Bell2Bell’s latest podcast features Elnaz Sarraf, Founder & CEO of ROYBI, the creator of children’s intelligent educational robots and digital content.
To begin the interview, Sarraf discussed her motivation for founding ROYBI.
“Before ROYBI, I spent 5-6 years with my first company, iBaby, which had baby monitors. I spent a lot of time with parents, getting to know their needs and pain points,” Sarraf said. “Education has always been something that would come up. They were even asking about educational lullabies for babies. From that point, I developed a huge passion for technology and education. So, I decided to start my new journey by founding a technology company that implements educational content.
“Long story short, we did a lot of research in the market beginning in 2017. Finally, we came up with the idea for ROYBI Robot, an educational robot for kids ages 3-7. We focus on language learning, vocabulary acquisition and communication skills. We started the company in 2019, and we are now available in major retail stores. We also have some pilot programs with schools. I would say ROYBI really started as a passion, and we are also really focused on the impact of our work on children’s lives.”
Sarraf then examined some of the key challenges presented in developing ROYBI and provided insight into how the company overcame them.
“When you found a startup company, you face different kinds of challenges every day. We went into manufacturing at the end of 2019, and, by the time we launched the product in 2020, we hit the pandemic. Everything with the supply chain and manufacturing went crazy and caused so many other issues,” Sarraf explained. “Aside from that, in the beginning, fundraising was the biggest challenge. ROYBI Robot is a complicated product. It has voice-recognition technology, a hardware component and many other things that made it difficult to convince investors that this product is needed. We finally built a semi-functional prototype to show investors. This helped us raise $4.2 million in our seed round in 2019.”
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!