00:00:05:11 - 00:00:08:22 Unknown Welcome to the podcast. 00:00:09:00 - 00:00:33:15 Unknown And everybody, welcome back to the Hard Tech podcast. This is going in to be in season three of the podcast is one everybody I'm DeAndre Haruka's one of the leading go to market here at Glass Board. And we have Grant grant Chapman welcome. Welcome back everybody. Yeah super excited for for season three. Season two is jam packed full of incredible stories of founders and product leaders all across the country. 00:00:33:16 - 00:00:42:16 Unknown Today we're joined by Lithia Run and Cooper Boysen, one of the CTO of Olympia. Welcome to the show. 00:00:42:18 - 00:01:27:00 Unknown Yeah, been great to catch up. I know that we touch base last year and we finally got to get this episode scheduled. Yeah, the technology you guys are working on is super interesting in the running space. Obviously my background in sports technology, we'd love just to kick it off on a brief intro of yourself in the company. 00:01:27:02 - 00:01:46:04 Unknown That's awesome. What is the just everyone listening to like why would you you know, what would this have been? How would you have done this beforehand? And what when would someone experience this kind of technology? Right? I'm assuming that most people wouldn't even get into this unless they had an injury. They're trying to find out how and why their injury happened, or if they're a really high level. 00:01:46:04 - 00:04:34:21 Unknown And Alex, someone would come and watch them run and give them feedback on their position and motion. You guys were miniaturized this and making it more, you know, democracy, you know, democratizing it for everybody. But how would this technology done started before the tech you built? Like what was the actual purpose behind the, you know, measuring this kind of things and how it lived and done before? 00:04:34:23 - 00:04:54:23 Unknown You're locked in the lab with the cameras facing you on a treadmill, not on every run, not collecting continuous say, this is like I have a problem. I need that looked at by an expert in a doctor's office, physical therapy office. Right. And this is the kind of what you broke open was the angles at which the body moves, you know, against each other knees, hips, you know, the shoulders in your back. 00:04:54:23 - 00:05:13:21 Unknown I know this and walk crooked. So every beat that looks to me like you're broken. You know that, right? Yes, very much so. But mostly this has always been traditionally looked at by experts, right? Whereas someone had to record the data, make a judgment call. But the tools have been better, right? Like the motion capture it. Instead of someone just watching you run or walk. 00:05:13:21 - 00:05:58:21 Unknown Now we can actually put the reflectors on and measure that. But that's still in a lab in what you guys are doing is basically taking some measurements to automate the system. So it's portable. I can have data on every one of my runs to see. Not only do I run well in the focusing on my form, do I get lazy in the third mile? 00:05:58:23 - 00:06:14:03 Unknown As we were following you guys and get to know you over the last several months here, I think that just just really differentiated in the market as a whole. You think about, you know, running technology, your mind immediately goes to, well, there's probably a platform or a sensor that you can do that with already. And the answer is really no. 00:06:14:05 - 00:06:34:05 Unknown A prime example is a story. Like even this past week, some of the engineers on the team invited me to do some flag football, and I have not played college football. But you know, you're looking at a guy with three ACL reconstructions in an osteotomy who has completely forgot his ability to run. And so I was like literally the day before I went out and I took a camera. 00:06:34:05 - 00:06:50:13 Unknown So this is a this is a prime example of why your platform would have been so good. I'm sure I did it wrong, but basically I realized every time I ran I was hurting my hamstring, but I wasn't quite sure why. I was like, how is it possible that my hamstrings been torn for all of these years? For as long as I've been trying to run since I had these surgeries? 00:06:50:14 - 00:07:09:05 Unknown Well, all I did was I took a recording of how I was running and basically the way it looked like I was running. I was always kind of slowing down, at least in my form, which makes sense, because only you only start to strain your hamstring when you're slowing down. And so then I after the recording, I then focused on like kind of leaning forward and remembering how to run and all of a sudden hamstring pain goes away. 00:07:09:06 - 00:10:55:06 Unknown But I just think it's fascinating. If you could dive into how your product really is preventing injuries and how it's different than any other products out there, that's just only recording the distance ran or steps taken kind of thing. 00:10:55:08 - 00:11:16:02 Unknown So cool we just walk through is you're using an accelerometer, which we all have in our Apple Watches or iPhones or whatnot, but they're maybe not the right place. But more importantly than that, no one is taking the time to correlate this disparate data set all this noise, acceleration, the sensors with an outcome. So what you guys are doing is taking these lab grade pieces of equipment, right? 