“By 2034, we project that older adults will outnumber children for the first time in U.S. History.” ~ U.S. Census
Eliot Arnold, TeleMemory CEO
“Elders are increasingly feeling alone and isolated.,” TeleMemory CEO Eliot Arnold told the 4thEst8. “And when you add cognitive decline, or Alzheimer’s, or dementia-related neurological disorders on top of that, that’s a significant problem…. There’s a very limited supply of non-pharmacological interventions for mood and behavior management within this population.
The problem:
When it comes to addressing memory and mood in seniors, Arnold says drugs are often like using a hammer to do a scalpels job. To address the problem Arnold and his team have developed a hardware and software product they characterize as ‘digital reminiscence technology’ that develops a biographical media experience for patients.
“We are developing content that’s designed to elicit long term memory recall, create positive feelings, reduce stress and agitation and improve self esteem in the population,” Arnold said. “The analog for digital reminiscence is what’s referred to as reminiscence therapy.”
That’s where practitioners sit with a patient, thumb through a photo album and ask the senior pointed questions about the pictures to bring memories to the surface. Questions like “who is that?” and “What do you remember about that day.?” This is the process that TeleMemory is digitizing.
Business Breakdown:
- Founded in 2019
- Funded by Arnold from sale of Crunch Data to Qlik (he put $250k in so far).
- 3 full time, two part time employees
- KC-area
- Alpha launch, winter of 2020-2021
To get over the content scalability problem TeleMemory will involve care providers, patients and their family members, as well as content curated to match the elders common experiences and interests from their life – like cars, music, career, art, and places they’ve been.
Graphic courtesy of TeleMemory
“We’ve developed a content generation engine,” Arnold said. “Our Alpha program has several subjects that are all from the St. Louis area. So when we’re developing content around neighborhoods in St. Louis, or the city itself…we can transpose generalized content themes from one subject across several others that have had been from, or spent time within, the St. Louis area.”
Recent moves:
- Dec. 2020: 1st Customer: DelMar Gardes, Chesterfield, Mo.
- Jan. 2021: Hired billing consultant to improve B-to-B billing model
- Jan. 2021: Kickstarter test campaign
- Feb. 2021: Pitched to 1 Million Cups, Kansas City
Kickstarter:
“We’ve been trying to test market our product in the in the Kickstarter channel for a few months now. And the problem that we’re seeing is that Kickstarter is not our audience,” Arnold said. “It’s hard to sell a product to take care of ‘mom and dad’ to a …techie, gadgety, young… 25 year old right now… We did some test advertising on on Facebook, just tailored to the Kickstarter community, and didn’t get much response.”
