Joe Harrison, the Founder of Virtuojo, grew up surrounded by established entrepreneurs, one of which being his grandfather who owned a printing company. It was through his grandfather’s business that Joe says he learned valuable lessons in people management. But there wasn’t an expectation that Joe would carry on the family legacy.
“My family didn’t have this expectation for me to take over the printing business,” Joe explains.
“I began working right out of high school which, wasn’t a big deal, but I felt like I had a bigger purpose”. Joe took positions with Apple, Creative Fuse Initiative and GMi, but ultimately couldn’t shake the empty feeling that followed him from job to job. “I wasn’t really building anything, and that’s what I love about entrepreneurship. It gives you the opportunity to always build something”. During his time at GMi, he decided to step out of employment and take the leap into entrepreneurship. He gave GMi a 3-month notice and founded Virtuojo. Starting as a freelancer, he began gaining clientele and meeting influential people in the Dayton startup scene.
“It was crazy fast, but during this 3 month period, a group of us came together and founded Nucleus.” Nucleus is a co-working space for freelancers, micro-businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs to come and work. “I knew it was meant to be when on my last day at GMi, I signed the lease for Virtuojo at Nucleus.”
Starting a business is not an easy task. The work is taxing and can be overwhelming. In the early stages of any business, you will see the founders take on many tasks and wear several hats. Joe began to realize quickly that he couldn’t succeed all on his own. “It is way too much pressure,” Joe explains. “I began meeting really awesome people through Nucleus who were stronger in some areas than myself, and I brought these people on to help with what I couldn’t do”.
Jacob Crawford, who has a strong marketing, website development and non-profit management background, was one of those people. He now serves as a partner in Virtuojo and focuses on operations and development. The dynamic duo now use a uniquely designed three-tiered process to help their clients with strategy, design, and execution. They are passionate about bringing businesses to life in an interesting and engaging way.
With Virtuojo’s growth, you can expect to see some changes in the near future, and according to Joe, they’re going to be awesome!
Want to connect with Joe and Virtuojo?
Check out Virtuojo’s website here! You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
Written by Austin Rains
Last year’s winners, Redwall Technologies LLC, accept the $25,000 check for winning the Soin Innovation Award.
The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce just launched applications for their Soin Award for Innovation . This is a great opportunity for local startups to highlight their new, innovative technologies.
Details and the link for the application are available in the Chamber’s press release below.
DAYTON, Ohio – The search is on for the next great idea that could win a local business or individual $25,000. The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce is accepting applications for the 2017 Soin Award for Innovation.
“The Dayton area has a long history of innovation and discovery,” said Rajesh Soin, Chairman and CEO of Soin International. “We must continue to encourage our local entrepreneurs to build on this and create new enterprises, jobs and additional opportunities for this region. On behalf of the Soin Family, I am proud to support this annual award that recognizes the accomplishments of these individuals and businesses.”
The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Soin family have partnered to offer the Soin Award for Innovation for the past 10 years. The winning applicant will best demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit through a recently or soon-to-be introduced product or service. The unique offering must have the ability to sustain long-term growth for the company, increase local employment and assist in the creation of economic prosperity within the Dayton region.
Last year’s winner, Redwall Technologies of Beavercreek, took the top spot with the creation of an innovative mobile device security application.
“The Soin Award came at a perfect time,” said John Rosenstengel, president, Redwall Technologies. “We are just now hitting the marketplace and to be recognized by the local business community as a highly innovative solution will give us additional marketing presence and also, we hope, identify us, so that whenever an automobile company for example, is looking to improve security for its devices, we pop up on the radar.”
A selection committee made up of representatives of the region’s business and academic leaders, along with the chamber’s Education and Public Improvement Foundation (EPI Foundation) Board members, will choose one applicant to receive a $25,000 cash award and its accompanying public and community recognition.
