Interview with Sound Sustainability founder Robert White

My name is Dustin Betts. I'm the content editor at the Founder Institute, and I'm here today with Robert White. He's the founder and CEO of Sound Sustainability. It's an FI Seattle company that is developing affordable hearing aids. Robert White, thank you so much for joining us today.

Dustin, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate this opportunity.

Awesome. So before we dive into your company, Sound Sustainability, can you tell us a little bit about yourself or your startup story? You know, what were the experiences, professional or personal, that led you to founding this company focused on bringing affordable hearing aids to those who need them?

Yeah, so it's been about a little over 20 years in the military. A little over 3 years ago, I left out of the Seattle area, decided, you know, it was time for me to step into what's next. And prior to that, I, you know, had the unfortunate experience of losing all my hearing in my left ear. Due to an infection as well as explosions. Just all the military service, many of us recognize that happened. And I remember literally after all the packing was taken out and I was finally able to put like an earbud in, and I shared a story a lot of times with people, and I wanted to hear music. I wanted to finally see if I could hear in that ear and nothing was coming through. And I just remember like how devastated I felt. I just remember like crying about it and just that You know, this really impacted, you know, who I was and my quality of life. I was very thankful that, you know, after that, of course, I had a titanium eardrum put in, some hearing was restored, and then I had to start wearing a hearing aid. And I remember, you know, as a commissioned officer, how worried I was. How would people think about me, you know, with a hearing aid? You know, would I be— am I disabled? Would I not be able to lead my, you know, soldiers, be able to do my job anymore? And after leaving the military, and like I said, about a year ago, to connect the story together, was that I sat at a lecture at University of Washington about disabilities and how it shows up in employment, how we can do better with that. And my hearing aid was actually broken at the time. And if you remember the '80s Walkman, the phone headset, so I had a hearing assist device handed to me. I sat there 5 feet from the person, couldn't hear a word they were saying. So that like, that's what spun me into the journey of remembering my quality of life. And then now seeing that technology has not really caught up with a lot of things that we need to improve it. So that sent me down this whole, you know, rabbit hole of how can I improve, you know, hearing health, not just for myself, but those all around the world. And it led me going back to grad school for a master's in entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, graduate come this summer, and getting my company off the ground. And I'm happy to share through that program, we recently just won the grand prize at the Hultman Health Innovation Challenge. It's one of three major competitions at the university. So yeah.

Awesome. I really appreciate you sharing that personal story. And yeah, congratulations on the Hultman Health winning grand prize there. That's really cool. I know because I've spent some time on your website, a little bit familiar with your company, that Sound Sustainability is on a mission to improve hearing health for everybody. But let's hear it straight from you, the founder. For those who have never heard of it before, please give us your short pitch. You know, what is Sound Sustainability?

Yeah, thank you for that. So my company, Sound Sustainability, we're developing an over-the-counter hearing aid that's to help adults with mild to moderate hearing loss to improve their hearing health and quality of life by providing them with an affordable, personally customized hearing aid that they'll be able to purchase online. And what this means is a couple of years back, Congress passed a new law allowing over-the-counter hearing aids to finally be introduced to the community. Many things you probably see online right now are just hearing amplifiers. They're not actual medical devices. So we are positioning ourselves to be one of those first companies to kind of come into that space as it opens up later this year.

Perfect. Yeah, I do actually remember a little bit hearing about when that law was passed by Congress a couple of years ago. So that's interesting to tie in. Tell us about the scope of the problem, just in terms of access to affordable hearing aids. You shared a little bit about your personal story, but what's the full scope, I guess, of those who need access to such a device?

