Stuart Arnott's invention, Minding's, is aiming to change
the way families interact. It started as a way of his parents
seeing their granddaughter grow up and has now developed into
a service that enables people to send personal,
captioned photos, text messages, calendar reminders, or Facebook
content to a digital photo frame: instantly from their mobile
phone.
5 seconds: Sum your business up in a sentence
Mindings
lets you effortlessly share meaningful moments with your family
from your mobile phone - personal captioned photos, text messages,
calendar reminders and much more appear instantly on a digital
photo frame they need never even touch.
5-10 seconds: What's the business model?
Mindings is a subscription service, likely paid for by someone
wanting to be better connected to an older family member. We are
also licensing our technology to hardware manufacturers and
healthcare providers.
10-15 seconds: Who are your competitors?
Social media services such as Facebook, hardware manufacturers
such as Kodak and Sony, and consumer TeleCare manufacturers of
which there are sadly few.
15-20 seconds: What's your USP?
I'm better connected to people I deliberately lost touch with
over the years than with the people I really care about. Mindings
addresses that, and enables my technology-shy family to enjoy the
benefits of social media, without them having to learn how to use a
computer or a complicated mobile phone.
20-25 seconds: How have you funded it so far?
My background is multimedia production. I do occasional
production work to fund each stage of creation. That plus credit
cards and a supportive wife...
25-30 seconds: What were you doing before?
I ran a multi-award-winning production company, until I was
taking too many days off creating Mindings.
30-35 seconds: Where did the idea come from?
My Dad is my constant inspiration. In his day he was a great
mechanic and DIY fanatic and he could fix anything. Today he lives
alone, 500 miles away from me, and he's technologically
disconnected from the world. I wanted to send him pictures of his
grandaughter and help him live independently. There was
nothing out there that could do that, so I built it myself.
35-40 seconds: What's the smartest thing you've done so
far?
Taking lots of advice along the way. I have a brilliant business
coach and I surround myself with smart people.
40-45 seconds: What's the stupidest?
Ignoring the old engineering maxim, "it will take longer and
will cost more".
45-50 seconds: If your business was a biscuit, what would
it be?
A biscuit from an old-fashioned tin of Rover biscuits. My Dad
kept a collection of odd screws, nuts and bolts, and bits and bobs
in one. There was nothing that couldn't be fixed by something in
that magical tin.
50-55 seconds: Which idea are you a bit jealous
of?
The Tidy Books bookshelf www.tidy-books.com that's in my
three-year-old daughter's bedroom. Such a beautifully simple idea
that, amazingly, no-one had thought of before, with an inspiring
story and creator behind it.
55-60 seconds: Where are you going to be in 12 months'
time?
My dream is that every room in every care home in the country
will have a Mindings frame in it, connecting people to their family
no matter how far apart they are. If I've made a start to making
that a reality I'll be happy.
For more information about Minding's, click
here