The Future Is Now: Scott Donnell of Hapbee Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
Have a 10 year mindset, not 10 minutes. I wish I would have thought long-term about the business from the beginning, as I would have been much more at ease about the progress. A lot of entrepreneurs want things right now, but with revolutionary technology, you need to be patient.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs. I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Donnell.
Scott Donnell is the CEO at Hapbee Technologies, Inc, and a business leader who has dedicated his life to both physical and mental health. Scott’s personal passion for healthy living led him to create wearable device, Hapbee, utilizing 15 years of research in magnetic fields and frequencies, to help people feel better.
Previously, Scott founded a fitness and fundraising program for schools called, Apex Leadership Company, which has raised $75 million and now has 115 franchises and 3 million customers.
Scott has 10 years of experience building over 80 consumer products and has collaborated with many other world-class experts in the frequency and energy space. Scott strongly believes that the field of frequencies has the possibility to change the way we see the world, our body’s, and the future.
He has been featured in: TechAZ, Mixergy, LaunchPad, Get Yourself Optimized, Orion’s Method, The Rusty Ryal Show just to name a few.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
For starters, I am not a doctor or a scientist, but I do have the largest school fundraising franchise in America, Apex Leadership Company, complete with an application team, promotional partners and hundreds of employees. With a passion for consumer products, I fell in love with the idea of pursuing this opportunity with Hapbee. I invested in the technology behind Hapbee more than 12 years ago, so I both know and love the technology very much. I trust the team of scientists and doctors who built it and I’ve watched them progress over the last decade, so I’m very excited to introduce this technology to the world. I think I have the right skill set to be able to present this technology in an exciting way, so the general public can understand and benefit from using it in their everyday lives.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
It’s hard to find just one, but a funny story comes to mind. I took my wife to Croatia in 2015 for a second honeymoon. We were on a boat with a chef and a guide when all of a sudden my wife’s phone rang. It turns out our website had crashed with 30,000 people on it and all of our franchise teams were freaking out. I immediately had to find my way to the other side of the island to a small village where a couple owned a business with WiFi, and I had to pay them to stay open all night so I could use their internet to work on resolving the problem. It was crazy. I almost got lost on the way to the village while I was getting threatened to be sued and everything. Finally, two days later, we got it figured out. Luckily, I was able to finish the trip with my wife and we will always remember that one.
Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
Hapbee (“Happy”) is a wearable technology that lets you choose your mental state. You wear the device around your head or neck and promote your desired state at the press of a button. Hapbee can deliver dozens of safe, comfortable feelings to your body using proprietary low-energy magnetic fields that mimic signals to your brain that it already understands. The product is designed to have a unique influence on your experience and target specific feelings in a non-ionizing, non-thermal and non-invasive way. Hapbee allows users to feel different types of signals, including Alert, Sleepy, Focused, Calm, Relaxed, and Happy, on command.
It’s the future of substance-free feelings, and it comes from a technology (also used by the Navy) called a magnetometer. We can actually record and study the magnetic fields that come from everyday molecules that we ingest. We think this will help people not turn to substances like pills, drinks or smoking, but rather click a button and get what they need in a healthy way. I think this is going to change the world in a big way when it comes to mental wellness and peace of mind without substances. We are helping people with addictions, trauma, sleep, productivity and stress. We are very excited about where this is going to go. I can’t wait to see millions of people taking back control of their peace of mind with this technology.
Keeping black mirror in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people might think more deeply about?
Well, every revolutionary technology has the chance of being negative, but for us, we want people to choose to make Hapbee a healthy habit instead of turning to chemicals that might harm them. We don’t want people to be addicted to our product — and we have not seen that so far — but we have seen our members enjoy the product throughout the day, sometimes for up to eight hours, so we view it more like good sleep, healthy eating, fitness, meditation and other good habits for your life. That’s our goal.
Was there a tipping point that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
The reason I’m doing this is because I saw my grandma be transformed by our technology. She was 87 years old with a lot of aches and soreness for many years, and she had trouble sleeping. She was one of the first people in the world to try the Relax signal, and within 20 minutes was loose, happy, walking around and feeling amazing. That night, she slept 11 hours, and the next day my grandfather gave me $100,000 and said, “Scott, you need to do this with as many other people in the world as possible.”
That was my moment. That’s my why.
