Joel Lockwood's Journey: From Tech Innovator to Hearing Health Advocate

In this episode of the Hearing Matters podcast, host Blaise Delfino speaks with Joel Lockwood, president of Sycle, about his extensive experience in the technology sector and the evolution of hearing care. They discuss the importance of understanding hearing loss metrics, the introduction of the 'hearing number' as a universal metric for hearing health, and the role of AI in enhancing efficiency in hearing clinics. They also emphasize the need for clinics to continue to pursue the benefits of technology and the value of Sycle’s new Digital Clinic module. Joel shares insights from his journey, the challenges faced in developing new technologies, and offers advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in the industry.

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Chapters

• 0:19 Evolution of Hearing Care Technology
• 16:30 Advancing Hearing Care Technology

Transcript

Blaise Delfino:

You are tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast, the show that discusses hearing technology, best practices, and a global epidemic hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, a special thank you to our partners, Sycle, built for the entire hearing care practice. Redux, the best dryer, hands down. CaptionCall by Sorenson, life is calling. Care Credit, here today to help more people hear tomorrow. Fader Plugs, the world's first custom adjustable earplug. Welcome back to another episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast. I'm founder and host Blaise Delfino. And as a friendly reminder, this podcast is separate from my work at Starkey.

I'm your founder and host Blaise Delfino. And joining me today is the President of Sycle, Joel Lockwood. Joel is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of leadership and executive experience in the technology sector, guiding teams across functional areas focused on delivering products and services to customers. His management experience includes enterprise startups and agency organizations, working with Fortune 500 customers as well as small businesses. His specialty is the development of optimal growth strategies based on metrics and analysis. He is also a huge outdoors guy, skiing, cycling, fly-fishing and hiking as much as possible, climbing peaks in Glacier Park is his passion and he has bagged many summits. Joel Lockwood, welcome to the Hearing Matters Podcast.

Joel Lockwood:

Thank you, Blaise. That's a lovely introduction. I hope I can live up to it. Yeah, many years in the high-tech space, that's because I started really super young.

Blaise Delfino:

Like six, I think,

Joel Lockwood:

Right. Six, yeah. Definitely an outdoor guy. I live in Montana, so it certainly gives me the accent.

Blaise Delfino:

Aren't you from Pennsylvania though, Joel? Aren't we Pennsylvania boys?

Joel Lockwood:

I'm originally from Pennsylvania 100%, in a small town. In fact, speaking of small businesses, I grew up in a small business. My parents had a jewelry store in a small town in Pennsylvania. In fact, the store was founded in 1888. My grandfather's uncle, then my grandfather, then my father took it over. So I know small businesses.

Blaise Delfino:

Before we dive in, because truly I want to thank you so much for dedicating your time and joining us on the podcast because as a former Sycle customer, now a huge Sycle supporter, thank you so much for what you've done and continue to do for the industry. Now we're talking about Pennsylvania. You are a Penn State grad. Just so you know, the Penn State football coach, Coach Franklin actually graduated from my alma mater that of East Stroudsburg University. Didn't you run a track meet or something there?

Joel Lockwood:

I did. I did in the small world department. Yeah, I was in high school. I think we were seniors and we went to an indoor meet, which was really rare in high school. East Stroudsburg State College, a beautiful campus. It's right on the edge of the state, eastern edge. And yeah, it was really fun. So there was always the small connections.

Blaise Delfino:

Very small connections. Well, Joel, we talk about entrepreneurship, bootstrap and startup. My goodness, your career is incredible to really say the least. And everyone really does love a good origin story. You truly implemented and really defined bootstrap and startup. You're an entrepreneur, small business owner, supporter of small business. Why did you get involved with Sycle and how?

Joel Lockwood:

That is a kind of a crazy story. So in the '90s I was at a startup, I mean a pure startup. It was internet services and I needed an ad agency to help me, a marketing agency. So I reached out to an agency called Ozone Online. Ridge Sampson was the principal at Ozone Online. Ridge Sampson of course is the founder of Sycle, so too to come in the story. So I'm going to start out, we got acquired by Netscape. I bring Ozone Online along with me to do marketing for Netscape in my area. Netscape got acquired by AOL, same deal. I brought Ozone Online along for the ride. So we're doing this work. I finally I'm like, you know what? I want to get out of the corporate for now. So I decided to jump literally into the agency world and I joined Ridge as a partner in Ozone Online.

