Technology With Human Purpose - Perry Kamel

0:00Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host Steve Olenski. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist. I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to, of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. My guest today is Perry Kamel, founder and CEO of DNA Vibe. And I'm going to tell you exactly how this conversation started and where. It started at CES, which as we're recording, this is now about a month ago.

0:39I walked in expecting to see a lot of shiny new tech and walked out genuinely awestruck after encountering one of the fastest growing brands in wearable technology. That's where I first experienced DNA vibe. That's where I was introduced to the shine movement they've launched. And that's where I met Perry, his leadership team, and an incredible community of athletes, trainers, and health and wellness leaders who were deeply committed to what this brand stands for. Now, we're talking about NFL legends like Jason Sehorne, elite performance trainer Travelle Gaines, and women's sports champion and parity CEO, Layla Trevonason.

1:20I hope I said that right. The energy wasn't hype, and it was purpose in motion. Perry is the visionary behind DNA Vibe, a purpose-driven, regenerative, wearable company built around a powerful mission, helping people overcome the life-limiting effects of injury, surgery, and the everyday wear and tear of time, activity, and gravity. That mission is now expanding with Shine, a bold, large-scale program designed to redefine not just how we people heal, but how communities show up for one another. For more than 30 years, Perry has been at the forefront of transformational technology, from optical networks and voiceover IP to interactive digital media and real-time distributed systems, the kind of foundational work that quietly powers modern communication, education, healthcare, and entertainment.

2:10If that weren't enough, he also serves as a fellow and chief advisor for phototherapy and bioharmonics with the National Foundation of Integrative Medicine, holds degrees in engineering and applied particle and optical physics from Cornell, earned his MBA from Wharton as a Palmer scholar, and finally is a triple combat decorated U.S. military veteran. Perry, my newfound brand brother, I am truly honored to welcome you to the show. That's my honor, Steve, and it's been great to get to know you. I can't wait to dive in, really expand on literally the 30 seconds, which it seems like we had when we were together back in Vegas.

2:50So I want to start, I want to pull back the curtain for the audience, take us back to the beginning. What problem, would you say, were you trying to solve with DNA Vibe? Well, you know, it's historically, the company was founded over 10 years ago, which, by the way, a lot of people are going to say, wow, I've never heard of DNA Vibe. 10 years is a pretty long time, right? But when you're doing things that are transformational in nature, in other words, bringing things to a market that never previously existed, it's always been my approach to stay very quiet until you're ready to change the world, which is why now you're starting to hear about us for the last 10 years.

3:23So we really came together between Dr. Max Rempel and myself. He is a top genomic scientist, which means he studies the heck out of DNA. He's the inventor of the DNA centrifuge. So the first time humanity was able to isolate DNA from tissue for analysis, the guy's an absolute genius on DNA, how it functions, what it does, how it reacts and interacts biologically. It's an amazing, we call it the God molecule. It's amazing what DNA does in our lives. When Dr. Max and I came together and realized, wow, DNA controls everything about our lives in terms of how we live, how we heal, et cetera, at the same time, it's a sine wave, which means if we can tickle the DNA molecule very gently with the right frequencies, we can stimulate a state of harmonic excitation, which boosts the rate of regenerative healing.

4:19So think of it as deep science designed to tickle our DNA molecule and unlock its potential for healing and well-being. Now, tickling the DNA molecule. Maybe that sounds like child's play. It's actually very deep science and it's extremely effective. For 10 years, we've had an unrelenting stream of people sharing just how much it's changed their lives from young athletes to more mature grandparents, everybody wanting to live a more active life, everybody wanting to live at their highest potential. No matter who you are, our potentials may differ, but we feel everybody deserves to live at their highest potential.

4:56And so that's what DNA Vibes technology is all about. And really that came about through the collision, if you will, between Dr. Max and I, the collision between genomic sciences and quantum physics. And that unlocked an entirely new path for learning how to work harmoniously with our DNA to unlock its tremendous potential for health and healing. Steve, I'm going to pivot into manufacturing a little bit because a lot of times people hear what we're doing on the tech side. They're like, wow, that's pretty amazing. There have been some very high-end medical educators, chairs of medical schools, researchers who have said, oh my God, this technology will change everything.

