229 | Compassionate Technology to Improve Sandwich Generation Lives with Chai-Lin Simmons
Our guest this week on the pod is Chai-Lin Simmons. Chai-Lin is a former executive at some of the biggest brands in the tech industry including Google, Amazon, Time Warner/AOL and more. In June 2021, she became the CEO of NXT-ID, a provider of technology products and services for healthcare applications.
Resources mentioned in this episode are:
The PERS Device: Compassionate Technology to Improve Lives with Chai-Lin Simmons
Transcription by Otter.ai
SPEAKERS
Chai-Lin Simmons, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, just business, social impact, and awareness practice. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader and someone who has market tested, experienced, and is already transforming. But before I introduce you to our guests and our topic today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to this show on, do rating and review, hit that subscribe button, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to Chai-Lin Simmons. And our topic is Compassionate Technology to Improve Sandwich Generation Lives. Chai-lin is a former executive at some of the biggest brands in tech, including Google, Amazon, Time Warner, AOL, etc. In June 2021, she became the CEO of next ID, a provider of technology products and services for healthcare applications. Chai-Lin, welcome to the show.
Chai-Lin Simmons 01:10
Thanks for the invite Paul, excited to be here.
Paul Zelizer 01:14
Really excited to be here on this important topic. Before we get into the topic, and all your incredible experience, technology and thinking about compassion in technology and having positive impact, we're called aware printers kind of one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness resiliency practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this important work.
Chai-Lin Simmons 01:40
Yeah, it's really interesting, because I've been working from home, I want to say for the last several years, having had a remote company, before this one, and then having a actually very remote company now as well, with next ID. And so one of the things that actually feel like as a grounding sort of experience or two things is that I absolutely try every day, to actually reserve time to actually take my daughter to school and pick her up, I find that the time I'm driving with her, no matter how short and it literally is typically a little bit shorter than I actually wish in a way, it's about 10 minutes each way, is just the most incredible sort of important time in my day to get grounded. It's my time to connect, I am not looking at a device, I am not doing anything, but driving and engaging in dialogue with my child. And it is the most rewarding thing I feel like I have every day, as much as I love doing podcasts and like running the business. It literally is the best 20 days of my day, every day. And then the other thing I used to ground myself is again, I think we live in a really connected world today. And I try to reserve time every day to do a walk with my dog gets me out of the chair, I spend that time trying to absorb and sort of taking the view, you don't ever use sort of flower that's popping up in spring. It is just an incredibly sort of grounding experience to do that. Because again, typically in a day, I am looking at three devices. And I'm trying to triage a number of things on a day to day basis. And I don't ever feel like I have time to sort of slow down and really enjoy nature and understanding how the world is changing around us. And that's literally the time of the day that I get to do that every day.
Paul Zelizer 03:32
I think does embodied practices are so so important. When we spend so much time online. Thanks for reminding us of that, like two and a half decades in tech. It's been a long time for you. And you've been with some incredible companies doing some amazing things. We're gonna get into like compassion and impact in tech. But just like how did you get started with saying I want to do something in the technology space. And when did that show up for you and what was like your early journey into that sector.
Chai-Lin Simmons 04:05
It's so funny because I actually didn't intend to go into the sector in a way. I saw my the first Mosaic browser come out and when I was a sophomore, I want to say or junior in college, I believe this is back in 1991. Maybe as far back as 1991, the first Mosaic browser kind of came out and I sort of pointed to that I wasn't a communicator. I was a communications major pointed to then said, I don't know what that is. But I want to do something related to that. And at the time, my entire sort of focus had been ironically going into the publishing industry whether or not there was a magazine or books. I remember when I was in college I used to tell people like you know, I want to work in a book publishing industry because everybody deserves 795 And that's the cost of the paperback book back then. Everybody deserves 795 worth of happiness right books take you to incredible journeys. And you know, it takes you away from your everyday sort of like life and everybody deserves 795 worth of happiness, that's what I want to do. But I saw this Mosaic browser thing. And I said, I don't know what that is. But that is extremely cool. I want to do that. And I, you know, had some very encouraging professors who said, you know, this is a very interesting development. And we can, you know, think about sort of what this could mean in terms of how people communicate and publish. And so, in my mind, I thought what I was going to the tech industry to do was to basically publish, be an internet publisher of all things, right? Do online magazines and publish books, I actually saw one of the first sort of betas of Amazon, because of a connection through professor at school, and I thought, Oh, this is fantastic. I mean, if only they would do like, you know, author interviews like this, I would live on this website forever. And lo and behold, so many of those things sort of came to be. And the more I got into sort of where the internet was going, the more excited I got around sort of where I thought the future of communications was going to go with that. And so wrote a senior thesis around that time, about, you know, hey, you know, we're going to take digital media everywhere. And, gosh, you know, you may even pick it digitally impossibly on, you know, something like the Newton and you know, a beating myself here, because this is 1995. And Newton was like, the smallest device we had right back then that was portable. So, you know, even back then I was doing what I was calling round tripping of content, which is the idea that you should take content from one place to another, and from your computer to something that travel with you by your side. And I think that back then I speculated, like, not only books, but like, can you imagine movie and music and, and lo and behold, that's direction where the industry was going. So I sort of stuck with that, because I was so excited about where the technology was going to the point where it frustrated my parents to no end, I had a job offer from Disney licensing for publishing. And it was squarely in line with what I had said I was wanting to do with my life, it's going to publishing, and I decided not to take it and move to New York to work for a internet company. i My parents were horrified. And my first year, I got laid off actually from that internet company, and then moved back to California to work for Wired Magazine, and do wire online. And so I think my parents, like you could still work for a big publishing, like you work for, you know, Disney, and just kind of was so fascinated with the technology implications that go and how it could change everyday lives, that I just pretty much ended up sticking to the tech industry, the rest of the way, in the two and a half, you know, two decades and a half later, I'm still looking at what it means to push the boundaries of technology and how it changes lives. And I'm so thrilled that I sort of accidentally stumbled upon it.
