Royi Metser (00:00.814) you Royi Metser (00:14.042) For one reason or another, they weren't guiding me to make ultimately the right decisions because I was still facing these challenges. And so I started thinking about and consuming more information and specifically reading papers, biomechanics and physiology papers to try to understand how could I better achieve my running goals faster, more efficiently? Were there other tools that I could use? Was there other data I could measure about my body and my running that could make me and help me make smarter training decisions. And so at some point I landed on biomechanics papers and this concept of monitoring our movement and monitoring the forces that are acting on our body and realized that this information provided tremendously valuable insight, but was locked away in essentially biomechanics labs. the only way to get this valuable insight about how you move and about the forces that are acting on your body is to go into a lab and have a pretty expensive, time-consuming, inconvenient gait analysis done, which provides a wealth of information, but for the large majority of runners is not something that is particularly accessible or something that we're able to do. And obviously it's a snapshot in time if you do do it, right? You're not getting that information on every single step in your usual training environment. And so all of this research and Reading and diving deep and speaking with leading experts coaches and researchers in the space Eventually led me to identify an opportunity to leverage advancements in technology technology the ability Pretty cost-effectively in a very small format Embed technology in our shoes, which we were already wearing in a way that was again non-invasive incredibly durable completely waterproof to all of a sudden turn our shoes into this vehicle for this amazing data and then use that data, translate that data into insights that could help me and other runners minimize their risk of injury and improve their performance. Hey runners, we track miles, we track heart rates, sleep, recovery, but not how we move and how our move acting on our body. So what do you do? We guess. Sometimes we push too hard and at times not enough. Royi Metser (02:37.902) True insight about impact and form are locked away inside perfectly simulated labs. Wouldn't it be amazing to get the insights from where all the action is? Our feet? That's what Royi Metzer, founder of Avelo, set out to do. Creating world's smartest shoe. A world class shoe as foundation Avelo Super Trainer shoes have a patent pending technology, an AI powered running sensor embedded in the midsole. It collects consistent, accurate data and your personal coach. And the best part, no charging required for the life of the shoe. In my discussion with Royi, we chatted about the founding story of Avelo. about the amazing team behind Avelo and how it is redefining the right set of metrics for runners like impact score, resiliency score, form rudder and efficiency score. So let's dive in to learn about the world's smartest shoe. I'm your host Kamal Dutta and this is what runs a run. you Royi Metser (04:07.17) Welcome Royi to the pod. Glad to have you here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm always fascinated about the tech behind shoes and the runners that are so much spent so much time on running and training for races. And one of their biggest asset is the running shoe they use to get trained. And in the race day, all the sweat and all goes in and you're doing something amazing with a Avelo to solve a problem that's not been solved ever. So can you kick us off with what is Avelo Running? Absolutely. So we're building a smart running shoe. So it's a new way of innovating in running shoes. There's been tremendous innovation over the last, I would say, 10 to 20 years in footwear, mostly in materials innovation, which has led to lighter shoes, more responsive shoes and record breaking performances and Of course, we're leveraging the best materials available. We're also adding digital technology and embedding the shoe with a sensor that can provide feedback to every runner about their biomechanics. So the running form and the forces that are acting on their body. And that data can be used to provide insight around optimizing performance, around running more efficiently. around minimizing risk of injury. And ultimately, the goal is to provide information to runners that can help them accomplish whatever it is they're looking to accomplish in their running journey faster, better, more efficiently with less setbacks. Fascinating. I have to unpack every piece of it that you mentioned. That's a lot in terms of different aspects and how it can help runners. But let's go back. I want to, I'm very curious about the story of Avelo, how your personal journey led to solve a problem that not been solved yet. Yeah. So I found running a few years ago, it was something that I always enjoyed doing as part of my overall fitness routine. And I've always been into health and fitness. It's an important part of my life. Since I was, I was very young. I grew up in a family with parents that prioritized health and health and fitness. And so I would, grew up playing team sports. Royi Metser (06:35.79) participating in, you know, basketball, soccer, but then a CrossFit at some point in my adult life and was always into lifting weights. had to run a few half marathons and my dad was always someone that loved to run, so I would run with him. But running used to be something I would do for cardio and that changed in around 2021 when, at the time I was living up in the Northeast in Boston and after about a year and a half of living in, during the pandemic and falling into poor health for honestly the first time in my adult life. And I know now that it's an experience that many others share with me. I found running during that time as a way to make a change that I felt was needed to kind of turn my health around. It was actually a blood test that I did that led me to discover some things about my body that I felt needed to improve. had very high cholesterol. I had a biological age that was much higher than my real age. and so I decided to sign up for my first marathon, kind of cold Turkey, honestly, so that I could have a goal to shoot for and, follow a training plan and provide some structure for me to kind of get off the couch and, back into training and back into fitness. And so I started training that week. It was the spring of, 2021. And for six months, I became a runner and through the process of training for this marathon. And, you followed a training plan, hired a coach, and it was through that experience of training for that race and then completing it that I fell in love with the process of running as my primary form of fitness. And I started to really think about running as the, the, the primary form of fitness for me and the things that I think that I had goals around. And after finishing that race, it really. I left that race with with fuel to improve at running and I know many others experienced this this in their first marathon You know, it was a pretty challenging race for me I hit the wall around mile 20 or 22 and so yeah I kind of fell short of the