Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Every day, we at Hutchison PLLC work with founders and entrepreneurs as they fight and grind and stress and push to bring their visions to reality. We are inspired by their incredible stories of success, of failure, of reworking and trying again.
Mike Halpert: [00:00:00] You gotta be okay with failure. And I mean that you have to have the skills, you have to have the support group around you that know that you're gonna go through way more failure than you ever will wins. And also the group that says like, Hey, you had a really good win. Let's, let's appreciate that because it will flee.
Trevor Schmidt: Hello and welcome to the Founder Shares podcast, brought to you by Hutch. A law firm in Raleigh, North Carolina that helps founders and entrepreneurs in technology and life science companies start up, operate, get funded, and exit. So whether you're already an entrepreneur or want to be one someday, or are just fascinated by the stories of how a business goes from idea to success or not such a success, this podcast is for you.
We are back for another. Installment of trying to get this podcast in place for VE coaching. I'm here with Mike Halpert and Anna Farrington. Thanks so much for coming on The Founder Shares podcast. Oh, so happy to be here. So let's start, [00:01:00] Mike, tell us a little bit about your journey to entrepreneurship.
How'd you find yourself Cee o of VE coaching?
Mike Halpert: Yeah, uh, I, I guess I'd like to credit my parents, um, and actually goes back to my grandfather, um, who used to say like, if you have something, if you know how to get something done, do it. Um, my mom created a program when I was a little kid, um, for kids with learning disabilities, kids with dyslexia.
Um, my dad quit his corporate job to help with that. Um, and kind of that has always been there. Um, and after college it was kind of, it was obvious, um, this is what I need to do, and there was different avenues. There was different breaks that I took. I need to get better at sales. Let me go help a startup with sales, like, prove that and then come and.
There was never a doubt. I, I don't, it's always a calling. Right. And I think, and when we say this, it was like, why would you glutton for punishment, but like. Almost How could you not? How could you not? Again, it's a calling,
Trevor Schmidt: you know? So, so like even from when you were a little kid, you thought this is what you're gonna be doing?
Or was it [00:02:00]
Mike Halpert: No, when I was a kid, probably 4-year-old Mike went on a 7 47 and I was like, I'm gonna be a pilot. Yes. Um, so let's, let's, let's put that and maybe I'll, I'll follow some, some local founders on, on flying a plane someday. But no, I mean, I think, I really think it comes to like this community, um, and being able to really be told, like.
What I'm bringing to the table is really special. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think you, when you're good at something, you tell everybody. And when you're great at something, people tell you. Mm. And I think what's happened even over the last couple months, the last couple weeks, the last week, to be told, that is really good.
Um, and to be told that impact of having for athletes impact as a founder, I mean, heck, I was having a bad day on Saturday. I was on the trail and I ran to somebody who had a Venture Connect shirt on. Mm-hmm. And he was there, uh, this last spring when I pitched, and he was like, Mike, you pitched on stage.
That was amazing. That like gave, that's what I want to [00:03:00] be, I want to do that. Wow. And what he didn't know is I was having a bad day. Yep. Right. We talk about this and I went right by my best friend was like, how'd that feel to, I just crouched to my knees and it was just like. Overcome with joy. Yeah. And what a reset that is.
Trevor Schmidt: So, so you think your younger self would be okay that you're not flying planes?
Mike Halpert: No. Younger self wants to fly planes, man. Have you ever been on 7 47? No.
Trevor Schmidt: Of course, of course. But like huge. I like to believe your younger self would be like, this is amazing Mike, you're doing great.
Mike Halpert: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think younger self would be, um, shocked at how much support.
Older Mike has. Yeah. And I think it might have always been there
Anna Tharrington: and younger self would think you're working with some pretty cool folks.
Mike Halpert: Oh man. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, so
Trevor Schmidt: speaking of pretty cool folks, we have my law partner Anna Harrington, on today. Friends of the podcast will remember Anna's voice from, uh, the episode we did on, uh, startups and financing.
That's right. But what you may not know is that in [00:04:00] addition to being an amazing venture attorney, Anna was also a division one athlete back in the day. So tell us a little bit about that.
Anna Tharrington: Yeah, so, um, I grew up in Eastern North Carolina.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm-hmm.
Anna Tharrington: Um, played a few sports, uh, tried to do pretty well on them, but ultimately went to school at UNC to play softball.
So, um, there weren't many Division one a CC programs. In North Carolina at the time. So state Duke, those guys didn't have programs yet. Um, UNC did and so wanted to stay close enough to my family. Um, hopefully they could see me play. So did that, and that's how I ended up at Chapel Hill. Everybody knows I'm, I'm diehard light blue go as the pants suggest.
Um, but then from there, played four years there. I went to grad school in law school at UNC as well.
Trevor Schmidt: Okay. So I, it ties in, but maybe we should just take a step back and say, what if, if you could describe what their coaching does for the folks who are listening at home.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, sure. VR coaching in this timeframe, um, is a VR app, uh, on the Oculus headset.
Um, athletes put it on and go through vision training exercises, um, trains, [00:05:00] hand-eye coordination, and that's kind of a really cool start, um, where we're at to help athletes be better.
Trevor Schmidt: And so when you say vision training, what, what exactly is that? What does that mean?
Mike Halpert: Yeah, good question. We assume that the eyes work in sync and.
From our research and from years of doing this, we actually know that they don't. Um, and that's actually funny. I actually had a friend of mine send me a, a Instagram really the other day that was like, Hey, you know, our nostrils actually don't work in sync. Like, like our body like doesn't work in sync and we just like make this assumption.
Yeah. Um, so what vision training really is, is like training the muscles in the eyes that if I can actually train them to actually work together, they can pick up information sooner, process it sooner, and then actually like be able to better predict. Where it will be. Mm-hmm. Um, which again, is really overlooked.
And when I've talked to college programs and I've talked to even high school volleyball, high school volleyball coaches, they're like, yeah, we see our athletes are struggling. Like they, they can, like coaches especially, can see this gap [00:06:00] and the fact that like there can actually step in there and. Help in that situation is massive.
Trevor Schmidt: So it sounds like it's a, I don't wanna say a mechanical issue, but it is almost like a, a muscle or mechanical issue within the eye.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So the neuroscience behind this is so saying that like, Hey, we can actually train these muscles. Hmm. And what's really cool is, like when I was working with Duke football, it was like, wait, we, we warm up every other muscle before we go out there.
