A conversation with Tinnitracks CEO, Joerg Land 

Solving the problem of ringing tones affecting 400 million patients

Over 25 million people across Europe hear ringing tones inside their head. World-wide that number is around 400 million. Nearly 1 million live in The Netherlands.

If you suffer from a condition called Tinnitus, you can’t switch off those tones. They’re always inside your head. Because these patients aren’t hearing real tones! These whistling, buzzing or ringing sounds are being produced because of a problem in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that processes the sounds that come from our ears.

Tinnitus can come about because of the side effects of medication, exposure to very loud noises, or simply the results of the ageing process. Famous Tinnitus sufferers include famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh.

But while the symptoms are well understood, an easily available form of treatment has been elusive. There is no medicine on the market for Tinnitus.

Now, a medical startup based in Hamburg, Germany, has come up with a much better approach for the vast majority of the patients which requires no drugs at all. Joerg Land is co-founder of Tinnitracks. He explains their unique approach as they scale-up in the Netherlands.

“Scientific research shows tinnitus is the result of processes going on in the brain rather than the ear.” explains Joerg. “Our approach is based on major scientific advances in our understanding of how the brain learns and adapts. Together with my co-founder Adrian Noetzel and Matthias Lanz, we took scientific results from researchers at the University of Muenster and successfully solved the main technological issues. Someone needed to build easy access to this new clinically proven therapy for chronic tinnitus. No chemicals are needed, just a clever mix of sounds.”

How it works

“Overactive nerves in the brain cause the perceived ringing sounds in the ear. Tinnitus can be treated by listening to music that has been specially filtered to remove specific frequencies that triggers the patient's tinnitus. The music calms the nerves and the strength of the tinnitus ringing diminishes.”

“The absence of these “notched out” frequencies slightly alters the sound of your music, but for most people their sense of hearing quickly adapts. Using your own favourite music for the therapy often creates positive emotions which releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps the brain to learn.”

“We encourage each patient to measure their own personal tinnitus frequency by a qualified Tinnitracks partner. In Germany, for instance, there’s a partnership of 120 members. They will measure and give you the personal Tinnitus frequency. Then it’s simple to enter this number into the Tinnitracks smartphone app. The app is bit like a regular music player, so people find Tinnitracks very easy to use.”

Next steps – scale-up the business in 2015

The fundamental research stretches back several years, when the Tinnitracks team decided to create a business in 2012. Joerg Land advocates the lean startup approach – getting out early to talk to people. “It took over two years and several dozen high-level discussions with potential customers and industry experts before we gained a tipping point. We've always believed in the effectiveness of our technology, but our success depends on how the market reacts and validates this hunch.”

“This part of the medical industry is quite risk averse, and so it has taken many approaches to specialists and hearing institutes to convince them that our approach might be worth a second look.”

Always Take a pro-active approach to conquer a conservative market.

“Our strategic partnership with renowned German headphone manufacturer Sennheiser has been important. It resulted in audiologists calling Sennheiser to demand more information about Tinnitracks hard- and software. But we've also been extremely active reaching out to meet audiologists in person, showing what we do and answering any questions that arise.”

“For instance, we took part in the 2014 annual congress of the European Union of Hearing Aid Acousticians. It’s an influential trade association of 700 members serving more than 3 million users in Germany. Being invited to be part of the stand of an established company like Sennheiser has certainly helped. It's the same with the Ear, Nose and Throat doctors. Of course they are hounded daily by lobbyists from the pharmaceutical companies so it's difficult to get their attention. But when we had a booth at a large ENT conference, we were able to validate that there is serious interest from specialists.”

Now Scaling up in The Netherlands

“Tinnitracks was bootstrapped during the development phase. That's because we put together the right team of founders who were not only able to build the technology, but also create a business around it. This meant operating as a lean startup, just running on essential expenses, but not drawing a salary.”

“We have been fortunate to attract several public sponsorships. These include the city of Hamburg, German Federal Government and EIT-Digital labs with its Cluster HQ in Eindhoven. We've now reached the point where we are ready to scale up production and extra funding will help us grow the meet the market demand.”

“At the end of March 2015, we announced a series-A financing round. The company will use this money for product development and further corporate expansion. It has created an integrated solution and collaborates with ENT physicians, hearing aid audiologists and renowned audio specialist Sennheiser.”

 “We were originally attracted to the EIT-Digital Technology challenge in Eindhoven when it was known as EIT-ICT Labs. We thought the prize money would come in useful. But then we discovered the true value of this organisation's European wide network of business mentors. They have certainly helped open doors to contacts that we couldn't have done by ourselves. And they are extremely well connected internationally, so if the idea works in one market, you can quickly scale up to other countries. They helped us explore new markets and they build a longer relationship with teams that goes well beyond demo-day.”

“I think the benefit you get really depends on how you use the EIT-Digital network. If you're proactive it can really mean a lot. Which explains is why we’re working closely with EIT-Digital as we roll-out Tinnitracks in the Netherlands! I believe EIT-Digital is a wonderful example of a successful public accelerator scheme that's making a lot of innovation possible!

Where’s the app?

“Everyone has been asking us: where's the Tinnitracks mobile app? As a software company it might sound strange but that wasn't the first thing we built. But we needed to prove our core technology. And it is a medical service we're operating, so it is much easier to tweak things when they are on a central server, rather than on the individual operating system in the mobile phone.  And we needed to validate our subscription model.”

“But that phase is behind us. We've now brought our Tinnitracks technology onto a music app player. It operates rather like a Spotify client, though in our case the music is stored on the phone. So our server is the “medical device” that is synced to a consumer player on the user’s phone. Using a cloud server approach, we can apply much more precise filters because we can harness more powerful processing power.”

Minimal Battery Consumption

“The other point we have considered is power consumption.  On a smartphone, playing music consumes very little energy. But processing music eats away into the battery consumption very quickly, and we know that patients quickly stop using the app if the smartphone battery drains in just a few hours.”

“The Tinnitracks app makes it easier to up- and download the filtered music because it all happens in the background. It also tracks the level of compliance. It will suggest, for example, that the user listens for another hour this week and after 3 months the app shows the treatment progress. We are very strict about user privacy. We might aggregate anonymised data to understand how people use the technology.”

Free user trials essential

“We learned a lot from the trials in understanding what holds potential customers back. The price is important, which is why offering people a 14 day free trial with their own music seems to be the fastest way to move forward. But customers also want to know whether our technology fits their daily routine. We're seeing that people try the service with their own headphones first. But often they then buy the Tinnitracks in a box packaged together with a pair of Sennheiser headphones.”

“We have optimized the software to work best with certain headphones. We know the frequency response specifications and these Sennheiser headphones have excellent fidelity and are extremely comfortable. We are only a software company, but we have been pleasantly surprised at the uptake by users of the recommended headphones.”

“There is now a subscription model, which you can automatically renew at the end of each month. You can also buy a complete package at the time you buy the Sennheiser hardware which offers a favourable introductory deal”

Better than the competition

“Yes, there are apps out there that claim they can treat tinnitus. And I welcome competition, because it helps to grow the market.” says Joerg.  “The problem is that some of these cheap apps do filter music, but they are far from being up to the standard of a classified medical device. Now it is up to us to show both doctors and patients that we've done so much more than build an audio player with some clever filters.”

Next Steps

Tinnitus realise that their core technology can be used in other devices, such as hearing aids. A certain number of Tinnitus patients suffer from hearing loss. Wearing a hearing aid and a pair of headphones is often burly and uncomfortable.