The Cereal Entrepeneur
Originally from Iran, Amin came to New York to become an entrepreneur and went on to become the founder of Blue Heart Hero, a mission-driven design company based in Brooklyn, New York. A team of passionate engineers and designers ambitious to help create and provide solutions for people who struggle with upper body amputations & limb differences.
Anna will be asking how the idea for the company first came into being, digging into Amin's personal journey to how he founded the startup, and looking into obstacles they faced along the way, as well as how they have adapted to support the COVID-19 crisis.
Cereal Entrepreneur.
Anna – Hello and welcome to startup magazine, new podcast, the Cereal Entrepreneur. I am your host in the editor, and welcome. We have a jam-packed episode for you today in which I’ll be chatting to Amin Hasani, Founder of Blue Heart Hero, a fantastic tech startup based in New York City, who have adapted in a number of ways recently, and I’ve been helping people protect themselves in this time of crisis. Amin, thank you so much for joining me today. And welcome. How are you?
Amin - Hi, Anna, thank you so much for having me today. Been doing good. It's quarantine in New York City, as you know, and have been fighting with this new normality and adapting to this.
Anna - Of course, it's such a strange time for everyone, isn't it?
Amin - Yes, absolutely.
Anna - I believe that blue heart hero is actually been doing a lot in the current climate. But before we jump into that, I just thought maybe you could tell us a little bit about you. Your story, your journey and how you actually came to found blue heart hero.
Amin - Yes, so I'm originally from Iran. I came to the states five years ago to continue my study, and my passion in entrepreneurship and product design and development, I always wanted to help people. So after finishing my master's degree in engineering, in New York, I started working in a company in Long Island designing products for major banks and airports. And in less than a year from the junior engineer, I became the lead designer of the company, and showing the company that with my skills and talents, I could push things forward. And that gave me an opportunity to learn more and apply to my own side projects, which allowed me to start Blueheart hero in mid 2018, a startup that is technically website that's collects and shares 3d printable solutions to people with upper limb difference. So with the merge of 3d printing technology and decentralised production, and low cost digitising software, which is 3d modelling you know, software's such that it allows people from any part of the world come up with different ideas for their friends, cousin, family member, whoever that have either arthritis, Parkinson or weak or products are not as accessible, you know, as they are for average people to design solutions to go around these products and adapt the world to these people to people with upper limb difference a little better. So Blueheart hero gathers all of these products together all these ideas together and shares it for free. So anyone from any part of the world could 3d print these ideas and benefit from it, same day and it all started with design I did for an Indian Friend of mine who I met through Instagram, we never met in person. This gentleman lost both of his hands in an accident. So he is not used to not having hands. And he had to go back to school immediately had to he had some basic needs. So what I designed was a, an attachment on his hand that looked like a watch with a Velcro wrap wrapped around his hand. So it wasn't a prosthetic arm. It wasn't prosthetic fingers. It wasn't anything to adapt him to the world, we decided to adapt the world to him. So we designed this watch looking 3d printed piece, that flatware, pens, pencil, everything, mounts on it fairly easy. And it gives him a good accessibility to those products to those items. And now he could write again. He could eat again and like easier like he could eat before now it's easier for him. And now he's asking for fun stuff like Oh, can you design something for me so I could play ping pong. So we took it, we looked at it differently instead of looking at the problem being his hand, we looked at the problem in the products. So we're calling it prosthetics for products. So we design things that mouse on products and makes it accessible to people with any sort of upper limb difference.
