Location: Germantown
Founders: TJ Driver and Zach Nasgowitz
Founded: 2023
product: App-blocking device
Website:
getbrick.app
Employees: 2
Goal: Finding a scalable manufacturing method
Experience: Founders have certificates in computer science
We’ve all done it: set our phone to “do not disturb” with the intention of getting some work done, only to wander back onto social media a few minutes later. Germantown-based Brick has created a solution to this problem.
Co-founders TJ Driver and Zach Nasgowitz created a physical device that pairs with a smartphone, allowing users to temporarily block certain applications and tools they find distracting.
The UW-Madison graduates and longtime friends started discussing their business plan in college. The idea of the Brick device came from both founders’ struggles with putting their phones down.
“We had just been complaining about our phones and saying, ‘Man, I’m always on this thing,’” said Driver.
He even considered getting a secondary flip phone but the logistics behind that idea seemed impractical.
“We started talking and thought maybe there’s a way to turn our iPhones into flip phones,” said Driver.
At the start of 2023, Nasgowitz began conceptualizing a physical device that pairs with a smartphone app and, when tapped, shuts off access to other distracting apps. Users can select which apps they want blocked through the Brick app; those apps remain blocked until the user returns to the physical device. The Brick app does not gather any data from users.
“This physical device is the key, so once you leave that device, you have no choice,” said Driver.
The startup’s first physical devices were finished by June of 2023, but Driver and Nasgowitz had to wait several more months before gaining approval for their smartphone application from Apple.
Since launching in mid-September, around 2,000 Brick devices have been sold at a price point of $49. Each one is 3D-printed in Nasgowitz’s basement. The venture has been totally bootstrapped thus far.
Figuring out a scalable way to continue manufacturing the devices is the startup’s biggest immediate goal.
“We’d like to have a real plastics manufacturer create these for us,” said Driver.
Increasing their marketing efforts and expanding beyond Instagram is another aspiration for the startup.
“We take our phones everywhere, but that doesn’t mean we should also have to take our distractions everywhere,” said Nasgowitz. “Technology can both empower and hinder us; we’re offering a tool that brings back control to the user.”
