Pitch Please

00:16.25
mike_flywheel
Welcome back everybody this is Mike from the pitch please podcast today I'm joined on the show with will from formify will why don't you kick us off with a quick introduction about yourself. A little bit about your background your own career journey and what you're up to at at Formify. Yeah.

00:40.97
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure. So I originally studied aerospace engineering at Tmu um and kind of through that I got to meet a bunch of people at an internship this was right when covid was coming around and as covid kind of hit. We all all the interns across Magna were actually laid off at the same time and through that we kind of said hey we're we're bored. What should we do and we looked for a problem to solve and gaming mice and the one size fits all solution. That's currently there that was the problem that we found to try to solve.

01:13.40
mike_flywheel
That's super cool. So how is the entire team or core people that you were sort of working with and magnet that got laid off all part of the founding team of of formified.

01:22.65
Will Mac
No, so there's there's 5 core members. So the 3 engineers yes, we are at the magna engineers if you will because we're all part of that new technologies and innovation division. But there's also Alex Chapman who's kind of more the business he lead. Um. And as well as my brother Kenny Mclaughlin who is a full time. Ah, he he's a director of photographer his feature just came out check it out cult hero but he does a lot of the videography stuff a lot of the media production for us.

01:53.43
mike_flywheel
That's super cool so you went to school for aerospace engineering. Can you like explain a little bit about what that entails because I'm going to guess that it ah has relatability to what we're going to talk about around formify but probably could take you down a million other career paths like are you building the next Spacex spaceship or. Yeah, what? what is aerospace engineering and and where did you do that? yeah.

02:13.98
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure. So did it at Tmu At Toronto Metropolitan University um it's ah I did go into the space stream. So technically I I studied rockets and stuff in the earlier years. There's a lot of avionics like lift drag cetera cetera. But yeah, they definitely. I felt my interests were a lot in mechanical design and even a lot of those really cool things you can do like top topology optimization generative design and finally parametric design which is kind of where a lot of this comes out of is stemming into some parametric design fields.

02:46.41
mike_flywheel
Can can you explain to me parametric design. Yeah.

02:50.28
Will Mac
Yeah, okay, basic sorry I call me out if I'm using Jargon But basically it's like when design has variables. So like if you're's if you take like a shirt for example, shirts are kind of parametric design because they're small medium large.

02:52.87
mike_flywheel
Now it's totally cool.

03:08.70
Will Mac
But often it's taking it steps further so like a fully tailored suit if you will so where everything's variableed and you can really have individualized design.

03:16.57
mike_flywheel
Got it I'm starting to see the trend of how these things connect so you did that were you an entrepreneur in a previous life. Do you know, have entrepreneur mentors like what sort of or was it just the curiosity of solving a problem like what was sort of the tipping point. That inspired you to become an entrepreneur here.

03:36.13
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure. So I definitely I'd say my entrepreneurship journey if you will started have you heard of college pro or any of the the painting student paintings things. Yeah so I did scholars at your service. Definitely.

03:47.86
mike_flywheel
Yep, have some friends that did that as well. Yeah, so.

03:55.74
Will Mac
Not entirely what I expected when I went into it but I ran the owen sound division and it was It was good I did around 85 K in sales made every mistake there is to make under the sun probably but learned a lot from it probably had way too much responsibility for a nineteen year old but it was a great experience in the end and it was one of the. The best learning experiences of my life. So I'd say that's where I caught the entrepreneurial bug. And yeah, as far as the point of actually starting formify I'd say we we're a bunch of engineers really looking for a problem to solve and that's after that magna separation and that's ah. It was a way to stay together in a way to keep working and that's yeah.

04:36.89
mike_flywheel
That that's super. That's super cool now the ah talk to me about the the scholars business is that also painting or was it something else. How did that work. Yeah.

04:46.40
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah, it's painting. It's it's literally almost the exact same as college pro like if you know college pro you know it. But it's mostly exterior painting for people's houses. It's door-to-door sales by students in the summer to sell exterior paint jobs. Um, and you also produce them. So definitely a good summer probably did knocked on thousands of doors did hundreds of not even hundreds of quotes but about a hundred quotes I bet. Um and did some painting that summer which was a great experience.

