I've been attending some of the panels and discussion groups as part of Entrepreneur Week here at the University of Washington- truly an excellent week for young people interested in starting their own company and hearing from some of the great founders and CEOs from around the Seattle area.
The first night's panel focused on wearables- and we heard from the likes of Davide Vigano (CEO at Sensoria), Matthew Jordan from Artefact, and Eric Jain- founder of Zenobase. The whole panel was moderated by Paul Goodrich, a managing director at one of Seattle's big VC firms Madrona. Paul is an avid user of Fitbit himself- and has been involved in wearable oriented companies like Lumo Lift. I think some of the most interesting remarks that came out of the discussion included:
1. How do we move from 'glorified pedometer' to multi-datapoint / multi-dimensional self-awareness (and on to actionable items or positive change)?
2. How does a wearable product or company overcome the "eight weeks of use then gets left in a drawer" problem? (Davide especially had some good points on this)
3. Are wearable companies willing to tackle upcoming challenges with regards to FDA approval / moving into more diagnostic health sector? What will the benefits be to overcoming these challenges? Can we put health awareness more directly in the hands of the consumer- and patient? Matthew Jordan touched on some of these points with Artefact's concept design for a tracker for patients with epilepsy that could perhaps warn someone of an impending episode.
I'm really taken by this wearables market right now and curious to see where things head next. I think there are a million niche markets that have yet to be explored (or could be pushed further- ie Tory Burch for Fitbit). But Paul made a good point during the talk that hardware isn't necessarily most exciting to him right now- software is where things might move more quickly and successfully.
With regards to health apps and software, one company that clearly embraces the social importance of coaching and community (which I feel help drive a 'successful' health product-patient receives actionable coaching, makes dynamic movement towards healthier lifestyle) is Omada's flagship product- called Prevent. Prevent is a program or coaching + community platform for people with signs of pre-diabetes. The clincher with this product is that members are pooled in groups of twelve and can observe each others progress toward a 7% weight loss goal- with a live coach to help the group along towards lowering their blood sugar and moving them away from that tipping point into fully diagnosed diabetes. What a great product and something that could really help save the healthcare system billions of dollars. Check out the article on VentureBeat.