Wiseware

Jerry Wilming's grandfather had Lewy body dementia, a condition that sits between Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In October 2010 he fell in his home, broke his hip, and lay on the floor for two hours before Jerry's grandmother found him. He later passed away, and Jerry says that is when Wiseware truly began. The first idea was a medical device: a hearing-aid-style "hearable" with dehydration, gait, and motion sensors that could detect when a senior was at risk of falling and whisper a warning to sit down.

While developing the hearable, the team found a patentable approach. Wearables had long been made from elastomers and plastics because Bluetooth and Wi-Fi cannot pass through metal. Wiseware discovered it could transmit Bluetooth and Wi-Fi through metal, and it used that breakthrough to build a jewelry product with partners in New York City. Jerry said the idea went from a napkin sketch to market in eight or nine months. The product pairs a jewelry "beauty" component with a sensor and electronics "brain," with mix-and-match styles across collections. Cost of goods was high, around $150 to $200 per unit against a $295 to $345 retail price, and the company also got government funding.

Sales began in late March of the year of the interview. Jerry said the company had done "probably a few hundred thousand online" and had purchase orders and international shipments, and that total revenue, including POs, was about $1.5 million. He estimated about 5,000 to 7,000 units sold. Wiseware sold to distributors at well below retail, and pushed into Saks in New York City. Jerry said 65% of sales came from college women, and that real estate agents showing homes alone were another significant market, citing a National Association of Realtors survey in which nearly 50% of agents reported a safety concern.

Wiseware's strongest signal was that it found buyers in niches it had not planned for, including college women and real estate agents, and it protected its brand by turning down some retailers. The downsides were real. Gross margin was thin, around 30%, because distributors needed their own margin on products sold at the same retail price. Retail sales were also hard to track, since Wiseware did not know who bought its units. Net-30 payment terms on large POs carried collection risk, and the team asked for at least 30% upfront. Jerry also said the company had nine unique SKUs, which complicated operations.

At the time of the interview, Wiseware had eight employees split between San Antonio and New York. It was closing a roughly $1.1 million friends-and-family note round and raising about $10 million in its first major equity round, led by a family office. Jerry's stated goal was about $4 million in revenue for the year, with the company moving toward cash-flow positive operations.