In this insightful episode, host Anthony Prakash sits down with Vishal Modi, Founder & CEO of Spoonified, who is pioneering smart utensils to transform how we track nutrition and develop mindful eating habits.
Episode Highlights: Vishal shares his personal journey from struggling with weight management as an immigrant to founding a company that addresses the "mile zero problem" in nutrition tracking. Drawing on his extensive background at tech giants like Motorola and Lenovo, he explains how his engineering expertise helped bring Spoonified's vision to life.
The conversation explores how Spoonified's smart utensils go beyond simple calorie counting by identifying food, measuring portion sizes, and monitoring eating speed—providing real-time haptic feedback to promote mindful eating. Vishal also discusses how their technology will evolve into a comprehensive ecosystem including smart plates and cups, all communicating to provide holistic nutritional insights.
With clinical trials scheduled and a soft launch planned for Q3 2025, Vishal offers candid reflections on the entrepreneurial journey, market validation strategies, and how user feedback is actively shaping their product roadmap. He also reveals plans for their AI-powered nutritional advisor that aims to democratize access to personalized nutrition guidance.
Don't miss this fascinating look at the intersection of technology and nutrition, and how one entrepreneur's personal struggle inspired an innovative solution that could change how we approach healthy eating.
Episode Highlights: Vishal shares his personal journey from struggling with weight management as an immigrant to founding a company that addresses the "mile zero problem" in nutrition tracking. Drawing on his extensive background at tech giants like Motorola and Lenovo, he explains how his engineering expertise helped bring Spoonified's vision to life.
The conversation explores how Spoonified's smart utensils go beyond simple calorie counting by identifying food, measuring portion sizes, and monitoring eating speed—providing real-time haptic feedback to promote mindful eating. Vishal also discusses how their technology will evolve into a comprehensive ecosystem including smart plates and cups, all communicating to provide holistic nutritional insights.
With clinical trials scheduled and a soft launch planned for Q3 2025, Vishal offers candid reflections on the entrepreneurial journey, market validation strategies, and how user feedback is actively shaping their product roadmap. He also reveals plans for their AI-powered nutritional advisor that aims to democratize access to personalized nutrition guidance.
Don't miss this fascinating look at the intersection of technology and nutrition, and how one entrepreneur's personal struggle inspired an innovative solution that could change how we approach healthy eating.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Startup Still Safe podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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Speaker 3 (00:08):
Thank you sure to give us repeat them.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Well everyone, thanks for joining us from better where you Are.
We're back with a brand new episode of Startups Still Say.
I'm delighted to bring to you Vishall Mody from Spoonify today.
Mishell and I have been talking for the last few
weeks about some amazing work he's been doing in trying
to use AI in the food industry, help kids, help
(00:33):
everyone with nutrition. I'm sure Mishall is going to talk
more about it and educate us on what he's doing there.
But Vishall, thanks so much for taking the time on
a Saturday and joining us here on Startups Still Say.
Welcome absolutely, Anthony, thank you very much for having me
here today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Good morning everyone, Vishall Mody. I'm the founder of Sponified,
and again my journey is like I'm an engine by nature,
and then I did my schooling here as an immigrant,
and during that phase I encountered this problem for which
I was suffered through multiple years before I had the
(01:12):
courage to even get up and do something about it.
And here I am today sharing with Anthony that story
behind what got me started on my startup Sponify. So
I'm glad, glad to be here today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Great, Michelle, So let's go back a little bit, right.
You said that you're an immigrant much like I am.
You know, you came here to study, and if I
know your background, right, you went to B school, you
obviously did your master's here and then I mean, this
is your first venture, so to speak. Right, you were
in big tech or you know, the hardware industry for
(01:49):
a early long time before you choose to say, okay,
I have the courage to come do this on my own.
So I mean, can you walk us through a little
bit of that journey few will as to you know,
what actually prompted you to even uh you know, get
that will power to get started with Quonified.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And so this this problem I mean that we were
talking about today that I went through was a weight right,
weight gain and the journey through weight management, which was
just similar to what a lot other people kind of
go through where and so I always have been on
the heavier side throughout my childhood and to an extent
(02:30):
where I have been bullied because of my weight, and
and those cars were still kind of somewhere within me
and bothering me. And it was during that phase of
coming to the States, adapting to this new lifestyle, new
you know food that that we get here, and and
the problem seems to kind of have excavated itself to
(02:51):
a point where in COVID it got to got really worse.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I mean, I gained a lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Weight and and that is when I kind of got
up and said I have to do something about it.
And like many other people, you know, I joined a
die program and that is when it struck me. And
the first thing that I was told is, hey, here's
your meal plan, you know, and here's what you.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Should be eating.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And I said, okay, And I asked the dietition. I'm like,
how will I be able to manage or how should
I track it?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm like, given my.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Engineering background and business background, it's always about KPIs and
monitoring the progress. And the answer was like, you need
to monitor your you need to measure your food, then
cook it and eat it. And that thing did not
jive with me at all. And I fell off the
program on the fourth day out of a twelve week program.
And it was that moment when I realized, you know,
(03:47):
I worked in tech industry Motorola, seeing the evolution of
the industry from a technology standpoint, this whole smartphone evolution
and how smartphone has pendited.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It lives and life easy.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So that's when I decided to do something about like
can can there be smart utensils that can do this
job for me? Like measure my food and eat and
track the nutritional intake and imagine that data is available
to my daddition. And so that's how I got started,
literally just putting things on a piece of paper, and
(04:24):
you know, like it took me two years before I
got the courage to even formed the company, but that's
how the journey started.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, that's fascinating, right, I Mean a lot of founders
go through this personal pain before it hit hits you
really hard, and you try to do I'm so glad
you're doing something about it. But to your point on
the weight loss programs that are in every nuke and corner,
to you taking a different approach to this, what made
(04:55):
you think that you know, you actually needed a different
perspective and the fact that okay, I mean you start
with how you actually intake your food, right, I mean,
so did you when did that kind of hit you
to say, Okay, I mean it's not about really the
calories or most of those weight programs say oh, so
much protein and so much carbohydrates and so much of
(05:15):
this and so much of that to versus your approach,
which is different with sponify.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So that I think started when I joined this diet program, right,
and I started tracking myself, Like on the second day,
I measured like I was spending roughly about ten to
fifteen minutes just like getting the food ready, measuring it
before cooking it, right, And so I on the first
day or the second day, I spent literally about thirty
(05:44):
thirty five minutes just for measuring that food before I
could coo, get it, eat it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I'm not even counting that time.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And as I noticed this problem, I felt that this
is like in today's day and age, spending thirty five
minutes to do something that has already been automated in
a lot of different ways in other industries, why cannot
be adopted in the industry. And so that got me started,
and past that, I started talking to a lot of
people like you know who I met across in different
(06:12):
forums who were going through the same weight loss journeys,
and I realized that this indeed was a common problem.
You know, the journey itself had so much friction built
into it from the very beginning that people lose motivation
to do it. Like imagine spending thirty five minutes every
single day to keep doing it, and you have to
do it for six months before you see the result.
So that is something that struck chord with me and
(06:35):
and got me started. And the other thing I realized
I have used multiple apps, and I realized that I
was always estimating the food and which was tied to
this original problem of measuring right.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So that that's how I got started on this contry.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Got it. So let's talk about the concept itself, right, Michelle,
So what does you know your device do differently? I mean,
obviously you mentioned yourself. There are so many apps, you know,
where do you put it on a plate, you take
a picture, it gives you the numbers, I mean, but
most of them are very approximate, right, I mean it's
(07:12):
not very accurate. I mean it's not very spot on.
