Of all the Small Business Development Centers in all the towns in all the world, Taylor Cole walked into TritTech SBDC, where he met Jay Goth.
That meeting eight years ago has turned into a quest to find early adopters for a new storytelling technology that is going to change the lives of 500 families who have a child with autism.
The company they created is Burble Creativity , which is bringing families back together by offering, in Goth’s words, “a new kind of campfire.”
The product from the Riverside-based company is a tent that offers an advanced environment of lighting and sounds that bring stories to life while encouraging imagination and collaboration.
“Taylor said his idea was kind of like if you’re sitting around in the stone age telling stories around a campfire,” said Goth, CEO of Burble. “He said everybody’s hearing the same story, but they’re looking into the fire, and they’re imagining their own story, their own way of perceiving that story.”
Cole asked Goth if he thought there could be a business behind this idea. He also asked if it should be a non-profit or a for-profit company. Goth said there are benefits to both approaches.
“But I’m a big believer in capitalism,” says Goth. “I think if you have a new idea and you bring it to market, then the capitalist way will get it out there better than if you start a charity and ask people to fund you for an altruistic cause.”
Goth believed Cole’s idea would get faster traction if they skipped the non-profit route.
“Taylor decided to form Burble as a for-profit company, and he put me on the board of directors,” says Goth.
In seven years, Taylor raised $350,000 to develop the technology from private investors, mostly Taylor’s family and friends.
Jay Goth Autistic Kids Identified As The Greatest Need But the journey hit a roadblock.
“Burble tried doing a non-equity crowdfunding campaign, more like a Kickstarter campaign, and it was underfunded,” said Goth. “They got a lot of responses from people, but they weren’t able to get over a threshold to where they could actually sell the product.”
Goth advocated they should narrow the initial niche. While the Burble tent is good for any kid, where was there the greatest need? In entrepreneur parlance, where was the lowest-hanging fruit?
After many demonstrations, they found that children who are on the autism spectrum responded extremely well to the whole immersive, minimally defined storytelling experience.
Burble execs reasoned that if they went after that niche and identify that as their top priority, many parents of kids with autism would love to see this tent in their house.
“If autism families could invest in the company to make it possible for them to get the tent, then I think they would do that,” said Goth. “So that’s how we developed the whole crowdfunding idea around the autism spectrum.”
Goth says Burble is dedicated to making a positive impact in the autism community through innovative technology and meaningful partnerships.
Startling statistic: Autism affects over 1.5 million families in the United States, according to estimates from the Center for Disease Control. Properly called autism spectrum disorder, it is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.
About one in six children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability, as reported by parents, during a study period of 2009–2017. These included autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others.
Now along comes the Burble Story Tent, which uses a provisionally patented concept called minimally defined immersion to create a reading experience that sparks imagination, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
“Think of our tent as a personal sensory room,” says Goth. “While traditional sensory rooms can cost thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars, we’ve made the Burble Story Tent affordable at just $499, with a $5 monthly subscription for the app. We believe it offers unparalleled value for the price, making immersive storytelling accessible to everyone.”
For The Love of Horses But if it wasn’t for a woman’s love of horses, Goth and Cole would never have met that fateful day eight years ago.
Goth was a successful entrepreneur from Colorado with experience in the hospitality, energy, finance, and technology verticals. As a founding executive of Commonwealth Energy, he helped the company go from start-up to almost $500 million in revenues in five years, becoming the largest unregulated supplier of electricity and natural gas in the country when the company went public on the AMEX.
Goth met his future wife in the 1980s in Denver when he was running a small child safety product business at the time. She had been in real estate, but her real dream was to be an equestrian.
“She was right up front,” recalled Goth. “She said, ‘A couple of things you need to know about me. I ride horses and they’re very expensive.”
Goth replied, “Well, I’m an entrepreneur, and I plan on making a lot of money, so we’ll buy you some horses.”
They married in 1990, moved to Orange County, California, and eventually settled in Temecula.
Every morning at 6 a.m., the couple goes to the barn together to care for the horses. After his chores, he goes to work for Burble, and she works at the barn until the day is done.
The Race For Early Adopters Has Begun In October Burble relaunched its website to spread its plans. Years of research, design, testing and improvements have brought Burble to the stage where they are ready to deploy its first 500 tents to families.
“That requires more funding,” says Goth. “Our plan is to offer these first tents to qualified investors from our proposed future crowdfunding round. As they use them, they will be able to provide valuable feedback to us as we prepare our first high-volume commercial run.”
Starting in November these early adopters will get the first tents that come off the commercial production line. Once they receive them, Burble will ask them to donate their original tents to a local nonprofit who can then deliver them to families in need.
“Taylor’s passion and vision had me hooked immediately,” said Goth. “I believe in Burble’s mission and have put my money where my mouth is.”
Henry DeVries is the author of 20 books and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Indie Books International in Oceanside, California.
Copyright © 2024 California Business Journal. All Rights Reserved.