05:16.45
mike_flywheel
That's cool I think at its core it teaches you a bunch of skills that are going to be super valuable in a variety of things like I don't think people maybe they do but I don't know that everyone appreciates the challenge of knocking on someone's door that you've never met before. And trying to get them interested in something you're doing and like it's sort of like public speaking on repeat with like extreme grit for I'm sure you've had doors slammed in your face I'm sure you've been told off like.

05:45.70
Will Mac
Oh hundred percent yeah

05:49.92
mike_flywheel
But what's sort of the the maybe let's even talk about that before you dive into like what's like the craziest story from from your time doing that.

05:56.44
Will Mac
Oh I can't think of much specific but definitely not., Everyone's the nicest when you're knocking on their door randomly which is fair. It's totally fair like I have been in moods where it's like why are you knocking on my door man but definitely some not nice people but also some really nice people as well. Um, but a lot of grit to be had I think that was those was built there. Um, yeah, it was door knocking I think everyone should try it at some point I feel like it's ah it's a good character building experience.

06:25.81
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah, this is just like build it into school curriculums or business programs. Probably yeah ah yeah, the chocolates. So ah.

06:32.13
Will Mac
Yeah, maybe they tried with the chocolates. Maybe that's what they're doing the yeah.

06:40.96
mike_flywheel
As ah as an engineer The love solving problems is there a company you look up to when you think of like inspiration and just generally in entrepreneurship or overall like is there a company you look up to and if so which one and why.

06:57.28
Will Mac
Ooh That's a tough question I haven't thought I'd say there's like those how I built this podcast I Really like um to pick out some favorites I liked the ring guy I don't even remember his name which is poor.

07:00.75
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah.

07:13.50
Will Mac
Poor show but he I really like that podcast the airbnb one where they talked about just I think they even sold a serial box to clear the credit card debt at 1 point hearing those crazy stories definitely are inspiring.

07:23.70
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah, you would so you were definitely like me as a kid and watching the how it's made show just like those things on Youtube I could like watch them for hours like how it's made and just like all this.

07:30.16
Will Mac
Oh yeah, yeah, how it's made that.

07:38.37
mike_flywheel
For you. There's probably generally useful knowledge for me for what I do completely useless knowledge but it's amazing. So let's let's maybe talk a little bit about formify but before we jump into it. There's ah obviously a very critical piece of the show and the title of this show.

07:45.68
Will Mac
Ah, yeah, no hundred percent

07:57.91
mike_flywheel
And we're going to start with your elevator pitch and then we'll kind of recapp and with your bunch of parts of your business but to kick us off will your pitch please? yeah.

08:04.70
Will Mac
Sure. Okay, so we think it's ridiculous that in something as competitive as gaming that everyone's using the same shaped mouse. That's why we came up with Formify. We Leverage Ai and additive manufacturing to build a perfectly shaped mouse that's geared for performance. Allowing you to gain better.

08:26.43
mike_flywheel
Love it now you told us a little bit about how that got started back when a bunch of you 5 of you were together at Magna um, but maybe let's talk about the journey like you didn't just say let's build a custom mouse. So there's probably some white boarding sessions. So like what what got you from the day. The 5 of you got laid off at at as interns in magna to where and how this problem popped into your minds to maybe.

08:44.46
Will Mac
Yeah, ah.

08:59.66
mike_flywheel
Even getting to where you are right now. Just talk a little bit about that journey for us.

