What we talked about
Stephane Fourdrinier shares how a personal health wake-up in 2017 (and an 80-pound transformation) led him to build Track Our Heart:an ambitious biometrics platform that fuses data from rings, watches, chest straps, ECG patches, oximeters, foot pods, muscle oxygen sensors, headbands (and more) into one coherent, user-tailored view. We dig into: why today’s device ecosystems are siloed, unlocking beat-to-beat heart data 24/7, estimating blood pressure through multi-sensor fusion, supporting three distinct personas (longevity & general wellness, cardiac monitoring, and high-performance athletes), designing for both casual and advanced “data power users,” remote monitoring for aging parents, correlating meals, timing, alcohol, HRV breathing, and sleep, community-driven anonymized insight sharing, and his $2M seed raise (engineering, UX, community). Stephane outlines a roadmap toward 180+ biometrics, exportability, Kickstarter considerations, and how multi-sensor synchronization unlocks richer preventative and performance insights.
Show notes
Stephane Fourdrinier shares how a personal health wake-up in 2017 (and an 80-pound transformation) led him to build Track Our Heart:an ambitious biometrics platform that fuses data from rings, watches, chest straps, ECG patches, oximeters, foot pods, muscle oxygen sensors, headbands (and more) into one coherent, user-tailored view. We dig into: why today’s device ecosystems are siloed, unlocking beat-to-beat heart data 24/7, estimating blood pressure through multi-sensor fusion, supporting three distinct personas (longevity & general wellness, cardiac monitoring, and high-performance athletes), designing for both casual and advanced “data power users,” remote monitoring for aging parents, correlating meals, timing, alcohol, HRV breathing, and sleep, community-driven anonymized insight sharing, and his $2M seed raise (engineering, UX, community). Stephane outlines a roadmap toward 180+ biometrics, exportability, Kickstarter considerations, and how multi-sensor synchronization unlocks richer preventative and performance insights.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:02.059) Welcome to the PreVetted Podcast, where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today, we are joined by Stephane Fourdrinier I hope I pronounced it correctly. I apologize. He’s a veteran engineer leader who scaled massive systems at companies like Apple, Maps, PlayStation, and Tinder. And he’s now the founder of Track Our Hearts.
a new platform that turns real-time heart and wellness data into simple insights people can actually use. How are you doing today, Stephane?
Stephane Fourdrinier (00:40.495) I’m great, I’ve been very busy working on the tracking data for my heart actually.
Federico Ramallo (00:47.064) Great. Yeah, we’re going to talk a little beat about what you’re building because it sounds very interesting. So let’s talk first about what track our hearts solve. What is the use case of the application?
Stephane Fourdrinier (01:03.293) Yeah, to me, Tracker Hearts is, mean, you we all have a heart and we all care about, or most of us at least care about how it beats. So I’ve been frustrated that the state of the consumer market, I’m a pretty advanced consumer. So I mean, as you see, I have a few things on me and none of them give me exactly the data I want to see. It’s not a advanced data.
And that is the reason for me, I started exploring doing my own, basically. I mean, it’s an old idea, it’s not new. As I’ve been, I went through my own health journey. I mean, actually, the reason I started this is because I was in really bad health in the past. I walked too much, I built a pull-up from zero and other things and my health went really bad.
gained a lot of weight. My doctor told me that if you don’t change your lifestyle, you’re going to die early. And that was in 2017. And since then, I lost 80 pounds. And now I am in better shape than before. And I just had some heart tests. Even at my heart tests, I’ve been frustrated at what my doctor said. They just didn’t really look at me. So I am like, I am an engineer.
I can build absolutely everything. I can build something better than what already exists. So what I have been doing with the idea of building something better than any other things that exist. what I have been frustrated is that, as you see, I I have a ring, I have an Apple Watch, I have a Whoop, I have a Samsung Ultra, and I have more.
But I’ve been frustrated that it is all their own ecosystems. You can only see their data on, know, Samsung have, or in Oura ring in a small tiny app. And Apple, can only see the data in Apple have and Whoop, it’s only their own stuff. And the data is not complete. And that’s why I’ve been like, I’m going to build something where I can get all of the data from all of those devices and more in one place. And that I can look at the data in
Stephane Fourdrinier (03:29.053) my way because I am an advanced user. that’s basically the, what what I am doing with TrackerF is trying to build basically the most advanced biometrics platform to track all of your metrics for more than one device in one place. I mean, if you have one, it would work, but once you add more than one device and you can add so much more data.
Federico Ramallo (03:58.286) Right, because the amount of data that any of these devices provide, it’s better than before, but still it’s limited to their own platform and their own features. And you have so much access to data that is limited, right? When you want to get more insights, basically you cannot,
Stephane Fourdrinier (04:22.397) All right. And a lot of those platforms, have data, they just don’t show it. They don’t allow you to export the data. They don’t really show you the whole data they have. And to me, that has been my frustration. Like I’m wearing a Polar ECG strap on me right now, for example, but but they don’t show you all of the data they could. that’s a part that has been very frustrating to me as an advanced user. I want to see more data.
