The Ring That Gives You Superpowers | The AgeTech Podcast S5E5 with Dhaval Patel from Lotus
Have you ever had one of those moments where a small frustration sparks a big idea? That’s exactly how Lotus was born. In this episode of the AgeTech Podcast, I talk with Dhaval Patel, who went from being an Apple engineer to building a ring that people describe as a “superpower.” It’s a story about late-night light switches, human-centered design, and what happens when you truly listen to users.
Catch the full conversation on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or scroll down for the transcript (auto-generated, so pardon any oddities – the bots are still learning!)
Keren Etkin: Dhaval, welcome to the show.
Dhaval Patel: Thanks for having me, Karen.
Keren Etkin: So, I always like to start when I interview founders asking about your origin story. So can you tell us a little bit about why you started Lotus Labs?
Dhaval Patel: Sure. Well, the story really started with me. I was born with Twisted Knees and over the years I’ve been on and off crushes a lot. And one night, a couple of years ago, actually, in this house,
I had just gotten into bed at the end of a long day, but forgot to turn off my ceiling lights. But I was too tired to climb out of bed, hop onto my crutches, hobble 10 feet, turn off the light, hobble back 10 feet and get back into bed.
So I said, forget it, and I just slept with the lights on the entire night and woke up in the morning thinking, well, if someone like me, so what you probably don’t know is I’m an electrical engineer by training. At the time this happened, I was managing a division at Apple.
For iPhone watch and AirPods.
And funnily enough, before Apple, I’ve even worked for the company that makes the wall switches. I’ve worked for Lutron. If someone like me didn’t even have smart home technology in their own home, what about everyone else? That’s how everything got started. I.
Keren Etkin: Fascinating. This is one of the most unique origin stories I think I’ve, I’ve ever heard. and started lot of labs a few years ago. You and I met during your run at Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator. What have you been up to,
I know you have made tremendous progress. Can you share a little bit about your journey so far?
Dhaval Patel: Yeah, sure. So when we met, we had just begun. We actually only had 3D printed prototypes. Uh, when you and I had first met in Techstars,
we graduated from Techstars, raised our first round of fundraising.
That was our pre-seed. That was to go from prototype to product,
that was supposed to be in 18 months.
We actually finished five months ahead of schedule. We launched our product in Thanksgiving of last year.
So it’s been about six or seven months and we’re already in 30 states and three provinces in Canada. And yeah, it seems to be going well so far.
Keren Etkin: so far that is quite remarkable. And what is the secret to launching a hardware product Five months ahead of schedule?
Dhaval Patel: I don’t know about Secret. I think
feels a little bit like an overnight success, mainly because of kind of the process we’ve been following. So, you know, it looks like an overnight success, but it’s not. What you probably were aware of what the listeners probably aren’t is we’ve been continuously behind the scenes doing what we call human-centered design.
It’s a fancy word for
build a prototype, you give it to your desired end user. You get their feedback and you iterate, and you just constantly keep doing this over and over and over again. So even by the time. We were launching our first product. We’d already been through that cycle, a good four, maybe five times.
We’d already given, you know, even by the time we’d gotten to Techstars, we’d already done that three times, I think. So by, when it came time to launching the product, we already sort of had, you know, multiple rounds of feedback from users. We knew what they liked, what they didn’t like, so we could make trade off decisions very, very quickly.
Because, you know, when the time came to make a decision, we didn’t have to wait and then go to back to users and ask them if they preferred option A or B. We already had it. So I would say that was a big part of sort of finishing ahead of schedule. The other is just, I, I think is less to do with, um, human-centered design per se, but in general, you get.
You get used to making very, very efficient decisions, meaning you get to the same end conclusion, but with very little data, I would say ten five percent of the information, and usually it’s a combination of either past experience or fun, fundamental first principles, or again, user. User feedback. And so I would say some combination of that is usually what helps you shave off time and shave off needing money, needing capital.
