#192 HapWare: A Wearable to Help the Blind "See"

0:00Welcome to The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. I'm Josh Muccio. And I'm Lisa Muccio. And on the show today, we have Jack with Hapware. He's raising$1.5 million. This company is super cool. It's a wearable and it communicates nonverbal signals to you using vibrations on your wrist. What? Like if someone's waving or smiling or reaching out to shake your hand. Okay, but why would I need that? Let's say you were blind or low vision. Sure. Or anyone in general who has trouble reading nonverbal cues. Nonverbal communication is pretty important, wouldn't you say?

0:41Yes, I strongly believe in nonverbal communication. In fact, I like to emote a lot. You sure do. Maybe a little less nonverbal cues for me. A little less nonverbal cues for me. Nonverbal from you would be nice. One of the main reasons that I wanted to bring this company on the show is I liked that when evaluating Hapware, it forced me to think about what it would be like to live a day and not be able to see the world around me. Like, I don't know. I've just never actually sat with what's it like to not be able to see. Totally understand that. But just because something is cool doesn't mean that it can scale to a venture-sized business.

1:23I think the real question is, will enough people use it? And what other use cases will come out of it to make it a mainstream product? The Pitch for Hapware is coming up after this. But first, we're hosting two events this November. A live show in New York and also our Season 17 taping in San Francisco. To join us at either of those, go to pitch.show slash events. Support for the show comes from Engine. For you and your team, travel is a matter of business. You know business. Anything you do all day? I'm a very serious podcaster. That's business. Anyway, Enjin is the travel and spend platform that makes it easier and affordable to book and manage flights, hotels, rental cars, and everything in between.

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2:31Welcome back to The Pitch for Hapware. Let's meet the investors. Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures. We have 500 companies, so you pick it, we have it. Ellie Barmazel with Perinot. Entrepreneurship is the dance between hubris and humility. Elizabeth Galbitt with Sogal Ventures. Not all exits are created the same. and Jeff Cantalupo with Listen Ventures. Do you want this to be a premium brand?

3:04Hapware. That was a good snap. Thank you. How's it going? Hey, good. I'm Jack. Allie, nice to meet you. Jack. Hi, Elizabeth. Jack. Hey, Charles, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Jeff. Jack. Good to meet you, Jeff. Nice to meet you guys. Hello, everybody. Hi, my name is Jack Walters and I'm the CEO and co-founder at Happware. I want you guys to close your eyes. How would you describe what I'm doing right now? Am I smiling? Do I seem bored? You're using your hands. Yeah, I thought you're waving your hands around. Am I checking my notes maybe because I forgot what I'm supposed to say? You can open your eyes.

3:39The questions I just asked you describe nonverbal communication. Things like gestures, body language, and facial expressions. The fact of the matter is over 90 % of all communication is nonverbal. But for people who are blind or low vision, these cues are largely inaccessible because they are visual. And for people that are neurodiverse or on the autism spectrum, these cues can be extremely hard to read. At Hapware, we are building Ally, which is a wristband that can communicate all those different nonverbal and social cues through the sense of touch or haptics in real time. We integrate and pair with any camera to pick up the visual scene, and then we communicate it through the sense of touch less than a quarter of a second.

4:27So tens of millions of other people can get access and know when their kids are rolling their eyes, when someone's walking away from them, or when they're reaching out to shake hands. And this problem is personal to us. My co-founder, Brian, is one of 20 people in the world who are blind with a PhD in computer science. One of the few people that has the technical know-how and the lived experience of how to execute. I have a haptic demonstration here. So you can kind of get a little idea of what haptics feel like. So if one of you would like to experience just a quick little demo of a volunteer on the end.

5:07Yeah, I'm an eager volunteer on this one. Okay, cool. If you put your wrist in here, right now I'm going to play one of the most common gestures. This is a wave. So it kind of feels like a back and forth, almost drawing the waving sensation. Or maybe you want to know if someone's happy or smiling. It kind of draws, right, that smiling face. And then we did a pilot and demo with 11 students at the Colorado Center for the Blind, one of the largest schools for the blind in the country, and they kept asking for middle finger. so here is an example of the middle finger they asked for this we shipped it and the next thing we knew we had like 10 students running around flipping each other off um but so this is just an example of the haptics anybody else want to try it i love to feel it yeah yeah that smiley face sensation was really interesting people put this on and in less than five minutes they're able to learned seven different cues at 95 % accuracy.