And I want to be able to make sense of it. I have more AI that tells me, gives me quick, easy things like, hey, changes, try this and do this. Like I started this too, because I started to be into HIIT, High Intensity Interval Training. And I wanted to know exactly what was my heart rate during training and to individualize it for me. And there was nothing that I was happy with.
So I did my own.
Federico Ramallo (05:28.226) Right, yeah, I hear you. I had that same issue with when I was using Apple Watch at one point. It gives you some data, but it’s limited to their ecosystem. So if you want to see your heart rate when you’re jogging, the Apple Watch is not the best device for that. And how can you integrate that data?
Stephane Fourdrinier (05:54.054) Exactly.
And more right, if you’re jogging or running or something, maybe you want to see here I have a SPO2 meter so I can measure my oxygen. I have two of them so I can pick which one I want. But I can also integrate with a foot sensor, with a foot pod. I support a stride as a foot pod. I can integrate with a muscle oximeter.
Federico Ramallo (06:08.93) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (06:26.095) as well, for example, so to know that. And then after that, based on all of these, I can give you so much more data. Like I can integrate with a VeritySense sensor, put it on my wrist, for example, and on my ankles. And now when I do that, then it gives me an energy strap and now it gives me a full picture of the body. And I could even show a demo of things where it really gives
much more complete picture you would have with only one device. Because now if you wear one of these at each ankle and wrist, I can literally have a more say 3D position of your body and power and all of those things. So there’s so much more.
Federico Ramallo (07:18.272) Interesting. So how the app would work for a brand new user? What induction workflow are you planning to build?
Stephane Fourdrinier (07:31.225) I’m still working on this because I actually, I I have a soft launch. I have three different types of users right now who are interested in this. One is people in longevity, wellness who just care about knowing what is going on. I also have people who actually have heart health issues. Like, my doctor said I should follow my heart and make sure that…
I don’t have any problem or like they want me to take an ECG of someone who contacted me on this. So those people, we just want to watch their heart. And then the last case is a sport, a fleet. People who really want to be able to have ideally peak performance, not over-trained or training in ideal ways. So I’m actually working right now because those are three very different use cases.
I’m working right now on what is the best way to support this? Should I have only one app or should I have multiple? Like I have people who want to use my platform because they are like, hey, can I give this to my mother or to my father because they have app problems and I just want to be able to see what they are doing and see them somewhere. So I’ve been…
I’m working on the usage, on the UI and how things will look like right now, because there are so many different use cases. So I have people who said, hey, I want to be able to see my ECG and the device I am wearing allows for that. But it’s a very different use case than the UFLEs and everything. So it’s still pretty early on this.
Actually, I welcome feedback and early users. I I do have early users.
Stephane Fourdrinier (09:38.757) There are so many different things you can do. One thing that I like to do is HRV briefing, doing these briefing exercises and looking at the impact on my heart rate and on my HRV.
So I might release more than one app, but it all would be the same account. I own Twaco Hearts, but I own TwacoVitals.com, Twaco HRV. So I might release specialized apps so people can see exactly what they want, but it would be one account across everything. So even if you use one or more than one, it will be the same data everywhere.
Federico Ramallo (10:29.186) Right, so being able to move the data across the platforms, it will be core.
Stephane Fourdrinier (10:35.193) It would be one account for you if I do that, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (10:39.854) It will be one platform for all the apps,
Stephane Fourdrinier (10:43.687) Correct, yeah. And it is always been called underneath, it’s always the same. I make sure the data is properly protected and everything. You know, like HIPAA, GDPR, all those things, CPPA. So I’m still working on those use cases right now because some of them are still different than others. Like should I put them in one app or should I put them in two or three different apps?
Federico Ramallo (11:13.442) Right. Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (11:14.661) And apps and there is mobile app and there is a web because to me, I get frustrated at using mobile apps for like everything. I like a web form where I can go and they have a much more significant dashboard, things that I could not do on mobile.
Federico Ramallo (11:37.112) Right, so you can show some data, some simplified data on the mobile, but then if you want to see the full data, you will need to go to the desktop, right? Yeah, makes sense, yeah. Yeah, I think more of the mobile devices, of preview information rather than trying to do everything on the device, right? You can read information more than you can actually input information, right? There’s a lot of limits of
Stephane Fourdrinier (11:45.927) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (12:07.116) the device per se, right? But it’s good because it’s portable, right? So you can carry it around with you, right? So what type of devices are you planning to support first? What are your ideal devices?
Stephane Fourdrinier (12:13.948) GAH!
Stephane Fourdrinier (12:26.589) So right now, I already support Polar devices, all the ones that have this open SDK. So if you have a, I’m wearing a Polar band on me, but I support 360. Oh, sorry, I support this. This is Verity Sense. I would also support, I’m working with Polar as a partnership. So I will support the Polar 360 as well, which is a competitor to the Whoop.
and I will sell it as well. I will also support, there is a very good quality sensor from MoveSense, this particular ECG sensor. so I also support this particular one. I will support oximeters, like the first one is a Wellu oximeter for your oxygen. And I’m planning to support many more sensors.
