April 24, 2025 • 17 mins
Executive Vice President, Jeff Thomas sits down with Ishan Patel, the CEO of Audien Hearing. Audien Hearing is a company that designs and sells personal sound amplification products (PSAPs) and over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, offering affordable hearing solutions directly to consumers. Their devices, like the Audien Atom, are designed for individuals with mild-to-moderate perceived hearing loss and can be purchased online without a hearing evaluation from an audiologist.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Jeff Thomas, executive vice president iHeartMedia in Los Angeles,
and today's guest is Ishan Patel, Founder and CEO of
Audience Hearing. Super excited to have you with us today.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
E Shan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome. Before we start the conversation and really learn about
your journey, I want to get the juices flowing a
little bit, ask you some questions, and since your business
is tied into music, speech and hearing, I thought we'd
make these rapid fire questions all about everything audio. You ready, ready, Okay?
So what's the best concert you've ever been to?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Ultra Music Festival twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Why did you like that so much?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It's the last time Scrillicks played and closed out Ultra
and him and Dipplo did jack you together? Justin Bieber
came on stage and sang where are you now? And
I think you just played again for the first time
in ten years this past weekend at Ultra. But for
me that was probably the pinnacle of concert experiences.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And if you were stranded on a desert island, what
music would you take with you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh, dodsteps so I could survive? You know, fight every
day for my life, go fishing and hunt.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There you go, there you go. So when you were
growing up, who did you listen to? Who are the
people that you really paid attention to and listened to?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
You know, my dad really loved bands like you know
you Two, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and just for me,
I had a bit of music influence from him, Pink Floyd.
I saw Pink Floyd do the Wall when I was
too young to appreciate it, which is I always look
back at my past self and go, you should have
really imprinted that one into your memory because it was
kind of a legendary tour. And then for me, I
(01:38):
just loved all kind of like your classic hip hop
stars R and be like Britney Spears, Rihanna kind of
made up my childhood. Umbrella was my mom's ring tone,
and the whole house danced every time a call came
in and she missed all her calls. So I don't
know why it wasn't very productive.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you grew up in a musical household, people that
loved music, grew up with music and hearing, you know,
listening and and really like taking an audio which is
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, I would say my dad was a big influence
on that, and we all just left to dance. But
I was very traditionally educated as well, so there wasn't
a huge focus on music and creativity so much as
math and science.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So how do you get into the hearing aid business
because you are not of the age where you would
need a hearing aid.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, So I actually grew up my grandfather has pretty
significant hearing loss, so I grew up experiencing hearing loss
every day in the household. And what people don't realize
is that it completely ruins your ability to have a
relationship with that individual. So for me, for a period
of time, well before OTC hearing aids existed and prescription
hearing aids are four or five six thousand dollars a pair, right,
(02:41):
I just lose the ability to connect with my grandpa.
And when you're a kid, you think Grandpa doesn't like me.
He's angry at me because you're having to shout at him,
even though you're telling him things like happy birthday or
I love you. Right, So it was quite an impact
that was ingrained into my life from a young age.
And then when I became older and heard that the
FDA was creating an over the counterhearing aid category. My
(03:02):
co founders and I knew that this was something that
had to be changed.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Like how did you land on that though of audience hearing?
Like how did you land on hearing aids rather than
some other business that you could start that was kind
of similarly, you know, impacted by a change in the loss.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So, I mean I didn't start in hearing aids, right.
I ultimately dropped out of college when I was twenty
after my junior year, I had one year left and
I tried and failed to start probably eight businesses, most
of them with my current co founders, and so we
were trying to do different services, online businesses, product based companies,
all the above, and really just learned I think, the
(03:41):
ins and outs of business servicing a customer, and then
circled back ultimately to the hearing industry and there was
a huge need that needed to be filled. Eighty percent
of people with hearing loss do not wear a hearing aid.
Can you imagine, it's the third largest untreated medical condition
on Earth. So to me, when I look around this
room in the student or in I can't point it
a single thing where eighty percent of the global population
(04:03):
that needs it doesn't have access to it or can't
afford it. So it was just a problem that was
so big and so close to home that it felt
like it was really worth trying to solve.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I think you've led into this already, But what would
you say is the most unique proposition that you have
for the consumer going to market with audience?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So we have a few I guess world records that
I'm really proud of. Right, we've now become the highest
volume selling over the counterhearing aid company in the world,
with over a million customers nationwide and growing pretty quickly.