00:11:16:04 - 00:11:37:12 Unknown Is camera, caption camera, motion capture rigs, the software for processing all those biomechanical angles and putting that in real time and sinking that with the accelerometer data. And this is the beauty of what machine learning and data science is given as recently is. Oh, I have huge, big messy data set, but I have free source which one of these things tracks through every time someone with a knee injury runs? 00:11:37:12 - 00:12:00:00 Unknown What's the thing we see every single time someone lands flat footed and we see this, this one indication every single time. And that is so powerful. In today's IoT world, you're getting all these indications of medical devices, consumer electronics, you know, athletics to devices that would have never been able to, in prior math, been able to correlate this noise single with an outcome or an indication. 00:12:00:01 - 00:12:16:13 Unknown And now we're able to do that all across the board. And that's really neat that you guys were the experts in your lab grade science first. And now you're like, oh, I want to get more of this data. How do I find a cheaper way to sense this? And you're coming up with these outcomes. And then zooming out to your first statement, you guys graph it. 00:12:16:16 - 00:12:33:14 Unknown You guys take this signal and it becomes a fingerprint or this, you know, this visual indication of the data in humans are wildly good at visual pattern recognition. And we really suck it fast. Right? And it's so cool that you're like, yeah, once we actually plotted it, I can start seeing this now that I know what the outcomes are. 00:12:33:15 - 00:12:51:11 Unknown And I think that's kind of the beauty in what you guys are doing, is taking data that no one else has ever used with a true source. And that's all you need is to show the true source and the pattern recognition. And all of a sudden we're we're getting pretty good, and we're doing great at recognizing things that would have taken a physical therapy clinic to catch before. 00:12:51:13 - 00:13:27:02 Unknown One of the questions I've got. Go ahead. Cooper. Sorry. 00:13:27:04 - 00:13:55:10 Unknown Cooper. One of the things I'd love to dive into is your story is not very different than other like, hardware founders and startups that we come into contact with, right. And I just love to kind of pull out some anecdotes from your experience of you guys. Start with this physical therapy clinic. You guys have this big, you know, heavy machines and technology and you guys are you guys are scientists and you guys know the kind of data you want to pull out, and you're trying to consolidate all of that that used to previously exist in a big facility in this small little device. 00:13:55:11 - 00:14:13:12 Unknown Right. And now you enter into the world of hardware. And, you know, we had this incredible podcast with a gentleman that used to work with Apple and he said, this company called trace. And he's like, if you're in the world of hardware, the number one thing you can do is just try not to do it right. But the necessary evil you guys have is that you have to have this, this, this device that lives on someone's sacrum. 00:14:13:12 - 00:14:51:11 Unknown I'm just curious on your guys's journey to bringing the first version of the product to life. What's been that hardware experience of taking this, you know, science and then now consolidating that into a product? What is that? What has that been like? And kind of what does the future look like for you guys as well specific to the hardware? 00:14:51:13 - 00:16:37:07 Unknown Was that like an off the shelf wired up like a National Instruments back like that acquisition kit? 00:16:37:09 - 00:16:54:12 Unknown User experience design is the thing that engineers usually see last, but is violently apparent the moment the hammer baby to something like that prototype. And they're like, well, yeah, you just turn it on and put it on. And then the user is like, how do I turn it on? Like the power button? Like, where's the power button? And is this constant back and forth? 00:16:54:12 - 00:17:09:20 Unknown That's something that's blindly, blindingly obvious, those who built this device. But then you put the rover like, I see how you wouldn't know where it is because I designed the button there. Of course I thought it was there. And of course, green means on blue means preparing. But you know, how do you how do you really communicate this to a user? 00:17:09:20 - 00:17:34:06 Unknown And this is where like industrial design and engineering coming together earlier than you think they should and not just happening earlier. Like it's not like I'd and should make beautiful sketches and then hand that off to engineers. And then at the very end hand back the line. Right. You pick the materials. It's them working together through those early prototype stages, through getting that user feedback to really bake in that user experience into the product throughout design. 00:17:34:06 - 00:17:49:10 Unknown But it never happens that way the first time. So I'd love to dig in and talk about this. Like I was joking about the lily pads, right? A frog never jumps all the way across the pond. He goes from lily pad to the pad below the next thing to make the next step. So you guys probably started with some high end accelerometers in the lab, right? 00:17:49:11 - 00:18:32:23 Unknown You know, some wired up to a laptop and then you moved on to maybe a portable one. Is that. Am I guessing in the right word of operations here? Like something is wireless? 00:18:33:01 - 00:18:47:01 Unknown It's always that fun where you're using lab grade equipment to prove the physics and the theory, and then you're like, all right, I need a dev kit. So you go, you get a dev kit, you put it in 3D printed box, you start running with it and you're like, the box isn't sitting on the person, right? This is affecting the data. 00:18:47:02 - 00:19:14:14 Unknown How do I how do I overcome this and that? Because that iterative journey of product development. Right. And it's just I'm glad you were doing this in the timeline of 3D printing and development kits and cheap electronics, because that would have been a not fun experience 25 years ago. But today you guys are, you know, core in the science, physics and physical therapy can do amazing progress from lab piece of equipment all the way through to you guys have a user device today that is awesome. 