So I get over there early 2000s. He has the idea for Sycle. Now that came because I believe, you'd have to ask him, but I believe we were working with a couple of clients like Phonak, for example. And building a website for them and doing some digital marketing for these guys and doing a few things. So I think he got some connections into the hearing space, came up with the idea. I literally remember it on the whiteboard. I'm going to do this and that, and started Sycle. And in fact, for the first few years we shared an office. So Ozone Online and Sycle were in the same office. I literally built the first trade show booth for Sycle in my wood shop. So that's it-

Blaise Delfino:

You have that talent too, Joel?

Joel Lockwood:

Back in the day. So I literally built this booth, we shipped it and I went to one of the very early AAA shows when it was just a crazy show. But very early in, I put some money into the company, was around, knew a lot of the guys and then we eventually sold the agency. We sold to Teradata, we spun off separately. So Sycle went one way with ridge, I had to stay with the agency piece and I ran the services business for these guys for three years. So I had little earn out and Ridge went off and build Sycle to the future. So yeah, it's a crazy connection.

Blaise Delfino:

Joel, we have a lot of small business owners that tune in. We have a lot of hearing care professionals that tune in and entrepreneurs. That journey that you just described, what was the scariest moment for you?

Joel Lockwood:

The scariest moment was probably pulling my checkbook out to make payroll before out of my own money when I was in the agency. You have cash flow, comes and goes. I think everybody in the hearing space understands that. You have a good month, you have a bad month and sometimes you have to put your personal skin in the game as it were. So that's a scary moment when you're at that threshold. So certainly from growing up in the jewelry business in a small family business and then being around a small agency, I understand the pressures that our independent customers have. And I'm really conscious of that and very aware to make sure we don't make a decision that might serve a large customer, but not so much someone that has just one clinic.

Blaise Delfino:

Joel, thank you for sharing that because when you say you understand what these small businesses go through and what the hearing care professionals go through, you really do. You know what that anxiety can be like when you're writing payroll out of your own checkbook. So you go from agency to Sycle. Joel, the industry's changed quite a bit the past 15 to 20 years. We're talking about from analog to digital hearing aids in the '90s, from paper files to a CRM system like Sycle. There's been so much change. Tell us about the new automations that are available to hearing care professionals today.

Joel Lockwood:

Well, within Sycle we are just rolling out what we call a digital clinic. And our digital clinic is a way to bring efficiency and automation to a clinic. You can get organized, you can share, you can archive documents, you could do targeted searches. So you can filter and tag different documents in the office. You can simplify your file management, you can upload and scan in a lot of different formats and you can share. It's always important to share documents with not only the patient but also maybe a referring physician. So it gives a lot of those tools and it really was written from scratch to be very, very efficient and very, very forward-thinking. Also includes e-signature. So the ability to share with a patient, have them sign something before they come into the office is awesome because it saves time. It saves time in the office itself.

And again, it's all about efficiency, especially today in a clinic you've got to be efficient. There's a staffing shortage. I know that. I've heard that from, oh, we have an advisory council. We hear that from everybody really, different size clinics. And I don't have enough people. I have people coming in new. So the more you can be efficient, you can drive automation, it'll save time and it'll save and then kind of retraining. Okay, these are really simple tools but they're very, very powerful. So we're very excited to roll that out. Like I said, we've been rolling it out to different clinics in a slow launch and it should be out to 100% of our folks very shortly.

Blaise Delfino:

Joel, when you talk about a slow launch, that is music to my ears because some entrepreneurs will say, well, just bootstrap and go, go, go, go, go. Minimum viable product, go out there, make it happen. You are leading Sycle, you're introducing this digital clinic. You're talking about efficiency, you're talking about secure transactions. This isn't just code it and go. One of my favorite books here, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries talks about build, measure, learn. As you are leading your team and as your team of engineers and audiologists and marketers, really everyone involved, what were some pain points that you and the team may have experienced while you were building this digital clinic?

