[00:00:00] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Veon Brewster. She's the CEO and co founder of Veba. the smartest baby bottles, smartest. how do I introduce it? Smartest
Veon: Baby bottle monitor.
Jay: baby bottle monitor. There it is. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you for joining me today.
How are you?
Veon: I'm good. Thank you. How about yourself?
Jay: I'm good in the entire interview. I'm going to be listening for the little snippets of, Jamaican that may slip out, from you along the way. [00:01:00] I'm just going to listen to try to hear if I can hear any of that slipping out. it's very interesting. you are from Jamaica, but, let's start back at the beginning.
I do know you're from Jamaica, but kind of tell me where you're from and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?
Veon: Yeah, absolutely. So born and raised in Jamaica. A lot of people say they're from Kingston. Everybody's very familiar with that part, but I'm actually from a tiny little country town called Discovery Bay, just outside of Montego Bay. migrated to the U. S. With my parents, like so many other immigrants, you're pursuing that American dream.
but I will say what was the catalyst for that journey into becoming an entrepreneur? is that my mom is actually, she's grounded in education. she's been a teacher her whole life. And so that really instilled in me the value of education and pursuing those elements. And long story short, eventually I'm now working on my PhD in computer science and engineering, which was a huge impact on why I ultimately built a tech product.
Jay: Beautiful. Why? I'm dying to know what your thought is and you [00:02:00] touched on a little bit, but why are so many of the founders that I talked to? The children of teachers. Is there something about having a teacher as a parent that makes it easier or more open to being an entrepreneur? You think?
Veon: You know, that's a really great question. I will say that when you have a teacher as a parent, there's a certain bar That is higher than when you don't grow up in an educational driven household. And I say that because, you know, the homework time is two X, three X versus a regular household. Right. And then also, that response of like, Oh, you did such a great job.
You brought home that straight A report card. That doesn't exist, at least not in my teacher household, because that was the expectation, so you were not rewarded for it. So when you grow up in this environment where it's like you're constantly being pushed to be the best version of yourself, I think that is really the foundation for ultimately becoming someone that wants to make the world a better place as well, and you come up with something that can solve the problem.
[00:03:00] Yeah,
Jay: if that's true, but I, it sounds true to me, so I'm going to believe it and tell everybody. I'm going to tell everybody that from now on. that's no, that sounds, it sounds like a really great, reason why. all right, so what was your 1st business you tried to start?
was it Veba?
Veon: it actually is. so as I mentioned, you know, pursued education, had my master's degree, now working on my PhD in computer science and engineering. And during that time had the,The amazing experience of working for some of the biggest tech companies in the world. so building products and UX research for Google.
I have built products for PricewaterhouseCoopers, not a traditional tech company, but worked within the tech part of that company. and so when I became pregnant, of course, I'm like, I'm in this network of problem solvers in the tech space. And was that typical mom sitting at home pumping away hours? I know, Jay, you have six kids.
I'm sure you know the journey that your wife goes through,
Jay: my wife, I have not pumped very often, but, my wife, but yes, she can relate.
Veon: right. And so like so many [00:04:00] moms, you have that eureka moment where it's like, wait a minute, this milk is not pasteurized. Once it leaves my body, it actually expires. and so like so many moms where it's tracking it with sticky notes and markers. And after having multiple episodes where we lost track of a bottle for various reasons, you know, life happens, eh, we're Or just like my husband watching a Broncos football game, forgetting which bottle is a two o'clock bottle versus a 4 p.
m. bottle, stuff happens. We ended up feeding our kid an expired bottle. He got a fever that night. And so I said to myself, okay, something has to exist out there, right? There's a better way to do this. Realize that nothing existed. and that was the start of the drawing board for building something that could make this process easier for parents.
Jay: So walk me through that process. Was there much, you know, I, which was a better word than market research. It feels like such a broad, like not correct term sometimes, but did you, what kind of homework did you do to validate this outside of just, you know, your own [00:05:00] personal story,
Veon: Yeah, absolutely. so I actually joined several breastfeeding and pumping support groups on Facebook. and so one great thing about Facebook is it still has these walled gardens where people feel safe to talk vulnerably about their issues and like pumping journeys and all these things. And so I joined one.
It had over 200,000 moms in there. And this was about two nights after our son ended up getting the fever from drinking the bottle that was expired. And I sent a simple picture of one of my bottles with my sticky note on there. That's at 2 PM. And I asked the moms, Hey guys, how are you tracking every bottle that you're pumping?
