Helping deaf callers connect
A communications startup takes aim at a multimillion-dollar market.
By Jonathan Blum
September 15, 2008: 9:03 AM EDT
(Fortune Small Business) — Jason Yeh wanted to build a communication
device that at least 10% of the U.S. population would be eager to use.
Early adopters would include Jason, 24, and his father, John, 61, who
had just sold the family software company. The Yehs could tap into
federal funding that would cover most operating costs and launch the
company with a modest $1.5 million in startup capital. They had access
to cheap skilled labor. And they could avoid pricey market research,
because they knew their market intimately.
John and Jason – like all their employees and many of their potential
customers – are deaf.
In summer 2005, Jason dropped out of the prestigious Gallaudet
University in Washington, D.C., which educates deaf and
hearing-impaired students. The father-and-son team set up Viable in a
nearby suburb. Its products include the first videophone designed,
engineered, sold, and distributed entirely by (and to) the deaf and
hard of hearing.
Phone communication for the deaf has been possible since the 1960s,
but for many years it was a laborious and little-used process
involving teletype machines. In 1995 a new technology called video
relay services (VRS) arrived. A deaf person with a videocamera would
place a video call to a sign-language interpreter, who then called a
hearing person.
VRS became a big business in 2002, when the FCC began collecting a
monthly fee from phone users to pay for VRS cameras and interpreters
(you may have noticed the charge on your telecom bill).
That fund now collects $800 million a year – and has spawned a flurry
of VRS startups. The change has been revolutionary.
“For my parents these were literally the first long-range
conversations they’d ever had,” says Anthony Mowl, Viable’s assistant
vice president for business development. “There was a lot of crying on
those calls.”
Sorenson Communications, a giant video company based in Salt Lake
City, released the first commercial VRS device, the VP-100, in 2000.
The videocamera, which worked with most PCs or TVs, was given free to
deaf people, enabling video relay conversations for anyone with a fast
broadband connection. Sorenson currently claims about 70% of the VRS
market.
But the Yehs spotted a weakness in Sorenson’s business model: The
company is run by the hearing. An office of deaf workers would
understand the market better. Says John: “We saw room for a new type
of technology company.”
They started by providing better VRS services, recruiting top
interpreters, and offering above-market wages. The FCC pays VRS
providers about $6 a minute for calls, but the meter starts ticking
only once the interpreter connects both callers. So Viable invested in
speedy servers and software that would get the VRS sessions up and
running as fast as possible.
Next, the Yehs formed a 20-person gadget team – headed by Jason and
his college buddy Larwin Berke – to develop a dream line of products
to rival Sorenson’s VP-100 and its successors. The result was the
VPAD, a $699 videoconferencing device that launched in January. Rather
than tying the videocamera to a PC or TV like its rivals, the VPAD
incorporates its camera and screen into a sleek, portable,
Wi-Fi-enabled unit with very few buttons.
“We found that we don’t need a feature-rich device,” says Berke.
Inside Viable’s immaculate (and very quiet) headquarters, mirrors at
every hallway corner prevent accidental collisions. But not everything
has gone smoothly. Early VPADs were buggy, testers reported, and did
not play well with the web. Viable engineers claim to have ironed out
most of those wrinkles. The company has racked up $7.5 million in
revenue so far this year. It now boasts 95 employees.
So is Viable … viable? “I want them to succeed,” says T. Alan
Hurwitz, president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in
Rochester, N.Y. But, given the competition, “it will be a challenge.”
Still, Viable’s staff face challenges every day. And as far as the
Yehs are concerned, their rivals are impaired by hearing.
Share your thoughts on the disabilities boom in our discussion forum.
Opening New Worlds gallery: Check out these gadgets developed for the
disabled that have gone mainstream.
A buzz about honey: A disabled son’s obsession spawns a thriving
family business.
Vision quest: How an entrepreneur turned a potentially crippling
disability to his advantage.
Source:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/11/smallbusiness/helping_deaf_callers_connect.fsb/index.htm
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