All right. Welcome to the AdaptX Podcast where
we have conversations with individuals building
accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion
or excelling in adaptive sports. Today I'm joined
by Chase and John Prieve, the founders of Hi There
Solutions, a company that creates communication
solutions for the over 400 million deaf and hard
of hearing around the world and their hearing
friends and family so they never miss a word.
Guys, thanks for joining me. Yeah, looking forward
to talking about the product or products and
your journey through entrepreneurship, but maybe
let's start with the origin story. Chase your
initial exposure to disability and what spurred
this creation that is Hi There Solutions. Absolutely.
So Brendan, from a family connection. My grandparents,
Walter and Anna Prieve, so Chase's great -grandparents,
Walter and Anna were both Big D deaf. So they
were not audible. Walter actually attended the
Wisconsin School for the Deaf. Now this is 100
years ago. Fast forward about 90 years from then
and... I had what's called a cholesteatoma. So
it's a tumor that was in my middle ear, required
extensive surgery. As a result of that, I was
left with a severe hearing loss. So just our
family connection to the deaf and hard of hearing
community starts with Walter and Anna, and then
continues on with myself and my hearing loss
journey. But the inspiration for the HiThere
Solution mobile app and our two solutions award
-winning that comes from chase exactly so we
have two solutions first one is hi there it's
instant video calling with actions in 10 languages
instant messaging anime american sign language
emojis with sound we never cover a user's face
we distinguish between speakers our other solution
is just talk which is meant for face -to -face
communication between a deaf hard of hearing
individual and a hearing person which is a speech
to text text to speech chat board also in 10
languages instant messaging and animated American
sign language emoji. So I've got two quick stories
about how we came up with these solutions. The
first one is I have a friend, she was born hearing,
but at the age of four, she went deaf overnight
due to a medical condition. So as you can imagine,
that's very scary for her and then for her parents.
So she does not know sign language. She does
a lot of texting, reads lips, only understands
30 % of a conversation. She cannot use a telephone.
She relies on FaceTime to communicate if she's
not in the same room as another person. She was
in Mexico, June 2019, and she FaceTimes me. Wanted
to show me around her parents' beach house. I'm
like, okay, I answered FaceTime and it was awful.
First of all, if you can't hear me, and then
your internet connection keeps cutting out, so
FaceTime starts freezing up. And or the screen
just goes black and there's no captions. Well,
that's a horrible experience for a deaf, hard
of hearing person. Eventually she got upset and
just clicked hang up and only texted me the rest
of the time there. So I told my dad about that
experience I had with my friend. And I'm just
like, you know, Apple really prides itself on
inclusivity, accessibility, innovation. Why don't
they just simply add captions to FaceTime? An
hour later, we came up with our company. Hi there.
Our company logo, as you can see here. And it's
instant video calling with real time captions.
Like I said, it's a messaging 10 languages and
device agnostic. Unlike face onto, you can have
an Apple device. You can have an Android device
and still make a high there at all. Our second
solution just talking about this way. My friend,
you wouldn't know she was deaf unless she had
her cochlear implants on because she has no deaf
accent. Her boyfriend, though, heavy, heavy deaf
accent. It can be difficult at times to understand
what he's communicating. So every Sunday after
church they used to go to Jamba Juice and I'm
putting that you skew and pass nets for a reason.
They went to the same Jamba Juice for a number
of years, same location, and this one particular
Sunday was no different. My friend goes in and
you know Jamba Juice, it's noisy in there for
a hearing person with the blinders, hard surfaces,
music, things like that. My friend, she goes
in, places her order just fine. Boyfriend on
the other hand, Very difficult back and forth
conversation between him and the person buying
the counter. Eventually the person buying the
counter just points at the boyfriend, looks at
my friend and says, what does he want? Really
demeaning and degrading in my opinion, they didn't
have anything to accommodate him or accessible,
right? So we came up with just talk that speech
to text, text to speech, chat board, perfect
for deaf, hard of hearing, face to face communication.
