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Listen in on how Tuned is helping people hear what matters to them most. Co-founder and CEO of Tuned, Omri Gavish, sits down with host Tanya Perkins, COO of Tembo Health. Tuned is an AI company that creates self-fitting hearing aids, which shortens the period to obtain hearing aids from months to just 20 minutes. Omri recounts the company’s moving origin story and how their device can serve people in your community. Additionally, he discusses his journey to finding the sweet spot in work-life balance as a founder, how important optimism is when starting a business, and how he learned that startups are a marathon, not a sprint. He signs off by giving advice to those thinking about starting a business.
Tanya Perkins, Host:
Welcome to AgeTech Talks, conversations about AgeTech powered by AgeTech Collaborative from AARP, leading a global mission to drive innovation at the nexus of longevity and technology. You are tuning in to a series of discussions recorded live at CES 2024 that highlight the dynamic startup founders who are making aging easier for everyone by pioneering innovative AgeTech solutions. In conversation with fellow startup founders, Kyle Rand and Tanya Perkins, each episode invites an AgeTech Collaborative startup founder to discuss their journey and share the invaluable lessons they’ve learned along the way. Today we’re thrilled to have Omri Gavish, co-founder and CEO of Tuned to share their story.
Hello. Hello. I’m Tanya Perkins and I’m here with AgeTech Collaborative from AARP. And today I have Omri from Tuned. Omri, tell us, what’s your role in this company? And where did you fly in from?
Omri Gavish:
So first of all, thank you very much for having me and for the opportunity. I am flying here from Israel. It was a long flight, but really rewarding and I’m very happy to be here. It’s my first time in CES. I’ve been to many shows, but this one is the first time I’ve been to CES.
Tanya Perkins:
Oh. So excited to have you here. And also thank you for taking that flight. Give us just a brief overview. What does your company do?
Omri Gavish:
Tuned is a self-fitting hearing aid. We are taking the traditional world of fitting hearing aids and doing it with AI and doing it automatically. So we are shortening the process of obtaining hearing aids from a few weeks, sometimes even months, to doing it in 20 minutes. And it also saves a lot of money to the customers and it’s much more convenient. So we are an AI company that does a self-fitting hearing aids.
Tanya Perkins:
Oh. I can definitely see how saving time and having convenience not only is just important in any industry, but especially for the audience that we focus in on, which is helping improve the second half of everyone’s century. We’re going to get a little bit more into your company in a little bit, but before we do, we want to know more about Omri. In particular, what makes you tick? What is something that we should know about Omri and how they see the world?
Omri Gavish:
It’s a great question. So something you need to know about me is that I am addicted to the sea, to the Mediterranean Sea. You know, in Israel we have the Mediterranean Sea, which is amazing place. And being there in the morning before the sunrise this is the best thing you can ever see and imagine. It’s gorgeous. The water temperature is amazing. So at least twice a week before work I try to get to the sea, either do swimming or surf ski, which is those long kayaks of 16 feet, something like this, that you catch waves. And it really refills you with energy for the rest of the week or the rest of the day to overcome all the obstacles you will have in the rest of the day, and it’s also very healthy by the way.
Tanya Perkins:
That is very impressive that you are up so early, especially as a founder. I know that a lot of your team is also, not everybody’s in Israel, right? A good portion of your team is here in the States. Correct?
Omri Gavish:
Yes. We have audiologists here in the State sand we have also in Europe and in Israel. So we are really remotely working. We took it to the next stage of working remotely and everyone is working remotely.
Tanya Perkins:
Okay. So you’re getting up at the crack of dawn to go out and enjoy the Mediterranean and then you’re probably staying up very, very late to be able to talk to your team, which is scattered across all parts of the globe. That is very impressive. How do you do all of that?
Omri Gavish:
I think with passion. This is the thing. You have to do everything you do, you have to do it with passion and everything else gets together. So if you’re doing it, you really believe in this and you’re doing it with passion, so you don’t need more than this.
Tanya Perkins:
All right. Speaking of passion, let’s get into why did you start Tuned? Can you jump into what the origin story is? What made you decide this is where you want to spend not only your time and energy, but a good portion of your career?