6:09So I'm going to give you the smiling one. So this is, do you kind of feel like it draws the smiling face, right? It's like a rainbow. Exactly. Or then like you probably can guess what this one is then. This one is a frown. And then we do this for over 27 different cues and counting. I'm just putting the device on my wrist to see how big it is, how it feels. Yeah, it kind of looks bigger than an Apple Watch. Apple Watches have finer bands. This one has wider and that's because a lot of the sensors are in the wider band and it kind of looks like a superhero little device. Yeah, so it's design wise.

6:48Yeah, we have a few different colors and it's 44 millimeters, actually just like four millimeters bigger than some of the Apple Watch faces. So just like slightly larger Apple Watch is a good example of it. So that's a demo and I want to highlight that the blind and low vision is the wedge into the market, not the ceiling. It's the wedge because we have paying customers, lived experience, and the pain is quantified and urgent. From there, it's more autism use cases and then mainstream applications. I am sighted and neurotypical, but if I was able to know when someone was engaged, interested, or deceiving me, I would never take it off.

7:27And I'm not the only one that thinks mainstream applications are at We had inbound interest from one of the largest wearable manufacturers in the world for Aquihire. We are raising$1.5 million with$500K left in the round. One of your fellow panelists, Mike from Sidecut, is already in. We are shipping 1 ,000 units at the end of the year to make miscommunication a thing of the past. And we'd love for one of you guys, or all of you, to be involved. So you said you had paying customers already. Can you sort of walk me through defining what paying customers are, what are they getting currently versus what's shipping at the end of the year?

8:04Yes, so we've done seven iterations before this, all in beta, shipping to Helen Keller National Center, government agencies, individuals. And now from that thousand units that we're shipping at the end of the year, we're planning on closing 100 of them by the end of this month for pre-order. Today, this device requires a computer vision device of some sort as well? Yes. So it requires me to already have the Metaglasses or some other camera? Yes, but we also have an opportunity to resell the Metaglasses as well. So you can sell the package? Yes, yes, yes. Interesting. Okay. So Jack, you referenced a co-founder.

8:43I always say I'm looking for like the squad of superheroes. So tell us about the superhero squad that you guys have assembled. Brian actually is a superhero. Like that's what actually I call him. I'm not just saying that because I'm talking to investors and you use it. I literally use the word superhero. He's one of 20 people in the world who are blind with a PhD in computer science. His background is haptics as a universal language. We met a couple of years ago on a research project together. My background's also in engineering. Our chief scientist, Gabby, she has her PhD in AI and facial recognition.

9:11And then we have some of the most world-class designers, including the first lead industrial designer for the first Model Y3 and Roadster at Tesla. And then another one that was on the Hydroflask team for the very first Hydroflask they made. That sounds like an incredible team. I'll tell you what superhero seat I'm not hearing. So I want you to help fill in some color for me. No great product gets into the hands of the right users without that sales superhero. So who's got the go-to-market and sales expertise on the team? That is largely what I'm building to the team. So I travel and I go to every single one of these different organizations for the disabilities in every state, and I give them the demonstration.

9:52and we have a 30 % demo to pre-order conversion rate. So that's really what my background and what I'd bring to the team. But I also believe it's an area that we can learn and expand for. I really am focused and committed to bringing on, you know, one of our first growth hires to work with me to be able to expand this different go-to-market presence. And what's the price point for a pre-order? $359. And then we also have a monthly subscription. So similar to some of the other wearable models like Aura and Whoop where you have hardware plus software. And what's the software subscription price? Between$19 and$29.

10:28But right now everyone's pre-ordered at$29 a month. Can you talk about just the R &D journey to get here with their product? Yes, it has been a journey. The first iteration we had went from my wrist all the way to my shoulder. Wow. And that is no joke. I'll show you a picture after this. Mike tried it on. He took a bunch of pictures. We were shipping units to people for paying betas when the wristband was half the forearm. Because we just wanted to prove value. We wanted to give this to the people. We're like, we don't care what it looks like. We just want to see if people can get access. I'd love to understand the feedback you're getting from these early beta users of this.

11:03First, for example, having smart glasses or something in your ear that maybe says he's smiling. This is a great question. So when you're in a conversation, you're either listening or you're speaking. And if I had something talking to me over and over again, telling me you're nodding your head, you got your arms crossed, your arms are this way, you're waving at me, you're smiling, you just rolled your eyes because you said something that didn't resonate, it would be impossible to communicate. But with haptics, we've built a way where you can receive the information passively, meaning that you can be multitasking, having a conversation and receive the information as it happens.

