Turning Pain into Innovation: Derek Nolt and BladeFlex

Turning Pain into Innovation: Derek Nolt and BladeFlex

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 172 of the business development podcast. And if you've ever wondered what goes into product development. Today, we're talking with Derek Nolt, CEO of BladeFlex, and he is going to tell us all about it.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners. CEOs and business development reps, you'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by Capital Business Development, CapitalBD.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 172 of the business development podcast. And on today's expert guest interview, I bring you Derek Nolt. Derek is a dynamic entrepreneur and the principal CEO of Bladeflex Inc, a groundbreaking company specializing in innovative health tech solutions.

With over a decade of experience as a skilled carpenter in the construction industry, Derek faced the physical toll of his demanding career, accumulating in chronic shoulder pain. This personal challenge ignited his passion for developing effective rehabilitation devices to address musculoskeletal issues.

Since founding BladeFlex in June of 2018, Derek has led the company with a relentless commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, crafting products that enhance muscle balance and posture. His innovative approach has attracted the attention of physiotherapists and athletes alike, establishing BladeFlex as a trusted name in the healthcare industry.

Under Derek's visionary leadership, BladeFlex has expanded into new markets, consistently delivering high quality, easy to use devices that promote an active and healthier lifestyle. A true multifaceted leader, Derek juggles the roles of CEO, project manager, author, graduate, and father, demonstrating an unwavering dedication to excellence.

His mission to empower individuals to achieve lasting health and confidence with every step they take. Derek Nolt is not just a builder of products, he's a builder of better lives, inspiring the next generation to pursue their passions with hard work and determination. Derek, once again, it's an honor to have you on the show.

Derek Nolt: Thanks for having me, Kelly. I very much appreciate this opportunity to speak with your audience and you know, hopefully give them some guides and some helpful tips know, things that we have had challenges with terms of blade flex and just really try to provide some value to your audience here.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I appreciate that greatly. And that's just it, right? It's like, if we can even give one tidbit of information on entrepreneurship, that's like, It's all valuable. That's the thing, right? I remember once upon a time back in my career days when I worked as an employee, I worked for an incredibly ambitious entrepreneur.

And he would consistently start new businesses, trial and error them, and they would, some would make it and some would bomb. And I remember him pulling me to the side once and him saying, You know, that choice or that lesson just cost me a million dollars. And for you, it was free. So learn the lesson.

Derek Nolt: I know.

Yeah. You know, it's so true. I invested in a company once, so I like, yeah, the spirit of you know, new products and entrepreneurs. I met a, A guy who he developed this mind spa thing and you put on this headset. It's got affirmations that you listen to while also there's a strobe lights and the goggles that you put on and it helps calm your mind and kind of, it was almost like a meditation for dummies.

If you like, you know, I've meditated on my own quite a bit, but having these goggles and this affirmation, it was kind of an easy way to really relax. And I did invest in it too. And then the company went under. Yeah. Maybe we're trying to grow too fast or whatnot. And yeah, it sucks, you know, losing or investing in stuff that doesn't work.

Sometimes it's in your own businesses. But when that went under, I thought, yeah, maybe the next one I'll try to invest more in myself. And if it doesn't work, then I only have myself to blame.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my gosh. I know. I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah. It's like, It's one of those things where entrepreneurship, nobody really gets out alive. Like, there are lessons and lessons upon lessons, right? Like, it doesn't matter if you're successful or you fail. The reality is there's plenty of success and fail moments in entrepreneurship either way.

And if you can take a little lesson from every failure and every success, You win long term. It's there's lessons in the failure too.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. Especially learning your own lessons. Yeah. That's the biggest thing. Yeah, just doing this rollercoaster ride with Blade Flex. I mean, yeah, even before that I had a finishing business with carpentry.

So, you know, lugging my own tools around. Yeah. Finishing houses all on my own and you kind of learn yet to be independent that way. Taking on the challenge of a company that can go global. It's a different mindset and growth. And yeah, there's businesses of all growth dimensions really. And it, yeah, you kind of have to understand what your intentions are.

In the beginning as well, to really see where you're going. That's like the first takeaway really is like set your intentions. Even with blade flex, it was never like, okay, let's just make a product and make money. Like I, it wasn't really about that. It was obviously pain points from my own injuries, but it was just about doing something different and something unique, I think was the most rewarding thing, kind of starting and just seeing where it can go and.

Yeah, that's the biggest thing is we see a lot of people selling dropship Amazon products or this and that, but you know, unless you're tied to the product and the business, it's not really for me, it wouldn't be passionate. And so I probably would just get bored of it. So, and when you get bored of something, then you quit, you quit early.

When you're passionate. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. And like, especially with entrepreneurship, right? Like it is not easy. And it's like, you need to be passionate because if you do not love what you were building, my gosh, it is, it's like the automatic recipe for failure. You really got to love it.

Derek Nolt: Oh, a hundred percent.