Anna - Wow, that is that is incredible story. And but the the Indian guy like the how it started, I love that. And so you said that blue heart hero was formed mid 2018. So it's coming up to two years. Can you tell me a little bit about the journey between then and now how how the two years been for you
Amin - there is like two sides to the story. One is my personal journey with blue heart hero and the other one meeting people through real hard hero for actually starting a company. So when I started blue heart hero back then I was in a very like I'm horrible financial situation and I needed a job like any other immigrants after school. And I got an opportunity with Apple and Tesla's design teams. And I day they flew me to California, I had two interviews with two different Apple's design teams, one MacBook and one air pods. And it went incredible. I, I felt the vibe, everything was great. And at the end, when they asked me what I'm passionate about, I think I talked a lot about blue heart hero and what I'm trying to do with 3d printing, and they rejected me because they said we're looking for a designer, not an entrepreneur. And that was really heartbreaking for me because that looked like a such an amazing dream come true to work for, you know, apple, and I lost that opportunity for showing too much passion. And after that the project manager of iPhone told me one of the project managers told me that if I were you, I would go back to New York. get any job. Start My own company on the side, and I'm like, um, if he thinks that way, then maybe I should. So after kind of like believing in myself that I really should do this, I started blue heart hero and I started truly putting all I have in it. And being an Iranian immigrant with all these Muslim sanctions and even being agnostic, but that Muslim label is on you, and it affects your life. And I haven't been able to go back visit my family or have them visit me because of all these political actions of us and Iran against each other. And it's been five years that I haven't seen them and this kind of puts me in a position to push even harder. I've been designing for blue or zero different attachments to websites, social media, meeting people, and mixing the newest technologies inside and trying to come up with a system that has the least amount of expenses on my hands, because it adds up really, really fast. I had amazing friends coming in including My best friend, Jeff Tango, who has helping me a lot with design, publicity, marketing, networking. And then later down the road, we met with Samantha Norman, who these two are my co founders. She has been incredibly helpful with website design, testing the parts and having the same vision as I had for blue heart hero. So three of us were kind of like moving forward really fast, and we set up everything, remote work, no need for any office, no office hours, and it's just all task based. So after COVID, it really didn't slow down our operation much. It's just all of those events that we wanted to go to all the shows, meeting people, all of that was pushed back, but on our design side or our website, everything is on track, and we're designing more attachments. We actually had 10 more designers signing up on our website starting to design different solutions. We had many more amputees requesting on our website. So that's actually how it works. People could request something they need, or Hey, I have a partial right arm. I love cooking and I want something to makes it easier for me to cut carrots. And we come up with something 3d printable with available tools for anybody from any part of the world. So now, this actually is working even more because people are spending more time on on their laptops on their phones, and they're willing to spend more time on blue heart hero. So, yeah, for us, it wasn't that big of an impact.
Anna - Yeah, of course. And so talking about the COVID-19 crisis, a lot of startups and small companies have had to adapt and change their kind of business models slightly to help in these these types of needs. And I believe you've touched on it at Blue heart hero that you've started using your 3d printers to print a face shield That you are now providing her hospitals and essential workers in New York City. Can you tell me a little bit more about this?
Amin - Yes. So we we have been purchasing 3d printers since we started the company. And I personally have four 3d printers and my friend Jeff has for himself. So out of these machines, only three are able to print face shields, the others are other technologies that can't really help with this project. So we were contacted by COVID supplies NYC and we signed up on our website that we are at we are interested to help. And then they connected us to 3d Brooklyn, they are 3d printing studio, they came up with a design and that you could find it on our social media on our website. They shared us shared with us their design, we started 3d printing these face shields at home so the problem is the time of the printing. It takes three to five hours for each print to be done. So no matter how simple the design is, right now, we cannot make a mould and then have a production and have like 10s of thousands of these knocked out every day. Because that whole process takes three to three months. We need face shields right now. And that's how 3d printing is making a big impact right now. Because you could just start printing, you know, right away. So we set up our all our machines, and they're printing 16 hours a day, and we're making 12 to 15 parts a day. And so far I've donated will do heart hero has donated more than 100 face shields to hospitals in New York and one in Utah. We have requests from Michigan from Miami, but we're trying to really stay productive and not lose any time in between,
Anna - of course, and how how do you fund these so I'm assuming that the the face shields must Do they cost a lot to manufacture? Or how does the process of payment work?
