Kyle
An orthodintic/speech pathology startup in Salt Lake City Utah has come home with the $100,000 prize in Utah’s 2012 Springboard Business Competition.
Dan Smith and Dave Larsen, the founders of CompleteSpeech won the competition for their patented retainer called the SmartPalete.
SmartPalete is an orthodontic retainer that has electronic sensors built into the plate. Those sensors record the movements of the tongue and mouth when the patient is talking.
Speech Pathologists can take the recordings made with the SmartPalate retainer and analyze them. They can also use the recordings to show the patient the movements of the mouth and tongue while they are speaking.
The prize is a mix of $50,000 in cash and the other $50,000 in valuable business services. The competition doesn’t stop there though. Smith and Larsen will compete three more times over the next year to win up to $250,000 more in cash and prizes and the honor of being the state champions.
CompleteSpeech beat out a field of over 1,000 initial entrants and then 12 finalists with a tough field of judges including Fraser Bullock, managing director of Sorenson Capital; Amy Anderson, chief executive officer of Mediconnect; and SkullCandy CEO Jeremy Andrus.
“If you have a good idea, you need to plan it out (and) get all the resources that you can around you,” said Larsen, chief executive officer of CompleteSpeech told ksl.comYou need to believe in yourself and go do it.”