Past Soin Award winners are:
2008 – Mound Laser and Photonics Center, Inc
2009 – IYA Technologies
2010 – Composite Advantage
2011 – Commuter Advertising
2012 – NanoSperse
2013 – UDECX
2014 – AAA Wastewater
2015 – NONA Composites
2016 – Redwall Technologies
Applications are due no later than close of business February 17, 2017. The Soin family will present the Soin Award for Innovation at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting April 20, 2017.
A link to the application is listed below:
http://daytonchamber.org/index.cfm/business-resources/soin-award/
About Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce
The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce brings together more than 2,700 businesses and organizations in a 9 county area surrounding Dayton, Ohio. The Chamber strives to improve the region’s business climate and overall standard of living through public policy advocacy, economic development initiatives and providing networking and training opportunities for its members. Nationally awarded with “5-Star Accreditation” from the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Dayton Chamber is widely recognized for its innovative programs and outstanding contribution to positive change in the region. Information about the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce is available at daytonchamber.org or 937-226-1444.
Many people have heard and believe in the power of setting and writing down your goals. Yet when it comes to actually doing the work, most of people fall short. It was recently estimated in a Harvard study that 83% of the US population does not have goals, and of the 17% percent that do have goals, only 3 out of 100 write down those goals on paper. It is also estimated that people with written goals are 50% more likely to achieve them, making the simple act of writing down your goals a powerful motivational tool. Many of the world’s most successful people agree that what you “get” by achieving your goal/s is not as important as what you become or what your business could become in the process. Any smart CEO will tell the importance of goal setting in steering a growing business in the right direction. Figuring out which direction is absolutely best for your business – and the road map to get there – isn’t as much of a no-brainer.
Though the statistics are grim, they should make sense: establishing business goals involves a fair amount of introspection into what makes your business tick, and what you want its future to be. Devoting the proper amount of time to do that can be difficult, but your goals will be more achievable and effective if you do. We have compiled some of the latest content on setting goals for your business and have a step-by-step process for you to follow moving forward.
An associate professor at Purdue University, Maria Marshall, recently conducted a research study on small and family-owned businesses and found that you need to “start by distinguishing between your long-term and short-term ones. Your long-term goals should have an extended timeline of about three, five, 10, or even 20 years down the road. These goals need to encompass your company’s overall mission statement which also may reflect on the reason the company was founded. Understanding why the company is there in the first place gives your goals a whole different meaning. There is more energy and passion behind these types of goals. When you’re more passionate about them, they don’t feel as forced as goals without your drive. If your business doesn’t meet your personal goals, you probably won’t be happy waking up each morning and trying to make the business a success. Sooner or later, you’ll stop putting forth the effort needed to make the concept work. This is your dream! Short-term goals are attainable in a period of weeks to a year.
In her research, Dr. Marshall has found that long-term goals usually fall into four general categories: service, social, profit, and growth.
She related each type of goal to a vacation destination, and the related short-term goal you establish afterward as the road map for getting to that destination. If you’re really thinking big, you might want to consider creating a B.H.A.G, a “big, hairy, audacious, goal.” This term was coined from a James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1996 article “Building Your Company’s Vision”. Regardless of how long you want your long-term goals to be set at, be aware of how quickly they may need to change. Lori Becker, founder, and CEO of Boston-based education publishing firm Publishing Solutions Group says she is a fan of the five-year goal, but the current economy and some major changes in her industry have forced her to reevaluate. “Instead of a few years out, I’m now looking quarter to quarter,” she says.
Figuring out how to get there is a struggle. Anyone will tell you it’s not easy trying to figure out the steps to get from A to Z. If you are setting a profit goal you need to understand what that means on a daily basis. For example, if you want to increase sales annually by 30 percent, how many new customers or orders a day is that? Many goal setting experts suggest making these short-term objectives S.M.A.R.T.:
It is important to remember that short-term goals need to tie into the long-term goals. Striving toward a specific business goal can be overwhelming, but if you have broken the goal down into bite-sized chunks and made them S.M.A.R.T., then you should be able to take a series of small, digestible steps each day to get closer to your goal. Something else you need to remember is that these goals need to visible to not only you but your team. Review them constantly and make sure your entire team knows these goals as to promote a joint effort.
