From Music to Medicine: Avril Copeland's Journey of Passion and Innovation

Gerry Scullion (00:02.4)

Avril Copeland, I'm delighted to have you in the podcast. A very warm welcome. Maybe we'll start off. I've known you for a couple of years and we've we've done some work together over the years for our guests or for our listeners, should I say. Maybe we'll start off. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do.

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Avril (00:25.89)

So, yes, my name is Avril and I'm from Dublin originally and I went to school here, South Dublin and left school and decided I had a big interest in media production music. And so when I left school, I went into media production and studied that.

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Gerry Scullion (00:30.742)

Aye, up the gun.

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Gerry Scullion (00:47.42)

Yeah.

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Avril (00:49.086)

And after that, I, at the time had a huge passion and still do really for music and around, especially country music at the time. So decided I'd do sound engineering. So I did that in Temple Bar for a year. And at the time I was also playing a lot of sports. I played Irish hockey for a good number of years. And at the time, you know, I had been playing for years and we had just missed qualification for the Olympics.

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Gerry Scullion (00:56.903)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (01:02.949)

huh.

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Avril (01:16.834)

So, yeah, so I decided then the time was right to head to Nashville, Tennessee as any Dublin school girl decides, just head off to Nashville, Tennessee. So I faxed around all the recording studios in Nashville at the time and thankfully got a job in a recording studio called the Sound Emporium.

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Gerry Scullion (01:17.479)

Really?

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Gerry Scullion (01:24.115)

That's the logical step. That's the logical step I was going to say.

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Avril (01:43.322)

and Elmond Boulevard in Nashville. So I went there and I was there for seven years in total. And for the first two years, I worked in the music industry and the recording studio and then for country music songwriters for a few years doing tour management and business management. And then returned to college over there to study exercise science, given my history and background in sports and

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Gerry Scullion (01:43.386)

yeah.

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Avril (02:12.962)

Then decided, yeah, I needed to get a real job and moved home to Ireland to study physio, worked in Beaumont hospital for a few years. And then from that had the idea for developing a technology business, which I did. And that's kind of been the last, the last thing that I've done.

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Gerry Scullion (02:16.851)

Thanks

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Gerry Scullion (02:27.741)

Huh.

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Gerry Scullion (02:31.811)

into it. It's been great to have you in the show, Avril. Thank you. I'm joking. So you've you've lived about four lives. mean, when I remember when you first connected, I was just like silent, kind of wow, there's a lot of wow moments in that piece, like, you know, from the moment of nearly getting to the Olympics, which is a new one for me, folks. I wasn't mentioned that to me before. And then going off to Nashville, like I knew the story about Nashville, but going there and a lot of my friends.

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Avril (02:39.164)

You

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Gerry Scullion (03:01.979)

are musicians, ex -musicians or still musician. If you don't think you ever grow out of being a musician, to be honest. But what did you learn from working in Nashville and studying sound engineering? And what does that what what has that given you as a practitioner? I guess professional in the current world. What do you lean on when you look back in that time?

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Avril (03:27.065)

That's a good question. What did I learn from my time in Nashville? I suppose it was a big change for me going from, as I said, a psyched up school girl to going over to being essentially on my own in the States in like 2021.

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Gerry Scullion (03:41.649)

Yeah, that's cool.

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Avril (03:48.343)

I probably led quite a sheltered life up to that point. And then obviously going there, you know, opened up my eyes to so many more experiences while I was over there. I think, I just, you know, there was the whole creative side of living in Nashville and being part of the music, the country music kind of community, which has kind of, has been probably a part of my life throughout. But also,

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Gerry Scullion (03:51.687)

Mm

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Gerry Scullion (04:05.309)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (04:14.599)

Yeah.

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Avril (04:17.526)

I think just cracking on and just being open to new experiences because it was very like just, okay, what's happening next week or whatever, you know, it was always kind of, what's that term fly by the seat of my pants type, know, pretty woman. just, yeah, never knowing and kind of just being open to everything. was just, I suppose the state is, you know, I suppose they say the land of opportunity and it really is, you know, there's so much.

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Gerry Scullion (04:30.407)

Changing.

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Gerry Scullion (04:35.76)

Yeah, pretty much.

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Gerry Scullion (04:45.308)

Yeah.

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Avril (04:46.183)

and everything you do, be it work -wise, personal -wise, know, sporting -wise. yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (04:54.511)

even the resilience that you need to foster in that space, like it's not something you can say everything's going to get handed to you on a plate. You have to fight for it in the music industry in particular, like, you know, you have to prove your worth, all of those different pieces. Was that true when you went over there in the first couple of years?

