NICHOLE JOHN C.

ERNIETA

ENTREPRENEUR

January 25, 2022

PART1 MY ENTREPRENEUR BIOS

Jamie Siminoff on The Inspiration Behind The Ring Doorbell

An incredibly innovative doorbell that combines smart tech and security, Ring is an example of how
much the home has evolved in the modern state of residential tech. Invented by the company’s CEO
Jamie Siminoff, Ring has made major waves in the home tech space, thanks in part to the company’s
acquisition by Amazon.

The star of our November/December issue, Siminoff explains the evolution of his Ring doorbell in this
exclusive interview snippet.

Residential Tech Today: Where did the idea for Ring originate?

Jamie Siminoff: From where every investor’s idea originate, my garage. I’ve done some tech companies
and startups in the past, but nothing close to what we were able to build with Ring. I decided to go into
my garage and build my next idea. I had a whole bunch of ideas I was working on. None of them
involved this. In the garage I couldn’t hear the doorbell, so I went to Home Depot and bought a wireless
doorbell. It didn’t reach to the garage, thank God, because if it did, I would have just stayed with that.

And so, I literally just soldered together a bunch of crap and built the first product which was called
Doorbot. It’s this giant thing on my door that my wife said, “This thing’s great. It makes me feel like we
have gates at our house. I finally feel secure, like this is the greatest thing you’ve ever invented.” While I
thought that was rude at the time, she was right as always. Now we’re here.

RT Today: How many iterations of Doorbot did you go through before you got to where we are now? 

JS: We went through quick iterations in terms of iterating on design and using our 3D printer to come up
with ideas. I mean, probably 100. Then we sort of finalized our first product, which was Doorbot. We
were just a few people in a garage, so this wasn’t a huge team. We had never built a hardware product
before. We learned a lot from that product and then we sat back down to the drawing board to build
Ring and that was in basically starting January of 2014.

We pretty quickly on that, knew what we wanted to put in from all the experiences we’ve had. And then
Ring was launched in October of 2014.

RT Today: Are you one of these people that gets ideas and you go in and start tinkering and throwing
things together? Is this what your makeup is?

JS: Actually, it is. Since I’ve been a little kid, I have … I think I just look at the world and I see where
there’s sort of an inefficiency or an issue. I try to look at, “How do you make it better?” It’s just how my
brain is wired. It’s almost kind of maddening because, in some ways, I wish I just didn’t always think that
way, because it makes a lot more work on me. 
 

What innovations or business did Jamie Siminoff make?

Jamie is a lifelong inventor who founded several other successful ventures prior to Ring. These
include PhoneTag, the world's first voicemail-to-text company, and Unsubscribe.com, a service that
helps users clear unwanted commercial emails from their inboxes.

Even as a kid, Jamie Siminoff was always tinkering in his garage and building things. He knew he’d invent
something useful someday, he just wasn’t sure what. At Babson College he studied entrepreneurship,
which taught him to challenge the status quo. It was a place where he was surrounded by like-minded
people, where faculty created a “greenhouse” for budding entrepreneurs. It’s there that he won a
business planning competition and began writing business plans for others. Little did he know how much
he’d need that experience later on.

After graduation, he found himself back in the garage, building things with varying success. Frustrated
that he was unable to answer the doorbell without being interrupted on his latest gadget, he decided to
build a doorbell with a video that could be viewed on a user’s phone—a tool he was surprised didn’t
already exist. The idea for DoorBot (which later became the Ring Video Doorbell) was born in 2011. He
just needed a way to build the product and get people to invest.

Siminoff was chosen to pitch his product on the television show Shark Tank. The sharks famously didn’t
bite, but the forum gave DoorBot a boost in credibility and awareness, and Siminoff began attracting
more investors, including Richard Branson, Shaquille O’Neal, Goldman Sachs, and Qualcomm Ventures.
Today, Siminoff’s business is thriving, with more than 2,000 employees. Siminoff is coming off of a more
than 1 billion USD Amazon acquisition of his company.

For Siminoff, the company’s mission—to make neighborhoods safer—is the strongest motivator spurring
him to innovate faster for his customers, who feel safe and empowered when they use his product. Ring
is deeply committed to helping make entire communities safer. In 2015, Ring partnered with the Los
Angeles Police Department on a pilot project. In the neighborhood where Ring Video Doorbells were
installed there was a 55 percent decrease in home break-ins, even though only 10 percent of homes in
the neighborhood had the device installed.

Siminoff goes back to Babson regularly to be a featured speaker and to mentor young entrepreneurs,
inspiring them to build new companies and continue to challenge the status quo like he did. But his best
advice to students is to do what they love. Although Siminoff has seen many different routes to success,
he tells young entrepreneurs that the most important thing is to follow their passion.

