Business in Vancouver’s “How I Did It” feature asks business leaders to explain in their own words how they achieved a business goal in the face of significant entrepreneurial challenges. In this week’s issue, Liz Dickinson, founder and CEO of Physi-Cal Enterprises Inc., talks about the challenges she faced in developing and marketing the MIO Alpha, the world’s first strapless heart-rate monitor – including an infomercial that aired on September 11, 2001.
“My career was in the high-technology industry. I had graduated from Sauder [at UBC] in 1984 and went straight into high tech. I ended up at an IBM-Telus subsidiary – Information Systems Management (ISM).
“When I was [trying to get in shape after the birth of my son], I found the calorie counting was really important, and that heart rate monitoring was the best way to optimize your exercise. There was [no product] back then that had calorie burn.
“I went to a trade show with a prototype, and QBC – the largest shopping network in the U.S. – was at the show. They said if you can manufacture this we’ll be your first customer.
“I raised $500,000 through angels, and we filmed an infomercial for $260,000. The first air date was September 11, 2001.
“I woke up that morning, excited because the commercial was going to air. I turned on the TV – it was like, ‘Oh my God.’
“Things went kind of downhill from there. We ran out of money because we spent so much on the infomercial. And nobody wanted to accept packages because there was also a scare about anthrax.
“We had a ton of learning to do, and that’s what we did. We grew over time, and we got popular because the product was good.
“We ended up getting Costco and Best Buy and Wal-Mart. But there was a limitation because to get your heart rate, you had to touch the top of the watch. It wasn’t something performance athletes really liked. That was a major barrier to our growth.
“For years I had been looking for a product that gave you continuous heart rate without a chest strap. That is the Holy Grail in the endurance training industry.
“In 2011, I was approached by Philips Electronics. They said, ‘We have a solution that we think we could further develop, with some additional funding, if you’re interested, and we think we would have the first continuous strapless heart rate monitor that you don’t have to touch.’
“It has LEDs on the back of the watch that penetrate through the skin. It measures your pulse and sends a Bluetooth stream from the watch to your smartphone.
“I negotiated an exclusive licensing agreement with [Philips] and and raised some more investment capital [$1 million].
“We got pretty close to getting the product released, and ran out of cash again. And that’s when I did the Kickstarter project, just to get us over the final hump.
“We raised $321,000 in 33 days. We delivered all the Kickstarter ones by January and then direct to consumers, and rolling out to retail. We sell them on our website, www.alphaheartrate.com, and we also sell them to various retail stores like REI, MEC, Ladysport. Apple’s going to be putting us in its retail stores worldwide.” •