Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and I'm very pleased to have with me Jeff Hill, the founder and CEO of MyGait LLC. Jeff, welcome to the BusinessMakers Show.
Jeff: Thank you, Russ. It's a pleasure to have you in our office. Thank you for having us.
Russ: You bet. You bet. Well let's start by you telling us about MyGait LLC.
Jeff: We make senior computing easy.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: Um, what we offer to the market is what we call worry-free failure-free computing. We sell customized hardware with our user interface, our software that we put on it and then the key to the real - the thing is the service and support that we offer behind that. It's really a turnkey system, failure free computing, we've been doing it for ten years and we've just starting to hit our stride right now in 2010.
Russ: Wow. Really cool. So tell us what your definition is of senior computing these days. How old are these people?
Jeff: Yeah; so Russ, our definition, there's a wide breadth of senior and you can actually offend some people by saying senior.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: But our definition is really the market is 60 plus and the reason that we define the market is that is those are the people that are buying our PC. We have 60 year olds. We have 100 year olds that are buying our PCs.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: And everything in between. That's actually really spans three generations. It's anybody that wants a failure free computing experience.
Russ: Well, I gotta tell ya', I've got some experience with my mom.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Russ: In senior computing and I think based on what I know in doing my homework you're really positioned well. You've been doing this for ten years now, right?
Jeff: We have. We have. We've been doing it for ten years. What happened ten years ago was we thought we had a great idea, but we had no consumer market to sell it into -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: So what we did was we started in the senior living business selling to the assisted living, the nursing home, the independent senior apartment creating a computer room in that area with the theory that if we capture one client, then we can capture multiple residents of those communities -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: So we do the set up, we do the training and then we do the follow-up service and support.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: What we learned in those communities was if you gave people the right tools and broke down the barriers of computing -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: And didn't make them untangle a bunch of stuff and da, da, da.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: Was that it didn't really take a whole lot for them to get what they were doing 'cause they would find what they were trying to do and that launched us really into the consumer market a year and a half ago now.
Russ: Okay. Now launch, what do you mean? I mean what gave you the confidence that hey, now's the time to do it and people are gonna buy this?
Jeff: We kept hearing from our clientele in the senior community, the people that were coming down to the computer rooms. "Gees, I'd use this a lot more if I just had it up in my room. I'd like to have it in my room." So we said ya' know what? The time is now. That was really the impetus. I mean, we obviously did a little market research and stuff like that, but the truth of it is is hearing from our user base that we would like this in a room, we said we've gotta find a way. The other thing that really helped us is the cost of hardware has come down precipitously in ten years.
Russ: Oh yeah. Okay. But Jeff, my goodness, that's a huge step going from selling into these communities to consumers. I mean, the way you talked about in the communities, you would actually physically go there and set them up and train them and now that you've opened up to consumers I assume you don't care where they live. You'll ship them anywhere.
Jeff: Absolutely. We ship the PC anywhere. We have customers in all 50 states plus all the provinces of Canada.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: And it is. It's a little different, but the key to it really is the customer service, Russ. The computer, we call it an out of the box experience.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: So when you lift the computer out of the box and we ship it to an individual, they take the computer out of the box. They don't have to plug anything in except power cords and internet connection.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: From there a message appears on their screen and our customer service agents walk them through the remainder of the set up. If they're a more familiar user, then we just, we, we point out some highlights. If some clients have never used a PC and what we do is we can just remote right into that PC and walk them through a little lesson -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: Five, ten minute lesson at a time gives them confidence. It makes people feel like somebody cares that they're actually using it -
Russ: Sure.
Jeff: And it also lets them step, step at their own pace.
Russ: Okay. Well I know from doing some homework, too, that this service and support is critical and is packaged with the system, right?
Jeff: Absolutely. Everybody would love to just be a software company.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: I mean, ya' know what I mean? Everybody would love to be Mike -
Russ: That's my dream I'll tell ya' -
Jeff: Yeah; I mean it's everybody's dream. The truth of it is is in this market and what we're doing; you can't just be a software company -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: We found that out a long time ago. So what we do is we sell a PC, which we're standing in front of right now -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: Pretty simple PC.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: We have a large letter keyboard that for obvious reasons, our visual acuity is something that goes with aging -
Russ: Right. Did - you all had specially designed -
Jeff: We, we had it, we had it specially designed. You see we have little coloration on there.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: The thing is is it's just easier to tell somebody to hit the green button than try to find the Enter or the Return button.