11:39We've already tested this and people were able to receive nearly 80 % of the cues while multitasking in different ways. And that's just getting better and better. I love what you're trying to build here. I think that technology in the future, especially in the world of AI, should be about enhancing connection and being invisible versus being in between connection. So like from that perspective, like I'm super interested in what you're trying to solve. My question on it as it relates to like the experience is how would your co-founder today describe how he does or does not feel how a person might be reacting?

12:21He's got this really interesting story that he tells when we were first building this. He's testing it, right, as the user. And he puts it on and he starts talking to his wife. and he starts getting these things like, oh, her hands are on her hips. Their arms are crossed. She's pointing to the right. It's over there. And he almost like was stopped. Like he was like, I didn't know what to do for a second. And it was literally the moment where he realized how much of this communication is nonverbal. And this is someone that was born sighted. Brian was born sighted, age 18. He got in a motorcycle accident, lost his sight overnight.

12:52So he knew what nonverbal cues were like. The best part of my job, what I say is like, when I'm able to like give an ally to someone, and they like message us, this restored my communication. And it's not just, you know, people who are blind or the vision at Brian, right? It's like people in the autism spectrum. It's like the parents that we get to see that have a child that's, you know, maybe 14 years old, struggles with social cues and they're able to like see, oh, my kid just understood when I was happy, sad, upset, and angry after five minutes. It's the best part. And like, you're right, a human connection, that's really like what we're trying to build.

13:25Like that's our brand. Like we're building human connection. And do you have IP built around the system? We have IP from everything from the vision to haptics, to the utility, to the design, to the novelty. Everything is filed. I'm curious. I'm sure a lot of VCs might say, is this a big enough market? I'm guessing it is. But can you help educate us on what sort of scale that's to? Totally. So just our core market of people who are blind and neurodiverse. There's over 400 million people in the world. In the United States alone, for people that have intellectual and development disabilities and autism and people who are blind, there's 28 million people.

14:07To hit 100 million run rate, we need less than 1 % adoption just in the United States. But these disabilities exist everywhere. It's all over the place where they even have more robust programs to purchase this type of technology. And that's just the core, right? We already have inbound from like big, big wearable manufacturers. And what are some of the comps? Like, I know the first thing that comes to mind is sort of the iPad autism communication tools that exist. Yeah. Like, are there any interesting comps in this space that you kind of model what your business looks like? We model it more closely to the wearable AI.

14:41We're solving the communication problem. The other people that are solving the communication problem right now are mainly the occupational therapists, the counselors that teach social cues. and these people might get these therapies or these coachings one hour a day or maybe one hour a week, maybe a few hours a month, but there's still hundreds of hours of the week where you don't have that support. And where are you able to give people that in the loop support? I'm curious, Jack, you mentioned that you've already been approached as a team with an acquihire on the table. Hardware is hard. What a novel line, right?

15:18But everyone always says hardware is hard. Why did you and the team say, we're going to pass. We already have people that are paying for it. We're going to ship 1 ,000 units at the end of the year, and then we're going to ship 10 ,000 the following year. We want to continue to build this. I was hoping that that was the answer. And what I'm curious to know, you said that this initial market that you're pursuing is the wedge, not the ceiling. Yes. But I want to flash forward to the ceiling, right? Yeah, let's do it. We're sitting back here at a reunion 10 years from now. Where are we? paint the picture of where we're at 10 years from today.

15:53So nowadays, we receive information for the most part through vision and what we hear. We're creating a future where you can receive information through touch. So it's not just visual cues. We can put our haptic language over anything that you want to put into the system. That's why we're building a haptic essentially operating system, an SDK, where you can build your own haptics based off different inputs. So what we're really creating is like a two flywheel effect of the haptics as a universal language and a way to receive information with a variety of different use cases and also the vision side.

16:30We want a big future. We're going somewhere and this is just the first thing. This is just V0.

16:41The ground floor of haptics. This is all sounding pretty ready player one to me. I kind of want the version that goes all the way up my arm. We'll be right back.

