Anchor Group Podcast Ep. 7
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- Caleb Schmitz, CRO at Anchor Group
- Anchor Group (Company Page)
- Evan Sturman, Medical Innovations
Podcast Transcript
Caleb (00:00)
On this episode, I interview Evan at Medical Innovations to learn why they chose NetSuite and some of the unique use cases on how they leverage it to grow their business, including using AI and unique AI projects to drive their sales and make them stand out against their competition. So enjoy this interview on the Anchor Group Podcast.
Caleb (00:19)
Cool, well, to start off, Evan, can you tell me a bit about yourself? Give an introduction of yourself, Medical Innovations, and what you all do.
Evan (00:28)
Yes. I'm Evan Sturman, CEO of Medical Innovations as of July 2022. The company was founded in 1996 by my father, Howard Sturman, in our living room. I was born in 1991 and, I guess in a sense, helped—not really helped—with packing boxes.
My father was tired of being fired from jobs for selling too well and having accounts turned into house accounts. He decided to strike out on his own. He purchased a pallet of product with $5,000 to start the company. Over time, he sold that pallet to local hospitals. The business grew and eventually outgrew my parents' living room. They moved into their first warehouse in the early 2000s and hired their first employee—who is still with us.
The company has grown from one employee, my father, to now 11 employees. I've been tasked with expanding Medical Innovations beyond where we are currently. To do that, we're shifting from wholesale more into direct-to-practitioner, utilizing our superior sourcing and alternative brands to save customers money by leveraging our purchasing power.
We find high-quality brands that are as good as the big brands, put our Innovative Guarantee on them after a thorough vetting process, and offer them to our customers—our practitioners—so they can have both a fiscal and performance guarantee on the products they buy.
Caleb (02:12)
That's a really good overview. I think you're doing some really unique things and trying to hit the market in a smart way. I actually didn’t know you only had 11 employees—you operate like a much bigger organization in a lot of what you're doing.
I’ve got to compliment you here, Evan. You're one of the smartest end-user NetSuite clients we have, and probably one of the most creative too. I've talked with a couple of people who work with you, and everyone says the same thing. It's pretty rare to have someone like that, especially in an 11-person company. Even in organizations with 50, 100, or 200 employees, there are usually only a handful of people like you.
It's been really fun working with you and your creative mind. I've really enjoyed that and admired that about you too.
Evan (03:00)
Thanks.
Caleb (03:02)
When you were implementing NetSuite—I vaguely remember this—we've been working together a couple of years now, maybe two or three. I remember our first conversation because we were talking about SuiteCommerce and multiple units of measure. Do you recall that?
Evan (03:18)
Yes. The reason we decided to go with SuiteCommerce instead of something like Shopify—which is a bit more out-of-the-box—is because Shopify can't handle even some basic measurements. I did thorough research into different platforms, and we ended up going with SuiteCommerce, which was convenient since we were already on NetSuite.
The customizability is great, though there are fewer developers out there. Luckily, we found you guys. SuiteCommerce Advanced Customer Service just wasn’t cutting it. We were paying exorbitant rates for really poor-quality work. Finding you was definitely a blessing because, like you said, we’re an 11-person company, but we do business like we’re medium-sized because of all the automation tools we’ve implemented.
Our software does the work of about 10 people. It’s pretty amazing how much automation we’ve been able to incorporate. Other people in our industry aren’t very tech-savvy. I consider myself tech-savvy—I’m not a programmer or developer, but I understand enough to know the limitations, how things work, and when to pivot in a different direction if needed. Utilizing software in general has enabled us to do bigger business than our physical size would suggest.
Caleb (04:47)
I’ve observed that too. You have NetSuite, and we’ve supported you on NetSuite, SuiteCommerce, kind of ad hoc throughout. We also did a unique AI project together.
