Join us on the Top Floor as Krista Crawford sits down with the incredibly talented and visionary Mustafa Al-Adhami. In this episode, Mustafa shares his inspiring journey of building Astek Diagnostics. He delves into the creative processes that drive his work, the challenges he overcame, and the pivotal moments that shaped his career.
Discover how Mustafa’s innovative spirit and commitment to excellence have positioned him as a leading figure in the creative industry. Whether you're an aspiring artist, a seasoned professional, or simply someone who appreciates great storytelling, this conversation is packed with insights and inspiration.
🔹 About Mustafa Al-Adhami: A creative powerhouse, Mustafa has consistently pushed the boundaries of design and artistry. His work at Astek Diagnostics is a testament to his dedication and skill, making a significant impact in the field.
🔹 Key Highlights:
Mustafa's approach to creativity and innovation
Overcoming obstacles and staying motivated
Insights into the future of the creative industry
Don't miss this deep dive into the mind of one of today's most influential creatives.
Connect with Mustafa Al-Adhami on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maladhami
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From
The Top Floor Team
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Welcome to this episode of This Stitch Top Floor. My guest today is Mustafa Al-Daldami, PhD. He is the CEO of Aztec Diagnostic, a biotechnology company in the final development stages of a one-hour UTI detection and antibiotic sensitivity indicator. Welcome, Mustafa. Mustafa, thank you so much for having made time for us today. I want to dig right in and ask you, "Tell me about Aztec. Tell me what it is, what you do, and what was your inspiration for this company?" Yeah, well, thank you for having me. Again, I'm Stefan DiSio and founder of Aztec Diagnostics and I am originally from Iraq. I was a refugee for for about five years and then I got lucky and I started PhD here in the US. Around the time I was graduating, I really thought I wanted to be a professor, so I had a job lined up and that was around April 2021, I would say. But my grandfather was not feeling too well and I went to Iraq to help with his care. He had a urinary tract infection. It took doctors three different antibiotics and four days to get the culture back just to tell him what antibiotic he should be taking and in the meantime, he was in pain, he was delirious and he ended up following. He couldn't find his glasses and he just fell and broke his hip. I feel like I watched him go from a young 87-year-old to a much, much older one within days. So that's when I decided that maybe that's what I should be doing and that's when I founded Aztec Diagnostics on May 27, 2021. So the Aztec we're developing a one-hour antibiotic sensitivity test. So directly from patient sample, we'll tell physicians whether a patient has an infection, like a bacterial infection, and then what the best antibiotic to treat the patient with. And of course, we call our device that you do. What you do is what I call my grandfather. So it's really, we're building this for him and hopefully many, many people will be benefiting from it very soon. That is such an inspirational story and I love that you connected your family experience and you've taken that experience and now you've turned it into something that can benefit thousands, thousands and thousands of people. You know what they say? They say like when you try and start a company, you don't find a problem. The problem finds you and I feel like I'm the priming sample of that. I was not thinking about UTI or anything like that when my grandfather got sick. What is your PhD in? Mechanical Engineering. That fits very well. So now you're doing biomechanical engineering in essence. Yeah, I guess in a way. Yeah, I did lots of microfluidics. So my, definitely my PhD translated very well into my job now. And that whole critical thinking socratic process of asking questions and finding new answers and going in different directions. Oh yeah, absolutely. And like the whole idea was you know if a human is alive, if they're breathing, right? And I thought I was like, why don't we do the same thing for bacteria? If you put in the right antibiotic and the bacteria stops breathing, you know, while you killed it, so the antibiotic is working. Very interesting. So who do you consider a potential role model for success? Is there anyone that comes to mind? Like in the business world or just like in general? You tell me when I say a role model for success, what comes to mind? Well, so anyone that was able to solve like a hard problem, you know, something technically deep and decided to take on that challenge, you know, like I think of startups like Eryon. Have you heard of them? Like the patient nuclear reactions. I mean, that's like such a sci-fi thing that, you know, they make it work. And even like we're all using chat GPT and like that was, that was not supposed to work. But you know, these guys decided to take on the challenge and made it work. I mean, from a paper in 2017 that Google abandoned, they made a $80 billion company, you know, so all of these guys really will, I look up to them and I wish to be like them one day. So you've