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18:08Can you talk a little bit about the cost side of the equation? Like what does it cost to build the device? And what do you think is the pathway going forward on that front? For small, when we made like eight, like in a working, you know, small batch, it was$380 COGS. We believe in this next batch, we're going to get it to under 150. And then once we invest in more tooling, I want to get it to be well under$70. So good margins, right? Like we're getting, you know, 75 % margin on the hardware, but also the continuous value that we provide through software. Can we talk about sales for a minute? I want to go back to your 30 % conversion rate.

18:44So are we talking there were 10 demos and 30 % converted? Was it 100 demos? Give us a sense of that sample size. 100 and change. 100 individuals and change. And it's really been since a little over a month ago once we had some more of our working hardware units that were robust. I always ask founders, are you keeping a rebuttal tracker? Where you're keeping track of the no's to see the patterns and then asking yourself, do I have a counterpoint, even if I didn't have it in that meeting? So for the 70 % no's, do we have a sense of like, what are the themes that were emerging across those no's? Oh yeah, this is such a good question.

19:20This is something that we actually worked a lot when you're working with Mike. It was the content. Some of the times we would get too wound up on it's real time, it's haptics versus, oh, talking to them and then saying, yeah, I'm a teacher, I'm a hundred percent blind. This is the access to know when your students are raising their hand, when they walk up to you, when they're smiling or when they roll their eyes. That was the unlock. And we were starting to learn more. It's really this work empowerment device. So a lot of our early adopters or users that have purchased have been in this 25 to 55 age.

19:53They're eager to try something that will up their game. They know the problem. And it can really give them just this more level of independence. So we're really building this. You just brought up a great point. A teacher who has multiple students, how does it work when you have multiple inputs? Yes. So we run some algorithms. It's essentially part of our algorithm set of what happens when there's a group of people. And there's a few things that we prioritize on. Is it an action cue? A handshake is an action cue. Me smiling is not as much as an action cue. So we'll put that in higher above. And then we also will be able to communicate how many people there are.

20:27And then we're also adding some more overall room sentiment analysis, which I'm really excited about. Have you been tracking kind of what their wearage rate is? They're wearing it for one hour. They're wearing it for an occasion where they know they're seeing other people. Are they wearing it around the clock? So weekly average use is a little over seven and a half hours, a little bit over an hour a day. Some of these people just wore it at the most critical times. They put it on when they're going out to dinner or on a date. They're going in person for work. So these really critical moments. So daily active use isn't the only important metric.

21:07It's also when and how they're using it and what that outcome is. So just because I'm really curious about the connectivity to the other device that today is currently needed, in the beta users, they're all using smart glasses with this? We also built some prototype glasses. So something that they could just put on, strap it on their side. That works with it. That it worked with. It was just like a little plug on that we made. So you could use your own glass. That I could attach to my own glasses. Yeah, we made that so people could use it if they didn't have it. The reason we're leaning into the smart glasses right now, for a few reasons.

21:37A, just an option. Just a bunch of people have them. We also have the opportunity to resell. And it gives us a natural network effect because we don't have to be tied to one hardware platform. We can just plug and play into whoever is winning and whoever is adopted. Can you talk about how you came up with the$1.5 million round size number? Yes. So there's really three big buckets here. One third is really the manufacturing and the stand-up. and fulfilling orders. The next one third is really in the go-to-market, the things with this partner development, these demos really converting. And then the other third is the R &D and the engineering and the hiring.

22:12And the goal of this round is to ship 1 ,000 to 1 ,200 units and then raise our seed round to get to the 10X of the production volume. Did you say what the valuation? 8 million cap, 20 % discount. Is that a post-money cap or a pre-money? Post. So walk me through the product roadmap. Like in 24 months, what does Gen 2 or 3 look like? How small is it? Is it Apple Watch size? This is the biggest it's ever going to be, right? And there's a lot of product roadmap and value add that we can add through software on the same sensor set. Not only do we add new cues every month based off user feedback, like the middle finger example, but also being able to say after action reports for your social interactions.

22:53So there's a bunch of things we can do through software. That's such an interesting point. You have these glasses, which a lot of time are taking both audio and visual. Are you going to be using AI to also look at the audio as part of that feedback? Yeah, this is all in the roadmap. People are paying for an AI note taker that goes on their wrist or on their necklace. Meta's acquired multiple companies in the last six months that do just that. We can do the exact same thing on our sensor set. And then we can also add our flair to it, which is more social interaction heavy. more coaching some after action reports like you interrupted five times you yeah a little bit too much like it was 90 talking 10 listening that's better than you did the past week but yep still not very good yep and then build your own haptics right we gave you the ones that we have that we've done some research on i think are pretty good but if you're like you know what i want middle finger or wave to mean something else knock yourself out so like if i try to break down like what this can be if it's squint your eyes type of thing, right?

