Sean Herman (Kinzoo): Kid tech without big tech

speaker-0: we first started asking people would you this speaker-1: Would you pay five bucks a month for this? And they all say yes. speaker-0: until you you asked for the five dollars and then speaker-2: Yeah, the only way to test that is to ask for the money. Yeah.

Yeah. speaker-0: Messenger is the highest rated messenger in the world. speaker-2: Yeah, that is a quite the stat. Nice traded messenger in the world.

Yeah. Awesome. Hey Sean, welcome. How's it going?

speaker-1: I'm doing well, how are you? speaker-2: Doing well, doing well. so let's get started. I think the best way to start is to have you just give the quick overview of what is Kinzu, what does the platform do and what makes it unique from the other apps and platforms out there for for kids.

speaker-1: So I founded the company back in twenty eighteen. I've got two kids of my own and technology was was just a a constant source of you know frustration and the my wife and I and came up with the idea for Kinzu and basically just on the premise that technology isn't going anywhere, kids are going to use it, but when they're using it, I want to feel better about that. So started to kind of ask the question like what it look like if we could kind of isolate the best of technology and take away it.

and present that to kids. So that was really kind of formed the mission of Kinzu. And and basically we've got three products on the market. the common thread between all is we're trying to do things where technology is gonna connect kids with those around them, friends and family.

we're gonna unleash creativity and and we're gonna promote new skills. So product pillars of Kinzu, we've got a messaging product, we've got speaker-0: product a video calling product where speaker-1: kids and usually grandparents games together. We've speaker-0: Or reading books or playing together. speaker-1: got a story building app meant to really unleash creativity.

I think tech can be a really force speaker-0: In a really positive speaker-1: in in the lives of families, if kids are using the unique speaker-0: You know, platforms that put the speaker-1: needs of of children first. speaker-2: So it's primarily the kind of social connection and creativity. You guys don't have anything as far as like learning like purely like math or whatever, for example, in in your apps. speaker-1: Not in traditional like academic sense.

But we certainly promote learning, especially through messenger we call paths opt-in kind of channels that they follow in that it can be everything from entertainments speaker-0: From meme. speaker-1: to you know, we've done path magic or it's a good opportunity. we're entering literacy and some of the world skills into it, but delivering it in a way that speaker-0: You know, engaging and speaker-1: i is gonna pique the kids' interest. So not to speaker-0: We're trying to be very careful not speaker-1: go too over index too far in the academic side or the you know, education size.

speaker-2: And you can lose the kids, right, a little bit on like their attention spans and stuff. speaker-1: A hundred percent. Yeah, we if we're gonna be successful we've gotta kinda retain some sort Become a little too education. speaker-0: 'Cause I think we can lose that switch which would be unfortunate.

speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. so give us a sense of scale. Do you some numbers that just show like where you guys are at? speaker-1: Yeah.

on the Messenger we're getting up to three hundred thousand MEU. most of that growth is over the last been really cool that starting to kind of get of like in action and if speaker-0: been over the last a couple of years. This year we're starting to get the indication inflection on the curve. speaker-1: it's been kind of linear to this point.

but also like intentionally linear. We haven't been trying to grow. fortunate. speaker-0: to go too fast, we're really in a position where, you know, we can kinda get it up to the audience, get iterate, all those sort of things.

Product market is very strong at this point to the point of to really scale it up. speaker-1: Release new releases, you know, getting out to the audience feedback. Can do all things. So in terms of project fit, we think you know, strong point.

only now we're trying to get to the point of looking. but yeah, it's been the that growing organic, driven. work kids obviously so month speaker-0: So you know a lot of it is word of mouth. speaker-1: driven.

But yeah, really exciting. the video calling kinda serves a niche part you know speaker-0: grandparent to grandchild so there that a lot trying speaker-1: We've got a nice user base to use the product a lot. Have been speaker-0: to grow it. speaker-1: haven't really been able to.

We we've tried a bunch of I think I think subscription fatigue is is real a lot. speaker-0: of things. A lot of the growth on the product came coming out of COVID and people getting together in person and all speaker-1: that. So yeah, but anyway, that's where we're at.

it's an exciting time for us. speaker-0: We're we're certainly the entire the portfolio is growing as a whole, which is speaker-2: Which is great. Yeah, you mentioned a couple of marketing things. So why don't we start there?

About the the grandparent like the video call app that's primarily used by by grandparents to talk to their grandkids. I I imagine that has to be a real tough one because it's hard to market to the kids, but then it's also kinda hard to market to the grandparents too, right? 'Cause they're not the most like you can't just run a I mean, maybe you could run a Facebook ad, but you have to think it'd be a little bit trickier maybe to market to kind of seniors. So how do you approach marketing?

I mean, for let's let's start with that video call app. Like where do where do you even begin with something like that? speaker-1: Yeah, it's an interesting you bring up the two there's a lot of similarities. speaker-0: Good point.

And ironically, who are are in marketing to kids and kind of they're almost at a a a similar kind of level just in terms of like technology adoption and th and things like that. So usually the kids can navigate through things easier. will, you know, for speaker-1: yeah, it it's marketing's been a a real challenge for speaker-0: us really across the portfolio. So speaker-1: You the video calling app, it's actually beneficial for us in that we speaker-0: Before we can kind of do a little bit more of the, you know, we we do Facebook, I hate it, but we you know, it's the tax of of being a small business, you gotta do some of that.

We have done you know, Google Paid search, you know, usual kind of channels from that perspective. speaker-1: we've been testing kind of tradition. speaker-0: marketing which has been interesting. So we actually did some like news and and that's maybe we are you know painting with a wide we're we're trying to you know hit the senior crowd and we're campaigns into high speaker-1: Newspaper appear with brush, but we're you know doing targeted IA speaker-0: concentration areas of retirees and things like thinking that A they're probably their family a little bit and and B you know they're actually reading the newspaper and like that.