I mean, so with a different approach with spoonified with
a hardware approach to it, bringing in your engineering background,
and of course you're the pain point that you face.
I mean, what did you want to do and have
you gotten too a point with spoonified to where you
(07:32):
wanted it to be?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So where we differentially There are great solutions a little
bit out there today. But what if you observe there
are always a degree apart from your food and your mouth.
Where spoonifyed comes in is we priached that gap between
your plate and your mouth. So think of it this
way that you're solving that mild zero problem when it
comes to the nutrition racking journey. So what we have
(07:56):
built there is an intelligent and fork that not only
identifies the food that you eat, but also tracks every
single bite that goes into your mouth.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And what that allows us to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Do is precisely compute the amount of food that you're
consuming in a meal, and then we use that data
to compute precisely your nuditional.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Intake and we just don't end there.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And one of the gaps that we see in the industry,
and it's I think a limitation of existing solutions is
that they do not provide insights or any interventional guidance
when it comes to eating a lot of it. When
it comes to nutation tracking and oral health goes to
how you eat and are you doing it for the
right amount of time? Are you eating too much or
(08:42):
eating too fast? So our utensils allow you to also
track the speed of eating, how much are you scooping
and putting in your mouth every single bite, and you
provide real time alerts, like through haptic feedback. So imagine
that you are eating and the spoon would know that
Pashal eats like x.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Three scoops a minute.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But obviously, like anybody else, there are stressful situations where
I end up eating too fast. I'm eating six scoops
a minute, and that's unhealthy. Yeah, and so that's where
we Our technology allows us to provide those real time
interventional alerts to alert the user and say slow down,
you are.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Mindlessly eating at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And so that our overall goal is to help people
cultivate sustainable and mindful eating habits.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So and that's what keeps us driving to develop these features.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Got it, Got it? That's that's a really innovative way
to look at it. So you said a few things,
and we'll double click on that. You said, haptic feedback,
you said, it can measure the speed at which you're eating.
It can also guess what you're eating, and you know,
based on that, do the math on the calories and
(09:56):
the intake as well. So what so, let's maybe go
under the hood a little bit, right, I mean, sod
your background in say the Motorolas of the world and
the other high tech companies kind of help you to
build it, because there's a lot going on in a
spoon or a fork itself in terms of technology, right,
(10:19):
So how did you actually go about innovating or even
putting that hardware together? Because I mean a spoon's you know,
form size, and all of that needs to be out
of certain size, right, I mean, you can't make a
big spoon. I mean that's not even a starter. So
you've got to compact everything into that size. Obviously, it
needs to look like a spoon. At the end of
(10:41):
the day, there's a lot that need to be put
in there. So how is that journey to innovate from
obviously having a vision to putting all that into that
spoon or fork?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, Anthony, I attribute a lot of it to my
experience in the tech world right from the old Motorola days,
and you know, there's all always something that I always
wanted to kind of be the entrepreneurship world, and that
was always a visions as one of the career goals.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So that and subconsciously.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
That being the end goal, I navigated my career in
a way that allowed me to touch all aspects of
product development and go to market front, right from the
technical aspect to how the product to launch the product,
what features to put in the product from a software
and hardware standpoint, to the program management aspect of the
(11:35):
tactical aspect of launching the product in the market, do
the strategic aspect of like what is the market need
and how do you design a product thats fits those needs?
So that was my at a high level, my journey
at Morola, and I complimented that with my journey at Lenovo,
where I managed the overall business for the tablet business
(11:58):
unit or indoor tablets, and that kind of allowed me
to learn the business aspect of from an operational standpoint,
from a finance standpoint. So over the course of like
you know, seventeen years that I spent in this secondustry,
I pretty much touched every aspect of what it takes to.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Like understand a business need or market need.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Develop a product, launch the product, and manage the financials
and the operational aspect of that business. And I think
when I struck this problem within me, I somewhere knew
that this is me.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And one thing that.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Always struck with me is this quote from this book
the Monko sold the Ferrari is we are all here
for a special reason. And to me, Jack was a
pivoting point. I'm like, this is it this? I need
to do something about it. And you know, when we
did market research and realize this is a common problem
for a lot of people, and that's what I was
(12:52):
to do it. So my career is what helped me
see this in real time at Modrol and Lenovo, and
I applied that what we're.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Doing today here.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That is great. So you said we did market research,
so Michelle is not a one man army here. So
home have you surrounded yourself with to put all this together?
At Stone A Side?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah? So this this journey.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So I bootstrapped this journey and like many other founders
do so obviously it comes with its own set of challenges,
primarily when it comes to budgets, right, so you're you're
always trying to balance the product development and at the
same time valid it if there is a market need.
And that's when I had to kind of be resourceful
(13:36):
in the sense try to find those resources to validate
the problem. So I initially started with just you know,
cold calling whereous dietitians, clinicians, positions, anybody who I could
find in this field of like nutrition tracking. I talked
to them, but I quickly realized that, you know, that
was not going to be sufficient. I need a team,
and that's when I started like like looking at what
(13:59):
other resources available out there today. There were definitely survey tools,
but they were like priced pretty like the fty cost
that comes along with it, and I needed somebody that
have more intimate conversations with people to do it. So
I needed a team, and that's when I started looking at,
you know, the local universities like students, graduate students, and
(14:20):
I talked to a few of them, and ultimately that
led me to finding out a couple of programs at
the University of Texas at Dallas. So it started with
working with a professor determining a project for a market
research course and that's how we started. We had a
team of six or seven students to our first initial
(14:41):
survey and we were able to reach out to two
hundred plus people and our surveys, but again surveys, we
all know, come take that information with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
So we connected second surveys and.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Now I'm also part of this program at Innovation at
Work at the University of Texas at Dallas, where we
are actually setting people in the field, Like I have
a team of around five or six students graduate students
who are actually working on behalf of Spoonify, talking to
B to B partners on a daily basis and uncovering
insights that I alone wouldn't have been able to do.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Cut it. It's always great to tap into universities in academia, right,
I mean, the kind of the mindset is totally different
and the reach that you get is always awesome. So
so glad that you were able to do it right
in your backyard as well.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And so the other thing Anthony in that case was
also as I engage with these students, I believe that
there was it was good complimentary like you know, efflings,
in the sense.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
These students were hungry to learn.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I mean in the certain times that we are living
in and a lot of the students that I work
with international students right who are like trying to build
their career in the United States, and having myself been
in their shoes twenty years ago, I understood their struggles
and so for me, what I advised was this was
(16:06):
also an opportunity for me to help them work on
a real world.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Business problem, gain those skills.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And one of the things I always tried to do
is push themselves, show them the vision and give them
the freedom to do it, which allows them to not
only be creative, but also experiment with things. And what
I have learned is once they complete the program, they
they they come with the whole They have a whole
different perspective. They have learned a lot of things. They
(16:36):
have learned what it takes to just you know, cold
call somebody and talk to them, talk to a business partner,
see of a small business, which is something that they
wouldn't have been able to do in a class project.
So that's where I believe that this is has also
allowed me to give back, you know, to the community
and help these students build a robust career in the
(16:57):
United States.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And that is always so gratifying, right to give back,
I mean, especially to your point. I mean, we know
the struggles. We've been through that struggle, and when we
see somebody else go through it, it's it's so gratifying.
Kind of agree. More so, let's moving forward a little
bit to where you are, right. So, you you shifted careers,
(17:18):
you became an entrepreneur, you went through the problem yourself,
you started spoonified, and you've obviously built the spoon, right,
do you have a name for the spoon we.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I mean, so again, we realized that Spotify does, in
some sort and fashion kind of limit the scope because
we the journey started looking at the ecosystem of utensils.
