How many times have you told your kids to put down their phones and pay attention to something?

How many times could someone else have said the same thing to you?

In this episode we’re chatting with two tech founders – Chris Kasper and Heath Wilson – about how they’re using entrepreneurial initiatives to redeem technology and help us better focus on the things that matter.

Chris does this through his company, Techless, and their “Wisephone,” a beautifully-designed, highly-functional phone that gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t. Heath does it through “Aro” a platform that’s helping families put down their phones and be fully present. 

They join us today to talk about the particular challenges entrepreneurs face with technology and how they’re uniquely positioned to solve them. Let’s dive in.

Rusty Rueff: How many times have you told your kids to put down their phones and pay attention to something? How many times, because someone else have said the same thing to you. On today's episode of Faith Driven Entrepreneur we're chatting with two tech founders, Chris Kaspar and Heath Wilson, about how they're using entrepreneurial initiatives to redeem technology and help us better focus on the things that matter. Chris has done this through his company, Techless, and their Wisephone, a beautifully designed, highly functional phone that gives you everything you need and nothing you don't. He does it through Aro, a platform that's helping families put down their phones and be fully present. They join us today to talk about the particular challenges entrepreneurs face with technology and how they're uniquely positioned to solve them. Let's dive in.

Rusty Rueff: William. My name is Rusty, and I have a tech addiction.

William Norvell: I'm very sorry for you. No, I think I'm. I think up in the same boat.

Rusty Rueff: 12 hours and 54 minutes last week.

William Norvell: Oh, you win.

Rusty Rueff: On my phone screen.

William Norvell: Actually you said last week.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. 2 hours and 34 minutes average per day.

William Norvell: Well, I'm actually. I'm worse. I got 3 hours and 53 minute average.

Rusty Rueff: What are you doing all that time? Come on dude

William Norvell: You know, it's. It's specifically sad because I work in front of a laptop all day, so I'm actually wondering myself, what am I doing? Because it's not like I. Yeah, that was laptop plus phone. You'd be like, okay, that makes a lot of sense, but I'm not going to say Apple is lying to me. But that's not good.

Rusty Rueff: No, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And I think it's something we all are grappling with.

William Norvell: Whether that's addiction to work. Right. I mean, I know we're going to talk about on the show today. I mean, but but that's real. Right. It's like you think it's not much, but but it is. Right. I mean, and that's like a core addiction thing. You just don't realize how deep you are. Typically until someone pulls you up and ask you a couple of hard questions. And I know that was the experience of my life when someone said, hey, like you've normalized something that's not normal, I think you should think about that.

Rusty Rueff: Right. Well, we have guests today that can help all of us. So we want to welcome in both Chris and Heath, guys. So great to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for being here.

Chris Kaspar: Glad to be here.

Heath Wilson: Yes, same I am happy to be here.

Rusty Rueff: So there are a lot of conversations going on around tech addiction. I mean, it's kind of hard to miss them, right, Because everybody knows it's there. As we were just saying. Sometimes you need somebody to pointed out to you. But, you know, in the zeitgeist, we've got documentaries like Social Dilemma. We've got former tech entrepreneurs, whether it's Roger McNamee, Tristan Harris, you know, these guys that are out there really looking at pointing at what the tech companies are doing to us and trying to shed some light on the issue. And even Apple kind of came along finally and implemented the idea that we can look at our screen time feature and try to manage it, which is amazing that they did that. But we all need change. And, you know, as we record this, we're coming up, we're going to be in Lent in the next few weeks, and there will be people who will give up Instagram or TikTok or social media for a small, important period of time and then go right back into the same cycle. And so we need help. And you guys are working on it. We need to shake it. Tell us what you're doing. Tell us what we ought to all be doing to make ourselves better.

Heath Wilson: Well, I'll just start by saying technology's amazing, right? And that's why it's so captivating. You know, that little rectangle on our hands can help us do a lot of things. Even yesterday, my wife said, Hey, I need a place to stay in a few weeks. And I rented a VR bio within, you know, a couple seconds. So, I mean, I'm not giving my phone up anytime soon, let's put it that way. But and I would actually add that it's additive in every area of our lives, except for and I think this is why we're having the conversation, except for in the area of relationships. And I would argue that it's a net negative in that area.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah, Yeah. And I just throw out that there's a gap between what we want our tech to do for us and what it's actually doing to us. And so the designs behind it are driving us to do things that we really don't want. And so how can we think intentionally closing that gap and getting our tech to serve us in the way that we want?

Rusty Rueff: So why is it so addictive?