09:04.56
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure. So I'd say as the pandemic kind of rolled in definitely doing a lot of video games as maybe a lot of people did um and through that I was really interested in purchasing computer hardware I was looking around I bought a really nice mechanical keyboard bought like. Some of those things that yeah, you can get 1 of the things I was looking at was an azeron keypad which was this it was actually three d printed but not parametric so it was this really cool claw looking um keyboard basically that. Replaces what you normally use and it has all these buttons and you can hit everything really cleanly. It's a really really cool thing and it's three d printed but I was like if it's three d printed. Why are we not custom sizing these to people because Johnny one of the other like I have I have very small hands whereas you compare to Johnny. He has. If you see a picture like ah, an overlay of our head. It's like almost double the size. So why? Why are we using the same shaped mouse and something we're competing in. Um so I guess kind of that proof of concept. You can do 3 d printing scalably and it just becomes a software problem at that point. To really make something individual and that was the problem. We started to solve and to build that software that automation of design.

10:24.91
mike_flywheel
That's super cool. Talk to us a little bit about this space. So for people that game or people that don't game like what is the market for mice and like I imagine it gets way more complex than there's walking into your neighborhood staples your best buy. There's probably wide varieties for the everyday consumer and that expands probably even further in the gaming world. Can you talk a little bit about like what options do exist like even you're talking about the keyboard mouse how how to pick how do people pick the opal amount for them today like how does that even work. Yeah.

10:55.48
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so the gaming bus industry. It's it's kind of like sneaker head a little bit like it's one It's really big. It's bigger than people think like it's I think three point six billion globally in 1.2 in North america um, and I'd say the driving factors really people look for right now. The market's going really lightweight and there's been a lot of papers that come out that have come out that confirm like a lightweight mouse, especially when combined with the lower sensitivity of sensitivity being like if you move your mouse more then the screen moves less. So lower sensitivity your screen moves less so you need a bigger mousepad et cetera. So if you combine that with a really light waveve mouse. You can start performing pretty highly and it's been confirmed with the studiest cetera so that's really one of the main things which I can get into that a little bit later maybe about how we're how we're doing some cool lightweighting stuff. Um. And the other thing is shape. So there's a lot of different like right now if you're trying to find your perfect shape. You have to go around and kind of shop and like try out all these different things and in the end it might not even be the right size because sure you can find a shape you like but really, they're just taking the average hand size and designing for that.

12:08.15
mike_flywheel
And you're probably buying a little bit on like you think that's something that will be comfortable for your hand, you think it looks cool. Um, courted versus corless's like what's better. It forgive me to do on cord list or you want courtded like 0 latency like how's this work? yeah.

12:14.66
Will Mac
Yeah, especially yeah, you want cordless now. Yeah yeah, people do latency studies. It's like I think even yeah, you can get 15 Ms. Latency overall like everything altogether like start to finish. Um, with with wireless and yeah, some some wired mice are even 16 Ms. Twenty Ms. So it's yeah wireless can even beat some wired mice at this point which is cool to think about? Yeah yeah, exactly.

12:41.74
mike_flywheel
Wow because you're tripping over the damn cord. So So you talked about gamers is it mostly gamers that you're targeting is that the core audience that would use something like this. Do you see the possibilities of. Am it parametric design am I using that right? The metrics of paramic parametric design applied to mice as like ah a more broad audience like who who or how do you think about your audience or who uses you know a form of fine mouse.

13:01.66
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah, very much resign. Yeah.

13:13.97
Will Mac
Yeah, so we actually started out doing both. We did. We had an office version that was we actually designed with a lot of iterations with Stella Wang who's a a hand specializing physiotherapist and we sent her some 3 d printed shapes etc and we iterated with her a bit. Ah, so we had our office ergonomic design then we had our gaming design which we iterated with a lot of creators and professionals on the scene to try to get our best mouse there and we did find the people that were most excited about it and were like calling us back. Be like when's this happening more was the gamers they they care um and down the road. We. Totally do want to do more ergonomic version and in have it as like an mx master kind of like office mouse. But yeah, right now gaming first and ergonomics down the road for. Ah, for office workers that being centermost is more ergonomic for gamers than the current current market per se.

14:10.21
mike_flywheel
Got it. So I'm gonna want to learn more about how your your mouse is built but theoretically the way that this works you're targeting gamers but right from jump any that you could apply to anybody. There's no reason that if you wanted just a more ergonomic Mouse. You couldn't. Use this or if you maybe had accessibility issues with the current mouse that you couldn't use a formify mouse but your Target market to start because of the energy around it is is going to be gamers.

