The Story of Thync
By Isy Goldwasser
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Thync Global, Inc.
Stanford MS, Chemical Engineering & MIT B.S., Chemical Engineering
This is the story of Thync, the neurostimulation company behind FeelZing and other brain-focused consumer products, as told by its co-founder.
Origin:
I started Thync with a powerful founding team of neuroscientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. My co-founders were Prof. Jamie Tyler, Sumon Pal, PhD., and Anil Thakur — each one talented, brilliant, hard-charging, resourceful, and passionate. We started with the vision of creating a personal technology that would interact directly with the nervous system to improve how the brain functions, and people feel.
After years of research our team of neuroscientists, which included Dr. Jonathan Charlesworth, showed that we could use non-invasive brain stimulation to produce a positive effect on the autonomic nervous system. That we would be able to acutely lower stress and anxiety or to increase alertness and focus. At first, we reproduced these effects across specific people on our team. Next were those ‘a-ha’ moments that gave way to detailed research across thousands of subjects and over one thousand neurostimulation programs. It was this foundation that led us to our first consumer products.
Helping people manage stress
In essence, we successfully brought neuroscience to market with our 1st and 2nd generation products: Thync Edition 1 and Relax Pro. The biggest lesson from our first 10,000 users: individuals with a need to manage stress and anxiety are the most voracious adopters of neurostimulation technology. We also learned it was impossible as a small startup to validate the impact of our technology on brain and nervous system health by remaining focused only on consumer products.
Seeing a window into autoimmune function
I’ve been an engineer my whole life. I know that you can’t build products without a platform. Since we started Thync, we always knew we might be able to have an impact on nervous system disorders. So, when my colleague Sumon Pal discovered that neurostimulation could help people with Psoriasis, I was thrilled. Impacting patients without using drugs is a key part of what brought all of us together in the first place. We always knew that the goal was to increase access to the technology to benefit as many people as possible.
Being an entrepreneur
There are many great aspects to being an entrepreneur, but by far the most difficult is to find a way for your technology, team, and company to thrive (or sometimes to simply survive) during difficult periods. Pioneering new technologies almost always means the markets are nascent and have to be formed. The key is to make the hard choices and commit to a single path to establish your (h/t Geoffrey Moore) beachhead.
Breakthrough in energy and focus
The first day I ever saw the FeelZing patch assembled, my mind exploded. It was so powerful (300K hours and 5+ years of scientific research) and so simple (laboratory-grade neurostim hardware/software into a wearable, disposable patch the size of a silver dollar).
The patch solved basically every UX challenge we ever had — Bluetooth-free, app-free, WIFI-free, just a simple way to deliver our benefit to our customers. If you are at all curious about how nervous system stimulation can help people, try the FeelZing patch now. For the price of a cup of coffee or energy drink, you can experience the product of (what seems like) countless years and time.
FeelZing Energy Patch
Since marveling at the patch assembled, we’ve done everything we can to vet the degree and size of the effect so we can explain it to customers. The thing in healthcare and well-being devices is that sometimes you know they work before you know how they work. Our job as entrepreneurs and engineers is to vet the technology ourselves, and through trusted partners see just how powerful it can be for anybody out there looking to get more energy and focus throughout their day.
If you would like to partner with us on discovering the capabilities of the Feelzing Energy Patch, please contact us here. And to Anil, Wing, Sumon (RIP my friend, we love you), and everyone who contributed to Thync over the years, I’m infinitely proud of our work together.
SIGNED: ISY GOLDWASSER
