Ryan Seacrest Pitches His Mobile Keyboard Startup Typo

TV and radio star Ryan Seacrest was at the Consumer Electronics Show tonight to talk about Typo, the mobile keyboard startup that he co-founded with CEO Laurence Hallier.

Typo is showing off its upcoming keyboards for the iPad Air and iPad Mini, but my conversation with Seacrest focused more on the broader vision for the company and his experience with his first startup

Seacrest told me that the company emerged from the challenges that he himself faced while trying to use his iPhone for work: “I literally was suffocating, thinking about how I was going to work every day, because this is my office. The tablet and the phone is how I’m going to work.” And sure, there are other keyboard products, but he argued, “I thought they were okay, but they didn’t quite get all the way. I really believe that we have done our best to make it as good as possible.”

And besides investing in the company, Seacrest said he also likes to play with new product prototypes.

“I use them and I drive them into the ground as much as I can, so I can give them my feedback,” he said.

By the way, you may remember reading about Typo a couple of days ago — if you happen to think that the keyboard kind of looks kind of like the BlackBerry’s, well, BlackBerry agrees. In fact it’s filed a lawsuit, while Typo responded that “Blackberry’s claims against Typo lack merit and we intend to defend the case vigorously.”