Making Something From Nothing: Chase Roberts Of Computer Engineering for Babies On How To Go From Idea To Launch
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
“It’s not always going to be fun.” There’s always a point when I get bored of an idea because I’ve done all the fun stuff. That’s when it’s crucial to just push through the grog and keep going. With Computer Engineering for Babies. I quit several times because I got bored or I got excited about other things. Fortunately, I kept coming back and pushed the project to completion.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chase Roberts.
Chase created Computer Engineering for Babies, a baby book to introduce basic digital logic concepts to kids (and adults). The book recently debuted on Kickstarter where it raised $240,000 with over 5000 backers.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! 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”?
My childhood isn’t very remarkable. I grew up in Salt Lake City, did well in school, had a good group of friends, but still managed to get into trouble fairly often. I loved skiing as a kid, and we would skip the last few hours of school a few times a week to go skiing. In high school I had mostly A’s but with one D in a class called “Community of Caring,” where you literally just had to show up. But we were out skiing every week, so I ended up with a D.
I went to BYU & graduated with a BS in Computer Engineering. While at BYU I took a course in iOS development. That was 10 years ago, doing iOS5, when mobile apps were still new and exciting. Everyone had an app idea, and I signed up with pretty much everyone to build it out. And I’ve never been able to shirk the “app guy” label. One of the apps I built was an app to help students find free food on campus, Lunchbox, which turned out to be a huge hit. My friend and I worked on it together, and at times we felt like local celebrities. We could show up to a party and mention that we created Lunchbox, and half the people there felt like they knew us already. It was short lived; as soon we graduated we got caught up in other things and Lunchbox fell by the wayside, but that experience really ignited my passion for building products that people really love and get value out of.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never Attribute to Malice That Which is Adequately Explained by Ignorance.” I think about this a lot lately in the context of social interactions. A lot of people can be easily offended or feel like they are being singled out or picked on but often I think it’s just a misunderstanding. People do seemingly stupid things all the time, and it’s helpful to remember that we’re all just people doing our best to get through life. We all have our own challenges and struggles. We’re all dealing with stuff. We all act like we know everything when in fact know very little. We’re all just humans trying to get through the human experience meaningfully.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I really loved Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It’s a fan fiction book by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Imagine if Harry Potter was really obsessed with the scientific method, was very well read in science, and thought very logically and acted rationally. That’s basically the premise of the book. It’s fantastic to read about Harry Potter applying science to magic. It was a very fun book for me, and gives good insight into how Yudkowsky, who I think is a very rational thinker, operates. And because it’s a fanfic, you can read it for free online.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
You’re right, this is really where the meat is, and you could write books about this question. The first step is just deciding, “I’m going to pursue this idea.” You have to consciously make the decision, if you just have an idea and keep it as an idea, then it will never graduate it to “project” status. It sounds stupid, but you need to decide, “this is something I am going to work on.” And that doesn’t mean you have to commit to working on it for five years. Maybe it’s just, “I’m going to work on this until I have a working prototype.” Or “I’m going to explore what it will take to make this a reality.” But you have to decide to take action.
I like to postpone this first step for a while and let the idea marinate in my head for a few weeks. Often I get excited about an idea, but 2 weeks later, it’s not exciting for me. If I am going to pursue an idea, I want it to be something I am infatuated with. Things are going to get hard, and if you don’t love the idea, then you won’t have the motivation to see it through to the end.
The next step is the really fun step. I like to think about and write down all the things the product could be, all the features that the book could have, everything and anything I could do with it. If I had all the resources in the world, how big could this idea be? Then once that is out of your system, you need to scale it back — way back. What’s the most simple and hacky version of this idea that could exist? You want to build an app so your neighbors can borrow tools from each other? Great! Could you do it with a simple google form and a spreadsheet instead?
Then build a hacky prototype. The reason for this is that it will help you understand the intricacies of your idea, it it will reveal potential problems with the idea, and it will give you a better understanding of what you want the next version to be. Also, you now have something that you can show people! Maybe even sell to people! Yeah, it’s hacky and only does one thing, but that’s good! It doesn’t matter if it’s manufacturable or anything yet, you are just tinkering. So sit down with someone and have them play your board game. Have someone register in your “app.” Introduce people to your product, get feedback, and take notes. At this point you will either decide that this isn’t going anywhere, which is fine and you can move onto the next idea. Or you will decide that this is great, and you’ll want to start on the next version.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
I often skip this step, because I get so caught up in the excitement of a new idea, but a basic internet search can often turn up stuff that’s already there. This is another great reason to share your idea with people. They will often say “Oh, you should check out Uber eats; they’re a billion dollar company doing food delivery. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of them..” This doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. It’s likely, the way you envision something will be different than how others have envisioned it, and your take may be better. Also, it doesn’t hurt to reach out to people in the industry and just ask them what difficulties their business faces, etc. People love sharing information, and the more information you have about the space, the better. Maybe you’ll find a mentor along the way.