Like we said in the beginning, WRITE THESE DOWN! Writing them down brings it to life. It makes them tangible and viewable for all to see. Maybe write them down on a whiteboard in the office, a sticky note next to your desk or on a poster board in a meeting room. Somehow, somewhere, get it out for you and everyone else to see. You may have a clear understanding of exactly of what you want for your business but your team may not so get them involved. Receive their input. It may change your perspective or provide feedback that solidifies your goals. Take the advice of Bill Baren, an entrepreneur and business coach of almost 30 years, “Inspiration and accountability are also two essential components for turning goals from abstract into reality. Accountability without inspiration is like a prison sentence,” he says.
Stay organized and focused on your goals! Growing your business and accomplishing your goals will take time and energy and more than just 1 or 2 objectives. That when the focus of your team and you come into play. Checking back on your goal regularly will bring you back to the goal mindset. Over the week you may get bombarded with all sorts of other distractions but it may be beneficial to have a goal meeting every Monday for a refresher on those goals you have set.
One important (and often overlooked) part of the business goal setting process is rewarding the employees who are actually working to achieve those goals. This isn’t always a financial incentive. “You’ve achieved a set of goals, and the next day you hand out a new pile of goals to work on,” Baren says. “What happened to a simple thank you, and celebrating what’s gone right? If you work in a company long enough where that’s not practiced, the motivation starts to disappear.”
Written By: Austin Rains, Marketing Associate at DTG
We have compiled a list of top 4 startups to watch in the New Year. Keep an eye out on these companies because they are gaining momentum for 2017 to be a great year!
UPDATE: Road-Aid was recently featured on WHIO, check out the article here!
UPDATE: Road-Aid will be pitching at UpTech 5 Demo Day on February 9th! Join us as we support James Bridgers & Road Aid!
UPDATE: James Bridgers pitched at UpTech’s Demo Day and you can find the pitch here!
Dayton-based startup that is building an ecosystem to inventory, analyze, and disseminate collected pothole data to a wider user base. They aim to democratize the data, removing it from the hand of the government which would allow consumers (drivers) and enterprises (insurers) to reduce the emotional and economic impact that potholes in the road can carry. They are transforming the road infrastructure 1 pothole at a time. In Fall 2016, RoadAid was accepted into UpTech Accelerator’s 5th Cohort, which will take their business to the next level in the New Year!
This startup designs, develops, integrates, and supports advanced sensing, communications and collaboration systems provisioned as a service over the Internet. They provide the associated training that enhances situational awareness and understanding for incident response and emergency management teams. They have pitched at Early Risers, and even at Dayton Catalyst this past year! During 2016, GlobalFlyte was awarded a $100,000 grant by the Third Frontier Commission. These funds will be used to license the technology that it owns, as well as some valuable marketing research technology prototyping. They are currently working in collaboration with several emergency management organizations in the state in the Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus regions, and use communication technologies which originate from the Air Force Research Laboratory.
GreenSpace Enterprise Technologies seeks to automate occupancy management and scheduling services for global enterprise. With simple architecture, global scalability and cost-effective pricing, GreenSpace is poised to change the way occupancy management is done. The Dayton Development Coalition’s Accelerant program, an initiative of the coalition that funds seed-stage companies, just invested $500,000 into GreenSpace. And with more big name corporations on the verge of signing up for the GreenSpace occupancy management solution and projected sales of $2M in 2017!
UPDATE: Third Wave water launched their Kickstarter… and crushed it in less than 24 hours!
UPDATE: Third Wave Water featured speakers at Startup Grind Dayton.
Third Wave Water was founded about three months ago, and sales launched last month. Third Wave Water offers a revolutionary mineral formula that when combined with the right amount of distilled water, provides a consistent base for optimal coffee extraction. Third Wave Water is much different than its top competitors in its convenience, portability, and a reduced footprint. Since their launch, they have received orders from over 15 different countries, been featured in publications like Daily Coffee News, Barista Magazine, and Food & Wine, and were finalists for the Sprudgie Award for Best New Product!
