Selling Before Creating - The I Am Hable Success Story with Freek van Welsenis

We already had initial customers. I think that's the thing we did really well, is that we already had, I think, a hundred people that bought the products before we had the product. Yeah. So that, that, that worked well for us and that's also when we had to say, okay, like we should do this and now we need to build it.

That's Freak Van Wilson. He's co-founder of im hale.com, a med tech startup that aims to empower individuals with disabilities specifically. Those with blindness through technology. Stevie Wonder is a fan of the tool. And if you don't know who Stevie Wonder is, well I didn't realize how young my listeners were.

And this conversation Fre shares how they were able to sell the product before even creating it. How they got distributors on board and how they were able to wow investors. Alright, that's his special trick there. Okay, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen, you can find me on LinkedIn under Eric Melcher.

Tag me, say hello. Let me know that you're listening. And now let's talk to Fredrich. I'm excited because you mentioned you're going to Houston. This is where, that's my hometown. And you're going this summer? What, what are you going there for? Yeah, so I'm actually going for a, for a conference. So in, in our domain there's this big conference every year in July, and it differs per state in year it's in Houston.

So super excited to go there. You know, I kind of feel for you because one of the reasons I left Houston is that during the summer it's so hot. Fre. It's so humid. Oh, okay. Oh, and I've struggle. Have you experienced head. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not good with, I mean, I'm from the Netherlands and the weather here is very different, so Whew.

It's gonna be difficult. Yeah. I don't even like going back between May and like October 'cause it's just so, it's so hot. But anyway, I'm gonna send you a list of my favorite recommendations for barbecue and Tex-Mex. Perfect. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll intro even introduce you to a friend of mine who maybe if you have time, maybe you can meet up with them for a beer or something like that too.

Yeah, I, I mean, I always have time to meet up for a beer. It's the best thing to do, right, when you're in a different country. Yeah. Yeah. And Texans are so friendly. When my wife moved there for the first time, she was a little bit dumbstruck at how Texans, we call it southern hospitality and just like walking at the park and somebody, you know, walking, you know, close to you, just says, you know, hi, good morning, good afternoon.

Smiling. So, you know, Texans are, are very, are very friendly that way. So I'm just getting, just giving you a warning. That's, no, that's perfect. To be honest. Actually already noticed it, like online. 'cause I was setting some meetings and normally it's quite a hard time like to do this and here in, in Texas, like everyone's super open.

Oh, but we can have a beer, we can go there, we'll meet you here, we'll come to you. And I'm like, what? What's happening? So yeah, already. Getting that experience, it's been really good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And what's so funny is that the Dutch are very direct, right? Yes. And, and, and I've had guests from like, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, France, and you guys are by far, are the most direct.

So lemme give you an example here. Typically, if I'm looking to get a guest on the show, I just send 'em like a short note and I'm like, Hey, you know, it's, it's podcasts over a hundred episodes, top 10% globally. I've had guests like, You know, X, y, z on, on the podcast, you know? Mm-hmm. But then I've had people respond and say, okay, but I wanna be more specific.

Like, what's the number of downloads do you get? And like, what's the, what's the actual reach? And I'm like, I never get that kind of response anywhere. Yeah. I, I really have to like, think about like, the cultural differences when I'm speaking to people in other countries. They're like, oh, okay, don't be too direct.

Like, it's, it's not a normal way to thing to do, but you're so used to it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's fun though. It's fun kind because you a lot of like, Like response, like, why do you ask this? Like, like this. Right. What's, what's happening? So it's, it's also, I think it works really well. It works really well.

I think it works well. Yeah. If you're trying to get shit done and you need to get stuff moving fast, and especially if you're a startup, you know, especially, you just don't have time to like waste. It works well in that sense, I think. Yeah. Yeah. True. I, we like in the, in the team, we have like a super international team, but everyone kinda adopted the Dutch way.

