This summer, Starkey brought out BluePal, a “companion microphone” for ELI. A hearing aid wearer can give a BluePal to his restaurant companion, who clips it to her lapel—and presto, he can hear her as if she were leaning into his ear.
“People with a hearing loss will be able to hear better than a person with normal hearing,” Dybala predicts. That could be especially the case if Bluetooth catches on as a universal wireless system used by churches or movie theaters, enabling hearing aids to patch in.
Ruzicka acknowledges that the market for devices for those who hear fine isn’t there yet. “It’s a shift that hasn’t occurred yet, but I think we’re going to create that shift,” he says. He declines to attach revenue projections to this prediction.
Starkey is so far the only top hearing aid company pushing in this direction, Dybala says. But the idea is attracting other players such as Gennum, a Canadian company that makes electronics components for hearing aids and other devices, and Sound ID, a Palo Alto firm founded in 2000 to market “personalized sound” products. Sound ID founder Rodney Perkins comes from the hearing aid business; he was a founder of ReSound Corporation, now GN Resound (part of Denmark-based GN Great Nordic), whose U.S. headquarters are here in Bloomington. Given some momentum, Dybala says, a new market could perhaps even attract partnerships with cell phone companies.
Ruzicka hopes to lead Starkey to the billion-dollar mark within the next decade. The company remains private, a decision that he says sometimes makes Starkey a little more conservative with in-vestments than he might like. But he also speaks of Starkey as a family, and about the importance of stewarding its vision wisely.
“You have to be sure you can anticipate changes in the industry,” Ruzicka says. “If you have a vision for what’s occurring, you can plan and execute your strategy very successfully.” Spoken like a true detail guy.
