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ChicagoBoy11
The comment section here is pretty negative, and while I tend even to agree with a lot of it, as a school administrator working in the early childhood space, I can shed light on one important element that a lot of folks here are missing:
The demand for stuff like this is ABSOLUTELY real, and growing. Lots of folks here have made very thoughtful posts about why this is not an ideal way to motivate a child/teach them habits/etc., and lots of the responses counter with some wonderful practice that commenters do at home and works for them.
I, too, have delivered that spiel about a gazillion time for parents. More specifically, when talking about internet safety, or healthy device use, my mantra is always about how ineffective the notion that "some tool" can solve this for them is, and that honest, deep, meaningful communication with their children is the only real way to address these things. You know... parenting.
But 100% of the time, as soon as I am done, I get asked for all sorts of recommendations for things that I JUST told them are actually suboptimal and, ultimately, ineffective. I tend to work with mostly very high-earning families, who either by choice or circumstance, spend usually not that much time with their children and look at this stuff as another one of their many problems that they can outsource a solution to.
It seems that OP here has developed a tool that can sell well to the parents (you are developing good habits!) while also appealing to the kids (its just a game!), and has high production value. The thing I'd argue most of you are missing is that the educational value of this, IF THEY ARE TO SUCCEED AS A BUSINESS, actually takes a backseat to the perceived value that this has for the parents and the kids. Those are not one and the same... at all.
One commenter here said that they were surprised, as a parent, that YC would fund something like this. I chuckled, because I think something like this is exactly what following "make something people want" leads you towards, especially in contrast to "make something people need." I fully agree that no family needs this, and that frankly they are missing out on a lot thinking that this is a healthy thing to bring into their home. But I promise you that loads, and loads of family with lots of money WANT this.
NAR8789
That is insightful but also depressing. Paraphrasing... 1) the incentives are set up to create more companies like Joon, but 2) the nature of the solution space ensures those companies tend to be parasitic on society rather than helpful. i.e. all solutions in this space will be net negative on society, but the space is too fertile so solutions will grow and find traction. Externality perfect storm.
Do you think there's a way Joon can take their mindshare and pivot their audience towards healthier behaviors without tanking their business?
ChicagoBoy11
> all solutions in this space will be net negative on society, but the space is too fertile so solutions will grow and find traction.
To me, its a bit more about being stuck in a sub-optimal steady state. If we take this as an example, "the right", or optimal way to parent someone through these challenges, has become just too difficult. It is too steep a gradient to climb, so sub-optimal alternatives like this get a lot of traction. But then these sub-optimal alternatives actually change the landscape of the domain itself, making climbing the gradient to the optimal solution even tougher. It becomes self-fulfilling, and the optimal solution becomes unreachable. (I once revealed to a parent that during a lesson a child tearfully revealed that she felt that her parents didn't care about what she had to say because they would always be on their phones at dinner instead of talking to her. When I suggested revisiting that culture at home, the parent scoffed at me and ridiculed what I was suggesting, for surely no family could operate like that).
If you ever see a family at a restaurant with a younger child glued to a screen, you instinctively recognize the effect I'm talking about. Surely not getting your toddler glued to a screen as you are out in the world is the right way to raise them. But it is hard. And, the fact is, you know there exists something there that can instantly get them to behave. So you gravitate towards it -- perhaps initially, JUST THIS ONE TIME. But of course now, it gets much harder not to do this again. And we're off to the races.
If I can allow myself to get on a soapbox for a moment, I think the fake news phenomenon illustrates this so well. Never, in the history of humanity, has it been so easy to learn/know things. Yet it seems that at the same time, never have so many humans been certain of their completely false beliefs. At some point, you need to recognize that really the issue we have is one of demand, and sadly for us I don't think we really demand the things that we really need a whole lot of the time. This goes with these parenting apps, gyms, news, etc. Tech is just devilishly efficient at a lot of things, so I think we notice it more readily there. steps off soapbox
beepbooptheory
Maybe there are just some things that can't be fixed in this world with the tool of venture capital. And if so, childcare and education are definitely good candidates.