Amin - So, space wise, like having a space for all these machines and paying for these machines that have been personal funding it has been, it's getting a little expensive right now because the materials are like adding up. But we started a GoFundMe page. And people have paid more than like 400 bucks so far for material. So we're spending all that money only on material, every other expense. We're taking care of it moving forward, we definitely need to raise funding because of the ideas that I have for the website for this company to apply to make the world of people with upper limb difference, completely different. So so far, having a website and a few designs. That was not a problem. But for scaling up. We definitely need to raise some funding,
Anna - of course. And what would you say? The biggest challenge that you face so far, on your journey has been
Amin - the best This challenge is, one is networking. As an immigrant, it's extremely hard because I don't have that one uncle who makes the phone call, or I haven't been in this country enough years to make enough content to have enough contacts to make it work if I need anything to, you know, connect to certain company that makes it extremely hard. And one more thing is, again, the political actions of us against Iran. Like, I wake up and my bank account is closed. And I don't know why I called the bank and they, they claim that oh, we had to make sure you're in the states and I'm like, Well, I can't leave the end like this. I could I have to buy something like a ticket or there has to be approved that I'm leaving the states like, why does the bank just close my account without letting me know and all my money is frozen. And I'm not allowed to open a business account for my company. I am not allowed to sell anything or work for myself or be the CEO like all these obstacles are just not necessary. And while I'm trying to actually make a big impact and healthier citizens, that is the biggest obstacle.
Anna - Yeah, of course. And and have you guys seen much of a change in the sense of working remotely? I know you touched on this briefly. But has that been a challenge at all with everyone having to work virtually from their homes? and remotely? has that impacted you guys at all?
Amin - Since we started it this way? I'm gonna say no, we were already working remotely. All the meetings were over video calls. All the notes are, you know, in one of these, like apps that we all share together, and after the quarantine, we just had more time to spend on blue heart hero,
Anna - of course. And have you found that the time that you've spent in quarantine has inspired new ideas or how else is this international COVID-19 crisis affected? Blue heart hero? What are the changes or adaptions Have you guys made or discovered
Amin - Yeah, that has that has 100% effect on our productivity because of this whole new, relaxed work life, and no stress off either traffic or dealing with people in person that caused us to actually be way more productive and creative. So the ideas that are coming out now are completely on another level, and I can see the effects. And I was surprised I thought this whole quarantine is gonna like lower mood, which it did at some points, but I thought it's gonna crush our creativity and productivity, but surprisingly, it was the other way.
Anna - Yeah, of course. And so you guys have been a lot busier. And are there any other products besides the face shield that you've been able to print to help within the COVID-19 climate?
Amin - There's this piece that I'm designing right now. It's for a glove disposal. So I know nurses and doctors and medical workers, they already They know how to properly take off their contaminated gloves. But for average people which design is for everyone. So for everyone, I designed a piece that I'm working on it right now that is disposable. It mounts on anything like either shelf or door hanger anything. It could, it helps people to take off their gloves and throw it in the trash without touching anything. And that is all 3d printable, and free for everyone. So as soon as we have this ready, we're going to post the STL files, which is like the 3d printing files on our website, and have an email blast and on social media, and I will definitely send one copy to you too.
Anna - Oh, amazing. So what do you guys kind of have planned for the future? So the short term future in terms of kind of the COVID-19 crisis, but then the second part of that question is after the COVID-19 crisis, more long term. What do you guys have planned.
