When parents first see our Aerlos innovation, they often exclaim: “How did you come up with this?!?”
When parents first see our Aerlos innovation, they often exclaim: “How did you come up with this?!?”
Well, the truth is, It started a few years ago with a little university project where two tip-toeing brothers, separated by decades of neurodevelopmental differences, united over a trainer that would change their lives forever.
After 22 years of living in the same household, yet not speaking. Suddenly, after a transformational family trip, I came back with an idea in mind - I was going to try to build a relationship with his autistic brother. Entering the last year of university studying product design, I was on the look out for problems to solve and ways to help the people around me. One day, while out on a run with my brother on holiday I realised he was consistently bobbing up and down with every stride, shaking with every warm-up stretch, and his toes were poking out the ends of his holey trainers, how odd!
Investigating further, I pried for information…asking Josh how he feels while exercising, digging into personal past experiences, and trawling the internet for scientific studies and anecdotes. He was an idiopathic toe-walker! The discomfort on his face now said it all, all the dots aligned - tight calf muscles, shortened achilles, poor balance and posture, not to mention the incessant bullying throughout primary and secondary school.
Come to think of it, those were all things I experienced growing up - CLICK - this was the perfect thing for us to bond over, starting at the foundation!
I started designing a trainer, custom made to his feet, that would be stronger than his previous holey ones. The process brought us together.
We had our first time opening up with each other, first long conversation, first time reminiscing childhood memories, first joke shared, first laugh together. This was it I thought - at this point losing sight of my degree, eyes firmly set on my brother - nothing was more precious than this new connection formed.
The ice that held for 2 decades was broken.
But soon we would stumble on an innovation that would change everything…
Stay tuned for the next part 2!
Thanks for reading. We’re grateful to have you with us as we build toward our spring Kickstarter launch. If anything in this story sparked a thought, hit reply! I’d love to hear it.
With love and blessings,
Nathan :)))
Founder of New Found Hope