Heath Wilson: Well, it's built to be captivating, right? A lot of smart people are working on it and they want to keep our attention. And there's some new research from a guy named Max Haislmaier at the London School of Economics. And he has pointed out that even the presence of a smartphone equates to usage. Just sitting on a table, sitting across a room, sits not even having it in your hands and actually doing something. But it's the anticipation of the next thing or the next message or the notification. So I think that's the issue. I think most of us have gotten accustomed to carrying this thing around with us all the time, and we're in this constant state of partial attention waiting for the next thing. And believe me, it's kind of fun. You know, the dopamine hits over time are fun. So it's you know, it's hard to put something down that's fun.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. And I just add kind of a spiritual component on top of the academic research that's going on right now. If you think about what was the very first lie that was sold to humanity, it was this concept of knowledge or power over what I'm doing here. And if you think about the lie of technology, it's that same concept. It's knowledge, power. We live in the information age, and so we're drawn to that kind of. I mean this is why sodas, cigaret, fast food all these things sell is because they appeal to this sinful nature within us. So it appeals to that.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. I find for myself I don't spend that much time on social media, but the fact that there's so many choices and so many opportunities for news and information, I mean, you know, growing up and I'm outdating myself, but, you know, you watch television or listen to radio for news, and you may have had one newspaper that might have come to your home and that was it. You know, and you look at the number of newsletters and news sites and places you can go. Next thing you know, I'm an hour into the news on my phone. I'm never an hour into the news. Maybe The New York Times on a Sunday, but never any other time. So there's so many choices that are being given to us even without trying to, you know, trigger our dopamine that are just out there. You know, I think it can be tempting in today's world to look at the stats of kids and think that that's the only problem. Although the stats of kids are crazy, right? You know, clearly new generations that are coming on. And I think, Chris, you know, you've talked about this on the website Techless. You know, I think you've quoted 91% of parents are greatly concerned for their children's phone usage, 91%. Now, if they looked in their own mirror, looked at their on screen time, they probably would go, oh, you know, I may be there as much as my kids, but I understand that concern. So it's not just with the Gen Z ers are is not just with, you know, those who are young and coming up, it's also with adults. And so can both you guys talk about the way that tech addiction affects adults. So let's hear that. But also, you know, what are we doing to our kids with these tech addictions?

Chris Kaspar: Yeah, on the adult front, I mean, just to give you some context, actually, three quarters of our users using Wisephone are adults. And one thing that we found just recently is that most of whom are in the creative fields, you know, writers, professional creatives where their mental energy really ties into their livelihood and it matters. And I think that's a head nod to what's going on here. I mean, we've lost focus, we've lost the ability to think deeply and just our scattered thoughts. And like you've mentioned earlier, like, I mean, there are studies literally the presence of a device in a room with adults statistically makes lower scores on standardized tests to different groups, You know, So it really does affect us in powerful ways. But I think there's this budding awareness now, actually, that same survey, 75% of people said they wanted to cut back on their phone use. So we're now aware that this is hurting us.

Heath Wilson: Yeah. You know, the word addiction is tough. And I think there are certainly addictive elements to technology. I would probably argue that we just have bad habits at this point. You know, it's only been 15 years that we've been living with these infinitely powerful devices, you know, on a person. And we're we're still new. All of us are still new, including the adults, obviously, the children that are growing up with these. So. And part of the reason I reframe the conversation is I think sometimes when you talk about addiction, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness. And if we view it as a bad habit instead, I think it gives us hope that we can change. And frankly, all of us have had good and bad habits over time, and we've developed good habits out of bad habits. So we actually think we're a lot closer to solving this than maybe culture and media thinks. And it could be as simple as just some changes in your daily habits and routines and rhythms that get you on a better path.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, there might be something to what you're saying, actually, because I just read the study the other day that young TikTok users are now pushing back on influencers, right? That the influencers were the ones out selling products and now they're turning around and going, No, no, no, don't listen to influencers. You know, don't go buy those things that they're telling us to all go by. So, you know, it is possible, right, that it's not my grandfather's oldsmobile. I don't want what the generations wanted in front of me, and I will go a different direction. And that does give you hope. I think that's really good. What about entrepreneurs specifically? That's our audience, mostly on those podcasts. Both of you have had ventures that you've led before. Before you started Aro and Techless, you experienced a bit of, you know, those tech bad habits yourself. So how did you personally decide? Enough is enough. Not going there anymore. And then what are the lessons you can tell entrepreneurs to get to that line? Enough is enough.

Heath Wilson: Well, I'll start with a few failures and a few embarrassing stories. When my son was in fifth grade, he told his teacher that he wanted to give me his dad to give the family time for Christmas. Right. And talk about a gut punch. It was like, wow. He he recognizes at such a young age that I'm just not I'm not around on I'm not available. I'm not present. I could tell you. I mean, hundreds of times my wife said, Heath, you are here in the room, but you're not here like your mind is elsewhere. Right? And it's typically on on the venture, on work, on that entrepreneurial journey. But, you know, I've got four kids, three teenagers now. But at the time when I was concepting Aro, they were all about at that, you know, phone age called 11, 12, 13, 14. And I started to see the world through their eyes. And I thought, oh, no, look what I've done. Look what I've model, look how much I've failed in front of them. And kids are going to mimic what they see, you know, from the parents in particular. So that was the awakening for me. It was saying, Hey, I want it to be I want to be better for my family and more importantly, I want my family to be better and particullary on my kids, because the last thing I want to do is put this infinitely wonderful, powerful device in their hand without training wheels, you know, without talking about how they should use it, and frankly, without setting a good role model on how it should be used throughout the day and throughout the week.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. And I'm going to get kind of vulnerable here on some levels because I talk about why I started, you know, Techless and all this thing with foster kids that inspired it. But at the end of the day, some of this a big part of it was actually my own personal struggle with screen time. I mean, I had this moment where I was hitting 15, 16, 17 hours of screen time a day. I mean, that's like nonstop. And I even have seven screens in my office. I mean, like, it was pretty extreme. And my wife wrote me this letter and she essentially had this beautiful metaphor is one of those moments like where you're like, Wow, you really love me. It was a very prayerful letter and the saying, hey, you are mentally overweight, like just unhealthy. You really need to change something. And it became this kind of binary decision of do I go after this process, you know, and really do I choose relationship with my family or do I just keep going in what I was doing? And some of it was productive, but it still was just toxic. And so that was kind of my moment where I committed to doing what it took to change my habits, like Heath is talking about.