Joel Lockwood:

Look, like any product, there's no one source of information. You certainly talk to your customers. We have a very strong product management team. They spend a lot of time with the customer, sometimes even going to the clinic itself and seeing what's going on. So there's a lot of analysis, there's surveys, there is discussions, there's prototyping. You got to make sure, how does this look, how does that look? So I think you develop, you can't be too careful. You can't overanalyze, analysis paralysis. You can't take a year to get it right, okay. You have to make a couple bets, let's face it, I think this is going to be good. But the more you can research and look and see what else is out there, let's face it, we're looking what are other things in the market. Not just in our space, in the hearing space, but what are optical doing and what's going on in dentistry. So you look across the board.

So you do a lot of research up front. And I think the more research you can do without getting bogged down, the more effective you're going to be with the product. Then, like I said, start to show customers, "Hey, it's not coded but here's some mock screens. How's that look?" You get some feedback and so on. What I've tried to do at Sycle is bring a lot of process in. I've been around the software business really since the '90s.

Blaise Delfino:

Long time. Since you were six, Joel.

Joel Lockwood:

Since I was six. So I think it's key for a company to be very process oriented, and we're a SaaS software company. In a sense we're not a hearing company, we're SaaS software companies. We need to follow those best practices for SaaS software development. And we are in that process of kind of transforming Sycle in some ways so that it is very constant updates and code base, very lean and very optimized. So I think that's really the key. I don't know if I learned any lessons other than follow the process. There's always something else. Maybe the lesson is there's always a lot of distractions. One of our main clearing houses got hacked. Okay, you probably know what I'm talking about. That's all hands on deck. So you have to pull people off. You have to know how to manage when things happen, interruptions happen, but still try to stay the course of what else you're doing.

So is it moving other people around to different roles and so on. So I think that's the challenge, but I think Sycle is very well-prepared for that because we are super process oriented. We continue to optimize in that way.

Blaise Delfino:

Really what I like to lead by as well, very parallel to you, Joel, is transfer of information and then process of duplication. So if you follow that process and you build that process time and time again, 10 times out of 10, it's going to hit the mark. And you as the leader of Sycle, again, you are a true leader in that SaaS technology space software. You've seen a ton of stuff. You started in the '90s when software was like, what is this? We still heard those crazy dial-up tones with the internet. We don't hear that anymore. You have been through so many different evolutions in the tech space, and I believe that those experiences have definitely catapulted you as a leader because you sort of have to either adapt or you kind of fall off. And you, my friend, have definitely adapted and faced so many different challenges and adversity just head on. And it's really inspiring being a younger professional. So thank you.

Now, we're on the topic of enhancing not only patient experience but also customer experience. Love that Sycle takes into account the customer's needs, but also the customer's suggestions. Again, that's how an organization gets better because you might think you have all the answers. Chances are you don't but your customers do. You recently had a visit to a hearing healthcare office and you were sharing this experience with me and I was like, Joel, this is something we should definitely talk about on the podcast. The hearing number, this is really exciting stuff. Before we dive into the hearing number, tell us about your most recent experience and how this ties into the hearing number. Especially for patients to better understand what their hearing loss actually looks like.

Joel Lockwood:

So I go usually every year for a hearing test. I'm sure most of our customers would like to hear that. So I went in and got my hearing checked and the audiologist on, yeah, about the same, maybe a little less here but generally you're pretty good. So I went home and I'm like, wait, what does that mean? I'm pretty good. Okay, I don't need hearing aids but is that it? Either you need hearing aids or you don't, or is there some-

Blaise Delfino:

You're pretty good or not good.

Joel Lockwood:

Yeah, like is there something in between for my age? Is that average? Is it above average? Is it below average? How do I compare what should I kind of be at? So I didn't know whether to worry or not. So this is where the hearing number... Coincidentally, we're talking to Franklin and the folks at Johns Hopkins University, they have the concept of the hearing number. So the hearing number, it's a simple, it's a universal metric. It kind of gives you a snapshot of where you are. Look everything else in Medical 2020 vision, we all know what that means. We've got blood pressure, you've got heart rate, all the things that are standard, there's nothing in hearing. So all of a sudden, here's this metric that we might be able to push out there for the industry. What it is, it's a four frequency, pure tone average or PTA for, 500, 1000, 2000 and 4,000.

