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, Michael Cole talks about how he took brain exercises developed in France to new levels with Fit Brains. The company’s new mobile app, Fit Brains Trainer, hit the one million download milestone on February 2 and 1.5 million one week later.
“I lived abroad for 10 years, and it wasn’t until 2007 that I moved back [to Vancouver). I did three years in Japan, three years in France and lived in New York and San Francisco.
“After I did my MBA [at École de Management de Lyon University in France], I got introduced to three doctors who were working on a startup in the brain fitness space. They had come up with a product that was a book and CD-ROM, and it was around keeping your brain sharp. They had different exercises and tools, but very, very dry and scientific.
“I’ve got 15 years’ experience in digital media and technology in startups or early-stage companies, and I was brought on to help build out different lines of products. I built a web product for them. But I really had a different idea of how to bring a consumer mass market product in the brain fitness space to market, and in 2007 returned to Vancouver to leverage the gaming community in Vancouver. We raised $500,000 in 2008 and embarked on building out Fitbrains.com.
“Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some people may be stronger at memory, but not as good at visual or speed processing. We have a tendency to go to what our strength is. We have an adaptive learning system that scales to your level but is also pushing you to areas you need to improve.
“In September 2009, when the market crashed, we went sideways for a couple of years. We did another $500,000 internal round [of financing], and we struggled over the next few years on a very modest budget.
“We might have been on a platform that might not have been ideal – the web. Now we have something that’s working very well. We almost made it too engaging. It’s quite time-consuming, and people don’t have that much time [in their] busy schedules, so we decided to go back to the drawing board and build a mobile product where people could fit in bit-sized pieces so they do five minutes here, five minutes there.
“We started out in the summer of 2012 to build a mobile (version) that took all the things we did well but really simplify it and build games that are specific for iPhone and iPad. We’re going to continue with the web product, but we’re really going to put an emphasis on mobile first, and we’re going to build out a portfolio of apps.
“We launched the Fit Brains Trainer (for iPad and iPhone) in the middle of December 2012. We just crossed the 60-day mark, and we have more than 1.5 million downloads. It’s growing fast. We’re the No. 1 education app in 50 countries. And in many of those countries we’re the top-grossing app. We’re already profitable.” •