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iveaves
In response to the general sentiment of comments here:
In an ideal world, there would be no need for Joon.
Parents would be having meaningful and deep conversations with their children. They'd be spending a lot of time building up their kids’ intrinsic sense of responsibility. They'd be consistently spending quality time with their children, forming a deeper relationship with them, built on trust, mutual respect and love.
However, after talking to so many parents, many of them are trying to "survive" first, before they can "thrive." They're working full-time jobs. They experience constant guilt that they aren't doing good enough. They read articles everyday about parenting, but struggle to implement what they're learning. They watch their kids addicted to their screens, playing games and watching TikToks, but they feel powerless to manage it.
And we are conscious of the harms technology can have on kids. From the get-go we’ve been working with pediatricians + child psychologists to hopefully eliminate these externalities.
We're not trying to replace effective parenting. We're trying to be a better choice than the current options -- TikTok, Youtube, Roblox/Minecraft/any pure game -- that their kids are spending hours on every day. We're trying to make parents' lives easier so that they can go from "surviving" to "thriving."
We appreciate everybody taking the time to read our post and comment here.
awb
> However, after talking to so many parents, many of them are trying to "survive" first, before they can "thrive." They're working full-time jobs. They experience constant guilt that they aren't doing good enough. They read articles everyday about parenting, but struggle to implement what they're learning. They watch their kids addicted to their screens, playing games and watching TikToks, but they feel powerless to manage it.
But these are all issues with parents, not with kids. Why not make a gamification app for parents to help them parent better? I think someone else suggested an app that shut off the parents phones for a period of time. Or an app where parents and kids do chores together?
And realistically kids are only doing 15min of chores a day. They make their bed, throw their dirty clothes in the hamper, put away their toys and they’re usually done. Maybe a chore in the yard too. And the rest of the time this virtual pet is just eating up screen/brain time just like any of the other screen time apps you mentioned. So it’s not reducing screen time, is it?
Every device already has a screen time limit and parental controls to limit time and content as needed.
Like you said: “In an ideal world, there would be no need for Joon.”
So why shoot so low? Why not aim high and create a better world where apps like Joon don’t need to exist? That might mean addressing the cause of the problem, rather than masking the symptoms.
NAR8789
Put another way, you're trying to build a "lesser evil" to draw children away from greater harms.
What if you took another tack? Instead of building a habit RPG for children, build it for the parents, and make the quests small things they can do each day to build connection with their children. I guarantee you: if the children are glued to their screens, then so are their parents.
It can even be chore-oriented, in that chores should be done together with children. I'd recommend maybe starting communication-oriented or affection-oriented though.
Since time is the primary thing parents lack, let your value prop be ways to save them time, whether that be by clever hacks or by helping them organize fitting these activities into their lives.
stuaxo
Agreed - even earning pretty OK £, both parents working 5 days a week it's hard. If a 3 day working week was normal then this would be a lot easier.
Geenkaas
I am torn, my kid loves playing on the computer (any screen) more than he does his doing chores, and combining these would be great, but the gamification of my parental responsibility does not sit well. I really appreciate your work and effort but chore > reward is not my goal or method.
What if the game itself has more depth (learning for example) while remaining as engaging? Simple dopamine triggers they have enough.
bbrenner2
Totally hear your point! Chore > reward is not our long term goal either. I think you actually nailed it that our longer-term goal is to add more depth (i.e. integrating books, math problems, other learning resources, etc.) into the platform to wean off of just chores. This is just our MVP state right now where we had launched a small solution that parents have been expressing a need for.
NAR8789
Weaning off chores but adding more and more to the platorm feels ominous, dystopian even.
The end goal should be to wean off of Joon, not suck more and more of external meaningful actions in.
I understand though that the business incentive and the parenting incentive are hard to align in this case.
