Inside Touchpulse: CEO Liam Geschwindt on Building for the Visually Impaired

In a world built largely for those who can see it, accessibility often remains an afterthought. For Liam Geschwindt, CEO of Touchpulse, it’s the starting point. What began as an ambitious idea to help blind and low-vision individuals navigate independently has evolved into a broader mission: reimagining how people interact with the world through technology. We sat down with Liam to talk about the journey, challenges, and vision driving Touchpulse forward.

Photo of Liam

Touchpulse operates in a very niche market, so why accessibility?

Touchpulse initially started out as an outdoor navigation app powered by AI to enable the blind and low vision to navigate independently. This is an extremely niche market. But the trick with niche markets is that you have to solve big problems. Getting from A to B with low vision is extremely difficult due to the vision bias in all signage and difficulties with orienting in complex urban environments. We knew that if we could solve this challenge that there were millions of people around the world who would find benefit. Accessibility is a massively motivating space to work in, you are building to solve challenges that at times were created by previous technologies and a lack of imagination or consideration from prior engineers. Also, everyone benefits from improvements in accessibility; think about mobility ramps or dark mode on digital screens. These were all initially designed to meet the needs of the accessibility market and yet they are now used by the general public. Building a company is tough, it can be exhausting. But hearing the stories of how your work is improving the lives of people around the world makes everyday exciting and worth coming into work for. 

Every name has a story. What is the story behind ‘Touchpulse’, and how did ‘Tiera’ come to be?

The name Touchpulse actually stems from our initial idea, which was to use a sleeve with motors to give haptic feedback (vibrations on the skin) to provide information to communities who were low vision or hard of hearing. If you imagine human senses as highways to the brain, if one highway is blocked, how could we ‘re-route’ that ‘traffic’ through another source to convey information. That being touch in this case. Our tech was touching the pulse not only in a literal and physical sense, but also in how we were listening to the challenges in society that are often ignored and creating technology that would solve those problems.

Tiera came later, once we knew that we were building a platform that would enable the visually impaired to navigate the world with greater connection to the physical environment and AI powered assistance. We needed a name that felt human, but also related to our cause. ‘Tierra’ in Spanish means the earth, which makes sense for a global navigation system. In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet, who after losing his physical eyes, was granted mantike (prophecy). He didn't just "guess" the future; he accessed a layer of reality that others couldn't see. Much like how Tiera accesses data layers that are invisible. Even after his death, Tiresias was the only ghost in Hades who kept his mind. When Odysseus visited the Underworld, Tiresias was the "link"; the only one who could provide a roadmap back home. Tiera is the link between the physical and digital world, hence the name Tiera was given to the all intelligent ‘spatial sage’ that we are building. 

Strong teams rarely happen by accident. How did you meet your co-founder Sjoerd van de Goor and Chief Growth Officer Richard Jenkins, and what made you want to build Touchpulse and Tiera alongside them?

Sjoerd and I met for the first time at the TU/e contest in 2023. We were actually pitching for our student teams to claim 1st place. Sjoerd was representing the student team HART and I was representing an honour’s team focussed on AI powered energy data disaggregation. The timing was perfect, as it is was the energy crisis of 2023 and consumers would have been able to see exactly what their appliances consumed without any additional sensors. Unfortunately, there was already a company doing exactly this. I was also curious about the haptic sleeve that Sjoerd’s team were working on and we set out on a quest to see how we could commercialise it. 

I met Richard Jenkins through Blind Veterans UK. They were very curious about the technology, but needed Richard to give the green light on whether Tiera was worth their time. My first interaction with him was through a Google Meet in which I tried my best to explain what we were building. He was curious and naturally skeptical, but after giving the app a go, his interest was sparked. He decided to join us as a strategic advisor to offer his extensive experience in technology industry as well as his lived experience to inform both our product vision but go to market strategy. 

Before there was Touchpulse, there was Liam Geschwindt. Who were you before all of this, and how did that journey shape the founder you are today?

My journey into entrepreneurship was fairly accidental. My life before creating Touchpulse began in the UK where I grew up for 8 years. My parents had grown tired of the peaceful shire-like nature of Wales and decided to move to South Africa. It was there that I got to spend my most formative years and what I would now contribute my successes as an entrepreneur to. In South Africa, there is a saying in Afrikaans ‘n Boer maak 'n plan’; translated into English, it means  that ‘a farmer makes a plan’. In a nutshell, it means that you find a creative and resourceful solution to whatever challenge you find yourself in. This is the fundamental principle of entrepreneurship. You have a challenge, and you do whatever it takes, night and day, to solve that challenge, no matter the obstacles that arise, or the failures you encounter.

Unfortunately, my time in South Africa came to an end during COVID. Living in an environment that became increasingly unsafe, crime was becoming a part of daily life and the government corruption made the country’s outlook bleak to say the least. When I was 19, I decided to attempt to make a life for myself in Europe. The Netherlands became my home and I had to carve out what a new life would look like in a foreign land. Few times have I felt more fear than my first time trying to order something in a Dutch bakery, doing my utmost to seem like a local. Eventually I managed to work my way up through courses and exams to be eligible to study at the Technical University of Eindhoven. It was here that I entered one of the best tech ecosystems in Europe and what later led to Touchpulse being born.  

Every founder has a story of a challenge that truly tested them. What has been your greatest challenge so far, and how did you overcome it?

I think for every entrepreneur there is a moment where you have to double down and accept that what you are building will consume all of you for the next few years. Famous entrepreneurs talk about sacrifice often. Yet sacrifice feels like a word until you feel the result of the reality. I knew getting into this that it would take a lot of my time. What I was not prepared for was that not only are you responsible for the employment of your team, but that at every time of the day, every day, you are at work. No one imposes this on you. But if you are a true entrepreneur, I believe that it is just an obsession that in some way takes over you. The best ideas do not happen, in my experience, at your desk in the 9-5 period. If you are not questioning what you are building, or thinking constantly of ways to improve, then you are not an entrepreneur. Once that bug bit me, it has been that way ever since. This unfortunately takes a massive toll on your personal relationships and I believe that managing those impacts is the biggest challenge that I have faced. You want your work to be successful, and if you truly believe in your mission, you may sacrifice your own personal wellbeing in order to achieve it. But for me, success is only valuable when it is shared, and if you are not careful there will be no-one to share it with once you are finished.

So, what is next? Where are Touchpulse and Tiera headed, and what does the bigger vision look like?

Our belief as a company is that if we can enable those with low vision to navigate their world with success and greater autonomy, we can do the same for everyone. Tiera currently is designed specifically for the VIP (visually impaired people) community. However, some features are already proving to have value to hard of hearing users. Once we have solved the challenges of our current focus, we will adjust and expand our feature set to ensure that all those who wish to move through this world with ease, can do so.