A Milwaukee-based startup focused on easing the pain of daily insulin shots recently celebrated its best sales month after working for two years to take its needle-stabilizing product to the pharmaceutical market.
Steady Shot is an add-on for diabetes insulin pen needles. The device connects to standard pen needles and holds the needle steady during the injection process, offering users the ability to reach more injection sites and control their blood glucose levels.
Founder and CEO Shawn Michels came up with the idea for the Steady Shot following his own struggles with injecting. Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2012 and injecting between five and 10 times a day, Michels says he soon developed painful bruising and lipohypertrophy—an abnormal accumulation of fat underneath the skin’s surface similar to the development of scar tissue—which made it difficult to inject on designated sites and required more insulin to get the right dosage.
While diabetics are often instructed to rotate injection sites, Michels says he found it challenging to reach the areas on his arms, back, and butt, relying instead on injection sites on his abdomen or thighs. An entrepreneurship class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison motivated Michels to find a solution to his pain.
“I thought ‘Why don’t I figure out how to make this easier?'” Michels says by phone. “You always want to solve problems of your own. I know the ‘Day in the Life’ of a diabetic.”
At least 30.3 million Americans have diabetes, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 38 percent of daily insulin injectors experience lipohypertrophy. Michels says he saw an opportunity to create a product that could potentially help alleviate injection complications for millions of people.
After drawing sketches of his concept, Michels took to his garage where he fashioned the first prototype by welding washers, bolts and duct tape together and attaching the contraption to his own needle pen. Following several iterations of his design, he submitted a computer file to UW-Madison’s 3D printing lab, where he estimates it went under 30-40 variations. Once he settled on a design, he reached out to roughly 30 injectors on Facebook to sample the product. Michels says the positive feedback he received from the group inspired him to try to take Steady Shot to market.
Michels was accepted into UW-Madison’s Discovery 2 Product program, which provided him with scrap funding and mentors to finalize his product design. It also put him in touch with FDA consultants who helped classify the product for injection use. Still, in 2018, both as a recent graduate and as a budding entrepreneur, Michels says he was a bit naive about how his company would take off.
“I thought it would be easier,” he says. “I thought I was going to go to one of the big [Pharma] guys and it would sell. It was hard to get those meetings even on their radar.”
To add to the struggle, the plastic injection mold took more than a year to wrap. To keep himself financially afloat, Michels went to work as an accountant. In 2019, he switched firms and began working part-time, entering business competitions and working on Steady Shot in between shifts. He recently received additional grant funding as one of the 12 selected startups that pitched at this year’s annual Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
Today, Michels says Steady Shot is his full-time focus. He is busy reaching out to Milwaukee-area pharmacy retailers that sell diabetes supplies and needles to carry his product in-store, and refining his online store to attract injectors. In August, Michels says the company received more than 100 online orders—the startup’s highest sales month, yet.
“One of the goals is to get to a point to include Steady Shot with every pen needle,” Michels says. “It’s starting to roll and I want to keep that going.”