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Avril (05:16.15)

Yeah, like I think I worked in the recording studio for the first year. And while I always loved the idea of being a sound engineer, think after that first year, was like, it's really not for me. You know, it was like very late nights in the studio, just kind of waiting for people to be finished. And it just, I need more structure in my life. And so after that, I went to work for the country music songwriters, you know, and

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Gerry Scullion (05:27.719)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (05:32.968)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (05:39.827)

somewhere.

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Avril (05:43.564)

Yeah, sorry, I'm totally, we have to add that bit I wanted to do.

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Gerry Scullion (05:45.711)

No, it's all right. Now, with the with the the resilience that you need, like especially as a musician, if you're trying to push that rock up the hill on your own. Very often when I speak to musicians, we talk about that resilience that you foster it and it gives you this fire later in life because you can lean back into this whole kind of that mindset and that belief that you can achieve these things.

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And I can see that throughout when you were talking to me last week when we had lunch and we were talking and I was like, God, there's so much resilience there, especially because you didn't mention that you've done ultra marathons. That's just something, by the way, you know, just drop into conversation like, know, the only ultra thing that I've ever done is like Google Studio Ultra from the new Apple thing. I've never done anything that's ultra. You just drop that in the conversation. You've done ultra marathon and you've done all these ultra.

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you know, extreme events, which I want to come to as well. But I guess looking at what you've done over the last 15, 15, 20 years, probably 10 year age here, that that whole music period, was there other things that you might have carried through into, say, the start, for example, like that desire to to break through and make it work?

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Avril (07:05.51)

I think going to Nashville, think it was the whole thing of like, I am very much a person that believes like anything is possible. Like once you put on the work, you know, you can make it happen yourself. So like that kind of shone through just been even just from having the kind of pipe dream of going to Nashville, working in the music industry and kind of getting through that. And, you know, like I was a.

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Gerry Scullion (07:16.359)

Yeah.

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Avril (07:32.972)

mad fan of Garth Brooks. Absolutely loved Garth Brooks. Yeah, don't be joking. And then ended up having dinner with Garth Brooks. Well, we almost had dinner with Garth Brooks, but yeah, sound, really sound. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As wonderful as I imagined.

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Gerry Scullion (07:34.909)

I was going to say to your friends in lower places. I don't know any other time.

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No! You did! What was he like?

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Yeah. Did he wear a stethem at the dinner table? You know, it's a guys that he puts on. He's not really.

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Avril (07:53.303)

No, he didn't actually, don't think he did. No, he's all that and more.

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Gerry Scullion (08:02.097)

People would be like, stay in this conversation, stay on the bed, talk about Garth Brooks more, Jerry. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is the wrong podcast for a Garth Brooks piece. I don't want Google to identify me as a Garth Brooks anything. So you met him.

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Avril (08:08.31)

No, we won't go into that. But yeah, I think the resilience, I think, yeah, so from, definitely have always had that mindset. So that kind of, and I think the more you do things like that, the more self -efficacy you build up and you kind of realize, okay, yeah, it actually does work if I have this idea and then put in the work and see it through. And I think also, as you mentioned, the adventure racing. So I did the expedition adventure racing.

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Gerry Scullion (08:22.845)

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Avril (08:38.094)

which essentially I was home the first Christmas I was home from Nashville. I was watching television one morning and came across this show called the eco challenge. And it was in Borneo that year. And it was a Mark Burnett production, you know, from survivor and the apprentice and all that. And it was mad. Like it was these teams, coed kind of teams of four navigating an unmarked course with map and compass through the jungle for like eight to 10 days. I was like, my God, like that just looks amazing. you know,

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Gerry Scullion (08:52.754)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (09:04.135)

Yeah.

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I know what I'm going to do next.

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Avril (09:08.334)

Yeah, exactly. soon as I went back to Nashville, I signed up for this course, like a week long course in West Virginia to learn to navigate mountain bike, climb, kayak, and all that good stuff. And so I went and, you know, did my first race then, and then started doing expedition racing. So that definitely, I think like anyone who's done kind of expedition, length adventure racing, like, you know, eight to 10 days in the wilderness over like 900 kilometers, you know, with three other people.

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Gerry Scullion (09:25.447)

Yeah.

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Avril (09:38.304)

And night and day, you know, with like two hours sleep or three hours sleep per night. Like you do, you have to be resilient to get through it. Like there are so many highs and lows, like they call it like this microcosm of life, you know, all the highs and lows of a lifetime built into that, like eight days. And so the resilience that you need is to get through because you, know, if anyone drops out, the whole team then drops out. So there's kind of pressure to get through it.

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Gerry Scullion (09:53.341)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (10:04.423)

Yeah. Keep going.

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Avril (10:07.028)

I think, definitely from that, that has definitely also, I suppose, don't know if you build resilience or, know, but.

