In early 2026, Jace Blackburn, the CEO of start-up GoSteady, began building a prototype for a user-friendly safety device for older adults, with built-in sensors that would detect a walker’s movement and monitor changes. 

GoSteady, which is now “a walker-mounted safety system in a discreet cup holder,” attaches with a thumb screw clamp. There’s no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth needed—the user simply presses a button, then scans a QR code at the bottom of the cup to activate it. The user’s activity is sent via text to a phone or computer to family members or trusted contacts, identified as the Care Circle. 

In an early iteration of the prototype, there was no cup holder. The safety device was located at the bottom of a traditional walker. However, thanks to feedback from staff at Frasier Meadows, a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) in Boulder, CO, where Blackburn spent two weeks as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR), GoSteady underwent a transformation. 

“We said, ‘do you have a design for rollators?’ because most of our residents are using rollator walkers instead of traditional walkers,” said Colleen Ryan Mallon, chief growth officer at Frasier. “And by the time he came [for the EIR residency], he already had a solution designed for the walkers, and that came in the form of a cup holder.” 

In addition to using a cup holder to host the safety device, residents who tried GoSteady, like Dorothy, pictured above right with Blackburn, found the cup holder itself useful for carrying items like water or coffee. 

“Right out of the gate, we were all pretty impressed with the fact that Jace was listening and paying attention, but also had quickly figured out another solution to be able to measure the activity of individuals who use the rolling walkers,” Mallon added. 

Valuable Feedback

Blackburn, who attended LeadingAge Colorado’s Annual Meeting in May 2026 in Vail, CO, where he originally met some Frasier staff, said, “One of the best ways for me to get feedback on GoSteady was to spend time with the people who would use it.”

He added, “I was also able to find the right persona for GoSteady.” A significant takeaway was the realization that the older adults in independent living were fairly active; many wore smart watches and were adept at monitoring their own health and wellness data. 

“I realized that this product wasn’t so much for independent living residents, but for family caregivers, with family members living in assisted living or on the memory support side,” Blackburn said.

As it happened, Colleen Mallon’s personal experience, using GoSteady for her 91-year-old mom who is in memory care and uses a rollator, helped Blackburn further hone the product design. 

“He asked me what would be useful from my perspective, and the next day, he gave me one for my mom’s walker,” she said. “One of the things I was able to share with him is that my mom was a physical therapist and we wanted to make sure she could continue to go for walks. She loves to walk outside, but can’t get out unless someone is with her.” On days Mallon cannot be with her mom, an exercise physiologist accompanies her. “The cup holder enables me to see that she is getting her walks on the days she’s supposed to be,” says Mallon.

GoSteady also helps Mallon monitor how much her mom gets up during the night to use the bathroom, since she uses her rollator to get there. “When I look at the GoSteady app on my phone, I’m able to see every time she gets up during the night,” she said. Recently, her mom was up five times one night, which is more often than usual, and Mallon was able to let her sister, who was planning to visit their mother the next day, know that their mom might be tired due to the fact that she didn’t get much sleep.

“My sister said ‘I’m so glad you told me that because otherwise I would have thought something was going on,’” said Mallon. 

Memorable Conversations  

Blackburn, whose career background includes product management roles at Genentech and Denver-based BioIntellisense, has been with GoSteady full-time since September. Of his EIR experience, he commented, “I also had the opportunity to sit in on rounds with staff members and learn what they were doing, and even had some other potential product ideas come to mind hearing about their work.”

When asked about the highpoints of his EIR experience, Blackburn, who had previously never spent time with people in senior living residences, said it was the interactions that were particularly memorable.

“Every morning, I’d sit in the lobby area for a couple of hours having coffee, which was a great opportunity for me to talk to the residents,” he said, adding he particularly enjoyed “some truly fascinating conversations” with several retired professors from University of Colorado-Boulder—Blackburn’s alma mater—and some former Microsoft employees, who were eager to talk tech with him.

Mallon noted, “We have a lot of residents who have been in academia, and they understand the importance of doing your research and making sure that the end user is involved in the design of things that are potentially going to help them age well.”

Mallon offered Blackburn some additional input on GoSteady’s technology. In the first iteration he gave her for her mother’s rollator, the cup holder needed to be taken out once per month to be recharged, always drawing a comment from Mallon’s mom, who didn’t want the cup holder removed, even for a short time.

“I mentioned that to Jace, and he gave me an updated version that only needs to be charged once a year,” said Mallon. “He’s really paying attention, and wants to refine [Go Steady] before he takes it to market.”

Blackburn is currently open to partnerships for the production of GoSteady and plans to release a consumer version in early 2027. He has created a funding opportunity called Founding Families and said, “The group is a way to support the final development of GoSteady through participation in device beta-testing and interview sessions.”