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The Case For Making Wearable Medical Technology More Visible · The Interline Podcast

• speaker-0: Hey, welcome back to the Enterline Podcast. We've talked about wearable technology on this show before, and we've certainly done it on the edit, which is our Tuesday show between me and Grace. We've covered jewelry and accessories plenty of times in the past as well. What we haven't done, I don't think, is talk about where those two things cross over. Where wearable technology in the most literal and necessary sense, technology that someone has to wear for a medical purpose. meets the kind of self-expression that's made jewelry and accessories one of fashion's fastest growing categories, according to the BOF State of Fashion report for this year. Now, I live a privileged life in that wearable technology as it exists for me is optional and additive. Right? I could wear a smartwatch, which I do, or a pair of smart glasses, which I don't for a range of reasons, because I think they would do something for me. that something would be a net positive in my life and because I'd retain the option to take them off again if I wanted. And on that basis, I also get to make some pretty easy decisions about the technology that goes on my body. I can determine on a case by case basis whether having something on it is worth it because it provides functionality that offsets the inconvenience of having to wear that thing, charge it, and so on. I have listened to the Virges podcast pretty religiously for years, well before starting the Insuline podcast. And one of the hosts over there has what they call the theory of wearable bullshit, where technology has to overcome a series of penalties by dint of being a wearable that lives on your face or your wrist or your top pocket, and it manages to overcome them or not by providing functionality that's either worth the overhead of putting it on your body or it isn't. So in my case, I wear my Apple Watch every day because it does a couple of things that are really valuable to me. It unlocks my computer when I sit down, because I run it in closed Calmshell mode attached to a studio display, and it unlocks my car. I just tap it on the wind mirror and I'm good to go. That's well worth having something on my wrist that, you know, subjectively looks pretty nice. I know Apple Watches aren't for everybody. And it's only mildly uncomfortable if I leave a metal strap on it all day. Fairly easy trade-offs. I also wear prescription glasses to read. Drive, use a computer, watch TV, or I would do the latter if I still had time to watch TV, but running the interline and having three kids hasn't exactly been conducive to that. We don't think of glasses as technology, though. But they are still a device that I put onto my face to accomplish something, seeing clearly. And they're also a device that stands between me and the person that I'm talking to. So they become a device that I care a lot about the aesthetics of. Right in the middle of my face. So they serve a function, but they have a form as well. Now, all of this is kind of necessary preamble to the central premise of today's show, which is that there's a huge audience that either already wears necessary medical technology or needs to, where the functionality is obviously incredibly high, because it does something essential that you need, and where there's also no real option to take it off and just go back to living without it. But in A lot of those categories, the aesthetics of the device, have played a very distant second fiddle for a long time. And social stigma for medical devices is attached to both the look and the purpose of the technology to an extent that sometimes or often leads people to resist using it or wearing it. The the penalty becomes very high, even if the functionality is literally essential. Today's guest, Yenny Atienan, has built a business on addressing this. She's the designer and the founder of Deaf Metal, which creates jewelry and safety solutions for hearing devices. She lives with hearing loss herself, so she's an everyday user of wearable technology in that literal sense and that very different kind to the optional light touch stuff I can choose to wear. It doesn't matter if I forget it. And she's also got plenty of experience, both first hand and through her communications with her customers, of understanding and working to dispel some of the stigma that exists around hearing devices and doing that through creative design and through innovation. Yenny's personal story is interesting and I encourage you to go and read about it, but this is the interline after all. So I want to talk to her as a a business owner, as a fashion designer, and as somebody working directly and orthogonally with technology in a way that I don't believe we've covered on this show before. And in a way that I suspect a lot of our listeners don't often think about. I've chatted to Yenny before this, so ⁓ I figured this was gonna be an interesting conversation, but it still goes to some places even I didn't predict, and I think you'll get a lot out of it. So let's roll. Okay, Yenny Atianen, welcome to the Interline Podcast. speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: I'm excited to have you on. There's a whole bunch of things that we can talk about today that we don't get to usually talk about. I think we're getting into some interesting