Operation Phoenix: How Entrepreneur Kayla Rodriguez Graff on Hard Things and Healing with Honey

Kayla Rodriguez Graff got a 'no' from the patent office, 'no' from the FDA, and another 'no' from Medicare, and now her biotech company SweetBio® is FDA-cleared, patented in almost 20 countries, reimbursed, and in clinics across the country with $12 million in financing. CEO Kayla co-founded the company with her brother, turning manuka honey and collagen into a dissolvable sheet that helps the body repair. Kayla shares how she and her team white boarded "Operation Phoenix" to figure out reimbursement not clearance was their true value metric, plus how a COVID test inspired a product patients apply at home. We also talk about the "pre-mortem" exercise she runs every year ("what if we're wildly successful, or we've died?"); and how she built a company and three children at the same time without choosing between living and building. Passionate about policy and advocacy for women, Kayla serves on several boards supporting these efforts and recently presented at the U.S. Senate on Women Entrepreneurship.

🔑Key Takeaways🔑

🍯 🩹 Honey, Collagen and a Phone Call: Kayla's brother, a biomedical tissue engineer, had spent three years combining two trusted wound-care materials into something greater than its parts. Her four tests before saying yes: is the need big enough, will people pay, can we make it for less than we sell it for, and can we protect it.

🚫 🔥 Three No's and Operation Phoenix: The USPTO said no, the FDA said no, Medicare said no. The morning after the FDA rejection the team whiteboarded a twelve-month plan to pivot from dental into wound care and had clearance in ten. "When you believe you can make a difference, you find the way around. You burrow under. You fly over."

💰 📋 The Real Milestone Is Reimbursement: FDA clearance feels like the moment that changes a company's trajectory. It isn't, without a clear, proven reimbursement path. Kayla would raise against reimbursement, not clearance, if she did it again. $12 million raised, two clearances, patents in almost 20 countries, multiple reimbursement codes and a randomized trial, because she had no choice but to be capital efficient.

🔮 🛶 Dangerously Optimistic, So Run a Pre-Mortem: Entrepreneurs are a canoe that can turn with the tide, and they are dangerously optimistic. Kayla's team imagines the year has ended in either a billion-dollar headline or a funeral and asks what happened. A COVID test that trained millions through pictures became the model for VERIS, a daily dissolving sheet patients apply at home.

👩‍👧‍👦 🌱 Living and Building: Company in 2015, engaged the same year, married in 2016, first baby in 2017, "I've only known chaos." She left San Francisco for Memphis to prove you can build something extraordinary without killing yourself, judges balance by the month rather than the day, and keeps the grace to be kind to herself.

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More about Kayla at SweetBio®

https://www.sweetbio.com/