I know we’re working through iterations as a proof of concept. I remember when we first talked about it, I mentioned that we hadn’t done a client AI project yet—just internal ones. We had exposure, but I had a harder time estimating it. I was trying to be as transparent and open as possible.
How’s the functionality of that concept?
Evan (05:27)
It's definitely still in alpha testing right now, but I’ve used it in a live environment and it works pretty well. There are still some improvements to be made, but that’s expected for what we’re working on. The use case is very unique to our industry.
You don’t often have an industry where multiple manufacturers produce effectively the same product, and customers give you descriptions instead of product codes. They don’t deal in SKUs. They’ll just say, “It’s a syringe, 20cc, with or without needle.”
We can take that, feed it into the program, and if we have different line items to convert, even if it does 80% of the work, it saves us so much time compared to bouncing between files.
On top of that, we’re adding a data repository of all our vendor data. That way, when it’s time to quote items not already in our system, it can pull from that repository. If we don’t have a price, we can still generate a quote. It gives our sales reps a simple process that reduces the time from contact to quote—because too much delay and the customer loses interest.
Caleb (06:59)
Yeah, time kills deals. So really, the concept is: take the customer descriptions, tie into NetSuite, look at your item records to find the best match based on what they’re purchasing, and use AI to compare descriptions, find the best match, and then output a CSV file you can use to generate a quote.
Evan (07:01)
Exactly.
Caleb (07:28)
And get it back to them as fast as possible.
Evan (07:30)
Yes. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I’ve been working with the developer—there are a lot of nuances and training data involved, but over time it gets better and better. We're really lucky to have this proprietary software you built for us. I've mentioned it to several people in our industry, and they’re a little jealous, which I’m kind of happy about.
I was talking to someone the other day who said he needs to back up and convert a ton of files. He’s just one person—he can’t do it all. But I can process a 100-line item file in under 45 minutes. It could take him days.
I also asked a sales rep at one of our larger competitors how they do it. He said they send it off to a product conversion team. I'm assuming it’s a third-party team that does it manually. That’s fine if you’re a billion-dollar company, but we’re not. We’re trying to bat in the big leagues with those guys.
Our one advantage is being able to quickly pivot into new technologies—we’re the speedboat navigating around a cargo ship. That’s the analogy I like to use. If we don’t have that edge over these billion-dollar companies, we have no shot.
When we did competitor analysis, one thing that stood out was how these large companies aren’t leveraging technology to its fullest. They’re big, they dominate the market, so they don’t have a reason to change. But we do. That’s why, as an 11-person company, we’re able to operate like we’re 50 or 100—because of our technology.
Caleb (09:22)
And I think it’s not just the tech—it’s your brain. You’re thinking creatively in a way most people don’t. There aren’t many people who know what the technology can do, understand it, map it to business processes, identify the problem, come up with a solution, and then say, “Hey, here’s an idea. What do you think it would cost? What’s the level of effort? Is the ROI worth it?”
That’s your other secret sauce—being able to make fast decisions, initiate change, adopt it quickly, and move forward with the tech. It’s been a really fun project.
Like with any AI, there’s training and iteration. The big question is: can we make it even faster? Can it get to the point where it’s self-service? There are definitely a few layers to that, right?
Evan (10:18)
Yeah, yes. We're hoping in the future for it to be self-service. Actually, before the end of the year, we’re hoping that once our new website goes live—which, again, you guys have been working on—we’ll be able to get the AI product version tool live and customer-facing.
That contact-to-quote time is really important. Customers don’t want friction in their purchasing process. When I was thinking about the design of our purchasing process, I focused on how to reduce that friction—avoiding multiple calls and emails. Customers don’t want that. They want to contact you and get what they need. If there are any barriers in the way, it puts a damper on their experience.
So when I was designing our sales process—which the AI product conversion tool is a part of—it was all about reducing friction and barriers in the purchasing experience. That’s one of our core value propositions at Medical Innovations: to help you live better, work better.