Russ: Oh yeah.
Jeff: We have a track ball mouse, easier on the arthritic hands.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: And then our user interface is completely web based. It allows you to only single click.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: Back light's green so you always know where the mouse is. What we did wasn't necessarily rocket science, but we put a ton of pieces together to make it easy, but we sell this PC with this piece of software, but in addition to that you have to pay a 19.95 a month service and support fee.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: For that service and support at 19.95 a month your computer is guaranteed for life. We say this isn't your first computer, but it will be your last.
Russ: Okay. That means that you'll answer as many questions as I might have.
Jeff: Absolutely.
Russ: And if there's a hardware failure, what happens? You replace it?
Jeff: If there's a hardware - yeah; if there's a hardware failure what we do is since everything is in the cloud, you have no - you have, ya' know, you're not gonna lose your pictures, you're not gonna lose your documents, you're not gonna lose anything. It's all stored in the cloud. We can push a remote reimage to the PC and kick-off a reimage, which would reset it to factory normal with your settings in it. If that doesn't work we simply mail another computer and you mail that one back to us.
Russ: It seems to me like you've got this thing figured out. How many of these do you have installed now?
Jeff: Well we have 30,000 total users. We have 11,000 individuals installed. We're still a little, bitty company, but we're, we're, we're starting to gain momentum.
Russ: And you're seeing that market grow by leaps and bounds every month.
Jeff: We are. We're, we're, we're, we're seeing, ya' know, the market is growing and the other, the other thing that's happening is that the retailers and people are looking around and saying, "Oh my goodness, we have to start offering products that address aging, but don't make people feel old." And that's what we're all about.
Russ: Right; really cool.
Jeff: That's what we're all about. We're all about selling entertainment and communication through this device.
Russ: Really cool. Now we always do this on the BusinessMakers because we've found some real interesting stories, but I gotta know what triggered you. What triggered the idea, Jeff, for you to say this is my business. I'm gonna build this company and it's gonna be my mission.
Jeff: Think most entrepreneurs this is how it happens. It's something personal and the personal to me was my grandmother. My grandmother would be considered like a first adapter, ya' know, first adopter, however you would say it. We would buy her a PC. She had six grandkids scattered throughout the world. We'd buy her for a PC. For the first three or four months it was fine and then something would download and then something else would come down on it and then it was just easier to buy another computer and I, I, I looked at it and I said there's gotta be an easier way. Ya' know, there's gotta be an easier way. That was the real impetus. Now if you had told me how difficult the easier way would have been to create -
Russ: You might not have -
Jeff: I may still, I may still be an investment banker, but I doubt it.
Russ: Alright. Talking to Jeff Hill, founder and CEO of MyGait LLC and we'll be back with more with him after this. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.
[Commercial Break]
Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com and continuing on with Jeff Hill, founder and CEO of MyGait LLC. Now you've already given us a little bit of a preview about how cool - you have a keyboard with large letters, but with color code and you sort of mentioned the color code really helps on support, too, right?
Jeff: Absolutely; absolutely -
Russ: Yeah. You just tell somebody well just hit the Shift keys, the purple one; just push it down. Okay. But, but go into a little bit and just show us what happens when you click on go.
Jeff: Sure, Russ. Let me just walk you through. So each PC when it comes to somebody, well it comes customized out of the box. So when you get your PC you plug it in, you get your internet connection up, you're gonna see your name right here right under the Go button -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: You simply click on the Go button. You click on the left or the right and you come into our - the MyGait operating environment. It's clean. It's white. It's easy to pick up to the eyes. We -
Russ: Yeah; and this is software that you've essentially built here after these years of experience of what works with seniors.