goal that I had and so that was also very motivating for me to Get back on the horse so to speak and try to run another one and really conquer this really challenging challenging goal I curious what kind of Royi Metser (08:51.828) scan was it? know Dexter scan talks about biological age. Is it kind of blood test supporting the Dexter scan? I was working for a company called Insight Tracker at the time leading business development. And that's a company, amazing company based in Boston and Kendall Square that we built technology that analyzes blood biomarkers, DNA test results, wearable device data. So the biological age was based on those biomarkers. wow. And you said you gained, you're more than The actual age the biological age was showing okay. I was 31 at the time and my biological age It's called the inner age on inside tracker was 41 So it was telling me that I was 10 years older biologically than I was chronologically. Okay, that must be a eye-opening a moment for sure. It was definitely a kick in the butt. That's for sure that the individual markers again, it was I had high cholesterol and again at 30 31 You know, it was something that I had been monitoring for a while and was able to get it down with nutrition and lifestyle. And then after being sedentary for a long time and my diet not being as good for a period of about a year and a half, it had skyrocketed again. So that was also part of the impetus for making a change. That's great. I'm glad that you could make the change and I'm sure it's in the right direction. I'm sure from by now for sure. It's improved. That's for sure. Yeah. Running is good for you if you can. Yeah, can stick with it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I think you went into journey, you started your running journey with the marathon. think you continued the journey. At what point the idea for Evelo kind of formed and what problems you saw, because you yourself as a runner probably saw something in the market that was lacking. Yeah, I I was tracking everything about my body and about my training, everything I could get my hands on. Of course, I mentioned the blood tests and DNA tests, and I was wearing a Garmin watch and measuring my sleep and of course, distance, pace and heart rate during my training and my HRV and my recovery. And yet I faced some challenges as a runner myself. You know, it felt like training for the marathon and training to improve at running was a, at times frustrating process of trial and error, trying things and... Royi Metser (11:10.75) seeing the result and sometimes experiencing setbacks, plateauing, performance, not improving as quickly or as, as, as much as I wanted. And the worst problem was the injuries that I face, which is just a, mean, unfortunately, an inevitable part of, of running. I think every, every person that's trained for, trained for a race, almost everyone or has run for an extended period of time has unfortunately experienced an injury at some point in their journey. It's just a risk that we take when we when we push our bodies but yeah, it was really frustrating for me because I felt like I was doing everything right and I was consuming all of the guidance and content that I could to Become educated and smarter on how to train in the best possible way to accomplish my goals at some point I even worked with a coach, you know, I was following a training plan Trying to make all the right decisions and yet still I experienced these really frustrating setbacks and again in some cases injuries and something felt missing in the products that I was using, the tools that I had available, the data that I was using to measure my running and make decisions about my performance and my health. For one reason or another, they weren't guiding me to make ultimately the right decisions because I was still facing these challenges. And so I started thinking about and consuming more information and specifically reading papers, biomechanics and physiology papers to try to understand how could I better achieve my running goals faster, more efficiently? Were there other tools that I could use? Was there other data I could measure about my body and my running that could make me and help me make smarter training decisions? And so at some point I landed on biomechanics papers and this concept of monitoring our movement and monitoring the forces that are acting on our body and realized that this information provided tremendously valuable insight, but was locked away in essentially biomechanics labs. So the only way to get this valuable insight about how you move and about the forces that are acting on your body is to go into a lab and have a pretty expensive, time-consuming, inconvenient gate analysis done, which provides a wealth of information, but for the large majority of runners is not something that is particularly accessible or something that we're able to do. Royi Metser (13:36.96) Obviously, it's a snapshot in time if you do do it, right? You're not getting that information on every single step in your usual training environment. And so all of this research and reading and diving deep and speaking with leading experts, coaches and researchers in the space eventually led me to identify an opportunity to leverage advancements in technology, the ability to pretty cost effectively in a very small format. embed technology in our shoes, which we were already wearing in a way that was again, non-invasive, incredibly durable, completely waterproof to all of a sudden turn our shoes into this vehicle for this amazing data and then use that data, translate that data into insights that could help me and other runners minimize their risk of injury and improve their performance. That's amazing. Yeah. I wonder, you know, I'm sure it has been tried in the past. Probably there is a lack of innovation and technology probably did not let to get to the inside that you want. The gate analysis that you mentioned, I think that's also another limitation is it's very controlled. It's not a naturally data that's been collected. it's more on everything is monitored in a controlled environment and you assimilate running. It may not be natural run that you would do outside. taking it away. You are just doing a natural go out, run, and then you have the technology there to collect the data and give you insight. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, I mean, you're spot on and that's a challenge for, it's a limitation of that information because as you said, you're running on a treadmill. Some of us run on treadmills, but many of us also run outdoors. Right. they only run outside. Right. So that's a limitation. It's a treadmill, which is it's different than running on roads or running on trails. Right. Someone's watching you. Yeah. Might be running differently when someone's watching you than when you're out on your own or running with the group. It's a few minutes. Royi Metser (15:48.81) Right. you're not going to have an opportunity to really run for long enough to settle into your typical running pattern. Of course, you can't simulate how you run out in the world every day and on every step in just a few minutes. And so there's a lot of limitations to that, not just for that specific analysis, but this is something that I realized was also a limitation of the research that had been published around running by mechanics, running performance, running related injuries that were. It's just an inherent constraint of research that we're relying on data that's collected in these same environments, these same very controlled environments that are very small and short snapshots in time, often from very small groups of runners, right? You look at some of these papers that are published in biomechanics and physiology, they're typically small samples. They're 10, 20, 50, maybe 100 runners. That's considered a pretty typical size for one of these studies. okay. just, is what it is. It's just, hard to do big studies, especially ones that are long. and, so part of my vision too, when I got into this was, well, how amazing would it be for us to unlock insight and monitor these data points from many more runners? rather than just having 10 or 50 or even a hundred runners, what if we had hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands or one day millions of runners that were collecting this data out in their usual training environment? runners of different abilities, different ages, different goals, different running patterns, different training histories. And what if we could use this data to unlock new insight about what leads to optimal performance and what ultimately leads us to get injured. And these are very complicated, complex questions. There's so many variables that affect these, these both performance and injury. And so really the only way to answer these questions is to collect high quality data over long periods of time from a lot of different people, because ultimately injury and performance happens for very different reasons for different people. Absolutely. And you're so right on that. It's a very complex problem to solve as well. So what are the right metrics? I know you are in a process of, know, the issues coming out and you're going to get the feedback, start collecting the data. Royi Metser (18:01.698) and your vision is on its way to come to the fruition. What are the data from your understanding that is important or the key metrics that people, it is an honor, I should be educating myself or anybody should be educating themselves? Yeah, one of the big ones that I realized pretty quickly was mechanical load. So this is the physical stress. that's applied to your muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones during running, right? So you've felt this. You feel it every time you run. It's impact, right? You hit the ground. Right. And there is a physical stress that's applied to your body, to your musculoskeletal system. And every one of those impacts, so on every single step, you're causing damage to your muscles, tendons, and bones. And that's a good thing. That's actually what creates and stimulates the adaptation that leads to better performance, right? So you create this damage. Ideally, you recover properly from that damage, right? You rest, you recover, you do an easy run. And as a result, your body builds back stronger and you're able to handle more running, faster running. And that process repeats itself. And ultimately that leads to better performance. Now, when you get into trouble is when you apply more of this mechanical load. So more stress than your body is capable of handling at that point. So it's an equation of load versus capacity load being the stress that's applied and capacity being your body's ability to handle that stress. I see now the way that most of us, most of us runners monitor our training and monitor what we call training load today is we're using mileage or duration, right? So the number of miles typically that we're running on a weekly basis, weekly miles, or the number of hours that we're running on a weekly basis. That's probably the most common way that runners are monitoring their training. And unfortunately, that is in most cases, very oversimplified way of quantifying your training. Some runners are even using heart rate-based measures, like there's training load scores that you use. Royi Metser (20:21.966) heart rate during running, to understand the physiological load on your body, but we're missing a critical piece of the puzzle, that is better mechanical load monitoring. So quantifying the forces that are being applied on our muscles, tendons, and bones during every running step, and then using that information to make smarter decisions so that we know what is the true stress that my body is under during running. And therefore, how much should I run today, this week? How hard should I run today, this week, to push enough, apply enough stress to improve, but not exceed my body's capacity? So that's one critical piece of the training load puzzle that's currently missing that we're shining a light on. So that's fascinating. So how do you get the capacity part of it? Because that's... Because when I'm running, so you can measure the impact or the load I have or, you know, zone to running or whatever zone I'm running in based on my training plan or the mileage that I for my training plans. Like I started in New York, training for New York now. I'm at what, long runs around 10, 12 miles range at this point, and then a couple of runs. And I have no idea where I'm leading to in journey. So that's kind of the, I hope that I never get to. But you're saying if I know what my capacity is going into the run and I have kind of a feedback loop going on to say, hey, okay, don't push yourself. Maybe you should do a zone two today for doing a six mile. But how do you get to the capacity data point? Because I feel like it's somebody somehow feed that so that you can get the feedback back to the runner, right? Yeah. So we've worked with some of the leading. researchers in this space, PhDs in physiology, biomechanics, coaches, physical therapists, to come up with mathematical models that essentially model your training load and model your capacity over time. And so you can think of every training session, there's both a positive effect and a negative effect to that training session. The negative effect is that Royi Metser (22:40.622) that stress and ultimately the fatigue or the damage that's caused by that training session. The positive effect is, again, the fitness that's built up over time or the capacity that's built up over time from that session. And every training session has both of those stimulus, both a positive and a negative effect. There's mathematical models that allow you to model the positive and negative training effects of every training session. And in this case, the input to that mathematical model is this impact, right? So this mechanical load. And so we're able to quantify the mechanical load, the mechanical stress of every run, and then use that to model both your negative training effects or the short-term damage and fatigue that's... being accumulated by that training, by that mechanical load, and then also the capacity that's built up over time, that positive training effect. And then it's about creating a model that tries to optimize the balance of capacity and load over time. And so there's a few contributors, which we can go into if you want, that go into what we call the resiliency score, which