Yeah. I remember talking with my patent lawyer early on and he said like 95 percent of the patents are not even on the market. So yeah, people might even get to that step or they have a product, they, they get a patent and then literally the hardest thing is after that journey. Is when it really starts and so I don't think many people even realize that too is just yeah, you might even have a working model or a product and a patent, but the cost just eat you up and if you don't have that marketing and drive to go forward from that point on, most people don't get a product to market.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really excited to chat with you because you may or may not know. But you were the first physical product that we have had on this show. I guess I shouldn't say first physical product. Like, we've had people come on who made, like, we had Rviita Energy Tea come on and talk about the production of a food product.

But like, a physical healthcare product? We have not yet had anything like that. And so I've never chatted with anybody with regards to developing a physical product. And so I'm really excited to chat with you about that today. And I know we have a lot of listeners who this is high on their list because they have an invention or something that they've created that they would love to bring to market.

And just learning, what is that process like? How do you even go about doing that? I'm super pumped to chat with you about that today. But before we get into that, Derek, take us back to the beginning, dude. Were you always this entrepreneurial? Who is Derek Nolt?

Derek Nolt: Yeah, free spirited. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I don't know where the passion came from.

Yeah. I was you know, working jobs like anybody else really kind of opposed was one of my first stable jobs as a letter carrier and you know, that, that beats you up pretty bad as well. And, you know, it got me into a place where I could start investing and you know, build up some reserves so I can invest in stuff like my own businesses.

And so, yeah, it was just really about. You know, trying to be a stable person. Yeah. Like, you know, regular income and regular job, it was really nothing that spurred me to think otherwise in the earlier stages, you know a lot of challenges in my earlier days too. Like after I was 18 my brother had passed away and it was just one of those things like, yeah, it kind of sticks with you, like, you know, life is pretty short at times, especially, you know, after COVID and stuff.

And so. You know, willing to take risks, I guess maybe he developed that's been 20 years now, but yeah, just taking risks with what you have, you know, it kind of, it always leads to something good, you know, when you're willing to put yourself out there.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Well, first off. I'm terribly sorry about your brother.

That's, that's horrible. Holy cow. That would be so hard, you know, in your early twenties, twenties as hard as it is, man.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. Twenties, you're already willing. It was just about yeah, going out and enjoying time with friends. And that's kind of where you know, where I kind of got grounded afterwards is just kind of going that route is staying grounded with friends and family.

Yeah, just enjoying the 20s like most of you out there probably do enjoy the 20s and not think about it too much. And so again, I just had my 40th birthday for anybody who's wondering, but yeah, I'm pretty old now and I just had a son myself. And so it's pretty wild to yeah, see things come full circle in that regard sometimes.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Yeah. No, it's I'm 35 and I just had a son myself. So I totally, I totally feel you. How old's your son?

Derek Nolt: He's literally six weeks yet tomorrow. So he can like barely, he's lifting his head. He's trying to get somewhere and he doesn't know where he's going, but he's just pushing. He's kicking, man.

He's got the spirit with him. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, dude. Congratulations. That's absolutely amazing. My son is just turning eight months and My gosh, is it been a crazy rollercoaster? I've been a step parent for years, so we had three boys before our latest came along, but that whole newborn experience, man, it is something else.

Derek Nolt: Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. Everybody wants to see him and he's just a joy to be around. So yeah, I can't complain so far. It's been quite the experience and I would have never guessed. Yeah. In the twenties, thirties, I'd. It would be so much fun and didn't want to have kids earlier on. But at this more mature phase, I think it's, yeah, definitely a blessing.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And I will speak to that because I actually am the same, right? Like, obviously this is my first son. I just turned 35. What's really cool. My son is born on my birthday. So me and my son both have the exact same birthday, which is.

Derek Nolt: You know, it's crazy. He was, he was literally supposed to be born on my birthday too.

That was his birthday. It was June 28th. But he. We had a plan in Caesarean section a week early or like 10 days early. So,

Yeah, I guess my wife was joking. Like, yeah, I wanted you guys to have the separate birthdays. So I'm like, I wanted it to be the same. I don't, I wouldn't mind having a combined birthday, but yeah, now we're separated by a week or so.

So that's right.

Kelly Kennedy: I remember the story for me is so funny. Cause like, as we were getting closer and closer because the due date, like He, his official due date was like around, I want to say like November 25th or 26th and my birthday is the 3rd, December 3rd. And so we're like, we passed the due date and we're like, oh, like, okay, like when's this happening?

By the time we got to like December 1st, I'm like, babe, look, you just got to hold off. I'm gonna need you to hold off like two days and I shit you not. Pure coincidence. Her water broke on like the, I think it was like 5am or 6am on December 3rd. And I was like, holy crap. And so like for real, like son was born, I think it was like nine.

I want to say it was like 9:50 on December 3rd, which is so cool because I cannot wait to celebrate our birthday together. I don't even care, man. It's like I'm 35. I don't celebrate my birthday anymore. But now I get to celebrate like my birthday and my son's at the same time. Like, that's just. It's like a dream, right?

