TouchPoint Solution: Vicki Mayo, CEO & Co-founder

I live in Paradise Valley, Arizona and began my first business at 14. As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve experienced the stress of being an entrepreneur first hand. Together with neuropsychologist Dr. Amy Serin, I developed the TouchPoints, the first-ever wearable devices that provide stress relief in as few as 30 seconds. I am first generation; my parents emigrated from India before I was born, and I grew up in Georgia. When I was 20, I adopted two boys (aged 12 and 13 at the time) that had been abandoned by their parents. This life-changing event set the course for me to create TouchPoints and fulfill my greatest obligation and joy in life, which is to help people.

Innovation Story

My daughter had been experiencing vivid night terrors for years, and I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it. It was horrible. I felt helpless. The whole family was suffering because she would wake up nightly and we’d all be awake. The following mornings we would be exhausted – we were caught in a spiral I couldn’t get out of. I felt like I had tried everything, and we were at our wit’s end. After spending endless nights watching her suffer in her sleep, I reached out to my friend, Dr. Amy Serin, a neuropsychologist. In Dr. Serin’s research looking for a solution to deal with the trauma after the global Ebola crisis, she isolated a successful component of PTSD treatment and was using it to research the impact of stress-reduction using a handheld device. She suggested that my daughter try her neuro-technology product during her next episode.

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. - Paulo Coelho

I was intrigued, but the idea of a non-invasive, fast-acting fix almost sounded too good to be true. I took Dr. Serin’s advice and placed the devices in my daughter’s hands during her next night terror. I was so surprised – the gadgets worked, and they worked well. For the first time in years, she slept peacefully through the night. There’s nothing more difficult for a parent than having to watch your child struggle. That night, my daughter held them before bed and got a full night of restful sleep for the first time in weeks. It was like this weight had instantly been lifted off our family – my daughter was smiling again! I’ll never forget that feeling. From that day on, it became my mission to share this stress relief with as many people as possible.

Dr. Serin and I chatted about what she was doing to bring these life-changing devices to everyone. She told me that she was trying to develop it, but that progress was slow. I knew from experience that this technology had the potential to profoundly change millions of lives. We didn’t have time to move slowly. People needed this in their lives now! Together we created TouchPoint Solution to create an instant stress-reduction solution that could be used by a broad range of individuals with different needs. Our suite of products called TouchPoints reduce stress at the press of a button while also improving sleep, focus, and performance.

Why Phoenix?

Sunshine. Smiles. Opportunity. Phoenix is all of these! No other city can boast 350+ days of gorgeous weather, friendly people and a pro-business atmosphere.

Advice & Best Practices

• Don’t be too busy working IN your business that you don’t work ON your business.
• A/B test EVERYTHING. Business is like a science experiment. Formulate a hypothesis
  and then test it, observe, modify and test again.
• If you are stuck between making a decision too quickly or slowly, make a decision
  quickly. In the world of business, time is precious and sometimes speed is your only
  asset.

This article first appeared on Innovate in January 2020. To read the full article, click here.