IAM1198- Founder Runs a Device that Reminds People of Forgotten Items

Eliza is the CEO and founder of Kipit, a packing must-have device that scans your luggage and reminds you of forgotten items. Kipit is a patented, award-winning product that is launching at the end of the year. Previously, Eliza worked at Bloomberg and got her MBA at Cornell University.

• CEO Hack: Book- The Art of Stress-free Productivity
• CEO Nugget: You need to have a life separate from your business
• CEO Defined: (i) Bringing something from zero to one (ii) Dealing with the people around you

Website: https://www.kipit.tech/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizaharkins/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/kipittech/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kipit11
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kipit_tech/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuko40F0pjWDQvc7LGgI3tg

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE

Transcription

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Please Note: Our team is using the AI CEO Hacks: Exemplary AI and Otter.ai to support our podcast transcription. While we know it's improving there may be some inaccuracies, we are updating and improving them. Please contact us if you notice any issues, you can also test out Exemplary AI here.

00:39 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

01:07 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Eliza Harkins of Kipit. Eliza, it's great to have you on the show.

01:15 – Eliza Harkins

Thank you so much for having me.

01:17 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Eliza so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Eliza is the CEO and founder of Kippit, a packing must-have device that scans your luggage and reminds you of forgotten items. Kipit is patented, an award-winning product that is launching at the end of the year. Previously, Eliza worked at Bloomberg and got her MBA at Cornell University. Eliza, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[restrict paid=”true”]

01:43 – Eliza Harkins

I am ready.

01:45 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:53 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, way, way back, I think I always knew that I was going to strike out on my own. You know, when I was a kid, I was always coming up with, like, my own projects, like, outside of school to do. So I always liked kind of there not being anything. And then I come along and then, like, something exists. It's why I did my engineering degree, and then it's eventually why I did this. So I did my MBA program with the idea that I would start a company, and I had all these ideas, these frankly, very, like, lofty things that I wanted to tackle. And then one day, I was showing up to class. I kept forgetting things that I needed throughout the day, and it was so annoying that I had a 45-minute commute and I would forget something.

I was like, wouldn't it be great if, like, my phone or something would just tell me that I was forgetting something before I left the house? And that just really resonated with people around me. And I heard more stories about people missing their flights and their vacations being ruined or that, like, they stopped eating healthy because they kept forgetting to bring their healthy lunch to work. You know, just so many stories like that. And it really made me realize that this was a problem and that there wasn't anything out there that was really getting at what the issue was. And so that's how I came up with Kippit.

03:28 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And as somebody who often forgets things and tries to put literally everything I need to take with me in front of the door, so hopefully I won't forget it. I completely know that pain, but I love, like, in true entrepreneurial form and definitely related to, like, you know, what you were talking about with your background in engineering. I think so many times we see problems, but it's a true entrepreneur or business owner or CEO, whatever title we give that actually decides to create something.

03:53 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it has to. There has to be an insight that doesn't exist before because obviously when I was looking into this, I don't know if you've heard of tile or the Apple airbags, those sorts of Bluetooth chips, but when I talk to people who actually owned them, it was like 88% of people had stopped using them within a year, basically, because it didn't really, it required too much change on their end. You know, you've got this big chip. It doesn't fit on a lot of stuff. The battery dies, and then you have to replace the whole thing. And then primarily, it wasn't actually preventative. Like, it wasn't actually getting to you.

Like, when you were leaving the house, you know, the exact moment that you wanted to know that you were missing something, it wasn't going to be there for you. You still had to think, where are my keys? You know? So that was really the kind of insight. And I think a key part of entrepreneurship is really getting down in the weeds and talking to people on that granular level because you get those insights. You get the people saying, like, I know where my keys are, but I left them. So it's no use to me now when I'm locked out of my house, you know?

05:13 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. This is why I love those examples that you gave because it definitely sounds like those granular conversations where you realize that something might, quote-unquote, exist, but it doesn't really solve that pressing issue of the real thing that people are having problems with. And I think, as you said, forgetting your lunch or forgetting your keys when you're locked out, of course, you know where they are. But that doesn't help you to kind of alleviate that problem at the next time or the time after that. I love that you created that, for lack of a better term, a better mousetrap to be able to do that. So I know you touched a little bit on how it works. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and how it serves the clients and works for the clients that you work with?

05:52 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah. So basically the product itself, it's this flexible liner. You just kind of velcro it into any backpack or suitcase that you currently own, and it basically turns your whole bag into one big RFID reader. Like when you scan your badge in to go to work, back when offices are a thing, it basically turns your whole suitcase into that and so on. Everything you want to keep track of, you just put a little flat sticker on. You slap it on, and then you forget all about it. And then you can just go about your day.

As you pack, it'll recognize those tags, and then you have two options. One is on our accompanying app, you can press scan, and it will run through everything that's in your bag versus what you want to have. And we'll let you know if anything's missing. Or if you just pick up your bag and start walking away, it'll run the scan automatically. And if you are missing anything, it will let you know on your phone, or in certain cases, the whole bag will start beeping at you that you've forgotten something.

06:59 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. You might have already touched on this, but this could be for your business, yourself personally, or a combination of both. What do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:10 – Eliza Harkins

I would probably say my empathy, because I truly believe, like, no matter what kind of product or service that you're starting, there has to be an emotional call that's at the center of everything that you do, everything that you make. Even if it's like a Sassenhe-like business model software that helps you do HR, there's still this emotional component of these HR managers wanting to do their job more effectively, to reach their employees more effectively. There are still people behind that, and there are still emotions going on, no matter how analytical and cold you think the problem is.