So, and do for just talk to companies need to
adopt this or is it just the user comes with
their mobile app and then. They just implement
the technology there. So companies per the title
3 and title 1, they need to be compliant and
providing accessible solutions for customers
and employees. So we put the onus on. companies
in seven key industry verticals. Yeah, so Brendan,
we have two business models. One is a business
to consumer model where our Hyther Solutions
mobile app, which includes Hyther and JustHawk,
are in the Apple app and Google Play stores.
That's our business to consumer side. Last summer,
however, we made a pivot And we pivoted because
of an experience that I had that just opened
up kind of our business way of thinking and approaching
the market as far as accessibility. I'll share
that story in a minute. And it is a business
to business model that we've created and are
executing on at this point in time. So here's
the story. So we've heard over the years from
our deaf and hard of hearing friends and influencers
and advisors and our deaf friends have helped
us along our journey in order to develop our
solutions so we can proudly say our solutions
are created by the deaf for the deaf, which is
very, very important within that community. We've
heard from them that they do the same thing that
hearing people do. They go to the bank and open
a checking account. They pick up a prescription
at a drug store. They shop. They travel. Their
travel stories were just unbelievably awful.
So I have a severe hearing loss, as I mentioned,
and I travel for my day job every week. So I
said, well, let me do some market research on
this. So I booked a flight, Denver to Phoenix
round trip on American Airlines. And Brendan,
pick your airport, pick your airline. They're
all the same. Awful. I put in my profile. I have
a severe hearing loss and I need special assistance
and I waited and I waited. Finally, two days
before the flight, American Airlines special
assistance calls me. Now imagine if you're chases
French, you can't even use the telephone, right?
Thankfully, I still can use the telephone with
my hearing aid technology in there. You know
they're leaving me messages. Mr Prieve need
to call us or emailing me. Call us, call us.
So I call them. It's awkward, but I call them
up. And the first question I get hit with is,
Mr. Prieve, what exactly is your medical condition?
Well, I said, it's right there in my profile.
I have a severe hearing loss. How can you accommodate
me and assist me on my flights and at the airport?
And they said, we have good news for you, Mr.
Prieve. We can get you a wheelchair. I said,
well, look, I can walk fine. I don't need a wheelchair.
What else do you have? Well, alternately, Mr.
Preve, we can have someone walk you down to the
gate. Well, they do this for blind, low vision
individuals. And I said, well, look, even though
I wear glasses, I can see just fine. But I'll
tell you what, I'll take you up on that. And
I want the person to do one more thing. When
we get to the gate, I want them to sit at the
gate and listen for the overhead announcements.
Because even hearing people cannot understand
what's being said in the overhead announcements,
and the boards are not captioned. So they said,
yes, we'll take care of you. Just show up. So
I show up on a Monday morning out at Denver Airport.
I check in with American. They take me over to
Prospect Air Services. The gal is looking for
my name in the iPad. She does not see it. She
puts it down. She pulls out a wheelchair as he's
standing there. I said, put that thing away.
You're supposed to walk me down to the gate.
So she does. We go all the way up to the terminal
where American Airlines is. We get to the gate
and then she turns to leave. I go, what are you
doing? You're supposed to sit here and listen
for the overhead announcements. Oh, no, I've
got to get it back up to the Great Hall. The
gate people for American, they'll take care of
you. Well, no one shows up. No one does anything.
And finally, when the wheelchair folks are boarding
early, they wave me over and they say, Mr. Prieve,
you can get out now. All right. Well, I get on
the flight. I'm wearing my hidden disabilities
lanyard that identifies myself with a hearing
loss. And I talked to the two flight attendants
at the front of the plane. And I identify myself.
I'm John Priebus of Your Hearing Lost. Do you
happen to have all the announcements in some
kind of a written form where I can follow along?
And they said, well, not quite. Here's what we
do have. We have the initial safety announcement.
