This episode focuses on ReBokeh, a startup that created an app that applies filters that allow people with low vision to see better. The founder and CEO Rebecca Rosenberg talked about how her own experience with having low vision inspired the product and what it was like building the startup as an undergrad when everything went remote in 2020. She also spoke about how the app will likely have multiple revenue streams and what it was like pitching the product to VCs who didn’t believe the disability Rebecca has even exists.
This episode focuses on ReBokeh, a startup that created an app that applies filters that allow people with low vision to see better. The founder and CEO Rebecca Rosenberg talked about how her own experience with having low vision inspired the product and what it was like building the startup as an undergrad when everything went remote in 2020. She also spoke about how the app will likely have multiple revenue streams and what it was like pitching the product to VCs who didn’t believe the disability Rebecca has even exists.
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Becca Szkutak 0:02
Hello and welcome to found TechCrunch's podcast where we bring you the stories behind the startups. I'm joined as always, by the lovely, the distinguished Dominic, Midori Davis. And Dom, I think you have some fun news to share with us, don't you?
Dom Davis 0:15
Yes, we are gearing up for Disrupt. Join us at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. This September, we'll be there doing a live recording with an awesome guest window Schneider from disel technologies, you can save up to 600 when you buy your past now through August 11. And save 15%. On top of that with the promo code bow. Visit techcrunch.com/disrupt To learn more,
Becca Szkutak 0:36
and that will be one you don't want to miss. But today we have a pretty good episode for you as well. We're talking with Rebecca Rosenberg from rabuka, which is an app that enables users with low vision to adjust the way the world around them looks in order to help them fit their specific needs.
Hi, Rebecca, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. Gotta say feeling pretty powerful talking to another Rebecca. Probably best case scenario for the pot.
Rebecca Rosenberg 1:08
I love it. You don't get a lot of other Rebecca's you don't get enough.
Becca Szkutak 1:12
I will say that. Well, Rebecca, maybe if you want to start by telling us a little bit about your startup, Rebecca.
Rebecca Rosenberg 1:19
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Rebecca. I am the founder of Rebecca, which believe it or not, doesn't actually have anything to do with my first name. It's actually a play on the photography term bokeh, which is those blurry balls of light you get in the background of an image when the background is out of focus. And so Rebbeca is meant to be a real clarifying of what is blurry or what is out of focus, which works really well. Because what we do is assistive technology for vision impairment for bokeh was really born out of my own personal experience growing up with an uncorrectable vision impairment as a result of albinism. albinism is a rare genetic disorder, which basically affects the body's ability to produce melanin or pigment. Believe it or not, your body requires a certain amount of melanin in order to properly develop and maintain vision. So ultimately, my eyes don't have enough pigment to collect light properly. And so there's just kind of a large influx of light, as well as several other problems, including things that are developmentally different that have left me in a situation where I have this vision impairment that is totally uncorrectable, but is also pretty moderate. Like, I'm still able to have a driver's license, what I found growing up was that all of the assistive technologies that had been designed that were available had really been created for people who were blind. And they aimed to totally replace vision by defaulting to things like Braille or text to speech, instead of more of what I needed, which was to help enhance the pretty significant Residual Functional vision that I did have. So what we aim to do with Rebecca was to create exactly that a technology that helped enhance existing vision instead of totally overpowering it. So our flagship technology, the Rebekah app is personalizable. It's discreet, it's totally customizable. And it's significantly less expensive than anything else that's out there, because we actually leverage a piece of hardware that everyone is already carrying around with them anyway. And that is the smartphone. And so it's a smartphone app that lets you add custom video filters on a live camera feed from your device so that you can personalize the way the world looks to your specific visual needs. In any situation.
Becca Szkutak 3:23
That sounds super interesting. Obviously, of course, it does stink to kind of have to create these solutions to fix these problems that you've been dealing with your whole life. But I am curious, what was it like building the product? I know you mentioned the smartphone angle started with one. It's a cost effective thing. Everyone already has one. But what choices did you make in building the product to end up where you guys are today?
