Cord Blood America: Matt Schissler: Growing the Company

Las Vegas Business Press
August 01, 2011

Executive Snapshot: Matthew Schissler
CEO, Cord Blood America
By CAITLIN MCGARRY

Cord Blood America founder and CEO Matthew Schissler launched his company in the midst of a heated debate over the morality of using stem cells to treat disease.

"The controversy was around misinformation," the Baltimore native said.

People were confusing embryonic stem cells, which are derived from fetuses, and adult stem cells, which are found in the human body after birth, Schissler said. Cord Blood America, which last year moved from California to Las Vegas, deals with the latter, storing umbilical cord blood for parents who want the option of using the blood to harvest stem cells for their children in the event of future illness.

Since its inception in 2003, the company has grown exponentially. Schissler, who started Cord Blood America with wife, Stephanie, said he expects revenues between $6 million and $7 million this year, a 74 percent increase over last year.

Cord Blood America can attribute its growth to the acquisition of other cord-blood storage facilities, including locations in Germany, China and Argentina. The company also changed marketing tactics in 2006, and now uses relationships with other businesses and insurance providers to increase its customer base rather than direct marketing or Internet advertising.

Do you see Las Vegas as a biotech hub in the future? 

I do, for a number of reasons. First, it's an area where it's a low cost to do business. Looking at the entire landscape of biotech companies, a very large percentage of them operate in the red. A lot of these companies are in high-cost areas. Over the course of time, their investors are going to demand they reduce costs. I think Vegas is a very attractive place for that. Couple that with the ease of access -- the airport is the busiest in the country. It's easy to get biologic products in and out. Why it's not here yet is hard to pinpoint. I'm not sure there's been a tremendous focus on it from the city and the state in the last 20 years. I think this economic downturn we've had has really switched the focus.

How has the stem cell debate affected Cord Blood?

In the early 2000s, stem cells was such a generic term -- nobody could separate embryonic from adult. In the past eight years, you've seen a tremendous amount of media attention to stem cells, and because of that the public has become more educated and the controversy has really been tamped down.

You've been acquiring a lot of assets, especially this year. What are you trying to accomplish?

In our business, parents pay a yearly storage fee. The biggest issue we have is creating mass. The more parents paying a storage fee, the more predictable revenue that you have coming in. Every year that we grow, percentages continue to increase on referral business. That's really why you acquire these assets.

How would you describe your business philosophy?

My business philosophy is a bottom-up philosophy. Take care of your employees first. Keep your employees really engaged. In turn, the employees take care of customers and make the customers happy. When the customers are happy, they buy more and pay their bills. That keeps the shareholders happy.

What do you do in your spare time?

My wife and I have two dogs. We like to spend a lot of time with them, walking and taking them to the parks. I snowboard during the winter and play tennis during the summer. We seek some adventure travel every year. We're people that like to take an elephant trek in Thailand. We trained tigers, which was very fun.

What other interesting adventures have you taken?

We dove with the sharks in Bora Bora a few years ago. We hiked the live lava on the Big Island.

What are your goals for the future of your company?

I want to be the most respected stem cell storage facility in the world. I look at the industry like this: As time goes on, more and more research companies are going to discover therapies that stem cells are going to be used for to help treat or even cure disease. That's just inevitable; that's what's happening. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when.