Pop-Culturalist.com

Edward Madongorere is the creative mastermind behind Moon UltraLight, an innovative company that’s helping us live our lives in the best light. Inspired by his autistic son, Edward knows firsthand the importance of capturing those special moments in life. But it wasn’t until a night out with his wife that he realized how difficult that can be. She challenged him to come up with a solution, which sparked the initial concept of creating a touch-controlled mobile lighting device designed to clip onto any smartphone, tablet, or lifestyle. Pop Culturalist caught up with Edward to learn more about his journey as an entrepreneur, the history of the company, and how it differentiates itself.

PC: You’re a jack of all trades. How has your experience in marketing, design, and film led you to becoming a founder and entrepreneur?
Ed: That’s a great question. The idea of being able to create something has always been something I’ve been passionate about. I didn’t get the chance to go to college. Out of high school, I was accepted to the Academy of Art, but I couldn’t afford it. Instead, I ended up working my way into these corporate jobs. But in the process of also being a creative, I made music. I liked to create my own content. If I ever faced a problem, I would come up with the solution. If I was like, “I want to make an album cover,” I learned how to design it using design tools. Then I was like, “I want to make my own website,” so I learned how to code versus trying to pay someone, because I couldn’t afford to.

Out of necessity, I learned all these skills. I put those skills into practice throughout my career. When I was in marketing and then later on when I decided to design a film company, it came full circle. I found myself using all these odd skills that I thought were arbitrary at the moment to then being like, “Oh, okay. I can actually use this to build a company and start to create something special.” That’s where that took me.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Ed: Definitely my mom. My mom is the biggest influence I’ve ever had, in life and in business. Confidence was really important to my mom. When I was younger, I remember the times when I would have these ideas and I’d think there’s no way I can do this. My mom would always say, “Anything is possible. You should never limit yourself.”

She always had me doing these mirror exercises, where I would talk to myself in the mirror and give myself these words of affirmation and build up my confidence. It really, really helped as I was getting older. Now when I try to pursue something new and everyone around me is like, “There’s no way that would ever work,” whether it was trying to apply for a new job or whatever, I always hear my mom’s voice in my head saying, “There’s no way that’s impossible. It’s only impossible if you don’t try.”

PC: You’re the CEO and founder of MOON UltraLight. Tell us about the backstory of the company, the product, and how it came about.
Ed: It’s funny. I almost like to say that all those skills that I learned in my life have culminated to me being prepared for when that opportunity arose. It came by accident. My wife and I decided when we had our son Jayden that we were going to start to create and capture a lot of moments. After we found out that he is autistic, it was very important for us to capture every single moment so we would be able to have a documentary and history to show him down the road. If he ever asked us any questions, we could pinpoint the time and have visuals to show.

One night in a restaurant, we tried to capture one of those moments, but it was dark. This happened many times over, where anytime we were in a dark room, club, or lounge, we struggled to take really good photos. They would come out grainy and terrible.

One night, my wife challenged me in the restaurant. She was like, “You’re a cinematographer. Why don’t you come up with something?” In that moment, I took both of our phones and put them back to back. I snuck the light out on one of the phones, held them together as if it was one phone, turned the selfie camera on, and took a photo of us, and had the flashlight on the other phone on.

She was blown away by the results, because the photo was perfectly clear. There was this couple who were two tables down who kept looking at us. It was kind of weird. But then they started doing the same thing halfway through dinner. That’s when I was like, “Wait a minute. We’re not the only ones with this problem. Maybe there’s an idea here.” I went home and began the journey. I found a cofounder. We kept on pushing on the journey and bootstrapping. Before you know it, the rest is history.

PC: You created the first prototype in 2016, and it was recently selected as one of Time‘s top products of CES 2020. When you look back at the past four years, has anything surprised you? What’s been the biggest takeaway?
Ed: The biggest takeaway for sure is that building a company or a product is more than just an idea of the product. It takes a lot of grit. Being a founder, a lot of times you read articles and it’s like, “You’re going on this path and journey. It’s going to be A, B, C, all the way to Z.” When you actually start doing it, you realize, oh no, it’s A, then A.1.3.5 and then B. Then it’s challenge after challenge. You have to believe in it so wholeheartedly that you’re willing to sacrifice and go all in on this journey.

So far for me, I would say the biggest takeaway for me from that moment was I always saw the end road of the journey in my head. I had to find a way to articulate that and convince other people around me that this is a great opportunity to be a part of—if they were going to be joining me on the journey, if they were going to be somebody benefiting from the product, that they saw the value in what we were trying to create.

It’s really tying those two things together. The journey is always going to be challenging, but the biggest takeaway has been the tenacity and grit to keep going, because I really believe in what we’re doing.

PC: There are a lot of different features to the product. Walk us through the prototype phase. What were some of the major considerations?
Ed: When I was driving home from the restaurant, I had an idea of what features I wanted in the product. This came from my cinematography background, where I always knew every time I was lighting a scene, it always comes down to the story. You always think about what’s the emotion you’re trying to portray to the audience in whatever you’re creating. Lighting helps to create a certain emotion.

