Loads of founders have been identified to treat a brand new startup as their “child.” Some are even influenced by a toddler or the wants of 1 to create a product or launch an organization.
Seattle husband-and-wife workforce Illi Eisner and Olivia Eisner have a brand new firm and a brand new invention that falls into each classes. The mother and father of two children, their newest child is Bubbe, a high-tech feeding bottle designed to take the trouble out of conserving breastmilk or components chilly after which heating it to the proper temperature very quickly.
Illi Eisner has greater than 10 years of {hardware} growth expertise at Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, the place he labored on things like the Kindle, Hearth TV, Hearth Telephone, Home windows Telephone, and iPod Nano.
Olivia Eisner is an authorized nurse midwife, superior registered nurse practitioner, and a board-certified lactation marketing consultant with over a decade of expertise.
“She’s the science maven. She is aware of all the pieces about breast milk,” Illi informed Startup. “I do know all the pieces about being a nerd.”
Collectively, the couple has began Group B Labs and Bubbe is the primary product below growth. The infant-minded concept was born when Olivia needed to return to work at Windfall Medical Heart in Everett, Wash., about 4 months after their second baby was born.
Charged with conserving his new daughter fed, Illi was annoyed by insufficient cooling and warming strategies for the packets of breast milk that his spouse had pumped. Attempting to type all of it out in the midst of the evening was the worst.
“I like my sleep and I used to be shedding quite a lot of it,” Illi mentioned. “There was nothing worse to me than being extraordinarily drained and groggy, stumbling downstairs to our kitchen, holding a screaming child.”
They tried all kinds of strategies and different devices and gizmos. Improper storage and overheating of breast milk degrades its dietary properties, one thing many (sleepy) mother and father won’t know as they reheat milk on a stovetop, in a scorching water tub or microwave, and even with different bottle heaters.
Olivia didn’t need her hours of pumping to go to waste.
“This complete concept of preserving the breast milk and never overheating it and killing all the great things that’s in it actually was central to the place we wished to take this product,” she mentioned.
Bubbe, which works with all fashionable nipple manufacturers, is a double-walled, vacuum-insulated chrome steel container just like these made by Yeti or Hydro Flask. Slightly than a heating coil, the bottle depends on small pillars on the backside that comprise the heating component and likewise generate a vortex that retains the milk circulating for evenly distributed liquid temperature.
The pillars additionally comprise an array of sensors that acquire knowledge similar to quantity, temperature, and time.
The bottle, which costs on a conveyable stand, warms to the optimum temperature on the push of a button. The information, or feeding info, is uploaded to a cellular app for folks to trace and share with well being care suppliers. What time child ate, how a lot and the way usually is beneficial particularly in regard to untimely infants or these struggling to feed.
“It’s a really clever bottle,” Illi mentioned.
“It permits us to do quite a lot of actually artistic issues similar to give mother and father insights about their child’s feeding,” Olivia added.
The Eisners and Bubbe graduated from the Portland, Maine-based Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator a 12 months in the past and have been invited to different applications within the time since, together with Fintech Disrupt Battlefield 200, AWS CTO Fellowship, and the Washington Expertise Trade Affiliation founder program.
Bubbe continues to be about 9 months out from pre-sale and 18 months from normal availability. The plan is to promote a equipment containing a bottle, nipple adaptors, charging station and cleansing brush for about $220.
Illi Eisner is CEO and Olivia Eisner is serving as “chief scientific officer” whereas nonetheless working as a nurse practitioner and midwife. She’s bankrolling the operation as Group B Labs begins the method of taking over traders. They’re at the moment contracting with an engineering workforce, and an industrial designer has been an enormous assist. Fundraising will assist develop the workforce with the addition of promoting, operations, and so forth.
Olivia mentioned Group B Labs desires to develop different merchandise associated to Bubbe.
“We’re hoping to dominate the kid’s feeding sphere as a result of nobody else is doing it in a significant manner,” she mentioned.
After having two children and going by means of the gauntlet of sleepless nights, Illi and Olivia laughed when requested what it’s like working a startup collectively.
“Oh, parenting is manner more durable,” she mentioned.
“I’ll take a startup any day,” Illi added.