23:57Like you're building the infrastructure for like observational language. Is that kind of how you think about it? Like the haptics in and of itself - We're building haptic language. And we're also being able to collect the data on how this interacts with cognitive load and if it's helpful versus not helpful, what haptics are being utilized. So we can create a natural data mode of how the haptics are being used. And it It just gets better with time. Why can this only happen now? The tailwinds are here. Wearables, smart glasses, interconnected devices. Like they say by 2035, there's supposed to be 289 million people wearing smart glasses.

24:34From an input side in the wearable market, everyone's been focused on input. Input meaning the health data. What are your steps? How many calories did you burn? Audio that you pick up. And an output has been dominated by screens and what's talking to you in your ear. and we're having the next avenue of output, which is touch. Yeah, I'm going to be out. I've done a couple of things in hardware, including one of the companies that Meta acquired. And I don't think you're raising enough money. What we've seen is even the most capital efficient companies, it's like$8 to$10 million to get from prototype to commercial shipped, can deal with the rigors of the real world versions.

25:16And like, I think you might be able to pull this plan off. You might be one of the only people I think could. It just runs counter to every hardware investment we've made to be able to get as far as you plan on the amount of money you're raising in this round. I hope I'm wrong, but that's where I am. Just I'm listening to the pitch. I appreciate the feedback. To be clear, the 1.5 is to the entry level. Yeah, yeah. Not the 10x. Yeah, totally. I'm coming out on the other side of this. Let's start at 25. And I have a whole universe of things that I want to tackle in diligence with you. But I think this team has got a very compelling right to win.

25:55I share Charles's concern around like, is this the right dollar amount? But something our team has been really passionate about when you've got a thesis around what enables human flourishing across century long lives. This is clearly in thesis. But what we've been saying is we're looking for companies that are taking all of the input and data and translating it into actionable insight so that the end consumer can do something transformative. So this fits very neatly for us. Definitely. But really want to dig into your go to market motion and what production is actually going to look like and go to market will actually have to look like.

26:30That's going to be where I'm going to spend a lot of time with you and digging in. No, I look forward to unpacking it. Thank you. Yeah, I think I'm a little torn on this because I think the reason why you're building it and what you're building is so important. Like our last annual LP meeting, we did a whole section on like AI empowering human connection and the whole next phase of that. I believe in the thesis, but at the same time, I have had many heartbreaks and tragedies in the hardware space of just like founders that were amazing, companies and missions that were amazing, even getting distribution, production, like all the right signals.

27:12But then just heartbreak at the end of that story that I'm a little bit just my heart is raw that I don't know if I can do this as an investment right now. I'll say this. We've significantly de-risked the hardware. And it's because we brought in people that are on the industrial design side that have built from Tesla to Hydro Flask. These numbers are coming from that. That's what we're using to create this timeline and data and say, this is the go-to-market. I appreciate that. I just also feel like I've been on the other end of the phone where I feel like I'm giving good advice and good support and good connections.

27:47and usually that actually helps my founders and all these cases it was just like I couldn't do it for them and their success and it just like it hurt me personally because I got quite close with a lot of these founders over the course of working with them so I just also don't think like I'm probably the right investor because my hit rate on this right now is like zero percent on these types of companies, just being honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you're due. Just say that. You're really good at following. I love that. I'm out as well. The biggest challenge for me in this approach is the reliance on having to have another piece of hardware go with it.

28:35It's a big hurdle as it relates to getting to scale. And I think for your go-to-market and the target you're going after, I think you'll get to that thousand units and then you'll kind of put your head down and see what the next phase is. But I think for this to become a mainstream application in the wearable world, at some point, I think the device has to do something by itself. And so to me, I'd like to see on your roadmap in the future, does it get there or do you at some point you become a technology provider to Apple per se, so their watch can do whatever it might want to do. So for that reason, I'm out.

29:14I love why you're building it. And I think that bringing people the ability to have observational communication that needs to exist. So I bought it. But I think the reliance on other hardware right now is the reason that I'm passing. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great to meet you.

