Building Healthy Technology Relationships

In this episode of The Faces of Business, our guest speaker was Bill Brady who is the Co-founder and CEO of Troomi Wireless. Troomi Wireless’s KidSmart OS™ protects children from pornography, predators, bullies, and digital addiction while giving them tools to excel in school and opportunities to pursue hobbies, nurture talents, and discover new passions. The discussion covered how the right technology can create healthy technology relationships.

In this episode of The Faces of Business, our guest speaker was Bill Brady who is the Co-founder and CEO of Troomi Wireless. Troomi Wireless’s KidSmart OS™ protects children from pornography, predators, bullies, and digital addiction while giving them tools to excel in school and opportunities to pursue hobbies, nurture talents, and discover new passions. The discussion covered how the right technology can create healthy technology relationships.

Damon Pistulka asked Bill to tell him about his background and how he got to where he was now. Troomi wireless is a children’s wireless phone, system, and phone. And some of the features of the systems they’ve created are fantastic for communicating with kids. The Troomi system helps children develop healthy relationships with technology.

Bill shared his story because he was a marketer by trade. When he was a student at Brigham Young University, he majored in communication and marketing. He was concerned about too much technology’s dehumanizing effect on humans. And, as a father of five children, he was only thinking in terms of adults at the time.

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So it was during this time of becoming a father that all of my technological concerns surfaced. My wife and I don’t want to give our children everything. We want to introduce them to technology in a more gradual manner. They’ll need to learn how to use technology in order to be effective adults. That’s how life is. They’ll have to learn how to use it, for sure.

Damon agreed with his realistic assumption and even shared his own technological experience. It’s just one of those things that I’ve seen and believe has been tried over the years because even when my son was a child, they had the little phone that had like four numbers in it that it could call, and it wasn’t much more than that. But you’ve really structured it so that people can develop a positive relationship with technology over time, and the fact that technology exists will help these kids develop a healthy relationship with it.

Damon continued the conversation by asking Bill to tell him about his operating system. The first challenge, as Bill explains, was the ease of use, which we gave a lot of thought to. All the phone controls are in what we call the Treme Parent Portal, in which a parent logs in to make decisions for each child’s specific phone environment.

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So we installed a feature on our phones called Safe Listing, which allows a parent to say, “Hey” only people on the contact list that I created in the parent portal can contact my child; it could be five phone numbers, it could be 500, there’s no limit.

Damon Pistulka appreciates saying, That’s the way your system and phones can progress with these kids as they grow is something that he really likes because it is that you become adults. There are some things you just have to fend for yourself.

The conversation ends with a thank you to our guest, Bill Brady.

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43:01

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

parent, kids, phone, technology, people, child, talk, portal, true, social media, student body president, apps, byu, text, device, literally, text messages, year, graduate, frankly

SPEAKERS

Bill Brady, Damon Pistulka

 

Damon Pistulka  00:02

All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of the business. I’m your host, Damon Pistulka. And with me today, I’ve got Bill Brady from true me wireless Bill. Thanks for being here today.

 

Bill Brady  00:14

Hey, thanks for having me on. Super excited to be here with you.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:19

I am really excited to have you here as well. It’s so cool, because I you know, honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a tech person on the show yet.

 

Bill Brady  00:30

Well, I own a tech company. I don’t know, the tech person. Right out of the gate.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:39

There we go. There we go. I talked to somebody from a tech company though. That’s what I can say. This is cool. Because, you know, if people haven’t haven’t heard about Treme wireless before, we’re going to talk about that a little bit. But Bill, tell us a little bit about your background. I mean, you you’re at BYU, and you’re like student body president.

 

Bill Brady  01:03

I was. Yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  01:05

yeah. That’s pretty cool. I mean, cuz you actually at that level in in a university, you’re managing a pretty good sized budget you got a lot of people are doing a lot of things.