Yeah, you need to Google out there when you normally look at like, how much does a hearing aid cost? And it ranges somewhere, you know, anywhere between $1,000 up to $10,000. And a lot of it depends on like, you know, the manufacturer, which audiologist you see, you know, what technology you need. But the average cost right now in the United States is about $2,500 just for one. And you think about those, you know, who need a hearing aid and, you know, and think of like, can they really afford $2,500 right out their pocket, you know, just to purchase it? And the concern there is insurance companies, a lot of them do not identify hearing aids as a medical necessary device. So they don't cover, a lot of the costs of it. They don't cover the cost of the device itself. They may cover some of the bundle costs from the audiologist being a medical doctor. But I don't know about you, but to me, hearing is definitely a necessity in my life. So that affordability and that access is taken away because of insurance companies, because of the costs that are passed on to the customer from hearing aid dispensers or audiologists themselves. Accessibility. Thinking about it takes an average of 4 to 5 appointments to see an audiologist. You know, you have to go see your primary, they have to do a referral, then you go in to see an otolaryngologist, which is, you know, the ear doctor itself, ear, nose, throat potentially. Then you may see the audiologist, take a hearing test. Great, you have hearing loss, come back with this, get fitted for a hearing aid. Now you're going back in again for one fitting. Then you may have to go back in for a second fitting. So that whole timeline could take, you know, up to 2 or 3 months sometimes just to receive a product that you need. They need tomorrow. So that's what we're here to do, is to improve that accessibility, that you're able to, you know, take a hearing test online and then be able to receive it within that same week. And something else I love to share, I heard this great quote about a month ago, is that companies right now have a $5,000 solution for a $500 problem. And that's where we want to come in to actually fix that.

Perfect. So I love that. And I want to have you kind of elaborate just a little bit more because you mentioned it really briefly sort of at the end. So Comparing and contrasting, you know, how long it can take going through all the different appointments and the expense. Tell us a little bit, Sound Sustainability, it's online, it's much faster. What does your solution sort of look like in contrast?

Yeah, we look at it as a three-pronged solution. As you know, you see our mission statement, you know, to educate, engage, and improve access to innovative solutions. And that three-prong is around educating. We are building a hearing health continuum. Basically what that means is as you take our virtual hearing test through our proprietary algorithms, we kind of determine, is our product right for you? Because we recognize it's not going to be for everybody. And it's because of potentially your hearing loss level, or you may not have none at all. So therefore we can't sell you this medical device, you know, by law as well as just constantly. So hearing health continuum is be able to help point customers to a curated hearing education library, help them learn about what hearing health they have, you know, where their hearing levels are, potential ways to protect any hearing loss they haven't had yet, and just the overall human experience when it comes to around your hearing health. That also then goes into that, you know, engaging part is we have a virtual hearing test. We're working on having one of the first, if not the first FDA-cleared virtual hearing test, so that allows us to improve accessibility. You don't have to go see an audiologist for that test. You're able to take it virtually online or an app as we work on that. And once that's done, we know what your hearing levels are. Then we're able to then start programming your hearing aid that you're able to purchase right there and receive within a couple of days to a week.

Perfect. That's awesome. Really, really cool. I love, I love the whole thing. I wanted to ask you next about technology. And it sounds like you've already sort of alluded to some of those things. So is your key technology differentiator sort of, as you spoke about this kind of virtual hearing test, is that what makes you most unique? Or is there something in the device, any other kind of tech elements you want to speak to?

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, the virtual hearing test definitely is a major differentiation. That hearing healthcare team as well. There's a concern with trust within our community. You know, if you go on these closed Facebook groups and, You read comments from people saying, "I'm about to buy another, you know, a hearing aid online from a company." Everybody says, "Don't do it." Like there's a huge trust thing there. Like there's no brand recognition. When we've done surveys where we ask customers like, "What hearing aid are you wearing?" They have no clue because hearing aid manufacturers don't market to the end user. They market to audiologists. So you don't see them online selling that. So differentiation within that technology is helping build that trust of Hearing Health Continuum, our hearing tests, And we're looking at how do we customize the housing. Housing hasn't changed in the last 6 years. I think one company right now, there's one model called Stiletto out there that's a lot thinner, a lot different. And that's the first time I've seen that in years, you know, like going back and research and looking at like how has hearing aids changed shape? And a lot is because of the battery. So we're trying to change that technology of how do we have a rechargeable? We're taking a battery away. There's, you know, about 3 billion batteries thrown away every year. That's about 3 million pounds to the waste stream. We don't want to add to that, so we're only going to be having rechargeable batteries, rechargeable systems that improve that technology. One part, and I'll just touch on this real fast right now, and I know we'll talk about a little bit later, is the AI piece. And it has— and I'll talk about how AI is going to play a part in everything else as well.