space here across wearable technology, design, ⁓ and a whole spectrum of other things. So the one of the first things we do with these shows is we ask our guests to explain what their typical day-to-day looks like. some people's are easier to guess at than others. ⁓ so for example, ⁓ a CMO. Officers, their job is quite easy to understand. Yours is on the trickier end. So you run Death Metal, which is a design studio that produces jewelry innovation and safety solutions for hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bone-anchored hearing aids, or B-A-H-As. As far as I can tell, you're the person doing all the designing there. You're also Deaf Metal is a direct to consumer business in the sense that you ship jewelry to more than thirty countries from ⁓ a single location in Helsinki. As of this year, you're also now running a B to B program where you sell into audiology clinics to offer jewelry training and support directly at the point that people either get diagnosed with hearing loss ⁓ or fitted for hearing aids. and you're also either in the middle or at the end of fundraising. Which is a challenge all on its own. So when you sit down in the morning, tell me what you're actually sitting down to do. How much of your time is still spent designing jewellery and how much is dedicated to running and scaling a company? speaker-1: Okay, so ⁓ this is a very funny question because when I really start to think about it, I don't have a typical day anymore. ⁓ I started this business when I was doing just design and I was an entrepreneur, doing some some entrepreneur things which were quite minimal. But but mostly I was focusing on designing and innovating. And now ⁓ when we have been growing and As as you as you said, we we ⁓ have this financial round going on at the moment. I don't have a typical day. It's it's sometimes it's a circus. At the same time when I'm I'm still designing and I I would really like to design more, ⁓ but at the moment I need to focus more on the business development side. And I mean, not the innovating and and developing products, new products. It's not just about the products when you are developing something new for your ⁓ company, ⁓ I think that the Decidable Clinic program, which is the new product that we offer for B2B or B2B retailers, that's like a new innovation also. So so my brain gets attracted by new things, by developing new things. But it depends on the day. It depends ⁓ it depends on the time of the year what we are living in, like right now after summer. ⁓ we have the most we have the biggest audiology audiology fair ⁓ every October in Germany. And we are starting to prepare to de to that. It's our third time this year. and that's ⁓ purely B to B exhibition. And so we are getting ready to do that. ⁓ the financial round which we actually post ⁓ during the summer because we noticed that we can actually get get get along the the rest of the year and the rest of the year is starting to look so good. So we're gonna we pause the the financial round and we're gonna open it up with a probably with a slightly different valuation ⁓ in the beginning of next year. But about what the typical day, it's you know when you're doing the designing, you're doing the the company developing, you're doing the You're answering to the questions about shipping. You're you're doing you're doing logistics, you're doing product control, we're doing we're opening a huge campaign, which is ⁓ like a movement campaign for hearing aid users, ⁓ which is only working in in social media and where I'm I'm I'm basically the the chief on that. Well, that was my idea, but thank God I don't do everything by myself. So so I'm it's it the days can be a mess, but I try I really try to to get things done. I think that I mean like to to be able to control the mess. That is probably one of the most important capacities that and and talents that you mu you you really need to have. Because if you if you can't even even though you have a lot of i ideas and a lot of things to do, if you can't control that mess, then you're in trouble. speaker-0: Very true. I think if if you wanted to if listeners wanted a bit of insight into what it's like to run the interline, controlling the mess is probably a good a good way to describe it, I think. The ⁓ the second thing that we like to ask guests to do early on is to define something. Now, sometimes it's a bit of a a trap in that we ask them to we pick a simple sounding term that has a lot of complexity baked into it. Now, this time though, I think the right call is to do something a bit more ⁓ speaker-1: No speaker-0: specific. And I think it's to make sure that everybody listening to this or reading the transcript is working from the same understanding of the different types of hearing loss that exist and the different kinds of hearing devices that are in the market. So I think like a lot of people, you know, ⁓ my knowledge is stuck on the idea of hearing devices as amplifiers. So, you know, they make signals bigger and louder, which is what hearing aids do. But then you have implants that do something mechanically different. And in each of these cases, the object the person wears is different in form and function as as a result. So can you help define those different devices for me, what they do, and tell me how you approach designing for them so that people can picture what we're talking about. speaker-1: ⁓ yes, okay. So I try