TedDoesntTalk
Try Khan Academy Kids app.
lykahb
Yet another product that aims to insert itself into the family relationship between the people, where no third party has even been needed.
Like most mobile games, it conditions the users to behave according to its reward loop. The description above talks about retention. The screenshots show a few UX patterns to increase engagement, both with children and parents.
As an engineer, I see a market for this app. As a father, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. A board and the stickies can do a job.
lnanek2
My wife works as a language teacher and I noticed a big difference when she started doing an adventure game like this with one of her young boy students. The kid went from accidentally turning off his web cam a lot, pretending audio isn't working, not looking at the video call at all, etc. to actually being engaged and wanting to answer the next question to earn more points he could then spend on equipment to defeat the next "monster" in the game. Be they robots or man eating plants or whatever and then win the treasure at the end. She would just draw the monsters and the treasure and the equipment in colored marker in a notebook she showed the student each step, but it was still very motivating to him. Seems like this app takes a lot of the work out of the parent/teacher side.
gmichnikov
> We’ve been hearing about kids who are asking their parents for more tasks at home (whether it’s chores or family activities) every day so they can play Joon, so it feels like we are on the right track.
As a parent ... this might be the right track for you the game creator, but it is not the right track for the kids.
bbrenner2
Totally hear your perspective. Having kids beg for chores is not what we are hoping to achieve in the long-term. Our broader goal is to help encourage kids to learn positive habits like making their bed, reading every day, etc. Hopefully we can use this tool to help the parent-child relationship work together towards this goal rather than have it just be a dopamine hit for kids and a task tracker for the parents.
hazza_n_dazza
is it a dopaminne hit for kids as it stands?
gautamdivgi
I really have mixed feelings about this, tending to "not so good". Gaming chores tends to be a real problem. Ideally, kids need to do chores, homework and self-care not for a reward but because they just need to be done. I can quickly see this being a problem in the future where unless the "reward" exists, there is no motivation to do the "work".
I'm unsure of the parent feedback on this as well. As a parent, I do chores with my kids. As an example - I help them clean-up their rooms and they help with clean-up of the house in general. I still read to them and expect them to read on their own.
My view is probably jaded since I work remotely full-time. So there may definitely be a space where this is regarded as something parents would pay for.
endisneigh
> Joon has 3 pricing tiers: Monthly, Quarterly, and Annually and each come with a 7 to 14 day free trial.
How much? Why can’t companies just explicitly say the price?
bbrenner2
Shoot I didnt see this and replied to other comment about this, so apologies! We just launched subscriptions last week but we are still price testing different price points. Right now one of the most common price point that we are offering is $7.99 per month, $16.99 quarterly and $49.99 annually. Once we solidify the price, we'll absolutely update the FAQ and make pricing more transparent on the site since totally agree with you that it needs to be very transparent.
rapind
In your FAQ you have an entry “How much does June cost?” which uses a lot of words to avoid answering what it costs.
bbrenner2
We just launched subscriptions last week but we are still price testing different price points. Right now one of the most common price point that we are offering is $7.99 per month, $16.99 quarterly and $49.99 annually. Once we solidify the price, we'll absolutely update the FAQ and make pricing more transparent on the site since totally agree with you that it needs to be very transparent.
echan00
Lots of negative feedback here. While I don't have kids, I'd imagine if I introduced this app to my nephews they would just try it once or twice and forget about it because many other apps are more fun.
On another note, I would also suggest OP to take the feedback received with a grain of salt. At the end of the day, your job is to find people who love your app. You're not going to convince every parent/child and that's okay while you're building out your niche.
hazza_n_dazza
For kids always playing on their phones, this might be good. For others maybe they don't need this. // May I suggest as a buyer of many games for kids, that your pricing model means an instant and permanant NO from my household. Signing up for stuff takes effort and memory, not getting to own what I paid for sucks. $50 a year (more than that price in AU) is crazy. I can buy 10 good kids games for that. Another reason: pricing model requires continual engagement, which means lots of 'rewards'and flashy lights and emotional triggers - no thanks.
