For most people, hip replacement isn’t something that crosses your mind until later in life. But for Armen Bakirtzian and co-founders, Andre Hladio and Richard Fanson, developing a solution to help improve the outcomes of these surgeries became a launchpad for starting their company, Intellijoint Surgical Inc.
Together they presented their idea and won the pitch competition at the 2010 Ontario’s Next Top Young Entrepreneur Pitch Competition. That same year they were welcomed to the Accelerator Centre.
Looking back, Armen Bakirtzian, now CEO at Intellijoint, notes that when he and his co-founders first walked into the AC, they were all grinning ear-to-ear. After working in their basements, garages, kitchen tables or any space they could find, having an actual office gave them a tremendous boost in confidence and focus.
“It was an incredible experience. We met great people, got inducted into the ecosystem and took advantage of all the resources. To this day, we all feel that it was one of the best decisions we made.”
He added that as technical co-founders, they came into the program only having the experience of working on a school project. They hadn’t hired anyone or gone through any of the steps of establishing formalized business practices. However, they’ve come a long way since then.
On the day we spoke with Armen, Intellijoint was moving into a larger office. While staying in their current location, they were more than doubling their space. Since graduating from the AC in June, 2014 they’ve gone on to receive nearly $550,000 in FedDev investment.
Their flagship product, intellijoint HIP™, a surgical tool designed to enable orthopaedic surgeons to more effectively meet their surgical objectives and improve patient outcomes, earned them the 2015 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Enabling Technology Leadership.
They’ve made significant inroads in the Canadian and American markets and they recently entered into a strategic partnership that will provide access to the Australian market.
With success, comes responsibility. Rising to the occasion, Intellijoint is dedicated to remaining in Waterloo Region. Armen firmly states, “Our focus to build ourselves here, to draw talent here and give back to the ecosystem — it all ties back to our time at the AC.”
THE RUNDOWN
Family: He is married to Garod Bakirtzian.
Business hero: His father.
Person he’d like to have lunch with: Carey Price
Guilty pleasure: Nutella
The best piece of advice you’ve ever received: If you’re going to fail, fail quickly and move on to something else.
Three things most people don’t know:
- He’s from Quebec.
- He has a scuba diving license.
- He’s a godfather. (The mentoring kind, not the mafia kind.)