Keren Etkin: For sure. So what would you say was the most counterintuitive thing that you’ve learned during this iterative process of user-centered design?
Dhaval Patel: Oh yeah, I see users surprise us all the time. Actually I have tons of examples. So the very first one being back in the day, so this is what a switch cover looks like. So if this was a regular switch, you know, one that rocks back and forth and has a bulb, you know, our Lotus switch cover goes right on top of that and it goes on without the use of any rewiring.
You can put it on any which way, but the important factor is that back then. You didn’t have this option where you could just push the button manually and you could also control the wall switch. Now that seems pretty basic, but the funny thing is when we’d first given our very first prototype to our user, I still remember we sort of gave it to him on a Monday and on Tuesday we get a phone call from him first thing in the morning and we’re thinking, oh my God, this is not going to be good.
And you know, he picks up, we pick up the phone and he says, oh my God, I love this prototype. Right. This was a 3D printed thing, went on a wall and it was a really weird looking ring. It wasn’t a ring back then. And he continues to say, well, I love it, but my wife hates it. And you know, we were obviously very confused, like we were expecting either everyone will love it or everyone will hate it.
How do you have this split? And he describes it as well. I am able to control that wall switch because I have the ring, but my wife and kids at home don’t have a ring. But you’ve covered up that wall switch. So nobody else at home can use it anymore. ’cause back then we didn’t have a button in the front.
So, you know, his obvious feedback, which seems obvious in retrospect now, was can you add a button or something to the front so other people in the house can also use it? You know, of course the, the short answer was, of course, we’ll, we’ll go ahead and make that fix immediately. And so now you would think that’s the end of the story, right?
Because then we, we added some buttons and there were two small buttons you could just do on and off, just two small circles. And about a week later, we get another call from him. We’re like, oh my God, what’s it gonna be this time? And he goes, well. It’s better now ’cause they can at least turn on and off the switch in the kitchen.
That’s the one he put it on. But it’s really small. The buttons are really small, so we have to kind of hunt for them. And if it’s already dark, then you know they have to kind of fish for the button. Can you make the buttons bigger? And so gradually over time we started increasing the size of the button so it covers up the entire face of the switch cover.
And so, you know, now it seems obvious in hindsight, but back then we had no idea. And it was so sort of the kind of basic things that you just give it to users, they tell you, and then you come back to it. I mean, for, for case in point, the fact that the product is even a ring was not our assumption to begin with.
It was actually something that end users told us. We were planning on making TV remotes because TV remotes, everyone has, and it also used the same technology, which is infrared. So originally we were thinking everyone will just use TV remotes, right? Turns out that doesn’t work. Also, people only have one TV remote, and it’s only in the living room.
Well, what do you do if you’re in the bedroom? Turns out the one thing people go to bed with. Use in bed at night. Even if they have to get up in the middle of the night, the one thing they’d leave on them are their wedding rings, necklaces, earrings come off. You know, your Apple watches. Phones are charging, but the rings were the only thing they kept on them, so that’s how the product even became a ring.
Anyway, lots of examples, but yeah, all of these sort of factor of human-centered design.
Keren Etkin: That is, those are just fantastic examples, especially the one when you didn’t initially plan to have an physical actual switch. I mean, it’s a perfect example of a blind spot that you might have when you’re building a product, even if you are an engineer, and you like supposedly can put yourself in the shoes of the user, but you’d still have to include your actual users to get feedback that is just simply perfect.
Dhaval Patel: Absolutely. I, I couldn’t agree with more. ’cause the thing is, even when you’re trying to empathize with someone. At most, what you have at your disposal are your own lived experiences. It’s very difficult for you to put yourself in their shoes with the journey they had leading up to the point that they’re at today.
