Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to our podcast, From the Ground Up, where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their success, challenges and lessons learned. We hope you'd be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, and here with us today we have Aaron Horowitz, the co-founder and CEO of Empath Labs. Aaron, welcome to the show.
Aaron J. Horowitz: Hey, thanks so much for having me, Jake. Just let me clarify, do I pronounce it em-path Labs or em-path Labs? The second. Empath Labs.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: There you go. Okay great. Well welcome to the show Aaron, uh where are you joining us from today?
Aaron J. Horowitz: I'm here in Providence, Rhode Island.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Alright, I like that. East Coast. While I'm on the West Coast and can't, can't, can't wait to get into your story. Um you do not want to miss this episode, listeners. This is a story that delves into the world of pediatric health care and how furry companions like teddy bears embedded with technologies are positively changing the experience for children and how it's helping pharmaceutical companies keep kids engaged during life-saving clinical trials. So Aaron uh, I guess before we dive into your story here um, I want to give a little bit more background of you. You're the co-founder and CEO of the company, an adherence agency focused on pediatrics. And the co-founder of Design for America, a nation- a nationwide nonprofit that leverages design thinking for impact. Your experience uh you know helps with human... or actually your experience, in fact, we'll probably dive into that a little bit as well, of how your experience with human growth hormone deficiency inspired your desire to bring empathy, design, and a patient-centered mindset to transform pediatric care. So let's start there because I think it's always important to understand the inspiration of doing anything, but walk us through your background a little bit.
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, yeah absolutely. So um you know my real passion for this work comes from my personal experience, as you kind of referenced. As a child I was diagnosed with human growth hormone deficiency which is basically when your body doesn't produce enough of the hormones that you need to grow. So I was a really, really small kid. I was like four foot you know, three or four going into high school. And so I self-administered injections every day for about 5 years. And you know, when you're [a] really young child and you're going through something like giving yourself a shot every day, it can be really scary. Um I felt really isolated, I had a ton of doctor's visits where I just didn't really know what was going on, and that became uh kind of the source of my passion for this work.
So when I got into college I became involved in you know starting this nonprofit Design for America, which is all about "how do we use design thinking?" You know, this process of going out interviewing our end users, it's very similar to lean startup methodology for I'm sure a lot of the listeners of this podcast, and "how do we develop products with our end users?" And the very, very first project of Design for America was "how do we improve the lives of people with type 1 diabetes?" And so when we went into these homes and interviewed these families, we saw children injecting their stuffed animals, using play to bring to life all of the things that they were coping with medically. And that was our light bulb moment that led to our first product. But you could see all of that chases back to my personal passion you know, growing up as a child who spent a lot of time in the healthcare system.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: And it's not just the child that goes through the experience, it's the parents too, and the family, and the psychology behind it is a roller coaster ride. The ups and downs, "what's, what, what's happening to your child?", you know, all the emotions, all the feeling, all the fears. Um a lot that, that happens behind the scenes that hopefully most don't have to go through. But um you know, it's, it's, it's not fun and uh I love the fact that you're solving a problem that's helping not just the patient itself, but also the families and the experience in, in all. Um it's a big problem you're tackling. Uh it's not just something that's impacting the kids, the families, but also the providers. So walk us through really for the listeners the, kind of the main problem that you're solving here.
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah. The... I'll walk through maybe the core problem on a few different levels. So for children, the main problem is that uh children don't see the world the way that us adults see the world. And it's not a problem, it's actually a wonderful thing, right. Kids see the world through the lens of play, and that's how they understand. I think this um you know Piaget says "play is the work of childhood." And so the problem isn't the child, the problem is, is our health care system. You know we don't present information and experiences to children that meet them where they're at. So the real problem we're addressing is "how do we help kids better understand their care?" Because when you as a child can emotionally engage in your health care you become more adherent. Um your anxiety goes down and overall outcomes improve.
