#100 Early Stage vs Commercial MedTech with Cristiano Fontana: The 97% of MedTech Nobody Talks About, Getting Innovation to Market and What MedTech Conferences Are Getting Wrong

Cristiano Fontana, founder and CEO of Three Bridges, a Milan-based advisory firm helping early-stage MedTech companies navigate the full journey from innovation to market. With over 25 years in the industry starting in the family warehouse handling surgical drains and prostheses as a teenager, Cristiano has a perspective on this business that very few people can match.In this episode, we kick things off with something a little different: a conversation about dressing well, the discipline behind it and why confidence is as much about how you present yourself as what you know. From there, we get into something both of us have strong opinions on. Cristiano breaks down why the conference ROI is so hard to measure, why ghosting has become an epidemic in the industry and why the real payoff from an event can take three years to materialise. He also delivers one of the most honest assessments you'll hear: that early-stage MedTech is just 3% of the industry and that the 97%, the commercial machine that actually drives revenue, is largely invisible to the innovation bubble.We also explore what a better event model could look like, why trust beats value proposition every single time in a crowded advisory market and what innovators consistently get wrong when they think one conference pitch will change everything.Timestamps[00:00:33] Why Dressing Well Is a Form of Discipline, Not Vanity[00:05:00] From the Family Warehouse to 25 Years in MedTech[00:07:48] The 97% vs 3% Split That Nobody in Early Stage Wants to Hear[00:08:37] What MedTech Conferences Are Getting Wrong[00:09:35] The Ghosting Epidemic and What It Reveals About Human Nature[00:10:14] Why Conference ROI Can Take Three Years to Show Up[00:12:30] You Don't Sell on Value Proposition, You Sell on Trust[00:13:17] The Uncomfortable Truth About So-Called Investors at Events[00:20:42] What a Better, More Targeted Event Model Would Look Like[00:30:41] Final Advice: Fill Your Gaps Fast and Stop Seeing Experts as a CostConnect with Cristiano - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristiano-fontana-medtech-businessdevelopment/Learn more about ThreeBridges - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.threebridges.it/Get in touch with Karandeep Badwal - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/karandeepbadwal/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Karandeep on YouTube - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@KarandeepBadwal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Medical device training courses delivered by Karandeep through Bywater - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.bywater.co.uk/