We want to make sure that your day-to-day job isn’t filled with purchasing tasks. That’s something we can offer—saving you money, yes, but also reducing the amount of effort so you can spend more time doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
Caleb (11:44)
That makes a lot of sense. I think it’s a huge value proposition—reducing friction, saving time, and also using your purchasing power to give them good pricing.
Now, with the AI project, it's already tied into NetSuite. Maybe in the near future, it’ll tie into your website too—we're in March 2025 right now. So, on the NetSuite side, you’ve got a lot of modules and functionality helping you operate like a much bigger team because of all the automation. There are a few ways to get there—core NetSuite functionality, additional modules like SuiteCommerce, and then scripts and workflows to create custom automations.
Do you know which types of NetSuite modules you’re using?
Evan (12:33)
As far as NetSuite modules go, the way I designed our setup is to use NetSuite as the single source of truth. Then, we plug in any other modules or tools that integrate with it. What I’ve found is that NetSuite’s own modules don’t always provide everything you need.
That’s why we’ve worked with Anchor Group to create custom scripts, workflows, extensions—what are they called—Suitelets. And for other things, like CRM, we weren’t entirely satisfied with NetSuite’s CRM. So, we brought in an outside team to integrate Salesforce via Celigo.
So, NetSuite is the hub—it’s our single source of truth. Then we integrate with other tools: we have ShipStation for shipping, and eventually ShipHawk, because we want to move into a warehouse management system in the next few years. Salesforce is our CRM. We’re currently using NetSuite Payroll, but in the future, we might bring on a different payroll system.
It can be hard working with a multi-billion dollar multinational company, but the reason we chose NetSuite over a smaller provider is because Oracle NetSuite has so many integrations—and so many people work with it. That’s why we chose NetSuite over others—because everyone integrates with it.
Caleb (14:04)
Yeah, I think I’m in the same boat. I also use NetSuite internally. We obviously have different use cases, but NetSuite applies to so many scenarios. As consultants, it’s great to be able to say, “Yes, we can do that.” It’s not fun when you hit strict limitations and have to say, “No, that’s not possible.” But with NetSuite, most things are possible.
I have a similar philosophy—I evaluate NetSuite modules to see if they’re the right fit.
Sometimes there are strategic reasons to use or avoid certain modules. I also evaluate third-party solutions that integrate with NetSuite depending on the use case.
For example, I use NetSuite CRM and the estimate record, but it’s very customized—including the PDF template—because my process is different. I totally recognize that there are better point solutions out there, like Salesforce, that offer major strategic benefits. That’s especially true for companies in the product space, like what you're doing.
I've also seen a lot of HubSpot integrations with NetSuite because HubSpot has so many pre-built marketing features. It’s great to tie in HubSpot’s marketing automation and then integrate that with NetSuite CRM—while still keeping NetSuite as the central source of truth.
Same goes for things like bank feeds. There’s a native bank feed SuiteApp that comes free and lets you reconcile your bank account. But there are also third-party solutions that open up more possibilities and support more bank options.
So I’m always evaluating what tools are out there. I try not to lock myself into a single ecosystem. I stay agnostic—whatever’s going to be the best fit is what I go with. I’m not afraid of integration.
Evan (16:02)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. For example, one of our biggest issues with accounts receivable was the delay between receiving a payment and getting it entered into our system. That delay could lead to late payments, which can really interrupt our cash flow.
So, we looked at VersaPay, which is associated with NetSuite, and we had them integrated into our NetSuite environment so the payment link is directly on the invoice. It eliminates the excuse of, “I didn’t know I could pay it,” or “I couldn’t find my checkbook.” The option to pay via credit card or ACH is right there.
Then we had Anchor Group build an automation that sends automatic invoice reminders. That reminds me—I need to run a report to see how our cash flow is looking now that people are hopefully paying faster.