That's what we like to say. Like be very direct. Like let's be very open, makes things go a little faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Except when it comes to like relationship building, because you can't really, there's certain things that you can do to like kind of help speed up the rapport a little bit. For example, I sent you a video before this interview, a personal video like yesterday, right?

And that kind of helps a little bit to break the ice and stuff, but it's like, it's like dating. You're not gonna go on the first date and expect to just jump into a serious relationship or, or something like that, right? It, it takes time to build. So that's where I feel like, The direct is being so direct can actually hurt you a little bit.

Yeah, and to be honest, that's where I personally, I think that's always a struggle for me. 'cause you're like, in a startup, you always try to go so fast. And I think as a first time founder, patience is a really difficult thing. At least for, for me, it's really difficult and I'm, I'm doing a lot of relationship building.

It's very important for, for my part of the, of the work. And then you want to go so fast, but you, you can't do it too fast. But the video thing was great. I'm gonna steal that from you. It's it. I I'm gonna do that as well. It's, it's works really well. I think it's a great thing to do. Yeah. Steal it. Steal it.

Okay, so listen, I, I wanna get into your background a little bit here and let's see here. Before, before we get into, I am Habel here. You went to some, you went to Silicon Valley for, I think you guys won an award, the Draper Silicon Valley Summer Pitch Prize event. Can you tell us about that? What was that experience like, Fred?

Yeah, so I did win the award, but I actually didn't end up going to the, to Silicon Valley. Because the reason was I was already at some other place in the US but then I was also actually in California. Okay. But again, for I had to do something like in the industry. I met Stevie Wonder there in fact, and because of the reason I couldn't go to Silicon Valley.

So I think it's a good trade off, if you wonder. Yeah. Yeah. He, so he's actually the musician? The musician, yeah. He actually uses our product. Oh, really? That's, yeah. Yeah. So, and I met him there, we were launching in the US with our products, and he was actually there at the conference and he walked straight to our table.

I was so nervous. But he, he loved it. And he got a product and I actually met him again this March. Still uses it, so that's really cool. Did he give you any feedback? Oh, yeah. Oh, he was very technical. I was, so, like, normally when I do a demo of product, I go like, two minutes max, go over the basics.

And he just kept asking me like these very technical questions. Like it was super false. So I was, I was very surprised about how knowledgeable he actually was about the tech and, and using products like ours. Yeah. Right. How does he look? I mean, I have this image of him, of like an old video where he's got long hair and he's moving his head like this.

Like what does he look like though? Yeah, I, I mean, I think that's true. Yes. Is Lauren, I mean, I was so nervous. I was more paying attention to all the guards, like around him. 'cause he had this whole squad of people that kind of escorted him into the building. He's very tall. Even for me, I'm, I'm Dutch. We are quite tall, but he's also, he's very tall, but he's just a really friendly, great, great person.

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Alright. Well that is, that is so cool. That is so cool. Okay, so, alright. The, the next question, well, let's, let's start with Stevie Wonder. I mean, this is a product that is, is really, is really ideal for the blind and visually impaired. So what was the inspiration for. For creating I Am Habel, and if you can tell the audience the inspiration and what it is exactly.

Yeah, of course. So, so Abel, I'm one of the two, two co-founders. So we have two co-founders, daughter, my co-founder's name's Aush, and he's the one that came up with the idea. His grandfather lost his vision at a later stage in life and Aush comes from India and he had to move to the Netherlands for his studies and he could really no longer communicate with his grandfather, like he could no longer use the phone.

And he said, okay, like there should be something to. To resolve this. So using the phone for someone who is blind, you met me and I, I have a personal background, so my little sister and my little brother have a, have a disability and both my parents work with people with disabilities. So I've been like, from a very young age, I've been super interested and, and I always felt like tech is so cool if it's.

Includes everyone, like if you use it so everyone can kind of reach the same potential. I think that's something that's I, I find so inspiring when you use Stack in the right way. And yeah, that's really what we do with Table. We try to use technology in such a way that people with blindness but also other disabilities like can use.