We were the first hearing aid company to launch nationwide
in retail as well, with Walmart as our partner, and
that leads to the third and I think kind of
(04:42):
the unique value prop for a lot of people out
there is we invented the first ninety eight dollars over
the counter hearing aid so for AUDI and our mission
is to make hearing affordable and accessible for everyone, and
our slogan is hearing for everyone. So at the end
of the day, that's always been the goal to bring
the best product for the best price to the most people.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Wait a minute, though, that has to be very disruptive.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, I would say that we've ruffled more than a
few feathers in this path. I mean, going from zero
to a million. You have to realize, like last year,
I believe about five million prescription hearing aids were sold
in the United States. You know we will sell this
year well over five hundred thousand pairs, right, So if
you think about the number of lives impacted, yes, our
product is thousands of dollars cheaper, so we're not you know,
(05:26):
some deck a billion dollar hearing conglomerate. However, for me,
I measure on lives impacted. So if I'm able to
help now a million families and a million people and
hopefully many millions more. We figured that if we started
with the customer, first, delivered a product that they could
afford an access, and got it in the hands of
as many people that needed it as possible, we could
sort of figure the rest out as we went.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So you now have the largest demographic group in history
moving into the age where they're going to need hearing aids,
and those are baby boomers. They're in there, moving into
their mid late sixties to seventies, and there's a lot
of people that are going to be impacted by hearing loss,
so you're gonna be able to help a lot more people.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean a billion people in the world
have hearing loss and struggle with hearing loss, and if
you consider the ripple effect, like people like myself, right,
I would say almost every person on earth is affected
by this because either they are someone who's affected or
someone they love is affected. And everyone has that story
of like, yeah, my mom, my dad, my brother, my grandpa,
my grandma, right that I just lost the ability to
(06:26):
connect with them. And at the end of the day,
isn't that why we're all here? Right? If you lose
the ability to hear, someone to hear I love you,
happy birthdays, It's great to see you. How is your day? Right?
Isn't that what life is all about at the end
of the day, just connecting with other people.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I've always felt that hearing is more important than sight
because you really lose a connection when you lose that
voice and the ability to connect with somebody went on one.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, absolutely, it's I mean, I think we're so focused
on site because it's been popularized much more. Glasses are
much more readily available, But with you completely that if
you lose the ability to see, you know, you can
still really connect with the people you love. If you
lose the ability to hear, you can't communicate at all.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So you've done a lot in a really short period
of time. But there had to have been some setbacks.
There had to have been challenged many.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I mean, so AUDI and Hearing started March of twenty twenty,
so we remember what time that was. It was literally
peak of COVID, and you know, we launched a company
out of a garage in Tempe, Arizona. We bootstrapped the company,
so we had five hundred dollars to our name at
the time. You know, we put up a website, we
built the offer. We had relationships in the in the
hearing industry from past jobs that I had had in
(07:38):
working in the industry, and we built this vision of hey,
we want to deliver the first ninety nine dollars hearing
device to the country in the world. Everyone goes, you're crazy,
you know, you can't do that, it won't work. It's
and then we launch it and then next thing you know,
COVID hits so right out the gate, you know, we
were within fifty days of launching, we had done a
(07:59):
million in sale, and then within ninety days we were
doing about a million a month out of this garage
and we had trucks coming in, palletts of product being offloaded.
People thought we were drug dealers for sure, because they're like,
what do you do? You know, It's like, oh, we
do medical tech. And we didn't want to say much
about it because it was very early new We were
still figuring it out. And then Covid hits supply chain
(08:19):
for Rozen. Completely global economy goes up in flames. And
this was one of the most profound moments, I would
say in the early days of the business, because we
had a make or break moment here. Either the business
goes completely bankrupt because we can't deliver product that we've
already sold right to customers who are purchasing every day,
every minute online, or we reach out to those people
(08:43):
we tell the ten fifteen thousand back orders that we
now have because we were being told it's coming tomorrow,
It's coming tomorrow, lo and behold, little do we not
know it was not going to be coming for ten weeks, right,
And so we had literally, like I think it was
fourteen or fifteen thousand people that were waiting on product
because we were growing that fast, and we had to
(09:03):
reach out to them and tell them, hey, this is
what's happening. You know, if you we want to give
you the choice. We want to be super transparent with you.