to be very simple. ⁓ I think that people know most the behind the ear hearing aid, which is called ⁓ BTE, behind the ear hearing aid, and there is also this RIC hearing aid, ⁓ which looks the same and basically they work the same. So so so they amplify the voices that you hear. they amplify them into your ear because you still have something in your ear that can be amplified. So basically ⁓ th those devices are helpful if when your hearing is getting w ⁓ worse ⁓ and you need to amplify it a little bit more. ⁓ RIC device, which looks the same, has actually a little amplifier inside the ear. And that there is a little wire that goes into your ear, so there is a little amplifier which ⁓ catches the the which amplifies the the voices a bit more. ⁓ in the other hand, the other behind the hearing aid, ⁓ it has the microphones in the back, like in the RIC device too, but it doesn't have an amplifier inside the ear. Like my my my hearing eggs, they have an amplifier. inside. Well a little loudspeaker is a better word. It's a little loudspeaker that has ⁓ that is inside the ear. And then you have like ⁓ for example this cochlear implant ⁓ which is attached in your ⁓ in the back of your skull ⁓ with a magnet and that is working electronic like with electronically it stimulates the nerve the hearing nerve and then we have Bone anchored hearing ⁓ age which is which is transferring the the then you have a really bad hearing already. So so or you have been born with it. So it's it it kind of vibrates with the vibration it ⁓ transfers the the the the noise or the voice into your ⁓ hearing system. In your inside your into your cooklea. speaker-0: Perfect. Now that helps, I think, to understand the function. It helps to understand the functionality. I'm still I what I would what I would suggest as well is for the audience to take a look at some pictures of what the different devices look like as well. Because I think that then helps to understand what it means to ⁓ to innovate on the jewelry and accessory level for them from the safety level and so on. The the deaf metal website is a good ex example of ⁓ how jewelry fits to each of these. The follow-on question I wanted to ask was so a few months ago, I hosted an episode with two senior folks at Visage, which is a French company that's aiming to disrupt the eyewear industry. ⁓ I think we're gonna come back as we go to some of the parallels between glasses and hearing devices. But the key thing that conversation has in common with this one, I think, is people probably don't realize how Heavily consolidated and monopolized these industries are. So eyewear and hearing devices. ⁓ I did a bit of background research before this show. And I think there are like five companies that control around 90% of the hearing device market, with the biggest ones being Sonova and Demont or Demon. If you were trying to launch a competitive hearing device company, I would now say to you. How are you going to do that? How are you going to deal with their supply chain and materials monopolies and so on? Instead, what I want to get into is how those kinds of heavily consolidated industries can end up with homogenized and very flat ideas of design and direction. Because based on what I've seen and based on what you've told me in the past when we've spoken, all of these companies approach positioning, marketing, and design of hearing devices through the lens of discretion. So they make products that are designed to be as invisible as possible, with the objective being that nobody knows that you're wearing one. You're designing with the opposite aim. You're designing to make these devices beautiful and personal instead of mechanical and discreet. So why do you think the hearing device industry ended up in this direction with this idea that you're making devices to disappear, how that became the default? 'Cause I would have expected there to be at least one company as a pure outsider who would have butt trend and said, No, I I I don't want to minimize this. I want to make it visible. But then again, I don't live with hearing loss, so I don't have any first hand experience. And I want our audience to get a perspective from somebody who knows this from the inside. speaker-1: Okay. So in general, I think that the hearing aid manufacturers and the whole hearing aid industry has been focusing on the audiology and engineering ⁓ more than into the design because it it is still quite new. It is developing like really, really fast, ⁓ the whole technology in hearing sector. and we call them, as you you just said about those. five companies. I would say that there is like 10 around 10 big companies around the world. ⁓ I would say that they are we we call them as the big voice. Their job is to focus on on the hearing aids and not into the jewelry part, not into the design. I had a very inter interesting ⁓ conversation that the reason why they haven't been fo focusing more on the design ⁓ they have at some I was just like one year ago I was in a hearing aid museum in the Netherlands and ⁓ I I found their hearing aids that bigger companies had been doing but their their profession professionality their knowledge and their whole ⁓ like their main business is the hearing aids, which is based on the engineering and audiology. And that's why they haven't been doing that. They they offer safety solutions in every hearing device you have, except in the behind the ear hearing