Right? And, and coaches talk about like how important the mental side of the game is, but like, bam, we can get better. Right away. Mm-hmm. Man, I have to use, use this in the dugout. I mean, imagine use this in the dugout before getting out there. Right? Like that, that feeling of like taking a second and then being like, I know I'm gonna see this ball.
Trevor Schmidt: So that's an interesting segue. Was this vision training something that you talked about kind of when you were playing, or is an idea that you, you had a, or thought about?
Anna Tharrington: So admittedly, I'm, I'm old. Uh, but, but it was coming, uh, when I was coming through, we were starting to have the conversation about how to use simulations, right?
How to, what data means in sports, how to use, [00:07:00] you know, through software, how you can look at your swing, um, and make corrections to it. And, you know, they're sort of the perfect trajectory of a swing at that time. So that stuff was talked about, but not vision as much. Um, but it. I totally buy into sort of what you're saying in terms of, of it's another way to train, another way to prepare and, and obviously sort of having had the benefit of doing this once before can, can vouch for, you know, that you can see meaningful differences with, with small.
Chunks of time, which is a little bit different than going, having to do 30 minute weight lifting, exercise, you know, 40 minutes of cardio. Those kinds of things we did every day, but we didn't do this. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: So you, you touched on a little bit, Mike, but how do, how do people or teams benefit from vision training and how do they kinda work it into a.
Their existing systems.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, that's actually really cool. Um, so next week I'll actually be in Austin, Texas. Um, Casey Murphy Gold Medal winner with the US Women's National Team. And, uh, goal you're here for the courage, um, is having us actually at her camp for goalkeepers. And so we're actually gonna implement into a practice.
So young, young soccer [00:08:00] players will be coming through to different stations and one of the stations will have headsets and the players will actually be able to go through. So actually be able to work that in, um, for some teams. Again, baseball, softball. They have it in the dugout. Mm. So as far as for practice, it's a rotation, right?
It's, it's, Hey, we have three or four stations before a game. This is gonna be one of those stations, um, for a game. Hey, before you go in. I mean, some of my guys that I, that I've had in, in AA this last year, they had it like right before they left, right before they leave the clubhouse, put this on and go do it.
I mean, it's 30 to 60 seconds of training. Mm-hmm. Orange volleyball in Hillsborough did this. They did it a couple times during practice and coachable will be like, Hey. You three, you're gonna do it right before the game, right? Because like we, and as we grow and we'll have a little bit more data for these players and coaches, like when is it actually best for Anna to do it?
Right. When does she useable? And we can use that of like, Hey, for her it's 15 minutes before she goes to a bath. Like, like that. That would be incredible.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. I mean, and then it sounds like maybe you don't have the data for it, but is it something where [00:09:00] it's like the closer in time to when you're actually using it makes sense?
Or is it more like, I don't know, conditioning? So your respiratory system's stronger, better? It's always gonna be kind of improved.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, so it's a little bit of both. Okay. Right. So again, some people are a little different. Um, and it's also like if you're have some athletes, we have a bad game. Yeah, right. I mean, we just have a bad moment.
So like where can you go for a little bit mental reset to step away from it? Um, so that's one. But I think the other side is right, some implementing it, that it's part of routine athletes have routines, right? They do their stretches, they do band work. Like there is things, and what we want is there to be one of those 6, 7, 10 things.
And so when it's part of routine, it's just natural. Uh, and, and the concept being is that like. You can always get better. Mm-hmm. Right. And athletes don't miss a lift, they don't miss practice. They know that when, and we want it to be kind of right in line in that activity.
Anna Tharrington: I can also see it being really helpful with sort of your, your mental confidence.
Right. Like, I did the work. Eyes are, you know, muscles are good, arms, good [00:10:00] swings, good eyes are good.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah.
Anna Tharrington: You know, sort of a, a check-in sort of with the whole body. Yeah. As you, as you get into. Your hitting or your routine or whatever you're going for.
Mike Halpert: Yeah. And it was really cool. I had a, a baseball coach was using this last week.
He had a camp for middle schoolers at his facility, and he had this one middle schooler. He went through three rotations. Three rotations. So 10 swings off a machine O for 30 mm. Right. And the coach is like, Hey, come here one second, put the headset on. Do this. Went four for 10. I mean, what an absolute shift and what is, and again, like this comes back to like, you talk about like young Mike, like this was like, what does that feel like to go from like struggling and frustrating and probably either throwing the bat or throwing something or leaving a sport?
Trevor Schmidt: Hmm.
Mike Halpert: I mean, this is a concept that we're able to have early intervention on this and say, Hey, we're gonna help you. And that's what's really cool, right? Is like we're gonna get college athletes to pro athletes using this, that get the eight, the 10, the 12 year olds buying in and saying, I wanna be. Like Mike, [00:11:00] that to you, did they know there?
It's, but like, but like there is that, there is that feeling right. Of like, hey, let's, let's, let's shine a light on
Trevor Schmidt: this. Yeah. So it sounds like it can be used all ages. So like is there kind of a sweet spot that, that you found for like, people who are willing to give a shot or do you find easier adoption for kids who are used to headsets or what, what are you finding out there?
The drive. I mean the
Mike Halpert: athletes that wanted the drive, right? Mm-hmm. A high school player who's going? D one. She was first in line, right? She knew she was getting better, right? Anything that makes me better, you give it to me. Anything that makes it better, and I say for college coaches, what's actually really nice is they say, Anna, who on your roster is struggling?
Let's start with them. And the reason in being is that if I went through your whole 25 person roster, it kind of gets a little lost. But if you saw 1, 2, 3 players have an uptick and you're like, wait, hey, what's Anna doing? What are these people doing? Why? It starts to really start to snowball and that's like kind of a really cool thing we're seeing with college teams is saying [00:12:00] one like coach knows.
Player knows. Mm-hmm. Right. Previous program, I mean we had an SEC player go from third string catcher, utility outfielder to first string and a 12 game hitting streak in SEC play and that was with old science. What we got now is better.
Trevor Schmidt: That's amazing. It's all, it's just, it's gotta be exciting just to see that that impact that you're having with athletes as well.
