Team #22 // SeedBoost
Executive Summary
Problem:
Varicocele is a condition which affects half a billion men in the world and it’s the number one cause of male infertility – 40% of those who have varicoceles are not fertile. Varicocele is the wrong functioning of testicles’ vein system. This leads to an increase of temperature of around 2℃ in testicles which causes a sensible reduction of sperm production.
Solution
SeedBoost aims at solving this problem through continuous monitoring of testicle temperature and lifestyle improvement. By combining a removable temperature sensor placed in the underwear (2 cm diameter) and a smartphone app, we provide real-time practical feedback to keep the testicle temperature under control helping to increase men fertility, especially for those who have varicocele.
Target user / Customer
Customers are men between ages 26 – 48 trying to have a child, who are facing fertility problems.
Varicocele patients are a subgroup (of the previous group) where managing testicle temperature is crucial for increasing fertility through according behavior change.
Your solution and how the concept is feasible
The technology for wearable, small and reliable skin temperature sensing already exists today. There are several evidences in the literature that testicle temperature management is connected to increased fertility. It also evident that long-term lifestyle change (e.g. reduction in coffee, alcohol and cigarettes consumption as well as reduction in weight and stress and proper sleep) and specific short-term daily actions (e.g. walking, standing, laying with your legs up) and exercises (e.g. yoga, Kegel exercises) can help to keep testicle temperature under optimal physiological levels. Finally, providing a sensor and a connected app in one solution is something which has already been proven to work with weight and wellbeing solution such as FitBit.
Four unique value propositions
What makes your solution/concept unique?
- Increase you level of fertility naturally
- Avoid surgical operation in highly sensible area (15% the operation it does not have success)
- Improve your lifestyle and overall health
Financials
There are 500,000,000 varicocele patients worldwide. Even if only 1% of these patients will buy our solution when trying to have a child, we have a huge market (without considering the general male population). At the moment there are no similar apps or sensors used to measure testicle temperature even though small wearable skin sensors can be found in the market at around 4$ cost currently. Therefore, costs should not be a big problem for this solution. To acquire customers fast and create content for the app, we will partner and use the pool of more than 4 million users of the platform VaricoceleHealing.com which unites varicocele patients. Comparing our solution with similar solution in the market of wearable devices (e.g. FitBit) we would like to price the at 120$ one-time payment plus a monthly subscription of 38$ to receive extra help and useful advice to manage the disease.
Impact
What is the potential positive impact your solution/concept are creating? Link to the Sustainable Development Goals
We aim to increase men fertility in the Nordics countries and in the world, which directly contributes to SDG #3: Good Health and Well-Being
Team
Who is in your team and what are your skills and motivations?
We are three in the team and aim at boosting men fertility. Parid Doksani is a masters graduate in Business in Healthcare, while Agzam Idrissov is a PhD candidate in Data Science in Engineering
Group Members
List full name and e-mails (preferably not your student e-mail)
- Parid Doksani, p.doksani@gmail.com
- Agzam Idrissov, agzid@dtu.dk
- Stephanie Wellemoes, s195320@student.dtu.dk
