Ryan Pursuing Biomedical Engineering PhD
We are proud to announce that our President/CEO, Ryan Goldstein, has been enrolled as a Biomedical Engineering PhD student at Drexel University. He is specializing in neuroengineering.
Development of ChronoWake while Ryan pursues this doctoral degree will continue, albeit more passively than before. However, upon obtaining the degree, Ryan will have acquired unique knowledge and skills that will keep ChronoWake on the cutting edge, surpassing competitors by utilizing the most recent advancements in the biomedical engineering and neuroengineering fields.
Accepted to Final Semester of Wharton VIP
The results of the (re)application process for the Wharton Venture Initiation Program have been announced, and we are happy to say that we have been accepted to our fifth consecutive semester in VIP, effective through May 2010. As per the program's five semester policy, this will be ChronoWake's final semester as an active member. We are looking forward to making the most out of this semester so that we are maximally prepared to further our business upon leaving. Fortunately, we will be able to utilize the extensive alumni network, and have access to the private VIP listserv, after we graduate from the program.
Competition to join Wharton VIP has continued to be very intense, with 42 companies vying for 11 spots. We would like to sincerely congratulate the newly accepted ventures, listed below.
Cape Wines: The company is a U.S. importer of South African medium to high-range wine which would contribute a portion of its proceeds to a fund towards microfinancing local African farmers.
CollegeCups: CollegeCups will be a producer and distributor of plastic party cups containing printed logos and slogans of universities, fraternities, and sororities throughout the country.
Jimmy Helmets: Bike helmets that blend fashion with safety by adding a fashionable hat/cover that fits onto our specially designed base helmet.
LongTail Grants: LongTail Grants will provide social and financial benefits to the world through running an interactive website that connects donors with motivated individuals looking to make positive differences in their communities.
MobileBlick: Developing and selling a personal head-up-display with a lightweight and compact design that takes video inputs from smartphones and ipods.
Public Health Insurance Connector: The company will find and enroll the hundreds of thousands of people eligible for free public health insurance (e.g. Medicaid).
Safer Taxi: SaferTaxi increases the safety of taxi passengers by registering their taxi rides: By sending a simple text message to SaferTaxi, customers create a record of their taxi ride, get instant feedback about safety issues related to their driver and can opt for automatic notification of an emergency contact.
Simplegrid NOW: Provide enterprise level business continuity to the small and medium business.
Tatako.com: Tatako enables retailers to create mobile storefront applications for a variety of mobile platforms through our easy-to-use online application designer tool.
UniGlam: UniGlam is a private sales club which gives undergraduate students access to brands they care about at heavily discounted prices.
UTurn: UTurn is an automatic bidirectional page-turner for pianists that frees the user from the constraints of preloading pages.
Note: If any of the companies would like to edit their company name/description or add a link to their website in this post, please comment below or contact us.
View the list of all current VIP members. Once again, congratulations to the newly accepted companies; we look forward to working with you!
Potential Competitors
As the interest in, and popularity of, ChronoWake has been exponentially increasing for the last year and a half, it's not surprising that a couple of potential competitors have sprung up recently. We would like to address this in a public statement.
The first such competitor utilizes a motion-detection mechanism to attempt to determine the ideal time to wake up by estimating sleep stages. However, monitoring movement is only an indirect measure of sleep stage, and is thus, by definition, less accurate and precise than utilizing EEG (electroencephalography), the primary mechanism utilized by ChronoWake. It may occasionally wake the user at the ideal time, but not nearly at the rate of our product.
The second competitor does, in fact, attempt to utilize EEG to determine sleep stage. With some of our funding, the ChronoWake Team purchased this $400 product and tried it out ourselves. Despite a higher price point than our product, it doesn't seem to work at all. In fact, during the testing by one of our team members, he awoke several times during the night, once actually getting up and leaving the bed for a few minutes. In its sleep summary the next morning, this product claimed that he slept soundly through the night and never awoke until the morning. Obviously, if this product cannot detect whether one is awake or asleep, it will not be able to initiate waking at an ideal time.
In summary, both products appear to rely at least partially on the placebo effect. Conversely, our product relies on proven scientific methods to determine sleep stage. In fact, the only scientifically and medically valid way to determine sleep stage is primarily through EEG, as demonstrated by these papers, among many others.
Emergence of competitors is not a negative. In fact, we consider it a great sign - that the basis of our product has been validated in the business world. Other companies that have also done the market research have come to the same conclusion as us: there exists a large enough market to warrant the large research and development expenditures. As a well-respected entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and professor once said, "If you can't find any competitors, you either haven't looked hard enough, or no one will want your product." And with a technologically superior product, we have no doubt that ChronoWake will dominate this market.