This is how I'm doing it. Got over 300 responses that night. Every single one of them was a manual method. Some moms are even putting spreadsheets on their countertop to say, okay, this Put this on the 1 p. m. bottle, put this on the 4 p. m. bottle. And that's when I realized, okay, this is a common lived [00:06:00] experience that parents are having, but yet no one has taken the time to say, Hey, how can we make this easier?
So that was essentially the first market validation point is. Hearing back from my own community that like, yeah, this, I guess this is our only option.
Jay: Yeah, I have certainly been in that place. If you're any, if you're a parent in the last hundred years or whatever, you know, and you've had bottles to deal with, I mean, not a hundred, but, yeah, you do wonder as you're doing it, like, how is there not a better method for this? have you found that, have you found there's a drop off in, customers wanting this product After their first kid. Is it more for, is they more excited and more nervous and more scared on their first kid? Or is this something that you don't seem to drop off? And if they get it for the first one, they'll get it for the next five.
Veon: Yeah, that's a great question. So our primary customer right now is the parent group that's [00:07:00] expecting their first child. I mean, we're, we've been on the market now 10 months, so we're still very early on. but essentially that is like over 70 percent of our purchases right now. After we, definitely have a chance to be on the market longer and gather more data, we'll start to be able to compare, you know, first child versus second child and so forth.
But right now, primary. is that first child, you I will say that, you know a background in research. into the C. D. C. Guideli like best milk is good fo this much time versus thi fridge. But what we reali flipping your whole house around and getting ready for this new kid. You don't have the time to necessarily dig into all these facts about the topic.
So that's also why there's so much like curiosity and appetite from that demographic for something that can help alleviate that pain point. But with a second child, third child, they likely have already like They know the pain point. They've done the [00:08:00] research. And so perhaps they're using other methods as well.
but we surprisingly still have second and third parents that are like, where was this when I was like trying to track a bottle at two o'clock in the morning or writing down what time my wife pumped.
Jay: Yes. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I would, I'd be curious how that plays out for you guys. how do you. Do you specifically target first time parents and how do you do that versus two, three, four kids? Right?
Veon: our go to market strategy entailed, attending pregnancy conventions and expos, which are predominantly visited by first time parents. And so, some of the tremendous traction that we've received is actually from one of the conventions called Prego Expo, which is a nationwide conference.
we have had. The most revenue within one day come from 24 hours at one of those conventions just by talking or expecting their first child because a no one [00:09:00] tells you like, oh, wait, it's like it's a living fluid that's going to actually build bacteria if it once it's pumped from a pump. body.
Apparently, this is just like, it's obvious after you think about it, but when you're just expecting the kid, you're not realizing like, wait a minute, I can't just leave a bottle out after I pump it. And so in those moments, like the light bulb going off in the heads of all these expecting moms of like, I didn't even think about that.
You're right. It's not pasteurized. So I've got to pay attention to it. And so that's why we, that moment, it's also just such a beautiful educational moment, to let parents know about all the health impact of not having fresh milk fed to their infant. that's essentially that go to market strategy has definitely been successful for us and meeting our target audience where they are.
Jay: Interesting. yeah. And how, how, like, do you guys, how do you target today? You know, the conferences, that sounds like a great idea.
how else are you
Veon: Yeah.
Jay: these people that are in your demo?
Veon: Right. So great question. So, that [00:10:00] evolved, of course, because we realize, okay, that is the tier one primary target audience. But then we find additional little micro moments within that journey where someone would definitely need to have that product like Veba on hand. So that has segued into parents that are traveling on the go.
Like we all know that post pandemic, and I'll use air You know, air quotes for that. But post pandemic, we know people are back in the airplane where people are back on the road trips and so forth as a new parent that's traveling with their breast milk. Talk about like level four of parenting is when you're traveling with a wife that's also pumping and pumping milk.
So we now actually go after people who are on the go, especially now with summer coming up on us. This is our first summer. post launch because we launched August of last year. so we're definitely going after that demographic of parents that are on the move. We're also going after working moms. And so that is a tertiary target audience as well, because think about how many companies have mother's rooms.
Women have to pump, they have to keep pumping. [00:11:00] There's multiple reasons why you need to, if you don't pump, your body starts decreasing supply. And so for that reason is why so many companies have mother's rooms. And so we're Veba. Our positioning is Veba should definitely be there in all of those working mom environments where she can pump, slip the product on the bottle and know that the milk is still safe when she gets that milk back to her baby at home.
so traveling and working moms is now where we've also segued into our target audience.