Mike Halpert: YI mean, it's life. Yeah. Right? I mean, what do we talk about this, right? Especially like, we see that in sports, right? We know the, the amount of women who are successful in business who played division one sport, and part of that is having confidence. Mm-hmm. And part of that is like, where do you go when you don't have that confidence?
Right? And like, you know, and that part of that is like, what do we, how can we shift? And how can we give this support? You're, you, you name this, right? Over the last 20, 30 years, we've had so much data come in that like you almost become robotic. But like at ver we, we want you to be a better athlete. The outcome will come, but like we're looking at where you are right now and where you will [00:13:00] be and the data will follow.
And that's what's really cool is that again, to go from like missing a ball, to barreling it, to having clean contact. That's the sweetest one. The sweetest sound
Trevor Schmidt: in sports for sure. Now, and have, did you go through a period of time in your career where there was like a, a lack of confidence or went through a slump that you feel like confidence could have turned you around?
Anna Tharrington: Yeah, so when I played at UNC, I was a catcher. Mm-hmm. And we spent a lot of time, you know, we did the drills and those kinds of things with balls and stopping them, but we didn't, you know, we focused a lot on hitting.
Hmm.
And being able, they would always say eye on the ball, see the ball. Um, but I think now as everybody gets to see more softball, like on World Series Play and now on ESPN, it's becoming a bigger deal.
You get to see where folks are really standing on the field. And so you've got your third basement, you know, halfway between the plate and third, it's fast. Mm-hmm. And those balls are coming off really fast. And so now I think about some of your technology and the things you're working on and how good that's gonna be for these folks with their reaction [00:14:00] time and, and actually being able to see the ball.
You're not just hearing, see the ball, find the ball. But actually having the tools to allow you to do that, I think, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna make softball more interesting, but it's also gonna make this kid safer.
Mike Halpert: Yeah. And it's, I mean, what we had in the College World Series last year, like what, 77 miles an hour?
I mean, that is wild. Yeah. Like one, good luck seeing it, but two, I mean, yes, there also is a lot of education, right? And what's been really cool is having some teams come on this, but like we're talking about, like, I've had a coach be like, I want. Your left eye to be looking at the pitcher and the right eye to be looking at the ball.
And we're like, you can't do that. Right. And with this training, what we're really doing is training the muscles in the eyes that you can actually see the whole area. 'cause the, the concept that we grew up with it right eye on the ball, it's like you actually don't want your eye on the ball because by the time you have the eye on the ball, the ball's in the catcher's net.
Like what you actually wanna do is follow the trajectory of where that ball will be. And what's really cool is we had a college player D three last year, did it for six weeks leading up to the [00:15:00] season. He started off the season with seven walks, like interesting. He saw the ball, he texted his coach. I'm seeing the ball better, right?
'cause it's, it's not trying to make contact. It's where will this end up? 'cause you have, I mean, especially softball, you have so fast, you don't have enough time to actually make a decision, right? You just go or don't go. You know? And, and I'll tell you this, right? It's like the swinging, the strikeouts, especially those, it's overcoming failure.
So the thing I wanna name with confidence is. You have the reason why. You talk about this of athletes being really successful after their sport is they had to overcome. And so what we wanna do here is to help athletes overcome because to the ones that just fail and they're gone
Trevor Schmidt: mm-hmm.
Mike Halpert: They might come back 10, 20, 30 years and reflect.
But what if you were able to have them overcome in seconds? Right? What if they could learn the actual skills? And that's what we're building with there. We're starting with vision, but what if we can actually train, have these athletes actually, 'cause it has to be quick. Mm-hmm. There's not much time [00:16:00] in your schedule.
To like learn these skills to actually overcome, because we want the person, right? Investors want the person who's overcome, right? Because you're not gonna fail. They're gonna invest in
Trevor Schmidt: you.
Mike Halpert: Mm-hmm. That's awesome.
Trevor Schmidt: That's amazing. Uh, so we're gonna try something, uh, we're gonna have Anna use one of the VE coaching headsets and, uh, we'll have Michael and Anna kind of walk through what you're seeing, what you're experiencing.
Alright. And, uh, just to kind of talk through how it goes.
Anna Tharrington: I'm
Mike Halpert: excited.
Trevor Schmidt: Okay. Yes. So, so how we do this, Mike?
Mike Halpert: Alright, we'll set up a headset. Okay. Um, we're gonna do it before or after we have to. Otherwise she just like went through a cool app. Um, so I'm gonna have her throw a ball with her non-dominant hand.
Trevor Schmidt: Okay.
Mike Halpert: Um, and try and catch it. Yep. Uh, we're gonna have video of that. So look for the socials, um, and then have her go through the app. Uh, she'll talk about that experience and then throw the ball after. Again, non-dominant hand, right. We're teaching hand eye coordination. Okay. How can she predict where the ball will be better?
Trevor Schmidt: Yes.
Mike Halpert: Excellent. So, so I'll put this on your non-dominant hand. All right. And [00:17:00] do this. You're familiar with the moon ball, so it's gonna bounce all over the place. I've never done
Anna Tharrington: a moon ball bounce back.
Mike Halpert: Yes. This is gonna be exciting.
Anna Tharrington: All right,
Mike Halpert: there we go. Okay, so do this. I'm gonna get outta the way. Okay.
You're gonna throw this out and so step a little bit towards us and then you're gonna throw that way.
Anna Tharrington: Well dud throw.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, it's fine. You gotta
Anna Tharrington: also throw with your Do gotta throw your dominant. All right. See your difficulty?
Mike Halpert: Mm-hmm. It's harder, right? Yep. So say now when you're clearly seeing the ball come back to you
Anna Tharrington: now. Yeah. Go again. So it's it's in tight.
Mike Halpert: It's in tight,
Anna Tharrington: right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Mike Halpert: Yeah.
And you, you almost, and you can see like you were reacting.
Anna Tharrington: Yeah, right? A hundred percent.
Mike Halpert: Which is like. Catcher wides, you're kind of beat. I also
Anna Tharrington: say it's hard to talk to you and do it
Mike Halpert: like you don't. Well, good thing for athletes, they only do one thing at a time, ever.
Anna Tharrington: Exactly.
