How did you come up with the idea for this product?

A few years ago I was spending ~14 hours a day at work hunched over my laptop and I developed terrible sciatica pain. It was excruciatingly painful to sit for over a year. I tried dozens of products on the market to help me with my back pain, and while they all had great components, nothing was a full solution. A friend and I spent weeks tinkering with anything we could find to help get back support. The first version of the BetterBack knee pads was a cut out from the top of a mega sized protein bottle! Friends and colleagues would see me wearing early versions of BetterBack and ask to try it. I started getting messages all the time from friends begging to take it on a trip or to borrow it for just a few days. I decided to invest more time, money and energy into BetterBack, hiring two amazing industrial designers to help me take it to the next level. Throughout the design process, I spent Fridays pulling people off the street around San Francisco to have them try BetterBack. We had over 60 beta testers, multiple doctors and therapists involved, and 6 rounds of prototyping before kicking off our Kickstarter.

What makes your product special?

Lots of great things! BetterBack does more than provide lumbar support?it stabilizes your pelvis so you can’t slump. It also saves you hundreds on hundreds of dollars: instead of buying one ergonomic chair, you can make every single seat (from a chair to a bench to the floor!) ergonomic. We are a community from all over the world on a journey to a better back and would love for you to join us! Shoot us a note any time for back tips, advice or to share your story. We got your back.

What has been the best part of your startup experience?

The best part of the startup experience, BY FAR, has been hearing all the amazing ways BetterBack has improved people’s lives. Probash in London shared “Oh wow, used it for an hour a day in the office for 3 days and the pain in my back that a physio could not get rid of in 6 months HAS NOW GONE!!!! I can feel some crackling in my neck too as my spine adjusts and realigns, but wow does my neck and back feel good!!!!!” Monica runs a tech company in the US and wrote “First day with my new BetterBack?my lower back pain is gone and my mind is blown”. And on and on …. so many incredible way BetterBack is helping people, just as it’s helped me. Feeling so grateful, inspired and energized to keep helping people have better backs and to live better!