So you’re always better off asking them directly and sort of making assumptions, and that’s the one thing I’ve learned over time. Human-centered design is a fancy word for not making assumptions. Just ask people. I.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. And one other thing I really appreciate about your product is, is that it doesn’t require, like you said, no cables, no wifi. So how does it actually work? Can you explain that in layman’s terms for the people in the audience who are not engineers? I,
Dhaval Patel: Absolutely. So in a nutshell, for anyone with limited mobility, it is a wearable ring that controls certain objects at home by pointing. But as you were saying, there’s no app, no rewiring, and no wifi needed. And the way it works is sort of a simple three-step process. So step one, you just put on the ring.
That eliminates the need to have a smart speaker in every room of the house because the ring stays on you and goes with you wherever you go. So that’s it. That’s step one, step two, for any existing wall switch. So this is one type. Just rocks back and forth for any existing wall switch. You can take the second half of the Lotus Switch cover and it just snaps on using a magnet.
There’s no rewiring. In fact, there’s not even an up and down. I can swap it either which way, and it’ll still work. Now, obviously you can use your ring as well, which I’ll show in a second, but you can also manually control the. The whatever your wall switch controls by pushing the button in the front, so that’s step two.
You just snap on a switch, cover, and the magnets eliminate any need for rewiring. And finally, step three, you can just point and click. And using infrared, just like a TV remote, eliminates the need for any app or smartphone or even wifi. Basically, it gives you the ability to convert any space into an accessible.
Two seconds. And more importantly, you can take it with you wherever you go. So when I was traveling for the last three weeks, I was using this.
Keren Etkin: Which is I think, one of the coolest aspects because you typically don’t get that. You don’t take your Alexa to go with you or you don’t take any of your smart home gadgets with you anywhere basically. Once you install ’em, they’re just there. So you had the product up and running and you’ve launched it and you like went through, you did like. all the boxes when it comes to like foundational research. You were sure you had best product out there. The best thing since sliced bread. How do you get people to know about it? Because I think that is probably the most challenging thing direct to consumer startups in AgeTech face, once they do have an amazing product. Just getting it in people’s hands, just making people aware that this thing even exists.
Dhaval Patel: Yeah, I would say it’s, it’s not the easiest thing. You’re absolutely right. Even once you have something, getting the word out is one of the harder things, as we have learned since then. I would say. One of the first things, it was all trial and error is the very short answer was very, very much trial and error.
I would say if I had to nuance it a little bit, it was utilizing free media as much as possible. That’s the nutshell version and that comprised of, I would say two or three main categories. So first we’re, we started doing pitch competitions as much as we could. A primarily because it was a good way to kind of prep yourself for fundraising questions.
So, because you know, usually the judges are. VCs or angel investors or, but it’s a good practice of the kinds of questions you will get asked and you should have answers for. But what was better is regardless of whether you won or lost. The act of applying to these pitch competitions and getting to go on stage and explain your story helped to get the word out.
’cause oftentimes there was press around it, you know, who were the finalists, what the companies are. If you happen to win, there’s even more press. So pitch competitions was category one, category two was what we’re doing now. Which is podcasts. We found a lot of people really appreciated sort of what I was trying to do to avoid imposter syndrome, but ended up being a, you know, a very much a positive outcome, which is this human-centered design process.
Honestly, back then I didn’t even know what that was or that that is what I was, what I was doing. In fact it was just, for me, it was just a way to get over. Imposter syndrome ’cause I was convinced it was a really terrible idea. But category number two, I would say were podcasts, whereas talking to people who appreciated the process as much as the outcome.
And then probably category number three was just using social media, both our and other folks as much as anyone was interested. So we were always happy to share our story. We started posting on our own social media. So I would say those were kind of the three main buckets. I’m sure there are others, but those were the big three.
Keren Etkin: And at this point people just learn about you from, like you said, from the media or from social media or from other digital media outlets, and they just come to your website and purchase the product from themselves online.
Dhaval Patel: Kind of, so I would say the fourth category that I skipped over is we’ve been getting tremendous word of mouth. And to put this in context, our product’s only been out for about six months. We’re already in a little over 30 states in the US and three provinces in Canada. And all of that is word of mouth.