is a daily measure that's looking at very curious about that metrics. I think some of the things that you highlighted too. Yes. Yes. So it looks at your patterns of impact, your patterns of training essentially, which again, this concept of mechanical loader, we call it an impact score, which is every run gets an impact score, which takes into account the distance of that run and also the intensity of the run. So by intensity, mean the force, the magnitude of the force that's applied on your body. And so we can understand holistically how impactful, how stressful was that run. And then we have models that... look at all of your runs over time and generate a daily score for you. So we call this the resiliency score. And there's a few inputs to this score or contributors to the score. We look at short-term load. So we call this acute load, which is one of the things that's been shown in the literature to spike your risk of injury is if you Royi Metser (24:44.142) you spike your training load over the last, let's say, week. So let's say you do a really hard training session. You go for a 20 mile long run where your, you know, your, your previous longest long run was 10 miles. I'm giving a very simple example, right? So in that case, you're spiking your training load pretty far beyond what your body is used to handling, right? The way to get to 20 miles is as you're doing right now, you're, progressing through long runs of 10, 11, 12, then you rest, right? And 13, 14, 15, then you rest, right? That's the way you get to 20. But if you all of a sudden, do something that your body is not used to, then that's when you can get into trouble. And there's cases where that's simple, but there's cases where it's not because this training load, there's a lot of variables to it. It's not just the distance you're running. It's also the intensity. It's the surface you're running on. It's whether you're running uphill or downhill. And so by creating this impact score, which is based on the forces that are acting on your body and all of these other variables, we're able to get a more precise measurement of the stress that your body is under. and therefore give you better insight on whether you're overdoing it or whether you're training in a safe zone. And this is not an easy thing to get right. And of course we're coming out with something that we feel is really strong based on this novel measure of training load and based on the work that we've done with leading researchers and coaches. And over time, these models that we're developing will get smarter. So Royi, is it, am I getting it correct that if I... got on, put on a pair of shoes, a pair of shoes and go for a run. And when I go for a run first time, you would start to measure, start collecting data, obviously from a resiliency score point of view, but to get to the capacity, are looking probably starting from zero. I get it correct? And you are personalizing based on the data you're collecting for me as Kamal running. And then the feedback loop starts from there. okay. Exactly. So it takes a little, a little, so of course we start collecting data on your first run. You unlock these insights over time. So over the first few weeks, it's building the model for you, right? So it's creating baselines for you and you need to collect some data to unlock these insights. So after just a few runs, you will start to unlock the resiliency score and it'll calibrate. in other words, it'll have enough data on you after a few weeks. Royi Metser (27:05.114) and it'll get more personalized to you over time as you continue to train with the product. That's fascinating because now you can tell that this is really personalized for you or for myself versus it's not a generic algorithm of another 20 million runners which may not be applicable to a person because you know where they are you know what kind of condition they are in or their you know different factors come into play you know. level of fitness they have and then what kind of feedback you can give it back to them. that's amazing. Any other key metrics other than resiliency score that is important that learners or runners should learn about? Of course, yeah. So the impact and resiliency score is one big category, like I said, and then so another big category is what we call efficiency. So we have an efficiency score. By efficiency, I'm essentially referring to, you can think of it like the miles per gallon of your body. So if you're an efficient runner, that means you will be able to hold a particular pace for longer. so that's been shown to be one of the best determinants of running performance is how efficiently you're moving. So in other words, you're able to put out a lot of work or run a particular pace and it costs you very little physiologically to run that pace or to put out that much work. And so we're finally able to quantify how much mechanical work you're putting out. So the propulsion that you're putting out during running, and we're looking at the physiological cost of that work. So in other words, how much work are you doing and how much is it costing you physiologically to do it? So we use heart rate. for that. So we integrate with your other wearable devices. We're obviously not measuring heart rate ourselves. We don't need to do that from the foot. Most runners are using a smartwatch to get heart rate or a chest strap. so based on these two measurements, we can help you understand, are you very efficient? Are you doing a lot of mechanical work and for very little cost? Or are you on the contrary, inefficient, right? Are you not doing a lot of work? And is it costing you a lot to produce that work? Royi Metser (29:21.324) and how is that changing over time and how does that change with different running form, right? So how can you tweak your running form in order to see if you can optimize your mechanical efficiency? So this is another big area where, you know, runners may have heard of the concept of running economy, which is a little bit different than what I'm describing, which it looks at your oxygen consumption to see how much oxygen are you consuming to run at particular pace and... the best runners in the world are able to hold a particular pace and consume relatively little oxygen to do it because they're very metabolically and mechanically efficient. But to get that information, you'd have to go into a lab. So we're making this concept of efficiency and quantifying your running efficiency available on every single step and over time so you can see how you're improving over time and optimize it. that's cool. So the two... Words that came to my mind is the VO2 max that a lot of runners talk about. And then this, the power meters, you know, the power that you put throughput and then what's right. This measure today. Are you saying that efficiency score kind of combines the boat or this is a separate metrics? It's separate measure. So we're not looking at necessarily a VO2 max. VO2 max is the total amount of oxygen, the maximum amount of oxygen that you can consume. So it's essentially the size. as of your engine, it's more of a physiological and a metabolic marker. So it's an important one, but it's not the most important, honestly. We're looking at mechanical efficiency. So