The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 35: Eternize - From Idea To Impact: Building A Purposeful Wearable Cross
We trace a seven-year journey from a simple frustration—losing spiritual momentum in a noisy world—to launching a screenless wearable cross that restores attention with a single-purpose vibration. We share design choices, manufacturing pitfalls, app features, and the community power of shared prayer.
• the problem of fading inspiration and constant distraction
• the case for a single-purpose wearable over phone notifications
• personalization of timing, intensity, and vibration patterns
• random “Holy Spirit mode” to break habituation
• community prayers with anonymous haptic signals
• AI-powered scripture recommendations via Spiritual Universe
• manufacturing challenges, charging failures, and the gold-plated fix
• firmware iteration, testing discipline, and China trips
• fundraising pressures, app rebuild, and investor expectations
• launch timing, use cases for parents, workers, and seekers
MyEternize.com
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions, and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business, and beyond. Let's go. Welcome back to The Daily Edge. I'm here with my brothers, TJ and Todd. Got an exciting topic to talk about today. We're going to talk about Eternize, one of the uh challenges with technology and everything that's going on around us, distractions. One of the things that I think was on Todd's heart is how do we stay in the present moment? How can we bring ourselves back and center ourselves? And so he's developed a product which I think is fascinating. We're going to get into the journey and what that looks like. But I'm going to kick it off to TJ. We've he's been a part of this process from the beginning, and uh we're going to kind of take you through to where we are today and tell you more about Eternice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so what I'll do is then just kind of lay the outline down. So it would seem simple. A vibrating cross in 2025 would seem like something easy to bring to market. Having been around product for the last decade of my life, I thought so too. Um, but then partnering and then going in into this with Todd. And you know, we'll talk through the the why. We'll start it there and then we'll talk through the multiple manufacturers and bringing this product to life and how to how to how we overcame or how he overcame a number of different hurdles as it relates to the cross aesthetic and functionality. And then there's an app element to this, which he spent um dozens and dozens, well, hundreds of hours at this point developing. Um, and it speaks to his meticulousness. But I think a good place to start is kind of what Trent alluded to. Um, you know, from a consumer's perspective, it's a simple, it's a simple product, but it's simple by design. So maybe jump in and explain exactly why and and not only what the original why is, but how it is um manifested over time and how it may have shifted and expanded even.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh, I will certainly um touch on that and be interested really as your guys' perspectives too on kind of how you have experienced it. For me, this all started in 2018, a little over seven years ago. Um, I was kind of on a on a comeback journey to the faith. So I um, you know, we've talked about that a little bit here, but I remember sitting in a couple's life group, kind of a spiritually focused uh group, and it was a Thursday evening, and we had had just a really awesome session and was really fired up, and I had this like excitement about that, and within a couple of minutes, I had this like deflating feeling. It actually took me a few minutes to kind of pinpoint what it was, and it was this deflating feeling that I knew this was going to fade. This feeling was going to fade. If you've ever been to an immersive event, spiritually related or not, and you come out and you're so fired up and you're gonna do all these things and you're gonna change who you are and how you operate, and you're gonna be this person, and then you get swallowed back up in the vortex, right? It's like a week, and so I remember this deflating feed feeling coming out of this because spiritually, especially, I had experienced that multiple times over uh the past couple of years getting back into my faith. I went to a weekend retreat, came out on fire. I went to confession for the first time in 17 years on fire. Uh, went to several different, you know, powerful masses or other kinds of events, community events. And every time I got swallowed back up by the vortex. Uh, and when I say that, swallowed back up by the vortex, just all the things going around in it on a day-to-day life. There's so many distractions, there's so many things to do, there's so much going on that you're just, in a sense, chasing your tail. And I became so frustrated with that because I feel like God was providing me an incredible amount of inspiration coming out of these events, these immersive experiences, these opportunities to connect with other people. And I was squandering it, or society was squandering it, however you wanted to look at it. I was not taking advantage of that. I wasn't building on the spiritual momentum, I wasn't keeping that momentum. And I would blink and it would be next Sunday, right? It is one of those things where you walk out of mass and you're, wow, what a great sermon, what a great message. How am I gonna live into that? And then you black out and you wake up and it's Sunday again, you're going back to your one hour. And I just became so frustrated with that. I I was um yeah, just very disturbed by my inability to continue that. And so I remember saying to the guy that was hosting the life group that night, like, there has got to be a way to keep our head in the game, was the terminology I remember using uh day in and day out. I was and and it just had come to me, seemed to be planted on my heart, that like millions of people wear crucifixes, right? But it's the this the same crucifix that people wore hundreds of years ago. And like the crucifix is still the same crucifix. And I thought maybe we need again, terminology I used back then, a 21st century crucifix that has the functionality to combat the different world we're living in. No offense to the church, uh, Christian or Catholic. They've done a great job, and and even I think just generally the church in general is more traditional, but there hadn't been a lot of change over the last hundred and so many years. Meanwhile, kudos to the tech companies who have figured out how to neurologically hack us and they they've come in and and kind of taken over, they've capitalized in on some of our neurological deficiencies, and they're able to maintain our attention for extended periods of time. And so you have the church, who at one point was a compelling uh institution to engage within, which is now is is bringing a knife to a gunfight for our attention. And so I just struggled so much with that and uh got disturbed enough and got enough encouragement from different people, and I'll speak to this. God having lived through this has probably been one of the most powerful parts of my faith journey because I've just had a chance to directly witness God putting so many different people along this path to keep this journey going. Um, I've certainly feel no more than a conduit in this, but that was really the why is how to how can I day in and day out bring my head and heart kind of back to who I want to be, to be intentional, to be purposeful. I have these particular God-given gifts and talents, and I spend all day reacting to things that other people are putting in front of me. And so uh I could go on, obviously, I'm passionate about this. You're seeing some of the last why I've been going at this for seven years come out. Uh, but at a high level, that's the why.
