Interview with Christian Barmen, Founder at Recharge, The Company Behind Personal Recovery Device: FlexBEAM

FlexBEAM is the world’s first targeted red light therapy device, designed to help your body recover naturally by stimulating its own self-healing processes.
It’s flexible, non-invasive and easy to use and can be used anytime, anywhere with no side effects.

Red light therapy is clinically proven to relieve pain, repair cells, boost energy and reduce inflammation, making it ideal to treat muscular and ligament injuries, as well as managing pain caused by conditions such as arthritis. It’s a personal recovery device.

FlexBEAM is brought to you by Recharge, a pioneering global health tech company with a dedicated mission to recharge our customers’ health and wellbeing.
People across the world have benefitted from FlexBEAM since it launched on Indiegogo last year, and we’re excited for more customers to discover it in 2021.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I have a long history of working with startups, buying, investing, selling and starting all over again. Health and wellbeing have always been my main areas of interest, while logistics and manufacturing is where my background and contacts have their roots.

I became really interested in LED technology when my long-time engineering partner Arjen Helder developed his own red light lamp and had remarkable results. I learned the Russians had been using this technology since 1973, and that top Olympic athletes had been using infrared to turbocharge healing and give them a competitive edge.

The reason most people haven’t heard of red light therapy yet is because the price was sky-high and beyond the reach of a lot of people – something I saw the opportunity to change. Also the current red light products on the market, like wall panels, are clunky and not designed for the human body. We have taken advantage of advancements in technology to make an at-home product that I hope will one day be found in every household in the world.
 

What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

 
There are no easy ways to become a successful entrepreneur. It takes passion, hard work and the ability to roll with the punches. There are times when things don’t go to plan and it might seem like the end of your dream, but if you have a truly unique idea and the team know-how to make it better than anyone else, you have to persevere.

There will be plenty of people along the way who will tell you it can’t be done – and when you have proven them wrong, they will tell you it was obvious that you were going to succeed. Stress-test your idea to the fullest extent – and trust your intuition.
 

What can we hope to see from FlexBEAM in the future?

 
It’s a really exciting time for FlexBEAM, as we have sold for more than $1 million USD and we are making real inroads into key markets such as the UK.

Light therapy products were a $900 million USD market last year and this will only continue to grow as more people discover how they can use it in their everyday lives. FlexBEAM is already popular with elite athletes, biohackers and health technology enthusiasts, but we want to bring its benefits to the widest audience possible.

More and more people are becoming curious about health technology, but it always needs to be underpinned by science. The benefits of red light therapy, such as pain relief and recovery from injury, have been clinically proven. What FlexBEAM does is give you the chance to reap those benefits at-home with an easy-to-use and effective device.