Perfect. Uh, yeah, I definitely want to hear about that. Um, the next thing I was going to ask you about is sort of the impact. You've obviously built this company solve a problem that matters to you very personally. I think I would agree with you that I personally, whether the insurance companies would see it that way or not, think that hearing is of vital importance every day in my life. At FI, we're focused on how all startups can create meaningful impacts, not just those that are narrowly focused on some certain ESG element. And so we've developed a sort of whole For Progress IKPI framework. People can see it at fi.co/progress if they want to learn about our IKPIs. But talk to us about how you think about social impact at Sound around sustainability. Are there particular best practices in your case for how you're thinking about measuring the impacts that you're creating, whether it's customers served or some other metric that matters to you?

Yeah, that social impact was literally one of the first things I thought about as I'm, you know, starting the company. You know, we looked at, can we be— here in Washington State, they have what they call social purpose corporations. And looking at, can we be an SPC? It's the same, you know, it's very similar to a B Corp, you know, but for B Corp, you have to apply. For that designation. So we have a social impact mission. You know, we may not be a social purpose corporation, but we do have that social impact mission. You know, I've studied and looked at how TOMS or Warby Parker, what they've done. And one of the first, you know, ideas I came up with is how do we, for everyone that's purchased, you know, be able to donate one to a developing area? Not, you know, here in the US as well as around the world. There are places here in the US that do need hearing aids that can't afford it, and developing areas still, even though we are a high-income country. So how do we, you know, for everyone that's purchased, be able to do that type of program? That was one aspect where you look at social impact. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, very familiar with them, and it's something I also then said in our culture that we want to implement. We have to support those goals. I know we're far behind in looking at how do we get them accomplished by 2030, and especially with the pandemic. So I believe our company, I believe all entrepreneurs have responsibility to help improve and get those, uh, us forward progress to those goals. And the 3 we mostly focus on is goal number 10, which is reducing inequalities, inequalities around affordability of a medical necessary device. How do we also look at making sure we pay proper wages as we start to employ those? And how do we increase labor across the US and the world Second one is looking at goal number 3, which is around good health and well-being. I apologize if you have any background noise. It's always live, so someone always wants to cut grass. But it goes back to that medical necessity device. How do we increase the number of people who have access to healthcare that they need? And this is a medical necessity device. I think about developing countries, even here in the US, Children who can't hear predominantly send them back to the classroom. Adults who are back in higher education like myself predominantly send them back to the classroom when we can't hear. And it personally happened to me, my first grad school program. I couldn't hear 'cause my hearing is always broken. So I sat in the back and just, you know, took notes as best I could or, you know, surfed on the internet, to be honest. And that's what happens. So how do we improve that, you know, access to, you know, health essential services And the last goal we look at is number 12. We always want to be able to be responsible in consumption production and make sure that we provide a sustainable report to our customers, to the world, and be very transparent of like, how are we improving, how are we making a better social impact? And the other last point I'll share that we looked at is the en cycle of our product. As I shared about batteries, so many end up into the waste stream. Just think about how many hearing aids end up into the waste stream. Since this is an agnostic device, we own it. We will look at, you know, recycle program where a customer sends it back to us, we refurbish it, and then we're able to work with a partner in geos. Then we can also then recycle and provide it, you know, for free somewhere else in the world, you know, where this type of technology is still, you know, at the top and is needed. So that end of cycle of the product, it has to happen. Right now with other hearing aid companies, you have to be, if you're an audiologist or a hearing aid dispenser, you have to have approval of that manufacturer to receive back and then recycle or reuse or resell their product. If you're not approved, then you can't take it back. So a lot of hearing aids, majority of hearing aids are just thrown away.

