BACKGROUND
Masa Shinomiya is a senior mechanical engineer at Yamaha Motor Ventures, where he is responsible for providing engineering support for portfolio companies.
Previously, he worked as a body design engineer for a scooter in Yamaha Motor.
Prior to that, he worked as a CAE engineer. He supported structural design, such as for commercial motorcycles, race bikes, surface mounter, and various research projects.
Masa graduated from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology with a master of Mechanical system engineering.
In his leisure time he enjoys riding motorcycles and skiing.
SIREN CARE
Learn how health hardware startups go about proving clinical efficacy and market validation without access to serious cash.
THE CHALLENGE
How do direct-to-consumer healthcare hardware startups generate traction, validate the market, or prove clinical efficacy without the capital needed to manufacture and ship product?
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Unfavorable unit-economics at small scale manufacturing / shipping
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Tediously slow iteration / product development cycles
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Not enough cash to run clinical trials, yet adoption suffers without clinical efficacy data
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Siren Care creates next generation smart textiles; their first product is a smart sock that helps people living with diabetes prevent amputations.
THE 500 APPROACH
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Crafting a "Vision" Pitch: Experienced hardware mentors & former founders helped craft and refine a pitch that was convincing despite the lack of traction / tangible metrics that traditional software startups leverage for investment
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Coordinating Marketing and Shipping: Lessons from previous founders on how to properly coordinate and time pre-sales, marketing, and shipping efforts to reduce employee overhead, be efficient with resource allocation, and preserve capital
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Implementing Sales and Growth Tactics: Detailed workshops that taught how to methodically generate, implement, and evaluate experiments, track results, and establish a stack of tools that comprises a company's "growth engine"
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Refining the Business Model and Go-to-Market Strategy: industry experts evaluated and critiqued the business model and go-to-market strategy, helping to identify high-potential beach head markets and customer funnels
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Amplifying PR and Building Awareness: 500 leveraged its large community and brand prominence to amplify Siren Care's promotional content and messaging; the resultant awareness and publicity opened doors which enabled key milestones (such as Winning TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield) to be reached
THE RESULTS
Won TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield
After months of marketing, PR, and pitch preparation, Siren Care presented and won at the 2017 TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield.
Clinical Studies Underway
Completing launch of a clinical trial that will further validate the clinical efficacy of Siren Care diabetic socks.
Investment and support from Tier-1 VCs
Backing of several Tier-1 VCs has not only extended the runway, but has enabled the deployment of capital upon growth activities that will futher accelerate Siren Care's traction.
Henk Jan Scholten
Co-Founder
"The mentors at 500 are phenomenal. They helped us untangle our B2B sales strategy and taught us how to run and grow a company."
Henk Jan Scholten
Co-Founder
"We benefited tremendously from the advise of folks at 500 who had already built successful companies. Their feedback helped us grow Siren Care while avoiding the common pitfalls of startups."