So speaker-1: doing things that we're doing a lot of testing right now. speaker-0: Now I wouldn't say anything's like definitive come that's come back. Marketing is interesting in our world because if you go through speaker-1: You kinda know what a dollar is gonna get you if through speaker-0: Google and Facebook and those ad ad networks. speaker-1: the other more traditional some the creative kind of test doing.

speaker-0: But the things that we're doing, you don't really have the same level of attribution. So it's always I end up in a position where it's kind of like I want to try new things, but again, wooded speaker-1: And I I know. speaker-0: dollar's gonna get me over here and then it's nebulous over there. So you know, speaker-1: Trying to get yeah.

speaker-0: a little more comfortable with being uncomfortable with with some of that because for us as a messenger, we compete directly with messenger kids. So can connect friends and friends. speaker-1: the the bigger for was like kins who message Facebook when I was my kids with family I'd already left Facebook by that A I'm not going back onto Facebook as a user and B I don't want my seven year old to Facebook product speaker-0: point and and I was like I'm I userled anywhere near a Facebook product.

speaker-1: so that kind of if we're hitting people on Facebook probably a Facebook speaker-0: Facebook, they're Facebook user. And our concern is like our Messenger would be great. And speaker-1: Are we gonna sell them on the idea of like, a kid's speaker-0: you know, if they're on Facebook, they can click a button and and they're set up with Messenger Kids versus that. So we haven't really used Facebook as a channel, which is required us to get a little more creative on the Messenger and just a speaker-1: Focus.

speaker-0: little bit more like product product led growth specifically. speaker-2: So what about the other two apps? Do you normally I mean, if it's hard to go direct to the kids, I imagine do is it f like all focused on the parents or how do you go about getting the other two apps in in the right hands? speaker-1: Yeah, it's so fa Kinzo Messengers really are the flagship pro speaker-0: That's a product that's probably where eighty percent of our attention goes.

Got a great subscriber base. We struggle to kinda grow it so it it's kind of like in in maintenance mode speaker-1: We we speaker-0: a little. Just speaker-1: Kinsy Studio with speaker-0: a story builder, I think the launch of AI has really proven speaker-1: Crew. speaker-0: for that to be a a very challenging place to be.

So we're speaker-1: We're not sure what the future of that app is gonna be. speaker-0: just not seeing like retention and things like that that we we want. speaker-1: To see. so I'd say the majority speaker-0: Of our attention goes on to Consum Messenger, which is great.

We think it's the biggest addressable market. We think it's the the body. speaker-1: and really that was the the speaker-0: first product that we had or that was really the idea behind Kinzu. speaker-1: so it's interesting taking that to speaker-0: market.

We've got very different market messages for the kids and for the very different positioning on YouTube and things like that, trying to reach who, you know, are not but speaker-1: The adults we do a little bit on kids, supposed to be on YouTube. speaker-0: y you know to work speaker-2: How does that on on YouTube? Do you run like actual pre roll ads or do you work with the creators themselves? speaker-1: We've done a bit of both.

pre roll out consistent. We've we've tried to find ways to work. It's challenging. so we have in speaker-0: Challenging working with them.

Haven't really found anything that kind of sticks in speaker-1: terms of that. But we have done some like kinda unique that I wouldn't say any of a significant amount of but we're gonna continue to to try. We know speaker-0: So that's where the kids are and and things like that. So ironically we need a p you know a platform like Kinzu that actually serves, you know, kids and families of and and things like that.

So that's where we're trying to kinda go. Google search speaker-1: Then then on the parallel we've done you know p speaker-0: and we do Facebook a little bit of Facebook and some other speaker-1: of those channels. but we really invested heavily into plot speaker-0: to like Ted Marketing, SEO, you know, kids are using a bunch of something we're parent guides and and things like that. So it's twofold like on parents a lot of value.

So for a site to read an article about Snapchat and if if kids should be using it for instance or a new feature on Snapchat or how to set up parental controls. We think we're delivering a speaker-1: we a lot of value and if they don't click the in a another speaker-0: Anywhere else on our site or read any more about Kins speaker-1: Zoo or download the app. but if they're getting a lot of speaker-0: value from that article, we think that's great because better tech better products and they need more education in our opinion.

speaker-1: So, you know, on a standalone basis we're trying speaker-0: trying to deliver value and play the long game. It also gives us the added benefit of SEO and as get speaker-1: but it's things. speaker-0: hot, you know, parents are are looking for help and, you know, what is this Among Us or whatever the flavor of the month is, what's a six seven thing right now, you know. speaker-1: We'll we'll try that.

speaker-2: I mean that gives you a that gives you a constant way to release new blogs that will rank, right? 'Cause it's you just whatever the thing is of the month you can you can kind of put the par like parental angle on it. speaker-0: Yes, a hundred percent. They do a better under speaker-1: and I personally have a a bi weekly newsletter.

The moniker that digital dad allows me to kind of stay on top of everything that's happening, but also speaker-0: I could be a little bit more pointed and opinionated in those pieces. but also gives us some SEO there. So speaker-1: also getting speaker-0: necessarily. There's a lot of strategy behind everything we do.

Multi We speaker-1: that we do but it's very you know faceted and and speaker-0: certainly try a lot of you know different things because speaker-1: It's a tough segment to reach. there's almost like a whole speaker-0: hopelessness, I think, of parents of when it comes to kids and pets. And they're kinda everyone's doing best they can. speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: there are actually not that many resources out there and as a result, I think not that many parents are actually actively seeking it out. But we're gonna change and we're trying to lead be a leader in in you know that solving that speaker-1: But speaker-0: problem for the parents as well. speaker-2: Do you get more of your users coming from the ads targeted at the kids or at the parents? Or is it more or less fifty fifty?

speaker-1: Most comes organically, which is that speaker-0: Is through product like growth, feature set speaker-1: we do we don't do a lot of you know, we speaker-0: we don't do streaks and we don't do some of those, you know, design patterns that are kind of cheap codes for social apps. speaker-1: we don't necessarily think they're good for the youth psyche. so most of it is around, you know, you have some but yeah stay in time. these content allow us these speaker-0: We do have some incentives for sending invitations and things like that in app.

Channels that I referenced earlier to release. speaker-1: content that the kids will find appealing. So we're you know in phase speaker-0: filters and we all kind of tools in there. So speaker-1: six seven is is all the rage with speaker-0: the kids right now.