Omri Gavish:
I know the hearing industry for many years. Ron, my partner and myself, we had a previous business before this also in the medical devices and hearing access or listening devices and I know the industry for many years, since 2014. And the trigger to open Tuned was four years ago when one of our employees called and he was having tears of happiness in his eyes and I asked him, Ray, share, tell me we are having difficult things all day. If you have good news, so share with us. Tell us. And he was, as part of his job, he was visiting a nursing home, you know, for the elderly and the therapist there asked him if he can meet a woman. She was 85, something like this. She is a Holocaust survivor. In Israel, Holocaust survivors are encouraged to give their story to the kids, to the school kids, to continue the story so everyone will be familiar and will never be forgotten.
And she was doing it with passion all the years. And then suddenly she stopped. She stopped. And this therapist spoke with her because he was really working from his heart and he asked her, “Why did you stop?” She said, “No. I feel it’s not for me anymore and I don’t understand the kids and I feel embarrassed.” And she avoid continue giving her story and when we have a lot of accessible listening devices. So I ask him, “Can you meet her and see you can help her?” And he met with her and he just understood that she doesn’t hear well anymore. It’s not that she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have any cognitive problems. She doesn’t have any mental problems. She just doesn’t hear them. And she didn’t understand. No one understood it because she couldn’t hear them, she avoided to continue giving the story and her mental health declined. Her physical health declined. Cognitive, friends life, everything was really declined and he helped her from all his heart, things that he shouldn’t have done and invested a lot of weeks and time.
It really helped her to get hearing aids fitting to her hearing loss. They drove to hearing clinic and everything and really we were impressed and Ron and I, we looked at each other and we said, hearing aids should be accessible for everyone. It’s not something that should be so expensive and you need so much time and effort to obtain hearing aids. It needs to be there for everyone. And it took us a year until we realized what we need to do in order to get there. After a lot of things we tried on the way and after one year we decided, okay, this is the thing we need to do and this is how Tuned started.
Tanya Perkins:
That’s amazing. I heard so many wonderful things in that in terms of the community that you’re trying to help as well as what ignited everything. What I also heard was you were already doing something in the market. You already had a business and you saw great opportunity and you vetted it and decided to move forward with a, I guess, a new idea. What are those steps that you took to decide, you know what, plan A was great, but we’re going to go for plan C or D?
Omri Gavish:
So we tested because we were already in the market, so we developed solutions. We started with hearing aids that are regular OTC hearing aids without the option to feed them to the hearing loss. And we tried to sell them in the biggest pharmacy chain in Israel in Super-Pharm, and it didn’t go up. We had a lot of return rates, a lot of people calling said, “Okay. We have the box, what to do with this?” Okay. So they never seen hearing aids in their life, so they took it out of the box. They didn’t know how to wear them. It wasn’t fitted to their hearing loss and this one failed. So we left it aside. Then we tried to do the fitting using a tablet in the shop, but again, you have to go to the shop. You have to do it. You have to do it in a noisy place, didn’t succeed. Eventually we decided you have to do it with your own phone, with your own application, inside your living room, in a quiet place. And this one we saw that had a lot of attraction and we continue with this.
Tanya Perkins:
That’s amazing, especially how much you got out there to understand what that process is or what someone is experiencing with your product. That said, let’s pivot a little bit. Let’s go into lessons learned. What have you learned from this entire experience that you would love anyone who’s considering starting a startup or is already running one? What advice would you give them?
Omri Gavish:
Many advices. I will focus on resilience and you have to be very, very optimistic. You must be optimistic. You cannot succeed otherwise. If you’re optimistic, I assure every founder of a startup, you will succeed for 100%. Don’t believe the statistics says 95, 90% will fail. No. No. No. If you’re optimistic and you insist and you have the resilience, 100% you will succeed. Maybe not in the first company. Maybe not in the second. Maybe not in the third, but eventually you will succeed. And this is the lesson I learned, you have to believe everything is possible. Be very optimistic and understand there are no obstacles.