They pull out a pamphlet and they hand it to
me. It's in Braille. for his hearing loss. All
right, you guys have nothing. So then, to wrap
this all up, I'm in Phoenix. I'm gonna fly back
to Denver now. I check in with American Airlines
Special Assistance, and I'm assuming the role
of Big D Deaf, so I'm not audible. I'm just signing.
with the folks at Special Assistance. Well, they're
freaking out. They're like, time out. We need
an hour, an hour before we can get someone over
here to interpret and communicate with you. And
I'm like, tick -tock, man, my flight. So they
pull out a scratch piece of paper where, you
know, sliding and cryptic notes back and forth,
obviously not ADA complying or anything else.
And they're even asking me, hey, would you like
to sit in the exit row? And I'm like, oh, sure,
all right. deafness right i've got to be willing
and able it was just awful and then finally at
the end of this conversation they take me over
and they pull out another wheelchair for me to
wrap it up We spent the next hour and we're just
researching Americans with Disability Act, Title
III, Title II. We're looking at the Aircraft
Carrier Access Act, the FAA Reauthorization Act
of 2024 that has a special section that Congress
has appropriated funding for, for pilot projects,
for airports to conduct projects to improve accessibility,
to meet the ADA standards. and we just pivoted
our entire business model to B2B, business to
business, and identified six or seven industry
verticals, obviously airports, airlines being
one of those, but you can imagine the others,
banking, healthcare, stadiums and arenas, retail,
hospitality, city county governments. These are
the shift that we made with our technology and
our solutions to help these businesses become
much better compliant with the Americans with
Disability Act. So from the business standpoint,
so from the bank standpoint, the airline standpoint,
what is required of them to be able to use your
technology? Sure thing. It's primarily down to
two things, an internet connection, and well,
three things, internet connection, a smartphone,
iOS or Android. Or an iPad, which is new for
us because one of our local city county government
customers requested it be available on an iPad.
Third thing is market it. Put it on your website,
do a PR run. And like our local city county government,
they have decals of our solutions indicating,
hey, we're deaf friendly. We're going to use
Just Talk to communicate with you at 11, 10,
11 government buildings here in Broomfield, Colorado.
Yeah. Brendan, you asked earlier, you know, is
the burden on the disabled, in this case, deaf
or hard of hearing individual? It is not. We're
putting the burden purely right on the business,
the airport, the stadium, the city county, where
they are providing the hardware, be it either,
as Chase mentioned, a smartphone or a tablet,
an iPad in this case. And as they encounter a
deaf or hard of hearing individual that needs
a communication, accommodation, our Just Talk
And our high there are the solutions that will
be available for that individual. Yeah, bring
that interaction. Yeah, I would imagine all the
burden should be on the on the business, but
I would imagine that makes it harder to scale.
Right? Because now you have to educate all of
these businesses and employees who have really
no awareness of disability or even knowledge
of these topics versus. selling a product to
a consumer who is well aware of these challenges
and can easily recognize the value in it. So
you've gained traction in your local community
and you have those immediate connections. How
do you plan on bringing it nationwide or to other
communities? Because there's only two of you
and there's lots of government buildings around
the country and around the world that need to
be educated and trained. So I guess what's kind
of the model to scale that and grow it? Just
here in our backyard in Broomfield Colorado with
our first city and county government with a paid
pilot in order to launch the technology into
city county state. Government vertical from there.
We've already had a much interest with other
small with other communities here in Colorado
and then yesterday she said this fantastic meeting
with the City of Houston and their Accessibility
Commission Board City of Houston 4th largest
city in America, right? So there's there's a
plan in order to get ourselves a toehold if you
will. within city county government. We'll start
in Colorado and then we'll expand out in the
airport vertical. Because it's just the two of
us right now until we get some funding and we
can hire more chases, more county executives
to grow our verticals. But our airport vertical
with the support of the FAA Reauthorization Act
of 2024 and the grant funding that's available
for pilot projects, just since The authorization
was put out in May of this year, so May 2025.
We've already met with, we've got 35 or 40 airports
already in our funnel, our sales funnel, if you
will, where we've met or scheduled the meeting
to meet with them, showcase the tech, and begin
to put together pilot projects. So, Brendan,
we looked at the airport vertical very strategically.