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Gerry Scullion (10:09.572)

and

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Gerry Scullion (10:16.595)

But I think that's part of your DNA as well. think like and without going too much into a personal story in the background. But, you know, Louie Copeland is your dad. Famous Taylor. You call him a tailor. Is he a tailor? Yeah, I guess he But when you speak to Louie, like he works and he has worked for most of his life, like he's just like an absolute animal. He's telling me the hours that he puts in and, you know,

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Avril (10:31.818)

Yeah, yeah, a train is a tailor, yeah.

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Avril (10:42.882)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (10:46.149)

He's probably in his 60s, 70s, I've no idea. And he looks like he's in his 50s. It's unbelievable. So you've been around this level of work ethic since birth. And there's obviously, you didn't pick this up off the ground. That's obviously been something that you've carried through into your own life. And I could see that resilience carrying through.

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Avril (10:49.142)

Yep, 70s are in the 70s, yep.

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Avril (10:53.359)

you

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Avril (11:00.525)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (11:11.579)

when you talk about the next stage, it's like so many, like after the piece of like going to Borneo and stuff, you decided to become a physio. And this is where it gets really interesting for me because, you know, where did that come from? Was that a connection back to the sport, the exercise from Borneo? Yeah.

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Avril (11:28.386)

Yeah, back to the sporting days that I was, I always, loved physio. So like, suppose the big things in my life were sport and music at the time when I left school. you know, I was doing so much hockey at the time. didn't, I was never going to get the points for physio. So.

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Gerry Scullion (11:39.079)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (11:44.893)

Mm.

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Avril (11:45.402)

it was kind of one or the other. And so I think though, after working in music industry and having kind of done that, my next thing was kind of physio. And, you know, I'd always had it in the back of my mind and about returning as a mature student. And thankfully, you know, after doing the exercise science degree in the States, I was accepted into the Royal College of Surgeons here and went back and did physio, which was just brilliant. I loved it.

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Gerry Scullion (12:12.594)

Yeah.

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Avril (12:14.488)

then went on to work in Beaumont, which again was, you know, like I loved it. You know, I really did. I loved, I loved not only the job, but just the people and the camaraderie among the staff. And, and just the patients that like the rapport that you build up with these patients who, know, are probably at the most vulnerable times of their life. And the difference that you can make was, was really rewarding. And, and yeah, so that was kind of.

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Gerry Scullion (12:20.593)

Yeah, absolutely.

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Gerry Scullion (12:35.443)

100%.

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Avril (12:43.394)

the physio stage and then I suppose from that led to the business.

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Gerry Scullion (12:43.515)

Mmm.

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You went to the star. So it's funny because I'm doing a lot of broadcasting this week and next week as well. I just finished a podcast with Kate Tarling, who wrote this book called The Service Organization. And we spoke about how the UK has managed to develop so many world class thinkers and designers in the business space.

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and community being one of the integral parts of that. And we discussed why frontline workers in hospitals in particular see so many opportunities to improve and deliver better experiences. And it's funny that like I'm hearing it an hour later, like after the last conversation, that it's coming up here again. Like, you you were in the frontline working with people, as you said, in the most vulnerable state.

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And for me, that's such a complex ecosystem. There's so many moving parts at the same time. And you've got a direct ownership of that relationship with the person that you're you're working with, the patient. So walk me through like where you had this kind of moment of opportunity in your head to actually making something happen. That's the bit I'm really interested in, because I identify you, Avril, as a really great changemaker. You've you've taken a problem, seen a solution.

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You've marketed it and you know, we can talk a little bit more around that, but I want to understand how you got to that point.

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Avril (14:17.291)

So I think, like I, so I worked when I was in the hospital, I worked in outpatients quite a bit and then obviously up on the boards. And it was more so probably, probably in outpatients, which is more obvious, but, you know, we were seeing patients come in and they were being referred for.

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say arthritic knees, you know, and our job was around, you know, giving them exercises around strengthening their quads and, you know, their lower limbs. And some of these patients would come in and, you know, they had arthritic knees, but they also, you know, could be obese or have high cholesterol and have all these kind of...

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serious risk factors or significant risk factors for chronic conditions or some were living with chronic conditions and yet we weren't really addressing those just because time you just tone of the time and you know you're in there get the exercises and you know support the patient in learning those exercises and see that patient again in a few weeks and so

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It was quite transactional in that respect, but I felt that you do with patients in the hospital, be it in outpatients or open the ward, as I mentioned, like you do build up this, this, this rapport with patients and they do trust you. And, like I always felt when I gave more to patients in terms of, you know, checked in with patients, how they were getting on, they really felt like, it's like, I was their coach, you know, in that they really felt, God, this person cares that I'm actually doing something. And therefore.

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would actually do the exercises or whatever else. And that kind of translated then, I was doing research for the Irish Society of Chartered Physios at the time around the role of health professionals in prescribing exercise and education for supporting patients around their lifestyle. So not just specifically around quad exercises, but other interventions around diet and all of that good stuff.