We realized that absolutely, you know, spoon and folks are
the most commonly used utensil in any Gaven culture. So
that is why we've picked and started with that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
But that's it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
We already are working on a plate. We already are
working on a cup that would complement the existing portfolio
of spoons and force that we have.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
So that said, where were today is.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
To answer your question, we have not kind of locked
down our brand name per se, but we have thought
about a few and are already filing trademarks against those.
So once the timing is right, we'll obviously launch it
in the market and announce it perfectly. But yeah, so
that's the vision to have an ecosystem and utensils that
can talk to each other and provide holistic nutritional insights
(18:26):
to not only the user but also to their deinicians
in world.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Got it? Got it? Yeah, that makes sense. Let's talk
a little bit about how things are going right. I mean,
we obviously got the spoon, you're working with the universities.
There's a bunch of folks in the ecosystem, which you
told me in the Dallas area that's kind of trying
it out as well. So what's the early results been.
I mean, are you happy with what the spoon itself
(18:54):
is doing and what's the reaction from those who are
using stone?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, so, the the early reactions and the feedback that
we have got are super encouraged. We still have a
little bit of work to do on the technical side,
but we have shown our initial concept and demos to
various B two B partners planning from healthcare institutions to clinicians, physicians,
(19:21):
The chronologists cardiologists, and the feedback that we've got is, yes,
we are solving a problem that is common across all
of these you know industries where nutrition tracking is key
to obtaining the health outcome or directly is correlated to
the health outcome in a particular scenario.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So those feedback have been super helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We have conducted multiple meetings with companies in the cardio
metabolic space and we continue to solicit their feedback. So
at this point we are pretty much have locked down
on our MVP hardware, our MVP firmware, and plan to
kind of start conducting our clinical trials as well user
trials in the month of like April is.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
What you're targeting right now.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But the obviously it's an aggressive goal is to kind
of do a soft launch around a Q three timeframe
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So that's what we're aiming to it.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, okay, so let's talk a little bit about yourself
visual MODI right. I mean, so you were in big tech.
I'm assuming you know obviously, like people say, it's no
longer a stable job anymore with all the layoffs and everything,
But I mean you had people to surround yourself with
you could have people to lean on, but I was
(20:38):
often entrepreneurs say, man, it's a lonely, lonely space, right,
I mean, are there are days where you're figuring out
everything yourself? You know, you feel like you have absolutely
no support. You're questioning yourself saying is this the right
decision to do? So? How has that journey been for
you from the moment you started this too? And then
(20:59):
where do you take inspiration from to keep going at this?
Because I mean, you know the other thing is, like
you said, I mean you you've bootstrapped it, right, I
mean you've not taken money from anybody else to invest.
I mean, obviously that might be part of your roadmap,
but just talk about vishal Modi as a founder. You know,
what you've learned through this journey and anything you can share.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
If I look at myself, I mean Anthony, I like,
I think of myself in this as the version two
of vishalbody. Right, the version one of vishal Modi was
somebody who was like completely risk overse you know, not
willing to take any risk, who had a very defined
path in which he wants to pursue things, and never
(21:45):
like had the courage to go outside of those set
boundaries or challenge himself. And I think my pivoting point
was again that like all through that journey, like multiple failures,
you know, and I, in fact I had a startup
or at least a startup idea, I would say, in
back in twenty eleven around smartphone addiction because I was
(22:06):
a victim of it, and you're talking twenty eleven when
smartphones were not even that prevalent, right, But so again
developed an app all the good stuff, and then I
came across somebody who I was wanted to work with,
and that person was an expert and was writing a
book on Facebook addiction, and as things progressed, she was
(22:27):
willing to partner. Where it got stuck was the contract
negotiations and how to set the financials, etc. And having
no knowledge at that point of time and how to
do business.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was things just stopped.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And that thing still haunts me till date, right, And
so that those failures were a period of time kind
of gave me a boost or a courage to say,
do something about this, which led me to my MBA
and obviously the pandemic with my own weight loss journey,
gave me that courage and you know, to to pursue this,
(23:03):
and I would say, yes, it's it's been a lonely
journey in this entrepreneurial world, especially when you're bootstrapping.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So you but.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
What and one thing I'll tell you, Anthony, is is
in the last two years, one thing if I have learned, uh,
is how to better manage my emotions.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's a roller coaster ride more values than peaks, to
be honest. But what keeps me going are those positive conversations.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
A one positive conversation a day, and it need not
be about the product. It need not be about somebody
telling me that you have a great idea, a great product.
It could be just you know, a conversation in the hallway,
in the off in the in this co working space
where we are, or it could be a phone call
with a friend, could be a mentor. But then one
positive conversation keeps the momentum going. And and that is
(23:52):
what it all out is, you know, keep going every
single day no matter what.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Keep swimming.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
As my one of my previous bosses used to call,
just keep swimming, you know, and there will be and
make sure that you're in the right swimmling, and and
that is I think the key to just keep moving forward.
I still have a long way to go. I believe
I'm still early. But that's one thing I'd like to
share is just keep plugging in. It's it's not an
easier out, but if you if you are in it,
(24:21):
just make sure you keep swimming and you you will
reach your destination.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah. Good advice. Keep swimming. I mean that applies not
just for an entrepreneurial journey. I mean it's it's full
of just life in general. I guess, so beautiful advice.
So what's what's next with Spoonified? I mean, I know
you said you're not gonna limit yourself just with the
spoons pretty much anything that you can put on the
(24:45):
table in taking, you know, food and beverages with So
just talk about your vision for the company and where
all do you see your range of products if you
will being you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So we are looking at again and kind of building
this ecosystem which involves not only expanding our portfolio to
things beyond the org and the spoon, but just plate
cupped or starting spoon. But one of the feedback or
insights that we learned during our market research was like moms,
moms of toddlers are always concerned about if their kids
(25:22):
are getting enough nutrition, and so that has triggered like
conversation that kids pickie eaters, you know, they have allergies.
So is there a segment that we can serve through
this technology that we have built, which has also like
the team thought that, hey, can we have a smart
lunch box you know that that we can kind of
offer it to kids and that complements the utensils that
(25:44):
are being used at home. So there's also there's this
horizontal expansion of portfolio that we are thinking from a
vertical like you know innovation from a product standpoint, we
are looking at sensors like nir spectroscopy. What that allows
us to do is provide not only more precision nutritional
insights into the into the food that you're consuming, but
(26:07):
also it can be tapped to determine the freshness of
the food. Like imagine your spoon or fork to tell
you that this group of Greek yogurt that you're eating
has one point three grams of protein, or you're scooping
something and it gives an indicator that you know the
freshness of this. It's not a fresh food, there could
(26:28):
be a lot of contamination in it, so.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
There's lots that we are looking at that.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
We also are working with the University of Texas Nanotechnology
Institute to explore that further. So that's that's our vision
is we want to in a way not only vertically
in the existing product, but also expand our product portfolio
and offer these tools, these utensils that people can use
as part of their daily lives. And the beauty is
(26:55):
that you know, it's a spoon and a fork and
humans innately know how to use sput and forth. So
learning curve that we have and what we have when
we did some user trials, we give the products to
be put in hand and people just knew how to
use it.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
All that to do was just click the power product.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So that that's hard in our industry, but that's that's
where we want it to be, is have the entire
intensively ecosystem be part of their life.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Got it? Got it? Yeah, that's that makes total sense
in terms of you know, how you're looking at it
as they say, you have to look at this from
their users perspective, which is super important. I mean, you
wish all and your team can come up with whatever
you like the smart box, but I mean, you know,
you've got to take into account how the kids use it,
how they actually use it in school. I mean, how
(27:41):
much space space do they have? All that good stuff? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And and we already have got like ideas from as
we talk to these potential consumers. We've talked about one
hundred and twenty plus customers potential customers, I should say,
and we have got ideas, right, and we have leveraged
it to build our features in our backlog, Like we've
got ideas about, hey, what if I want to carry
this out in a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
What do you do? Like can you have a case?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And the analogy that was given is like an AirPod case,
like it can not only charge, but I can it
can I can carry it around? So that was one
that we have it in our backlog. We want to
build a case for it. The other one who was
more about like what if I'm eating outside in restaurant,
how can you kind of tell and you know I
would still be able to kind of track my calories?
