Antonio Forenza - AWEAR

Welcome to another Founder Wisdom pod. We have Antonio Forenza with us today. He's a CEO and founder at AWARE. He's a PhD guy, originally from Italy, now in SF, and he went on my Spark Tank show. His company is very intriguing. It's a neurotech company, right? So anything that can accelerate my brain, I'm, I'm down to have a conversation about. Antonio, welcome to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've been up to.

Thank you, Charles. Great to be on this podcast. Thanks for inviting me. So yeah, I'm an electrical engineer. That's, that's my— that's who I am. I've been in deep tech for many years, all my career, developing cellular infrastructure from 3G all the way to 5G and some IP for 6G. Lots of experience with digital signal processing, AI, lots of patents. And about 8 years ago is when I discovered the incredible power of mental wellness intervention in terms of benefits, in terms of happiness, focus, life satisfaction, productivity, you name it. And so about 3 years ago, I decided to build something that can have an impact on people. And that's how the idea of AWARE came about. So I was stressed out and overweight. Got myself an Apple Watch to track my calorie burn and exercise, lost 40 pounds in 12 months. I got fit, but I was still stressed. And so that's when I decided to, to build something. I realized that wearables today, they track your cardiovascular health and sleep, your metabolic health, but there's really nothing to track continuously your mental health. And so that's how I decided to build Aware. So we launched our beta in January, have been growing, and for the consumer, but also have a lot of application for B2B for research organizations. We just launched Aware Labs. So this is in a nutshell what, what we're doing. It's, it's a wearable that continuously tracks your, your mental wellness and gives you interventions in the moment to regulate your emotional states and your stress level in real time.

And hardware is notoriously hard. Why launch that type of company and suffer so much?

Well, it's not my first hardware company. I said I'll never do another hardware company, but then I realized there was a need for a wearable like this. So there was no other hardware that can do this, the, the same thing, and so I decided to build. So there's a lot of neurotech devices out there on the market, but we were— we wanted to, to build something that is more the feel of a wearable, more so than a neurotech. So something you can wear continuously, just like, you know, the Oura Ring, the Whoop. You, you wear them and then you forget about it. They can continually, continuously track your data in the background. We wanted to offer the same user experience, so there was no wearable, no Eurotech wearable that would do that, uh, and so we decided to build one.

Man, that's crazy. I love it. Um, you remember the device you and I, we talked about? What was it called? The Fuse Art, like the No, Muse, Muse Meditation, right? Like the metal band. I used to use that one when it got out. Was that like, what, 6, 7, 10 years ago? Have you tried that one? Any comments about that one? Have you studied that company?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of great neurotech wearables out there on the market. There's many others that came out after Muse. Muse was, I think, one of the first ones. They are just really great, you know, EEG wearables. That are really good for specific use cases. In the case of Muse, it's, it's good for meditation, tracking meditation. I personally do my own meditation. I do vipassana meditation. That's what really resonates with me. But, you know, I think what's the type of use case we were looking for is not, is not like meditation or tracking your focus when you are at work. Our use case was mainly continuously track our mental wellness. And so that was, that's why I realized that the form factor of other wearables, even if they are, you know, some of them, they're really nice, stylish, they're really, you know, beautiful, beautiful piece of hardware. It just would not fit our use case, which was the continuous tracking. And so that's why we decided to build our own and give more a feel like the Oura Ring or the Whoop. That again, you wear it and then you forget about it. It has to be more integrated with your life, basically, day-to-day life.

And do you wear it every day now? Like, how do you try it?

It's always, always on. It's always on. I sleep with it as well. You can see I have like 20 months worth of brain data on my phone in the cloud, continuous brain data. This is very unique to the AWARE platform because I wear these all the time. Like even in a conversation like this, I'm wearing, you don't even notice that I'm wearing. So that's the whole point is to continuously wear, not just when you're meditating or when you're working, but continuously tracking.

And how has it changed your life so far?

Has it changed my life? It's given me a lot more awareness of my stress level coming out of a meeting, realizing in the moment when I'm stressed, the ability to really self-regulate my emotions in real time. It's a way to train my brain to really get more into a calm state versus a fight or flight state. And that's actually one of the feedback we get from a lot of our customers. Many of their interviews are on our website. What they love about Aware is the real-time feedback. So the ability to really realize when you're in fight or flight, realize when you're anxious, for example, where you are in this, in this stress situation and do something in the moment, not looking back in the past, but very proactively adjusted. So I think that's the number one thing that Aware has given me since I've been testing and building in the last 3 years, really more awareness around my day-to-day stress level and really recalibrate myself instead of waiting until my meditation session at night.