00:19:14:16 - 00:19:49:06 Unknown You know, as much as you say it's never done, I've seen what you guys have made and it is so cool to see the data you can capture on that piece of kit. 00:19:49:07 - 00:21:46:22 Unknown What was your experience in okay, so you guys more were like the you guys kind of where the customer at first, especially if you thought to kind of sell to other physical therapy clinics and things like that. Very now you're starting to focus more on the consumer market. How much what's your guys's tactic on, like getting in front of customers and having those conversations and what's been like the user feedback of using some of your, like your initial V1 products, and how has that been so far? 00:21:47:00 - 00:23:01:17 Unknown Digging into that as you started to get traction, what user is the user that you see adopting your product the fastest? Were the most or getting the most out of it? Reach out to you guys out. You know how great it is. Like, are these hobby runners or these Olympic athletes? Are these, you know, you know, someone who's running in college that is not quite professional but semi-pro, like, what is the level the of this core early adopter that's loving your product and why do they love it? 00:23:01:19 - 00:25:07:13 Unknown And are these like prosumer people that go run Iron Man's or routinely just run in the weekend and want to get better and not enter themselves? Like, what is that user persona that you see has been adopted at most? 00:25:07:15 - 00:25:24:12 Unknown You know, it's fascinating. You say you didn't expect it, but if you think about it conceptually, it makes a little bit it makes sense, right? Because really it was born out of, you know, you guys with your facility making a product that did what your facility was doing in a very smaller package that could then be, you know, ship able anywhere. 00:25:24:12 - 00:25:48:11 Unknown And it makes sense that it actually is those exact same people who would have also came into your clinic but live in another country that doesn't have that clinic, then now want access to that same technology? Very unique niche. Basically, you're unlocking access to that level of technical feedback without actually having to have a clinic. That's it's surprising, but it also makes a lot of sense as well. 00:25:48:13 - 00:26:06:12 Unknown That's that's so much fun. And I think the the other answer is those users are likely much more forgiving in early hardware, right? If there are updates that need to happen or earlier harbors got some challenges. They're just so happy to have something they couldn't have ever had access to their like it's not a better mousetrap, that you have to be better. 00:26:06:12 - 00:26:39:01 Unknown It's just like, this is incredible. I don't care if I, you know, have to call you guys, remind me how to reboot it. And it locks up once every six months because I couldn't have this otherwise. 00:26:39:03 - 00:27:42:10 Unknown That one product for decades. What number iPhone are we on? They've been able to iterate to perfection every single year for what, 20 years? 00:27:42:12 - 00:28:00:03 Unknown It is just the worst. It's like you get V1 out there, and it doesn't mean brand new that no one's ever done. Everyone's like, why does the color not like, as bright as I wanted to? And I was like, come on, guys, this isn't for watching Netflix, right? But it makes sense to. And that's really when you know you've found product market fit. 00:28:00:03 - 00:28:19:05 Unknown Is Mike Seibel, one of the former partners at Y Combinator, always said that imagine something someone with their hair on fire. You know, if someone's hair is on fire, they're willing to. If you handed them a brick, they'd be willing to put their hair. They would use that to put out the, you know, the fire. They don't care if it's water or break, you know, a towel, whatever it is. 00:28:19:07 - 00:28:42:09 Unknown To that same effect, when you're really solving like a hair on fire problem for someone, it could be very early stage, very bad, but you really are fundamentally helping them. I don't really care what modality it comes in, as long as they have that solution. And it sounds like that could be a potential area for growth on the on the marketing side, Cooper, you've mentioned a couple of times on you've got this vision for what V2 is going to look like in V3 and things like that. 00:28:42:11 - 00:30:57:12 Unknown What what is that going to look like to the degree which you can share on? Like what is the future of the product look like? You said you have the app update coming out right now, but what sort of things are you guys thinking about as you go out to build the next iteration to get closer and closer to that, that iPhone or Garmin level? 00:30:57:13 - 00:31:38:23 Unknown Is on? 00:31:39:01 - 00:32:11:16 Unknown Yeah. What are your ideas? Aircraft. So fascinating that like, ironically, like in a perfect world, as a product person, your iPhone has the biggest battery, the meanest processor on the market, like the most power efficient mean as high as computer. And they're making laptops live on process that like it's awesome. You would want all the compute done on the phone because it's the best tool for the job, but because Apple's walled garden makes that such a pain, to get access to the horsepower, you're driven to go do it on device because the users aren't going to deal with those friction points, right? 