SPEAKER_00:So we talk about that. Let's get a little bit more in depth and then we'll shift to and maybe get a perspective from Trent and I on our experience with it. But when it comes to this specifically, let's talk a little bit about functionality. Let's talk about why this versus an app on your phone, why this versus a watch. Uh what drove you? You know, you talked a little bit about this as it relates to spirituality, and that's kind of why you selected this because there was an butt but as you've explored it deeper, because that's a lot of the pushback that we've gotten, is oh, I could just set an alarm on my phone or I could just do this. So let's talk a little bit about the functionality and how this does bring you back, and then why this has ended up being the right solution, which I think we all have, we all can now agree on as we've gotten further down the path.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this has, I think a lot of it is probably my addiction to my phone, is why I went this direction with this, because even I'm setting things on my phone that are more holistic in nature. I have apps that are more holistic in nature that I engage with, or you set an alarm for some other sort of meditation, prayer, whatever, and you pick it up, and within 30 seconds, you're checking an email, you're checking scores, you're doing something else. I mean, unfortunately, I think it's it's there are a lot of wonderful apps out there that have done an awesome job trying to diverge people into that and use technology in a positive way as opposed to some of the more toxic ways that technology can be used. Um, and so for me though, I I struggled with that, and I know a lot of people do. And to have a reminder, um I know you talked a lot uh throughout this journey about the single purpose notification. When this goes off, there's no thinking about what is that notification? Do I need to pick up my phone? Do I need to write? Um, and and this is just you know what it is, you know what to do, pause, reflect, however, you want to engage to kind of bring yourself back to center. I think that for me was kind of the biggest driver why the solution couldn't be on the phone, because the phone itself was also the problem.
SPEAKER_00:So to expound on that, so for context, since Todd has delivered this, uh, he talked to hundreds of people about this particular product, the way it functions specifically is there's there's a companion app that sets uh alarms, if you will, or delineates times for this particular thing to vibrate again, based on where you're at spiritually or based on where you're at as a person, right? So if you have particular times throughout the day that you want to engage in spiritual activity, or if you have particular times in the day where you struggle with whatever, right? Whether it's staying present, staying patient, anything like that, you can structure the vibrations on this cross in a number of different ways, right? There's a frequency, there's a there's an intensity to it, but also different times throughout the day to help you when those hurdles, when you know those hurdles are going to arise. So that's how this functions from from the the basic, the most basic uh elements. One thing I want to ask, so you did allude to that earlier. You've been you've had this cross now for probably over a year, different versions of it, maybe even closer to two. Uh, what's your experience been like? How have you taken, you know, the there are there's a an array of different ways you can utilize this. Have you applied it to your life? Um and how's your perspective grown over time on it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'll I'll share a couple of things. Uh uh, we have time for a story, so I'm gonna tell a story. Um with a lot of the people that I run with, we talk about uh spiritual coincidences, right? Like God moments where um you're like, oh, it's a coincidence. Like, no, it's probably a God moment, but you know, we kind of go back and forth. So I've I've been wearing the cross for quite some time. Um, and I'll give you a little story. I was at an event where me and another gentleman were talking to a group of people, and um we were talking about a project we were working on, it was faith-based uh as well. And I remember the leader towards the end saying, I'm gonna ask one of you guys for another fearless act of humility. I could okay, I'll still be doing it. I'm gonna he goes, I want one of you guys to pray for all of us. It's like 30 people maybe in the room, and I meet him like, oh man, no, I'm gonna like as soon as he stops talking, I'm gonna divert to I don't mind praying in front of people, but um maybe not something that I just love to do, especially if I don't know him and so forth and so on. So I'm sitting there and the guy's still talking, and then you know, I'm again thinking how I'm gonna divert and kind of this isn't gonna be I'm not gonna say this prayer in front of these people, and all of a sudden my cross went off. And I was like, oh boy, I said this is and it just like it was like God telling me, No, this is your time, this is your time to step into this moment. Um, and it was funny because after we left, I was talking to the other guys with Ryan, and he was like, I was like, Do you know my cross went off? He goes, I wondered what that was. He's like, I had no idea, and I just kind of so I've had some miraculous coincidences to where I don't know how you programmed it, but it felt like God said, I'm gonna send this off right now. That has helped me to maybe step into a moment because I think that's another thing. So I've used it and I've it's it's given me um courage to take a fearless act to do something that maybe I I wouldn't have. So that's was uh that's been um something that I didn't anticipate or expect originally. That's been kind of a byproduct, other than that, uh it has helped me disrupt patterns and help me stay present. So um sometimes I'll use it to, you know, it'll go off and it'll just be a thoughtful reminder of like what's going on around me. Um sometimes it'll be um prayer, uh, but it's just I think it's important to build good good habits. And when the cross goes off, I'm I'm always shifting my mind into something that's better than what it was in. And so it's it's breaking a pattern, it's helping me focus on other things. So it's it's been healthy. Um and I've been excited to to kind of see how that's evolved over a long period of time because I have been wearing it a long time.
