Health Tech: Radhika Patil Of Cradlewise On How Their Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With David Leichner

Empathy toward your customer: When you are building a solution for a problem, going deep to understand the crux of the problem is critical to arriving at the answer. As an entrepreneur, beware of entrepreneurial bias. Talk to your customers often, place yourself in their shoes, and empathize with their situation. Only then will the true solution emerge. Technology is an enabler and cannot point you toward the solution. Your customer will.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Radhika Patil.

Radhika Patil is the co-founder and CEO of Cradlewise, the only convertible smart crib that soothes babies back to sleep at the first signs of waking, and can be used from birth to 24 months. Radhika is mom to two kids, who were the inspiration for her baby tech startup. With guidance from baby industry experts, medical advisors, and sleep safety experts, Patil spent years developing this product along with her husband and co-founder.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I was born and brought up in India, in a tight-knit family. While most of my family members are doctors, I was never pressured to enter the medical field. What I loved were mathematics and electronics. So I did my engineering degree and then a Master’s degree in Electronics. I have worked in the semiconductor industry for 8+ years. I was always fascinated by applications of technology and loved operating at the intersection of business and tech.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Our startup journey has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride. We were supposed to move to the U.S. to launch our product in April 2020, but all hell broke loose because of Covid, and we had to delay the move and launch. Then India opened its Air Bubble flights to the U.S. We caught the first San Francisco flight. Craziest move ever! We crossed 7 continents during a pandemic with our kids! But we never looked back — our parents showered us with immense love and support, and I was delighted to be closer to our Cradlewise community, and have my ears close to the ground as we built the product and the company.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Christine Michele Carter. I read an article about her in Forbes and wrote her an email to request a zoom call. This was at the peak of Covid. I pitched my idea and Christine loved how our convertible smart crib helped with sleep for the entire family. She decided to be an angel investor and since then has advised me and connected me to her ecosystem.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” — Winston Churchill

We are living in a world where expectations are too high. You might feel pressure from your family, friends, education system, or workplace — there is so much pressure to perform and be the best everywhere. You set a high bar for yourself, too — it’s good to have big dreams and ambitions.

I’ve learned firsthand that it’s important not to be disheartened by failures. Success is a journey — I’ve had to stay laser-focused on the goal with the same enthusiasm every day without being deterred by setbacks or mistakes.

I’ve faced a lot of challenges every step of the way in building Cradlewise:

• Building the product was capital-intensive.
• Building trust with customers was initially tough as a new baby product brand.
• While pitching to investors, they stopped me mid-way through and said they were not interested in the business.
• The Covid pandemic jeopardized our production and launch.
• We moved to the U.S. in the middle of the pandemic and launched.

None of these challenges dampened my enthusiasm as I shut out all of the external noise and focused inward on materializing the end goal — creating a tool that would enable better sleep for the baby and the entire family. Your paranoia helps you charge forward, and no intermittent failure should affect your thinking.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Networking: I attended a conference and pitched to an angel investor. Afterward, I followed up with her for three months and finally, she invested in us.
2. Persistence and hard work: There is no shortcut to success. When we launched the product, it was October 2020. COVID was spreading ruthlessly. Our first batch of 100 cribs needed a lot of rework, repairs, Q&A, and testing. My co-founder and I did all the reworks and dispatched the first 100 cribs. Managing kids, our new business, the complexities around COVID, and forging ahead was challenging.
3. Choose your battles: At every stage in the business, there will be thousands of problems to solve. You just need to choose what battles are important to fight right now and solve those key issues. Focus is the key to getting to the next stage.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology or medical devices that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

We aim to address the biggest issue new parents face: sleep. New parents lose an average of three hours of sleep every night in their baby’s first year. That means lots of exhausted families in search of better sleep — because when a baby sleeps well, the whole family is healthier and happier. We created the only smart crib that has the ability to soothe babies back to sleep before they cry. Cradlewise combines innovative AI software with a high-quality, eco-friendly, and baby-safe design.

How do you think your technology can address this?

Cradlewise is a convertible smart crib that features an integrated contactless monitor to sense early wake-up signs, and automatically soothe your baby back to sleep with a gentle bouncing motion inspired by your instinctive, comforting movements.