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Gerry Scullion (15:49.608)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (16:10.92)

Hmm.

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Avril (16:11.938)

And I found, you know, there was two main reasons why health professionals don't routinely do it. So as in like say, know, physios and other allied health professionals or GPs. And then one was time. They simply just don't have the time and other, you know, the second was around confidence in their ability to, know, especially when it comes to exercise, like if you have a patient who has some cardiac condition and you're a bit concerned, you don't want to be going.

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Gerry Scullion (16:24.455)

Yeah.

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Avril (16:38.296)

giving them some random exercise program just in case, you know, cause there's also the medical legal aspect that you have to be aware of. So, and it was from that then I said, God, you know, if there was a platform that you could enter information about the patient, baseline information about the patient, which would generate based on current evidence, a, you know, a recommended kind of program of exercise education, depending on their condition or their risk factors. And, and then.

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Gerry Scullion (16:41.618)

Yeah.

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Cheers.

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Avril (17:06.27)

a support, like essentially a support system. So, you know, for me, it was a conduit in terms of it was a, well, Greg used to the umbilical cord between a health professional and patient, you know, that it was, so you weren't just off, you know, saying, okay, go off, download an app and we'll see you again a few weeks. So not really be invested. You know, it was just extending arm of you, but, but in a way that wasn't, suppose, overburdened some for the health professional.

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Gerry Scullion (17:19.389)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (17:26.984)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (17:35.474)

Yeah.

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Avril (17:36.15)

So that was the kind of idea that, if we had this platform, health threshold could go on, input information, generate a program of care and still have that feedback, have that interaction with the patient, albeit at a distance, you know? And yeah, so that's kind of how the idea came about. I just thought, God, this just, we could do so much more when it comes to especially chronic conditions and trying to, you know, primary prevention versus, you know, secondary prevention, you know.

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Gerry Scullion (17:46.597)

loop.

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Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (17:56.114)

with this.

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Gerry Scullion (18:02.651)

Yeah. So what was this called? Was this ticker fit?

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Avril (18:07.286)

Yeah. So Inner Strength was our company and then Tickerfish was our first product.

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Gerry Scullion (18:12.931)

Okay, so that would develop programs of rehabilitation, guess. that right?

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Avril (18:18.764)

Yeah, yeah. So we started very much in the primary prevention space, so trying to prevent the onset of chronic conditions. yeah, do you know?

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Gerry Scullion (18:29.597)

Can you us an example of like, I went in and I was getting a knee replacement. I don't think I'm a million miles away from that these days. But if I was getting a knee replacement and you are my physio, what's that experience like currently? And then what's the experience that you were trying to change within that experience?

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Avril (18:38.817)

Thank

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Avril (18:51.25)

So I suppose the experience previously was you would come in, you would before surgery, yeah. You would get a, say you'd get a handout with exercises. You would get some information about say your surgery or whatever else. And, know, back then that was pretty much it. know, that way it was like, we'll see a post -op or we'd see you up on the ward, obviously, after your knee replacement to get you moving and prescribe exercise at that point.

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Gerry Scullion (18:55.631)

or surgery. Good evening.

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Gerry Scullion (19:06.812)

Mm

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Gerry Scullion (19:11.101)

Yeah.

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Avril (19:21.719)

But I suppose what we were doing now, we weren't necessarily in the musculoskeletal space, but when we were seeing patients in eye patients, the whole idea of the technology was that that patient would come in and we'd explore, okay, well, this patient has an arthritic knee and they're going for a knee replacement. But also, do they have high cholesterol, high blood pressure? What's their weight? Because obviously all these things are going to impact your overall kind of health outcome.

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Gerry Scullion (19:30.706)

Yes.

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Avril (19:46.086)

And from that, then we would input that information. Then that would generate a program of daily exercise activity.

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Gerry Scullion (19:54.035)

So this is post, this is what tickerfit does, is it?

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Avril (19:57.994)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then video content. it would basically take that information that we would input and then the different videos would be tagged, okay, high cholesterol patient with, know, male with high cholesterol. And it would put together a personalized content, you know, our educational content, our program for that patient. then that would, over time, you would trigger that information to go, you know, it was all you could.

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Gerry Scullion (20:19.6)

Okay.

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Avril (20:27.842)

configure it whatever way you wanted. But also your engagement then would be tracked and then fed back to the health professional. So the next time you're in, I would be able to sit down and okay, well look, I can see you're doing great here, but what happened this week?

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Gerry Scullion (20:29.104)

Okay.

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Gerry Scullion (20:44.295)

They have to track their activities as well, presumably.

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Avril (20:47.104)

Yeah. So we, didn't, you know, we'd integrated with, the Apple watch fit bits and all that good stuff. I suppose back then, even before Fitbits, we had, well, Greg, my CTO, Greg Bomber had, you know, use the accelerometer in the phone, you know, around tracking steps. So we had, figured out ways to do that. That's obviously all before Google.