And as you alluded to, that radiates through the whole family. So for caregivers, the problem is "how do we make medical care easier for uh your child at home?" And for ultimately the providers or the pharmaceutical companies, right, it's "how do they get the best outcomes by engaging the end user, in this case the child and their caregiver, in the way that, that's most natural to them?"
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Um you have a little bit... you're a little [different from] a traditional startup that we work with which is predominantly software only, and some robotics as well. Um you have an actual product. And for those that are viewing this, you can see the products in the background. In fact Aaron if you want to just move to the left a little bit, or maybe can bring a couple to the forefront. I'm looking at a teddy bear in a box and an Aflac looking duck that is uh a stuffed animal. I, these are stuffed animals. So those are products that you've created. They're cute by the way. Um did you actually manufacture, design those products? And, and walk us through exactly what goes into, to the product itself.
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah so um Empath Labs, just to, to share you know, we've been around for 10 years. These products that are behind me, I'll walk through that, each of them and how they work. We've distributed over 140,000 of these in 22 countries around the world, and a lot of them at no cost to the end user. And so all of these products are things that we manufacture ourselves. We work with f- uh manufacturing partners overseas. We design them, we work through the software uh as well in house. Although we work with a number of amazing partners as you, as you might imagine as a small team you know, it's all about collaboration to bring these tools to life. Um but I can walk through our first few of them just to kind of give you know, for anybody watching to give a sense, and I'll try to describe you know what I'm doing as best I can.
Our very first product is this interactive teddy bear for kids with type 1 diabetes. So you could think of it almost as a Tamagotchi. Children care for the teddy bear in the same ways they're being cared for. So you feel your bear foods, you give them insulin, you check their blood sugar, and the ways that you do that is all across this soft plush animal there are patches. There are patches on their arms, on their belly, you know, anywhere where you would inject your bear, and each of these patches they function kind of like QR codes. It's a unique technology we developed, and there's an app where children can provide all of that medical care through augmented reality. So this product that I'm holding is actually a partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and they get one of these bears at no cost to just about every child in the US, in Canada and in Australia who are newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So this is kind of our flagship program, it's where it started uh for us, and it's been amazing to kind of see the impacts um when we're reaching these children at the very early stages of their diagnosis because we have the largest opportunity to help reframe these experiences for them. Um experiences of fear and anxiety, and help bring a little bit of delight and joy which can just make a world of difference in the home.
Um and then yeah, and then our next product it actually is the Aflac duck. This is my special Aflac duck. Um you know we uh teamed up with Aflac to actually bring to life their mascot, and if you can hear it, uh as a comforting companion for children with cancer, sickle cell disease and blood disorders. And many folks don't know this, but Aflac has a very longstanding, you know, over 20 year commitment to pediatric cancer and blood disorders. They had donated $165 million um to research for a cure, to set up the Aflac Cancer Center as part of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, but they worked with us to kind of bring this to life.
So just, you had asked about the process for creating these products, for this duck which is, which is pretty vocal right now... um we actually were embedded in Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. So we worked with a hundred kids in the hospital. And I'm talking every day we'd show up, we'd be there for 12 hours, we'd meet eight kids, we'd really hear their stories and understand what they were going through. And so everything this duck does maps to what we learned. So the number one insight was that kids as they go through chemo they lose so much control. They gravitate towards play patterns where they're in control. So the most requested toy in the whole cancer center for boys and girls are Legos because you get to build your world, right. So with your duck you get to control... oh, trying to go to sleep on me... you get to control every single thing about your duck. You get to control when they get treatment, and so I'll just grab, he has this little backpack that I'm fiddling with here. He has a physical port-a-cath accessory, so that you can actually attach the port-a-cath to the duck's chest. You can give your duck chemo.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow.
Aaron J. Horowitz: And they act a little surprised when, when you start giving them chemo. And then what you can't maybe hear or feel is the duck has a vibrational heartbeat that starts out fast and slows down in this mode.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh wow.