Why? Because we selected Of course, a range of
small, medium and large airports, but locations
where there could be spillover to other key verticals
that we want to get into. I mentioned stadiums
and arenas previously, right? So, hey, look,
all right, we're going to be picked. We're meeting
this afternoon with the city of Houston, right?
So earlier using airport with the Houston airport,
Chasehead City, Houston, the city yesterday,
right? So we looked at cities where there are
NFL, NBA, MLB. WNB, et cetera. We're looking
at where are their professional sports teams?
Go stadiums and arenas, same thing. They've got
to also comply with the ADA guidelines. And we'll
start with airports. And then as we begin to
branch out, you go to Lambeau Field, for example,
and they'll say, well, hey, how do we test out
your technology? We'll just go over to the Green
Bay Airport. They've got our tech over there.
Same thing. And if you think about airports,
and then we mentioned a hospitality space. Well,
gosh, what restaurants happen to be in airports?
All the biggies, McDonald's, KFC, Burger King,
Panera, Starbucks, you name it. So then when
we go to those verticals, Starbucks, for example,
hey, well, where else are you? We're interested
with a corporate deal. Oh, well. Go check out
any number of airports and our tech is available
for your Starbucks customers within those airports.
So we strategically took a look at how do we
leverage airports in order to help us with other
industry verticals. So a real nice plan, but
again, we could sure use a whole lot more chases
and get big faster. Yeah. Do you think you have
to demonstrate how it benefits? more than just
the deaf and hard of hearing population. Like
we see that a lot of tech that was designed for
people with disabilities has unintended consequences
that benefit people without disabilities. And
do you think there's a lane for you to demonstrate?
I mean, we know that there's a lot of people
who are deaf and hard of hearing, but you could
imagine that someone who has no exposure to disability
doesn't see sign language in their day -to -day
life and probably assumes that it's not a problem.
So do you have to demonstrate that this technology
could benefit people who aren't deaf and hard
of hearing as well? I think we know from research
that like 80 % of people without disabilities
prefer to watch videos with captions even if
they aren't hard of hearing, so. There are other
disabilities that. certainly can use captions,
for sure. There are disabilities, neuro diverse
individuals, you think of ADHD or autism, disabilities
like that, they too. I mean, they certainly can
utilize our technology as well. And Brendan,
one thing that your listeners as well should
understand is that people age into disabilities.
They age into disabilities rather it be related
to mobility, cognitive, blindness. Or hearing
hearing loss. Same thing. They age into those
things and just in the US alone, right? We've
got a large population that's aging baby boomers.
If you will even Gen Xers as they begin to age
in as they get older, they're aging into disability.
So even though they may not have a disability
now or need some kind of in our case hearing
equipment that could that could help accommodate
them. We think we're at the right time with regard
to our tech in order to take advantage of just
the demographics in just the U .S. alone for
sure. Yeah. Is there technology that kind of
challenges the need for the solution like AirPods?
I've seen some stuff where AirPods can double
as a hearing aid and stuff. Is there another
disruptive tech that you would be worried about
interfering with your solution? I personally
don't see one. AirPods, sure, all they do is
just amplify the sound. Real innovative Apple,
again. Whereas with Starkey, like my dad has,
it has AI in it. It can adjust the frequencies
based on his environment. AirPods can't do that.
In terms of our solution, they're... we've not
come across one. And again, we have a differentiator
in the fact that we design solutions for deaf
hard of hearing by deaf hard of hearing. Case
in point, our animated American sign language
emojis were designed and suggested by, specifically
designed by two -time Miss San Antonio MFA Rutkin,
who is deaf herself and has a great organization
called Aid the Silent down in San Antonio. Yeah,
I know. I mean, I know from editing videos and
making videos that AI generated captions aren't
often correct. So and that's obviously a huge
issue, right? Because if you're automatically
generated captions aren't correct, then the message
gets lost. So do you know how accurate your captions
are? And what do you guys do differently that
these other technologies don't, I guess? There's
a competitor, not to us so much, they do have
a product that is designed for kind of a one
-on -one conversation. Unfortunately, Brendan,
their business model, in our opinion, a bit flawed.