14:43.30
Will Mac
Yeah, exactly and it is the gaming design is not the perfect ergonomic design so it it will likely be better than what you have guaranteed but we still build some tension into the fingers because that's desirable. We build. It's not like a fully form fit supported. So. Your hands designed to be not perfectly relaxed on it. There's some tension there. So. It's definitely built for gamers our first first iteration here. But yeah down the road. We're definitely will. We'll be built for ergonomics and office as well.

15:12.68
mike_flywheel
Okay, I'm learning a time now. So maybe this would be a great time to actually start to talk about the process of how you get to a custom mouse and actually some of the design elements that you were talking about there like I didn't even realize that you want a certain style versus pure ergonomics and a gaming mode. So.

15:17.84
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah.

15:31.99
mike_flywheel
Talk to us about how the process works to get to the custom mouse and some key features that you are building in.

15:42.28
Will Mac
For sure. Yeah, so I could take it so all we need from you to to get this custom ouse going is just ah, a picture of your hand with a white piece of paper behind it that we use for scaling and past that our tech stack basically does the rest of the work as far as how we actually do the design So we. Um, we basically automate the whole design of your hand in software and then we bend your hand and point match the mouse underneath it and through that we've iterated this kind of all these different parameters that go into it to optimize the shape that that will fall into your hand eventually and. 1 of the other cool things I guess the features that we're doing is because we're using this new additive manufacturing 3 D printing technology called Multi-jet fusion. Um, we can do a lot of really cool lightweighting Geometries. So. There's like these really intricate like weight optimized. Geometries that they even use in aerospace and they use and other industries that we can do that injection molding just can't do basically an Mjf can so through that we can actually get a ah lighter wave mouse than the competitors. Yeah.

16:48.28
mike_flywheel
That's super cool. So it all starts with the picture of your hand but just take it with like a cell phone.

16:53.60
Will Mac
Ah, yeah, that's it top down cell phone eventually. We're gonna have an app right now it's gonna be Google form basically. But yeah top down picture of your hand fingers naturally spread hand down has to be an 11 or sorry eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. Um, yeah.

16:59.00
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah.

17:07.83
mike_flywheel
I Have to see the whole sheet of paper. That's what you mean by figure out the measurement.

17:13.14
Will Mac
Your hand has to be on the paper and we use that to the 4 corners basically to flatten it as well as scale it as well. So we can get the actual right hand size and everything.

17:21.10
mike_flywheel
That's super cool and then so there's like a tech step in between here so you plug it into some custom software that you've built to actually get to this hand based model that you would apply.

17:32.17
Will Mac
Yeah, exactly so to go through to like try not to get too technical but basically our our tech stock in a nutshell is custom data input that's built with Python Pyqt and a lot of python stuff as well as a watershed algorithm etc.

17:36.90
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah.

17:47.67
Will Mac
And then for a lot of the actual bending and mesh manipulation. We're using the blender python api so that is kind of how that happens and there's an output with the whole we do the booleans and a separate script etc and eventually we basically have an Stl that we can shoot off to. The third party manufacturer do some stuff ourselves and um and that's the process.

18:12.20
mike_flywheel
That's cool and so that gets you like the shape and then everything else would it be the same for every mouse like the the actual clicks the actual sensor All those are basically pieces that you then. Snap into or plug into the custom outer shell is that sort of how works like there's a underbody like a car like an underbody platform and like a top is that kind of how it works. Okay.

18:32.10
Will Mac
Exactly yes, exactly? Yeah, so we have two circuit boards that are the same in every mouse and we position the front 1 is totally positioned parametrically under the cause it's the switches are directly under the the clicker pads. Basically um.

18:45.33
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah.

18:49.49
Will Mac
But then yeah, the other circuits 2 circle boards that are all the same in every bias and we we clicked them in.

18:55.50
mike_flywheel
That's super cool. Um are there competitors in this space of like custom mice. Okay, okay, what does that look like and like where where do you feel like you're most unique and what what sort of exists. You know you have to drop their names but like what's the spectrum of of this custom.

