IMPULSE
Impulse is a smart insole that monitors how force moves through a player's body on every jump, cut, and landing — alerting trainers and coaches the instant something goes wrong. Not after practice. Right now, on the sideline.
Current wearables track heart rate, speed, distance — but miss where injuries actually start: the foot. Every jump landing transmits 3–7× body weight upward. No wearable captures this in real time in a form coaches can act on.
Left–right force imbalances go unnoticed until they become ACL tears, Achilles ruptures, or patellar tendinopathies.
"There's no live feedback. It's more like, 'You good?' and you say yeah, even if you aren't." — Isaiah Johnson, Colorado MBB
Fatigue changes mechanics before pain appears. Coaches make decisions with incomplete information. That gap is where careers are lost.
Top 10 NBA teams by injured salary total $395M in 2025 alone. At every level below — college, AAU, high school — the same problem plays out.
A multi-layer smart insole that drops into any basketball shoe in under 30 seconds — worn over the existing insole with no modification to the shoe. Mechanically anchored so the sensor stays still while the foot moves, preserving data integrity under elite basketball shear forces.
How explosively and symmetrically a player pushes off on every rep
Real-time comparison of load on each foot during cuts, drives, landings
Ground contact time lengthens as players tire — Impulse catches this before the player feels it
Push-off power, jump takeoff force, acceleration off the ground
Left vs right foot load comparison in real time — bilateral ratio per foot-contact event
Ground contact time drift >15% vs session baseline triggers alert flag
Jump efficiency, cutting forces, closeout deceleration, plant angle — basketball-native
Millisecond-level contact time per step; rolling 10-contact average transmitted live
Plain-language signals (GREEN / YELLOW / RED) coaches act on immediately, sideline-ready
Plantiga is a camera. Impulse is a coach.
1,100 NCAA programs. Athletic trainers have budget authority. $5K–$15K/yr per program.
500K+ players. Parents spend $5–10K/summer. Injury = scholarship risk.
Verified load management → premium reductions → mandated infrastructure.
Impulse doesn't need the full market. It needs to own the basketball biomechanics layer — then expand outward.
Blended gross margin 70%+ at scale · LTV:CAC of 7.7× · Annual contract model tied to the basketball season · Y3 ARR ~$491K
USC IYA Cohort 11. Strategy, product design, sports innovation. 13+ athlete interviews. Relationships at USC, Maryland, Ohio State, Marquette, UConn, FSU, Emory, Delaware.
Embedded systems, FSR + BNO085 IMU, Bluetooth 5.0 architecture, end-to-end hardware builds.
IP filing, provisional patent oversight, pilot agreements, LLC formation, investor contracts.
Health Promotion & Disease Prevention. CCMA certified. USC Athletics background.
Collegiate athlete at both Ohio State and Delaware. Deep ties to athletic staff and athletes at both programs. Jamaican National Swim Team.
Senior global marketing executive. Executive leadership at Nike and Apple. Formally advising Impulse on brand and go-to-market.
President & CEO, Apriori Bio (Flagship Pioneering). Former GSK & ViiV Healthcare. Formally advising Impulse on investor strategy.
Before a single grant dollar is spent, Impulse already has a legal entity, a signed team, a working prototype, a live dashboard, and 13+ interviews. The $10K accelerates what's already moving.
Flex PCB v0.2 · provisional patent · first structured wear test · 2–3 collegiate pilots with real session data · coach testimonial · signed letter of intent from at least one program
Pilot-to-paid at $9K ACV · AAU individual tier · 10–15 programs via referral network · seed raise targeting $500K–$1M · explosiveness + fatigue drift metrics ship
NBA G League + pro contracts · insurance partnerships · soccer, track, football · AI predictive injury risk · $16.5M SOM penetration target
USC IYA Innovation Prize — to complete MVP hardware, build the coach dashboard, run our first collegiate pilot, and file a provisional patent.
Current state: software MVP is fully functional and live. Hardware prototype v0.1 breadboard complete; v0.2 flex PCB in fabrication. Below is the full prototype demonstration.
Built by CTO Mussie Yimmer (USC Viterbi ECE). An FSR402 force-sensitive resistor wired to a BNO085 IMU and Bluetooth 5.0 module — press the sensor, and the dashboard reacts in <100ms. This is the core sensing chain that goes inside the Impulse insole.
Interviews conducted with athletes from JUCO to NBA level, plus coaches and athletic trainers. Full report linked below.
Low-cost, high-leverage tactics executable by a 5-person student team. All targets are warm — we have existing relationships at each institution.
5 participants from target demographic. Industry "Excellent" threshold is 80.3+. Conducted per standard guidelines — participants used the live dashboard independently before completing the survey.
Current legal standing as of Q1 2026. Xavier Tall (Head of Legal, USC Gould) is leading all filings in active coordination with outside counsel.
Equity split, roles, 4-year vesting with 1-year cliff, and IP assignment clauses. Reviewed and signed by all 5 founders. Xavier Tall (USC Gould) served as lead legal drafter.
📄 Open Document →Impulse Technology LLC successfully formed in the State of Delaware. Certificate of Formation filed and approved March 3, 2026 at 2:58 PM. File No. 10532078.
Founder equity structure formally issued via Carta following LLC formation. Equity percentages, vesting terms, and IP assignments documented and distributed to all 5 founders.
Employer Identification Number (EIN) successfully obtained from the IRS. Impulse Technology LLC is registered as a federal tax entity and is authorized to open business accounts and accept investment.
Provisional Patent Application covering the Mechanical Indexing System, Shear-Isolation Layering Stack, and Real-Time Load Alert Method is being prepared for filing. Trademark application in process.
Impulse isn't just a product — it's built by a team that believes athletes deserve better. Every team member is a former or current athlete who has felt this problem firsthand.
We aren't pitching a solution to a problem we read about. Every member of this team has been on a court, in a training room, or watching a teammate go down. We're building the tool we wish we had.
Mussie Yimmer (CTO, USC Viterbi ECE) owns the full Engineering Requirements Document covering hardware constraints, sensor specs, BLE architecture, firmware, and system-level performance targets.