Rebecca Rosenberg 3:45
Yeah, there was I mean, so many different things. When I first started or Boca actually began out of a grant that I received when I was a junior in college, I was studying biomedical engineering, and I got this grant to kind of do an entrepreneurial project for a summer. And I explored this problem of the lack of appropriate assistive technology. And what I found was that some of the biggest issues were I mean, first and foremost price, most assistive technologies are on the order of 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s of dollars. And that just is not realistic for most people with vision impairments. And so that was something I kind of wanted to tackle. The other issue was this kind of like vision enhancement capability. And the third issue was customizability, there were a lot of things that were like very cut and dry, you know, like a regular glass magnifier, so not very much that you can do with that to kind of be specific to your needs. And so that was something we wanted to make sure we were touching on as well. And so the first initial idea for the product kind of STEM just from my own personal experience, but what we really wanted to do was make sure that we were building not just based on my personal experience, but with input and feedback from the wider low vision population. And so our technology actually spent a year a full year in beta with If people with vision impairments with optometrists, ophthalmologists, low vision technology specialists, assistive technology specialists, all with the goal of making sure that we were not just building for this population, but building with this population. So we learned a whole lot about what people like what they don't like. And we actually also learned how discreet this technology is, was one of the biggest selling points, it wasn't like some massive thing you had to wear on your face. It was, you know, just your phone, and especially as tick tock has become more popular, one of the most natural and normal things you could see someone doing is like holding their phone up to look at or or record or read something.
Dom Davis 5:37
Yeah. And this really reminds me of the Snapchat filters in a way. Yeah. And I'm really curious to know, like, does your product embed and other technologies like Snapchat and Instagram, or is it just kind of an app for now,
Rebecca Rosenberg 5:48
right now we are owning it and keeping it sort of within our ecosystem, it's really critical that, you know, the purity of this for the population that we've developed it for remains intact. And so by kind of keeping it in house and not creating those API's that would let other companies kind of take it and run with it, we make sure that we keep to the needs, specifically of the moderate low vision population. Because this is a group of people that nothing has ever been created for them before, we are the first company to ever address the moderate low vision population. And so we take that really seriously, we're respectful of the opportunity that we have to support this population who has very few other options. It's important to us that we keep this technology that we've developed kind of in house and not open it up to kind of everybody at this point. But it is something that we could theoretically do in the future if we had the right partner.
Becca Szkutak 6:43
And I'm so interested by this, what you just said about how there isn't really anyone else building for this population, which I did a little work, especially when the FDA announced over the counter hearing aids last year and found out that like, a lot of people weren't building first sort of those people who have those hearing issues, but weren't necessarily going to wear a hearing aid 24 hours a day, and there was that gap in the middle that people weren't really being served. And so I'm curious, what is it like building in a space that I mean, every company emails us and says, Oh, we're the first we're the only we're the best. But it's like, if you are actually sort of trailblazing in a space where there really aren't that many products really aren't that many options, how does that affect how you're building? In theory, anything would be better than this current status of nothing. But obviously, you don't just want to put out something just to put out something, but how does that influence how you guys have built knowing that it's a big problem? And there really aren't that many people tackling it? Yeah,
Rebecca Rosenberg 7:35
I mean, it is an honor, it is a privilege. And it's a major challenge. Because you know, if we talked about it from a company perspective, most companies get to kind of show up to an investor pitch. And they're like, you know, how you have a really hard time, you know, doing this kind of thing? Well, we have a solution for that it's not that easy for us, we have the added kind of challenge of educating anybody that we're speaking to about our technology, on the fact that this is even a problem to begin with. And I have found it to be really interesting, because what I've seen is the investors who were like, this seems like a really niche market. Are you sure this is a big enough market for you to be tackling are also the same investors who are like, Yeah, my cousin has this type of a vision impairment. Oh, geez, yeah, it's kind of funny. It's like everybody knows somebody, if not more than one somebody's who wouldn't benefit from our technology. And yet, we still kind of get that. Are you sure this is big enough question. And I understand it, you know, it's new, it's different, and it's something people aren't used to. And so I think that you bring up a really good point that this sort of middle section of the vision impairment spectrum is so ignored and left out, it has definitely been a major challenge to kind of bring that education to the general public. But I also believe that it is my calling in life to kind of do that, and to bring that knowledge of this population, and also kind of teach this population that has for so long been overshadowed by more or less severe versions of what they have, that they are a unique population. And they do deserve to be treated like a unique population, and they deserve technologies that are appropriate for them. So it's really been an honor and a privilege, and also a major challenge.