18:58.90
Will Mac
Yes, yinness there are.

19:11.33
mike_flywheel
World of mice that I'm learning so much about for the first time.

19:14.97
Will Mac
Ah, yeah, so there's there's 2 there's a few competitors I don't I don't mind naming them at all. Um I think we're first I think we definitely started first and I think we're still in first technology wise in development as well. Um, but there's is. There's an italian company that I think is a little bit behind but the big one is Bmw sponsored a fanatic um design of basically bespoke mice but they did it just for a single team and I think they're still developing the software and we kind of obviously I'm a little bit biased but we kind of looked at their designs and they looked. Kind of had the all the holes on the top. So they they yeah and they looked a little less innovative I guess than some of the designs that we've been going towards as far as I know yeah last I checked they're they're pretty much have built.

19:55.99
mike_flywheel
But but it's also not at scale you based on what you're saying like it's not anyone has access to this.

20:07.72
Will Mac
For a specific gaming team and they're not quite ready to scale as of yet.

20:12.14
mike_flywheel
Got it. Um, and so your your key differentiator is that it's going to be built for scale with more broad access. And extreme customization is there anything else. That's sort of like a key differentiator of of where you guys are going with this? yeah.

20:28.39
Will Mac
Yeah, so a lot of it's in the engineering and a lot of the shape shape development takes a lot of time I'd say so we've we've been through legitimately hundreds of models like physical models that we've went through and done ab testing and microfos groups. Etc. Um, so I'd say it's a very ah quantitative measurement. But I and I haven't felt there most so who knows but I think our shape will definitely hopefully be a Trump card that we have there as well as all that of course the all the other engineering as well like the lightweighting designing. We've been doing etc. But yeah.

21:02.31
mike_flywheel
That's super cool. So what? what stage are you guys at so like you've done some user testing can I go buy one of these at the store like where where are you at in that journey and I guess currently. And maybe even just expand on that and talk about like the next six month roadmap a little bit if you're open to it. Yeah.

21:22.40
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure. So we have our kickstarter and we have our third launch date so we pushed it a number of times now. But really, ah, we're pretty confident on this one february. Mid to late February you'll you'll hopefully see us live kickstarter launching and we'll go from there. We have done a micro launch before so we so I think we sold around 15 demos to get like a lot of feedback and iterate that was about a year and a bit ago. Um. But yeah kickstarter is going to be our big launch mid to late February so that's our immediate immediately on the horizon.

21:57.40
mike_flywheel
Got it so roughly by the time this podcast rolls out you should be able to go join the kickstarter and get yourself a formified meuse if you're interested that no no question. Yeah.

22:08.30
Will Mac
Hopefully okay, yeah, that's maybe it was job around February that'd be perfect fire fire in the butt. Yeah, then we need that.

22:15.32
mike_flywheel
Okay, well we we'll try to time this to roll out or like late fab maybe early March that way we kind of catch the timing with when your kickstarter is going out that'd be super cool. Well ah I'll see who we can bump based on timing but I think even that's part of this is if there's a way to time it around some of the cool things canadian startups are doing we' we'll try to well try to make that work. Um, do you have a targeted goal for the kickstarter of like number of mice you're trying to sell or like do you have ah an ability to scale ups go down like what's the scale of like v one I guess yeah.

22:47.46
Will Mac
Yeah, well I think our technically because it's part of the problem is the strategy with Kickstarter is you're really supposed to set it a little lower. Um and then due to that you you'll hit the front page faster because you hit you go faster for us. Scalability is not as much of an issue as well because everything's built to order. Um, so because of that the financial advantage of scalability isn't doesn't impact us quite as much. Um, but internally our goal is to sell hopefully around five hundred to a thousand units um so I'll see if we can hit that and then yeah as far as the financial goal we haven't.

23:22.48
mike_flywheel
And that's that can be Canada wide North american wide worldwide is there like a scope to where you can sell those five hundred or thousand on how you're setting up the kickstarter.

