Academic has a sound idea for avoiding vocal problems
Spin-out company plans to use profits to fund research into communication difficulties
AFTER Philip Hammond highlighted the importance of technology and entrepreneurship in last week’s Budget, we hear from a man who is harnessing his academic expertise to develop an innovative business. Name: Felix Schaeffler. Age: 48. What is your business called? Fitvoice CIC. Where is it based? Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh. As the university’s first spin-out Community Interest Company we have to satisfy regulators that we act in the wider public interest. What services does it offer? We offer a technology-assisted voice care service which combines more traditional forms of voice training, such as workshops and individual coaching sessions, with automatic voice monitoring based on acoustic analysis.
Many teachers, call-centre workers, actors and people in other professions will struggle with their voice health at some point. Problems include becoming hoarse, losing volume, feeling pain or even losing the voice altogether. The TUC has estimated the annual cost of voice loss to the UK economy at £200 million.
Through our smartphone app and website we can provide ongoing voice monitoring, so that we can react to voice problems early, and also provide motivation for regular voice care through feedback, exercises and education about the voice. To whom does it sell? We are targeting schools and councils, companies with call centres, actors and theatre production companies, and voiceover artists. What is its turnover? We are targeting turnover of £30,000 to £40,000 in the first year and expect that to increase steadily in future years. How many employees? The four directors and co-founders. When was it formed? In November 2016. Why did you take the plunge? It had a lot to do with putting academic research into practice and the challenge of developing something from the point of an idea into a successful business.
While starting the business involved risks, QMU provided quite a bit of support. They allow me to work on this project whilst still being employed by them parttime. The set-up also ties us to QMU’s Clinical Audiology, Speech and Language (CASL) research centre. As a Community Interest Company we have decided 50 per cent of our profits should go to CASL, earmarked for research into communication difficulties. So I still feel quite closely connected to academia. What were you doing before you took the plunge? Lecturing full-time in speech sciences at QMU. I did my first degree in Munich and my PhD in Sweden and moved to Scotland in 2005. My (now) wife, who is also German and a phonetician, moved to Stirling in 2003, and I followed her to Scotland. Edinburgh is quite a good place for anything related to phonetics, speech processing etc, so we started looking for post-doctoral posts and independently both ended up at QMU in 2006. How did you raise the start-up funding? I had research grant funding from the Carnegie Trust which helped, Email: mark.williamson@theherald.co.uk Telephone: 0131 240 0282 especially with voice analysis and mobile phone app development. We’ve used our own savings and QMU has contributed a lot by buying me out for a part of my time. We are also due some funding from East Lothian Council, and we’ve recently found a private investor. What was your biggest break? Getting investment was a big boost. Making the final of the Converge Challenge for entrepreneurs in Scottish universities in 2015 was not bad either, but the biggest shot in the arm so far has probably been bringing the team together.
Janet Beck is a speech and language therapist with a wealth of experience in clinical voice research; Tess Whittaker is a voiceover artist, vocal coach and speech and language therapist and has start-up experience; Matthias Eichner does all the tech stuff and has come up with great design ideas for the user interface. What do you most enjoy about running the business? The element of surprise. I like the balance between long-term goals and the flexibility required to react to short-term opportunities. There are so many problems to solve and I really enjoy coming up with solutions and learning the new skills required. It’s great to share a vision with people you really enjoy working with. What do you least enjoy? The legal and accountancy side of things. What is your biggest bugbear? The current political climate in the UK is not really the best for starting an SME with a European outlook. I’m German so my personal situation is a bit up in the air, given that I don’t hold a British passport. I still feel welcome in Scotland though. What could the UK and/or Scottish Governments do that would help? I am impressed by the quality of free business advice you can get in Scotland but I think some free accountancy and legal advice for people who want to start a business would be invaluable. What was the most valuable lesson that you learned? You can’t just build something and hope for the best. You need to understand what your potential customers want and need.