NAR8789
> the earliest incarnation of the software was a prototype Kevin wrote while in college, to motivate himself to do things like get enough sleep.
Did this work? Is Kevin still getting enough sleep nowadays?
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Hi HN, we’re Brad, Kevin, & Isaac, the co-creators of Joon (https://www.joonapp.io/). Joon is a mobile game that motivates kids to do tasks that they might not otherwise want to do—things like chores, homework, brushing their teeth, or making their bed—or things which they like, but not always in the moment—calling a grandparent, for example. The game does this by embedding these tasks into fun “Quests” that the kids do want to do. Along the way, they develop good habits—not because they’re supposed to, but as a side effect of playing the game. Here’s a short video to give you the idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkOwk_wOBBE.
One of the hardest parts of parenting (and of growing up!) is getting kids to do things that they don’t enjoy. Parents usually see these as important activities that will help their kids become independent, responsible, and ultimately, happy. Kids, however, often don’t feel the same way! This is an incentive alignment problem: kids want to have fun, parents want to raise a successful human. As technology advances, this is getting tougher, because kids want ever more tech while parents struggle to motivate and connect with them. Joon is our attempt at a ‘middle path’ that combines the fun tech that kids want to play with, and the good habit-building that parents want to see.
We started working on this idea when, shortly after college, the three of us had a conversation about our childhoods, and realized we had each played 10,000s of hours of video games when we were kids (mainly Runescape and Pokemon). While we didn’t regret the fun we had, we wondered what would have happened if we had spent that time doing something more meaningful. Looking back, we felt that there could have been something fun like those games, but that would also have helped us grow in life skills. We’re building Joon to be what we wish we’d had as kids, and because it’s something that parents are telling us they need right now.
Joon is a mobile game that’s like a combination of Pokemon, Club Penguin, and Tamagotchi. The twist is that in order to take care of your pet and make progress in the game, you have to do parent-assigned or self-assigned “Quests” in real life. It’s a world for kids where real-world activities and outcomes (mental health, relationship-building, cognitive development, physical health, etc) determine your outcomes in the game. Most importantly, it aligns the incentives of parents and kids by helping kids become more responsible through playing a game that they love.
Such a game must have very high retention (something which is difficult for mobile games) in order to keep the parent and child aligned. For this, it’s critical that the game itself be the motivating factor, not external rewards. We’ve been hearing about kids who are asking their parents for more tasks at home (whether it’s chores or family activities) every day so they can play Joon, so it feels like we are on the right track.
This is how the app works currently: A parent initiates account creation and adds their kids, and then can choose from a suggested list of tasks to assign their kid. The child will choose a pet and see what tasks (that we call “Quests”) they need to do. Once the Quests are completed & approved, the child will receive coins in the game that they can use to buy food to feed their pet (dont worry! there is no negative reinforcement here. I.e the pet just gets sleepy if it doesn’t get fed, it won’t die). This is the core game loop mechanic. There are longer game loops for the child to explore after they have mastered the core game loop such as dressing their pet, exploring new regions, unlocking new items, meeting friends, & even minigames..
Interesting enough, people of all ages are using the app, not just kids. For example, neurodivergent adults have been finding value from using it, which is pretty cool to see. We were both surprised that adults would use Joon, but at the same time not surprised, since we ourselves only realized as adults that we hadn’t developed many good habits as kids. In fact the earliest incarnation of the software was a prototype Kevin wrote while in college, to motivate himself to do things like get enough sleep.
In terms of pricing, we have just launched it as a subscription-based model with 3 plans to test. A monthly plan for $7.99, a quarterly plan for $16.99, and an annual plan for $49.99. Each plan can be used with a free trial or the user can just use a freemium version of the app for a certain amount of time without opting in to any plan.
Please let us know what you think and if applicable, share your experiences as a parent or gamer with us! We’d love to dive in further in the comments