device and the inside the ear hearing device, which would actually need need the safety hole or something's some safety system the most. They the only thing they provide for the hearing aid aids are is the safety. ⁓ Kinda some some kind of ⁓ like like ⁓ part to for people to be able to keep the hearing aid safe. But no jewelry. And I I I met a I met one ⁓ MIT ⁓ one guy. I assume that he's ⁓ mostly in charge of the public relations in MIT. But We had a very interesting conversation when I was trying to tell him what I do for my living. And because the what you know, the the biggest innovation is in the world has been invented in MIT. And how I was trying to explain that to him was that, okay, so I'm trying to fix the problems that your your what your professors did. That they they kind of they solved the problem in many cases, in many, in many devices. Like in hearing devices, you solve the problems. in hearing aid sector, but you totally forget the user. And and once you have some aid, which is this is a very good example. ⁓ I I and ⁓ eyeglasses are a very good example of that. So they are originally they are aids. People need them to be able to use better. But eyeglass industry, they understood that because it's in the the aid that people need It's going to be in the middle of people's faces. So they need to take into consideration how they also look like. And the same is same should have happened to hearing aids because we all know in our heads, if if I'm trying to if if somebody says a hearing aid, you think about what you think about is the beige colour, huge hearing aid, which is like ⁓ like really ugly looking. And this is this was also in my head when I got my first hearing aid, and I didn't know how it was going to look like. And also, hearing aid sector, hearing aid manufacturers, since the beginning, I think that they have assumed that bad hearing is something that people are going to feel ashamed about. So what you see in that. ⁓ sector, what you see in in in that in hearing us in in here in hearing aid manufacturers ⁓ products is that they are doing them smaller and smaller all the time. And when they are doing that, they are giving directly or indirectly the kind of message to the to the people that actually need to wear those aids that there is something to feel ashamed about. And the the this is like a paradox and this is something that I want to change. I mean like I in the end in the end I don't we are not selling just jewelry. I am trying to make a more like a cultural change into this whole thing that e when when for example, when I got my hearing aid, I understood and death metal dis death metal didn't exist then. I understood that this little piece, this little fucker, is going to be a part of my body. For the rest of my life, and probably my hearing is not going to get any better. It's going to get worse. So because that little piece is going to be a part of my party, it should look like me. It should be a part of me, my identity, my personality. And that's how death metal was born when I when I did the first ⁓ jewelry on them. speaker-0: So I think what you said there around the device makers focusing on solving the problem through technology and ignoring the user is the instructive bit because if we think about the potential market. So you're, you know, you're you're fundraising, so you'll be you'll be used to using terms like total addressable market, damn, like that kind of thing. it seems like that is very tightly wound up in that sort of cultural stigma. that you just talked about, that idea that hearing loss is something to be feared and ashamed of. And I looked up some global statistics as part of the research here. And they're pretty sobering for the people suffering with hearing loss, but pretty optimistic for a company like yours. So according to the World Health Organization, something like less than one in five people who would benefit from using a hearing device actually use one. And the estimate is that the average delay beh between a person becoming a candidate for a device, i.e., becoming aware that their hearing is is is fading for whatever reason, and actually getting a device is between seven years and a decade. So there's there's a huge lag in there. Now, your solution to that seems pretty clear. You you you know, your contention is that if a hearing device becomes if it looks like you, to use your previous answer, then people will wear it more often. I I do wonder a little bit though if maybe there are there's some sort of pre selection going on in the sense that people who want to buy aftermarket jewelry for their devices are maybe the ones who are already past that stigma and who are already comfortable enough to make it visible. 