Paul Zelizer 07:51
Now, our title today is talking about compassionate technology and and to have an informed conversation. Can we just say that technology isn't always applied compassionately? Is that fair to say?
Chai-Lin Simmons 08:07
Yeah, no, I absolutely. Think that's the case. You know, it's really interesting, because, you know, the world that we look at in technology, it is about, you know, I've spent a lot of my career pushing the boundaries of, you know, the envelope when it comes to technology. I mean, it's kind of hard to think about now, but we talk about downloading, right? And I was one of the first to work in a company that downloaded software, so much of it was driven by the idea of how does is technology innovating? And is it pushing boundaries of how we look at things and changing business, but we don't spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, compassion, or how does it really, truly change people's lives and not only change people's lives, but change people's lives for the better? A lot of it is, you know, how do we push technology to make businesses better? And we, of course, you know, there's always going to be technology that makes people's lives better. But that almost sometimes felt like it was secondary, right? Because this is not, you know, I think if you look at and talk to a lot of technology executives, they talk about technology as this inevitable thing where it just sort of motors on and our job is to sort of help it accelerate and motor neuron and move quicker and faster and better. And so one could argue, you know, what exactly is NFC NFC for example, or cryptocurrency during people would say that cryptocurrency is compassion, a sense that it allows people to be tied to currency that you know, maybe fluctuate in their sort of home countries where the Fiat is extremely volatile, and it gives people so it makes people's lives worse, but this isn't kind of the reason why they put me cryptocurrency go live. I mean, I think that maybe that would have been sort of the thought of some of the folks who are involved but not necessarily always forget So as developed because people really believe that there's, we needed to learn more about how to do this. And like technology is fascinating and unfamiliar, very sort of, you know, empirical, almost sort of analytical perspective, because the technology needs to evolve, like a living thing. But compassion, not always the first and most important reason for why has to happen.
Paul Zelizer 10:24
And after decades, at places like Google and Amazon and seeing, you know, these mass applications of technology, this opportunity kind of arose for you to work in what you called before I hit the record button, you called it the care economy, which I just love, and to bring technology into the care economy through this company called next ID. So tell us a little bit about what is next ID and what is this thing called the care economy.
Chai-Lin Simmons 10:56
So next IDX, has been public for quite a few years. And, you know, probably most folks have known us a little bit more about, you know, sort of the cryptocurrency, ironically, and fintech portion of the business, I think we were famously known for, you know, as being people who were putting together something called the Wocket, you know, sort of the car to Endor cards, where people actually can utilize and put all of their credit cards together, and it actually safely securely sort of holds your, your data. And so we have patents around sort of these types of things. But the portion of the business that people didn't talk too much about, which was actually the core driver of the company's revenue, and business was a portion of our business called logic mark. And magic Mark has been in what's been called sort of the purrs business, which is the personal emergency response systems. And for those of us who are old enough to remember these things, it's those ads at night that we used to see and says, you know, I fallen, and I can't get up devices that are elder parents, and in laws were around their neck if they had an emergency and needed to have somebody respond to them. And so, you know, we have been in that business and actually doing a very good business along those lines. And, you know, that's sort of where the businesses, which doesn't seem very high tech, for somebody who, you know, quite candidly spend most of our career in bleeding edge tech, right, I was working on connected cars and downloads before, people talked about downloads, you know, seems like not quite the industry where a typical tech executives would go. But that's also exactly why more of people like me should be going into what you and I have discussed, you know, which is the care economy, and the care economy is a very sort of large sort of ecosystem, right? It includes folks who are doing in home care, and sort of the systems of health care workers who are doing that work and doing a great job with it. And people who are in the healthcare field, as well as people who are supporting invisible caretakers, like perhaps you and I, who are helping our aged parents, and taking care of our young ones. At the same time, we're part of that sandwich generation of individuals, we're, you know, helping our families. And there's so many of us one in four millennials, for example, is invisible caretaker, right of their family. And I think that number is actually in fact a little bit higher for genetic. And so this care economy is a fairly large one, right? Because what I've sort of shared here is that it's a, it's a fairly inclusive ecosystem includes, you know, hospitals, and doctors and nurses and sort of the healthcare economy. But it also includes home health aides, and people who have products to help people could better communicate with their loved ones and make make sure that they're, you know, safe and secure. And any sort of number of companies that support that infrastructure of helping to care for somebody. But yet this is, you know, in many ways, like, as we're seeing today, technology