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Gerry Scullion (20:52.783)

Okay.

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Gerry Scullion (21:04.595)

Okay.

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Gerry Scullion (21:11.462)

So this was probably 2011, 2012 was it around that time? Yeah. Cause the Fitbit started to come out in 2012. think it was around that time to drop. So you were developing all that kind of was integrated and then how did that data then permeate into the hospital? So one of the challenges within startups is getting it in.

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Avril (21:15.766)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, Yes. yeah. 13.

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Avril (21:35.752)

Yes. Yes.

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Gerry Scullion (21:38.215)

And then how it integrates with other software. So that's usually one of the biggest challenges. How did you handle or how did you approach? Yeah, after you've created it, getting it into a hospital and then also how how you handle that conversation with like, does it integrate with Outlook? All of those questions.

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Avril (21:40.908)

Yeah.

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Avril (21:54.966)

I we were really lucky in that it was early days in that whole scene. It was very early days. we had a standalone, we had a web -based app that had essentially the platform. so we...

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Gerry Scullion (22:06.866)

Okay.

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Avril (22:12.214)

Yeah. So that was, think towards the end we were, you know, they, those conversations were coming in, and in terms of feedback, but I think, you know, we were very much focused on the HSC and the NHS and there's a lot of legacy platforms. So it was kind of, okay, well, like, what's the point in integrating with these platforms when these are going to be changed pretty soon, you know, or there's different hospitals, hospitals are different.

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systems in every single hospital or every few hospitals. So it was just like, you would have just spent most of your time doing integrations versus actually. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think obviously that's changing now, but that was kind of the case back then.

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Gerry Scullion (22:42.311)

Yeah, unique as well.

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Gerry Scullion (22:50.449)

and then supporting the integrations as well.

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So.

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Gerry Scullion (22:58.749)

So they needed a computer, like the physio needed a computer and the, I can say recipient, but the patient would have needed a computer or phone.

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Avril (23:07.113)

Yeah, the app, an app or plus or minus Fitbit or Apple Watch or whatever.

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Gerry Scullion (23:13.235)

Okay, very, very good. So with all that going on, this took you up to, what was it, 20, I have no idea what year it is now, up until the last couple of years, it?

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Avril (23:24.495)

Yeah, so we did, we focused on Tickerfit and then we built HACA, which was we won a contract with the NHS around supporting children and young people with long -term conditions. And so we had this kind foundational platform that essentially could be used in different chronic conditions. And we presented the NHS and thankfully, as I said, won this contract and we developed it HACA Health, which was for children living with cystic fibrosis.

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Gerry Scullion (23:42.311)

Yeah.

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Avril (23:52.992)

So we worked on that with the NHS and UCL at Grey Norman Street and the researchers there. And yeah, that was a really great project as well.

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Gerry Scullion (24:07.773)

So your role here in this, like you mentioned, Greg, who was your CTO at Inner Strength Health, it? Okay, I always get it backwards. So what was your role through all of this? Was this, well, how would you describe it?

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Avril (24:12.034)

Yeah. Strength,

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Avril (24:23.374)

I'm a washer CEO. So I suppose I, yeah, look, you know, I kind of had said about setting up the company back in whatever, 2012. Yeah, CEO. exactly. And then Greg came on as CTO and we had Jane and we had, you know, more front end and backend developers. So, yeah, I was CEO throughout the whole thing.

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Gerry Scullion (24:33.629)

CEO, aren't you?

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Gerry Scullion (24:47.632)

So if you had to describe what your key learnings were from working on ticker fit and hack, hacka health or hacker health, hacka as in like the old backs, hacka. How would you approach design and human centered design and the importance of design and how you approach saving like future projects that you take on?

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Avril (24:55.83)

Yeah, I can't tell if you're... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Avril (25:12.834)

Yeah, I definitely have a much bigger appreciation now of human centered design. Like, so when we started out with Tickerfit, it was very much like, was like, build it and they will come and they'll use it, you know, because we know best. And it was a very naive and probably ignorant approach. and, you know, we remember we had one kind of trial we were doing and

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We onboarded all the patients and this trial was in cardiac rehab. for patients who'd had a cardiac event, who were trying to recover and recuperate and prevent another cardiac event. so many were older adults and we onboarded them and couldn't figure it out. Like, you know, a few days later, they were all totally off the platform. Like what's going on? You know, this is what's, you know, we didn't think was this bad and soon realized they couldn't remember their passwords.

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So that was a big issue. know, then Greg came up with, you know, with Slack, like the magic links or whatever. And then obviously that changed all that. that, know, and if we had done the groundwork initially, we would have realized that was potentially an issue that we could have solved from the get -go. When we worked on HACO, we took a very different approach. So we worked with a user research agency in London.

