Welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast, where we are routing you to more accessible and cost-effective healthcare. I'm your host, Zach Aten, and in today's episode, it's all about innovation that empowers.

 My guest is Taya Phillips. The inventor of the MetaFlex glove, an FDA cleared drug-free device designed to help people manage arthritis, carpal tunnel, and hand pain from everyday overuse.  Born from a personal mission to help her. Grandmother Taya turned an engineering school project into a powerful tool now used by thousands, including hand surgeons, veterans, and everyday people looking for relief without expensive therapy or medications. 

In this episode, you'll hear how the MetaFlex glove combines compression resistance and stretching to promote healing and restore, strengthening your hands all while fitting seamlessly into your routine.   

We also dive into Téa entrepreneurial journey and how she bootstrapped her way to FDA approval and what it really takes to launch a medical device that changes lives.  If you are searching for a natural, affordable hand pain relief, or a powerful story of purpose-driven innovation, stick around.

This one is for you. Let's get into it.  



 

 Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders 

 podcast.

This is Zach Aten, your host, and today I have Téa Phillips as a guest on the podcast. She is the inventor of the Meta Flex Gloves. And I'm super excited for you guys to get to hear her and her story and the amazing work that she's doing in healthcare. Téa, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

 Thank you, Zach. I'm doing well. Happy to be here.

 awesome. We were talking a little bit before recording that a big part of our sort of ethos at Grassroots Labs and on the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast is about making healthcare and more affordable and accessible. And I know that's super important to you. You wanna give us a little bit backstory about you and how you introduce us to the meta Flex clubs and how they're making healthcare more affordable and accessible for folks?

I.

 yeah, absolutely. So I'm Téa I am the founder of a TS Innovations and the inventor of the Meta Flex Gloves. This is meta flex for those on video. You can see this is something that I made to help people with arthritis. So the idea is it goes back to finding that many people have arthritis.

Many people can't afford to go to the doctor or a therapist regularly, whether that's because they can't afford to take time off work or the copay or the bill you get after you visit is too high. So we wanted to make a way for people to manage their arthritis at home affordably. Upon doing some research and finding holistic ways to manage arthritis, so not including like opioids or Tylenol, people chronically take opioids for this kind of condition because it's so painful.

But one of the ways that you can relieve pain holistically is compression. Another is grip strengthening. So when you're strengthening the muscles. Then you're not use, putting as much pressure on the joints when you're using your hands. So it's good to strengthen. It's good to compress. It's good to stretch.

So we made the Meta Flex glove, which is a compression glove that has resistance bands sewn into the fingers for the purpose of extending the fingers. And each of those bands is adjustable for the level of resistance or the level of pull you want on your fingers. So it's super customizable for whatever. For every single hand. And we have a range of sizes too. But the idea is as you're going about your day, you've got that gentle compression. You're also strengthening when you're in motion. You're stretching when you're at rest and just working to improve your hand mobility and function and reduce pain.

And used everywhere day and night for the purposes of arthritis, carpal tunnel, trigger finger and it's really affordable. So we sell a pair of gloves for 54 95.

 That's really cool. And you have to forgive me 'cause I'm totally ignorant when it comes to arthritis and stuff like that. Is this something like, can you get back like feeling and strengthen, ability, I guess I would say if you're like using this, is this kind of like strength training where you can improve like your experience over time.

 Yeah, it is like strength training. So it's strength training without the gym and strength training without having to remember to do 15 reps a day on each hand squeezing something. You wear the glove and you go about your day and you're doing that strength training, but you're also getting the benefits of the compression from muscle recovery and improve circulation to reduce.

Like swelling and stiffness, and of course pain. And then also the stretching. So one of the things that I found is that maybe half of our users are sleeping in the metaflex gloves, and they're doing it to prevent waking up with their hand closed and stiff. Imagine you're waking up in the morning and your hand is in a fist, and it's painful and you have to pry it open.

 one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about making Metaflex is my grandmother, she had really bad arthritis and she had that problem with her hand closing up at night. So she would hold onto a tennis ball and put a sock over top and sleep in the sleep like that so that she would not have a fist when she woke up.

But this takes it a step further. It has those adjustable bands for each finger and then also has the compression. So you're not gonna get that stiffness when you wake up. You're gonna wake up with good circulation and your hand's gonna be extended, and you're gonna be ready for the day.

 That's interesting and such a cool story that you made this to help your grandma. Was she ever able to use it?

 No, unfortunately I took too long to get it to market and she passed a year before I was able to do it.

 I'm sorry to hear about her passing, but I think it, it is something beautiful that you you've obviously done this to 'cause of the impact that she made on you and now it's gonna have tons of impact for other people. How long have you been, how long has this been out in the market, 

 we've been on the market for over two years now, and it's been really incredible. But I made it. Back in 2018 and I was studying engineering at Tennessee Tech University. And I made meta aflex and I won some pitch competitions and raised some money and got some patents and started going. But I also graduated that same year and I graduated.

I had some money, but not enough to live on and invest in the business. So I also had a job offer and I'm an engineer, so I worked as an engineer for about three years and saved up as much as I could. And then, my grandmother was getting worse and I felt guilty that I hadn't brought it to market.