is now web 3.0. And they're looking at how do we optimize health care? And that's great, because, you know, we're seeing a shortage of workers, you know, in the health field because of COVID. But what about the others proportions of the industry? What, really, when I took this job on and we dealt, you know, one of the reasons why I took this job on was, you know, what's happening in this particular industry, for example, in the pros, industry, right? You know, that old school, I fallen and I can't get up business. And the reality was, is that we were seeing basically technology that was decades old, you know, still pretty much have, you know, you push a button and somebody you know, in a monitoring services, hey, how, you know, how are you doing, Mrs. Simmons? And are you doing okay, what can I do to help you have you fallen, and so lots of false positives, you know, so if you, you know, chill too much. The existing sort of ball detection technology would say, hey, looks like the following one, though. I'm just old and sitting down too quickly and tilted a little bit, but I'm not falling and that feeling of independence you would have as an older person doesn't seem to be there because that thing gets triggered. all the time, when we look at this industry, it just seems like a lot of this carrot carrying economy hasn't evolved from a technology point of view. And But why doesn't it? And that's really was the big question in my mind. And then second question was, Do I believe that, you know, folks with my background, and other folks, you know, like me should be going into this industry and taking a look at the technology and see how we can evolve it? And the answer that basically came back to me as a guess, absolutely, why not, you know, this technology to, you know, support its podcasts, it's important, you know, who doesn't have a loved one that they need to take care of that may need a little more communications, and, you know, help.
Paul Zelizer 15:43
So as I'm listening, and also just factoring in some of the conversations we had, before we hit record, gentlemen, I'm thinking it's almost like, there was a perfect storm. One, The Perfect Storm, you mentioned, the actual technology was kind of stagnant, right? We talked before we hit record, like the actual buttons themselves are not particularly fashionable, for instance. And, you know, there are a lot of false positives. So it's not great technology doesn't look that great, and it just kind of stagnant and old. And then another like, vector is that the actual who is who would benefit like just the aging of the population. So you have not great technology, we have more and more people coming into the space of really benefiting from it for various reasons, including aging or other health issues, and the silent generation folks who you're talking about, who are either, you know, I'm Gen X, I know a lot of my peers are in this situation, thinking about what about aging parents or other relatives, and our own kids and their well being and our kids, friends and our cousins, and etc, etc. Right? So, so you just saw these demographic trends, and you add it in? Wow, this technology has been pretty stagnant. It was kind of like ding, ding, ding, right here is an incredible opportunity is something like that. Is that true for you?
Chai-Lin Simmons 17:09
Absolutely. And like I kind of, I run my career on what I call sort of the three legged stool of success for technology, right? You have to have the right product, the right people and the right timing to a certain extent, right. So I wouldn't call it serendipity. But rather sort of by timing from a demographic point of view, and you hit the nail right on the head, there's a silver tsunami coming every day. 10,000 Plus, people are turning 65. And so by 2015 20, more than 23% of the US population will be actually 65 Plus and older. And so technology is often focused on a youth, you know, what are we doing around, you know, Airbnb? And what are we doing? I mean, Airbnb started, because people were couchsurfing for a trade show. Right? And so, you know, but what's happening here is that we see incredible sort of shift in demographics, one of the largest shift in demographic that we have not seen in really decades, because it's not just about the silver, you know, the silent generation, but it's actually the boomers who are now aging as well. And so we're going to see a large sort of shift in population. So what we really can see in terms of success, is this idea from a business perspective of right product, right? Do we have the right product? And can we build the right product to fit sort of a demographic need of that time, and then either the right people to make that happen. And so when you see the convergence of all the three, those three things, it's like a three legged stool, you have to have at least minimally, those three legs for a store to be sturdy, and, you know, strong. And so what I saw here was that Elise for this company, we actually have amazing patents that would help with that. I just needed to bring the right people and the timing was absolutely right for it. And certainly for the caring economy, that focus is absolutely the right time, right, because we do see this huge demographic shift happening.
Paul Zelizer 19:02
I love that three legged stool analogy. And I say, sitting over here as somebody who's not in tech, but as in the social entrepreneurs base, I would say those three legs apply in any space where you want to help people pay attention to those three things. And if they are, you're doing those, well, you're much, much, much more likely to succeed. When you came on board to you saw this opportunity, and again, this is pretty fresh, right? It is June 2021. We're recording this at the end of October. So we're talking five months, right? We're not talking a long time here, five and a half, something like that. You saw an opportunity saw some infrastructure, like patents saw a brand that was providing something, and the brand was not exactly thriving. Is that fair to say?