Although Siminoff returned to Shark Tank as a guest judge, his participation in a similar challenge at
Babson in September 2019 was even more meaningful, bringing his education and real-world experience
full circle. During the Babson ePitch: Second Century Challenge, nearly 80 startups within the Babson
community applied. Twelve semifinalists were named, with three finalists chosen to compete for more
than 100,000 USD. It was Babson’s biggest pitch competition yet, and Siminoff’s presence, advice, and
insight made it a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those competing.
Lessons for Taking Your Business from the Garage to Global Success

Is there a difference between an inventor and an entrepreneur? Ring CEO and Chief Inventor Jamie
Siminoff says definitely, yes.

As an inventor, he dreamed up a doorbell with Wi-Fi to send an alert to his phone while he tinkered in
the garage on a doomed concept for modular gardening. As an entrepreneur, he turned the doorbell
into Ring, one of Southern California’s most successful startups.

Believe in yourself

Ring was born through a series of unusual steps. In 2013, Siminoff, already doing $1 million a year in Wi-
Fi-enabled doorbell sales, went on ABC’s "Shark Tank" in hopes of raising some cash and the young
company’s profile. Siminoff left the show after rejecting the final investor’s offer that he felt gave up too
much. While the investor had predicted on live TV, "You’re dead", Siminoff ended up with an estimated
$5 million in new sales from the resulting publicity.

While "Shark Tank" wasn’t impressed, Richard Branson and top-name VCs are. Ring has raised $209
million since 2014. Ring products are sold in over 16,000 retail stores in 100 countries. Its expanding line
includes outdoor home-security cameras enabled with two-way talk, HD video and motion detection
that set off sirens.

And ask hard questions of yourself

Still, when Siminoff looks out his Santa Monica window, he sees a world of conundrums in need of fixing.
"If I look back, I’ve always just tried to find solutions to problems," he says. At age 7, sweltering in the
New Jersey night heat, for example, he "took an aquarium and filled it with ice, put a pump in it and
then pumped the water through my blanket."

To hear Siminoff tell it now, he took a lot of failed paths before engaging in some useful introspection:
"Some people crush it right out of the gate. I kept building ideas that didn’t work." After selling a
company called Unsubscribe, he asked himself, "What am I?" He focused on an inventor’s path. "Ring
came out of it, and that when things started to get really cool," he says.

 Robbie Cabral

Founded in 2014 by Dominican inventor and entrepreneur Robbie Cabral, and as seen on ABC's hit show
Shark Tank—BenjiLock is redefining the personal security experience by using fingerprint hybrid
technology in padlocks, bike locks, and deadbolts to bring protection with the consumer in mind.
Whats is your role in the company?

I'm that entrepreneur that wears many hats. I'm the CEO and Founder at BenjiLock, and I love been
involve in every aspect of the business, especially the innovation side of things.

Please tell us more about your organization.

Based in Los Angeles, California, and founded in 2014 by inventor and entrepreneur Robbie Cabral,
BenjiLock has redefined the personal security experience through hybrid technology with the consumer
in mind. Featured on ABC's hit show Shark Tank, Robbie Cabral landed Kevin O'Leary as an investor with
a 15% equity stake in the company, catapulting BenjiLock's potential and success by securing a licensing
partnership with Hampton Products International, the leader in security and hardware innovations and
makers of BRINKS locks.

Through this strategic partnership, BenjiLock was able to utilize the 30+ years of experience of Hampton
Products International to further its production and manufacturing, escalating the brand to
unprecedented levels. Today, BenjiLock's fingerprint technology is expanding into a portfolio of
products, including an upcoming line of bike locks, next-generation of padlocks, drawer closets, and
cabinet locks, as well as a brand new line of smart home door locks.

Describe the industry your organization is specialized in, as well as its main characteristics.

We specialize in personal security. The traditional lock hasn't changed in over 100 years, and since the
introduction of the key, the BenjiLock invention has become the innovation in its category.

BenjiLock is the fresh air when it comes to padlocks and the world of locks. The innovations are
becoming more accessible as we go, and each to fit their lifestyle. The hybrid mechanism of the
innovation makes it unique and accessible to friends, families, the "active" generation, and the
accessibility community to seniors and people with disabilities.

Congratulations! As the winner of the TITAN Business Awards, what does it mean for you and your team
to receive this distinction?

It speaks volumes! And we're just getting started. It's also a testament that hard work pays off. If you
have an idea, go for it. That's what we did with BenjiLock. Innovation is exciting, and we're honored.
How has winning an international award help promote your organization?

We're excited! Not only we're expanding our retail footprint, but we see BenjiLock as a global brand,
and to be recognized with a TITAN award, means a lot to the entire team. Remember, padlocks are
universal.

