The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast is a deep dive into what 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing mean for prosthetics and orthotics. We’re Brent and Joris both passionate about 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing. We’re on a journey together to explore the digitization of prostheses and orthoses together. Join us! Have a question, suggestion or guest for us? Reach out. Or have a listen to the podcast here. The Prosthetic and Orthotic field is experiencing a revolution where manufacturing is being digitized. 3D scanning, CAD software, machine learning, automation software, apps, the internet, new materials and Additive Manufacturing are all impactful in and of themselves. These developments are now, in concert, collectively reshaping orthotics and prosthetics right now. We want to be on the cutting edge of these developments and understand them as they happen. We’ve decided to do a podcast to learn, understand and explore the revolution in prosthetics and orthotics.
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
Are we seeing a "pattern"? Breakdown of the Hanger acquisition of Coapt w/ surprise guest Blair Lock
The prosthetics and orthotics industry is witnessing significant consolidation and technological advancement, with Hanger's recent acquisition of Coapt being a prime example of this evolution.
• Coapt's pattern recognition technology transforms how upper extremity amputees control prosthetic devices
• Traditional myoelectric systems use only two sensors while Coapt's system employs an array of 18 sensors
• Machine learning algorithms decode neurological intent, making prosthetic control more intuitive
• Upper extremity amputations represent only about 20% of all amputations, creating a niche market
• Blair Lock, Coapt's CEO, built the company over 13 years without outside investment
• The "slow burn" approach to business growth can be necessary and beneficial in specialized medical technology
• Additive manufacturing plays multiple roles in prosthetics: from prototyping to clinical fabrication
• Regulatory requirements significantly impact the economics of prosthetic technology
• Myoelectric technology has potential applications beyond prosthetics: exoskeletons, industrial robotics, and other human-machine interfaces
Subscribe to the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast for more insights into the technological advancements shaping patient care.
Welcome to Season 10 of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast. This is where we chat with experts in the field, patients who use these devices, physical therapists and the vendors who make it all happen. Our goal To share stories, tips and insights that ultimately help our patients get the best possible outcomes. Tune in and join the conversation. We are thrilled you are here and hope it is the highlight of your day.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, my name is Joris Peebles and this is another episode of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast with Brent Wright. How are you doing, Brent?
Speaker 1:Hey, joris, I'm doing well. Man, I got to say this daylight saving thing. I don't know if you know about this, but it just messes with your circadian rhythm or something I don't know.
Speaker 2:For me it messes with my schedule because every year I think it's the States does it first or something. Then you guys all change and then all my appointments end up getting wrong and then, yeah, I'm always like out of it for like I don't know two weeks or something. Then we in Europe also do it, or something like that. It's just, oh God, I hate it Every year. It's just so annoying. So, but we didn't, like you know, kind of nearly miss not starting our podcast today, because we don't know how the world works.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, the schedule thing is a real thing. So not only the daylight savings, but I remember just a few weeks ago I was in a different time zone and I set the time that I was supposed to be and I thought I set it for Eastern time, but I set it at Central time, which pushed my schedule back, you know. So I totally missed the appointment because of the time zone that I was in, even though I was like trying really hard to be conscientious of that. But it is what it is. So, yeah, there you go. We now have more hours of daylight, but it's dark in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I still don't understand. Or we should all do it together, or something like that. Okay, so what are we going to talk about today? This is the beginning of a new season, right?
Speaker 1:It's the beginning of the new season and, yeah, I mean I'd love to just reflect a little bit on the previous season, but then just share with you a couple data points that I find very interesting. You know we've added a few more countries, so we're up to 113 countries in the world, so it just goes to show that there is a hunger for education around orthotics and prosthetics and a curiosity around what we do. Some of the highest performing episodes was the very first one that we did, which was a day in the life of a prosthetist and orthotist, and then actually the second one too why do a podcast around the digitization of the field of orthotics and prosthetics? And then what's interesting is I don't know if you remember Diego. We talked about high flow with him. He was a technician for Bionic. He I mean I don't know how old his episode is, but his episode is in the top five and I don't even think it's a year old, and so I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:But here's the funny part, and I rib him sometimes we had our first listenership from Querétaro, Mexico, which is where he's from right, so you know probably like the parents, in-laws, you know all the things.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was funny, but he so that was fun. But yeah, so and then, just for you know, a lot of people ask well, what does a typical month or seven days look like? This week, last seven days, we've had 307 downloads. For the last 30 days we've had 1,050 downloads and the last 90 days 2,650. And then all time we're almost to 27,000 downloads. And for a niche little industry, it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy. It's also we're just doing this for us, essentially, and the fact that other people like this, and then I think it's really cool, it's really good. We didn't know if we could find anyone on this thing. We didn't know if we could find anyone on this thing. We didn't know if we could yeah, really, you know, find an audience or something.
Speaker 1:So the fact that some people are listening is really really good, yeah, and you know, I recently went to the Academy show in Atlanta and it was pretty interesting. I was able to talk to a few people and I had multiple people come up to me and say that they really appreciated the Prosthetic and Orthotic podcast and they loved the format, hearing the stories, and so I think it really resonates with people. And I think the other thing is, you know not that it's—when we have a guest, they're obviously our guest, but we don't shy away from some of the hard questions too. And I can honestly say that my mind after interacting with some of our guests has changed.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, when we had Josh from Limber on, I really didn't know how that was going to go, where it was going to go. Are they actually doing something that's clinically relevant? How are they getting there? And Josh did a wonderful job presenting their focus problem, what they're trying to solve, how they're trying to solve it and keeping patients in the center, right. So Josh was an engineer, but patient outcome was critical and clinical relevance was critical and I got to admit that my mind was changed on what Limber was doing and I think that's neat. So to have that discussion, the discourse, and be able to kind of open your mind.
Speaker 2:I hope that's what some of our listeners will do as well, as they're coming along the journey Totally dude, I think always our first and second episodes are going to be more listened to, of course, because then people will stream in one episode and then try the first two. It's kind of bad because then we're kind of learning it, so maybe they're like not as good as the later on stuff. But I love the high flow is really specific and I love that you're learning as well because of this. I mean, I love that you're changing your mind, because that's what it's all about. Just say, oh, I used to think this and I think this plus this, or I think you know Y instead of Z. I really like that, dude. I think that's really good and I do think people learn from this and even if it is just different perspectives, you know, if they completely disagree with everything we're saying, you know, maybe then it's just like a different way of thinking about it than they have. So I think that's really really valuable. I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know, especially in the world that we live in, and maybe it's just the US but the civil discourse or the ability to sit down with somebody that may think different than you in a myriad of ways is starting to get lost and so many people. Their answer is I just disagree with it. But they just disagree. It's like they just shut down and won't listen or be a part of. Hey, let me put myself in their shoes. What are they thinking, what are they doing? And if we can help that in any way, specifically around some of the stuff that's coming down the pike in prosthetics and orthotics, I think it's a big win around some of the stuff that's coming down the pike in prosthetics and orthotics.