If there is obstacle, if there is something very high, jump, go below, go from the side. And I learned this also in the previous business in audio care that we decided to sell the company when we established Tuned because we believed Tuned can be amazing thing that will actually change the world and in audio care. So it wasn’t a company that was backed by VCs or angel investors and it was our money. It was loans that we gave to the company and we had no option to fail. And in this case we understood that everything is possible. You can do everything. You just need to insist and continue and believe it will be okay.
Tanya Perkins:
I enjoy that for so many reasons. So many people will talk about in the startup space, they’ll name it different things. They’ll say stubborn. They’ll say you have to have faith. You said optimism. You just have to have pure optimism all the time. Is there ever a time when you just had to really rely on that optimism even in the face of someone telling you everything else was anything but successful or that optimism wasn’t going to get you through? When’s a time that maybe you just had to really rely on that optimism?
Omri Gavish:
Every day, I think. Every day people will tell you it’s not possible. Those that loves you, those that cares about you because they care about you, they will say, don’t go there. Don’t do this, everything. But you have to believe and say everything will be okay. Believe me, everything will be okay. And be very optimistic about this. The last really major obstacle we had is to get the FDA approval and we failed on the way. We are a small company. We don’t have huge resources. It’s not that we can pay and everyone will do for you.
We had to do everything ourselves and we had a lot of obstacles in the way. FDA came back to us two to three times and rejected. And we have to go and do things from the beginning, including a full clinical trial from the beginning. And people were holding their hands and say, okay, that’s it, end of game. And we said, no, it’s just the beginning of the game. Okay. So they said, let’s do it. And we were going and doing it and without being optimistic that it will succeed, you have no chance. So must be.
Tanya Perkins:
That, a process for doing FDA clearance is not easy. You probably have to have optimism day one from that. If you needed to do a FDA trial over again, what would you do differently?
Omri Gavish:
Now that they have the experience, I don’t think we’ll do anything differently to be honest with you. I think we will do everything the same and we will succeed. So I’m trying to think, okay, what we did in the process that wasn’t the way we should have done it, but everything was okay and sometimes it’s not up to you. You have to understand it and it’s okay. It’s part of life. I don’t think we could have done something differently.
Tanya Perkins:
Sometimes the only way to know what to do is to have already done all the wrong things or have something not succeed, so definitely hear you on that. So what was that time that you first realized that oh my gosh, I’m a founder and Ron and I are doing this. By the way, y’all, Ron is his co-founder. So just wanted to point that out if that wasn’t clear. But yeah, Omri, what was that moment when you said, oh wow, Ron and I are doing this and I’m a founder.
Omri Gavish:
The moment you say it is that you realize that everything is up to you, up to you and your small team, everything. It’s not a huge organization that you can rely on others to do anything for you, HR, finance, R&D, nothing. Everything is up to what you are doing and you have to do everything, everything, everything, everything. Really I remember the first day we entered the office and it was two people, Ron and I, and we said we have to do everything for now, everything, even clean the floor, finance, financial reports, R&D, manage R&D teams. Everything you have to do yourself. This is the point you understand, “oof I’m a founder”.
Tanya Perkins:
So you’re doing everything. You realize that’s the point that you’re a founder and then you realize, oh hey, I can actually hire employees. What was the first thing that you outsourced or you gave to the new employee that you were doing?
Omri Gavish:
R&D.
Tanya Perkins:
R&D.
Omri Gavish:
Because it’s not our bread and butter. Okay? Both of us, we are not technology. So we partnered with another great guy, Amit Ben, and actually he’s the one that led the R&D team and we continued to clean the floor and do the financial report and everything else. But the first thing we took, we understood where is our weakness point, which is R&D and Amit filled the spot amazingly.
Tanya Perkins:
So has that been your continuing thread as you hire and you give over responsibilities to give away those responsibilities that, hey, you’re not that good at or has your philosophy changed over time?
Omri Gavish:
My philosophy a little bit changed over time. It’s not things that you are not good at. This is the way we started. Okay. Things you’re not good at, so bring someone that will be good at and will do it. But now it’s a matter of time. If it’s something that you have time to do it or someone else can do it. Because if you can find someone else to do it and it can free a little bit of your time, then this is what changed. Because time is the most important thing, most important resource you have. If you’re free a little bit time, then it will be filled with other things and if you can free time, then do it.
