Eddy Zhong had no prior experience in the field of entrepreneurship, but has shown that to create a successful tech-startup you do not need to. At age seventeen, Zhong started up a technology company called Blanc Inc that manufactured smart watches unlike any other kind. The Blanc Smartwatch, called Spark, is a motion censored watch that vibrates when it senses the user is falling asleep. The estimated revenue for the first year of the watch is projected to make $70,000. The target market for Spark is to students, medical professionals, and security guards who tend to have trouble staying awake. The price for the Spark is between $50 to $100.
Zhong got the idea from his brother, who had difficulty staying awake during a test after studying too much. To build his prototype without funding, Zhong used his connections through friends and school. His startup work force composes of other high school students like himself and first worked out of the Cambridge Innovation Center.
After establishing Blanc Inc., Eddy dropped out of high school. In addition to Eddy’s start up business, he has invested in a summer camp with a concentration of entrepreneurship. It will be called Leangap and is targeted for teenagers. Students that are looking to attend Leangap have come from across the world. The program will be the first of its kind and involve building and coding. Leangap will be held in Cambridge, MA, which is Eddy’s hometown.
Zhong will continue to enterprise. He also looks to attend Babson College, which has the most prestigious program in entrepreneurship.
Wow, I need this! Not for this class though 🙂 .
Well, I just looked up the watch and to my disappointment, it seems to have disappeared after its introduction in 2014. It seems like Zhong vanished after being funded by the $23k KickStarter, failing to deliver like many KickStarters have.
The idea behind the watch seems relatively sound. With the introduction of other, more feature-rich, smartwatches, I’m not sure this watch could compete. Either way, the entrepreneurial process Zhong went through was interesting, first identifying the problem with his brother and then expanding his target market as much as possible. And then he was able to gather enough publicity to raise $23k on false promises and lies, what an idea! Sorry, I’m a bit cynical.