The First Commercial Hire Makes or Breaks Your Startup with Brandon Allen

In this episode, your host, Jordan Burgin, is joined by Brandon Allen a cardiovascular commercial leader who is CCO at Atraverse Medical, the transseptal-access company acquired by Johnson & Johnson to talk about what it really takes to commercialise cardiovascular technology.

Drawing on two decades across Guidant, Boston Scientific, Biosense Webster, Acutus and Atraverse, Brandon shares the lessons that don’t make the pitch deck: surviving a cash crisis with three months of runway left, choosing between VC and family-office capital, building electrophysiology teams from scratch, and why the first commercial hire can decide whether a startup makes it.

Key Topics

Brandon’s accidental path into medtech and cardiac EP from college golf to Pfizer to Guidant

Surviving a cash crisis with three months of runway left

VC capital vs. family-office capital for cardiovascular startups

Building and developing commercial teams in electrophysiology

What early adoption really takes in the EP lab, the “aha moment”

When to make your first commercial hire and who it should be

Related Insights

Why family offices can beat VCs on founder control and connection

Selling the patient story, not just the clinical data

Why engineers need to be in the room during live cases

How leaders learn more from bad leadership than good

Core Challenges

Founders confuse clinical validation with commercial adoption, underestimating how entrenched the big four (Biosense, Medtronic, Abbott, Boston) already are inside hospitals.

Companies wait until approval to hire sales talent, forgetting it can take 90–180 days before a new rep delivers any revenue making the timing, and the first hire, mission-critical.

🎧 Tune in now to hear how Brandon Allen turns differentiated cardiovascular technology into real commercial traction, from cash crises to clean exits.

The Crux of MedTech podcast is brought to you by Cruxx, a specialist surgical robotics recruitment agency.

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