you can think of it as how efficiently are you moving through space? So you don't want a lot of wasted motion, for example, right? So like if you're bouncing up and down too much, some you may have heard of like vertical oscillation as a measurement that some watches even try to estimate, right? So that means if you have a high vertical oscillation, that means your center of mass is moving up and down in the vertical direction quite a bit on every running step. That could lead to wasted motion, right? Because what you're trying to do during running is you're trying to move forward as efficiently as possible. And so some vertical oscillation, of course, you need because you're propelling yourself upwards on every step. Royi Metser (31:35.97) but too much could lead you to be expending energy in the vertical direction instead of the horizontal direction moving forward. And so that's a very simple example of you want to be moving forward with little wasted energy. And so we're helping you understand how efficiently are you moving through space and help you optimize that. That's awesome. That's good to know. And then let's talk about the feedback that runners get back. So you talked about resiliency score, efficiency score. Any other metric before we get to the feedback loop or the two key metrics that you're looking No, the last category is what we call, so it's around running form. So specifically how you move in. And there's a lot of misconceptions on running form, unfortunately. I think a lot of runners believe that there is one particular correct way to run and the reality is that's not true. And you see this in elite athletes and elite runners. see... elite runners with drastically different running forms. And that's because you can be successful with, with many different types of running and it's really unique to you. So we think about it and we call it your running signature. And what we help you understand is what is your unique running signature? What is the way that you move and what does that mean? And we look at measurements like your foot strike patterns, or are you a forefoot striker, midfoot or rear foot striker, how much you pronate or supinate. how much time you spend on the ground and in the air, so contact time and flight time, symmetry between your left side and your right side because there's a sensor in each shoe, like I said, ground reaction force, and then we help you understand what these metrics mean, and then we monitor them over time, and we alert you any time there's a change in your unique running signature, which is when... you might be getting into trouble, might be experiencing fatigue, maybe even there's an injury coming on and you don't know about it yet. And so that's how we think about your running signature. And we can alert you in real time and post run if we observe a deviation from your typical running signature. So you're challenging that you don't have to land on the front versus back of the foot, huh? You do not. You absolutely not. Yeah. For a long time, runners believed that there was a, you know, Royi Metser (33:50.51) a best way to land. And I think for a long time, mid foot or forefoot striking was touted as the optimal way to run. And it's just not true. see elite runners run with a rear foot strike pattern. yeah, it's actually been shown that one versus the other doesn't lead to better performance or even greater injury risk. That's fascinating for sure. Because that will open up a lot of people that heard over the period of time that you can't land on the back of your feet. No, generally changing, yeah, and generally changing your foot strike pattern, unless there's a really good reason to do so, and you're working with a professional that's guiding you through that process, changing your foot strike pattern is generally not recommended. it carries a lot of risk. Yeah. It carries a lot of risk because what you do when you change your foot strike pattern is you're, changing the way that this stress is distributed on your body. And so when you change it, if you don't do it gradually, you might overload, muscles or tendons or bones in your body that we're not prepared for. load because you haven't been running that way in the past. And so it should be done with caution. And in most cases, it's not something that you really need to focus on changing. Yeah, because you are retraining your body to go out of your natural way of running to something that you heard that they optimize for running, but it's not your natural of running. So you have to be careful first to adopt that. And that may take longer. I know some people runners who try so hard and extra cautious when they're landing their feet. And I have to land on the front, not at the back. I can see that they're looking at their feet and they're running and look at the front. I'm sure you have seen too enough in the training, but if you don't have the right coach, yeah, it can be challenging and can injure yourself in the process for sure. Unfortunately, there's a lot of myths there and we do hope to bust some of those myths. But yeah, again, ultimately. The way you move is unique. There's not necessarily a right or wrong way to move. You should know the implications of your running form. So when you strike the ground with the front of your foot, forefoot strike, you're stressing your calf muscle and your Achilles tendon more than if you are a rear foot striker, a heel striker, which sends more of that stress further up the body to the knee, to the hip. And so it's not better or worse. It's just different. having information and knowledge about that just makes you a smarter runner. Royi Metser (36:15.778) Makes sense, makes total sense. Thank you for sharing these three key metrics that runners should get to know. So I'll repeat again, resiliency score, deficiency score, and in the last word you said, the running signature. Form reader, or the running signature. Okay, that's cool. And now, how does the feedback come to the runners? I know you have the shoe, a chip is embedded in the midsole, and you have an app. that the feedback is coming with. But I think that one of the coolest thing about available shoes, running shoes is that you can get real time feedback as you're running. So how does that math happens? Yeah. first of all, the process of using it is pretty simple. So it pairs over Bluetooth. So you get the product, you pair it, and then you start running. We're using a battery that's non-rechargeable. it's a very, it's a, pretty simple battery, but what that means is that the battery lasts for the entire life of the shoe. So there are smart algorithms in the sensor that only turn it on or off when it needs to be on or off. And so you never have to charge the product, which is really nice. It automatically starts tracking when you run. So you don't have to open up a separate app and the Avelo app and start the run in the Avelo app. You just start running and it automatically knows that you're running and starts tracking your run and then it stops when you're done. Once you're done running, you get back to your phone. You don't have to run with your phone, although for real-time feedback, you do need a phone. But if you don't care about the real-time feedback, you