SPEAKER_00:So that's a great opportunity for us to talk about the app and talk about configurations. So one of the configurations I didn't mention off the jump is it can be set to random so that at any time throughout the day. Holy spirit mode. It's called Holy Spirit mode. Anytime the day, it can go off. Uh, and so there's definitely more depth to that. But what I'd love to talk about, Todd, is kind of your thought process as it relates to the functionality of the app, the different configurations that you could put forth, why those configurations are there, and then some of the things that you've worked through. I know this is a lot I'm loading on you, but some of the things you've worked through as it relates to making this as approachable as possible and as useful as possible when it comes to the app.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for me, one of the things, the underlying themes, I think the best way to probably talk about this is guiding principles, is everyone's spiritual journey is a personal one. And so for me, it was extremely important that we built in maximum functionality for people to personalize this experience. And so you can personalize the timing of the reminders. It can be random, it can be on specific alarms like you had set on your phone, it can be every X number of minutes or hours. Um, you can program the intensity. If you want it to be a lower intensity or higher intensity, you can personalize the pattern if you want it to be a single pulse or a two pulse or a three pulse. So that's just been, I think a lot of people um experience things differently. And I wanted people to be able to personalize it to the extent um to every extent possible. So that that is one. The other piece about being able to personalize the pattern, I would say, is that there is, as humans, we normalize to things, right, in our lives. And if you have the same vibration that hits you and you get to a place where you can ignore that, I think sometimes um, you know, that can that can impact, you know, how meaningful things are long term. And so the ability to go in and mix up that that pattern, right? And mix up that vibration, so it kind of hits you a little bit differently. You could there's even a mode you can randomize the pattern to where once it might be a single pulse or it might be a triple pulse or it might be two seconds or five seconds. So I think that that it was another element of it is trying to keep the novelty intact, um, you know, because certainly things will will fade over time.
SPEAKER_00:So let's you know, let's get a little deeper. You mentioned about people being at different spots on their spiritual journey as it relates to this particular product. There are things that you've configured in the app, and we can go down there, there are a couple different, I guess, categories of functionality with inside of this. Yeah. Um, if somebody is very gurning, very new, uh, just explore it, exploring religion, right? They maybe, maybe they're spiritual now, they're they want to explore spirituality as it relates to religion. What types of functionality are built in to help them stick their toe in the water and inch down uh through that journey versus somebody who is like already habitually praying on a daily basis and wants to use this to go even deeper, maybe touch on both sides of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think one of the things that that uh one of you had pointed out already is just that the way this has been experienced doesn't always have to be stop and pray. Sometimes it's patience, sometimes it's just intentionality, it's awareness, it's you know, those sorts of things. So we have curated uh a few preset programs, and this is part of just making it simplistic for people. One um, I believe we call the patient parent, and it is set off, it's it's programmed to go off at 7 a.m. And these times you can configure. This is just the preset, and then you kind of can even further tweak it for, but it'll go on at 7 a.m. for a smooth morning routine, right? In the mornings, it can be stressful, it can be everyone's kind of waking up and something gets behind, or one of the kids doesn't do something. You just get that very vibration right before that, so you can go in that with the right headspace. And then there's kind of a mid-morning kind of uh check-in where it's like, you know, you're in the throes of the work day. Um, then there's an afternoon post-work transition, right? Where um uh where you're needing to shift from work mode, right? And to going into the house and making sure you're not taking a lot of your stress and anxiety or challenges you experience work into the house. And then there's a uh uh, I forget what we called it, like a uh a strong close, essentially, which is just before bedtime routines where you get that vibration and you can approach that with a very intentional, thoughtful uh thing, uh uh mindset. And so um we've tried to introduce uh different types of programs, and that's one end of the spectrum, and the other end of the spectrum is you know, like uh a liturgy of the hours, which is every three hours, that's a very formal um, you know, prayer that you know there's a series for. So so we've tried to um build that into your question. The other, the other one piece I will say that for people who are again just kind of coming in and exploring is the community element, which you are probably going to ask about. Um and the community element is the ability to connect with other people, and you can send prayers essentially, which sends vibrations to their cross. Um, and those again can also be customized, even down to the person, right? So if I get a vibration that's four pulses and roughly five seconds long, I know that's Trent that's praying for me. Um, and so that's been a really cool thing. That was actually not something that I had originally envisioned with the product, but it's evolved as other people have come into the fold and had ideas. Um, I think you, I think we're we're a big champion of that, that piece of it.
SPEAKER_00:So when it comes to the community, there's one other element there that is in the app that I think is utilized most heavily in that regard. You have a is it still called the spiritual universe where so you can you can explore spiritual wisdom and scripture and other things from a layman's perspective. So if you don't know uh anything about scripture, you can't quote anything, you don't know books of the Bible, you don't know verses, this can be really beneficial. Um conversely, it can be just as beneficial as uh if you do know all those things. So talk about the spiritual universe portion of the app a little bit and how you can leverage that in different capacities.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a couple of different primary capacities. Uh, one is you can use that to send with prayers that you're sending to people. Um, you know, I always found it, me personally, I've always found it kind of awkward to text someone, hey, I'm praying for you, or yeah, I'm praying, or whatever, because you you almost feel like you're taking credit, like I'm the hero, like you know, and sometimes I can be skeptical at times sometimes when I see others saying, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm praying thoughts and prayers, the Anthony Jessel thing kind of kind of thing. It's like I feel like I'm taking credit for praying for somebody. And so when you send prayers, the default setting is actually anonymous. It's uh, you know, and so you just get a thing that says someone is praying for you. That was um something I built in there. But going beyond that to talk about the the spiritual universe, it's you can attach those to the prayers that you're sending. So generally when you're praying for someone, they're going through something, they're struggling, there's maybe a health issue, there's maybe anxiety, there's uh, you know, a number of things that be going wrong. And to be able to put that into uh a um, you know, you basically just put it into a text box there and it spits back verses, scripture, wisdom that you can then attach to that prayer that you're sending uh to that individual just to give them something to anchor around. Because I think it's one thing to say, hey, I'm praying for you. It's something else, it's a level, another level of intentionality to convey kind of a scripture that they can maybe lean into during this difficult time. Um, so that's a huge part of it. And the other is just for your own personal reflection. You're we're all going through things at the same time and we're struggling with certain things, and and sometimes we don't know where to go to get advice. And and for me, it's lasted at least a couple of thousand years. Scripture and some of that spiritual wisdom is a relatively stable place to go. I think it's a tried and true source of knowledge, if you will, um that even if you are not a practicing religious person, I think many would agree, and and Jordan Peterson, I think, has kind of dug into this a little bit. There is some good things that you can take from how uh from what's in the Bible. And so um, yeah, so it basically offers up, I think, some very stable anchors for you to reflect on as you're trying to survive in in today's society.
