Disablity and Progress-June 20, 2024-SnapSlide

[00:00:00] Speaker A: KPI.org. greetings and thank you for joining disability and progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. We are the longest disability running radio show, and Charlene Dahl is my research pr woman. Hello, Charlene. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Good evening, everyone. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Aaron is my podcaster. Hello, Aaron. He won't answer, but that's okay. This week, June 20, 2024, we are fortunate enough to have Rocky Batzel in the studio with us, and he will be talking about accessibility with opening medication bottles. Rocky is the CEO of Snapslide, which is dedicated to making it easier for consumers to access, use, and store pharmaceutical products. Hello, Rocky? Oops, we hear Rocky. [00:02:01] Speaker C: I'm here. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:02] Speaker C: Could you hear me? [00:02:03] Speaker A: I can hear you now. [00:02:05] Speaker C: All right. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:02:07] Speaker C: A little technical difficulties. No problem, though. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. [00:02:13] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. [00:02:15] Speaker A: So what I want you to start out with is please, like, give us a little bit of history background about you before snapslide. [00:02:24] Speaker C: So my name is Rocky Batesel from the inventor and CEO of snapslide. So before snapslide, boy, how far back do we go here? So I was a medical student. Oh, I was in medical school. Yeah, I was in this heart was set on becoming a doctor. I wanted to. That's what I wanted to do. Always enjoyed medicine and science and anatomy, physiology. And I was about my second semester in my first year of med school. I just didn't have the passion for it. I felt I was being pulled in another direction. So it was a tough decision, but the closest people in my life, they supported me. So I took the plunge. I said, I'm going to leave medical school and jump into the wild and uncertain world of entrepreneurialism and how wild. [00:03:15] Speaker A: And uncertain it definitely can be. [00:03:18] Speaker C: It is. So I left. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was like, okay. I just felt like something would figure something out. So I dabbled around, did some things, kind of trying to learn the ropes a little bit. And my mom came to me one day and was like, rock, you want to think of something? Think of something through these pill box, these child resistant closures. Graham can't get into them, so I have to go down. I have to open all her medications for her, and she leaves the cap on top of it. If you could just take it off without actually doing the cr child resistant portion. And then she knocks the pills over. Pills go all over the place, or the grandkids come over, she gets paranoid, she puts them back on, and the whole process starts all over again. I thought that was interesting. I'm like, mom, interesting idea. So I started a research, and sure enough, nothing has changed in child resistant packages in over half a century. All some sort of, you know, you probably use them all the time, you know, some sort of cushion turn, some torque. You gotta turn it right. [00:04:28] Speaker A: There's so many different ways to get your medication too. There's those whole little things that you have to push out the pills or something like that from those little bubble things. But we'll. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yep. [00:04:43] Speaker A: We'll get more into that. So when did you start Snap's slide? [00:04:49] Speaker C: So as I started thinking of my arc, I wanted to make a simple, mechanical opening procedure that allows it to just use less dexterity and force. And as I was thinking, I walked into a wine and spirit store, which is our Pennsylvania's liquor stores. So I walked in there, and I saw a lady handing out wine, and she was an amputee. She had her left arm amputated. She was an amputee. I'm like, in the canyon. I'm like, how does she open. That's it. How does she open bottles? And instead of going to the bourbon aisle, I went to the foodie drink aisle, and I was pretending to look for stuff, keeping an eye on her, because I was very intrigued of how she opens it. Opens a bottle of wine, and she had her mechanism. She tells she knew what she was doing. She was put it under her armpit, and she got it open, but it was cumbersome. And at that moment, I'm like, whoa. I'm like, I gotta try to figure something out that you could do with one arm. And it needed to be child resistant still. They needed a two part mechanism, like a push and turn, or a squeeze and turn. That's one of the requirements for child resistant packages, that child resistance needs to be a two part simultaneous procedure to operate it. And obviously, you need to be simple, because there's a lot of these, and it needs to be fast production, very low cost. And it just came to me one night that instead of twerking something, turning it, let's kind of go outside the box a little bit and make the mechanism more linear, more slide action. So I invented