If you’re looking for an uncommon thinker, how about a tech industry veteran developing and selling landline phones in 2025 — and selling out of them in the process?
Chet Kittleson is the co-founder and CEO of Tin Can, a Seattle startup making Wi-Fi enabled landline phones designed to let kids talk to friends and family with just their voices. No screens, no AI.
GeekWire recognized Kittleson as one of our Uncommon Thinkers for 2025, a program presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners honoring inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs transforming their industries in unexpected ways.
In this episode, he talks about the moment at school pickup that sparked the idea, why his own kids don’t own devices, what happened when they eliminated screens on family road trips, and the $12 million seed round led by Greylock that will fuel the company’s next chapter.
Listen below, subscribe wherever you listen, and keep reading for takeaways and highlights.
It’s a “connection factory,” not a nostalgia play. Kittleson pushes back on the idea that Tin Can is primarily about retro appeal.
“People always ask us about nostalgia and retro. … I don’t think it’s about that. I think it’s about connection,” he said. “We found a form factor that is familiar, and that’s certainly been beneficial. And people love nostalgia. … But we feel like we’re more of a connection factory than we are bringing back the bell bottoms.”
The landline was kids’ first social network — we just forgot. Kittleson grew up in La Conner, Wash., using the family phone to organize roller hockey games and playdates.
“As a social network, the landline had 100% penetration. Everybody had one,” he said. “I think we all forgot that we were major beneficiaries of that as kids.” When he mentioned this to other parents at school pickup, they all started reciting their childhood best friends’ phone numbers from memory.
Texting isn’t connection — it’s just communication. Kittleson cited a study in which stressed kids were split into three groups: one texted their mom, one called their mom, one saw their mom in person.
The kids who called or saw their mothers released oxytocin and calmed down. The texting group? “There was no chemical effect. It was like nothing happened,” Kittleson said. “It’s not connection. You are communicating, but that’s not the same thing as connecting.”
The new funding brings hardware expertise to the table. The $12 million round was led by Greylock and includes participation from David Shuman, chairman of the board at Oura, the smart ring company.
“We are a bunch of technologists with very little hardware experience,” Kittleson said. Shuman, he said, is contributing an immense amount of knowledge on supply chain, manufacturing, and cash flow.
His mom made him an uncommon thinker. When Kittleson was a kid, he wrote terrible songs. His uncle gently told him he wasn’t a great singer. His mom supported him, no matter what.
“Whatever you want to do, if you work hard enough, if you believe, if you’ve got the guts, you can do it,” she told him. That, Kittleson said, made him “more inclined to be open to the idea that I could be the reason something like the landline comes back.”
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Audio editing by Curt Milton
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