It's like, by the time you're in your thirties, you don't want to see your birthday's coming anyway. At least that gives me something to look forward to.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. Yeah. It's the thing. Happy birthday. It'll be fun. Yeah. It'll just be pushed off on the side. Yeah. And after 40, I think we stopped counting. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally.

Well, I think I stopped counting at like 33. Yeah.

Derek Nolt: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. But it's so funny because I actually incorporated my company on my birthday back in COVID time too. So literally I've like two major life events that happened right on my birthday, which is just weird and coincidental and randomly awesome.

Derek Nolt: No, that's amazing. Yeah. And I just recently graduated my business certificate too. So yeah, even at this age, yeah. College grads. So I'm pretty stoked about that. Yeah. But yeah, I, I'm still working in the construction industry too, as the project manager. So yeah, that's kind of still the passion and still getting in the grind, you know, the, the physical labor, the hard work I don't think it'll ever elude me.

You know, I feel better now training with late flex to help my shoulders and back, but yeah, there's just something about like being, Exhausted at the end of the day, definitely helps you sleep when the baby's crying. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, for sure. And you know, like, obviously we've chatted about this before. Your website for blade flex is awesome.

It's like a super high end, really nice product. But we're going to get into that today, man. Like, how do you go from the construction industry to, to entrepreneur? Like inventor,

you're like path is so awesome. And so I want to chat about that today, man. Like take us back. How did you go from I work in the construction industry to I'm inventing a revolutionary. Body posture product.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. I was pretty heavy into sports. Yes. Snowboarding in my twenties. Yeah. We would drive out to the mountains me and a buddy, like quite a few times just on weekend, just on day trips, just get out, go come back.

You know, make it happen. And so we were in snow Valley just in the, off the white mud there. And yeah, we went to the snow park, of course, not like good at jumping or, Yeah. Parking stuff, none of that park stuff. We'll put it that way. And yeah, it's still not the best, but yeah, I've taken a few good jumps and, and yeah, when you land them, they're great, but so it was icy on that hill going down and kind of took an edge and kind of whipped sideways and went head first, had my helmet on.

So, but I couldn't get my hands out fast enough. And then just kind of felt like the sharpest pain in my collarbone. And I remember at the top of the hill thinking like, yeah, You know, I've never broken a bones like, yeah, not like I, I will. And then of course, like the law of the world here. Yeah. When you think something doesn't happen, usually does.

So yeah, I kind of got whipped around and landed right on my shoulder. When I got to the base and yeah, my buddy was thinking, you look like. You're in pain. And I was like, yeah, let's go to the, the chalet there where the medical tent was at snow valley, wherever the office was and yeah, they pulled the shirt down and the bone sticking out.

So broken collarbone in two spots. And it was kind of just didn't protrude or stick out through the skin. So no surgery, but. Or no like immediate attention required in terms of surgery. So yeah, just drove to a buddy, drove me down to the hospital and yeah, they really can't do anything in that situation.

They just give you like a really crappy brace that you're supposed to put on and I guess that kind of stemmed my yeah, I guess. Issues with what was on the market at the time or just the rehabilitation afterwards. It was really nothing to help me retrain that muscle after it was damaged and broken.

So yeah, it was a really painful injury. And just the, that really kind of made me start thinking like there's got to be something to help the shoulders out a little bit better than this static. Medical hospital price. They gave me so.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, but once again, I broke my collarbone snowboarding and my idea was not I'm going to make a revolutionary product to make this better for me.

The second time around!

Derek Nolt: Yeah, I think it was like just the pure abuse of the shoulders. Yeah, that incident really made me think. But also, yeah, just having terrible shoulders from everything else. But yeah, it was, yeah. I did actually put the idea to bed, like it was not the thing that I could do myself at the time.

3D printers were just kind of starting to get developed and engineering costs would be very high to try to develop something plastic related. And I was thinking fabric related initially, but again, if you're just like everything else on the market, you're not setting yourself up differently. And it's.

Not really like unique. So yeah, I just kind of put it to sleep for a little bit. And then yeah, I was going to a construction site to help a friend with their basement and somebody ran a red light and I got into a pretty bad T bone incident. It didn't really hurt me like so much, the car was written off.

Like luckily it hit my front wheel. But again, it was just one of those things like. Yeah, maybe there's something more I can do. Like I got some time off you know, two years down the road or it was like a year, maybe two years after there was some light settlement, it was like 10 grand or something like in Alberta.

It's not like you're getting a lot from injuries. I wasn't really personally that injured. And so it was just kind of like using some of the funds like for, okay. Well, I had this passion before, didn't really work, let's see if I can put like maybe five grand or put a couple thousand into an idea, just see like what, what would come up of it.

And I found an engineer in the city who had his own 3D printer and he seemed good at designing stuff. So that's kind of when we started just tinkering around and costs were low and prototyping was fairly easy. So, That's kind of where it really started was yeah, just really thinking over and over about just an idea of having something better than what was on the market.