23:23.31
Will Mac
Haven't said that too much per se.

23:34.59
Will Mac
Definitely at least north americanwide we're still in debates about the european market. We had a couple articles written on us in France and Germany. So we really want to be able to do that. We just have to make sure it makes sense logistically and it's it's possible and feasible. But yeah, we really hope to be world. Ah, but at least North America

23:52.15
mike_flywheel
Um, what's what's the constraint is there like a constraint on putting out tech or is it purely like a shipping and distribution constraint.

24:01.68
Will Mac
I don't actually know um, that's mostly my cofounder Alex is kind of jurisdiction. But I know he had some qualms about it and he was Goingnna double check some things to make sure we can. But yeah I think it's kind of yeah shipping constraints slash duties, etc.

24:11.72
mike_flywheel
Got it got it makes sense So It's pretty obvious where you make money like you sell a mouse I don't think there's any incremental add on. So It's like ah a singular Purchase. Do you have a range or already a set price on what you're thinking for the kickstarter of like how much it would cost to to join and get myself a a custom mouse. Yeah.

24:32.48
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah, so early early tiers will likely be around one forty one forty five usd later full price looking at a little more than that pricing. We're hoping to keep it around 200 canadian because that's our main competitors the Logitech Gprex super light so we're looking to be there 200 canadian as well. So we're we'll likely be in that range.

24:56.37
mike_flywheel
Okay, and that's I guess like a pretty standard range for mice like as soon as you're getting into like pretty quality mice they're in the one twenty to $200 range is that sort of accurate.

25:06.41
Will Mac
Yeah, exactly so most the logic g prox super light is it's the go to for a lot of people right now. And yeah, it's tuner canadian I think one fifty ish usd yeah yeah

25:16.92
mike_flywheel
Cool, um, sounds like it's been an interesting journey coming from like being interns together at magna background in aerospace engineering. What's been sort of you or the team's most memorable story so far as as you've kind of gone straight how long has that journey been like we talked about this like it could have been you know 5 years or three months like how long has this journey been and what what's been your most memorable moment.

25:43.46
Will Mac
I think we got to be closing in on 3 years I I think is that I think it's 3 yeah I think we're closing it on 3 years here um oh geez a lot of memorable moments I do always love that the t mountings like we'll always we'll get together. And we're we're lucky enough through the ibz program that we have some students working with us who bring like great energy. So I'd say those team outings and getting everyone together in person is like really puts oil on the gears to like get things moving um to come up with a specific one.

26:18.61
Will Mac
Not too sure I I don't want to put any too much ties on it. But yeah, definitely definitely some good ones Some some good beers were drank. Um.

26:24.32
mike_flywheel
Um.

26:29.95
mike_flywheel
That's good. So I think it's just about the journey actually that you've been enjoying the most is like the journey with friends and the ability to get together and go solve a problem that's cool is that where is that where you can find the team most of the time you do have working space out of Ibz or touchdown space. How does that work.

26:36.41
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah, hundred percent

26:45.25
Will Mac
Yeah, yes, exactly So there is an Ibz office space that we can use. We typically do that often for like our meetings and some meetups as well as some some videography shoots.

26:46.50
mike_flywheel
So toronto most of the time right? yes.

27:01.95
Will Mac
A lot of the we we do a lot of hand soldering for electronics is for a lot of like our electronic testing etc and that happens out of people's living rooms and bedrooms. So That's ah where most of the the design happens I'd say. But yeah, Also we have It's a beautiful ib Z Space. We're very lucky to have access to that where we've We've also done some design and testing and so as well as some good meetups.

27:27.70
mike_flywheel
That's cool. What What do you suspect is gonna be like the biggest challenge you you will face. Is it gonna be in scaling the production of this is it going to be actually finding and getting like. Awareness of a product like this out versus like market offered in-store solutions like what?? What's probably the biggest hurdle or challenge you guys foresee? yeah.

