This blog has been quiet of late.  Here’s why:

What is Zeo Mobile?

• Zeo SoftWave Headband direct to iOS or Android device
• Price of $99!

There is a lot more to it of course – see a great writeup from mobihealthnews here.  You can pre-order Zeo Mobile here.

What’s Involved In The Launch?

There is plenty of information out there now on Zeo Mobile – so I thought I’d give you an inside view on what launching a product like Zeo Mobile looks like from the Co-Founder/CTO perspective.

Mouthpiece of the Company

My primary role in launching Zeo Mobile has been getting the word out.  Here is what my schedule has looked like for the past few weeks:

Boston -> London -> Boston -> San Francisco -> New York -> Boston -> San Francisco -> Los Angeles -> Portland -> Boston

Whew.  Lot’s of travel, meeting tons of people at conferences (spoke at Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0, MIT emTech and Connected Health Symposium next), pitching press and press appearances (This Week in Startups), etc.

It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time.  I’ve been on the road for a month.

Meanwhile Back at the Farm

We have an amazing team at Zeo that actually develops products and markets them.  As a member of the executive team I get involved only at the strategic level – should we launch iOS and Android simultaneously (yes!), major feature X isn’t going to make our launch date – do we delay (no!), etc.

This is in distinct contrast to the last time around launching Zeo 1.0.  I was actually managing that launch directly.  Let me tell you – my current role is less stressful   Having had both of these experiences really helps me know where I do well, where I should seek help, and what I like doing.

Back to Strategy

Having a mobile product and a new imperative to build a sleep management ecosystem (rather than a sleep tracking device) changes a great deal strategically.  New business models must be investigated, new partners approached, and new opportunities explored.  Although it’s tough to step back and look at the big picture while launching a new product it’s essential to do so.  While the rest of the team is executing like crazy to get Zeo Mobile out the door I am one of the few people in the organization who can step back and have a strategic perspective.

Becoming Fucking Awesome at the Same Time

I’d love to report here on exactly how one continues to Become Fucking Awesome while working crazy hours and traveling around the world for business.  But I really haven’t figured it out completely – not a ton of progress has been made in the last month.  But I also don’t feel I’ve lost ground.  Here is what I have learned.

• Don’t use travel and extreme work as an excuse to toss *everything* out the window.  But do modify your goals.  For a period of time work will take a larger portion of the pie.
• I’ve pretty much maintained my system of Working on the Right Things.  This has been even more crucial during busy times.  Things aren’t piling up and getting out of control.  I just know what I am focusing on and what will have to wait.
• Selectively and deliberately let yourself off the hook for certain activities on a temporary basis.  I pride myself on only checking email once per day.  It’s a super productivity enhancer.  It’s also absolutely not the right thing to do on the exact day you launch a product.  So I gave myself the week off – but look forward to being back on the regime shortly.
• Soften weekly outcomes.  When my life was sane – ‘Getting Ripped’ and a hard workout schedule and strict diet was a major focus every week.  Instead of dropping this completely I changed the goal to ‘Remain Vital During Busy Times’.  For me this meant sleeping as much as I could, mostly retaining my eating habits, and occasionally getting a workout of some sort in.  You’d be surprised how little effort you need to put in to just tread water.  I will pick up ‘Getting Ripped’ again next week – and I will not have lost substantial ground.

So expect more here soon as I continue my awesome quest – and spread the word about Zeo Mobile!

@AndrewWarner of www.mixergy.com interviewed me on video about how to make hardware startups happen.  Had a great time chatting with Andrew!

The Personal Health Record is Dead.  Long Live the Personal Health Record.

We are generating increasingly large amounts of electronic health information.  Runs tracked using GPS, blood glucose on our smart phones, sleep tracked using a headband, your hospital records in an Electronic Medical Record, etc.  It seems obvious that all of this information should end up stored in one place and accessible to whomever you choose to give access to.  And all of this data needs to be connected to various services that make use of it. Upon this premise the Personal Health Record was built.  Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health are the two most notable contenders - and most people use one or the other to store their health data.  Wait.  What?  Actually – NO ONE uses Google Health.  Or Microsoft Healthvault.  Or any other PHR.  What gives?

People ARE tracking their health and generating enormous amounts of data.  But they are NOT using PHRs.  I spoke with a very well known provider of athletic services (data analysis, coaching programs, etc.) this week who had integrated his product with Microsoft Healthvault.  They jumped through numerous hoops to get their service linked up – all for a less than 100 users who linked accounts.  I personally have both a Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault account.  I use neither.  Why?

Chicken and Egg

A Personal Health Record needs three key components to be successful.

• Data – Automated data entry – health records, fitness metrics, weight, sleep, etc.
• Services – Data is no good by itself – it needs to be connected with smart analytics, advice engines, content, community, doctors, etc.
• Customers – Someone must be using all this stuff together.