Speaker 2:I think it's a big win. Yeah, totally agree, totally agree. Okay, so first off, do we have a sponsor? Do we talk about the sponsor?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We need to do that real quick. Yeah, who's our sponsor?
Speaker 1:So Structure is our sponsor, for they actually ended up the last three episodes of the season. They were our sponsor and we just thought that it would be really cool to bump them into the beginning of this season. They've been good to us and we just believe that scanning is foundational to getting a good patient outcome, and I know that you say the same thing, but this is a super budget-friendly option to get going with something that is unknown and that is very applicable to the prosthetic and orthotic thing. You want to have a known dimension, known scan, and I think structure is doing all the right things to make sure that we get a scan that's worthwhile using and ultimately creating a great patient outcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally cool. And I think the really unique thing is about structures. They're really seeing this as kind of a Lego block that fit into other stuff. So if you want to have 100 stores and you want to put your huge scanning solution all the Nike towns or whatever if you're Nike, your your your huge scanning solution all the Nike towns or whatever if you're Nike. Or if you have a network of 10 clinics and you want to make it really easy, uh fast for your staff and your patients, kind of foot scanning solution or whatever it is you want, I think this is a building block of technology you can build on top of or build your solution on top.
Speaker 2:I think that's the really exciting bit. I mean, to use a fully fledged scanner would also work top. I think that's the really exciting bit. I mean, to use a fully fledged scanner would also work, but it'd be really expensive per scanner and to use, like you know the rough, the, you know time of flight sensor, whatever, that kind of thing would be really really, really difficult. So there's kind of like a, a middle of the road kind of thing where it's the right price point and it's it's accessible enough for you to really build. Either you know you want your own little weird solution you're going to invent, or you want to do something for a big network of stores or something. Yeah, I think it'd be totally the thing I'd turn to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and just like in our conversation with Ravi the CEO, I mean they spend this is their life right. The software side and vision side of this and most of these other people it's a side gig for, and so that's. I think one of the things that's attractive to structure is like this is what they do and they have really talented team doing it and it's accessible. So I think all those things make a great combination.
Speaker 2:That's super cool, all right, really good, and so I know you want to talk about some news, some stuff that's been happening, some stuff that you find exciting in the world of OMP.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, after Filament Innovations got bought by Proteor, I was like huh, I wonder what the next shoe to fall is. Right and pretty much right before the Academy meeting, hanger made an announcement that they were going to buy Coapt. And it's an interesting acquisition, because Coapt, they are into pattern, have these algorithms, sensors and such that can predict human movement and get data from it, and so a lot of people will use this for some of the hands, like the psionic hand that we saw, the open and close, that sort of thing. But the neat thing about a pattern recognition is that instead of just two sensors, they have a network of sensors together and you can actually train the computer. That's a signal that it thinks that you're doing so. The reason why this is important is if you only have two sensors, you can pretty much only do one thing at a time Open, close and then. But if you want to rotate your wrist, then you have to send what we call a co-contraction, so two signals to both sensors and then you have to send another signal to rotate the wrist. Well, whereas with co-apt you can do hey, this is my closed hand, this is my open and this is my twisting. This is the way that I want to move the thumb and there's no signal to create the next thing that you want to do, and I think that is really neat.
Speaker 1:And I think the other thing that's interesting about this acquisition and again, I know nothing about all this, it's just pure conjecture right? So Coapt did not have a billable L code until just about a month ago and so now that they can bill it and it says so, now it actually becomes an asset. You know it's people that's not veterans or workers' comp that can get it. It's actually covered by our government insurance, which is Medicare, which then other insurance companies will follow. And the reason I think that is very interesting because now it becomes an asset and there will be more utilization of that. And Hanger has a whole upper extremity program where they actually have specialists that fly around the country fitting these upper extremity because they're fairly rare when you're looking at the scope of people that have upper extremity amputations and we'll get into that in a second. But I think the other interesting part of this do you remember when we talked about Equal acquiring TASCA, which was the hand?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all I know.
Speaker 1:So what's interesting is TASCA was distributed and again, I don't know anything about this, I'm just outside looking in Distributed by PhilHour. Well, philhour got bought by Hanger and then Equal bought Tasca, the hand which kind of takes it out of Hanger. So I think Hanger knew they had to move quickly or that technology was going to get pulled off the market by a competitor, and so I think they did, and I think it's a good move. Not only does it add to their portfolio of things, but it also allows them to vertically integrate some of the upper extremity stuff which is typically the most expensive types of prostheses to make. So to have this technology in and be so far ahead of the competition, I think is a very great thing.
Speaker 2:So guide me through this a little bit. So normally, or it used to be let's say, imagine a couple of years ago, I get this myoelectric arm right and what would I do? I would be able to make a muscle twitch to make something happen, right, right, but I'm super limited. Is that it? I just have like three gestures, or I have three, or is it about fine-tuning that gesture? Is it about now I can pick up, just not a mug, but I can also pick up like a crystal glass or something, or something really delicate? Is it about both those things is about, like you know, more gestures and more ways of control, or even a third thing, more different ways of controlling. Or is it more about more precision control or learning faster, or kind of all that? What is it? What are we talking about here?
Speaker 1:I think it's all that, and I think that what you, the way that you describe it. So just imagine so, um, when the typical myoelectric sensors, what we'd say is you put the one sensor is like if you were to close your wrist, that goes on the belly of the muscle on the bottom of your arm, say below your elbow, and then you put the other sensor on the top. So if you move your wrist back and forth, you can feel both of those muscles going. So what traditionally happens is if you want to open your hand, you have to fire the muscles on the backside of your arm. If you want to close your hand, you fire it on the other side and then, if you want to do something else, go into a different gesture. You actually have to move your hand in a funny position, hold it and then listen for a click and then you can move it via those sensors again. But it's not a natural motion. So to twist your wrist around, it may be that you make a gesture and then you have to fire the muscle that opens your hand and then that twists your arm around. So it's slow.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and you have to think about it With co-apt. What you do is you have, instead of two sensors, you have an array of 18 sensors that go across your hand. And when you train this and so you can say, hey, this is how I close my hand, and it looks through the array and says this is a closed hand signal. And then you say I'm going to open my hand and it looks through the array and says this is a closed hand signal. And then you say I'm going to open my hand and it says this is a open hand signal and I'm going to twist my hand and you do that gesture, and so it knows that this is the twisting motion. And so what's what's great about that is there's there's still delay just because of the electronic, but you're not having to do these unnatural motions to get the action that you want.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, so it's faster, more intuitive, I guess. But also, yeah, I can imagine walking from one place to the next and having to plan that you're going to get to a door and then have to plan to do, you know, a twitch, a click, a wait, and then you open the door. Yeah, that could not be cool, that would be super uncool. And then now doing it much more intuitive, much, you know, natural, I guess or controlling this thing in a much easier way, I think I'd be really benefit.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah, yeah, and you wouldn't believe this, yoris, we might be getting the CEO on in just a few minutes.