 

Bill Brady  01:15

Yeah, it was a phenomenal experience. In my whole life. I’ve always been drawn to politics and leadership. And this is gonna sound nerdy, but I was I’ve been the student body president of every school I’ve attended, is I was the student body president of my, you know, my elementary school, my high school and BYU.

Awesome. And I guess grad school I did I get grad school breaks the mold for that I didn’t. wasn’t student body president at grad school. But yeah, I’ve always just been drawn to that kind of thing. And it was a really neat experience at BYU to work with so many students and be very closely involved with the school administration. And we worked on some big projects that year that, you know, still have an impact today on student life on campus. So that’s been kind of fun to watch.

 

Damon Pistulka  02:13

Oh, yeah. That’s cool. That’s cool. When you can help to shape some of the aspects of the college. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I saw that I had to ask about it. Because it’s, I mean, you just don’t see that very often. Because there’s not that many. So it’s good. So tell me a little bit about your background.

So people kind of understand because we’re going to talk today about Treme wireless, it’s a it’s a, a wireless phone, system and phones for children. And to help them we’re gonna talk about how that you know, it really helps building healthy technology relationships, right from the get go. And, and some of the incredible features of the systems you guys have developed there. But give us a little bit about your background and kind of how you got to where you are today doing what you’re doing.

 

Bill Brady  03:05

Yeah, so I’m actually a marketer, by trade. Early on, I don’t know I was in my early 20s 2021, maybe. And while I was saving money to actually move from Canada to attend BYU, I was working a couple jobs. And the Canadian dollar at the time was just brutal. It was worth 60 cents American. And so I was working two jobs. One of them was selling newspaper advertising. And it was in that process that I really kind of developed, you know, a love of communication and marketing in that kind of thing. And that’s what I ended up studying at Brigham Young University.

And all the way back then as a student. So this is, you know, this is going back a few years now. But even back then, email was a new thing. There were no smartphones, there was no text messaging. Yeah, there were certainly no social media. And but even back then, I had this concern that showed up in a lot of the papers I wrote for school as I was studying communication, about the dehumanizing effect of technology on the way we communicate.

And they were, you know, some great authors at the time trying to remember a couple titles for you, but they’re, you know, I did a lot of reading about this, the potential danger of too much technology might do to humans. And at the time, you know, that I was just thinking in the context of adults, but then I became a dad. And you know, that’s really my most important job is I’m a dad. Yeah, and I’ve got five phenomenal kids. My oldest turned 18 Just this past weekend, and my youngest turned six This past week, so I’ve got you know that you’re busy. And right there. Yeah, you’re

 

Damon Pistulka  05:05

just busy. So yeah, so first of all, first of all good. How many sports weekends do you and your wife split and go? I mean, you just kind of see each other in passing or hand a sandwich off to the other one mile, you grab the kids and go to the next one. Is that pretty much normal?

 

Bill Brady  05:21

That’s every weekend and two or three times during the week? Yeah, that’s getting having your oldest turn 16 and get their driver’s license is about the best thing ever.

 

Damon Pistulka  05:32

Yeah, yeah, that’s just like a that’s a godsend right there. Because yeah, that you get another driver in the family. It’s a wonderful thing. But now there’s those are wonderful times I can remember back with our with our we had two kids, it was much easier. Only one played sports. But those are wonderful times with your children to be able to to be out there watching them, have fun watching them play getting to meet all the other parents and the wonderful relationships you build with those people as well. It’s a great time. Oh, yeah, great, is a great time.

 

Bill Brady  06:04

So you know, it was in this process of becoming a dad that you know, all of my concerns about technology, you’ve got a lot more personal. Yeah, you know, my wife and I, from the very beginning of our marriage asked a lot of questions about, okay, how are we going to handle things like video games? You know, later it was, you know, are we going to have video game consoles? Are we not going to? How are we going to encourage our kids to be outside and playing instead of just sitting on the couch and watching TV?