All three must be present for a healthy ecosystem – and a classic chicken and egg situation emerges.  It can be hard to get initial traction.  No one will build services without data streams and customers.  Device manufacturers don’t bother to hook up to take advantage of no customers and services.  We aren’t there yet – of the three the data sources are the most connected – with services and especially customers lagging.

Skip the middleman

In new industries ‘compatibility’ with other solutions doesn’t matter.  There is nothing to be compatible with.  One must create the entire customer experience from soup to nuts.  Hence the first Ford cars had most of it’s parts made by Ford.   As industries grow and mature different companies find their niche and begin specializing.   Nowadays your Ford car has parts from thousands of independent suppliers – Ford tied it all together for you.

We are in the early days for digital health services.  For the most part – today – if you want to offer a solution to a customer you need to build the WHOLE product out.  A good example is Zeo.  When we started designing the product years ago it became clear that we needed to cover the whole value chain from sensor -> electronics -> data analysis -> coaching.

In a more mature ecosystem companies have a choice – they can specialize.  Consumers can mix and match hardware, software, and services.  In this more mature ecosystem there is definitely a place for a central data store/PHR.

What happens now?

In the short-term devices will begin to open up, services will begin to emerge to take advantage of these open platforms, and customers will connect their individual devices to individual services and make use of both.  This will work well for quite some time.  Then – eventually – things will start to become unwieldy.  Two or three data sources and a handful of services will turn into a dozen data sources and a dozen services.  And the PHR will be there – ready to tie things together.

The PHR is dead.  Long live the PHR.

I remember the first time BigCo called.  They were interested in talking to our company (really – itty bitty us?), they wanted to talk about a potential partnerships ($$$$ – eyes wide), would we like to meet?  The first time a major player in your industry notices your startup is an exciting time – what do you do?  Will they steal the idea (don’t meet with them!)?  Buy you for a bazillion dollars (get your negotiating point for a $3 bazillion dollar valuation ready before the meeting)?  Waste your time (Yes)?

When your startup starts to get press, launch products, and generally develop real thought and market leadership – the BigCo’s will keep on coming.  Here is my guide to what to do.

1.  BigCo calls.  Or you meet them at a conference.  Or someone offers an introduction.  What to do?

2.  ALWAYS HAVE AN INITIAL CONVERSATION.  You have no idea what they are thinking – use an initial touch to point to feel them out.  Suggest an into call/coffee of 15-30 minutes.  Don’t agree to a 1.5 hour initial meeting with presentations (you risk time wasting, giving away too much information, etc.).

3.  During that initial conversation – gather AS MUCH INFORMATION AS YOU CAN without giving away anything non-confidential about your company.  Make sure the other party also agrees to speak non-confidentially – this clears both parties of nasty litigation possibilities going forward.  Unless you are in stealth mode there will be a TON to talk about without ever stepping onto confidential ground.  While you are speaking non-confidentially try to get them to declare their intentions.  How are they thinking about this market space?  How do they plan to grow into this market?  Do they have any initiatives in the space that they can talk about?  Who else have they been speaking to in this area?

4.  Ok – the intro call went well.  Unless they are truly uninteresting or already offered that bazillion dollars you have a decision to make – is it worth engaging further?  Presuming the value of a potential partnership is very high (otherwise don’t proceed) – what are the risks?

• Giving away confidential information/plans to a competitor – I don’t view this one as a huge risk.  Anything you share that is confidential should be covered by an NDA.  If they plan on ripping you off anyways they would be stupid to sign that NDA and expose themselves to potential litigation.

• Time waste – This is the big one.  Truly evaluate the likelihood of a deal getting done IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS.  Where are you and where are they in their process?  Talk to people who have done deals with BigCo before to get a feel for their internal process.  If you can see a highly valuable deal getting done in 6 months – go for it.  If a deal isn’t getting done shortly don’t go cold turkey – continue to communicate good news, catch up occasionally, and cultivate personal relationships.  Just don’t fly the management team to France for a presentation that you spent the last week preparing and clearing with legal ($$$, time, etc).

• We already said no to this (years later) – This risk is often overlooked.  Companies have institutional memory.  We pitched early and often to one BigCo before our technology was fully baked and before we were even close to market.  They came to a wishy-washy conclusion about the technology and the company at the time (justifiably).  We have been unable to rectify that initial impression despite 5 years of solid progress on the technology and the market.  We talked to BigCo too deeply too early.

Partnership with BigCo can really drive value for your startup – but watch out for engaging too early – in my experience this almost always leads to disappointment and time wasted on both sides of the table.

I wrote this article for the Burrill Consumer Digital Health Conference:

http://www.burrillandco.com/digital_health/

Zeo has been asked to present on March 23rd 2010 in San Francisco alongside other innovative companies and thought leaders in the burgeoning new Consumer Digital Health market.