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Gerry Scullion (26:21.105)

Yeah.

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Avril (26:33.818)

And who were amazing. essentially before we did anything, we, spent a good few weeks talking to patients, talking to health professionals. the, know, a few of the guys went out and just spent days with the kids and their families to really trying to understand their day to day of living with CF. and we.

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Gerry Scullion (26:44.668)

Yeah.

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Avril (26:57.28)

Like we joined, I said, we partnered with the UCL and Great Ormond Street and some of the researchers there and one who's a friend of mine, actually a physio, Rand, and we were like, yeah, if we do this, this and this, they'll use it. And when they went out to the kids, they were like allergic, not a chance. You know, it was a very different approach. And so we totally, everything that we thought going into that project completely flipped on its head after doing the research. So yeah, it gave me a whole new appreciation, you know, and

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Gerry Scullion (27:11.795)

you

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Gerry Scullion (27:19.953)

Wow.

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Avril (27:27.415)

If I was going to do it again, like I would very much focus on that from the get -go.

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Gerry Scullion (27:29.394)

Mm.

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Yeah, there's I'm hearing this again, the resilience piece going through like the whole kind of the ability to not I'd say fail and get better and all this kind of stuff. But like the ability to face that potential rejection, potential change, all of these different things. If you speak to people who are coming out of university or speaking to people who are getting into this space and they don't possess that, like, OK, maybe they're having been exposed to it from birth like you were.

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What advice do you give to people in that that kind of headspace? How do they improve that situation? What would you say to them?

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Avril (28:12.02)

in terms of like getting through the whole kind of startup.

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Gerry Scullion (28:14.042)

Yeah

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Absolutely, because like there's so many people out there with who are on the front front line or who are working in complex systems and they see opportunities, they want to improve it. Like you've taken something not once, but twice now, like and you had success with it. And I'd be doing a disservice to the listeners if I didn't ask you like. How did you do that? Because lots of us have ideas like, you know, walk me through the early stages of saying, well, there's an opportunity, I can see it and I want to take that.

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first step. What does that look like?

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Avril (28:53.058)

Yeah. I know it's kind of when I go, God, is it something you're kind of just it's ingrained or is it something you you know, learn essentially, know?

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Gerry Scullion (28:54.803)

There's no right or wrong answer.

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Gerry Scullion (29:02.919)

What's it look? you think it's lucky? Is that is a sense of do you believe you've got control over it?

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Avril (29:09.13)

Yeah, I think it's just about having the self -efficacy to know that actually you can do it if you, if you want. I think number one for me is the passion and to know actually like, cause you know, to be honest over the years, I've had lots of ideas about different things. I remember like signing an NDA with a company in the States, all over the States about a, used to, every time I put my mountain bike or my kayak on the top, sometimes it happened to my friends. We'd always forget to.

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Gerry Scullion (29:14.28)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (29:23.112)

Yeah.

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Avril (29:34.582)

Like you could go into an underground car park and then smack, you know? And so I was like, God, if there was like a laser type thing. And I remember entering and I was like, had this idea, but like, I wasn't passionate about it, you know? And so I never followed it through. I was like, it's just not, you know? And so I had these different ideas over the years, but I think this one, I just felt so strongly about that. I just felt that we were just missing a trick. And you know, and there was just.

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Gerry Scullion (29:45.319)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (29:49.16)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (30:00.583)

Yeah.

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Avril (30:02.774)

I really did. And I just found, yeah, when patients left, you know, clinic or the hospital, it was like, it's kind of like you just lose that whole momentum. And I just got, you know, how can we support that relationship? so, yeah, I think.

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Gerry Scullion (30:12.327)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (30:15.867)

Yeah. I just like the two ideas like you've got the laser one to stop people from taking the saddles off their bike from going to car parks and so forth. And then you've got the other one over here ticker face. And what are the things like you're doing there? Like were you sizing up the opportunity? You mentioned there you were passionate about it.

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Avril (30:24.768)

Yeah. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (30:39.187)

There's there's a bit of a recipe going on between the two. can hear you in your head. You probably haven't thought about it, but like there's a recipe here where you're saying, well, that one and that one talk to me about the connection with yourself on that, like on what you decided to do, because you could have easily followed one road there and you decided to go in the other one because you weren't passionate about it. I mean, I'm doing air quotes. There are folks, people listening, not watching on YouTube.

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Avril (31:07.529)

I think now I go, okay, well, like, yeah, with that one, with the first one, like, be honest, I didn't size up the market. was kind of like, it was a very much like, this is a great idea. And there was a few weeks where I was like, I'm all about this and I'm going to do it.

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Gerry Scullion (31:20.487)

And to share it with other people. You were sharing it with people in the hospital. I had this idea.

