He had business idea after business idea but none panned out as well as his latest venture.
Local entrepreneur Tom Shrader has tried to start several businesses since graduating from Blissfield High School in Michigan but struggled to find the right idea and the right market. Mr. Shrader and his family moved to Michigan from Sylvania.
Ideas like the “Sticky Light,” which was a light attached to an adhesive that could stick to any surface, seemed like they had potential to be profitable but didn’t turn out that way.
“It could stick to any surface, but it couldn’t be too hot or too cold,” he said.
Mr. Shrader’s struggle with entrepreneurship is now a thing of the past.
He’s found gradual success in the pre-used medical robotics industry, especially in his most recent venture, R2 Surgical, which specializes in selling and servicing pre-owned surgical robotics systems like da Vinci surgical robots, manufactured by Intuitive Surgical, as well as supplying instruments, endoscopes, parts, accessories, and disposables like curtains and latex gloves to hospitals around the world.
“There is an incredible need,” he said. “There are tons of companies involved in handling and reselling or having some sort of service with U.S. medical equipment. The industry has been there for more than 20 years, and it’s going to keep going because not all hospitals and medical centers want to buy new stuff.”
Hospitals like First Lviv Medical Union in Ukraine utilize surgical robots like the da Vinci S and da Vinci Si which are used for procedures on the esophagus, stomach, and colon, and in gynecology, urology, and pediatric surgery, said Andrii Stasyshyn, who works in the department of plastic surgery and endoscopy at the hospital.
He said the medical center constantly consults with R2 Surgical on maintenance and provision of consumables and tools.
“We are very satisfied with the work with R2 Surgical and hope for further cooperation,” he said.
R2 Surgical, which was founded in 2019, stands out globally because it is virtually the only company in the space that provides comprehensive services in addition to the robots, which can be vital to certain hospitals because of the lack of access to resources like specialists who can service the robots or train how to operate them.
“We have a large inventory for those customers to keep them going,” he said. “We’re really one of a kind.”
Mr. Shrader got his start in reselling surgical robots working for a company that resold radiology equipment with his cousin Ryan Shrader in 2009, he said.
They learned about sales and marketing for medical equipment, which is how Ryan and he got the idea for Medco Blue. The pair started the business in Mr. Shrader’s kitchen in 2015.
“We gradually moved into an office, and now we have our own full warehouse,” he said. “From the experience I garnered at Medco Blue, I saw a demand for surgical robots in 2019, and that’s the same year that we started R2 Surgical.”
Having a focus on sustainability is an important piece to the company, Jordan Killam, marketing and communications manager for R2 Surgical, said.
She compared the surgical robots to cars.
If kept up nicely, they can last a long time.
“The fact that so many medical devices and medical equipment end up in landfills or they end up just blocked in storage units never to be used, we think that’s wrong,” Ms. Killam said. “We just want to make sure that people have access to this life-saving equipment.”
His first successful business, he said, was the Toledo Lamp Co., which he founded in 2016 while working as part of the marketing team at The Andersons, Inc.
He ran the company with his mother, Denise, who helped Mr. Shrader sell masks during the coronavirus pandemic at Medco Blue before he sold the Toledo Lamp Co., she said.
“No one was really buying a lot of equipment but they were calling him looking for masks, so I started doing that in sales,” Mrs. Shrader said. “That’s kind of how it started, and then I did whatever odd jobs he needed me to do. That was my nickname, ‘Odd Job.’”
She said she’s proud to see how successful his business is today.
“I love seeing [Tom’s success],” she said. “He’s taken his idea and he stuck with it. … I knew it was going to be great.”
First Published May 11, 2024, 11:16 a.m.
