Best Startup - California
Tell us about yourself?
I am a technology enthusiast. I have a deep passion for leading teams to solve challenging problems with technology.
I really enjoy building organizations and revenue growth through digital product innovation and market insight.
I am very lucky because this passion applied to CogniFit allows me to build solutions that realy help people to improve their lives while working with great teams and a lot of freedom.
What do you think is the single biggest misconception people have when it comes to startups?
Managing a startup is not about having innovative ideas but about strategic thinking and very focused hard work.
While perceived as ‘fun crazy chaotic’ and informal, people do not realize the accountability you have from day 1 in terms of organizing and executing and delivering a product or service up to major corporate demands.
What lessons has being an entrepreneur taught you?
Everything takes more time than planed. Trust individuals and teams, surround yourself by better people in their areas of expertise.
Using the African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
I am very lucky because I have a great partner to whom you can share all my problems and work with 365 days year after year with the same energy and passion of the first day.
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Choose very carefully your strategy and then focus, focus and focus. Do not try many diferent things trying to innovate but just focus on one that is simple improvovement for an existing consumer demand.
A lot of entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance their work and personal lives. How have you found that?
I dont have an issue with that. My recipe is to make work part of my live and enjoy it. There is not other way.
Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?
Shlomo Breznitz and his visonary approach to use technology to assess and improve human cognition, a lot of science modeling how the brain works and my deep passion for AI
What do you think is your magic sauce? What sets you apart from the competitors?
After more than $30 million dedicated to develop and validate our technology we have created a scalable cloud-based platform that captures and processes billions of cognitive data points in real time to deliver an optimal cognitive training for each user.
A system that becomes more effective with every new user that signs up and every new game we add. And today we register a new user every 60 seconds and we launch a new game every 30 days.
We have more than 20 peer reviewed scientific publications proving the efficacy of our technology and more than 200 scientific institutions are using our platform for research.
Over 4 million people have already used CogniFit in 18 languages across different countries .
How have you found sales so far? Do you have any lessons you could pass on to other founders in the same market as you just starting out?
Deliver, deliver, deliver at high corporate standards from day 1. Listen to your customer needs always and from the beginning.
What do you consider are the main strengths of operating your business in California over other states in the US?
California still provides a great pool of talents with leading universities of the country. The world goes through cycle but California remains an epicenter of research and innovation.
What (if any) are the weaknesses of operating your business within California?
California is increasingly bureaucratic and expensive. It will continue to remain this way for at least several years to come.
We are currently suffering through a cost of living crisis. With California already being one of the most expensive states to live in, how has this impacted your business?
We had to adapt our budgets and find alternatives and make choices. We have a big operational team in Spain where the talent is fanstastic and the cost much more affordable.
It is no secret that California is the birthplace of innovation. But that also makes it incredibly competitive. How have you found the competitive environment of California?
Competition is high but potential employee at the end are always looking at the same dimensions: compensation and the why of working in an organization.
Because of what we do, the why is resolved and future developments are exciting to candidates. Compensation is just a question of matching what the market offers.
Have you considered moving your company to another state? If so, which state and why?
Not for now, but if the cost and burocracy get worst we might consider moving to Texas or Florida.
We try to be smart and focus first in growing the business signifiant before making tax and other operational considerations.
Those are good problems to have and have no issues moving around. We are software based.
Where do you see your business in the next 5 years?
Changing many more millions of people lives by helping them improve their cognitive health with our wellness products and getting into the digital therapeutics market.
We are now working on a range of DTx new products candidates that are in different stages of clinical trials, many of them getting ready for FDA approvals.
These include digital therapies that will help people sleep better, recover their cognitive skills more quickly after a brain impairment due to a stroke, a deep depression, chemo-fog and other brain conditions.
Our goal is to make this technology available to reach into all communities so people can recover and maintain their cognitive health as needed and in an easy, affordable and personalised way.
And finally, if people want to get involved and learn more about your business, how should they do that?
They should first go to www.cognifit.com and then if they have an interest to collaborate with us in any of our channels B2C, B2B2C or B2B just sent us a note to [email protected] and we will reply!