Ideally, I start with one of the sensors I can support and integrate directly. I’m also planning to support a headband, the Muse, for example, potentially, where I can see your brain wave and other things. To me, this is a great device to support. mean, basically, I can integrate with it, I will try to support those devices directly. I’m planning on supporting…
foot pods and bike pods as well so you can know your power. I mean, the goal of this is to support as many devices as possible, but it depends on your use case.
Federico Ramallo (14:05.538) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (14:06.895) As well as, I already support the Apple Watch as well, actually. So I can get all of the data from Apple Health. It’s not personalized enough. There is not enough data. It’s difficult. It doesn’t do everything that I can do with something like a Polar device.
Federico Ramallo (14:30.284) really interesting. I thought that Apple would have more info. Maybe it does, but it’s not showing up on third parties, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (14:39.488) It doesn’t show that one of the things that I’m very interested in is getting all of the heart rate every beat to beat. And with something like the chest strap I am wearing or even watch like this one, I can get, well, not really this one, but with a Polar 360 or some other devices, I can get every single heartbeat 24/7 With the Apple watch, you don’t.
They give you 60 seconds of interval beats, five times per hour. that’s it. So there’s a lot of limitations of things that you cannot do with sensors like this one, or even the one I’m wearing right now. There is a accelerometer and other things that’s on 24/7 So I know all of you, how you move, if you jump, everything you do. With an Apple Watch.
And I know that I can know that in real time 24/7. With an Apple Watch, I just cannot do that. So there are limitations.
Federico Ramallo (15:44.994) Right. Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (15:46.321) But now one of the things I am working on is what if you wear an Apple watch, for example, and a chest strap? I actually can do a blood pressure estimation. It is an estimation. needs to be calibrated. You have to be careful with the FDA aspect. It is just an estimation just for this indication. But I can actually do that.
about five times per hour because that’s when they give you the beat. So it’s something that I can potentially do.
Federico Ramallo (16:22.142) interesting. You can measure blood pressure with the Apple device. Estimated.
Stephane Fourdrinier (16:27.637) yeah, a theoretical point of view, five times per hour, because that’s what we give you the beat, can actually estimate. Not, it’s not measure, it is estimate. Yeah. And you can do that. I have a really cool demo if we have the time on how to get a really good blood pressure estimation.
Federico Ramallo (16:42.721) estimate, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (16:54.581) and blood flow estimation in your body if you were more than one diva.
Federico Ramallo (17:00.767) interesting. Because you can combine multiple device metrics. Interesting.
Stephane Fourdrinier (17:07.017) Yeah, one of things that is very unique with the platform I building is that you can combine multiple metrics. So that means, can I share my screen right now?
Federico Ramallo (17:22.05) Yes, you can share your screen and we can do a demo.
Stephane Fourdrinier (17:24.955) Yeah, I could show. Let me see. Yeah.
Stephane Fourdrinier (17:44.775) Yeah, as you can see here, for example, on this one, and this is not connected right now because this is an online demo. I mean, it actually could be connected. But this is basically, this is assuming you have a chest sensor right here, but you have a sensor at each of your arms and your leg and calculate.
literally how long it takes for your blood flow to go from your heart to your ankles and to your wrist. And this is simulated, but real data, meaning that this is really what could happen. And I can simulate different conditions like hypertension, tachycardia. And this is a real simulator based on clinical things. based on that,
So now if you wear all of those five sensors at the same time, even if you wear one on your neck for your carotid, then I can really have some awesome estimation of your blood pressure and your blood flow. I can detect if you have, well, I need to be mindful from the point of view, but I can detect if you have arterial stiffness or other problems, or if you have any blockage, all of those things. And I will provide
Federico Ramallo (19:07.341) interesting.
Stephane Fourdrinier (19:09.393) dashboards like this in the app where you can see this and more where if you move, you’ll be able to see your movement in real time and your oxygen and it’s not wired right now. like, so if you have an oximeter, like the one I have, you’ll be able to see this. I combined with this, so this is broken right now, but this is literally my heart right now. So my heart rate trend is broken. I broke it last night, but everything else works. You can see my stress index, my
HLV in real time, my average BIT, you can see my ECG in real time right now as I’m talking. Imagine if you combine my heart rate zone, I mean, and there’s so much more I cannot show here, you know, but you can see, you can add more than one sensor. And if you accelerate your meter, so if I move, can see everything.
So the idea is, and this is real time, like literally my heart rate, you know, right now. So now I just need to combine it with this and more than one device. But actually it’s really, really hard to have more than one device at a time. That’s why I guess maybe not many people do it. There’s a lot of challenges on this. Actually, and I have some potential patterns.
on this that I could have. I don’t want to discuss too much on this. So that’s basically one overview that I am working on. With more than one sensor. So the more you have sensors, the more eventually you would have things light up on your body. Oh, this is the oxygen in your muscle. This is much you can do.
Federico Ramallo (20:48.844) Right, you have it.
Federico Ramallo (21:04.362) interesting. Yeah.
Stephane Fourdrinier (21:06.798) And yeah.
Federico Ramallo (21:09.454) with multiple sensors, then you can cross-reference data and have better understanding of what’s going on.