Heath Wilson: So it sounds like it was our wives that led to the awakening. Thank goodness for our wives.

Chris Kaspar: Starting other companies. Yeah, I mean, without them, we wouldn't be here. So yeah.

William Norvell: Chris, thank you for sharing that. I don't want to run past a term you just said that I've actually never heard before. Mentally overweight. Go a little deeper into what that meant to you, what your wife meant, and just walk us through that. I've never heard that, but it struck something in me as I go. I've never heard that. But I want to. Is that where I am?

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. So I wrote this article a while ago talking about smartphones being the new fast food. And if you look back at that history of fast food culture, like McDonald's in 1996 sold their one billionth hamburger, you know, a hundred billion hamburger, I think it was. Anyways, at first when it came out, it was mesmerizing and we loved it and we like it was awesome. And then culture slowly shifted and we realized that, hey, this stuff is killing us. It's making us large, it's destroying some beautiful things in our life. And there's been a big pushback against that. And I feel like we're at that same peak in cultural understanding of what our consumer technology is doing to us. Like, it was awesome. It was beautiful as magic. And now we're realizing that there's a dark side to it and I call it mental health or and our tech wasn't built for health in mind. It was built for something else, convenience and expensive, you know, same stuff fast food was built for. And so people are starting to be aware. And that's what I reference when I talk about what is fast food do to your body. That's what consumer tech is often doing to our souls right now.

William Norvell: That's good. That's good. I won't tell too many stories, but I always love talking to younger people and them just being utterly confused of how life used to work. That's one of my favorite things to do. Just like I was trying to put that like. But how did you, like, meet up with someone in college? Well, you saw them in class and you said, We'll meet there at seven. But what happened if they didn't show up? Well, they didn't show up yet. Did something else? Yeah, just on my class in a few days. And they were like, Oh, yes, I can make it. And one of my favorite meetings recently was, you know, 15 year olds will never again know the sheer terror of calling your girlfriend and having their father answer the phone and having to ask for the permission to speak to someone else in that household. And that's real. You know, it's just fast how quick it changes. I mean, I can remember the first startech phone. I can remember even in college, you know, the two or three guys that still didn't have cell phones. Right. And you're just like, hey, you just have to call their house phone.

Rusty Rueff: You can't write the end of the movie when, you know, she doesn't show up on the top of the Empire State Building. You know, I mean, you can't do that anymore.

William Norvell: Yeah, that's actually funny. That's a we're not going to go down, but it's a mark of a movie well made when you're not sitting there questioning technology. When I watch an old movie, it's like a bad one. You're like, Why didn't they just call them? But a good one, when you're so engrossed in like, Oh, no, I'm not even thinking about how they don't have phones. I'm not even thinking of it like it's so well-produced. But I want to get into your redeeming solutions because we both we've heard both you say there's a problem, we recognized it. We also don't think it's an all bad thing, right? I would say the same thing about fast food or something, right? I don't think it's an all bad thing. We probably shouldn't eat it five days a week, but I really enjoy swinging by and on road trips. And for me, that's where my family enjoys fast food. And it's it's a fun experience, right? So it's about moderation. It's about understanding it. I want to hear two things from each of you. One, why was it so big for you that you decided to devote a good amount of your scarce labor capital to building a company around it? Right. Like, over that charge? Right. And then two what exactly you decided to do about it and tell us a little about your ventures.

