Career realizations can come at anytime: in a meeting, at a bar, on a run.
For Adam Halpern, who said he used to be an athletic trainer at Stanford University and for the U.S. Ski Team, one of those moments came at elevation.
"My story is: I'm standing on the Swiss Alps with the ski team — I have the best office view in the world — and I'm realizing that that isn't fulfilling for me only to help 12 guys," Halpern told Albuquerque Business First. "I'm also listening to my colleagues that are all over the country … that are constantly getting questions from former [athletes], from family, from friends, from coaches, people in the community, asking them for athletic medical advice.
"And I realized at that point that there is this really, really valuable service embedded into what I call 'institutional sports,'" Halpern said.
Eventually, in 2020, WaveOn was founded. The Albuquerque startup aims to keep people active with technology, data and guidance.
"The customer discovery is when [people] have an ache or a pain, the current solution is an either/or model. They either ignore it [and] hope it goes away. They either ask their friends, family or search Dr. Google for answers. Or they're pushed into the health care system, which is very reactive and doesn't give them a direct access model to advice as quickly as possible."
With WaveOn, users are encouraged to be more proactive. The platform has health analytics and personalized plans, leveraging technologies to assess movement patterns and head injuries, and is meant to help people to see real-time progression. WaveOn, which can be used as an app, has an annual fee of $65 per year.
Through partnerships with biomechanics companies, electronic health record firms and other types of organizations, WaveOn works to obtain data that can be used to manage the overall health of an athlete.
As for New Mexico, Halpern said the state "is a very active population," adding that "the entrepreneurial community is supportive of what we're doing." WaveOn is in the middle of its seed round, Halpern said, and has targeted two types of potential clients: active individuals and the organizations those people "live, work and play in."
On that note, Halpern added that WaveOn is "in discussions" with USA Cricket.