Aaron J. Horowitz: And so this is kind of the duck's chemo mode. The other thing we learned is that it's really hard for these kids to communicate how they feel. As you can imagine, you're three, four, and five, you're taken out of school, you're going to the hospital five days a week to get chemo. It's scary and it's hard to share that. And so the duck becomes a vehicle to talk about your feelings. We mapped all of the most common emotions, from sadness to nausea to happiness to being calm, maybe being angry, and kids can tap these cards to the duck's chest, and the duck emotes on the child's behalf. And you know, we've, we've donated in collaboration with Aflac over 24,000 of these so far to kids in the US and Japan. We're in 450 hospitals in the US. This is by far the most favorite feature um of kids, is their duck emoting on their behalf. Because if you're maybe a seven-year-old boy and your doctor asks you "how are you feeling about chemo?", you might not say you're scared. But if your doctor asks you "how does your duck feel about getting chemo?", you might say "my duck's a little scared, right? I'm fine, but my duck is scared." And then you're like, "okay, well what would your duck like to do to calm down?" And so it becomes this amazing tool to have these in-depth conversations with kids, with their caregivers, and, and to, to kind of help with some of just the stress and anxiety that goes along with treatment.
Um so this is just a little bit of a sneak peek, these are our two, two of our core products. We have a consumer product called Purrble, which is for kiddos um with anxiety that works on a really simple premise. It's got a vibrating heartbeat that when you pick it up its heart beats quickly. As you pet it down its back its heartbeat slows and it purrs. But if you shake it, its heartbeat accelerates again. And then um as you mentioned at the very beginning, our, our latest product is this platform for uh adherence for children, and we... it's kind of the culmination of, of all of our work into creating something that is extensible to any condition. We're able to mirror those medical procedures so that kids can have a companion that's going through the same things they are. So I'll, I'll stop there because I just shared a whole lot with you and with, with the listeners.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, no that's great. I love the explanation of the product development evolution of it, and just so those that are not watching this... as you had the Aflac duck and you had the little emojis, they were like little badges almost, and you put those on the chest of the duck and based on that feeling or that emotion the, there would be a color change in the chest of the duck which would really share the emotion of what that maybe the kid is feeling when they're being asked "how do you feel about this procedure? How are you feeling today?" or "how's your duck feeling?" So yeah I think that's really ingenious, and it's also a way to maybe calm the nerves of not just the child but the parents too. Because you're actually able to get the answers of how your kid is feeling when you might not be there with them, you know, every moment they're in the hospital or you're coming in and you can also use that as a communication tool as well I'm sure.
Aaron J. Horowitz: Absolutely. And we have a, a preliminary research study that um is published in Pediatric Blood & Cancer where we've shown that for children and parents we're actually able to lower the distress as they use the duck, exactly as you might imagine from what you shared.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, wow, that's amazing. Um so there's a few problems you're solving. One is the emotional side of just being sick as a child. And for the family, you have tools that they can hold on to, take home and really build relationships with during their journey. And you also have tools that are helpful for, for the pharmaceutical companies um, and we'll kind of dive into that a little bit as well. You've been in business now for seven years. You are profitable, you're a company that is a for-profit company although that you do work with nonprofits. What's the business model?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah so our business model um for the platform that you know we're most focused on now uh, is we sell a software license um for pharmaceutical companies to use the platform either as a part of a clinical study or to pair with a drug that's going into market. And we charge on a per user basis, and then we have customizations that you can make to the platform kind of based on whatever the child is experiencing or whatever things you might want to add specifically uh you know in relation to the that study or that drug.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: What's the challenge for pharmaceutical companies when it comes to clinical trials?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Clinical trials. Yeah, so I mean there are many, many uh ch- challenges that um you know you go through. First and foremost is you know as we look out at clinical trials now, a lot of studies for kids are focused on rare diseases. And so these are diseases where there are less than 10,000 children globally with the illness, and so you know your first and foremost challenge is finding kiddos. And then once you're able to find children to recruit for the study, the challenge is really retaining them. A lot of these studies you know you may only have uh 10 or 20 children who are in your research study, and these are you know big expensive trials. And so if one of those children drops out um it can be really hard to get enough data to then um create a robust submission for the FDA or for you know whatever regulating body you're dealing with. So you know the challenges start at recruitment, they continue through retention, and then engagement is kind of the third arm. Is "okay you're in the study, but we need to minim- minimize the amount of what's called protocol deviations, the amount of times that an appointment gets missed by a few days or the medication isn't taken in the home." Because all of that is, is um you know data that is not as valuable. So um it's about "how do we keep kids kind of compliant to the protocol all throughout the study?"