Written by: Austin Rains, Marketing Associate at DTG
It has been a year for the books for the Dayton community. The entrepreneurs of this great city have been working their fingers to the bone getting their businesses off the ground and ready for the next step. They are focused on improving themselves, growing their businesses, and are feeling a shift in the neighborhood to entrepreneurship.
We have accumulated our very best blog posts from the past year into one. These blog posts highlight our community members, businesses, and pieces on the startup scene in the Dayton region. Check it out and reflect with us on the successes of our friends over the past year.
DO YOU KNOW LAUREN WHITE? If you don’t, you’re missing out!
Marxent raises $10 million for in-store AR visualizations.
Get to know #StartupDayton’s Bobby Walker of Fronana
#StartupDayton’s Kevin Wimer is going places…literally
Dayton Tech Guide Goes to Washington
Early Risers brings startups and big companies together
Fronana is celebrating “the good Thymes” with this expansion
Meet #StartupDayton’s Gavin Doll of Infinipure
5 Things You Should Know about Dayton Before You Begin your Startup
What’s Happening At Dayton Startup Week?
Predicting the state of our nation with Cognovi tech – Twitris
Dayton-based Startup, GlobalFlyte Inc., Wins $100,000 Grant
Entrepreneurs learn valuable lessons at Generation Startup screening
Holiday gift ideas from your Dayton startups
Charles Nick and Taylor Minor riding the ThirdWave
Dayton Catalyst highlighted tech startup activity for the region and beyond
In 2010, the American Management Association released a comprehensive research compilation that explored the top 500 largest companies in the world. Through interviews, data collection, and analysis, they were able to identify patterns and methods related to growth rates among successful businesses. One of the patterns that they were able to find was that growing companies had instilled a strong company culture and mindset surrounding growth strategy, corporate entrepreneurship, and business innovation. Much of these concepts involve a solid understanding of psychology. Psychology is not always just understanding the abnormalities in human behavior or the traditional view of psychology that involves a therapist and a couch. Psychology is the study and understanding of human behavior across all areas or walks of life.
Growth hacking is widely misunderstood and is often just referred to as glorified marketing. Some proclaim that growth hacking is a load of crock and some swear by its important shift in thinking for business professionals. Growth hacking requires a knowledge of product development, distribution, and the talent to unlock technology-based opportunities for growth that often go beyond traditional expectations. The very best growth hackers think like strategic marketers and how it relates to the influence of customers but obsess of the ideas that could drive user growth. The very best growth hackers and business professionals of our time lean on simple psychological concepts that play a big part in achieving success. If you aren’t able to understand how people think, how customers might react, or what drives attention – you’re likely to fail in growth hacking. We have compiled several psychological studies that show key insights to help growth hackers achieve real success.
If I give you something you may feel obligated to return the favor later on down the road. This is the simple concept of reciprocity and when applied correctly, can be very influential on consumer behavior. In 1971, Professor Dennis Regan at Cornell University demonstrated the power of reciprocity in an experiment where subjects were asked to rate the quality of chosen paintings as part of an experiment on “art appreciation.” In the experiment, subjects were asked to rate paintings with a partner. Unknown to the subjects, their partner, Joe, was in fact the research assistant.
In each exercise, Joe would behave the exact same, including leaving the room for a brief period of time and returning a little while later. For some, he would bring back a soft drink. For others, he would return with nothing.
At the end of the exercise, Joe asked the subjects to do him a favor and purchase raffle tickets from him for a quarter each. The subjects who had received a soda were far more likely to purchase tickets, even though the tickets were far more expensive than the value of the soda.
Overall, we enjoy being around and doing business with those that help us in some way. Give something of value to the consumer and perhaps you’ll get something valuable in return. As a brief word of caution, don’t expect anyone to do so. Just give generously and be delighted in whatever you receive.
Many years of psychological research demonstrates that when people are asked to make a small commitment first, they are more likely to comply with a larger request down the road. In psychology, this is called cognitive dissonance. Once a person has committed to something it becomes part of who they are, how they see themselves, and how they want others to see them, too.
