At Boston Startup Hub, we believe that behind every great company is a founder with a unique story—and a community that helps shape it. In this edition of Boston Tech Talks, we spoke with Arnar Larusson, co-founder of Tyme Wear, to hear how his journey from Iceland to Boston led him to build a company that helps people unlock their full physical potential.
We asked Arnar two simple questions:
1. What is your role in the Boston ecosystem?
2. What makes Boston’s ecosystem different?
Here’s what he shared:
What is your role in the Boston ecosystem?
I'm Arnar Larusson, originally from Iceland. I studied mechanical engineering and started out in R&D at a prosthetics company, developing knees and ankles for amputees—from older adults to Paralympian athletes. It was a powerful experience that taught me how to mechanically attach things to the body and how amazing and complex human biomechanics really are.
Later, I joined a research group at Harvard working on an exosuit for the U.S. military—essentially wearable pants designed to help soldiers reduce fatigue in the field. It was a deep dive into energy efficiency, human physiology, and how muscles consume energy. That’s where I started collecting a lot of data on breathing—oxygen in, CO₂ out—which turns out to be a powerful way to understand muscle performance and efficiency.
As an athlete myself (I played basketball for Iceland’s youth national teams), I’d experienced burnout from overtraining. I realized that if we could measure what's happening inside the body—how hard the muscles are working—we could train smarter, more safely, and more effectively. That’s what sparked the idea for Tyme Wear.
Back then, consumer wearables were limited to GPS watches and heart rate monitors. But the kind of insights we were seeing in the lab weren’t making it into people’s everyday training. So we set out to bridge that gap—building sensors into a wearable form factor (a shirt, vest, or sports bra) that captures this data and turns it into actionable insights for anyone trying to get fitter.
What makes Boston’s ecosystem different?
Every startup has its own unique problems and opportunities, but from our perspective, Boston offered something invaluable: access.
Boston sits at the intersection of deep manufacturing roots and cutting-edge innovation. Within a two-hour radius, you’ll find materials companies, plastics manufacturers, PCB suppliers—everything a hardware startup like ours needs to iterate on prototypes without flying overseas or burning the budget. That proximity and willingness to help was a game-changer for us.
Beyond that, Boston has an incredible diversity of industries: hardware, biotech, pharma, software. And while access to universities like MIT and Harvard can depend on your connection to them, the broader ecosystem is incredibly resource-rich. When we started out, the hardware meetups and maker communities were essential—places where you could meet people building cool stuff and solving tough problems.
Tyme Wear might not have gotten off the ground elsewhere. I remember one early moment—we didn’t have office space and were couch-surfing at MassChallenge. A hackathon happened to take place there, so we joined in for fun. We ended up winning, and the prize was a few months at a co-working space. That bought us time and space when we had nowhere else to go.
Those kinds of serendipitous moments happen when you're embedded in a dense, supportive community like Boston. The city creates opportunities for collisions—between people, ideas, and resources—that can be transformative for early-stage companies.
Watch full episode: https://youtu.be/g1cw1FpNNRA?si=8gMe2Ax5VJ--z9e- ↗
