If you’re looking for an unusual thinker, how about a tech industry veteran who will be developing and selling landline phones in 2025 – and selling them along the way?
Chet Kittleson is co-founder and CEO of Tin Can, a Seattle startup that makes Wi-Fi-enabled landline phones designed to let kids talk to friends and family using just their voice. No screens, no AI.
GeekWire recognized Kittleson as one of our Uncommon Thinkers for 2025, a program presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners to honor inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs who are transforming their industries in unexpected ways.
In this episode, he talks about the moment his school pick-up sparked the idea, why his own kids don’t own devices, what happened when they turned off the 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 returns to 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’s familiar, and that certainly helped us. And people love nostalgia. … But we feel like we’re more of a connection factory than we are bringing back the bottoms.”
The landline was children’s first social network – we just forgot about it. Kittleson grew up in La Conner, Washington, and used the family phone to organize roller hockey games and play dates.
“As a social network, landline had 100% penetration. Everyone had one,” he said. “I think we’ve all forgotten that we were the biggest beneficiaries of that as children.” When he told this to other parents at school pick-up, they all started reciting the phone numbers of their childhood best friends by heart.
Texting is not a connection; it’s just communication. Kittleson cited a study that divided stressed children into three groups: one texted his mother, one called his mother and one saw his mother in person.
The children 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 a connection. You communicate, but that’s not the same 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 of directors of Oura, the smart ring company.
“We’re a bunch of technologists with very little hardware experience,” Kittleson said. Shuman, he said, contributes a tremendous amount of knowledge about supply chain, manufacturing and cash flow.
His mother made him an unusual thinker. When Kittleson was a kid, he wrote terrible songs. His uncle gently told him that he was not a great singer. His mother supported him no matter what.
“Whatever you want to do, if you work hard enough, if you believe in it, if you have the guts, you can do it,” she told him. That, Kittleson said, made him “more 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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