Chai-Lin Simmons 19:52
I think you've been incredibly generous. So yes, absolutely was definitely not thriving. In fact, the family's not doing well at all. You know, the CEO before the one I replaced had been indicted by the SEC, the company was definitely struggling. And like a lot of companies that's in sort of the health communications and health side of the business, you know, COVID hit. And you know, it was not an easy time. So the company was definitely struggling. And it's been the most amazing experience. And it was four and a half months, I think. So, not even quite as much not even five. Yeah, not quite yet. But yeah, so very fresh. And so, ya know, the brand absolutely was, you know, I think, certainly challenged, but had incredible bones. I mean, the company, and employees had a lot of heart, if you talk to any employee at this company, their focus on the logic work side has always been, you know, what are the best ways that we could serve a customer, they're, they're very mission driven, they're very customer centric. And so, you know, we do a lot of our business with the veterans of the United States, we served the Veterans Administration, which is the largest health care network in the United States. And so if you talk to just about everybody in the organization, we're incredibly grateful, and feel fortunate to be actually working with events of this country. And so incredibly driven people. And that's a really, you know, that's enough of a foundation with great IP to basically ensure that company has success in the long term.
Paul Zelizer 21:29
So we're gonna get into in a second, like, what you've done to help turn it around and what some of your products and services are. Now, before we do that, talk to us a little bit about like, if we have listeners who are thinking about positive impact through business in all different kinds of spaces and domains. But I think this is a very interesting phenomenon, somebody is in the position of influencing the direction of a company and the company hasn't yet been thriving, or to hit a period of stagnation or decline. Any suggestions you have for a leader in that situation? Like, there's a, there's a mission. There's something interesting happening here. But the company is underperforming, as of yet any suggestions you'd make to a leader in that situation?
Chai-Lin Simmons 22:17
Yeah, absolutely. And I certainly think that there's sort of two levels of sort of consideration here, and we're a public company. So first and foremost, I'm a firm believer in communications, I think that when a company is struggling, oftentimes, you know, they're the shareholders, they're rooting for the company in their hearts, they buy shares in the company, because they believe in the mission of the company, and they want to see a successful, right. It's very interesting to me, because in a lot of sort of sense, like, if you look at the way that we have talked about retail investors, and we talk about investors as a whole, and companies, it doesn't always, from a media perspective, come out to be something where it's like a positive relationship between shareholders in the company. I mean, because, you know, we spend a lot of time in the press talking about activist shareholders and retail investors who are shorting stocks, and all these sorts of things. And I certainly think that's absolutely true. But I always say that, you know, when I tell shareholders and communicate with shareholders the same way, which is, you bought the shares for a reason you bought the shares, because maybe, you know, you understand the mission of where the company is going, or you have a belief in Word that, you know, the previous management experience, where all the new management experience where and you had belief in the company. And so if you still have belief in the company, I certainly hope you will hold on to the shares, right. And that communication is so important, you know, because you're really talking about people taking a journey with you, and with the company. And because when we talk about transforming the company, and, you know, taking a company on a mission to do good, and to make revenue, as well, the shareholders are here as part of your team. And so that communications and as a leader to your shareholders, and the constituencies of the company is so important, and also to actually have the framework and the mindset of not thinking of these constituencies as people outside of people who are helping to move the company along. But in fact, they're actually part of the team that's helping to move the company forward. I think that's absolutely important. Because typically, when a company is in a bad situation, both sort of private and public, there's a lot of sort of no consideration of like, low outside forces and how that's not sort of, you know, conducive to the company. And there's a sort of us and them mentality that we get into them. Bunker mindset of, it's a second store world. Right? And in fact, I think that we need to think a little bit broadly and more sort of open to them saying, what are the best ways we could communicate and brainwash people into my team to make this company a success, and whether or not that's shareholders and partners of any type, that when companies aren't going well, we cannot think like, it's a bunker mentality, we must think in an inclusive and broader society of how to bring more to the fold to help us be successful. And I think that's the number one sort of, I think, aspect to think about when we're thinking about success to turn around.
Paul Zelizer 25:26
Love that answer, Kevin, thank you so much. So let's do this. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I want to hear about what next ID looks like now, some of your impact goals that you're working on some very interesting things that I want to highlight. And where do you think you're going? Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of more impact, helping more people, and more income so you can live a good quality of life? If so, I'd like to talk to you about the AWARE printers community. Why? Well, research tells us when humans are trying to make change in any domain of our lives. Whether it's getting in shape, or quitting smoking, or growing a business. One of the single biggest predictors is what scientists call social support. In other words, being in a community of other people who are on a similar journey have ups and downs, if you're trying to stop smoking, there's hard days, there's days where you have successes, etc. People you can celebrate with give you tips, and just support you on the journey towards your goal. The same is true with social entrepreneurship. What we do is for hundreds of members from all over the world, and we share strategies and tips we do a master class this afternoon. We're doing one on Facebook ads and Instagram ads for Social Entrepreneurs, for instance, you can post a your latest sales page and say, can you take a look at the copy? And can we talk pricing does anybody know somebody who can do a logo, so very tangible skill sets from people who understand these kinds of businesses, as well as the emotional support of I just had an incredible success. And I'd love to tell you all about it, or this has been a really hard, it's affordable starting at $25 a month, it's inclusive and diverse. And we'd love to have you if it feels like it might be a fit. You can find out more at aware printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the world printers community who sponsors this podcast. So tideland in the second part of the show, we'd like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. So let's get more granular. So talk to us right now, in terms of next ID, what are some of the products that are available right now and give us a sense, like how many people are using these products? Who tends to use them? Some of the cost for it just like break it down for us a little bit? So we get a sense of the granular offerings of next ID? Wow.
