Shark Tank Winner 2025: In Their Own Words

We here at Torchward LTD are humbled and grateful for the chance to compete alongside such great finalists for the APTA ALI’s “Shark Tank” event. We enjoyed every step of the process and look forward to working with the Innovation Lab to carry our idea forward to the patients who will benefit from it.

We hope to grow our network and collaborate with others in this academy and to connect with manufacturing partners who are intrigued by this innovation and others like it.

Again, we are so, so thankful for this group and this event and everyone involved in it.

Cheers,

-Nick, Tim, and Ben (Torchward LTD)

Physical therapists are problem solvers. We work every day to help people figure out safer ways of doing things, or what needs strengthening or practice or a device to make functional activities doable again. All of this is done in the service of getting people back to doing all the things that give their lives meaning.

That role comes with a great deal of collaboration with patients, families, providers from other disciplines, and colleagues. The problems that our patients and their families face are easy to identify, and task analysis gives us a lot of insight into what needs to be done. Leveraging our collective experiences and creativity, we can accomplish a lot. However, we are sometimes limited by “what’s out there” in the medical device world. Why is there only a solution to this problem for some people? Why is this device so clunky? Why is that one so unintuitive? Why are they all so expensive?

These conversations often lead to the inevitable crossroads of, “Why doesn’t someone make something better than this?

A few years ago, we decided to stop asking that question, and start asking, “…. Why don’t we?”

We launched Torchward to create, and bring to life, better solutions for patient problems. What started with brainstorming chats and sketches in notebooks led to rudimentary build-sessions in the garage with lengthy Lowe’s receipts to show for them. We went from reaching out to companies at random on LinkedIn to developing a relationship with a marketing team. Through networking and working with a manufacturing advocacy and growth network in Cleveland, MAGNET, we have met and hired engineers, graphic designers, and intellectual property professionals.

Winning the 2025 APTA Academy of Leadership and Innovation’s “Shark Tank” event will expand our network and the resources available to us to get better solutions to patients. We are eternally grateful for that.

Now, if the question is, “Why doesn’t someone make a walker where the seat can mechanically rise and lower to make floor transfers easier and safer?”

We have an answer.

“Why isn’t there a powered solution for donning and doffing compression garments that’s intended for those who need it most?”

There’s a solution for that, too.

We are still learning and growing. Some of the professionals who have helped us were hired for their good work, but we’ve gotten just as much benefit from conversations, meetings, and from people being generous with their know-how and with their time.

That dynamic is very similar to how it works in the clinic. Most of the people we encounter want there to be better solutions for patients. They want to help. That rings just as true for people in product development, engineering, IP protection, and marketing as it does for our medical provider friends.

Together, we will leverage our collective talents to find a better path forward for our patients; one solution at a time.