Data Design Diabetes

In their own words...

Data Design Diabetes Question: Let?s start at the beginning. How did your story begin? What was the catalyst for your solution?

Nuduro Answer: Nuduro started with me trying to solve a problem that I faced--implementing better nutrition while training for a marathon. Initially, we were a customized nutrition bar that would improve recovery for endurance athletes. After realizing that people prefer real food over bars, but struggle to find foods that meet their unique nutritional needs, we pivoted the idea to create the Pandora of foods to recommend meals that meet people?s taste, lifestyle and unique nutritional needs.

This was the catalyst for our solution. People understand and relate to Pandora, they like it, and thinking about what that means for food gets them really excited. The only problem was that we weren?t creating a meaningful impact on the world. I have always had a dream of starting a business focused on improving the world and people?s lives. Last Thanksgiving, I realized exactly how Nuduro could do just that ? improve people?s lives. Thanksgiving for my wife?s family is always a big get together ? about family and food. One of her cousins, Ganon, an incredible 8-year old, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at the age of 2. After learning more about the challenges that he faces, his dad helped me realize that what we are creating could be infinitely more impactful for people living with diabetes. Now, combining the ?Pandora approach? to food with an inspiring group of people, our team, advisors and community are passionate to make this dream a reality.

How did you first become aware of the Data Design Diabetes Innovation Challenge? What pulled you in and inspired you to participate?

We found out about Data Design Diabetes through the i.Lab incubator program at Darden Business School, which we are currently a part of. Participating was a no brainer. We were building a company with the mission to help millions of people living with diabetes enjoy food again and improve their health. DDD offers unparalleled access to people and resources that can help us achieve our dream. The $100k grand prize is icing on the cake, but the real value that we are already seeing is the people that we can work with to learn more about people living with diabetes, successes and failures of other mHealth businesses, and ultimately refine our product to best meet people?s needs.

Share with us a moment that validated the hard work and dedication you?ve poured into cultivating your idea, reinforcing your vision.

We spent an amazing three days in San Francisco with the DDD Innovation Challenge team and had the opportunity to spend a full day talking to people living with Type I and Type II diabetes. Much to our surprise, the conversations always came back to center around food. Comments like ?Food is happy, but once you [diabetes] take it away, we?ve got nothing? or ?I don?t have a good association with food? reinforces everything that we are doing. Nuduro hopes to empower people to make good choices for their health without sacrificing their relationship with food. We hope to make people?s lives more simple and enjoyable. We hope that we can make a difference for people that live each day with the challenges of diabetes.

What are your team?s superpowers? How are you uniquely poised to tackle this challenge?

Our team?s superpowers lie in our passion and in knowing what we don?t know ? we have a thirst for learning more. Each member of our team has a personal connection with diabetes through family, friends or the community and this is what will drive our motivations through the challenging times ahead. We also understand that we can?t know everything, so we are actively engaging with the entire diabetes community to develop a product that is practical for you. We hope to create this product first and foremost with people living with diabetes, while leveraging the access and knowledge of health & research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and others in the nutrition or diabetes industry.

If they call your name on June 4th as the challenge winner, how will you make use of the $100,000 prize?

Being selected as the challenge winner on June 4th would be nothing short of amazing. It would enable Nuduro to get one step closer to realizing our dream to help millions of people living with diabetes to improve their health and lifestyle simultaneously.

We would use the $100,000 prize to more effectively develop and launch our product nationally before the end of 2013. Specifically, we will use the money to bring on a user experience and interface specialist and a senior developer to allow us to more quickly build and test our product with customers. The remainder would be used to fund a pilot study with a local or regional health institution to build evidence on how our product can meaningfully impact patient outcomes. This pilot would be critical to building credibility in our solution before investing more heavily in scaling our distribution and working with larger institutions. Win or lose, we are excited about this opportunity and will be launching this business!