At SmartHalo, we built products meant to help the world choose cycling for transport. We targeted urban cyclists attracted by good design and ease of use. While I would have liked a better outcome for the company, I'm still proud of what we accomplished.
With my co-founders, we started SmartHalo with nothing more than 25$ each.
Over the last 7 years, around 50 people have reported to me. One of my jobs as CEO was to recruit and onboard talent, and keep them happy and productive. The turnover was slow, and overall, people enjoyed working on my team.
We built our products from scratch and owned most levels of the stack, including hardware (electronic and industrial design), mobile (iOS and Android), embedded systems (firmware), and backend (routing algorithms and user management).
Hardware is hard, and I learned it the hard way. SmartHalo 2 was designed with over 150 different components, from distinct suppliers and with different lead times.
We raised over 7M$ in equity, convertible, debt, and all sorts of grants. We sometimes had to navigate pretty complicated structures in order to close our round with all partners. The final review of all legal documents was my responsibility.
We struck a distribution deal with Apple, a first for a Canadian hardware company. Our SmartHalo devices were sold in all Apple Stores in the US, Canada and Europe. We also worked with dozens of distributors around the world.
Our products generated thousands of backlinks, including publications in Wired, The Guardian, Vice, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, CBC/Radio-Canada, El Pais, and many, many others.