And I gotta be honest with you, the first few things were, were not even remotely close to blade flex. Now, like we had something where you would pull a string or a rope or something on the back to help maybe tighten it up or something that would be adjustable in this way and that way. And probably went through, you know, a dozen different iterations of even something that remotely resembled blade flex.

So again, it was just so far beyond what we started with that. It's, it's funny how it ends up getting to that point.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. And like, walk me through this a little bit. So obviously you started off with the idea to build a better brace, because I know exactly that sling you're talking about, man, I broke my collarbone snowboarding, just like you.

Nope. When I was in junior high school, and I remember getting that like crappy sling and that's all they give you because there's nothing that can be done. They're like, don't move and use this sling for the next, you know, six weeks or eight weeks, right?

Derek Nolt: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Breaking your collarbone is the worst. Let's just start there.

It's absolutely horrible. If you've never broken a collarbone, good for you. Try never to do it. I've broken mine twice. Once when I was a little kid and then once when I was a teenager. And I can tell you I, I hated it both times.

Derek Nolt: No, you can't move your shoulder, but yeah, it's not in a cast. It's literally, it's moving every time you move because it's not stable.

So you're getting sharp pains like every second of the day. It's like the worst pain. Yeah. It's just terrible. So you pretty much just got to let it heal. When I, I was having limited movements and I lifted my shoulder because I could feel that something wasn't moving right. The bones literally popped over each other and kind of set in place.

And it was just the most painful thing. Yeah. So once it kind of set in position, the bones are a little bit shorter, of course, and then they fuse together and end up being stronger. But it is a shortened and the muscles become elongated on one side. And so really the muscle imbalances really start to grow out over that.

So many physio treatments to at the time and the injuries I had were just so I don't know, stable injuries like they never went away. It was just terrible that nothing could provide that relief. Maybe a massage treatment would help for a day, you know, maybe doing the exercises help for a day.

Like but nothing to really move the shoulders back. Cause every physio is like, well, you should keep your shoulders back. You know, you should really train those muscles in the middle of your back. You gotta train the weakened ones and, and lengthen the tight ones. And it's like, okay, easier said than done.

So again, yeah. When The first 3D printed ones just broke all the time too. Cause they're not like they're printed in layers. And so unless you're doing something more substantial, like pouring the molds, like you're going to get weak plastic and yeah, they broke constantly over and over again. It was just terrible.

Yeah, trying to get something to work and that was strong. You know, there's like, now we have up to almost 20 pounds of resistance, like it's almost infinite. Like, but we want to keep it to a adjustable level for different people. I mean, it's it's a very strong, you know, now, but yeah, it certainly wasn't like that in the early stages, but.

Kelly Kennedy: No, no, but it never would be right.

And I think, like, that's one of the things I want to talk with you about today. I really want to talk with you about what is it like to go from an idea Of something that like, you're like, you know what, like, first off, where does the idea for the design come from? And then second off, what is the development of a physical product like?

Especially a health product, like something that ultimately is going to help people. You know, walk me through it. Walk me through the development of BladeFlex. How did you take this thing from a, hmm, I think I can do better here. What is it that, that gets you from that idea to a physical product? Run us through the whole thing.

Derek Nolt: Yeah, so after the first engineer, yeah, I, Kind of felt like, I don't know, you feel like relationships or partnerships in different businesses, like sometimes they work really well for a long time. Sometimes you feel like there's resistance or it's just time to move on. And yeah, like I took it as far as I could.

And then I was searching for something else. Yeah, we had yeah. Kind of a minimum viable product. I could feel there was resistance. It was moving well with the shoulders. It felt supportive. And it was a 3d printed version and it was like, okay, let's see what else we can do, cause it's not like.

Anywhere near really full production capability. So I was searching various engineers. I don't know how I met Rick Dancam. He's in the city here. He does prototyping. I got his number from another contact Howard Suiza. He was from Suiza Designs. I think he owned his own design company.

So when you start talking to people about who does prototyping, there was really only one person in the city that I could go to. And we. We ended up having to change, yeah, the internal structure completely. And a bunch of other components, the CAD designs weren't set up properly. Like the screw positionings, they're called like screw bosses, where the screws go into the other side and they have to be designed properly and there weren't evenly spaced and so.

Stuff was just not like clean. So we started from scratch and, you know, it was just one of those things where it's like, well, yeah, we, you know, took it this far, that's the old saying, like, well, we took it this far. It might as well keep going literally a thousand steps later. It's like, yeah, we took it this far.

It's like step two. It's like, might as well keep going. We're almost there. It's like not even close, but so then, yeah, I guess that's the biggest. Naivety is like, it kind of helps in your favor early on. Like, you don't know how hard or how much money or how difficult it will be. So you kind of keep going.

So I guess that's something to keep in mind, like just be prepared for like the long run, if you're going to do something like this, but designing the whole thing again, takes another six months and then doing prototyping other six months and it just drags out forever and costs a lot. So, you know, maybe we could say like another 10 grand, you know, At the time, you know, I sold the house or did another flipper kind of thing and this and that.

