A man, a mop, a year, and an app
thestartuptoolkit.com
thestartuptoolkit.com
If there's anyone who can be labeled a "hustler", it's Joe Hill.
First, he had to sell us on the idea - we get a ton of people who want us to take equity stakes in lieu of cash, and we almost always turn them away. But not Joe. He had tapped the few investors in our area (Hampton Roads, Virginia) and came up short. Our area is pretty conservative, and investing usually is restricted to real estate and other safe bets. But we heard him out and realized that even though he had no business background, no history of successful exits, or any other factors that mitigate risk, he had passion and an amazing story (along with board positions in a few autism societies).
He partnered with EVMS, a local medical school, along with a few speech pathologists with one goal: to bring Apple-like simplicity to medical products. He took the graveyard shift at a local Marriott, and managed to support his wife and two special-needs children WHILE working out of our office during the day.
He launched his app last month at Start Norfolk, a regional startup weekend we put together. If you really want to be inspired, check out the launch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2WLc1LszZ0&list=UUdXCw6_...
He is undoubtedly a hustler, but above all he sounds like a great man.
Thanks!
We are brand new but the feedback I am getting from therapists working in the age group 18 months - 10 years and in the moderate to severe category of Autism. Older children with higher ranges of Autism are still using the app. Rather than words however, they are using it for social interaction (learning visual and emotional cues) through the flash cards.
Hopefully the HN crowd can figure out how to help in some other wonderful & unexpected ways ;) (hint hint)
Another interesting case that comes to mind is how Clay Christiansen, author of Innovator's Dilemma, used Rosetta Stone to practice speaking again after having a stroke.
I would imagine too that you could scale pretty quickly by allowing users to create Flashcard sets, and then other users can buy the flash card sets and rate them. This could turn into a crowdsourced Rosetta Stone pretty quickly.
My 3 year old uses it and loves it. Instead of simple clip art of a cat and a robotic reading of the word, we're able to take a picture of our cat Tobi accompanied with mom's voice.
It's fixed now -- sorry for the annoyance to anyone who got held up.
Hitchens: “Some people say it’s a sign of intelligence to be able to keep two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time, and it can be a sign of intelligence. It can also be a sign of stupidity, or of unwillingness to make up the mind.”
Take your pick.
History? Why?
As to biology, while evolution is fundamental for some things, it's irrelevant much of the time[1]. Insisting on "true believers" in those cases is imposing an irrelevant religious test.
[1] Yes, irrelevant. Very little in biochemistry or molecular biology depends on how life evolved to use the chemical reactions that it uses. Cellular biology is much the same. There are parts of physiology where evolution has a little more relevance but ....