So we're we're doing filters and and you know content paths and memes and and stuff like that around it. So just to kinda keep cool speaker-1: Keep it fresh and speaker-0: with the kids and hopefully get them, you know, talking it speaker-1: school. We do mini games and challenge base and lead to ways that they engage. speaker-0: leaderboards and and things like that so they can gaze with their friends because speaker-1: Kids don't I say this a lot, kids don't have the same, you know, utility need to message each other that we do as adults.

speaker-0: you know that like they're not saying, Hey, can you pick up milk on your way home and and things like that create ways of speaker-1: and so we gotta kinda create these moments. speaker-0: connection that are gonna get the kids talking even if they, you know, don't have a lot to say. speaker-2: Mm. It's interesting you imagine streaks you don't think are necessarily a feature that would be be great for kids, but something like leaderboards are.

what's the kind of thinking behind that? Is you leaderboards can have some kind of negative competition connotations as well, but in a similar way to streaks. So interested how you how you think about that. speaker-1: Yeah, it's w we take every of those speaker-0: feature especially that you you might see in you know the big social apps we we look at those very carefully.

So designed speaker-1: The way that we did speaker-0: leaderboards is meant to certainly promote you know friendly competition among friends. There is a global leaderboard of you can see how you did against the community. speaker-1: admittedly you don't got it's speaker-0: that's trying to get, you know, engagement in the app and give them a reason to play the game and and see how they do. So can see how they did against any of their friends that have played the game and and share the leaderborg among friends.

Everything is anonymized and and it's almost the old video games I used to play as a kid where you know he can have free digits and things like that. So we're not sharing profile. We're not sharing any of that. speaker-1: something like streaks when you look in Snapchat, my daughter's fifteen now.

speaker-0: In fifteen, I started the company when she was seven. Where, speaker-1: I've been through speaker-0: you know, she wants to pay money to keep her streak alive and and you know, things like speaker-1: And I I should back up and say, you know, all of these I have great speaker-0: advisors, including, you know, child psychologists and things like that actively speaker-1: We taught speaker-0: talk and we do a lot of research on it. Comfortable speaker-1: We've never gotten speaker-0: with speaker-1: especially you know, things like streaks, things like light counts, are speaker-0: Are hard note for us, like counts, follower counts, trying to, you know, generate audience from strangers and and things.

speaker-1: Put content out, get reactions, things like that. We do and we have a lot of examples of in app actually intentional. So the game, while kids can only play three times and then they have to sets. speaker-0: having friction in the apps.

Games are a good example. There is a leaderboard times take a break until kind of reset. speaker-1: So we insert stopping cues that they actually hurt us in terms of engagement. this is speaker-0: of like engagement, but we're trying to play the long game.

Staff you know, doing a lot of research, I've written a book on the subject. There's speaker-1: gotten very familiar. collapse and a speaker-0: a speaker-1: a big distinction by us not being an ad model where the we're not looking for speaker-0: supported model where the currency or just attention, you know, where it's an attention economy and they're trying to keep you from s for as long as possible so and show you as many ads as possible, make as much money, you know. speaker-1: revenue as they can.

we have different incentive structures. so we're able speaker-0: Sure. speaker-1: to do those things. which might we know some tricks I would absolutely gonna do because really the whole mission is around because speaker-0: actually harm us in terms of like we absolutely work.

We're not gonna do them. So we're trying to play the long game and our whole becoming a trusted partner, to parents when it comes to tech speaker-1: technology and if we lose that speaker-0: We're trying to position ourselves as the alternative to Facebook. If we lose that, if we speaker-1: I think speaker-0: end up in the same bucket and we just lose to their scale. You know, it's just the reality of it.

So answered speaker-1: So hopefully that I speaker-0: it. It's it's there's a lot of details when it comes to that. But I would just say all of those features we we speaker-1: We we take speaker-0: peel back many multiple layers of the onion. We we consult with child psychologists and other people in the space and and make good decisions.

One of our main speaker-1: Things speaker-0: that steers us as a company is we make decisions as parents first and as a business deck. And so if it feels good to me as a dad, then it's something that we'll do and basically I stand behind all of our our decisions w with that lens. speaker-2: Mm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's that's great. And I guess in the long run, you you won't you'll it won't give these platforms much of a choice is if you have the market, then they kind of have to come to you to to reach to reach them. So yeah, I can see that that working out. One more question on the on the leaderboards, because you mentioned you have a a global leaderboard and a friends leaderboard.

We've been doing a little bit of research into this as well because we are a platform for for building that co those kind of experiences. And we find that the the friend leaderboards or if you can kind of group users up into much smaller segments, whether it's by friends or by location or whatever it might be, have a much higher engagement than the all time leaderboards that sometimes can actually be only really engage the top one percent of people in there. So any any kind of observations on that?

speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: think that we've we've basically found that and and Kinzu is an not speaker-0: We're not trying to replicate like the social graph of like a a Facebook or we don't want kids to have hundreds of friends, you know. It average child speaker-1: It's I think the average speaker-0: on kin who has, you know, three to four contacts. So speaker-1: so it it's usually tight knit speaker-0: it and things like that.

When you have that kind of app that they can we have a speaker-1: Mechanism. speaker-0: marketplace concept, they can purchase games individually and those are meant to be just in chat, they're challenging friends. There's no notion of a leaderboard. It's it's just, hey, I got the score, can you beat it?

speaker-1: and and then because there's so few contacts per user in Zoo National, the idea of bringing up a speaker-0: bigger leaderboard so the you know the kids speaker-1: Have just speaker-0: more to do, more more kinda to challenge and and things like that. But speaker-1: I would say the the usage that we said is speaker-0: see as kind of like mirrors what what i is the higher engagement comes when, you know, those tighter circles, which isn't overly surprising. You get a little bit of the friendly banter and trash talk and all that.

speaker-2: Sure, yeah. Definitely. We started to touch on a couple of monetization things. So I'd like to go there.

But first, is there like a age range? Like what's the general age range of of kids on Kinzu? speaker-1: Yeah, so Kinzu Messenger again, the flagship. we're kind of as young as about five or six, up to it's kind of like up until but speaker-0: twelve thirteen, it's like up they get their first social media.