Heath Wilson: Yeah. For me it was personal. In fact, when I ironically, I texted my now co-founder one day and said, look, there's something I want to solve for my family and I'm going to spend some money to do it and I think I can do it. And hopefully if that happens, then maybe there's something beyond it and, you know, business. But. So started from that personal place of failure and frankly, just wanting more. And I think there was a recognition as well. I had been in some mentoring groups with a bunch of high achievers and everyone said the same thing. They said, this phone is keeping me from being the person, the father, the husband, the believer, you know, friend that I want to be. And, you know, that pattern recognition stepped in and I said, Wow, if these guys are struggling, right? If these high achievers, super disciplined are struggling, then I suspect everyone's struggling with this. And I think that's the case. So, again, kind of a personal journey. And then I focused on the family again. This started for my family, so Aro was really an intentionality company. And really the goal of it is to align family's actions with their intentions. And we do that through a product, of course. But just a story. As an example, like last night, my wife and I decided we're not turning on the TV. Let's just sit on the couch and have a conversation. Well, because we were available, right? Our kids walked down, kind of looked at us with a weird face and said, What are you guys doing? So was talking. So next thing you know, one sits down, starts talking to us, the next thing you know, another one sits down. So we were we were present, we were available. All of a sudden we're having a conversation that never would have happened. Of course, we had a phone in our hand, but even with the TV and screen on in the background. So again, it our goal is to change families to find those sacred times when it makes sense to be without screens, whether that's family dinner or board games or in the morning for quiet routine and just lean into those times and take advantage of these precious moments because, you know, the kids will be out of the house if we know it.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. And I would say the moment for me was we had foster kids, three kids and a bio kid in our house. And the caseworkers dropped them off and said, Don't let these girls near anything that looks like a phone. Like, Oh crap, we really want to empower them. Like, we don't want to be these jerk let out stick in the mud parents to say, You can't have this thing you're used to. But they did terrible stuff with their devices and we really thought through it. And, you know, long story short, we gave them an Amazon Alexa device and we trusted them fully with that device. And the boundaries were built into it. Like there was no tech tension battle arguing over, Oh, what can I look at on this thing? Because it's a non-visual interface to the Internet. And in that moment, what was so cool was that a relationship with them improved. And that was the nugget, that catalyst of wow, intentionally built tech with boundaries around it can deepen relationship. And that's our purpose in life with God, with others. I mean, kind of that couch moment you're talking about with your family, we want that over and over and over again and build that in. And it takes both family habits like you're talking about, but it also takes intentionally design tech. And right now, we're missing that in the big equation.

William Norvell: And since you got the microscope already, but what exactly is your product? Right. And tell us exactly how it works and then turn it back of what Heath say the same thing. You know, we brought you on podcast here. Be self-promotional. Tell us what it does. Tell us how it helps people. Tell us how much it cost. If you if you're so bold, you know.

Chris Kaspar: Buy one, get one free. No I am kidding.

William Norvell: That's our best kind of guest. If you got to buy one, get one free offer, just go, bro.

Chris Kaspar: We'll give you free shipping. So we've got a phone called Wise Phone. And at the end of the day, this is basically what I wanted for my foster kids and this is what I wanted for myself personally. So it's a pure and simple phone. It can call text. It has a few basic tools, maps, clock, calculator, camera. What's more important is what it doesn't do. It doesn't have social media, no games, no access to pornography. You can hand it to the kid out of the box and not worry about it, or you can trust yourself with it. And it's just it works. All the messages, call logs, location, history, sync to a back end family portal. So that's the product in a nutshell. It's really transform lives because the boundaries are set in the device. There's no wiggle room with them. It's improved relationships in the lives of kids and parents. But like I said, 75% of people that use it are adults. And so, yeah, you can buy at our website Techless.com $399 and it will change your life if you commit to using it.

William Norvell: So I'm curious how these are designed, right? I'm going to get into the design here in a minute. Is it a replacement for my smartphone or is it, hey, you know, on Friday night I could press a button, sync it to my wife's phone, take my wife's phone for the weekend and leave my smartphone behind, or is it. No, you're making a choice to, like, be on a more simple phone or both.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah, it could be either. So.

William Norvell: I'm just curious.

Chris Kaspar: Minimalist space. If you're familiar with light phone, it's this cool, sleek, sexy little thing about the size of a credit card. Well, it's great as a secondary device like that weekend trip thing. You know, the battery lasts 6 hours, but we designed ours to be capable of being a primary device. But I'll be honest, when I travel every now and then I'll use an iPhone. And this is my primary phone I use during the week, actually. And then on rare occasions I'll pop my SIM card out and put it in an iPhone, and it's pretty seamless between the two.

William Norvell: Pretty cool. All right Heath, Over to you.

Heath Wilson: Yeah. Aro is a combination of a digital solution. So an app. Right. So, again, we're profound. We're pro technology, we're building a technology business. So we created an app. And that app interfaces with a physical solution, which is a connected device that lives in the home. And the reason we did that, if you know anything about hyper information, most have information starts with a visual cue. Right. And Aro is that beautiful invitation in your family room, in your kitchen, somewhere in that main living area that says, hey, let me hold your phone for a few minutes and when you put your phone, Aro that app automatically connects and starts tracking all of your off screen time. So you talked about screen time earlier, right? We can get into a long debate about whether or not that's helpful. But what is interesting and fun is to look at how much time you spent off screen and to be able to chronicle a journal that and say, hey, look, I spent 8 hours of family time or family dinners or journaling or devotions this past week, intentionally not using my phone and Aro tracks all of that. So effectively we gamify the experience of being off your phone, our websites goAro.com goaro.com and it's a little bit different. We're a membership, so it's a monthly fee. It's anywhere from 12 to $18. That's for the entire family. So I've got four kids. How many kids you have, they can all use the device for the same price.

