Peek, New York, NY

Peek was born on a walk in the park when Amol Sarva and his wife were expecting their first child. Taking long walks to get exercise while pregnant, Ursula was coming home worrying more about her work email than about baby. Emails piled up in her inbox 24/7.

A seasoned wireless industry entrepreneur, Amol had long been using smartphones for mobile email. Smartphone in hand, their long walks were actually a great way for him to stay on top of things at the office. Amol tried to get Ursula to use one, describing the many features: email, texting, voice calling, Internet, etc. Ursula worked at a huge organization that you might have expected would issue smartphones to their staff.

But not at all — on a tight budget, Ursula's work could not afford to hand everyone a whizbang device full of games and personal calling temptations. Much less an expensive up front cost and long-term commitment. Not only that but most staff already had their own cell phones. Why should the company buy phones to replace something they already have?

So Amol started thinking. A simple, capable, and attractive mobile email device had to exist for such situations. He asked his contacts at the cell phone companies, but they were dismissive. Nobody wants "simple," they want "more," they said.

But Amol saw an opportunity. He talked with fellow entrepreneurs from the early days of Virgin Mobile and felt more confident. They watched how people carried lots of specialized gadgets depending on the task at hand — music players, cameras, laptops, GPS devices... Even 45% of big shot business folks were carrying multiple cell phones!

The vision crystallized: a great-looking device whose function is as elegant as its form. It would be extraordinarily simple to set up, get people emailing within minutes, and work anywhere by connecting to cell phone towers behind the scenes. But there would be no contracts, cumbersome paper bills or other cell phone-style "gotchas" involved. No, this would be something different. This would be a look at something new.

This wasn't for everyone mind you — certainly not for that typical gadget-geek, smartphone crowd. But since 80% of the US was still using a regular cellphone, the market could be very large indeed.

It even passed the Ursula test.

So Amol and his colleagues, determined to solve a real need, created a company to design a new mobile email device for everyday people. And called it Peek.