5:37And then they hear about our manufacturing model and they're like, oh my gosh, that might be even more exciting. What DNA Vibe has done is we've reinvented the methods for producing micron-scale electronics, consumer electronics, in local community-based manufacturing centers. Okay, now that may not sound like much, but let's take a quick path through history. 200 years ago, with the industrial revolution, the industrial age, everything became about scale. And we all are familiar with the phrase scale efficiency, meaning the larger the factory, the more volume we shove through it, the lower the unit cost and the higher the profits.

6:16So this has been really driving manufacturing for 200 years, so much so that roughly 15 generations of humans going through schools have been taught that the key to efficiency is larger scale. It's almost as if we forgot that there were other methods of driving efficiency, right? And so the predictable outcome of that industrial formula for scale is you end up with fewer larger factories, right? Kind of seems obvious. And where are we today? You know, there are a handful of manufacturing hubs in the world that have concentrated capacity and where effectively all of these products are made in one mega plant and they're shipped all over the world.

7:01What does that do? Two things. Number one, it sucks economic vitality away from local communities, right? Here's the gadget, we'll take the money and you're not really participating in the value creation. You're not really contributing in a productive way. So when you make big factories in few places, you centralize productive capacity, meaning the productive capacities are removed from communities. If you remove productive capacities from communities, they begin to deteriorate economically. And you can see that with a very quick drive through any city center, not just in America, but around the world.

7:39Now, there's another side of the coin. If you make everything in one place and ship everywhere, you're not only sucking economic value out of communities, you're depriving the local community from participating in the creative process. Local communities are not dreaming up the next exciting innovation or the next cool feature set. It's almost as if we're hollowing out the human soul, even as we rip out economic productivity. So what have we done? I mean, 200 years of the industrial age. Now, I'm not knocking scale. I will say that the industrial age has delivered tremendous advances and important contributions to civilization.

8:20But you get to a tipping point where you realize, oh, it's time for something new. We need to not get rid of the concept of scale. There's always going to be a need for scaled manufacturing, but we need to add something new. We need to go back to community-based productivity where communities can actually contribute productively, generate value, prosper and succeed with the success of the brands. And at the same time, engaging them fully in the creative process and let loose the wisdom of the crowd. So what are you hoping, or someone listening to this, a brand, a manufacturer would take and learn from this model that you're setting up?

9:03Well, on the manufacturing side, it's pretty astounding, right? I've been told hundreds of times for the past 10 years, what you're claiming to do is not possible without violating the laws of physics. Well, guess what? We're violating the laws of physics. You can't just do what the big plants do in a smaller footprint. You have to fundamentally reinvent manufacturing methods. How do you get to micron scale electronics, for example? You can't do it in the way the big plants do. We've reinvented that. And so what we've discovered is instead of scale as the path to efficiency, when you recognize that simplicity as a path to efficiency is every bit as powerful, what does that mean?

9:44Right? So if you look at how to make a consumer electronic technology, there's a series of steps that have to be done. Step one, step two, step three, at the end of which you end up with a piece of advanced electronics. Great. Interrogate every single step in that process. Challenge every single assumption. What are they doing here? What is the desired outcome? Why is that necessary? How are they doing it? Why are they doing it that way? What other ways might there be? And you do that every single step of the process. And what you can find is a very lean, extremely simple way to produce the most advanced products.

10:21I like to say that today, and this is not hypothetical, this is here. This is demonstrable. We are making the equivalent of an iPhone in the equivalent of a donut shop. That's a big deal. So much so, not only have we been told time and again that that's simply not possible, you'll never be able to compete with the large-scale factories. Guess what? We're making our product at half the cost of what the large-scale producers can make, and we're doing it with tremendous advantages on quality and precision. We're doing it in a very small form factor. And that allows us, instead of building a mega plant that is going to ship product all over, we're going to have a thousand little micro community plants reviving communities around the world.