That's the basis. That number is the average to define hearing loss. And the World Health Organization, WHO, has adopted it and they have some numbers. For example, mild, they have 20 to 34, moderate, 35 to 49, et cetera. So if I would've went home and I'd said, all right, I am, let's say at 34 but for my age the range is X, I would know where I stand. And I really think that the hearing number is something I could really get behind. We talked about it at our advisory council, and most people in the industry are like, yeah, that is really a great idea. So we're working with Johns Hopkins, they've got an app that's coming out towards the end of the year. They're going to start a big marketing push and we're going to bring it into the product. So it's a missing piece for me personally. So I can tell my wife, "Hey, how'd you do?" "Well, I did X and here's where I stand for my age." I'm above, below, et cetera. It'll give me those tools to understand my hearing, which I think everybody needs.

Blaise Delfino:

Absolutely. And Joel, speaking from the hearing care professional aspect, when I was practicing full time, you learn very quickly. I had a professor who said, "Blaise, drop the pathology." And I was like, "I got you." Because as hearing care professionals, our job is to assist patients in making an educated decision about their hearing loss. It's not for us to show them how smart we are, how much we know about hearing aids and all that stuff. You also have a patient, especially for new patients who probably waited an average of seven to 10 years to visit your clinic. They're going through the grieving process, which we know is not linear. We could go from acceptance to denial, back to bargaining. So there's all these things that we as hearing care professionals need to understand. Then we test them. After the test they're saying, "Oh my gosh, how bad did I do?"

And then as a hearing care professional you are saying, "You present with a mild to a moderate severe hearing loss." The patient's going to hear mild most times and they're going to forget the moderate severe. You're going to show the audiogram. There's a lot of information. So I will say here at Hearing Matters Podcast, we are behind the movement of the hearing number. We have to have this widely globally adopted number. Like you said, blood pressure, heart rate, eyesight, everyone gets it. And if we look at this as an opportunity in our industry, this actually helps stigma. If you think about it, it really will help stigma. And if it's a widely adopted number, excellent. We've had pure tone average for many years now let's actually put that into play and maybe we can also put a speech understanding number in there eventually for understanding speech noisy situations. That's down the road though, for sure. But Joel, let me ask you.

You are a leader in an organization. You are process oriented. How did that make you feel when you got home telling your wife that I'm pretty good. Did you just want an answer or did you feel confused? Were you let down? I think we can do better as hearing care professionals.

Joel Lockwood:

Yeah, I think I was dissatisfied or unfulfilled maybe. I had a physical a couple of weeks ago, so I went in and he blood test, here's your cholesterol. I knew this is good, this is bad, this is whatever it is. I knew where I stood and what I needed to do. Exactly. And I did not get that from that hearing test. Basically it's like I don't need hearing aids. That's kind of what I walked out from, and my hearing hasn't changed much from last year. But I really felt a gap in knowledge. And to be honest, I think the hearing industry is behind. This is like every other industry has got some measure for these specific numbers.

Blaise Delfino:

Absolutely. And Joel, I can't disagree with you. You know what is really incredible though, the fact that you and your team are able to make a difference, to make this positive impact, to get behind this hearing number and you have that personal experience. So I think you're going to run with it, Joel. I really do, you and the team. And I'm excited to see what Sycle does with the hearing number. And we're very, very well-versed in Dr. Franklin's work. The Achieve Study was brilliant, big supporters of the work over there and excited to see what Sycle does with the hearing number. Joel, you've been so generous with your time, and I just have one more question for you because we're going to end on a high note here. Drum roll, please.

You've got Joel Lockwood, president of Sycle, maverick in the industry. We talk about being the most socially connected demographic to ever exist. We thought even five years ago that we transferred information incredibly fast. Then AI comes. As entrepreneurs and business owners, we really do need to adapt to the times. And AI is a buzzword today. Should hearing care professionals be afraid of AI?