Becca Szkutak 9:20
That's so crazy to think about, too, because obviously, like I'm wearing glasses right now, and I wouldn't count the vision issues I have in the same boat. But it's like, if you thought about it for a second, it's like think of people you know, wear glasses like I feel like it's not too much of a stretch to be like, oh, there probably are a lot of people who could benefit from this because it seems like none of us can see very well. It's also the same. We talk about this a lot on the show the sort of mismatch of what VCs think is important or think there's a market for verse like customers who want this product so bad and things like that. I'm curious if any of the VCs can name anyone who uses like a neobank. That's my question. Yeah.
Rebecca Rosenberg 9:57
And that is something that we have, you know, Like I mentioned, run into sort of continuously, it's like, every once in a while we get that investor who is kind of willing to open their mind to something that is not already being done. You know, we're obviously not pitching the next like Uber for cats. But it's fun when we get to have a conversation with that person that's like, Wait, my cousin has this, and so does my next door neighbor and their daughter, and oh, wait, you know, this could be useful, well beyond people with this sort of moderate uncorrectable vision impairment, which is our target market. But this could be beneficial, really, just to everybody over 45, who wears reading glasses and can't for the life of them, keep track of them, but always has their phone on them. And so as many of those conversations that have been more difficult that we have, we do get to have those really incredible conversations where we understand that people just kind of get it, and then they get as excited about it as we are because they realize just the massive potential of this untapped market and how far ahead our company has already established ourselves in being toward creating technology for this population. And not just that, but also creating a community for this group that has previously not had a community and how valuable that becomes not just from sort of a social impact perspective, where we really are doing good in the world, but that we can also do that good in the world, while being a profitable investable, startup technology company.
Dom Davis 11:31
How much have you raised so far? And do you remember how many investors you had to pitch?
Rebecca Rosenberg 11:35
Oh, gosh. So at this point, we've raised about half a million dollars, and that has taken us incredibly far, we've been able to be really lean, and to get things done with the true disability spirit, you know, making a whole lot out of very little. And I mean, oh, gosh, hundreds, I have probably pitched at least 120 investors, not to mention the easily 550 advisors that it took us to actually get to those 120 investor conversations, you know, I believe in talking to everybody that I possibly can about what we do, because I think that every person brings a different perspective, even only just slightly to either business or technology or disability, and that you can learn so much by talking to a million different people and putting together all of their little bits of wisdom. But it definitely is time consuming. And it's exhausting. But I think as an entrepreneur, it is one of the most beneficial things you can do, especially as you can start to move into the realm of not just talking to kind of random advisors, but actually talking to people in your target market, who might also be entrepreneurs, or who kind of get the space that you're working in. I have loved nothing more than getting to know people in the low vision community through the work that we're doing with Rebecca, I was 22 before I ever met anybody else with the genetic disorder that I have 22 And just the extent of relationships and connections in that community, I've been able to gain just personally has meant so incredibly much to me. And I've started to see as we're building that community at rabuka, the connections that can be made and how much those mean to other people as well.
Becca Szkutak 13:22
And sort of thinking about how early you are in this process early in your career in general. Like you just mentioned, I was gonna ask you about that. Did you ever think you'd be an entrepreneur especially it sounds like diving in headfirst to starting a company like right out of school?
Rebecca Rosenberg 13:36
No, I didn't. I was really ready to be so my background is in biomedical engineering. I got my bachelor's degree from Bucknell graduated in 2020. Whoo. And then I got my master's degree, also in Biomedical Engineering from Hopkins in 2022. And I fully intended to be one of two things. I either wanted to do special effects for movies, or I wanted to do like biomedical engineering, but for NASA, like how can we support life beyond our planet with the range? Yeah, I was always a little all over the place. But those were kind of the things that I found to be most exciting. And, you know, I think the moment that I realized I had to do this was this. I had spent the summer sort of working on this project, I'd kind of come up with the idea at this point. I was totally by myself. I had some advisors and undergrad, but I was I was just exploring on my own. And every day I felt like something was on fire. And I didn't know how to fix it. But I'd gotten to the point where I had like a PowerPoint mock up of what I wanted this app to be. And I felt like I had a really good grasp on the problem. I had spoken to enough other people I kind of felt like okay, this is real. And at the end of the summer, my undergrad University pushed me out to do like a couple of hyperlocal news interviews. So I did like one radio interview and one TV interview in the middle of nowhere in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And, you know, I was, oh gosh, I was 21. And all of a sudden, people started reaching out to me, I started getting phone calls, like at random. I was like, How should people get this number? But people were like, how can I get this? When can I get this? How can I help you. And it was actually from a hyperlocal interview, an overwhelming amount of support, I think I realized at that point that this mattered a whole lot to more people than just me. And that it was really something people wanted to see in the world, and that they not just wanted to see they actually wanted to have a part in helping me create, I think at that point, I was like, alright, we're doing this, you know, this is what has to happen. And so I like to say that I'm an engineer by training, the known entrepreneur by fire, but it's been an incredible journey. I am so lucky. And I get to wake up every day and do something that I love. And that is exciting. And that both makes a difference in the world and is also capable of turning a profit. And I just think that that's the best thing you could possibly be doing.