Speaker 2:That's super cool, so we'll keep on going. We'd love that. But the next thing is about this co-op thing. What do you think? Do you believe just you that you know there's two ways that Haren could do this? They could have this new product. Well, three ways really. They could roll out the new product with all the Hanger people internally, or they could continue and use their power, let's say, to roll it out much more in the world, or they could, you know, completely take it to themselves and take it their own little private thing, Only go to Hanger for this. What do you think they'll do and what do you think they should do?
Speaker 1:That's a good point. I didn't even think about bringing it all internal.
Speaker 2:It could be. I mean it could happen. I mean companies didn't do this. Ge, an additive, did this with the Morris Technologies and with Concept Laser. It essentially brought a lot of it internal. But you know it could happen. I mean, usually strategically people argue, you know, argue against this, unless in the electronics business or a lot of like, these guys do this all the time. They're just like oh, your whole company is not a feature on my phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think the interesting thing about all this is the prosthetic market has now become international and Hanger is not international. I mean I guess they kind of are now through some of their manufacturers, like a Philauer, and maybe some of their other acquisitions. I can't think of it offhand, but you see all this international money coming into the US and the US is interesting because you know the US was the market to get into because things paid, and I still think that's the case but a lot of that money would stay within the borders of the United States, and now that money is leaving the borders and fortifying some of these other international players. So you know that's an interesting dynamic that we won't know the consequence of, or you know good or bad. What's going to happen when all that money gets pulled off off the shore because, like a company, like an equal, uh, oser, autobock, you know now they're only having to. They pay rent and payroll, um, and the rest of the money can get pulled out of the United States to do whatever research and development line, the coffers, whatever it is, and so it's just an interesting inflection in history for that and I think Hanger has to really take a look. And how are they going to play ball with some of the technology that they're acquiring? Because the international market is important and it is important to diversify, especially when you have a product like a co-apt. That is a niche of a niche. So just some basic numbers is roughly 20% and it could be less.
Speaker 1:Of all, amputations is an upper extremity amputation and most of those are partial fingers, so like when we had Chris Baschek on and Joel Soberg on as well, or Jeff sorry, I said Joe Jeff Soberg on as well partial hands, or Jeff sorry, I said Joe Jeff Solberg on as well partial hands. And so the reality is it's a niche within a niche. In a niche, you know. So not everybody's going to get electric types of prostheses and such. So it's an interesting. I would think that you would want to maximize market share, but if you have a technology that's only yours, it's a great way to not only lower your cost for providing the device but actually provide the device, which runs that money through your hands multiple times. So it's a great question. I'll be very curious to see what happens. I mean, in your experience, you know, not necessarily in O&P what do you see people do when they do acquisition of some pretty incredible technology.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It really depends, and it depends on what you consider your market to be, not even what business you're in. What do you think your business is and how do you see yourselves? You know you see yourself as the world's greatest technology company, kind of like Apple and Google no-transcript. These companies tend to kind of have these more absolutist kind of goals and because of that they'll buy features or maybe even teams. Right, so maybe they'll buy a team, uh, not even care about their revenue, but care about how that feature incorporates into their next hardware platform. Or, you know, they'll buy companies just for getting a team that can do the better retinal scanning on the phone, whatever those kind of guys and they tend to keep it for themselves and integrate it into a larger product offering.
Speaker 2:Game studios are an example where traditionally game studios have been buying companies to strengthen the whole platform the Xbox, the PlayStation because they make the money off of, of course, being the bigger network with the more accessible games. And the logic used to be that if I would have 500 games and you would have 200, I'm going to make a billion dollars more in selling my platform if you will. And now people are saying more like, oh, wait, a minute, there's all these PC users. We can just sell the game, port it and make money off of those guys too. So it just also changes over time, depending, depending, even in like a really competitive, cutthroat business like games, uh. So it really does does depend. And in this case I mean, I always think, you know, spreading costs about as many people as possible is is much more kind of the way to go. So I would always advise companies to say, like you know, can we develop this as an independent solution? Because yes, there's one thing of vertically integrating it, but if we vertically integrate it and build out this technology, you know we could actually have more tendrils throughout this industry. You know, we can not only make money if people walk out of a hangar, in a hangar store, but also if they walk into someone else's store, we make money.
Speaker 2:So to me, that would always be the bigger approach, the better idea. You know, let's make money off of every person. You know, if we become the standard interface for all the myoelectric prostheses in the world, that's very exciting. You know, uh, the, the, that would be a really exciting kind of market. Uh, to to dominate that market and to dominate the niche and you can, might maybe even dominate it forever, right, yeah, if you're saying it's a niche of a niche of a niche, yeah, and then you'd be the operating like the, the operating system for for that niche. Well then I said, like that's much more powerful than just having this as a hanger product or just to see this as a way to you know, now we get that we make, you know, 10 grand off of a, my electric prosthesis. Let's find out how to make like a recurring revenue segment off of the maintenance or whatever, or the software. You know, I think this is much more attractive long-term to see it as a product extension.
Speaker 2:But it also depends on how companies are organized and how they reward themselves. Let's say, if it's a family held business, it's going to think a little bit different about the future than if it's a company that has to show quarterly profits. If it has investors on board, well, any kind of subscription revenue is going to be really exciting for them, you know. Whereas if they're publicly traded, maybe having like you know, maybe taking this into their like AI play, you know, building five companies together and then using it as a there, you know, we have the AI of processes might actually be more valuable to them, and just the valuation rather than, you know, extracting any kind of significant revenue off of this.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of things at stake here. I mean, there's personalities and stuff like this, and this seems like it has actual value for the customer. So I think that that kind of customer-driven innovation you know, if you don't, if you move to a new area, and you could, you know, pick some local clinic, some chain that's local and looks really good, or Har, but you know that Hangar has this prosthesis software and they have the knowledge of fitting it and they're the experts in this, and that's also really valuable, I think, for people to go. Oh, I'll go to them because I trust them wherever I move in America, for example, right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's an interesting point that you bring up, like rolling up stuff software-wise, and I think you just kind of sparked a you know like what else can the technology be used for? So if you take a look at some of the latest codes that got approved, obviously the COAPT got approved for upper extremity, but what about some of this other stuff? Does it actually apply to maybe some of the exoskeleton stuff, the lower extremity bracing, upper extremity bracing, that sort of thing? And now you're sitting on, maybe it's not the hardware side that is important to you, but it's actually the signal processing and that sort of thing. The software side of things, uh, becomes more interesting when it about intellectual property around. What do you actually do with different body signals? And I think that's man, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head with that is. It's not just the hardware. The head with that is it's not just the hardware, this is, this is 15 years or maybe even more of looking at how, what patterns people move in, and there's a lot of value there, especially when somebody else bringing something to market exactly.