Caleb (17:07)
Yeah, I had a very similar experience. When you don’t have reminders, people lose track of things, and you run into cash flow issues. So, we did the same thing—built a workflow for automatic reminders, added a click-to-pay option. Ours is a different payment processor, but it works similarly.
We don’t have the same product need for SuiteCommerce, so we didn’t go that route. But just having the click-to-pay and automatic reminders improved payments by around 30%. It made a noticeable difference quickly.
You can even set it to appear as though it’s coming from a specific email, even though it’s fully automated. That’s a good example of where NetSuite offers a Dunning module for automated reminders, but most of the time, it’s just better to use a workflow. It’s more customizable and doesn’t require extra licensing.
Evan (18:12)
Yeah, exactly. And you can customize it however you need. Scripts, workflows, and automations have been game-changers for us.
When I officially came on board, I had already worked at the warehouse during high school, so I’ve basically been with Medical Innovations my whole life. In college, I did data entry. That’s important because when I graduated in 2013—I graduated on a Wednesday and started work that Monday—one of my jobs was entering data from one system to another.
At the time, we were using two separate QuickBooks instances and an Access database to manage inventory. We had to input data into each one manually, and it drove me crazy. After six months, I said, “I can’t keep doing this.” I took QuickBooks and essentially created one giant Franken-file.
But after five years, as we started gearing up for growth, I knew we needed a solid foundation. Even if we were paying a little more for software than we technically needed for our size, I wanted to set that foundation early.
It’s so much easier to build infrastructure before growth than to grow and then try to implement it. Every building needs a good foundation—and NetSuite became that foundation for us.
I’m hoping we can triple our revenue in the next three to five years. That wouldn’t be possible if we were still on QuickBooks. With NetSuite, and all the automations, workflows, scripts, Suitelets, and integrations, we can hit that goal. If we tried to 3X without the right infrastructure, we’d be completely bottlenecked.
Caleb (20:17)
I’ve had to make similar business decisions. We’re both business leaders in our own spaces, and we constantly evaluate employee time.
With data entry, most people don’t think about the real cost. Even if someone’s on a lower salary, the true cost to the business is usually 1.35 to 1.4 times that salary once you factor in taxes and benefits—depending on the state.
People say, “This is how much I make per hour,” but they don’t realize the cost to the business is higher. You’ve overcome that with automation, and that enables scaling.
Another big factor I always think about is turnover. No business is immune to turnover, especially as you grow. Sure, you might have less turnover when you’re small, but as the business grows, it becomes a risk.
Automation helps you avoid needing to retrain people. When someone new comes on, you’re not pulling a senior person away from their job to train them. Training takes weeks, it distracts your team, and you need quality assurance to make sure the new person isn’t missing things. With automation, if your volume doubles, the system handles it—you're not doubling the time spent on data entry.
Evan (22:14)
Yeah, and it’s just about reliability. Reliability is critical in a customer-facing business.
If you don’t send out invoices for three days because the person handling them is on vacation, you’re three days behind on accounts receivable. Customers might not even know the product is on the way. Or they might think they have 30 days to pay when it’s really only 27.
That kind of delay creates issues, so reliability is a big factor in deciding which automations to build. There have been times when we’ve explored automation ideas and decided the ROI wasn’t there yet—or moved them to a quality-of-life list for when we have more time or budget.
We’ve spent a fair amount on software—probably more than most of our competitors would be comfortable with—but then we look at how far behind they are. It’s baffling.
There’s financial capital, and then there’s human capital. If I want to triple our revenue, I might only need 10 to 12 more employees. But another company, relying more on manual labor, might need 50 or 60.
It might seem cheaper in the short term to avoid spending on software, but in the long term, you're right—over five years, the ROI on a $2,000 customization just gets better and better. It compounds. I’m really excited to see where we’re going to be in the next few years and how those customizations pay off.
Caleb (24:08)
It compounds. Yeah, I’ve noticed the same. When I’m helping people evaluate whether NetSuite is the right fit, I look at whether they can afford the capital expense at their size.