07:58 – Gresham Harkless

So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be, like, an app. It could be a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:09 – Eliza Harkins

Yes. So I guess I have a couple of things. One is an old-school book. I think it's called the art of stress-free productivity. It's by David Allen. And what I really like, one, it's so prescriptive. There are so many books out there that are, like, affirmations. And, you know, not that that's not useful, but it's, like, so general and vague that you're sort of like, okay, but where do I start? But this guy really, like, says concrete steps of, like, here's like, go, like, go to the stationery shop, and, like, here's your list of things.

Too bad. Like, here's how you set it up. So it's like, in that sense, it's really nice. And the system that he has in place is actually a much more universal system. So it actually will teach you how to, like, deal with everything in your life. Not just work, but, like, any kind of task that you need to do. He sort of has, like, a collect and then, like, sorting system. So now I used to have, like, four Trello boards. Now I just have one. And that makes things, like, a lot easier just to streamline that out.

09:25 – Gresham Harkless

So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget, which is kind of more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice? Often say you might tell a client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

09:36 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah, I guess this flows into what we were just talking about. And I have a feeling I might upset some people by saying this, but I definitely started out with the definitely, like, the hustler 24/7 mentality of, like, I have to be working on this every single second, or, like, the world will explode. I don't know. But it would, you know, I'd be a failure and everything would be bad. But I've realized that especially since many roads to entrepreneurship do take such a long time, you really do need to, like, actually have a life that is not your business.

Um, you need to have your time for exercising. You need or, you know, get your body moving somehow. You need to have time for friends and that kind of rejuvenating, um, time for you, like, whatever kind of hobby that you might be able to do for a little bit of time just to, like, connect with a different part of yourself. Um, because, again, like, we need to be. I think it honestly makes me better at my job to, like, be a complete person, to, like, remind me why I'm doing this, to not get lost in the weeds. I think it's so essential.

10:59 – Gresham Harkless

I love that nugget. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Eliza, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:12 – Eliza Harkins

I mean, for me, being a founder is more fitting than being a CEO. Bringing something from zero to one is the most frustrating yet fascinating process. Creating something that never existed before and turning it into a patented product is truly amazing to me. So I know that it doesn't exist because although the inspectors have told me. So I think that that's it. And then. Yeah, like, when you're a CEO, like, so much of your time is dealing with people. So just feeds back into the same theme. It's dealing with the people around you, either in your company, your clients, partners that you work with, all of that stuff.

12:07 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that definition and that perspective. And, yes, you're absolutely right. I love how you kind of talked about the frustrating part as well, too, because I think so many times we forget there are two sides to the coin. And the things that sometimes can light us up the most can be the things that frustrate us the most. And I think you're trying to create.

12:25 – Eliza Harkins

Sometimes in a single day.

12:26 – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. Exactly. The roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship, especially startups, as well. It's true. So I love that perspective and understanding, again, that human aspect, but also understanding, being able to kind of take something that didn't exist and actually bring it to life, and. And it's truly one of the most, you know, captivating and exciting things. And like we said, you know, as well, sometimes can be frustrating when we're trying to get over that. That hump and that hill. So, um, Eliza, truly appreciate that.

12:56 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah, you know, it's like the. The thing about that zero-to-one journey is that I found that that's also, like, the loneliest spot, because few people are going to be very special, but few people are going to jump in with you when you just have a vision that's not based on anything. And then as soon as it does exist, as soon as that little one, like, I don't know, the stone has rolled the one time, then, like, suddenly people start, like, flooding in because everyone loves to help you go from small to big, but from zero to small is a space that's very scary for a lot of people.

13:37 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that so much because I think in and of itself, like, running a business, being an entrepreneur is, can be very, very lonely. But to me, and I don't know if you feel this exact same way, I think that when you're innovating and you're doing something that's completely not done and that hasn't been done before, it could be even lonelier because you're taking that and times it by, whatever, 100,000. I don't know, something like that.

14:01 – Eliza Harkins

If I had the number of people who told me that this was either a bad idea or that, you know, I shouldn't spend my time doing this when I could easily get a job in tech or something like that, I'd have enough money that I wouldn't even need a series a, you know. But you do get a lot of opinions from people. It's like one of the only things, like, if you're at a cocktail party and someone says, like, they're a lawyer, people aren't going to, like, tell you how to do your job as a lawyer. But if you say you're a startup founder, like, get ready for nonstop advice. I mean, some of it's actually been terrific and great advice, but you will, it will, like, stop the conversation. People want to know because the startup and founder are exciting, and then people are going to start giving their input. It's just, it's just the natural way of things.

14:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Anybody who ever watched an episode of Shark Tank has their insight and, their perspective on things, and that's great. They try to be able to hear from you at times, but at times, you kind of have to understand that sometimes people can only see what's in their life or what they see existed. So sometimes you might have those naysayers, those people that say they can come to fruition. So I love that you powered through and you've been able to kind of create something that's really, phenomenal.

So, Eliza, truly appreciate that. Of course. Appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

15:32 – Eliza Harkins

Yeah, so I think by the time this podcast goes out, we should have done our little pre-launch. So if you go to www.kipit so Kipit.co, Hopefully, you'll be able to buy one. Since this is our debut, it will be heavily discounted. So if you're interested in this product, now's the time to get it because the prices will go up pretty significantly after that. So you can either go to the website and buy it there or sign up for our email list so you can be the first to know when it does go out.

16:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We'll definitely have the links and information in the show notes as well too, and like we kind of been talking about a little bit. Yes, there are definitely benefits to being a first mover, so get that opportunity to kind of take advantage of that, but truly appreciate you taking time out, of course, to be on the show and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

16:29 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]