And live on the call, you can see like some kind of EEG or, um, graph going up and down, or what?

Like, this is— oh, I should remove maybe, uh, yeah, it's a background blur. Yeah, that's how it looks like. So this is the— this is my brainwave live through our machine learning model. We can detect— yeah, we can.

Should I try to stress the fuck out of you?

Okay. It goes ups and downs. You can see in the graph, it goes, uh, it goes ups and down, up and down.

So yes, let's talk about revenue and funding.

Well, then I'll be very calm because we're doing really well with the growth.

But, uh, yes, uh, um, no, I think this can be game-changing, right? Um, just like the awareness of it and looking at your brain in real time and being conscious about like how it reacts to stuff can be pretty fun. How accurate is Like, what are you tracking exactly? And why does— because ideally, you know, you would try— you would track cortisol in my blood. I think that's the main thing. Of course, there's heart rate, but I think cortisol as well, right? And then you can predict in real time if I'm stressed or not. So what are you tracking exactly?

Yeah, so we are tracking brain activity. So whenever you experience emotions, millions of neurons fire together and they generate a specific electrical signal.. And we, through our machine learning models, we can detect those patterns and identify your stress level. The key biomarkers we are measuring is arousal. Stress arousal is a very well-known biomarker used in neuroscience. In fact, that's how I started with Aware. You know, there's been over 10 years of validation of mapping EEG signals into arousal. And in fact, there's some more recent publications in UCSF that show that actually EEG is the most precise They compare EEG against other bio— other biomarkers like EDA, electrodermal activity, HRV to detect arousal, and they've verified EEG is actually the most precise one when it comes to arousal detection. So that's the key biomarker. And so we took all these 10 years of academic research into a product, a little bit like Fitbit, if you wish, 15 years ago with HRV. And took it from, from EKG into a wearable product. So that's— and then we've been validating our device internally. We're also collaborating with Stanford, UCSF, and keep improving our algorithms as our customer base keeps growing.

And what's your plan to make it super sticky, right? Because I have pretty much all of these wearables. I have the Oura, I have the Garmin for my ultra runs, I have Whoop, I have the Apple Watch, I have Eight Sleep, I have, uh, two pairs of Meta glasses. I, I have them all, right? And some of them are sticky, some of them are not so sticky. For example, I think the stickiest is Eight Sleep because the mattress like physically cools down and provides benefit. It's comfortable. It's a— it seems to be the most accurate score. The Whoop is annoying as fuck because I need to wear it all the time. And at first it was stinky, right? Because you, you do like physical activities and they— is like engineering basically. Like you send your customer with like a random band on you that stinks, you know? Um, and then it's annoying as well to have it all the time. And then you have to cover it for the lights. It feels just like bad engineering vs Uh, Eight Sleep is, is mostly good engineering, right? Except when it fails. Um, what's, what's your plan to make it super sticky? For Eight Sleep, it's just like looking at my score. I like looking at that. But I can't say that any of these products are like hyper sticky. Maybe the, the Oakley glasses for some reason, right? Because I'm always listening to podcasts while doing fitness. But yeah, what's your stickiness plan?

