“I had just left the Navy and was searching for purpose, for meaning. But the phone kept sucking my time, my dreams, and my life.”
What made you start Phone Tomb and Edge?
I had just left the Navy and was searching for purpose, for meaning, thinking about what I wanted to do, asking myself what the highest order thing I could be doing was. I would have some idea or dream or goal and think about it for a little bit, then check my phone to see if someone else was already doing it, or research it just a little bit and get overwhelmed by problems or details. Basically, the phone just kept sucking my time, my dreams, my life.
After repeating this pattern of idea, go to phone, lost in virtual sauce, giving up a few times, I realised that the problem wasn’t me feeling lost. It was my phone.
So I made a box to put away my phone so I could have time to think, go to bed without it, and have my life come from me, not from my phone. At the time I was based in Laguna Beach, and Laguna Beach being the arts town that it is, I found a local artist to teach me woodworking. My brother, an engineer, taught me CAD, and I designed then built the first Phone Tomb with my own two hands.
“I designed then built the first Phone Tomb with my own two hands.”
How did you go from making it for yourself to making it for others?
After making and using the Phone Tomb, my life changed. I realised that my purpose was to help others escape from phone slavery as well. I launched a Kickstarter, and made 100 out of walnut at the same workshop I made the first one in.
How was your experience making those 100?
Honestly, it was crazy. A crazy combination of joy and a lot of challenges. I worked out a deal with the woodshop owner where I worked nights and he worked day shifts. So he’d leave at 5 or 6, then I’d show up and work from 6 to 2 or 3 or 4. He at first gave me two weeks, and then I had to push to three weeks. And eventually four weeks.
What was the craziest story from that time?
Probably the time I almost lost a finger. I was using a handheld router, which is basically a spinning knife blade, and I was concentrating on making the beautiful curved lids, when all of a sudden the massive CNC machine started cutting through the table and I panicked, turned around and passed the router from my right hand to my left, and it was still on, and it gored my finger. Still have a crazy scar today.
Did you have to go to the hospital?
Actually no. I was working on such a tight deadline that I just grabbed some paper towels and duct tape and kept on working. I told the woodshop owner the next day and he was pretty proud of me. He showed me a scar from when a table saw took off the tip of his finger.
What is Phone Tomb today, and where do you hope it will be in three years?
Today, we are in homes and offices, shops and yoga and wellness places, and some really health-conscious hotels. In three years, I hope that Phone Tombs are as common as ash trays were in the heyday of cigarettes. Phones are basically the modern cigarette. Everywhere you go, it’s just polite social etiquette to put your phone away and be present, human to human.
“I hope Phone Tombs are as common as ash trays were in the heyday of cigarettes.”
“Phones are basically the modern cigarette.”
Right now Phone Tomb is a luxury product. Do you see it reaching the masses?
Yes, that’s really the dream. That Phone Tombs show kids and young people an alternate path of living and being besides sitting on phones. We’re actually working on a new product right now that’s made for everyone, whether at In-N-Out or the Ritz.