But it we're almost a po a perfect bell curve. It's around nine and a half to ten year olds is kind of the mean. and and then it i it's almost a perfect distribution out of that. speaker-1: so yeah, we've got, you know jams.

speaker-0: features like video calling and audio which are audio only group calls are enjoyed by, you know, younger speaker-1: those some of the speaker-0: users that are, you know, five, six, seven years old that can't necessarily, you know, spell that well and and, you know, things like that at at that point, or maybe some of the games that we have are kind of advanced them. speaker-1: It for them. But yeah, we're we're trying to you know, the tween speaker-0: market i i is really those that are at a point where you know they have friends they want to be in touch they're you know gaining independence and autonomy and and looking to stay in touch with friends ready for social media speaker-1: button.

speaker-0: as of yet. So that's kind of the sweet spot for us and we're always looking for ways to kind of like grow up and down beyond that. Appeal speaker-1: if we try and speaker-0: to an older, you know, audience. We're we're going head to head with the TikToks and the Snapchats and that's not where we want to be.

speaker-1: Whatever it might be. but we think. speaker-0: we can we can win when they're younger and if we do a good job, we can, you know, retain them a as they get older. If it's speaker-1: Even speaker-0: just, you know, kinzoo is where family stuff happens 'cause kids don't want their parents following them on Instagram or TikTok anymore.

speaker-2: Right, right. Have you noticed, I'm curious that in the last few years, has that bell curve kind of shifted to the younger side as both younger kids like start using tech at a younger age, but then also as the kind of tweens get pulled into social media at a younger age? speaker-1: We've actually shifted a bit. speaker-0: Actually it's to the older speaker-1: which the first time we did an analysis, it was it was kind of early shift.

speaker-0: early on in our journey and then when the curve speaker-1: I think w what happened was speaker-0: it reflected a lot of like retention. Our retention numbers are extremely strong. That's one of those, you know, product market fans. speaker-1: thing.

so they've kind of grown with product and kind of shift right. speaker-0: Probably shifted that curve a little bit to the right. speaker-1: yeah, I I would say Kinzu Messenger really as soon as kids getting into relationships kind of like having you know emotional speaker-0: really are getting to social relationship more it bonds with with friends as opposed to like there's I observed speaker-1: having two kids just observing like if friends kinda come and go for a while it's almost speaker-0: like transactional and and then once they hit seven eight years old the people start seeing over and over and and those friendships start to form spot of where we enter and then y you know grow from there.

Those that are kind of younger are typically calling speaker-1: I think that's kinda like the sweet spot. and and and those young the video call speaker-0: for grandparents or things like that. It's more kind of specific whereas of Kinsu Messenger tend to be a little bit older. speaker-2: I think that's that's good.

I think it's important to understand what you mean by kids before you talk about monetization. Exactly. Really changes the the kind of content that's on the platform. So yeah.

Yeah. So monetization wise, big picture, what are the sources of revenue and what's the approximate not the the actual values, but like the breakdown percentage wise of your different your different revenue sources. speaker-1: Monetization's gonna be the biggest challenge for us. we know that we basically much easier for us to say like we're not going to do you know what we're kind of venturing a little bit.

speaker-0: what we're not doing then you know we are and and we know into a bit of uncharted there's certainly examples of of companies that have had success in in various facets of what we're what we're trying to speaker-1: to do. but I I the short answer is like w we see revenue is speaker-0: Coming from multiple sources at the end of the day. speaker-1: I think subscription fatigue is at this point speaker-0: is very real at at point, I think. speaker-1: especially streaming services.

the way the speaker-0: services but they're they're structured. They're they deliver so much value. I think for every dollar you pay for netf your Netflix subscription you get like eight billion dollars of content. It it's speaker-1: On an annual basis.

It's it's crazy. That and the consumer speaker-0: So it's really hard for us to, you know, compete with that consumer speaker-1: expects just a ton of value behind when we initially we speaker-0: revenue really started interviewed a lot of we did so much research around this speaker-1: And ye y you know, the choice we have to make early on is is can we convince speaker-0: early people to, you know, I say the cup of coffee month cup of coffee a month if we're keeping your kids safe and speaker-1: Honestly, there wasn't a ton of appetite for that.

we could speaker-0: Could become a niche product, probably, you know, grew a decent user base, a greater opportunity the opportunity to grow and speaker-1: But we thought the company was to maximize to a big user base. speaker-0: and open up other potential lines of of revenue. So speaker-1: We put in speaker-0: a marketplace concept about three years ago now. So we do sell things like face filters, sticker packs, wallpapers.

are typically free on a lot a lot of other platforms, which is something we go up against. We're kind of at a funny place. I think just this is painting with a very wide brush, but as consumers, none of us really like the Facebook model anymore, but we're not ready to pay for things either. It's kind of a really tricky place to be.

So marketplace we're basically instead of subscription speaker-1: We designed them subscription. speaker-0: It being necessary, you could a la cart if if you just want the one game or one face filter and things like that. So you can make those purchases individually. If I can get them all set up.

We have speaker-1: can make individual few subscriber. so we've been building that we speaker-0: launched a set of AI based tools, image generation tools, which I I think is great for kids to really explore their creativity. Highly guardrailed is speaker-1: you know, AI. speaker-0: very tricky, but we're also going to release R AI is called Kai Kinto AI.

We're about to release speaker-1: yeah, I think we I so Kai Spark. speaker-0: Arc, which is going to be basically our GPT, the open ended. we're putting a a lot of guardrails in place. But that is gonna be behind subscription.

I think that's something that people are willing to pay for and with parental reporting and moderation, a lot of tools built into it. We think it can be really the only place that kids, you know, if kids are curious about AI, that's where they should do it. pass which are these content channels. The way that pass have been designed is basically they're in the marketplace.

Kids or parents choose to follow them. Parents can approve if the kid is is going to follow them. the speaker-1: And then they basically take speaker-0: user on a journey which could be a couple weeks, it could be a few months, where basically content is going to be dripped out on a schedule. And asked speaker-1: we've used past speaker-0: to partner with like Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios around movie releases for for instance.

again, importantly, we're not algorithmically like forcing this onto your feed. Kids are choosing to follow it. And if they're learning about a movie, watching a trailer, doing a little bit of you know, gamification on quizzes and and things like that around a movie, like the dogman movie, or we've done Smurfs or, you know, various things like that. And then they're going to the parent and saying, Hey, I want to watch this movie with you that I learned about on Kinzu.

We think that's great. so those will be revenue producing for us on a B2B Basis. So it's a see lots of opportunities down the road for B2B, especially as we continue to grow. but again, what we're not going to do is use your data, sell your data, target you based on, you know, what you're talking about in app algorithmically, you know, because you like this, check this out.

We don't do any of that stuff, and nor will we. But I do believe it needs speaker-1: there's opportunity. speaker-0: for us to you know, deliver that kind of content as long as it's opt in and parents have control. speaker-2: Mm.

