that weigh about 75 pounds in the water with this in, I feel like it’s effortless. But when I don’t have this in it takes all of my energy.’ I just brushed it off; my focus was reducing my patient’s symptoms. My second patient was a young mother to a six-month- old who had lots of headaches. She said one day she woke up early, headache-free, for an appointment with her baby and she still had her mouthpiece in and when she lifted him in his car seat into the car that it was practically effortless. That sparked me. I wondered if there was something there.” “I hired a trainer, asked him to try the bite, and after only 15 minutes he called for me to come down there,” Dr. Makkar recalled. “He was lifting more weight and he was balancing on the ball for two minutes longer than he ever did. That’s how it all started: corroboration from someone who didn’t have a horse in the race. We want full transparency with all the scientific information on the market and I think that helped us on the Dragon’s Den.” Rob Charlton, agreed. “I think a lot of people are more receptive to a product that’s instantly demonstrable,” he matter-of- factly observed. “The Dragons were particularly receptive to the technolo- gy; they got it. You have to appreciate how the product can help you, how it could benefit everyone in their day-to- day. The Dragons saw it from that level. They were very recep- tive and it all started when Anil did the pen test on Joe Fresh – where you bite-down evenly on a pen and test your physical performance with a few simple challenges that you had just completed without anything between your teeth, and his balance and strength was instantly improved. His reaction was exactly the same as mine when I first tried the product,” Rob said. “My background is in designing products for the fitness industry. When I was attending an event south of the border I came across Anil and his team selling the product and I watched them do the pen test. I found myself coming back to their booth because every person I saw who did the pen test was truly amazed. That’s when I got involved with my design company. We were able to work with Anil and take something that was essentially an orthodontic product going for $1500 and create a sleek one-size- fits- all, boil- and- bite product that retails for $29.” For Rob, taking on the executive role wasn’t a typical business decision. It wasn’t even a “How do we make money?” decision, he explained. “When I first sat down with Anil, I said to him, ‘How do we help people feel the way I did when I tried that?’ I told him that as long as we accomplished that that everything else will fall into place. Once people wrap their heads around how powerful this is, they can’t help but use this product.” Rob first tried the nascent product at a fitness trade show in the US in 2014. That spark ignited the inaugural R&D phase of what was to become New Age Performance.
The PGA has wrapped their heads around it. New Age Performance is banned by the Professional Golfers’ Asso- ciation “because the mouthpiece speeds-up hip rotation,” Rob explained. “There are a lot of positive side effects to your body being perfectly balanced: balance, airflow, range of motion. These are all improved. So when you’re a golfer and you put that 6DS mouthpiece in, you come back five inches more than you would have before. The PGA found that translated into more contact speed. I understand there was even a letter put up in the change rooms saying not to use it. But if you’re not in the PGA it’s fine,” Rob laughed. The 5DS and 6DS Mouthpiece as well as the 5DS Mouth- guard is available at Popeye’s locations across Canada and online at newageperformance.com.
Please visit cbc.ca/dragonsden/pitches/new-age- perfor- mance to see the big pitch!
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NOVEMBER 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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