Recently, New York Founder Institute graduate TeddyMozart announced its first smart toy, which caters to the entire family, aiming to preserve the memories of their families and create a better musical listening experience for kids. TeddyMozart is a Brooklyn-based startup of music enthusiasts, dedicated to the vision of helping families across the world share love and inspire growth in young children through music.
TeddyMozart is launching its product via a Kickstarter Campaign beginning on Tuesday, May 31st.
The New York Founder Institute is currently accepting applications, click here to apply!
The Problem
The idea stems from the personal experiences of the founder, Carlton Bennett and his wife, Soham Sen. Carlton grew up in Jamaica and remembers the songs and melodies his grandmother used to sing but missed the opportunity to record her because there was no easy way of capturing those memories, storing them safely, and later sharing them with his kids. When Soham’s grandmother passed away, Soham had some of her voicemails stored on her phone from her grandmother but Soham and Carlton had to quickly and manually save the voicemails in the cloud before their wireless provider deleted them. After that close call, Carlton began to question why there isn’t a simple, straightforward solution that exists today.
Families can record their messages on their phones but if they lose their phones, they lose the recordings. Families today use a myriad of apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Facetime to communicate with other family members and kids but content is scattered so playback becomes a problem. TeddyMozart aims to give families the opportunity to easily store their family memories forever and simultaneously create a better musical listening experience for kids. The vision is to share love and inspire growth in young children and the team believes that this can be achieved through music that is uniquely special to each family.
There is a universal belief that music is an important and treasured art form, which is magical, powerful, and inspirational. Music speaks to us and tells us stories when words can’t. - Carlton Bennett, Founder of TeddyMozart
How It Works
Using the uniquely built app, a parent or family member, located anywhere in the world simply records his or her voice, sings a song, melody or tells a story then creates a title, lists an author, and saves. It is automatically stored in the cloud. The content creator then shares the recording with another parent or family member, who may be in a different location, who then receives the notification, connects to the TeddyMozart plush toy's speaker via Bluetooth and plays the recording for his or her kids. Parents or family members can store content with longer duration forever, and as a result preserve the memories that are important to them in an organized way. The sharing of these memories through a plush toy will result in less screen time for kids as well.
For example, a grandfather can record a story from anywhere in the world and send it to his daughter in New York, who then plays it for her child through the smart toy's speaker.
With TeddyMozart, your child can also fall asleep at the sound of your voice through a plush toy when you are not there or smile listening to grandma sing a song long after she is gone.
TeddyMozart also plans to add a public library of children’s songs, stories and educational content so that parents have complete music freedom to play their own created music memories and play from a public library of children’s content. Actionable playlists will be also curated to enhance kids’ listening experiences. A parent can play songs for bedtime, naptime, bath time and more. This is great for busy parents who can take advantage of this feature to run errands or get work done. With the combined features and smart playlist user experience, TeddyMozart hopes to produce a more personalized and curated musical listening experience for young children.
With today’s technology, there is so much we can do...We are bridging the gap between the digital and physical, with a focus on what user research has validated will resonate the most - family memories transcending borders and time.
Check out TeddyMozart's Kickstarter to learn more.
The New York Founder Institute is currently accepting applications, click here to apply!