had this company basically since 21, was that one? Three years. Yeah, three years. So in your vast three years with this company, what is your biggest learning to date as a leader? What is something that maybe surprised you or an area where you know that you've grown, having stepped up to this challenge? As a leader, I learned that I am not a good leader and all I could do is work very hard. So I could lead my example. There is also no cookie cutter solution. So I remember the first ever pitch that I did. The investor looked at me and said, you don't have any experience. How are you going to run a company? And so I went and I write over 200 books, literally 200 business books. If I'm awake, I am learning some business stuff. And there's no way, like there's no one way for things to succeed. And I guess that's the biggest thing that I learned so far. 200 business books that I think that's more than maybe I've read and I teach MBA courses. So any one particular author that calls to you more than the other, someone that the way they write or the way they inspire really calls to you? Well, I like Shoot Dog. I don't know if you've read Shoot Dog, film night. That was a really good book. Predictably irrational was nice. Thinking fast and slow was definitely one of the hardest books, but one of the ones that I really, really enjoyed. I read the innovators dilemma. Is it like the list is very, very long? Oh, surrounded by idiots. Have you read that one? I have not. Oh, it's, it's, it's some of fun. They, they categorize people in like different colors. So like, so you know, like with every person that you hired, like a little bit, well, while then you know like how to, what words to choose when you talk to them and like to, to keep them inspired. Like some people like schedules and like like firm tasks and others. No, you need to just motivate them. Tell them about like the big picture and that's how to motivate them. It's like, it's such an interesting book that, that's really I, I try to use on, on, on daily basis. And yeah. That sounds very much like they're using situational leadership. I, I would say so. I would say so. Absolutely. Fantastic. How many people are working for you now in the company? Or eight full time. And then I think total would be around 18, including in the part time. Stuff, yeah. We also have six full timers with our R.D. partner. So, you know, it's a big R.D. firm. So within that firm, we also have six. It's actually quite a few for three years into the process. Oh, absolutely. How long before you think you will be at launch for this testing process? Yeah, so, so we're one year to FDA submission. So, so in the last three years, we were able to build like from a sketch. We still have that sketch on my board, actually. We were able to build an alpha prototype. This is the first version of the product. And we deployed this alpha prototype into different hospitals. And very recently, one of the hospitals published two independent studies saying that this is working and this is going to change how things are are run in hospitals. Yeah, so, so from here, we were finalizing a larger race. And then by November, we're going to have the actual product that we take to market. So we could rank clinical trials in Q1 and submit to the FDA by Q2 of next year. We've been very aggressive this whole time. We've been ahead of every single milestone. You know, I'm very proud of the execution that we were able to do. It sounds like you are on the fast track. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I, I'm getting older. And I was like, you know what, we call all the way in, or not at all. You have to keep your audience in mind when you say you're getting older, you know, recognize that they're most of us are probably a lot older than you are already. So that's all relative. Like, I'm not thinking, I went to sleep one time and I was 25. When I woke up, I was 35. I was like, what did this happen? I agree. That's what I mean. I agree. Wait till you wake up. I'm not there yet, but I'm close. Wait till you wake up and you're 65. I'm very close to that. It's like, how did that happen? Where did it go? Normally, I asked this question with, with a, a later number, but I'm going to change this a little bit. I usually ask, think back to your 18 year old self, but I'm going to say, think back to your 12, 13 year old Mustafa. What advice would you give him now? If you could go back, what would you, what advice would you give him? I'd be like, why did you stop coding? You're, you're so good at coding. Why did you stop like, soccer is fun, but it could not make money with soccer. That's exactly what I would say, because like, at, at like nine years old, I was like programming video games. And then I just stopped and started playing sports. I was like, what? So when did you go back to it? Or why didn't you go back to it? Oh, I, I did. I did. So 18 years old, I went back to it. When I was a refugee, I needed to make money somehow. So I did translation. So I would get some recordings in Iraqi Arabic and I would move it to English. And because I was busy with school, I built a software that did majority of the work for me and ended up selling that software. And that's how I made my way to the US. It was that $38,000 that I used for my first