29:37That was a tough one. Oh gosh, I don't know who said this quote originally, but it was the idea like as an investor, the risk is actually learning too much from your failures. Yeah. I don't think I'm that far along in my investor journey where I have that many heartaches. But as you were talking, Elizabeth, I thought like, man, like this could be the one. Is there a point where you have to not lean into what you learned? And how do you decipher? I think for me, I try and look at like, was it a problem of the company was too early? And like now we're in a different time than what it was a few years ago.

30:22Was it a governance board investor problem and not necessarily like a product or founder problem? I think what I was really keying into here is like there's some where it's like every little single piece of it is like directionally correct, but it still doesn't get close to the finish line and definitely not across the finish line. And those are the ones that are just like heart wrenching because it's like you have everything, but just for whatever reason, it's not pushing to the scale. And so I think those are where it becomes really hard. And for me, that's been like a repetitive experience with hardware companies.

31:06And so honestly, I'm just like, am I bad at picking the ones that I've picked to work with? Or is it really just the cliche, hardware's hard? But with my hit rate right now, it's sort of like, maybe you should play a different sport than this industry. Yeah, Charles, you've said on the show many, many times, it takes$8 million. It takes$10 million? It seems to be so immutable. I don't know why it seems to be so immutable. I think what ends up happening is the first units you make get deployed in these very controlled, no one throws it in the washing machine. No one accidentally jumps in the pool with it on.

31:44And then you get out there and you're like, oh, the clasp doesn't work for people that have something. It's not that it's hard, it's just it's expensive. In software, you can fix things and you can fix them in production. In hardware, oftentimes you end up learning a bunch of stuff like, okay, we have to go back and fundamentally redesign some part of the mechanism or some piece of hardware. And look, we've done things that have worked really well, like Fitbit, and we've done things that have not worked really well and have consumed a bunch of cash. I think you have to have the right investors around the table that also have the pockets to be able to say, hey, we do know it's eight to ten million dollars.

32:20And like we are able to fund that and we are going to fund that to the point it needs to be funded. We're not just going to bail on you halfway through, because I think that's the other issue I've seen is just, you know, there isn't enough capital around the table that's committed to like actually get to meaningful milestones. And inevitably one of those checks on the way to eight to 10 is very hard to write because you have to write it in the face of like very cloudy information. It's like, oh, the first version we launched was like, okay, but not amazing. But we know what to fix. I'm very confident if we fix these things.

32:56And you're like, this is hard. But if you don't write that check, it's over. I hope he's able to do in one and a half what most people need more like four and a half or five to do. Elle, I just want to hear more from you. Like, what did you see that made you want to lean in and write the check? Like, it sounds like a like a starter check for you. To be clear, it's not you know, I'm not coming in with like four million and saying, let's go. But if we were at the poker table, I'm like, I want to see what happens on the river. Right. Like I've got my pocket hands seem like good enough. Like, let's see what's here.

33:29But I think that the use case for this is much broader than what we were able to dig into here today. And our team really is passionate about, I'm calling this the so what era of data. Like, so what? You told me my sleep is crappy. I know that. So what? Make it translatable into something that moves me forward towards an outcome. And it's really hard to find companies that have a clear point of view about how they're going to do that. And this is one of the first companies that I've seen who was able to tell that story. Yeah, and I think you're right there. Lately, I've actually been putting my call transcripts with founders into Claude and asking Claude to like basically analyze how I'm doing as a VC and how I'm doing during the meeting.

34:18And I give it different scenarios to kind of explain to me, like, how can I become a better VC and like do these meetings better in general? What's Claude's view? last when I said it I got a B minus I was like brutal Claude's tough proof that Claude isn't just going to agree with you yeah if I put into chat GPT they'd be like A plus there's never been a better investor to ever invest you are the best but I think that was the point where my eyes did start lighting up a little bit again where I was like thinking about like how can these insights then actually help people improve their interpersonal relationships.

35:00Because I think there really is a true use case that can make a lot of people's lives better there. I think a lot about like, what is the de facto user interface of the future? Yeah. Some people think it's voice. Maybe it's haptic for a certain part of the population. Full bodysuit, yeah. Yeah, but I think you have to kind of try to envision what that looks like, right? Because, you know, Johnny Ive and Sam are cooking up hundreds of new devices over to open AI that are going to likely observe the world and feed it back through some sort of model and give you whatever information they want. I think we're at this interesting point where I think a brand like this could be built, but I think we're in rapid iteration phase where I do think the capital is going to become a constraint because you're going to have to move pretty fast.