How would you do it? So we have a feature
(28:29):
associated to that. Obviously, we also have got requests like hey,
what if I want to make the user stop eating
completely and can you give and the user like shock
and the spoon falls off from the ground. I'm like,
that's two extreme. But we had to always think in
(28:52):
terms of what the consumers are asking for, like what
are their needs? How are they using it? That journey
in itself has has given us so much insight that
is driving not only a product roadmap, but a feature
road Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I mean, imagine something like an alarm in the house
that says, Vishall's eating too much today. The fridge is locked,
the pantry is locked, and everything is shut for the day. Right,
you bad your calories.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
And one of the things that we do is we
track like you're eating habits real time. So we have
a user profile that is based on usda IS Dietary
Recommended intake, which says that Vishaal being this demographic, he
needs to have this much amount of carved protein cent
flat and once you hit that, he gives you alert
(29:38):
that hey, you have each a recommended threshold for this nutrition.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Imagine extending that.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
To somebody who is on a product condition management plan
for you know, let's say diabetes or weight loss, and
in those scenarios, that profile is adjustable or can be modified,
and once you reach that threshold, you are and that's
a way to intervene and tell the users, like, this
(30:03):
is what you should be eating. If you do, if
you continue eating, yes, it's not going to help you.
And at the same time, we also provide that insight
to the dietition that you know, your patient essentially hit
this threshold and he kept eating. And now it allows
those clinicians to make better It gives them insights to
(30:25):
curate a more personalized plans, if you will, and ultimately
these patients reach their intended health outcome much more quickly
and efficiently. And it goes back to this whole concept
of like value based care, and we are intending to
play a very small role to enable these institutions to
deliver value.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Based care beautiful. So let's speak a little bit about
the technology itself, Michelle. I mean, you mentioned obviously demographic
the database needs to be constantly updated because people are
constantly innovating on what we eat and drink as well.
And then i mean, you know, different types of diets
(31:04):
for different people. I'm assuming there's a very strong AI
layer that you've built into into this as well, or
at least as part of your plan, maybe just give
us a glimpse of you know, where and how you
keep getting this you know, data sets, if you will,
from I mean obviously you need to take different cultures,
(31:27):
different cuisines, so many things to consider, right I mean,
so you've got to constantly keep that updated. Keep in
mind you know what you might like as well, right,
I mean you might like, you know, Chinese food versus
you know, like in something from you know what you're
born and brought up in, so your case change or
your forced to change as well. So there's a lot
(31:48):
that goes in. So maybe talk a little bit about
the technology layer that you've built and how you've kind
of built that future proof as well.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Absolutely, sore are like buse itself. I'll start from the
hardware side. So we have the device itself with multiple
different sensors, including camera that's built into the util soil itself.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
What that allows us to do is.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Track plated as well as non plated foods, meaning like
barcoded foods or prepackaged foods, if you will. We use
that image to essentially recognize what food item it is.
And today the database that we have tracks and it's
a third party database that we use to track all
these different food items. We track up to five, like
(32:31):
I think around a million or two different food items,
including prepackaged foods. So once the food is identified, we
are then have various different sensors that allows us to
track your hand movements and then determine precisely if the
food is actually going in your mouth. So that's kind
of the you know, the hardware or secret sauce that
(32:53):
within the hardware on how we like your eating habits
and eating patterns, eating speed, the weight of the scoop
that's going in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And then we have a companion app that we are built.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
We are using reactnative to allow us to target both
Android and iOS at the same time, and that app
kind of calibrates, it has your profile, It calibrates and
communicates our beautio protocol in real time to determine the
eating you know, patterns, eating speeds and keeps a record
of it. And that we use AWS as our infrastructure
(33:26):
so it can then it's also the reacnative also gives
us the advantage of having a web app which can
then be accepted to like clinicians or additions.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
To basically cross platform.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Platform Sadly, one of the things that we also are
looking at and realize as part of this journey is
that this nutrition tracking being such an intimate journey, people
always like, you know, patients perspective is to be handholded
in this journey. They like to the dieticians all the
time or get their feedback, get that assertation from that
(34:00):
what I'm eating is correct, And that's that's a gap
in the industry because post COVID, what we have seen
is rise in number of people asking for that tition
intuition services and there's only a handful of them today.
In US, the ratio of a patient to adaptition is
one to seventy five and that's that's not a healthy ratio.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
So what we are trying to or one of the
features in our.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
App is an on demand nutritional advisor that is your companion.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
You can ask any questions.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And what makes it different is we utilize your personalized
eating insights, your nutrition intakes for the past however months
that you've been using it to give you recommendations on
what type of food that you should eat. So think
of it this way. If I'm asking for a recipe
that involves you know, something carb related then, but because
(34:52):
I know that in the last six months have not
been getting enough amount of calcium, the recipe that it
would recommend would obviously be something that has a potato
or some sort of carbonate, but it also will include
a component of high calcium. So that's where we personalize
those outputs. So that's that's that's where we that's what
(35:14):
we're working on right now to build that model and
offer that personalized services and the app. So that that's
kind of the heart.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
That is very nicely thought up. Yeah, that's very nicely
thought out. I mean, you know, you're obviously taking into
account what goes in the nutritional aspects of it. I mean,
at the same time, you know, if you're a patient
with something and your doctor needs to stay okay, I
mean here are x y z things that you need
more of that technology can come to the eat of
(35:43):
in this case a patient or somebody who actually needs
more of it or less of it. That's very nicely
thought and.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
At the same time, our device is also auto learned,
so it justs itself, you know, the eating speed, the
eating habits, and one of the things that we again
this was came from one of the interviews that we
conducted was like, can there be a setting to make
those limits more aggressive or fine tune if you want
(36:11):
to be really hard and you know, make sure that
you eat slowly, you can adjust your settings or configure
it in the app so that the device alerts you
if you're even going slightly beyond your eating speed.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So those are the things that you know.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Again goes back to the comment that it's all about
the users. Build a product that you know your users
are going to use and how are they going to
use and and that's what we are doing as part
of this journey.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah, so I'm sure you'll get this question ten out
of ten ten times you speak to people, can you
can you wash the spoons? Can you put it in
a dish washer?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So the way we have designed the spoon and yes,
you're absolutely right, we get this question all the times
I talk about the product. The way you have designed
the product in our first generation is the spoon head
and the forehead are detachable. So think of it as
your electric toothbrush, right. The electric circuitry are built into
the handle. You just detach the you know, the spoon head,
(37:07):
the forkhead, which does not have any electrical components. You
just wash it and the rest of the device has
a mechanism built into it to make it like splash proof. Eventually,
what we want to do is we're looking at materials
to make it I p. Sixty seven, and also we
once we reach that right stage, also look at potentially
using materials that can be dishwasher safe. So again that's
(37:30):
part of the evolution of the product. But we have
kept that thing in mind, and our existing product would
allow the users to wash the spoon head and then
insert it and that should still protect the circuitry and
everything within the hand.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, the smart toothbrush analogy is pretty pretty good, right.
