Amulyte (YC S13) is Building a Better Lifeline For Seniors on the Move

Thanks for the feedback and input, you bring up some great points. We are currently working on a few ideas to make this device more senior friendly by adding features that would make it more than an alert pendant for them. We feel that the best way to get it right is to actually run a pilot program and get real user feedback. Right now we are focusing on solving a pain point, which for our target user is the fear of falling outside while alone. Once we have perfected this, we will be playing around with a few ideas during our pilot program. You can expect to see some new iterations and ideas emerge down the road that we are hoping will make this more than a simple help pendant.

As for selling to nursing homes, the stats might seem like a reassuring thing, but you might also be missing the underlying story. We have spoken with several retirement homes, and they have told us multiple stories about how staff (not necessarily at their home) have wanted to stop residents from leaving the grounds because they are worried that if something happens they won't be able to get help - and in some cases they do actually stop them from leaving. Point being, sometimes stats look good, because the rules and guidelines put in place to keep them looking good actually have a negative impact on a persons overall happiness and well being. So although the stats look nice, the bigger picture could still reveal that something is broken.

You are very right that this will be a marketing challenge, but I have hope. In my own case, my grandmother lives alone and my family wants her to continue doing so, but we also worry. Rather than having to ask her to move to a retirement home one day, it would be great if we could use a system like this to allow her to keep her freedom and independence while still having peace of mind that she will be ok. Our goal is to try to make a device like this feel empowering, rather than morbid, but we acknowledge that it will take some time. I have faith that something can be done in this space though because when you take a look at it, you can see how obviously broken it is ("I've fallen and I can't get up" is the perfect example of just how broken it is).

I actually read the article Slow Ideas last week and found it to be a great read. I agree that ads and pamphlets will not solve this problem, but doesn't mean we should shy away from trying to fix this broken industry. At YC we are constantly told to do things that do not scale at first, it's a strategy that has proven to work, and I'm all for trying it in this scenario.

Thanks again for your feedback, definitely some great food for thought :)

Size is definitely something we are incredibly conscious of. This device will be 40mm x 40m x 17mm, but we are always working on trying to get it to be smaller. We want this device to look great, and we are approaching it as if it almost were a fashion statement, or at least an accessory that a senior will wear.