The crazy adventure of Margot’s baby phone

Today, you will find below the extract of an interview from “Folle & Fauchée” of Margot Delorme (school year 2019), in dual degree at Toulouse INSA. She talks about her entrepreneurial project: a baby phone for partially deaf and deaf people.

The media project “Folle & Fauchée” (Crazy and Broke) is led by Manon Aveline and Alice Cointe (school year 2019) jointly with 4 Toulouse Sciences Po students (where they are also in dual degree): Auréline Garcia, Auriane Duroure, Eléone Privet, and Maxime Constant.

Today I will tell you the crazy story of my friend Margot. A few months ago she had a crazy idea: to create and sale a baby phone for partially dead or dead people. What if being crazy and broke suffice to revolutionize the tech world?

I propose to discover it by reading the interview without filter of Margot, our rising star made in TBS.

Can you tell us about your story and what brings you to become an entrepreneur?

I started doing a business school, the Toulouse Business School, then I entered at INSA this year. In fact, I was sure all my life that I was made for cinema and after an internship where I wasn’t blooming I thought I should do something completely different. I started to be interested in the startups' universe and I worked 6 months in one of them. I had a blast! I understood it was made for me. That why I wanted to integrate the INSA in the specialty “connected objects”, it allows me today to code and sees a new face of this universe. For that matter, to get into INSA, I have been asked to build a connected object. I spent my summer watching YouTube tutorials, and I discovered that you can really get trained with YouTube! That’s how my first baby phone prototype is born.

Can you describe in few words the Waky Baby?

That’s a baby phone for partially deaf or deaf people. Imagine that a couple where both are deaf, during the night their baby is crying, they can’t notice it. They try to sort things out with bright objects and the smartphone vibrations, but nothing is adapted or practical. Also, the existing solutions are too expensive. Therefore, there is no real solution.

The Waky Baby is a connected object, it’s an application linked to a sensor within the Waky Teddy (a teddy bear). When a certain noise level is reached, a signal is sent to the application which informs the parents through light. We have market feedback explaining that we need light, but very strong light. Here, the goal of the application is to use at the same time the screen and the flash of the smartphone. The more complicated case is not the night as the light requirement is lower, but the day which is why we also use the flash.

How is born this crazy idea?

I started to think about a connected object to integrate INSA. I already had a theme in my head, I wanted something around parenting. Then I saw that there are 2 types of connected objects:  the gadget, for example, it’s telling you your heartbeat, if you should eat tomatoes or courgettes, then there are the connected objects oriented around health which are very useful and life-changing, such as a contact lens to measure your blood sugar level for diabetic people. I wanted a democratic object, that’s not the case for the most part of today’s innovations. After having studied the market, I knew I wanted to do an object targeting people care.

Why the Waky Baby is a project as crazy as you?

What’s crazy is that started out of nowhere and today I’m ready to spend the next 3 years of my life in this project. This idea out of the blue shoves my perspectives and make me consider new things.

How the school supports you on this crazy project? did the crazy years in TBS help you to succeed in your project?

That’s crazy as I see how those years at TBS are helping me. I started by cinema, then finances..and I wasn’t finding any coherence to my path, it’s finally by working on my project that I realize all the things I get from the school and its teaching. I learned how to lead a project, build an application file, search and find information, sale my project… Thanks to TBS, I have today the necessary tools to be a good entrepreneur.

It’s also thanks to the school that I was capable to develop my project. It helps me straight away, giving me advice, orienting me to a structure for regional help. The feedback of the professors was very useful. The school allows me to present my project during some innovation or entrepreneurial events. There is also the business incubator of TBS…so a lot of things really help me.

Be crazy, broke and entrepreneur, is it compatible?

That’s a necessity! You have to be crazy to accept to be broke for a long time.

As crazy as the obstacles are, do you think you will go through the end?

First, there are the technical obstacles. One of them, and TBS will help me with, is the research of partnerships because I am looking for engineers to work with me and join me as co-founders. There are also financial challenges of course. But I want to go through the end despite the difficulties.

Thanks Margot for this contagious enthusiasm! I don’t know what you think but in my opinion, she is on her way to revolutionize the baby phones industry.

In short, I wanted to share with you this project which makes sense (yes, we are not only craziness, we can be serious time to time).

I wish to Margot a long and successful journey along the path of the crazy entrepreneurs, broke but passionate! Stay tuned.

Blog: http://folle-et-fauchee.over-blog.com/

Article: http://folle-et-fauchee.over-blog.com/2018/11/la-folle-aventure-du-babyphone-de-margot.html