You have to pay higher and higher and higher
prices on a monthly basis to pay for accuracy.
Our whole premise going into this, as we were
advised by our deaf and hard of hearing friends,
was basically make this thing 99 % accurate.
So we utilize AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS APIs,
specifically one that's called Transcribe. This
is AI powered, AI generated, real -time transcriptions
or real -time captions, some people call them,
and it autocorrects. I mean, it's learning and
it autocorrects, so it'll go back and correct
the word based on the context, if you will, of
a particular sentence. So we have a high, high
degree of accuracy, and that was on purpose.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it has to be. And I think, like
you said, the tiered pricing for the accuracy
seems pretty flawed, because as you guys likely
believe, too, accessibility is a right. It shouldn't
be a paid service and add on additional paid
service. Challenges to get, I guess, in your
entrepreneurial journey as a whole, what have
been the biggest challenges for the company to
gain traction? Sure thing, as it relates to VC
funding or... Yeah, just anything. What have
been the biggest barriers along the way and how
have you kind of addressed them? Sure thing.
The biggest barriers I have seen, I'm sure you've
got a different opinion, but from my perspective,
it is basically getting this feedback from VCs.
As an example, your market's too small. Really,
it's 52 million Americans have hearing loss that
could benefit from our solution. So 15 % of the
population... Globally, it's 466 million individuals.
As of today, that number's probably low. By 2050,
the World Health Organization thinks there'll
be one in four people will have a measurable
hearing loss. So don't come and tell me the market's
too small, that there is no market. Chances are,
Mr. BC, if I'm talking to you, you'll probably
experience hearing loss at some point in your
life, be it you, a loved one, or a friend. The
other one is just lack of awareness in general.
It's like, You know, I know somebody with a disability.
I know somebody with hearing loss. Okay. So what
are you going to do about it? The person saying
that it's just like from my perspective. It's
like, okay, you know this What have you done
for this community? Right? So those are my biggest
challenges It's almost like if you could encompass
it all just educating people. Yeah. Yeah and
and really with a lot of venture capitals or
even family or angel funds They like to see a
lot of traction. They like to see more down round
kind of money before they come in, which is fine.
Yeah, we've we have bootstrap to date. So it's
it's all it's all on us. No problem. We're going
to gain our traction. In fact, just after this
particular call, we've got a couple other family
funds that we're following up with where they
they actually reached out and said, hey, look,
we want to learn about your traction for consideration,
right? For some early seed money for us, which
is all fine. It was all just part of the entrepreneurial
journey. You've got to be prepared to sell fund,
to basically be bootstrapping along the way,
so you can demonstrate we've got a great idea,
there's a market here, people will buy, and we've
got a very, very viable product or solution,
if you will. That's what the investors want to
see. Yeah, Chase, you're not a technical founder,
right? What was the software development process
like? Sure, thanks. Yeah, so I'm definitely not
a coder. Don't know how to do that. I could barely
spell API when we started. So we went out and
sought bids for our solutions from third party
software developers and it was basically just
vetting them, taking a look at their portfolio
of work and just. Being with their end customers
and to see who is the best fit for what we envisioned
and dreamed of doing. And we eventually settled
on two, three companies that are making it happen
right now. Yeah. And so you self -funded that
portion of the process. So going forward. What
is funding needed for staff? Like you said, more
more cases as they're ongoing on technical ongoing
technical software development costs. Yeah, so
our biggest line item, if you would, for our
cap raise is in fact scaling. So, again, hiring
more cases and marketing efforts. Another portion
is customer support for our customers, because
we're growing so quickly. Two of us just can't
handle the customer support it needs. I mean,
yesterday, anyway, that and development costs
as well. Maintaining, making sure that our product
remains awesome. And we also have future products
we want to include as well. Oh yeah. No, it's
all good. Yeah. Yeah, you mentioned so you mentioned
6 or 7 vertical sectors airports being 1 of them
are gyms and fitness centers 1 of those sectors.
