Last year, Cavan Canavan and Grant Hughes were two University of Michigan students who liked to exercise but were frustrated by not knowing how best to maximize their workout. Today, they're two entrepreneurs behind
Focus, a tech start-up that specializes in helping people get the most of the time lifting weights in the gym.
"Cardio is fairly simple. You have time and distance," says Canavan, who graduated last year with an MBA. "Resistance training (weight lifting) is more complicated."
Focus is creating a wristwatch-like device that provides users that helps keep track of reps and makes recommendations on what exercise to do, how much of it do and how often. The recommendations come from information provided by highly-regarded trainers.
"It's a digital, virtual trainer," says Hughes, who will be graduating with his MBA this year.
Focus and its team of two people have created four prototypes of its technology over the last 10 months. The start-up recently won the Pryor-Hale Award for Best Business at the
Michigan Business Challenge, which was worth $20,000 in seed capital. That was the start-up's first infusion of capital and it hopes to raise $600,000 more in seed capital this year and then a Series A round of venture capital worth $2.5 million in 2014.
The company expects to commercialize its product by the end of this year. Hughes and Canavan are looking to utilize a crowd-funding campaign to meet initial market demand.
Source: Grant Hughes and Cavan Canavan, co-founders of Focus
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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