SPEAKER_00:So the way it works essentially is there's a box that you and it's built with an AI back in, and you can go in again with standard nomenclature, right? So just words, just like uh four four words as it relates to something you're you're struggling with, something that person may be struggling with, and it will feed you back. And then one of the other cool functionalities is if you are going through something, you can also request prayers, right? Correct.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you absolutely can. You can request prayers um to everyone in your community or just select people in your community. Um, and those are actually there's a there's a place in the app where it captures those intentions. So intentions that you have added or others in your community have requested. So some people, when their cross goes off, they want to pray for others and pray for those intentions. You can quickly um see a consolidated list of um those that you'd like to keep in your intentions.
SPEAKER_00:So, uh what what I'll do here is I'll talk a little bit about because I've used utilized this differently, um, as you've probably become accustomed to across the spiritual side of things. I'm a little bit more on that particular side, utilizing scripture for kind of upward aim in uh just a general, what are they calling it, cultural Christian? A little bit more than that, but we'll just say that for sanity's sake. And for me, this became about that winning the moment element of it, where you know patience was an area of struggle. And so for me, this was programmed kind of like you talked about with the patient parent, where uh in the morning getting up. And then there were a couple of personal things, but personal things that I think lent to me being a better person when my kids were around. So let's get through getting up in the morning, let's get through a workout routine because that makes us a better person. Let's make sure we're fueling our body. Uh, okay, the kids are getting home from school, I work from home, so that's that transition point. And there's these constant reminders throughout the day to stay present, ensure that we're trying to grow in those areas of our being and improve ourselves in those areas. And then over time, again, maybe I I think I was looking the other day, and throughout the duration of me having this, I've experienced 800 or so notifications, which, like you said, can get drowned out after a while and become normalized. So changing those to be a little bit less frequent as you get better at things. Um, but a very cool uh way to utilize it. So if you struggle with anything from a mental perspective and you need a constant reminder that doesn't pull you into your phone, this has been a great tool for that. And and really for me, uh kind of back to what you said, I was I was not necessarily skeptical, but I was really curious eight years ago, seven years ago, as it related to how this was going to really what type of impact it was going to make. It seemed like the right decision, the right path to go down, but like, is it really going to? And I will say back to the singular thing. Like, it's nice to have a notification nowadays that isn't, oh man, what group text is this, or what email is this, or oh man, did somebody score a touchdown in my fantasy football league? Whatever it might be. Um, so that's been really cool. So jumping from there, I think the next thing to talk about is the difficulty of bringing an actual physical product to market. And I want to kind of lay a foundation. So as it kind of relates to broad perspective and context, many, all of you listening have probably shopped on Amazon and probably seen the proliferation of products on that site. And it makes it seem fairly easy to do because you see so many different versions of whatever it is. And it's like, oh, this is this is gotta be the most simplistic thing. Um, you don't realize the level of expertise. So a lot of what you see on Amazon, they're called, well, it doesn't really matter, but a lot of you see on Amazon has been developed by somebody over time and it's knocked off, right? They call them their standard molds that you can buy. But without going too far down the particular way you produce a product rabbit hole, I'd love to start talking about how you began the process when it comes to bringing something like this for life, knowing because this is this is a Kelly thing. Uh this is creating a market. This isn't like attaching to an existing market. This isn't, you know, kind of modifying a product that already exists today. This is from scratch, and that's fairly rare in today's society when it comes to technology. So, like, how did you even begin to start this manufacturing process?
SPEAKER_01:Can I go one step even before that? I think it's a great places. We were on a run probably seven, eight years ago, and you said I have an idea. And you're probably similar. I don't know, TJ was with us that day, and you're like, I can't tell you how many times that we've had an idea, right? Like, we have ideas all the time. I have an idea. The first step is like even acting on the idea, right? Because action is where it it is, and we you you have so many ideas, and we've had so many ideas, but you know, we've only acted on a few of them. So what was the what was so deep to where you were like, I'm actually gonna take this idea and go to work? When I had that experience at Life Group that night, it was just so frustrating. I just hit a hit a moment. And Tony talks about uh Tony Robbins talks about uh you know, change happens in a moment, and at that moment it had just hit me. And um I think TJ, I believe, if I recall, um you know, initiated one of the first things from a manufacturing perspective. Um, but um before I get to that, I want to circle back to talk about community. We always talk about growth happens in community. There's two things I'll point out. One, I credit action that I took to those around me. Because after that conversation at Life Group, like it didn't immediately take off. Like I marinated on things for a while and thought about how what does this idea look like? How do I bring it to life? I mean, over months, it wasn't until late, or it wasn't until I should say not late, but 2019. Um, because this this all kind of manifested in the fall of 18. It wasn't until 19 that I started to work on the patent. Um, at that point in my life, I uh I realized now in hindsight that the patent uh wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it was. But my whole kind of uh thought process on this is that it's this time was well, I'm not gonna have a lot of resources, I'm not gonna move, be able to move quickly on this. There's not gonna be a lot of funding behind it. So if I can get a patent and kind of secure this idea for a period of time, then it might make sense uh to move forward with. So it was actually in my Exodus group in 2020, I went through Exodus 90, which is a very intense 90-day spiritual exercise with a very close group of eight guys. It wasn't until then that I actually formally submitted the patent to the patent office. Um, and that was really, I would say, tangibly step one to get the process started. That in and of itself, we could probably have an entire episode on, but that was a three-year process to get the patent approved. And in parallel to that, coming back to TJ, I think was the one who had the connection to initiate the manufacturing process. He had a contact out of California who had done similar things. He was kind of an independent contractor that had some connections in China. Uh, we had um engaged with him on creating a cross that had the functionality inside of it. So um, yeah, I'll pause there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think this becomes interesting, you know. So Had a guy, yeah, who had reached out to me based on my day-to-day, my daily profession, and wanted to design and manufacture products for us because of the volume that we do. Um, didn't make sense for us at the time, but made that connection with Todd. And uh, this is where you start to kind of peel back the onion and see the challenges that come with working through a contractor who has a relationship in China that they want to protect and has their own interest in mind. So let's talk about, and not we're not deprecating anything. This isn't like, you know, it's just how this is unfolded. So if you're looking to bring a product to market and you have zero connections, this is typically um one of the ways that you can progress down. So let's talk a little bit about that first experiences. I remember a lot of back and forth over email and you trying to get things right. And then after you talk about this specific experience, we'll pause and we'll, you know, fast forward to the next one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think the challenge in that, I think in in the manufacturing world in China, especially, they are looking to get something to market as fast as possible. That's how they make money. The more time that they spend in design and development, the um the more costly it becomes for them and the less upside that they potentially have. And so we I think we learned over the course of several months of back and forth that maybe it wasn't the best fit because this is something that I was extremely passionate about and wanted to get right. I didn't want people to have to wear, you know, a cross that was this size on their neck that, you know, so I was very um particular about the size that this needed to be and the technology that we needed to use. And I think basically we just hit a hit a point where we realized that the capability of what we were working with uh wasn't going to be able to deliver the experience we wanted. So we weren't going to settle for that.
