The man who helped Air Jordans get off the ground? Not Michael Jordan, but rather a San Clemente engineer and surfer who thought it would be “cool” to visit Nike Inc.
Shawn McGuan came up with a way to test designs of sports shoes, medical devices and golf clubs and then built a business around it.
He said he got the idea for his San Clemente-based LifeModeler Inc. while working at industrial simulation software company Mechanical Dynamics Inc. 16 years ago and thinking it would be cool to apply the software to humans. His next thought: Nike.
“I’d always wanted to go up to Beaverton, Ore., and visit Nike,” he said. “So I thought maybe we could do something with Nike along the lines of human modeling.”
Nearly 10 years later, McGuan—LifeModeler’s chief executive and founder—was one of five entrepreneurs honored at the Business Journal’s annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship award luncheon held March 17 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.
Privately held LifeModeler makes software that allows hospitals, medical device, shoe and golf club makers, and others to use computers to test how designs would work on people.
It’s also used by more than 500 universities, including the University of California, Irvine, and California State University, Fullerton.
The 12-worker company is projected to have sales of $5 million this year.
Inspiration
When McGuan was at Mechanical Dynamics, he worked on software that simulated mechanical systems, such as satellites in cars.
“I thought we could apply a lot of these concepts to the human body,” McGuan said.
So in 1992, he decided to hit up Nike.
McGuan studied the type of research and testing the shoe and clothing company was doing with real people and created a biomechanical computer model that was similar.
He made a video of the model and sent it to Nike’s vice president of engineering, who bit. He then visited Beaverton and “came back with a significant development contract, working on the first Air Jordan sports shoe,” McGuan said.
After developing a “pretty good foot model” for Nike, McGuan decided to start looking for other ways to use the software.
“I thought, OK, I can work my way up the leg a little bit and do a knee,” he said.
Then he contacted Johnson & Johnson about developing a human model to do total knee replacement surgeries. J&J’s DePuy Orthopedics Inc. now uses LifeModeler’s software, as does Smith & Nephew Orthopedics, a unit of Britain’s Smith & Nephew PLC.
From there, McGuan landed a contract with NASA in which he developed full-body computer models. After that, came deals with Callaway Golf Co. and the motorcycle unit of Honda Motor Co.
“Things were really moving,” McGuan said.
That’s when he decided to leave Mechanical Dynamics and go out on his own.
He was LifeModeler’s sole worker for its first four years and funded the company himself.
Later on, he hired four employees who were longtime friends and associates.
In 2008, LifeModeler raised $2.5 million in a private placement of stock. Investors included Huntington Capital, a San Diego company that operates a debt and equity fund. That allowed LifeModeler to expand to its current dozen employees.
The company has been approached by venture capitalists and has had acquisition offers, McGuan said. But he said wants to stay independent for now.
“The value (isn’t) quite there,” McGuan said. “We want to come out with enough value that we can dictate the terms” of any potential deal.
McGuan said one of his biggest challenges is establishing boundaries as a boss because his workers are peers and friends.
“It’s the migration into a boss-employee type of structure that can be a little bit challenging,” he said.
McGuan has big plans for LifeModeler beyond its core markets, including eventually working with patients to educate them.
Working with consumers, he said, brings LifeModeler to “a lot more numbers than the engineers who design implants,” he said.
