Our Story

Dr. Daniel Harmon

Founder & CEO

In 2019, my father had a stroke. He was 67 years old, still sharp, still coaching Little League in our hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. The doctors said it was ischemic — a blood clot that traveled to his brain and stole his ability to speak clearly, to hold a baseball, to recognize my daughter for three terrifying days.

When the neurologist reviewed his history, she asked a question that changed my life: "How long has he been snoring?"

The answer was decades. My mother had slept in a separate room since I was in middle school. We all thought it was normal. We joked about it at Thanksgiving. Nobody — not his primary care doctor, not any of us — connected the sound coming from his bedroom to the oxygen deprivation that was quietly damaging his cardiovascular system for 30 years.

My father survived that stroke, but he lost something. A quickness in his step. A confidence in his words. I watched the strongest man I knew struggle to button his shirt for months. And I could not shake the feeling that it did not have to happen.

I had spent 12 years in biomedical device development — first at Medtronic, then leading a respiratory device team at a startup in Research Triangle Park. I understood airway mechanics. I understood mandibular advancement. I understood tongue stabilization. The science was clear: keeping the airway open during sleep was not a mystery. The technology existed. But the products available to consumers were either prohibitively expensive, uncomfortable enough that people abandoned them, or poorly designed enough that they simply did not work.

I started Snorple because I believe that what happened to my father — the decades of untreated snoring, the slow cardiovascular damage, the preventable stroke — should not happen to anyone else's father. Or mother. Or husband. Or wife.

Our approach combines two clinically proven technologies: mandibular advancement (MAD) and tongue stabilization (TSD). Most devices use one or the other. We engineered a device that uses both, because the clinical data shows the combination produces significantly better airway opening than either approach alone. We made it adjustable, comfortable enough to wear every night, and affordable enough that cost is never the reason someone does not protect their health.

My father wears a Snorple every night now. He is back coaching Little League. My mother sleeps in the same room again for the first time in 20 years. She tells me that is the part that matters most to her — not the snoring, but having him next to her again.

That is why we do this. Not for revenue targets or market share. For the families who do not yet know that the noise coming from the bedroom is a warning sign. For the men and women over 40 whose bodies are silently suffering every night. For every person lying awake right now, listening to their partner snore, wondering if there is something they should do about it.

There is. And we are here to help.