William Norvell: Yeah. So you buy the device for your home and then you have the monthly membership?

Heath Wilson: No, it's just one price. So you get the device with the membership.

William Norvell: Oh, wow. That's amazing. And I am struck I went to your websites before and I've seen some of them before. I don't know how to ask this. Not semi insulting to some other devices. They're both beautifully designed, esthetically pleasing. You know, you can tell you are really thoughtful and, you know, hey, we don't just want to solve the problem with that. We need to, like, aspire to our consumers, taste right. And it needs to fit in that in the new world in which we find ourselves, where that's something people enjoy. Could you talk us a little bit about your design process, both from a hardware perspective, but also just from you? Were you really thinking about, you know, and what were the non-negotiables in the product design that you just like, hey, this has to be in there or it's not going to achieve its intended purpose?

Heath Wilson: I'd say number one for us is it had to be wife approved. And that's where we started. In fact, we met with interior designers early and said, Hey, this thing has to live in a kitchen or a family room. And if so, if it's going to be visible like it has to stand out, but it also has to fade away. Look, we all have shoeboxes, we all have drawers, we all have cabinets. We could put our phones away if we wanted, Right. But no one's going to put a shoebox in the counter. So it started with it has to be approved by, you know, the wives who led us to start these businesses and who approve all the purchases. And that's everything from kind of a beautiful fabric wrap to wood and a nice weight to it. And more than anything, you know, this was going Aro was going to be a symbol of a family's values. And you know, what they aspired to and what they abided by. So that's where it started. It had to be beautiful to align with those values.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. And for us, I mean, if you look at the kind of Apple versus Microsoft philosophically, we want to be in the Apple category, you know, like the way we look, the way we feel. So this has been a hyper intentional thing. We put tons of money into the design. I mean, I set some crazy design constraints. So when we were talking with we worked with Eddie Lo. He's like the number one rated UX designer on dribble worldwide, and we spent a lot of time with him and I said, Hey, let's build the whole phone with two colors, two fonts and seven icons. And he was like, What? That's crazy. Like, there's literally thousands of things in Google's material design space, and we did it, but it was a pain. Like my developers thought I was crazy. They were looking at me like, Who cares about this? And I'm like, It matters because we want to appeal to kids. And historically, kids devices fail because they're not cool and we just wanted to break past that and get kind of even an iconic cultish following amongst Gen Zers, etc. And part of that is just very intentional design.

William Norvell: Hmm. That's good. Last question for me. I'll turn it back over to Rusty. We all know you've both and run these ventures for years. Right. So my question is, what's the most surprising thing? So you obviously come out, you start with a vision. You wanted to redeem this space. What's something that's really surprised you that maybe could be counterintuitive or may just be a surprise that as you've dug into this, if you've had users use the product as you've come to understand the problem at a deeper level, but something that maybe our listeners are thinking about, that you'd say, you know, this is probably something you haven't thought about yet. Of how we are shocked that this comes out of using our product.

Heath Wilson: The first thing that comes to mind for me is when we concept this, we said this is perfect for families with kids 11 to 14 years old. And certainly we have buyers in that stage of life. But most of the take up has been from younger families. And what's really cool is to see kids five, six, eight year old taking their parents phone, putting it inside of the Aro. You know, we've had some stories where parents can't find their phone and they realize, you know, their child's put it away. And the second part of that story is always the kid saying, you know, why did you do that, son or daughter? And they always say, well, I just get more time with you when your phone's away. So it's been fun to see this. I call it the reverse parental control app ride, the reverse parental control solution, because so much of what's been developed has been a way for for us adults to control what our parents are doing with the phone. And we've really flipped the script with a lot of our early users where the kids are controlling their parents.

William Norvell: Just one quick confession there. I've got a one, two and a four year old. And I'll tell you, just hearing you talk, you know, I think, you know, one of my kid can't have a conversation with they do not talk yet. Right. And the older you bring conversations, it's so easy to think, oh, that time's not as valuable, right? Like building the tower, playing with blocks. And I know that it was, but, you know, hey, I can build a tower and listen to a podcast or I can build a tower and answer this email. I don't know if convicted is the right word, but just thinking about that as you talk, you know, it's like, yeah, my mind's like, Well, yeah, I would never do that with a ten year old. Like, of course they're going to be in conversation with me about their day at school. Like my kids are just playing with blocks all day. But obviously it's important. I mean, that's an empirical fact. I know that this is as big of a trade off.

Heath Wilson: William have so much more influence in their young right. By the time they get phones, you start to lose a little bit of that influence. It becomes more of coaching as you give them responsibility. My co-founder Joe would tell you his story, where his I think his daughter was five or six. He was reading a book and he was reading the book and one hand had his phone in the other hand and his daughter stopped them and said, Hey, dad, this is my favorite page. Let's read this together. And then you can look at your phone. So they notice, right? They notice even at two, three and four they notice. And it's such an opportunity for you to be present with them and to show them that this wonderful rectangle in your pocket is really cool, but it doesn't have a place in those situations.