snap slide, which is a two part mechanism that requires you to, with one hand, hold the bottle and press on a tab and just open it up, and then the cap doesn't remove. So you're not juggling two different things. Three different things if you count the bottle, the pill, and the cap. Easy. Close. I noticed that a lot of the time, it's not just opening it, that's hard. It's closing it, too. And these are all things I learned along the way and had people telling me that not just my grandmother that struggled or the lady I saw in the wine and spirit store, but numerous amount of people have kind of a neat, like, dislike for these child resistant closures. So, been a journey, and we're at the point, a lot of development, a lot of intellectual property protecting it, all these things that you just have to do and learn the ropes. And now we're at the point where we're revenue production aligning with the proper pharmacies and wholesalers and to launch it to the world. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Wow. So what specific challenges we talked a little bit about with people with disabilities, what specific challenges do they face when it comes to medication management? [00:08:06] Speaker C: A lot of the time. Step one, when you have a package, all your prescription, they come in a. A bottle. That's a child resistant bottle. So before you could do anything, you got to be able to open the bottle. And during my research, I found that even there's about 12 million people out there that only have an upper arm difference, that can only use one, one arm to operate it, whether it's hemiparesis after a stroke or amputees, neuromuscular conditions, brachial plexus, spinal cord injuries. So I wanted to just create something that is convenient for everybody, but allows the access to be had for those that only have one arm, make their lives just a little bit easier and access medication easily. I was just. And a lot of research was done, a lot of trying to figure out the right courses, the right process to do it, and been a good learning experience. And I admire all of the. All the people out there that do have a disability that kind of figure out their way and kind of adapt. It's impressive. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Talk about how the snap slide works. What's the mechanism? How does that work? [00:09:29] Speaker C: It's a very simple mechanical operation. I removed torque turning from the equation, and you just don't know if you could see the screen, but you press on a button area, and you press it with one finger, and you just open it up. So it only requires limited muscle movement within the thumb area, within one finger, instead of two hands, using your whole wrist and all your fingers to open. [00:10:03] Speaker A: So you would use, like, a thumb in one finger. [00:10:06] Speaker C: You could use a thumb, you could use a knuckle. I've seen people, everybody has their own different snapslide approach. Some people use a knuckle to open it. Some people use a thumb, an index finger, whatever works for you. There's no set rule on how to open it. Whatever the best way is for you is the way you should do it. And then closing it is equally as simple. The cap doesn't remove, so you're never worried about juggling the cap, losing it. So closing it, you just slide it back and it locks in place. [00:10:48] Speaker A: So this is radio, so people understand. So when you open the bottle, the cap is not coming off. [00:10:59] Speaker C: Correct. That was one thing that I got. A lot of people tell me that, okay, opening it is hard, but when I have the cap, sometimes I drop it. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Right? [00:11:11] Speaker C: Place it. Yes. [00:11:13] Speaker B: And knock the bottle over. [00:11:15] Speaker C: Knock the bottle over. Pills go all over the place. [00:11:20] Speaker A: So then they can pour out what they need or get out what they need. And then easily close it again. [00:11:29] Speaker C: Easily close it again. Something you kind of overlook, you know, at least I did. It's like, all right, the problem's opening. That's what I was, like, focused on. But as you're learning and talking to people, you start to hear, what about closing? Closing is no fun either. That's challenging for me. I thought that was interesting. So, all right, let's. How can we make closing easier as well? And cap not coming off. That's one thing. And just very linear motion to push it back into place. And a click sound, an audible assurance. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Ah, gotcha. [00:12:10] Speaker C: Closed. [00:12:11] Speaker A: So what kind of materials are you using to manufacture your. Your closures and your lids? [00:12:21] Speaker C: Current materials are FDA grade recyclable polypropylene. I developed snapsi to be able to be material agnostic, meaning it could use virtually any material. But within the prescription bio world, polypropylene is the most common material used. Very recyclable, and obtains the proper requirements for the propels. [00:12:51] Speaker A: And you can recycle it, right? [00:12:53] Speaker C: You can recycle it. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Excellent. And so are you. Oh, go ahead. [00:12:58] Speaker C: The cool thing about this is that when you're, since you remove removing torque, if you can imagine anytime you're turning something on, it has threads, right? And these threads are layers, excess plastic that the threads need to go around in both the closure of the bottle and the bottle cap. So us being able to remove torque from the equation and get rid of those threads allowed us to save down tremendous amount of plastic. We use about 25% less plastic than any other prescription vial out there, which translates about 21 million pounds of plastic annually. It was one of those things that we didn't go into thinking, like, how can we say plastic? We want to make it easier to access it for anybody. But plan is just lined up that, oh, wow, we could save a bunch of. Bunch of plastic as well when we're doing it. So why not make accessibility easier and save some plastic while we're at it? [00:14:02] Speaker A: So do you have to actually change out the bottle that your med is in, or will this cap fit on any bottle? How does this work? Because somehow you have to get the medication to the proper bottle that opens in the way that can be accessible to people. [00:14:19] Speaker C: Correct. So our model is to get into pharmacies as you know, like, when you have a prescription, you go to a pharmacy, they get it filled, and they give you an amber color bottle with the labels on it. So we're working with pharmacies right now to get the bottle in there. So you get it when you have a prescription. So it comes with your label on it, your dosage, all the proper instructions for the medication that you're taking, just like you normally do now. So instead of getting those push and turn bottles, you'll get the snaps eyeball from your pharmacy. [00:15:01] Speaker A: And so, as I'm sure you had to address, and you were kind of talking about that a little bit, was the whole child safety thing that I'm sure there was a requirement there. So how did you assure that this was going to be a cap that was both accessible to people? Easy for them to open, but not so easy for a child? [00:15:24] Speaker C: Great question. So as I was going through, I learned that, like, it's a regulatory standard you need to have from the government agencies, the CPSC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission may regulate and certify if a package is child resistant. So you need that two part mechanism. First off, kind of like the objective definition. You know, simultaneous open, push, and turn, squeeze, and turn. In this case, press, and slide. And then once you have that, you have get your bottles made, and then you gotta get them certified through a licensed agency. And the test is a pretty thorough test. It's interesting. They take kids anywhere between 30 years, 30 months old to 43 months old, and they give them a bottle, and then they have five minutes to open it. After five minutes, they take the bottle back and they actually show them how to open it. The proctor opens it in front of them, doesn't explain to them how to open it, because you could explain a kid, explain to a kid how to do anything. So they don't tell them how to open it, but they show them, and then they give it back to them for another five minutes. And if they can't open it, that's a pass for that particular child and you need to get a certain pass rate and which is 90% or greater. And then they test adults same way they give them the package. Adults, I believe, have 1 minute to open it. And if they could do it 1 minute, that's a pass. So you got to do the child portion and the senior portion. If you pass both of them. 90% of kids can't get in. 90% of adult seniors can get in. Then you pass and you have an officially certified by the CPSC for child resistance. And we went through all those, all those testing and been a lot of development to get there, but that was a big moment for us when we did pass our PPSC child cert. [00:17:35] Speaker A: Just so I can understand. So there's clarity. So there's a 90%, you have to have 90% children that can't get in. So there's a 10% of, you know, they might get it open. [00:17:50] Speaker C: That's why. [00:17:51] Speaker A: And I presume that's with all bottles. That's straight across the board. [00:17:54] Speaker C: Right across the board, any industry. [00:17:57] Speaker A: So parents still watch the kids because it's not a guarantee, but it's nice to know that it's a pretty high percentage. But if you're in that 10%, that's not so high. [00:18:11] Speaker C: Yeah, it's that fine line. We could padlock the packages and make it impossible for kids, but, yeah, you're also making it impossible for adults. Right. Gotta walk that line. And that's why it's child resistance. We want to be able to resist children from getting in and hope that, you know, medications are out of reach, you know. Yes. Children know, you teach them, you know, not to take certain things. So it's a combination between the package and just keeping the kids away and do our best. [00:18:53] Speaker A: My research pr person had a question for you. [00:18:57] Speaker B: What about medications that are liquid? Can you. [00:19:04] Speaker