And then credit to my wife on this like that? She’s just always been very, very conscientious. And, you know, she does a challenge with our kids every year to spend 1000 hours outside. Oh, that’s cool. It’s phenomenal. So, you know, when the whole question of phones came up, it was, you know, there were issues involved that we were already thinking about and aware of, in certainly all of that accelerated with smartphones and social media. And, you know, just with some of my background, I think we’ve always been really sensitive to, we don’t want to just give our kids everything.

We want to introduce technology to them in a more measured way. Certainly they’ve got to learn how to use it. That’s life. Yeah, to be effective adults, they’re going to have to learn how to use technology. We just didn’t want to say, hey, take it all at once Good luck, you know, to be a more measured approach, and we’re graduated approach where they can have what they needed, there was truly appropriate for their age. Yeah, not give them more than that, until the legitimate need existed. We talk a lot about being purposeful or intentional, in the way that technology is used in our family.

 

Damon Pistulka  07:59

Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting that you’re, you’re thinking about it in a stepped approach, right. And we’ve seen some of the other technologies out and we’ll talk about true me in a minute. It’s, it’s just one of these things that I’ve seen, I think that has tried over the years, because even when, when my son who’s 22 Now was young, they had the little we had the little phone that had like four numbers in it that it could call, you know, it really wasn’t much more than that. And then I think they had some watches.

Yep, that came out that my nephew had, and, and, you know, but the thing that really strikes me is, is what you’ve done a true me and we’ll talk about it in a moment. But you really have structured this so people can build that relationship with technology over time, allowing the appropriate uses as we get old As children get older. So we’re, when you sat back and you thought about true me, and the fact of technology that will help these kids to really build a healthy relationship. Did you guys like go and consult with people and figure out okay, what are the kinds of things that they should have at each age? And yeah, this and that. Yeah,

 

Bill Brady  09:27

absolutely. So I had a little bit of experience in the industry, you know, from another venture that I worked on, but really, it came down to a lot of research. My partner and I talked to 300 moms. Oh, wow. We also commissioned a nationwide research study through a market research firm out of Los Angeles and, you know, very, very scientifically based study, where they talked to over 800 parents and Really, we wanted to test our own assumptions and our own biases, frankly, and our own preferences against what does everyone else in the country say?

Not just for me live but coast to coast? What are the attitudes about kids and, and in devices, and you won’t be surprised to know that what we learned in this research was parents from every background are becoming increasingly concerned, and conscientious about the way kids adopt technology.

It’s not just certain demographic groups or suit certain ideological or religious groups. It’s, it’s everyone. And the issues that stand out number one is safety. You know, I, yeah, I want my kids to be safe online, safe from you know, pornographic or violent content, but also safe from predators and bullies and people that would do harm. Yeah. And David, the one that’s really growing is not what was obvious a couple years ago, and that’s the safety from a lot of the mental challenges.

Yeah, emotional challenges that are springing up. You know, in kids from coast to coast. You know, we’re learning it used to be a theory, it’s not a theory anymore. Yeah, plane is day in Facebook, and Instagram. You know, Facebook knows this, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a series of articles this last year. Social media is dangerous for kids, in terms of creating stress, anxiety, depression, this overwhelming feeling, especially in young girls, of not being good enough of not being beautiful enough of yeah, not having what my friends have and doing what my friends do.

And there are some authors. There’s, there’s one researcher out of California thinks that UC San Diego, and she talks about us being on the cusp of the biggest mental health crisis our country has ever known. Because of the effective technology and all our great, beautiful, you know, young people. What a tragedy. Yeah, what a tragedy, if the, the damage that’s being done to our kids is happening right at their fingertips, and right under our noses literally. As parents, we’ve got to be more conscientious.

 

Damon Pistulka  12:42

Yeah. And I think I think one of the things that you brought up I think is really pertinent in this is all parents are concerned. Right? So it’s all parents are concerned, first of all, and second of all, it’s not it’s not a we think it’s we know that this is causing these kind of a if nothing else, the bullying and the other stuff, but the mental and emotional problems that these things are causing, if we’re, we’re exposing our children to them on unmetered or unrestricted from a young age until whenever it’s a lot more difficult for them to develop the kinds of relationships and, and self image.