Chai-Lin Simmons 27:59
Yeah, so good question. So we actually, ironically, a huge chunk of our public company, so you can find out more about sort of who we sell to in the volume. So since I don't have it quite at the touch of my fingertips here, but we sell 85% of our products into the Veterans Administration. And so these products include something called the Freedom alert, which is tied to your home phone lines, and allows you to sort of call your friends and family if you're having some problems, or actually being connected to 911 immediately if you have an emergency situation. And then the other product that we saw a tremendous amount of his cardio 911, which is actually a much more sort of mobile product that you can wear outside of your home. So that in case if you were walking to a neighbor's home, or if you're actually at Safeway, and you couldn't, for some reason, get some help on the way to safe ways that you could push a button and basically get connected to 911 and get help as well. And so that's a product offerings that we have today. And you know, at the time that we made these products, they were actually, ironically, I would say quite revolutionary, right? Because most of these sort of purchase products in the past have been tied to monitor companies. And so think the people who do your monitor service for your home security for, for example, in a lot of these products had originally come out of that business. And so hey, we're monitoring your home. So why not wear this device as well and be pushed by and you could get to our monitor sort of service. And from month to month fee. You know, you can talk to somebody and we could get your help. Right. And so that's great, except for the fact that as many of us know, times are often tough. And I think when you're elderly there, there's a lot of folks who are on fixed income. And so I think our biggest concern when this company was started was that, you know, how do people who have much tighter sort of month to month budgets who may not want to incur a month a month related bills still have safe safety and security so that they can reach 911 Wherever they go, and if they don't have a phone on them, right. And so in this particular case, you know, not having a mobile phone is not a problem for the freedom alert, because you're in a home, and it's tied to your phone lines. Or if you're sort of out and about, you know, you can actually get to a 911 by a push of a button without actually having a mobile phone with you. And so, you know, without incurring a recurring billing monthly, we really believe that I think every sort of line of product offering needs to be there, not just sort of a recurring billing model, which we are hoping to launch shortly, certainly, like a lot of folks. But you can see us basically, trying to expand our offerings in many, many directions along trying to offer better technology, we have a lot of patents on fall detection, so that we can better understand if you're actually going to be, you know, falling or, you know, you're in the process of falling. And we can actually get help immediately. So that you may not even have to push a button that we just wouldn't know. And so, obviously, as a public company, I can't talk too much about sort of what's coming. But we have a tremendous amount of plans to try to bring the technology to, I think the next generation, you know, implementing things like AI and now better optimize, you know, technology around fault detection. And we're not wedded to having to only build our own hardware. I mean, if we want to, I mean, today, most of our customers are, you know, older, they probably are 75 and older. And so, but like a lot of folks, including the AARP, we know that they're perhaps folks who need a little bit more help in a younger set. So I believe, I think my husband turned 50, and got something from the AARP. And so, like the AARP, I certainly would love to sort of see what offerings that we can provide, you know, folks, 50, and above as well. And so you'll see us looking at, you know, what does it mean to be in that business, from both hardware and software side of the company. And so I'm pushing technology that is, I think, different than our previous product offerings have been.
Paul Zelizer 32:22
One of the things that's really interesting to me and one of our core values, of our printers is inclusion. And as a tech company to be thinking about affordability and people on a fixed income. That's not always so common. You've been in the tech industry longer than me, is that fair to say?
Chai-Lin Simmons 32:41
I think it's absolutely fair to say, you know, I think that most likely, if you'd look at my background, I haven't done connected products in the past, I think this would be sort of my third time at a company where, you know, we're thinking about what does it mean to be connected in a world I think my first sort of offering was a connected car product that sits in Honda Subaru and a number, you know, portion, when we launched and so forth. And but that's, it's sort of very bleeding edge, it's for a certain group of people. Right. And I think that's, theoretically speaking with the proliferation of recurring billing into our everyday lives. I mean, there are tons of people who have, you know, Netflix subscriptions now. So this idea of actually getting your credit card dinged every month on a service that you use every month and recurring billing model was actually not that is it's still fairly new to our society. But I don't think that that's the offering for everybody, right, there's always going to be folks who, for whom that sort of recurring monthly bill is just going to be much more difficult. And I don't ever want to think that we actually have technology, like we're not going to put out technology that isn't going to serve those who can't afford it, especially for something I think, as important as, you know, communications and health care and all of these things, right. One of the things that we're acutely aware of, is something I think the physicians called the golden hour, which is that from a time of like, sort of an injury to the time of getting care, that sort of period of the golden hour, that first hour is extremely crucial for success, right? I want to say that and I would, I'd hate to sort of quote this wrong. So I'm going to leave sort of statistics aside because I know that I can see the infographic in my head, but I can't remember the exact numbers. But I believe the outcome, if you're able to get care within that first hour, that golden hour window, your outcome is always better. Right? And so I don't want to ever think that we're not putting out products that can serve as many people as possible to ensure that they get help in that golden hour. And I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, I think that our product is focused on that right? How do we get people to that help, the help that they need as quickly as possible? And so, yeah, I do not ever see us completely abandoning a business that doesn't have, you know, that does not have recurring billing, because I think that that's the affordability factor needs to be there for tech.