C: Good question. Liquids. Were currently in the process of developing liquid applications right now. We were focused initially on just solid oral dose. You know, you got liquids, you got powders, and you have solid, solid oral doses. So wanted to just start with one, perfect it for solid, solid pills, and currently in the process of developing it for four liquids as well. [00:19:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:19:39] Speaker C: Snaps like school because you could put it on really anything that opens and closes, you could adapt it for. So liquids are definitely on my things to do list for sure. [00:19:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, I don't know what you're. How you're thinking. Just this whole thought came to me. Have you seen those, those mouthwash bottles that you squeeze and the liquid comes up into the bottle? Itself. So, and then it kind of locks in. So it, it sits there, there till you drink it. But it occurs to me, boy, that's not really accessible for people who can't see the level of how much you're measuring. For a mouthwash, it's really not a big deal if you get a bigger mouthwash mouthful than a smaller one. But for the liquid medication, it would be. So it'll be interesting to see what you come up with. I'm wondering what feedback that you have received from users regarding the snapslide. [00:20:44] Speaker C: Been getting a lot of great, great feedback. We made about a couple thousand snap slides and since our launch in May, we went through all of them. We've been getting a lot of requests on our social media and messages on our website for samples and packaging is a weird thing because we're not a consumer product. Consumers don't go out and able to buy packages on the shelves, you know. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:19] Speaker C: So makes it hard for us to be able to, you know, our customers are the pharmacies or the pharmaceutical companies who put their, their product in it in the form of pills and then the consumer gets it. So I wanted to make it. We've been getting a lot of feedback, people saying they need this and I just giving them out, getting snapslide out there to anybody who needs it. But shortly, it's going to be currently revving up our production capacity right now and to get it out there to pharmacies across the nation. [00:21:58] Speaker A: So hopefully people can start talking about Snapslide and getting that advertisement into the pharmaceutical places. [00:22:08] Speaker C: Need the support? Need everybody's support. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Yes. [00:22:11] Speaker C: You know, it takes, takes a lot to turn a ship to get these companies, get all the businesses to change, so, but it's one of those changes that's long overdue and we'll, we'll get it. We'll get it to happen. [00:22:30] Speaker B: So do you think the bottles that they use now are adaptable for your lids? [00:22:39] Speaker C: They are. We could adapt it to any bottle. But the funny, funny thing is each, there's a couple different bottles with different threads. Threads. [00:22:47] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:48] Speaker C: So we'll have, we'd have to adapt it to every single, there's about three or four different bottoms and adapting the closure to each one are different production for each one. That kind of makes it a little bit more challenging in terms of the cost to do it. [00:23:12] Speaker A: So are you more so going for, you're just going to make the bottle and the lid and sell it like that rather than trying to make a lid conform to each different bottle? [00:23:23] Speaker C: Exactly. That'll keep the cost down. And economics always important to keep in mind. And so that's the most economically feasible approach, and it allows us to save a lot more plastic. Like I mentioned before, we move those threads so that saves it in the cap, but also in the bottle, so we're able to. The entire unit itself. Bottle enclosure allows for a tremendous amount plastic. Even if we were to adapt, snapslide to another bottle, we don't get those. We don't get that plastic, that material efficiency. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Right. So are there specific disabilities that this would be, you know, conditions that this would benefit most? [00:24:12] Speaker C: Benefit most? We kind of break it up into primary, secondary, and tertiary demographics. So the primary would be anybody that only has use of one arm. There's about 12 million Americans out there. There are amputations to the national stroke Association. We were talking to them. It's a crazy statistic. 80% of people who've had a stroke have some form of hemiparesis, which is paralysis on one side of the body. So, yeah, that's a huge, huge thing. And I don't know, like, they're all on, like, especially, like, aspirin or stroke medications. How do you access a bottle? How do you access your medications if you could only have one arm to use? A couple people I met through this journey were veterans who got injured, who have amputations or even brachial plexus injuries, quadriplegics that only have only movement of one side of the body. So that's our primary demographic. And then there's a secondary, which you have both arms. We have limited dexterity. Arthritis being the big one there. 