Jake Aaron Villarreal: And so is it a platform, a digital platform you log into uh as a company as well as, as a family?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, so we have a platform that is essentially an app and a plush animal. Um the app gets customized to go through the exact uh study protocol as the child, and um every time you go into a doctor's visit, your app unlocks all sorts of fun things that you can do. So you uh are essentially... the world for the, the character comes to life throughout the study. And then on the back end uh you have, for the companies, a data portal where you can see: how are these companions being engaged with? Um and you know, what might, what insights might we learn from that type of play? Uh particularly things like you know, "are children using them before a visit to the clinic as a way of practicing to alleviate anticipatory anxiety when they then go in for those procedures?" So there's all sorts of interesting insights that you might be able to glean from that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Gotcha. You know, you talk about transforming pediatric care and you've, you're walking through it. It sounds like you are kind of transforming it as you're talking. What um what's your view on why pediatric care needs to be transformed?
Aaron J. Horowitz: You know um, in the, in the past decade we've made just such amazing advancements in treatments for kids. Um you know 10 years ago pediatric cancer had a 20% survival rate, now we're at 80% survival rate. Which is amazing, right? Like 80% of kids who are getting a diagnosis are, are going on and are, and are becoming healthy adults. And when we think about healthcare, we think about these two components. Healthcare is "health" plus "care". So the health side of things right, the life-saving treatments, those have accelerated phenomenally. But the care side right, the, the care, um the softer side, the mental health, the support for the family, we have eons to go on the care side. So we think that it's critically important for the same amount of investment in these life-saving treatments to be made in the delivery of those treatments. Um and so the real value, the real importance um, and our goal here, is to say "how do we not just deliver this, these life-saving cures, these therapies, but how do we do it in ways that set children up to grow up great?" Because so much difficulty, uh stress, I might even say medical trauma, which is a whole category of trauma, can be caused when you're trying to do the right thing and when you're trying to help children in these vulnerable states. So it's so important that those, those life-saving treatments are delivered with the appropriate amount of care.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. You know, you started this company seven years ago. But for a lot of companies you've learned from other startups or you have other experience you apply to make your next company successful. What shaped you to be an entrepreneur and what startup experience or other company experiences can you look at that have helped you really clear the path of what you're building today?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, I mean I guess starting at the very beginning. So I grew up um with very entrepreneurial parents, although entrepreneurial maybe in a different sense than most folks might think. So my mom is a modern dancer and my dad is a uh pl- a landscape oil painter. For those on video you could see a great painting of Alaska behind me.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Looks beautiful, both of...
Aaron J. Horowitz: Oh thank you, yeah. Both of those, those uh things, I find to be pretty entrepreneurial, you know. Like my dad worked 12 hours a day every single day in an art studio 30 ft from the house, and he was a company of, of two, him and my mom. And so I saw him build his business and put me and my sister through college. And that work ethic, you know waking up every day and going and doing something that you are deeply passionate about, I think that that's so core to you know entrepreneurship. It's so core to what drives me, is waking up every day and doing something I'm really passionate about. So that was kind of the first big influence in my life. And then when I was in college and you know around kind of the, the founding of Design for America, all of, of my friends and the co-founders of Design for America went on and founded their own company. So among my very close friends I have Y Combinator alums. Um you know my former roommates went and ended up selling their, their company to SC Johnson. And so you know, right as I was kind of graduating I think a lot of it... um starting a company is understanding "the art of the possible", right? And the more you see your peers, uh people close to you doing these things, raising rounds of money, building teams, shipping products, shipping hardware, the more you see it possible for yourself. So those were kind of two huge influences on me, both my family and then my friends um in, in kicking off my entrepreneurial journey.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: And you went through Y Combinator, correct?