Mike Halpert: All right. Um, and that's a really important thing to name, you [00:18:00] know, like athletes are always doing multiple things and always having to processing multiple things For sure.
Anna Tharrington: So you're hearing things, you're seeing things
Mike Halpert: All right. All things. So you're gonna throw this on and then you're gonna put that,
Anna Tharrington: okay.
Mike Halpert: All right. Now you're gonna go through and let's do about 20 arches.
Anna Tharrington: So my little thing, where am I supposed to see there? Okay, there we go.
Mike Halpert: There you go.
Anna Tharrington: And I'm just clicking these as I see 'em.
Mike Halpert: Exactly. Yeah. So it's five arches, it's random and it's gonna blink twice.
Anna Tharrington: Oh, okay. I gotcha. There's the fifth.
Mike Halpert: Cool. Field of vision. Um, and what's really cool is for her, it's gonna look like it's blinking twice. So like the top right one is blinking. Bottom right, one's blinking. But what it's actually doing is blinking one in each eye.
Like that's what our IP is actually about. So this is the exercise that we're actually training the muscles in the eyes. And she's doing this, what, 20, 30 seconds? Um, and I'll take us off in a second and we're gonna have her throw it back. And again, not much time. I think
Anna Tharrington: I'm getting better at it. I don't know what this will be, Mike, but it's almost like I zoom out in my eyes kind of, and I could see more sense.
Mike Halpert: And that's what we're talking about, is that now you're able to see the field of play a lot better. 'cause when we're talking about volleyball, [00:19:00] baseball, like softball here, close your eyes just because we're gonna bring you back into the real world now. All right. All right. Here we go. Right. Um, all right, so first throw doesn't count because we're reacclimating.
Um, but throw the ball again.
Anna Tharrington: Eh? I like my first throw to count.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, it's valid. Yeah. All right. Trying to take the pressure off, you know?
Anna Tharrington: So a couple things. I would say that, you know, your point of sort of where you see the ball. Yeah.
Mike Halpert: You were seeing it like right here before I would guess
Anna Tharrington: a foot or two further out.
Right. That's
Mike Halpert: really cool. After 20 seconds, 30 seconds. And the other
Anna Tharrington: thing from a catching perspective, like you probably, if you were to watch this video over, I think my most ones I call, I call here.
Mike Halpert: Yeah.
Anna Tharrington: In the first round. And I think probably this one, you're catching 'em further out. Just I, and I think that probably comes from, again, picking the ball.
Further out.
Mike Halpert: And you also talked about it was really d difficult to talk to me and throw it at the same time.
Anna Tharrington: Oh, yeah. Now I can almost look at you, Mike. Isn't that wild?
Trevor Schmidt: All right, Anna, so maybe you could summarize how, what was your experience kind of through going through that?
Anna Tharrington: Yeah, so, so super neat. Um, highly encourag anybody to try [00:20:00] it out.
So the, the headset at, I guess starting back to win first time, what I sort of mention again, I, I pretty prideful. I think I am above average for somewhat gray haired person being able to catch a ball. But you know, the bounce of that and sort of the catching inside, like I was definitely picking it up late at best.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah,
Anna Tharrington: right. So that was, that was, it wasn't easy. Uh, a little humbling. And to your point, maybe not, not exactly as confident coming outta that as I thought. Um, then moving into the headset, you know, I'm interested to know exactly what I was seeing. To me, what it looked like was, you know, headsets on, I sort of in the beginning was very zoomed in to trying to find the blinks, right?
So that would, you probably saw some, like head moving, some stuff going on, but trying to find where they were. And then as after, you know, 10, 15 seconds of this, it was like you kind of settle in a little bit and you start just seeing. The different sides of it, right? Yeah. So I could kind of see the whole landscape as opposed to trying to move around to find things.
In my eyes, it was like I sort of stayed neutral and I could [00:21:00] kind of catch the whole landscape. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Mike Halpert: A thousand percent. A thousand percent.
Anna Tharrington: So what, what was going on with that? Like why, what were they blinking? Like what were they doing?
Mike Halpert: Yeah, sure. Um. And we, yeah. We'll start with a pre, so what was happening, right?
Mm-hmm. Is we're training the muscles in both eyes. So what we were doing is every time it blinked twice, right? Mm-hmm. Each, each arch plate. And it wasn't blinking twice. No. It blinked one in one eye. One on the other, which is hard, which is why you said like, I'm getting faster at this because you were Gotcha.
Right? Because it's like one and then the other, and one, and that's why it's really cool to do this right before game, right before volleyball match. Right, right. During a timeout. Right. Like, hey, just wake those muscles up. Gotcha. And so that's what that's doing. And that's like our first exercise and our first round in this is like just getting to do this.
Right? Because there's two things that happen there, right? One, you're getting better. Yep. And two, you're, you wanna compete with somebody in that.
Anna Tharrington: Gotcha.
Mike Halpert: Right? Like we want, we want a team of like you did in 45 seconds. I did in 41. Guess what's gonna happen tomorrow before practice? [00:22:00] Anna's gonna be in here going for it.
Anna Tharrington: Yep.
Mike Halpert: And who wins the team?
Anna Tharrington: Sure. That makes sense. Do people, I was thinking as I was going through it, sort of, well back up, we'll kind of go to the end, right? Yeah, yeah. Like comparatively to the beginning, right. What I would sort of say was, if I were trying to judge myself on this. And give myself good marks.
I would say pick the ball up further out, which is good. Yeah. And again, a little bit more able to manage the rest of everything that was going on in the room and still catch the ball. Right. So like the focus, it didn't take as much intense focus to be able to grab the ball as it did in round one. Right?
Like, I could talk to you pretty easily, could glance at the camera, could do some stuff, um, could get hit in the face with one. But it was, didn't happen. Did not happen. Um, but yeah, it, it didn't take as much energy to sort of do the thing I was trying to do.
Mike Halpert: Think about that in a game. Go back, right? In a game, how many pitches do you have to catch A
Anna Tharrington: ton, right?
Mike Halpert: At what [00:23:00] stress level one to 10. Are you catching? That
Anna Tharrington: depends, but usually, I mean, yeah, that's can be a lot of reps of high stress stuff,
Mike Halpert: right? Yeah. Versus we took the stress down.
Anna Tharrington: Yep.