'cause that's what's behind the accessory the size of the accessories market for phones and things, right? Like people buy extra adornments and cases for iPhones because they like their iPhones, they think they're an expression of them and they want people to see it. Explain to me what you see as your kind of total market. Explain to me what you think the typical hearing device user feels about their device and what you think the prospect is for changing some of that stigma. speaker-1: Yeah. So we don't have a typical customer post office. Our customer can be a five year old ⁓ child or ninety-five year old man. And we're not talking about just jewelry. We have talking of it a little bit bus business hook. If if if I'm talking about selling arguments, we have two. The other one is aesthetics, which is more obvious. That you can transform your hearing aid to look like more like an earring. But the other one is safety. And when I look at the products that people that end consumers buy from our webs web store at the moment, they are more safety products than they are jewelry. Just the fact that the safety products they look like jewelry. speaker-0: So people who aren't already familiar, ⁓ people listening to this who aren't already familiar with hearing devices, what specifically are the the safety ⁓ features? What what do you need from a safety point of view? What does that do? speaker-1: Okay, so a safety product can be a safety ring, for example. It's something that you attach. So what so how dept metal is constructed? You always need a jewelry fastener. And each each hearing aid type needs a little bit different jewelry aid ⁓ jewelry fastener. So you have the jewelry fastener so that you can use dept metals. And then we have safety rings which you attach into the holster, into the little jewelry fastener, and then you attach the safety ring into your ear. The amount that people lose their hearing devices is terrible. And if you think about I mean, if you think about that, for example, my hearing aids, they are like 5,000 euros the pair. Well, okay, these are so expensive already that that I can track these down. You know, from my with my phone. But but if you lose your hearing device, it means that if and if you don't have any in insurance, ⁓ you need to buy another one to get along, you know. And so so people are very interested in buying safety products like safety rings. ⁓ the other very simple one is ⁓ just safety safety chain, ⁓ which is we have like ⁓ invisible lengths, if you can say that. They are so short the lengths of the chains that people can't even understand that they are attached to your ear. So basically they are little earrings. ⁓ and a year ago, At OIHA, which is the the Audiology Fair in in ⁓ Germany, we launched ⁓ safety clip. ⁓ and the main ⁓ audience for that was older men and young children who doesn't have piercings in their ears. Yeah, so so purely safety safety products. But of course we have, I mean, ⁓ the jewelry business is growing madly. ⁓ even though the the price of silver and gold has gotten up thanks to the world crises. But but still people are more and more interested ⁓ into investing in personal jewelry and they they yes and so so we have we have a lot of customers who are returning customers who don't buy the the fastener parts anymore. And they buy only the jewellery. I mean ⁓ they pr buy bolder and bolder jewellery all the time. speaker-0: And which of those do you think so the style argument then is the one that starts to address some of the stigma? Because I'm aware I I derailed your answer slightly there by asking you to separate ⁓ the the jewelry from the safety. So the jewelry side of things is is where the the line between people feeling ashamed of hearing loss and hearing devices and people wanting to accessorize and express themselves through them sits, right? speaker-1: Okay, so even though it would be a safety ring, which would which is gold or silver or rose gold or whatever is shimmering in your ears. And ⁓ you don't you don't usually wear ⁓ any any earrings in your ears. Let's take a let's take this kind of ⁓ what is it? Like let's say you meet somebody, an older woman Who has a golden safety ring or ring, you don't even know that it's a safety ring. It's just ring in her ear. And you you also see that she wears hearing aids. Okay, so visually that ring is the is there. It's it's seen, you know, and and you see it. But when you see that she is also wearing hearing aids, the the point that like How easy it would be for you to start talking about the hearing aid with that person without that ring. So this is something that we realize we have been realizing that when you have something in your ear, is it a safety ring or a or a chain or whatever that is kind of underlining the fact that you also have the hearing aid? It gives kind of conversation point. when you're having a conversation with somebody who sees that you are ha you know, people with like like I wanted you to have video on in this interview because I I want to see your face. I want to read your lips when you talk to me. ⁓ and with other hearing aid users, it goes the same way. They cannot be behind your back when you talk. It's like I'm I'm really focused on the people who are talking to me. I I'm lip reading. And also when when this happens There is this psychological thing that ⁓ that when when I talked about the like the conversation point, it's when the other person without the hearing aids, he can say to the person with the hearing aids that what's that? It's really nice. What what is that earring that you have? It's really nice. And then the person can say that it's not it's not just my ring, it's ⁓ it's actually my hearing aid jewelry. speaker-0: Perfect. Okay. I think I think that makes a bunch of sense. And you you mentioned jewelry being ⁓ a a growing category, but also one where there's some pressure on the input cost side of things, the gold and the silver. I took a quick look back at the McKinsey and Business of Fashion, ⁓ state of fashion for this year. ⁓ and they named jewelry as the fastest growing category when you look