In 1966, Jonathan L. Freedman and Scott C. Fraser conducted one of the first studies that effectively demonstrated the foot-in-the-door method. In this study, researchers contacted California housewives by telephone to ask them to answer questions about the household products they use. Three days later, the researchers called back. This time they asked the same housewives if they could send a number of men to the house for two hours to manually take account of the cleaning products in the home. The women who initially agreed to the smaller request were more than 2x as likely to agree to this larger request.
Think about the customer and the life-cycle they may go through when purchasing your product. The more frequently a customer opens your emails, downloads your content or goes along with your request, the more likely they are to comply with larger requests like sharing your social media content or referring a friend to your company.
Loss aversion is another commonly referenced cognitive bias in marketing. Essentially, people tend to feel the negative effects of loss more strongly than they feel the positive effects of equivalent gains. For example, if you won $500 in a community raffle, you’d be pretty happy. But if instead you lost $500 in a community raffle the level of loss you’d feel would be more intense than the happiness you’d feel if the tables were turned.
According to Daniel Kahneman, and his colleagues Jack L. Knetsch and Richard H. Thaler, loss aversion can be applied even on small-value goods. In their 1990 experiment on loss aversion, they randomly assigned participants to either a “buyer” or “seller” group. Sellers were each given a mug. Buyers were given nothing. Later, participants were asked to trade with each other. The researchers found that the sellers required significantly more money to part with their mugs (around $7) than the buyers were willing to pay to acquire them (around $3).
Loss aversion can be achieved by offering risk-free trials, rebates, and pricing products strategically; avoiding additional surcharges, usage fees, and other additional low-cost expectations. Again, it comes back to your responsibility to ensure the user experience is positive, demonstrating value for your product, and meeting customer expectations. Dissolve their fear of what they might lose by first understanding what those losses might be and creating a product that alleviates those fears from the start.
Something that is commonly misunderstood is that humans are social beings. It is our goal to find a group and we want to be liked. Many Psychologists refer to this as conformity.
In a famous 1951 experiment, Solomon Asch showed that group pressure can influence people to make the wrong decision even if the right decision is obvious. Asch had college students participate in a “perceptual” task along with a group of other students, who were actually hired actors.
The participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by a card with three lines on it, labeled A, B, or C. The college students were asked to say aloud which of the three lines matched the length of the first line that had been shown. In each of Asch’s experiments he instructed the actors to give the wrong answer. The result? A large percentage of participants followed the majority and chose the wrong answer. Only when one acted as a “dissenter” and gave the right answer did the power of the majority influence weaken.
Identify key influencers and industry leaders and get them to use your product. Encourage them to tell their network about the value in your product and take their advice and critiques and make adjustments and improvements as needed. The more authority you can attach to your product, the more likely you are to achieve growth from the start.
The Revo-Handle
Parents across the nation have experienced the dread of shopping with their young children. Keeping your kids occupied, continually checking your shopping list, searching for the best deals, placing items in your cart, are all tasks that you’re managing as you walk up and down the aisles. This is cognitively depleting and downright exhausting for most people. The solution to this conundrum is here. Meet the Owner and CEO of Revo-Products, LLC, Philip Hoffheimer.
Philip Hoffheimer comes from a long line of entrepreneurs and small-business owners. You can trace his roots back to the Goldsmith’s Sons Co. athletic goods, a very successful business in its own right. He received his bachelor’s degree in social work, after which he worked as a Case Worker for Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth (SAFY) here in Ohio. After working for some time with SAFY, he returned back to school to get his MBA. Philip began working as an HR Leadership Partner for the Kettering Health Network, working on various projects including operational issues, performance management, labor utilization, strategic planning, leadership mentoring, and many other projects. Not too long after he began working in HR, he was called back to SAFY to begin working as a Foster Parent Recruiter. This gave him extreme flexibility and with his valuable experiences, he began considering a way to solve this shopping dilemma that he stumbled upon while wandering through his local grocery store trying to both balance his phone with his shopping list and entertain his child.
