Alex Klein is a 32 year old entrepreneur from London, England. He is most notable for being the co-founder of Kano Computing. In 2013 when Klein was fresh out of college, his 6 year old cousin raised concern for the fact that building a computer was hard and that he wanted it to be just as easy as building with Legos. Thus, Alex and his older brother Saul created a Kickstarter to raise money for research and development of a computer that was easy to put together and could teach children how to use computers at a basic level. One of the early contributors to the development of Kano was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Since the development of their first computer kit, they have entered partnerships with Disney and Microsoft for tech related products. In 2019, Klein became friends and spent a lot of time with another famous entrepreneur, Kanye West. Since their friendship took off, Kanye has invested money in Kano and Kanye has made Alex the lead for YZY Tech where he came out with their first breakthrough product, the Stem Player.
Klein’s story is unique because he took a simple question from his cousin and has transformed it into a multi-million dollar tech company making strides outside of the world of computers. The idea of the Kano Computer Kit is fascinating as Alex and his brother did everything they could to cut down on the components of a computer and also make the set up so simple a child could do it. When it comes to innovation, Klein has pushed for new technological creations in recent years. With his newest device Stem Player, he has made a handheld music editing device which allows the user to split or “stem” songs into isolated sections such as main vocals, background vocals, snare, and 808’s. Alex Klein is a very inspiring entrepreneur in the tech world as he showed that even the smallest questions brought into our lives should not be passed up as there might be a new innovative field to come from it.
This is a very well thought out blog post. I like how you made the idea very easy to understand and shows you have done some research on the topic. Alex was able to figure out what he wanted to do in the world even though he was just out of college and figured out a need for what people with making it easier for people to build computers.
I think that this review on Klein is written very well. It is fascinating how the common concern and need for a problem to be solved are not limited in age throughout the business world. His 6-year-old cousin helped him bring forth his entrepreneurship mind. Although I do not build computers I could imagine how hard it is to build them and this new development attracts more toward this field of work. Not to mention the fact that he was able to work with Disney and Microsoft, it is impressive as is. Big companies definitely helped further his products and ideas. I am glad that he was able to get help through Kanye West and develop new forms of technology.
It’s so interesting to see how some idea are formed. Often I think of people having breakthrough/eureka moments instead of slow, calculated growth. The fact that Alex Klein was able to build an entire business around a simple question from his cousin is particularly inspiring.
This is so cool to see how a slight tweak to an already ginormous market can find success as a new product. It is great to see others investing and seeing the success this could have. Not only by crowdfunding, but it is also great to see great minds invest in him! I enjoyed the idea of building a computer as a kid and thankfully was able to in my teenage years, but it is hard to understand them earlier. What a great idea to take something kids already love, Legos, and implement that idea into computers.
Building a proper computer definitely is not easy, even for adults sometimes. So making a kit that a six-year-old can use would be revolutionary. And can help younger kids not get frustrated and give up. Clearly by the list of big names he is connected with he is for sure good at what he does. And even though I do not personally own a stem player I have seen them and they are a very fun and cool piece of technology to play with.