Stephane Fourdrinier (21:16.987) With multiple trans-ops, you can have a great picture of your body. can do a close to, or I can do even a clinical grade sleep analysis, like all of your movement when you sleep, if you sleep apnea and everything. No, I’m not FDA, so I cannot. It’s just a wellness indication, but I can do all of those things. I built a service thing to,
view it in different ways where you can brief to and in the app, I cannot show it here but in the app, I mean actually I could now at this point connect it as well, you can brief and you can see in real time the impact of your, it’s called HRV briefing, it is you brief 5.5 bits per minute but I’m working on a one that adapts to you that does the most optimal to find your own.
resonance briefing. But on this, once you start this, you breathe.
Stephane Fourdrinier (22:23.845) And then you breathe out. And then after that, you’ll be able to see in real time the impact on your heart. And you will notice if you do those sessions, five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes a day, there is actually a really nice impact on your heart rate. And it literally lowers your heart rate. I do this almost every night before going to bed. And I see immediately the impact on the heart rate. Unfortunately, I broken my heart rate. the graph is broken.
I can connect that in the app. But that’s all of those things I am working on. And more, there’s so much more. This will give you the most complete picture of your heart health and more.
Federico Ramallo (22:54.414) it
Federico Ramallo (23:19.052) Right, because once you have access to this data and you’re doing this cross-device analysis, the possibilities are pretty much endless.
Stephane Fourdrinier (23:30.077) Yes, there’s so much you can do. People don’t realize. I think to me that’s my frustration with each ecosystem. Each ecosystem, or rather this tiny ring is great. It’s awesome. But there’s so much more that can be done. First there is a lot of data that is not shown as I’ve said, but once you combine all of those things, there is so much more. And one thing I have realized is I am into longevity and all those things.
And a lot of people are getting more and more educated. They want to be able to look at your data in detail. Want to be able to look at the ECG and understand it themselves because the doctor told them they need to look at it.
Federico Ramallo (24:14.21) Right, right. And the amount of information the doctor have is very limited, right? They have one blood. Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Stephane Fourdrinier (24:20.827) And with this
Stephane Fourdrinier (24:25.872) I mean, with this?
Stephane Fourdrinier (24:31.709) But with this, information you can have is, I mean, I have a use case where like, you can monitor your ECG real time 24-7 if you want for like one week. And like I have a friend of mine, a doctor told her because she irregular heartbeat, but every time she goes on this little tiny path, she never catches it because it’s only like a one minute or 30 seconds at a time.
So it’s impossible to capture, it’s really hard to capture to give it to the doctor under what conditions this happened. But with what I’m doing, because you wear this 24-7, if you want to, then you can make sure you capture it 24-7. And then you can know after that what triggered what. know, okay, this triggered, but maybe because of this exercise I did or this food I ate or these other things, it is like so much correlation you can do. And you can give this to your doctor.
My own doctor, my own endocrinologist is very interested in JSON.
Federico Ramallo (25:37.646) Right, right. They have more insights. I think we were discussing this off the mic that you can come with a doctor with more specific questions, right? And more insights rather than have these vague conditions that I don’t know what it is,
Stephane Fourdrinier (25:58.397) You can go to a blog post you prepared, you have questions in advance that the AI can prepare for you. I can even read your blog work if you give me access to it. And then I really can have a full picture for you. And this is one of the many dimensions of a platform.
Federico Ramallo (26:17.9) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (26:19.453) That’s more for a particular type of user if you want to use it in those ways. But to me, that’s why I’m building this because I am the three different use cases at the same time. I’m like a wellness longevity user. I mentioned that I was really not healthy in 2017. I had heart problems. And I try to get back into sports. So to me, integrating all of those things.
I’m only one place where I can see all of this data is so important to me.
Federico Ramallo (26:52.492) Right, right. Yeah, because the, had that same experience going to a doctor where I, you know, have the feeling that, well, they know more about medicine. I know more about my body, but I don’t have the information or the way to articulate that to the doctor. Right. And, you know, and the doctor says, come, come back to a checkup in whatever months, right. Three months in six months, whatever. Right. But I get the feeling like, well, you know,
It doesn’t quite fix my specific issue, right? It was more of a generic solution, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (27:33.693) And with this, you can have your own little analysis at home. Now, some people are scared to know too much, but for some other people, it’s interesting because now I can do a quick analysis. I can do very detailed analysis for you at home, for you and your family. To me, the goal is I don’t want you to be alone on this. I want you to have, if you have a wife and kids, it could potentially be there. Or if you have parents, they can wear the 360 or strap.
And with the 360 and all the straps, I can monitor them for you remotely. So now you can know, so it’s very unique. There’s no one really who does this. So there’s so much you can do on this.
Federico Ramallo (28:19.488) Right, right. I haven’t thought it about that way. I mean, we, when my son, when we learn about my wife was pregnant with our son, that was like 11 years ago, we kind of start learning about nutrition, how to eat healthy, know, kind of preparing for the baby, but also preparing for us because, you know, if we have bad
eating habits that’s also going to affect the baby. So we kind of, it was a I don’t know if trigger is the word, but it was an excuse, a justification to, well, we have to do better in our lives. So we both did this nutrition course, we learned about nutrition tables and all that stuff. it’s different in Mexico, you have access to a lot of
Stephane Fourdrinier (29:03.175) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (29:16.302) greens and vegetables are very, very cheap compared to the US, right? So we have access to really good healthy food on the cheap side, right? So we didn’t struggle with the problem of if you want to eat healthy, it’s usually more expensive. So how can you deal with that, Finding a good healthy food but at good price. So.
But still, there were so many things we didn’t know, so it was good for everybody. And then that changed our eating habits for everybody in the family, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (29:56.849) Yeah, I think this is also the intent for this for people who want to is you don’t have to, but if you want, you can put the food you eat in there. You just take a picture, you enter it, for example, and this works already. And then after that, you can see the impact of the food you eat on your heart. And I’ve learned some very interesting insights with this is that
Federico Ramallo (29:58.665) Thank
Stephane Fourdrinier (30:26.225) the food you eat, what type of food you eat, and when you eat the food, has a very significant impact on your heart rate, including on your heart rate when you sleep. If you eat heavy food right before going to bed, one hour before going to bed, your heart rate is going to be higher by like four, five, 10 more beats per minute, just because you ate some heavy food before bed. And I want to allow people to experiment, to see, hey,
If you eat, I don’t know, a salad four hours before bed, or if you eat a big meal with a big steak, french fries and all of those things right before bed, look at the impact it does on your health. And with the platform, you’ll be able to actually do that. I found that extremely interesting to see the impact and the exercise I showed before the HRV breathing, When I do this, when I do this and I do this almost every night before going to bed.
Federico Ramallo (31:16.92) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (31:23.215) It lowers my heart rate, my resting heart rate by like 4 beats, between 3 to 5 beats per minute compared to a night when I don’t do that.
So, yeah, and the food is, as I said, the food is also very important. So like, that’s I want to allow outside of the wellness and sports athletes for like, families and people, hey, what’s the impact of what you do, the food you eat, the time you eat? If you drink alcohol, I don’t drink anymore, but used to drink, I could see the impact.
Federico Ramallo (31:35.275) Interesting.
Federico Ramallo (32:03.928) Right, right. Yeah, you know, every time I drink alcohol at night before going to sleep, I have a worse sleep. So I start noticing these patterns with the limited information that I have access to, right? So this will give us access to, you know, experiment with our bodies in so many different ways, Yes.
Stephane Fourdrinier (32:28.839) For people who want to, yeah. I mean, to me this is, if you want to, you don’t have to, right? You can use it in whatever ways you want. But I like data, so, you know. And I know what people will do as well. So it does not mean I always act on it, right? I know that if I drink, I’m not gonna have as good as a night of sleep. But at least in the past, I didn’t used to care. I would still drink anyway. No, I don’t, but because I changed my lifestyle, you know.
Federico Ramallo (32:38.839) Yeah.
Stephane Fourdrinier (32:57.917) But sometimes there are changes you’re willing to make and other changes you are not willing to make.
Federico Ramallo (33:05.41) Right, right. But having the information allows you to make a more informed decision, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (33:12.817) And it allows you to maybe make the changes that you can make. Because maybe you’re not willing to change the food you eat. But maybe you’re willing to eat one hour earlier. Or maybe you eat at the same time, but you just change instead of eating a heavy steak at night, maybe you eat a little salad and a yogurt. It’s one change. But these are some impacts.
Everybody has different willingness to change only one thing, or maybe do 20 minutes of exercise a day that you were not doing before and look at the impact. Right? So like everybody might have one change you are willing to make. Some changes I know I’m not willing to stop drinking, but I’m willing to start doing 20 minutes of this exercise a day or change this one food and replace it with something else. And then you can’t.
Federico Ramallo (33:59.01) Right.
Federico Ramallo (34:10.626) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (34:11.494) Measure.
Federico Ramallo (34:14.03) One of the things that I don’t like about the Apple Watch, which is supposed to collect this variety of information, is that it’s too smart for its own good. So if you do an exercise and you don’t do the recording, if you don’t declare the exercise before you start, then there’s no way for you to go back and say, well, I was doing this.
We were walking with a friend and he has a smartwatch and he wanted to record the walking. But then we got into the bus and then the Apple Watch didn’t detect that going that 20, 30 miles per hour. It was still walking for the watch. And then we stopped at the bus. We walked to the bus stop. We wait for the bus. And then the watch was saying…
Are you done? Are you done? Are you done? You have you finished working? Have you finished working? You know, because you stopped, you know, so it doesn’t quite understand that, that, you know, what you’re doing, or it tries to get ahead, you know, like thinking, like predicting the future in a way, right? Like what are you going to do? Right. Whereas if you can collect the data and then analyze it after that, it’s less intrusive, more insights, you know, it’s better overall, right. And
You can make the decision of which devices you want to connect to you to get that data, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (35:46.961) Yeah, exactly. I have this problem with the Apple Watch all the time. It literally happened me last night. I have the Apple Watch and I went for a walk and I recorded the walk. I mean, it asked me after 10 minutes to, are you on a walk? But then I forgot to press end. And now my walk lasted much longer than it was supposed to.