don't. You get back to your phone, you sync the data off the sensors, they sync over Bluetooth, and then you get all the post-run insights, right? The impact score, resiliency score, efficiency score, form radar. And then you get coaching. So post-run and in between runs, there's coaching around how hard and how much you should be running. to optimize the amount of impact that your body is taking, but not apply so much impact that you increase your risk of injury too much. And so again, this is based on this balance of training load and capacity. so each week and each day, you're going to get personalized recommendations for how much and how hard to train that day and week to keep you in that safe zone. when does, you mentioned that you usually initially, when I start running, will collect the data for some time. What is the time period looks like or it changes? Royi Metser (38:37.678) by person to person, a week or two weeks? Yeah, you start getting data on your first run. After seven runs, you've unlocked all the insights. Got it, okay. And it'll get smarter over time. So after a few weeks, it's fully calibrated, but all of the insights are unlocked after seven runs. Got it, got it. And since it looks like you're supporting offline mode, I'm getting that you're storing the data in the... There's memory on the device. Yeah, so you can store up to 20 hours of running without syncing. then, so yeah, it's stored on device. And then the real time is sent. If you do run with your phone, and one day we'll also develop an app for your smartwatch too, so that you don't have to run with the phone at all. You can send data over Bluetooth in real time to your phone. And obviously that provides real time audio coaching. And so there's ways that we can coach you during your run to help you stay on your plan. So stay on your running plan. And then there are specific interventions that have been shown to improve running efficiency, improve running performance, potentially even reduce risk of injury. And so we can coach you on how to optimize your form if there are opportunities for improvement in order to improve these things in real time. And so one simple example is cadence, improving your cadence. So the steps you take per minute. There's been some pretty good research to show that if your cadence is low below a certain threshold, which depends on your ability, depends on your height. But if it is low, there may be benefit to increasing your cadence. And so we can coach you on things like this in real time. that's amazing. And what about the injury prevention case to it? Because I think it's also real time feedback comes in, or it's more on the weekly snapshot that you get on. your performance over the week? Yeah, eventually there will be. Yeah, of course. So the number one cause of running related injury is making what we call a training error. So in other words, applying more training load than your body is prepared for. really it's about being proactive and making sure that you know what your body is prepared for every day and every week. So that's a big part of the injury risk management side of things. And then in real time, one example is Royi Metser (40:56.206) Of course, you fatigue as you run, And so that means that your form breaks down as you run. Let's say you're doing a hard run, a workout, interval run or a long run. You know, as your form breaks down, we can alert you when it breaks down too much, right? And that might be a sign that you're pushing beyond the point where your body is capable. Yeah. Or maybe you're not and you can keep going and we can alert you that... Hey, you really need to pay attention to your mechanics at that point and really hold strong mechanics for the rest of the run. Or maybe your form is broken down so far that it makes more sense to cut the run short and not push further because you're putting your body at increased risk. So there's insights around that that can be provided as well. Oh, wow. That would be a tremendous value add for runners. Cause I know we're talking to Sean Ruttford from Trainers One and I think he has a training coaching app and he was mentioning that most of his data shows that people get injured during what do call the track workout. So it's basically this speed workouts. That's when the most of the injuries happen versus not the long runs. So maybe it can be a real feedback to figure out is it that analysis or the analysis that he did with that is actually talks the real time that you would probably see once you start collecting the data. it more he'll work out or the speed workout or the long run that people get to injury more and more. Yeah. And that's part of the promise here is that honestly, there's, there's a lot of questions that we still have about when runners get hurt and why runners get hurt. And it's a very complicated problem again, because each of us is so unique. And so by having more data, I'm not familiar with this app that you just mentioned, but that's an example of by, by having more data, can advance our understanding of these things and of injury and performance, and then use that understanding to better help more runners reduce their injury risk and improve their. their performance. No, absolutely. And I think, uh, do, you do unlock, uh, it's biggest challenge because every time I start training for a race and I'm sure it's a, you know, marathon runner, so anyone who training for a big race, it's like, don't want to get injured because this is worst thing you prepare for a part said months and a week or two before you a shin splint or you're not clis in whatever it is. it's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible for obviously the, Royi Metser (43:18.658) physical pain, but also the fact that you can't run, right? And you can't run this race, this goal that you've been training for. But then also, I don't know about you, but for me, not being able to run has an effect on my mental health too. It's such an amazing mental health tool. And when it's taken away from me, it's not just the physical effect of not being able to run, it's also the mental effect. So listen, I don't want to... pretend to claim that solving this problem is simple and that there's a magic bullet and all of a sudden, you know, if you run into issues, you'll never get injured. But the point is that we can provide more information to runners to help them make smarter training decisions. Ultimately, we see this as a decision support system, which I've touched on this concept in the past, right? Which is that you, as the runner, you need to be in the driver's seat. You have all the context about your training, about your life, about your history, about the life stress that you're under. So you need to be in the driver's seat. You need to make decisions. You can't rely completely on technology to make decisions for you. But by having more information and by using tools like the one that we're developing, we hope that we'll be, first of all, shining a light on a piece of training load that you haven't really had visibility on. And by having that, you'll be able to make smarter decisions in your training to hopefully reduce the risk that you run into these setbacks. Listen, you're always going to have