Over the course of January 2019, Max participated in LaunchU, Oberlin College and Conservatory’s startup incubator. Forming a team with Dr. Nancy Darling, Emma Marcus, and Charlie Maddox, 1step2life set out to turn psychological research and computational models into a business with the end goal of helping the 5% of US teens in chronic pain take back their lives.

The team developed a web app, 1step2life.com, that combined an educational database aimed at adolescents with a computational model based planner and a logging system. They also received education in business strategy, marketing, customer relations, business law, and finance. After the 12hr/day 10-day incubator, they are preparing for a pitch competition over the next 2 months with a grand prize of $20,000