Dan Evans, class of ’07, is the founder and CEO of Babba, a startup with the world’s 1st baby bottle, cooler and warmer. Before that, he co-founded RecoverX, a company that revolutionized cold and heat therapy and was later acquired by Hyperice. Dan is a graduate of Calvin University and Duke University.
Interview with Isaac Milton, LCA Director of Development
So you launched Babba, the first baby bottle that actively cools and warms. What inspired that innovation? Is there a problem that you were passionate about solving through the product?
Yes! It all started when my wife and I got pregnant with our first child, and we always valued traveling and even doing day outings. Our friends would tell us that it all kind of ends once you have a child, because of how you need to bring the child and all of the stuff that goes along with the baby. To cool the baby’s milk on the go, you usually have to bring a cooler bag with an ice pack to put the bottle in, and then to warm it, you’re usually stopping at a restaurant or Starbucks to ask them for a cup of hot water to dunk the bottle in. So it really stemmed from my wife’s problem of how do you cool and warm a milk on the go? And with Recover X, doing the world’s first battery powered ice pack and heating pad, I knew the world of portable cooling and heating. I had done a startup before and I thought this would be a really interesting problem to solve with the expertise that I already have.
At one point I believe you also explained it as being related to your transition from athlete to dad. What else did you learn in developing RecoverX that you brought with you into launching Babba?
I have learned so much through the five year journey of RecoverX. From how you start a company to how you raise capital. The big thing was the engineering side of it–the technology that we’re using is called thermal electronics, and it’s quite a challenging and limiting technology to use. There’s only a few circumstances that you could use it in that makes sense, so I was looking for something that I could use the technology for next. But, you’re exactly right! In my early twenties and mid twenties I was more of an athlete, and now that I’m in my early and now mid thirties, I’m much more of a dad, and so my priorities have changed. It’s kind of nice that the problem that I’m solving has adapted with my life stages.
Can you tell us a bit more about the launch of Babba from last Fall?
I’ve launched the product on our website babbacare.com and on Shopify–a popular platform that early startups use. We’re running Ads and partnering with influencers to get the awareness of the product out there. Next steps would be to partner with retailers, which would include baby boutiques. I’m in San Diego, so I’m talking to local baby shops around here that would want to partner with us. The goal would be to share the website or sell the product in their stores and eventually selling at larger retailers would be the ultimate goal. Whether that’s Target Walmart, or Best Buy, the goal is for Babba to be present in every retailer.
Is there any encouragement you’re hoping this product model could give other aspiring entrepreneurs?
They do say “hardware is hard.” With consumer electronics, it takes a lot of time to create a physical product. There’s a lot of different disciplines within it: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, firmware and software engineering. It’s always a challenge and any startup is but I think hardware has its own specific and unique challenges. I went to Calvin for electrical engineering, went to Duke for biomedical engineering, and then started my early career more focused on mechanical engineering. So I have a little bit of experience in all of those, which is why it’s helped me start with RecoverX, and now, Babba. It’s certainly been a challenge and has been a long time coming. Babba took about two and a half or three years to develop before we launched it. And now that we’ve launched it, I’m transitioning my focus from engineering and manufacturing to marketing and sales!
If you think back to your LCA experience, are there moments or people that shaped who you are now in your mid-thirties on launching your second company?
I’ve always gravitated towards sports at LCA. I think that’s kind of where I was shaped the most. Sports at LCA taught me to work hard and practice, but also just as importantly, they taught me the lesson that just because you work hard you’re not guaranteed any outcome. I think this is very much in line with the business world. You’re working hard, your competitors are working hard, and I, for one, try to out-work people, but that’s tough to do. There’s only so many hours in a day, and especially as a parent of two young kids, I can’t really outwork people like I used to. But it’s awesome to use that grit and those life skills I learned out on the soccer field and basketball court and translate that to Babba.
How would you encourage an LCA student that has a passion for entrepreneurship? Or maybe just an initial interest. What should they be focused on now?
I’ve personally just had to dive in. There’s a lot of great content. I listen to “How I Built This” a lot which is a popular podcast that interviews startup founders and takes you through the journey of what it was like when they started, the challenges they faced and the success that they had. I think that was kind of my first iteration of falling in love with entrepreneurship when listening to that podcast. I also just encourage everybody to just start something, whether it’s painting or doing yard work for neighbors. It doesn’t have to look like a tech startup. There are many ways to get into business. I went to grad school, but a lot of people get their MBA. And I think starting any sort of startup, any sort of business is much more beneficial. You learn way more doing that than going to advanced schooling. So I’m just a promoter of just trying it, and a lot of times the only way to learn business and small business and startups is just to start something. It doesn’t need to be the thing that you do for the rest of your life, but you’ll just learn so much whether it’s just for the summer or for a year or two. I think it’s the best way to learn.