27:53.99
Will Mac
Yeah, so we've been so product focusedcued for the past three years that I feel like hopefully we've got a lot of the and the kinks out of the the product and in the work line who knows like you never know it's in the future like especially with the chip shortage and electronics anything can happen. Ah. But really I'd say a main thing is just yeah, making sure we have that reach and being able to do those sales because that's really what we're focusing on on now per se and getting our name out there. That being said, we we do have um. Lot of we've got a lot of ah blog interest recently which has been awesome as well as some some pro gamers that are getting involved as well and I don't want to name names but hopefully promoting on their Youtube channel etc and stuff soon. So hopefully that all fingers crossed that all works out.

28:38.67
mike_flywheel
That's that's pretty good. That's that's pretty sweet. Um in in the regard of ah marketing something like this. Is that going to be kind of your your best path is like influencer in the gaming space or and who do you guys have a whole marketing team and all that sort of thing. Yeah.

28:59.63
Will Mac
Yeah, yes, and no so we don't actually know what's going to be the best and that's part of the part of the problem but we're trying everything we have a big blog list. We're eventually going to reach out to on ten days before the kickstarter to see if people are interested in promoting it. Ah, we've been working with influencers and kind of doing ah affiliate giving like nice generous and even building some subbrands. We're hoping with the kickstarter to launch we can have your streamers logo on the mouse. Essentially if you purchase it so working with some streamers like that as well as of course your ecom Facebook advertising. Um, doing some of that as well which has been going quite well actually in the past week learning more about that. But yeah, trying it all seeing what works. Best.

29:40.90
mike_flywheel
Um, that's that's super cool. It sounds like it's a really interesting space and I think for me as you're talking through the capability of what's here. Obviously we talked about it at the beginning but the the gamer space is your most core immediate focus.

29:56.62
Will Mac
Yeah.

29:58.12
mike_flywheel
Um, but like talk to talk to me a bit of as a kind of hypothetical I guess but how could the exact same Work. You're doing translate to more more comfortable more ergonomic maybe even more accessible mice could that translate pretty quickly to those those. Categories for people. Yeah.

30:20.42
Will Mac
Yeah, for sure we we have a great ergonomic design that we're ready to launch. Um, and we're quite proud of and as far as office work. Um, there's people out there using it at the moment and that's definitely something on our immediate horizon that we want to get in people's hands even other areas. Outside of the mouse like we do. We actually built out some byke grips. Um as well different parametric options. Um that we're we're excited to pursue. But yeah, yeah, we're we're excited to to get. We're focused on this get this out and and see what else we can do.

30:52.77
mike_flywheel
Um, yeah, but but but the the tech that you're building to translate a picture of a hand into something that's very customized at scale is interesting like I imagine that same technology could be applied to gaming controllers.

30:58.76
Will Mac
Yeah.

31:09.96
Will Mac
Yep, gaming controllers yet.

31:10.25
mike_flywheel
Probably a little bit more complex than that like what's inside of them but like you theoretically could do the same thing on those grips or the handles or the way your hands are right.

31:16.17
Will Mac
Hundred percent yeah gaming controllers. We've looked into keyboards as well talk we haven't experimented with that as much but yeah gaming controllers keyboards definitely things we want to look into down the road.

31:20.77
mike_flywheel
Keyords as well. Yeah, and something happy.

31:28.36
mike_flywheel
Yeah, like I'm almost thinking you know and maybe you've already seen it but obviously like Microsoft has a bunch of accessibility peripherals for whether it be Xbox and and so what was like seeing the the cool stuff that you're doing applied to that which is not just like 1 version of but it's like a version.

31:37.60
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah.

31:47.75
mike_flywheel
Tailored to every single individual depending on the input they provide and you built the system to give it back out without much too too much extra work as long as it's within a similar category and I think that's super cool. Yeah.

31:57.48
Will Mac
Yeah, thanks man. Yeah, individualized design I think it'll be hopefully become more and more popular because it's it's yeah, it's it's achievable. Oh no, yeah, individualized permit is Synonymousmas totally fine.

32:05.40
mike_flywheel
Pair Parametrics right? Parametric design. Ah um, does a chip shortage affect you guys is there like a parts component of this that like you have dependencies.

