Ottawa-based Safety Net won the Startup Weekend event last weekend. The startup is attempting to solve the problem of preventable deaths in emergency rooms using warning wristbands that monitor key body functions.
Doctor Feedback was Key
Its team reached out to doctors who provided enthusiastic feedback and presented a convincing business case for how the startup could make money through selling the hardware and a subscription maintenance service. Ottawa’s event took place alongside nearly 200 other startup weekends around the world capping Global Entrepreneurship Week.
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“I almost didn’t go,” says Alex Steeves, who originally pitched the idea for Safety Net.
He says he finished up some work on Friday and decided to walk over 20 minutes before the event started. “I knew nothing about it.”
Steeves says it was only after arriving there that he realized participants were giving 60-second pitches. On a whim, he pitched a low-cost wearable that would allow users to check-in with friends and family in an emergency, taking inspiration from the Syrian refugee crisis and the recent Laurier bridge collapse in Ottawa.
The idea was a popular one, and a five-person team joined around him to found the company. After that, though, the company pivoted significantly, eventually coming up with a cloud-enabled smartband that could track heart rate and wait times so as to avoid casualties while patients wait for attention in the emergency room.
“That was the biggest thing I learned, how to pivot.” Steeves says. “We had a team motto: ‘Change the plan, not the goal.’”
The team was essential to the startup’s success, Steeves adds. While he’s heard the cliche of a “team effort” in the past, he believes that without the participation of each of his four co-founders, Safety Net would not have been possible.
“It’s amazing what you can do when you take five passionate strangers, put them into a room, and see them co-mingle and somehow come to a fantastic outlook and product,” Steeves says.
Source: Epoch Times, Ottawa Business Journal