semester PhD and then luckily I got a scholarship. Any particular person inspired you more so than others? You know, like, my mom really inspires me because she's a scientist. And like, really, she, she went through a lot. Like, I lost my dad when I was 15 years old and just the, and she had a brain tumor, like two weeks later. And just seeing like literally from the hospital, yeah, yeah. So before her hair even grew back, she was back at work just because, you know, we were like three kids and she had to like, so that was very inspirational. Like her, her sacrifice really motivated me because in my mind, I was like, I cannot make mistakes. She worked too hard for me to mess this up. So that's, you know, from like the personal, you know, side of things. And I know one that has ever built a rocket as well. I think they're pretty cool because it's such a, such a risky business. And anything that's out there is like such a mystery in my mind. So I'd like that as well. That's a very small pool. Those that have built rockets. Oh, it sounds like it's like so crazy. So it sounds like resiliency is what your mom has provided in terms of inspiration. And, and if mom is listening now, I hope she hears this, that how she inspired you to be resilient. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So we applied for her visa four years ago and she, she arrived in the US last week. So I'm very, very happy that she's finally here. Let's give a shout out. What's your mom's name? Her name is Lemia. Lemia. Well, Lemia, what an impressive young man you have. Oh, thank you. What else do you think others need to know about Aztec diagnostic? Um, so, you know, the problem is very, we made it very personal. And that's how we were able to go very fast. And trust me, when, when we're done on this, when it's in the market, things will never be the same. I mean, there's going to be much less pain. There's going to be way less complications. So, so we're, I'm very excited to the day that we're actually put this device in, in, in, in physicians hands and then, and just see it out there. It's, I can't wait. I can't wait. It's, it's, it's good. Any fear that someone, some competitor is going to slip in before you? No, no, um, the process that we built is so simple. Everyone is like complicating it. We made something very simple. That's why it's hard to compete. And honestly, if someone else solves it, the problem that I wanted to solve, someone did my work for me. Um, you know, we've been raising money in every round we raise. People say like, don't you worry about dilution? Like, how much do you have left in the company? I was like, I don't care. I don't want to make any money. I just want this out there. Um, again, it's personal really. So, yeah. Yeah. I love that. What if I not ask you, either about yourself, your development, or your company, that you feel I should have asked? What, what, what do we else do we need to know? The company is exactly the same age as my son. I guess one thing that, uh, that you need to know, um, that again, that's resiliency. Raising a child and starting a company at the same time. That's a lot. But, but no, like on a serious note, like, I am disappointed that we always talk about this, you know, technological advancement. And we're always very proud of everything. And, you know, we have smartphones or whatever in communication. And no one has found a solution to improve on urine cultures or blood cultures. I mean, it's been over 50 years and we just have the same technology. You know, and when I was in Iraq and even later as a refugee, we always thought like, we have this, but America probably has something better. So when I came to America and it's the same stuff, I'm like, wait, hold on a minute. Yeah. And when we had issues like, well, the West is going to solve it. But then when I came here, I realized, you know, I am part of the West now. So maybe I solve it. So it's really, it's this point that we have not been able to improve on that. Well, everything else is progressing rapidly. It's that idea of leapfrogging. And there was a business book out a couple of decades ago called leapfrogging. And it's jumping over where we are technologically. And so you're hoping to take a giant leap forward from something that sounds like it's been pretty static over there. Absolutely. And there are cool technologies that people are coming up with. It's just, I feel like it's always like it's parallel to what we're trying to get, but like, not exactly what we're trying to do. And honestly, it's just our solution is very easy, very simple. And I think that's why we have it. So if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to find out more about what you're doing? Well, my LinkedIn, I'm usually very responsive to LinkedIn messages, as long as, you know, they're not to sell me something that I don't need. So yeah, with stuff out of me, that would be the easiest way to reach out to me. And generally, when people reach out with something that, you know, I'm interested in, or it's like, you need advice or just want to chat. I just share with them my currently and they pick a time and we talk for a half hour. Thank you so much. I have enjoyed getting to know more about you and we're about your company. And I'm sure we will talk again.
