Medical device startup · Founder & Design Engineer
Anesto Medical — Anesthesia Positioning Device
I co-founded Anesto with a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) to fix an ergonomic problem my co-founder saw every day: positioning a sedated patient's head and jaw so their airway stays open. I owned the device from a blank sheet through three tested prototypes. I also ran the business side: market research, investor pitches and pitch-competition funding.
- Role
- Founder & Design Engineer
- Co-founder
- A practicing CRNA
- Timeline
- Sep 2023 – Jan 2025
- Location
- Baltimore, MD
The problem
During sedation, especially monitored anesthesia care (MAC) cases, a patient's airway depends on how their head and jaw are positioned. Holding that position for a whole procedure is awkward, tiring work for the anesthesia provider, and it leaves them with fewer free hands.
My co-founder lived this problem as a CRNA. That gave us a direct line to the people who'd use the device, and a way into the operating room to see it for myself.
What the device had to do
- Hold a patient's jaw and head steady for long periods to keep the airway open.
- Adjust quickly to patients of different sizes and shapes.
- Stay comfortable on the patient: a hard structure for support, soft padding where it touches skin.
- Fit into the provider's existing workflow, not slow it down.
The device
Why a model instead of photos — much of this work happened in the operating room and with anesthesia providers, where patient privacy ruled out photos, and I didn't take many outside of that. It taught me a lesson I've carried into every project since: document your work as you go, especially in design. The 3D assembly below is built from my original SolidWorks parts instead.
- Cushions above head rest
- Gap between cushions
Show
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Shell & head rest
A shell sits under the patient's head with a dished head rest set toward the back. The rest rides on a lift that moves it up and down to suit each patient.
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Swinging head piece
The head piece rotates in an arc track on the shell to set how high the jaw is lifted. Lock pins drop through one of 15 holes to hold each height.
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Mandible bars & jaw cushions
A bar slides through a square socket at each arm tip and points inward. It locks in 8 width positions to fit different faces. A soft, round cushion is pressed onto its peg so it sits comfortably behind the jaw at any angle.
Along the way I built and tested individual mechanisms (ratchet, spring and X-ring versions of the adjustment) before combining them into each full prototype.
Designed in the operating room, not just in CAD
- 50+ hours shadowing procedures in the operating room, watching where positioning actually breaks down.
- Three successive prototypes, each put in the hands of professional anesthesia providers. After every round of clinician feedback I reworked the mechanism.
- Concept development, mechanism design, CAD and testing, all owned end to end.
- Market research to validate the business: total addressable market, growth rates, competitors, barriers to entry and customer research.
- $5,000 in pitch-competition funding, then presented the findings to investors.
- Built industry connections with clinicians and medical-device experts to support business development.
What I took away
Anesto didn't become a company, and I discontinued it in early 2025. It taught me more than any class. Potential customers canceled meetings, and more than once I misread what they actually needed. The lesson I keep coming back to: creating value isn't just building a product, it's deeply understanding the customer. Communication and relationships turned out to matter as much as the engineering.