Brian.

I founded the company in 2015. It wasn’t my first foray into the healthcare space, as I already had ten years of experience in this sector. A year earlier, I saw a business opportunity in the area of online education for medical specialists through video recordings. I convinced Jihye Shin, who had once planned to become a surgeon herself, to build and work on a project with me. Our goal was to provide medical education opportunities on a large scale, without the need to travel. This idea was especially appealing to surgeons and students. They said it was exactly what they needed, so we didn’t need any more convincing – we knew this was a good direction for growth.

Recording our first video was not easy. We had to wait a long time for consent from the USC hospitals, but when the recording was finally ready for presentation, the doors to elite medical institutions began to open wide for us.

We were inspired to do this by John Heysham Gibbon, MD, who was a revolutionary surgeon and inventor of the artificial heart-lung machine. Whereas, the second part of the name is an abbreviation of “library”. 

When you build a business, sooner or later, you will encounter difficult times. Whether or not you come out on top often affects the future of the entire project. We ran out of money while building GibLib. The team was aware of this as my guiding principle is to be transparent with the people I work with. We were all aware of the seriousness of the situation. We also knew that the fundraising process would take a while, so we gave everyone the opportunity to make their own decisions: they could  stay or leave, knowing full well that they would not be paid for their work for a while.  It turned out that we had great staff as most of them stayed. We did not have to wait long for their loyalty to be rewarded – we managed to close an investment in a month and a half. That was incredible!

I am focused on the team. I know that a good leader can inspire, so I try to behave in a way that makes my colleagues want to draw on my knowledge and experience. I also know that success isn’t possible without committed and dedicated people, so I appreciate their work and strive to help them do it as well as possible.

These are the words of Confucius: “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”  This is particularly helpful when building your own business. You have to stay focused on your goal, but don’t forget that great achievements come in small steps. This is hard work. These words help me get the right perspective, especially when I’m feeling overwhelmed.