risk. Right. When you train, when you push your body physically, there's no way to really remove that risk, but we want to lower it. And I do believe that creating a world where setbacks and injuries are the exception, not the rule. I believe that's possible. It'll take time to get there, but I'd like to believe in. I believe in the bottom of my heart that it's possible. Love it. And that's an amazing vision. I'm sure all the best that it comes to fruition. I'm sure it will. For sure. One of the areas I'm very curious, this is 2025 and you are daring to bring in a new shoe brand into the market. So I'm going to curious about the R &D and the product design phase of it. have put together a world-class team of experts from across the industry in this space and you're daring to bring in a solid problem plus being in a shoe. It's like, wow, in the world there are so many great brands. Why are you into? Royi Metser (45:35.094) in the world to bring in a new brand. So what is your vision there and what drove you to bring in, you you could have gotten another, you know, smart device, you could have chosen to do, but you choose to bring it with that shoe. What is your vision there? Listen, there's no question it's the harder path. really took the approach of what we felt was best for the runner, what was easiest for the runner to use. And so... We believe strongly that by embedding the technology into the shoe and creating the full system, we're creating an experience that's frictionless, that's seamless for the runner, where all you have to do is lace up the shoes and start running. There's no additional friction. There's no meaningful behavior change that we're requiring from the runner, for example, to take this gadget or accessory, a device, and figure out how to attach it properly. Move it from shoe to shoe when they want to use it on different shoes, right? Because a lot of runners use a running shoe rotation. They're not just running it on shoe all the time. And we can talk about how we're handling that situation as well. Charge it, remove it to charge it, and then remember to reattach it. There's also the reality that if you create a gadget or an accessory, for example, a pod that you put on your shoelaces, mean, common sense, but... it's on the outside of the shoe, it's attached in a different location by every runner, right? Different lace. The shoe is shaped differently, the foot is shaped differently. It's going to bounce around a little bit as you're running, right? Just from the impact and vibration of running. And so the quality of the data that you're getting from the sensor is going to be a little bit less, a little bit cleaner, less clean than if you're fixing the sensor inside of the shoe in a fixed location. that's under the foot, has been shown to be the best location for durability, also sensor quality and accuracy. And so there's really tactical reasons why it makes sense to do this, but ultimately the driving decision factor and decision point was to make a product that was really easy for the runner to use. And so it's more of like the Apple approach to billing technology, which is you create the full stack, the full system, right? So they build software and they also build hardware. Royi Metser (47:48.994) That's not necessarily right or wrong. It's just the choice that they made and it's worked very well for them. You have other companies that have taken more of a distributed approach like Microsoft, which, you know, sells software. It sells this operating system, but it's not necessarily tied to their own hardware. They also sell hardware, right? So, that's not to say that we can't go in that direction in the future, because in theory, you know, our technology can be embedded in any running shoe. And maybe in the future, there's opportunities to partner with other running shoe brands. We don't know where the future will take us, but right now we're focused on building the best possible product for runners, the one that's easiest to use, that provides the most value. That also means we have to create an exceptional shoe because runners will not compromise on an okay shoe just to get some more insightful and valuable data. We know that. And so that's certainly a challenge. Yeah. I know we talked about common connection. I was talking to Mo on this topic. It's like, there's a lot of data, there's a lot of gadgets, but what I ultimately makes the difference is who can give you some meaningful insight that you can action or actionable insight. And that's, think, what lacks in most of them. Say, okay, I have this, this, this, this data, what I can do about it, how it can improve me, because as as a runner, an average runner, that's what I'm asking. Can I spend a couple of hundred bucks on this gadget? How it is helping me get better, right? I think, and I love the concept of that you're taking the friction away, because that I think is big. because I have to put on a watch and I have to, right now if I go for a run and I have to turn on my Strava in order to start tracking, right? So you're taking me that way that no friction, I just go as you would go out for anything and you'll see the data and it will get the feedback as well. That's pretty cool. Kickstarter journey, your ATAX the target goal. know you mentioned that you wanted to share a little bit about how you are figuring out the different shoes that people are raising. think I can see in the Kickstarter campaign, have different, know, three layers of shoes that are three kinds of shoes that people can use. But I'll start with your Kickstarter campaign. So congratulations on an amazing campaign. Yeah, thank you. Why did you choose Kickstarter instead of going a traditional way of shoe promotion? Yeah, I mean, listen, we're still early in our journey. And so Kickstarter is a great platform to build community to, to Royi Metser (50:14.478) interact with the running community, to have people who believe in the mission and the vision of what you're creating and the product that you're creating support you and be a part of your journey as a company, really from the very beginning, from the earliest stages. And so we felt that it was a great platform for us to leverage, given where we are in our journey, a great chance to finally, for the first time, make our product available for people who believe in it from the earliest stages. to get their hands on it, to get their hands on it first, and to really, again, just be a part of it from the very beginning. And so we felt that Kickstarter was a great step to take as a company, a great community to interface with, and it's not the only method that we're gonna make available for runners to get our product. Once the Kickstarter campaign ends, which it's a finite period that it runs for, it'll end in around mid-August, You know, we'll of course continue to interact with the running community. You'll still be able most likely to get the product at some point soon after the Kickstarter ends. Of course, there's unique benefits that we're making to people who back on making available to people who back us on Kickstarter just to reward them for their support on Kickstarter. But yeah, it was just one step, one step in our journey to get to market, make the product available to runners, finally get the product on runners feet after a few years of building it and getting to this point. That's awesome. 