*This Entrepreneur Spotlight is part of a series highlighting GEN Starters Club members making an impact around the world. Members have been battle-tested by GEN programs like the Entrepreneurship World Cup and demonstrate significant potential to scale.
In 2021 Ray Abel found himself walking through international airports with a giant (prop) cheque for US$100,000. The co-founder of Bansen Labs, a company making technology more accessible for people with disabilities, had just won the Social Enterprise Category at the Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals and was on-route home to the United States when his carry-on attracted the attention of fellow travelers.
Recounting his experience, Abel joked: “If you print up a $100,000 cheque and carry it around with you, you'll probably get some investor opportunities and have people wanting to take pictures with you. It happened to me.”
With or without the prop cheque, Ray and Bansen Labs are generating buzz among funders and accessibility advocates alike. In addition to meeting investors and developers to prepare its first product for market, Abel was a finalist for the GEN Starters Award in March 2022. The recognition is given to the highest-performing or most promising founder in the GEN Starters Club, a community of entrepreneurs battletested by GEN programs like the Entrepreneurship World Cup.
GEN caught up with Ray to learn his entrepreneurial origin story, what shaped it, and what’s next.
*This interview has been edited for length and readability.
GEN: You worked in sales, the non-profit sector and management before venturing into entrepreneurship. Tell us how you got here.
Ray Abel: Out of school, I started doing sales work but really wanted to do something that would help people. I didn't know what, but the Muscular Dystrophy Association happened to be hiring. Once I started working there, I just fell in love with the families and kids I worked with.
After that, I went into the startup world, got some experience and knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial to help people. I met my co-founder, Dalton Banks, who grew up with a family member with a disability. Dalton has a software engineering background. I have a business background, and we decided to create a company that can both help people and be successful.
GEN: You started with video games, right?
Ray Abel: It all started with Mario Kart, one of the only games on Nintendo's GameCube console where you could split controls between players. One player could drive the cart and one could use the power-ups (items players can leverage to get ahead in the game). This was the only video game my co-founder's brother could play, so we started to think about how we could make all video games more accessible.
We worked with different game controls and figured out how to split controls between multiple players. Then, we started working with the likes of Comcast NBC Universal and various physical rehabilitation centers and realized we had a much bigger opportunity to adjust other technologies to make users feel more comfortable, whether they have disabilities or not.
GEN: So, you expanded your market?
Ray Abel: We're focusing on applications for people with disabilities to start with, but there's a lot of potential beyond that. I, for example, have smart devices throughout my house. I connected an Apple Magic Trackpad to all my Smart Homes so I can now control the brightness, the color, the on and off through a physical input switch. There is no compatibility of these devices off-the-shelf, but we can allow this to happen in a way that's intuitive.
In addition to being a hardware and software platform, Xogo is also an open developer platform that allows people with technical abilities to create their own connections between devices.
GEN: How do you manage the competition with open software?
Ray Abel: That's something you always have to look at. What's great for us is that we've created good partnerships with large corporations because we are focused on doing something for the greater good. We've worked with Microsoft, for example, and they have a device called the Xbox adaptive controller. It's a very cool product that helps people with disabilities with big buttons and different connections. But it's only for Xbox. We were able to take that Xbox controller, which is at a great price point, and adapt it to be used with a PlayStation, which isn't.
We see these as opportunities for others to work with us, not compete against us. So, if Xbox comes out with a controller for people with disabilities, awesome. That lowers the price for users and gives us a new input device to work with.
GEN: This next question is a hard one. Share three reasons why your business might fail and conversely, why it will succeed.
Ray Abel: There are always a million things that could go wrong. The key is to be realistic about the challenges and threats facing your business. You have to consider how you can compete and at the same time, put all the noise aside. If you’re going to get bogged down with what's not going to work, don’t launch a startup.
What makes me sure we're going to succeed is we really care about our users and their families. There's no greater joy than seeing a kid who has never been able to fly a drone because of a physical disability grab a wheelchair joystick and make that drone fly.
One of the first times we did this, a kid hit himself in the forehead with the drone. He laughed hysterically. He loved it. [Our work] also allowed him to do everyday things like turn a lightbulb on and off. He absolutely loved this because it was a way for him to be independent.
Finally, I want to make cool, fun things happen for myself. We have personal motivations both from a social good perspective and in that we want to make our own lives better.
GEN: What advice do you have for other early-stage founders when it comes to managing the “noise”?
Ray Abel: When you're at an early-stage startup, you're usually getting advice from people. Oftentimes that advice is helpful and oftentimes that advice is confusing, or it's the exact opposite of what someone else said. The key is to make sure you can receive feedback and learn from it. But you also have to trust your gut.
If you don't listen to anyone else, you're probably going to fail. At the same time, if you take every bit of advice you receive, you're going to keep running in circles. You need a balance that allows you to move forward.
GEN: You received mentorship as you competed in the Entrepreneurship World Cup. What expectations did you have going in?
Ray Abel: We signed up hoping we'd get some exposure, maybe get into U.S. Finals and make good connections. Expectations going in were ‘let's see what can happen.’ Once we got through the U.S. Finals, my mindset switched to ‘okay, let's win this thing’.
GEN: What impact has the Entrepreneurship World Cup had on you and your company?
Ray Abel: We've made amazing connections. We’ve met with government officials. We have investors coming from Dubai for meetings. So much positive momentum has come from it. It's been amazing. It all started with not just the exposure from the event, but with the help we received along the way to make sure our pitch was tight and ready to go.
GEN: What's next for you and your company?
Ray Abel: We are focused on bringing our product to market to help the one billion people worldwide with disabilities and make sure that tech works better for everyone. We've done a lot of testing internally and the hardware is ready to go. We just need to clean up the software and bring it to the world.
Learn more about Ray and his work at www.myxogo.com. Sign up for Entrepreneurship World Cup 2022 at www.entrepreneurshipworldcup.com.