Mike Halpert: You can pick it up sooner. And also, you name this, right? You can process other information. Right? Because as a catcher, you're not just trying to catch the pitch, right?
You're like, what's the bater gonna do? Is the batter about the late on a bunt? 'cause the second I know that. One Qing teammates, but two, you can be ready.
Trevor Schmidt: Yep.
Mike Halpert: And the point being is like, athletes aren't doing one thing. They're not. And like, even like eye on the ball, you know, that's actually wrong. Right?
Like you, you, you were not even having to look at the ball at times. Right. Because you know, hey, this is where it's gonna be.
Trevor Schmidt: So what is it about the vision training that allows everything else to kind of quiet down? Do, do you have a sense of that?
Mike Halpert: Come on, man. You gotta leave some magic out there. No. Okay.
No, it's the, the magic of it. I mean, the point being is that our body's not on alert anymore.
Anna Tharrington: Right. That's, that's, if I was trying to describe it, I would probably say that you're just not focused as [00:24:00] much on trying to see the thing. Right. Like, it becomes a little bit easier to see it. And so you're, you free up that energy or that space to be able to hear other things or take in other, um, information you're trying to grab.
Mike Halpert: Yeah. Yeah. Eye on the ball is like, you were so hyper-focused on that, that you caught it into your body. And you're kind of stressed for this versus like, oh, I'm processing all of this information in front of me better. Okay, it's right here. Right. It's kind of becomes very wax on, wax off. Right? It becomes very second nature, right?
But when you're hyper focusing on it, it took so much strain outta your body that like if you're catching eighty, ninety, a hundred ten pitches in a game over a weekend, I mean that again, that stress builds. Mm-hmm. And if we can have the tools that like, hey, it makes it much easier. That's where the confidence comes in.
Trevor Schmidt: So how did you come to the, the kinda the pitch and catch measure, I guess at the, at the beginning of the, the thing? How did you come to use that as kind of the test
Mike Halpert: and what's the deal with the ball? Why that ball? Yeah. So. I [00:25:00] love this. Um, I used to just have people like do it and be like, I know you're getting better.
And they'd be like, how do I know? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, you're right. How do you know you, you trust me. Right? And like, I can't bring a pitching machine to you. Right. I can't. That would be awesome. By the way, walk West would love that if we walked in with an entire cage. We should do that. We should, we should do that.
Um, nineties. This is the who I grew up with. And I was like, wait a second, what if we did this? And Rob Hague, one of the first coaches who tried this and bought it right away, was like, threw the ball. And I was like, this gotta be a good idea. He threw the ball, did the app, and threw the ball. He goes, Mike, this is wild.
He goes, I threw the ball the first time, the pre,
Trevor Schmidt: mm-hmm.
Mike Halpert: And I saw the ball coming back to me and he goes. When I went through the app and did it, I saw the ball the whole time. Hmm. And he'll name it. He'll name it. Number one client, right. He's like, we [00:26:00] will always use this and we'll continue to use this because this is actually doing things.
And this is a coach that's bought a bunch of stuff and he's like, we're done with this. We know what works. Amazing. But like how fun is that? That's like I needed somebody to do something and. Everybody in the in the triangle has, who's tried this, have done a very similar test. It's either this or the drops stick test.
We'll do that another time, but like, I needed you to do something.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm-hmm.
Mike Halpert: And the really fun thing was I was like, cool, if you're gonna do something, it needs to be high quality because if that ball breaks, yeah, it's not a bear ball, but like it's meat. You look at that. Right. So it needs to be a higher quality.
That's where moon Ball actually came into play. Yeah. And like looking at that kind of stuff of like, Hey, this is this. You need a really good product. And again, like just because you bring something, anybody, somebody else, it's me. Oh, I say me, it's my company. That's a different conversation, but like quality has to matter and you have to have a good experience.
And also not just you throwing the ball. I named it beforehand. When did you see the ball? You said, oh, it's close.
Anna Tharrington: Yeah,
Mike Halpert: you name that. And, and that's a [00:27:00] really like, uh, okay. Person would've been like, yo, yeah, you got better. You got, I was like, and I asked you. I asked you who are off to the side? Not really, but then I asked the person who's experiencing it, who I named.
What's your experience? And if I didn't do that, and I've learned this over the years, if I didn't have her name it before and then after, she'd be like, it's the same. I know it's not the same. We could have video that's not the same. But if she is not having that good experience, it's not gonna sell.
Trevor Schmidt: Right.
Yeah. It's an amazing discovery, a good thing to, to work through. It's very fun. So you've, you've mentioned some of them kind of in passing, but what are some of your favorite kind of success cases that you've seen of people using this or some of your favorite involvements of, of people you've worked with kind of in the early stages of the company?
Mike Halpert: Uh, this one's really cool. Different shade of blue, eight miles away from ya. Um, am I a Burgess? Uh, as a friend of mine, she's left fielder for Duke.
Actually, this was really cool. This was [00:28:00] August 4th. Um, we actually met that afternoon. We're telling you about this story. Uh, she told me going in that she's like, I don't see the inside pitch. Well, she's the lefty.
Trevor Schmidt: Hmm.
Mike Halpert: And she came into the office and she's like, yeah. And we talked about confidence, right?
She came in, I was like, how's your day? She goes, good, good, good. You know, I use the app today. I was like, yeah, that's it. I did, yeah, I did some tea work. I did the app and then I hit it all around. I said, what? Right. And if you know Amaya, she's full of personality, especially when she's feeling it and she flipped the switch.
She goes, Mike, I hit a home run. Nice. And I was like, cool. Like off a machine, like off a thing. She goes live at bat. She goes Two, two count. Took it to right field. And I said, but your pitcher is one of the best in the country. She goes inside pitch then inside pitch to right field.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So good.
Mike Halpert: And so like that to me is everything because that confidence.
That was the thing that she's named to me. Like I don't do, she does now.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm-hmm.
Mike Halpert: So like those, those moments to me is so [00:29:00] much because again, that's somebody who named a thing and named the reason why they're investing the time to do this training and it showed up for them. Like, and again, working with athletes who will do the work, do the hard work.
That's my favorite. Now,
Trevor Schmidt: do you have like a dream team or dream athlete that you're like, oh, I want them to call me, or I wanna call them and, and just sit down and, and work with them? With my technology.
