Parents are always looking for ways to turn playtime into creative and educational opportunities. However, for many parents, planning a playful educational project is not thought of.
Co-founded by Sandra Lin, KiwiCo is a subscription company that offers STEM-based educational toys that help kids learn while having fun. Lynn joined the TechCrunch podcast Found to talk with Becca and Dom about starting their company and how they've steadily grown it since they first launched over a decade ago.
The company wants to “encourage kids to be creative, use their critical thinking skills, and hopefully see themselves as people who can envision something and make it a reality,” Lin said. told. “We have delivered more than 50 million crates to date.”
Before starting KiwiCo, Lin worked at PayPal and Procter and Gamble. As a mother, she gave her children hands-on play experiences and invited other mothers and their children to come and play as well. “One of the mothers said to me, 'We should take this opportunity to start a business,'” Lin recalls. “And my first thought was, 'Wow, this could be a really, really fun business.'”
Looking back, it wasn't clear that her previous technology experience would be all that helpful to the company she founded, but there were signs that fate would lead her here. “In a way, I feel like I've come full circle. I think it's really interesting to think about it that way, because that's definitely not what I intended.”
The company went on to raise millions of dollars in venture funding, but then started putting money into its own growth capital. “That's not to say we won't raise money again at some point, we might do it,” Lin said. “I think we're lucky and we get to decide what that time actually turns out to be.”
Elsewhere in our conversation, we talked about how she and her team approach designing educational toys and how they balance work and professional life. She also made a surprising announcement about a new product the company is launching. You can learn more about this in this latest episode of Found.