DADDY CLAY: Hey, welcome back to the lab. This week we’ve got Julie Jumenville from
UpSpring Baby. She’s the chief product officer here to walk us through the incredibly thoughtful,
smart, cool product line that they have at their local Austin company.
So thanks for coming in! Glad to be here with a cool mompreneur who’s got some excellent
products. Talk to us for a little bit about what UpSpring’s all about.
JULIE: I’m going to start first with Milk Screen. It is the first ever test to detect
the presence of alcohol in breast milk so if mom goes to a special occasion that calls
for that glass of wine she can now know when that breast milk has left her system.
DADDY CLAY: I love this because Dads, we’re in favor of that glass of wine, aren’t we?
The breastfeeding mom, we want her to be relaxed and happy. So now it’s not just a pump and
dump situation. As soon as she has a drink she doesn’t have to just pump that milk
and dump it out.
JULIE: That’s correct. As mom’s we err on the side of caution and we worry about
our kids so we finally created something and patented a product for mom. There’s no guesswork.
Every woman’s metabolism is different and here we can easily tell her how much alcohol
is in her system.
DADDY CLAY: Can you get pulled over for BWI? Breastfeeding while intoxicated? How about
LWI? Lactating while intoxicated?
JULIE: I think it’s BWI. To date I don’t think I’ve seen that yet.
DADDY CLAY: This is a product that makes everyday life easier for breastfeeding moms.
JULIE: This here is our NightKnight. This is
the first ever portable motion monitor and goes on baby’s onesie and it monitors the
motion of breath. SIDS is the number one cause of infant death here in the U.S. so we’ve
created something to let mom and had have peace of mind to know that baby is breathing.
If he stops breathing for more than 20 seconds it will vibrate to stimulate the baby to start
breathing again and it will alarm to let parents know that baby stopped breathing.
DADDY CLAY: So it could help the baby by vibrating and parents would never know.
JULIE: Yes, and many instances of SIDS happen at day care and in the first couple of weeks
at day care because they’re in a new bed with a new care giver so this is the first
product that can go with the baby anywhere.
DADDY CLAY: Do you think having this product is going to make parents more focused on SIDS
or worry that something bad is going to happen?
JULIE: I don’t think so. There are other products out on the market that are not portable
solutions that detect motion and those products do very well. Why not have an extra device
that doesn’t interfere with baby sleeping and gives you that extra peace of mind that
if baby does stop breathing that you can get there and do something about it.
DADDY CLAY: Let’s talk a little bit about Walking Wings.
JULIE: Walking Wings has been on the market for about two years now and I do want to start
out by saying it is not a leash.
DADDY CLAY: That’s good because I’m not a leash guy. I mean, I’ve seen it. I understand
the concept – you’re in a mall and you’ve got your kid running amuck. You want to sometimes
have them on a leash but I’m not comfortable with that.
JULIE: It straps around baby’s chest. It’s soft and comfortable. Then once it is around
baby, parents are able to adjust straps to their height and walk with baby standing up.
It’s a learning to walk aid to make it an easier process for the parent and baby because
they are hands free and have the confidence to learn to walk faster and healthier.
DADDY CLAY: Anybody who’s got a kid learning to walk sees this product and knows exactly
what it’s about because you’ve had that baby hanging on your hands and then using
just one hand and the baby slips and looks like it could cause injury to the shoulder
and this is going to keep that from happening. Very cool product. I wish I had this.
So tell us a bit about UpSpring. How did this come to be? You’re a mom, obviously. You
couldn’t have had the insight to come up with these products without being a parent.
Tell us about your background as an entrepreneur.
JULIE: I’m actually a civil engineer with an environmental engineering masters so I’m
not quite sure how I ended up here. I have a book next to my bed that I’ve had for
about nine years that I constantly write different ideas in. I started a company called Milk
Screen and then merged with a company called Walking Wings to form UpSpring Baby.
DADDY CLAY: Was the Walking Wings creator a mom as well?
JULIE: It is. We’re all mom inventors so there were two founders in UpSpring Baby and
I created Milk Screen and had product ideas and they had operations to make the products
work and we brought those two together and built a powerhouse brand. We’re bringing
products to Target, Babies R Us, Walgreens.
DADDY CLAY: The key has got to be that these products solve problems.
Thanks, Julie, so much for coming in and talking with us here at DadLabs and we’re looking
forward to seeing these products all over the place. Dads, check them out. Good stuff.
See you next week here in the lab.