Martin Källström

Narrative's Clip-On Camera | One Lap

TechCrunch2014-10-034:061920x1080 original source ↗

Narrative has created and brought to market a small wearable camera that captures your daily routine with photos taken every 30 seconds all day long. The magic in Narrative is how the hardware and software work together. Rob Coneybeer interviews Narrative founder Martin Källström to talk hardware and learn more about building a company in Sweden. Subscribe to TechCrunch today: http://goo.gl/eg167 One Lap with Rob Cooneybeer takes entrepreneurs out of their comfort zone to see what they're really made of.

In this recording — 18 extracted moments
click any row to play that moment
factMartin had never worked with hardware before launching Narrative.0:40factNarrative Clip is a wearable camera that clips onto clothing or a necklace.0:45factNarrative Clip captures 2 photos per minute for 36+ hours of continuous battery life.0:52factNarrative's app organizes photos into moments (natural events in a day) and displays keyframes on a timeline.0:52factThe Narrative app uses a quality score system to filter out photos that don't provide information.1:15factMartin Källström is a software engineer by background who came to hardware through the Narrative camera project.1:33factMartin's idea for Narrative came from realizing how small cameras had become through mobile phone technology.1:36factMartin finds working with physical hardware products deeply rewarding.1:48factPrivacy was a central design principle for the Narrative camera from the start of the project.1:54factNarrative deliberately designed the camera to look clearly like a camera to avoid appearing to spy on people.1:54factNarrative Clip has a friendly and neat industrial design.1:54factNarrative has a dedicated team of 5 hardware engineers to handle miniaturization and physical product development.2:22factMartin emphasizes how much can go wrong in hardware development and the iterative trial-and-error nature of the work.2:22factSweden has a strong ecosystem for startups with accelerators and government-backed soft loans.2:51factSweden has strong engineering talent available for startups.3:09factFinding experienced startup professionals in marketing and product management is difficult in Sweden due to limited supply.3:13factMartin has children with whom he captures personal moments using the Narrative Clip.3:39factNarrative captures serendipitous moments and perspectives that a traditional camera user would not typically capture.3:55
Transcript

[00:00:25] Speaker A: I'm Rob Koniebierer. I'm here at Thunderhill Raceway with Martin Källström of Narrative.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: Hi.

[00:00:32] Speaker A: Martin's about to give us his Narrative and talk about his product. We're headed out on the raceway right now. Have you been out on this track before, Martin?

[00:00:40] Speaker B: Never, ever.

[00:00:43] Speaker A: Tell me about Narrative. What's your product?

[00:00:45] Speaker B: My product is a wearable camera, the Narrative Clip. It clips on your clothing or a necklace.

[00:00:51] Speaker A: OK.

[00:00:52] Speaker B: And it takes 2 photos a minute for 36 hours or more. We organize the photos in an app for iPhone and Android. So you can search and share. We segment the day into We break it down into natural events that we call moments, and then we bring out a keyframe for each moment, and the keyframes end up on a timeline in the app. You can tap into them to see the full sequence of photos.

[00:01:14] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: We have a quality score for each photo, so we can hide the bad ones that doesn't provide any information.

[00:01:21] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:01:21] Speaker B: You can still access all of them through the app. Wow, this is amazing.

[00:01:31] Speaker A: How'd you come up with this idea?

[00:01:33] Speaker B: I'm a software guy by trade.

[00:01:35] Speaker A: OK.

[00:01:36] Speaker B: When I realized how small you actually could make a camera nowadays with the technology that has come out of mobile phones. Right.

[00:01:45] Speaker A: Had you worked with hardware before?

[00:01:46] Speaker B: Never, ever.

[00:01:47] Speaker A: Never?

[00:01:47] Speaker B: No.

[00:01:48] Speaker A: OK.

[00:01:48] Speaker B: It's really amazing to work with a physical product. I really love that.

[00:01:52] Speaker A: Well, do you worry about privacy at all?

[00:01:54] Speaker B: Of course, yeah. It's been a big point of our product design from the start. We spent a lot of time figuring out how to build a product where you recognize that it's a camera, because it's really important that you're not perceived You can't see that you're spying on people. That's the intent. It has a very friendly, neat design. OK. Oh!

[00:02:15] Speaker A: It's OK. This is the part of the track everybody knows.

[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:20] Speaker A: What's been the biggest surprise about working in hardware?

[00:02:22] Speaker B: Well, how much that can go wrong, basically. How much trial and error it is to work with hardware. We have 5 hardware people on the team. And that's really excellent, because we would never outsource consultants doing the same kind of tedious Engineering that way, miniaturizing the technology as far as we can.

[00:02:48] Speaker A: So Sweden, what's it like starting a company in Sweden?

[00:02:51] Speaker B: It's really good actually. There's a really good system, like a network of accelerators, and you can get really good funding up front with governmental soft loans.

[00:03:03] Speaker A: So there's government incentives, it sounds like.

[00:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:05] Speaker A: Outside of the government incentives, what's it like finding people?

[00:03:09] Speaker B: What's it like culturally? Engineering is really good.

[00:03:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah?

[00:03:13] Speaker B: When you look at different aspects like marketing, product, then you actually need to be pretty connected and find the really good people. Because the people with experience actually working in startups is very limited.

[00:03:37] Speaker A: Do you have a favorite picture so far?

[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I have a few pictures of my kids that I really love. I have a picture where my friend's nose is prolonged through the bottom of a wine glass, and his dog is looking on, and they look the same. Oh, wow!

[00:03:53] Speaker A: That's like a shot you would never take with a regular camera.

[00:03:55] Speaker B: Exactly. And you just— the serendipity of it is pretty awesome at times. This was a great experience, Rob.

[00:04:02] Speaker A: Hey, thanks for making the drive up.

[00:04:05] Speaker B: I appreciate it.