Speaker 2:And if you look at like, for example, what's going on with co-bots? Right, we want workers to collaborate with co-bots and work next to them. Right, a co-bot is a safer robot essentially. Yeah, it doesn't just whack at 40 kilometers an hour, you know an arm somewhere and needs to be kept in a cage. Now it can work alongside people. We're working together with sensors and we're working together in a much more sensor driven environment.
Speaker 2:On top of that, you know, we know the exoskeleton thing is really interesting for the military, it's really interesting for uh, you know, a lot of um, you know mining and other kind of really really heavy on the body kind of industries. So how do you control these things? What are you going to do? You know there's a joystick all the time, um, maybe, but there could be smarter ways of controlling these devices.
Speaker 2:And if you, you know, if you could stitch together the, the, the, my electric sensing slash, control, slash, development, uh ide kind of uh ecosystem, you could also make money off of that software for all those other devices where humans interact with robots. You know, if you look at that kind of thing, a human machine interaction way, then it could be really interesting. You know, in a car plant. You could maybe want to do this. You know I'm not saying that that really focused on that, because it's very far away from where they are. But if they could just sell that same software to the Hanger employee, to the Hanger customers, to new customers and to Toyota, that could be a very, very valuable thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. It definitely gives Hanger the opportunity to diversify into other markets that are not in orthotics and prosthetics and other rehab stuff, but they also are in some of the automotive stuff German automotive companies doing specific things that interact with the body for that, and they make a lot of money off of it, and so it's a great way to de-risk and diversify your portfolio. So I think that's a great point, uris.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. And then, um, I agree, I agree, I think, yeah, I'm really interested to see this and, uh, it really is also to see what this market is going on. So, um, okay, so all the stuff you want to talk about. Well, what are you been up to?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know AMS was a. It was a great show for me, like it was. It was great to and that's additive manufacturing strategies for somebody that didn't listen to those few podcasts, and that's an event. Well, I'll let you explain it, yoris, and then I'll hop back in.
Speaker 2:AMS. Essentially it's an event in New York ended January, beginning of February, a couple of days, three days. It's about strategies in additive manufacturing, like 3D printing. So it's about, like you know, if you would like to start a startup that relies heavily on the technology or you want to cater the market, sell the market, be in the market, that's a really good event for you. So you know, if you're an OMP practitioner that wants to use additive, than IOP or the academy, all these events are probably better for you. But if you want to, if you're, really deeply into additive.
Speaker 1:It's a really good event to think to look at things from, at things from the helicopter view kind of way. Yeah, and so when I was there and watched many of the sessions, a couple of the sessions were very interesting to me From a contract manufacturer side if I was to take off all my other hats, right, I'm a partner in Advanced 3D and we're a small contract manufacturer, but we do some really really neat things. We help people design, we help people 3D print, and the way that I describe it is it just kind of feels like, hey, we've got the skis at the top of the mountain and we're getting ready to go down and we've got a couple options to make. Do we keep on bootstrapping on the financial side of things? Where can we look for some other money? Where we have some stuff on our roadmap that we just can't accomplish because we've made some decisions that we're not going to leverage ourselves? Or do we look for an investor angel investor, whatever it is to inject some capital and get some of this stuff moving, knowing that it's a good thing for our business?
Speaker 1:And one of the? You know you had a couple of VC people, private equity guys, on there and you know it sticks with me because they pretty much said if you can do it without us, that's the best way to do it, which I thought was very open, honest. But then they were like, hey, if you need us, you need us. Just know that it's going to be a grind. But then you had Jenny Chen come on in the medical track, which was really amazing, and she said you know, for some of these small companies, there is funding out there and there are different mechanisms that you can get funding. You just have to get a little creative.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things that I'm particularly excited about is the Orthotics and Prosthetics Foundation for Education and Research. They have gotten a couple fairly sizable sums of money to distribute out in the form of grants and micro grants, and so there's a lot of options there. So if you're a clinician, a student or a small business that is looking to do something in the orthotic and prosthetic space, this might be a great way for you to look at. But then there's other things where you have options to. You know it could be a competition, could be a startup thing where you pitch something. There's a lot of those that happen around the United States, really around the world, where you can get in front of people and talk about your business, and so that's one of the things that I think I'm going to start to be more intentional about is and it's not just about the money, it's about the network, and I think you tell this all the time is your network is really your net worth. Who, who will trust you? What's that?
Speaker 2:I've not said that, but I think, I think, I think it's really important to know.
Speaker 1:Well, but you demonstrate it every single time, like when I just remember. So this is a great example. I saw you interacting with another person and you're like, hey, who can I introduce you to? I can take you to whoever you want right now, and that is leveraging. You know who you know with somebody that wants something or needs something or just wants an introduction, and that is, I think, super important and so, but it's not always about just the funding right, it's some of the connections and who knows who, and these degrees of separation that you know you're just one meeting away from meeting somebody that could literally change how you do things, and I think that is really really important. And so it's, yes, there's funding in some of these mechanisms, but there's also people that will mentor you. They might have gone down the road before you, they may have some ideas or some inroads or some other people that they can introduce you to, that you can do business with, and I think that's something that I'm just going to be more conscious of you know moving forward.
Speaker 2:It sounds like cool, it sounds like a lot of fun. I think it'll be a really different way of doing it, but I think it's good to point out that there are different things than just dilutive funding and there are different mechanisms out there. Maybe you've never raised or talked to a VC or whatever. Do prepare yourself, because they're very different creatures. Let's say, other investors work very, very differently as well. But I think, yeah, I think trying that stuff and learning that new skill, I think it would be really really very valuable. I think yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think that is what I'm excited about. You know, moving forward with Advanced 3D is it's become. We're just trying to be more intentional about what we do. You know, yes, we've got some machines, but the the, the real thing that I think that we do that's special is what we, how we can put it all together to get you something that's manufacturable. So, regardless of materials, regardless of printer or what have you, we have a good sense of not only the design side but the manufacturing side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's really specific. I mean, I think I remember when we were at Shapeways, for example, we could never do orientation of parts. We couldn't. We were just set up to just spit the parts in and nest them as efficiently as possible. And we had a lot of parts so we could nest much more efficiently than if you had very few parts. Nesting is, by the way, putting the part in the printer in the most optimal way, but we cared about volume right, so we can make it cheaper for everyone. That was our whole thing, right. That shape was in the beginning. Of course now it's a very different animal, but at the beginning it was just like, okay, let's get a lot of parts in, let's figure out how to orient them all the best way possible, and then we just do everything we can to make the whole technology cheaper and then more people could print more things right. I mean, later I worked for materialize, where we're much more like hands-on and giving people advice and and looking at how you put that part to get the best result. Now, of course, you're never going to get that low pricing if that's your attitude, you know, if the parts are so high touch. But even those pretty competitive services.
