THE JOURNEY · FEB 2025 → MAY 2026
Fourteen months. Hundreds of material iterations. Two founders at one bench, formulating a proprietary material that behaves like a patient — because 2,000 surgeons deserved better than a weekend of exposure.
BEFORE — 20 YEARS IN LABS
Dr. TJ Ahn performed 1,500+ MIS bone cases and guided more than 2,000 surgeons through 50+ cadaver labs he hosted and organized. And every lab ended the same way: doctors left inspired — and went home with no way to keep the feel in their hands. Exposure fades. Reps stick. There was nothing to rep on.
THE PARTNERSHIP
The surgeon brought the hands: two decades of MIS muscle memory and a mental library of how living bone and tissue answer an instrument. Dr. CJ Au brought the engineering: MIT- and Harvard-trained, 12 U.S. patents, a Red Dot Award. The deal was simple — nothing ships until it fools the hands that trained 2,000 surgeons.
FEB 2025 — FIRST CASTS
The earliest prototypes looked right and felt wrong. Too soft, too springy, too dead. Real tissue argues back — it resists, then yields, then holds. So the material was reformulated. Again. And again. Every failure was cut open, scored against cadaver feel, and folded into the next pour.
AUG 2025 — THE SKELETON
Twenty-eight bones, each printed, corrected, and articulated by hand — joint capsules wrapped one at a time, alignment checked against real anatomy from 1,500 cases. The skeleton had to deform like bone, cut like bone, and show up on fluoro like bone. No off-the-shelf part existed. So none were used.
THE MATERIAL — HUNDREDS OF POURS
The breakthrough wasn't a shape — it was a proprietary material system, specialty-formulated by Dr. Ahn and Dr. Au through hundreds of iterations. It cuts with honest resistance, forms authentic bone paste under reduction, and reads on X-ray like a patient. That formula is the product. Everything else is anatomy.
PROOF UNDER RADIATION
A training foot that fakes imaging teaches fake confidence. So the prototypes went under real machines — X-ray, C-arm, robotic navigation — until the picture on the monitor was one a surgeon would trust. That radiograph on the screen? That's our model.
JAN 2026 — THE WORKSHOP
By January the bench told the story: rows of casts in every density, durometer, and skin tone — the visible fossil record of trial and error. Digital sculpting refined what the hands approved; every master was re-carved until the anatomy matched the cases in Dr. Ahn's head, not a textbook drawing.
DIGITAL ANATOMY
Every metatarsal and phalanx was digitally sculpted, then challenged: does the first ray sit the way it does in a bunion case? Does the capsule wrap catch the way tissue catches? When surgeon memory and the model disagreed, the model lost — and got re-sculpted.
APR 2026 — PRODUCTION
Cadara Foot launched in May 2026 — the first radiopaque, skin-wrapped MIS training model with single-use surgical sites. The first batch sold out. The second is shipping now. Fourteen months of failures got us to the day surgeons could stop borrowing hands and start owning theirs.
THE ROAD — SOURCING, FACTORIES, LATE DINNERS
Material houses, mold shops, factory floors, conference halls — and the late dinners in between where most of the real decisions got made.
14 MONTHS IN 38 SECONDS
THE FOUNDERS
CEO · CO-FOUNDER
Board-certified MIS foot surgeon. 1,500+ MIS bone cases. Trainer of 2,000+ surgeons across 50+ cadaver labs he hosted and organized — and the hands every Cadara formulation had to fool before it shipped.
COO · CO-FOUNDER
MIT- and Harvard-trained engineer. 12 U.S. patents. Red Dot Award winner. Architect of the proprietary material system and the manufacturing line that makes every foot identical.
WHERE THE JOURNEY POINTS
Fourteen months so you can practice MIS anywhere, anytime — no cadaver required.