I think we have a huge opportunity to help people with mental health. We want to help people sleep better, feel more relaxed, destress and have more energy throughout the day.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
For us right now, it’s more eyeballs, more stories shared from our customers, more signals made, and more ways to use Hapbee in people’s everyday lives. We want Hapbee to be as relatable as possible for all our consumers.
Our Hapbee necklace/headband is just the start.
We are excited about the future signals that are intended to assist people to better their diet, performance, memory, etc. — and the future is bright. We are hoping for more collaborations and affiliates and joint ventures with people who are interested in using Hapbee with their audience.
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
We do press releases, podcasts, Facebook advertisements and social media, but nothing beats word of mouth. We are working on new collaborations with the right communities of people to enjoy this product. There are so many people who love our product already, including biohackers, functional medicine, doctors, and more. At the end of the day, anyone who is looking to feel better loves our product, making it a perfect fit for so many.
Is there any particular person who you are grateful towards who helped you get to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
We have so many people to thank who have helped this product come to life. Dan Sullivan was the first domino who saw the power of the technology and how to get it out to the world. He is an amazing thinker, and I owe so much to him. He also connected me with Joe Polish, one of the world’s top marketers, who has been fantastic. He also introduced us to Dave Asprey, the father of biohacking, and Dave has been instrumental in our success. Many other people, including Lee Richter and Mark Timm, are amazing in helping us grow and thrive as a company. We have hundreds of people to thank, and I wish I could sit here and name them all.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I believe that all business success comes from helping others. That is what the free market does. We love to give part of what we make to other people, but I don’t believe in giving back — simply because I didn’t take anything in the first place.
What actually happened is I just helped people and many people paid me for it. With that said, I love giving, period. I love helping people with addiction recovery, so we gave to Genius Recovery. We plan on making more partnerships as we grow the business in the mental health nonprofit world.
What are five things you wish someone had told you before you started and why?
#1: Have a 10 year mindset, not 10 minutes. I wish I would have thought long-term about the business from the beginning, as I would have been much more at ease about the progress. A lot of entrepreneurs want things right now, but with revolutionary technology, you need to be patient.
#2: Embrace failures and learn from them. We tried so many form factors and ways to wear the product that at first were ugly, heavy and didn’t work very well. Eventually, we got an answer that worked for all that was lightweight, looked sleek and people enjoyed wearing. However, that takes time.
#3: Be okay with the unknown. God is in control. Just breathe. I had to realize we were walking into the dark with our business and we didn’t have all the answers, but that was okay. Those answers come the more curious and hardworking you become. Keep going. You can do it. Just be open with what you need and what you want, and any problem in the world can be solved with the right network, the right connections, and the right mindset. For entrepreneurs, self-doubt is very difficult — and my young age sometimes gets in the way, but I can remember I have what it takes and I can do it, as long as I don’t give up.
#4: Enjoy the journey. I haven’t actually picked my head up from the work to actually see all that we have accomplished so far. It’s crucial to celebrate each little win together, and don’t forget to bring others along with you for the ride.
#5: The last lesson is that revolutionary technology is just hard, plain and simple. You have to just keep trying, keep learning, and keep asking for help so you’ll eventually get there.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would it be?
I am literally living that dream right now with Hapbee. I would change the global conversation around mental health. No more stigma or embarrassment around seeking counseling, going to a shrink, or working on being mentally healthy. We want the world to learn to be proud of that, to work on that daily, because the mind is the most important part of the body. At its heart, Hapbee is a mental wellness product that allows users to be proud of being mentally fit. Stress kills more people than almost anything else in the world, and our goal is to give people back their peace of mind on command.
Some very well known VC’s are going to be listening to this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to the VC, what would you say?
At Hapbee, we had dozens of VCs pass on the opportunity before we had a finished product, mainly because they didn’t quite know how to explain us to their Boards. Ironically, some of those CEOs invested personally in us. I’d say this to any VC: please think bigger and not smaller. If you want simple returns, to take the easy route with easy deals, make some money, and then retire, then fine, but the VC’s I respect simply play bigger. That’s who I’d rather speak to, and those are my friends.
Hapbee is out to make a difference with these substance-free feelings and mental wellness. We want to be the Netflix of feelings to help the world engage in life rather than escape it. That’s our goal. And if that interests you, we are happy to talk.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram: @GetHapbee, Twitter: @BeHapbee.
The Future Is Now: Scott Donnell of Hapbee Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