Yeah, so the, the sticky part that it's working right now in our beta, it's really the, the use case. So what we hear over and again from our custom beta testers is the fact that Aware is actionable by, by design, by default, right? It doesn't give you a picture of what happened in the past, it gives you a, a, a, an indication what's happening right now. So it's very, very actionable by design. So it's the biomarker with EEG, the temporal resolution EEG is phenomenal. Every second we give you an estimate of your emotional states. And so we get the, the customer love the ability to be nudged in the time, in the moment with this optic vibration. And so reminded, hey, remember the breathing exercise, this is the moment to do that. Many of our customers are telling us they have ADHD or they are in the autism spectrum. So they already practice mindfulness techniques, CBT exercises, maybe breathing exercises, just don't know when. And so Aware is really life-changing for them because it really gives them the ability to recognize that there's emotional states in real time. So that's the sticky part. It's very actionable. Instead of giving an idea of what happened 6 hours ago or 4 hours ago, It's very actionable and very intervention-based, right? So there is the part. In terms of comfort, form factor is everything, like you said. Like any wearable, you know, it's— we are— there's been a journey. That's why we call it beta, because it's a journey, right? So it's not the final product yet. It's a beta because we are keep improving. What Aware is today is so different than what it was 6 months ago when we launched the beta. That's why we give free lifetime membership to our customers and sell the device for a reduced price, because we are aware that they are helping us building and improve the user experience. What I would say is really helping us is going into, going to the market right away, even if the, the device is not perfect, at least was not 6 months ago. It's getting better and better. It's a way to keep improving, keep understanding what our customers want. We have already done a couple iterations since January on the hardware itself. Like you're saying, the lights, like sometimes it's disturbing, so we cover it up. And like details like this, uh, that you can only learn by testing the device and keep improving the device on hundreds of people, which is what we're doing right now. And then as we keep growing, then, uh, then, uh, you know, it'll get better and better, both the user experience, the hardware, and, um, and in the mobile app. Right.

The patch, why the patches? Like, why is that necessary? Isn't there like a better way so that it sticks there?

So we wanted to, with something, you know, like many, there's a lot of pluses in EEG and there is a lot of minuses. So we wanted to start, one of the things is motion artifacts, which by the way, any wearable have. And so We wanted to start from something that is a form factor that everyone wears and that solves many of the technology challenges of EEG. So we thought also about ear cuff or earrings, but not as many users after we interviewed them, they like that. Although some of the users, they love it, So we decided to build something that is more discreet. It's behind the ear. For some women, they just don't want to show their wearable, and they're telling us they have long hair and the wear is completely discreet. Nobody even noticed that you're wearing it. Some other people instead, they do want to show that they're wearing a wear. So it really depends. We thought that as a form factor, the behind the ear is something that works better. From, you know, the customers' interviews that we conducted. And so that's why we picked that form factor. It's the only, it's really one of the few form factors that you can wear consistently. You can wear it at night to track sleep. You can wear it during the day to track stress. So we are, look, is it the next revision of the app will actually have both night and in day, daytime patterns and see how daytime stress affects nighttime sleep and vice versa, how poor sleep affects your stress the next day. So the form factor was driven by that choice, by what customers wanted as a form factor, but also why the sticker is because it attaches really well to your skin. It's all very well-developed technology in the medical field that we are using medical-grade adhesives. They're breathable, sweat-resistant, waterproof. And so we realized that technology was there and we decided to use that technology.

But why not like a clasp onto the ear, for example, to not have to glue that thing to your skin? Like, was that too, uh, complicated in the design phase of things?

Yeah, I think, uh, I think there's two things. There's one thing is the, is the form factor, so what people would be willing to wear. Um, I'm not sure somebody would want to wear a hook 24/7, like the ear patch, literally you don't feel it at all. It's like a continuous glucose monitoring you put on your arm. It's similar technology. And this, if you just put it on, it's super light. The device is 6 grams. So it's super, super light. You don't, you put it in, you don't feel it. If you have a hook, it's different. You do feel it more. If you have glasses, for example, now interfere with your glasses. So there's a lot of different reasons why we didn't do it. And then that's from a customer experience. Standpoint, just collecting tons of data from our customers, or back then it was like over a year ago when we did this research, it was potential future customers. But also more on the technical standpoint, you know, nothing beats an adhesive patch when it comes to EEG. And so we started, you know, something that has like a really clean EEG signal and then iterate from there.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Um, you know, we're talking about like Blade Runner and, uh, yeah, Neuralink. Is it the goal one day to, uh, communicate like without using words and just like my brain to your brain, direct API, direct communication? Uh, would you envision a future running such a company?

Uh, I think we're Still too early to say that. I think it requires a lot of R&D. I'm not sure whether with a single channel EEG you can get to that level. There is research being done also with EEG and fMRI to do that. But I think you need a lot more information than just a single channel. I mean, you could claim that Aware can be thought as a multichannel if now you have multiple Bluetooth connection. So we're basically creating the foundation of a product in the future that can be much more complex than what it is today. I think it's too early to— I think the R&D is still behind, lags behind on that. Again, I'm not sure whether we can do with a single channel, but at least we can detect your emotional state in your sleep. So whether we can detect your thoughts, I think that requires a lot more R&D and also potentially increase the complexity of the product, which we don't want right now.