Becca Szkutak 15:53
And with that, we're gonna take a quick break, but be sure to stick with us to hear more from Rebecca and building Rebecca.
Dom Davis 16:02
Yeah, oh, my goodness, you graduated in 2021? That
Rebecca Rosenberg 16:06
was a mess.
Dom Davis 16:07
I didn't want to say anything. I was like, Ooh, 2020. That's a little rough. Yeah. What has graduating in 2020. And also building a business throughout the pandemic taught you on this entrepreneurial journey? Like, what were the challenges of doing that?
Rebecca Rosenberg 16:20
Oh, my gosh, so much, I could go on probably the whole hour about this when the pandemic hit and actually hit on my 22nd birthday on March 13 2020, was my 22nd birthday. And my school was one of the first to kind of tell the students that we needed to pack up our stuff and leave, we were one of the first schools to kind of kick everybody out. And at that point, in March of 2020, Rebecca had existed for about eight months, I had just won my very first pitch competition in like November of 2019. And things were starting to pick up a little bit of steam, I like was getting a little bit of traction, I was getting some interest, I was kind of getting into the groove of like figuring out what being an entrepreneur was, and figuring out how to start making the connections that I ultimately would need to effectively test the app and actually get it built and do all those things. And I was very, very, very heavily leaning on my professors, my advisors at Bucknell for support through that journey. Like I was annoying. I would like I would not leave my academic advisor alone, I showed up at his office like probably every day, it'd be like, Hey, Dr. Kay, like, can you help me with this, I don't really understand how to do this, or I need this Connection. Do you know anybody I knew it was not just that advisor, it was multiple professors every single day. And when the pandemic hit, and we all of a sudden were like, totally kicked off campus, I moved back into my parents house, and I love my parents. But that was definitely a challenge at 22 to kind of like be living at home and not just living at home, but also being kind of confined to the home. And all of a sudden, I had been totally ripped away from that support network that meant so so much to me. And I couldn't kind of be as reactive as I was being any more I had to foresee problems a little bit further out so that I could set up a meeting with a professor, if I knew that there was going to be a couple things that I needed to talk to them about. But I think the biggest thing I learned during that time was how to trust my own judgment, because it went from giving me the opportunity to ask 10 people in an hour, if I needed to make a decision and kind of like crowdsource it to hey, you know, all of these professors you were relying on, not only are they not physically present with you anymore, but they are also trying to navigate how to run their classes and their lives and their families in the midst of this pandemic. And so they're even still less available. And so I had to learn how to make these sort of snap judgments and decisions by myself without any other input. And while I mean, that's an incredibly important skill for an entrepreneur to have is that kind of self assuredness. And I think the pandemic really forced me to learn that. And it also forced me to kind of really evaluate what I was doing. And if I wanted to be doing that I had a whole crisis during the pandemic of I was supposed to start grad school, I was like, do I really want to start grad school in this sort of environment? You know, what if I went all in on this company, and there was just a lot of very major life decisions that I had to think about. And I think it really taught me how to evaluate all my options and kind of come to an understanding of what the best one might be, even if I don't have all of the information because at that point, really, nobody had virtually any information about when the pandemic was going to be over or what it was actually going to mean. And at the end of the day, it was, I think, one of the darkest points of my life, but it made me a better entrepreneur. It made me a more confident human being, and I think set up myself and the company very well to move forward and be successful. And you're based
Dom Davis 19:51
in Maryland. Yes, Baltimore. Yes. I saw something on Twitter that was talking about how a lot of people our age because I graduate in 2019 A lot of people into Our age, we're talking about kind of time lost from the pandemic, because we lost a chunk of our young adult years. And so within the context of building the company, have you thought about like, would you have stayed in Maryland if the pandemic never hit? Or would you have gone to maybe New York or San Francisco to build the company? And how did that impact because you spoke on it a little bit, in terms of the resources that you had access to?