SPEAKER_00:It was very difficult to, you know, you you see products in the marketplace. Aura ring is a great example. We actually used this quite a bit early on, working with this first designer and manufacturer. Again, it was size needs to be small, battery life needs to be significant. Uh, this is not something, given that this is a screenless device and something that you want to keep on you as often as possible. Uh, it is it does have waterproof, it needed to be waterproof to a point so that you could wear it at all times, wear it in the shower and other things like that. Um, and so you see a technology like an aura, which is this size, which is considerably smaller than than what you see on their necks in here. And this has a seven-day battery life or a six-day battery life. You see a Garmin watch, again, not huge, but this thing can last for months and months and months if you're not using GPS. So, knowing that technology was out there, it's important to recognize that it might seem simple. It's extremely difficult to get access to that kind of cutting-edge technology if you're not doing a crazy amount of volume or if you're not super connected within that space. So, leaving that relationship, we just couldn't get past some of the struggles as it related to those kind of foundational things to make sure this was something that people would want to wear and that would function like you needed it to. I'll I'll tell the second story because it's quick and then we'll skip on to the third. I have another relationship, a much closer relationship. Um, individual from Japan, but does a lot of business in Japan and China and Vietnam, whatever, and and reached out to him. We had had some initial industrial designs already done of the cross, so it was kind of moving it over directly. We didn't have to. So I had prior to I guess that first engagement, I had had a designer that I work with do an ID for the particular cross. So, anyways, we go into the second opportunity, we start this process. This guy's really confident he works in high, highly technological products for us and other people. And uh, we probably spent six months back and forth, and the manufacturer stole everything.
SPEAKER_01:They did. Yeah, I remember that. Um, that was uh, and we weren't sure what was gonna happen with that, and it seems at this point they didn't necessarily do anything with it, but they they just kind of disappeared.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and they disappeared. So then we're at a crossroads, and it's like, and I probably speaks to community, and and so there's another individual who I've worked with in my professional career, uh, John Staggy. And John has produced, um, he's in the mobile accessory space like I am, and he's produced a number of different products, probably most notably the Scooch case, which he brought to life from scratch. It's it's one of the first very, very functional, uh integrated cell phone cases. And he's a very meticulous particular person, spent the majority of his professional career in tooling. So, you know, we're talking about extremely meticulous, and um reached out to John to have and and coincidentally, he's very involved in the Catholic community in Hamilton County. Um, so a lot of mute, not just myself knowing him, but a lot of people knew John. Um, he's an investor in the space and has been very successful throughout his career. So we had probably three or four different meetings, but we sat down with John, and that I guess is what birthed where we're at today. And so maybe talk a little bit about some of the elements of what were what was brought online through that relationship, some of the key things that were put in place that helped you navigate that environment and and kind of maybe go through that, maybe a 10-minute story and kind of bring us to where we are today. Cause that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, before I jump into that, I want to touch on a few things. Um, just the anxiety and the stress that comes through a process like this. Obviously, very on early on, I mentioned I filed a patent because I was worried about the idea, um, not being able to get it to market fast enough or naturally. And then when you had when you realize someone stole this idea, they're they're not constrained by patents in China, right? So, like you could imagine my fear and anxiety level of how much I time I spent to get that patent done, and then to basically know that somebody just ripped it off was that was a very stressful experience. Yeah, so they just went dark and just stopped communicating, yeah. They just basically took the stuff and did not and didn't reach back out to us in any fashion. Um from memory.
SPEAKER_00:And so when I went for the update to the guy who was the go-between, he's like, sorry, they peace.