Joel Lockwood:

I do not. In fact, it's a pretty amazing technology in certain areas. I don't think it's ready to let me feed in my audiogram and have it just give me an analysis. There's probably a lot of nuance. You're hearing professional, there's more to it than just looking at the number.

Blaise Delfino:

Oh, yeah.

Joel Lockwood:

Right. So think about this, I'm running the clinic, I might say I want to build a referral network from physicians. I go on ChatGPT or one of the other ones and I say, "Give me all of the physician offices within a five-mile radius and give their address and phone number." Then okay, so maybe let me send these guys an email or a letter. So then maybe you type in, write me a 100-word letter that asks about for referral. Here's three points I want to make in the letter, and boom, seconds there's a letter.

Then you might say, you know what? It's too serious. Lighten the tone a little bit. Boom, there it is. So it's that kind of stuff where you can do, give me a radio spot and here's four points I want to make and make it 30 seconds long. Boom. It's those types of things that any clinic can use, again, to drive efficiency, to save time, to enable anyone in the clinic to spend more time with a patient versus in the back office trying to figure stuff out. And if you've ever written an email or direct mail piece, it takes a long time and it's hard to do. This at least gets you 80% there and maybe you just need to tweak it. So there are definitely applications for something like AI that I think every clinic should be looking at today. And I think it's just going to get more and more interesting. We're looking at it hard for introducing it into certain parts of the product, for sure. I'm sure everybody in the industry is, that's next, but you could use it today.

Blaise Delfino:

And I know you can't go too deep into that, Joel, because I'm biting at the bit to ask you what Sycle is going to do and enhance in their digital clinic 2.0. It's got to be incredible stuff. When you talk about efficiency now, what Sycle is able to do now and then you add artificial intelligence on top of that, holy smokes.

Joel Lockwood:

Yeah. Look, in many senses this company it's 20 years old. It's the number one player in the space, but for us it's the beginning in many ways. Okay, we are just the technology health benefit management stuff, the AirPods, what does that mean? Over the counter... The industry keeps changing and evolving. We're just at the beginning of many ways and it's really exciting. It's an exciting time. I think hearing as are this younger generation ages and gets into that area where we're looking at some hearing loss potential, they're much more savvy. They're going to want different tools. They're going to want to be treated maybe in a slightly different way. So our tool Sycle needs to evolve with that as patients change and the requirements for the clinic change. So in a sense, it's the beginning in many, many ways. So we're excited, super excited.

Blaise Delfino:

I love that, the AI era and Sycle is just getting started. What's interesting to me too, Joel, is being a former private practice owner, and when you put together whether it be email marketing campaigns or even a direct mailer piece, you can utilize AI platforms as your assistant, if you will. Now, of course, disclaimer, you never put personal or patient data in there. But it can assist you in putting together these different campaigns, to your point, a competitive analysis. But also what about a SWOT analysis? Strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat. Another book I had here that I wanted to share on this episode was Blue Ocean Strategy. Talked about this a little bit during an audiology online presentation almost a year ago. But the Blue Ocean is where you create uncontested market space. And Joel, between implementation of AI and what Sycle is doing with the digital clinic, you, Sycle and the whole team you are absolutely in that blue ocean, my friend.

Joel Lockwood:

Yeah, like I said, very exciting. We've got the processes and people that we need, and I think you'll see a lot from Sycle starting with the digital clinic. But we have a lot more things lined up that are kind of on the runway ready to take off. So stand by.

Blaise Delfino:

Joel, thank you so much for joining us on the Hearing Matters Podcast. And before we let you go, again, we have entrepreneurs, small business owners tuned in, and young professionals. Those who are just getting started in this industry, starting their own business, what is the number one piece of advice you can give them?

Joel Lockwood:

Take some risks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess is the statement there. So be smart about it but do your research. Be thoughtful, but get out there and get after it. You never know what's going to happen.

Blaise Delfino:

Joel, thank you so much for joining us on the Hearing Matters Podcast. You have an open invite, my friend.

Joel Lockwood:

Well, Blaise, I just want to say thank you for your time and the opportunity to say a few things to the industry. And hopefully folks found something of value in there. So a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Blaise Delfino:

To learn more about Sycle visit sycle.com, that's S-Y-C-L-E .com. And until next time, hear life's story.