60 million Americans struggling with arthritis. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:41] Speaker C: And the tertiary demographic, which is everybody else that just wants to not have to worry about dropping the cap anymore, you know, a little bit more convenient. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Or dropping the pills. And. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:53] Speaker B: When you're blind, it's like. [00:25:57] Speaker C: Yeah, you drop that cap, you can't see. Well, I've had somebody tell me that you drop the cap and sometimes it falls under the couch. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:26:06] Speaker C: Wherever it's gone, it's into the abyss. [00:26:09] Speaker A: Right. How does snapslide compare to other accessible medication bottle designs on the market? Are there any that you've even compared to? [00:26:23] Speaker C: We're the first of its kind. We're the first child resistant closure that you could access with one arm, with one hand. We're definitely the widest in terms of material usage. And I don't know another child who's disenclosure that the cat doesn't remove. So it's been, yeah, we're we are one of a kind. It's one of those things that, here we are in the 21st century, everything has evolved. You know, your tv, your phones, everything's evolved. But we're, medication packages haven't really, and it's about, it's about time. [00:27:06] Speaker A: And why do you feel like they haven't evolved, do you think? I mean, I just wonder, like, obviously people have not screamed loud enough, right? Or they just tolerated the difficulty with having this, and not enough people have spoken out, why? Why haven't they done what you've done? [00:27:26] Speaker C: Definitely one reason, not enough voice, not people saying it, complaining. It's just one of those people think of it. They're like, ah, yeah, I don't like it so hard, but it's, it is what it is. There's no, there's nothing else out. There's nothing better. So that's it. And the industry itself, there's so much volume, there's capital invested in these huge machines that produce it that they're just pumping out volume. It's just something the business, the company, the pharmacies think is like a necessary evil, if you will. It's just something we have. Consumers, they're fine with it. And on the other side, in the consumer side, they're like, ah, it is what it is. You know, I don't like it. I can't access it. I figure it out. But like Henry Ford once said, if I ask people what they wanted, they say a faster horse. [00:28:27] Speaker A: So you kind of went down that road of talking about the, you know, challenges of expend, of, you know, expending the money for the machines to make these different bottles and whatnot. So can you describe some more challenges that have faced during the development and testing of snapsite? [00:28:53] Speaker C: Absolutely. So when you, when you're an inventor, when you invent something, that is the sheer word invention means it hasn't been done. So there's no blueprint on it, there's nothing you could take that says, okay, if I do this, it'll work like this. So the development process, we had to do a bunch of different moles to figure out that perfect, perfect forces, the perfect tolerances. You have one idea, you're like, okay, I think this is going to work. And it molds and it's the cantilever. The tab is too close, flimsy or it's not. We need more force here, we need less force there. And then we're like, ah, boy, back to the drawing board. So we learn from that first one, and then we do it again. And it's still not perfect. Learn, do it again until we get those perfect operational forces that meet the child resistance criteria that consumers feel that, yes, this is good. So a lot of testing, a lot of just each prototype we made, take it to people here, what do you think about this? They open it, they're like, ah, it's a little too easy or it's a little too hard, and we take all that research and we do it again. So that's how our process was, to finally hone in on the perfect operational forces. And then when it comes to the commercial side of things, I think the biggest challenge was just resistance to change. You know, companies, they don't like to change. It takes, takes a lot. It takes, takes something good and cost effective, but on the other side also takes the consumers getting behind it and supporting it. And once they realize that, oh, it actually is needed, then it starts, then the momentum starts. And that's kind of where we're starting to gain that at this moment. [00:30:52] Speaker A: So you mentioned, I know one vital part is testing. Testing is a huge, vital part for anybody who's coming out with something. How did you find your test subjects and how big of a selection did you use? [00:31:08] Speaker C: Early on, when I first started, when it was just me and I was really strapped for cash and I was just bad prototypes. I just go to random people on the street. I just build libraries like the grocery store with my little, I'm just walking around my little 