SPEAKER_01:So um that I wanted to hit on. Secondly, you mentioned the aura ring. We actually uh bought a$350 aura ring and sent it to China so they could smash it open and see what the technology was. Like, this is the type of stuff that we were doing just to try and figure out how to get the technology um to where we need it to be. And then the last thing I'll say, and this is gonna come up a few times throughout this, when it comes to that first relationship that didn't work out. What I learned, I've learned of this process and and I guess has been further emphasized in this process. If you aren't gonna advocate for yourself, nobody else is going to, especially when you're starting a business. And I think this at this goes to all has nothing to just not at all specific to entrepreneurship or developing a product. If you are not going to advocate for yourself, nobody else is going to. And so that's something that I really leaned into heavily as part of this process is making sure this was going to be what I wanted it to be. If I was going to take the time and energy to do that. Um, so I wanted to hit on those few things, but jumping back to the third time being the charm from a manufacturing perspective. First thing I'll say is we certainly didn't have everything figured out by then. It was a year and a half, two-year journey just to, I can't tell you how many times I thought, okay, we're about three months away. We're about three months away. We're about three months away. And then it's been probably 30 months until we're actually, you know, from now when we actually have put all these pieces together. Um, we got very fortunate to be connected with a great, it kind of acts as someone as a general contractor. The thing that surprised me the most is how many different people and partners it takes to put something like this in place. So just to break this down, I wish I had one open that I could show you, but there is a manufacturer for the vibration mechanism for the vibration motor. There is a manufacturer for the what they call PCB board. It looks like a computer chip in here that has the saw the firmware on it that allows you to program it to go off at certain times. There is a battery supplier uh who supplies the battery that needs connected to the board and to the motor so that everything operates. There is a uh supplier of the actual casing itself. There is a separate supplier that does the um the wooden pattern behind uh, you know, either behind Jesus on the crucifix or uh on their versions. Um that is a separate supplier. And then you've got someone putting it all together, uh, not to mention the packaging. So I think for me, what was really surprising is how many different pieces have to come together to make something like this happen. And you're not, and what gets difficult is you are working through someone uh halfway across the world who's the time zone is 12 hours different, and you're trying to maintain not only the quality of what that individual's doing, but the quality of what the suppliers that they're working with are doing. And that that got to be very, very challenging. Now I will I will give Julia a lot of credit. She has been fantastic um at really helping us manage this and has has, I think, internalized the sense of pride and quality that I have put into this and has done an awesome, awesome job. That being said, there's a lot of things that even she didn't know or didn't have visibility to or didn't understand. And so I had to directly uh, and I can talk about some of those, but at a at a high level, those were some of the um, you know, challenges that we experienced in trying to really optimize this over the last two and a half, three years.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and Julia was a layer down, it started with Rosa.
SPEAKER_01:It did, uh, Rita.
SPEAKER_00:Rita, Rita, Rita.
SPEAKER_01:Rita was John's correct, Rita was John's contact, and Rita had found Julia to um, you know, really manage this project.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that was key because Rita works for John and she's on the ground in uh Shenzhen. And so having a direct employee of his or or partner of his facilitate the early on relationships was huge. Was huge. Some of the things that so let's talk about you know, I guess in relation to manufacturing, some of the so you said it's been 30 months, yeah, right? Uh size, um, but I I you know, battery life, uh, waterproof uh capabilities, um, corrosion, charging. And so I I I think and that's exactly where I was going with it. So the biggest, you know, what one of the things, you know, you talk about being meticulous, you know, one of the things that was important off the jump was that the motor, the vibration motor, delivered a rich enough engagement. You didn't want it to feel cheap and chintzy and like whatever. So you wanted it to feel rich. Um, and so you wanted everything to be that way, you know, from a charging perspective. There was a very intentional design there where this can be the first, and when you do charge it, this is like the last thing you do, and it's ritualistic and it's the first thing in the morning. Uh, one of the partners, you know, was like, you're putting on your armor, you're putting on uh something that protects you spiritually in the morning, and then taking it off at night. One of the elements of that is the charging piece of it, and that proved to be over time holy cow! I mean, that maybe took a year itself, nine months itself. So let's walk through the beginning, all the different things you tried, and and talk through the whole charging piece of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so um, obviously, that's an important part of a device that requires electricity to operate. And we got the first prototype, and one of the things that we noticed is that on the bottom, particularly one side uh of this, but it corroded. And when it corrodes, that is obviously the connectivity is not going to be there for the charge. And so we uh worked with them to get a highly corrosive resistant uh it's uh nickel alloy, um, and they coated it with this, and we saw some improvements, but it would still corrode. TJ and I uncovered separately uh that we at one point, you know, when you have corrosion and you're trying to get it to charge, and generally something with a little bit of moisture or wetness can help kind of rub that off. So at different times, we had licked the bottom to try and get the corrosion off so we could charge it and felt electricity when we had done that. And so, I mean, this was again months into this, we reach out to the team. Um, the other thing that we had noticed is that the corrosion happened on one side as we looked at it. We didn't notice that at the beginning, but after seven or eight crosses trying different coatings, and you got to think each time they're having to go back to the supplier, get a different coating, mail it, then we've got to test it. I mean, this stuff just takes months, you know, as we had so many different iterations, it kept coating. Well, what they found is there was a defect in the PCB board that had active electricity going through that one side of the cross. So, what that meant is you know, they always say don't ever charge anything when it's wet, because that was actually actively happening. Anytime this got wet was essentially having the chemical reaction that you would when something would be charged to wet because there was an active current running through it. So they fixed that and we thought, whew, we finally found it, we're good, we're in the clear. And so they sent us some new crosses with this highly corrosion resistant. We think, oh, this is so good because we have now, you know, I was, you know, thinking this is great because we've actually future-proofed this and kind of super proofed it with this highly corrosive, and we had issues again. We ordered a hundred, we were so excited. It was our hundred, our first beta. Uh, we got ordered a hundred units, a pre-production run. We got it out to everybody, and within a week, oh most people were having issues charging it. And then we made some additional improvements. We uh expanded the size of the base because we found that if it sits at a certain angle, it wasn't charging, it was surface. Um, there was a couple other small tweaks that we made. We had the pins kind of lifted higher into the charging dock so there was a more stable connection, and we did some preliminary testing. We're like, okay, now we've got it. It's certainly the coating's got to be great because we went so far on that front. Now we have the pins coming up further, really solid connection. Ordered the second batch of pre-production in April, and it's like, whoo, like we're here, we've got this, and we get it out to everybody, and within this time, two to four weeks, the call started to come in. We're having charging issues. So one night in May, I get on Chat GPT and I'm like, now this is the last thing I'm thinking of doing. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to corrosion or mechanic chemicals or coatings or metals or anything. I've got no clue. I'm thinking these people work with this in China all the time. Like they would get this, they know what we're trying to accomplish, they know how important it is. Well, I get on ChatGPT and it just basically laughs at me because it's like, well, here's the issue, Todd. You have something that's only surface contact, it's not plugged in, and that is going to be prone to interruption in the current. Secondly, you have a coating, I explained the coating to it, that is highly corrosive resistant, but it can still oxidize. And so oxidization is a kind of a chemical process that can develop a th a layer of film on the bottom. And it said that will interrupt uh process of current. Secondly, or thirdly, you only have 40 milliamps running through this thing. It's such a small battery, and when you have very low current running through, that is going to be prone um to uh interruption. And and then it said, last but not least, that highly corrosive metal you're using as the coating does not conduct electricity very well. And so I'm sitting here like just thinking, thank goodness for Chat GPT. Uh, I don't know why I didn't think to engage it sooner. We've all had those moments with Chat GPT where you do something and you're like, why have I not been using this for this for the past year? So I said, Well, what should the coating be? And I did the research and it just said boom, boom, boom. And now, for those that have had these crosses, you'll notice we have a gold plating now. There's an there, I'm not going to get into the details of there's a there's an alloy undercoat, and then there's a gold plating on top because gold does not oxidize and gold conducts electricity very, very, very well. So we uh and I don't know, eighth time the charm, finally, now with all of the changes we made, the charging, which is a critical core function, has been resolved. But that that's the type of journey, and there's been a handful of those things, not just the charging.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, and and there's a couple half steps, you know, you know, for people, and I'm sure um it's you know, why didn't you try this, or why didn't you try this, or why didn't you try this? There were a couple of half steps in there where we did try pins that actually inserted inside the cross. The early, early, early ones had pin contacts at the bottom set of metal. We've talked about wireless, but again, we have uh very traditional wireless, like qi charging, um we have a very small footprint to work within and don't want to increase the the width or the thickness of it at all. So a lot of different things we finally got there. Um, Bluetooth connectivity has been interesting over time, and you've consistently gotten better there um with multiple firmware updates. Not to mention you've had to go to China twice for this.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you've been to China twice, which has been its own experience. Um, you know what I would say about that? That the the wonderful thing is just it's understanding and learning their culture and and learning how to partner with them and how to work with them because they're great people. And nobody is trying to. I mean, there are times where certainly there are shortcuts that are tried to be made because everyone's trying to make a living, right? But for the most part, what I've found is it's just a lack of communication and understanding and ways of doing business. And so, for example, the PCB manufacturer, by the way, we're on version uh 41.4 on our firmware, which just gives you an idea. There's been uh probably a hundred different firmware versions over the case over the course. And and what I've found in working with teams in China is they're not going to heavily test, they are going to hear your requirements, they're gonna do their best to put that into whatever product or solution, and then it's your responsibility to kick those tires until every last issue is is kind of been worked out. And so we have spent a lot of time, and that's something I had to learn early on. I it was uh innocent until proven guilty model uh from a quality perspective, and I realized that was probably not the right mindset when you're going into testing things coming from China. There needs to be a bit of uh healthy skepticism that this isn't working until I prove that it actually works in all the different ways that I want it to work.
SPEAKER_00:So, one of the things I want to do is I want to step back and kind of kick this to Trent because I've kind of dominated this, is that the other element of this, we're humble people collectively, I think so, to a point. We don't we have trouble asking for things. There's a there's a business aspect to this, there's a financial aspect to this, and um, that's something that I am terrible at and don't have great insight into. So I'd love to kick it to Trent to kind of ask some questions around that aspect and maybe provide some some uh perspective, you know, on how you've seen this kind of unfold.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it it it's been fascinating. Um and I think you being the first one that has ever built a product from scratch initially, you had to put a lot of your own money into it. You know, it's kind of like a bootstrap, and uh one of the toughest things in business, um, whether product or service, is getting other people to believe and unite. And you talked really early on about how you feel like God put the community around you to help carry this dream forward. But maybe you take us down a little bit of what that fundraising process has been like to kind of get here, and and I know anytime you borrow money from people, it puts a different level of pressure on there. So talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that's been that's been tough. Um but I've been fortunate, I was fortunate enough to have enough resources to get this off the ground. Um, but there was a point where it started to get very expensive very quickly beyond um what I had the capability to support. And uh there were times where it was um super frustrating um that I felt like um there's just some there's some lonely moments and some challenging moments if I'm gonna be vulnerable for a second, where you see there are times where you kind of feel sorry for yourself of that you're putting all this time and energy and effort and money into this, and uh what I it took me a while to realize that that was my cross to carry, no pun intended, um, and that I had to champion that. And that was that was very difficult. And you're right that shifting from using my own money to someone else's money uh it puts a different level of intensity into things, a different level of um due diligence that I wanted to do to do right by the others that have taken their very hard-earned money and invested in what we're doing. So um, yeah, that's been an emotional roller coaster. So as you sit here today, we are close to product launch. So you've you've found the right investors, you've spent an incredible amount of time on, and I don't think we even talked about you know the software development, which has been in a whole nother country. Yeah, I mean I can and speak to that. That was in India. Um, just a little background there. I worked at uh at my my time at Liberty Mutual, I spent a decade there in software development and IT, and had a lot of independent contractors in different countries that I worked with, and just developed an ability to um communicate and interact um very well there. And so, given from a cost perspective, we were very constrained early on. I decided to go that route because I had been able to communicate successfully um and work co work very well with the that culture um in India, and um so we had brought them on and we've been working with them for three years. Uh there's there's some wild stories there. Um but yeah, that that's been a that's been a long journey as well. Um they're only 11 hours difference, so we have an extra hour of overlap, but a lot of early mornings and