2.5 years in R &D. I think you launched the Kickstarter last month in June. I think you're wrapping up in August. How difficult or easy it is to make sure in 2025? Great question. think, you know, I, is the only experience I've had. for us, I'm not going to say that it's simple because it's not. think the team that we've put together is so exceptional that We've really nailed the shoe and it's in large part because of the people who are involved and who are working on it. My co-founder, Peter Ruppi, who's a footwear industry legend and a veteran of close to 40 years in the industry building footwear and footwear businesses for brands like Nike, where he spent almost 30 years of his career. Footwear designers and engineers and developers who spent decades at companies like Nike and who have Royi Metser (52:39.726) decades of experience building exceptional footwear including in running of course and so Really? We have a team that's done it many many times before with you know over a hundred and fifty years between them of experience making footwear and so You know for us. It's it's been We know how to do it, our team knows how to do it, and so that's why we've been able to create a shoe that we're getting exceptionally positive reviews from some pretty discerning runners in all of our wear testing so far. Cool. And I know I have to talk a little bit about where we are heading in the future, but one question on the shoe side. How does the supply chain related issue or the tariff related issues impact you? Because at the end of the day, I think you have a Kickstarter campaign. you're looking at because you're giving one shoe with the device or the chip, the smart chip on it. Does it impact overall the way you're rolling out mass production beginning of next year? I mean, we're keeping a close eye on it. Thankfully, it doesn't materially impact us. OK. We do have partners in Asia. The reality is that that's where the best. infrastructure, the best skill and talent still resides in specifically in the footwear industry and the apparel industry. And so, you we want to work with the best, the best manufacturers, the best suppliers, the the best product people. It hasn't impacted us materially. It's also out of our control. And so we're really focused on what's our control. We've remained calm through the whole process and Thankfully things have calmed down a little bit and it's in the best interest of both economies to find a solution and an agreement that is mutually beneficial. And so, for now we're in a good spot and we expect that to continue. And if things for some reason change, we have flexibility luckily in our supply chain to be able to navigate those changes in the future if we have to. And all the best and I'm sure. Royi Metser (54:46.574) to work out and it's a lot of things going on to and fro, but hopefully it settles down. when I was talking to the chair holder of running USA, I think he was talking about, especially in the running industry, the apparel and the metal that they make kind of impacted with the tariff situation. And some residents have to increase the fee that goes into organizing the races because they have to. Of course. Some of them may be able to be once candidates of the car, but some small races may not be able to, course, absorb the cost. Yeah. Yeah. The last part, I'm very curious. What is the future is talking. So there are so many gadgets, so many devices, you know, especially in the end, sports and smart shoe is, I think you're solving a lot of problems. Where do you the ecosystem looks like maybe a couple of years down the road? Why smart shoe become norm? Yeah, that's our vision is to create this category, the Smart Footwork category, and of course to lead it. And we know that there's so much value that can be unlocked for runners, for the industry, if this is done, and our plan is of course to do it. And so we see and I see an exciting opportunity to really build this category and lead it. And I think there's really endless runway to build a company that can create a product that unlocks insight from a place where runners and all humans and all athletes have really lacked insight and that's from the source of our movement from our feet and so there's so much we can learn about not just performance but also health by better understanding how we move and better understanding the forces that are acting on our body and so that's really our vision is to unlock these insights to use it to help runners and so we're starting with one model one shoe model It's the most versatile high-performance shoe we could create. It's called the Super Trainer. You can imagine that we will create more models. So we will have a rotation of shoes that you can get any shoe in your quiver from Avello. You know, one day a racing shoe, one day a non-plated daily trainer, one day a trail shoe. Royi Metser (57:04.014) and then variants of each of those. And one of the things that we as a company will be in a unique position to do that really no other company can do as effectively is, and this is something that excited me when I started thinking about this idea is personalizing or recommending the right shoe for the right runner based on the way that they move, based on their training history, based on what we're seeing in their biomechanics. Can we recommend the right model to the right runner? High or low drop firm or soft shoe right depending also on that runners preferences. There's amazing opportunity there also amazing opportunity to use the data that we're collecting to inform our design of future Models, how do we design shoes that fit the needs of the runners that we're serving again? That's a tremendous opportunity as well on R &D and innovation and so I see a tremendous opportunity a really large opportunity to create a Great the next great brand in running footwear. Yeah And then one day, know, there's long-term, you 10 plus years, you can expand to other sports. So of course, the applications of this technology extend beyond running into really any athletic pursuit, team sports. And then healthcare, you know, is also a long, very long-term, but very exciting, I think, application of human movement monitoring and biomechanics technology to better understand, again, how we move for the purpose of extending and maintaining the number of healthy years that we have on this earth. So I think there's a lot of exciting opportunities and many different applications of this technology. But in the short term, short to medium term, we're focused on building a great brand that serves runners, the next great brand in running. That's amazing. You know, I'm sold out. I need to order my pair of Avelos shoes for sure. If I can. for it. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure any runner who has listened to this conversation or any of your prior conversations, how can they get excited about what the possibility is there. So thank you so much, for sharing Avalos journey and where you're headed. Wish you all the best and thank you for your time being on the pod. Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun. I appreciate it.