I was making money and like living this life that I had been. I went to engineering school and it sucked. And like I was out and doing the things that I love doing, and I had a really interesting job. And so I had meta flex on the back burner, and then she was getting worse and I realized how much this would've helped her.

Improve her quality of life just by having better mobility and less pain, which is so important. And she didn't have a lot of money. So she wasn't regularly going to a doctor that wasn't like, the stomach doctor or the cancer doctor. She had so many health problems and a lot of it was caused, they were chronic conditions and they were caused by the fact that she was low income her whole life.

And. That stress it, it really affects your health. Metaflex is intentionally very affordable to make sure that everyone who needs this care can get it.

 That's awesome. That's awesome. Where where do, where can people get it? Can they just get it on Amazon? Do you, can they buy. It through your

 You can buy on Amazon, but you should shop local and go directly to my website. So meta flex glove.com.We're also in a handful of stores, so if you go to our website and look at our store locator, we might be in a pharmacy near you. If you're a veteran, they are su, we're selling in a few VA medical centers across the country, and if we're not in your VA medical center, have them reach out to me and we can get it supplied for you.

Yeah, and we also just recently got covered by insurance. So if you can get your doctor to to prescribe you something like Metaflex, you can get it covered that way. There's also FSA and HSA your health and flexible spending accounts because Metaflex is a class one medical device. Which was a barrier to entry and getting this launched.

It was so expensive and time consuming to go through that process, but we're trying to help as many people as we can and it's working. I've got reviews on Amazon that call it a miracle. I have people who say thank you. Like my husband can finally sleep at night. I have people who used to use.

Pain cream for their arthritis that don't have to use that anymore because the glove has helped to reduce their pain like on a long-term basis. So we're also doing some

 Wow.

 yeah, it's it's been a really rewarding, difficult, but rewarding journey.

 Yeah. As all like startups are We will have links to all your stuff in the show notes, so folks will easily be able to access that. Tell me some more about your connection to the VA and how you've been helping veterans.

 I'm just, I'm so proud of that. I, like many people, have people who have served in my family. I didn't serve myself, but I wanted to find a way to support our troops. And to support the people that are out there protecting our freedoms. So we have a partner that buys from me and then resells into the va which is my business plan is to partner with these people because what we are really good at fl.

Is making new products and innovating and, hitting that next innovation and the next breakthrough that's gonna change people's lives. And people already know how to do sales and people already know how to do marketing. So we're trying to partner with with people who do that side of it.

So I have a distributor that buys from me and resells into the va, and I'm working with other distributors that buy and resell into hospitals and medical systems, long-term care facilities that type thing. So if you're any of those people reach out to me. We're partnering with people right now.

But I find those people by going to conferences and trade shows and just showing people what we have in meta flex. Yeah.

 awesome. I was thinking you were ta talking there and just something that came to mind was like, I can obviously see the benefit of this, of someone who's, actively suffering from arthritis or some other kind of condition like that. Is this helpful for people who like.

Preventatively or maybe like earlier on in a diagnosis before things are like like overwhelming. Like where does someone on their journey, what's the best time to start using the metaflex gloves? 

 So you can definitely use it preventatively, but also I have if I'm swiping on my phone all day. On TikTok or whatever I'm on, or if I'm typing all day on my computer, because I do that a lot. Either my thumb joint will hurt or like my middle finger joint will hurt and I can wear the gloves.

And it'll hurt for days. But if I wear the gloves when I get home or right after I'm doing that activity, or I sleep in them, I don't have pain the next day. So it's good for mild pain. It's good for more than mild pain. It's good as preventative. Because if you wanna prevent injury, compression, stretching and strengthening are good.

And when you are injured, compression, stretching and strengthening. So it's really it's holistic. It's comprehensive hand health, and it's as wearable and, yeah, so I'm really proud of what we've created.

 Yeah, so I, I can see it being helpful for, specifically. People who even work with their hands all day, whether that's like some type of physical activity. Do you have like surgeons who wear these things, 

 I do,

 like mechanics or gamers or something like that.

 I have a hand surgeon who sleeps in metaflex gloves to help prevent carpal tunnel or to manage carpal tunnel. So I have a hand surgeon that's sleeping in these, which I'm so proud of. But also, yeah, anyone that's doing repetitive motion, whether that's gamers, people who are doing yard work, people who are typing all day, people who are writing people who are having to run and chase after their kids or their grandkids.

I feel like we're all using our hands so much and that's how we are getting these overuse injuries. Even the people like I talked about earlier that are just swiping on their phones like. You may notice your hand is starting to hurt when you do that. So try sleeping in the metaflex gloves or just wearing them for a little bit during your nightly routine, and they're gonna help with your pain and help to prevent those injuries and extend the lifetime use of your hand.

 That's awesome. And just so obvious, like the value that it provides. Very cool. 

 When I made it, I was so surprised that someone had not made this before. Like we got it patented and all of that, and I was like how did no one do this before? It's such a simple idea, but it yeah, we're Metaflex owns Metaflex.

