Interviewee
Tor Ivry, Founder & CTO at Nanit, a start up company Developing Smart Baby Monitors powered by AI. Nanit launched in 2016 with the idea that the right technology could make life a little more manageable for new parents, by connecting them to their child's development and well-being.
Transcript
Tor Ivry: I have a career of about 20 years of experience, most of them being spent in companies kind of at the intersection between hardware, machine learning software. Those areas spent a few years in applied materials and Phillips. Now the story of Nanit actually begins with my co-founder Asa, who in 2014 had his first baby boy and as a kind of new parent and with this experience with cameras and computer vision, he wanted to learn more about his kid and place the webcam above the baby's cry. And just out of curiosity, he wanted to kind of see what he can learn and he was fortunate enough to have an opportunity a few months later to join a unique program by the Jacobs Institute, which is an arm of Cornell University and the Teknion in Israel.
They have a runway program which allows post-doctoral students to kind of bring a commercial idea into life. In this program, it's like an incubator and he brought the idea of Nanit, which is a camera that is placed above the baby's crib and is using machine learning, computer vision to analyze babies and parents' behavior and provide insights to parents. At this time, he gave me a ring and my wife was pregnant for the third time and we had quite a few issues with sleep with our older boys. And so I found the idea of trying to build something that helps parents. Fascinating and intriguing. I was happy to say, yeah, I'm joining this ride and it was eight years ago, 2014 when we launched the company.
It took us about two and a half years to launch the first product to kind of ship the first product to customers.
Elisa Muñoz: How many prototypes did you guys build before actually launching?
Tor Ivry: We started by training our algorithms with an off the shelf like cameras that we basically capture the videos obviously with the consent of those volunteers, better customers and kind of use those videos to train our initial algorithms while we are working on building our own hardware, which we had, I don't know, probably two or three initial prototypes, but eventually when we got our seed funding we found a, a partner that was helping us kind of build the first product and the manufacturing line. This took us here about 16 to 18 months to get to customers and once we found that partner, because we already kind of had our initial plan and PRD of how we want the product to look like and behave.
But it wasn't enough for us to just be able to stream video. We really wanted to alert you on the status of your baby. Like “He fell asleep 13 minutes ago” and additional information about his wellness.
Elisa Muñoz: And how many people did you actually start a company with? It was you, your co-founder, and who else?
Tor Ivry: The first two years we were under 20 people, especially in the first month it was even around 10 people. So yeah, most of the team, like the engineering team, most of the engineering team were software people, so we really relied on our partners for the hardware part. I think the other piece that is unique for Nanit on top of a consumer business is using machine learning to provide customers or parents with a lot of information that helps them make conscious decisions around sleep, wellness, and growth. There's another angle that not many people know is that Nanit is also doing a lot of work with researchers around the world that are using n as a research tool.
So let's say they have a research question they're trying to answer around baby sleep. For instance, Nanit is the device that they're using to kind of collect data and then they use this data to answer a lot of questions around child development. Around Covid for instance, like how covid affected baby's sleep during Covid. Really interesting stuff and the things that you can do in terms of early detection and detecting what is normal, what is not normal is just I, I feel like even after eight years we're only just beginning, right?
Elisa Muñoz: Yeah. I saw a video about how Nanit works and apparently it goes beyond what's usual. Because on the app you can track everything on the baby's wellness. How did you come up with that?
Tor Ivry: We, when we started, we knew that we want to replace what was at the time the very clunky and not so convenient experience of parents and we wanted to bring it to the 21st century of like, you know, use your own, you have a device, you sleep next to your device, if you want to watch your baby, you can just open. But it wasn't enough for us to just be able to stream video. We really wanted to alert you only when you need to know kind of you opened up the first thing that you see is what is the status of your baby. Like he fell asleep 13 minutes ago or, or or information about how well he slept. And so we kind of tried to flip it around and not just make parents like to go and, and check on the baby, but inform them when they need to know something. So this was like the entire premise of how we thought about the product and, and our best way for mobility is just mobile.
Elisa Muñoz: How hard was it to get your first investors? How hard was it to launch a company that, I mean, the main customer, it's parents and it's about babies?
Tor Ivry: Fundraising is always hard. You heard all those horror stories. It wasn't easy for us as well, especially because it's a hardware company and to that, it's a consumer company. But I think you need to find like the believers, right, the people that actually can understand your vision. And when you do that it's like, it's like magic actually. I think right now in the United States it's a very, very known name. Like almost all parents know about this product, which is very, you know, fulfilling to know that you, you are helping so many parents and we're trying to now extend to other countries.
Elisa Muñoz: Well. I noticed that you have a lot of retailers, I mean you guys are in Amazon, Best Buy Target, how hard was it to get yourself into the market?
Tor Ivry: Yeah, I think, I think the hardest spot was to actually get to a place where we have the inventory, right? So the first year was a real challenge to get to a place where we are building enough products to ship on time and to kind of answer the needs in terms of how to provide enough inventory to work with retailers, etcetera. And by the end of 2017, we already had like a stable line with a nice yield and, and we could sign up, sign up Amazon, which was obviously a big milestone for us. And later like in 2018 we sign up by baby and the rest is kind of built up gradually, right? It keeps being a challenge, especially in the last two and a half years, obviously with logistics and inventory issues and parts and stuff. So it never stops. But like now we're a bit like the company is more mature, so we have the team and expertise to handle those things, but it's never easy.
Elisa Muñoz: Did you guys have any challenges or did you find any challenges when it comes to the procurement process? I know that you guys are mostly software, but maybe with your partners?
Tor Ivry: Definitely in the last two and a half years we had to sometimes change parts inside the camera because we couldn't get parts at decent prices. We had all those challenges of supply chain and, and, and the containers stuck outside the LA port and stuff like that. Those things are not strange to us in terms of business. However, like I think that as Covid hit, it was actually a trigger, a growth trigger for n because many, for many families it was a tool that allowed the family to stay connected. Even when the grandparents are remote, they could watch and check out, check on their grandkids through the app, which was a very nice way to stay connected. Wow.
Elisa Muñoz: Do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs or engineers or people starting in the industry?
Tor Ivry: The one thing I think that separates success from failure and the line is very thin is, you know, persistence, believe and, and stay persistent to your, to your idea. You will get there. This is the one advice that I can give.
Elisa Muñoz: Really straight to the point. Thank you Tor for being here today.
Tor Ivry: Thank you. It was a pleasure!