I mean, that's a nice way to look at it,
and I mean, you know, keep it clean as well, right, So,
which is what everybody will want.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
To as part of this journey.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I can tell you, Anthony, how many electric toothbrushes I
have disassembled at home, different brands to look at like,
how is such a technology built into such a small
font factor, you know? And so that in fact was
the first step. After that drawing that I mentioned to
you on the piece of paper, that was the next step,
(38:19):
and since then it has been generation after generation to
getting to this point where you know, we have something tangible,
functional that we are showing to partners across the industry.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Got it. Yeah, I mean it all starts something in
our house, something right in front of us, and you know,
you never know where that inspiration comes from. So, Michelle,
thanks so much for taking the time. It's been a
it's been a blast speaking to you about Sponifide. I mean,
you got something awesome going and I wish you guys
the very best. I look forward to using your product
(38:52):
one day, and so let's stay in touch and keep
us updated on your journey at sponifide all the bestial.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Absolutely, thank you Anthony for having me here. It was
a pleasure sharing the journey. And yeah, definitely will add
you to our like user trial list and we'll we'll
reach out once we start.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That in April. Awesome, take care of michelf sounds good.
Thank you,
This is the Startup Still Safe podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Thank you for journy. Ken you as a favor like,
subscribe on YouTube or LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Thank you sure to give us repeat them.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Well everyone, thanks for joining us from better where you Are.
We're back with a brand new episode of Startups Still Say.
I'm delighted to bring to you Vishall Mody from Spoonify today.
Mishell and I have been talking for the last few
weeks about some amazing work he's been doing in trying
to use AI in the food industry, help kids, help
(00:33):
everyone with nutrition. I'm sure Mishall is going to talk
more about it and educate us on what he's doing there.
But Vishall, thanks so much for taking the time on
a Saturday and joining us here on Startups Still Say.
Welcome absolutely, Anthony, thank you very much for having me
here today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Good morning everyone, Vishall Mody. I'm the founder of Sponified,
and again my journey is like I'm an engine by nature,
and then I did my schooling here as an immigrant,
and during that phase I encountered this problem for which
I was suffered through multiple years before I had the
(01:12):
courage to even get up and do something about it.
And here I am today sharing with Anthony that story
behind what got me started on my startup Sponify. So
I'm glad, glad to be here today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Great, Michelle, So let's go back a little bit, right.
You said that you're an immigrant much like I am.
You know, you came here to study, and if I
know your background, right, you went to B school, you
obviously did your master's here and then I mean, this
is your first venture, so to speak. Right, you were
in big tech or you know, the hardware industry for
(01:49):
a early long time before you choose to say, okay,
I have the courage to come do this on my own.
So I mean, can you walk us through a little
bit of that journey few will as to you know,
what actually prompted you to even uh you know, get
that will power to get started with Quonified.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And so this this problem I mean that we were
talking about today that I went through was a weight right,
weight gain and the journey through weight management, which was
just similar to what a lot other people kind of
go through where and so I always have been on
the heavier side throughout my childhood and to an extent
(02:30):
where I have been bullied because of my weight, and
and those cars were still kind of somewhere within me
and bothering me. And it was during that phase of
coming to the States, adapting to this new lifestyle, new
you know food that that we get here, and and
the problem seems to kind of have excavated itself to
(02:51):
a point where in COVID it got to got really worse.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I mean, I gained a lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Weight and and that is when I kind of got
up and said I have to do something about it.
And like many other people, you know, I joined a
die program and that is when it struck me. And
the first thing that I was told is, hey, here's
your meal plan, you know, and here's what you.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Should be eating.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And I said, okay, And I asked the dietition. I'm like,
how will I be able to manage or how should
I track it?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm like, given my.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Engineering background and business background, it's always about KPIs and
monitoring the progress. And the answer was like, you need
to monitor your you need to measure your food, then
cook it and eat it. And that thing did not
jive with me at all. And I fell off the
program on the fourth day out of a twelve week program.
And it was that moment when I realized, you know,
(03:47):
I worked in tech industry Motorola, seeing the evolution of
the industry from a technology standpoint, this whole smartphone evolution
and how smartphone has pendited.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It lives and life easy.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So that's when I decided to do something about like
can can there be smart utensils that can do this
job for me? Like measure my food and eat and
track the nutritional intake and imagine that data is available
to my daddition. And so that's how I got started,
literally just putting things on a piece of paper, and
(04:24):
you know, like it took me two years before I
got the courage to even formed the company, but that's
how the journey started.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, that's fascinating, right, I Mean a lot of founders
go through this personal pain before it hit hits you
really hard, and you try to do I'm so glad
you're doing something about it. But to your point on
the weight loss programs that are in every nuke and corner,
to you taking a different approach to this, what made
(04:55):
you think that you know, you actually needed a different
perspective and the fact that okay, I mean you start
with how you actually intake your food, right, I mean,
so did you when did that kind of hit you
to say, Okay, I mean it's not about really the
calories or most of those weight programs say oh, so
much protein and so much carbohydrates and so much of
(05:15):
this and so much of that to versus your approach,
which is different with sponify.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So that I think started when I joined this diet program, right,
and I started tracking myself, Like on the second day,
I measured like I was spending roughly about ten to
fifteen minutes just like getting the food ready, measuring it
before cooking it, right, And so I on the first
day or the second day, I spent literally about thirty
(05:44):
thirty five minutes just for measuring that food before I
could coo, get it, eat it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I'm not even counting that time.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And as I noticed this problem, I felt that this
is like in today's day and age, spending thirty five
minutes to do something that has already been automated in
a lot of different ways in other industries, why cannot
be adopted in the industry. And so that got me started,
and past that, I started talking to a lot of
people like you know who I met across in different
(06:12):
forums who were going through the same weight loss journeys,
and I realized that this indeed was a common problem.
You know, the journey itself had so much friction built
into it from the very beginning that people lose motivation
to do it. Like imagine spending thirty five minutes every
single day to keep doing it, and you have to
do it for six months before you see the result.
So that is something that struck chord with me and
(06:35):
and got me started. And the other thing I realized
I have used multiple apps, and I realized that I
was always estimating the food and which was tied to
this original problem of measuring right.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So that that's how I got started on this contry.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Got it. So let's talk about the concept itself, right, Michelle,
So what does you know your device do differently? I mean,
obviously you mentioned yourself. There are so many apps, you know,
where do you put it on a plate, you take
a picture, it gives you the numbers, I mean, but
most of them are very approximate, right, I mean it's
(07:12):
not very accurate. I mean it's not very spot on.
I mean, so with a different approach with spoonified with
a hardware approach to it, bringing in your engineering background,
and of course you're the pain point that you face.
I mean, what did you want to do and have
you gotten too a point with spoonified to where you
(07:32):
wanted it to be?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So where we differentially There are great solutions a little
bit out there today. But what if you observe there
are always a degree apart from your food and your mouth.
Where spoonifyed comes in is we priached that gap between
your plate and your mouth. So think of it this
way that you're solving that mild zero problem when it
comes to the nutrition racking journey. So what we have
(07:56):
built there is an intelligent and fork that not only
identifies the food that you eat, but also tracks every
single bite that goes into your mouth.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And what that allows us to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Do is precisely compute the amount of food that you're
consuming in a meal, and then we use that data
to compute precisely your nuditional.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Intake and we just don't end there.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And one of the gaps that we see in the industry,
and it's I think a limitation of existing solutions is
that they do not provide insights or any interventional guidance
when it comes to eating a lot of it. When
it comes to nutation tracking and oral health goes to
how you eat and are you doing it for the
right amount of time? Are you eating too much or
(08:42):
eating too fast? So our utensils allow you to also
track the speed of eating, how much are you scooping
and putting in your mouth every single bite, and you
provide real time alerts, like through haptic feedback. So imagine
that you are eating and the spoon would know that
Pashal eats like x.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Three scoops a minute.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But obviously, like anybody else, there are stressful situations where
I end up eating too fast. I'm eating six scoops
a minute, and that's unhealthy. Yeah, and so that's where
we Our technology allows us to provide those real time
interventional alerts to alert the user and say slow down,
you are.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Mindlessly eating at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And so that our overall goal is to help people
cultivate sustainable and mindful eating habits.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So and that's what keeps us driving to develop these features.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Got it, Got it? That's that's a really innovative way
to look at it. So you said a few things,
and we'll double click on that. You said, haptic feedback,
you said, it can measure the speed at which you're eating.
