The Gadget That's Better in Crowds Than Your Phone + Ring’s Founder Before Amazon Bought It | E2349

Alex Wilhelm (0:00)

Hello, and welcome back to Twist. My name is Alex. I'm a regular co-host here on the show. Today, we are talking to a founder of a company that is building not an AI model, not AI infra, not AI connectivity, not even something for the enterprise. Instead, they have built a consumer device that helps you stay connected to your friends when you're out in the world, especially when your cell phone is going to struggle the most. I love this company. I love this founder. I love that it's working on bringing people together out in the world. So please join me in welcoming the show. It's Totem Labs' Carter Fowler. Before we get to that, we're going to talk just for a second about Plaud. Now, if you're a long-term listener of the show, you know that we are big Plaud fans here at Twist. Got mine with me whenever I do these shows to ensure that I have the transcript I need to find quotes, to find information, to find tasks, to do's. Basically, if you work in the digital world and you use your voice and you need to keep track of things, you absolutely need to check out Plaud. We cannot recommend it enough. So if you want to get one of your own, again, do it, go to plaud.ai/twist, P-L-A-U-D dot A-I slash twist. Use the code TWIST, save 10% off your purchase price and then use it to save and advance your career. You won't be sorry, trust me. All right, Carter, how you doing?

Carter Fowler (1:13)

Great, thanks for having me on, Alex. To be honest, it's a little surreal to be here. We didn't found Totem that long ago and our very first angel investor at the company was actually our only investor that I knew before the company was the one who originally turned me on to Twist. Started listening to it about two years before we founded the company and this podcast was a big aid in just helping me understand how investors think in the first place. So this is a pretty cool full circle moment.

Alex Wilhelm (1:38)

I'm so glad to hear that and I'm so stoked to talk about what you're building because here on Twist, as you can imagine, we've been talking a lot about AI for years now.

We haven't talked as much about hardware and we certainly haven't talked about consumer hardware that doesn't depend on AI. So I'm really glad you're here. To catch everyone up, we're talking about Totem or Totem Labs if you want. And you guys have put together a gadget that groups of people can wear at festivals or other high concentrations of humans to essentially find one another without the need of their phone or without the need for a cellular connection, fair?

Carter Fowler (2:15)

Correct, yeah, well said.

Alex Wilhelm (2:17)

So you're wearing this gadget. For folks out there who are listening on the audio version, describe what it looks like, and also how much does it weigh? And then also describe how you're wearing it, if you don't mind.

Carter Fowler (2:28)

Yeah, so our flagship product, the consumer product here, is called the Totem Compass. It's traditionally worn as like an amulet, pendant style. You can see it on my chest right here. It has a nine axis IMU in it, so the second you pick it up, it automatically, or as I like to say, automatically goes into Compass mode, starts pointing in the direction of your family, friends, wherever you need to find at the event.

It's an offline communicator, so it can also communicate like SOS status if you're in some state of distress. We have offline texting coming out through our offline mobile app as well soon.

And it's incredibly light, probably lighter than you think. And it works just like kind of a traditional Compass. You can think about it similar to Captain Jack Sparrow's Magic Compass from Pirates of the Caribbean, right? It points you to what you want most in the world as long as you know what you want. We haven't quite gotten to the point where we can point you to anything you want in the world, but we do have your back if you're looking for the people that you love.

Alex Wilhelm (3:23)

The way that I understand it is that if you have a couple of different friends and you hold up the Compass device, it'll display lights on different corners pointing you towards different friends. So I might know that blue is Carter and then I can follow kind of the blue angle towards you. Does it tell me how far away you are?