Day-to-day tech so they can actually really participate in society, become independent, and that's what really fires me and the whole team to be honest. Okay. Did you meet him at your co-founder at university? Yeah, he was doing the t o e contest. So we with have the t i Technical university and there's a startup contest there.

And he pitched the idea and I was actually in the audience, and I was, I was like, oh, that's a really good idea. So I, I went to him after the show and I told him, Hey, you need to get me on the team. I know everything about startups. I, I completely bluffed my way in. And apparently later on he told me like, I knew you were, that you were full of shit.

But I liked the passion. So we started together and, and really learned and took on the journey. Yeah. Well, that's good. At least, at least you guys were very honest from the very beginning. Yeah. To call each other out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, your background, I know you got a, a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and a master of science too.

Now, does he bring something separate to the table at the company? I. Like what does he Yeah. What is he focused on? Yeah, so he's a electrical engineer in, in his bachelor and then industrial designer in his, in his masters. So he's really a bit more on the technical side. And I'm a bit more focused on the business side, but also supply chain.

Okay. So it's actually a really good handshake. We're quite technical, both of us, but we have a really like business interest and I think that that's very helpful for us. So what we're, what we're doing. So yeah, that's how we kind of tructure the team. And it's a, it's works well together. It works well.

Okay. So you guys have been at this almost five years, right? Yes, yes. I, I would say like it's, we initially was a bit of a like project next to our studies. Okay. And from 2020 it's gone like very serious. Full-time working on it. Yeah. Okay, so what does Sirius mean, I guess, you know, for, for your perspective, Sirius mean, like you're trying to find beta testers, you're trying to find somebody who can actually build a product manufacturers like, like just Yeah.

The process here. Yeah, so 2020 when like I set up Sirius, so we launched our, we changed the entity where we were as a company because then we got our first investment in, we had a big soft loan from a bank, which is really startup loan, and we got our investor in who's also. Who still with us and helps us also with actually the manufacturing of the products.

So they got it from a final prototype to an industrialized hardware products. And that's for us when we, yeah, when we full-time build a team around it. After a quick break, Bre and I talk about how they got their initial customers. Hey, in case you didn't know, the Innovators Can Laugh. Newsletter comes out every Thursday.

You find out which startup founders are coming on the show, along with links to posts I found interesting on the web. My best dad jokes, quotes from Napoleon to Chris Rock and my thoughts and strategies on what I am doing to live a rich life with happiness as a Texas expat living in Europe. Sign up for the newsletter@innovatorscanlaugh.com.

Welcome back to my conversation with Rick. I am fascinated with I Am Habel and how it brings to life tablets and smartphones for those who are blind. Now, let's hear how we got the product to market and how they got traction. And at that time when we were search, actually we already had initial customers.

I think that's the thing we did really well, is that we already had, I think a hundred people that bought the products before we had the products. Yeah. So that, that, that worked well for us. And that's also when we had to think, okay, like we should do this and now we need to build it because were they only in, in the Netherlands, or who were these people?

Yeah. Yeah, just in the Netherlands we really just, we, we found them in Facebook groups. We call them I think, per person, and we call them for like three rounds of interviews. Ju versus getting the problem then kind of seeing, like validating the problem. Really just building a relationship with them and then saying, Hey, actually I think we can resolve the problem for you, but.

We kind of need your help and your belief in us, and we want you to put out 300 euros for that. And they were like, okay, I don't really know you, but sure, let's do it. And that's how we got our first hundred people. What's the breakout of these people, I guess, of your early testers and even current customers?

Is it mostly people who, who have a relative or a sibling or a parent who are visually impaired? Or is it actually the people who are visually impaired themselves? Yeah, it's, it's really actually those two groups are actually, oh, so there's one group of people who can already, who are blind and can already work with tech.