11:05What do we want other manufacturers to consider? Well, Steve, that's where it gets pretty exciting to us. We, DNA Vibe, are one company, right? So if we embrace this model, we expect that over time at scale, we'll probably deploy about 350 or so local community manufacturing centers. We call them LAMPS, local advanced manufacturing pods. So one company, 350 in the US, maybe 300, 400 in Europe, a couple hundred in LATAM, 600, 700 in Asia, but that's just one company. By the end of 2026, our goal is to persuade 100 other manufacturers to embrace this model of distributed community-based manufacturing.

11:40We want to show them how they can apply the same approach to vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, radar detectors, electronic gadgets of any kind, pretty much anything, right? If we can make our product, which is extremely advanced, comparable to this, the biggest difference is ours wobbles, and you can wrap it around your wrist, your ankle, your knee, your back, right? If we can make our product, we can literally make any product. So we want to empower others to embrace this model. By the end of 2027, we aim to persuade 250 manufacturers. By the end of 28, 500 manufacturers embrace this concept of distributed community-based manufacturing.

12:15Now let's do some very simple math. If DNA Vibe at scale globally is going to deploy 1 ,000 community-based manufacturing hubs, what if 500 other manufacturers embrace the same model? Right? Think of the sweeping impact that can have on restoring opportunity, vitality, and security to communities around the world. And this is not just a U.S. issue. You can see the problem anywhere you go in the U.S., Detroit, Dallas, Baltimore. or more, you're going to see communities that need to be revitalized. But you're going to see that in Europe, you're going to see that in LATAM, and you're even going to see that in China.

12:51Sometimes I joke, you know, we're going to know that we've made a dent when we start deploying local community manufacturing in China. I think of the irony there, right? It's extremely ironic, for sure. Okay, let me back up a second. Layman's terms, very layman's terms for a simple minded person such as myself, and I'll say that. what's DNA Vibe and why is it different than all the other wearable products out there now? Okay, very simple. DNA Vibe is the only non-thermal regenerative wearable, whereas all other light wearables are non-regenerative thermal. That's a big deal. To put that in context, DNA Vibe's technology is 1 ,000 times less energy effect than the typical light therapy wearables.

13:37A thousand times less energy effect is a lot less. Okay, think about it. That's a lot less. The reason for that is the DNA molecule, which is where our entire regenerative capacity is governed by the DNA molecule. If you want to interact harmoniously with that little bugger, it's only two nanometers in diameter, right? This is unimaginably small scale. We're literally dealing molecules, not cells. And so you need to have the least possible amount of energy possible. So DNA Vibes, the only company that is focused on that. We're the only company that has the amount of power turned so low that we're able to tickle that little guy and unlock its potential.

14:17Every other technology without exception is having primarily a thermal effect, like a light-based heating pad. This is physics where when you blast light into tissue, that light is absorbed and converted into thermokinetic energy. That's just fancy for heat, right? I have nothing against a heating pad. If you put a heating pad on a sore neck or a sore back, it's going to feel better. It's going to relax things. It's going to improve blood flow. But that blood flow is thermal expansion of vessels. And so nothing wrong with a heating pad. You can make your own heating pad or buy a heating pad. You can use light.

14:53You can use electricity. You can use all kinds of different ways, but DNA Vibe is not about that. DNA Vibe is about stimulating harmonic excitation of DNA to unlock the body's natural DNA-driven capacity. I have gone as deep as you can imagine on the science with some of the world's experts. Every one of them has become a disciple of what we're doing. But the way that we typically bring it to market for the average consumer, it's a lot, you know? So what we typically say is, look, it's deep science. It unlocks your body's natural DNA-driven regenerative capacities. You will experience relief like you've not experienced before.

15:28And we guarantee that. That's the point. The science is so solid and the results are so consistent and compelling that we're able to guarantee. If anyone buys our technology and it doesn't help them, we give a full refund. We've been doing that since the first product we ever sold. because we're a company that believes if we're not helping you, we can't keep your money. We're telling you it's going to help you, and we put our money where our mouth is. Fortunately, it's been our experience for these many years. We've been in the market six years, 10 years in the making, six years in the market.