So what's the approximate breakdown right now of like the percentage of revenue comes from these different sources and where do you see it being, you know, maybe a couple of years down the road? speaker-1: Yeah, it's it's probably sixty, forty speaker-0: seventy thirty in favor of like coming from consumers so through the subscription. speaker-2: The marketplace. speaker-0: long term as our MEU I think we speaker-1: we're speaker-0: probably have to put a zero on it.

So you know, like it speaker-1: It's it speaker-0: we have to grow, you know, significantly, but we're on a good tra trajectory there. but as that continues to grow and especially once we get into kind of seven figure, I I think it'll we'll probably end up like eighty twenty, I I would think on on the B2B side. And speaker-1: We kinda hope. speaker-0: that we can deliver those experiences, deliver value for brands in a way that i isn't off putting to parents and really stands behind our mission and and what we're trying to do.

speaker-1: if we can do that successfully. speaker-0: we think it's great. And that would also allow us to bring speaker-1: You know, speaker-0: feature sets to parents, subsidize speaker-1: You you use that just speaker-0: some of that and and I'd love for everything in the app to be free. I really would, but speaker-2: Something's gotta keep lights on, right?

Something something's gotta keep things going. speaker-0: Again, it kind of goes back to that thing of like w we don't like to pay for things and also we don't we speaker-1: Consumers. speaker-0: you know, I get called greedy for even selling, you know, having the audacity to sell filters and things like that. so there's still like ongoing education around like how platforms work and where the dollars actually come and and how, you know, these companies operate.

speaker-1: and because people value that speaker-0: that we're we're not, you know, driving ads and putting dark pattern ads everywhere and and all that. So there is there, speaker-1: Value speaker-0: but the connection between the two isn't always isn't always apparent. So we're we're trying to do a better job of educating there as well. speaker-2: I'm curious whether this would fall under like this wouldn't pass your test of of kind of ethics and and data, managing the data.

But let's say, you know, you have a lot of kids using an AI product and they're generating different images and kind of being creative with that. If you collected kind of anonymous data of just like what they're generating images about, maybe it's dragons, maybe it's like sci-fi, like rocket ships, whatever, and like got some insight out of that, like, you know, the eight, you know, eight, nine-year-old. demographic is super into like lions and tigers this year. And you could maybe sell those insights to, for example, the movie studios or something that just want these kind of anonymized insights that they can trust from this particular cohorts.

Is that something you guys have thought about? Is that does that like would that count as kind of selling data and kind of be shady or or how do you think about that? speaker-1: I think speaker-0: on the surface, I mean there's probably some nuance in there. On the surface it it feels like kind of a breach of of trust and and we were, you know, radically speaker-1: If we radically speaker-0: transparent about about that and what we're doing.

but the way we've deployed our AI, we're not training any I AI user data, user searches. It would I wouldn't speaker-1: Fight and and you know movie studios and speaker-0: etc. We're we're interested in in that kind of information counter and say like but speaker-1: we would let's let's come up speaker-0: the creative way of building that into the path. So anybody, you know, all the people that have chosen to follow your path, like you do you can speaker-1: You can't.

speaker-0: do things like that where you you might get some insights back based on that speaker-1: But it's speaker-0: not market research focus per se. but you know we can certainly you know give some insights back, anonymized insights just in terms of like Yeah, did they like this trailer or that trailer, which one got watched more? you know, like that, which things speaker-1: It's speaker-0: like that I think are because of the opt in mechanism of of past there's there's definitely a fine line.

no identifiable information will ever go back to a partner that is is a hundred percent off the table. Things like insights are there's a lot of nuance there. Yes, I I know what you're saying. Hey, if we're you know, fifty percent of kids have have search for this in the past.

speaker-1: The year. speaker-0: Right. That'd probably be very meaningful and and you know, it's anonymous and not necessarily harmful. But I'd say the way that we I is a sensitive subject right now is it should be.

Yep. Definitely. And and I think that there's still we want to be on, you know, the right side of history when it comes to that. So I think that we're probably over over indexing towards you know being speaker-2: Yeah, yeah.

That's definitely the right place to be. I I bring it up because we had a conversation. I it was a I think second podcast episode was with the head of partnerships at Wattpad, which is the I don't know if you've heard of Wattpad, the kind of fiction, like it's mostly fan fiction, but also just like a general free platform for reading stories that people write on the internet. And he told us all about how Wattpad like was super successful selling these kind of bundles of insights basically about what people were reading a lot of like what people were writing fanfiction about, people reading fanfiction about, like in just it like fully anonymized, like what is the general population kind of interested in reading about?

And that's what got me thinking about this, whether there would be similar demand for that from 'cause I think it was also to like movie studios and that sort of thing. Yes me. speaker-1: Interesting thought I wouldn't say off the t we haven't been thinking speaker-0: Admittedly think speaker-1: deeply about that. speaker-0: I think maybe in in passing had the thought once or twice.

But yeah, it's something that we you know, we we scrutiny, but you know, maybe there's a world we would, but it i you know, parents would be absolutely speaker-1: You know. speaker-0: very much aware that I wouldn't be buried in the terms if we get into any of that sort of stuff. definitely that's really our promise. speaker-2: Could you maybe just walk through a little bit on how the that approval process works?

So is that like for example, you work with a studio, they would put out a campaign, all parents would kind of get a notification that was happening and be able to kind of see ex exactly what the details were and approve that, or is it the kids kind of saying their parents, this thing is it's popping up to me and saying, Can you approve this? How does that kind of work? speaker-0: We in app we in the marketplace, there's a section for paths and which are these these content channels.

it's everything. you have we have a hundred and one jokes that you you get a joke a day for, you know, the all of these sort of things. movie. Basically, if we do a partnership with a movie studio, then basically we will develop the path with them, you know, go through all the approvals and and all of that with them, map out this journey that that users are going to receive.

It then goes into the marketplace. we have a channel internally that we notify our users of new features and we'll we'll tell them that it's there generally speaking parents will get an email. The child speaker-1: If they speaker-0: wants to follow the path basically it it defaults to parental control. So We give parents a a control where they can they can tick a box and say, I want to approve every path that my child wants to follow.

And and if they have that ticked on, then basically the child will say, Follow this path. It'll go into a pending state. The the parent gets a notification that they approve or or deny it. If they approve it, then the child's the journey starts with the child and and that's basically how it works.

