(inspiring electronic music) - Michael and I grew up and we had no interest in being entrepreneurs.

That wasn't something that really interested us.

We wanted benefits and PTO and vacation and livin' the American dream working for a large corporation.

We went back to grad school to get our MBAs.

While we were there, one of the classes that I was in was entrepreneurship and one of the assignments was to come up with some ideas that you could actually take to market and him being in medical devices and me being in marketing we thought, well, what if we could invent a medical device?

And that's really where it all began.

(dramatic electronic music) This is us doing a little bit of R&D in our lab.

This is the day we moved into our new office.

This is some of our team... We always say the two of us have an insatiable curiosity.

- Oh, yeah.

- Like when we get interested in something, we both really dig into it until we become self-experts on the topic, especially Michael.

- Having spent most of my career in the medical device world, I had never really had much experience in the wound care industry but it was always something that fascinated me.

About five million people every year die of bleeding.

It's a huge challenge in the world right now.

It's just something that I feel like we could overcome if we put our brains on it.

(inspiring electronic music) - We started researching everything we could get our hands on on how to stop bleeding.

We even tried cayenne pepper and tea bags and any kind of over-the-counter remedy that someone's grandma might have told someone and we found it on a blog.

We went into our kitchen and took out our blender and started blending up these things and building concoctions.

And we literally got out a razor blade and started cutting our fingers and putting these on to see if it worked.

Our product is all-natural minerals and that gave us piece of mind as we were cutting ourselves and putting it directly in our bloodstream.

- We absolutely felt like mad scientists when we were whipping this up in our kitchen.

- [Susie] This here is really where it all started.

These are my fingers and this is when I had cut them to see.

On this one we put the powder inside of the bandage and on this one, that's just a regular bandage and this is when we were like, "Oh my gosh, it worked!"

(inspiring electronic music) - After months of work trying to develop this, it was almost by accident that we actually came up with the compound that we did.

We finally took it to a team of scientists and told them to reverse engineer it for us and tell us exactly why it was working.

- You know, it makes a great story.

"Oh, I made a mistake and we made this stuff and it works!"

ClotIt works because of the nature of two different components.

One component causes cells, they form flocks or groups of cells.

The other part activates factor 12.

Factor 12 is part of the beginning of the cascade of reactions in your blood that's absolutely necessary for the formation of a clot.

- I was totally caught by surprise when it took between 15 and 30 seconds.

I mean, that's, that's magic.

(dramatic string music) - This technology didn't happen because of some stroke of genius with us.

It really landed in our laps and we took the opportunity to really explore it, commercialize it, and were excited to see where this could go.

Right now, it's in a powder form and we're working on the FDA clearance right now for humans, to be able to sell it for humans but it is on the market for animals, so we have tons of testimonials of veterinarians and pet owners and pet professionals who've used this.

(inspiring electronic music) One of the moments when things really got real for us is when we got our first investor check.

We started the company bootstrapping and we put all of our life savings in which was $10,000 at the time.

When we received our first check, it was $25,000 and we sat in the car and we looked at it and we were like, "Oh my gosh, this just got real."

One of the things that inspires me to keep going is that I really want to make this money back for these people and to have them be financially successful because of this and I know every penny that has been invested and it's close to 2.5 million right now.

(dramatic string music) There are pros and cons to being an entrepreneur and owning your own company.

One of the great things is in the mornings, we can take extra time with our kids.

- [Michael] It's nice to be able to take a few extra minutes to do the things that are important.

- However, there is a downside in that last night both of us were working until one AM.

(playful piano music) - For me, the best part of this job is knowing that at the end of the day, we've actually done something that makes a difference.

When you're with a big company, you don't exactly see the impact that you have on a daily basis.

- I vision this company as something much bigger with you know, our own facility and a lot of employees and a parking lot that's all ours and a flag out front and like (laughs) I think about going to work for a large company that has a line of life-saving blood-stopping technologies in animal market, in the human market, in the military and that the entire world, I mean I know that sounds crazy but that the entire world is using our technology to stop bleeding and save lives.

(inspiring string music) - I like it.