Yeah, that that they really would without it. And that, you know, so when we, when we talk about what were some of the things that you learned in this research that really surprised you?

 

Bill Brady  13:45

You know, what are the biggest surprises? Was that there? There was no correlation to for example, conservatism. You know, a lot of people would assume that if you’re uptight about these things, you must be an old fuddy duddy you know, religious zealot. You know, political conservative, not at all, like zero correlation, zero.

 

Damon Pistulka  14:10

So every parent agrees on one thing, at least we want to protect our kids.

 

Bill Brady  14:17

Yeah. You know, and, and so I think you know, that a lot of people have perhaps assumed that. But, and credit the media for this, frankly, Demond credit to the media for getting out the facts and the concerns. And there’s a lot more conversation happening now in the public forum about some of the dangers that are out there. We didn’t talk about it 10 years ago. Yeah, but it you know, look at the New York Times has run a phenomenal set of articles that Today’s show has done a variety of segments. The Wall Street Journal has done a variety of articles, and more and more. It’s Okay, it’s okay as a parent to say, I don’t want to give my kids all the technology right up front.

I want to be more measured, I want to be more thoughtful about that process. One of the things that’s emerged from all of the conversation that the media has done. And if you’ve watched on Netflix, I’d ask, I’d invite everyone to watch the social dilemma on Netflix. Yes. And that makes it clear that the people who build the technologies, keep their kids away from it. That should tell you something. If the if the very people who build this stuff, say, Yeah, I’m not gonna give that to my kids. That’s pretty, that’s pretty telling.

 

Damon Pistulka  15:49

Yes. Well, I mean, what date, let’s be honest, the social media platforms, whatever platform you’re talking about, are there to make money, they’re there to make money, and the primary driver of revenue for them is adspend. And that’s going to come from whatever group they deem is appropriate to, to, to advertise on their platform, and the better they can target you, the more money they can make. That’s simple.

And, you know, it’s, the, the social dilemma, other things like this, in social media is gonna be social media, and it’s great for some people. But when you’re young like that, the influential effects of it can be so much greater if you’re not ready to really try to filter because as an adult, it’s almost impossible it is, but as a 10 year old, or 12 year old, it’s it is impossible, if you just take it for reality, in a lot of cases, for whatever it is. So I think that’s, that’s really telling that the so many media outlets are coming out with it and really exposing or showing us what could be the effects? And what we really should be concerned about with these types of technology?

 

Bill Brady  17:04

Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

 

Damon Pistulka  17:07

So when, when, so let’s talk about Treme wireless a little bit, because truly wireless is a is a combination of Google based cell phones, and a system behind it, that allows you to buy cell phone, and I believe you said you use Samsung cell phones. And as my children age, I can, I can set it up for my eight year old. And then when they’re nine or 10, or 11, I can adjust the way that phone works to their age.

So let’s talk about this because this is what I think is pretty phenomenal about the true me system. Because that it’s not like you said before, is you saying you’re like I did when my son sent him to school with a little phone that had for I think there are four or five numbers you could program into it. And everybody looked at and kind of made fun of him. Right. So let’s talk about your true me system a little bit. And, and then we you mentioned some feedback you got from one of your kids too. I’d like you to include that. So

 

Bill Brady  18:19

yeah, absolutely. So let me kind of back up one step to the whole landscape in general, you know, if you’re a parent, and most parents are getting phones for kids younger and younger, because very few people have a landline anymore at home, right? So if you’ve got a kid home babysitting the other kids, it’s imperative they have something, you know, or wouldn’t be safe for them to be babysitting.

So that age keeps coming down. If you’re a parent saying, Okay, I’m going to get my child’s first phone for them. Right now there’s this spectrum, on the in the landscape on one end, you could say, Hey, I’m going to get my child to $1,300 iPhone, and it can do anything and everything. And I’ll just give it children, I’ll figure it out. Good luck. You know, more and more parents are realizing that’s not the that’s not necessarily the smartest way to do it. Because of the inherent dangers of everything that iPhone can do.

