Frequent global traveller Ted Finn knew he was on to something when Dr. Charles Krebs shared his cure for jet-lag with him. After trying out the unique acupressure activation techniques after multiple international flights, Finn knew that so many other global travellers could benefit greatly from this discovery.
As a co-founder of Uplift, Finn is at the core the ideal customer for the app; As an individual who travels internationally at least once a month, thus experiencing the intense side effects of jet-lag quite frequently. Finn, an entrepreneur for 30 years now, began with his first venture in 1987 with his family. Their footwear company was a spinoff of his father’s company, and introduced Finn to “being his own boss.” From there, Finn describes that he “got the bug to work for myself,” and explored additional product innovations. Although Finn has extensive global knowledge and experience, Uplift is his first venture within the travel industry.
Finn first met Dr. Krebs in Cambridge while he was treating Finn’s wife. From there they became friends, and bonded over their similar love for travel. Travelling internationally starting at age 13, Finn could relate to the feelings of jet-lag. Inspired by Dr. Krebs’ discoveries, he decided to try the accupressure point activation on himself. After realizing how useful and effective Dr. Krebs’ system was, he knew there were global travelers out there that could equally benefit from it.
In early stages of product development, Finn realized “based on global travel patterns that users would need to have the solution in hand wherever they would be.” The only scalable solution was to create an app to support Dr. Krebs’ unique algorithms. He also found that users who used Uplift for one international flight and felt the benefits would continue to use it again and again, hence the need for a mobile app that could be used wherever there was internet.