3d print, you know, hey, what do you guys think? Do you like pill bottles? Well, try this. Would this be better? You know, and, you know, I get, I get some feedback there and then I learned a lot from my grocery store appearances. And then I evolved it. And you keep going and you get people, other believers, and you build a team around you because you can't do everything yourself. You know, others know more about you in certain aspects. You know, you need to surround yourself with good people. And as we were getting going, we used broader panel testing firms that specialize in market data testing to really get large pools of people to drive up our confidence intervals and to really male, female, young, old, all these different able bodies, you know, disabled of different levels. You know, just get everybody's perspective, everybody's thoughts on everything, right down to the size of it, you know, got really granular and just kept honing it in until the general consensus from everybody was, yeah, this is good. [00:32:55] Speaker A: You talked about, you know, obviously the safety regulations in regards to children and also at the same time, making it sure that seniors can continue to open them and access them. Are there any other regulations that developers of medication bottles have to follow? [00:33:16] Speaker C: Yep, there's sealing criteria from the USP, which was another process with the development. For be a solid oral dose, you have to be at least a well closed container means you have to have the right tightness between the closure and the inside of the container. So we were able to get through that through development, and we meet the USP criteria for world closed. That was a, that was a little tougher one. That one required a lot of development because we're like, all right, let's make it tighter. Let's provide more force. And now it's too hard, but let's lighten the forces. And now it's too easy. So that was one that we really had a hone in on, but got that under our belt, too. So I feel like you just never give up and you keep on testing and you'll eventually get it. Everybody told me early on that it's impossible to do, and one of the tough things about inventing something is that when you start, everybody tells you it's possible. You've got to prove a lot of people wrong. [00:34:25] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, how do you see snapslide evolving in the future? [00:34:33] Speaker C: I see snapslide getting into pharmacies across the nation and then expanding into over the counter drugs like Tylenol and that you don't need prescription for and then evolving into other, larger, smaller containers. I would like, at the end, the end of the day, I don't know when this is going to be, but you can walk down most grocery aisles and you'll see a snapslide on something. Want to be the third, like, a recognizable brand within the packaging space because it hasn't been. When you look at a package, you don't know where it comes from, you don't know what it is. I want to have that consumer facing package, that consumers know where the package came from, what the package is, and what it stands for. [00:35:20] Speaker A: I'm wondering if there's any thoughts of integrating, you know, smart technology into snap slide. And so let me give you an idea that I, I was just thinking the other day, one of the also problems is, you know, with a TBI traumatic brain injury, and do they remember, have they already taken their pills? Well, heck, sometimes I wonder, have I taken my vitamin C today? But maybe you could have that. So when somebody was accessing the pill bottle on their phone, it would go off and say, you know, dosage already taken or maybe wouldn't allow them to overdo it. I'm just curious if you've had any thoughts of pairing it with any other smart technologies. [00:36:10] Speaker C: I like that. Well, we should team up and do something. [00:36:14] Speaker A: I have thoughts, so I'll. [00:36:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I like it. Come on. [00:36:19] Speaker A: All right, let's go. [00:36:20] Speaker C: Let's develop something cool so we could. That's. I wanted to start out just as simple as possible. You know, just two pieces of plastic that perform a mechanical operation, because I figured that you could always add things to it. It's starting out as simple as possible, to be able to produce it in mass volumes, to be a package, you know, to be able to, there's 4 billion prescription volumes. And the more complicated, more advanced the technology gets with something like that, the less it's able to scale to those type of volumes and that price point. So that's why I started simple and try to build complexity and increase technology on it from there instead of the other way down. I love where you're going with this, and I think we should do something like that. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Excellent. I always like being a helper with that. I'm wondering how. I mean, obviously you feel like user feedback is really important to you as a developer of something like this. What, what did you. I mean, I presume some people do have your, your bottles now because they've been testing them. Yes. [00:37:48] Speaker C: Yes. Yep. [00:37:49] Speaker A: You sending them out and was your, was your grandmother one of the, one of the test people? [00:37:55] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. My grandma got a prototype number one. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Is she proud? [00:38:01] Speaker C: She is. She is. On my website, I tell this story, and just recently I got a picture with her to put on our website after the story. So it's a good picture. She's happy, she's excited. She just turned 97 years old not too long ago. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Congratulations. [00:38:22] Speaker C: Yep. I told her we're throwing party when she hits the triple digits. [00:38:28] Speaker A: Excellent. So can you share, I guess, the role that you think manufacturers and designers should play in making products more accessible? [00:38:46] Speaker C: Absolutely. I think manufacturers and designers need to kind of listen to the consumers more, like, be aware, see, see what they're saying, see where the problems are. Try to, instead of reacting to problems when, like you said it before, nobody's making noise, nobody's complaining. Well, okay, but try to notice problems before it becomes a, becomes loud, you know? I mean, just because there's nobody saying anything doesn't mean that there's not a problem or they can't make easier, you know? So being able to recognize the problems, I think, is the biggest thing. Not so much in the developing a solution, but discovering a problem. I think that's the big thing. Every looks about, oh, what a great solution. But it's more so discovering the problem. That's the thing. [00:39:57] Speaker A: Presumably, once you discover there's a problem, you can start thinking about what the solutions might be. [00:40:04] Speaker C: Correct. I think it's, I think a lot of manufacturers are able to, they're great engineers, they're smart people and they could solve for solutions, they could make solutions. But there's problems with discovering the problem. That's what's lacking, being able to notice a problem that you could then make a solution. [00:40:33] Speaker A: How can listeners support or get involved in promoting accessible medication solutions like snap slide? [00:40:43] Speaker C: Come to go to our Facebook Snap slide. Snapslide. One word like and follow us. We'll keep you updated on everything. Our website as well. We have a join the movement petition that's been getting a lot of, been getting a lot of traffic on that snapslide.com, one of the links on the homepage. A couple quick questions. And you're a movement joiner, you're part of team Snap. So those are the two ways that you spread the word. We just launched our social media and it's been overwhelming. We launched early May and from early May till now, maybe six weeks, we're just about to breach 10,000 followers. [00:41:34] Speaker A: Wow, congratulations. [00:41:36] Speaker C: 8.6. [00:41:37] Speaker A: Well, congratulations. That's, that's big. [00:41:40] Speaker C: Thank you. It's one of those, when you see it happen, you're like, whoa, I wasn't crazy. There are other people that are like, yeah, this is a problem. We're supporting it and it means the world to me. [00:41:54] Speaker A: So are there any partnerships or collaborations that, that have been crucial to the success of Snapslide? [00:42:05] Speaker C: Pretty much all partnerships I formed through the years have been a critical component, whether it's manufacturing partners or distribution partners, development partners, engineers, my partner Chasen, my coo investors that came on it and right down to the followers on Facebook, you know, everybody that had every other hand in it and somehow, and it takes a, takes a team, you know, to do anything. [00:42:46] Speaker A: So what, what other advice would you give to, you know, developers who are looking to create products for people with disabilities? [00:42:59] Speaker C: Never, ever, ever give up. You're, you're doing, you're doing well. You have something, you know, it could help people keep going. Listen to your gut, listen to the people that you're helping. Take advice from them, listen to them and keep going because it's hard. You're going to get a lot of resistance. You're going to get people saying, no, it can't be done. Or no, people don't want this. Best advice, never give up, and eventually you'll prevail. [00:43:37] Speaker A: It sounds like before this, you really never thought about, you know, the whole disability world, that it just wasn't, you know, in front of you. I'm. I'm presuming that this has given you a huge insight into people with disabilities, and it's really changed how you think about things. [00:43:58] Speaker C: 100%. I'm, like, fortunate to be not have a disability and you, until, like, you actually see it and you research it and go, wow, there's a lot. There's a lot of people and it's. There's challenges that I take for granted, opening up a pill bottle as being just one of many. And I found it inspiring and impressive how the solutions, the creativity to get around certain difficulties and creative ways to do things. I was very impressed with a lot of cool tricks