Being a busy new father he began shopping because of the arrival of his new baby, which led him to see the need for a product that could revolutionize the way consumers navigate through their shopping experience. He went straight to the drawing board and began sketching what will soon be the first RevoProduct, the Revo-Handle in 2012.
“Image while you’re walking down the soup aisle your phone lets you know that your Campbell’s soup is down this aisle. It could also let you know that there is a buy one get one Chunky soup right next to yours. It gives that decision-making point directly to the consumer” said Philip. It’s a seamless two-way line of communication between the consumer and the store during a shopping experience. Being able to clearly communicate with the buyer while they are walking up and down the aisles could change the way shopping is done. Philip has developed a product that can make this line of communication so much simpler for consumers. Philip recognized that with the advancement of technology and how our world communicates, we can revolutionize the shopping experience through the devices we hold in our hands.
“This is way technology is going. Look at Amazon go and how it’s revolutionizing our shopping experience”.
By placing your phone in the patented Revo-Handle, you can not only shop easier but connect better with the technology that can enhance your shopping experience. No more fumbling for the phone in your pocket. Simply place it in the slot that is built onto the shopping cart and move on.
“This product belongs in Kroger, Meijer, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and pretty much anywhere you need a shopping cart” says Philip. “That was another reason I went after it. The market is so large. All I need is half a percent to a percent of the market and I have a profitable business. I can make these at a very similar rate to at which they are currently getting their handles so it seems like a no-brainer”. According to Philip, there are roughly 30 million shopping carts in the United States and those change over at about 1-1.5 million carts a year. There is a need for this product and a certainly a want from consumers to have the best experience possible while shopping.
So what does Revo-Products need? “Right now I need sales. My manufacturing is taken care of and now we can make orders of any need” Philip explain. “Once one major retailer has this product, it will be a domino effect”. The product already has numerous interested parties including grocery stores and even app makers who want to pair their product with the handle.
What drives Philip to pursue this dream? What wakes him up in the morning and gets him excited about what he is doing? “Definitely my family. If I can get this business up and build a future for my family, that would be fantastic”.
The Revo-Handle is here and it is ready for market. Check out their website and you can connect with Philip here.
Obi™, a revolutionary robotic dining device, is a winner in the Mechanical/Materials category in the 54th annual R&D 100 Awards. The announcement was made at the recent annual award ceremony celebrating the 100 most technologically significant breakthroughs introduced into the marketplace in 2016.
Dubbed the “Oscars of Innovation,” the R&D 100 Awards recognize excellence across a wide range of industries. Of the 5,400 innovations celebrated since the awards’ inception, Obi has the rare distinction of being among less than 60 consumer products to earn an R&D 100 Award over more than five decades. The honor is presented by R&D Magazine.
Obi is the first product from DESῙN, a small team of visionaries from Michigan and Ohio. It blends cutting-edge robotics, iconic design, intuitive controls and a friendly personality to empower individuals who cannot use their arms with an ability to take control of their meals at home and in public. No matter where a person has mobility on their body and how limited that mobility may be, Obi can accommodate a switch or control interface that will work for that person’s specific need.
Obi’s key functionality is a robotic arm that can select virtually any properly sized food from one of four compartments and deliver it to a position where the diner can eat from the spoon. The pace and selection of each bite is controlled by the user. Sophisticated programming collects a spoonful in a graceful manner that mimics a person’s instinctive use of silverware.
Past R&D 100 annual ceremony award winners include revolutionary innovators such as Elon Musk (Tesla and SpaceX) and Larry Page (Google). Every year since its inception, more applicants enter the competition, making each year tougher to win an award. Over the years, some notable inventions that have been honored include the ATM machine, fax machine, HDTV, the artificial retina, and the biological 3D Printer.