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Avril (31:24.503)

you mean ticker fit night? sorry. no, I, I don't think I kind of just had the idea and I started looking into it. And I went actually to, I went to a pitch. did a hackathon type of thing for a days. And, it was at the end of the few days you had to pitch to investors and clinical, you know, entrepreneurs and everything else.

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I did that and won the pitch at the end of it, which then gave me that kind of confidence in the idea. And, and one of the clinical entrepreneurs, Johnny Walker, he is kind of a well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an Australian guy. And he's just, he's very well known. He's brilliant. And he's so energetic, so passionate about the whole space. And he was like, I really have to do it. And he really took me under his wing because I think for me, the challenge was I had no business back.

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Gerry Scullion (31:57.328)

rise.

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Gerry Scullion (32:02.215)

What's his real name? Okay.

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Avril (32:18.894)

So figuring out how do you even go about this? And, I went and did, I actually did one of the, down kind of courses, you know, night courses around build, you know, just building a business just to. Yeah. Yeah. Just they ran these kind of how to build a company or start a company. And I did those, you know, in the evening times for a few weeks. And I suppose that gave me a good under, you know, not like,

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Gerry Scullion (32:21.181)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (32:31.848)

Yeah.

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That's their local government in Dublin, where I live.

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Avril (32:47.898)

a very basic understanding of the steps that you have to take. Exactly. But then Johnnie really supported me from the perspective of going for the first bit of investment. I think then when I got that, that was like, okay, yeah, you know.

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Gerry Scullion (32:52.285)

the ropes.

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Gerry Scullion (33:01.714)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (33:06.075)

How did you get that? Like, are you OK to talk about that stuff as regards? You've got you've done a hack a hackathon. You've got probably some sort of very high level kind of overview and you've got a low fidelity prototype of something, maybe, maybe not. To raise some money like some people don't realize that, you know, you need money to to start turning the lights on and to make it work.

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Avril (33:09.196)

Okay. Yeah.

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Avril (33:20.49)

Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. It's just wireframes.

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Gerry Scullion (33:34.397)

Can you walk me through what that looked like? Because I know people will be really interested in how that actually got off the ground.

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Avril (33:40.748)

Yeah. So it was enterprise Ireland was the first protocol. And so obviously I'd been through the delirium at down at the local enterprise board and, you know, they had talked about enterprise Ireland and then obviously then doing the hackathon and winning that and meeting Johnny. I got introduced to enterprise Ireland and they have investment kind of opportunities throughout the year. at the time they had the competitive startup fund.

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Gerry Scullion (33:44.935)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (34:04.114)

Yeah.

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Avril (34:08.43)

which was a 50 K investment for new ideas, essentially. I, yeah, it was really just fill out the paperwork and set up a company and, you know, do your projections and yeah, that was just, just do it and then go and pitch and present it. thankfully, yeah, yeah. And thankfully then I am, I was successful with that, with that application and yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (34:10.716)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (34:24.87)

Off you go.

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Gerry Scullion (34:30.195)

to enterprise Ireland. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (34:37.799)

Yeah. So the local enterprise is where you start, folks. In Ireland, there's lots of local governments and each local government has a certain amount of money, I guess, to really, it's a small couple of thousand, I think, to get it started. And then the next step up is Enterprise Ireland, which really has connections and offices located all over the world. And it's a network. It's part of the diaspora, I guess, and it leans into

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Avril (34:38.296)

got awarded that first 50K.

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Avril (34:52.706)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (35:05.009)

you can get off a space, I think, London and through that network as well, if you need to have meetings in London and so forth. So it's a pretty special thing. don't know if it's unique to Ireland, but I've done work with Enterprise Ireland over the years on various businesses. It's pretty cool to have it within our own ecosystem.

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Avril (35:09.101)

Yeah.

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Avril (35:21.996)

It's brilliant to be involved and connected with them because they, as you said, they have this reach throughout the world, you know, in all different sectors. So in healthcare, they're really strong. So they have great networks in the States and wherever else. So you'll always find a link through Enterprise Ireland. Yeah, exactly.

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Gerry Scullion (35:24.051)

Thank

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Gerry Scullion (35:28.082)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (35:38.779)

I have. And that community piece is so important. I'm hearing that coming through, going back to the local enterprise. What do they do? Like, was there a course that you had to go through at that point to to get it ready for enterprise around?

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Avril (35:50.158)

I just looked it up. I just looked up my local enterprise board and I remember they had like a 12 week course, how to start a company.

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Gerry Scullion (35:59.667)

Okay. When you did it. Okay, very good. You got it. That's that's how the story of ticker face started in its kind of various encumberments, I guess, like it took off at that point, like, you know, and over the years, like, you know, like that business has gone on and it's it's had another life. It's you know, you've passed it passed the baton on to another company. And where you're currently at now is talk to us. What's going on?

