Grayson Allen is the co-founder of Halen, a company that makes GateSense, a WiFi-enabled smart lock for any gate, and LaundrySense, a device that turns any old washer into a smart washer that can send you status notifications about your laundry. He’s also the creator of TopoCase, a highly customizable 3D phone case. In this interview, Taylor and Grayson talk about what he’s learned from building these businesses and how layering those skills has helped him to be more prepared for future businesses.
On starting Halen:
- Started with an idea around pools – because Arizona has a lot of pools and drownings
- In college, there was a startup competition that he entered with a buddy – and they got $1,000 in funding
- They won a few more competitions and now they have a working prototype and are looking to raise some funding or find a strategic partnership
- Has been working on it for about 3 years now and has won about $50k – which doesn’t go as far as you’d think
- Started with an idea called PoolSense and eventually developed it into GateSense
On raising funding as a college student:
- ASU has a program called Venture Devils, and many other schools have similar programs
- If you’re willing to take a risk and put in the work, you can kind of try and fail for free
- Even if you don’t win – you’ll get really great feedback
- It’s “Free Money” because they don’t take funding, but it’s also a ton of work
On GateSense:
- Retroactively installs into any gate
- Has a radio in it that connects with a home gateway and connects to the internet, and it’s solar-powered
- You can unlock and lock it remotely and check the status of the gate from your phone
- Aiming to help provide peace of mind for homeowners
- There are great gate locks, but they don’t tell your phone if it’s open or closed – GateSense does that.
- Can provide access times where the gate won’t open
- People are less willing to pay money for a smart pool gate than a smart side gate – which is… interesting…
On LaundrySense:
- Came about because they needed money
- He and his wife were doing lots of laundry at his in-law’s home and the laundries were super fancy and obnoxious to use
- His other founders had similar problems, so they built a prototype and it worked
- It’s a product that retails for $40
- It has a bunch of sensors in it, senses the movement of the machines, learns the movement of the machines, and learns how to predict the timing of the machine
On TopoCase:
- Realized that the 3-D printer he was using for prototyping things for GateSense could be used in other ways and started making phone cases with topographical designs on them
On skills learned as an entrepreneur:
- Thinks everyone should start a business
- It’s not that expensive to get started and start testing what’s working
- When he started he didn’t know what he was doing, he just started learning – he would look at what other people were doing and copy them at first
- Is grateful that he learned those skills because now he can start things way faster
On growth:
- To him, growth means progress
- If you’re not trying to learn, improve, and progress – you’re not growing
- If you are, even if you’re not getting rich, you’re learning important skills that will help you down the road
Following and supporting Grayson & his work:
