Friday, December 21, 2012

Rick Bolander: Customers Rave about Kajeet

An experienced venture capitalist, Rick Bolander serves on the boards of several technology startups, including Kajeet, a company that provides mobile phones rich with parental and school controls.

Because parents generally want to be able to monitor the media their children consume, some of them hesitate to give their kids mobile devices—especially those able to access the Internet. Kajeet, however, provides an alternative. Parents can choose from a variety of Android devices and, through them, control how many minutes their children can use as well as the content they can view. Many consumers have come to appreciate Kajeet’s offerings. In one case, a parent liked the products so much that she decided to purchase phones for her entire family through Kajeet.

Another parent appreciated the ability to increase and decrease the minutes available on her child’s phone, and she based such decisions on the youth’s grades. Still other parents appreciate Kajeet’s GPS feature, which allows them to pinpoint their kids’ locations. One mother liked the ability to block usage as well as the option to override the block in case of emergency.

Overall, Kajeet lets parents protect their children from inappropriate content or overuse while still being able to offer the benefits of mobile communication.