Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz. From inside the Wintercircus Startup Campus, Liesbeth Van Hauwermeiren heads SpineWise, developing vibrating wearables to prevent back pain. “Primarily for physical professions,” the entrepreneur says, “but there are also quite a few desk workers here who could use our help.”

“We are already active in Belgium and the Netherlands; we’ve got interested parties lined up in Germany; and we’re doing market research in the UK.” On the one hand, Liesbeth Van Hauwermeiren’s excuse for not having hit the gym at Wintercircus yet seems pretty solid. The CEO and co-founder of SpineWise, which develops wearables to protect people from hernias and other back pain, is busy growing her company.

“On the other hand, I obviously should know better than anyone here how important it is to exercise,” she admits. “Before I started SpineWise, I danced several times a week and even practiced krav maga - a hybrid of aikido, judo, karate, boxing, and wrestling. But finding the right work-life balance as CEO of a tech startup is a challenge, I have to admit. Especially for a workaholic like me.”

The latter is undoubtedly the reason why the physical therapist is a regular at other Startup Campus and Wintercircus Collective activities. “Gaining inspiration, getting to know people, building a network, that’s something I do not have to put any effort in. I genuinely enjoy doing those things because I’m genuinely curious. Ultimately, that’s also how SpineWise came to be.”

How so, exactly? “I’m a physiotherapist by training, but I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with that profession. Even though it’s super interesting - every patient is a new conundrum - it’s also super frustrating because it often feels like putting a sticking plaster on a wooden leg. You never quite know what preceded a problem, nor can you be sure that patients will follow your advice. People are creatures of habit, so no matter how good your intentions are, before you know it, you slip back into your old routines. As a result, many patients are back in my office after a while with the same complaints.”

Things began to change when Liesbeth started a PhD at Ghent University, where she came into contact with the tech world. “If I’m honest,” says the physical therapist,” it also had something to do with the speed at which you work as a scientist. I find my PhD extremely fascinating, but we’re talking twenty years before I can really help someone with the knowledge I accumulate. At the same time, I saw that enough technology existed to make a difference much sooner. I signed up for a pre-accelerator program from Gentrepreneur with nothing more than an idea. And that was the beginning of SpineWise.”

The idea was simple: develop a wearable device that alerts users with vibrations when they are in poor posture. The technology was not a big issue either - that’s where her co-founders Nicolas Cattoir and Thomas Van Aken came in. “Our main concern was who would be purchasing the wearable,” says Liesbeth, “in a country like Belgium where patients pay very little for their health care and physiotherapists won’t put up the money either. After conducting some market research, we arrived at the prevention sector, where there was quite some demand for such a wearable. Moreover, companies like DHL and the supermarket group Colruyt were willing to invest in pilot projects with a prototype - seeing they don’t want employees to drop out with back problems. By the way, that was one of the most valuable things I learned in that pre-accelerator program: instead of spending two years developing a product before testing, create something simple, try it out, improve it further, and repeat.”

In September of last year, those pilot projects led to SpineWise’s first product launch. Meanwhile, Liesbeth and her team are already working on a second product line, and they are also increasingly looking to other countries, where the need for this type of wearable can be much greater. Secretly, the CEO is even ogling the other Startup Campus residents at Wintercircus. “With our first product in the market, we are now also getting requests from other sectors,” Liesbeth confesses, “but likewise for other profiles, such as desk workers. Because they too often adopt postures that can cause complaints in the long run.” She takes a look around and smiles. “I don’t have to look far.”

‘In the long run’ is an important challenge for the physical therapist because, with all the data it is now collecting, SpineWise wants to work towards algorithms that not only remedy complaints but can also predict them. “So that we can start working preventively. This is still a pipe dream, but it is, of course, also one of the reasons why we moved into the Wintercircus Startup Campus. We’re not the only company here working on future technologies.”

The SpineWise CEO admits that, before applying to the Wintercircus Startup Campus, she had started to look for an office of her own - having already hooked up with other tech startups under the impetus of imec.start and ML2Grow in the past. “But the added value of a tech hub is just too great. Just in terms of fundraising and grant applications, I learned almost everything from the other startups we roomed with these past couple of years. A good network, for a startup, is priceless.”

Liesbeth admits that since moving to Wintercircus, her network has expanded even more, and the Wintercircus Collective also has much to do with that. “There was a time when I felt like I kept running into the same people at networking events around town. As a member of Collective, I feel like I’ve been able to break out of my bubble. I get to know people who are doing completely different things. Yet, you soon notice that they, too, are all about passion and innovation. It’s not only incredibly exciting but also extremely illuminating.”