They can be. They definitely are an entity of
business vertical that too needs to comply with
the Americans with Disability Act in terms of
accommodating individuals with disability, in
our case hearing loss. Deaf people like to work
out as well and they're kind of lower, if you
will, on our funnel. our sales funnel. And the
reason why I say it's lower, it's not like it's
unimportant. It is, but it takes people to get
there. We've got stadiums and arenas that are
targeted, especially at the pro level. College,
university is the next tier for us as well. That
all leads itself into what we believe would be
spillover into the local community with gyms,
fitness centers, etc. Rec centers also. Interesting
side note. You've heard of, of course, the Olympics,
right? Summer and winter games. Awesome. You've
probably heard of the Paralympic Games for individuals
with mobility disabilities. You may have even
heard of, I'm sure, the Special Olympics, right?
Well, there's also the Deaf Olympics, a very
lesser known sports event. But every four years,
the teams from around the world, countries from
around the world send teams of deaf athletes
to compete in their summer games. In fact, upcoming
in this fall, November is the Deaflympics in
Tokyo. Several years ago, it was held down in
Brazil. It got pushed back one year because of
COVID, but every four years, countries around
the world send their athletes to compete in a
number of sports, summer games types of sports,
track and field, weightlifting, cycling, et cetera.
And unfortunately, in the United States, our
Team USA athletes They do not have corporate
sponsors. They don't have corporate sponsors
like you see with the U .S. Olympic teams, Special
Olympics, Paralympics, etc. They just don't.
These athletes, sadly, are also self -funded.
We like to say, look, they're running bake sales
or whatever just in order to raise five, six,
$7 ,000 to cover their own individual costs to
fly to Tokyo and represent Team USA in their
sport. So our tech, of course, certainly can
be used at games like that. But this is just
a side note for your viewers and listeners that
unfortunately, The Deaflympics, Team Deaf USA
Sports Federation, is not funded corporately.
So we always, whenever we can, we try to make
awareness whenever we're on a podcast or in meetings,
et cetera, especially with big corporations.
If you're looking for a wonderful philanthropic
cause, funding the Deaflympics and Team USA,
What would just be wonderful wonderful because
again these these these individuals and coaches
they're on their own they're paying out of their
own pocket in order to compete for team USA.
Yeah I don't have a fully fleshed out or formulated
case for why fitness should be higher up on your
radar. I guess I'm just thinking. playing a fitness
is there's 3500 locations around the world, something
in that ballpark. When you go into a gym, and
I haven't been in a gym outside of my own for
10 years, but there's music playing, it's loud,
whether you have a hearing impairment or not,
might be hard to hear someone and communicate
with someone. I feel like that's a pretty, maybe
pretty good spot to implement something like
this that would just make the experience better
as a whole. Brendan, we mentioned the city and
county of Broomfield, Colorado, where we have
a pilot project going out using iPads. One of
the 10 locations is actually at their rec center.
They saw the need, so did we. We encouraged,
put it over at the rec center. It helps us get
early data on deaf or hard of hearing individuals
going to a rec center, for example, in Bermfield,
Colorado, and being able to utilize our technology
as a communication accommodation in a facility,
kind of a fitness facility, if you will, just
like that. So we recognized it early. It's just
that - Can only do so much at once. Can't really
do so much at once. Yeah, different goals, gym,
and planning. And any time fit, there's 24. We
need people. I mean, Chase, you went to University
of Colorado Boulder, right? Yeah. Do they have
resources for alumni internship programs, maybe
students within the business management degrees?