at it by unit sales. It's growing at something like four times the rate of clothing. ⁓ And you mentioned before that people are becoming increasingly comfortable with buying jewelry for themselves as a as a mechanism for self expression. So it's not just gifting and so on. So this feels like the conditions are perfect for what you're trying to build, right? It seems like something that you can really tap into. At the same time, it seems like something other brands will also be trying to tap into. Now, there's a brand called ⁓ Outsy, I presume it's pronounced or Audi here in the UK that sells similar jewelry. But in much more expensive price points. ⁓ So it seems like there's kind of a segment split building here. Now, that's not me saying, ⁓ you have competition. That's me saying, seems like there's a real market here. As soon as you have that sort of stratification where you have premium, mass market, and so on, there's a real market building. It puts a lot of emphasis on you as an early mover, I think, and as somebody with a unique design flair and ⁓ positioning. Do you do you see all of that? Do you see this category growing to where it has multiple brands and multiple companies catering to it? speaker-1: Yes, well I hope that there is going to be a new category. And I've seen it in the last eight years that something has happened. When I opened when I started with Death Metal, ⁓ I made the solution. I I mean it w death metal was not a solution based on some market study. I made the d the solution for myself. It has been really nice to see that ⁓ people with similar thoughts about making hearing aids more Beautiful and ⁓ and focus more on the visual side, not just the functional side of hearing aids, has taken a foot. I mean, like like since some developing is happening, this is really nice. I feel like we're having the same goal. and in the long run, I feel that with death metal. It would be much more interesting to see the transformation, the cultural transformation that people are talking more openly about hearing aids and not just about how they got stigmatized or not just how they are ashamed of it, than just owning like the business, you know, being being being like the the owning some market in that sector, in that in that ⁓ hearing aid jury sector. I I feel it. I think that I'm the kind of a pioneer who started something and I would love to see what what you know, what kind of result we are going to have. speaker-0: So I think the other place that the kind of disruption that you were talking about maybe comes from, or this market expansion at least is wearable technology itself. ⁓ Because there's a lot about this happening right now. Every listeners to this show will be familiar with ⁓ the rise of wearables and AI behind that and so on. ⁓ But the the key message of a lot of that is that Technology has to work very hard to earn a place on your body. If you're gonna wear it on your wrist, you're gonna wear it on your face, ⁓ it it has to earn its place there. So the best bet is to integrate it into something you're already wearing. That's why ⁓ the smart glasses categories suddenly become so big, is people glasses have a relatively low penalty to wear, ⁓ and relatively little stigma attached to them. And people already have them, particularly sunglasses. I think this is also maybe behind the uptick in hearing device adoption that came when Apple got clearance to turn their AirPods Pro 2 into approved hearing aids, because all of a sudden you have something people are wearing anyway that are unremarkable in the sense that if somebody's wearing a pair of AirPods next to you in a cafe or at the airport, you don't give it a second thought. now, obviously that's not a viable avenue for implants because they work differently, but do you think there's a world where the integration of hearing aid functionality into existing product categories starts to run alongside the work that you're doing. speaker-1: Yes, definitely. And they have already gotten more close to each other. ⁓ we're talking about music amplifiers. We're talking about hearing aids and yeah they are going much more closer to each other. and there is one company that already did it. They they ⁓ they combined like loudspeakers with the hearing aids and the whole audiology sector, they they got terrified. You don't remember what was the brand. But I think that it was at the time was what time was too early for that. But I see that they are going closer to each other. Definitely. speaker-0: And I think the other thing with wearable technology is so every technology company trying to earn its place, so Meta with ⁓ Ray-Bans, ⁓ sorry, it they end up going out and hiring fashion experts, or they end up pursuing partnerships or collaborations with existing fashion brands. So Meta, as we just mentioned, the Ray-Bans, they tied up with SLO or Luxotica, who own Ray Ban and basically every other iWare brand out there. Google is partnering with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster for their smart glasses. Even when we think about the original Apple Watch, so years ago, Apple brought in Mark Newson, ⁓ who was one of the architects of a decade plus partnership with AirMez for the the leather s goods side of things. Why have none of the hearing device companies done this? It seems like this the one worn technology category that has focused on as you said, exclusively on engineering and problem