Aaron J. Horowitz: We did. We did not actually. So we had a, we went through an accelerator here in Providence at the time called Betaspring. And so we started in 2012, and that's, I actually left school in the middle of my senior year and moved to Providence, Rhode Island of all places to start a company. Uh we ended up staying there, um we've been here ever since. Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, really cool. You know, it's a tough market for a lot of companies to raise capital. The world's been a little wonky in the last couple years. You haven't had to do that. What was your strategy to, to really get on the path to profitability early?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, you know it has... I, I hear constantly from friends how, how challenging it is right now. Um you know, we really focused on, on cash in um from a very early point in our, in our kind of company life cycle. And it came from kind of hitting a wall. So our first few years we raised in total about a million dollars over really small rounds, uh mainly from angel investors and family offices. And we hit a point I would say in year four where we had run out of money. And we were contemplating what to do, you know, "do we shut the company down, do we continue going?" And right as we were evaluating that, we had had an investor, actually our, this family office that had been in due diligence for around 9 months. And they came through with their commitment. And you know when you're at that point where you can kind of see the thing that you created but zoom out from it and, and kind of lose some of the emotionality right. It's this, it's this thing that you're really coldly evaluating, you know, "do we keep it going or do we shut it down?" We said, "Okay, if we take this money, we're going to reboot the business. But we're going to do it in a totally different way right. And we're going to really focus on building a sustainable model."
And that's what we did. And so I think the most important thing for us was finding our early anchor customers. And you know I love this mantra that a mentor of mine Mark E. has given to me: "It's not about you, it's about them" right, "it's about your end customer." So this, this pivot from just pitching the things that we had, pitching our business to really listening and building what our customers wanted. And finding, you know, at first it was uh a customer who was willing to buy our bears in bulk. And so we went from selling direct to consumer to selling thousands of bears at a time for type 1. Then it was you know that translated actually very quickly to uh meeting Aflac and collaborating on this program. That wasn't about what we wanted right, we weren't initially pitching a product for children with cancer. We listened to what they wanted. They said, "Hey, can you use the tools that you have and your methodology to help us bring to life this idea?" "Absolutely." And then through that came all sorts of add-on services to our, to our portfolio. And you know through that we now offer child life services via telemedicine because that's something that they wanted to be able to provide to children who received this duck.
And you know brick by brick we kind of built out some of our, our you know product portfolios based on what customers wanted. And then you know it took probably three years after that moment where we had hit a real low to reach kind of, actually two years to reach cash flow positivity. And then it's been you know continuing that, you know now that we're cash flow positive, keeping an eye on cash at all times. And, and making sure that we're um you know focused on really running the business. And it's different, you know, we're not a VC-backed company. We're not looking for that 10x exit you know in three to five years. And so there are different pressures that we, that we have, or rather that we don't have, that give us maybe the luxury of time to figure things out and to grow. But to grow at a different rate that allows us to achieve this type of impact in a sustainable way.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: What's your strategy when it comes to opening doors with enterprise companies or big pharma for example? I mean it's one thing to say "I have a great solution to help your clinical trials be more successful," but it's another thing to get in the door and be able to present, pitch and close. Who's your top sales person in the company and, and what do they do? And by the way, that might be you, but um...