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Avril (36:29.998)

So yeah, kind of, finished up, so the company was acquired by Unifor back in 2020 and then we ended up working just to last November. We, and Greg stayed on till last November and I'm now, I've taken a good few months off just to hang out with the kids and...

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Gerry Scullion (36:35.197)

Mm

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Avril (36:51.084)

get them going and yeah, so I've done that. And now I suppose I'm kind of now looking to get back into something. Whether it be a startup myself or go and work with, you know, a scale up or even into a corporate, you know, I'm kind of just having lots of conversations. I really want to find something that I'm passionate about. And I know that word keeps coming through, but for me, that's what drives me.

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Gerry Scullion (36:51.251)

Take it easy.

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Gerry Scullion (36:59.869)

something.

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Gerry Scullion (37:09.821)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (37:14.853)

Yeah.

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Avril (37:18.678)

You know, I want to go to something like, like my dad, know, dad just loves his job. it's his, you know, dad, that's his social life. Absolutely. You know it. And like it's his social life. It's everything to him. And so I really want to find that again, you know, that kind of energy and excitement that you get by doing something, I suppose, again, that you're passionate about. So, yeah, so I'm just having lots of conversations. have, you know, obviously an interest now in digital health.

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Gerry Scullion (37:21.809)

Yeah.

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Does he? He's joking. Absolutely does.

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Gerry Scullion (37:45.404)

Yeah.

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Avril (37:48.758)

and like healthcare definitely I want to stay in and be a digital health and you know I've been through fertility treatment over the last few years and so I do feel there's an opportunity somewhere yeah yeah and women's health and fertility and so potentially something in that and or if not yeah just I just

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Gerry Scullion (37:51.623)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (38:00.099)

Huge opportunity in that space.

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Gerry Scullion (38:11.207)

On that point, you mentioned there about making sure that you're passionate about it. And that phrase gets used a lot, even in the media, like, you know, what does it mean to you? Like, you know, what does that mean in terms of what you do next? And why do you feel that's so important?

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Avril (38:31.502)

Because I think life is short, you know, and I think you have to do something like you spent so much of your life working. And for me, it just has to be something that I enjoy and that drives me and wants me to go in every day, know, gives me the want to go in every day or whatever I do. yeah, I do. just like that's it's just something that.

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Gerry Scullion (38:38.728)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (38:50.417)

Yeah.

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Avril (39:00.002)

where I don't have to like your.

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Gerry Scullion (39:02.695)

purpose?

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Avril (39:03.33)

your values or your purpose. Yeah, like that you just feel God, I can really contribute to this and make it. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (39:08.435)

I can give value. Yeah. I mean, there's so much in that alone. You know, one of the things that I'm hearing, it's a little bit like remember that TV show. This is your life. And the fact that we've gone through from school all the way to here, you're not afraid to take risks and you're not. You've tried lots of different things. You know, you've tried, you know, music in various forms, you know, sports, and it's served you really well. Like there's there's a thread.

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Avril (39:20.494)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (39:37.777)

you know, between all of these pieces like, you know, is that one of your secret powers about giving it a shot, giving it a go?

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Avril (39:46.456)

I think for anyone, it's like, it's, you know, I think, you know, when you think, talk about children and, know, I my two little ones now and about getting them involved in sports and because I was so involved in sport, I'd love for them to be involved in whatever sport and, you know, just from reading about it, it's really just about opening their eyes to every sport or giving them an opportunity to, to, you know, be involved in a sport and eventually they'll find something that actually.

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Gerry Scullion (39:48.136)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (39:57.959)

Hmm.

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Avril (40:12.334)

passionate about, know, and I think that's like that for everyone and for every part of our life. You know, it's like definitely in work. And, as I said, I'm having all these conversations now trying to find something. And I think eventually I will come across something. It's just kind of keep trucking and. Yeah. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (40:13.693)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (40:17.981)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (40:30.129)

Yeah, having conversations and talking about it like, you know. So look, Avril, look, it's been absolutely fantastic chatting with you. I'll put a link to your LinkedIn, if that's OK, on in the show notes and stuff for people to reach out and ask questions and follow. Like I was a really inspirational person. I just find it really kind of empowering to hear a story like this. And like what we do in this podcast, we like to have people on and talk about their stories so we can all learn from them.

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Avril (40:40.545)

you're perfect, yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (40:57.713)

sometimes learn from their mistakes. But in your case, it just seems to have gone from strength to strength. So wishing you the very best of luck in the next couple of months and years when whatever you decide to do and maybe come back in the show and tell us how you're getting on. And if you ever need any assistance from the Human Centered Design Network, we're always here. So thanks so much for your time and energy today, Avril.

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Avril (41:18.606)

Thanks so much, Jerry. Great to talk to you.

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Gerry Scullion (41:21.177)

stuff. You're a fucking natural. Makes me sick.

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