Rusty Rueff: So I want to ask both of you how you run your companies before we get to that, because I'm sure we hear some entrepreneurs there listening going, Hey, this all sounds good, but, you know, I've got to be always available and I need my team always available. And, you know, they've got all kinds of stress. I'll be thinking about that because I'm going to come back and hear how you guys do it inside your companies. But before we go there, you know, I'm very, very impressed that you guys both have seen something. And you could have I mean, we're entrepreneurs, right? We see a problem to be solved and we go out and we try to tackle that problem. That's where it all starts. But you can also go solve a problem that you think is something and end up being, well, we're just the anti bad guys, right. And try to solve it that way. But you're trying to solve the problem in a very redemptive way, right? Trying to flip the script, if you will, and say, you know, as you said Heath, it's not all bad. Now, how do I take bad and turn it into good in good in so many ways? I'm impressed by that. So thank you. How much of that was influenced by your faith to take that approach?

Chris Kaspar: I mean, I can dive into that. So everything we're doing is driven by and what's so different and unique about what both of us are doing here is that we're following some theology of technology here. I mean, everything is driven by our faith. So yeah, we make a phone. But what's even more important than our phone is we have this set of universal design principles that we apply that the whole team understands and recognizes, and we filter those. We filter every product decision through that. And it really is God's design for technology. And it goes all the way back to Genesis. I mean, literally, I've taught multiple times sermon series on like starting in Genesis, what is actually happening here, what is tech do to us, how does it affect our hearts, what's our perspective towards it, towards God, everything like that. And we've distilled it down to some principles that guide every decision we have and that even if we make more than a phone if we make a computer or television, it's going to fall in line with those principles. So this is the backbone for what we're doing, and it's extremely counter-cultural.

Heath Wilson: I wrote a manifesto back in 2016. That's really how this business started. It was a rambling, chaotic manifesto of this problem, but I put that away for a few years and then I mentioned earlier, I went through a couple of mentoring experiences where, you know, much wiser men poured into me. And part of that experience was the recognition that I mentioned. But it was also understanding this move from success to significance. And I'd had a lot of success in my early career. I had a business that grew well beyond, you know, what I thought it would, and it flourished. And once that was behind me, I just kind of took a step back and said, What do I want to be remembered for? So it's not that like, that was fun and great friends. And, you know, I'm sure there's some cool articles I could reference, but that's not what I want people to say about me when I'm, you know, when I leave this world. So Aro is in a way for me to move into that significant stage and to make an impact. I mean, if we can bend culture even to a degree with the way that we interact with these phones and to be clear, like we are again, pro technology, for us, it's all about the relationship. We always say here, like if you can change relationship with your phone, you change the relationship with everyone around you, everyone. And by the way, including yourself, right? We talk about muscles like building a digital muscles heart. But once you start working on it day by day, you know you can build it up and all of a sudden you're going to wake up with new habits and a new outlook on life. And next thing you know, like last night, you're sitting on the couch having a conversation with your teenagers. It's beautiful.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. And that whole success versus significant thing, I mean, I faced that question even in the product itself on a daily basis. If you think about Zuckerberg, he can turn the dials for how addictive are we or how redemptive are we on some levels. And we had those same choices as product designers ourselves. I mean, our product has chosen to go deeper with a few people at the cost of going wider with thousands, you know, And so I'm weighing those balances. There's things we could do on wise phone to make it a whole lot easier to use and get millions more people. But at the end of the day, the transformation in people's lives would be less. And so we're constantly asking that question. There's a tension there.

Rusty Rueff: I wanted to ask you this question before we go to our lightning round. You know, you both run companies. You both have people who report to you who I'm sure you set high goals and standards and hold people accountable. What are the practical ways that you make sure that your own team doesn't fall into unhealthy habits by being in front of their phone waiting or being in front of their screen trying to get something done and are being called on in hours that they wish they wouldn't be real practical stuff. How do you guys do it?

Heath Wilson: Well, it's such a great question. And I remember having a meeting with the team and I also have a meeting where we were talking about core values. And I made the comment. I said, Look, what we're doing is giving people a way to unplug. The last thing we can do is be hypocrites and be plugged in all the time. So I think one simple way is when it's 11 p.m. and you feel like you need to send that email, don't. Right. And more broadly than that, I would say the urgent and not important let that stuff sit for 24 hours because if you get into the habit as a leader of slacking back late at night or sending an email late at night, people will follow, right? Because they're going to think that is the behavior that's necessary to get ahead before our team. We're still relatively small team. You know, we had those discussions early and maybe that's the other part of the answer is have those discussions early, decide what kind of a culture, decide how connected you're going to be as an organization.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. I mean, just like you're saying, we put hard boundaries around things like our personal and running social media. You're not doing it after hours. You know, just not allowed. We observe a Sabbath as a company, no matter what. Non-negotiable. We have systems like we use eOS, entrepreneur operating system, and that kind of creates some very strong rhythms for us. So problems will be solved. They will be discussed, especially if it's urgent, important. So we lean into those systems. So it's all kind of habit formation and organizational rhythms that mitigate the need for it.