Amin - So one of our plans is to reach out to some, some investors to raise funding for blue heart hero. Because even though we're nonprofit, and we're, all of our content is for free, we have a second plan for turning a profit. So we're keeping everything on blue heart hero, all the 3d printing 3d printable stuff for free. But on the side, we have developed some of our ideas that were worth becoming a product under patent protection and actually developing a product. So after I designed an attachment for the drinkware, that that attachment would allow people to lifted I looked at this design and I'm like this could become a product so I turned that design into it drinkware that has a handle that is accessible to everyone. It's inclusive to everyone. And that product became something sellable to the market. So we started a new company, a for profit company with an item, a product designed for everyone. And we call that human friendly designs. So we have products that fits everyone, either people with visible or hidden disability, people with Parkinson arthritis, they all can use this drinkware, which is a coffee mug. And we call it curved, because it's all about the curve of the product. And that way we could actually raise funding and push products to the market. And this is like bringing inclusivity to businesses. We have some coffee shops in Brooklyn use it and I sit down and I look at people using the mug and I see their reaction that even though they have let's say, an average hand. They are very comfortable with the design because it doesn't look like a medical device. It looks very normal. It looks like any other drinkware But they don't know it fits everyone. They just like the feeling of the mug. But when you tell them like, hey, by the way, people with no fingers can use this too. And then it just melts their heart. And they think this is this is a new thing. This is like, why products can't be like this.
Anna - Of course, it's like using technology for the greater good, you know, to help people that you haven't thought about helping people before.
Amin - Yes, and if it wasn't for 3d printing and the 3d scanners on our phone, I could not have developed this product, as is today. Like all of this has helped us so much. And we're jumping into hopefully in the future, if we have enough resources that we could be, we could adapt our designs to different shapes of hands with blue heart hero. So people could like scan their hand and automatically generates a design for them with the right dimension on their hand and it generates an STL file so they definitely know that what they're receiving is going to fit their hand
Anna - Ahh that's Amazing. And so talking a little bit like about technology, and what technology do you guys use within the 3d printers Can we talk about more of the techie side
Amin - so we have 12345 FDM, 3d printers, and which is filament based. These are mostly for prototyping and lower cost prototyping and quicker turnaround time on your production. And we have 123 DLP printers, which are laser printer for higher quality but they have smaller bed so we could print a high precision parts, but in a very small scale. So for example, that watch attachment that I had designed in 2018. I'm redesigning it based on this new 3d printer that we got these laser printers. So now I could design something with much higher details and with a better clamping system than before, but for these large parts like face shields, we have to use those FDM 3d printers to knock these out as quick as possible,
Anna- of course. And is the material always plastic base that you 3d printing?
Amin - Yes, what we have is all plastic. And the metal 3d printers are extremely expensive. And the nylons are, I think starting at 10,000. And that is not in our budget right now. So it has to be accessible to people. Like if you think of someone in India or somewhere in I don't know, like, somewhere in the US even not everyone can afford to have a part 3d printed in metal, it's gonna cost them hundreds or thousands. But the plastic it says, you know, it could be like a cup of coffee. It's not going to be that expensive,
Anna - of course. And Amin, do you enjoy it? Like how how does blue heart hero make you feel?
Amin - This is why I came to the states for I came to the United States to start a company that helps people
Anna - awww if you had any Advice for fellow startups in the tech industry in general life for the startup world, but also in this current COVID-19 crisis? What would your advice to them be?
Amin - I have one big advice for entrepreneurs who are struggling either today or like during COVID. Or in general with their startup. There are always those moments that you know, it's a dead end for 100% of your sure This is it, it's not happening. I failed, you just take one more step, just push one more time. it worked for me more than five times that I was at a point that I wanted to just give up everything just go back and accept the failure. But the failure is when you accept it, so if you don't, you haven't failed. And when you push one more time, for some reason, it always works.
Anna - And what was it that made you push that one last time
Amin - To be honest, my my parents I cannot believe I as like their firstborn child, their only son, I left them for five years. And I went through so much from being homeless in New York City. Yeah, that happened to me. I was homeless in New York City for two weeks because I ran out of money and there were no connections between me and my family that could like, help me in any way. And if I went through all of that, I cannot I cannot accept defeat. This This cannot happen.
Anna - Of course. Amin, what a inspirational story. Thank you so much for chatting with us today.
Amin - Thank you so much for having me.
Cereal entrepreneur.