We're a small business, you know, we consider ourselves sort
of family and friend owned. We've been able to do
something really amazing for people in a short period of time,
and this global crisis is going to take some time
(09:24):
to work with. So if you know, if you stick
with us, we will do right by you. And the
response was overwhelming. I mean people wrote back and said
you're doing a great thing. Thank you so much for
what you're trying to do here, like we've got your back,
and like our business survived because ten thousand strangers all
(09:45):
chipped in to say, hey, we trust you, we see
where this is going, and we're willing to wait, you know,
six to ten weeks to receive our product.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That has to be pretty fulfilling too. Just seeing that
kind of response, even when you were seeing challenges and
having these issues with supply chain.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, I think what I've learned. One thing I've learned
throughout this process is it's all about the human experience, right.
You can try to build a great product, great company,
a great customer service and customer experience, but at the
end of the day, it's one human being connecting with
another human being. And when you are able to come
from that place, you have so much to learn from
the people that you're working with. But also you will
(10:23):
be surprised how much people will rise to the challenge
and step up to help each other, you know. And
it goes both ways, right, us doing everything we can
for our customers, and then in times of really challenging moments,
then turning around and doing the same for us.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So a lot of people are listening right now. There
may be people out there that have businesses, they're getting started,
they're in the same situation that you were, you know,
five or six years ago, and they're like, man, I
would love to be able to expand my business into
Walmart or a big retailer like that. What gave you
the confidence to be able to do that? Why did
(10:58):
you decide to go from direct to the consumer getting
into retail, and how's that worked out?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So to start with your first question, I would say,
never underestimate the grassroots experience of talking one by one
to the people you're trying to serve. So, before I
became the CEO of the world's highest volume selling over
the counterhearing aid company, I was a phone rep. Right,
So I personally spoke with and delivered a thousand hearing
(11:25):
aids to customers. I heard their hopes, their dreams, their worries,
their fears, the loneliness that we were ultimately trying to solve,
not just the hearing loss. Right. So I would say
that that's where the confidence comes from. It's the deep
and intimate understanding of the people I'm trying to serve.
It's kind of like when you speak confidently about something
you love or someone you love because you know them
(11:48):
and you are connected to them and you know that
they have your back and you have theirs. So that's
where the confidence I would say came from. Is just
and that you don't need a big budget. You don't
need millions of dollars of VC funding. You don't need
a Harvard law degree or you know, shout out to Harvard.
No hate to Harvard, but you know you don't need
any of that stuff to do to do this. You
just need to figure out who you want to help
(12:09):
find that person and try to help them right, so
that I think people really think like there's way more
barriers to entry, right. But if you understand who you're
trying to serve, they will tell you what they need
and then you will figure out how to get it
to them. Right. It's not rocket science in that sense.
And then getting into retail first, the regulatory changes allowed
(12:30):
it to happen. We weren't even able to explore that
opportunity until the regulatory change has occurred. But more importantly,
it's that remember the mission, affordability and accessibility that second
piece their accessibility. How do we get this in the
hands of the people that need it where they need it?
And there's no doubt that, you know, retail giants like
Walmart are able to do that at a scale that
(12:52):
other businesses simply will never be able to do so.
For me, at the end of the day, I will
work with anyone who will help me help the people
that I'm trying to serve, help me get this in
front of the people who deserve hearing care, who are
desperate for it, and who have been ignored by I mean,
one hundred year old industry.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Are you strictly US or are you branching out globally now?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Right now, we're just in the United States. Absolutely global
plans on the docket. Expansion on the docket for probably
twenty twenty six. At this pacing, we really wanted to
understand the domestic market, get the critical mass in the market, penetration,
learn what we could from our home market here, and
then take those learnings on the global scale. So definitely
on the docket, but not currently.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
You've done a lot in a short period of time.