It can also guess what you're eating, and you know,
based on that, do the math on the calories and
(09:56):
the intake as well. So what so, let's maybe go
under the hood a little bit, right, I mean, sod
your background in say the Motorolas of the world and
the other high tech companies kind of help you to
build it, because there's a lot going on in a
spoon or a fork itself in terms of technology, right,
(10:19):
So how did you actually go about innovating or even
putting that hardware together? Because I mean a spoon's you know,
form size, and all of that needs to be out
of certain size, right, I mean, you can't make a
big spoon. I mean that's not even a starter. So
you've got to compact everything into that size. Obviously, it
needs to look like a spoon. At the end of
(10:41):
the day, there's a lot that need to be put
in there. So how is that journey to innovate from
obviously having a vision to putting all that into that
spoon or fork?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, Anthony, I attribute a lot of it to my
experience in the tech world right from the old Motorola days,
and you know, there's all always something that I always
wanted to kind of be the entrepreneurship world, and that
was always a visions as one of the career goals.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So that and subconsciously.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
That being the end goal, I navigated my career in
a way that allowed me to touch all aspects of
product development and go to market front, right from the
technical aspect to how the product to launch the product,
what features to put in the product from a software
and hardware standpoint, to the program management aspect of the
(11:35):
tactical aspect of launching the product in the market, do
the strategic aspect of like what is the market need
and how do you design a product thats fits those needs?
So that was my at a high level, my journey
at Morola, and I complimented that with my journey at Lenovo,
where I managed the overall business for the tablet business
(11:58):
unit or indoor tablets, and that kind of allowed me
to learn the business aspect of from an operational standpoint,
from a finance standpoint. So over the course of like
you know, seventeen years that I spent in this secondustry,
I pretty much touched every aspect of what it takes to.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Like understand a business need or market need.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Develop a product, launch the product, and manage the financials
and the operational aspect of that business. And I think
when I struck this problem within me, I somewhere knew
that this is me.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And one thing that.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Always struck with me is this quote from this book
the Monko sold the Ferrari is we are all here
for a special reason. And to me, Jack was a
pivoting point. I'm like, this is it this? I need
to do something about it. And you know, when we
did market research and realize this is a common problem
for a lot of people, and that's what I was
(12:52):
to do it. So my career is what helped me
see this in real time at Modrol and Lenovo, and
I applied that what we're.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Doing today here.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That is great. So you said we did market research,
so Michelle is not a one man army here. So
home have you surrounded yourself with to put all this together?
At Stone A Side?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah? So this this journey.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So I bootstrapped this journey and like many other founders
do so obviously it comes with its own set of challenges,
primarily when it comes to budgets, right, so you're you're
always trying to balance the product development and at the
same time valid it if there is a market need.
And that's when I had to kind of be resourceful
(13:36):
in the sense try to find those resources to validate
the problem. So I initially started with just you know,
cold calling whereous dietitians, clinicians, positions, anybody who I could
find in this field of like nutrition tracking. I talked
to them, but I quickly realized that, you know, that
was not going to be sufficient. I need a team,
and that's when I started like like looking at what
(13:59):
other resources available out there today. There were definitely survey tools,
but they were like priced pretty like the fty cost
that comes along with it, and I needed somebody that
have more intimate conversations with people to do it. So
I needed a team, and that's when I started looking at,
you know, the local universities like students, graduate students, and
(14:20):
I talked to a few of them, and ultimately that
led me to finding out a couple of programs at
the University of Texas at Dallas. So it started with
working with a professor determining a project for a market
research course and that's how we started. We had a
team of six or seven students to our first initial
(14:41):
survey and we were able to reach out to two
hundred plus people and our surveys, but again surveys, we
all know, come take that information with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
So we connected second surveys and.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Now I'm also part of this program at Innovation at
Work at the University of Texas at Dallas, where we
are actually setting people in the field, Like I have
a team of around five or six students graduate students
who are actually working on behalf of Spoonify, talking to
B to B partners on a daily basis and uncovering
insights that I alone wouldn't have been able to do.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Cut it. It's always great to tap into universities in academia, right,
I mean, the kind of the mindset is totally different
and the reach that you get is always awesome. So
so glad that you were able to do it right
in your backyard as well.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And so the other thing Anthony in that case was
also as I engage with these students, I believe that
there was it was good complimentary like you know, efflings,
in the sense.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
These students were hungry to learn.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I mean in the certain times that we are living
in and a lot of the students that I work
with international students right who are like trying to build
their career in the United States, and having myself been
in their shoes twenty years ago, I understood their struggles
and so for me, what I advised was this was
(16:06):
also an opportunity for me to help them work on
a real world.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Business problem, gain those skills.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And one of the things I always tried to do
is push themselves, show them the vision and give them
the freedom to do it, which allows them to not
only be creative, but also experiment with things. And what
I have learned is once they complete the program, they
they they come with the whole They have a whole
different perspective. They have learned a lot of things. They
(16:36):
have learned what it takes to just you know, cold
call somebody and talk to them, talk to a business partner,
see of a small business, which is something that they
wouldn't have been able to do in a class project.
So that's where I believe that this is has also
allowed me to give back, you know, to the community
and help these students build a robust career in the
(16:57):
United States.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And that is always so gratifying, right to give back,
I mean, especially to your point. I mean, we know
the struggles. We've been through that struggle, and when we
see somebody else go through it, it's it's so gratifying.
Kind of agree. More so, let's moving forward a little
bit to where you are, right. So, you you shifted careers,
(17:18):
you became an entrepreneur, you went through the problem yourself,
you started spoonified, and you've obviously built the spoon, right,
do you have a name for the spoon we.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I mean, so again, we realized that Spotify does, in
some sort and fashion kind of limit the scope because
we the journey started looking at the ecosystem of utensils.
We realized that absolutely, you know, spoon and folks are
the most commonly used utensil in any Gaven culture. So
that is why we've picked and started with that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
But that's it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
We already are working on a plate. We already are
working on a cup that would complement the existing portfolio
of spoons and force that we have.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
So that said, where were today is.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
To answer your question, we have not kind of locked
down our brand name per se, but we have thought
about a few and are already filing trademarks against those.
So once the timing is right, we'll obviously launch it
in the market and announce it perfectly. But yeah, so
that's the vision to have an ecosystem and utensils that
can talk to each other and provide holistic nutritional insights
(18:26):
to not only the user but also to their deinicians
in world.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Got it? Got it? Yeah, that makes sense. Let's talk
a little bit about how things are going right. I mean,
we obviously got the spoon, you're working with the universities.
There's a bunch of folks in the ecosystem, which you
told me in the Dallas area that's kind of trying
it out as well. So what's the early results been.