Paul Zelizer 35:21
And I really appreciate you both bringing such care to a technology business, that's the primary users are 75. And above, not typical for a tech company at all, and thinking well about serving a population that is on a limited income, you know, large majority anyway, folks over 75 are on some sort of fixed income. I really appreciate you doing that. And do you have any suggestions, not necessarily just somebody who's over 75. But our listeners are very, very focused on serving marginalized communities and communities that have oftentimes been overlooked? As somebody who's thought about this a lot. Do you have any recommendation for a founder or a leader? In a company that's wanting to do that?
Chai-Lin Simmons 36:09
Yeah, no, I think that that's a really good question. I think that oftentimes, like, you know, we're thinking about what I would call sort of, you know, MVP, you know, there's a MVP product, your minimum viable products, and then sort of our golden standard product that we launched with, right. And so my biggest sort of, I guess, advice to a lot of entrepreneurs is that when you think about your MVP, that's a really great time to think about how inclusive is it? And also, when you're testing your products, you know, what does your outreach look like, right, because typically speaking, it's so much easier for us as entrepreneurs to reach out to our circle, to get help to get feedback. And we tend to sort of keep that circle fairly small, especially in those early days of the MVP side, where you're just launching a service or a product, to try to keep that circle small. So you can get feedback as quickly as possible so that you can advance you know, the technology work that you're doing, or the services that you're hoping to advance. And so it's our nature, as CEOs and entrepreneurs to try to speed up that process and to keep that circle small. And that's really actually the perfect time to actually think a little bit more broadly. And to ensure that you take the time to pause and think about, you know, are there additional sort of inclusivity and sort of other populations that I should be reaching out to, to sort of get feedback to ensure that I'm building a product that is servicing as many as we think of the product and service, that sort of outside perspective, that opportunity to sort of go out to those markets. It's really crucial for long term success, right. And again, I cannot sort of blame others for thinking this way. Because I think this way, right, you know, you want to get your products out as quickly as possible, you want to get feedback as quickly as possible. So to do that actually takes time. It takes some thought it takes time to structure that outreach, and also slow down the development a little bit to get to market. But it is also 100%, the best time to do it.
Paul Zelizer 38:16
Even though the actual like who's wearing your device, in the case of the mobile who's carrying his profile as somebody who's in the age range of 75, or above. Our topic today is about the sandwich generation. And and in many ways, that's a group, the sandwich generation being folks who are caring for and thinking about and have parents and elders, who they're thinking about as well as kids who are raising in the middle of a pandemic, right, that sandwich generation is key to what you're thinking about next ID and how to grow the company, and who you're focused on. Talk to us a little bit about how that works, the products being worn by one person, but the person you really are a person, you're really thinking about that person who's a silent caretaker, and is got a lot going on. And because they might be caretaking on both ends of the light spec.
Chai-Lin Simmons 39:14
Yeah, absolutely. You'll see us talk about you know, we're, we believe we're a technology company for the carrying economy. Right. And, you know, we didn't spend time talking about, you know, we're the, you know, technology company for the aging tech community or, you know, this, you know, even the sandwich generation is because we're thinking when we think about the economy in a larger ecosystem, as I've mentioned, and so central to that is that everybody has that sort of network circle that they're managing. And so the technology isn't really so much just about the actual layer of the technology itself. But it's about sort of the communications and the security and the peace of mind for not just that elderly person, but the folks who are actually helping that sale. Next Generation. And so we see our jobs as actually helping to better facilitate communications between the loved ones and to, you know, the caretakers, not just the invisible ones, but professionally, caretakers as well. I mean, we're, we're experiencing what seems to be one of the largest turnover, I think they're calling it the great recession or the great resignation. Great resignation. Yeah. And ironically, post COVID, what we're all seeing, even before COVID occurred, you know, the healthcare and home health care industry, for example, has one of the largest, largest turnovers in terms of the workforce, right? These are mission critical positions, you know, you want people who are amazing, qualified, loving, to help take care of your elderly, parents and your children. But it's also one that incredibly is a challenging sort of industry when it comes to pay in terms of the hours and how hard it is. And so, when we think about as a technology company, servicing the care economy, we're thinking about how do we make caring? Better, right, for not just the loved ones, but the person who's doing that care? How do we facilitate and better make their experiences as caretakers better, better facilitate their communications, better for brothers and sisters to coordinate and help, you know, take care of their parents. There's so much again, this is a category area, ironically, that people don't think of as a super sexy tech area. Again, I totally appreciate and I keep written bagging on cryptocurrency and NFC. And I don't mean to because I have myself love to do a little investment here and there on that, right, of course, like everybody else is totally interested in that. And fascinated by it. But this isn't as sexy as that. But it's absolutely crucial, because look at how many of us could use this technology. And said to me, you know, we really do care about sort of the sandwich generation, and what does it mean to have give you myself and, you know, the one and for millennials out there, that is, you know, silent caretakers, and even the, you know, the workforce that that now maybe has to take care of, you know, eight patients as an in home caretaker versus three before because of the shortage of labor? How do we give them the peace of mind so that they feel like they can better communicate with the ones that they're caring for overall, as well. And I think that's really absolutely important, because nothing is isolation, right? We're also the network together to ensure that this is a successful experience for everybody involved. So when
Paul Zelizer 42:42
you took over as CEO, the company was struggling a little bit and four and a half months in, where's the company now? And when you look ahead, obviously, tech company, there's patents and IP, not asking you to disclose that. But like, when you look ahead, what do you see on the horizon? For next ID?