Jeff: Absolutely, Russ. We built it with what works with seniors. We know what works. We know what drives people crazy. And so what we do is we keep it clean and we, we make changes, but you can only make subtle changes. Kind of the, the most important thing, ya' know, we're just addressing needs.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: So back lighting green, all that's doing is helping you pick up where the mouse is.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: The Zoom button. Every browser zooms.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: This one just simply has it right there out there for you -
Russ: Right; cool -
Jeff: -- so you can, so you can find it, but the key to the whole thing -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: -- is this Help button right here.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: You click on Help and you have an 800 number that you can call.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: Live customer service right here in this, in this office or you can click and type a question and then get a response immediately.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: Those are the two things that we focus and we put a ton of emphasis on. And our customer support, we, we call it that. It's customer support. It's not technical support.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: Some people may have a computer issue. So some of our questions come in, ya' know, their internet got disconnected. Something, ya' know, something here or something there, but we get a lot of questions like, "How do I clean my Mexican tile that is in there?"
Russ: Oh. You mean -
Jeff: I mean, that is a real question. I mean -
Russ: It's like, it's like what people would do on the web. They would go search it -
Jeff: Exactly; they're -
Russ: Instead they ask -
Jeff: They're going searching and they ask and then we point them in the right direction.
Russ: Okay.
Jeff: The thing for us is we're just building a relationship with our customers. Our customer service agents, they're relationship people. They build relationships and it's fantastic. So people, people trust us for, people trust us for a lot of things. We don't violate that, ya' know. We, we, we're obviously not violating that trust. Our agents are really helping, but ya' think about it. I mean, a lot of times you just don't know what you're looking for. I mean, and so, so that's what we do. We don't have call center metrics of oh, how much time did you spend on a call, how much time did this person spend on a call. We had one agent spend four hours and ten minutes on a call with a, with a DSL support center located in another land. We had them with that DSL support center and one of our customers; four hours and ten minutes. But you know what? At the end, that customer was so happy that we got her computer up and going.
Russ: That's incredible.
Jeff: Absolutely.
Russ: It seems to me that what you're doing, Jeff, is exactly what that age level needs. Ya' know, top to bottom and as we've already mentioned just briefly, the size of that group that is your prospect is growing pretty big.
Jeff: Yes; I mean, the age wave is here. You hear - they call it - we call it the age wave. Some people call it the silver senior -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: But I think the most interesting stat of the entire age wave to me is this. In 1900 there were 3,000 or 3,500 people in the United States age 100 or over.
Russ: Right.
Jeff: In 2050.
Russ: Yeah.
Jeff: There will be 860,000 people 100 or over. So what you're having is, I mean, I mean, so what's happening is the baby boomers are aging and the baby boomers are living longer. So we like where we're positioned in the market and we obviously know, I mean, you're gonna have more and more savvy and technical savvy people coming and we adapt our product to that. I mean, you just continue to adapt to do that.
Russ: Okay; real cool. But still in fact, maybe one of the challenges of MyGait is gonna be just sort of to keep up with the demand and continue to differentiate yourself, but boy, marketing, there's lots of different channels. What's the plan right now?
Jeff: Absolutely. We launched this PC through the direct response model. So those long wordy ads that you see in Parade Magazine, AARP Magazine and stuff like that, very expensive to sell that way, but effective, but what we're doing now is we've sort of retrenched. Or not retrenched, but we've just kept going and said, ya' know, it's time to go through multiple channels of distribution. We've approached several retailers. All of the big guys that you can imagine that we, we thought made sense -
Russ: What's their - how are they responding to - I mean -
Jeff: The response is they don't quite know how to sell the age -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: What they're really - what's happening is is that a ton of people are trying to sell digital health; Intel, GE, all of them. They're all trying to sell digital health. Digital health doesn't sell. I got news for ya'.
Russ: Yeah; right.
Jeff: If health care sold, then the Congress wouldn't have debated for six months over a health care -
Russ: Right.
Jeff: As the consumers would have demanded it.
Russ: Right; and when you talk about digital health, they're trying to sell devices -
Jeff: Exactly.
Russ: -- that allows the senior to take their blood pressure and stuff through their computer and -
Jeff: Yeah; I mean, and, and, ya' know, blood pressure monitor. A scale that then reports back with the theory, which is a proper theory being this will help people stay in their home longer, but our theory is is if you wanna stay in your home longer, the first thing you need to do is you gotta be computer savvy -
Russ: Right; absolutely -
Jeff: -- and then all those devices will come later. So, so we've actually had talks with Sears, with Best Buy, with some of the major retailers in the United States who have actually admitted to us, "We tried the digital health thing. It didn't work. Hopefully by CES this year we have two or three of the major retailers lined up and we have a lot of other ones that are coming on -
Russ: Really cool.