Speaker 2:I think you know there's a very different approach. I think if you look at all these service businesses, you've got Endeavor 3D, which is like we're doing a contract manufacturing. That's what we do, you know. Meanwhile we have Centavia, and Centavia is saying we make heat management solutions for defense. Basically they have the same kind of business, but if you look at how they do their business and who they're talking to, it's completely different. And other people are saying no, we're a service, just throw any part over the wall and we'll take care of it. So I think how you position yourself, how you see yourself and the specific way you treat customers and set up, yeah, there's a huge difference. I mean, you might as well sound like you know, printing different book or books are all different even though they're all the same. You know what I mean. It's a very, very different way of of orienting.
Speaker 2:I think you know the the. I think that what I like about an ncd is a business is that you're so you're completely you could do an idea to production for prosthetics. I don't think other people can't right all these other businesses. We just talked about excellent services or excellent contract manufacturers, but they don't know how to omp, as you will right. They don't know what's important, they don't know where that part no, that's risky, I wouldn't that. And you guys will say that because you're like no, there's going to be way too much load on that part, or that part makes more sense if we use a carving machine or whatever. You know that kind of logic, you know and you understand that. So I think that to me is the is the real benefit of really that, that inside knowledge of that industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, and I think you're absolutely right. And there is more of a trend to the contract manufacturers. It's a race to the bottom. How can I make your part for the cheapest to get you out, hey Blair? What just happened? So Blair just popped in, did yeah, and who's Blair?
Speaker 2:Oh man, Blair is the CEO of Coapt. Oh my God, how did you do this, Brent? Well, congratulations, Blair.
Speaker 3:Congratulations, thank you, thank you. Yeah, brent texted me here a few minutes ago and said are you good? And it's funny, brent, it's. You know. Am I truly available for you? Yeah, I am. I'm here, happy to chat with you.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's nice man. Okay, so talk to us about this deal. First off, it must be really how long have you guys been working on this business? And now it must have been a pretty intense couple of weeks for you guys, right Weeks maybe a couple of years is probably a little more accurate.
Speaker 3:Well, so let's go back to the beginning. I'm not exiting, although the traditional financial sort of the business ownership exit, yes is indeed true. No-transcript. 13 years ago, almost 13 years ago exactly, we took us a little over a year to get product launch on the market, of course, spun up, and we were started as a I won't say traditional, but one might say a spinoff or a technology spin out from research and work we had been doing at what was then the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, ric, now known as the Shirley Ryan Ability Labs. Myself and some other co-founding partners were academic researchers, scientists, engineers there worked on this technology that what we know Co-App does is it's bread and butter. We out-licensed that technology from the institution, from the hospital, and kicked off the company in 2012. Really turned that out into the product. The first product sale for Co-op was late in 2013. And that's the rest of the rest of history.
Speaker 2:as they say when is the value for Hanger in? What Co-op does? What is it there from a Hanger perspective? What are they really buying? I mean, we know what you guys. I know already a whole 30 minutes, right, what do you guys do? I know nothing. If you're new to our podcast, I know nothing. But so what did Hanger buy? What are they really interested in? And what are they really interested in and where's the value for them and their customers?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a few things to answer that. Number one our people. So we have a pretty strong team, both ourselves and we have a subsidiary company, lti, out in Boston, and the people that we have in both of those groups are just fantastically talented in the device engineering research in our space or in O&P. These are individuals that know the industry, passionate about the industry. They understand that device development and technological enhancement, innovation squarely rooted in this space, is important. And so I think, number one, the talent is just immense. Nobody else has what we, as these two companies, have.
Speaker 3:We are squarely focused in a niche of upper extremity powered prosthetic devices and I want to very quickly say and this isn't a knock on anybody else, but we do not make anything that moves right. So we don't make prosthetic hands, wrists, elbows. Lots of great people out there make those. There's a plethora of very capable, well-engineered prosthetic hands, wrists, elbows in the market. We don't do that. So primarily, you could peel back the layers and from an engineering standpoint, we are an embedded systems and a machine learning algorithms company, so we're very good at making electronics, circuit boards and specialty electronics that are designed for human wearable use. That's quite important Making electronics for a circuit board that goes in a calculator is very different than a circuit board that walks around with somebody, just in its nature of design and production and everything that goes along with that. So we're very good at that.
Speaker 3:Our competencies from an engineering standpoint in O&P, in embedded systems, specific for human wearable, and also the algorithm, so where we spun out our early research was focused on what we'll describe as decoding neurological intent. So for upper limb power prosthesis wearers, what they want that device to do, so this human machine interface they can think about, they can intend for that prosthetic hand, wrist, elbow to do something. Our algorithms are specifically designed to take the biopotentials, so measurements from the body, mostly muscle signals and these are a mess of muscle signals in modern era and we decode that using pattern recognition. This is a machine learning type of algorithm that's specifically tuned for upper limb amputees and we turn those decoded informations into telling the prosthetic devices how to actuate. So all the way back to what does Hanger get from us, we are incredibly innovative in that we have a technology corner of the upper limb world that is very unique and so it's advanced in the sense of neurological decoding for control of devices.
Speaker 3:Period, you could extend what we do in a fundamental standpoint to powered orthotic devices, other areas of rehabilitation, science and actuation, and so where they see us is well integrated with other acquisitions they have done so. Let's look at Phil Hour, for example fantastic engineering, clinical fabrication team. Their depth is incredible. What we add to them is something they don't have, which is a really high-tech electronic data processing, machine learning, ai set of resources Long-winded, Sorry about that, but it feels fun to get all that out there.
Speaker 2:I think it makes a lot of sense. Do you see, or do you think because of course this is going to be new in the next couple months do you think you're going to become like more of a you know, kind of a systems integrator for all the stuff going on to hang on all the products they want to be, or more kind of like a you know, a Microsoft Windows for prosthetic device control, if you will, or, you know, beyond prosthetics, more, more human-machine interface for all sorts of stuff? Where do you think the main focus is going to be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think on the near term it's status quo as is. We have a product line that has grown consistently year over year, and I think the engine we're now joined with helps us achieve more of that. So more of the same, and that's certainly the key focus of our people and our vision. Everything else you mentioned is, yes, an iron we have in the fire, and I think this new opportunity of partnership allows us to accelerate, invest in certain areas, partner with other entities that will allow us to really advance some of those ideas. So being a centralized command center of more advanced devices.