solving. And fair enough, if they if they don't consider it their core competency, they don't want to become fashion companies, why not collaborate with fashion companies? speaker-1: They are. We are. speaker-0: Okay. Tell me what tell me what those look like. Give me s give me some examples. speaker-1: So they have been they have been separate collections. ⁓ it was about two weeks after I have in I had innovated death metal in two thousand eighteen that ReSound ⁓ was the I think the Rezound was the first one that contacted me and said that ⁓ they would they would like me to design a collection for them. ⁓ which I did. And then ⁓ then ⁓ it was the phonear Sonova was was the second one who contacted and now each time when we go to a fair to an exhibition like to to Oya I remember when we were in Australia, I think it was twenty twenty two, and I met these metal ⁓ metal people from Austria there. And they came with their newest device into our booth and said that this is this is our newest one, so could you please innovate some could you could you innovate something for this? So we have started it, but for them to start the whole process, I mean jewelry jewelry ⁓ business is totally different from ⁓ hearing aid. manufacturers in all ⁓ fr from that business. So so I think that that for them to start creating ⁓ like a side business, as a side business, something so huge as a jewelry business, that's just something that they don't want to do. And that's why we are here. So it's like we are collaborating with them speaker-0: Is there a world where in future we see collaborations between hearing device manufacturers and bigger brands? speaker-1: For this problem that you you just said, ⁓ I think that the clinic program that we are bringing now is the audiology offices, ⁓ which is a tool for audiologist ⁓ for audiologists to ⁓ kind of in the early stage when when you are getting a hearing aid. And when you get the hearing aid for the first time, you you go to an audiology office and ⁓ and they introduce you to the hearing aids. This is exactly the point where you also get the first kind of touch into the hearing aid and you you decide whether you like the aid or you don't. So the audiologist before the audiologist could say that this is the aid that we're gonna do the fittings with this one. How does it suit? And can you hear with it? But now with our clinic program, the audiologist can ask from the con from the From the customer that how would you like it to look like? Would you would you like it to be more safe s on your ear? Would you like to have like a clip on it? Do you play football? Can we offer this kinda accessory for it? So, you know, you can go and for go go for a run with your hearing aid or ⁓ would you like it to be like have a little pearl on it if you're, you know, for example older woman who likes pearl earrings and you know so so the audiologists can actually provide more personal aspect with the hearing aid now because of the because of the the clinic program that we offer them. And one of the biggest ⁓ things that I discovered when when I developed the the clinic program the toolbox for audiologists was that the audiologists, like a hearing aid manufacturer, they they they need to st they need to stick in their own slot. They need to do their job, which is to ⁓ fix the hearing. They are not jewelry sellers. They don't suddenly become any jewelry sellers. So that's we have this clinic box which is filled with sample dip different Is it has like nine nine ⁓ top sellers that we sell, only samples. They are not supposed to even sell those samples to the customer. The point is that the sample box they can use the sample box as a tool to introduce the customer to death metals. And then if the customer gets excited, they can go and and buy it from us with a with a discount and make a little side business of it. But they are not audiologist is an audiologist and jewelry designer is a jewelry designer and you cannot mix those things. speaker-0: Fine. And a hearing device engineer is a hearing device engineer and the special individualized expertise here. Fine. I think I think that's all logical. And that answers all the questions I had about the audiology ⁓ clinic program. One of the final things I want to ask you about is AI, specifically about generative AI in content and marketing. So can user and consumer facing visuals. Because there's been a lot of debate about whether using image generation models to add representation and inclusivity to campaigns, ⁓ to to casting is doing the opposite of what it's supposed to be doing. ⁓ so I'm referencing there, so skin tone, body type, ⁓ and and so on. There's there's there's been a lot of back and forth about whether that's the right way to do it or whether it is trivializing what representation should be. You're a hearing impaired founder yourself. ⁓ I know you've really leaned into wanting to use real models who wear hearing devices in your campaigns. So it's clear clear you care about that. I think maybe that's an important thing for fashion in general to care about. So what's what's your perspective there? speaker-1: I think AI is a wonderful tool. I use it a lot ⁓ in my operational work. But I if I would not ever use it and this is like a conscious ⁓ decision that we made also with our team that we're never going to use any AI humans or anything. I cannot stand I cannot be an owner ⁓ you know of a company who