Federico Ramallo (35:52.536) Ha
Federico Ramallo (36:09.966) Yeah, but if you recorded data, then you can say, from here to here I walked. If you forget, you can go back and say, well, go 30 minutes back and that’s where I end the walk or whatever. And then you can declare those stages in a much more detailed way. Yeah, it’s…
Stephane Fourdrinier (36:33.149) Especially with a sensor I am wearing right now, or different sensors, you actually can be smarter. Like if you know you go on a walk, for example, with this sensor there is an accelerometer so you can see the movement, you can start to detect when you have activities and stuff. And then potentially you can combine with another sensor, like a GPS sensor. I know you know you should go on a walk, but like, you’re going at more than six miles an hour. That’s not a walk anymore. Maybe it’s…
running, or maybe it’s a bike or a car or a GPS. So like once you have more than one, potentially you can actually do much better, smarter processing of data. Very accurate processing.
Federico Ramallo (37:14.018) Right. Right. Yeah,
Yes.
And the other part is what you were describing, that the data is locked in the platform. You cannot access to it. And I think that there is some of nanny attitude. So I’ve seen people complain. They get obsessed by the data, not the data, but the metrics.
like the rings on the Apple Watch. I have to complete the rings. Why? I don’t know, but I have to complete them. And then because of that, they start putting features to kind of not get people obsessed. But I believe that’s the wrong approach, because if you do that, you’re basically treating users as kids, rather than, you
give the users all the information, all the insights, and then they can make decisions, right? Are people going to be obsessed about one particular metric? Maybe, yes. But that’s something that can be worked out on each individual person on a personal level that you should not get obsessed about that particular metric because it’s, you
Federico Ramallo (38:49.934) It doesn’t work that way. It’s more about what are the insights? What are the averages? What are your tendencies? And if you educate the people, then they’re going to get a better insight and better impact on their lives.
Stephane Fourdrinier (39:08.753) Yeah, I to me, this is about giving people the choice. Let’s do things in their way. I don’t want to impose my way. I want to speak with the users and I have quite a few people reaching out to me and everybody is different use cases. I want to be able to give them access. Yeah, if you care about this metric, sure, go crazy and do this, but you know, just measure, make sure that if you go crazy, that you have a real
Federico Ramallo (39:12.514) Yes.
Stephane Fourdrinier (39:38.407) Benefit, right? Like, do you really have a benefit walking 10,000 steps versus 7,000 steps? Do you need to close this, right? What happens if you don’t do it? It’s just, this is up to you, but I give you the data, I can coach you in some ways and stuff, but it has to have the benefit and it is your choice. And it is what you said before. I’m frustrated that my data is as an advanced user, not everybody is an advanced user.
Some people don’t care. A lot of people don’t. But as an advanced user, I want to be able to take my data and look at it and do maybe my own processing on it. And it’s something I do want to allow on the platform. I mean, I am an engineer, so I can build anything. I want to look at my data and just have fun with it. But now I realize that if I give this to my mother, and my mother is going to use this, she doesn’t care. She just want to…
see maybe what’s going on, tell her like, hey, was it worth it for me to go and walk on the verand today or not? know, or like my, so I need to accommodate. Again, I need to give a choice and present the information to users in ways that to people, in ways that make sense for them. And I’m very happy because I want my mother to use this so I can know if she’s healthy or not, you know? So I will give her like a
They should bend, but I support that way, I will know everything about her health and I can monitor her remotely.
Federico Ramallo (41:13.762) Right, right. mean, you don’t need an engineering degree to drive a car, right? You can drive a car and it’s going to be fine. But somebody with a mechanical sensitivity and mechanical empathy will be able to detect, that bearing is making a sound. That tire is a little beat low, right? The steering is, all the little details that the car would have, right?
So.
Federico Ramallo (41:47.982) for us to have that information as advanced users, right, allow us to play with it, right? So if you can build the application that it’s usable for regular users and then they can become advanced users if they want, you know, or as you mentioned, you your mom can use the application and then you can learn and get all the insights as an advanced users, right?
then I think that that will be a winning strategy, right? Because you get access, you can provide service for the regular users and insight for the advanced users, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (42:30.999) Exactly. To me, I know I’m not the only one with this, is that I want to know that my mother is actually, because she’s far away from me, she’s like 7,000 miles away, 10,000 kilometers away. And I want to be able to know that, you know, she’s actually, she doesn’t have any problem. And maybe it’s not even for her benefit, but it’s for my benefit, for my piece of mind.
So it needs to be simple for her to wear it and to be able to use this. And I’m not the only one. I have quite a few people reaching out to me that, can I give this to my mother because she has a heart condition and I want to be able to know what’s going on because she doesn’t live with me. Literally, I was at my dentist last week and my dentist assistant, when I told her about that, she was like, oh, can I give it to my mother? And she signed up a mother to my wake list in real time in front of me.
Federico Ramallo (43:31.956) very nice.