Completely word of mouth. And so what we’re finding is people A, love the product to a degree that they want to tell other people about it. That happens to be one of our strongest ways of getting the word out. But B, when they hear about it, they actually wanna learn more than just what’s on the website.
So oftentimes what happens, because we work primarily with B2B organizations. So a lot of disability organizations, a lot of government, the website only serves as a way to check off their interest, meaning, okay, I understand this is not smart home. It doesn’t need wifi, it doesn’t need rewiring, but I have a lot more questions about what it does do.
So let’s get on the phone with someone from Lotus and Chat more. And so usually what happens is we often do what’s called lunch and learns. Meaning it’s essentially, it’s not always over lunch, but we call them lunch alerts. Essentially it’s a 30 minute chat and we sort of do the same demo that we just did now and walk through all the questions people have.
How many devices do you need? Can one ring control only one switch, or do you need as many switches and rings as you have switches? What happens if I go to someone else’s home? Uh, do I need an app? How far does it work? Do I need line of sight? What’s the battery life? You know, all these. Extra questions that pop up before they purchase is what they’re trying to get answers to.
And we find oftentimes, honestly, we answer that. It’s usually a 30 minute call. We find 10 minutes into the call they’ve already decided to purchase. So that’s kind of the, the process with which we’ve been getting converting word of mouth into sales.
Keren Etkin: And is that, is that a one-on-one interaction or is that a sort of a group call, like a webinar that you invite people to?
Dhaval Patel: both but not a webinar. So the, uh, one-on-ones are very common where let’s say an executive director of an organization will say, Hey, I, someone told me about this, or I heard about you because of this press event or this pitch competition you want, you know, I’d love to chat. So those are just one-on-ones.
Zoom calls kind of like this and we just checked, other times, which we actually have a call later today. For instance, it was the head of an occupational therapist organization. She heard about us and wanted to us not only to talk to her, which we already have, but she invited us to talk to her group of occupational therapists because she was so convinced that this would be extremely helpful for.
Older adults for people with disabilities, for people with cognitive disabilities, for veteran soldiers, for pregnant moms, as it happens is our newest category. And so she was so convinced there’s so many applications that all of her occupational therapists would benefit from learning about this new technology that exists.
So then she’s having us come present to our group, and that happens all the time. So it’s not quite a webinar, it’s still us getting invited, but then we do talk to a group setting.
Keren Etkin: And how often would you say these organizations purchase in bulk for the people and that they are caring for? And how often do they just recommend? Because I, I assume that most occupational therapists don’t hold the budget to buy stuff for their clients anyway. Am I correct?
Dhaval Patel: Yes. So it’s a mix. So we have some folks who purely recommend. I would say majority of the time they actually purchase and then give it to the patient. So I’ll, I’ll give you an example. We’re working with Shepherd Center, which is a rehab hospital in Atlanta. They’re sort of one of the biggest and the most famous in the southeast of the United States.
They’re actually purchasing Lotus Kits themselves and giving it to their patients, especially the ones with Tetraplegia for free. And the reason for that is from their perspective, you know, one kit costs $349. Um, and for them, that’s nothing. That’s a drop in the bucket because a single fall that they prevent costs them $30,000.
So if all Lotus did was prevent one fall in, let’s say a hundred years, or let’s say five years, it’s still a hundred XROI. For them, even if that’s the only thing it did. In addition, they’re finding that it’s helpful by reducing staff labor because the more independent I am in a hospital, the less I have to call a nurse to stop doing what they’re doing and come all the way to me to turn off my light switch or hand me the.
And we haven’t talked about this, but one ring can control an infinite number of devices. So a single nurse who has a ring on can walk by all the rooms at the end of her shift his or her shift and turn off the lights as him, he or her, him or her see fit. So. They, they like the fact that any device works with any device.
It prevents fault, it makes patients feel more independent, and so they’re actually starting to use it both in an inpatient setting and outpatient setting. So in short, we’re seeing lots of applications. Some people purchase for themselves. Some people just recommend, some people buy in bulk. Most of our customers actually buy bulk.