On the other end of the spectrum, there have been a variety of solutions that have come out over several years frankly, there’s been this realization of hey, we need to be able to give kids something where you know think there was a something called the relay device didn’t look like a phone at all just a little pod that you could talk into you know, there was the gizmo watch from Verizon that came out where you can have a you know, nine phone numbers and some canned text messages and more recently Certainly there have been some devices that look more like the smartphone form factor, but are very, very limited locked down to talk and text only.

Okay? In frankly, for a younger kid, that’s fantastic. That’s great if you’re giving a phone to an eight year old, and it does talk and text only. I applaud that 100%. The challenge is that, that only stays practical for so long. And this is where my journey began.

When I had given my own daughter, this is what you were alluding to my own daughter. She’s my second daughter when she was 12. We gave her her first phone, and it was one of these very lockdown limited devices talking text only the day that we gave it to her. She was excited. She was thrilled to have her first phone finally, yeah, 30 days later, she never had it with her. And when I say never, I mean literally never. It sat on the kitchen counter and collected dust. And so I pulled her aside, I said, Hey, Jenna, he got to give us some feedback here. We got this device, we need you to have it with you so we can reach you.

That’s why we got it. How can we never have it with you? And she said some things that really changed my paradigm about you know, what, should go into a phone for kids? And she said, Dad, it’s just not that useful to me. He doesn’t do any of the stuff I want it to do. So why would I have it with me? And so my initial, my initial response was a little defensive. And I said, Well, you know, we’re not doing social media. So what are the things that you want to do?

Yeah, and, and she went down a list of half a dozen things that made me sit back as a dad and go, Huh, yeah, those are all great. You’re, for example, she wanted, you know, a higher quality device that had a great camera. She said, photography is my hobby. But I’ve got to have a camera that takes good pictures. I’d like to have an app for graphic design. I have to have Canvas and Google Classroom for school. It’s mandatory, it’s required. I’d like to be able to use like, Google Docs or you know, other apps like that for school. And she listed off a few other things. And I just sat there going, I don’t

 

Damon Pistulka  22:34

get it. Yeah, you talked right to the user base they’re

 

Bill Brady  22:37

in that’s where that’s where the vision for for true me really evolved. It was, hey, what if we could give parents a device that they could give to their kids, where the parent could custom fit that to the maturity and the very specific needs of an eight year old, or a 10 year old, or a 12 year old, or a 15 year old, and have that device remain practical and relevant to them? You know, where they don’t outgrow it in six months. And so that’s what we set out to do.

We built a built in operating system called Kids smart o s, that we put on Samsung devices. And with that operating system created what we call the phone that grows with your kids. And that’s really the effect that we’ve in the offering we’ve brought to market.

 

Damon Pistulka  23:32

Yeah, yeah. Because this is this is what I think is really interesting. And so, so different from other systems that you developed, because you’ve talked about this operating system that you developed. And explain a little bit about that, because I think this is really something as you talk about my child is getting older and how we can adjust the phone as my child gets older.

 

Bill Brady  24:02

Yeah, thank you. The first challenge, the first thing that we that we put a lot of thought into was ease of use. You know, there are some good controls on Apple devices. You know, there’s some good controls on Android devices. They’re hard to use. They’re complex, they’re hard to keep up on. Frankly, kids can outsmart them. And so, you know, we wanted to come up with something that kids couldn’t circumvent.

And that was also easy. You know, just so easy that to use that a parent wouldn’t get tired and give up. It would be easy for them to set up and easy for them to make any changes they wanted to make. So all of the controls for the phone are not on the phone. They’re in what we call the Treme Parent Portal, and a parent logs into their parent portal. And that’s where they make the decisions for each child’s specific phone environment.