You can go from a dramatic look or you can go from a very stark look to a very polished, sunflowery kind of vibe. Light has to be able to adjust to all those things. I thought about customization: could people be able to adjust the brightness? Could they adjust the color temperature? Because in filming, these are things that you think about as you are creating a scene. That was in the prototype phase.

Now that the idea was there, I could see it was a big challenge. The product had to be small. We wanted to make sure that as people are using it, it feels good to carry with them. At the time, there was not a lot of other lights on the market. As we were building our product, we saw other things come on the market—like ring light, things like that—but they were bulky. They felt like something I would never carry. I would never in the middle of a night out with friends be like, “Oh my God. I missed you. I haven’t seen you in forever,” and pull out this giant light and take a photo of us, because it doesn’t feel good.

The product had to be beautifully designed, be small, and then we thought about other things that we could add in there to make it a much better user experience, like making it so you can operate it with touch. Then making the light vibrant and bright but also giving you the tones that can match different complexions. That’s another thing, we saw when you’re having these moments with friends, your friends are sometimes very diverse and different. We all have different skin tones, and you want to make sure that everyone looks their best in that moment.

PC: We’re living in unprecedented times with the COVID-19 situation, and your product has helped consumers stay connected. As a business owner, what have you noticed/seen during these times? Have you had to make any adjustments?
Ed: It’s interesting. It’s a wild time for sure. I know for me, the idea of having moments really made more of an impact now than ever before. A lot of people can relate because all of a sudden you went from being able to get out of your house and go meet with someone for lunch or drinks, and now it’s like you can’t really do that. The idea of human connection is more vital.

Luckily, we live in a technologically advanced time where you can pick up the phone and get on a FaceTime call, get on Zoom, get on WhatsApp, and have a conversation. Then not only that but also being able to create content and watch and digest a whole bunch of content, learn something new. We found with our product, the cool thing is people are utilizing it to make sure that they are seen in those moments, right?

Because sometimes you’re in your room in the middle of the night. You’re like, “Oh, I just want to have a FaceTime call with one of my friends who’s in another time zone.” You’re laying in bed and the lights are off. You’re like, “I don’t want to make a production, but I want to look good in the moment.” You can turn it on and you can have your moment.

We’ve seen an influx of people starting to identify how important lighting is for their content, but also people really harnessing the idea of those connections and owning those moments. So I think those two have been really helpful for us.

Now on the global economy side, it’s been a challenge in the sense that we do have a global supply chain and that’s been disrupted by COVID. We’ve had to overcome some of those challenges in the process, but we’re making our way through it like any other company in this state that we’re in right now.

PC: You’ve emerged as this powerful advocate in the Black Lives Matter movement using your platform to spark change and discussion. How did you discover your voice as an advocate?
Ed: It’s sad to say, but a lot of it came from trauma. I experienced a lot of things growing up, like racial inequalities throughout my life. Part of it was I went to an all-White school in New Hampshire when I was in high school. I was one of the few Black kids in the school. I experienced racism firsthand, but I also experienced allyship firsthand. I got a taste of both.

I also lived in a part of the world where it was all Black people, mostly, especially in the school that I went to. It was ninety percent Black. I’ve had my share of experiences with police, being pulled over, and even once at gunpoint and fearing for my own life. A lot of those things, as a community of Black people, we bury because it’s become the norm.

All those emotions that we buried were triggered when I saw what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. So I started thinking about my son. Him being autistic, I thought, “What if as a young adult he was in that situation where he got pulled over. How would he have fared in that situation?”

The horror of thinking that he wouldn’t be able to explain himself because he’s autistic. They would think he’s not complying because he’s not taking directions the way that they expect it to be. He’s very honest. He’s going to say things that may offend them because of his honesty. That freaked me out. Because that freaked me out, I couldn’t help but have a voice for him. In the process, I ended up being a voice for a few other people.

Then because I’m an entrepreneur, I started to think about what are ways that I myself in this field can help solve the problem? For me, while we’re fighting for justice, let’s also fight for equality around entrepreneurship and really get to have some ownership. Once we start to have those founders of color and women founders of color start to get the equity that they deserve, start to get the chances they need to create these amazing companies, then it’s going to allow other people in the community look at it and go, “Wow, that’s another way I can create wealth for my family, my generation, and in turn, take that wealth and be able to do something within our community.”

That’s where I found my voice in that. I always think of my mom. Like I said, she had me go in the mirror and look at myself and encourage myself. I thought, “Okay, what would I say to myself in this situation if I’m quiet? What would my son think if we’re quiet?” I just had to make sure I said something. Now I’m just trying to create as much content as I can that speaks to that. I’m trying to be part of groups and community organizations that can speak to that.

To keep up with Ed, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. See Ed’s latest partnership with Revolt here.