Speaker 3:Look, we're not going backwards in technology or on the clock, and our vision is to be a group of people and a group of assets that works on that cutting edge, that bleeding edge of what's going to come out. There Are arms and legs and other devices going to need, like you say, kind of this Windows, Microsoft, Windows idea. There are more things coming online that we're not going to make Sensory feedback systems, implantable sensing systems. The devices themselves become more advanced. So we do see ourselves well positioned to be a bit of a systems integrator in that sense.
Speaker 2:Okay, that sounds like super valuable, so I know you've been waiting to answer lots of questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so before Joris was completely stunned that Blair came in, we were talking about you know, and we were talking from my perspective at Advanced 3D. You know, we're a small company that was founded. We've made some decisions not to be a leveraged company, but now we're also to the point of, like boy, it would be nice to have some of the toys to make some of the things come to life. That's on our roadmap. How do you as a founder for the last you know and now and then make it obviously a decision where you have definitely more options or an engine like what you described to help some of those roadmap stuff come alive? So I guess, more from a selfish standpoint of advanced 3D is like we're navigating this now and it's like we're. We feel like I was telling yours like the skis are at the top of the mountain and we're pointing them down and we're like we have a couple options to go and we just don't know where to go. So I'm just wondering how you navigated that over the last 12, 13 years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Brent, I mean, I feel you I'm laughing because I know the feeling so well and there's really two big parts of that. When I joked about, you know, having a busy last couple of years, about two or three years ago, was when we really started to truly believe that that was the next necessary step for us is that all of the things we had on the roadmap from the early, early days were somewhat nebulous and we would pursue and execute on things that made sense, you know, that maintained profitability, that allowed for growth and was. The joke is, you know, you start the company with a business plan and you immediately tear it up right. Well, that's quite true. But somewhere along the way the nebulous roadmap became a lot more defined and achievable, where you think, you know, we kind of do know what we're doing. We've had a number of years under our belt for the legal and the regulatory and the IP and the marketing and you think, okay, this is a real business. So that starts to hit you in a difficult way. Some days you're like, ooh, this is a real business. So that starts to hit you in a difficult way. Some days you're like, ooh, this is a real business, it's kind of scary. So the roadmap becomes more clear and then there becomes a little bit more anxiety about that. So how do you execute that instead of just saying, well, we'll take it as it comes or we'll re? I shouldn't say that that sounds a little loose. Effectively, you in the early years, you modify the roadmap as necessary, right, so it has to be a little bit agile, and that's the whole thing about a founded small company. You can stay agile, but that tipping point of where your skis are at the top of the mountain, that's the scary thing. How do I find the right team to ski with right or group to go forward with? What are those resources to really execute a more secure, more real plan? And that's where we were about two years ago. So that set us out into some decision making.
Speaker 3:Do you seek outside investment? We've never had outside investment. We've never taken on debt. We've gone slowly because of that. It really took us let's call it 10 years to get to a point where we say, okay, this is a healthy company, Our financials are very healthy. Now we have the ability to be a little bit in the driver's seat of what's next for us. So, yeah, you evaluate the options we take on outside investment? Do we look for groups that are rolling up? Do we look for a strategic partnership who's going to help us with the vision? And it allowed us to say what we wanted a little bit in these discussions. So it did take a little bit of time as we got out there and we talked to different parties, evaluated them right. This is a two-way street, of course, so we wanted to do what was right by our team, our people, our technologies, our vision. So I know exactly exactly how you're feeling right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, well, I appreciate that. I mean, and that's good to know, and I think there's also. I think what else is interesting is right. You know people, people see the news and it's like oh, co-op sold the hanger. It's just an overnight success and, and that's not the case, you know, it's been a slow, slow burn, slow grind and slow is okay and when it comes to some of this medical stuff, slow and steady is going to win the race and and it's probably a lot slower than what you expect. So those are, those are some of the perspectives that I'm at least making myself feel better about the process.
Speaker 3:I I love that you say that slow is okay and I'm going to rip that off of you. I have a lot of chats with people and especially in our space, in our field, slow is okay and I go further and say slow is necessary because we too often we young founders and startups are, you know, anybody that's looking to achieve success in something new or novel in this space. We're influenced so much by what goes on in just regular everyday, everyone else's social media, and you can look at companies that grow, they get investment and they, in order to get investment, you might need to promise investors things that are going to happen within two or three years that just in our space are not possible. So not only is slow okay, slow is probably necessary for success here.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering a little bit about how you see. We've seen all these electronic devices. You kind of talked about this already. We're seeing now cell phones are getting much more powerful. We're seeing sensors getting much more powerful. We're seeing this exoskeleton market, which is really exciting. How do you see the interplay between the consumer electronics market and OMP? Essentially, because it used to be that there's completely two different silos, but you guys are one of the first companies really that are integrating all this stuff, along with some other ones. How do you see that? Is OMP going to borrow a lot more from established consumer electronics? Is it going to play a lot better with your iPhone, and how do you see that kind of future?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. I think that dance has been ever present in our space. It just sort of wanes in and out a little bit. That's been top of my mind for my 20 years in this field and it's always that understanding we borrow from the consumer marketplace. Where we can we benefit, where we can we try to influence, where we can be. Top of mind for a lot of people is that some of the tools used to develop these electronics, the software systems, the applications, the backend, the connected health platforms, the AI could go on.
Speaker 3:What's really nice about a lot of the direction of consumer widgets is how they're being developed and where we're borrowing a lot of.
Speaker 3:Where we're getting a lot of benefit is in just being able to use tools. So it's not so much that the physical devices themselves are physically integrated, it's that the way we can accelerate our own development because of the development tools that have, you know, been advanced by a lot of those consumer devices. Now I also think that things like communication protocols or inter-device communication protocols and digital networks and IoT and all of these other buzzwords we talk about, those are also becoming more, I should say, easier to develop interconnections with, and so I look at our next platform that's under prototype development here and talk about the power in it. So it's being built with, you know, multiple core, all these power of sensors and processing and connectivity that I would have never imagined possible five, six years ago. Most of the chips we're using are, you know, yeah, from mobile devices or wearable watches and things like that. So there's definitely a key or a tighter benefit now than ever before between consumer electronics and what we're going to be able to do and see.
Speaker 2:And another thing I think Brent mentioned earlier when we were talking is that in a lot of cases the O&P market isn't very international. Like service companies tend to be local, but also even device companies tend to have more of a market in one area or one regional area. Manufacturing companies definitely a lot of times have a regional focus. There's only very few companies, very large ones, that have a truly international, and even they're based kind of in Europe and the States essentially, Not even necessarily Latin America, not this emerging Asia with hundreds of millions of people in it. You know, do you think, do you see the market get more international and do you see you guys having an opportunity also becoming more international, Maybe saying, hey, you know, do we sell to the Philippines? Or hey, we don't really have anything set up in Germany. Do you see that's a possibility as well? Yeah, I definitely do.