Aaron J. Horowitz: Well we're a company of seven people so you're talking to the, the uh one and only salesperson. Um so I mean we have um increasingly kind of leaned into our strengths. And in the world of clinical trials our strength is that we make fuzzy teddy bears that help with these really hard challenges. So I actually just went to a conference where I pushed around a baby stroller full of our teddy bears, and if you wanted one uh you took a selfie and you posted it on LinkedIn. And the person with the most selfies we donated a bunch of our products to the children's hospital [of] their choice. We got doors opened up at so many of these companies that are, that are leading to pitches, which was amazing. Uh we just did a great kind of uh fun marketing project for the holidays where we packed up our ducks and we sent them to the C-suite of nine different pharmaceutical companies. And I got an email from one of those folks actually last week and I'm talking to them tomorrow which I am just over the moon about. Um and it's because we sent one of our products in person.
So the main thing that differentiates us is that everybody in this space has an app, a platform, some piece of software. Um we have software, but we also have soft goods. And so we have things that we can put in people's hands and that is what we rely on for our sales process, is putting our products in potential purchasers you know, hands, and letting that spark the conversation.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: It's a big differentiator for sure. And uh you don't think about it, but teddy bears and soft cushy animals can really warm the heart and make you pick up a phone or respond to an email. And you know, in a creative way you're being uh resourceful, not with resources that are abundant to you, but you know using your mind and strategy and, and that gumption to, to go after what you kind of need to do for the business. We talk to so many companies that, you, you think of "you build the software and you you know, connect with your friends that are maybe other startups, they might try your product and use it and help you get out the door." But at the end of the day, all of them, and I mean all of them tell me the same thing: uh, "my first client, my first real client was uh a cold outreach on LinkedIn that responded, or uh I got a list of companies, picked up the phone and started making phone calls and we started to get traction." But there's, I don't think there's one real easy way of you know building the business. I mean at some point you can scale up and relationships start to multiply, but you have to do the work and you have to uh to do what others don't want to do, quite frankly. Yeah, so absolutely really cool to hear that you uh have sustained the business this many years and it sounds like you're really hitting a point where you're going to be growing a ton. Um what's the core mission of your company, because you, you do a lot of things that sound really emotionally gratifying um, but if you were just to kind of tie it down to one statement and maybe it could be more than that, but what your, what's your true mission here with the company?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, I mean the mission is really to bring comfort and joy to children with illness you know, plain and simple. And from that comfort and joy we know that things like improved patient experience improves outcomes, it improves adherence, it improves all of these things. But it's the simple you know, we're driven by the heart, and the heart of the business is just you know putting a smile on the face of kids who are going through a really tough time medically.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Looking to 2024, what are you excited about for the company?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Oh man, I mean we are just starting to see our, our platform, we call it Clinical Companions, this platform I've been talking about for clinical research, hit [its] stride. And it's the first time in our kind of 10 years of being around that we've ever had one product that we could sell to multiple customers. Because prior to this we've had a very interesting uh you know strategy, but disease-specific products is, is the best way I can frame it. A teddy bear for diabetes, a duck for cancer and sickle cell. Now we have a platform that we can apply to so many different areas. And I am excited about uh saying no. Because we're in a position now where we need to say no to some things. And maybe that came out wrong, I'm not excited about saying no, I'm excited about being in the place where we can choose um our collaborations. And where we have people that want to work with us, and more so than, than we have the bandwidth. So I'm excited to see uh you know what new indications and pediatric conditions um we, we begin working with next year um that we never imagined.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: When you look at your company today, um are you local, are you international?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Uh we are international. I was going to say both, um but yeah, so we have um some team here in Rhode Island. We have some team across the country um, and we have some of our team in the Philippines. Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. As you grow, you look into 2024. Sometimes when you say no, it's because you don't have the, the bandwidth. And, and then you hire, and then you can say yes to everything. But it's about focus too, like where do you want to focus to scale the business. Um for those that might be listening that are just enthralled by your story and excited and at some point want to connect with you or just learn more about the company, where would they go to find your company? Where would they go to find you?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Yeah, so you can go to empathlabs.com to learn, learn more about our business. Um if you want to connect with me, I'm most active on LinkedIn. I'm Aaron J. Horowitz. And you can you know, backslash ajhorowitz on LinkedIn gets you to me. Um and I'd love to engage. I try to post a lot about um you know kind of state of the art in pediatric care. If you're in the field, if you're in an adjacent field, if you want to connect, please reach out.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well as we wrap up here, I'm going to ask you three personal questions. They're just three simple questions with three simple answers. Um where do you go, Aaron, when you want to think big or you want to brainstorm?