Heath Wilson: Chris before we do lightning round, I got to ask one question that jumps off when you look at your product. I'm sure you have an answer to that. I'm sure. But as of before, my guess is one of the biggest decisions you had to make was whether to put an Internet browser on this thing or not.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah.

Heath Wilson: And you didn't. So if I'm going to speak to my fear when I read this right, I'm like, oh look at the [....] my fear is my team needs to get me. You know, my family's not emailing me like, that's not a fear for my family, right? Or there's some client that needs something or even, you know, now we'll get more superficial or like, somebody sent me a text or something interesting to read, and I can't read it because I got the text, but I can't open anything. Right. Talk us through that decision, how you made it and Yeah.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. So we had this continuum of healthy practical tools all the way to distracting toxic app, right? And you know, games, solo media stuff that all you can eat, stuff that just sucks you in is on the far right side and there's some things in the middle, like music is right in the middle. It's interesting. It it actually helps us mentally sometimes, and sometimes it sucks us away. So there's that continuum and a browser is on the far right side of the continuum. And I think the big thing that made the decision very easy for us is as of right now we are selling trust to parents. If our stuff fails, we lose the trust, the brand dissolves. And so a browser to date, as far as I know, there is no foolproof solution, including people that have been doing this for a decade to make that thing porn free. And so we're just not going there at this moment, and we probably won't for many years until we can maintain 99.99% resolution on that one topic.

Rusty Rueff: All right. We're going to jump to our lightning round. This is where we asked you questions. Take no more than 90 seconds to answer them and we'll punch through them and then we'll close with William. So most embarrassing app or game that you had to reduce access to because it was just taken up way too much time. Heath

Heath Wilson: Well, I'm not a gamer, so thankfully I avoided that trap. Actually, four years ago this month I deleted Facebook finally and fully, so I haven't looked back since then. I would say today, and my Achilles heel has always been work. It's never been, you know, social media or other distracting games. Today it's probably slack, you know, right now, you know, as an early business, every time we get a new customer, we get a notification says, hey, you know, so-and-so signed up and there's an awesome, you know, pride in that. There's a dopamine hit in that. And I've had to kind of temper my engagement of always waiting for the next order. You know, you can do simple things like turn off notifications. But as I said earlier, you know, you're constantly anticipating when that's going to come in. So that's probably what I struggle with most these days, is just making sure I'm not constantly connected to Slack messages.

Chris Kaspar: For me, my background is in film. I did work for Focus on the Family for Chick fil A, and with film you want to see what's, you know, creative input here. And so all of these all you can eat streaming movie services or my downfall like I easily sit and binge watched a whole season of whatever, especially if it was compelling or good or creative. So yeah, I just had to chop that off real quick.

Rusty Rueff: All right, that's good. What's the one activity you both picked up or pick back up since you had more time without your phones?

Heath Wilson: I've had the same New Year's resolution for the past decade, and that was to have quiet time every morning, you know, journal devotional. And I fail every year. And usually it's about the third week of January where I'm, you know, too busy and, you know, just rationalize why I can't do it. This year. I did something different. First, I said I'm going to go analog. I'm not going to you know, I'm not going to use the Bible app, my iPad as an example. And I put my phone into aro mode, as we call it. And why that's important is it tracks streaks. So now I'm on a 46 day streak today of every morning, you know, having anywhere call it 7 minutes to 27 minutes of personal quiet time could be prayer could be journal is journaling every day, but also devotional. I mean, that's been transformational for me, not just the pride of doing it, but also just clarity of thought, the creative thoughts that come out of that time. Of course, you know, my relationship, my Heavenly Father. So that's the habit I've been most proud of this year.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah, Yeah. And for me, kind of like Aro is a physical device. Diving into a physical world is the solution for me. And so I do painting. I have a masters in art and just listen to podcasts like this one, why I paint. But it is kind of in a sense, my quiet time, because the things that I learned spiritually, I realized if I make art around them, they become a true, genuine part of my belief. And if I don't, it just becomes had knowledge and doesn't apply to my life. And I've noticed that trend. And so now I'm kind of actually applying it by pondering these spiritual lessons and creating art around them.

Rusty Rueff: All right, one more for me. What's the best way for us to handle friends, relatives, colleagues, whoever, who get frustrated with us that they can't reach us? 24 seven What's the best way to do it?

Heath Wilson: Oh, man, let me press in on this. I would say that, and I don't mean you Rusty in particular, but I would say we are not that important. I've learned that over and over again. I'm just not that important. And I think you'll be surprised, actually. People respond to your rhythms and they get attuned to your rhythms. So a good example I'm on, you know, I've got a bunch of friends in college and work and we've got a bunch of text groups, but they know if I'm not replying, in fact, they'll even joke about it in the group texts like, Well, he must have his phone in the thing because he's not replying. So again, I think as you start to change the way you communicate and particularly the responsiveness in the way that you communicate, those will adapt. And if there's an emergency, of course call. But at least on the texting front, people will adapt to your rhythms.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. When I switched to wisephone, I just texted. Everyone said, Hey, I've got wisephone. I can't click on links anymore. I can't, you know, whatever. And no one even blinked. It was no big deal. I mean, even my voicemail, I changed it. I don't like voicemail. So I just changed it and said, Hey, if you want to get a hold of me, shoot me a text or an email. And if you don't know my text for an email that I don't need to talk to you and that boundary, everyone, respected and all of a sudden I'm not answering spam calls all the time. So it's been a non-issue setting those boundaries.