35:47Yeah. But I think that point of cognitive load was so important because we're already overwhelmed with a glut of information that even if you aren't experiencing other limitations in the world, it's so much to process, so much to hold. What does sensemaking look like in an increasingly loud world? And how do you triage that information? So I'm curious to see where their imagination is taking them. Great. All right.

36:23Jack walked out of the pitch room with a$25 ,000 commitment from Ellie and a bunch of reminders that hardware is still hard. But just outside the pitch room, Jack gets swarmed by angel investors. That's coming up after the break.

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39:06Welcome back. A few months after the pitch, we caught up with Jack to say, what's up? What was your experience like pitching on the show? Pitching on the show was a little intense. That intensity quickly went away after I started doing the pitch, you know, talking about something that you just know so well. It's like second nature. But overall, it was really positive. Yeah. I mean, it seemed like the feedback in the room was generally, you're not raising enough money and we're afraid of hardware. Do you get that a lot? That was definitely the vibe. There are investors that are scared of hardware.

39:43And truthfully speaking, if you're scared of hardware, then you probably shouldn't invest in hardware because there's a hardware component. I think it definitely takes a certain type of conviction. And I think that's like what we have really indexed on is like investors with conviction are the best type of investors when you're a pre-seed company trying to, you know, make a dream come true or make a vision achieved, essentially. Yeah. Well, and Ellie had that conviction and she invested. Yes, Ellie had that conviction. I think I told you this, Lisa, like before I even went in there, I was like, I hope she invests.

40:19Yeah. So we're super, super excited when she came in. So what was her diligence process like? So she sent like a PDF for this is what diligence looks like for us. And I was like, I love that. Makes it like I know what to expect, you know, the timeline, I know areas that we're going to dig into. I feel like a lot of maybe investors don't, you know, send like a structure like this is what diligence looks like. It's a mystery. Yeah. It's like, here's an email. Let's maybe jump on a call. And then you get on the call. You're like, OK, what's happening next? Like, you really don't know. There's an asymmetric amount of information, typically, but Ellie was like super transparent.

40:53How did Ellie's process compare to the foxhole with Mike Ma, since you have now been through both? Ellie's process, they're so different. They're different processes. Mike's process is he wants to get really, really deep into the weeds and also wants to see like measurable progress in a condensed period of time. which is like why it's like usually a month. It's like, what can you achieve while balancing actively fundraising with also actively working with me? So it's very like, it's intense, but I actually really enjoyed it. When I first heard about the foxhole, I was like, am I going to want to do this?

41:34Like, that was really my question. And I remember like I messaged like my co-founder and our like chief scientist. And I was like, this is what this investor wants to do. And they're like, dang, that sounds like a lot of work. but I'm just like literally so happy we did it because I learned a lot things that we'd still like do today and I think it just built our relationship to be really close so differing that to Ellie's process less hands-on it was much more asynchronous a lot more about like the vision and like who the founders are and like what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it like interpersonally like there's so many other things that you can do then start a business but like you chose to start a business like why are you crazy enough to do that And that was, I think, what was uncovered through Ellie's process.

42:18Yeah. So she ended up investing? Yes. She's in. We'd love to honor that$25K commitment after going through the diligence process. So Ellie was not the only interested investor that you met in Tampa. Outside of the pitch room, Natalia from Pitts, one of the other founders this season, she approached you right after your pitch. Like, did she swarm you with her little doge dog? Yeah, the Shiba. I like sat down. I was also like processing. I'm like, okay, what just happened? Like, just reflecting on what happened. And then Natalia like comes up to me. She's like, hey, do you have a quick second to chat?

42:58And I was like, yeah, of course. And we just go outside and just right away, she's like, all right, I really, really want to invest$10 ,000. The investors that passed don't get it. And she was just like, conviction. I believe in what you're building. She has family members with disabilities. and she was like, I want to angel invest 10K. That's of course the type of person that we want to be part of this journey. I also was like a founder to learn from who's, when I watched her pitch, I was like admiring it, right? Like I'm like, oh, I feel like this is someone I want to talk to, learn from, but also like I'm so excited that she's like integrated into the journey.

43:30And then also Rich also came in like, literally like I think I, yeah. I walked back inside after talking to Natalia and then Rich sat down and he's like, I think I could help you with some of the R &D. And I was like, of course you could. That sounds incredible. We need that. We're essentially a research and development company at this point. And they said, okay, I want to angel invest$10 ,000 as well. I didn't come out of the pitch show and think that I was going to get investors from the audience. That was totally out of the blue. That was not even a possibility, I thought. We've never had a founder at a pitch event invest in another founder.