Aaron J. Horowitz: For me, I go to the ocean. I'm a uh, been a lifelong surfer, and uh the ocean is where I go to look out a little broader on the horizon to maybe what's next.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Nice. I love that answer. I'm a surfer too and spent many years in Santa Cruz and Southern California all over, and you can connect and just creative thoughts come all the time. So it's a great place, I go there too. What advice have you gotten from another founder that you felt was priceless or worth sharing with the listeners?
Aaron J. Horowitz: I think some of the best um advice I got um was on the sales side, and it was about the power of asking questions. So I always used to go in, you know, when I was younger, I started this company in my early 20s, you know like a 22-year-old kid. And just going guns blazing you know, pitching our product and talking all about our product and what our product can do and the reasons why we designed it and the problems that it solved. And not asking enough questions. And so um I, I met Tom Chi, who was the leader of Google X, and he talked about how his methodology, if he has an hour sales meeting, he asks questions for the first 50 minutes of the sales meeting. And in the last 10 minutes when they're begging him to say "well why are you even here? What are you selling?", he'll either say "you know what, we're not really a great fit for you um, like I, I actually, like you don't need our product," or he'll deliver you know a, a very succinct 5-minute pitch that hits on all of the exact needs that were surfaced in the previous 50 minutes. So I think the biggest uh thing, the biggest best piece of advice is the power of asking questions. Um and really maintaining that curiosity even when you know your product is amazing, you might be so confident all you might want to do is shout from the rooftops right, like "everybody needs this." It's far more valuable to ask questions.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, I love that. Um what do you do to stay positive on the roller coaster journey of a, of leading a company?
Aaron J. Horowitz: Oh man. I think the, the best thing to do is to try to do activities that put your life in perspective. Because when you start a company, you know anybody that's listening to this I'm sure you might relate, like you're the center of your own universe right. And it, it's really easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day problems, wrapped up in your company, and not realize that there's a whole world happening around you, you know. So, so for me it's connecting with my community, with my friends. It's uh going on hikes in nature and connecting with our planet, connecting with the earth. And you know commiserating with other founders who have been through the journey, who know what the lows feel like and can help kind of bring you out of the slump. And then your family, your romantic partner, your, your wife, your spouse, you know, having that type of emotional support system for when things get really tough.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, well said. I'm really excited about what you're creating. And those animals behind you, I mean I've got a six and a seven-year-old, you know, knock on wood thank God today they're very healthy. Everybody goes through ups and downs, but those animals look like animals that you would want to buy just to have in the house. So if it could talk, if it could quack, if it could make you feel better, why not have one? And put that in the hands of kids that really need it, I think amazing. So really excited to, to hear your story here today and big shout out to you Aaron for coming on and, and telling your story. And to all of our listeners for listening, uh thanks for choosing to spend your time with us. It means the world to me. My name is Jake Aaron Villarreal, the host of the podcast. Can't wait to catch up with everyone on the next episode. Enjoy your holidays. Until then, take care.
Before we wrap up, I want to give a big shout out to all the entrepreneurs that have joined to make this podcast possible. And for all the listeners for listening, it means the world to me that you chose to spend your time with us today. I'm your host Jake Aaron Villarreal signing off for now, but can't wait to connect with you all soon on the next episode. Take care.
This show is sponsored by Match Relevant, a company that helps venture-backed startups find the best people in the market. And they do it in three simple steps. First, they sit down with founders to understand their story. Second, they tell their story into multiple candidate channels. And third, they schedule interviews within 48 hours. Find us at matchrelevant.com to learn more about how we do it.
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