Rebecca Rosenberg 20:23
Yeah, you know, I think I would have ended up in Baltimore. The reason being is that I ended up moving to Baltimore in the summer of 2020, to go to graduate school at Johns Hopkins over the course of what ended up being two years that I spent here in Baltimore, I just kind of fell in love with the entrepreneurial and tech community here. From my time at Bucknell, I feel like I grew, and Baltimore grew into this really beautiful place for companies. And this is something that we talk about a lot here, there's a really growing tech ecosystem. It's an incredible place to start a company right now. And we were just surrounded, Rebecca was surrounded with so much support from people who really didn't have to support us, there was no reason that they had to kind of engulf us in this love and this help and this mentorship, and you know, they did, and so I just fell in love with Baltimore, there was so much that they were willing to do and offering for Boca that I decided that we had to stay. The rest is sort of history at this point. I've lived here when there was a brief about six month hiatus, but I've lived here since July of 2020.
Becca Szkutak 21:30
And I'm curious thinking how the company has grown thus far, obviously, coming out of the throes of the pandemic, you had these advisors moving away from them continuing to sort of grow and build the company since then, where would you say you guys are at as far as development goes and where the company is now and where you're seeing it throughout the rest of the year? Yeah,
Rebecca Rosenberg 21:51
we are really excited about where we are to date, a lot of the early stages of building a company is figuring out kind of what you're building, who you're building it for, and how you're actually going to make money off of it. I feel like I've spent the last few years getting a lot of that together, we kind of knew what we were going to build, we knew exactly who we wanted to build it for that was kind of our grounding force. But that, you know, what exactly does this look like? And how exactly are we going to make money off of it or some of the biggest questions, but we are right on the cusp, we're so excited of actually releasing the first payable version of Rebecca. So our technology in a free sort of basic version has been out about a year now. And it's really important to us from a health equity perspective, that there is always a free version, because assistive technology is so expensive. But we are right on the cusp in the next couple of weeks of actually launching RoboCup plus, which is going to be our paid subscription version, which offers access for just a couple dollars a month to an extended set of features. And so we're so so excited about that with that is our ability to actually go beyond charging the individual. And so we're excited to start to work with institutions to make Rebekah available for free to the individual in those organizations, physical spaces. And so museums, libraries, universities, airports, we're so excited to be kind of starting to have some of those conversations with some really fantastic partners that I'm very excited about in that, you know, over the last year, we've learned a ton about how people interact with Rebecca and some of the best types of settings and situations that people use it in. And we're actually using that to get ready for the buzzword. We're using that to leverage into some generative AI that we're super, super excited about so that there's less work on the individual to figure out how we're Boca works best for them. And we can actually start them from somewhere that isn't just kind of random, but start them from an intelligent point that they can then go from and say, hey, I want to customize it in this direction. But instead of being able to kind of start from scratch, we're giving them a place to kind of say, hey, we think this is going to work best for you in this environment. So we're super excited about the future of that and that some things that are are currently in development. And I'm definitely super
Becca Szkutak 24:03
interested about this partnerships piece, because that makes total sense. I mean, typically when say you go to a museum, you can get an audio guide and a ton of different languages. I know you can take tours of certain museums for the visually impaired of sculptures and stuff like that. So that's really interesting. But I'm curious, what is it like selling to those kind of potential partners, they're not even just selling but sort of talking to them? Like what kind of feedback do you get from these institutions about this kind of technology? Yeah,
Rebecca Rosenberg 24:31
so we're still truthfully in the early stages of this, but I have been so impressed and so thankful for the feedback that we've gotten from these institutions. I usually tell the story of how I feel like I've spent the last four years of my life trying to prove to the regularly cited community, I guess, and that is, you know, advisors, investors, regular people trying to prove to those groups that this population exists and that this population is eager for solutions and deserves so Emotions and why what we're building is so important. And every once in a while you get people who really, really do get it. But so often you feel like you're just killing yourself trying to make this make sense to someone who just fundamentally doesn't have the lived experience to quite get it. And what I have found on the other side of that, in talking to these institutional partners is that they are not those people. They get it, and they get it almost immediately. And it is crazy. I feel like, you know, where have you been all my life? You understand? And I think it's because we are finally finding that population of people, you know, whether it's in a specific position within these types of institutions, but who do have even if not the personal lived experience, they have enough experience with people with disabilities to like, immediately get this. And the conversation very quickly goes from how exactly does it work? Why do these settings actually help people with vision impairments? Is this really a population that exists? And instead becomes, yeah, all right, how much is it? And that's, I mean, as an entrepreneur, an incredible feeling to feel like you have found the right group of people.
