Robbie Cape

Families today lead busy lives, but now that smartphones are popular, Cozi is making it easier for families to get organized — and stay that way.

After surveys showed that staying organized was families' biggest problem, Cozi co-founders Robbie Cape and Jan Miksovsky set out to fix the problem. Family organizer Cozi was originally web-based, but smartphones allow it to be used anywhere.

Cozi raised another $2.5 million in October and signed up one million new members during a back-to-school push. Startups usually have some interesting marketing campaigns — in June, Cozi lined up 17,782 ducks in a row and set a Guinness World Record in the process.

Miksovsky has recently moved on from Cozi, but Cape still leads the young Seattle-based company. Here are his views on some key topics:

What’s your background? I grew up in a very consumer-oriented family. My family owns a cosmetic company back in Montreal. I went to school in New Jersey and was recruited out of Princeton by Microsoft. I joined full-time in 1993 and stayed for 12 years. I committed myself to stay as long as I was learning and loved what I was learning. I hadn’t started doing what I wanted, which was building a business.

Jan Miksovsky and I worked together for four years or so on Microsoft Money. We never talked about founding a company (for a long time), but we started to talk (about it) and thought it would be fun to start a business together.

How did you come up with the idea? I wouldn’t say the idea occurred to us. We wanted to build a company that solved a real consumer problem. Back in 2005, we discovered that families were grossly underserved by tech companies. We then started interviewing families and the No. 1 pinpoint families made was organizing their family life.

When did you launch Cozi? We launched in early 2007. Originally it was a Windows application, but in the middle of 2008, we relaunched totally web-based. We were watching mobile then, and we were cautious about launching on new platforms. A mobile-optimized site was launched in 2009, followed by iOS in April 2010, Android in September 2010, and BlackBerry was launched last summer.

Why were you hesitant on mobile originally? We’re a product that’s built for families and everyday people. We’re not an early adopter product or a tech product. Until we felt that the iPhone was important in everyday family life, we didn’t think the iPhone app was essential.

How’s the mobile side of Cozi? The business on the mobile front is growing faster than we ever imagined. It will surpass web impressions in the next several months.

How have you been funded? Early on, we were funded through angel investors. The second round was led by (newspaper company) Gannett, and about two years later we had a Japanese investor jump in. This last round was a relatively small insider round.

How many employees do you have? Are you hiring? We have 35 employees. We try to keep the company as small as possible and consistently add a handful of people every year. We’re not hiring at the moment.

How would you describe your experience of starting a company? It’s all over the map. I never knew what being an entrepreneur meant as far as running the business day-to-day. Starting a tech business is a roller-coaster ride.

What does the future look like? Looking to 2012, you’ll see a couple areas of significant focus. International is important to us. We see a lot of demand already and people are using Cozi in 150 countries. Another major area is our premium offering, Cozi Gold, which we launched in August. We will continue to add products to that.

Longer term, Cozi wants to be the tech company that understands family and continues to make family life better. Ultimately, what we want to do is help families have better relationships.