What does the future hold for audience for you personally?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Oh, man, I think that a million people have been
helped right now, so a million down, nine hundred and
ninety nine million to go. Right there are a billion
people in the world that are from hearing loss. And
while I'm super proud of the impact we've been able
to have, it's literally the tip of the iceberg. I
we don't even consider the job one percent done. So
I would say the future for audience is, you know,
(14:06):
full chain distribution. We've got some very exciting retail partners
we're launching with. I can't formally announce quite yet, but
we're going to be in quite a few doors by
the end of the year innovating the product lines. Right,
there's some amazing tech we're going to be putting out
this year that's literally never been seen in the hearing
industry and it's going to change the way people interact
with hearing care and hearing aids. So I think that's
(14:27):
a big focus for us as well, and then for
me personally, it really would be cool on the global
scale one day to go to places like Zambia, Africa,
where my dad was born, right, and work with their
local governments to provide hearing care on a scale that
the country's never seen to help people that will otherwise
(14:48):
never be able to get access to it in the
current environments. Right. And that's like an example of a
great starting point. But there are countless countries and countless
peoples around the world that need that as well.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So people want advice, they want to get some tips,
some words of wisdom from you on how they can
help their business grow and really like come some keys
to success.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I would say, first, talk to your customer. What
do they like, what do they dislike, what do they want,
and what do they need? Right. I think one thing
that's really overlooked is if you picked up the phone
and called whatever number of customers you have at this moment,
and you just asked them, what's your experience been like?
(15:34):
What could I have done better for you? What do
you feel you're not getting right? People sit and they
spend god knows how much money on consultants and business plans,
when the answers are right in front of you, if
you're able to listen, and people become CEOs, they become
business owners, and they think, I don't have time for this.
I don't have time for that. You always need to
have time to pick up the phone and call your customer,
(15:55):
to go meet with your customer. Who are you serving
and why are you serving them? Come back to that
question every single time, and I promise you whatever's next
will reveal itself very quickly, and that will continue to
evolve right as the business evolves. What you did yesterday
won't work tomorrow, and audience had to redefine itself time
and time again. But every time we come back to
(16:17):
our purpose, which is the individuals we're trying to serve,
and we ask them what they need and what they want,
and then we combine our know how of how to
separate what somebody thinks they need and want versus what
they actually need and want, but it still starts with
the person you're serving.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
This has been really inspiring because you're doing great things
to help people as well as building your business up
and they both can coexist and you can be successful
and help other people here and that's awesome. So congratulations
on your success. It's been great having you on the
program today. Another edition of CEOs you Should Know with
Ishan Patel, the founder, co founder I Should Say and
(16:55):
CEO of Audience Hearing. Thank you for being on the
show today.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It was great. Thanks for having me. Listen to CEOs
you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Jeff Thomas, executive vice president iHeartMedia in Los Angeles,
and today's guest is Ishan Patel, Founder and CEO of
Audience Hearing. Super excited to have you with us today.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
E Shan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome. Before we start the conversation and really learn about
your journey, I want to get the juices flowing a
little bit, ask you some questions, and since your business
is tied into music, speech and hearing, I thought we'd
make these rapid fire questions all about everything audio. You ready, ready, Okay?
So what's the best concert you've ever been to?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Ultra Music Festival twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Why did you like that so much?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It's the last time Scrillicks played and closed out Ultra
and him and Dipplo did jack you together? Justin Bieber
came on stage and sang where are you now? And
I think you just played again for the first time
in ten years this past weekend at Ultra. But for
me that was probably the pinnacle of concert experiences.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And if you were stranded on a desert island, what
music would you take with you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh, dodsteps so I could survive? You know, fight every
day for my life, go fishing and hunt.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There you go, there you go. So when you were
growing up, who did you listen to? Who are the
people that you really paid attention to and listened to?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
You know, my dad really loved bands like you know
you Two, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and just for me,
I had a bit of music influence from him, Pink Floyd.
I saw Pink Floyd do the Wall when I was
too young to appreciate it, which is I always look
back at my past self and go, you should have
really imprinted that one into your memory because it was
kind of a legendary tour. And then for me, I
(01:38):
just loved all kind of like your classic hip hop
stars R and be like Britney Spears, Rihanna kind of
made up my childhood. Umbrella was my mom's ring tone,
and the whole house danced every time a call came
in and she missed all her calls. So I don't
know why it wasn't very productive.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you grew up in a musical household, people that
loved music, grew up with music and hearing, you know,
listening and and really like taking an audio which is
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, I would say my dad was a big influence
on that, and we all just left to dance. But
I was very traditionally educated as well, so there wasn't
a huge focus on music and creativity so much as
math and science.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So how do you get into the hearing aid business
because you are not of the age where you would
need a hearing aid.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, So I actually grew up my grandfather has pretty
significant hearing loss, so I grew up experiencing hearing loss
every day in the household. And what people don't realize
is that it completely ruins your ability to have a
relationship with that individual. So for me, for a period
of time, well before OTC hearing aids existed and prescription
hearing aids are four or five six thousand dollars a pair, right,
(02:41):
I just lose the ability to connect with my grandpa.