Speaker 3:Do you see that's a possibility as well? Yeah, I definitely do. I think this is key for us as an opportunity for growth and expansion and really helping getting our technology to benefit a lot of areas we're not currently in. We have over the years, again kind of slowly, developed some international distribution partnerships. So we are in a number of international areas partnerships so we are in a number of international areas. But I think the penetration of that, the market awareness, that's where there's work to be done.
Speaker 3:We've been sort of busy running on our own the resource that we've been able to self-fund, so our team is only as big as we've been able to reinvest our earnings, if you will, and so we have had to in the past kind of pick and choose where we want to do that. Every new international opportunity is a significant jump in the resource to manage the distribution channel, the support channel, education. You know this tends to be a new type of thing for a lot of these markets. So there's a heavy resource lift on each one of those and I'm looking forward to what's going forward and what's going to be possible.
Speaker 1:So we can't go too far though. Yours and I talk a lot about additive manufacturing and you guys actually very early on in some of your kits Leon, in some of your kits really adopted embraced additive manufacturing for creating some of your prototypes and even some of the dummies and that sort of thing. Can you just share a little bit about that, how you guys landed there? But then what do you see as the future, as we're starting to integrate, I mean I know that we've done some shoulder disarticulations, we're doing cable routing and all that stuff as far as into the upper extremity, and so you get this really sleek looking prosthesis. But specifically for your stuff, because there is quite a few parts, I think that clean look is important. Where do you see it going? So it's kind of the history of you guys going into additive manufacturing, but then where do you see some of that stuff going?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love this because really I'd break that down into two areas. One is in the actual widget we make, right? So the widget we make has plastic parts, it has fabrication aids, it has enclosures. It has little protectors on certain cables because of the nature of what we do and the classic engineering trade-off of when you are at the volume of where does injection molding make sense versus? You know, in the past it was even less options in additive manufacturing. So to date, and especially in the early years, it made sense for us sort of economically to look at additive manufacturing for our product enclosures, our fabrication aids, demonstration tools, so things we make like evaluation units. Or if we go to a conference, how are we demonstrating, how are we making a handheld thing that we might make 20 of those? So obviously we've leveraged that in a big way Prototyping. We're an engineering group, we need to understand, get this stuff in our hands. So, very classically, we use the additive manufacturing in a lot of those classic verticals.
Speaker 3:A whole other side of this is, as you mentioned, well, where's our technology? Meet with new items in clinical care, so sockets, right. Really you guys are very versed in this and do awesome work Wire routing, electrode placement. So we make a systems with electrodes and each one of those has a little mounting hole. We love the future concept of saying, hey, the digital workflow should just include what we do.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the beauties about the type of electronic technology we have is that there's a lot less specificity on where the electrodes should land on the body. You could take a scan and just have the software plan out where the electrodes should go and pre-route them. You could have additive manufacturing build in the wire channels, the holes, so that the mounting of all the electrodes is sort of sight unseen. We love that idea. I think that's upon us now. So there's that whole camp of where we see additive manufacturing.
Speaker 3:Clinical care and the intersection of our stuff is really cool. I think not only can we make it look awesome, but as far as saving time clinically, taking some of the guesswork out of it, taking some of the education out of it, these are systems that should just be put on and ready to go. That's what the benefit of the machine learning is. So yeah, it's a big part of what we do. You know we again joke that we don't make anything that moves, but we do have mechanical engineers on staff and they're doing a lot of solid works to print.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then one thing I'm wondering, like the, the, my electric stuff has always been kind of like the Rolls Royce of this uh, not affordable for a lot of people and even first world economies and stuff, and definitely not affordable for, like a lot of people in developing countries. Are you seeing price points come down? Are you? Or do you expect like there's going to be some magical thing soft robotics, cheaper sense I don't know what to really make these things much more accessible? Or do you think it is going to stay for a while longer, Kind of this kind of gold plated solution for those who can afford it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great question. I think there is some progress there. I'm not that well equipped to answer this in a in the broadest sense and just as a by sense of definition, myoelectric when, when the field says myoelectrics, we often throw in everything from the devices themselves. Right, the myoelectric hands, there is these power actuated devices that are controllable by myoelectric inputs. Right, that's a whole camp of myoelectrics.
Speaker 3:You know there is an economic element to this because of a lot of those devices the cost of manufacture at the volumes that are produced for our field do dictate some of the economics. With that I do see some interesting activity where device manufacturers are looking to, I think, see their devices used in other areas industrial robotics, industrial automation, human interface testing and that's good. Maybe that in the long run does have some helpful impact on the cost of myoelectrics in our space. When it comes to the actual myoelectronic electronics, so the electrodes, the processing system, maybe I think we're going to see we're on the cusp of some change here. So in this last cycle of coding you may be aware that there was a new code established, l6700, that effectively covers and addresses what the co-op technology is. So neurological intent to coding in a myoelectric system. We're not quite sure what the piecewise, stepwise impact of that will be in overall economics of this space.
Speaker 1:I think that's an interesting point, and yours. I think it's also important to note that when we're talking about any of this stuff, we're talking about a very, very small volume and highly regulated. So you have batteries close to the skin, you have things interacting with the skin, and so when you look at some of these devices, you have things interacting with the skin. And so when you look at some of these devices and you say, well, that wouldn't cost much to manufacture, well, you're right, but it costs you a lot to get through the regulations and all that stuff specifically for the US. And so when you're talking about those styles of small volumes, along with the regulation burden it starts adding up very, very quickly all the biocompatibility stuff. And so it's. I mean, I don't envy that, like any of that stuff with the too much regulation where you're actually interacting with the body and such. I can't imagine some of the bills that you've had to pay over the years to get some of that stuff going and then go back to the drawing board because something didn't pass or whatever and then have to pay it again to test it. I don't know that it's just unique to the American market. I think the European market's also pretty difficult in some ways. But these upper extremity devices and you see it kind of glorified on the news $120,000 prostheses, whatever it is, you know, and it's like, and this guy in his basement created it for $5. Well, the guy in the basement is not using technology, he's not regulated, he doesn't have insurance, is not using technology, he's not regulated, he doesn't have insurance. There's nobody certified involved.