Jay: Yeah, I mean, is it a big education piece, like you mentioned, like a lot of people don't know this, and by the way, for those who don't have kids, when you have a kid, if you have a kid, you're gonna be handed this child, and then for like, 24 hours they'll tell you what to do, and then they just send you home and say like, good luck, like, keep this thing alive, for like, oh, like 18 years or so, you know. so there's certainly like a lacking education piece in general, which is just kind of weird because it does feel like there's like this whole. 1st, time [00:12:00] pregnancy education thing, a little class and all the stuff that people do. so it is interesting that's not typically part of it. So, anyway, background of the question is. do you find yourself having to educate people about this problem and does that
become kind of part of your sales engine where you're like trying to reach people who don't even know this is a problem. So you have to educate them and then you have to sell them on this thing that they have to understand. And then it has to be the right price and then it has to be all. So like, is that a hard sales process for you if there's education involved as well? Right.
Veon: it's not a hard sales process because I actually think that the customer that learned something is likely going to be a more loyal customer like you didn't just sell them a product. You taught me something. And so to have that Eureka moment where it's providing added value. goes a long way that turns into long term lifetime value for us as well.
And so I love that educational moment. I actually live for it. So we, even with our social [00:13:00] messaging, marketing and all the different platforms that we market on, we try not to always do a hard sell of like, you know, your baby's milk is going to be expired and baby's going to be sick if you're not tracking it.
No, it's such a huge cavity of like lack of knowledge. It's like this big thing that affects every parent, but yet we're just not talking about it. And so that is absolutely why our messaging includes the education behind it. I've had moms that are like, okay, so So once you pump it, though, right? Does that change if it's in the fridge?
Does it, like, what else impacts it? And that opportunity to say, like, oh yeah, once the baby actually drinks from the bottle, totally different expiration time. Because, statistically, it's like, when you drink from anything, your saliva mixes with the fluid, so it's going to accelerate bacterial growth.
Another light bulb goes off. Okay, wait. So I now need to make sure that once the baby drinks, it's not going to sit out for five hours because I've accelerated that process. So I live for that education. I mean, obviously also someone who's working on [00:14:00] their PhD and loves teaching as well. So that's just like a natural part of the process for me.
Jay: What about formula?
Veon: So
Jay: that like factor in at all with what do you guys, the product? Right.
Veon: work on formula as well. Formula, interestingly enough, has more strict guidelines, for expiration. it's just off the top of my head. For example, like if a baby drinks from a bottle with breast milk, you have two hours left on the remaining milk. with formula, you only have one hour left.
and so that's interesting because people would think that it's the opposite. and so that's definitely a great question because we have a lot of moms that if they're not providing enough milk, they have to supplement with formula. So that's why also within our app, parents can actually select like, is this a formula bottle versus a breast milk bottle?
The product knows to change it different to treat it differently.
Jay: very cool. So let's get this out of the way. Who was the 1st customer who paid you for this thing for the 1st 1 and was there. [00:15:00] And kind of follow up to that, or maybe reverse everyone. How did you get this prototype or this unit or whatever to sell to somebody for the 1st time? Did you
Veon: of them?
Jay: Did you have a few of them? Like, tell me the process to getting to the 1st customer.
Veon: yeah. So, I'll start with that process first. so like so many people, you have that one moment in your day to day life. You're like, man, why isn't there something like X to do this better? Right? We've all like invented something at some point, but then you don't know where to start. Like the average American does not know the manufacturing process or like, what do you do?
Call 1 800 invention. com. Like, No. And so, when I had that first sketch on a paper and I'm like, okay, this is what it would look like. Fortunately for me, because as I mentioned of like working for Google and building products with Pricewaterhouse, I had an incredible network of mechanical engineers who were in my circle.
And so just from making some phone calls, I was like, guys, I have an idea, but where do I start? [00:16:00] And so from having that network was able to get that guidance of being introduced to a mechanical engineer. Who is still on my team. We still work closely together to this day with like MVP and revisions and so forth.
but he and I worked together for two and a half years. this product and get it to market. Two and a half years might seem like a very long time, but for hardware, it's actually on average, because just think about the amount of testing. It's a baby product. We have to be safe as well. There's tons of certifications we had to get.
but long story short, it was, having that network of engineers in my community that was able to catalyze this from. A napkin sketch to an actual product in hand. and then I know your second part of your question was that first customer. So, that same community, that same walled garden that I mentioned on Facebook, where I got like the first validation, I went back to them once I had MVP one and I said, Hey guys, I actually spent some time, building this thing.