And when you're a kid, you think Grandpa doesn't like me.
He's angry at me because you're having to shout at him,
even though you're telling him things like happy birthday or
I love you. Right, So it was quite an impact
that was ingrained into my life from a young age.
And then when I became older and heard that the
FDA was creating an over the counterhearing aid category. My
(03:02):
co founders and I knew that this was something that
had to be changed.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Like how did you land on that though of audience hearing?
Like how did you land on hearing aids rather than
some other business that you could start that was kind
of similarly, you know, impacted by a change in the loss.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So, I mean I didn't start in hearing aids, right.
I ultimately dropped out of college when I was twenty
after my junior year, I had one year left and
I tried and failed to start probably eight businesses, most
of them with my current co founders, and so we
were trying to do different services, online businesses, product based companies,
all the above, and really just learned I think, the
(03:41):
ins and outs of business servicing a customer, and then
circled back ultimately to the hearing industry and there was
a huge need that needed to be filled. Eighty percent
of people with hearing loss do not wear a hearing aid.
Can you imagine, it's the third largest untreated medical condition
on Earth. So to me, when I look around this
room in the student or in I can't point it
a single thing where eighty percent of the global population
(04:03):
that needs it doesn't have access to it or can't
afford it. So it was just a problem that was
so big and so close to home that it felt
like it was really worth trying to solve.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I think you've led into this already, But what would
you say is the most unique proposition that you have
for the consumer going to market with audience?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So we have a few I guess world records that
I'm really proud of. Right, we've now become the highest
volume selling over the counterhearing aid company in the world,
with over a million customers nationwide and growing pretty quickly.
We were the first hearing aid company to launch nationwide
in retail as well, with Walmart as our partner, and
that leads to the third and I think kind of
(04:42):
the unique value prop for a lot of people out
there is we invented the first ninety eight dollars over
the counter hearing aid so for AUDI and our mission
is to make hearing affordable and accessible for everyone, and
our slogan is hearing for everyone. So at the end
of the day, that's always been the goal to bring
the best product for the best price to the most people.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Wait a minute, though, that has to be very disruptive.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, I would say that we've ruffled more than a
few feathers in this path. I mean, going from zero
to a million. You have to realize, like last year,
I believe about five million prescription hearing aids were sold
in the United States. You know we will sell this
year well over five hundred thousand pairs, right, So if
you think about the number of lives impacted, yes, our
product is thousands of dollars cheaper, so we're not you know,
(05:26):
some deck a billion dollar hearing conglomerate. However, for me,
I measure on lives impacted. So if I'm able to
help now a million families and a million people and
hopefully many millions more. We figured that if we started
with the customer, first, delivered a product that they could
afford an access, and got it in the hands of
as many people that needed it as possible, we could
sort of figure the rest out as we went.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So you now have the largest demographic group in history
moving into the age where they're going to need hearing aids,
and those are baby boomers. They're in there, moving into
their mid late sixties to seventies, and there's a lot
of people that are going to be impacted by hearing loss,
so you're gonna be able to help a lot more people.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean a billion people in the world
have hearing loss and struggle with hearing loss, and if
you consider the ripple effect, like people like myself, right,
I would say almost every person on earth is affected
by this because either they are someone who's affected or
someone they love is affected. And everyone has that story
of like, yeah, my mom, my dad, my brother, my grandpa,
my grandma, right that I just lost the ability to
(06:26):
connect with them. And at the end of the day,
isn't that why we're all here? Right? If you lose
the ability to hear, someone to hear I love you,
happy birthdays, It's great to see you. How is your day? Right?
Isn't that what life is all about at the end
of the day, just connecting with other people.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I've always felt that hearing is more important than sight
because you really lose a connection when you lose that
voice and the ability to connect with somebody went on one.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, absolutely, it's I mean, I think we're so focused
on site because it's been popularized much more. Glasses are
much more readily available, But with you completely that if
you lose the ability to see, you know, you can
still really connect with the people you love. If you
lose the ability to hear, you can't communicate at all.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So you've done a lot in a really short period
of time. But there had to have been some setbacks.