late nights with those guys. So you've put in the big order, they're coming in. What do you um we've talked a lot about the history, the why, like what do the next three to six months look like? What are you hoping to do? What's the impact? Um and how can people jump in and uh get excited if they want to purchase the product to talk tell them tell them how how how they can do that? Yeah, I would say just at a high level, the the sad part about this is the easy part is is over. We've really done the easy part, which as unbelievably challenging as it's been on so many different fronts. I didn't mention this financially um with the app team, but uh I was just gonna this nugget before we jump to to now. Uh there was a point in time where somehow the billing got messed up, and they didn't bill me for, and I I I had kind of lost track of this, but not fully understood. Um, and they like 18 months later, they came back and said that I owed them$100,000 for the development out of nowhere. Um, I shouldn't say out of nowhere because I had pieced together that I something was going on, and I wasn't sure if it was because they were eating the cost, because we were doing a lot of redevelopment of things, and they were kind of reworking, and they had recommended we do it in one language. We wrote it in native Apple language, and then we had to rewrite the whole thing in React Native, which is a language that is both for Android and Apple platform. So I thought maybe they were just kind of participating in the fact that we were having to rework things, and I got a bill for a hundred thousand dollars, and I was like, I can't, I can't pay this. I'm I'm there's just no way. And so the stress of that negotiation, and we got to a place where like we could all live with um that was painful on both sides, but there's just some of those things that go unsaid uh in the journey, and we could probably talk for days about uh about other things. Um, but back to your point of yes, we are here. Um, we have placed our first mass production order. Um, we have uh few hundred units that were aired in and are already here. We have um another uh 2,500 units that will be coming by boat later this year. They're on the website at myethernize.com. They can be purchased there. We're gonna be going to conferences. I say that the easy part is done. I love the project management side of it. The app development, the product side. I've got a brain that can just kind of hunt down the inaccuracies or the issues or the gaps and just kind of relentlessly pursue perfection on that front. The challenge is the vision side, is you've got to take something that's been on my heart for five, six, seven years. I'm in the weeds, I've lived, and try and simplistically convey that to someone that's leading a completely different life, that's experiencing completely different challenges and help them understand to see the value of this because you really don't get it until you actually, I mean, naturally being in the proximity to the to the heart, until you feel that first vibration right there, you don't really understand. It can, you know, when you're trying to digitally convey this to people, it can seem like kind of a gimmicky little, you know, pay attention. And uh the experience is so much richer than that. Trying to figure out how to articulate that to people that I can't be in front of and that can't feel this is I think it's gonna be incredibly difficult. Um, and we've got a lot to learn on that front. Well, that's just in time for the holidays, so that would be a great Christmas gift for those of you out there looking for uh something to buy for yourselves or for a loved one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, if you've made it this far and listened through this whole podcast, I would say that, you know, like Todd said, there's a lot to learn here on how to convey this. And you you think about this in regard to the people that he's surrounded by on a day-to-day basis. Like that's how we all all of us, we're all biased, right? We all in inform our uh approaches to certain things based on the proximity to those around us. So for him, um being surrounded by uh really your Catholic community in in almost every aspect and area of your life, that's your perspective. So I would say if you got this far, don't let the way that Todd leverages this and his community leverages this and the way Trent leverages this or the way I leverage this deter you. If you're not a devout Catholic, if you're not a devout Christian, if you're if you're if you're more spiritual, this is something that is extremely beneficial. I'm really excited for the new app to come out here in a week, kind of coinciding with this first soft launch with the 400 units, because uh being a part of the team, I'm on the beta app and I can't reconnect with my community. My kids are wearing these now um every single day. And so I'm excited to leverage that aspect of it, and we can maybe all get on a similar pattern so that we can experience this together and we can send um I can send them a vibration while they're in school that I'm thinking about them or whatever. So uh I guess, like you said, recognize that this can be utilized in a number of different capacities and can take you wherever you want it to take you on your spiritual journey.
SPEAKER_01:I would say um, in closing, if you do get one of these units, know that it may show up uh with the pieces inside a little jumbled. What's funny about being at the starting line is we're still learning. And so the 400 units came in and I opened the box, and that's pretty much how most of the boxes looked. It looked like this. And I reached out to the team in China and I said, guys, this is how this showed up, you know. And I opened three or four of them, and it was like this. And what we have found is since we expanded the size of the base, there is a little more wiggle room for the cross that has then fallen out of the base and has pulled and then loosened uh the pieces. So, even things like that, just you know, optimizing the packaging for to be able to withstand transit as you're making changes to optimize the product. It's just when you change one thing, there's so many different things that have already been optimized for that that can change, it may show up. Uh, we're actually working on uh kudos to them. They are gonna go through and put uh spacers, little padded spacers in here for the 2600 units that are uh about to leave. Um, but for those that we already have on hand, we're a little bit uh stuck on. So uh just another example of sounds like a good project for your kids to go through.
SPEAKER_00:And refix them all for well if you're watching if you're watching, thinking about who cares, he cares. And that's important to note.
SPEAKER_01:Because you have people who are open in this and that don't know anything about this journey and won't listen to this podcast, and they're thinking this is going to be a product that shows up like an Apple product that they're going to buy, and then it looks like that, and it's like, yeah, yeah, that's not necessarily the first impression we're trying to make. So it's uh the the problems that we're tackling. We talk about this, the quality of the problems have continued to get better, which is great. But um, yeah, I I would just I want to in in closing before we wrap this, just express uh an immense amount of gratitude for everybody who has played a part in this. I mean, not just physically uh helped out with marketing or product development or ideas or app design development just as much as emotionally. I can't tell you how lonely a journey like this is when you're seven years in and transparently hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort like this and you don't know what's gonna happen. The um there are a lot of times where you are questioning whether or not you should keep moving forward. And emotionally, the people that I believe God has put in this path, but people have had to answer that call uh has been incredible to keep me moving forward on this. Uh I just I just we just wouldn't be here. So you guys both have been unbelievably supportive uh in many different ways, and there's been so many others. It's it's been really cool to see a community come together to try and bring something to life. It's awesome. Can't uh say anything better than that. Very cool product, very meaningful, um, life-changing, and uh for a great cause. I think it levels up you and your family. So thank you guys for uh taking us through that journey and for sharing. Pretty excited. MyEternize.com. Thanks.