Kiinde co-founders John McBean and Kailas Narendran met the first week of freshman year at MIT in 1997, when they had a class together taking apart old treadmills to use for building go-karts, which they later raced…and crashed. That was the beginning of a long path of building and hacking together over time and across different disciplines. Sharing a drive and passion to invent, innovate and inspire, they started companies in tech gadgetry, medical devices and robotics.

While they were designing and building large humanoid robots in 2008, Kailas’s first child was born. It was then that Kailas discovered a direct contradiction between the safety guidelines for thawing and warming breast milk, and what was actually possible with the products that were on the market. When he voiced his frustrations to John, John’s response was, “Couldn’t we do this better?” – and that was the genesis of Kiinde. After dozens of prototypes, the Kozii breast milk warmer was presented to the public in 2011. Two years later, Kailas and John came up with the idea for the direct-pump direct-feed Twist Pouch, and Kiinde was off and running.

What inspires the two of them to innovate and invent more products? “Relieving pain points for new parents,” says John. For Kailas? “Having kids and going through the process and fixing what’s broken.” (“Not that Kailas’s kids were created strictly for testing purposes,” John quips.)

And what’s the best thing about Kiinde for these two? “With Kiinde, we are touching the lives of tens of thousands of new parents, and making their lives just a little bit easier, less scary, less stressful, and more enjoyable. That’s the goal!”