So we don't we don't force it again onto anybody's screen. we you know, we'll give it premium placement in in the marketplace and do things like that. certainly. but yeah, we don't we're not gonna force it on and say, or because you followed the last movie path, have this one and we don't do any of that sort of thing.

It's it's truly we made a bet that, you know, kids are are interested if we deliver this kind of content in interesting ways. that a speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: high proportion of them will will follow a number of these and then that's basically playing out. and because we're we curate everything, when it comes to that, we haven't speaker-1: You know, we speaker-0: gotten much in the way of pushback from parents.

There's the odd, you know, piece of content that is like in the grave, like is it suitable for kids and things like that. But again, that's so speaker-1: Well we it speaker-0: unique to everybody's perceptions of what, you know, is safe and and not for kids. but that's why we want to give them control. Always they can always control the environment.

speaker-2: And that provides a a great incentive, right, for the for the content or for the like movie studio, let's say, or whatever's like the business side, because if they if they put together a path that doesn't provide enough value, then the parents are just gonna not, you know, not allow it, not approve it. So it just gotta be a huge incentive for them to make something that's like really like provides value and and doesn't just like advertise whatever they're trying to advertise.

Yeah. speaker-0: A hundred percent. It's effort in and effort. like not only parents who approve it but if speaker-1: Kids won't consume it.

speaker-0: it's not interesting. but we've speaker-1: We've speaker-0: got a very interesting toolbox when it comes to that, working with brands and coming up with you know, unique ways of of engaging the audience and just hurl there is like we don't when speaker-1: When we approach brand speaker-0: we don't fit in the box of like, you know, they're used to just doing campaigns on on social media and things like that. So the way they measure success We don't really fit into that box and and so we have to kind of get over like what are we, what do we prioritize, and things like that.

But what we do offer brands is deep engagement. So if they're gonna put something on Facebook speaker-1: It's impression driven percent. speaker-0: They hope, you know, some percentage, small percentage of those that, you know, see it on their feed are gonna engage with it on some way. We are are kind of more towards the, you know, the middle, bottom of the funnel where if a path, they're gonna consume the content and be an speaker-1: Gate.

speaker-0: audience when when they do. So we've been, you know, flipping that. We we've introduced kind of a reverse funnel, whereas, you know, impressions to engagements, conversions, is kind of what they're used to dealing with. And speaker-1: We almost flipped up.

speaker-0: on its on its head and and if we deliver this number of engagements, which are typically quite high, back speaker-1: if we speaker-0: it up the funnel and and do some math and say you'd need this equivalent number of impressions to get that level of engagement speaker-1: Mm. speaker-0: that's starting to resonate with them and and now it feels like we're kinda talking more apples to apples with with their world. But yeah. speaker-2: Curious to hear what ex the acceptance rates are like from parents.

And is that kind of like an indicator of of the lack of education or the work that you need to do? Or what well or is that like a main reason that you think people would deny those? speaker-0: It's very high, especially for for movie path. It's family friendly movies generally.

It we don't really run into like is this appropriate for kids much when it comes to that. It's Murphs and Dogmans and we we just did something with this a movie called Grow which won some awards and and did a release across speaker-1: Really too. speaker-0: the US. We did a movie ticket giveaway as part of an app.

we structured it. I speaker-1: So yeah, the way that we I I speaker-0: mean approval rate is probably ninety eight percent, ninety nine like it's speaker-1: The odd pattern. speaker-0: parent. And usually the feedback we get is like, my kid on YouTube, so I want them on kids.

speaker-1: I don't know. speaker-0: I don't want this notion of like channels and stuff like that. So it I speaker-1: Yeah yeah. speaker-0: understand that for sure.

See speaker-1: Where we've speaker-0: a little bit more parents denying is if we get into, you know, meme paths or joke paths and things like that. Some of that can get into the gray of like a change is the speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: is humor appropriate for and where we see parents maybe intervene. But I on the whole, I think virtually everything that child children ask for is approved.

It's a speaker-1: It doesn't speaker-0: great kind of check and balance for parents to just have that awareness of of what their kids are interested in, what they want to be following and and things like that. speaker-2: So retention, this is gotta be equally tricky to monetization as far as how you think about it. You said you have great retention, so I'm curious like how do what what are the levers you pull with retention that are effective, but also not, you know, not dark patterns and stuff, obviously, because you can't go anywhere near those.

So like what are what does, you know, what are those retention levers that actually work and you're like, you know, you feel confident with and and that kind of work for the kids? speaker-0: I mean, first and foremost, having a a great product in the interesting me and the product team and and things like that. And argued speaker-1: I basically speaker-0: like this MVP approach of like put a product that's gonna be good enough out there and and you know collect feedback and and do that.

I think speaker-1: It's tough. speaker-0: maybe ten years ago, fifteen years ago, you know, when there's a lot less competition, I I think that was fine. speaker-1: Now it is speaker-0: the bar is extremely high, especially on consumer apps. speaker-1: So I think having a really basic speaker-0: Like a product that works, we're a social connector, do our video calls work, you know, and things like that.

So reliable product is is very, very important. speaker-1: If we're talking speaker-0: There's engagement, there's retention. So when we're talking about retention, when speaker-1: specifically we're a social app. speaker-0: kids and and families on board and my kids use it with their grandparents often and things like that, once you're kind of in trance.

speaker-1: Like it's kind of uncertain. speaker-0: surprising retention is gonna be strong with your your social social circle until we hit the age of like now I want Snapchat and things like that. So friendships may move up you speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: know onto other platforms.

But our hope and the way we try to position ourselves, like I said earlier, is once you become a teen, speaker-1: Hand second. speaker-0: it's a great place for, you know, the family stuff to happen. So we're seeing evidence of that as well. So being a great product we we don't you know really speaker-1: Yeah, having t design pattern wise and things like that.

We just trying to have a really basic like speaker-0: Serve what our users want. We've evolved the product much over the year. We released, we didn't have video calling. we still don't have group video calling, but we build group audio calling.

And I was working with our users and understanding what they really wanted this feature for. And we found that kids just want to be talking to friends while they're playing Roblox Minecraft or something like that. Camera's speaker-1: where typically if the speaker-0: on, it's staring at the ceiling or or something anyway. So We were, you know, able to engage with our our audience, really get down to the core of like what what is it that you really want out of this feature and then to deliver on that and deliver some fun, you know, fun features associated with that that are very contextual to those games, and allow them to kinda have fun with friends as they play.