Chai-Lin Simmons 43:03
Well, you know, public company, I can share with you sort of what we've been doing, I mean, it's probably fairly clear to a lot of folks, for the last four and a half months, we've been just sort of, you know, structuring the company in the right direction, from, you know, financials from sort of the proxy, or NASDAQ, and all of those things, right. And so, that's really where the focus has been, and, you know, in my sort of, not working, you know, eight to like six o'clock every day, not sort of the six o'clock to nine o'clock period of time, you know, I'm thinking about product development. And, you know, how do we get to this sort of experience that we've been sort of sharing with you sort of my vision of where a connected sort of experience and optimize technology utilizing AI can go. So as you can imagine, you know, in the last four and a half months, while we're trying to put the company on sort of the right direction, financially, and legally, and sort of listings and so forth, we're also spending a lot of time thinking about the products future, and what does it mean to generate even more IP to sort of facilitate and help sort of manage that? And then how do we quickly launch products into the market so that more people could utilize technology so we can feel like, you know, we're accomplishing our mission, which is to basically help people feel like they're more independent, and to for people to feel, you know, a peace of mind as caretakers, right. And so we're spending a lot of time, you know, four and a half months, both seem like such a short amount of time, and it feels like it's been forever. And so, so from that sense, and it doesn't seem like it's enough time, right? And sometimes there are days when I think 24 hours doesn't seem to be enough. I wish it was 28. So I could get that for extra hours into work on more products. And so I'm going to do deals and to do all the things I want to do. And so, you know, from that sense, it's been sort of an exciting experience. So we're pushing forward on straightening out the company from, you know, fundraising to, you know, NASDAQ work to shareholder work, but also, you know, last sort of visible is, you know, hiring the right people absolutely bring the best executives that we can that we think would be best fit for a company, right? We're a small, tiny company on the NASDAQ. We're a public company, which seems like it would be a big company, but we're 21 people, and a public company. So a startup with the ticker symbol really is what I've been calling it. And so how do I bring the type of executives who understand what it means to manage a public and big company, they have the capability to roll up your sleeves, and, you know, get down and get done things done. And those are, you know, those are really hard people to hire. But I feel very fortunate to have actually access to a lot of folks who actually have that sort of capability. So we're looking to hire those people. And we're bringing them on board already. And you know, so like, any company, you know, we're a CEO, we're really I'm just spending time looking at how do I, you know, bring more products to the table, help more people raise more revenue because of that, and hire the best people to make that happen. And so, and that's also on top of the financial stuff that one has to do for a public company, which is always more challenging than one would expect. So
Paul Zelizer 46:25
higher bar for sure. Yeah. What would you say? Like anything, you could share just about the personal experience of going from but you call these sexier bleeding edge, you know, companies, you know, billions of dollars and hundreds of 1000 employees to accompany that, you know, more, at least to me more explicitly impact are mission driven. I can see somebody could say, well, Amazon has a mission driven comm. I don't know, I guess you can make that argument, but I'm not buying it. Right. Amazon sells a lot of stuff. I don't know, right? Like, you know, anyway, it's much more tangible to me the mission, let me just say it that way to go from these big massive companies with huge budgets and hundreds of 1000s of employees and billions and billions and billions of dollars to let's start off with the ticker. Right? I love that. And, and to be something that just seemed it's much more tangible, who you're serving and what the impact is, but has been because we don't always in this economy, we don't always prioritize relationships and compassion and people who have medical issues and are, you know, more vulnerable. That's not historically who our economy is put front and center, as you've said, and you made that shift anything you can say about what it's been like to make that shift?