Tanya Perkins:
All right. So what are the responsibilities that bring you joy as a founder?
Omri Gavish:
I enjoy everything, everything, believe me. I enjoy everything that I’m doing, really, everything, even reading NDAs or doing financial reports or managing from high levels the R&D team or working on the regulation side, even reading the manuals because in the end of the day you have a consumer product, so even reading and helping you writing the manual, everything. Because you believe in the end game, you believe that what you are doing will have positive impact. So everything you do in the way it’s really enjoyable.
Tanya Perkins:
Wow. You sound like the perfect co-founder. Let’s get it back a little bit to lessons learned. A lot about this podcast is helping people understand how to start a business and how to run one. Is there anything that you know now, several years into Tuned that you wish you knew earlier?
Omri Gavish:
Now, yeah, of course life is a marathon. This is something I understand now. It’s not a sprint. I used to be a professional swimmer and I used to swim 50 meters freestyle and 100 meters freestyle. So I remember also in my high school, my teacher that she was a big fan of swimming. She always came to me in my exams and say, “Omri, it’s not a 50 meters. Okay? You have to bring very long answers.” And I understand it now also it’s matter of marathon, it’s not a sprint. And this is something that I have learned now only in the last few years.
Tanya Perkins:
So what are you doing that’s different either in business or even your personal life now that you’ve got a better understanding that life is a marathon, business is a marathon and not the 50 meter sprint.
Omri Gavish:
During the work hours I try to bring more life to the work hours. So before this I came to the office on the computer, didn’t have lunch, didn’t have nothing, working all day until the day and meetings, Zooms, everything, but working, working, working, working all day until the night, as you said. Now I try in the middles bring short meetings, short breaks with friends in work and do more life inside the work, something that I didn’t have before.
Tanya Perkins:
So when you say more life inside the work and more involvement with friends, is this going to lunch? Is this going to coffee with friends? Or is it even with co-workers having more time for banter?
Omri Gavish:
It’s having more time for having fun activities during the work, during the day. If it’s not something you keep only for the weekend, it’s something you involve inside your day doing fun activities with co-workers, with employees.
Tanya Perkins:
What’s become a favorite activity amongst your team?
Omri Gavish:
I think in the end of the day we love to sit and talk, you know, just having a coffee break and talk. As you can understand, I’m not a fun guy so I’m working all the time. But yeah, this is something I try to do. Having coffee breaks with the guys and enjoy the time. But now in the Zoom, so it’s also organized. I’m sending, let’s have a coffee and having a slot in the calendar of a coffee time of you guys.
Tanya Perkins:
Very nice. You should never say that you’re not a fun person. Someone who gets up twice a week to surf in the Mediterranean sounds like a fun person to me. So before we wrap up, for those out there who are listening either live or later, what are any words of advice or anything that you wanted to make sure that people knew about you or starting a business?
Omri Gavish:
A few months ago I was asked to speak in front of students from Australia that came to Israel and they asked me the same question and they were students and I told them if they have a passion, if they want to do something, they must do it. Go and do it. Don’t wait. Don’t think, yeah, will I succeed, will I not succeed. Just go and do it. Like the cliche of just do it. So you must go and do it. Try and you will succeed. And if you have an idea and you want to try it, so it’s better to try and succeed or fail, but you will not fail, rather than thinking about in the future and regretting you didn’t try and you didn’t do it. So go and do it. If you believe this and if you have a passion for it, you will succeed. Go and do it.
Tanya Perkins:
Thank you so much, Omri, for joining us, not only on the first day of CES, but also for being one of the most optimistic founders that I’ve ever met. Apparently you were one of the most capable and awake people, particularly at probably what is 6:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. at night. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Omri Gavish:
Thank you, Tanya. It was great. Thank you very much.
Tanya Perkins:
Thanks for listening to AgeTech Talks from AgeTech Collaborative from AARP. You can learn more about today’s guest and all of the innovative startups in the AgeTech Collaborative by visiting the startup directory on AgeTechCollaborative.org.