So speaker-1: Yeah, I think it's really just been listening. speaker-0: to the feedback and the audience doing a good job with that and then l let kind of the social nature of the app take care of it itself. But you know it's tricky. We we have over the course of time had time with outages and and things like that.

And the media speaker-1: It it is a it's just speaker-0: it really reinforces how high that bar is because if you you slip up even for a second our our retention numbers took a massive hit. Like it's if people lose faith in in the product kind of delivering on the core of what it needs to do. You're gone and all the you can have all the shiniest bells and whistles everywhere else. or, you know, tricks, engagement tricks and design patterns and things like that.

If your product doesn't work at the end of the day, especially as a communication piece, it's speaker-1: yeah, it it's speaker-0: all kind of moot. speaker-2: That's interesting that the the kind of social dynamics are so strong, even though you said that the average user outside the home only has like three or four friends. So ev even just that a number is already more than enough to kind of keep them hooked once they're there. I suppose that maybe is related to the fact that it's usually it sounds like it's usually installed kind of within the home for the parents to talk to the kids.

And once they've made that choice, like they're gonna generally stick around unless they have a really bad experience, like you said. So is that Is the heavy lifting more around just basically getting the parents to commit and then once that's in, like, things are pretty much fine as long as you keep the product, you know, running properly? speaker-1: Yeah, I I think so. We've got a intention speaker-0: Our in the product is parents play an active role.

we don't want them to just download and set up a child account and put it down and and never so come speaker-1: We're trying to be speaker-0: you know, the communication method within the house between parents and kids and siblings and grandparents and all of that. When I say you know, three contacts, that's I'm I'm talking outside of the house. So we'll get a family unit and then we start to see friends and it You know, it's funny, kids, you know, friends kinda come and go. So it's not always the same three, you know, they're kinda sick and all that sort of thing.

So there's certainly some stickiness there speaker-1: But yeah, we we always want co viewing when we do have learning. speaker-0: opportunities. Our AI and and Kai Spark coming out, that's speaker-1: Thing speaker-0: we want we want to arm, you know, parents and kids with a tool they can navigate together. I think AI is Here to stay.

kids are gonna have to learn to use it. parents are gonna have to think deeply about the role they wanted to to play in their their children's lives as as they grow. You speaker-1: So what we're trying to do. speaker-0: know, that that infrastructure to kind of work with and and the mind speaker-1: Peace.

speaker-0: of having all the proper cardrails and and we've got moderation, we've got you know straight blockers, we'll never have a run. speaker-1: With just one yeah. speaker-0: Like we don't we're not gonna have. companions of chatbots is another good example of like they those things absolutely engage users.

Every day I'm reading stories about Yeah, horror stories. What's happening with when people are forming emotional bonds with these things and especially kids are really susceptible. So again, we're gonna be on the right side of history there. so Brad is like can we I speaker-1: Yeah, that's kinda where Yeah.

speaker-0: just don't want the parent to download it and and don't think of it again. We want them to be active participants on the platform. Really to again, we want to earn that trust of the parents. which will in in turn, if we do a good job and and and we go back to the mission, what we're really trying to do is help parents figure out this technology thing that screen time is is a top two problem for probably almost every parent.

Yeah. we wanna be their trusted partner when it comes to that. And if we do a good job there, I think they'll stick around. speaker-2: Talk to users.

And to me, is that like you actually got kid focused groups that you're running here? speaker-1: we did in the early days. speaker-0: Early then. speaker-1: So we had we kind of formed our speaker-0: our own with friends, family, and all that kind of thing.

we did one engagement with a company that specializes in market research for kids and yeah, there's a lot that goes into that. Just, you know, obviously a lot on the legal side and all that sort of thing. speaker-1: We honestly we speaker-0: we found the best channel for us is just we have in app feedback mechanisms we read. I personally read and respond to every app review.

gain speaker-1: You get speaker-0: so much insight from that much more than than research groups, especially with this audience, we just find a kids' preferences change on a daily basis. A data two I can tell you. they change all the time. They're speaker-1: Kids are actually like speaker-0: great.

They're brutally honest. speaker-1: So but especially when speaker-0: When we do any research, it's the kids and the parents and we just found a lot of it was like we were trying to figure out business model monetization, all that kind thing. A lot of the time they just tell you which y they think you want to hear and and don't necessarily stand behind that. We had like some tough lessons early where basically we went to market just on the it speaker-1: Privacy.

speaker-0: was that was Kinzu, that was our value proposition and it it just despite the fact that every parent that we talked to told us that's that's all they're looking for, it didn't resonate. And and every y you know, when we're engagement on our social media to pay desion, things like that, it just wasn't interesting. speaker-1: Interesting. so good example of that.

So yeah, we don't do we've had a few speaker-0: a lot. We'll we'll typically do kind of key features. when we did the business model and the and the marketplace concept, we engage our audience. So we invited people to place and incentivize them with some gift cards and and things like that just to spend a half an hour with us so we can ask them get perception.

These are people that are already using the product and familiar and we found those channels as well as just like I say, just listening to the channels that we have in place. I think it's been far more beneficial for us. speaker-2: Makes sense. So on an on engagement, maybe more so than retention, it sounds like this one might be the one where you have to really strike a balance because it seems like your revenue kind of scales from your level of engagement, 'cause like the more time the kids are in the app, the more they're exposed to kind of the marketplace stuff, and also the more they would potentially go down a path, which is where you're, you know, getting, you know, getting deals done from.

so how do you what are the ways that you navigate that and like where do you set a like daily bar where it's like we'll push up to this amount of kind of daily engagement in the app and then we won't push any further. And like like what the ways you you think about that? speaker-1: We're not as speaker-0: Yeah, where we're doing speaker-1: you know, n cutting deals with movie studios multiple times. speaker-0: You don't have multiple releases a week or or any of that.