And you know, I used to take down load bearing walls and kind of open concept my houses and stuff. So yeah, big changes in the houses to kind of like big vision stuff. So tried to maybe take that ideas. With products too, but the prototyping with Rick was really functional. Yeah, we had a polyurethane mold, so it's not printed in layers.

We poured plastic into a mold and when it cures, it's one solid piece. It's still fragile, but that's when you have like the MVP, like minimum viable product, and that's when you can take it to people and start trying it. It's like, well, am I the only one who, yeah, feels this benefit in my shoulders, or do people feel supportive and, and, Things of this nature.

So at that time, yeah, it's really about talking to all of my previous physios, you know, the thousands of physio appointments that I had talked to with one lady in St. Albert and you know, she encouraged me to, yeah, she felt some resistance. She felt there would be a need for it. Talk to other people, kind of do a.

You know, 12 person. I think we had 12 units at the time. Some trial runs, people could keep it for a few weeks and bring it back. See their feedback. So, you know, you get feedback kind of keep going from there. One guy never brought it back. I think he just wanted to keep it as a souvenir. So there's one unit out there that I don't have, and it's probably the only polyurethane mold out there.

So it could be, it could be a collector's item, but yeah. It's pretty neat. Yeah, that that was a gray version. It was a little bit weaker version, but it kind of got us started to try it on other people at that point. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and you know, walk me through what is it like? Like what is required? So first off, If I wanted, if I had an idea for a product, I've then made a prototype of it.

It's like, are there like legal or government requirements before I can bring this thing to market? Like walk me through the 101 on how you take a minimum viable product. And then take that to a market and get it to something that you can actually sell. What does that process look like? What do you even need to do?

Derek Nolt: Yeah. So a lot of things, like if you want to even consider like consumables, like just switching products for a minute, like my patent lawyer was saying also like consumables is the easiest market to get into because literally there's no barriers to entry. So anybody can create a soap company and make soap.

And if it's the best soap in the world, you know, you have to try to portray that in your marketing and some value proposition. Right. Sure. You could grow a business to a hundred million dollars, but I mean, if you're trying to sell it at Farmer's Market and be more of a mom and pop thing, that's great too.

But again, it's about seeing the vision. You're not going to get a patent for a consumable item. It's a very difficult thing to do. Again, the ingredients are shown on the or on the packaging and ingredients. If it's a proprietary ingredient mixture, then you can get patents. But again, it would be a very niche kind of situation very costly to scale stuff like that.

So for myself, cause it is a unique spiral torsion spring that helps it. Provide resistance. We, you have a year basically to file a patent once it's disclosed to the public. And so it was around that time. Yeah. When I, when I started filing the patent or filing an application just because you only have so long to file a patent or otherwise you lose the rights to that design.

So if your idea is patentable because it is unique enough that it's not obvious is what they consider in a legal terms. And so. Yeah, if things aren't changed enough from an original design, then you're not going to get a patent either. So in this case, there was a few braces. You can look through the history of patents and there was literally like this.

Farming tool. I don't know the patent. There's pictures as well. And so this one thing that they cite when you apply to all the previous things that could be similar, there was like a spring, a different type of spring going down the spine of the back. And it was helping like people in the fields, you know lift themselves up.

It was attached to the waist and it was a little different. And so, yeah, it was just funny. Like that whole process too, is like, yeah. Reading the patent, seeing what else is out there. There might be something out there that's just not on the market, so you, if you can't patent it, then You know, you could put it on the market, but somebody, if they see it and it's already a patent, then you're going to just end up paying them, obviously, their rights to that.

So, yeah, it's kind of a challenging thing is if your product is unique enough, you think you could get a patent, you know, you can do a search on your own. You can go to the websites and try searching yourself for stuff, or you can pay a lawyer, just not a lot to do a search, which would be the first step just to see if it's even possible to go that route because then even at that point, you might even just say, well, it's not worth it.

Then there's something that is very similar and where I just won't get one. So there'll be a lot of competition. And so there's a lot of things to think about at that time. And I guess like you, for us, yeah, there was US patent went well, it takes quite a few years. It's about 5, 000 to draft a patent.

I think, yeah, we probably have 10 20, 000. I don't know. It just adds up year over year. There's fees as well to consider, and then you have to consider which countries you would like to file. And that's a timeline as well. So we have the UK one and we have a. We ended up having to drop the Australian one.

It was just too much costs. And, and so, yeah, it just kind of stems from that. Like once you kind of think there's a possibility to, to get one, then you kind of can go forward showing more people getting that idea out there. And then we also did have the. Health Canada medical device license because it's a class three, I believe it's the lowest class non invasive device.

And yeah, we did have a medical device license through health Canada. That was, there's not a lot of stipulations except for protecting the customers in terms of if something goes wrong, like, do we have proper reporting? Could we determine what went wrong? It's really about inventory checks More than like, does the product actually work?

So just simple things and there's fees every year for that as well. But if it's not a medical device license, you pretty much can just have insurance like basic insurance. There's a lot of product insurance companies and depending on what your product is, yeah, you just have a business, maybe get some insurance.

