Brief Background
Joseph Hei is an entrepreneur and product designer best known for co-founding Orbit Baby, a revolutionary baby gear company. Hei graduated from Stanford University with a degree in engineering and began his career at IDEO, the renowned design firm in Palo Alto. In 2004, Hei co-founded Orbit Baby with a vision to create safer, more innovative, and versatile baby products. Under Hei's leadership as CEO, Orbit Baby quickly gained popularity among parents and celebrities alike. The company's products were featured on popular TV shows like "The Office" and used by stars such as Jessica Alba and Nicole Kidman.
In 2011, Orbit Baby was acquired by ErgoBaby, with Hei staying on as Chief Product Officer until 2014. The company continued to innovate and expand its product line under various ownerships in subsequent years. Beyond Orbit Baby, Hei has remained active in the startup and design communities. He co-founded 886 Studios, a venture firm in Taipei, where he serves as a Managing Partner.
Q&A with Joe
Joe had always wanted to start his own company, and personal experiences helped him recognize his opportunity in the baby products industry. He shares the story behind his inspiration for founding his first company, his approach to achieving product-market fit by focusing on “product-user fit,” and his perspective on balancing decisiveness with thoughtfulness in decision-making.
886: What inspired Orbit Baby?
Joe: “My ‘inspirational moment’ came when my older siblings started having babies—I remember my sister visiting with my nephew, and I had to interact with baby gear for the first time. Working at IDEO, I saw a wide range of products across different industries, and my overall impression was that baby products weren’t great! They seemed very outdated to me. I had always wanted to start my own company, and the baby products industry intrigued me because it seemed less competitive than others. That’s where it all began.”
886: How did you find product-market fit?
Joe: “I was very insistent on understanding what the business landscape looked like. Before even thinking about product-market fit, I wanted to assess how viable it was to enter this industry. I discovered that the baby products industry was relatively easy to break into because there were many independent shops and few large corporations dominating the space.
From there, we started working on prototypes, involving family and friends to interact with them. In some ways, I think product-market fit can feel mysterious. I actually prefer the term ‘product-user fit’ because it’s more tangible. Once you achieve product-user fit, you can figure out which market those users belong to. So first, we wanted to know if our product was genuinely useful to users, and then we explored what market they represented.”
886: Did you have any mentors or influences who shaped your understanding of entrepreneurship?
Joe: “There are very few ‘out of nowhere’ founders. Usually, there’s some background or context—maybe parents who ran their own businesses. Just being around family who are doing it, you naturally pick things up. You need to see people doing it before you have the courage to do it yourself.
From the start, my parents have always been mentors for entrepreneurship. I also had friends at Stanford a couple of years ahead of me who shared valuable insights, like, ‘Don’t be so product-focused; think about the market and the business.’ Many of the projects I worked on at IDEO were also incredibly helpful.”
886: What do you look for in a founder?
Joe: “People who are able to make decisions. Who will make the call. But I also don’t like overconfidence. I like people who have demonstrated thoughtfulness about their decisions. If you’ve talked to them, it’s obvious that they’ve looked at multiple sources of information, and they’ve synthesized multiple inputs and come out on the other side with something that is smart, and unexpected, and then makes a decision. I don’t like people who are decisive without really thinking through it.”
Reading Recommendations:
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Company
