Our Story…
It all started with a simple post on the NextDoor app.
I got a few good recommendations and tried them all. Unfortunately, each app was only good for one thing — and downloading 10+ apps to manage my household did not make things easier as I had hoped.
Silicon Valley has managed to come up with tech solutions for everything: your groceries are delivered to your door with a swipe on your mobile phone; there are ride-sharing apps to get a ride whenever you need them, and you can even use an app to pay a local expert to organize your closet.
I was stunned by the lack of apps/tools targeting Parents and to help them with their day to day needs.
I needed to build something for my family that would help us get back on track. I took some time off from my corporate job to try and make things right for my family. I used this time to partner with a friend, a talented engineer with an impressive pedigree, and started tinkering with ideas to create a tool to “hack” my parenting challenges, without having to fumble through 10+ different apps.
We created an intricate process to identify and solve the problem of family management for modern families: we surveyed hundreds of parents, isolated the problems, made a list of unmet and latent needs, defined a list of practical solutions, and we got to work. We researched parenting philosophies both old and new, and read books and researched studies we could find to understand the problems and potential solves for the modern day parents.
From our work, we realized the following;
- Parenting is inherently hard and social media has made it harder. Parenting needs are unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There is no magic wand, and there is no silver bullet. What works for you may not work for someone else.
- When parents get into a tricky situation, most of them ask for help from their family and friends, some go off and search the internet, a few take professional advice, and the others wing it.
- Whatever path parents choose, they always have the best interest of their kids in mind, and when they find a solution, they want to share it with whoever runs into a similar situation.
This is how S’moresUp was born.
Parents are on the lookout for a tool that coherently handles all areas of their family’s lives: chore creation and management, allowances and rewards, scheduling, setting appointments and getting reminded, keeping the family connected, connecting to other parents for advice, teaching kids critical things like how to save for the future, and keeping their family private and secure. We’ve incorporated all of these into an intuitive, fun to use app.
In the spirit of sharing, we want to share the tool we developed, that tackles modern-day parenting challenges in a way that no other family app has in the past. We addressed the three basic needs of modern-day parents:
- Effectively organize and manage the family
- Raise responsible and independent kids
- Securely connect with friends and family
This is our version of the parenting solution, and this has worked for me, my family, and some thousands of families who are using our application.
S’moresUp puts family first, puts the parents in the driving seat and gives parents the control to effectively manage their family in this technology generation.
Check us out at smoresup.com and also find us on the Apple AppStore, Google Play and Amazon AppStore
Priya Rajendran, S’moresUp – Your Partner in Parenting!
and btw we do a few things different from other apps in the same space.
1. We understand that parenting needs are different.
A single parent of a teenager who is doing two jobs is very different from that of a family with five kids living in a joint household. Also, parenting style varies from parent to parent. For example, our initial version of the app did not have any penalty functionality, as we foolishly believed only in Positive Reinforcement. Guess what is the most used feature now?
We learned from our experience, and we provide a rich set of customization to the app so that the app can be tuned to any style of parenting.
2. We eat our own dog food.
S’moresUp is a parenting solution created by parents for parents. We use the app to manage our household and test the app with our families before we take it out to our users. My daughter uses the app to save up for her goals, and my partner in crime, Reeves Xavier, uses it to manage his daily activities. His favorite chore is “Take a Picture every day” so that he can enjoy his new cameras without the guilt. This gives us great insight and immediate feedback on the product.
3. We take feedback very seriously
…especially when there are so many types of parenting. The very first feedback that we got was assigning chores to partners in the family. While the feedback was written as a joke, most of the families voted to get that feature. Yes, you can assign chores to partners on S’moresUp. Next time when you need that squeaky door fixed, open the app, and add a task to your partner.
4. Last but not least, we LOVE our users.
We will go to any measure within means to make their life better. Rumour has it that, when we stopped support for iOS 9, a user wrote to us saying that she was not able to use the app on her older phone, and doesn’t have the means to move to a later model. We shipped her our backup testing device so that she can continue to use the app with her son.