For the what, what ifs and then kind of the way you go. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: So, okay. So, okay. That makes a lot of sense. I was going to ask you like, what do you need to apply for like some type of government of Canada permission? And the answer is you probably didn't have to, but it was a good idea to do so. Right?

Derek Nolt: Yeah, yeah, exactly. For us. Yeah, we didn't necessarily have to. And then FDA and every other country has their own health Canada medical device system. And when we found out that we can just sell it as more of a sport brace that's kind of when our focus shifted a bit. And didn't want to have to pay the tens of thousands of fees and stuff like that.

So we ended up just dropping the medical device license, but I still keep the reporting, the high quality aspects, everything that I want to make sure I've been able to keep up just for my own purposes. So again, it's, yeah, just maintaining the quality is really what those licenses did and that's what I'm trying to still do.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. And I agree. I think, I think if I was to do it, I would probably do it the exact same way. Right. It makes sense. Like if you don't have to necessarily get the medical license, like why? And until someone asks you for it. Right. That would be my, my vote.

Derek Nolt: Yeah.

And we're still covered under insurance benefits, which was interesting. Yeah. A lot of them just said if it's a. Like you can get a foam roller from a physio, you know, covered. Oh, sure. So, so why not a blade flex, right? Or like a Bosu ball or So in that sense, it was another product as a fitness product.

And so it was still covered through some of the benefits. And so there, yeah, the benefit to us is having the actual device license. Didn't make sense. Yeah. Unless you were maybe of a higher class and it was more invasive and you needed to have more yeah, studies and stuff of that nature. Which yeah, for us, it was more geared towards the sport market at that point.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Sure. Sure. What about manufacturing? What is it like to then, to then need to manufacture this thing? Walk me through that process.

Derek Nolt: Yeah, it's again, literally another set of, yeah, timelines and costs. And so we had the minimum viable product. It went well. Then luckily enough, that engineer that I got on with, he has a, a friend or a partner that he had worked with who has a family in China and, and so.

They had molds capabilities. So making steel molds or aluminum molds and that that's when you get plastic injection molding. And then they have to machine the steel blocks from a CNC machine. And then. You can, yeah, make as many as you want. If it's a weaker steel, there are limitations with aluminum, I think maybe 10, 000 units with steel, I think can go like as much as you want.

So but yeah, so there's questions with that quality control again, like getting the molds made, they sent samples back and then you might have to adjust one part or machine a little bit more here or there. Nothing comes out perfect their first time and and then the steel molds are overseas at the moment.

But again, if we were doing molds in the city, there's greater manufacturing or in the states there's tons, but you're talking, yeah, six figures for sure for making steel molds. And over there it was probably like a third of the cost. And so it was just a lot more substantial discount. And because I knew the person through my engineer, we developed a relationship.

And I think that that works well, if you can really find somebody you can trust, especially going overseas.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Yeah. Just like, okay. So essentially what you need to do is build the mold. Once you have the mold, it opens a lot of doors for you. But like step one, when you are manufacturing is you got to get that mold built, which I imagine is extremely costly.

Derek Nolt: Yeah, extremely costly. You have to have people who know what they're doing who has. Yeah, specialties in that. And then material engineering what kind of plastics are you going to use? And yeah, we've embedded fiberglass in some of our samples and we want to continue to improve the product, make it even stronger.

And yeah, I think it's just, we were assembling them all over here in Canada as well. So we were still made in Canada. If it's over 80 percent made in Canada, then you can say made in Canada. Eventually it might not be unfortunately, but what we were doing is just sending the plastics from China over here.

And then I found a local spring guy. I helped. So like the first few samples, and then I found seamstresses who could sew the straps and we made them high quality neoprene, which is It doesn't absorb moisture, kind of like a wetsuit material. So premium materials and we have a high grade medical grade leather straps as well for physios or other people who want that premium feel.

And so it was about adding better materials, better quality, assembling it all here, and again, the costs are higher. So perhaps eventually we'll we'll have to make a larger run and assemble it overseas. So that's the, the goal. But we still have some units here in Canada.

Kelly Kennedy: I just want to chat with you briefly about your marketing for BladeFlex.

First off, it is flipping awesome. Your BladeFlex looks absolutely amazing. Like it's cool. It makes back braces look cool. You've done a damn good job with regards to that. to the design and your marketing of it. Cause it looks awesome. You've absolutely killed that aspect of it. Let me just say, like, I think if you're wearing one of these things, people are going to be like asking you if you're a mech warrior, not the other way around.

Derek Nolt: What video game did you pop out of? Or you can play video games while wearing it, to be honest. Yeah. There's a lot of. Purpose or yeah, you can literally work as rehab purposes or, you know, during gaming or, or just a number of things. Yeah. So it's really functional device. Yeah. We're pretty happy with it.

Kelly Kennedy: Walk me through it. Like walk me through, through blade flex, like run me through all the models of it. And like, who is it for? Like, obviously this isn't just for people that have. Back posture problems. Like if you work at an office desk like me or like you have for many years, it's like my posture probably sucks, dude.

