The Verbo Bear
October 2026
Say it.
The bear does it.
A plush you can't live without. It runs your Mac and phone for you.
Reagan and Drew. Product render of the character; the prototype is in build.
The problem
2
AI is stuck in a screen. Nobody shows an app to their friends.
Lives in a screen
You have to open it
Plugged into a wall
Smart speakers never leave the counter
Nothing cute
Nothing worth putting on a shelf
The bear
3
Cute enough to display. Smart enough to run your Mac.
Battery and Bluetooth
No plug, unlike Alexa
Tummy glows when it listens
Press the paw, talk
Demo
4
Say a word. The Mac does it.
22s
Poem written, TextEdit opened
15s
Tokyo time saved to a file
You, to the bear
Write a poem about a pink bear and open it in TextEdit
Bear
On it. Watch your Mac.
I wrote a pink bear poem in hello bear.txt and opened it in TextEdit.
Our Mac, Oct 21 2026, 8:59 PM, bridge log word for word. Verbo is live today (deck.getverbo.com).
Why now
5
The brain works now. It just needs a body.
$10B
Instinct, a texting assistant, valued Sep 2026
+395%
AI toys sold online in China, 2025
Live
Verbo runs our Macs today
Fortune, Sep 30 2026 (Instinct Series C). Messe Frankfurt, Toy & Hobby China 2026 press release (China AI toy online sales 2025).
Why AI gadgets flopped
6
Not cute. Nobody copied their friends.
Humane Pin: shut off
Rabbit R1
Friend: ads defaced
Humane: shut off Feb 28 2025, HP paid $116M (Tom's Guide, PetaPixel). Rabbit: Android Authority, May 2024. Friend: Wikimedia Commons, Sep 2025.
The Labubu lesson
7
Girls copy friends. Cute is the fad; AI is the bonus.
¥14.16B
Labubu alone, Pop Mart 2025
Pop Mart 2025 annual results (Reuters via Interaksyon, Apr 2 2026). Labubu image: Pop Mart press, Wikipedia.
Market
8
People already spend billions on something cute to hold.
$5.4B
Pop Mart revenue, 2025
£450M
Jellycat, up 43%, adult buyers
70%
Women, of Ropet's AI pet buyers
Pop Mart: 37.12B yuan, Reuters, Apr 2026. Jellycat: ITV News, Oct 2 2026. Ropet: 36Kr, Kickstarter buyers.
Business model
9
Buy the bear once. Subscribe to what it does.
$149
The bear, once. BubblePal's price
$9.99
A month for Verbo. Friend's price
~$51
Parts for one prototype bear
BubblePal: MIT Technology Review, Oct 7 2025. Friend v2: The Gadgeteer, Jul 31 2026. Parts: M5Stack and Amazon list prices, Oct 21 2026. Prices to be split tested.
Prototype plan
10
One week. One bear that works.
01 The Mac side
Built and tested Oct 21
02 A $21.50 board in the bear
Mic, speaker, battery
03 Film the first demo
That clip is the pitch
Board: M5Stack StickS3, shop.m5stack.com. Firmware: github.com/78/xiaozhi-esp32 (MIT). Render of the character, not the built unit.
Team
11
We built the brain. Now it gets a body.
Reagan Stock
Georgetown. Built Verbo, DebateTV, Wizzmo and Foundry in 2026.
Drew
Cofounder. Pitching it with Reagan to VCs now.
The Verbo Bear12
You can't live without the bear.
Raising amount to build the first factory bears.
Prototype, then waitlist, then factory sample.