Chai-Lin Simmons 47:50
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's sort of an interesting. Certainly, yeah, it's definitely, it's certainly a certain level shift. And let me just say that, I mean, I will honestly say that I've been very fortunate. So I, when we talk about working on Amazon, I worked at Audible, which is a part of Amazon. And I will say that I, I feel so fortunate to work for it, the former CEO, well, still the leader of audible, Don Katz, when audible was public, and he still sort of manages audible today, today under Amazon. And I do see it, you know, it's a shift, right, from sort of experience. I mean, it was a completely compassionate business, I still remember to this day that like, people, somebody came to us and said something like, you know, I was listening to Audible, you know, but my wife went into the hospital with cancer, and I had to stop. And so I let my membership go, because we're so sort of helping his wife and so the months later, she's better. And then I came back, and, you know, he's like, I, I was so delighted, and so grateful that not only did Amazon, you know, Audible, you know, keep my membership, you know, and I believe that what we did was we actually just kind of extend and just gave him free, we found out what happened and just kind of kind of kept everything and gave it to him for free for a period of time. And also like he he's like, it looked the audible book was like exactly where I stopped, you know, listening to. And so when I think about every company that anybody starts, and wants to do, you know, a lot of us regardless of how big the company is big or small, you know, those are the moments that we live for, right? I mean, to this day, I'm a diehard, like Audible listener, I pay, even though I probably could have got a free membership, we pay every month because I believe in the mission of the company, and so big or small, I think, you know, people often take jobs that, you know, make their heart sing, or like, you know, they believe in the mission and they believe in the people that they serve. And so in a way, the shift into this company, isn't that different, you know, marketer at heart so, I'm constantly thinking about, you know, whatever position I take, I think about You know, who am I serving? And you know, is that person, you know, what am I doing to make their lives better? To your point, this has been very, you know, it's been very rewarding to shift to this company as CEO, because it is much more immediate. It is very explicit in terms of, you know, what our mission is and how it's impactful and understanding that, hey, like, our job is to communicate and help get people assistance and communications and help, you know, as quickly as we can, because the statistics tell us that, you know, getting people help within the first hour is so crucial for success, right? So it is so explicit in a way that to your point, working at Google, when it's a very large corporation with a lot of different sort of products and, and goals, it's sometimes can you can get lost, you know, you can drive to revenue and could do a lot of that work, but you can get lost a little bit on, you know, what exactly is the customers you're serving? And what's the mission of that? And then how is it impactful? It's been delightful in this way that the mission is very clear. The people we're serving, I think, clear, but also sort of expanding that definition of who we're serving, right, has been delightful and wonderful, to feel like we can do more to help more people. But yeah, that mission of being so clear is, you know, I'm grateful for that, because it's a wonderful experience, to feel like you're going to be out there putting products out there, that's gonna really change people's lives. You know, and that feels very, like a different experience overall, and it's one that delights me, I will still hold on to the fact that audible, I felt like we change people's lives, you know, we make people's lives better. And so I will speak for Audible Amazon, that, you know, that that organization still does a lot for a lot of people. So
Paul Zelizer 51:57
it certainly does. I don't mean to pick on Amazon. There's a difference in the tangibility like how, who you're helping, and the immediacy maybe is a better way to say
Chai-Lin Simmons 52:07
yes, absolutely, for sure. You know, and I'm, you know, and I feel grateful, because I learned a lot of what it means to be a compassionate and good CEO, from watching Don Katz at Audible. I mean, he's continues to be somebody I look at as and as a leader, as somebody who was a great CEO, who cared about the people who work for him, but also work with the customers that he served. And so, you know, I think we all have to have sort of our little heroes out there, as you know, people we sort of aspire to be like, and so certainly not go back to that and think, you know, who, who do I want to be more like as a CEO, and he's definitely somebody who comes to mind as well. And you know, and I'm still always looking for more people to aspire to be more like, as well.
Paul Zelizer 52:57
And I could hang out with you all day. And I wouldn't do that to you. And I wouldn't do that to our listeners, if there was something you're hoping we were going to get to in the interview, and we haven't gotten to it yet. Or there's something you want to leave our social entrepreneur listeners with, as we wind this down, what would that be?
Chai-Lin Simmons 53:15
Yeah, no, I would love to encourage folks who may have parents who are vets to please go ahead and reach out to have them reach out to the Veterans Administration, because they actually can get our product for free through the Veterans Administration. So if there's any doubt in their mind that they feel like their parents could use a product like this. In fact, they could get it for free, potentially, from the VA. And I would encourage them to do that. For the peace of mind. I mean, I don't want to do an ad here. But I also believe, from Mission perspective, that it's important for people to have that security number for the caretaker and the loved one. And so and it's nothing out of pocket for them, it's to the VA. So if there is an opportunity that they feel like they can use that, to absolutely reach out to the Veterans Administration for that. So awesome. Thank you
Paul Zelizer 54:05
so much. And I'm happy to do an ad, folks, go tell your friends who are to check this out, because it's a great product. Caitlin, it's been fabulous having you on the show today. Thank you so much.
Chai-Lin Simmons 54:17
Thank you so much, Paul.
Paul Zelizer 54:19
So that's all the time we have for today's interview. Thank you so much for listening. Before you go. Just one more thing we love, love, love. Listener suggested topics and gas. So if you have an idea, just go to our website, where printers.com go to the contact page, and it has a three criteria right there on the page. You know what we're looking for. And if you're go through and you read and you're like, Yes, I think this fits, please send it on in we'd love to hear from you. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these turbulent and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working on.