Canadian Moms Invent Baby Monitors for Active Toddlers

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Introducing Toddler Monitor, the next stage of baby monitors. Most baby monitors are designed to keep track of kids in their cribs. Beyond the baby stage though, what if you've got a toddler who likes to sleepwalk or just explore out in the big world after everyone else is asleep? There's not a great product to keep an eye on that. At least there wasn't, there hasn't been, until two Canadian moms made it their mission to solve this problem.

These moms had never had a side hustle before, but in the spirit of active parenthood, the DIY ethic, and those hardy Canadian winters, they succeed. Project goes on to raise more than $50,000 on Kickstarter, gets them on national TV, and they're now bringing in six figures a year from it. Exciting report for you here on Side Hustle School today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, thanks so much for tuning in, and I'm gonna bring you this whole story along with some analysis, some details, all kinds of fun facts, right after the shout out to our sponsor. Stay tuned for Canadian moms and vent baby monitors for active toddlers.

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One morning in Calgary, Alberta, Chris Satir woke up to find her two-year-old son cuddling the lawn sprinkler that had been on the porch the night before. Although her first reaction was to laugh, they quickly turned into a terrifying revelation. Her son had left his room and her house at some point in the middle of the night, and the baby monitor she had set up hadn't alerted her to it. Krista's maternal instincts kicked in, and she immediately began looking online for a solution, but she came up short. There were baby monitors that tracked in the crib movements, and there were expensive video systems that tracked out of the crib movements, but couldn't be used while traveling.

There was nothing she found that could tell you your child was out of the crib or had attempted to make a break for it. She turned to online parent communities to ask for their stories. Little did she know this would be her first venture into market research. Her questions returned endless anecdotes, and sadly, some tragic stories about children who'd attempted to flee their bedrooms. Hearing these stories and feeling the terror herself had an impact on Krista.

She felt it was her duty to solve this problem somehow, but she also knew she couldn't do it alone, so she enlisted the help of her friend and soon-to-be co-founder, Lisa Caruso. Over a few glasses of wine one evening, Krista and Lisa brainstormed the look and feel of the next-level baby monitor they wanted to create. It had to be easy to manufacture, even easier for parents to use, and affordable for families to buy. They eventually settled on a concept that could hang on a door handle and detect when it opened. To create the design, Krista and Lisa connected with a local industrial designer they'd met through friends.

He helped them to turn their wine-fueled ideas into a real-life design and advise them on what materials they could use. With the product blueprints in hand, they needed a name. They settled on Deco, a shortened and conjoined version of both their son's names, Declan and Cooper. The next step was to find someone who could help them make a prototype. Krista and Lisa looked in their native Canada and sent requests for proposals to different companies.

They wanted someone they could trust and who would listen to their ideas and input. They found a manufacturer in Ottawa, and they all worked together to add features, including a cute, monster-like face on the monitor and to set up a simple, functional app that it could send alerts to. When they finally had a finished product in hand, they couldn't wait to share it with the world. To do that, and to recoup some costs, Krista and Lisa decided to start a Kickstarter campaign. They felt it was the best way to market test the product and ensure they had an audience while providing the investment they needed for their first run.

They set a goal of $25,000 and got to work promoting. They used a number of marketing techniques to help them get media attention for that campaign. They invested in Facebook ads and pitched parenting and tech blogs like Fatherly and Mashable. Basically, if they could find an opportunity to get more exposure, they took advantage of it. The response to the Declo toddler monitor was phenomenal.

Within a few weeks, they had not only reached their $25,000 target, but exceeded it to hit nearly $60,000. It even got them featured on Dragon's Den, the Canadian version of Shark Tank. For the initial production run, Krista and Lisa turned their attention to China. Thanks to some help from their prototype manufacturer, they got in touch with a few high quality factories and even flew out to meet them in person. They chose one that allowed them to affordably manufacture the product without compromising on quality.

When it came time to price the monitor, they considered a number of factors. They looked at manufacturing costs, competitor prices for baby monitors, and prices for other products that use similar technology. They settled at around $75 per unit. Buoyed by the success of Kickstarter and Dragon's Den, they're currently seeing sales of over six figures each year. One challenge has been after the initial momentum created by the campaign, the team tried to accelerate growth.

They paired with numerous people and agencies, only to find that they didn't deliver as expected, or wasted lots of valuable time and resources they won't ever get back. Lesson learned, but when they do get Declo in front of parents, those parents love it. So much so that Krista and Lisa aren't slowing down. In fact, they're now beginning to explore a second market for this product. The door monitor capabilities of the tool can work well for adults with disabilities, or elderly people who suffer from conditions like dementia.

Basically, whenever someone needs to be alerted to someone else leaving a room, Declo has a positive potential use. Krista now sleeps easier, knowing that her son is safe in his room, her lawn sprinklers remain on the porch, and together with Lisa, she's helping other parents feel better too. [Music]

Awesome project, big congratulations to Krista and Lisa. It's really fun to see how somebody has this personal problem, realizes that it's just something that's actually quite serious. Your two-year-old is out canvassing the neighborhood in the middle of the night, and you don't find an obvious solution for it, an answer, a product that can make that easier in our modern times.

For all of the gadgets in the world, and all of the baby stuff that's out there these days, you really would think that the toddler monitor existed before now, but it seems that it didn't, so good for them on following their vision. I've already sent this to several people I know who have kids about that age, and I was like, you might want to check this out, this could be good. So I can totally see how this sort of thing spreads by word of mouth and referral. However, having said that, that last point, our diligent, frequent daily listeners may recall that just a couple of days ago, had a similar lesson about Kickstarter, about this guy who had a big success on Kickstarter, and then felt a little bit discouraged afterwards because didn't have a lot of success, or at least he had less success. He was still successful, still doing well, but wasn't seeing the same kind of momentum that he did during the campaign.

So you really have to plan in this situation for beyond the campaign. And I think for a product like this, finding distribution is really the key. Finding distribution in terms of stores or retailers, or just some other source that's going to regularly get this product in front of the people who need it. And on that last point, really interesting how they're finding other markets for it too. All right, if you would like to learn more about the Toddler Monitor, just come check out the show notes.

sidehustleschool.com/845. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thanks so much for listening. So much more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is "Sidusleschool." [Music]

from the Onward Project.