Usually, if you're under $5 million in annual revenue, it’s probably too early—or it’ll be a hard pill to swallow to switch to an ERP. When you're between $5 to $10 million, it’s still a tough expense, but more feasible. You’re in that range where it's easier because your team is smaller, so there’s less change management.
Then once you're in the $10 to $20 million range, you're probably really feeling the pain of not having an ERP.
Once you hit $20 million, the project becomes more expensive, and there’s more change management—not just paying consultants but retraining all your internal employees. The cost to the business goes beyond hiring outside help. You’ve got more people to train, more people affected by new processes.
Evan (25:25)
One of the great things about how I’ve set up our software is that if I needed to open a new warehouse in Arizona next week, I could do it—no problem. Of course, there would be physical considerations like staff and location, but from a software perspective, I could have it up and running, integrated into our system, in a week.
Caleb (25:51)
That’s amazing.
Evan (25:52)
Yeah, it’s pretty insane. While some other companies might be juggling multiple QuickBooks environments, we’re streamlined. It’s very industry dependent—since we deal with physical goods, whereas someone else might be in services or staffing.
Caleb (26:11)
Software.
Evan (26:13)
Or a lawyer, for example—they may not need anything beyond QuickBooks. Just payroll and time tracking. But in our case, especially in the medical field, we’re dealing with compliance, lot numbers, and making sure we’re covered in the event of a recall.
We track every shipment in and out, which has saved us a ton of time and money. For example, one of our customers wanted to return 5,000 gloves purchased in 2021, claiming they were part of a recall. I looked at the lot numbers, checked our records, and confirmed we didn’t send them those. So, we told them we couldn’t accept the return. Never heard from them again.
Caleb (27:06)
That could’ve been a huge expense if you just had to take their word for it.
Evan (27:13)
Exactly. Because we track every product that comes in and goes out, we know exactly where things went. And now that we’re getting into pharmaceutical products—which is a whole other beast—it’s even more critical. In fact, it’s illegal not to track those items. You can get into serious trouble. But we’ve already been doing it, so it’s not a new hurdle for us.
We're dealing with non-controlled pharmaceuticals. At the beginning of 2024, we had one license in Maryland. Now, we have 14 licenses, and we’re planning to get 26 for states east of the Mississippi—and eventually expand west. The goal is to be a one-stop shop for all our customers.
Caleb (28:06)
I’ve done a lot with lot and serialized items. It’s a common need in product-focused industries. NetSuite’s advanced inventory management includes lot and serialized item tracking.
In manufacturing and food & beverage, companies also deal with certificates of analysis. I actually used to be a mechanical engineer and worked in manufacturing—designing tank trailers. We tracked heat numbers for metal and maintained documentation throughout the process, passing that along to the customer. It’s the same concept: full traceability from receiving to shipping.
Evan (29:05)
Yeah. And it’s not just about covering your own butt. If something goes catastrophically wrong, you need to be able to prove you weren’t at fault. That’s important not just legally, but morally.
I’d feel awful if we ever sent out a tainted product. In the medical field, you’re dealing with people’s lives. You have to keep your customers safe.
Caleb (29:35)
And when there is a recall, you need to know exactly who to notify so they can take action right away. This was a really good breakdown of how you use NetSuite and your philosophy behind it. I always enjoy these conversations.
Evan (29:41)
Exactly.
Caleb (30:02)
I’m glad we were able to cover a bunch of different topics. I think people will find a lot of value in seeing how NetSuite is used in real-life scenarios. It helps shift their expectations and philosophies around technology. You bring a lot of insights into the space, so thanks again for taking the time.
Evan (30:24)
Thank you. I’m glad I found you guys.
Caleb (30:28)
Yeah, it’s been fun working together. I’m excited for the upcoming projects.
Evan (30:30)
All right, thank you.
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