These are generally a little bit younger. They kind of grew up already a bit more with technology and they're able to do some things with tech. But our product, they're just a lot more efficient and they can do a lot more. So they are actually directly in contact with us, and the others already are innovators.

So the first group was always this. Okay. And now the group actually that we're growing to and where it's, where the group that's a little bigger is indeed the people around someone with artificial impairment that's saying, Hey, I just want my, my father, I want my partner to become more independent, to be able to participate in the WhatsApp group or do his own banking.

And that's, they come to us and then we find a solution with them. Alright, in terms of adaptation, like how easy, easy is it or difficult is it for them to start using the product and become very comfortable with it? Yeah, it's, it's always such a, it's a very difficult question for me to answer because it differs a low per person.

I would say the fastest someone can do it is like, let's say a few hours. So in a few hours you'll be able to work with your entire phone. So that's literally doing all, all the apps, doing exactly the same as you and me. So feedback and audio. And your input is with our products and for elderly. It actually will take, can uptake up to a few weeks to learn it.

But we, that's the one thing I think we do really well is that onboarding process. So there's like a step by step, it's like almost a game that you're playing and slowly you're learning to use the, the phone or the tablet and we. Always try to make it as simple as possible. So really everyone can, they can participate in it.

Okay. So I saw something on LinkedIn that you said you're now selling in Belgium and the uk, and how did you get into those markets? How did you break into there? What was the go-to-market strategy like? Yeah, so I think one thing that did really well for us was conferences. So we went to like these international places where all the distributors would, would go.

And then it's just about, yeah, I know like hustling, networking, going to, going to places and, and just saying, Hey, this is a great thing. You need to test it. But I think. So that worked really well for us. And the other thing, what we did is for every time we couldn't get into a place, we would just, you would always be able to find some people who would be users of your products.

We would find 'em on like Facebook groups or email groups. We would reach out to 'em, say, Hey, we have these free products of you. If you like it, we just request you to ask your distributor to, if you can buy it from them. So we wouldn't approach them, but our customers with their approach are like distributors that we work with.

And then they would come to us like her, but I have never heard of this product. They would find us online and they would come to us and that was like the, the best strategy for us. 'cause then we had a lot of like distributors that were, were interested in us. Okay. Let's play that back. Were you giving these devices to these people for like temporary usage for free?

Like, like how did that work again? No, we would actually give them for free. Okay. So they would be able to keep them. And it's just for us to get, get into the market and get our first, first people there. Alright, well where did you find these people? In Facebook groups or where? Yeah, so really there's like groups there for assistive technology for people with blindness or parents of children with blindness.

Those kind of Facebook groups. That worked really well for us. Yeah. Alright. Alright. Okay, so now going into the states, you're trying to find new distributors for the US market. Yeah, we have I think nine distributors already. So we're already established in mainly at the, the West Coast and we're still trying to build more partners there, but it's, so we work with really specialized distributors.

So they sell specifically assistance technology to people with blindness. It's a very specialized yes market. So that's really well established for us. But now it's about working together with a rehabilitation organization. So if you lose your vision, you go to a rehabilitation clinic and there you would learn to.

Walk with a game or use the phone. And that's where we really want to build the relationships. 'cause that's, if someone learns to use the phone, that's super difficult. But if they learn with our device, life goes a lot easier. So that's where we want to be and that's also what works best in other regions for us.

Okay. I saw something again about Nigeria, the University of Lagos. What's going on over there with I am ha. Yeah. It's really a bit of a, of a passion project for me. I would say we recently actually started working a lot more in countries in. In Africa and also some specific like function like the Philippines and, and Malaysia and Asia because we can kind of, with our products we turn like tablets or a phone really into like a workstation.

So in these countries we work specifically with education and it's can be like universities or with high schools, and. In those countries, like right now, if you're, if you're blind, if you're very, very low vision, it's super hard to ever even come close to getting a job. But with our device, we compare it with a super, super close effect, like super cheap tablet or phone, and we can get someone through education.

