Internet pioneer now taking on diabetes
Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, but one tech pioneer has a novel approach to manage the disease.
Some 29 million Americans have diabetes and another 8 million are undiagnosed, according to the American Diabetes Association. One of those sufferers, Jeff Dachis, saw an opportunity after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes two years ago.
Twenty years ago, in the early days of the World Wide Web, Dachis co-founded Razorfish, the digital marketing giant that later became part of Microsoft (MSFT) before being sold to Publicis Groupe (PUBP.PA). He was subsequently involved in several other tech projects but his latest venture, One Drop, was started after beginning his own personal battle with the disease.
“Immediately, I started looking around for the best gear to get and the most interesting data sets to look at to help me manage my diabetes better,” said Dachis. “It turns out the technology from the ‘80s is still what people use for managing their diabetes. It seemed to me like a wide-open gaping hole in the marketplace.”
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One Drop has a diabetes testing kit and a management app that allows its 20,000 users to log and analyze their food, insulin, and activity. It also shares anonymous data and has a community feature for diabetics to provide tips and encouragement. The company plans to release a Bluetooth-connected glucose meter sometime in 2016.
Razorfish was often cited as one of the symbols of the Internet bubble a decade a half ago, so Dachis is hesitant to discuss One Drop’s financial plans, saying only “ideally, we're going to be building a company that's going to be here for the long haul.”
For the moment, Dachis is focused on One Drop’s customer experience.
“People with diabetes oftentimes feel shame and depression and feel very alone,” he said. “We want people to feel like every prick of the finger is an opportunity to live life to its fullest, literally, one drop at a time. And so for us diabetes is really a way to be 'dia-badasses,' to be in control of your life and to be living to the fullest.”
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