Mike Halpert: February of 2019, me would've said Kobe Bryant. Okay. Um, because the way he trains and just sees a thing in another sense.
Um, in today's time, it's gonna be really cool, um, seeing this on the sidelines for the LA 28 Olympics. Will be awesome. Yeah. Um, there is no dream, there are themes that I have really fun with. Right. I mean, like the Savannah Bananas have all their stuff everywhere, right? Like, that would be really cool because the impact for kids.
Trevor Schmidt: Hmm.
Anna Tharrington: Oh yeah.
Mike Halpert: Right. People seeing their, so for me, the actual impact will be. [00:30:00] Kids doing this because again, they're seeing their athletes. Mm-hmm. So for that, yes there are, there are teams, there are things that I want, but literally like the impact is how can we have these kids doing this training? Yeah.
And so that, I won't, I actually won't know where that will come from. And so for me, that would be really cool. But yes, definitely having on the sidelines for the LA 28 Olympics would be awesome. And that's the Olympics? That's the Paralympics. Um, we got some time.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Let's make it happen. It'll happen. So let's switch a little bit and talk about how, how do you go about building a company or business around this?
You know, you got great technology, very passionate about it can help people, but that's, well, that's one thing to go from that to like, okay, now I have a business. So how do you think about that?
Mike Halpert: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really funny and actually like Anna and I met a year ago because I was in the Fcat fellowship, um, at American Underground.
And what, what is,
Trevor Schmidt: what is that? What is f Yeah, sure.
Mike Halpert: So Fidelity's, uh, center for Applied Technology, um, had 15 founders, um, based in Durham. It was actually their first cohort in the United States. Um, [00:31:00] and the fact that they picked Durham was because, like if we're in this area, this area is great for startups and.
I was one of 15 to be able to do it, and when I came into it, I was a mental performance coach. I ran a small business and in order to come to this, I needed tech and I needed to switch. Flip the switch. I was like, well, what if we just did this? And that was the beginning of that. And what's cool is Anna came in speaking to us from Hutchison, right.
And I was like, who is this person? I Googled. I was like, she played division one softball. Are you kidding me? Like that's where that, so, so there's two things. One is having the support and realizing, hey, we gotta flip the switch. And two is this community. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think as, as, uh, my friend Ellie told me last week, it was like.
Mike, you are the least solo founder I've ever seen. Like the amount of community. I had a pitch last week and I had a, the amount of people around the amount of support. So like for me, running the business in that sense is, it's not easy and I'll, and I'll name that. Mm-hmm. It's not easy, so like, you don't, you don't make that choice.[00:32:00]
But the support is absolutely incredible. Um, and I think the networking, every time I'm speaking at an event, someone's like, I got someone to introduce you to. And like that is when I talk about, when you talk about what team, I don't know. 'cause I don't know who's in the audience sometimes.
Trevor Schmidt: Right.
Mike Halpert: And I think that's really cool.
Like, um, a friend of mine's we're talking about like working with tight end university, which is like NFL. Tight ends bring in, right? The next generation they bring in college, they bring in high school, like sharing the knowledge. And so in today's time when everyone wants everybody to be better. It's a magical time.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Did, did you imagine when you went to, to give that presentation that day that this would come out and that you'd be sitting here doing a podcast, uh, about your vision training?
Anna Tharrington: I plan to exactly like this. I, I didn't, but I, I would say that, you know, those types, to Mike's point, the types of interactions and opportunities you get by being in that community, like, I think for us as lawyers, like our day job, we were talking about this earlier, our day job of sort of the counseling part of it, the drafting part of it, and the client part of it.
Then you have [00:33:00] this like community part of it. And that's a part I think is really invigorating for us. Mm-hmm. 'cause you never know when you're gonna meet a mike.
Trevor Schmidt: Right. You
Anna Tharrington: never know when you're gonna come across a company like this. There's not many Mikes. You're, you broke the mold. But to be able to meet founders with like this type of energy and passion that are doing these types of things, it makes what we do, I think, really exciting.
It kind of keeps us energized and keeps us going and being able to give back to those communities. It's really important. Well,
Trevor Schmidt: I think about it, like Mike said, you know that, who's your dream client or who's your dream athlete out there? You don't know. Yeah. You walk into a room. You're excited to meet who's there and you find out you hear that story, you're excited, what they're passionate about, and you get to help them in any small way that you can.
But that I think is what is exciting about what we do.
Mike Halpert: I mean,
Trevor Schmidt: how are we here?
Mike Halpert: You guys sponsored the GRE Beat Rising Star last, last summer and you're like, we were having a good time. And you're like, you should be on the podcast. Yeah. Like that's random as it can be. Just that. So not a plug, but yeah, I mean you have to show up,
Trevor Schmidt: that's the thing.
Show up with an open mind and like be excited to meet people and hear what they're doing and [00:34:00] be excited, what they're excited about. I mean, I think what's really cool too, right,
Mike Halpert: kind of paying it forward 'cause you don't know right, is I've been able to speak to UNC students. To Meredith college students, to NC State students over the last couple months.
'cause people have been like, Hey again, you, you name that, right? But like, Mike, what you're doing is really special. Can you come and share that? Um, and that's really cool. Mm-hmm. I had, there's a, a student at NC State who, was it a pitch event, her first pitch event from something her and I talked about two months ago.
She won her first pitch event and I was there, she called me. It was great. It's beautiful. But again, I did it because it was modeled. I think like what this community does continually showing up and being told, right? Being told what I do is incredible and broken mold. That means the world to me, right? And others are, people have very similar, have their own path.
But I think having support is so important because being a founder is tough. And I [00:35:00] know the two of you know this, and I know everyone in your firm knows this because you all give so much support that you know you do. But also it becomes very genuine on brand. Um, and again, yeah, this area is, is
Trevor Schmidt: set
Mike Halpert: to
Trevor Schmidt: peak.
It's gonna be awesome. So I just, I wanted to say that I appreciate you saying that, but can you speak a little bit about that? What are, what are some of the challenges that you've experienced as a Cee o you know, talk about the, kinda the hardships around it.