Rusty Rueff: I will tell you this really quickly. So for at least the last three years, I'd never turn my ringer on in my phone. Yeah, and the reason I don't do that is because I'm involved in politics and otherwise it's a nonstop right, especially when politicians are trying to raise money. So I just turn it off. I turn it off. And you know what I have to get used to? I have to get used to all my friends go. And he never answers his phone. He never, you know, you know, And I think part of it, too, is you just get tough skin and you just go on about your way. All right. William's all yours.

Heath Wilson: I'm ask one more question before we leave. What's one thing you see that has not been invented in this market that you both find yourself in? That you're like, gosh, I mean, why hasn't somebody done this yet?

Chris Kaspar: Can I have you sign an nda before I tell you what I mean?

Heath Wilson: Nope, nope, nope. Open forum. It's going to millions of people. I think that's our audience now. Yeah, multi millions of people.

Chris Kaspar: So, no, the thing for me is, based on everything we've learned with Wise Phone is that there's this whole group of people that are looking for something that's not quite as extreme as what wise phone is, not this minimalist device. And so what we're really diving into in this next gen product for us is what I'm calling a healthy phone. And it's not minimalist. It actually has advanced functionality, but it has those design principles applied to it. And so there's hard boundaries as well, but it's a whole nother tranche of third party tools that do empower your will. And navigating that, I mean, that's Pandora's box. What do you include? What do you not include? But that's where we're going as a company. And I think that that's going to be potentially transformational culturally. I mean, if we could have some devices with high functionality and healthy, godly boundaries around them.

William Norvell: Amen.

Heath Wilson: , you know, we created a new a new thing or a new category, someone that obviously goes there. But one thing that has surprised me actually is and this is kind of funny, not funny, maybe it's embarrassing, but a lot of times our customers will say, well, Heath, I put my phone down. Now what? Like now what do I do? Right. So I think there's an opportunity actually to lean into that, to provide content, to provide conversation starters, to provide ideas around how to be intentional as a family. I mean, there's so many times where I tell folks all we do at night at dinner, ask highs and lows for the day, like, Oh, that's such a great idea. And to me it's so basic. But I think we are starving as a society for having ideas that align with our values. So, you know, potentially a layer onto our app in terms of pulling in some content, but just, you know, more community around this lifestyle of intentionality.

William Norvell: Awesome. So last question. If you've ever listened to a podcast for we love to invite you to share God's Word with our listeners and just kind of share maybe a scripture. It could be something you read this morning, could be something you've been meditating your whole life, or something that's coming alive to you. A new way to just share a piece of God's word with our audience. And we love to see how that transcends between our guest and and our listeners.

Chris Kaspar: Yeah. So I have four daughters and I've been taking almost over a year now unpacking the epic story of David with lots of details that aren't theologically correct, but just sitting down at bedtime and unpacking that. And we're at this point right now where he wrote kind of his final Psalms. And so it's Psalm, you know, Second Samuel 23, and it's his final words. And just reflecting on, okay, this is important. What a. David Right. It is his final words. And he said these words have stuck out. This was last week. We read this when one ruler rules over people in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he's like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after the rain that brings grass from the earth. And as an entrepreneur speaking to other entrepreneurs, just the power that we've been entrusted with to bring life to the people that we are working with is just immense. I mean, that was what David unpacked at his final word. So I'm chewing on that right now.

Heath Wilson: Love that, Chris. Well, I mentioned my 46 day streak of reading, and I'm actually reading the Bible chronologically this year. So I'm trudging through Leviticus right now. But when I was in job, I think it's chapter 37, he talks about the Lord's voice booming or thundering in marvelous ways, I think he says. And it just so happened that same day I was reading Job that I was reading a devotional that talked about the exact same thing. So for me, it was just it was kind of God's voice booming to say, Hey, listen to me, right? I know you're making an effort, but now's the time to listen. So that was an invitation for me to really listen and pay more attention, because I do want him to speak marvelously. I do want him to thunder down into my life.

William Norvell: Amen. Well, thank you both for joining us. I know we are. I'm a more thoughtful person. I may or may not have to go get approval to buy some products. I work through that myself, but really grateful for each of you. Good. Super quick website that everybody can find you on.

Heath Wilson: It's goaro.com. goaro.com.

Chris Kaspar: In Techless.com. t e c h l e s s.com.

William Norvell: Awesome. Thank you both for joining us. This is a true gift. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Heath Wilson: Thanks, brother.

Chris Kaspar: Yep. Thank you.