What would be the V2 of the product, like hardware but also software-wise? Like, how could you take it to the next level?

Yeah, hardware is going to be much more miniaturized. We're going to add more sensors in it. We're going to have the ability to interact also verbally with the device, so you're going to have a complete screenless experience. Software, like right now, like I said, the beta version of the app is very simple. It's just a simple intervention that gives you a haptic feedback when you are in fight or flight and remind you to do breathing exercise. That's going to evolve dramatically. It's going to be more interactive, more coaching, more intervention, both for sleep and for daytime use. So more, um, intervention that really help you fall asleep, but also, uh, help you calm down your nervous system in real time during daytime.

What about like enterprise plans? Um, where could that be useful in a business, business perspective?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, uh, enterprise or B2B, uh, we didn't want to do that frankly initially, but then we got so many requests. Stanford was the first one. We'll be collaborating with them for the last 18 months. UCSF came along and many other research groups and longevity organizations that they want to use a study the brain outside of the lab. So what they like— we keep hearing from them over and again that they like the form factor for Aware, the fact that it's discrete and you can truly track brain activity outside of the lab and in everyday life. And so we start addressing them, you know, giving them our devices, giving access to the raw brainwave data, and then we realize, wait a minute, why do we need to Why do we, do we keep doing this, or like, for each new partner while we can actually just create a product for that? And so we launched a couple of months ago Aware Labs. It's basically a platform that you can sign up today. You go to awarelabs.com, you sign up, we give you a 1-week free, free trial, and, uh, and you can access to your brainwave data live. We also give you the API if you want to interface with the app. And so we allow research organization to develop their own use cases using EEG. So it can be seizure detection, can be sleep, delirium, it can be psychedelics research is one of our collaborators there.

They're doing, uh, they're using coworker passive aggression. Was that coworker passive aggression?

Coworker passive aggression. Okay, tell me more.

Well, it's just like in a corporate setting, uh, It's, uh, it's not always easy to have your coworking. Maybe your thing could detect who, who the assholes that are ruining the company cultures are, and that, that could flag it.

Yeah, I think calm the fuck down.

That could be an alert.

You just need to— I think you need to just be careful with data privacy. We're very strict with data privacy. Make sure that, that ever— so if there is a use case where everybody agrees of, uh, of using that, I, that— I think there's some limitations on how you use your neural data, but that's definitely a very interesting use case. Like, really, I mean, because ultimately when people don't act in a nice way towards other people, really what they're doing is they're exposing their own traumas. You, you act in a certain way because you're triggered, and, and, and your brain is, is a tool that predicts, right? So if it has some bad prediction based on your trauma, past traumas, it's reminded in the moment of something that looks like a trauma you experienced in the past. And so that's why you react in a certain way. And so, yeah, Aware in principle can detect that, can detect that you're in fight or flight. That's why you're reacting in a certain way. So I think Aware does have great potentials to to sort of improve how we relate to each other. And that's going to be a really, really interesting social experiment. Now, how we are going to implement it, I don't know, Charles, in the workplace, just because of the privacy that you need to have with neural data. But I think it's definitely possible. And I see the incredible benefit that Aware can bring also in the workplace.

Yeah, API calls, right, for tracking. Yeah, you're right about privacy. But once the company and the employee accepts, right? Every task track if they like it or not, have them focus on stuff they like, track their interactions. Are their interactions stressing other coworkers or increasing the vibe, increasing the energy, right? Um, it's pretty limitless. And, you know, like, that would be the— ultimately you would track an organization's nervous system, which is pretty much everything. Ironically, that's not being tracked, but organizations are all about vibes and energy ultimately, right? The best of them are just like our full aligned fucking speed train going at 1,000 miles, and other ones are just like discord and inefficiencies and conflict, you know, they're not going anywhere. Antonio, where can people find out more about you and the company?

So go to awaretech.com, so that's our website. There's a lot of information there about the product, about everything about the team, about a lot of stuff. So everything is there, and feel free to contact me on LinkedIn if you, if you want, if you want to reach out directly.

So yeah, but I'm talking