Speaker 1:Are some of these things super expensive? Yeah, but I don't think any. Nobody's going out and buying a yacht with this stuff right now. We're the market's just way small, and so I think that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:When I hear the cost stuff, especially in the news, it's just a really difficult thing to put a number on, because to do it the right way is expensive and that's just it. And somebody has to bear that cost and it's the insurance companies and the companies that are developing themselves and they're having to dance with. You know, are we actually going to you know what testing and how much are we going to pay? How much does that eat into our overall margins? And then wrapping that up into a price that makes sense is a difficult thing. So that's just me on my soapbox a little bit with the upper extremity stuff. But I can't imagine all the stuff that has to be gone through for the financial stuff. And then when you take a look at your actual margins, it's like man, we spent a lot for a little, a lot of times, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's spot on, to be honest, and I mean there's so many things. And this goes back to why it's taken us even so long to get where we are. It's because the earnings are modest, even with the price points where they are, and we constantly have to reinvest in, you know, keeping our engineers happy and our clinical staff and our education and support. These are all important pillars, because it's one thing to build something or borrow parts and pieces and get it out there on a cheap sense, but we really can't do a disservice by not supporting or not having something released without the right amount of supporting documentation, educational materials, you name it, and that's a big investment as well. Continuous investment, awareness, teaching, courses for credit these are constant things that cost the company money in order for it to be a successful deployment and successful functional outcomes of the technology. We can make it cheap and just leave it on the sidewalk for someone to get, but boy oh boy, it wouldn't work very well, and that's a big part of the equation too.
Speaker 2:We totally solved this before you came on, because the obvious thing we thought of was for the office workers, all these people working for cobots, people just generally interacting with devices that market is huge, everybody working and requiring any kind of human-machine, robot, arm slash, exoskeleton interaction. This is a good platform for keeping people safe and allowing them to efficiently interact with the robots that surround them could be worth a lot more in the future than it has been for the last couple of decades.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't disagree with that. We have had to. I happen to have my I don't know how well this is. I'll read this out for people to see Our vision statement. This is on a nice co-ed mug. It's got my cold coffee in it.
Speaker 3:We've had to have a laser focus, and again I'll show that. So our vision statement has been human-machine interfaces that benefit humans, and so for us we've had to make sure we could focus our resources on doing our thing in technology space, in the machine learning space. That had a direct benefit for people, and I see that. So if the benefit category is keeping somebody safe in a factory, that's great, but what that really has said we don't do is use our developments for other things that are fun. You know, gaming or computer interfacing or driving a car around or flying a rocket around. Those are cool and awesome for sure. As an engineer I can geek out about all that stuff like anyone. But we've had to have a relatively laser focus on doing what we do to benefit people. And it's a little bit tongue in cheek our original statement that hey, there's a lot of human machine interface stuff out there, but ours is actually intended to benefit people.
Speaker 1:And that last part, humans benefiting humans, like what does our technology do? And then how do we leverage that with a bigger engine. I think it all goes along with and supports what we said. So thank you so much for coming on last second, last minute and hopping on and sharing.
Speaker 1:And then I think we'd love to have you come back on and we can talk a little bit more about history of Co-Opt and that sort of thing, and then we can check in, you know, in a few months and just how are things going, and hopefully you've got a couple other things that you can share with us and then we can go from there. So this was great Encouraging to me too as a small new company.
Speaker 3:Well, good, I hope so, and honestly, anybody else that's that's going to listen and hear that and be in our position. You know, it is exciting, it's. It's not a leap, it's a. It's a fun departure, it's a quasi departure, it's really sort of hey, I get to do more of what I've worked so hard on, and that's what I think a lot of us really strive for. So that's where I'm at today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I think that's an interesting point when you talked about, you know, hanger, and your first thing is it's the people, the people that work with us. That is our asset. Yes, we do hardware. Yes, we've got some software, but our people made it.
Speaker 1:I think the other thing that a lot of companies and I don't think they're overlooking it anymore but somebody like you that's been in the business for 12, 13, and longer, as your PhD stuff and all that happened is you have learned a lot about the O&P market and the knowledge that you've collected is super valuable with the larger scope of what's been successful.
Speaker 1:And so you also see that with a company like Proteor buying out Filament Innovations, mike started his company with Filament Innovations in 2014, 2015,. Got into the prosthetic market a little bit and has understand what does it take to sell into it, how much handholding does it does? What does the customer service look like? What does excellence look like in providing that? And that, as a leader, as a CEO, is a valuable thing to the acquiring company, because they have a lens that other people haven't been looking through. So I think that's also, I mean, why I'm excited for you, but also for Hanger is that they're going to have a perspective that you bring that is not related to hardware, software, the stuff that you've built, but it's the knowledge that you've gained over the years of experience dealing with this interesting little niche of a group of people called prosthetics and orthotics.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, I, I appreciate you saying that. It's funny. I hope they appreciate our narrow or our, our very specific or unique purview on this. In the early days myself, my co-founder we would say some of the best things we did in that slowness was to talk with our eyes and ears right, and that's advice I've given other young or other startups or co-founders is you can learn a lot about how you should be, about where you should be, things you don't want to do, things you do want to do, by just kind of observing and listening and seeing people interact. And taking the time to do that was really helps you position who you need to be, what's your identity and where's your value going to land in the space. So you know it's ironic today because I've yapped so much but I didn't used to talk this much.
Speaker 1:One other non-serious question, but maybe a serious question when is it time that you go from a very casual thing, like when you go to the academy meetings or the AOPA, to where you actually have to put a sport coat on? I don't own a sport coat. I don't know that I will ever own a sport coat. I don't know that I will ever own a sport coat. I own some hoodies everybody that's getting acquired, some of my friends and such. I'm like bro, what happened to you, man? You're in a sport coat now.
Speaker 3:That's a great question. It's a chicken and egg. I don't know if that, if it's like you put that on to try to peacock yourself, or is it more of like okay, I'm being taken seriously, I should take my I don't know which it is. To be honest, when I started I didn't. I was, I didn't mind like shirt and tie. I sort of felt that was fun. I grew up around, let's say, my family and my father was good role model in the fact that you know, you go to work, you'd be presentable and you wore a shirt and tie and then when he wasn't doing that, he wasn't wearing that. I always did that and the ties sort of have gone away over the years for our generation. I there's that joke saying you look good, you feel good, or you feel good, you look good, whatever, Something like that. I don't know. That is a great question, but, Brent, if I see you in a sport coat, I'm going to know things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to know things for sure. When I saw yours in a sport coat I was like holy moly, you must be leading AMS, or something.
Speaker 2:No, I wear a coat like 10 days a year. All the time I'm just behind the Zoom it's like in the Zoom minds, like everyone else standing at home in shorts.
Speaker 1:Wow, joris, did we go off the rails, or what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did go off the rails a little bit, but I think it's a wonderful podcast generally. And then, yeah, I think we had a wonderful, wonderful time. Great that Blair could just jump in with us. This is really, really, really great. So thank you for coming so much. Thank you so much for coming, Brian, Thank you guys. And thank you for being here as always Brent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was good and yeah, this was a good surprise. So glad we were able to make it all happen.
Speaker 2:And thank you for listening to another episode of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Podcast. Have a great day, thank you, bye.