Stephane Fourdrinier (43:33.489) Yeah, I have had a few people, literally, because I like to know what happens in my body. I have blood, have blood work done every three months. And when I was getting my blood work done, I explained, I spoke with a technician and I explained what I was doing. And she was like, this is really interesting. And then she called another technician, we ended up talking and
One of the technicians signed up to my waitlist in real time, that literally in front of me, she signed up for it. And the other one was like, my mother has that problem. I wanted to use this. And she signed up a model to my waitlist in real time. This literally happened like twice in less than a week, just people I’ve met in person.
Federico Ramallo (44:25.134) That means that there’s a demand and you have a customer feed.
Stephane Fourdrinier (44:33.021) But to me, this is more than that. I mean, I’m pretty passionate about it. To me, my mother is getting older. She’s 76 years old. And I care about her, even though she’s far away from me. And I want to be able to know what’s going on with her. And it is important to me as a person. And I know many friends who are the same, actually.
So it’s one of the things I will do with the platform eventually, or based on demand, I might do it earlier actually. Because I do have a good demand just for this particular use case.
Stephane Fourdrinier (45:16.945) But the possibilities of what can be done. So much.
Federico Ramallo (45:22.968) Yeah, my mom is, she had an open heart surgery recently and when she was on recovery, she had the heart monitor and she was having arrhythmia. So she was having 300 beats per minute and then 60 and then 300. So I can see a platform like this would be great for me to get her.
Stephane Fourdrinier (45:35.132) Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (45:52.802) Right. Yeah. Now she’s, you know, she’s not monitored, but she has a peacemaker and some drugs that limit the control the arrhythmia, but still it’s, you know, we don’t know. We could see it real time when the machine was connected. Right. But after that, we could not see that happening. Right. So.
Stephane Fourdrinier (45:55.485) Yeah, and it is very…
Stephane Fourdrinier (46:21.757) Yeah, that’s why to me, I am working on with consumer devices or with prosumer devices, as I call them. Like you could get really good data with very simple thing that is not very intrusive. I’m working with this manufacturer here. This is actually really good. That’s a really good device. This particular one to get really good quality ECG and hard data for about two weeks of time.
And I’m going to integrate, and I’m going to sell this one. I mean, you don’t have to buy this one because this one is going to be much more expensive. Okay. This particular one I’m wearing here is like 110 dollars. This one is probably going to be $400. think. with the import taxes. But then you’ll be able to get really good quality data for you or anyone in your family. It all depends on what you want to be able to see, but I think it’s…
Federico Ramallo (47:04.887) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (47:19.815) Yeah, important.
Federico Ramallo (47:21.602) Right, but I see the benefit of having multiple options of devices because depending on your need, if you really need the more high quality data, then you can buy the more expensive device, right? But if you don’t, then you can go with a cheaper option, right?
Stephane Fourdrinier (47:42.029) I support already, you can go on Amazon and you buy this. I mean, I do have to tell you which one to buy to make sure it really works, especially at first, but you can buy your own device. You don’t need to buy from me. don’t care. It’s not, I’m not a hardware manufacturer, but I partner also with some hardware manufacturer that provide better quality so that then you can have better quality data.
It’s your choice. As I said, I’m all about giving choice.
Federico Ramallo (48:16.738) Yes, yes. You mentioned before that you are raising funds, right? How much funds are you raising and where are you planning to spend it?
Stephane Fourdrinier (48:29.533) yeah, I’m actually just opening around right now for $2 million. Most of the work, most of the funds will be allocated for like engineering, like to hire a few people. I don’t need a large team, but it’s mostly to pay other people like me to work on this and develop. think with just a few people, I would want a lot alone.
I use AI tools extensively, so I’m extremely efficient. think with a few people, I can build a very profitable and very interesting platform for people. most of the user found that 70% is going to be to hire software engineers to help me. In addition, I want a good UX designer because the UX and the UX experience is extremely important to me.
So it has to be extremely user friendly. So most of the money is going to go there a little bit or so. I want to be able to talk with the users all the time. To me, this is really important. So someone, I mean, I want to be responsible for this, but I want to have a sort of like a community manager or something so that I can understand and speak with the users, understand their use case.
Prioritize what we build. But I think that with about 2 million funding, this is enough to get to profitability actually and not something. mean, I could launch something soon. I’m actually thinking about doing a Kickstarter campaign right now. Cause that actually would be good use case for this. I’m still debating whether or not I should do this Kickstarter campaign.
But yeah, I mean, at this point, if I could raise money, could launch something of quality in a few months from now. I’m actually going to open to early users. Maybe it’s June, July 18, maybe in a month from now, I will pick people for my waitlist. And I started to speak with some of them just for them to test in advance.
Stephane Fourdrinier (50:54.523) But yes, right now it’s $2 million pre-seed. That’s what I am trying to.
Federico Ramallo (51:01.774) Great. Great. And when you decide to start a Kickstarter campaign, let me know and we can put the link on the notes of this episode, for sure.
Stephane Fourdrinier (51:15.325) Sounds good, yeah. will probably, I will decide in the next week or two, because it’s a lot of work to do a Kickstarter campaign. That’s my biggest debate. But I think at the same time, speaking with different people, this could be pretty successful on Kickstarter if it is done right. And it could create a better awareness, but to me the community aspect.
on Kickstarter having a different type of engaged users is what I the most about.