I mean, are you happy with what the spoon itself
(18:54):
is doing and what's the reaction from those who are
using stone?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, so, the the early reactions and the feedback that
we have got are super encouraged. We still have a
little bit of work to do on the technical side,
but we have shown our initial concept and demos to
various B two B partners planning from healthcare institutions to clinicians, physicians,
(19:21):
The chronologists cardiologists, and the feedback that we've got is, yes,
we are solving a problem that is common across all
of these you know industries where nutrition tracking is key
to obtaining the health outcome or directly is correlated to
the health outcome in a particular scenario.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So those feedback have been super helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We have conducted multiple meetings with companies in the cardio
metabolic space and we continue to solicit their feedback. So
at this point we are pretty much have locked down
on our MVP hardware, our MVP firmware, and plan to
kind of start conducting our clinical trials as well user
trials in the month of like April is.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
What you're targeting right now.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But the obviously it's an aggressive goal is to kind
of do a soft launch around a Q three timeframe
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So that's what we're aiming to it.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, okay, so let's talk a little bit about yourself
visual MODI right. I mean, so you were in big tech.
I'm assuming you know obviously, like people say, it's no
longer a stable job anymore with all the layoffs and everything,
But I mean you had people to surround yourself with
you could have people to lean on, but I was
(20:38):
often entrepreneurs say, man, it's a lonely, lonely space, right,
I mean, are there are days where you're figuring out
everything yourself? You know, you feel like you have absolutely
no support. You're questioning yourself saying is this the right
decision to do? So? How has that journey been for
you from the moment you started this too? And then
(20:59):
where do you take inspiration from to keep going at this?
Because I mean, you know the other thing is, like
you said, I mean you you've bootstrapped it, right, I
mean you've not taken money from anybody else to invest.
I mean, obviously that might be part of your roadmap,
but just talk about vishal Modi as a founder. You know,
what you've learned through this journey and anything you can share.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
If I look at myself, I mean Anthony, I like,
I think of myself in this as the version two
of vishalbody. Right, the version one of vishal Modi was
somebody who was like completely risk overse you know, not
willing to take any risk, who had a very defined
path in which he wants to pursue things, and never
(21:45):
like had the courage to go outside of those set
boundaries or challenge himself. And I think my pivoting point
was again that like all through that journey, like multiple failures,
you know, and I, in fact I had a startup
or at least a startup idea, I would say, in
back in twenty eleven around smartphone addiction because I was
(22:06):
a victim of it, and you're talking twenty eleven when
smartphones were not even that prevalent, right, But so again
developed an app all the good stuff, and then I
came across somebody who I was wanted to work with,
and that person was an expert and was writing a
book on Facebook addiction, and as things progressed, she was
(22:27):
willing to partner. Where it got stuck was the contract
negotiations and how to set the financials, etc. And having
no knowledge at that point of time and how to
do business.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was things just stopped.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And that thing still haunts me till date, right, And
so that those failures were a period of time kind
of gave me a boost or a courage to say,
do something about this, which led me to my MBA
and obviously the pandemic with my own weight loss journey,
gave me that courage and you know, to to pursue this,
(23:03):
and I would say, yes, it's it's been a lonely
journey in this entrepreneurial world, especially when you're bootstrapping.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So you but.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
What and one thing I'll tell you, Anthony, is is
in the last two years, one thing if I have learned, uh,
is how to better manage my emotions.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's a roller coaster ride more values than peaks, to
be honest. But what keeps me going are those positive conversations.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
A one positive conversation a day, and it need not
be about the product. It need not be about somebody
telling me that you have a great idea, a great product.
It could be just you know, a conversation in the hallway,
in the off in the in this co working space
where we are, or it could be a phone call
with a friend, could be a mentor. But then one
positive conversation keeps the momentum going. And and that is
(23:52):
what it all out is, you know, keep going every
single day no matter what.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Keep swimming.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
As my one of my previous bosses used to call,
just keep swimming, you know, and there will be and
make sure that you're in the right swimmling, and and
that is I think the key to just keep moving forward.
I still have a long way to go. I believe
I'm still early. But that's one thing I'd like to
share is just keep plugging in. It's it's not an
easier out, but if you if you are in it,
(24:21):
just make sure you keep swimming and you you will
reach your destination.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah. Good advice. Keep swimming. I mean that applies not
just for an entrepreneurial journey. I mean it's it's full
of just life in general. I guess, so beautiful advice.
So what's what's next with Spoonified? I mean, I know
you said you're not gonna limit yourself just with the
spoons pretty much anything that you can put on the
(24:45):
table in taking, you know, food and beverages with So
just talk about your vision for the company and where
all do you see your range of products if you
will being you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So we are looking at again and kind of building
this ecosystem which involves not only expanding our portfolio to
things beyond the org and the spoon, but just plate
cupped or starting spoon. But one of the feedback or
insights that we learned during our market research was like moms,
moms of toddlers are always concerned about if their kids
(25:22):
are getting enough nutrition, and so that has triggered like
conversation that kids pickie eaters, you know, they have allergies.
So is there a segment that we can serve through
this technology that we have built, which has also like
the team thought that, hey, can we have a smart
lunch box you know that that we can kind of
offer it to kids and that complements the utensils that
(25:44):
are being used at home. So there's also there's this
horizontal expansion of portfolio that we are thinking from a
vertical like you know innovation from a product standpoint, we
are looking at sensors like nir spectroscopy. What that allows
us to do is provide not only more precision nutritional
insights into the into the food that you're consuming, but
(26:07):
also it can be tapped to determine the freshness of
the food. Like imagine your spoon or fork to tell
you that this group of Greek yogurt that you're eating
has one point three grams of protein, or you're scooping
something and it gives an indicator that you know the
freshness of this. It's not a fresh food, there could
(26:28):
be a lot of contamination in it, so.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
There's lots that we are looking at that.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
We also are working with the University of Texas Nanotechnology
Institute to explore that further. So that's that's our vision
is we want to in a way not only vertically
in the existing product, but also expand our product portfolio
and offer these tools, these utensils that people can use
as part of their daily lives. And the beauty is
(26:55):
that you know, it's a spoon and a fork and
humans innately know how to use sput and forth. So
learning curve that we have and what we have when
we did some user trials, we give the products to
be put in hand and people just knew how to
use it.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
All that to do was just click the power product.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So that that's hard in our industry, but that's that's
where we want it to be, is have the entire
intensively ecosystem be part of their life.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Got it? Got it? Yeah, that's that makes total sense
in terms of you know, how you're looking at it
as they say, you have to look at this from
their users perspective, which is super important. I mean, you
wish all and your team can come up with whatever
you like the smart box, but I mean, you know,
you've got to take into account how the kids use it,
how they actually use it in school. I mean, how
(27:41):
much space space do they have? All that good stuff? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And and we already have got like ideas from as
we talk to these potential consumers. We've talked about one
hundred and twenty plus customers potential customers, I should say,
and we have got ideas, right, and we have leveraged
it to build our features in our backlog, Like we've
got ideas about, hey, what if I want to carry
this out in a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
What do you do? Like can you have a case?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And the analogy that was given is like an AirPod case,
like it can not only charge, but I can it
can I can carry it around? So that was one
that we have it in our backlog. We want to
build a case for it. The other one who was
more about like what if I'm eating outside in restaurant,
how can you kind of tell and you know I
would still be able to kind of track my calories?