There had to have been challenged many.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I mean, so AUDI and Hearing started March of twenty twenty,
so we remember what time that was. It was literally
peak of COVID, and you know, we launched a company
out of a garage in Tempe, Arizona. We bootstrapped the company,
so we had five hundred dollars to our name at
the time. You know, we put up a website, we
built the offer. We had relationships in the in the
hearing industry from past jobs that I had had in
(07:38):
working in the industry, and we built this vision of hey,
we want to deliver the first ninety nine dollars hearing
device to the country in the world. Everyone goes, you're crazy,
you know, you can't do that, it won't work. It's
and then we launch it and then next thing you know,
COVID hits so right out the gate, you know, we
were within fifty days of launching, we had done a
(07:59):
million in sale, and then within ninety days we were
doing about a million a month out of this garage
and we had trucks coming in, palletts of product being offloaded.
People thought we were drug dealers for sure, because they're like,
what do you do? You know, It's like, oh, we
do medical tech. And we didn't want to say much
about it because it was very early new We were
still figuring it out. And then Covid hits supply chain
(08:19):
for Rozen. Completely global economy goes up in flames. And
this was one of the most profound moments, I would
say in the early days of the business, because we
had a make or break moment here. Either the business
goes completely bankrupt because we can't deliver product that we've
already sold right to customers who are purchasing every day,
every minute online, or we reach out to those people
(08:43):
we tell the ten fifteen thousand back orders that we
now have because we were being told it's coming tomorrow,
It's coming tomorrow, lo and behold, little do we not
know it was not going to be coming for ten weeks, right,
And so we had literally, like I think it was
fourteen or fifteen thousand people that were waiting on product
because we were growing that fast, and we had to
(09:03):
reach out to them and tell them, hey, this is
what's happening. You know, if you we want to give
you the choice. We want to be super transparent with you.
We're a small business, you know, we consider ourselves sort
of family and friend owned. We've been able to do
something really amazing for people in a short period of time,
and this global crisis is going to take some time
(09:24):
to work with. So if you know, if you stick
with us, we will do right by you. And the
response was overwhelming. I mean people wrote back and said
you're doing a great thing. Thank you so much for
what you're trying to do here, like we've got your back,
and like our business survived because ten thousand strangers all
(09:45):
chipped in to say, hey, we trust you, we see
where this is going, and we're willing to wait, you know,
six to ten weeks to receive our product.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That has to be pretty fulfilling too. Just seeing that
kind of response, even when you were seeing challenges and
having these issues with supply chain.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, I think what I've learned. One thing I've learned
throughout this process is it's all about the human experience, right.
You can try to build a great product, great company,
a great customer service and customer experience, but at the
end of the day, it's one human being connecting with
another human being. And when you are able to come
from that place, you have so much to learn from
the people that you're working with. But also you will
(10:23):
be surprised how much people will rise to the challenge
and step up to help each other, you know. And
it goes both ways, right, us doing everything we can
for our customers, and then in times of really challenging moments,
then turning around and doing the same for us.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So a lot of people are listening right now. There
may be people out there that have businesses, they're getting started,
they're in the same situation that you were, you know,
five or six years ago, and they're like, man, I
would love to be able to expand my business into
Walmart or a big retailer like that. What gave you
the confidence to be able to do that? Why did
(10:58):
you decide to go from direct to the consumer getting
into retail, and how's that worked out?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So to start with your first question, I would say,
never underestimate the grassroots experience of talking one by one
to the people you're trying to serve. So, before I
became the CEO of the world's highest volume selling over
the counterhearing aid company, I was a phone rep. Right,
So I personally spoke with and delivered a thousand hearing
(11:25):
aids to customers. I heard their hopes, their dreams, their worries,
their fears, the loneliness that we were ultimately trying to solve,
not just the hearing loss. Right. So I would say
that that's where the confidence comes from. It's the deep
and intimate understanding of the people I'm trying to serve.
It's kind of like when you speak confidently about something
you love or someone you love because you know them
(11:48):
and you are connected to them and you know that
they have your back and you have theirs. So that's
where the confidence I would say came from. Is just
and that you don't need a big budget. You don't
need millions of dollars of VC funding. You don't need
a Harvard law degree or you know, shout out to Harvard.