No. Not really, but I have done extensive work
in their professional mentoring program. We've
hired a few interns from that program who turned
out really, really well. As it comes to accommodation
for deaf hard of hearing, they don't have anything
much. Yeah, I guess I guess I was more so thinking
like is could that be an affordable or inexpensive
way to have more maybe not account executives
but people that could do some of the the day
-to -day work like a University intern or something,
but what is keeping a company like Apple you
mentioned earlier from Creating a solution embedded
within FaceTime that achieves a similar outcome
Sure thing. Lack of credibility within the deaf
and hard of hearing community. We've heard, you
know, FaceTime currently is in beta with their
captions. It's one language, does not distinguish
between speakers, not accurate. In fact, we've
heard from our deaf, hard of hearing friends
and influencers who have tried it. They're like,
it's terrible. It covers a person's face unlike
us. So if you read lips, it's a poor solution.
Yeah. and just lack of credibility. Again, we're
built for deaf by deaf and hard of hearing like
my dad. One of the things, Brendan, a company
like an Apple or Google or Meta with WhatsApp,
for example, it's all about monetization. FaceTime,
although it's It's really not free because you've
got to buy a thousand dollar phone or whatever
an iPhone costs, right? You've got to have that.
You've got to have some kind of a cellular plan.
So now you're paying. hundreds maybe dollars
a month just to have a cellular plan. So even
though, okay, yes, FaceTime is available, many
people think, oh, this is so cool, it's free,
it's really not. You're buying a phone, you're
buying a data plan, so it's not. But really,
it kind of boils down to... How can a company
like that or companies like that, how can they
monetize it for a consumer? There are many, many
consumers think of it right around the world.
Half the smartphone market are in fact Apple
or iOS devices. The other half is Samsung, Google
devices. But they look at it as for the mass
market, and they're a business. How do we monetize
this? Very difficult to do that when you are
kind of building it on the back end and you haven't
integrated it into your offering upfront. Yeah.
Do you think you could have built these solutions
if you didn't have the personal experience with
deafness and the hard of hearing? I think we're
going to have different answers. I mean, we built
it, so I know we could have. It just was that
initial spark right of seeing a problem that
my friend had with what was currently available
and it's just like we can do better. No absolutely
and again as people age into disabilities this
just and you had mentioned hey many people prefer
they like to watch movies with the captions on
it just it just made sense for us several years
ago to dive into this make the commitment bootstrap
because We know there's an unmet need and I think
that's where many entrepreneurs they have an
idea. it does take time. You've got to do market
research. You've got to look at, can we do, you
know, it's, you know, what is it? Can you do
it? How does it work? And, you know, will it
be successful? You've got to, as an entrepreneur,
you know, be able to answer all those questions
and then, and look at the end consumer. In our
case, we've got a B2B model. The end consumer
is, yes, it's a business, airports, dating. fitness
center, et cetera. But ultimately, another end
consumer is the deaf or hard of hearing individual
that's basically enjoying, hopefully, that experience
with their communication accommodation. Yeah.
Since my work in this podcast to a degree revolves
around fitness and physical activity, outside
of adopting your technology and your solutions.
What do you think the fitness industry as a whole
could do better to support people with disabilities,
whether we want to focus just on the deaf and
hard of hearing or the greater disability population
as a whole? What could gyms do better? What could
rec centers do better? Personally, model what
you're doing in terms of marketing your gyms.
Invest more money in marketing that you are accessible
for folks with disabilities. Market that you
have. Leagues if you will. I've got a good friend.
He has cerebral palsy. He's power chair user.
He's in a soccer league, which is really cool.
I would say invest more in terms of marketing
that hey, this community is here. Let's go create
something for them by them. That's my thoughts.
I agree. It all boils down to promote yourselves
and make offerings, programs, etc. We're inclusive
and we're accessible. And to promote that, it's
just gyms and rec centers can get an awful lot
of credibility by having that type of a marketing
promotional plan and the programs that support
those offerings as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's tricky.
Like you walk a fine line between, oh, look at
me. I'm supporting people with disabilities.
How wonderful versus the awareness piece of like
people with disabilities assume your gym's not
for them because historically it never has been
so you have to invite them in and you have to
show that it is but there's also like it's i've
seen it cross the line to a point where it seems
more performative than anything where um or inspiration
poor and however you want to label it where you're
just trying to use disability to build social
capital or social kind of um bandwidth. So yeah,
I think marketing is an essential piece for it.
