TechGen Spotlight: Latch Mobile
Latch Mobile is a MassChallenge startup that helps parents monitor their kids’ smartphone usage and protects them from inappropriate information. How did they start from scratch and overcome the challenges? Chris and Josh shared their story with us.
What’s the story of Latch Mobile?
Chris: I discovered TechGen purely through a friend at Voaltz who is using TechGen as well. We went to school together, we both applied and we both got in, and he said “Oh by the way I used TechGen.” I looked up TechGen and I thought it was pretty cool, so we put our posting on the website and within the first week after posting we were getting applicants.
I used to work in Carbon Black, and 3 years ago Josh was my intern. At that time, we had just created our R&D team and we worked together on 18–24 months of research work. We applied to MassChallenge but we didn’t get in. However, we did apply to an accelerator in Puerto Rico called Parallel 18 and Parallel 18 gave grants for companies. We received the grant so we relocated there for four months. The government had allocated about $3 million to build innovation in Puerto Rico and the idea was that some percentage of the startups they funded would stay there and help rejuvenate the area of San Juan. The nice thing is that the money had been set aside despite the financial turmoil down there, so they were still able to run this program. We talked about Latch Mobile while we worked there.
Josh: Back at Carbon Black, we talked about this during lunches, and had thought it wasn’t going to work out, until it began to resurface at the end of the summer. When we were about to head back to the US from Puerto Rico, we talked about starting Latch Mobile.
Chris: We started to build the prototype this fall and ran it on our phones and among our friends and family. Besides, we didn’t like some of our design and when you already have a customer base, it’s hard to redo your design.
Josh: And we learned that having a distinct feature is more important; originally we built a more generalized product because we were looking at a lot of pieces all at once, and wasn’t sure what we wanted to focus on. Later, we really nailed down the features we wanted to have, and built the architecture around those features, instead of trying to build something for general purposes.
Chris: We’re planning 3 main releases. Now we are right on the cusp of a complete version, releasing it to our friends and families for testing. That’s kind of the alpha before we share to the early adopters. Besides, we have two large cohorts. The first are the early adopters in the Boston area, which we want to hit in the next month or two, and collect feedback in person where possible. Then we’ll release across the US. Coming into the fall, we are planning to pursue paying customers, hopefully starting October, 2017.
What are your opinions about hiring interns?
Chris: From my perspective, I love hiring interns. I think this is a good opportunity for new ideas and new talent. I hire for characteristics more than for skills and experiences. When we were building our R&D team, which is relatively new, I was looking for people that are versatile across a lot of things, not necessarily deep in any particular area, exhibit a lot of curiosity, like to learn and like an environment where they got to work on projects in a relatively short period of time.
Josh: That appetite to learn and the ambition is so much more important.
How does a candidate show that quality?
Chris: Traditionally, I will bring people in and there would almost be like a real work situation. There will be a 2-hour block of time where you are building something for a situation. I will provide the requirements around what that is, and then we will need an overall demo. After the demo is done we would present to a larger team, and then we would have a Q&A section about it. It’s almost like a mini Hackathon. Those would be the biggest components of the interview.
What’s your experience starting the company in Boston?
Chris: We knew about MassChallenge through a prior startup that had applied, so we knew of the program. Since we got in, it’s been 10x better than what we thought it was going to be — the amount of commitment they are showing at MassChallenge, the willingness to help you succeed in any way possible. The staff here are always trying to push you and let you know “this is what you need” and people around you are also motivated and trying to achieve great things. Sitting in the corner, we get to see all the traffic coming in and out, so you can say hi to people around you. In our first week here, we met another startup, three women who are working to improve baby food. We discovered that we have overlaps in our market and target demographic. Even though we are focusing on moms and pre-teens, and they are focusing on new moms, a lot of our approach and market overlap so we had a conversation about how to share resources and how we can connect to what they have.
What’s your experience using TechGen?
Chris: We are a small sized company and we have never hired employees before. And hiring employees was something that took me a while to understand. Previously, I posted on jobs boards, and I asked my friends “hey look, how do people do this?,” and receive all sorts of feedback. Some gave me candidate recommendations, some said “we just get our 1099 on and hope we don’t get caught,” and still others recommended TechGen saying “we decided to take the high ground and bring in a lot of employees and we are using this service to do it.” Having programs to help small business recruit is really important.