Mike Halpert: I cannot be a founder by myself. Um, I talked about like my fellow. Founders, fellow startup founders in, I had a bad day last Friday and I went right to a group of five other founders. Um, it's hard to express, it's hard for anybody outside of this world to really understand 'cause like this was a path, right?
This is a calling that we choose, that we chose.
You gotta be okay with failure. And I mean that you have to have the skills, you have to have the support group [00:36:00] around you. Know that you're gonna go through way more failure than you ever will wins. And also the group that says like, Hey, you had a really good win. Mm-hmm. Let's, let's appreciate that because it will flee.
Um, I think another really cool thing I talk about with this is I got to work with adaptive athletes for four years selling anter wheelchair. And so I've gone with my friends are people who've suffered some of the worst injuries and fight through it. Um, and that serves it to the thing of like, you are so much tougher.
Anybody thinks that you are, and that belief has to come from within. Mm-hmm. Because again, like everybody can tell you how good you are. Um, and all it takes is one is dark. That little bit of that can crumble you. I mean, and all of it. Um, and I think that's why it's so important to have support and that's so important to have that support.
Right. I talked about that hike on the trail. I was not in a good space. Mm-hmm. And someone else showed up for me. Um, but at the end of the day, yeah, you [00:37:00] do have to be okay with the wi. I come in second place a lot. Um, Aaron Smith, who advised me through the Fcat stuff, I during the Venture Connect and he was like, how'd you do it?
Did he win? He's like, no. And I said, man, I'm really good at coming in second place. Um, and at the bar that night, which was probably sponsored by Hutchinson, um, Aaron comes up to me and goes, Mike, you said something today. I don't think you realize what you said. And you said. I'm really good at finishing second place.
That's a really good spot. Right. Second place at certain events is thousands of dollars. Amazing. Hundreds of thousands. Amazing. Of dollars. And like you're on the radar. And sometimes I've taken second place and been like, Hey, I don't, I don't, I didn't win, right? I don't belong here. Imposter syndrome show if it doesn't show up, what are you doing?
Mm-hmm. And that in itself of being able to like, Hey, that's gonna come up, push through. Handle it, acknowledge it, and then move forward because you can talk yourself outta everything. And I've had it [00:38:00] before, been like, Hey, you are the most confident person. I know what happened there. I'm like, sometimes you don't bring it.
Right. And in sports, like sometimes it's not your night and that's cool, other people around you. But as a solo founder, like sometimes you're on a golf course, right? Like if you have a bad round, like you don't get that check. It's just on you. Yeah. It's on you. So go back. Go back to the drawing board, swipe it away, learn from it.
And the other thing I think I like is some things I thought if I would've won, I wouldn't have learned a lesson.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm.
Mike Halpert: And I think a really important thing, they say this, right? Fail early, fail often. I've learned so I've learned too much. All right. But like learn. And when people are offering you advice, though, it doesn't mean you have to take it.
Because you need to be your own decision maker at the end of it. But when they're offering you advice, they're taking the time. Respect that Yeah. Doesn't mean you have to go with it. Right. Because if you, if you go so much, you'll end up one of those balls. Right? Like you can't, you need to be able to [00:39:00] stand true on what's right for you.
Yeah. So many people will come and wanting to coach you and wanting to help you, and that's great. And I'm super grateful for it. And what I'm learning is sometimes you have to be like, yes, I agree and. This is what's true.
Trevor Schmidt: I, I think, I don't know Anna if you feel differently, but to me that has been kind of the most amazing thing about entrepreneurs that I see that's most successful.
You have to have somebody who is extremely confident in what they're doing. They have to believe in it 'cause they're gonna be dark days, so that you have to have somebody internally that can push through that, but they also have to be kind of willing to take outside instruction and criticism. And not, and process it.
Some of it's gonna be good, some of it's gonna be bad. Everybody's gonna have an opinion about it. But to be able to be just supremely confident, teachable able to make that decision to, of like what advice to take, it's just an amazing skill. One call you coachable.
Anna Tharrington: Coachable is needed to bring you back.
The full circle thing, like as I'm listening to both of you guys talk like it, it makes me Earlier we were talking about athletes. You said the exact same thing, right? You talked about resilience. [00:40:00] And passion and all these sort of characteristics of athletes that you need to be successful in your sport.
Yeah. And you see a lot of overlap there with like our founders, right? Of, of sort of the, the path they're going along, the desire to get better, the taking failure, learning from it. I think all those things, there's a lot of overlap there. Um, and I, I think sort of to your point earlier, sort that pathway to success for athletes, um, for folks that are in the founder community, it, there's just, they're running similar paths sometimes.
Mike Halpert: There's, there's two things you said. Um, one shout out to Pathways to Success. My mom's first company that she incorporated in 1996, that was the name of the company. Um, so absolutely. You're welcome. Absolutely. Look at that shout. What a plug. What a wild. Um, and the other is, yeah, the amount of athletes that, again, I have the ability to have the impact with.
Mm-hmm. Who said, Mike? I, I love my sport and I will play my sport as long as I can. Oh my gosh, how great will I be when I can just do one job? You know? And I'll tell you, [00:41:00] right, like when we met originally back in August, right? I was helping other startups. 'cause I was like, I can't do this. I can help these other people.
I can give my time and energy. And I'm like, well, what happens if I go all in? That shift has been incredible and I wanted to name that because you asked that the last time we talked, which was like, how is it to be a founder? I'm like, it's fun. Because it's like, I'm so happy with the impact that's making.
Mm-hmm. And again, the ripple effect is really fun. 'cause I have no idea who it'll be and the amount of founders that could come out of, they've done their training. When we look back 5, 6, 10 years from now and this athlete's like, yeah, I did their training, did an app that helped me. Right. Saw a founder do a path that I wanna follow.
Mm-hmm. I added in message Mike on LinkedIn and he actually tried to help me. Right. Like that. Right. And then they, and then they incorporated with Hutches. But anyway, like that, that is so cool because again, I named it how can we help the athlete who's struggling [00:42:00] and no one else knows they're struggling.
Trevor Schmidt: Right. You may have already answered this question. If you have, you can just tell me. But like how at the end of the day you gonna measure success for their coaching?
Mike Halpert: I think about this a lot. 'cause Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas talks about that their goal is a billion fans. Mm-hmm. Um. To me, I don't have that answer yet.
Trevor Schmidt: Okay.