And that is something like, right now we're just, we donate, I think 30 devices to a school in Nigeria Legals. And that is just amazing. Like the, the, the impact you make is. Like even bigger than we can make in any Western country. Yeah. So that's why I think we want to do a lot more in the future. Yeah.

That's just the difference you make for someone is so big. Like going from, I cannot even attend school to, I can probably get a job now later on is Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. Frank, you look too happy, man. You look so positive, energetic. You don't look like a typical startup founder. That's like lack of sleep.

You know, worried about some different obstacles or struggles they're trying to overcome. So, so that's my next question for you. Like, what big hurdles have you guys had to overcome? Like, what's been the biggest obstacles and, and, and growing and growing? I'm able, well, I mean, I, I, I'm generally think a very happy, positive person, but we have, oh, don't worry about it.

We have enough struggles all, all the time. I would say, I think for us, one of the big struggles, and it's still like we're, we're growing, we're doing well, but. It's really hard to reach our audience and initially like reaching the more techie people who can find our us by ourselves, that's, that's not easier.

Like they're already on the internet, but now we reach that second group, so congrats family and friends, and that is super difficult. But because the family and friends, they don't really actually know a lot about blindness technology, so they don't really know is this something for my partner, for my, for my parents.

So reaching that group is something where we, where we struggle a lot. Like we have to work with the organizations and you're a small team, so you're really trying to, okay, where do we focus on what works? And. Because of like some months you feel like you've done. Like super long work weeks, but it's been not effective at all.

'cause we're still experimenting. So sometimes you just do things and you put your heart into it and then after month you realize, well, that wasn't worth nothing. We learned a lot from it, but it's helped the business like by 0%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over the next year, the next 12 months, what are you guys excited about in terms of, you know, for Brian Habel?

Yeah, so we are already working on our next product, which I think is really, really cool. One thing we learned really early on is that in, in this market, in the system, there's no silver bullets. Like there's so many specific kind of needs from people. Like a lot of actually in our market, like we save people with blindness, but almost 30% of people with blindness have another disability as well.

So that there's already like a lot of differences in that market. So we're working on a super cool tool that actually customizes based on the person. So it would really. Be different. Every different person that use it, it would be different for them. And we're building that together with the organization, the cool things that we are in a lot of countries already.

So instead of building it by our own, we're now co-creating it, I think with like 15 organizations. And that is super cool. That is really exciting. 'cause then it's also, it's, it's already being used even before it's like built. So that's really cool. What are some of the main disabilities that some people with blindness have?

Yeah, a lot of people have cognitive disabilities combined with it, or, or a motor impairment. So like, it's like one hand. They're not being able to use your hands in a, in the same way as we are or, yeah. If you think about like cognitive disabilities, it's people who have a lot more trouble at all understanding, like language or understanding what a phone is or things like this.

So you really have to look from different angles and we always need to work with experts like on, in, in these groups and we need to work direct, like with people directly because it is impossible for us to even imagine how people think or how people work. And that's. The most fun of what we do as well because you'll learn so many different people and it, you come up with so many like creative ideas every time because you have to be very creative every time for every solution.

Yeah. What's the market potential for this product specifically? The one that's designed for the visually impaired and the braille, the handheld. Thank you. Yeah, so like the numbers always thrown out. There's around 350 million people with a visual impairments under, so that's not, not glasses, but like low vision.

But if you're honest about this, most of this is in very low income countries because they're, the healthcare's not as good, and that's why people lose their vision. Our product, if you look at more like Western regions, I think you'll. Maximum get to a million people that really, really would use this product.

So it's, it's very niche even in that, in that market. If you look at our newer products there, we really try to go for at least a hundred times that actually. But that's, yeah. For the future. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And what are some, I guess, what are some advice that you would have for anybody that may be in, in your position?

