Book a 15 minute one-on-one session with me on Intro! Love this app. Click here for more: intro.co/matthiggins

Founder. Operator. Investor. Educator. No matter the role, I’ve always believed in trusting your instincts and never outsourcing your judgment.
 
That mindset has led me down an unconventional path from poverty to investor. I grew up in Queens, hawking flowers on street corners and working at McDonald’s to help put food on the table. On a mission to transcend poverty as fast as possible, I dropped out of high school at 16 to work full-time and enroll in college early.
 
Over the next decade, I earned a law degree from Fordham at night and began a career as the youngest press secretary in NYC history, where I helped manage the global press response to 9/11.
 
I went on to be an executive for two NFL teams, found/invest in some of the most dynamic brands through RSE Ventures, and become a guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank (seasons 10-11) as well as an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, where I co-teach "Moving Beyond Direct-to-Consumer." 
 
Always looking to meet great founders and the people who invest in them.

Follow me on Twitter @MHiggins.

Matt Higgins

Some of the world’s most transformative technologies don’t start in labs. 

They start in elite competitive arenas where performance demands are highest, failure is immediate, and innovators are forced to redefine what is possible.

Think about Ferrari. 

Ferrari began as a racing company, not a consumer brand.

Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, it used Formula 1 as a proving ground where engineering was tested under the harshest conditions imaginable. The road cars the world covets were not born from showroom whiteboards or hypothetical demos. They were forged on unforgiving circuits where speed, reliability, and performance determine the difference between success and failure. 

Only after technology was validated on the track was it transferred to road cars, making Ferrari a rare example of a company where the consumer product is the byproduct of elite competition. Racing was not a marketing exercise. 

It was the foundation of Ferrari’s engineering DNA.

That same dynamic is happening in drones today.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote the first check into The Drone Racing League, where elite pilots flew custom-built drones at over 100 miles per hour through complex three-dimensional courses, pushing hardware and software to the limits of physics and human reflexes.

Broadcast live on ESPN, from stadiums in France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia to arenas in Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, our racing drones were pushed to their limits across the globe.

Whether in competition or high-performance test environments, they were flown under extreme conditions, exposing weaknesses instantly and forcing rapid iteration at the edge of what the systems could handle. Even a few nanoseconds of latency between drone and pilot could mean a crash before the pilot realized it had happened. 

This was the original no-fail drone mission.

The technologies developed there were not just for sport. They proved real-world value and opened a path to far higher stakes, including national security, battlefield advantage, and life-saving applications.

That insight informed our next chapter: co-founding Huntsville, Alabama-based PDW with Nicholas Horbaczewski, Ryan Gury, and Trevor Smith.

What began as performance-driven racing technology evolved into a company building next-generation tactical drones and autonomous systems for defense and public safety. PDW’s systems, including the C100, are now deployed at every level of the United States military.

In the same way Ferrari’s racing pedigree became the foundation of its engineering excellence, elite platforms like drone racing accelerate innovation by demanding leaps traditional product development rarely forces.

The lesson is simple: find your hardest arena, compete there, and let that pressure forge products that matter.

CEO and Cofounder at RSE Ventures | WSJ Bestselling Author: Burn the Boats, Harper Collins, 2023 | Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School

Harsh Thakkar

CEO @ Qualtivate- consultancy helping life sciences to elevate quality management maturity, ensure regulatory compliance, and deploy innovative technology solutions.

In 2022, after working as a consultant for big pharma and having managerial roles in biotech startups, I decided to go all-in on building Qualtivate. 

Qualtivate is a tech-forward consultancy helping early-stage life science companies with QMS, GxP compliance, computer system validation, digital transformation, and data management projects.

Aside from consulting, I love sharing content about quality, consulting, entrepreneurship, and even the occasional meme! My online community has grown like crazy, and the business has too—big thanks to everyone who’s been along for the ride.🙏💙

Why consulting?
Because I get a kick out of building processes and implementing or enhancing systems, working closely with innovative IT and QA leaders. Every new project brings a unique challenge that I find super satisfying to solve for our clients.

My approach to consulting is pretty straightforward. I give my clients three options: 

1) do nothing
2) take my plan and run with it or 
3) bring my team to get it DONE ✅ 

Don’t just take my word, here’s what our clients have to say:

“Qualtivate did a phenomenal job accommodating a last-minute software audit and provided us with a quick audit summary and recommendations.” 
- Project Manager

“Our IT team is going 1000 miles an hour. Glad we have someone like you here to guide them through the compliance checks.” 
- Director of Quality Assurance 

“I appreciate Harsh’s depth of knowledge in computer software assurance and his commitment to quality. He often challenges the status quo and explains his viewpoints in a pragmatic way that is easy to understand.” 
- Sr. Director, Global Compliance

“The automated data extraction app your team built with AI saved 40% of my internal team’s time copy pasting data from Certificate of Analysis (CofA) into our LIMS and other systems.”
- Director, QC and External Quality

“Our client is expecting an FDA inspection soon. When we asked another SaaS company director if they know any QMS consultant, they referred us to you.”
- C Level executive of a SaaS company 

If we sign NDA, I can give you names of above folks.
—-

Oh, and I host the Life Sciences 360 podcast! I get to chat with biotech execs, researchers, and industry experts about their work. It’s all jargon-free and easy to follow. Give it a listen (or watch on YT)—it’s free to subscribe!

—-

For consulting help, message me here or send an email to hthakkar@qualtivate.com

Want to come on the podcast as guest? Or talk about speaking engagements, brand partnerships, ads, or sponsorships? 
Email Nikki at npalmieri@qualtivate.com

CEO and Founder– Qualtivate 

Qualtivate is a quality management and regulatory compliance consulting firm helping life science companies make data-driven decisions throughout their product development lifecycle.

How?
Cultivate insights from your QMS data in hours, not days using our technical expertise in off-the-shelf no-code, automation and AI/ML tools.

Build your phase-appropriate quality management system (QMS) that:

• Provides full transparency of product data, processes, systems, and people. 
• Automates performance monitoring and quality management reviews.
• Embeds compliance within flexible, user-friendly, organically built processes.
• Reduces the organization's quality costs by automating data collection, analysis, trending, and reporting.

To find out more about how we can help, please get in touch with me directly on the details below. 

☏ +1-919-213-8737
✉ hthakkar@qualtivate.com 	
Visit ☛ www.qualtivate.com

taplio

The Battle

Matt Higgins

Harsh Thakkar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMatt Higgins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Matt Higgins

Harsh Thakkar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Matt Higgins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMatt Higgins's LinkedIn Performance