Mike Halpert: And, and I want to, but I think for right now it's chugging along and seeing my dream on any of this is this concept that we're gonna have a bigger impact on sports and a big pack, bigger impact on education. Then we could even know, and I said education, right? Like we're training the muscles in the eyes.
I, I don't want to, like, that is a path. Mm-hmm. But the goal is, is that like your kid's gonna do it because a specific sport and a specific team, their athlete is doing that. You know, and, and I talk about this very similar to Gatorade. Gatorade started for college athletes, right? We all drink it.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm-hmm.
Mike Halpert: Without even question, [00:43:00] but it started from that.
Trevor Schmidt: Right.
Mike Halpert: And that's when I think about with this of like, it needs to be second nature. Right now we, no one talks about it.
Trevor Schmidt: Maybe a silly example, but I think about that all the time with, with, I don't know, corner kicks and soccer. You see Premier League team, the guy raises his hand in the corner, starts to play, and does it.
Kids do that all the time on the field? Yeah. They have no idea why they're doing it, but they're doing it. They go to the corner, they raise their hand Someday they're gonna go put on a headset, do fair coaching. They might not know why they're doing it. But they saw their guys do it on tv. It's their team.
That
Mike Halpert: is, that is on record. I love it. That is, that is awesome. A thousand percent. I mean, that's the goal. I mean, right. An NFL player was reading a book on the sidelines last year and the internet broke. Yeah. Because he was reading a book. Right. The book sold out. I mean, like, we are looking for that. Mm-hmm.
And where are the eyes there? Right. And even I, I love it. Kirk Herb Streete talks about this. He talked about it during the college playoff two years ago, Michigan verse. Alabama, Michigan one. It was great. Where are the eyes? [00:44:00] Where's the I Discipline. That's what he used. So it's starting to, it's starting to break in, right?
Kirk Sree, one of the best analysts out there, despite where he went to school. He's talking about I discipline. So like we're seeing where these eyes are going and we know that, and for me that was a really cool sign. 'cause it's like, hey, this is starting to break. Again, like getting to work with people who are gonna be at the Olympics, like getting people who are like three XBA, which is incredible.
Women's Basketball League, which people are going, Caitlin Chen, who's won a national championship with Yukon is going between the Valkyrie and three XBA and there gets to work with that program this year. Like we are so close to something absolutely magical and there's gonna be some player who I don't know who's gonna start doing this training because of it.
Yep. You know, and, and I'll tell you this, I had an NFL because I was working with Duke Football. They had an NFL player come through and was speaking to the team, messaged him and I was like, Hey, you know, add, obviously Adam on LinkedIn messaged and was like, Hey, if you ever need this, and guess what happened two months later, Hey [00:45:00] Mike, can I do that training?
Nice. Right? So like, again, I just did what I would normally do. And that's what you do in business. Mm-hmm. Like you, you, you keep showing up and the things will happen. Constant practice, the reps will come.
Trevor Schmidt: It's wild. That's great. Well, I was gonna ask you what's next for the company, but it sounds like you already answered that one for me.
Yeah.
Mike Halpert: Um, I get to fly out next week to Austin, Texas. Um, work with Casey Murphy, um, some other professional goalkeepers and having young people using the app golf coaches conference of it also overlaps with the NFCA for softball. Um, out in Vegas in a couple weeks from that. Um, and then signing on more teams.
Yeah, having some college teams bring on some more data. It's really cool. It's, it's an exciting time. It really
Trevor Schmidt: is. That's awesome. So, so Mike, we are the Founder Shares podcast, and so I always like to ask all of our guests, you know, if you had one piece of advice that you would share with somebody who's thinking about starting a company, what would that be?
Mike Halpert: Oh, don't, no. Um,
Trevor Schmidt: that's it. Turn off the podcast. Let's go
Mike Halpert: home. Just don't do it. Look, I grew up with a line. I never gotta [00:46:00] meet my grandfather, and he had a line that says, if you have the knowledge to make the impact, do it. So if there's something that like is driving you and every time you wake up and you're like, I have this job, but I have this other go all in, it's terrifying.
It won't get easier, but if you believe, if you give a hundred percent of your time to it within office hours, you can do
Trevor Schmidt: some
Mike Halpert: incredible
Trevor Schmidt: things. That's amazing. And Anna, I would, I would be remiss if I didn't ask for your wisdom as well. What's, what's one piece of advice you would share with somebody thinking about starting a company?
Anna Tharrington: You know, Mike said it, I think really well of, of the community piece, right? Like there's ups, downs, what makes all this easier, not similar even in our world, but is having folks around you that are supportive of you. Um, that will help find those connections for you because you know, you never really know that door's gonna open.
Right? Or who that like meeting. Mike was serendipitous that day. I happened to be the one that. Came out for Hutch.
Trevor Schmidt: Mm-hmm.
Anna Tharrington: Um, and you know, my spidey sense went up when somebody starts talking about sports and eyes and, but that's been a really cool [00:47:00] connection. We now get to share treats at the office. It, it's been really fun, but you never know when that's gonna happen in that sense of community for founders, I think it's, it's really important and I think it's, it's sort of the difference of sort of, I can make it, or I'm gonna kind of fold up and go home.
Same way a team is sort of instrumental to a player. I think that's what these founders need.
Mike Halpert: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I, I will plug that I had an old Cee o that says, for anybody else in the world the things that happened to you, it would 5% chance for anybody. For you, Mike, it's a coin flip. Um, and I think that's really cool, but it does, it starts with showing up.
Yeah, yeah. Support and showing up. That's it.
Trevor Schmidt: How, how can our listeners connect with you,
Mike Halpert: ver coach, um, on Instagram, Mike Ver coaching on LinkedIn, they'll tag me with that. Um, definitely overall the socials, um, and reach out. Happy to help.
Trevor Schmidt: And look out for 'em in the Olympics. Hey, not me, my athletes. Right.
There it is. All right. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Founder Shares podcast. If you are a founder or business [00:48:00] owner and need legal advice, be sure to check out our team@hutchlaw.com. That's hutch law.com. We have the capacity to help you out with just about any legal need your company may be facing.
We're passionate about the innovation economy and ready to help you on your entrepreneurial journey. I'm Trevor Schmidt and thanks for listening to the Founder Shares podcast.