The world is changing. People and their preferences, lifestyle, perspectives, opinions, and beliefs are all changing at a pace where innovation is no more just a sporadic occurrence.
For any company, innovating with the motive of making lives better, earns it a distinction from the crowd. Striving to deliver this innovation speaks volumes about what a company prioritizes, winning customer trust.
A prime example of such companies—featured on the cover of this edition—is Sciton, a medical device company providing advanced laser and light sources to medical professionals worldwide with a focus on long-term results, making patients happy, and physicians successful.
Strong Foundations
Sciton was founded in 1997 by two laser physicists, Jim Hobart, Ph.D., and Dan Negus, Ph.D., who believed in building quality products based on science that improved people’s lives. The foundation of Sciton’s success, even 24-years later, is still based on those beliefs.
“Our corporate mission is simple: ‘To Improve People’s Lives,’ but the core value that drives our company culture is to ‘Improve Our People Lives’,” said Aaron Burton, Sciton’s CEO.
The culture at Sciton is unlike any other company. It operates as a family and focuses on taking care of its people, which is why it builds the best quality medical and aesthetic devices on the planet.
“At Sciton, we genuinely believe that it is our responsibility to develop products that work, rather than introducing products that are just mediocre. We think our physician partners want products that have lasting power and won’t be hype on day one but fizzle out on day two after bad reviews. The market is different now. Consumers are very educated and aware before they call a physician’s office,” Aaron added.
One of Sciton’s recent product launches took place in 2020; during the pandemic, the company launched its newest platform system called the mJOULE. The mJOULE is a smaller version of the JouleX platform that offers the best of both worlds with Sciton’s latest technologies, BBL HERO and MOXI.
These two treatments provide excellent results while also having little downtime or discomfort for the patient. Sciton is often referred to as the ‘Bentley of Lasers.’ For years, the Sciton team has heard that, but Dr. Grant Stevens, a well-known and highly respected plastic surgeon, made it famous. “We’re always flattered and know we’ve earned that reputation because of our quality products,” Aaron expressed.
“If a physician or practice owns a Sciton, you know they believe in investing in the best products for their patients. Our systems aren’t cheap. We know that, but we also know why. Our systems are designed to provide a lot of treatment options, not just one. They are hand-built, one at a time in Silicon Valley, by a fantastic manufacturing team so that they will last a long time. 90% of our systems ever built are still in the market today because of our craftsmanship and upgradeable platforms. Our new products, like BBL HERO, can be added to our older systems rather than forcing a physician to buy a new system. Our systems are not cheap, but they have the best ROI.”
An Epitome of Leadership
Aaron Burton, Sciton’s CEO, has been with the company since 2011. His journey started in sales, working as an Area Sales Manager in Texas, before leading Sciton’s Women’s Health Group.
In 2018, Aaron became Sciton’s first Chief Operating Officer. As part of Jim Hobart’s strategy to see the company grow for another generation, he was appointed CEO in 2020.
Aaron immediately focused on the company’s culture, protecting the family environment while furthering the company’s growth mindset. His mantra is believing in the ‘Power of Your Mindset’ and is evident in everything that he touches.
We at Insights Care believe that perspectives and experience are aspects that help build the path towards success. To gain an entrepreneur’s world view, we asked Aaron for his opinion and advice on a few things:
Opinion on the future of the medical devices sector considering the continuous development in technology:
“This industry is constantly changing and growing for the better for our providers and their patients.” My prediction and what we’re seeing so far, is patients looking for options with lower downtime and treatments that can be done year-round. It is also important to focus on treatment options for all skin types that are safe, effective, and truly ‘worth it’ for the consumer,” said Aaron.
Opinion on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the medical devices vertical, and the challenges that Sciton faced during the initial phase of the pandemic:
“Of course, the start of the pandemic was scary for all businesses around the world. Closing manufacturing and our headquarters in Palo Alto, CA temporarily was tough. Like many other businesses, our team had to switch our thinking from strategic to tactical in the first few months.”
“As mentioned earlier, our mission is to Make People’s Lives Better, and our mission was tested in 2020. Our number one goal was to maintain that core value as the company (and the world) faced such a stressful and unpredictable time. Thankfully now, the doors are back open and we’re seeing treatment volume come back in bigger strides than ever.”
“Patients are excited about bettering themselves inside and out. They’ve been watching themselves on Zoom for over a year now and realizing what about their skin they want to change. Our customers are excited about our new technology, and we can be thankful that the aesthetics industry was so resilient and bounced back so quickly,” he added.
Advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the medical device (laser tech) manufacturing industry:
“Focus on your people first. Your customers and investors are important, but if you don’t have happy employees, who love coming to work, it’s hard to make a great product that your customers want and grow like your investors want.”
Redefining Benchmarks
Sciton has continuously earned the ‘Great Place to Work®’ recognition which is a tribute to the family culture that all the teams work hard to maintain. This April, Sciton also received the NewBeauty 2021 Innovation Award for its BBL HERO technology.
HALO Laser has won the New Beauty 2018 award, the 2016 RealSelf Most Worth it Award, and is the #1 ‘Worth It’ Facial Laser on Realself. HALO™ technology was also presented with the 2016 MyFaceMyBody Award for Best Anti-Aging Treatment.
Sciton’s customer service has a long-standing history of amazing service that has been recognized throughout the industry. They were featured in the 2019 Aesthetic Industry Market Report, the 2012 Medical Spa MD and Physician Report and in 2011, Sciton was ranked First in Class among aesthetic laser manufacturers in a survey of Medical Spa MD’s 5000-member physician community.
Marching Ahead with a Laser Focus
Sharing his vision of scaling Sciton’s operations and offerings in the years to come, Aaron said, “We have a lot of growth opportunities, around the world. We put a big focus, for the first time this year, on growing our North American salesforce. We have almost doubled our team and believe we have a long way to go.”
“We also see some nice growth opportunities in our international business. We are going direct in more markets, including Australia and the UK just earlier this year. We launched mJOULE to some key markets such as the UK in June and just recently in Canada.”
“We operate worldwide with direct operations in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, and distributor partners in more than 53 countries. 2021 is shaping up to be another record year, driven by demand around the world. Our new products are in demand, and we’re excited about our R&D pipeline for 2022 and beyond. Our family, around the world, is doing some fantastic work right now, and I’m optimistic about our future.” he concluded.
