Why the Hearing Aid Industry Stopped Innovating, and How Legato Changed That |Mehul Trivedi, Legato

Amrit Rao (0:00)

I've worked at companies like that, right? You come in and be like, by the way, everything we have competitive advantage in and infrastructure and IP doesn't matter anymore. Let's go this direction, right? I'm not gonna compromise on what it looks like. I'm not gonna compromise on what it feels like. Can I still build something as good or better than any hearing aid in the market? And fortunately, the answer was yes.

We started Legato because we really felt that people with hearing loss deserved better, that it shouldn't be a compromise between not being able to hear and connect with the people around you or having to wear something that was uncomfortable and expensive and difficult to use. We really looked and saw that there hadn't been a ton of really great innovative products coming out, and we thought we could make something that would help people get their hearing back but do so in a way that was elevated, seamless, and ultimately something they'd be proud to wear. We wanted to build a product that was really no compromise. We wanted it to be something that was not just a great hearing device, but a great pair of glasses. We ultimately knew that it has to be something that is lightweight, comfortable, stylish, so that you wear it every day like your favorite pair of glasses, but it also needed to work in the environments where traditional hearing products fall over. No matter whether it was a busy restaurant or a noisy office room, or just at home watching TV, we wanted something that would be seamless, that would be easy to use, something that was going to work no matter where you put it, and it was just going to help you focus on the things that matter, the people and the world around you. We really felt like it was important to solve this problem because ultimately for so many people, hearing loss is something that just kind of goes untreated even though the long-term consequences are really quite tragic. Legato frames are really first and foremost a great pair of glasses. We built something that was lightweight and stylish. It's meant to be really comfortable. It's meant to be something that you wear and forget about like you would your everyday pair. What we've done though is that we've taken the space in the temple and we've built something that actually performs like a prescription hearing aid. We can put them on, they turn on when you open them up, and that's really about all there is on your part. The goal is that you wear them and you hear better. It doesn't really have to be much more than that. So our hope for someone who wears legato frames for the first time is really that they're blown away by how comfortable they are, by how clear the sound is, by how easy it is to hear people's voice. Then our hope is the second time you wear them, forget about them entirely. We want something that's totally effortless, that feels as natural and comfortable and discreet as the eyewear you wear every day, but ultimately you just leave the day feeling a little bit better connected, a little bit more in the know. We believe that legato is the future of what hearing should look like, something private, something stylish, something comfortable, and something that ultimately you wear every day. Don't think about too much, but just end the day with a little bit more richness in your life. Mehul, welcome. Thank you. Great to be here. Yeah. Tell us about legato and the mission and all that fun stuff. Yeah. Starting from a little bit of the personal background, I've been on the audio builder side my whole life and have always loved this idea of making things, particularly that make sound, that people really love and help people. Legato was very natural combination for that. We saw an opportunity for hearing was a space that was filled with just really terrible products. A lot of people who have a really serious condition around not being able to hear well, then the options that they have for dressing are pretty weak.

We spent a lot of time at Bose and at Luxottica and even at Apple before that, trying to find products that people really wanted to wear and really love to have.

We thought, well, could we do that in hearing?

The biggest issue with hearing is just that it's stigmatic. A hearing aid is just not something anybody really wants to wear or be seen wearing. We thought, well, glasses are the opposite. Glasses are actually a corrective instrument that people take pride in.

They use that to express their style. They're proud of them, they're excited by them. So can we take that form factor but actually deliver a hearing product that meaningfully helped folks with loss? So that was really the impetus for it is Steve and I had met at Bose, and at the time he was in the hearing division, I was on the consumer audio division, and we had this moment where we had just launched Bose Frames, and we were really excited about it, and the music side of it was awesome, it was exciting, and there was this, what are we going to do that could make this something that people wanted to use all day and be incredibly valuable? And on the hearing side, he was like, I have this thing that people find incredibly valuable, but how do I get them to actually wear it all day? And so this kind of peanut butter and jelly moment. Yeah, brag about Steve, by the way. Oh man, if there's one kind of pitch I can make around advice to somebody thinking about a startup, is the two decisions you're going to make in your life, they're going to matter, finding the right spouse and finding the right co-founder. First one, definitely the most important, but yeah, I mean... Stona, apologies. Yes.