The most recent example being Helen Keller, the Helen Keller National Center. They did not only have purchased for themselves. They’re planning on putting it in every dorm room that they have for the deaf-blind community that apparently travels to them from around the world so they can help folks.
Because again, one of the use cases we hadn’t thought of was the deaf community or anyone with, um, atypical hearing or atypical speech. They can’t talk to an Alexa or hear an Alexa to be able to use it. Obviously with a technology like this, you don’t have to talk or hear the device. Just even nonverbal users can point and flick, and so that’s why they like it.
Keren Etkin: How often do people leave the premises with the ring and then they have to reach out to you to get a replacement?
Dhaval Patel: Actually, you know, it’s been a common concern and has not happened yet. So a common question we do get is, what if I lose the ring and know it’s not to say you, it couldn’t happen. It could happen, but it hasn’t happened yet and there’s a reason for that. Um, not only is the ring small and you can carry it around all the time, it is waterproof and the battery life is six months.
So instead of charging it every day like an Apple watch or every three days, like one of the smart rings, you only charge it once in six months. But the combination needs, once you put on a ring, you never take it off. Because you can shower with it, you can wash your hands with it, and the battery life is six months.
So you’re not taking it off every day to charge it like you do for your phone or watch. And that’s the reason why once people put it on, they never take it off. So it never is lost. Now, that’s not to say it couldn’t happen, but hasn’t happened yet. Man. You know, we’ve launched for about, it’s been about seven months now.
Keren Etkin: it’s actually interesting that no one has yet to lose a ring or just walk away with it away from the in which they were receiving care. Sort of. Following up your previous explanation about versus to B2B versus selling direct to consumers, it sounds to me like you have come up with different value props for consumers, which is we’re gonna make your life more comfortable versus when you’re selling to businesses, which is we’re gonna help you provide better outcomes, reduce the frequency of fault. And improve staff efficiency. How long would it take, did it take you to, to distill those messages?
Dhaval Patel: it took a while. In fact, when you and I first met, we were back then focusing on direct to consumer. Because we didn’t know any better. And so back in the day, you know, I, my background’s Apple and consumer electronics, so of course I was thinking of everything from a direct to consumer perspective.
Having now started a company, I’m realizing how difficult, and, you know, other people at Techstars explained the same thing to me. How difficult. Doing direct to consumer as a business is. Now of course, if that’s your forte and expertise, by all means, but it is very capital intensive because usually to do direct to consumer, you need to do a lot of marketing in some regard.
Usually it’s paid social or paid search if you’re really good at it, then you might have, you know, a big following on your own social media of course, but that is very hard. And so we actually pivoted during Techstars from direct to consumer to B2B. And what we found was I had to restart the process of doing user discovery, as it’s called with the businesses now, as opposed to what I had been doing before, which was individuals.
Now, of course, all the individual information was great for the product, but I had to redo user discovery for the business. Which are related but not the same thing. And so gradually over time, once I was doing these sales calls, over time I would listen for the words that the end users, in this case now buyers were using when they expressed interest in the product.
So to distill it down, the value prop for end users is independence. And this is where I like using the example that someone else told me, which was, you might be selling a drill. But what the user is buying is a whole, they don’t really care that you’re selling a drill, right? You could be selling five things, but really what they’re looking for as an outcome is a whole.
And so what we might be selling is a ring. Or this kit, but really what users are buying is independence. In fact, if I go a level deeper, what they’re buying is dignity by not having to ask for help, especially for the little things. But that’s the end user. Now, when we talk to organizations, you have to have value props for the buyer because the buyer is not always the user.