00:32:11:17 - 00:32:36:14 Unknown And this is the whole UX user experience side of rock development. It's like you, sometimes you have to do things that aren't rational or logical to delight the user. And you have to go design around someone else's problem, which is just fascinating. And I love hearing that. And that's such a different take. As the iPhone became the portal to most electronics interactions in our modern age of IoT, right? 00:32:36:15 - 00:32:54:21 Unknown You want to turn on your smart lights? That's on your phone. You want to set a timer, your smart toaster. It's on your phone. It was the UX. It was the way to make it cheap connected electronics because you didn't. They were all ran headless. But in today's world, we're actually getting this experience where devices are getting more and more holistic of an experience. 00:32:54:21 - 00:33:12:14 Unknown You can go running with your device and leave your phone at home. And yeah, maybe the phones, the screen to view the data, but your device stands alone is another story in this that I think is so powerful. And this resurgence of hardware being bespoke and being unique and providing the whole experience, not through an iPhone or Android experience. 00:33:12:16 - 00:34:38:09 Unknown And I see that coming along. And both what you were working on, what other people are doing today to. 00:34:38:11 - 00:34:50:22 Unknown This pulls the plug. It's like you're being too greedy with the battery plug and just pull the plug on you. 00:34:51:00 - 00:35:06:22 Unknown Because, you know, easy would be for them to just write a log to you. Hey, we shut you down. You were power hungry. Try and fix that next time. Don't be so greedy. Oh, that is fascinating, Cooper. With with the team as you guys have built it up. Like, what does the team look like today and how has that been? 00:35:06:22 - 00:38:24:09 Unknown Just kind of bringing this product to market. Kind of figuring out how to go to market and launch a hardware product. I would just love to learn more about the team as a whole while running the lab at the same time, right? Yeah. Start at the three guys in the garage. That's all you do all day. You have a day job to keep the main company running, and you're building a hardware product and trying to sell that product. 00:38:24:10 - 00:38:43:19 Unknown I love that it takes a village mentality, like everyone had this thing that they were really good at. But I are a betting man. They've all dug their hands in somewhere else as well, right? Like you're, you know, you have to get the hardware working and the software to take enough data to make the machine learning work, to actually get the feedback to the software front end guys, a display to a user to go get user feedback. 00:38:43:20 - 00:39:10:03 Unknown And it's this whole loop that everyone has to, you know, carry the water to get to the end. And that's so cool that you've built such a large, connected team to to pull this off, all while still trying to, you know, have a physical therapy clinic and make progress in a regular business. So that is super neat. One of the last questions I have for you, Cooper, that I love, that at the end is just any advice for people that are building hardware a similar situation to you? 00:39:10:04 - 00:40:24:19 Unknown Maybe something that you wish you would have known years ago, or even months ago, or yesterday for that matter? 00:40:24:21 - 00:40:38:01 Unknown One of my favorite questions to piggyback on that is, are you glad you didn't know how hard it would be at the beginning? Like, this is my favorite hardware joke, because everyone that makes it to the end is like, I'm so glad I didn't know was gonna be this batch. I would have never gotten started, but I'm so glad that I'm here now. 00:40:38:02 - 00:41:34:02 Unknown And this is this is one of my favorite ones to to pop up on someone who made it but is like fresh. 00:41:34:04 - 00:41:49:14 Unknown It's the inverse thing. It takes you 10% of the time and budget to get 90% of the functionality of the prototype of product running, and then makes 90% of the time budget to get that last 10% from you look, it works to it is on the shelf and it's working and you're not going to be returns. And people love it. 00:41:49:14 - 00:42:28:00 Unknown And it's it's explaining that to people. It's always the wrap their heads around. They've not done a hardware product before. And then anyone that's been through the game at once knows, like, yep. Nope. Let's get really excited early on about how cool this is, because we're going to need to hold on to this dream for the next 90%, or to get this on the shelf. 00:42:28:02 - 00:42:42:02 Unknown How hard could it be? And why is this so hard? Right? It just it just ping pong between those two outcomes. And I think you have to say you actually the ping pong is healthy, right? It's like when you start off on a journey and if you really saw the top of the mountain, you would have never started on it. 00:42:42:02 - 00:43:02:04 Unknown But what it ends up being in a startup is every three steps. You can just see the next three steps and see like, well, heck, I'm probably I can't be that far off. And then you realize that you've been you were three steps away about 300 steps ago, right? And so yeah, just encouragement to you on on the journey, but thank you so much for being on the Hard Tech podcast, Cooper. 00:43:02:09 - 00:43:10:22 Unknown Looking forward to continuing to follow the story. Everybody. My name is DeAndre, my co-host Grant Chapman, and we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for joining everyone Cooper thanks so much.