What are the challenges of developing / marketing your winning entry(ies)?

To tell you the truth—when you're passionate about what you do, nothing is
challenging. It becomes more fun and exciting to go at it!

As a business owner, please tell us more about your ideation process.

Simplicity at its best. When I created BenjiLock, it wasn't because I wanted to do
something. I decided to go all-in because I noticed a solution to a problem. If you
go that route, then the ideation process is simple. I don't like to overcomplicate
things. Put yourself as the consumer, and go from there.

What is your own definition of a successful team / organization / business?

Teamwork makes the dream work. It may sound cliché, but it's the truth. Let
everyone be themselves, and everything will flourish .

What led you / your organization to become successful within the industry
you are currently in?
I believe my personal story and struggles to get where I am at today are what truly
is the American Dream. The everyday people relate to it because I am one of them.
BenjiLock has a story to tell as a brand compared to others. Why? Because it's real
life.

As the author of Steve Jobs's biography, Walter Isaacson, said during CES:
"Robbie Cabral had something, perhaps even better than a rock star—he had
become a lock star." And I couldn't agree more.

How has the country, you are based in, helped move your industry forward?
The industry was already there. I'm just disrupting it. BenjiLock is building a
community. It's breaking the mold and thinking of 'locks' to the current and future
generation, especially the Millenials, Gen Z, and Alphas. The beauty of the United
States is the amount of diversity, and I love reaching everyone in between.

What have you found to be a hindering factor, for your business, during the
entire course of the pandemic, and how did you overcome that hinderance?
I decided to give back. In light of this pandemic, I've taken the time to foster
innovation. To inspire low-income students in the Los Angeles metro area, I've
been working with the Los Angeles Unified School District schools, participating in
Career Days and spending time with the students virtually discussing my invention,
the importance of the subjects studied, and how elementary subjects are used
within my job today.

What are the current trends in the business industry that you are most excited
about?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bicycles have become more popular than ever,
and overall sales are up. It's the perfect time to innovate in the category. And that's
why the hybrid patented technology was 'pivoted' into a bike lock. I'm ecstatic as I
love biking!

Also, the benefits to the homeowner are exciting! From your daily groceries, kids'
activities, converting your garage to a home gym, or the added benefit of an
Airbnb, the 'Fingerprint Door Lock' has become a trendsetter in the lifestyle of
today's consumer. The opportunity to deliver an extraordinary experience that
unlocks any generation helps BenjiLock be on top of the mind for integrators,
builders, and designers.

What resources would you recommend to someone who is searching to

improve their business prospects and organizational success?
As entrepreneurs, we tend to be our way, or the highway, and think we're the only
ones going through it. In reality, we're all in this together. Network with others.
Don't be afraid to share your idea and connect with other entrepreneurs. Seek
mentorship as it never hurts.
Where do you see the evolution of the overall business industry in the next 5-
10 years?
T he smart home market is showing no signs of slowing down, including the use of
biometrics. The consumers are adopting it, and I'm glad to be part of it.

Who inspired you in your life, and why?

Kevin is an inspiration I follow. The chance to have Kevin O’Leary as my investor,
as a mentor, and advisor, is a blessing. Kevin’s vision was also where I saw
BenjiLock going. Having a passion for music and photography showed me that he
also respects creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

What is your key to success? Any parting words of wisdom?

For myself, being an entrepreneur means you can’t be afraid of dreaming big. If
you have a vision or a passion for something, go for it. Be persistent, patient, and
able to deal with the emotional distress that life may bring. If you're able to stay on
track, things eventually fall in place.

What innovations did Robbie Cabral contribute?

Robbie Cabral is the CEO & Founder of BenjiLock, the world's first traditional rechargeable padlock with
fingerprint technology with the purpose to redefine the personal security experience using hybrid
technology with the consumer in mind.

PART2

In the space below, take notes on other entrepreneurs that your classmates
researched and presented.

NOTE: base on my classmates research( MARY ANN PAREDES)

MADAM C.J Walker - In 1908, Walker opened a beauty school and factory in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named after her daughter. In 1910, she moved her business
headquarters in Indianapolis, a city with access to railroads for distribution and a large
population of African American customers. then worked as a sales agent for Annie Turnbo
Malone, who founded Poro College. In 1906, she started her own company, using the "Walker
Method" to sell hair products door-to-door in the South. ""Madam"" was a common name used
by businesswomen at the time. Tin for Madame C.J
ANDREW CARNIGIE - While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures,
including iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his early 30s.
In the early 1870s, he entered the steel business, and over the next two decades became a
dominant force in the industry.

Compare the entrepreneurs’ stories.

What common traits or themes do you see?

Innovative

Risks taking

Perseverance

Positive thinkers

Drive Patience

Confidence

Opportunity seekers