The AI-enabled crib learns the baby’s sleep patterns and schedule and responds accordingly, taking the guesswork out of baby sleep. The bouncing motion and minimalist approach to soothing were inspired by how parents naturally soothe their babies. With fewer overnight wakeups, the entire family is well-rested for their day together. Through the app, parents and caregivers can also remotely monitor their baby, as well as log sleep, play music, view room temperature, and more.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

My husband and I came up with the idea after we had Anushka, our first child. From personal experience, we recognized how difficult having a baby is. What we found when looking for cribs was that most smart sleepers only begin soothing a baby after they wake up, rather than recognizing early wake-up signs. That’s when we saw there was an opportunity to engineer a solution ourselves. We also wanted the crib to mimic a parent’s instinctual movement — so the cradle bounces rather than rocking side to side. We modeled our motion after the way I would bounce our children at 3 am on a yoga ball.

How do you think this might change the world?

Helping babies get better quality sleep has a resounding impact on the whole family. Cradlewise helps parents get 2 hours of “me time” back per night, which they can use to catch up on their own sleep, work, or to just relax. Cradlewise offers families an extra set of hands and provides them with peace of mind that their baby is sleeping safely.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

No matter what the technology, there is always some possibility of things going wrong. Cars revolutionized transportation and daily life, but they are the biggest cause of deadly accidents. Having said that, we have taken as much care as possible to make a safe product. Safety is our number one priority in the company. For example:

• Much of what our technology does is simply emulate human behaviors. For example, we don’t bounce/rock babies all night, or introduce sensorial dissonance through speech features on the monitor. Our technology is human-first.
• The crib fulfills not only the mandatory safety certifications from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but goes above and beyond with additional safety features such as GREENGUARD Gold certification.
• We keep a tight feedback loop with our customer base, addressing and fixing issues as they are identified. The crib is continuously evolving through software updates.

So our answer would be that parents should worry about using Cradlewise only as much as you would worry about putting the baby in a regular, CPSC-certified bassinet or crib.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”?

• Empathy toward your customer: When you are building a solution for a problem, going deep to understand the crux of the problem is critical to arriving at the answer. As an entrepreneur, beware of entrepreneurial bias. Talk to your customers often, place yourself in their shoes, and empathize with their situation. Only then will the true solution emerge. Technology is an enabler and cannot point you toward the solution. Your customer will. Example: When designing Cradlewise, we considered what type of motion would work best. As parents, we always held the baby in our arms and bounced through the knees to soothe our baby. Before latching onto this idea, we talked to hundreds of parents across various cultures/lifestyles and parenting ideologies. We heard a resounding inclination toward the bounce motion as that’s what they were doing at 3 am — bouncing their baby on a yoga ball. This feedback from parents helped us design the right solution, develop the bounce mechanism, and no wonder 95% of our babies love the bounce.
• Building trustworthy relationships. As an entrepreneur, you will face challenges as you move fast, change the status quo with pathbreaking solutions, scale your business, and navigate a dynamic macroeconomic environment. All of this is tough to do. You will need a community around you to support you when you are traversing this arduous path. Building trustworthy relationships with investors, employees, and other stakeholders will go a long way.
• Always think of the impact on the environment. Creating a cool tech product should not mean that it cannot be environmentally friendly. We, as technology innovators, have a responsibility to think about the environment too. Example: When we designed Cradlewise’s mattress, we could have taken the easy path by using off-the-shelf materials. But we chose to take the road less traversed. Generally, mattresses are not used across babies and end up in landfills. We decided to solve this problem by creating a biodegradable mattress for Cradlewise using materials that are safe for babies and kind to the environment.
• Test the technology on a small set of users before investing time/money. Quick iterations can help solve critical problems.
• Join groups of founder communities that share the same vision. For example, I joined the FamTech Collaborative to connect with other startup founders who are charting a new course to serve families.

Can you share a few best practices that you recommend to safeguard your technology or medical devices from hackers?

• Use strong passwords for the app that you change once a quarter.
• Because you can add caregivers to the Cradlewise app, it’s important to share links with caution and only among your family members and trusted caregivers.
• Wifi passwords should be strong.
• Reach out to support@cradlewise.com for any questions.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

If you believe firmly in your idea and work hard, the entire universe will conspire to make it happen. Godspeed!

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Indra Nooyi, powerhouse leader and former CEO of PepsiCo. She has been a role model for me. I admire her tenacity and ability to manage work and family.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-gandhi-patil/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.