And [00:17:00] at that time I had just a prototype, so I still have my prototypes here. Like this looks nothing like the final version. You can see the entire engineering and PCB board But I sent that there. And so even before we had the final one started to validate still with that audience, like, so here are the core features that I'm thinking of.
What are your thoughts on X? What are your thoughts on Y? This community, especially because it's like, Hey, this is a fellow mom who's trying to, you know, solve a pain point. they responded and they were so engaged. So when we had that first one ready to sell on our website, that's where I posted, I was like, hi, it's launch day.
Jay: Here it is. And our first customer came from that very same breastfeeding support group, that validated the pain point from two and a half years before. like, you know, the, like the American dream is a little dated. I think now it's more, you know, like there is a version of the American dream. That's like the kickstarter Facebook community here's that's [00:18:00] very, it's cool. You know, it's like you were. I'm not going to go on the tangent about how I came up with a Bluetooth speaker football. And then couldn't figure out what to do with it and then Rob Gronkowski from the Patriots came out with the 1 about 6 months later. I feel like he robbed me of my. you know, a 1M dollar idea back, like, 10 years ago, but. And Robin, I are okay now, we're best friends. I really I've never met him, but, no, but I love the. Sourcing your own focus group.doing your own market research, reaching out to your network. I mean, these are all that kind of classic entrepreneur things. and it sounds like you went about it a very cool way. So tell me, how has your customer changed from then? Is it the same person? Is it, do you have the same criteria?
Like, tell me about who they are today versus who they were then.
Veon: Yeah, so that's a great question. so we actually pivoted from purely a B to C business model to [00:19:00] also including B to B as well. And so that is one of the main ways where our target customer has evolved. because we understand the journey of like, you know, not just targeting a parent who has welcomed a baby, but I'm moving that timeline back to like, okay, they're still pregnant, right?
So we figured out where in the customer journey, You know, we should be targeting. That was great. But then what we quickly realized, and this came from just pressure testing the idea with different focus groups, different, you know, accelerators that we were, you know, fortunate to be a part of. They came up to me and they're like, do you realize how many corporations have women going on to maternity leave and they're gifting them a breast pump?
They should be gifting them AVeba. Like this was a common human pain point, right? And then that evolved into partnerships of baby bottle manufacturers, which we, we are, you know, in the works on now and not able to speak to who was yet, but that's in the works.and that also evolved into hospitals.
So now we're targeting hospitals right now. Hospitals send you home, just as [00:20:00] you said, like take this baby, keep this human alive. Good luck. I give you like a card that has the breast milk and formal expiration times. And it's like a magnet that you could put on your fridge. Let's push them to go a step further and actually include.
A Veba device in that. Welcome to the world kit. The hospitals are giving new parents. And so we've changed our lens into more of those B to B opportunities as well. since launch. Yes.
Jay: that. I mean, that's how you go from like, one lead at a time to 10, 000 or 100, 000. I will say, whoever is running the partnerships department for the blanket company that sends the same one blanket home to every person in America with the dumb teal. And pink stripes on it, which I probably have a closet full of, those people I want to talk to about how they got weird blankets, who have not changed at least since I've been having kids for 20 years.
I've been the same [00:21:00] blanket for every kid that I've had. I, that's the power of partnerships right there. Millions and millions of babies come home with that same dumb blanket. no offense to the people who made that blanket. All right, well, I feel like we could talk all day, but I do want to ask, you know, a couple more questions.
So as a pregnant again, mom and a business owner and a phd, I mean, I feel like we resonate a little bit. We're just like. There's never a people ask me, you know, I don't understand people are bored, right? How
are you bored in life? Right? I mean, it's not really fair for me to say that because I have six kids but like in general I've never understood how people are bored and I feel like you're kind of the same way, but how are you? Physically taking care of yourself Give me three kind of things that you're working on. You have implemented, you want to implement that like yours may be different than, you know, we typically hear on here. Cause you're a pregnant mom already. but I would love to hear like, you know, a [00:22:00] successful business owner, PhD, all these fantastic things you are. How do you take care of yourself?
Veon: So great question. I will say it's still a work in progress. but the number one thing that I'm trying to do right now is get more rest. because as someone who is so used to having so much on their plate and it's just go, like you touched on it yourself. Like there's never a moment where I'm like bored because I, I'm like, wait, I could be doing this.
I could be, you know, drafting up our roadmap for next year for 2027. Like there's always something to do, but I've become my own worst enemy with continuing that habit now as an expecting mom. Cause like, you know, as well, like. Rest is the number one thing to not only regenerate yourself. When you're about to go into a business meeting or anything, you have to think you have to have rest to think sharp, but it's beyond that.
