A Robotic Dog for Dementia Patients
A Robotic Dog for Dementia Patients
How can personal experiences lead to innovative business ideas?
I have been in the high-tech industry for 35 years. My two Tombot co-founders and I built a previous startup into one of the world’s largest litigation automation companies, which was successfully acquired in 2011. That same year, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia, which led to several difficult decisions on her behalf. I had to hire a caregiver and take away her car keys, but the hardest was realizing she could no longer safely care for her dog. I rehomed the dog with family friends, but my mother was heartbroken. Every day she asked, 'Where’s my dog? Why can’t I have my dog?'
I tried bringing substitutes, but she hated everything. This experience led me to start a multi-year research journey, eventually earning a master’s degree from Stanford University. Along the way, I learned that my mom's situation was shared by tens of millions of other seniors with dementia, as well as about a billion people worldwide who, due to mental or physical health issues, cannot safely care for a live animal. That’s why we launched Tombot—to serve these individuals.
How can business owners identify and solve market problems?
Innovation often has an emotional catalyst, though not always. For example, Henry Ford hated horses, which drove him to mass-produce vehicles. He solved a major problem with horses—safety and pollution issues—and created a revolution.
Similarly, we didn’t start by thinking, "Wouldn’t it be cool to create a robotic dog?" Instead, we became experts in Alzheimer’s dementia. Over 150 peer-reviewed studies showed that emotional attachment objects help seniors with dementia manage Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), like loneliness, depression, and anxiety. These studies indicated that forming an emotional attachment to an object, like a baby doll or stuffed animal, reduced the need for certain medications, including psychotropics.
The issue was that my mother, like many others, hated dolls and stuffed animals. Research also showed that robotic animals were even more effective than traditional objects, reducing not only BPSD but also pain and the need for pain medications. The problem was that existing technologies, like the $6,000 robotic seal, Paro, were either too simple or too expensive. Most senior care facilities, let alone individuals, couldn’t afford something like that, and I wasn’t going to gamble on such an expensive robot when my mother disliked everything else.
This was all researched before we launched the business. The key lesson here is to study the problem and become an expert in it. You need to solve a real, pressing issue. A business shouldn’t exist without solving a "hair-on-fire" problem.
Why should business owners rely on data when testing new products?
The results of our customer studies could have pointed to something simple, like plastic keys to fidget with, or something elaborate, like a multi-thousand-dollar robot. Fortunately, the data led us to puppies, and we were able to design and build them with a modest amount of capital. This allowed us to offer them at a price most people could afford, even without insurance reimbursement.
I’m a data-driven person and always look to confirm or reject hypotheses with data. One of my favorite quotes is from Jim Barksdale, the former CEO of Netscape: 'If we have data, we’ll go with data. If we have opinions, we’ll go with mine.' At my company, no one wants to rely on just my opinion, so we work hard to gather data.
Once we had a high-fidelity prototype, the next hypothesis was whether people would actually buy it. We ran a short Kickstarter campaign with a limited number of units and very little marketing, only spending a small amount on Facebook ads. We sold out of our least expensive units in the first seven hours, which showed us that people intuitively understood the product: it's a puppy, and if someone can’t have a real puppy, this is a perfect substitute.
How can business owners validate demand and build customer trust?
For us at Tombot, our customers love us, which has de-risked the business from a sales standpoint, thanks in large part to the media. The media loves covering us, and as a result, we get new orders 24/7, 365 days a year, passively through our website. This confirmed that there was a real business here. We just needed to close the gap between where we were and hitting a milestone where we could capture revenue and deliver products to customers.
Additionally, we have strong support from the senior care community, and half of our preorders and waitlist customers are for other use cases, such as children with autism, adolescents with severe anxiety, depression, or suicide risk, adults with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, and seniors who are cognitively healthy but live alone and suffer from loneliness. These customers reach out to us daily, literally pleading to get a robot. So, we knew we had traction, trust, and demand well beyond the senior care market.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.*