'cause you're fairly young, I think this is your first startup, correct? Yes. This is my first startup. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what was some advice that you would give for anybody that's looking to launch their first startup? Frank? Yeah, I think so. What works really well for me, but I, I, I'm very young. I, I, I wouldn't say have that much experience, but I think just enjoy it.

That's the thing that works well, the best for me. I see so many people that are start up and, and you're gonna work very long hours and a lot, part of it's, it's very stressful, but I think just every day I try to like, not forget. It's super cool what we're doing. Like it's the most, when you're doing.

Exactly what you want to do by your, like by yourself. No one is telling you what to do. You're working on your passion. You have people around you that are actually also believing in, in, in your vision. And I think that's, you know, very humbling and, and, and makes you a very happy person. And I think if you focus on, as long as you enjoy it, I feel like you're doing the right thing, you'll be fine.

And if you're not, you'll be fine A few years later. What were some of the key hires that you guys made early on and what is your team make up right now? I mean, how many employees are there? So we're with seven right now, so we're still a small team. And I think that the first he hires were people from our audience.

So we hired some people who are blind or visually impaired. For example, actually one of the people we hired is in Nigeria. He, he's blind man in Nigeria and he works for us full time. And that that did really well for us. What's he doing for you guys? So he actually works on the sales side, business development.

So he talks with organizations once he's, he's showing the product around and he also kind of leads like updates. So where, how to product change, what we need to do to make it better because he talks to a lot of our organizations users, et cetera. So yeah, that also quite a big role. That's always the case.

You can started with a few different things. That is so awesome. That is so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll never forget, one time I walked into this diner in Houston and the cashier, the guy was blind, he would actually ha, he actually had this like dollar bill, bill reader. Yeah. And he would slide it in there and he would tell him like, $10, $20.

He would tell him what the amount was and he was the cashier. Yeah. Awesome. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think honestly with the, with with the right tech, we can really bring everyone like to the, to the right place where they can. Contribute to society and feel like they're living with purpose. I really think so.

Yeah. God, I would love to just see what this person on your team does, like on a daily basis how he works. I, I would be probably be blown away. I. You know, he is, let's say he is at least twice as fast as his phone as me. And I'm, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating. It's when I, when I, when I'm speaking to him and he's like typing at the same, it's, it's, I'm so impressed.

Every time I, he told me I should stop saying it, but it, it's really impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. Oh man. What's his name? Oh. Chito is his name Chito, right? Right. Chito, yeah. You guys should just like do a little video, short video of him. I would love to see it. Yeah, we, if I, if we make it, I'll, I'll share it with you.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got a few rapid fire questions for you, fre. Just gimme the first answer that comes to mind. Don't even think about it. Okay. Okay. All right. What's an unusual thing that you do to wow investors? Wear basic clothes. Alright. Okay. What, what celebrity did you have a crush on as a teenager?

I, I generally wouldn't know. I don't think I, I've, I've done that. No. Okay. I don't think so. Yeah. What's something weird that you obsess about? I, I am very much into gaming and I, I watch all eSports from games I don't even understand. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's see. What was, what was your first job? I worked as a, in a supermarket.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. And the last one for you here, blank, is the best advice a mentor ever gave you. Be yourself. Be yourself. Yeah. Don't change. Okay. That's it. Yeah. All right. Okay, Fred, where can people learn more about you? And I'm ha@iamha.com. If you google ha i'm ha com, you'll find everything about us. Ek, thank you so much for being on.

Innovators can laugh. Thank you so much, Eric. It was great to be here. Yeah. Thank you. I had a great time chatting with Fre. He's got such a positive attitude almost as if growing a startup is like play for him. Definitely my kind of entrepreneur. If you wanna learn more about Fre, go to i am ha.com. Links to all of this are in the show notes in the newsletter.

Thank you to Fre for being on the show. If you like this episode, send me a note on LinkedIn, subscribe, give a review, or tell others about it. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.