But what's your vision for Hi There Solutions
maybe for the next three to five years, if you've
kind of mapped out that far? I know sometimes
you get so bogged into the day -to -day, it's
hard to think long -term vision. But what do
you hope to accomplish? Sure thing. Next three
to five years, long -term vision is to become
basically a household name, right? Kind of like
Coca -Cola, it's hey. Can you grab me a Coke?
Rather than can I get a soda or a pop? We want
to be that for either with our brands. Then,
like I mentioned earlier, we do want to innovate
beyond just what we're currently doing. We have
solutions into education, vertical, myself, as
you can see the guitars behind me. I play music.
I love music. So we have a couple of deaf hard
of hearing advisors who are professional rappers,
hip hop artists, Grammy winners. I want to do
something within the music space. What are your
thoughts? Yeah, so education, music, gaming.
There's a number of ways we can certainly go.
We're going to build our beachhead. Of course,
we're going to stay in the US in our backyard,
build our beachhead. And then as Chase had mentioned
at the top of the podcast, it's basically, look,
there's an awful lot of. deaf hard of hearing
around the world globally that can certainly
use our solution. So an expansion globally is
within the realm as well, three to five years
from now. How did you encourage these advisors
and influencers to get involved? Sure thing.
A lot of networking, getting on Zoom meetings
or meeting in person, describing what we do,
showing what they do. We have one deaf advisor.
His name is Justin Osmond. Yeah, from that Osmond
family, Donnie and Marie, he's their nephew.
He plays the violin, motivational speaker. He
almost got, he got very emotional when he saw
Just Socking High there and was using it. Another
one of our advisors is Staff Sergeant, retired
Shiloh Harris. He's like, hot damn, I've needed
this my entire life. He was injured in serving
in a country in Iraq during IED. He got his ears
blown off. Um, and he, he loves it. He's a good
friend of ours. Look behind me. That's awesome.
Yeah, no, it's cool to build something and then
have an entire community rally behind it. Right?
It's like, it's validation that what you're building
is, is actually needed and you're not just creating
a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.
Yeah, we can include links relevant links in
the show notes so people can directly find them.
But like what can listeners do to be most helpful?
Most helpful? I would say spread awareness of
what we do, provide feedback. We are doing some
changes, modifications to our app. So, we are
going to have a press release when we execute
or go to Market Strategy and just do some coding
updates. So, for now, spread awareness of the
brand. Get it out there. Say there's this really
cool company that's doing amazing work, award
-winning work for the deaf and hard of hearing
community. We were the Amazon Web Services North
America Social Impact Partner of the Year award.
for accessibility as matter of fact, won a couple
other really great awards. So, yeah, more awareness
is better. How about you, Deb? Yeah, any sharing
this show or just sharing maybe our website,
our YouTube channel on their platforms, for example,
just creating awareness is all part of the strategy.
Yes, we're going to go to the corporate level,
Chase and I, let's say airports or stadiums.
Pro teams, Starbucks, McDonald's, we'll be at
corporate. It's always nice to have the groundswell
too. You guys need to bring in an accommodation
here, hide their solutions, just have some awesome,
awesome tech. It's beautiful. Yeah, so boots
on the ground advocating for their local businesses,
whether it's ones they frequent or ones that
they work for to adopt these technological solutions
and stuff. What's the best place for people to
find you? Where are you most active? Most active
would be LinkedIn, Chase, C -H -A -S -E -T, my
last name, Pariv, and then www .hithersolutions
.com. We have an Instagram, but we're most active
on LinkedIn. Okay, yeah. I'll, like I mentioned,
include those direct links so people can easily
find them. But John, Chase, thanks so much for
talking. I love hearing about people's origin
stories and their growth and these solutions.
And I always take away stuff from my own experience
that I can use. So thanks again for joining me.
Awesome. Thanks for hosting us. Really appreciate
it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the
AdaptX Podcast. Our effort to amplify the ideas
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