Like I can guarantee you. I hunch, I think he's always on me. Like Kelly, you sit up straight. Like, what are you doing over? I'm like, Oh, I don't know what to do about this. What, what are like, run me through for the people listening who they've heard this whole thing and they're still thinking like, what is blade flex?

Run us through it. What is blade flex? Who is it for? What are the different models? And, and we can get into it from there.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. So initially with the medical, yeah, I went to the Millard Health Center they deal with injured workers and there's a nice lady, Vanessa Peacock. She was she's getting her PhD now and she was one of the physios and she gave it to people with shoulder injuries.

And that's really the first thing that we, I knew would help with. And she gave it to injured workers. She kind of threw it at people kind of you know, with this yeah. I guess blind trust, she was a product specialist as well. And she saw some potential. So seeing the initial trials that we had done now, we had the, the actual product, and so we were giving it to physios and some really take to it.

Some love integrating products and maybe some are more traditionalists and they want you to use other stuff like bands or just other stuff that might help. But the ones that have tried it and, and worked with us with it, it was, Really great start for marketing. But again, we didn't spend money during that time.

So the medical field, yeah, it was a slow start despite having the Mallard and other health centers giving it to, or using benefits for their clients. And it was a nice, nice start, but. Once we really got into the sports and thinking, well, we need to get it to the general audience, not just maybe medical focused for one thing.

We can't use medical terminology after not having the device license. So we can't say medical device or for shoulder injuries. So it kind of pigeonholed us in terms of marketing to maybe call it a sport brace and a therapeutic upper body brace rather than a medical device. And so. Cool. Yeah, fighters, we kind of started to look at sponsorships.

Of course the local Oilers reached out to Dr. Naidu. They head a doctor in sports medicine, as well as the trainer T.D. Forss. And yeah, they gave it to the players. They we were in contact with them in the early stages. We're still working on some partnerships with them, but they have units down in the bellows of Rogers Place.

I've been down there and. It's pretty cool to give it to the guys. Yeah. So, you know, they use it when they need, feel the need. It's not like you have to wear it if you need a shoulder injury, but oftentimes if you have sore shoulders or just need a lift, you can wear it for a multitude of reasons. And so, yeah, that's really where the spinoff of marketing went.

It went from medical to sports, talking more to trainers. We, Ended up sponsoring Jorge Masvidal. He's a UFC fighter probably more well known now, but when he first started, we sponsored him for a post on Instagram. I think it was a 3, 000. This was before his 10 second knockout of Oscar and I think his name was, but yeah, so we sponsored a UFC athlete and when you see like spikes in sales from sponsoring an athlete at the right time, it was pretty exciting.

We really could. Can see the sales from just the one post from Masvidal when he was just before his fights. And then after his 10 second knockout world record setting knockout, literally everybody was on his page and literally like 15, 000 in a month, you know, sales was just like, you know, and you're just like, okay, there's like some.

Crazy, like synergies happening when you partner with the right people. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, you know what, I agree. I think partnering with the right people is key in most situations.

Derek Nolt: But yeah, again, like you might, yeah, see the big successes at times, but it's really like long term longevity as. Is building on that momentum at the time, like we never built on it. We didn't really know what to do. So we were trying different things. And then when you see these spikes in sales and maybe you can't grow from that, you know, it's, it's fine.

It's exciting. Then it's a little bit sad. Then you get motivated to get in and do the rollercoaster of emotions. You have to every. Yeah, every sale. I mean, it's, it's fun. Yeah. It was fun to see it grow in the early stages and just try different markets, different demographics. There was a not wake border and there's like professional wake borders, but it's like surfing paddle boarding.

It's like, there was a few swimmers that really liked it for their shoulders and then fighters. Of course did sponsor. Or gave a few to the linebackers of the Lions and they liked it and just different athletes in the NFL. We haven't even really touched on NBA or other athletes. I, I think we're just still in the early stages, even though we're, you know, five years on the market.

It's just, yeah, again, we're. We're growing, we spent a lot of funds as much as we put in. Yeah, you know, we've gotten back from revenue, but it's always needing a huge chunk for marketing is really perhaps where you don't see it in the beginning is you spend so much time and effort getting the products market.

But again, it's, you need that much more or, or double after the fact. And, and that's why most people fail probably.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and, and especially in the B2C market, right? Like when you're selling a product like this, the marketing costs are. Astronomical.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. Yeah. And one marketing company we had at the time, yeah, they, they stopped advertising and they were still taking some funds.

And so you, you meet a bad apples and you know, you lose a lot of money and you know, you want to start making things happen more in house. And. Or find the right partners. And yeah, we're, we're developing relationships with good marketing teams that have proven track records. So we just want to be able to grow in a substantial way rather than before, I guess we were just testing the market to see really how, how the marketing game would go for us.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, talk to me about that, right? You have an awesome product. First off, and you're from Edmonton, which is amazing. We're recording this show in Edmonton, too, which is pretty cool. So you built this thing right in our backyard. It is an amazing product. I would say 99 percent of us, Derek, have horrible posture and probably suffer with a little bit of back pain.