“We are thrilled that Obi, as a consumer product, was recognized among these other scientific breakthroughs and impressive technologies,” said Jon Dekar, Obi’s inventor and DESῙN’s co-founder. “There were many ingenious technologies in the competition and to be recognized as a four person company on this international stage, along with MIT, NASA, and Fortune 500 companies, is a humbling and encouraging experience. We know Obi has the ability to enhance the lives of millions around the world and we will continue to work tirelessly to fulfill our belief that everyone deserves access to an independent, empowering dining experience.”
Pictured: Obi Photo Courtesy of www.meetobi.com
The robotic dining device was designed to accommodate an amazingly diverse set of user needs and preferences for people of all ages with a spectrum of different bodily control capabilities, desiring a range of configurations during their dining experience. It’s rare to find two people with the same needs and preferences spanning the conditions affecting the upper extremities that Obi can best serve, such as ALS, amputation, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, neuromuscular conditions or injuries, Parkinson’s and spinal injury.
Powered by a rechargeable battery, Obi holds enough energy to serve four to six meals on a single charge. Obi also fits within the confines of a dinner placemat, operates quietly and can be carried with ease like a laptop computer.
DESῙN is offering risk free trials of Obi, along with direct-to-customer in-house rental and leasing options to make the device – which retails for $4,500 – more easily accessible to users without the added burden of working through a third party health care equipment or finance organization to bring an Obi home. Purchase, lease and rental details are available at www.meetobi.com.
Obi was also named a finalist in the 2016 International Design Excellence Awards earlier this year.
About DESῙN
DESῙN was formed in 2010 with a belief that everyone deserves access to an enjoyable dining experience. Jon and Tom Dekar found a significant lack of technology helping people fulfill the basic human need of eating independently. They became driven to create an empowering lifestyle product that not only helps people eat, but also dine in style with friends and family.
DESῙN’s mission is to continually improve the quality of life by delivering robotic product solutions that empower and excite individuals like never before.
DESῙN is headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. with operations in Michigan and Ohio. DESῙN is privately-held and is funded by a mix of individual and institutional investors. Its first product, the Obi™ assistive dining device, was launched in 2016. For more information, visit www.meetobi.com.
Austin Rains, Marketing Associate at DTG
Over 400 people poured into The Masonic Center last Friday for the 2nd annual Dayton Catalyst event. The event, which was put together by The Entrepreneurs Center, Nucleus Co-Share, Wright State Research Institute, and Wright Brothers Institute, served as a platform for community partners to share some of the exciting startup activity that the Dayton region saw in 2016, as well as cast a little vision for what 2017 could have in store.
The morning panel moderated by Dayton Startup Grind’s Candace Dalmagne-Rouge provided great insights about how Dayton can partner with coastal investors to fuel economic growth through startup activity.
The morning kicked off with both some great statistics showing the upward trend in regional startup activity and some insight from west coast investors whose attention has recently turned to the Midwest because of the type of high science research and development that Dayton fuels.
Keynote speaker Simone Syed, founding partner of Velorum Capital in San Francisco, California, implored the audience to continue questioning how Dayton can make an impact and bring valuable technology to market that improves life for mankind.
The latter part of the morning was spent showcasing some of Dayton’s startups that have technologies that are doing just that.
Congrats to all of our local startups who gave their investment pitches at the event and to our partners for making this an awesome morning of networking and community building!
Update: Third Wave Water recently announced that they are currently working on developing a Kickstarter campaign to help them launch more broadly! Sign up here to be among the first to know when their campaign goes live and support this local startup!
Not many people think much about what goes into making their cup-of-joe in the morning. In fact, it is routine to simply fill the tank, pour in the Folgers grounds and wait patiently for that sweet nectar of the gods to fill your mug. Taylor and Charles argue that in order to get the most out of your coffee experience, there needs to be more thought and effort into the process of brewing your cup. It really starts with the water. They have recognized that there is a current disconnect between the coffee lovers in-shop experience and at-home experience. “I have been thinking about the water aspect for a few years. It’s comparable to cars. The technology you use for diesel engines is not the same as the technology you use for smaller vehicles. They don’t necessarily “scale-down” and it is very similar in water filtration. There are systems out there for coffee shops to get a narrow window of water for their coffee, but it is expensive and not feasible for customers to have in their home.” Through research, I was able to find that a low end coffee filtration system for at-home use can cost up to $260. “As roasters and coffee shop owners, we have this problem of our customers taking our coffee home and they think it’s bad, but it’s because their water is bad. We have resulted in letting some of our customers take our water home to brew their coffee with” Taylor explains. So if excellent coffee is your goal, it’s imperative that you control the variable that makes up a large percentage of coffee beverages. “It’s all about quality consistency” said Charles.
