A Founder Who Listened to Stephen Hawking's Advice for Product Startups

Monday, July 4, 2022, 5:00 – 5:45 PM UTC

A startup founder and an accessibility speaker met and propel a new product forward that solves a problem for more than one segment of users -- could it be the start of a new movement in the startup arena? Tune in to find out.

About this event

Question for startup founders developing products. 


How many of you have people with accessibility challenges at your developing table?


"But Michele, our product has not been created to solve an accessibility challenge."


What if you found out after spending thousands on developing your solution, that a competitor did the opposite of you and had accessibility advisors and talent as part of their startup team...and now they made you obsolete in one simple + swift action?


Here is data that opened the SGHOU team's eyes as we explored bringing this topic of accessibility and these experts to you for July.


  • 80% who use captions are not deaf
  • 92% mobile video often watched without audio
  • Gen Z has higher diagnosed ADHD indicating "we all use it" as a matter of fact 
  • $13 Trillion annual disposable income - people with disabilities


Now, these are a few different perspectives to explore to expand your current thinking about the value of using captions in your product and product delivery. (We will talk about this more in our fire-side chat)


We bring you TWO people making a difference for ALL your startup customers/clients


  • Meryl K. Evans CPACC Speaker + Accessibility Marketer
  • Alex Westner Founder + Audio Technologist


The goal for this fire-side chat is so you can hear straight from the source of a founder who created a solution serving the accessibility community AND from an accessibility expert who helps us explore the additional values of BOTH developing your solution with accessibility in mind and the benefit of having accessibility mentors/advisors for your startup.


We continue to welcome your topic and guest speaker requests - you can email those to me at Michele@startupgrind.com


Who will you invite to join you for this conversation?


Those who support our Houston chapter with their nominal donation w/ their ticket will also receive video access after the event.

Check out what happened