16:05We have hundreds of thousands of people using it, and we have an overwhelming flow of stories of life change. People share with us, you know, I've tried everything. I was losing hope, and then I tried yours, and wow, it's amazing. I'm back to playing golf or I'm back to walking my dogs. It is one of the most thrilling aspects. You know, the privilege of being involved with DNA Vibe is that we just get this flood of continuous stories of life change. There's nothing more energizing and inspiring than that. Yeah. Now, we touched on the community benefit, right? And the movement and the shine movement, right?

16:38Where, at what point in the timeline, Perry, did that become like, we have this great product. It's proven. It's tested. Did at one point in the timeline take us in behind the curtain to go, okay, this is great, but we can have a bigger or equal impact on communities as well. Where did that evolve from? Yeah, that's a fair question. Actually, it was very early in the process. You know, we're roughly just a little over 10 years in the making. The first year was all about scientific validation and technology development. And then about nine years ago, we did what everybody does. We looked at offshore contract manufacturers.

17:12We looked everywhere around the world. We looked at Dong Wang, Shanghai. We looked at Taiwan. We looked at the Philippines. We looked in Eastern Europe, Ukraine. At the time, we looked in the Nordics. And we narrowed things down to the top three. And we were going full speed ahead towards the common model of offshore contract manufacturing. And then it just stuck in my craw. Like I'm a very reflective person. I started realizing, wait a minute, something's wrong. As we were looking for manufacturing partners, it became clear that there are very few and they all concentrate in limited locations.

17:48And as I started thinking about that and unraveling what it meant, it was like, oh my God, this is awful. We're stripping economic vitality. We're hollowing out the human soul. We're depriving communities from being involved in a meaningful way. This is awful. And then there was like this eureka moment. I mean, I don't want to overstate things, but I'm going to tell you what I genuinely believe. If we don't alter course and restore productivity to local communities, civilization as we know it is not sustainable. I mean, this is, it sounds like a pretty big, bold, audacious comment, but I'll unpack it for you.

18:22You can throw all the money you want to try to support and sustain local communities, but if they are not productive, if they're not productively involved and engaged in meaningful work and creating output, there's not enough money in the world to sustain them. This is the old give a man a fish or teach a person to fish. Bottom line, communities need productive engagement in order to be self-sustaining. If you put all the manufacturing in a handful of places, there's not enough to sustain the rest. So we knew it had to be changed. You know, there's something heartbreaking too when you look around and you see what's happening in communities.

19:01I mean, open your eyes, but also open your heart. It's not enough to see the decline in the community and intellectually recognize a problem. You have to see it with your heart. You have to feel it with your heart. Think of the opportunities that those young people have been deprived of, the opportunity to dream big dreams, to imagine the next cool innovations, to participate in a meaningful way. And so for me, nine years ago, it very quickly became an absolute no-brainer. It's essential. What we're doing is restoring hope, productivity, meaningful contribution, prosperity, security for communities, which to me is not some abstract concept.

19:41It's moms, dads, their kids, their legacies. We really need to get back to restoring. There's a human dignity that comes with independence and security that we need to restore worldwide. By the way, I said worldwide, and we're going to high five when we bring local community manufacturing into China, because what people don't understand when you hear the news or you read reports, yeah, there's a couple of big cities in China that are thriving because of industrial manufacturing, but there are 10 other cities in China with more than 10 million people that are also struggling with exactly the same problems.

20:16This is a universal issue. The bottom line is very simple. If the community is not productively engaged in producing things of value, then both economically and I would say spiritually, it's not sustainable. I love, love that you use the word simple. Don't overcomplicate this. It really is that simple. And when you put it in that perspective and that lens, to me, it does. And hopefully to everybody listening to this and it becomes aware of this, it goes, I want in. It's a very simple thing. And that's why I want to be part of it. So Steve, let me give you a very simple story. I laugh when I tell this, but I received a phone call from officials in Washington in March last year, so coming up on a year ago, and they said, hey, congratulations on being an award-winning, successful U.S.

