19 year-old entrepreneur takes aim at gaming with second startup
Can you be a serial entrepreneur at age 19? Connor Zwick moves on to his second startup with Coco, launching Monday to turn your iPhone into a complex but inexpensive gaming controller.
At 19 years old, Connor Zwick has earned admission to Harvard, a Thiel Fellowship, acceptance into Y Combinator and a place on Kickstarter. The one thing he’s waiting for? A successful launch of his newest company.
Zwick and his co-founder, fellow Harvard drop-out Colton Gyulay, are on Monday launching their newest product, called Coco, from their company called Milkshake Labs. The startup aims to bring the physical benefits and controls of console gaming to smartphones at affordable prices. The two will pitch the product at Y Combinator’s August demo day next week, but are hoping to gain traction and support on Kickstarter until then, as they aim to disrupt the smartphone gaming space.
In a press release, the founders explained how the Coco controller will work and fit into the market:
This pocket-sized case brings functional buttons that are standard on users’ favorite console systems, including a directional pad and analog joystick, to the smartphone gaming experience. The first of its kind, it provides console-level controls (it boasts an analog stick AND a directional pad), communicates through the phone’s audio jack and does not require its own battery.
In addition to offering tactile control of games on the smartphone screen, coco can also interface with the latest iPad or iPhone 4S and Apple TV to turn the iOS device into a full-fledged living room console. A coco app can manage all of the devices’ games and launch them on the Apple TV system for mirroring or even dual-screen play.