Build Technology, Impact Lives
With his entire family engaged in managing a multitude of businesses, it was only a matter of time before Hamish Patel himself would strike out on his own. After completing his undergrad education as an engineer, he decided to start his venture in the space that most excited him — technology. His inclination towards building hardware products led him to found Azoi Tech, a product-based startup, in 2011.
Hamish began by researching about sensors and building products that leveraged technology to track body vitals. In 2014, Azoi Tech launched its first product, Wello, an iPhone cover that had built-in sensors to measure critical vitals such as ECG, heart rate, blood oxygen level, etc. The product received wide- spread recognition from media with Tech- Crunch, Daily Mail, and The Daily Telegraph giving rave reviews. Soon, manufacturing facilities were setup in China, with the marketing team in the US, while India was chosen as the R&D base. Wello had a strong footprint in Europe with sales in UK and across the European Union.
Hamish and his team had to face numerous challenges to realise these successes. Since the company was in the healthcare industry, there were plenty of regulatory roadblocks at both the firm and the product levels. After spending a couple of years getting an ISO 13485 certification for Azoi, Hamish began working on the product certifications, as the two applications couldn’t be pursued in parallel. These long and unpredictable delays in product timelines were frustrating. In the time that they had developed their first iPhone-case prototype and were ready to launch it, the iPhone had entirely changed in its appearance. Hamish, however, found the strength to motivate his team through these tough phases and they were able to deliver a new version of the product, in time for the next iPhone launch.
“The high point is always to launch products and to experience customers coming back to you and telling you how good it feels.”
All these difficulties seem worthwhile to Hamish, each time he sees customers use Wello. He also believes that he has gained immense perspective over the years. He now evaluates all products and innovations from various vantage points. That is the only way to build robust products that solve real problems, he believes. Hamish marches on and is working on another startup. Knowing his knack of building great products, we can hardly wait for it!
CIIE.CO has recently completed 10 years of its incorporation. We are proud to present the book “CIIE — Celebrating 10 years of Experiments and Entrepreneurs” which chronicles the last decade of CIIE.CO and celebrates the stories of heroes aka its entrepreneurs.