You might find people solving the same problem you wanted to solve, and maybe that will energize you, or maybe it will discourage you, either way, it’s better to know at the beginning than later down the road.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
“Marry your idea.” On my first startup attempt, I worked on about 3 ideas at once, and they all went nowhere. None of them got the time they deserved, and they all failed. You need to have one idea or project that is your highest priority. If you are splitting your time between three ideas, then the likelihood that any of them succeeds quickly approaches zero. Your number two best idea is just a distraction.
“It’s not always going to be fun.” There’s always a point when I get bored of an idea because I’ve done all the fun stuff. That’s when it’s crucial to just push through the grog and keep going. With Computer Engineering for Babies. I quit several times because I got bored or I got excited about other things. Fortunately, I kept coming back and pushed the project to completion.
“Sales solves everything.” If you’re down in the dumps, and wondering if the project is worth pursuing anymore, then you probably need to go get some sales. If you have people paying you for your product, then it’s hard to say “this isn’t worth doing anymore.” Reversely, if you aren’t getting sales, and actively pursuing it, then it might be time to pivot.
“Don’t be afraid of Competition.” I was tinkering around with an app idea when I was young, when I saw a demo of another group of kids working on a very similar app. This motivated me to get my app done as quickly as possible. I was head down coding for about 3 weeks and it was just the kick I needed to get my app published. Having competition can be motivating, validating, and give you an opportunity to learn from other’s mistakes.
“It should be fun.” It’s not always fun, but overall it should be fun. If you’re not getting satisfaction and enjoying working on your idea, then you should probably move on. Life’s too short to spend time on projects you don’t love. I once spent several months working on a project out of obligation to others, even though I wasn’t excited about it and didn’t believe in it. It ended up failing, and I could have saved a lot of time if I had just followed my gut and moved on.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
If you’re shipping a physical product, then there are a few more challenges than shipping software, but physical products are a lot more fulfilling for me than software. With a physical product, you still need to build prototypes, and if the economics make sense, you can even sell your prototypes; I have several products that I’m working on that are 3d printed or soldered together by hand. Finding a manufacturer can be really daunting, and can feel impossible. Again, it doesn’t hurt to reach out to other people in the industry to ask them about their experience. For Computer Engineering for Babies, I just did a search on Alibaba.com for “Kids board books” and started messaging people about what I was working on, asking if a book with a circuit board was something they could handle. Some manufacturer’s weren’t up for it, but I eventually found one that was willing to work with me, and I had them make a few sample books, and after four or five iterations of getting samples, and tweaking the design, we landed on something that worked well. This was a really long drawn out process for me. Once I was confident that we had the bugs worked out, I prepared to launch on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is great to help re-risk your idea, if you can raise $10,000 on Kickstarter then you can pay for manufacturing without having to borrow or come up the money yourself for the first manufacturing run, it also does wonders to validate the idea. It’s also helpful on the distribution end. If your campaign is successful, you may find that people come to you offering to carry and sell your product.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
Start prototyping. Can you make it out of cardboard? Can you design it with CAD and 3d print it? Do whatever you can to make it real. Then go show it to people. Get feedback. Find collaborators. Don’t build stuff in a silo. There is a huge push right now for building in public, reason being that there are people out there who want to help you, you just need to show them what you are working on.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
I’m a maker. I get all the enjoyment from building it myself. I have no desire to to have a consultant make the product for me. That takes all the fun out of it for me.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
This is tough. Bootstrapping provides you with a lot more flexibility, but some companies or products just can’t be built without venture capital. I have friends that have done it, but I’m not interested in starting a billion dollar unicorn company; it’s way too stressful and I value my hair color too much. So bootstrapping is the way to go for me.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Honestly, if you are building a product that people love, then you’re doing it. With Computer Engineering for Babies, I hope that people will be able to have an experience sharing with a child and help enable that interaction. At the least, I hope that I’ll be able to help a parent keep their kids quietly entertained during church.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I’d really like for Empathy to get more airtime. I think if we all took a moment to really think about living in someone else’s shoes, we would naturally make the world a much better place.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I’d love to go to lunch with the Lock Picking Lawyer. He just seems like a real genuine and nice guy.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.
Making Something From Nothing: Chase Roberts Of Computer Engineering for Babies On How To Go From… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