And that distinction took me some time to understand. So I would say probably three, maybe. You know, if I really, really had to distill everything down, maybe maximum of six months, but somewhere in that ballpark is how long it took, and the value props now are reduced false, increased operational efficiency, and depending on the organization competitive differentiation, which is it using this technology sets them apart from everyone else in the field.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. I, I I bet that for most of your current clients. It does set them apart when, I mean, it just, I assume that when people into the facility and they get an explanation that they can switch on the lights with a ring, then it does include this wow factor that they haven’t anywhere else.
Dhaval Patel: Yeah, the most common word we seem to get is superpower. And then, you know, the, the thing I love about it is people then start to share what their, what their affiliation is when it comes to sort of fantasy comics and so on. Because as soon as they see the word superpower, they jump to either Harry Potter.
Or Star Wars or Star Trek. And then it’s funny, gradually you start to learn like what their interests are. But yes, superpower is the most common word. It it, it feels a little bit magical, right?
Keren Etkin: And that’s, that was my thought when I watched, new video that you have on your website. It does. It does look like it makes you super human.
Dhaval Patel: Yeah, it’s, it’s a common piece of feedback because our focus has been, our thesis from the beginning has always been we build technology that anyone can use, so anyone can use it. You don’t have to have a specific condition, but we always optimize for disability first. Because by doing that, by, by optimizing for older adults or by optimizing for people with physical or cognitive disabilities, first.
You’re forced to make the product simple enough, easy enough, fast enough that anyone else can use it. So why not do that first, especially with hardware. And what we’re finding is because of doing that, there are now all these other applications. Like I said, pregnant moms seems to be one of our most popular categories now, because literally getting up from a seating position is very difficult, especially as you move into your second and third trimester.
And what we’re finding is even after delivery. A while you’re healing, but B, also, you know, let’s say breastfeeding. So after you finish breastfeeding, or let’s say it’s a new dad, your baby’s falling asleep in your arms, either or. Once the baby’s falling asleep in your arms, you’re stuck. You can’t say anything.
You can’t yell, Hey Alexa, turn off the lights. Cause you don’t wanna wake your baby up. You can’t move your hands or arms and you can’t get up. But the one thing people do is push the button on the ring. You could probably hear it. And so that’s the bit that even in situations like that, you can control your environment.
So we’re finding all these other applications for people that are not disabled or are not older adults.
Keren Etkin: It’s fascinating. So that was actually my last question. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you’d like to add? Any advice for entrepreneurs who are just starting out in AgeTech Maybe.
Dhaval Patel: Yeah, I, this is where my imposter syndrome’s coming out. I don’t know if I’m qualified to give advice, but I’ll, I’ll share from my own personal experience. I think the thing I have found the most helpful, that I keep thanking myself on. Is doing those early interviews and in fact we still do them. So case in point, the state of New York is our customer.
They actually want to purchase 10,000 kits, which for us would be about 3 million in revenue. So for an early state startup, huge, we’re still doing those interviews. I got the three week trip that I was just talking about. I was interviewing end users in the state of New York on how they’re using the device, what they would like changed, you know, what’s confusing to them and so on.
And so my, I suppose advice back to any other founder concerning starting in this domain or any other, but especially for older adults, people with disabilities, is as much as you can try to empathize, you don’t know their own lived experience. And it’s actually a good thing. Because the richness of information they can bring to the table is unparalleled.
And so as much as you can talk to end users and don’t make any assumptions as often as you can, that’s probably my number one advice. And then the corollary to that is because you’re going to have do this forever, pick a domain you feel strongly, very, very passionate about. Because it’s a lot of work and talking to end users is a lot of work.
Finding them, you know, getting their feedback. Sometimes you’re gonna disagree. Sometimes their feedback is not going to make sense, like it’s not a straightforward process. And so in order to want to continue doing that. You’re gonna want to completely be in love with the mission, and so I’d rather not be doing anything else.
Case in point, I haven’t drawn a paycheck in four years since I started researching this. But I still love doing what I do and I wouldn’t replace it for anything else in the world. So, absolutely be in love with your mission. And then once you are, you’re, you’re gonna be happy to do this. User discovery interviews constantly for the rest of the duration.