I can almost get, I know I do, like I'm 35, dude. I spend way too much time sitting on my butt, recording shows or typing or editing on my computer, man. It's a lot, but you know, obviously you've built a really great product. You're at this stage now where frankly, I think with the right marketing, this thing's going to take off for you.

Are you looking for investor support at this point?

Derek Nolt: Yeah, I think looking at the bigger picture, I understand that, you know, you can only do so much yourself. Like you know, other funding that we've had is really just in house. My dad was retired and he wanted to see something on the market too, that could help you know, not having, I guess, the, the best Body, as you get older too, you look for that extra support.

And so yeah, he was an early investor, a silent investor, I guess, if you want to call it like any successes I would definitely share his way, but it was kind of one of those things where, you know, it was not a contract written agreement. So it's always nice to Just you can trust some people that way, but hardly anybody when you, when you invest in a company, do you want some paperwork?

But but of course my dad has always been there just helping support the product when, you know, the, the patents were going to expire and I needed, you know, an extra thousand bucks or we need to buy this inventory, this mold, you know. You know, do you want to put in more? It's like how much more?

Well, being retired, it was really helpful to have them help along the way with financial and other support. So it's been good. Yeah. You know, whether the tens of thousands yeah, definitely brought us closer together and we learned a lot. So definitely happy for that journey, but yeah, it's having like an investor to fund marketing dollars moving forward, that's really where.

The funds would go to. And so looking for the right partners strategically, maybe somebody in the product space is always helpful, or just somebody who's looking to, to make a scene in that, in that market. It's always nice to have people who see a vision of something better. And really we can grow this too.

Really big company, but it does take probably a additional help at this point. Yeah, we've kind of taken it as far as we can, so.

Kelly Kennedy: Cool. Cool. Okay, so basically if we have anybody listening and they are experienced with marketing an awesome product, bringing it to market, doing all that yeah. Get in touch.

What's the best way for them to get ahold of you, Derek?

Derek Nolt: Just my email would be awesome. Yeah. derek.nolt@bladeflex.com . On the website too. There's a customer service email that when I look at as well. So pretty much any way through some social channels, we're kind of revamping our social as well getting more into the training aspect of it.

And so we're, we're developing new socials. We really want to start the marketing fresh and that's what the funds are for. We have new products. In terms of products, you know, you can have one product that has like a peak life cycle, and there's different life cycles for products. This one has some longevity with it being a rehab device.

But at the end of the day for shoulders, now I'm looking at more of some weight attachments to help with the lumbar doing more movements. And we have a backpack for walking posture. And so we started as maybe a single product where you, you know, Really see or understand that having kind of a series of products to help people benefit more from blade flex so you can use it in a lot of different ways is kind of where we're going.

And so, of course, when you develop one product, you never done and you're always in that inventor mindset. And so, yeah, maybe. Adding just a couple complimentary products, you know, costs even more. But realistically, when you have a suite of products, it just helps the marketing and everything come together way more so.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. And I saw, like, just speaking to that, you've actually made a backpack to go with it?

Derek Nolt: Yeah, that was one of the first things I just wanted, because I was always out on the trails and walking, running, and it just felt like This would be nice to have as well. And then, well, I don't want to carry my phone.

I don't really want to carry my water. And so, yeah, let's design a backpack. And again, to the drawing board and yeah, try it out. And the weight actually makes it really sit well in the middle of your back. And there's kind of a hands free pocket for the phone. So you can chat or listen to music and you could put a water bottle or, Some of those runner packs with the straw, so you can kind of get a good walking posture on, because it's really about actively improving your body in so many different ways.

Sitting posture is one, but when you walk it's kind of a whole different ball game and moving. Yeah, different poses. I've done some yoga in my time and we're trying to integrate some flows with with blade flex have a new weighted attachment to help really with that lumbar support through another kinesiologist that I know who's very good at lower back pain.

And so we're just developing some movements with it. And so really, yeah, we're, we're kind of growing at the same time as. Is marketing. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Derek, this has been awesome. Obviously, if people are listening and they want to just check out and maybe buy blade flex, they can do that right through the website.

Derek Nolt: Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. bladeflex.com. Maybe we can post a discount code for all the listeners. Maybe a Kel, what would be a good one? KK.

Kelly Kennedy: Whatever you want, you give me a code. I'll make sure that it goes on here when we launched the show.

Derek Nolt: It's. I haven't thought about it. Yeah. Yeah. This is for the moment thing here, but literally if somebody wants to try it out, yeah, we can give a 50% discount Kelly's not sponsoring this in any way, by the way.

But if you put in Kelly into the blade flex website, you'll get a 50 percent discount and I'll put it in today.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Okay. Derek, that's awesome. Thank you for coming on today and chatting blade flex and product development. That's awesome. Thanks so much, Kelly. Until next time, this has been episode 172 of the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry. And founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development. Your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.