Charles and Taylor began pondering this problem one day in Taylor’s roastery/coffee lab. They began to jokingly talk about being able to “dehydrate” water for their customers, but then that joke shortly became a reality. They are not actually dehydrating water, but it’s about the closest thing you can get. Through a special process and after hundreds of time consuming measurements they have found a way to combine the special minerals that improve and catalyze the flavors of coffee into one little capsule. “Taylor is definitely the “Chief Chemist” of this operation. It is his formula and from his research on water he began to understand what is needed in the “waterworld”. It is trying to be that missing element in the coffee creation world. In a recent article about ThirdWave you see people saying things like – “Finally! The missing element in coffee brewing” – and it is. We recognize that you have all these changes happening in the field, but not so much on the water filtration side” Charles explains. “It changes the flavor so much, and it’s mainly the chemical reaction and extraction between the coffee and water. It maximizes the flavor”. “It’s akin to what you paint on” Taylor goes on to say. “If you’re a water color painter, you use water color paper right? What made the Sistine Chapel was the painter and paint, but also what it was painted on. You take amazing painting and put it on this ceiling that’s high up and curved. It’s amazing right? Well, if you would have taken the painting and put it on a flat wall, it may have not been this amazing piece of art. Art is about context and it goes the same way for brewing. The taste of the coffee depends on the context or canvas which would be its water” Taylor said. “We have really made something different than our competitors, and the fact that our product is powder sets us at an advantage because of certain shelf life factors. You can get on the same playing field as your favorite coffee shop by using our product.” Charles says.
Charles is currently serving as the President of the ThirdWave and working on the business strategy and planning side. “Taylor is CEO, but eventually he will be both because he handles more of the operations” he said. “I am working heavily in the partnering and fundraising right now. This idea is about 3 months old, but we actually launched the business in Chicago at the Bloom Fest, hosted by the Barista Guild of America which I felt was perfect for us because perfecting the water that you brew with is a main component of their craft”.
None of their competitors have the formula down, and most of them don’t include all of the key minerals that Taylor and Charles have included in theirs. Through the connections that Taylor and Charles currently have in the coffee world, they were able to start sending out samples for people to test in their shops. “Between social media, Bloomfest, and our connections, things really started taking off” Taylor explained. “Right off the bat we had large customers from all over the world including: Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada, UK, Greece, Dubai, the U.K., Malasia, South Africa, South Korea. Through those samples, we are able to find out our product is better than our closest competitor, as well as the fact that we are cheaper. For these well-known people in the coffee realm to share with us that we are a “game changer” was obviously a big deal and is what really gets us excited about this product”. Charles goes onto explain that “besides those little promotions, we haven’t had much of a concentrated effort, but we are having a KickStarter campaign starting in January.” Through this KickStarter they will be better able to fill larger orders and keep a stock of their product in various warehouses for shipping. Now they are able to fill smaller and individually packaged orders, depending on the need of the customer.
When asked where they see ThirdWave going in the next year Taylor responded, “It’s nice that Charles and I both have established specialty coffee businesses, and if this goes off somewhere else and we learn from it, then so be it, but we are going to see where it takes us”. Charles points out “We have a really great thing going currently, and we have plans in the future for coffee hardware that involves more patents”. “To be successful at black jack you don’t have to be smarter than everyone else, you just have to be smarter than the house. It’s the same thing in business, in order to be successful you just have to make better decisions than the majority of the people” Taylor resolves.
31 S. Main St.
Dayton, OH 45402
[email protected]Get Directions
