Chad Cox is the co-founder of Optical Launch, a turnkey e-commerce application built to boost the optical experience of patients, customers, and optical staff. Born and raised in Wichita, Kan., Cox is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Ranger Battalion stationed in Ft. Benning, Ga. He has a degree in computer science from Wichita State University and, in his free time, is a pretty good chef.
Visit the Optical Launch website here.
Optical Launch is not Cox’s first tech startup. He co-founded another company that was acquired by HighTouch Technologies. Cox continued to work on the company’s products for HighTouch for a few years after the acquisition. Below is a recent, lightly edited conversation with Cox about his latest venture.
Congratulations on Optical Launch. How did you get into the eyecare industry?
My brother, Steven K. Cox OD, and fellow co-founder, is an optometrist. He and I have talked about starting a company together for a long time. With my brother’s vast experience in the industry and my software experience, we were able to identify key areas that are creating problems for optometrists and developed solutions for them. We just went from there.
What areas in the eyecare industry create the most problems for optometrists?
Overall, the eyecare industry presents a unique challenge. You have these highly educated, specialized professionals — optometrists and quite a few ophthalmologists — who are Doctors of Optometry or Doctors of Medicine, and they’re asked to be both doctors and retailers. Not only do they identify problems with patients’ vision, but they also prescribe medical solutions to solve those problems; often in the form of eyewear.
In the eyewear industry, not only are you a business owner who provides medical counsel, you’re also a retailer. They don’t provide business or branding or e-commerce classes in optometry and medical school. That’s not what they went to school for. But that’s okay, we can help with that.
I’d never thought about the retail aspect of the eyecare industry. You have to evaluate someone’s vision and provide a prescription, but afterward the consumer must buy a medical device — eyewear — to make the prescription functional. Don’t most people just buy from the optometrist?
Quite a few do buy from the optometrist. But, that number — the capture rate, if you will — is quickly going down. More and more patients are turning to online retailers to buy their eyewear. This is where Optical Launch comes in. We provide patients the opportunity to buy online from their eyecare provider. Our software can suggest and remind people to shop before, during, and after they visit their eye doctor. Patients can try on glasses at home using the virtual try-on feature, and then they can buy them online or, of course, from the optometrist when they visit their eye doctor.
Is that what makes Optical Launch special - trying on glasses virtually?
Chad Cox, Co-Founder of Optical Launch
Not necessarily. Virtual try-on technology has been around for a while. What makes Optical Launch special is that if you’re in the eyecare industry — if you own a practice or work for a chain of practices — we can set up your branded e-commerce store for you in as little as an hour. The eyecare professional uploads their inventory list, and we go from there. We have over 200,000 frames available for use in our database.
So if I own an eyecare practice, Optical Launch helps me with inventory and online sales?
Exactly. Maybe you have a particular brand in stock, but your customer wants them in blue. They can try them on virtually. Or a customer can see that you carry a brand online and order them before they come into the store. You can provide all of these services to the customer.
This also reduces upfront cost. You don’t have to buy as much inventory in advance while at the same time assuring your customers that you have access to all of the inventory available on the website.
We’re making an “easy button” for the business owner in the eyewear industry.
When I think about e-commerce, I instantly think of Shopify. How is Optical Launch different from Shopify?
With Shopify, you have to upload and manage all of your images. If you want to sell a set of frames, you’re responsible for their image and the accompanying details about the product on the platform. Optical Launch takes care of that for you. We handle it all on the backend. We just need some general information about your inventory, and we’ll populate your sales subdomain almost instantly.
We’re a shopping solution, which makes us an incredibly important solution too.
How big is the eyewear industry?
Big. Very big. The global market for eyewear is a $131 billion industry by U.S. dollars.
And do you . . . [taps glasses]
The Optical Launch dashboard allows you to track a variety of data.
. . . wear eyeglasses? Yes. Yes, I do.
Who have you been working with so far?
We mostly work with optometrists - someone who started their own practice. Or someone who bought a practice from another optometrist. We’ve also worked with partners and people inside larger eyecare organizations. Optical Launch can work with anyone.
If I’m an optometrist, and I come across Optical Launch, what’s my next step?
You can sign up directly on our website. Or there’s a link where you can schedule a time with a member of the team to try a demo. There’s also a video available on our website where you can learn more.
You’re one of Groover Labs’ original members. What do you like about working here?
I like the space, and I like the people. There’s a good community here. I came over from e2e, and there’s something special about being around other entrepreneurs. In 2020, I didn’t come in as much, but I’ve spent a lot of time here this year. It’s a great atmosphere, and lots of interesting things happen here. I met with some venture capitalists as part of the VC Huddle earlier this year, and I heard some good feedback.
What’s next for Optical Launch?
We’re off and running. We have some customers, and we’re working with them to optimize their sites and sales. What’s next? More customers. That and new features. We have inventory and billing. We create a way for the family optometrist or even a chain to compete with online sellers. So, we’re going to keep making Optical Launch a service that allows the optometrist-retailer to compete at the brick-and-mortar level and in the digital space. Oh, and this all ties together with Appointment Launch, our other software, but perhaps we talk about that another day.