A man, a mop, a year, and an app

http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/2011/12/a-man-a-mop-a-year-and-an-app-joseph-hill-on-aeir-talk/

by robfitz • 15 years ago

257 27 15 years ago

bdunn2• 15 years ago

Disclaimer: I own the development company that built Aeir Talk for equity.

If there's anyone who can be labeled a "hustler", it's Joe Hill.

First, he had to sell us on the idea - we get a ton of people who want us to take equity stakes in lieu of cash, and we almost always turn them away. But not Joe. He had tapped the few investors in our area (Hampton Roads, Virginia) and came up short. Our area is pretty conservative, and investing usually is restricted to real estate and other safe bets. But we heard him out and realized that even though he had no business background, no history of successful exits, or any other factors that mitigate risk, he had passion and an amazing story (along with board positions in a few autism societies).

He partnered with EVMS, a local medical school, along with a few speech pathologists with one goal: to bring Apple-like simplicity to medical products. He took the graveyard shift at a local Marriott, and managed to support his wife and two special-needs children WHILE working out of our office during the day.

He launched his app last month at Start Norfolk, a regional startup weekend we put together. If you really want to be inspired, check out the launch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2WLc1LszZ0&list=UUdXCw6_...

acangiano• 15 years ago

> He took the graveyard shift at a local Marriott, and managed to support his wife and two special-needs children WHILE working out of our office during the day.

He is undoubtedly a hustler, but above all he sounds like a great man.

kposehn• 15 years ago

Agreed.

itsameta4• 15 years ago

Would you mind explaining what you mean by "hustler"? I realize it's not the effect you're going for, but I can't help but picture a drug pusher or shady Wall Street-type when I see that word.

Thanks!

aculver• 15 years ago

Pleasant surprise waking up to see this as the top story on HN. I work with We Are Titans (the company that developed Aeir Talk in exchange for equity) and did most of the technical development (along with @nickmjones) on what became the final product. Feel free to ask or reach out if you've got any questions about that side of things.

fehrbehr• 15 years ago

As an cofounder of a startup and an aunt of a autistic nephew, I am inspired. Thanks for a great way to start may day smiling and motivated.

bio_logic• 15 years ago

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Aeir Talk. Thanks to all who have read the article so far. It's a great joy to see Aeir Talk be so well received and see that it helping a lot of people. Feel free to reach out if you want more information, also the app is at aeirtalk.com if you want to see it. Thanks again everyone.

ropman76• 15 years ago

At what age/level did the therapists find this helpful? My son is currently in autism therapy I have noticed therapists using polaroids so I can see where this would be useful.

jhill72• 15 years ago

To be honest any age group can use this. You can make the flash card's as hard or as easy as you want. One of our customers purchased the app for her 14 year old child. You can read her son's reaction here: http://hamptonroads.com/2011/12/chesapeake-father-creates-ap...

We are brand new but the feedback I am getting from therapists working in the age group 18 months - 10 years and in the moderate to severe category of Autism. Older children with higher ranges of Autism are still using the app. Rather than words however, they are using it for social interaction (learning visual and emotional cues) through the flash cards.

robfitz2• 15 years ago

Hey Joe -- thanks for taking the time to share your story w/ me. Both the tale & the app are great.

Hopefully the HN crowd can figure out how to help in some other wonderful & unexpected ways ;) (hint hint)

jhill72• 15 years ago

Thanks Rob. I would be more than receptive to any help given. :)

timb0ss3• 15 years ago

Am I the only one to have read/noticed: "My background is in bible theology. I went to school to be basically a history teacher." and instantly tensed up??

oz• 15 years ago

Are you worried that he would try to teach things like young-earth creationism etc?

timb0ss3• 15 years ago

Afaik bible theology and history are two completely separate circles on the venn diagram, one completely based on evidence the other completely on the lack of evidence and entirely on faith/beleif? How did this get so far off topic?

andygcook• 15 years ago

This actually seems like a much bigger market than just autistic children. I would imagine that many parents that have iPad-crazed kids would would gladly give their kids an app to learn new words instead of Angry Birds. A child would probably be more interested and learn faster if it was Mom's voice talking instead of a robot.

Another interesting case that comes to mind is how Clay Christiansen, author of Innovator's Dilemma, used Rosetta Stone to practice speaking again after having a stroke.

I would imagine too that you could scale pretty quickly by allowing users to create Flashcard sets, and then other users can buy the flash card sets and rate them. This could turn into a crowdsourced Rosetta Stone pretty quickly.

bdunn2• 15 years ago

The iPad 2's onboard camera and microphone make it perfect for personalized flashcards. Aeir Talk, while built for special-needs kids, could be used as a flashcard app for any child.

My 3 year old uses it and loves it. Instead of simple clip art of a cat and a robotic reading of the word, we're able to take a picture of our cat Tobi accompanied with mom's voice.

manderplex2• 15 years ago

Crowded sourced content for this app would be great, especially in other languages. Rosetta Stone only covers a small sliver of the world's spoken languages.

rada• 15 years ago

This is invaluable for anyone trying to raise a bilingual child. Big, big thanks to the developers!

robfitz2• 15 years ago

Regarding the site slowness: A while back, I changed the blog from a subdomain to a directory and didn't update the caching. It was caching pages at the wrong URL and thus being entirely useless.

It's fixed now -- sorry for the annoyance to anyone who got held up.

datashaman• 15 years ago

Bump! This is awesome!

A man, a mop, a year, and an app

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