Becca Szkutak 26:11
And something that you've touched on a few times throughout this is the concept of different people you've talked to throughout this journey, not really even understanding that this population really exists, which of course, is probably hard to hear as someone who's this is obviously a lived experience for you. And I'm curious, like, what has it been like building a company that is surrounded on something that is so dear and personal to and not only something that would help someone like yourself, but just the lived experience? You've had? That's always been a challenge to hear some of the feedback here, people be like, Oh, I don't know if that even matters sort of thing? What has it been like for you personally building something that is so tied to how you've lived your life thus far?
Rebecca Rosenberg 26:52
Yeah, I think I was always really well set up to do this. It's because from a very young age, I was very open about my vision impairment. And I think that stems from my parents being really open about it, they never treated it as something that was like a problem that needed to be hidden. It was like, yeah, she's got this, you know, this is how we're kind of dealing with it. You know, I had some surgeries, when I was little, I obviously wore glasses, even though the glasses could only help a very small amount, you know, I had to sit in the front of the class I got very comfortable very early on in life with needing to kind of be different, because when your textbooks are, you know, the size of one of those posters that they hang in the classroom, it's hard to pretend that you're not different, it's hard to kind of hide, hide that. So it just became easier for me from a very young age to be open with people and say, hey, you know, this is what my issues are, I'd much rather you feel comfortable asking me questions, and then I can get the help I need when I need it from you, instead of people feeling like it's something they have to kind of tiptoe around. And so it was a very natural shift for me into what I now do, which is basically make a living off of sharing this personal story and educating people about the challenges that I have, and that the greater low vision population has. And while that came really naturally, I think it is not without its days that are really hard. It's not without the days where I feel like people are telling me that the experience that I have had, my whole life is one that nobody else has, or you know, just are so so missing it that it doesn't hurt a little bit, you know, the days that it feels like I have failed, because I just can't seem to get somebody over that hump of education where they understand this problem, and they understand this population. But I think that happens less than the days where I feel like I've really connected with someone and I've made it through to them. And as such kind of done a service to this population that that even more people now understand the challenges of this moderate low vision population and what they need, and is maybe actually better equipped, even without our technology to go off and support the next person that they meet who has this impairment. So it's definitely a challenge and to build kind of a business around something that is such a personal situation has been, I think, interesting and a challenge to say the least. But I'm so grateful that I get to do this. And I'm so thankful and privileged to be in a position to hopefully do better for the next generation of people in my shoes than was done for me.
Becca Szkutak 29:30
And something you've mentioned throughout this conversation so far is the concept of asking for help. And I know that's something that comes up sometimes when you talk to entrepreneurs and other times people are like, Oh yeah, I kind of just like had this background from Stanford XYZ. I knew how to do this. So I didn't really need to ask for help. But it's very nice to hear that kind of transparency of asking problem areas where you do need it. And I'm curious how you think that's a good trait, as a founder and entrepreneur to be like willing and open to ask for help in the areas that you're just not as Strong.
Rebecca Rosenberg 30:00
And I think that that is another thing that stems from having grown up with a disability and the things that I had to learn at 3456 years old that most people don't learn until they're adults, if at all, I could go on for quite literally hours about how I think having a disability set someone up to be a really effective entrepreneur and how we don't recognize that enough. And I think founders with disabilities should, you know, be a population that's paid a lot more attention to, but I really think that that concept of asking for help is something that I learned at a very young age, because I had literally no other choice, it was like you either ask for help to read the menu at McDonald's from your, you know, third grade friend, or your third grade friend's mom, or you don't order at McDonald's and you don't eat. And so it's something that you learn to deal with. So quickly, you know, I couldn't read the board in class, unless the teacher read it to me, or the kid next to me read it to me, I couldn't follow along at my brother's lacrosse game, unless my mom quite literally, like narrated it for me. And so I had to be comfortable with needing help. So early, that it was super, super natural, as I moved into entrepreneurship, to be able to say, hey, you know, I've got an engineering background, I have no idea how to build a financial model, could somebody please help me. And I think that that's a really important skill, because even the Stanford grad doesn't know everything. And the more you try to pretend like you do with, the more time you're taking away from actually getting that thing done and getting that thing done effectively, I think it's an infinitely more important skill to be resourceful and know not just that you need help, but actually who or where or what to go to, for that help than it is to kind of put up this mask that Oh, I know everything, and I can figure it out by myself. Because chances are, chances are, you can figure it out by yourself. But it's going to take a whole lot more time and energy and effort and money than it would have to just find an advisor who worked on Wall Street and get them to help you with your financial model.