Like now I'm like, okay, beyond you're growing to humans. You're baking to humans, put down the pitch deck, stop the V4 that you were about to start, close the laptop and go to [00:23:00] sleep. So, getting more rest has definitely been number one. The second one is, time management. So, Especially as someone who, you know, I'm still in school, you know, working and building a company and then still being a mom.
I still have a three year old. it's so easy to just like, let yourself go from one task to another. So I have now learned to use my calendar to manage everything from go take a walk, go do yoga, go do acupuncture. It's not just about business meetings. I have to protect my time. And so it's putting blockers to literally like, okay, just go check the mail, go take a breather outside.
But it's putting those guardrails around my time that I never used to before. Someone would ping me and be like, Hey, Veon, can we jump on a quick call? No, getting better at saying no. Because we're not, we are like, we're, no one is going to die if I'm not able to jump on a call immediately, we're not saving lives immediately on that conference call, so I've [00:24:00] learned to put more barriers around that.
and last but certainly not least, it's, getting ready, or I should say, getting better at reading more. Reading is something that like, I would only do it if I'm like in a plane. Like we're at the screen, you see like everyone pulls out their books, right? Oh, it's like so many people in the world are reading.
No, it's because we're all sitting on a plane right now. But I want to be that person who like is able to continue to find that space outside of just being on a plane to read. and so definitely trying to find more space. But I would say that last one is the one that I'm like, have made the least progress with.
So let, we'll talk again in six months and I'll tell you how many books I've read.
Jay: Do you feel like, do you feel like it's cheating,to do audiobooks? Do you count that as reading?
Veon: I, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I do think
Jay: just us here. nobody's gonna listen to this. It's
Veon: I do think it's cheating and this is a, definitely just a personal preference, but the way that my mind works, with being able to, you know, have that, [00:25:00] connection with the book, turning the pages, building up what that image looks like in my mind.
And so for me, it's having that tangible book and not having it read to me.
Jay: No, I agree. I think there's, I think that's a fair take. I think, It's harder to read.
Veon: Yeah.
Jay: I think it's harder to consistently continually find focus to read because even in this new audio book, you
Veon: Yeah.
Jay: zone a bit and like, kind of stay in the sphere of listening and like, kind of retain some of it.
But
you're going to read if you're going to read, there's no, like, I'm going to read and do this.
You have to, like, focus on reading. So I think that's a fair take. I mean, I'm, yeah, and I'm the same way. I'm trying to get better.
At, like, physical book reading again, but I love that all those 3 are great.
And 1 other just 1 quick question. How are you managing your calendar better? Are you just blocking off time and saying, like, I'm going to do personal stuff from 11 to 12 and I'm going to do, like, how are you [00:26:00] actually. Doing this
Veon: Yeah. So, great question. And that is absolutely what I'm doing. I now, Like so many people have, you know, adopted tools in my toolbox, like Kelly and Lee, right. Where it's like, I am using that method to get people to grab time. So everyone has to respect the calendar. It's not so like, I need to put that is my mantra, respect the calendar right now.
Yeah.
Jay: So, just be your, your auto response when people email, you just say, here's my link. Respect the calendar.
all right. Well, I have one question for you non business related non Veba related. if you could do anything in the world and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?
Veon: Ooh, wow. That is a really great question. I would actually be a musician.
Jay: Really?
Veon: so, yeah, I would play the piano, be like, Alicia keys 2. 0, I guess.[00:27:00]
Jay: Okay.
Veon: Yeah.
Jay: I have not gotten Alicia Keys 2. 0 as anybody's answer. So I
love you and I have gotten Rockstar and stuff before, but I like, specifically piano. Alicia keys to point out
beautiful. What a nice. Better wrap this all up. we will definitely catch up with you in 6 months. I definitely want to see how you guys are doing.
lots of really great. Little nuggets in there and a lot of great information. So you're very inspirational. Lady, so thank you for giving us some of your time today. If people want to reach out to you directly. To hear anything from the show today, how do they find you?
Veon: Yeah, sure thing. so it's V on my first name, V E O N at Veba baby. com. Happy to, you know, reach out and engage with anyone that has any follow up questions.
Jay: Beautiful and Veba baby dot com
Veon: Yes.
Jay: Smart baby bottle. Accessory
needs
Veon: Yes.
Jay: close. enough, right? no, but I think it's a very cool [00:28:00] product. love the story and I hope people check it out. So, thank you for being on today. We'll catch up again soon. All right. Thanks. Yeah.
Veon: Yay. Thanks for having me.
Jay: See ya.