Jeff: -- that, that are really considering.
Russ: Really cool. Talking to Jeff Hill, founder and CEO of MyGait LLC and we'll be back with more with him after this. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.
[Commercial Break]
Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com continuing on with Jeff Hill, founder and CEO of My LLC. Now Jeff, I'm just totally in step with everything you've been talking about, but I also know and you talked a little bit about plugging the computer in. There seems to me not to be a more critical state than the very beginning when a senior receives this, an individual receives it at home. I mean, you must have a pretty big fallout rate there.
Jeff: Actually Russ, we don't. We knew we would. So we said we've gotta solve this issue before we ship our first computer to a consumer. So what we did is we designed a specialty box and this box has two pieces of foam, top and bottom. Every component is plugged in so you don't have to untwist a bunch of cords or anything. Every component is plugged in from the box. You simply lift it out of the box. The foam will break away for you and there you have your computer right on your desk -
Russ: Meaning the keyboard's already plugged in, the CPU, the monitor is -
Jeff: Meaning the keyboard. Literally every -
Russ: The mouse. Wow. Okay -
Jeff: Literally everything is plugged in. What we knew is -
Russ: Oh yeah; absolutely; absolutely -
Jeff: -- that's a barrier to computing. It's a barrier to entry.
Russ: Absolutely.
Jeff: So everything is plugged in once you open, open the box and take the PC out. The only thing you have to plug in are your two power cords; one for the monitor and one for the CPU and an internet connection. If you're gonna connect wirelessly, obviously you don't need to worry about the internet connection.
Russ: Wow.
Jeff: But that was a absolutely huge, key step of breaking down that psychological barrier.
Russ: Okay. So every piece of hardware that you're delivering now is essentially identical to each other. I mean, you're delivering one system -
Jeff: We're delivering a single system. Yes, sir.
Russ: That is so cool. Well, I gotta tell you, Jeff, this is real exciting. Knowing what the future has in store you must be pumped up about it. What's your long-term plan? I mean, do you see doing this the rest of your life? Do you see a big acquisition target painted on the back of your coat there or what? IPO? What?
Jeff: Well yeah, Russ. It's interesting. I think long-term this is a company that I wanna run. This is where I wanna be. I'm not naïve enough to think that somebody may not come along and make an offer that we can't refuse, but I think right now we're just in the infancy. If you think of it like this, this is as small as this market that we're selling into is ever gonna be while any of us are alive.
Russ: That's right.
Jeff: My belief is that we have a product that can be a true bridge product into the entire industry. So when we talked about digital health and we talk about some of these other things, it's gonna have to be delivered through something like this and I can't think of a better company to be at the front end of that. So my end plan, I was an investment banker. So unless that IPO valuation is well beyond what we can get in a private company valuation, I think we'll just stay just like this and keep growing.
Russ: Alright. That is so cool. Now, before I let you go though, let's imagine that there's some young, aspiring entrepreneur that's tuned in and heard the story about MyGait and they're going, wow, I wanna be there someday. What kind of general advice would you give him or her?
Jeff: Well I think the advice I always try to give is, is, is, is two or three-fold. I think the first thing is is that have a patient significant other because it's always gonna take a little longer than, than you think and have a support staff that doesn't allow you to quit. Along with that, if you think you need 200,000 you probably need 500. In these days that's a very, very important thing to consider going forward. Don't quit because you don't have the money. Keep going. Boot strap it. If you have a good idea you're gonna be able to get it done. The third thing is is that sometimes don't worry about the lawyers and the accountants and the tax ramifications and all those things. That's not what entrepreneurship is about. Worry about getting your product out there, getting your service out there, proving your concept and proving that it's something that can make money and the last thing is is follow your dream. I mean, the American landscape is littered with people who have failed. It is littered with people who have succeeded, but you're never, ever gonna figure out if you can succeed unless you follow that and follow that dream and follow that idea and you will be told no way, way more times than you're told yes.
Russ: Alright. Jeff, that's great, great advice and I, I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.
Jeff: Well Russ, thank you for having us on. We appreciate it.
Russ: You bet. That's Jeff Hill, founder and CEO of MyGait LLC. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.
