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

Tin Can is answering the call from investors.

The Seattle startup behind a landline-style, Wi-Fi-enabled telephone for kids raised $12 million in new funding, the company announced Thursday.

The seed round was led by Greylock Partners with participation from Lateralus Holdings and existing backers. Tin Can previously raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding in September from PSL Ventures, Newfund Capital, Mother Ventures, and Solid Foundations.

Tin Can’s colorful screen- and text-free phones aim to help kids connect without the pressures and addictive pull of the digital world. The devices operate on a private network and include a companion app and modern safeguards.

Since launching its flagship product earlier this year, Tin Can quickly went “viral,” sold out its first two production runs and built a near-six-figure waitlist. The momentum comes amid growing concern about the effects of smartphones and social media on kids’ mental health, attention and development.

Co-founder and CEO Chet Kittleson told GeekWire that his team is “pretty elated” to attract investors who are also parents, who care about what Tin Can is building and want to help the company keep pace with demand.

“They really care about us and about the customer and about the world that we want to see, and they’re also really technically proficient,” Kittleson said about David Shuman, founder of Lateralus Holdings, and Mike Duboe, general partner at Greylock.

“Mike is like a growth machine. He was head of growth at Stitch Fix for a long time,” Kittleson said. “And David just knows everything you could ever want to know about supply chain and manufacturing, and cash flow. He’s already helped us a million different ways.”

Duboe said in a news release that Tin Can isn’t just building a product; they’re leading a movement.

“In an age defined by digital noise, they’ve created a joyful alternative that redefines how we view modern connection,” he said. 

Kittleson, along with co-founders Graeme Davies and Max Blumen, previously worked at Seattle real estate startup Far Homes. He was recognized this month as one of GeekWire’s six “Uncommon Thinkers,” honoring innovators driving positive change in the world.

“I’m so grateful that this is the hit, that it worked,” Kittleson said in a GeekWire profile tied to the honor.

Tin Can employs 17 people and is “growing at a pretty fun clip,” Kittleson said.

The startup plans to use the new funding to scale production, add engineers and customer support, and prepare for international expansion.

Coming up: Tin Can CEO Chet Kittleson will be our guest this weekend on the GeekWire Podcast. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Now in its third year, GeekWire’s “Uncommon Thinkers” — in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners — recognizes the inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world.

We met six innovators this year who are leading startups that address such things as the design of drug candidates; a throwback idea for phones for kids; a new approach to social media; elimination of harmful chemicals; spacecraft propulsion; and AI that performs computer tasks on your behalf.

Their colleagues call them “creative,” “mission-driven,” “laser-focused,” “incredibly low-ego,” and “brilliant.”

The honorees will be celebrated as part of Thursday’s GeekWire Gala in Seattle.

Catch up on our profiles of each winner below:

Anindya Roy, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Lila Biologics

• Anindya Roy’s path from a village in rural India to co-founding Seattle’s Lila Biologics is a story of persistence, curiosity, and boundary-pushing science. After training in top U.S. research labs, including the Baker Lab at the University of Washington, Roy now helps turn advanced protein-design concepts into real drug candidates — from cancer therapies to long-acting injectables — using cutting-edge computational tools. His journey highlights how unconventional thinking can drive the next wave of biotech innovation. Read more.

Chet Kittleson, co-founder and CEO of Tin Can

• Chet Kittleson is on a mission to bring back something rare in 2025: screen-free, voice-to-voice connection for kids. Tin Can‘s bright, WiFi-enabled landline phones are designed to let kids call each other or trusted contacts — no apps, no social media, no distractions. After raising $3.5 million and selling out its first two batches, Tin Can now has customers in all 50 states and across Canada. For Kittleson, every ring is a sign that parents are craving simpler, more meaningful ways for their children to connect — and that this retro-inspired hardware could be the antidote to screen overload. Read more.

Brian Pinkard, co-founder and CTO of Aquagga

• Brian Pinkard went from “flipping rocks” on trail crews in the Colorado Rockies to engineering a solution to one of the most stubborn pollution problems we face: “forever chemicals.” Now, at Tacoma, Wash.-based startup Aquagga, he’s using advanced chemistry to destroy PFAS contamination at its source. From hazardous-waste research to modular PFAS-destruction systems that have already been tested in Alaska, firefighting-foam cleanup, and municipal wastewater projects, Pinkard and his team are proving that impact-focused engineers can tackle environmental problems others call unsolvable. Read more.

Jeff Thornburg, co-founder and CEO of Portal Space Systems

• Jeff Thornburg is pushing the boundaries of what satellites can do by building a spacecraft that literally rides on sunlight. Through its flagship design, Supernova, Portal Space Systems plans to use solar-thermal propulsion to give future spacecraft dramatic, “science fiction”-style maneuverability: rapid orbital shifts, long mission lifetimes, and flexibility for both defense and commercial missions. Backed by a $17.5 million seed round and building out a large manufacturing facility in Bothell, Wash., Portal is transforming from startup vision to production-ready aerospace player — and Thornburg’s journey from SpaceX and Project Kuiper alum to leading a next-gen space venture shows just how far ambition and real engineering can take you. Read more.

Kiana Ehsani, co-founder and CEO of Vercept

• Kiana Ehsani is building AI platforms at Seattle-based Vercept not just to optimize workflows, but to give people back their time to live. With Vercept’s flagship tool Vy, her team has created a system that “sees” computer screens like a human, records workflows once, and then lets users automate tasks with a natural-language command. That means no more juggling dozens of apps, remembering shortcuts, or writing code — and more freedom to hike trails, ski mountains, or simply step away from the screen like Ehsani herself does when she’s out in nature. Read more.

Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky

• Jay Graber is steering Bluesky not as a traditional social-network boss, but as a “pragmatic idealist” building a decentralized digital world that puts power back in users’ hands. Instead of locking content and social graphs behind proprietary walls, Bluesky is built on the open AT Protocol — meaning people can carry their posts, followers, and identity across platforms, even if the original app disappears. Graber envisions Bluesky as less a product and more a living “collective organism,” one that could become the foundation for a more open, flexible social internet. Read more.