Dom Davis 32:06
How are you hoping to expand the company internally, in terms of hiring? How would you describe yourself as a leader?
Rebecca Rosenberg 32:14
So that's a very timely question we actually are currently hiring for what will be our first full time employee that isn't me, we work with a lot of contractors, I usually say full time equivalents. We're between, you know, six and 10, in any given week, but we're officially hiring for our first full time member of the team who isn't me. And it's been really exciting to explore what being a leader is going to look like we've had some interns over the last couple years, and I feel like my style has evolved into, you know, I want to bring people onto the team that I trust to do the job. Oftentimes, they're going to be young and or entry level employees, and they need a little bit of space to make mistakes, and to kind of learn and see what works, but building sort of those procedures around trying something and then reporting out on what actually happened, I've tried to build into our culture, it's not that I expect you to know exactly how the Instagram algorithm works. From the time that you start at our company, it's we're going to report out every week on the metrics for our social media this week, but also any changes that have happened in the algorithm. And I expect you to also be able to talk about how those changes will move into how we're adjusting for the future based on those changes, trying to really create a culture that is just positive and uplifting and resilient. I see a lot, especially in the disability space of kind of moving people with disabilities toward being angry about their disabilities, I see a lot of negativity and anger. And it's not even in the disability community. It's around people who are trying to build community and the disability community. And instead of building that community around positive things, like all of the incredible skills that you learn at an early age, it's you know, the world is so ableist. And I can't believe that, you know, this business did this to me and building community that way, which I will say works, but I don't think it fosters this kind of positivity and this belief in yourself, and this self effectiveness that I think people with disabilities have and deserve to recognize. And so I'm trying to build that into our culture as well of avoiding those kinds of spirals of negativity, there is ableism in the world, there's going to continue to be ableism in the world, instead of thinking about how horrible that is, and being angry with the world for not conforming to my needs. I think our ethos at Rebecca is how can we equip people to meet their own needs so that we don't have to rely on the world because the moment you start relying on the world to meet your needs is the moment you're going to be disappointed and that goes well beyond disability to literally anything. And so instead of focusing kind of externally, how can we equip ourselves with the best tools that we need to help ourselves? Basically,
Becca Szkutak 35:08
what perfect. One last final question would just be, walk us through the next five years of Rebecca, what are you excited for, for the company to grow into?
Rebecca Rosenberg 35:17
Oh, gosh, so much. So we actually, and this is something I'm really, really excited about, we actually just partnered officially with the Johns Hopkins disability Health Research Center to develop a community platform for people with low vision, I'm so so excited, we're about to start work on that project. And I'm so excited to see how that grows, and how we as Rebecca are able to come in and kind of help build out this community and bring our network to shape what this is going to be and ensure that it is as good for this community as possible. I think ultimately, where I see Robocop going is I would like us to be the go to Company for all things, moderate vision impairment. And I think we're well on our way to doing that as not just first movers. But first movers who are so far beyond kind of any other company who's even kind of trying to implement anything like this, I see us really diving into generative AI, not just because it's what's hot right now, but because it actually has capabilities for our company. And it kind of makes sense and fits into the technology that we're developing. I see, you know, a world where everywhere you go is a rabuka, all access location, and you as an individual, pay nothing for that. And anywhere you go, you're able to use Rebecca on your personal device in a way that's individualized and personalized to you so that you can have as good a visual experience anywhere, as somebody without a vision impairment. Those are kind of our really broad visions. And we're moving toward those every single day with every single institutional partner with every single individual user. And I'm so excited for the next five years. Well, it would be really fun and
Becca Szkutak 37:01
exciting to watch you guys grow from here, but I think we're right at time. So Rebecca, thank you so much. Thank you.
And that was our conversation with Rebecca. I feel like I learned quite a lot that I did not know, what about you, Dom?
Dom Davis 37:20
Yeah, I also found it really insightful.
Becca Szkutak 37:22
Yeah. What stood out to you.
