The idea for EllieGrid, the most recent Arrow flash funding award recipient, was born from a difficult time in Founder Abe Matamoros’s life. When his grandfather became suddenly ill with no ready explanation, Matamoros looked for answers. What he found disturbed him: “He was very sick,” says Matamoros, “and I found out he hadn’t taken his medication in three days.”
A Wake-Up Call
As prescriptions, supplements, and vitamins become more widely used across all ages and demographics, more people are coming to see how difficult it can be to adhere to a pill regimen. Matamoros was determined to find a way to make it easy.
Matamoros turned to his friend Regina Vatterott, who had experience in medical marketing. Together they came up with a groundbreaking idea—a smart pillbox that could help remind users to take the medication they need. They believed that many people could benefit from such a product—from seniors to athletes to busy professionals. Matamoros did his research and found that while there were a lot of medication dispensers on the market, few people were using them. “There’s a lot of negativity surrounding the whole thing,” said Matamoros, “but we wanted to create a positive experience.”
The EllieGrid team soon expanded to include Nicolas Dhanam and Hieu Nguyen. The foursome launched the company while still in college—devoting themselves to demographic and market research, design, and repeated prototyping, then adding features such as fun facts delivered with reminders and real-time notifications for family and caregivers. Only then did they feel ready to seek funding.
Funding Questions
Vatterott weighed the ramifications of crowd-funding carefully before making any decisions. She’d heard of crowd-funded campaigns underperforming and being unable to deliver on their promises before. The EllieGrid team would have to prove themselves in a competitive environment and stand up to public scrutiny. But after winning several awards for best new tech product, the team felt confident crowd-funding was the right approach.
After considering their crowd-funding options, the EllieGrid team decided to create a campaign on Indiegogo, citing Indiegogo’s superb communication and their help in getting the word out about EllieGrid’s smart pillbox, including through their newsletter. The choice to crowd-fund through Indiegogo galvanized EllieGrid, and they became even more determined to deliver a quality finished product to their backers.
The Arrow Certified Advantage
EllieGrid’s commitment to a finished product was what drew them to the Arrow Certification program. Matamortos said, “It seemed like with Arrow Certification you’re more likely to get your product to market.” All projects that are Arrow Certified have undergone a full BOM review and consultation—a professional engineering review specifically geared for production of the product. Backers know that Arrow Certified campaigns are ready for production, and fostering this trust with those that support their product has always been important to the EllieGrid team.
Matamortos described how they were welcomed to the Arrow offices and introduced to Arrow partners. Through the Arrow Certification program, EllieGrid was given product discounts and help finding the best ways to source parts. “They have a whole ecosystem of services they can connect you with,” he said, including support with future expansion. “We discussed how, once we start scaling, we can partner on the supply chain as we grow.”
Looking to the Future
EllieGrid smart pillboxes are on track to ship in May, but this is only the beginning for the EllieGrid team. Once they receive initial user feedback, they’ll make their product even better. With community support from Indiegogo and technical support from Arrow, EllieGrid can look to the future. With all first run costs covered, the Arrow Certified Flash Funding award will be devoted to scaling the business up and preparing for many years of serving customers.
A project that was created in response to one man’s plight now stands to help thousands. Your project could be the next to make a difference. Arrow Certification comes with game changing engineering resources, tools, discounts and production guidance, plus Arrow will be choosing more flash funding recipients in 2017 from among Arrow Certified campaigns. The next project we fund could be yours.
See what Arrow Certification can do for your technology idea today.