MySecondEar: The first fully digital hearing-aid provider

Meet Niklas and Julian. With MySecondEar, they are on a mission to make finding the optimal hearing aids easier by offering a fully digital solution.

Did you know that prices for hearing aids differ from region to region? In an industry that often lacks transparency, the ones affected are the many people wearing or needing hearing-aids. Studies show only 17% of those who could benefit from using a hearing aid actually use one, and the founders behind MySecondEar believe their solution can help change this by creating more transparency and accessibility.

Together with their team, founders Julian Stechert and Niklas Spichalsky aim to digitize the hearing-aid industry by leading online customers through the journey from first counseling to final fitting. MySecondEar gets hearing aids from all manufacturers, and via three simple steps on their website, customers can find a fitting hearing aid. After having compared prizes, MySecondEar’s audiologists consult customers digitally via video conferencing. After the consultation, customers can use MySecondEar’s platform to make adjustments to their hearing aids via a mobile application.

Audiologists going digital

All of this is happening digitally, so people considering a hearing aid don’t have to go to an audiologist every few days. A problem occurred to Niklas, who has been wearing hearing aids for more than 20 years. Some years ago, he needed new ones again and was looking for offers in Passau, Braunschweig, and Berlin.
“I’ve seen three different prices in different states and was quite surprised,” says Niklas. He was about to move to Copenhagen while having his audiologist in Braunschweig, where he lived. With little digitization in this market, this would mean that he had to travel back and forth between Denmark and Germany just to finish the long fitting process. MySecondEar aims to break down all these barriers.

“We can send a hearing aid to someone in Australia and can do a fitting directly and digitally without physically going to Australia. Amazing, right?” says co-founder Julian.

Started in the kitchen

The idea for MySecondEar came when the co-founders had both started new jobs two weeks apart from each other.

“We clicked, and after only two weeks of knowing each other, we started to work on the idea together. We would meet before and after work in my kitchen. The first thing we bought was a whiteboard, which made it official to us”, jokes co-founder Niklas.

Julian was supporting his father on the search for fitting hearing aids when both co-founders started talking.

“With Niklas, I found an expert in finding fitting hearing aids for my dad. First, we wanted to do a Second-Hand Shop for hearing aids or just refurbishing them and started talking to people who saw the same problems as Niklas and my father — prices were not transparent, and the fitting process takes ages. So we pivoted to the idea we’re still pursuing with MySecondEar today — digitizing the hearing aid market”, says Julian.

APX invested in MySecondEar in 2020, and the founders are currently working with the venture developers of APX, where they are hoping to take advantage of the network, experience of other startups on campus, and getting coaching to reach the next level.

Follow MySecondEar’s journey on LinkedIn and explore their website.