With the Games for Health Conference 2009 in Boston just a few days away, I decided it might be a fun idea to interview a few of this year’s hot speakers.  Case in point, Laura Fay, CEO of the very successful brain training website HAPPYneuron.  I was able to catch Laura this weekend on her way back from her cross country travels.

Brain fitness business 101.

HG: For those unfamiliar with your business, what is HAPPYneuron?

Laura: HAPPYneuron is a pioneer in brain training solutions which offers a broad range of scientifically validated multimedia, personalized cross-training programs for children, adults and seniors. The programs minimize brain decline by maximizing the brain’s capacity to learn and its ability to adapt to new information. Program effectiveness is optimized through the availability of thousands of hours of fun and challenging brain games, guided by a virtual personal coach. The goal of the site is to defer the onset of age-related brain decline.

HG: Why did you choose to get into brain fitness?

Laura: In 1998, the founding Product Team (Bernard Croisile, MD Neurology, Ph.D Neurosciences and Neuropsychology; Franck Tarpin-Bernard, Ph.D Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction; and Michel Noir, Ph.D Cognitive & Educational Sciences) conducted collaborative research at University of Lyon, France. The goal of the trio was to bring cognitive science to everyday people through the use of interactive computer methods. After 2 years of university research together, the trio founded the company. Brain stimulation for healthy, aging and impaired individuals was the goal from the beginning.  Today, HAPPYneuron is a majority owned subsidiary of Scientific Brain Training (NYSE Euronext: MLSBT) with product distribution in France, Germany, USA, Japan, and Holland.

HG: What has been your biggest challenge in the brain fitness business?

Laura: Brain fitness education. As an industry we have a long way to go in terms of people understanding the reasons for it and the methods and basic principles. The lack of understanding often causes individuals to make in appropriate product choices for themselves. Additionally, while the general body of science has progressed tremendously, there is more to be done to validate the category. That said, these can be viewed as less of challenges and more opportunities to grow the category overall and recognize that it’s a marathon not a sprint to a point in time when brain fitness is as well understood as physical fitness. I look forward to the journey.

HG: Who is your target audience?  Do you see more older, dedicated players visiting your site or younger, casual players?

Laura: HAPPYneuron’s users can be represented by an age bell curve, where the majority are 45-65 years old.  Overall abut 70% are women. We have a good number of older people (65+) participating in the online program with about 1M page views and 250K unique visitors a month.

HG: What is the benefit of becoming a member versus just playing for free?

Laura: With HAPPYneuron you get to experience 5 exercises, one from each of the major cognitive functions, as a non paying guest. As a paying member, you get access to the current set of 35 exercises, the online virtual coach that designs your personalized workout based on your cognitive strengths and weaknesses and you available time during the sessions. Monitoring and tracking tools enable you to track your cognitive performance over time in all areas. See this page for membership details.

HG: Has this subscription model proven an effective monetization strategy for you?

Laura: Yes it is, but we’ve also seen consumers challenged by the current economic environment. With the current recession we are seeing more people curtail non-essential expenses, and brain fitness as a category, is not yet mainstream enough to be view as essential by everyone.

Scientific validity.

HG: Your site states that your games are scientifically validated and developed.  Can you explain this further?

Laura: The software has been used in a number of scientific studies that are at varying degrees of progress. A partial list of activities can be found on our brain science research page.

HG: There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the Brain Age game and its initial subtle claims of a health benefit. Does this differ from HAPPYneuron’s “use it or lose it” philosophy?

Laura: Nintendo’s Brain Age has had a lot of positive benefit for the brain fitness market. By the sheer marketing power of Nintendo, a spotlight has been placed on the space. Since the rising tide lifts all boats, this has helped those with more scientifically grounded products. However, Nintendo’s Brain Age has no efficacy in terms of scientific validation. Nintendo is very up front about that.

HG: How are your games different from other brain training sites (ex. Luminosity)? What makes your games special?

Laura: All the brain game site have some similarities and differences. Without going in to a line by line detailed comparison, HAPPYneuron’s differentiation can be found in a number of areas, including more games and challenge levels than others. Also HAPPYneuron has the largest online results database in the industry, with over 30M cognitive results data points, each calibrated by age, gender and education level. These are three of the essential influencers of brain reserve. No other vendor has as large of a database or normalizes the data with these three variables. Doing so gives HAPPYneuron the ability to give users real feedback relative to their peer group, so I not only know how I am doing, but I know it relative to how I might be expected to do for my age, gender and level of education.

On the Games For Health Conference.

HG: Two of our Playnormous health games were added to the HG4H site after we met Humana Games 4 Health at the Games For Health Conference last year.  How did HAPPYneuron start working with HG4H? Why did you decide to put some HAPPYneuron games on their site?

Laura: Humana gets it when it comes to the benefits of cognitive training. They also are very supportive of the therapeutic and educational qualities of healthy gaming. We actually started talking initially at the GFHC last year and the relationship progressed form there. Humana wanted to add brain games to the Humana games site, and we were pleased that they were excited to be working with HAPPYneuron. We have also launched a brain fitness online store for Humana. The store offers discounts on brain fitness products to Humana members.

HG: You are going to be speaking the the Games for Health Conference this week. Is this your first appearance at GFHC?

Laura: We were present at GFHC conference in Baltimore last year, as an invited guest of the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. HAPPYneuron was a finalist in their world wide competition, Games for Health: a prescription for health care. There were 74 entries from 13 countries. We are delighted to be back again this year.

HG: Can you give our readers a little spoiler on what your talk will include on Thursday?

Laura: I will be bringing stories from the field about the use of brain games, like HAPPYneuron’s in the effective remediation and rehabilitation of individuals with a variety of cognitive impairments, specifically related to depression, schizophrenia and MCI. I’ll talk about how cognitive remediation programs across the country are adapting to the use of games in their therapies and the related issues in doing so.

Don’t miss Laura!

To learn more about Laura Fay and the brain fitness industry, don’t miss her presentation at the Games for Health Conference Thursday afternoon, June 11, 2009!