and I lived in the Bay Area, actually my whole life until about two and a half years ago. And then I moved to San Diego and the move has been wonderful. Personally, like San Diego is absolutely a beautiful place to be. So no complaints about the weather.
walk outside even during December with just a shirt or even a tank top. It’s wonderful being here. And I’ve met a whole new set of friends and I’ve met a partner who’s amazing. You know, it’s been great being with her. so that by from a personal standpoint, it’s been great working with a company in Tampa. It’s not such a big deal. You know, they’re obviously three hours ahead of me. I’m a morning person. So there are many times where I take video calls or calls early in the morning. Sometimes like six in the morning for me.
And there are times I even take them earlier because, like I mentioned, I have clients in Europe and overseas and they’re eight hours or nine hours ahead of me. So there’s been times where I’ve had to take calls sometimes five in the morning for me and it’s like two or three in the afternoon for them. I don’t mind, you like for me, working this kind of job, it’s sort of like my own hours. So sometimes I work really early in the morning and sometimes I work later. But it’s.
through video and phone calls, it’s been really easy to work with my company. And to be honest with you, the team in Florida, they’re very focused on doing the science, doing the testing. And so I have free reign to go find clients. However, I can do that as opposed to, it’s not a traditional, I guess what I’m trying to say, it’s not a traditional nine to five job because sometimes it’s five in the morning to two in afternoon, or sometimes, you
for whatever reason, maybe starting later, 11 or 12 in the day, and I work to eight o’clock at night, it just depends on who I’m talking to and basically where in the world are they, as far as my video calls go. But it’s been fine. Actually, like I said, I really enjoy San Diego. I’m really happy with the move. It’s been great moving here. And then as far as working with a company in Tampa and even people all around the world, it works very well.
Federico Ramallo (57:44.088) Right, right. I love the Bay Area. I’ve been there many times. I’m a frequent visitor. I spend half of the year in San Francisco, so I’m very…
Raudel Wilson (57:51.046) Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Raudel Wilson (57:59.064) OK. Yeah, I love San Francisco. I was born there, raised in the area, it’s definitely I love it a lot.
Federico Ramallo (58:06.818) Yeah, yeah, it’s great, but I’m a car guy, right? you know, so when I’m in San Francisco, I feel, you know, like limited, right? Because, you know, it’s a city, so, you know, it doesn’t make sense to drive the car there. You know, I prefer, you know, the Bay Area, you know, like Santa Clara, you know, where you can actually, you can and you have to drive around, right? And…
Raudel Wilson (58:11.264) okay.
Raudel Wilson (58:16.996) Yes.
Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (58:23.365) Nah.
Raudel Wilson (58:29.19) Mmm.
Raudel Wilson (58:33.956) Yes, things are more spread out. have to in order to get to like San Jose or other places you have to drive. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (58:36.108) Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so I prefer the suburbs. And I actually, and I did this many times. I drove from Guadalajara where I live to San Francisco, right? It’s like 36 hours driving, something like that. So usually it takes two days, right? And I usually go to LA, San Diego.
Raudel Wilson (58:51.011) wow, okay.
Raudel Wilson (58:55.152) Yeah, sounds about right.
Raudel Wilson (59:08.23) Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (59:09.39) Santa Monica, right? you know, now it’s, I don’t know how it is, right? It’s probably a lot of places destroyed, And I love it, you know, I’ve been to many, places in San Diego, in LA, you know, and I think it’s a great city, right?
Raudel Wilson (59:10.972) Beautiful areas.
Raudel Wilson (59:15.14) Yeah, now with the fires it’s an issue, but yes.
Raudel Wilson (59:30.224) Yeah, it’s like I said, the move has been absolutely beautiful. And I’m very, happy to be part of the San Diego community, for sure.
Federico Ramallo (59:38.786) Great, great. Yeah, great. So I think we’re running out of time. We’ve been a little bit over, but I really appreciate it, you know, having you on the podcast, sharing what you guys are doing. I think it’s very interesting. We’re going to put more information and links on the episode so people can reach out. Okay. Great.
Raudel Wilson (59:44.314) Yeah, sure.
Raudel Wilson (59:52.178) Thank you. Yeah.
Raudel Wilson (01:00:02.704) Wonderful. That’d be wonderful. Thank you, Frederico. I really appreciate it. It’s been great talking to you.
Federico Ramallo (01:00:09.614) Great talking to you, Raudel. Thank you.
Raudel Wilson (01:00:11.698) Alright, thank you, have a good one.