Goal
Exovibe was a soft skeleton for the elderly to walk again. Exovibe believes that walking is a human right. I joined this startup as I believed in the idea and they needed someone at the time that was doing customer relationship, presenting, and IT related things that had to do with infrastructure. The development of the suit itself was done by the original founder.
Reality
The biggest issue that we saw at the time was that suits that were made were mostly for helping storage or transportation workers perform their job better and there were other suits also available but were mostly external. The biggest difference Exovibe was going to be was a soft skeleton that was not visible to the eye. The skeleton itself would be integrated in clothes and would be modular with clothes you already owned.
Options
- Exo skeleton but people would see you needed help because of the external suit
- Weelchair, but this would not solve the walking issue
- Cane, but this would be highly dependent on the state the person would be in and would not grant full mobility like a person was used to.
- Soft Skeleton, a suit modulair to people their original clothes with more mobility. This through create artificial muscles that are attached to the body parts and based on sensors the artificial muscle retracts or softs down
Willingness
As the project of the original founder was going on already for several years and he was very convincing of his product, I joined the startup as well. At the time the idea of Tronboy had just been crushed so wanting to jump in a new project and also learn from such a project was the goal. My interest went to making people walking again but also at what humans would have been capable of if healthy people used this technology.
EVENTUAL OUTCOME
Without spending too much detail here to not create too much impact on the project itself, me and the original founder of exovibe had a quarrel and I do not wish to go into much detail here. This ultimately led me into abandoning the project.
I learned a lot from this project in general. Communicating with both people and a technical engineer.
Pitching a highly complex idea into an elevator pitch that has story and brings emotion.
I learned an idea does not grow overnight but needs dedication for a very long time.
I learned that sometimes you have to cut your losses even though you have put a lot of energy into the project.
I learned how a team should communicate and identified pitfalls I won’t fall again in anymore.
I learned about crowdfunding and the concept op angle investors.
I learned about startup enablers like Corda Campus or Y-Combinator.
I learned that just talking about a bold project that looks amazing does not guarantee you will get funding. Talking about the idea in a good way gets you noticed and in the door. A working project gets you the funding. Those 2 things live together in harmony and need to co-exist to create the synergy of the amazing project.