of the trade that I've seen how people get around their disability. Then fighters inspire me. Abilities expo in New York in May. Awesome, awesome event. I love, I love everybody, the crew at abilities expo who are aligned in similar mission and went to their show and very probably the most. Not probably, it was the biggest impact I've had on my journey, actually seeing just the collection of people helping to coming together and at our booth, interacting with snaps, like, talking, sharing their experiences. It was a very, very good experience. [00:45:43] Speaker A: So right now, you said you have manufacturing going. When do you feel like you'll have these in drug stores or in pharmacies that people can start requesting them? [00:45:58] Speaker C: Currently we're in the process of revving up the production, the molds to produce it. So I'd like to be out in pharmacies by. In early 2025, next year. [00:46:13] Speaker B: Around the corner? [00:46:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's right around the corner. [00:46:16] Speaker C: Right around the corner, yep. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Are you going to. I mean, presumably people will have to request this first, because sometimes it seems like pharmacies don't think about who might need, you know, the more. [00:46:32] Speaker C: The more noise we can make, the faster it'll happen. Absolutely. [00:46:42] Speaker A: So do you get any type of funding that you have been able to receive for making something for people with disabilities? [00:46:55] Speaker C: We haven't received any, like, government funding or any funding like that. We've been able to develop all we had to do, just raising capital through investors. Just like any, any startup, any entrepreneurial venture, you start to get to a point and you're able to raise capital to get to the next milestone. So we were successful and able to do that and have a good team of investors that believe in the mission and need that support, the money. You still need the money to do anything, no matter what, how good something is. [00:47:42] Speaker A: That's so true. [00:47:45] Speaker C: Still comes down to the dollars. And you need that. You need that. I call it the gas. Like the gasoline. You know, you have your car, you have everything, but you have the fastest race car in the world. But if it doesn't have gas, you're not going anywhere, right? You know? [00:48:01] Speaker A: Well, Rocky, thank you so much for joining us. This. Is there anything more you'd like to leave us with? [00:48:07] Speaker C: No. It was a great experience and I want to thank you for having me. One thing, it's a common mistake. Everybody does it but named Rocky Batesel last name. [00:48:16] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:48:18] Speaker C: It's okay. I'm so used to it every time I hear it. I wanted to mention it earlier, but long. Aah. [00:48:25] Speaker A: Excellent. Okay. My apologies. Hey, it's all right. Well, thank you so much for coming on and we really appreciate it and good luck in the future, and I'll look forward to when I see the snap slide out in the pharmacies. [00:48:43] Speaker C: Looking forward to it. And thank you for having me jump on Facebook. Give us a follow and feel free. Shoot me an email on our website. Love hearing everybody's thoughts. [00:48:58] Speaker A: We'd love to. Thank you so much. Oh, what a great interview this week. We were speaking with Rocky Beitzel and I want to thank Charlene. Charlene is the one who brought this topic to the disability and progress program slot, and Rocky was talking about accessibility with opening medication bottles. Rocky is the CEO of Snapslide. If you have a suggestion that you'd like to hear, you can email us at that's her Q Charlene at did you take your headphones off? [00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. [00:49:51] Speaker A: You're supposed to email us at disability. [00:49:55] Speaker B: And progress at. [00:50:00] Speaker A: Me. Oh, my gosh. Good help is so hard to find. That's okay. Anyway. Yes, disabilityandprogressamjasmin.com is our email address where you can email us and put in your suggestions. That was a great one. I really didnt think of it. Yes, a lot of medication stuff. Opening is I feel a pain, but I have two hands to do it. And I know handfuls of people who dont or who have weakness or, you know, many other things. [00:50:40] Speaker B: You open the bottle and it you try to get one pill out and you spill half of them. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that's bad too. Especially if you have four legged helpers in your house. So this has been disability and progress. The views expressed on the show are not necessarily those of KFEi or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene Doll is my research piece person. Erin is my podcaster. This week we were speaking with Rocky Beitzel. Rocky is the CEO of Snapglide, an accessible company that is making accessibility for opening medication bottles. This is KFAI, 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and kfai.org. if you want to send us an email, please do at disability and [email protected]. thanks for listening. Goodbye. Dot.org.