Spreading the word
Mymanu’s CLIK S came out in 2021 and since then Danny has continued to innovate. The next generation earbuds – the CLIK Pro – are released in April 2024 and have already made headlines, taking the CES® 2024’s Innovation Honoree Award. Danny is also currently piloting the CLIK Pro earphones with charities and associations which support asylum seekers as well as schools supporting pupils to whom English is an additional language.
“The current CLIK S earphones work with your mobile phone, but the CLIK Pro doesn’t need the phone,” Danny explains. “They just detect the people speaking and translate their words in your ear, it’s really cool.
“Working with the schools is great as my work can literally help teachers communicate faster with pupils who have English as an additional language to help them learn and integrate with other pupils more quickly than waiting for a translator.”
A drive and an appetite for risk
Danny has a number of patents in place to protect the technology used in his products. “There are alternatives coming out now but people always mention us as kind of the beginning of this,” Danny said. “I’ve been chatting to a large tech company and what I’ve realised is that they have the money and the market-share, but they would rather acquire or work with a young company to develop a new product than go through the whole financial risk themselves.
“I used up all my savings, sold my assets and really put everything I have into this. I told myself I was committed to this until I get to my goal. I’m not stopping. I am super-passionate about what I’m building and it is really starting to come together now. If you have an idea then go and validate it. Not all ideas are good, you need to solve a certain problem but if a lot of people are facing that problem; then you have something that people will pay you for.”