32:17.12
Will Mac
Yeah, it it will a bit per se but we're designing with inventories in minds and our latest design that that is finished and well be shipped with the kickstarter fingers crossed. It won't be affected because there's such high inventories for each component that we're designing for.

32:24.86
mike_flywheel
Um, okay.

32:36.90
Will Mac
Um, so hopefully not.

32:37.75
mike_flywheel
It's all part of it's it's all part of the process right? like this first run is going to be how you learn anyway and that's I think part of the kickstarter right? If someone's joining a kickstarter. They theoretically are your best advocates right? They they're going to be tolerant of.

32:42.24
Will Mac
Yeah, yeah.

32:53.50
mike_flywheel
Journey but there you want to be like first first at it. So everyone when join the kickstarter be really nice to the 4 or 5 team. Um, so if people are interested in in signing up for the kickstarter or learning more. Where's the best.

32:59.76
Will Mac
Please we'll we'll do our best for you guys.

33:10.70
mike_flywheel
Place or places for them to go and we'll get them dropped into the show notes too. But just if you want to kind of give a shout up to the main places people should think about following and or signing up. Yeah.

33:18.75
Will Mac
Hundred percent yeah so if we haven't launched yet and things didn't work out then you can find us fourified dot c a f o r m I FYDot ca and you can sign up to our kickstarter launch email set right there and that's the best way to get in touch.

33:36.71
mike_flywheel
Um, and if you have launched. We'll be able to put the kickstarter link in right.

33:36.91
Will Mac
Um, and and stay following. Um, yeah, yeah, that'd be good which yeah I can shoot that over to you Mike um, and that'd be good.

33:45.75
mike_flywheel
Yeah, that's awesome, um, anything else that you know you wanted to highlight about what what the teams working on the milestones ahead that we we didn't cover off today. Well.

33:58.39
Will Mac
Ah, not to all. Actually if there is some Canadian listeners Tmu Students. We are doing a tournament in the coming months just before the Kickstarter. So if you are a tmu student come join our gaming tournament. And we can maybe meet you in person in the team you red bull gaming hub. Ah let me check the launch dates. Yeah, maybe this will be push past and let me take a look.

34:15.37
mike_flywheel
That's a what when is that well you look that up noise.

34:27.34
Will Mac
It is site. Update ends January Twenty Eight so probably launched after that.

34:36.37
mike_flywheel
All right. It's cool. Well we'll be able to be hear about how it went um now. Ah, now there's 1 thing we do and I kind of bring it on jump to everyone that's on the pitch please podcast but obviously saying like whatever. Yeah.

34:39.56
Will Mac
Yeah, see the results.

34:52.44
mike_flywheel
Saying pitch please podcast repeatedly there. It is right and I didn't realize that until I had had to say it a whole bunch of times. So I thought it'd be super funny to put guests on the spot and see how many times they can say it in a row before tripping up.

34:52.99
Will Mac
Pitch please part Yeah bit of a tongue twister.

35:07.16
Will Mac
Oh let's go I.

35:08.78
mike_flywheel
And so you're you're gonna have to do it and and I'm not going to tell you where you're going to rank because like the numbers are all over the place and so you're gonna have to give them a listen to see how you stack up but you jump in whenever you're ready I'll keep count when you trip up I'm write the number down.

35:22.32
Will Mac
Okay I meant Okay, let me focus here. Gotta keep competitive um, pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast pitch please podcast. That might have been a mess up Jes okay, well good lucky number 11 with we'll take it.

35:40.42
mike_flywheel
Ah, kind I go give you a generous 11 I'll give you a generous 11

35:48.91
mike_flywheel
That's cool. Well you know, thanks for joining us today. Will thank you to everyone who tuned tuned into the pitch please podcast. It was super cool learning about the work you and the team were doing at formify wishing you sort of all the best on your launch on your kickstarter looking super forward to following the journey. And to everybody else we will catch you on in the next episode. Will thanks again for joining us.

36:09.98
Will Mac
Thanks! Thanks! a lot Mike Really appreciate you having us on.