We have three Treme phones, phones and our family. Each one is set up differently. It’s not a one size fits all, it’s literally here are the settings for Kingsley’s phone, here are the settings for Jenna’s phone, etc. And in easy. So, for example, the first decision that a parent makes is, do I want to turn on safe listing? You know, that was one of the other complaints I had about other technologies was, yeah, something might be talking text only.

But if that kid can talk or text with anyone, anyone can reach them. They’re getting spam calls, they’re getting weird voicemails from, you know, drug dealers. Yeah, yeah, no, it’s not that situation. So we put something called Safe listing on our phone, where a parent can say, hey, only people on the contact list that I build in the parent portal, can reach my child, it could be five phone numbers, it could be 500, phone numbers, there’s no limit. But if your name is not on, and your numbers not on that list, you cannot call here, you cannot text.

And we even have it set up. So kids can add their own phone numbers, they meet a new friend at school, they want to get that friend’s phone number, the child can still add that to the list. And depending on the level of security, for an older kid, they can just add it to the list. For a younger kid, you might have it set that so that you still get to approve it inside the parent portal. So that’s the first thing. You know, the second thing is deciding, you know, do I want to allow group text and picture messages, that’s one click, I can turn that on, I can turn that off.

Where it really starts to get into some different functionality to meet the needs of kids is through a safe browser that we built. So that was one of my daughter’s complaints, you know, that she has to use a browser for for, for some projects at school, and frankly, for some of our hobbies. And let’s be honest, there’s a lot of garbage on the internet. There’s also a lot of fantastic stuff on the internet. Yeah, yeah. And so our vision was as a as parents, let’s create in the parent portal, a place where you can say, Yes, I want to enable the kids smart browser, we call it in there, you designate what website domains are available.

So by default, everything is turned off. And then you just say, hey, I want to allow these 510 1550 domains. And then when the kid opens that browser, they can literally only go to those domains, there’s no search bar, there’s no place to type in a URL, it’s literally a list of the approved websites, and they can go to those websites. Yeah, antastic. Fantastic. So So a young person begins to learn how to use the internet responsibly. And you have peace of mind that they’re not looking at dirty pictures and watching videos and just wasting hour after hour after hour on social media.

But they’re still getting the resources they need. And then the last thing is, through the addition of what we call kid smart apps. There’s no app store on the phone. But again, inside the parent portal, we have curated a suite of apps that we have vetted for safety. You know, and we’ve made right now there’s about 70, that are available, where as a parent, you can say, Yeah, you know, and we suggest sitting down with your child and doing this beside each other. You know, what are the apps that you need? What are the apps that you’d like from this list?

Okay, let’s say this one, this one, this one, this one, etc. And you can have constructive conversations about each and decide whether it’s time whether it’s not time. No social media, no harmful games. Nothing that leads to pornographic content, all of that stuff we, we keep out. But you know, the kids can get some of the apps they need for school and music and healthy hobbies, and they love it. That makes that gives parents the ability to make the phone relevant again to an eight year old, or a 15 year old. Yeah. And that’s what people are really resonating with.

 

Damon Pistulka  29:41

Yes. And you said you said to that there is a couple other features that I really liked when we were talking about the parent portal is like, you can read all the text messages from the parent portal.

 

Bill Brady  29:52

Yeah. Yeah. So Well, David, every parent can picture this moment, right. Yeah. All right, it’s time to do a weekly look at your text messages. You know, parents should be doing that parents should be checking in on kids text messages. Yeah, I believe. And then, but no one likes that moment of okay, hand over your phone, what’s your password? Okay, I’m gonna read these while I stand here in front of you. parents hate that. And kids hate that. So we built remote text monitoring right into the parent portal.

So they in we don’t suggest hiding it kids should know that parents have access that they can see. It’s not a secret. But it means that I can look at my kids text messages, anytime, anywhere. And just make sure that they’re not getting into any dangerous situations, that they’re using good etiquette in learning, you know, good, good communication skills for kind of this online world. And if I ever see anything that’s concerning, I can say, hey, let’s talk about that conversation you had with Marcy, you know, and, you know, having that right in the parent portal is something that people love, love, love, love.

