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Have you ever sat in a doctor’s office waiting area for more than just a few minutes? Most of us have, and likely will again. Isn’t it nice to have something to look at while you wait? As the son of a physician, Jamie LeLiever ’03 grew up around the waiting room. Thanks to his East Carolina education and creative mind, LeLiever came up with a savvy way to educate and inform patiently waiting patients, while increasing office revenue for his father—and so began LeLiever’s journey as an entrepreneur.

Shortly after LeLiever graduated from East Carolina with a degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing, he and friend Nirdhar Khazanie paired up to create 2HiTek Productions, a digital media production company based in Raleigh, NC. As young, enthusiastic businessmen, LeLiever and Khazanie were eager to build a name for themselves and went after a contract to market the Sony Ericsson Z500a mobile phone. (LeLiever had learned the ropes of television through working with the Greenville Area Public Television station, which was run out of Joyner Library.) Much to their delight, the pair won the contract. Although LeLiever enjoyed working with his friend, he was anxious to see what else he could do with his talents. When his father asked him to take a look at his practice’s marketing plan, LeLiever developed a new way to apply innovative media and started Mediplay, Inc.

Co-founded by LeLiever and his father Dr. William LeLiever in 2004, Mediplay, Inc. is the nation’s first personalized point-of-care digital signage system for the healthcare industry. Mediplay offers physicians a creative, non-intrusive way to educate and inform patients of their services through flat-panel LCD screens strategically placed in waiting and exam rooms. The screens communicate the practice’s message and the scope of services offered, which in turn sparks conversation and questions about treatments that might be appropriate for that patient. For example, when we think of an ear, nose, and throat doctor (which is LeLiever’s father’s specialty), we often think of tonsillectomies, sinus disorders, and hearing loss. But many ENT offices also offer treatment for allergies, sleep disorders, voice evaluations, and even cosmetic surgeries. The Mediplay system communicates this information through state-of-the-art content deployment systems along with eye-catching and informative content which is controlled via the Internet. There are currently three delivery systems for practices to choose from: mpMotion, which is for the waiting room; mpTV, which utilizes a split screen to provide television programming and the practice’s educational content; and mpExam, which is used in the exam room to provide specific patient content based on electronic medical records. The advantage to utilizing Mediplay’s technology for physicians is educated patients and hopefully an increase in revenue. (Remember that our physicians are running businesses as well as caring for our health and well-being.)

Within a year of utilizing Mediplay technology in his father’s office, the practice saw a 15% increase in audiology sales and a 300% increase in cosmetic sales. Father and son knew they had developed something remarkable, and LeLiever began marketing his product to other physician’s offices.

By December 2007 Mediplay had 12 full-time employees, seven of which were ECU graduates. “I used ECU’s Career Center and Dr. Jim Westmoreland of the College of Business to find appropriate employees. As a start-up company Mediplay didn’t have an abundance of revenue to pay employees, so it made sense to hire recent graduates who weren’t expecting significant salaries—and since I shared their ECU experience I knew they would be hard-working, imaginative, dedicated employees.” Mediplay had grown so much in four short years that LeLiever brought in the Cummins Group to assume management of the company. By the end of 2008 Mediplay systems were in 100 locations with more than $1.2 million in sales and valued at $5 million.

LeLiever knew he had to protect the innovations that are Mediplay through obtaining trade marks and seeking patent protection, which is how he became interested in intellectual property (IP)—the basis for his new company European Intellectual Property Consultants, LLC (EUIP), which he founded in October 2008. “I attended several “think global” seminars from the Council for Entrepreneurial Development. These events linked me up with a few global business consultants that expressed how early stage companies and university tech transfer departments have a need for worldwide intellectual property protection but can’t afford it in the early stages. My company, European IP Consultants is focused on providing start-ups, early stage companies, and university technology transfer departments ways to inexpensively file patents and trademarks in the world’s 2nd largest IP market, Europe. EUIP Consultants negotiates “direct” flat rates with some of the largest IP firms in Europe as well as deferred payment options for universities that need patent protection now but have not secured a licensee yet to pay for it. What I love most about my current business is that I get to work with entrepreneurs like myself, and get exposed to new technologies and inventions on a weekly basis. The most rewarding part of my job is helping start-ups realize the power and value of their intellectual property on a global level and helping them succeed in capitalizing on it.”

You could say LeLiever is “paying it forward” by helping other young entrepreneurs get started. “I would be remiss to say I’ve done this all on my own and I certainly do not claim that. Every opportunity that has come along for me is from, I believe, having a good personality and being able to reach out to different people at all levels of business, engage them, and ask them for help. I was able to do so many things at ECU, like bring University Meal Deal to campus, because of the mentors I had; Tom McQuaid, Tracy Blake, and Judith Hunt all had a hand in my success as a student. And of course, it’s all about opportunities. There’s a mixture of having the right opportunities and the right support along with the drive to put everything together and enabling that opportunity to grow. That is the most important part about being an entrepreneur.”

At 28, LeLiever has already accomplished what might take some an entire career. He shared some advice for those who are just starting out: “To be successful in starting a business, you must constantly be innovating to stay ahead of your competition; you have to reinvent yourself over and over again. You must have the right team, which has the skills and positive attitude to nurture innovation. You must have the right resources—even the best ideas will die if not capitalized properly. Finally, never lose sight of your consumer, and what value your innovation brings to them—that’s the ‘meat and potatoes’ of being successful with a start-up.”

Good advice from someone who knows.



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