Shi Tang travels to China four or five times a year to visit her family. Although she always looks forward to being there, there’s one thing she dreads the most about traveling home: jet lag. There’s a 12-hour difference between New York and Beijing – if it’s 11am in New York, then it’s 11pm at home- and she usually takes a 14-hour flight to get there. Long distance traveling alone is exhausting, but the difference in time zones really takes a toll on her body: drowsiness, disorientation, headaches, insomnia, and dizziness. She loses her appetite, and she becomes irritable during the first few days. Her family calls her “the travel monster”.
According to the American Sleep Association (ASA), jet lag is a psychological condition caused by the disturbance of the body’s natural circadian rhythms, or internal body clock. In a travel survey, sleep scientists uncovered that jet lag affects 93% of long-distance travelers. So far, there are very few ways to prevent it from happening. There are over-the-counter medications, such as melatonin, to help with the symptoms, and doctors recommend taking preventative measures such as exercise and a caffeine-free diet. However, people who travel often think of jet lag as “part of the package” when it comes to traveling.
But what I told you there was another way?
After 30 yrs of R&D and the personal journey of world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Charles Krebs, SYNERGY Consulting was selected to design, build and launch the new mobile app Uplift, a revolutionary new acupressure solution to jet lag! Uplift provides a natural, safe, and effective way of bringing your body back to its natural rhythms without pills or extensive preparation before take-off. Though the solution was discovered by Dr. Charles Krebs, it took the vision of co-founder and serial entrepreneur Ted Finn to add a streamlined distribution strategy that can scale globally. The way it works is very simple: You download the Uplift Jet Lag app from the Apple Store or Google Play and input your flight information. Uplift will show you in 3 simple steps, which acupressure points in your body to activate in order to bring your body back in sync to your new destination.
In this new blog series – The Entrepreneur’s Journey, I take a closer look into Uplift by sitting down with cofounder Ted Finn as he gives me a closer look into the Uplift story:
Ted out of all the things you could’ve done at this stage in your life, what inspired you to launch a new startup?
“Well, I met Dr. Charles Krebs about four years ago, and we became friends. I was immediately inspired by his personal and scientific journeys that led to the discovery of the Uplift jet lag solution. We then decided to start the company about two and a half years ago.”
Why did you choose SYNERGY to bring your idea to life?
“I met Andy at MassChallenge which is one of the largest tech accelerators in the world; he’s part of that community. We started talking about developing Uplift, and he told me SYNERGY Consulting had the experience building apps and web platforms that we needed to scale. More importantly, he himself has a passion for travel and seemed to believe in what we were trying to do with the project when it comes to the global impact we can have on the travel industry as a whole.”
Now everyone knows entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. So what were the biggest challenges you faced before you hired SYNERGY?
“I actually came in with a lot of entrepreneurship experience, but I had never really built a mobile application before. It’s a kind of technology that is very new to me, and I had no idea where to begin, and more importantly what pitfalls to avoid.”
You launched in Boston the city with the best sports teams ever from Red Sox, to Patriots, to Celtics. The art of building a team in the startup world has many parallels sports. What’s the best part about working with a team like SYNERGY?
“I think they are tremendous business partners. I’ve worked with a lot of different companies over the years, and they have provided good service; but SYNERGY has so much experience and insight in technology and entrepreneurship that they have been tremendous partners when it comes to developing not only when it comes to mobile development but also the complimentary business strategies needed to make it all successful.”
What’s Uplift working on right now?
“Today we’re starting to sign-up corporate partners in the travel industry to start using our travel solution and also architecting the infrastructure to support these pilot programs to consistently keep innovating the Uplift solution. Not too long ago we were featured in The Boston Globe, and we’re also super excited to have an article featuring the company in Travel and Leisure Magazine’s next issue.”
Looking forward to hearing more great things from Uplift in the future. Where can people follow news and updates about your company?
“Our app is available in both app stores for both Apple and Android, and we have a website with news and information about our product at www.upliftnaturally.com. We also have a newsletter sign-up on our website to get real time updates of what is going on with the brand and our team.”