Nuts and Bolts of Better Walk
FOUNDERS
Partha Unnava, Andrew Varghese, Frankie Swindell (all from Georgia Tech)
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES
3
VC OR ANGEL?
Funded
AMOUNT RAISED?
$160,000 (MB Venture Partners, Innova Fund)
FOUNDED
May 11, 2013
What is Better Walk?
Better Walk is developing a more comfortable crutch that reduces underarm pain for users.
What’s your traction been like thus far?
We’ve been in the product development stage and are in the process of setting up pilot studies at various hospitals in the Atlanta area.
What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started Better Walk?
I wish when we started Better Walk, we had known the length of time we needed for product development. We had underestimated this timeline, and didn’t understand the full magnitude of the process until we had fully delved into it.
What’s a hypothesis that you’ve had that has failed? And how did you respond?
We initially believed that a curved design for the crutch would be the most optimal for users. We then found the manufacturing costs of this design would outweigh any aesthetic benefits and we modified the design to accomplish the same benefits for the user while achieving aesthetics in a different way.
What’s your favorite startup in Atlanta?
ECommHub.
What’s your favorite thing about being an entrepreneur?
The best part of being an entrepreneur is being able to directly impact the world positively and being able move forward and innovate more quickly than larger companies are capable of.
What’s your favorite local sports team?
Atlanta Falcons
If your company were an animal, what would it be and why?
Better Walk would be a lion because of every employees’ ability to lead.
This Q & A was produced by Started.in, who profiles startups on all kinds.
More on Better Walk
- Better Walk was selected as one of the top companies in the Zero To 510 accelerator class of 2013. Upon beginning the accelerator, the company began with $50K in seed funding. At the conclusion of the accelerator, after a demo day, the company was chosen as a top company in the program and given an additional $100K.
- At the 2014 TiECONSE Conference, Partha Unnava, CEO of Better Walk, won 2014 Student Entrepreneur of the Year.
- They were recently named as a semifinalist in the GFHI Challenge Business Plan Competition and were selected to present at a Shark Tank event at the Georgia Bio Life Sciences Conference.
- On May 7th and 8th of 2014 Better Walk was a presenting company at the 2014 Conference of the Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA).
See them in the Georgia Tech alumni magazine.
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