“Sleep Unbound”

From smart phones to social networks to sensor platforms, a wave of technology innovation is revolutionizing the way that we care for our health.  The potential to enhance care has never been more present, but often tantalizingly out of reach.  Our formal healthcare institutions are becoming ossified – regulators are wrapped in a legislative bind, payers are cautious about adopting new technologies, and hospitals’ and doctors’ traditional role in the center of the healthcare industry is threatened by new technology that puts the patient in the driver’s seat.  As a result, key new advances are moving slowly from the lab bench to patient care.

Contrast the outdated healthcare system with a vibrant market for consumer digital health.  In consumer health, new technology and consumer needs are being brought together by a new wave of innovators and entrepreneurs.  The barriers to adoption are simpler to understand – usability, value to the customer, awareness – and these barriers are easier to overcome.  The friction encountered is that of any new product entering a market – free of artificial friction created by embedded interests, bureaucracy, and regulation.  As a result big companies and brands will be built in consumer digital health, and the benefit will extend beyond consumers back into the healthcare system as people take control of their health and wellness.

The world of consumer sleep is particularly ripe for innovation.  Over 25% of Americans experience inadequate sleep on a weekly basis.  The average time spent in bed is 6.9 hours, which is far less than the 7-9 hours recommended.  The result is a chronically sleep deprived population.  In addition to fatigue, lack of sleep has recently been linked to virtually all major disease classes, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.  We need to take our chronic sleep loss more seriously – and new technology can help us begin to take back control.

The SoftWave sensor technology invented by Zeo allows simple in-home measurement of sleep, including the critical restorative Deep and REM sleep phases.  Zeo is revolutionizing the way people sleep by connecting consumers with objective data on their sleep patterns and offering them personal coaching advice to help them make improvements in sleep.  Forrester coined the term “healthcare unbound,” described as “Technologies in, on, and around the body that free care from formal institutions.”  Zeo is enabling sleep unbound – the ability to measure sleep in the home opens up unlimited possibilities for self-care and behavior change.  As Dr. Quanta Ahmed said recently in the Huffington Post, “Products such as the imaginative Zeo will play a key role in raising the national consciousness of a fundamental principle: the more America knows, the better America sleeps.”

Zeo is well positioned to become the consumer health leader in measuring and improving sleep.  We believe many of the same factors that make the consumer sleep market so attractive apply broadly across consumer health and wellness.  Just witness innovative work by consumer-driven companies such as 23andme for genetic testing, or Nintendo with their Wii Fit products.  New technologies are for the first time able to address powerful health and wellness needs.  The consumer market lies open… while roadblocks are plenty for patient populations.

This blog will focus on entrepreneurship, the world of self-tracking, technology, and other random topics.

Here is what I hope people will get out of my posts:

• I am deeply involved in ‘tracking everything’ – its a powerful way to learn about your life and make positive changes.  This blog can become a resource for people interested in following a similar path – I will talk about what works for me, what doesn’t, and make suggestions for the future.
• The last six years at Zeo have taught me a great deal about entrepreneurship, product development, manufacturing, hiring, financing, etc.  My posts about what I am experiencing and what I have learned may help others.

Here are a few of my goals for becomingawesome.com:

• Begin discussions with interesting people – entrepreneurs, self-trackers, partners for Zeo, etc.
• Have a forum to expound on issues that matter to me, generally entrepreneurship related but also other topics from time-to-time
• Evangelize Zeo
• Create a nice incentive for myself to begin ‘tracking everything’

As the content and readership here develops I would appreciate any and all feedback, either through blog comments or to ben@becomingawesome.com

About me:

I started as an entrepreneur early – in 9th grade an interest in computers led to forming a computer hardware and services company – PCsforYOU. I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and believe I will be happy founding companies for quite some time. I am currently the Chief Technology Officer for Zeo Inc. – a technology startup that has created the world’s first personal sleep coach.

I went to school at Brown University and graduated in 2005 with a degree in Computer Engineering. I began my career working for BBN Technologies as a Systems Engineer. BBN was a technology playground (they invented the Internet!) and while there I worked on robots, embedded Linux, and ad-hoc mobile networking.

During my junior year at Brown (2003) I co-founded Zeo – the goal was to create a product that made groggy mornings a thing of the past. Our breakthrough SoftWave sensor technology measures brainwaves comfortably in the home and accurately tracks sleep phases throughout the night.

We launched the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach into the market in 2009 to rave reviews. We have since been featured in the Wall Steet Journal, the New York Times, the Today Show, etc.

Outside of work I spend my time climbing and skiing mountains and maintain a strong interest in world politics and international relations as a carryover from my Model United Nations days at Brown.