 

Damon Pistulka  31:18

Yeah, I had, I had to fib to my kids and told them and I could do it anyway. I still remember that years ago. I mean, I think I said, my kids are older, but I can remember. I can read your text messages from our accounts that don’t they never tested it. But it’s it’s funny. I want to say Thanks, Kevin. hyzers on here.

He said he’s got he’s getting starting to go through this. So he’s gonna be checking out the true me options. Oh, seven, with Gen Alpha technologies in Wisconsin. They’re so awesome having you today, Kevin. But so when you started to do this, so you get the system, you get the phones and stuff? What are some of the things that that you hear from people that you go, man, I never thought about that. But it’s really cool.

 

Bill Brady  32:11

In terms of things we’re hearing from parents, or how do you

 

Damon Pistulka  32:14

Yeah, things you’re hearing from parents things you’re hearing from kids using the devices, just feedback you’re getting?

 

Bill Brady  32:20

Yeah, so a couple stories. This one I just loved, just loved. We got a letter from a 14 year old girl recently, who went out of her way, her mom didn’t even know about it. And she wrote a letter to us. And in the letter, she explained that previously, she had an iPhone, she got into some trouble. She didn’t tell us what it was. Yeah, and, but her mom had taken away her phone for two months. And, and mom said, Okay, it’s time for you to get a phone again. But we’re not doing social media sweetheart. It just, it’s just not worth it.

So here’s, here’s a new phone. It’s called True me. And there’s no social media on it. And at first in the growth describe that at first she was like, but then she realized, Hey, I should be really thankful. Because of these truly people, I get a phone again. And it’s a nice phone. It’s a you know, it’s a high quality Samsung phone.

But here’s the best part that I love the most. She said at the end of the letter, she said, Who would have imagined that I could be so happy without social media. And she said, I love not having to worry about it. Thank you so much. Yeah, and you know, that was really validating for us, you know that, you know, a 14 year old girl in New York City, who had had the habit of being on social media could step back and say, Hey, I realize I’m better off without it.

So that was a cool experience. Another one in this one, you know, very, very, very sensitive. But we had one of our parents reach out because his son had been accused of something that he did not do. But very, very serious. And I got on the phone with him. And like it was a serious, serious enough thing that the police had asked for the phone. Yeah. And, and the police forensic lab reached out to him and said, What kind of photos this we can’t get into it. which I loved, you know, and, you know, big impact we’ve put on security. But long story short, this dad was in tears with me.

I talked to him on the phone. And he said the evidence that the police needed that we’re looking for that exonerated his son and show that he was not guilty. Have anything was in our remote text monitoring? The messages had been deleted everywhere else. But the police found in that remote text monitoring what they needed that kept this kid from being from having his life change dramatically. Yeah. Which, you know, again, that’s that kind of thing we hope doesn’t happen very often. But thank goodness, you know, we had that feature there that helped in a tough situation.

 

Damon Pistulka  35:29

Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s cool. Because it, it, there’s just so much that kids can, and let’s face it, that kind of stuff kids have gotten into for years and years and years, and decades and millennia. But the fact of the matter is, most kids have phones on them. Now, all this kind of stuff gets around, and they talk about it. And I can imagine where if you are innocent in this kind of situation that you’re speaking of, not being able to delete the text messages, but the text matches is between the other kids and everything else that you’ve already approved, remaining in the Parent Portal would be very valuable in that instance.

Yeah. Yeah. Ha, that’s something. So it’s, it’s a, it’s really, it’s, it’s quite impressive, the, the thought that has gone into this, to really get something that as your kids get older, you can adjust with them. So like, hey, they need to have this app that that’s, that’s for science, or whatever it is, now they need this or that or they’re ready to go into something else, you can just give them access to it as they need. So is there kind of a upper end that you really look at this phone and go this is for this age? Or is there not?