 Yeah. That's awesome. The audience is, everyday healthcare consumers. You don't have to go in super, super deep, but can you give us just a little insight into. You, you kinda like briefly mentioned all the work that you did, the time and resources to make this.

Can you give us like just a little timeline of what you had to do in order to make this a reality so that people can, use it and benefit from their lives.

 Yeah. So like I said, I made it in 2018 and then I also graduated college and started a job and worked full time. Had metaflex in the back burner until 2021 when my grandma started getting worse and I realized like. I wanted to bet on myself, and I wanted to bring this to market and change people's lives.

And I quit my job and I had a manufacturer lined up, but they weren't the manufacturer I needed to use. And I learned that from registering with the FDA and learning all of that, that goes into it. So I had money, I had saved up as much as I could, and, but I did a lot of the work myself because I didn't save up that much.

It's so expensive, and what took me the most time was raising the money to build the team and do all the things that we needed to do. Like patents are expensive. FDA registration. This year it's $9,000 and it's going up every year. It's been going up like a thousand dollars since every. Since I started registering as a medical device establishment, so I had to read through all of the code of federal regulations and figure out where my device falls in and email the FDA and be like, for real I'm a medical device.

This is not gonna hurt anybody. But because circulation changes you're changing the way the body functions by changing circulation. But I had to be registered as a medical device to be able to tell people that. So it was getting registered with the FDA, researching all of like the specific barcodes I need, which is GS one.

GS one is where you find the universal product codes. I built our website. I got us onto Amazon. We're also on walmart.com. I started pulling together a team of some wonderful advisors who are experts in marketing and sales and finance and leadership and all of these things that like I didn't know how to do yet.

I'm an engineer. I know how to make products, I know how to design streamline processes, and I can figure just about anything out. But a lot of things that I still need to learn and have learned. So building. A team of people to advise me and meeting with them regularly and then raising money.

So I. I liquidated my 401k and my Roth IRA and every little crypto that I had all my GameStop stock back in 2022. It was doing well then.   Really fun. But I liquidated everything that I had. I maxed out my credit cards. I got a small business loan. I got personal loans from some of my advisors and people who believed in me.

I got a part-time job 'cause I ran outta money. And eventually I got investment. And with that investment though, the world has been opened up. So I have been able to invest into our marketing. It was me running our social media accounts and me driving to all these pharmacies being like, Hey, do you wanna buy like a dozen pairs of gloves to try it out?

And. Me making all the calls and just trying to do it all myself. And now we're finally to a point where I have a full-time employee who does marketing, and I have a part-time employee who's a certified hand therapist, and he's writing this list of all the things that Meta Flex is good for and why that we're using in our marketing.

I have a part-time sales guy who's reaching out to all these people and like following up with 'em and posting on LinkedIn. And I'm finally being able to build this team which has, is changing the game. And it's, the barrier to entry over and over again is money. And I don't come from money and until recently I didn't know anybody with money.

So it was that was our big barrier was just to have the fuel to. To grow it, money's a resource. And I also grew up, like I talked about, without a lot of money, so asking people for money felt illegal and it's so wrong. And I

 a

 so dirty talking about money. But now I mean it's just another resource.

And we're spending money and we're making money and so I'm more comfortable with it now, but it's. I designed our packaging. I was I still answer every customer inquiry that comes through the website. Yeah, so it's been an insanely difficult journey, but ultimately rewarding because I have a medical device that is relieving people's pain and allowing them to do live their life the way they wanna live it.

Ultimately very rewarding.

 Yeah. It's such a great thing to wake up and know that like what you do directly benefits other people and make your bread from it. So it's it's such a, it's such a great thing having a business that, that benefits people and really generates value for people. I. Wow that is so awesome and I'm so glad that our listeners like really got to hear, your story of how you actually made this thing happen.

Because like it's here on the website and you can make an order and it'll show up in, at your house. But it took a lot of time, energy from you and sounds like several people and money to make it happen. Bravo. Bravo to you Téa.

 Thank you. Thank you.

 Is there anything else that you wanna tell our audience before we head out for the day?

 yeah. Yeah. A few things that I live by keep moving forward. Have you ever seen the movie, the Meet the Robinsons?

 I have, I.

 It's so good. And there's this kid and he's just down and out, and his science experiments keep failing. But he keeps moving forward and he builds this life the life of his dreams and the life that he wants.

And it's important to when you fail. Celebrate those. That's a learning lesson. It's not like reflective of me as a person I failed. So that, and then if it's humanly possible, you can do it. You're human. You just have to have the audacity to say, this is my big dream and I'm gonna, I'm gonna chase it and build that for myself.

And if you wanna follow me, I talk about some of this stuff on LinkedIn. Yeah, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Go to our website, check it out, meta flex glove.com. We're also on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and all of those things. I love talking to my customers, so send us a message and let's chat and thank you for listening.

 Téa Phillips, everyone, the inventor of the MetaFlex Glove . Thanks you so much for coming on. I'll have links to all your stuff in the description notes so people can find you. So thankful for coming on and sharing   your story, Téa.