How would you do it? So we have a feature
(28:29):
associated to that. Obviously, we also have got requests like hey,
what if I want to make the user stop eating
completely and can you give and the user like shock
and the spoon falls off from the ground. I'm like,
that's two extreme. But we had to always think in
(28:52):
terms of what the consumers are asking for, like what
are their needs? How are they using it? That journey
in itself has has given us so much insight that
is driving not only a product roadmap, but a feature
road Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I mean, imagine something like an alarm in the house
that says, Vishall's eating too much today. The fridge is locked,
the pantry is locked, and everything is shut for the day. Right,
you bad your calories.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
And one of the things that we do is we
track like you're eating habits real time. So we have
a user profile that is based on usda IS Dietary
Recommended intake, which says that Vishaal being this demographic, he
needs to have this much amount of carved protein cent
flat and once you hit that, he gives you alert
(29:38):
that hey, you have each a recommended threshold for this nutrition.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Imagine extending that.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
To somebody who is on a product condition management plan
for you know, let's say diabetes or weight loss, and
in those scenarios, that profile is adjustable or can be modified,
and once you reach that threshold, you are and that's
a way to intervene and tell the users, like, this
(30:03):
is what you should be eating. If you do, if
you continue eating, yes, it's not going to help you.
And at the same time, we also provide that insight
to the dietition that you know, your patient essentially hit
this threshold and he kept eating. And now it allows
those clinicians to make better It gives them insights to
(30:25):
curate a more personalized plans, if you will, and ultimately
these patients reach their intended health outcome much more quickly
and efficiently. And it goes back to this whole concept
of like value based care, and we are intending to
play a very small role to enable these institutions to
deliver value.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Based care beautiful. So let's speak a little bit about
the technology itself, Michelle. I mean, you mentioned obviously demographic
the database needs to be constantly updated because people are
constantly innovating on what we eat and drink as well.
And then i mean, you know, different types of diets
(31:04):
for different people. I'm assuming there's a very strong AI
layer that you've built into into this as well, or
at least as part of your plan, maybe just give
us a glimpse of you know, where and how you
keep getting this you know, data sets, if you will,
from I mean obviously you need to take different cultures,
(31:27):
different cuisines, so many things to consider, right I mean,
so you've got to constantly keep that updated. Keep in
mind you know what you might like as well, right,
I mean you might like, you know, Chinese food versus
you know, like in something from you know what you're
born and brought up in, so your case change or
your forced to change as well. So there's a lot
(31:48):
that goes in. So maybe talk a little bit about
the technology layer that you've built and how you've kind
of built that future proof as well.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Absolutely, sore are like buse itself. I'll start from the
hardware side. So we have the device itself with multiple
different sensors, including camera that's built into the util soil itself.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
What that allows us to do is.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Track plated as well as non plated foods, meaning like
barcoded foods or prepackaged foods, if you will. We use
that image to essentially recognize what food item it is.
And today the database that we have tracks and it's
a third party database that we use to track all
these different food items. We track up to five, like
(32:31):
I think around a million or two different food items,
including prepackaged foods. So once the food is identified, we
are then have various different sensors that allows us to
track your hand movements and then determine precisely if the
food is actually going in your mouth. So that's kind
of the you know, the hardware or secret sauce that
(32:53):
within the hardware on how we like your eating habits
and eating patterns, eating speed, the weight of the scoop
that's going in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And then we have a companion app that we are built.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
We are using reactnative to allow us to target both
Android and iOS at the same time, and that app
kind of calibrates, it has your profile, It calibrates and
communicates our beautio protocol in real time to determine the
eating you know, patterns, eating speeds and keeps a record
of it. And that we use AWS as our infrastructure
(33:26):
so it can then it's also the reacnative also gives
us the advantage of having a web app which can
then be accepted to like clinicians or additions.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
To basically cross platform.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Platform Sadly, one of the things that we also are
looking at and realize as part of this journey is
that this nutrition tracking being such an intimate journey, people
always like, you know, patients perspective is to be handholded
in this journey. They like to the dieticians all the
time or get their feedback, get that assertation from that
(34:00):
what I'm eating is correct, And that's that's a gap
in the industry because post COVID, what we have seen
is rise in number of people asking for that tition
intuition services and there's only a handful of them today.
In US, the ratio of a patient to adaptition is
one to seventy five and that's that's not a healthy ratio.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
So what we are trying to or one of the
features in our.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
App is an on demand nutritional advisor that is your companion.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
You can ask any questions.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And what makes it different is we utilize your personalized
eating insights, your nutrition intakes for the past however months
that you've been using it to give you recommendations on
what type of food that you should eat. So think
of it this way. If I'm asking for a recipe
that involves you know, something carb related then, but because
(34:52):
I know that in the last six months have not
been getting enough amount of calcium, the recipe that it
would recommend would obviously be something that has a potato
or some sort of carbonate, but it also will include
a component of high calcium. So that's where we personalize
those outputs. So that's that's that's where we that's what
(35:14):
we're working on right now to build that model and
offer that personalized services and the app. So that that's
kind of the heart.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
That is very nicely thought up. Yeah, that's very nicely
thought out. I mean, you know, you're obviously taking into
account what goes in the nutritional aspects of it. I mean,
at the same time, you know, if you're a patient
with something and your doctor needs to stay okay, I
mean here are x y z things that you need
more of that technology can come to the eat of
(35:43):
in this case a patient or somebody who actually needs
more of it or less of it. That's very nicely
thought and.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
At the same time, our device is also auto learned,
so it justs itself, you know, the eating speed, the
eating habits, and one of the things that we again
this was came from one of the interviews that we
conducted was like, can there be a setting to make
those limits more aggressive or fine tune if you want
(36:11):
to be really hard and you know, make sure that
you eat slowly, you can adjust your settings or configure
it in the app so that the device alerts you
if you're even going slightly beyond your eating speed.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So those are the things that you know.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Again goes back to the comment that it's all about
the users. Build a product that you know your users
are going to use and how are they going to
use and and that's what we are doing as part
of this journey.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah, so I'm sure you'll get this question ten out
of ten ten times you speak to people, can you
can you wash the spoons? Can you put it in
a dish washer?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So the way we have designed the spoon and yes,
you're absolutely right, we get this question all the times
I talk about the product. The way you have designed
the product in our first generation is the spoon head
and the forehead are detachable. So think of it as
your electric toothbrush, right. The electric circuitry are built into
the handle. You just detach the you know, the spoon head,
(37:07):
the forkhead, which does not have any electrical components. You
just wash it and the rest of the device has
a mechanism built into it to make it like splash proof. Eventually,
what we want to do is we're looking at materials
to make it I p. Sixty seven, and also we
once we reach that right stage, also look at potentially
using materials that can be dishwasher safe. So again that's
(37:30):
part of the evolution of the product. But we have
kept that thing in mind, and our existing product would
allow the users to wash the spoon head and then
insert it and that should still protect the circuitry and
everything within the hand.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, the smart toothbrush analogy is pretty pretty good, right.
I mean, that's a nice way to look at it,
and I mean, you know, keep it clean as well, right, So,
which is what everybody will want.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
To as part of this journey.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I can tell you, Anthony, how many electric toothbrushes I
have disassembled at home, different brands to look at like,
how is such a technology built into such a small
font factor, you know? And so that in fact was
the first step. After that drawing that I mentioned to
you on the piece of paper, that was the next step,
(38:19):
and since then it has been generation after generation to
getting to this point where you know, we have something tangible,
functional that we are showing to partners across the industry.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Got it. Yeah, I mean it all starts something in
our house, something right in front of us, and you know,
you never know where that inspiration comes from. So, Michelle,
thanks so much for taking the time. It's been a
it's been a blast speaking to you about Sponifide. I mean,
you got something awesome going and I wish you guys
the very best. I look forward to using your product
(38:52):
one day, and so let's stay in touch and keep
us updated on your journey at sponifide all the bestial.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Absolutely, thank you Anthony for having me here. It was
a pleasure sharing the journey. And yeah, definitely will add
you to our like user trial list and we'll we'll
reach out once we start.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That in April. Awesome, take care of michelf sounds good.
Thank you,
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