Yeah, it sounds like you've given a lot of thought to kind of the whole scope of impact throughout the entire company. And thanks for calling out the individual Sustainable Development Goals. So not just number 3, good health and well-being, but also thinking about, as you mentioned, the whole product lifecycle and where it ends up ultimately to avoid kind of like landfill and other kind of sustainable impacts. So I love that you have a holistic sort of view in thinking about it. I want to ask you to make a prediction. This is always the question I ask everybody to go out on a limb. What do you think are the biggest changes that are coming for the future of technology, not just hearing aid devices, but technology for the hearing impaired over the next 5 to 10 years?

Yeah. So last fall, I had a great conversation with the president of one of the major hearing aid manufacturers here in the US. And he shared with me, if you're a company starting off the ground, if you're not thinking about the next 5 years already, you're You're not going to survive. You're not knowing where to go. So this is another question I think about every night as I go to bed. Like, what's this next 5 years? How do we make sure we're there? And one of them I already touched on a little earlier is around AI and machine learning. Like, it's already happening and it will continue to happen. All of us are trying to produce sounds to be at the natural level of hearing. Since this is, you know, a digital device, it's digitally creating, you know, sound. So being able to use AI machine learning, it's, you know, a lot of companies are doing it right now. Facebook Labs, Reality Labs is trying to do that in the VR world. Very fascinating to see that. So that is a technology I see that's going to advance in the next 5 to 10 years as we'll get closer to a natural sound. We'll increase the memory of like the device chips inside called digital signal processors. So that'll help with that. Another thing that I'm already seeing right now, but we'll hopefully see an increase in, is captioning glasses. There are companies who are working on how do you do live captioning with glasses that you're wearing or sunglasses or just in general, you know, however they need to do it. But that technology is It's interesting because then how do you then take it across to other platforms if it comes to fruition? The other part is we have to improve on real-time captioning. Like, I use a real-time captioner at school, and normally that's why I look up to the other screen sometimes, because I'm always looking at a secondary screen to be able to read what people say or questions. But how do we improve that real-time captioning where It's someone that's on the other end that, you know, are we able to use AI to be able to do it for us? You know, Zoom has it on here now, but it's not the best. And not to call them out on it or anything, but it's just, it's very hard to pick up the natural words and to have it every time and have it properly come across the screen for everybody's, you know, voice or accent they may have. Those are my biggest predictions right now. Probably want to actually throw it out real fast is around hearing aids. I think we're going to see a shift in the housing and what a hearing aid can actually look like. What does it mean to like wear a hearing aid? You know, you see a lot of hearing aids now that it's out of the canal, they're invisible. But the cultural shift around the stigma of wearing a hearing aid means that you're old or disabled. Technology is going to take and advance that to actually stamp out that stigma.

I love that. Well, that's a really positive kind of prediction to end on, and it jives a lot with the other ones that you made. And I love that you— and, you know, some of these predictions are less directly related to sound sustainability and your medical device product and just more sort of about the whole area. So I really love that the VR or augmented reality, like, totally. The closed captioning, yes. Really great predictions for the kind of whole space and a positive outlook for stomping out that stigma, as you said. You've obviously done a huge amount to build Found Sustainability to where it is right now. What are some of the biggest challenges that you feel you've overcome as a founder in terms of building the company to where it is now?

Yeah, I think one of the main challenges many of us as entrepreneurs face is how do we get our vision across to others? When it's in our head and we want them to see this is where we're going, this is how we see the world. And that has been a challenge as I went through the FI program as well. And how do I get that? And I was able to overcome that as we built traction by developing an actual product. Vision is great, it's on paper, but it has to produce something. So we've been able to overcome that now by having an actual— I wish I can get up in a second and grab it, but having an actual product where we're able to show what potential housing could look like and, you know, show our virtual hearing test, you know, prototype website and the demos that we've been able to do now. So we're able to visually give that perception to others so they can see what my vision is as a founder. And then now they can see where we're trying to go to and they can link that story along the spectrum. Another challenge has been actually just building the product like Hardware is hard, as I always keep hearing from everybody. You could do software and get coders to do that, but doing hardware makes it harder as a founder. So having the right partners, and I go back to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we want to work only with companies who are green, who support the UN SDGs as well. So then now that makes it a lot harder to go out and do that research, find each company, and come over those, overcome those challenges. I'm happy to actually even share this. Like one of the companies that we are looking at receiving products through a distributor from them is Knowles. And they actually have one of their microphones that it's not gonna be the same 'cause I won't be hearing it, but it's still the same company. But their microphone is on the Perseverance Rover on Mars right now. So I think it's always cool to be able to share with people like, hey, we were, this is what we're doing and this is what we're looking at. Because those products are amazing when you think about it that way. Then I would say the last challenge we haven't— we're going through right now would be fundraising. And then how do you get the company off the ground? How do you bootstrap it? How do you make sure that you find the right investors or find the right grants to fund it? And then that's a major research that we continually do every day right now. And looking at small business innovation research grants and be able to apply for that so that we can scale faster with that funding.