21:02manufacturer. We'd love to pick your brain and also share our thoughts on how to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., right? Seems like a pretty popular topic. So I listened for a few minutes, and after about 5, 10 minutes, I said, listen, folks, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I honor the intent, but it's not going to have an impact. It'll be a net zero impact. You could have heard a pin drop. And then they said, Perry, everybody knows that bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is the key to restoring economic prosperity. And I said, I understand why you feel that way, but let's do a simple exercise.

21:40So, right, this is so simple. I joke that sometimes really smart people have a hard time understanding simple things. I gave them a little thought project. I said, what if you bring the mega plant from Dong Wang, China, and you put it in Phoenix? If you do that, you will have helped 30 ,000 people in Phoenix out of millions, right? You will have hurt 30 ,000 people in China, and you will have done nothing for Denver, Detroit, Baltimore, nor DC or anybody else. Impact, net zero. And then I told them, the problem is not where the mega plant is located. The problem is the mega plant. Because by definition, the mega plant centralizes productive capacity and it's the centralization of that capacity that sucks it away from local communities.

22:32So if you want to restore opportunity and security and prosperity and dignity to the local communities, you must break it down and spread it around. Those gentlemen on the phone went, oh my God, that's so simple that people miss it, right? That led to a week-long visit to Washington. I've had tremendous conversations. I believe there's an increasing understanding that the solution to the problems we face economically and otherwise is actually not fighting over where to put mega plants, but how best to break them down and spread them around. We're onto something pretty exciting, and we do think it'll have a historic impact.

23:14I love, I can't wait to see how that plays out. The potential, and it's really the legacy is what we're talking about, right? And I know you and I have talked about this even in the few minutes we had off air about wanting to leave the world a better place, which again, sounds hyperbolic, but it's not. It's not hyperbolic. I would say my encouragement is don't settle for abstract concepts. When we talk about restoring economic vitality to local communities, immerse yourself in what that means. Try to imagine the lives of the people that are going to be affected and the positive impact of restoring hope and dignity and opportunity in a very real and human way.

23:59You know, we've had STEM classes come and visit our manufacturing center. And I'll never forget, I'm a very visual person, right? So there was a young lady named Elle, and she made a product, soup to nuts, for her grandparents. And we let her decorate the silicone. You know, she at the time didn't fully appreciate that she had made the electronic equivalent of an iPhone or a mobile phone, if you will. But when she walked out of our lab, she was brimming with excitement. It's as if she was floating six inches above the ground. I don't think a face could smile any harder. And you could see the energy and the excitement exuding from her.

24:39And imagine that's just one person. I'll give you another quick little fun side story. So after winning Coolest Thing Made in Colorado, we were asked to support STEM class field trips. And we were doing quite a number of them. And after a few months, I got a very awkward call from the Colorado State Chamber of Commerce. They said, hey, you know, the teachers are very curious. You know, what are you telling these kids? Because when they go back to class after the field trips, they are bouncing off the walls with excitement. And the teachers are asking if you would consider hosting an adult field trip.

25:15I was like, what are you talking about? A field trip with no students? Exactly. The teachers wanted to do a field trip to better understand, what are you telling these kids that's getting them so energized and so excited? I love that. Right? Yeah. It was amazing. We had 45 teachers come from all the counties around South Denver. They came, they saw, and they were absolutely blown away. There's a magic. When you empower people to do great things and you see the joy of having produced and contributed to something, and then the belief that they suddenly have. I can do this. That is a spark that can revolutionize communities around the world.

25:55And for generations to come. For sure. Yeah. I'm looking at the time. I want to make sure we got to talk about the Super Bowl, right? And what you guys have going on. We're recording us a week before Super Bowl week. So tell us what's happening next week and why Super Bowl week? Well, why Super Bowl week? Because a lot of really amazing athletes and trainers are going to be there. We have many friends among them. At my stage of life, I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I never imagined that I would have so many friends in cool places. But yeah, we're going there because we have amazing partners.