The U.K.-based Wearable-Tech Company with a Unique,
Zen Message to “Embrace the Moment”

Wearable technology is growing at a tremendous rate and flourishing in popularity worldwide. With new ideas for the integration of health and wellness into small wearables happening every day, innovation is key. Although the hub of this fashion trend is most prominent in the U.S., founder of Kovert Designs Kate Unsworth is beginning to boom her company through the U.K. and Europe with its first line, Altruis.  

It is the first wearable product to launch under Kovert, which prides itself on specializing in “creating products to help you be the best version of yourself.” The business, dreamt up by Unsworth in 2013, was a mighty effort – manifesting fashion-savvy, efficiency, and mindfulness — to take a step back from the constant contact and notifications she received 24/7 in her busy lifestyle of management consulting across many timezones.

Proclaimed as “digital detox jewelry,” Altruis is a high tech, micro-electronic stone — acting as an elegant piece of jewelry – that has the ability to connect through a smartphone to filter out the cyber “noise” of your daily life, with only crucial, carefully pre-selected notifications reaching you. In this modern age, stepping back from ever-evolving and more powerful technology is essential, and the goal of this young startup is to make your digital life more “mute,” so you can endure the moment at hand without the glow of a screen in your face.

A Unique Path to Founder of a Cutting-Edge Company
Unsworth’s creative side shone through at an early age, with her childhood dream to become a DJ. While she was growing up, her electronic engineer father encouraged her to rewire and create the sound systems she needed, rather than buying her own equipment. As her curiosity into the electronic and mathematical side of music and frequencies blossomed, she began to pursue a degree with courses heavy in statistics, matrices, and geometry. “Kind of by accident really, twenty percent of that degree involved basic-level coding, so that was my first real insight into the software side of things. Then I did a post-grad in economics/econometrics, where again twenty percent of that degree was coding,” she says.

After acquiring a career in management consulting, her company sent her to India for a few months to learn Java software, and while there, she became acquainted with a lifestyle of mindfulness, yoga, and meditation, which influenced her view of the optimum way to manage work pressure, and helped give birth to Kovert Designs.

Following are her detailed, smart, and clearly articulated answers to the SharpHeels Q&A, a must-read for any stress-out professional.

What sparked the initial idea of Altruis?
When I was working as a consultant, I got to the stage where I was basically always burnt-out:  I  was working for a client who was operational across a number of different time zones, which meant that I was online all the time. I just couldn’t help it, because it was so accessible — so I’d become really “operational” and “head-down” and not very present.

I wanted to test as to whether or not the main issue was my smartphone, so I went offline for a few weeks; I just switched my phone off, and still carried on working, but made an agreement with my boss and clients that I would be in front of my computer between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day to respond to emails, but at 5 p.m., I would walk out of the office, leave my computer there, and wouldn’t have a phone.  In effect, I was uncontactable until 9 a.m. the next day and on weekends.

What happened was this: I found that it completely changed my outlook on life. It made me reconnect with the “India version” of myself and allowed me to really be present, listen to what people were saying, and appreciate what was around me. It made me happier — I got more inspired, and interestingly, my productivity didn’t go down. I was getting the same amount of work done, even though I was working half the amount of time, because I forced myself to be very disciplined and focused in that time period.

So, when I came back online, I made a commitment to myself to try to find a way to harness that feeling and bring it back to my daily life, but it lasted just a few weeks, and then I slipped back into my old habits. What I realized was that even though I had all the intention in the world to fix this part of my life, I didn’t have the right tools – and that’s where the idea for Altruis was born.

Give insight on “digitally disconnecting” and how your company is aiding in making it a universal idea?
The main feature is that it allows you to take a step away from your phone, and be less dependent on it. It does that by allowing you to set different profiles and specify which notifications filter through to make the jewelry vibrate.

So if I’m expecting an important phone call and I’m at dinner or in a meeting, I don’t have to sit with my phone out in front of me. I can leave it out of sight — which means out of mind — and it allows me to focus on the conversation at hand. This forces you to pause and say “OK, what is crucial in the next two hours, and is there anything that I would excuse myself for?’ Even just that first step of forcing you to consider what is important is a really good start, but the thing that is more difficult to crack is the habit of checking.

What book would you recommend and why?
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg. It’s so interesting because there are so many components to habit restructuring that you don’t really think about, and that’s what we’re trying to do essentially. For me, on a professional level, with Kovert, the most important piece of the puzzle is getting the product right, so that it really helps people, but then there’s this whole other piece to it, the habit-formation and willpower as well, that I just mentioned – i.e. training yourself and weaning yourself away from automated habit.

What we’re really trying to do is two-fold: we are a design company building products to help people “live this Kovert lifestyle,” but we’re also trying to lead a movement as well, and have this public conversation about how we can improve our habits and change the etiquette around communications.

