COSMO Technologies co-founder Michelle Ross tells us about creating family-focused products with their parent-administered Kids Smartwatch.
Heather: Hi! Tell me about your role and the product that you’re building.
Michelle: I’m the Chief Operating Officer and the Co-Founder of COSMO Technologies. We are building an operating system for family IoT products, addressing consumer needs in the space of family connection and communication. Our first product is a parent-administered 4G Kids Smartwatch. It’s designed for five-to-twelve-year-olds and it has features like two-way calling, GPS tracking, texting, and more - but without anything like social media or internet browsing. It has some fun features also like a camera for little video memos, voice recordings. It has a step counter. There’s some features that kids can change, like we can personalize their backgrounds. But we’re really trying to address the gap that exists in communication tools for families that want to be in touch but don’t necessarily want to go full blown cell phone or complete connection.
Heather: How did you get into IoT?
Michelle: I actually started my career as a 7th grade math teacher. I taught the program called Teacher America, where you make a two year teaching commitment. I taught in Nashville for two years and back when I was teaching, it was pretty new that teachers were experimenting with tech in the classrooms and were starting to move to PowerPoint slides. I was part of a trial program that Apple ran in my teaching year with all the Teacher American teachers testing iPads in classrooms. So I got really interested in the education and technology space and started having the thought that technology is so amazing, it really does help kids learn.
Because I was teaching 7th grade, the kids were all getting on Instagram for the first time. That was not great as a social experience for them. That was what started the thought for me that tech for kids just has to be different from tech for adults. I did a big education technology project with a consultant for McKinsey for a couple of years, then went to business school where I got really interested in startups, took that and then used that to start COSMO. So it's the intersection of education, tech and then specifically the philosophy of how do you make products for kids.
Heather: What is your greatest product achievement?
Michelle: Getting this product right is a very iterative process. We had an idea when we went to market of what parents and kids wanted. We're on our second generation and we'll be launching our third generation products in 2023. I think the thing that makes me the most proud is the way that we have listened to our users and the way that we've built our product is that it does update and iterate pretty quickly given just the baseline of software control that we have. As an example of when we first launched the 911 feature, we've put it on every single watch. When parents want this. This is what we should do.
Then immediately our parents shared with us that their kids were calling them, and they didn't want that. That was when we very quickly pushed through an update. This should be a customizable setting. I am really proud of our ability to listen to our user feedback and update very quickly in response to that.
Heather: What advice do you have for aspiring product leaders or founders?
Michelle: My first piece of advice would be to just get to market as quickly as you can. I think that there's a huge fear as a founder and as a product owner you know what the product should be and you have a vision for it, and actually getting there takes a lot longer than you'd hope, which can really stall people out. People aren't going to like this about it. I don't like this about it. The reality is that holds you back from getting feedback that will actually reshape your understanding of what your customer wants. That would be my first piece of feedback is to get to the market as quickly as you possibly can and start getting feedback right away.
The second thing would be just to find ways as frequently as possible to just talk to your customers. It is really easy to sit in a vacuum and read reviews and some of that high level stuff of like, well, this is what our happiest customers say and this is what our angriest customers say, without finding out the middle of the line, finding out what a very moderate segment of our customers are enjoying and not enjoying about our product.
