Hardware Accelerator Team Spotlight: Mistifye

#HardwareAccelerator19 team, Mistifye, is bringing a gentle solution to mothers of children with severe eye allergies. Team leader, Reagan Jung, along with team members, Jai Karnik, and Phoenix Romero pivoted from their original idea of helping pet owners, to helping mothers when they realized a large number of mothers and children struggle with using eye drops.

What problem do you solve for the market?

Mistifeye provides an easier alternative to eye drops for those who struggle.

Who is your customer?

Moms with Kids who have severe eye allergies, since most of the time the children have the innate reaction to blink making the process elongated. 

What is your innovation or solution?

Instead of using liquid drops, our device converts over the counter eye drops into a gentle mist for easier application. This method helps prevent the user from missing the eye drops and also mitigates the reflex blink reaction as it can be applied while blinking. This helps Mom’s and their kids have a pleasant experience by saving time, energy and money. 

How did you come up with this idea?

We first came up with this idea for Pet owners who have a hard time putting eye drops for their pets. We ideated a Medigoggle (Goggles for dogs) which has an inbuilt nebulizer to dispense the medicated drops. We pivoted after realizing that there are far many more people who have trouble putting in eye drops on themselves. 

What has been the biggest surprise? What has been the most eye-opening experience so far?

After interviewing over 50 Mom’s we realized how big of a problem it actually was for them. Most moms cannot do it themselves and need their spouse to hold the kid down while the mom opens their eyes. It’s really “messy and is a screaming fest”, according to many moms. Children hate anything going into their eyes and are so scared of eye drops that some moms don’t even administer them.