Each week in the New Tech Newsletter we feature a Spotlight Q&A with founders, angels, New Tech alumni presenters, and other people or companies in our community we believe you’d like to learn about. Reach out if you’d like to recommend a startup, founder, angel, accelerator, or New Tech alumni presenter for us to spotlight for the PNW tech community!
This week we caught up with Mat Chacon, CEO, Doghead Simulations.
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What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned since you first presented at NTNW?
Community. By far, the most valuable gift that we received from our participation in NTNW is the gift of community. We’ve networked with so many wonderful people that attended and presented at NTNW events, that we quickly learned the value of the community that is nurtured by the wonderful people of NTNW. In fact, my participation in NTNW events led directly to new and paying customers, multiple other speaking engagements and two new business ventures. I also met a new business partner at my first NTNW presentation that led to us developing a very close friendship and even starting a new business venture together. None of this would have happened without the positive community that comes from NTNW events. Thank you for that!!!
Did the pandemic cause your company to change/pivot your business model or strategy?
Sort of. Since we founded our company in 2016, we’ve always been a 100% remote company and have never had any plans to purchase any physical office space. Because we’re 100% remote, we’ve also been able to hire the best talent from around the world. However, in January of 2020, just as the global pandemic was hitting the states, we noticed a 1,400% increase in new users that stabilized to around a 700% increase about 90-days later. While we didn’t experience any negative effects on our company strategy due to the pandemic, we did notice an increase in healthcare workers using rumii to work and collaborate and that’s been a wonderful new set of users for us.
What is the most innovative way your tech solves the problems of your customers?
We provide our customers with a rumii API that they use to develop their own custom rumii integrations and white label products and services. Essentially, we decided to get out of our customer’s way and enable them the flexibility to extend rumii however they might need in order to meet their specific requirements.
What is something interesting and unexpected that people would be surprised to learn about your company?
Well, there are two things that best answer this question:
(1) Unexpected – We experienced a significant increase in medical professionals using rumii at the start of 2020, especially among mental health professionals. Because every state eventually went on “stay at home” lockdown orders, people that needed to see their mental health providers were unable to do so and none of them trusted video sharing applications. So, they opted to use rumii and we’re quite proud of that. But, that was a new and unexpected user base and use case we never planned for.
(2) Interesting – We also used rumii to help coordinate people working with the American Association for Precision Medicine on COVID19 solutions throughout the Pandemic in 2020. Because of this collaboration, we eventually developed and patented a COVID19 Mental Health Therapy named FLOURET that uses rumii to coordinate mental health providers with their patients to treat COVID19 induced PTSD. This is something we’re quite proud of.