Perfect. Perfect. I really appreciate that, those answers. This is kind of a related question. I mean, do you have any advice that you would offer to early-stage or even just aspiring entrepreneurs who are just getting started? Generic advice or specific to your industry?

Customer discovery. Customer discovery, customer discovery. Something that's been drilled in my head even more now as I finished a recent boot camp and interviewing 25 customers. You need to know what is the customer's pain point and making sure that you're actually solving it. You're just not having it, you know, we call in the military a good idea fairy. You're not just having a good idea, you're actually going out to solve a pain point. That customers need solved. And the other generic advice I would give you is apply to Founder Institute's program, like this pre-seed accelerator, you know, that's what it's there for. Like where I'm at is because of FI, you know, being able to go through this pre-seed accelerator, being able to be introduced to the right mentors, being able to have a whole educational program, you know, as it says on the website, accelerates you in 4 months, accelerates you where you're supposed to be in 2 years. I wholeheartedly believe that. I look at where I am now versus where I was last summer. I'm on version 22 of my pitch deck. It's just night and day between then and now. So those are my two general advices I would give starting entrepreneurs.

Yeah, that's really great advice, definitely to focus on the first part with the testimonials unsolicited, but definitely making sure you're really focused on the customer. And I've definitely been guilty of creating problems that are creating products that I think are 'cause it's a cool thing. So that's not the way to do it. You know, just go, you have to really focus on that customer development. That makes a lot of sense. Final question I have for you is just, you know, where is Sound Sustainability headed next? If you have any news or final updates you wanna share with the FI community or ask, I don't know if you mentioned you have a product or something physical you'd like to show, but sort of just in summary, you know, what do you wanna impart on the audience here as we wrap up?

Yeah, so the product basically is this shell housing. Alex, give me a second, I'll just grab it if you don't mind.

Sure, yeah.

I actually keep it in my hearing aid case that's on the table, but basically what I'll do is, and you can kind of see in my left hand here, this is what a natural hearing aid looks like, and you kind of see the shape. What we're trying to do right now is change the shape and try to change the structure of it because as it sits on your ear, how do you have it naturally sit where it fits correctly and, you know, it sits there in the groove? So those are the things that we're looking at for that. That's what's next for us, continue that research into housing development. We're also looking for beta testers. Come in June, we'll open up like our website apps, you know, for those tests, like our virtual hearing test to kind of get the efficacy reports of those as well as look at our our curated education library and test those things out. You can go to our website, soundsustainability.org, right now, sign up for our newsletter. We soon will have on there a link so that you can actually just sign up as a beta tester. We just want to start building that now so that we are ready whenever it comes out between now and June, that people are just ready and willing to test it. And that's really important. Make sure again, goes along with that customer discovery we just spoke about. So those are our— that's what's next for us. And that's our big ask.

Awesome. Well, that is really exciting that CUPSTUN is right around the corner here. It's going to be here before we know it. This has been really interesting for me learning a little bit more about, you know, hearing aids and where they fall within the medical device space. Some of the other things you mentioned about about it being classified as a medical device and the changes in the law and just the technology basically catching up to the platform and things that are coming. So we're all really looking forward to keeping up with Sound Sustainability at the Founder Institute and where you're headed next. And when that beta program is live, please like definitely let us know. We want to share that out with everybody so that we can help drive some beta users to you. But Robert White, thank you so much again for joining us today.

Thank you so much, Justin. Thank you so much, Founder Institute.