Growing up in central Wisconsin, Blake Cadwell learned at a young age that he had hereditary hearing loss.
For years, he got by with reading lips and asking people to repeat themselves. But when masks made lip-reading impossible during the pandemic, he got hearing aids for the first time at age 30.
The experience of navigating a confusing landscape of options inspired Cadwell to start Soundly Inc., an online hearing health platform that launched Monday. It aims to modernize the process of comparing and buying hearing aids with a site and user experience designed with the millennial and Gen-Z generations in mind.
"There's this sense that it's only really old people that need hearing aids, which isn't true," Cadwell said. "I think there's this opportunity to change the conversation ... like what Warby Parker has done with eyeglasses."
More than 1 billion people ages 12 to 35 worldwide are at risk of losing their hearing due to excessive exposure to loud music and other recreational sounds, according to a World Health Organization news release in March. By 2050, at least 700 million people with hearing loss worldwide will require rehabilitation, the WHO estimated in April 2021.
Cadwell, who now lives in Los Angeles, was born in Madison and grew up in the village of Oxford near Wisconsin Dells. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point before transferring to a college in New Jersey, he said.
Cadwell's mom got hearing aids when he was age 11 or 12. Around that time, he and his brother realized they both also had hearing loss but Cadwell opted not to get hearing aids at that time, he said.
Before quitting his full-time job to start Soundly, Cadwell was the senior vice president and general manager at New York City-based creative communications firm Day One Agency. He led the agency’s L.A. office and worked with brands like Nike and Chipotle.
Soundly's online platform helps consumers find hearing aid products, compare prices and connect to local audiologists. The company has business relationships with the hearing aid brands and audiologists featured on the platform, Cadwell said.
Hearing aids typically aren't covered by insurance, he said. Soundly has pre-negotiated rates on prescription products that lead to 20% to 40% savings compared to retail prices, according to the company.
Soundly had one strategic seed investor to help finance the launch, Cadwell said.
