The Orbit Baby Story

Over 12 years ago in the Product Design department at Stanford, Bryan White and Joseph Hei were pulling an all-nighter to meet a design project deadline and talked about starting their own company. They knew they wanted to build products that worked smarter, looked better, and addressed a challenging problem space. While that project is long since forgotten, the original dream and the vision from that night endures, and Orbit Baby is the result.

In the intervening years since that night, Joseph and Bryan each got married, started families and embarked on careers, gaining experience in design, engineering and manufacturing. Most recently they found themselves working together at IDEO, a celebrated design firm in Palo Alto, California. When Bryan and Joseph ended up leaving IDEO at around the same time, they took advantage of a great opportunity to start something together.

The challenges of child transportation that they observed in their own families and those of their friends revealed a unique opportunity - they would apply their experience to building a better child transportation system.

While they had learned lessons caring for their own children, nieces, and nephews, they still spent hundreds of hours observing and talking with other parents so that they could do more than just solve personal frustrations with baby gear. They pored through reviews and parenting blogs, ordered all types of products from overseas, and compiled "bug lists" of what bothered parents most. They also tapped the knowledge of some of the leading experts in the field of child seat safety.

This user-centered design approach led them to the first simple prototypes of the concept that would grow into the Orbit system. After analyzing the engineering challenges involved, and developing the innovative technologies and designs that make car seats and strollers significantly better, the first of a family of products began to take real shape. The team filed patents for over 10 key technologies.

To round out the founding team, their wives - Farrah White and Vivian Chiang - joined Orbit to energize the operations, sales and marketing efforts with their strong backgrounds in business and management. Also, fellow IDEO alum and decorated industrial designer Chris Loew joined to infuse all of Orbit's efforts with his thoughtful designs.

Now, the little company that Bryan and Joseph dreamt about has grown to include a diverse team with varied backgrounds that encompass architecture, electrical and mechanical engineering, pharmaceutical research, marketing, business, and of course product design.

We are a company of passionate, committed, community oriented individuals whose personal time includes volunteering as mentors with local youth, coaching sports teams, supporting environmental causes, enjoying outdoor sports, and participating in local parenting groups.

Read Vivian's Blog here!