You graduated 18 years ago, but you’ve stayed connected to LCA, agreeing to interviews like this, and we were fortunate to get an early product demo for RecoverX about 7 years ago. You’ve been an ambassador and supporter of the school. What drives your ongoing heart for what we’re doing now at LCA?
Good question! I’ve always felt very connected to LCA. I went there 6th grade through 12th grade and my older sister went there as well. Those are the most formative years of one’s life, and I feel very grateful for having experienced LCA and the friends that I’ve made there, and the connections I’ve made. LCA has had a huge impact on me and I just like to give back. Whether that’s through connecting with LCA students or sharing my journey, or hopefully inspiring others to do entrepreneurship or startups, I just know being exposed to startups can make a huge impact on whether somebody ends up going into that industry or not. A lot of LCA alumni are doing some amazing things. I’m just one of them. I have an interesting story…a unique story, but I know LCA alums are set up very well, and a lot of them are doing amazing things!
What sort of positive feedback have you already heard about Babba so far?
Great question! With Babba, you take the bottle off of the device, and parents would then put their breast milk in the stainless steel bottle which keeps the milk insulated, and then you attach our device to the top and flip it over. You press the button and it cools breast milk down to refrigerated levels and can actually cool even faster than a fridge. The vision originally was that parents would take this on the go. They could put it in a cup holder, and then they cool it for a few hours and then when it’s time to warm their breast milk prior to feeding the baby, they press the button, and it changes from cooling to warming. The LED light goes from blue to red and in a couple of minutes they have nice warm milk. They take the bottle off of the base, add a nipple over the top to the bottle, and feed their child!
One of the things I wasn’t expecting and was pleasantly surprised by is how many parents are using this for night feedings. What parents are doing is putting it on their counter, loading it with their baby’s next bottle. They’ll cool it and go to bed, and then not think about it. When they hear the baby stirring or waking up they’ll just lean over and press a button and warm up the bottle. One of my LCA classmates told me that was his favorite feature of the product! He purchased Babba, and he and his wife are using it right now. I created the device to be for out on the go, and although people are liking that aspect, I would say the equally beneficial aspect is how much it facilitates easy night feedings for new parents. That was encouraging to see! You kind of throw it out into the wild, and you don’t really know how customers will use it, what mistakes they’ll make, what examples they’ll use it for, so just talking to customers is a constant thing that I try to do. I call people after they order, see why they order and what the journey was for making the decision to order Babba after they receive it. I’m constantly trying to improve the product and trying to talk to customers and make sure that they’re satisfied and happy with their purchase. It’s certainly been a fun experience thus far!
How did you come up with the name for Babba?
Originally I was looking for an endearing term for a caregiver. Whether it’s a mom, dad or grandma, English doesn’t have many good words for that. There’s “nanny” and “babysitter,” and neither one of those are very endearing. In other languages “Baba” or “Abba” are respectful, endearing terms for either a dad or a grandmother. That’s how I originally discovered the word spelled B-A-B-A. “Baba” is also one of the first words a lot of babies say, especially when they reference their bottle. To me it clearly signified “this is a baby product brand.” I wanted to get away from it being a tech brand. There’s a lot of technology and innovation behind the product. But new moms just want to see that it works and that it’s caring and is given to their child with care, but also that it is a good product. I really wanted to lean into the soft muted colors for the logo and a cute name for the brand itself.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about LCA or Babba?
Though I’ve always gravitated towards the sports aspect, I probably could have had a great sports experience in many places. LCA, though, really stood out in academics. When I meet up with my LCA classmates I ask them “would you send your kids to LCA?” And a lot of them talk about the amazing academics that they had that set them up for college. I remember my freshman year of college during chemistry class looking around thinking “I learned all of this in high school. Why am I repeating this in college?” And my classmates were looking at me saying “this is so hard. I’ve never learned any of this.” I think that was just a great example of how well LCA prepared us for college, or whatever we did afterwards. Mr. Hoffman was my teacher, and prepared me super well for college. I think that’s what I, and certainly my classmates, resonate with–how amazing the academics are. I think I took it for granted when I was at LCA, because that was my high school experience, and that was my friend’s high school experiences. I kind of figured everyone had those same challenges and learning through academia. But it opened up my eyes a lot when I got to college just how great LCA prepared us.