 

Bill Brady  36:53

I love that that question is on your mind. What we’re seeing is that that fit, you know, a lot of families are finding that, you know, when you have the safe browser turned on when you have apps enabled, that it can be, you know, because if you’ve got half a dozen options for listening to music, that most kids are finding, even at 15. And into 16. We got Google Maps on there for kids that are driving at 16.

You know, they’re finding that it’s relevant, and it’s still practical for them. That said, Damon, we want kids to graduate and grow out of what we’re doing. We want them to be prepared for the next step. And that’s another major philosophical difference between true me and some of our competitors that have this, lock it down, lock it down, don’t trust them, lock it down mentality.

That’s just not where we’re coming from. And by the time a kid is 17 years old, and they’re going to be leaving home in a year, I think they should be moving on. And they should be learning how to have a, you know, by this point, we hope they’ve had learned very disciplined habits with technology, and they can graduate into that next device, where you as the parent are feeling like I have done everything I can to teach them positive habits to not get them into some of the dangerous temptations when they were younger. Yeah. And now they’re, they’re gonna be leaving home and they’re ready. That’s what we want.

 

Damon Pistulka  38:44

Yeah, as we’ve talked before, that’s the way that your system and the phones can progress with these kids as they grow is something that I really like because it is that you become adults, there’s things you just have to it’s not fend for yourself. But you have to be responsible for your own actions. And it’s time to time like you said, You graduated driving a car you graduate to, to moving out of the house and finding a job and doing and you know, adulting as we would say. And it’s it is cool that you really are developing it till they can graduate beyond it.

 

Bill Brady  39:20

You know, I had a conversation. I’ve had this coat this conversation several times. But in one particular instance, I was talking to some parents, whose 17 and a half year old son was still using one of these other completely locked down devices to talk in text only. And he resented it. Oh, he resented it. And when he the child, the young man was not around. And I said to his dad, what do you think is gonna happen when he leaves home in six months?

Yeah, if all of a sudden he goes from no access to the internet to unfettered access to the internet. He’s not built any positive, constructive habits, that kids going to be addicted to pornography in two weeks. Just he hasn’t learned how to use technology responsibly. And, yeah, you know, so I think kids do need to learn and graduate and, you know, have options that increase with their needs and maturity.

 

Damon Pistulka  40:24

Well, yeah, it’s just it’s, it’s it like says, is graduating into more and more responsibility as you get older and to be able to, then, you know, use it appropriately. Yeah, good stuff. So why don’t we what do you see for the future? Churaumi? So, what are some exciting things on the horizon?

 

Bill Brady  40:49

I’m gonna be careful not to say too much. Yeah, where people are, like, holding me to, like you said on demons show that, you know, but we do have some other products we’re going to be coming out with that are comparable to the phones. Right now, we’re just focused on the United States, but we have people from other countries reaching out, I hear from Canadians, two or three times a week. I’m from Canada.

So that’s always been at the top of my list. And we’re trying to figure out that the regulatory environment is really difficult in Canada to start new cell phone companies right now. So you know, that’s when the that’s when to figure out sorry, Canada, we’re trying Yeah. But yeah, you know, in terms of, of what to watch for, will always be making improvements to our operating system, just like this big release that introduced remote text monitoring. We’ve got some other very exciting stuff planned in that vein. And then, you know, product diversification and eventually geographic expansion.

 

Damon Pistulka  42:02

Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Well, I’m so appreciate you stopping by today and talking with us bill it’s been awesome to get to learn more about true me and, and really show how you’re helping children build those healthy relationship with technology and, and give them something that they don’t feel embarrassed about that that can grow with them as they as they get go into teenage years.

 

Bill Brady  42:31

So thank you. It’s been great being on with you and great to be with your listeners.

 

Damon Pistulka  42:37

All right, thanks so much. Well, everyone thanks so much for stopping by. We will be back again later this week with more interesting guests talking about life and business but today we had Bill Brady from true me wireless talking about building healthy technology relationships. Thanks so much for being here today, Bill. Thank you. All right. Bye.

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