Whether it was a PSA on TV or inside a bus, we’ve all learned the FAST method for detecting a stroke. Each year, 12 million people suffer a stroke—and unfortunately, six million of those end in death. 

Kevin Macwan and Purvish Soni quit their day jobs to launch Sensible Vascular. They are developing a faster, safer, and more effective thromboectomy solution to remove clots to provide better patient outcomes.

In this episode, Kevin and Purvish share how their experience at industry giants like Medtronic helped them recognize the gaps in current stroke treatment and gave them the confidence to take the leap into entrepreneurship.

From co-founder matchmaking on YC to tinkering in a basement, they walk us through the early days of building Sensible Vascular and the long road ahead to regulatory approval.

It's a story about timing, trust, and the relentless drive to make stroke intervention faster, safer, and more effective, because when it comes to stroke, every second counts.

00:43 – Introducing today's topic: strokes and thrombectomy
01:44 – Meet Kevin Macwan and Purvish Soni from Sensible Vascular
02:52 – First startup experience and joining Communitech’s Bootcamp
03:52 – Key takeaways from their first accelerator program
05:16 – Discovering Waterloo Region's medtech ecosystem
07:10 – How Kevin and Purvish met and started working together
08:27 – Learning from big medtech companies like Medtronic
09:40 – Bringing startup knowledge from the corporate world
11:00 – The power of lived experience in gaining investor trust
12:13 – Finding out they lived 10 minutes apart
13:28 – "YC meets Tinder" – on co-founder matching
14:17 – What made them go all-in on their startup
16:24 – Building trust and validating the idea
17:21 – Complementary skills: business meets engineering
18:54 – The role of family support in taking the leap
20:11 – Early physician feedback and validation
21:24 – Let’s talk about the product: a new approach to thrombectomy
23:08 – The need for stroke awareness and patient education
25:53 – Getting accepted into The Forge at McMaster
27:58 – Where they see the company two years from now
29:30 – Canada vs. U.S.: navigating medtech regulatory paths
32:04 – Building partnerships with stroke centres
33:15 – Final thoughts and how to learn more
33:52 – About Communitech and how founders can get support