is using like artificial humans as dis as a models to erase stigma. ⁓ that kinda I think that that would like increase the stigma is I cannot say it it would be fake. So we we we don't I mean even even the the picture the pictures of our models, they are they are all real ⁓ hearing aid users. We don't stick hearing aids into a normal hearing people ⁓ beautiful normal hearing peop people and say that can you can you model for us? It's not like we don't do that. And so yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, that's fine. So auth authenticity, I think, is is is super important there. I think I think you'll find increasing number of brands go down that road as well. Very final question. So you you mentioned that you paused your funding round ⁓ and that you're coming back around to it with a different valuation ⁓ later in the year. Tell me what's next then. What what's happening between now and year end within the scope of what you can talk about and that's not under ⁓ under wraps. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. So so yeah, we have the we're focusing now the rest of the year. ⁓ we're focusing on the business development. And ⁓ And ⁓ so we have a really good I ⁓ I we are assuming that the rest of the year is going to be really good. Mm-hmm. And so I think that at this level it was only wise to pause the financial round. ⁓ the other ⁓ other thing while we paused this, to be honest, was that I was re I in originally I wanted to have a Finnish investor. I was trying really and in the end desperately. To find a Finnish investor and and the biggest contacts that we got and the most interesting ⁓ conversations were from the states. And and when when the difference is so huge, ⁓ we need to change. I want to change some things because it it it starts to feel that the investor is not found in Finland and ⁓ probably is going to be. ⁓ over the seas so so we gotta do some some some internal things that to to be to prepare ourselves better. so business development side is the the biggest thing that I am focusing on now. We are bringing two new innovations. ⁓ other one is going to be ⁓ launched in OIHA, in Hanave in October. And ⁓ And then we have the scene campaign, which is going to be huge. It's it's going to be our first like ⁓ social media movement kind of a thing that we're gonna machinate. We're trying to machinate all the biggest hearing aid manufacturers also to participate into that campaign. And it's bringing not only the hearing aid users more closer to each n more closer to each other, but also the it's it's kinda we're trying to confine the the sector a little bit. ⁓ with the user stories, with the hearing aid user stories. And ⁓ the message is to empower people who are still thinking about who know that they have a bad hearing but they s and they know that they probably need a device but they are in the verge of feeling a little bit ashamed about the problem. And so we're trying to get a kind of a movement where We want people to be open about it and ⁓ to have the strength to go and check their hearing because it's like ⁓ like I many times said, I mean this is important. If people think if they assume if they ⁓ if they assume that they have a problem with their hearing, they should fix it because th there is studies that show that that untreated hearing problems they have ⁓ like these side effects like like memory problems and you know. learning problems and there are some connections to Alzheimer's and dementia. And that's kind of logical if your if your brain brains are not getting stimulated anymore because of bad hearing. So it's like this is this is something that we I would like to talk more often about it to people that if they have a bad hearing, it does it really, really, really we they should fix it. And ⁓ so this campaign, one target is the people that have a bad hearing but don't have hearing aid, so they would go and ⁓ check their hearing and yeah. That so those are the those are the biggest things. speaker-0: Perfect. Well, I will be keeping an eye out for for all of those. Yenny, thanks for being so open and for for talking through a whole pretty broad spectrum of questions about ⁓ the the medical side of things here, the aesthetic side of things, the business building side of things. ⁓ I'm gonna be really keen to see where things go for you. For the time being, thanks so much for talking to me. I I've I've enjoyed it. speaker-1: Thank you, thank you. And I hope you got something, you know, remember the Finnish I'm Finnish and so it's ⁓ my brain is trying to translate all the time, so it's speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And that's the end of my conversation with Yenny. As I said earlier, I think there's a whole category emerging here of jewelry and innovation and accessories. And it's one that I think is gonna need a different framing from how we talk about wearable technology, even smart glasses and things, and accessories today. I know for a fact we're gonna see a lot of new takes on the form factor of technology that goes on the body in The second half of this year and into 2027, alongside all the different takes we'll see for technology that lives in the home, like ambient technology. So when all of that happens, I want you to bear this discussion in mind and Yenny's perspective in mind. I'll be back next week with something completely different, so I'll talk to you again really soon.