Jonathan Truong lobs a beach ball toward a dolphin, who pushes the ball aside with its nose and eagerly waits for the next one. Truong’s face is obscured by a virtual reality headset, and as he walks me through his product, he will be doing a similar presentation in March — with about 10,000 more people.
Truong is the co-founder of Tampa-based company Verapy, which was chosen to present at the South by Southwest annual pitch competition. He and his co-founding partner, Tad Svendrys, were chosen as an alternate at SXSW, meaning they get one minute to present to the crowd and if someone in the virtual reality category cannot make it, they get bumped to the five-minute spot. They'll join 49 other companies across the country who will pitch at the event.
To boil down their product in 60 seconds might be a bit tough: Verapy creates virtual reality games that are utilized by patients in order to complete therapy movements.
“I’ve had about five different surgeries in my life; I’ve had meningitis and I had a stroke when I was 9, so I had a lot of physical therapy that was very tough and rigorous," Truong said. "Nevertheless I completed it, but I wish it was more like a game. Let's say a patient had a rotator cuff injury. They would have to do an internal and external exercise. But instead of doing three sets of 20 and staring at a wall, they get to play a game that's based on that exercise; that game is playing volleyball with a dolphin."
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Verapy LLC officially hit the market in May 2017. Truong and Svendrys met and pitched their idea at Tampa Bay Startup Week the year prior, and when they were chosen for the top 10 ideas, they decided to test what kind of market there was for a way to make physical therapy a bit easier.
After getting back roughly 350 responses, the answer was clear. "We saw this is a bigger need than we thought," Svendrys said.
The Verapy software is able to target shoulders, wrists and elbows, with the hope from Svendrys and Truong that the neck and lower extremities will eventually be included in new versions. The software eliminates the old-school method of measuring the patients' movements with a protractor and documenting those results. Games can be used from children 10 years old and up and has even been tested in an assisted living facility.
"One of the things we noticed is they showed more range of motion than doing traditional exercises," Truong said. "They say they can only do so much, but when they play the game, it tricks their brain."
"instead of doing three sets of 20 and staring at a wall, they get to play a game that's based on that exercise."
Following an exhibitor stint at the Synapse Summit, the co-founders are now focused on making the most of their time in Texas.
"The idea is we’re going to set up meetings and conversations prior," Svendrys said. "The pitch will be more of a highlight versus the conversation will be more in depth with investors and other companies."
"We're just looking for a lot of serendipity," Truong said.
Truong will be giving the presentation at the Pitch stage in March, and despite being a pitching pro at this point, still gets nervous no matter the crowd size or age.
"I'm sweating, but when I get up there I know it just disappears," he said. "I believe in the product, I have passion for it and I've been pitching for some time. So that does give me a lot of confidence boost, but that nervousness is there. Even if we’re pitching for little kids — which we did once. But when we don’t have that nervousness is when you have a problem."