44:07That is a first. in the 16 seasons of the show, hundreds of pitches. That's never happened before. That's pretty cool. It is pretty cool. I don't know really what else to say. It was pretty cool. It was definitely unexpected. I remember like the rumor reached me at the event through somebody and I was like, wait, what? A founder just invested in a founder? Hopefully I can do that one day. Way too broke. I'd have to like offer like a$500 angel investment. maybe like season 28 comes around, then maybe we can do that. All right. So what happened with the rest of your round? You were trying to raise$1.5 million.

44:48And on the show, you said you had$500 ,000 left. We got a few more investors that came in since then and oversubscribed. How much did you raise? We're at$1.52. $1.52? Out of$1.5. Yeah. Oversubscribed. Technically oversubscribed. Majority of that is already signed and wired. Who are you waiting on? Well, you know, the audience might know, but there were some emails back and forth between us. So I guess... Who are you waiting on, Jack? The pitch fund to put you guys on the spot. Could you make a signed and wired commitment to the halfway deal?

45:34we're in jack let's go if you'll have us our check size is 150k let's do it so now you can say you're oversubscribed now it's official official round is closed don't find me a jack at hapware.com i think what we see here is something we learned from a fund one investment davil patel with Lotus. When he pitched on our show, he said, when you create products that are better for people with disabilities, you end up creating a product that's better for everyone. What we see here is an opportunity, not just to affect people with disabilities, but also create a new way of communicating with people. And I don't know what that's going to look like five to 10 years from now.

46:25But I think there could be some pretty crazy stuff that you guys, by developing for this audience, you end up finding out, oh, wow, look at this other use case that affects a ton of other people too. And this maybe changes how we interact with technology itself. I don't know, kind of out there, but that's what makes us excited. It is exciting. and there's this thing called the curb cut effect. There was a group of disabled professionals that were wheelchair users and they wanted to get on and off the sidewalk. But their problem was is that there was a six-inch curb that would make them fall off their wheelchair.

47:05So what happened is some people went out there with sledgehammers, broke the different curbs down so there was a ramp. And then wheelchair users can get on and off the sidewalk safely But what ended up happening was mothers and strollers started to use the ramp. Cyclists started to use the ramp. People with luggage. Literally, we all use the ramp now. It's the same thing. It's when you start without marginalizing, you make it just the experience awesome for them. You end up affecting and helping a lot of other folks. So yes, I love the analogy. I know Lotus. They're doing great things. And it's an exciting place to be.

47:47If you or someone you know wants to order one of those first thousand units, you can preorder one at hapware.com slash preorder. No offer to invest in Hapware is being made to the listening audience on today's show. But did you know we have a venture fund where we invest alongside the VCs on the show? So if you'd like to invest in Hapware like we did, you can invest in Fund 2. We're open to new investors through the end of the year. To learn more, go to thepitch.fund. Next week on The Pitch, The Elements. We went through a revolution with water. I feel like we're in the middle of a revolution on air.

48:28Where do you think we are with awareness about light? Light is all around us. It envelopes us. It defines our reality, and it affects how we feel. I think there is going to be a huge wave of people that come to this realization. That's next week. Subscribe to The Pitch on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss future episodes. You can watch full-length versions of every pitch over on our Patreon at The Pitch Uncut. And if you're a founder raising a pre-seed or seed round, apply to pitch at our next event. It only takes a couple minutes to apply. Just go to pitch.show slash apply. We'll see you next week in the pitch room.

49:10Dork.

49:14This episode was made by Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, and Enoch Kim, with deal sourcing by Peter Liu, John Alvarez, and Phoebe Sun. Music in this episode is by The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, The Firmware Rebels, More Chip, Spatial Relations, Kevin Hendrickson, Night Drive 2086, Memory Palace, and Peter Jean and the Runaway Queen. The pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.

49:48Support for the show comes from Engine. Engine is the travel platform that takes the hassle out of business trips. Their AI helps match travelers with hotels and properties that are the best fit. That means the more you use it, the better it knows you, and the faster it can book exactly what you need. More than 38 ,000 businesses and groups have joined. Now it's your turn. Get$500 off when your business signs up. Start traveling smarter at engine.com slash pitch.