Federico Ramallo (51:50.798) So what are you looking to build on the community side?
Stephane Fourdrinier (51:55.579) Yeah, to me, the community side is extremely important. We didn’t talk about it, but I want you to be able to learn with other people, share with other people. I have a small feature right now, it’s broken, but where every time you do a heart rate reading, you know that…
Federico Ramallo (51:59.916) Right.
Stephane Fourdrinier (52:23.026) And right now I’m doing it in anonymous way.
Yeah, it’s not.
Stephane Fourdrinier (52:35.709) Yeah, it’s to me, and this is really a POC, I don’t, but it will, okay, yeah. See, you can see that I completed, again, it’s been broken for like a week and a half, so then you cannot see the latest ones, but yeah, you’ll be able to see a community feed, you’ll be able to talk with other users potentially on whatever you want, exchange tips. I really want to have this.
this community aspect is extremely important to me. So that is something that I will build in the app so you can talk and discuss with other people, whatever you want. But that’s why I’m very interested in the Kickstarter campaign to jumpstart a community of early users.
Federico Ramallo (53:26.946) Right, right. So it will be a community where people can share their experiences and people could say, I experienced the same thing and then they can build more mature tips to share to each other.
Stephane Fourdrinier (53:45.233) Yeah, and to me, sharing either in public or sharing anonymously like here in this community feed, right? And again, is not, this is like, hey, this person, and I will make it maybe in the future, but hey, this person in Anderson, that’s where I live. did 10 minutes of briefing for example, right? And, but then I want to make it smarter afterwards where
These 10 minutes of briefing has made it hard. The heart rate was lowered by four beats a minute. To me, community, let’s learn from it. That’s what is interesting. And different things work differently on different people. So it’s very interesting to see what works on what works on what people. So it’s sharing and learning.
to me that is very interesting. What works for other people? Would it work for me?
Federico Ramallo (54:51.17) Right, right, that’s very interesting.
Stephane Fourdrinier (54:55.581) Because the impact of exercise on different people is different. What’s impact of exercise if you do this exercise on a 70 years old male versus a 20 years old female? It would be interesting to know. And people have different genetics. So, I mean, there are things that are universal, kind of, and there are a lot of things that are not.
very individualized. So to me, I really want to be able, I really want to do this anonymous community thing where you can see what other people are doing. I’ll make it in a very anonymous way, but you can see that, hey, this 40 years old man did this and this was the impact. This 60 years old Asian female did this and this was the impact on her. I think
once you can compare, so powerful.
Federico Ramallo (55:59.938) Right. Right.
interesting looking forward to see
Federico Ramallo (56:10.168) Looking forward to see how this application is going to look like in the near future. And I’m going to follow your journey on launching this application. And I really wish you the best success because I think what you’re building is amazing.
Stephane Fourdrinier (56:29.031) Thank you. Yeah, that’s why I built all of this alone right now. So if I could raise money and I’ve built over giant platforms for other people, so I know how to build things. But at this point, it’s too much for me. I need help. That’s why I’m raising money.
Federico Ramallo (56:44.236) Right. Right. Yeah, but I think your timing is right. You build more than a proof of concept and what you… Yeah.
Stephane Fourdrinier (56:52.049) yeah. I mean, I have things walking.
Federico Ramallo (56:57.068) Right. Yeah, you have the application working, you have the market fit, product market fit validated. And now it’s about getting enough funds to launch it.
Stephane Fourdrinier (57:13.085) Yeah, I mean, I have a metric engine right now. And actually, this is the old version. I’ve not published a new one. I’m already calculating like 127 biometrics, but the new version is 180. And I calculate all of those things. I mean, this is done. The part, and this was from one device, but now I have working on more than one device is complicated. But the time synchronization is a huge problem, but I’m working on it.
But I’ve done this, this works. mean, you can literally see it here. Right. I mean, I don’t show everything because I can’t. But it works. So I’ve done a lot of work already. I have all of the infrastructure built already and stuff. But there’s only so much I can do even if I’m extremely efficient.
Federico Ramallo (58:04.172) Right, Yeah, completely understand. yeah, I hope that, you know, being here helps you get the funding and being able to launch it.
Stephane Fourdrinier (58:19.365) I appreciate it. I could launch it without funding let’s be clear. But with funding, I could do so much more. I can really do something. I may go to do the best platform.
I built giant platform, I Apple Maps from zero and huge portion of Sony PlayStation and Tinder and even Crunchyroll more recently. I built other health apps. I can do it. It’s easy for me to build things. But every time I build teams around me, that’s what I’m looking at doing.
Federico Ramallo (58:54.189) Right.
Federico Ramallo (58:59.116) Awesome. So thank you very much, Stephane for being here today. I appreciate it. And I’m looking forward to continue the conversation.
Stephane Fourdrinier (59:07.677) Yeah, thank you for having me. It was great talking.
Federico Ramallo (59:10.798) Yeah, thank you.
Stephane Fourdrinier (59:11.997) Thank you, bye bye.