Baby Steps to Success

PROVO, Utah – Mar 22, 2019 – Every day at 7:30 a.m., an alarm sounds on the phone of BYU Marriott School of Business alum Tyler Morgan which reads, “Go save babies.” Morgan is a product manager at Owlet, a company that creates products that monitor a baby’s vital signs and alerts parents when the product detects alarming readings.

Morgan, who graduated from the marketing program in 2018, oversees the Smart Sock product, which specifically measures a baby’s oxygen levels and heart rate, sending the information to an app on the parent’s phone. This tech development allows parents to monitor their baby, even while their child is sleeping or with a sitter.

Working at a startup requires employees to wear many different hats, sometimes at the same time. At Owlet, Morgan’s job involves more than just building the product. He also acts as the brand manager, which is where his marketing expertise comes in.

In these roles, Morgan is responsible for the success or failure of the product. While his job carries a weighty responsibility, Morgan sees the pressure as an opportunity to build the Smart Sock the right way. “I’ve always loved to build things,” he says. “Knowing I can build a product that will help parents gain peace of mind and potentially help save lives resonates with me.”

When Morgan first met with Owlet, the startup was just a few guys working in a garage. As an undergraduate student, Morgan joined their team for six months as an unpaid marketing intern to gain experience. However small the startup was, Morgan believed in the mission. “I decided to go into business because I felt building and creating businesses was one of the best ways to do good and to make a difference in the world,” he says. “Owlet was doing that, and its mission stuck with me.”

Morgan’s perspective isn’t necessarily unique. BYU Marriott marketing students are familiar with the idea of aligning themselves with the mission of their organization, and they know how to market a product. However, after gaining some experience, Morgan was not only passionate about marketing, he wanted to be involved in production as well. This realization inspired Morgan to tailor his educational experience to combine marketing skills with computer science, allowing him to become the versatile and well-qualified product manager he envisioned.

“I took a sort of unconventional view of school,” Morgan says. “My education was all about how I used my time and taking the classes that were going to get me where I wanted to go.” Morgan blazed his own trail during his undergraduate experience, completing four internships, starting his own company, and nearly completing a computer science minor, all while he and his wife supported their two children.

While Morgan took on an extraordinary amount of responsibility, he says the experiences he had were worth the effort, and he is grateful for the internships that helped him develop his skills. “I am so grateful I had those experiences,” Morgan says. “They helped me understand how to build products and how to code.” 

Those acquired skills were vital in Morgan’s journey as a product manager and complemented what he was learning as a marketing student. “I learned valuable skills in the marketing program that I still use every day,” Morgan says. He saved lecture slides from various professors and still references them frequently. “I am grateful for what I learned and for each professor that got me where I am today.”

After completing the marketing program, Morgan was ready to rejoin Owlet in a bigger role, despite other enticing offers. “I saw the need within the company for a person with my skills and I was able to grow with them,” he says. Morgan has been promoted a few times since he returned to the company in 2016. “I have done well at Owlet because I am passionate about the mission,” he says. “My next job after Owlet probably won’t be saving babies, but I honestly believe you can find that passion with most products.” 

Years after graduating from BYU Marriott, learning remains a life-long passion for Morgan. From reading books and articles, to calling product managers at other companies to ask for advice, Morgan is still pushing to better himself and his abilities every day. “It’s about continuing to learn and accepting opportunities I haven’t had before and figuring them out one step at a time,” he says.