Keren Etkin: It is so, so important that you, the founder does it, especially in the early stages. I don’t think you can. Truly get a, get a sense of all the things that maybe are not being said between the lines and maybe the subtext of the conversations if you, if you delegate most or all of this work from the get go.
Dhaval Patel: Oh, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. I’ll give you an example. No one actually told us to build a ring. Ever in all the user discovery conversations I’ve been describing so far, not one person said, you know what would be great is if you made a ring. What they kept saying though, is, I would love to have, I would love to have control over my home, but getting a smart home is too complicated, right?
Because you have to, like, if I wanted to solve this situation, we talked about it right at the beginning, I would have to rewire my wall switch to have it connect to the internet. To be able to talk to Alexa. That’s step one. Then I would have to put a smart speaker in every room. I did the rewiring.
That’s step two. Then I have to set it all up with another app. That’s step three, and that’s best case if I own the house, if I’m renting an apartment, no solution. And even if I somehow did all this, if I’m now traveling. There’s no solution. And so it’s funny, people kept telling us about these problems and then when they would describe solutions, they never told us to make a ring.
All they kept saying was, well, I would love to use something that is used just with one hand, because if you make a phone or watch, I need two hands. To interact with the device and I have to be able to look at the device simultaneously. So can you please make something that can be used with one hand without looking at the device and in bed at night?
Because the most common use case was getting up to use the bathroom at night. But no one actually told us to make rings. But what we kept noticing is people didn’t have anything on them in bed at night. Their Apple watches were charging, their phones were charging. Like I said, necklaces, earrings were off.
It just so happened that we noticed during the interviews. The one thing people left on them when they were in bed at night were their rings, often wedding rings, but it could be any ring in general. It just so happened that the rings also could be used with one hand and without looking at any device, and so that’s gradually how we got the idea of making a ring, even though it was kind of present in every interview.
To your point, you kind of have to read between the lines. No one actually told us to make a ring.
Keren Etkin: Yeah, absolutely. the users know their, what their challenge is and what their day-to-day looks like, and it’s really up to you to really listen carefully, not expect them to provide you with a solution. But really listen to. What they say about their lived experience, and also to observe them in their natural environment if possible, to really get these aha moments of what the form factor of the product should be like, or if it’s an app or it’s a software product, how is it going to really seamlessly integrate into their lives and not be one other thing?
They have to remember with the amount of cognitive load we all already have.
Dhaval Patel: Absolutely. In fact, you actually nailed the sort of two rules we have and we’ve actually codified these rules. So the rule number one is listen to people’s problems, not their solutions. That’s rule number one. And the second one is watch what they do, not only what they say. Because a lot of times people would tell us, Hey, why don’t you make a watch?
’cause that’s intuitively, that’s kind of the first thing that comes into your mind. And then we would continue asking them, well that’s great. That’s a great idea. Do you have a watch? And they would say, no. Well, why don’t you have a watch? Well, I don’t like the fact, and this is a real story. I, you know, I used to have a watch, but when I go to bed, it gets caught in my significant other’s hair.
So I don’t have the watch anymore. Right. But they’re still telling us to build a watch. So we found that. Listen to people’s problems ’cause that’s something that they’re complete experts on, but not always their solutions because you’re the domain expert, you, it’s your job to figure out what the correct solution would be.
And then also, you know, observe what they do. Not just what they say, because a lot of people would say that they bought a watch, but then we would ask them during the interview like, where’s your watch? And it would be sitting in a drawer. So you know, they do have a watch, but they’re not wearing it or not using it for some reason.
So yeah, you codified the two rules We have
Keren Etkin: That is awesome, and we did not coordinate this part for everyone in the audience and. Dhaval, thank much for joining me on the show today and for sharing your learnings and insight. I wish you lots and lots of success for the next few milestones of your journey. And yeah, thank you so much for joining me.
Dhaval Patel: Oh, thank you for having me. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here.
Keren Etkin: Thank you.