Date: August 3, 2001From the print edition of CityBusiness
MedSuds founders part ways,
Two now compete
Mark Reilly Senior Reporter
MedSuds is becoming a soap opera.
The fledgling group, a medical-technology sibling of the startup-booster firm NetSuds.com Inc., has split in two after just a few months, following a rift between its founders over the proper course for the new venture.
The founders -- NetSuds CEO Matt Noah and John Alexander, a former St. Jude Medical Inc. executive -- have dissolved their partnership and started separate enterprises along the lines of MedSuds.
Noah is now directing MedicalSuds, a business-development and networking group for medical device and technology firms, while Alexander has launched The Medical Forum, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that likewise seeks to bring together med-tech companies with investors and partners.
The two groups are now jockeying for the support of the former MedSuds' sponsors, with several companies claimed as sponsors by both firms.
Noah and Alexander confirmed they had gone their separate ways, though neither would comment on what prompted the breakup.
"It's definitely a split; we're not working together on anything," said Noah, who had envisioned MedSuds as a way to extend his popular Chanhassen-based NetSuds concept. NetSuds, founded in 1998 as a beer-and-pretzels gathering of telecom professionals, grew into a series of well-attended networking sessions for technology companies and venture capitalists. It also launched a round of breakfast sessions seeking to link investors and pre-screened entrepreneurs.
MedSuds had hosted a total of one networking event, in late May. Another nighttime event is set for Aug. 16, and Noah said it will go on as planned -- but under the MedicalSuds banner.
"The original vision is still there," Noah said. "It's just being followed out by me instead of the two of us."
For his part, Alexander says he's pursuing that goal as well, just without Noah. "I'm focused on what the original MedSuds model was -- getting early-stage companies in front of VCs and advisors," he said. He is structuring his venture as a non-profit organization, rather than the for-profit model used by Noah.
The Medical Forum seems to be hewing to the breakfast-meeting side of the model. It has scheduled its first event -- highlighting three medical entrepreneurs -- for next Thursday morning.
On Noah's site, he points out that "any entrepreneur-related events" are not authorized by either MedicalSuds or the now-defunct MedSuds, clearly a reference to the Medical Forum.
Noah has apparently kept the rights to MedSuds.com, though it redirects browsers to the MedicalSuds.com page. Alexander's site is located at themedicalforum.org.
For sponsors of the former MedSuds, the situation has left them caught in limbo. Tom Niccum, president of Eagan-based Lancet Software Development Inc., caters to medical-technology firms and was a backer of the original MedSuds. He said he's been contacted by both Alexander and Noah, and his firm is claimed as a sponsor by both.
"We wrote our check to MedSuds, but that doesn't exist anymore," Niccum said. "Everybody's been very forthcoming, but it's just a little confusing right now."
Dave Stassen, a partner at St. Paul Venture Capital in Eden Prairie -- another sponsor of MedSuds -- said the firm is sticking with Noah, mostly because they dealt with him first at the original firm.
"It's unfortunate," he said of the breakup, "because they had a great attendance for their first event. But we're mainly concerned that there's still a forum to get people in this industry together."
John Risdall, CEO of New Brighton-based Risdall Advertising, said he would continue sponsoring both new firms. He wouldn't comment on the reasons for the split, beyond noting that Noah and Alexander "have radically different operating styles."
But he thinks both can succeed in their own niche. "Certainly in the Twin Cities there's room enough for both of them," he said. "That whole market was terribly underserved before MedSuds came along."
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