Talk a bit about your co-founders, and how to find the right ones.
I was invited to a dinner party and I sat next to Dan. Basically I spent the whole dinner party interviewing him, trying to figure out what type of person he was, and I left thinking “This is exactly the person I want to start my business with.” I decided to pitch the idea to him and he loved it, quit his job and joined. He’s the perfect co-founder because we’re very much the yin and yang. We have very complementary skill sets: Dan is very data-driven, process-driven, and detail-oriented. He’s like the anchor for the company, keeps everything stable, and keeps everything running.

Then, while it took me nine months to find Fabio, our CTO, about two minutes into our meeting with him, Dan and I just looked at each other, and were like “Yeah, this is our guy,” so we offered him a job, and he turned us down straight away. But then he came onboard. What’s fabulous about him is he’s so analytical and thorough that initially I spent six weeks responding to the longest emails from him — because he wanted to know every single thing that was in my head, and about everything to do with our strategy and the financing. It was such early days that we hadn’t really even thought of a lot of this stuff yet, so that was really beneficial.

For me, it wasn’t just about both of them having the right skillset, it was about finding people  who worked with all our personalities — that was really the biggest thing.

What’s your growth strategy?
The Kovert design part of the business is the product house, and at the moment we just have that one line, Altruis. But the growth strategy for Altruis is to empower a number of different fashion brands with our technology; we’ll soon be announcing collaboration collections with a number of big brands where we simply insert our stone into their designs, and power it up with our app and software.

Also, currently we’re working on launching a home-ware product that is exciting, because it gives us more flexibility with the technology, since we don’t have the size restrictions that we had with Altruis, i.e. fitting it into jewelry.

Next, we really want to build a community around this digital detox mentality, and create a public conversation about how we can change the way that we communicate digitally by suggesting solutions — whether that’s using our products, or just changing etiquette. We are building products to help people, but are also trying to be a voice for this movement, so the two can marry together.

We refer to this community as our Tribe; the idea is that this community is a “physical presence” community, not just a digital presence community, and it has in-person events, whether it’s yoga, meditation, dinner parties, live music, or book clubs, etc. The Tribe is open to anybody — it’s just people who approach us, who say “I love what you’re doing, and want to be a part of it.” We’ve got a link on the website that says “join the tribe,” and you just sign up.

What do you see as the major cultural differences when doing business around the world?
Cities like L.A. are really forward thinking in terms of the whole mindfulness space, so people understand what we’re trying to do, they buy into it, and they get excited about it. In London, we’re a couple steps behind; there’s not really that community yet, so it’s a bit more difficult to try and explain, and you have to give people a more background on the concept, and some people don’t get it.

In terms of fundraising, it’s very different: in the U.S., people invest in ideas. In Europe, you really need some traction and some serious numbers, or a really solid strategy, to be able to raise money. Networking and being open to collaborations are also different. What I find is that in the States, there is quite a lot of talk and not a lot of action, whereas, in London, for example, if someone takes a meeting with you they really intend to follow through. I’ve had to change my style accordingly, and it takes a little while to get used to.

Why did you choose to be based out of London?
It puts us in an interesting position, because there are not many wearables companies based in Europe, so we’re really well-positioned to take that trophy, and we’re at the forefront of that space. Also, from a design perspective, Europe is the epicenter of design, fashion and amazing luxury brands. I think it’s really important for us to be near to that: near to the talent, to the inspiration, and the industry.

Discuss Competition:
Ringly, based in New York, is the one that’s always mentioned. There are two main reasons I don’t see them as a competitor, however. One, they are targeting a different consumer from the price point and design side of things. Their consumers are the tech “early adopters,” the people who have seen wearables before, who are very quick to buy something like that at a reasonable price point, and want to test it out. Our consumers, however, have never before bought a piece of wearable tech or probably have never heard of the phrase “wearable tech,” and they much prefer to pay more to get better quality.

The second reason we’re different is really our purpose — what we’re setting out to do with the products. I wanted to find a way to disconnect, to be apart from my phone, to be more independent of it, and find a more balanced way to integrate technology into my life so I wasn’t as reliant on it.  As such, all of our software is built to filter the noise out and give you the bare minimum. Ringly does the opposite: their tagline is “never miss a call again,” and their primary purpose is to make you more connected. It’s just a fundamental difference, and I think we’re building products for a different consumer. So friendly advice for the competition: May the best man (or woman) win!

Founder Kate Unsworth’s Final Words of Business Wisdom:

• Don’t change your business just because a smart investor said you should. What I’ve found is that all successful investors are very smart, but they also all have different views on what your business should be, and only you know exactly what your trying to set up to build.
• I think it’s really important to take everybody’s advice with a pinch of salt; take it away, process it, and reach your own conclusion. It was easy at the start to get swept up in advice from very smart people — whom we respect — but there’s not always one right answer, and maybe they don’t see your full vision, so if you have a vision in mind, then stick with that, and use their input wisely.
• Don’t feel like you have to behave like a man to operate in a man’s world. I think we’re expected to behave in a certain way that’s really aggressive in the boardroom, or when pitching to investors, and it’s not necessarily the way we would normally operate as women. I’m quickly learning that’s not the only way to do things; I find I get an even better response when I’m just myself.