Dom Davis 37:23
It was interesting learning about building a product like this, and the fundraising journey of it all and how it can also be really useful. I mean, it makes total sense that places like museums would have this, I'm shocked that they already don't, I'm like this is so this would be such an amazing product to have.
Becca Szkutak 37:40
No, I think the enterprise potential Enterprise Client piece of this is super interesting, because you're totally right. And I mean, I mentioned this a bit in the conversation. But I know someone in my family has worked at a museum in Boston, leading sculpture tours for people who are visually impaired. So I feel like museums like really are in it, and like wanting to make sure people can have sort of a great experience no matter what. So seeing that there was like interest on that side, even if some of the deals haven't gotten through yet. Yeah, that seems super promising from the whole, it's a for profit, they're looking to make money, even though they are looking to sort of help out in this way, by having this product available.
Dom Davis 38:13
And it was really interesting to hear how when she pitches this product to museums, they completely understand, because I'm sure that they have to deal with this all the time. But how that experience was sometimes very different when talking to investors.
Becca Szkutak 38:27
I know, especially in the healthcare space, because I know, this wasn't years ago at this point as interviewing a venture debt lender in the healthcare space. And he had mentioned to me that healthcare is like an interesting place to invest in this was pre pandemic, when like everyone wanted to invest in sort of things related to this space, because he was saying that even if a population with a certain ailment or a certain disability is large, they're not as large as, say, the customer reach you could get with like Netflix or something like that. So it's like it's a harder place to invest. But even with that being said, Just the thought of pitching an investor and then being like, I don't even think that's a problem. And it's something you deal with every day and have your whole life. I'm just like cheese like people can be so like cruel about this kind of stuff. I don't know,
Dom Davis 39:13
that is such a wild thing to tell someone also that is clearly dealing with the problem. I mean, she spoke about how growing up with a disability has taught her how to explain this problem over and over and over again to people. So I assume that might have given her somewhat of an advantage when talking to investors, but also just knowing how investors are I mean, you never know. Yeah,
Becca Szkutak 39:35
and I really liked what she said to about how she hopes this company can build a community for people who do suffer with these vision impairments, but not a community in a negative sense. Like, oh, we're coming together because we all communally don't like how these things aren't designed for us or aren't helping us in the way we think they should be. But more of like a positive side of it. Like we're coming together to make this better for ourselves. And I thought that was just like a really Nice way of looking at it because I mean, she's totally right community surrounded by everyone hating the same thing or like having the same gripe definitely are successful. But I don't know getting to the same goal with that positivity feels like a really nice mission for them to work on throughout. Yeah.
Dom Davis 40:16
And I imagine that like mass adoption of this wouldn't have a lot of stigma. Because I feel like at least like people our age, we grew up using Snapchat filters and all these things. And so we're kind of used to this filtered element that would be a part of the product.
Becca Szkutak 40:32
And I mean, it's just one of those things where if this tech is going to help people, and people in that community have already sort of raise their hands and shown the company that this is helpful. And the founder, of course, Rebecca would know if it's helpful or not, because she could just try it herself. It's just good. Like, every time someone comes out with a product like this, like they're saying, Oh, we're the first people really trying to tackle this. I'm always just like, oh my god, like, you feel so bad hearing that it's like, so no one's tried to fix this before. Like, it's like, that's crazy. But I mean, definitely have a lot of hope for this kind of a company because they just seem to be approaching it from the right way.
Dom Davis 41:06
Yeah. And also, right now she's doing it basically, by herself, give or take a few contractors. So I'm also going to be really interested to see how it expands not just product wise, but also as a company because I imagine like she's raised half a million so far. The more she gets VC funding she's going to have to scale and grow in some ways. I don't know it's gonna be cool to kind of follow the progression of the company you know, right now it's just her maybe a year from now it's gonna be five or 10 employees and seeing the evolution of it all
Becca Szkutak 41:35
definitely. I can't remember the last time if we have since I started getting involved with found that we've talked to someone who had no other employees. So it is interesting to think like, that's such a big step in a company evolution to like go on to like bringing on your first hires and sort of shaping the company culture from there. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting time for the company to kind of learn about them this early. Found is hosted by myself. TechCrunch Senior Reporter Becca Skuta, alongside Senior Reporter Dominic Midori Davis founders produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Cal our Illustrator is Bryce Durbin funds audience development and social media is managed by Morgan Liddell Alisa stringer and Natalie Kreisman TechCrunch is audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.
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