No hate to Harvard, but you know you don't need
any of that stuff to do to do this. You
just need to figure out who you want to help
(12:09):
find that person and try to help them right, so
that I think people really think like there's way more
barriers to entry, right. But if you understand who you're
trying to serve, they will tell you what they need
and then you will figure out how to get it
to them. Right. It's not rocket science in that sense.
And then getting into retail first, the regulatory changes allowed
(12:30):
it to happen. We weren't even able to explore that
opportunity until the regulatory change has occurred. But more importantly,
it's that remember the mission, affordability and accessibility that second
piece their accessibility. How do we get this in the
hands of the people that need it where they need it?
And there's no doubt that, you know, retail giants like
Walmart are able to do that at a scale that
(12:52):
other businesses simply will never be able to do so.
For me, at the end of the day, I will
work with anyone who will help me help the people
that I'm trying to serve, help me get this in
front of the people who deserve hearing care, who are
desperate for it, and who have been ignored by I mean,
one hundred year old industry.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Are you strictly US or are you branching out globally now?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Right now, we're just in the United States. Absolutely global
plans on the docket. Expansion on the docket for probably
twenty twenty six. At this pacing, we really wanted to
understand the domestic market, get the critical mass in the market, penetration,
learn what we could from our home market here, and
then take those learnings on the global scale. So definitely
on the docket, but not currently.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
You've done a lot in a short period of time.
What does the future hold for audience for you personally?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Oh, man, I think that a million people have been
helped right now, so a million down, nine hundred and
ninety nine million to go. Right there are a billion
people in the world that are from hearing loss. And
while I'm super proud of the impact we've been able
to have, it's literally the tip of the iceberg. I
we don't even consider the job one percent done. So
I would say the future for audience is, you know,
(14:06):
full chain distribution. We've got some very exciting retail partners
we're launching with. I can't formally announce quite yet, but
we're going to be in quite a few doors by
the end of the year innovating the product lines. Right,
there's some amazing tech we're going to be putting out
this year that's literally never been seen in the hearing
industry and it's going to change the way people interact
with hearing care and hearing aids. So I think that's
(14:27):
a big focus for us as well, and then for
me personally, it really would be cool on the global
scale one day to go to places like Zambia, Africa,
where my dad was born, right, and work with their
local governments to provide hearing care on a scale that
the country's never seen to help people that will otherwise
(14:48):
never be able to get access to it in the
current environments. Right. And that's like an example of a
great starting point. But there are countless countries and countless
peoples around the world that need that as well.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So people want advice, they want to get some tips,
some words of wisdom from you on how they can
help their business grow and really like come some keys
to success.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I would say, first, talk to your customer. What
do they like, what do they dislike, what do they want,
and what do they need? Right. I think one thing
that's really overlooked is if you picked up the phone
and called whatever number of customers you have at this moment,
and you just asked them, what's your experience been like?
(15:34):
What could I have done better for you? What do
you feel you're not getting right? People sit and they
spend god knows how much money on consultants and business plans,
when the answers are right in front of you, if
you're able to listen, and people become CEOs, they become
business owners, and they think, I don't have time for this.
I don't have time for that. You always need to
have time to pick up the phone and call your customer,
(15:55):
to go meet with your customer. Who are you serving
and why are you serving them? Come back to that
question every single time, and I promise you whatever's next
will reveal itself very quickly, and that will continue to
evolve right as the business evolves. What you did yesterday
won't work tomorrow, and audience had to redefine itself time
and time again. But every time we come back to
(16:17):
our purpose, which is the individuals we're trying to serve,
and we ask them what they need and what they want,
and then we combine our know how of how to
separate what somebody thinks they need and want versus what
they actually need and want, but it still starts with
the person you're serving.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
This has been really inspiring because you're doing great things
to help people as well as building your business up
and they both can coexist and you can be successful
and help other people here and that's awesome. So congratulations
on your success. It's been great having you on the
program today. Another edition of CEOs you Should Know with
Ishan Patel, the founder, co founder I Should Say and
(16:55):
CEO of Audience Hearing. Thank you for being on the
show today.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It was great. Thanks for having me. Listen to CEOs
you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
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