And then just being in the kids category as a whole, the volume isn't there. So it's almost the opposite. We make sure we're keeping the app fresh and and putting content in on a regular basis, taking advantage of, you know, when when things get hot, whether it's cool guy meme or you know, whatever, spawning and then having good content for that that kids in enjoy consuming. So very early on I I reference like having to keep that cool factor and speaker-1: so I think if we look at a speaker-0: think just saying relevant and things like if a platform like Roblox that is so massively successful, I think their ability and their development network, you know, Squid Game that's super popular with the kids.

or K pop Demon Hunter is probably a a better example recently. Suddenly there's hundreds of experiences but you know spun up on Roblox. And I think that's really neat in their engagement, staying power and things like that. So speaker-1: We're trying to speaker-0: Emulate that a little bit, not get stagnant, keep fresh content and and things like that.

speaker-1: We don't have schedule. We don't me we're trying to speaker-0: I guess the way I describe it is is deliver value and and value can be entertainment for kids and and just being a fun platform that they like to to share meant to be shared. We do memes not only for consumption, but we love when users share it with friends and things like that. So those are metrics that we watch when we do a path, like how how much is it being consumed and then how much are they sharing out of it and and those we get more insight.

from the sharing that goes on than than just the you know how many people followed a a given path. yeah, speaker-1: So yeah. speaker-0: we're prioritizing those kind of things, learning as we go in terms of what kind of content is is engaging to the kids and doubling down on those things, getting rid of the things that aren't working. speaker-1: And then yeah, I again just trying to give them speaker-0: fun things to do with friends and and that can be, you know, new games and, you know, games with leaderboards and and things like that, that they're able to, you know, engage with friends.

gonna be idea speaker-1: Which is really the speaker-0: buying kids who is not single person consuming content and coming on the app for five minutes a day and scrolling and then putting it down. we're really looking for for ways to again back to our our our three C's, we call them of our product pillars, the connection creativity, cultivation of skills and interests. We really focus on that and and especially the connection piece. So even if it's something creative, like we love AI generated art because what's the first thing you want to do?

You want to share it with somebody. So and we allow them to, you know, add that to their sticker tray in chat and then use them as stickers and you know, things like that. So we're trying to kind of build isn't the right word, but you know, shareability in into a lot of things that we do. speaker-2: Do you try to balance that with kind of screen time limits or do you even see there being like kind of screen time issue when kids are on Kinzu?

like maybe there's a screen time issue if people are just if the kids are just like scrolling, you know, YouTube or something, but maybe on Kinzu it's okay 'cause they're being creative, or how do you view that and and do you impose any limitations or give parents the controls for that to kind of just stop access to the to the platform after a certain amount of kind of daily usage? speaker-1: So we we don't do limit mostly because speaker-0: like that. 'cause there's there's good tools out there for those parents that want to manage it that way.

And usually at the OS level, Apple and and Google or Android have have pretty good tools in place already. So it's a bit of a like do we want to build a feature that everybody has already probably not speaker-1: Green time is such a perfect. speaker-0: thing for parents too and and speaker-1: Whole thesis of speaker-0: the book I wrote i is really it's less about managing screen time to the clock, more about like what are they actually doing. So y you know, if you're comfortable with an hour a day or you know, you pick X amount of time.

But speaker-1: That's fine. speaker-0: it's more important to me, like what are the kids actually doing during that hour? and and you know, speaker-1: So speaker-0: consuming YouTube or getting angry on X or Twitter are are very different than like hanging out with friends or playing games and and things like that. So that to the parent, but where we interject is just I reference a few times it intentional points of friction in app stopping cues which you'll never have you know any social media it's the endless scroll it it's all that w there is an end to our scroll you can play our games three times you get a stop we're putting rules in place with high spark our AI chat GPT where the limits if it's speaker-1: We are imposing lips starting to get conversational.

speaker-0: And and the kid is starting to talk to this robot like a person. We're putting soft guards in in place and take a break features and and things like that. So that's where we speaker-1: that occasionally speaker-0: make those decisions for parents in just in terms of again what feels right to us as a parent. And we know that a lot of I referenced this earlier, a lot of parents are choosing Kinzu because it is speaker-1: if the kid speaker-0: on the screen for an hour a day.

You know, they want some part of that to be on Kinzu because they don't want their kid playing games or or just being on Roblox or on YouTube all day. If we start to create that same experience. we've kind of broken, you know, the the valley proposition to parents, I think a little bit. So i you know, striking a balance.

Kids want to play games, we know that and and things like that. So we wanna give them that, but also you know, put put some rules of engagement in place so that we don't become just a place where you know, kids going brain go brain dead for a couple of hours a day kind of thing. speaker-2: Yeah, that's a I I imagine that has to be a tricky thing to think about. 'Cause on the one hand, right, you imagine like the kids scrolling and they reach into the scroll or they're they play the game three times and now they can't play anymore.

What like on the one hand that's a good thing, right, 'cause they're forced take a break, but on the other hand, it's not really a good thing if they just switch apps over the over to YouTube, right? And just go over there next. Like I imagine I mean, I guess there's only so much you can do, right? You could control your little part of the app and then it's up to the parents after that to to manage things, you know, how they see fit.

But that's th it's difficult think you know, thinking through all these things I imagine. speaker-0: Yeah, very well. speaker-1: Rachel. It's it's an incredibly challenging speaker-0: space.

it's not for the not for the meek going into the kids market. Notor of C money in the segment. learned why. You know, it's speaker-1: Okay, it's hard to raise speaker-0: it's incredibly hard to monetize.

It's hard to get attention. Preferences change so fast. it it being a mission driven company like we are and we have to make some of these trade offs where we we don't just again, I've done so much research into design patterns. I am certain I could build an app with a ton of virality built into it and Or we could expose our user base into things that would pump our engagement numbers.

But again, at the expense of the psyche of kids, speaker-1: Kids. speaker-0: it is just not where we want to be. So we always have, we're we're true to our mission. We we talk about it often, our product pillars.

We're very fortunate to be in a position where five grade investors, we all see the opportunity. We see it as a long game where trust is something, you know, it's the old ad, it just takes years to build and minutes to to lose. You speaker-1: So we we have to speaker-0: weigh that very, very carefully. and be willing to make some of those trade offs.

Again, at the end of the day, we are a social product. And if we do a good job of listening to our users, giving them a feature set, making Kinzu a place a fun place to hang out with friends and family, we still win and gain a lot of market share, even if we can't, you know, throw the engagement playbook at them, so to speak. speaker-2: Yeah, I I mean I have to imagine that there's light at the end of the monetization tunnel for you guys. It does seem like the way that's most likely to work as far as these kind of B2B deals.

Cause you think like I mean, I I know little about this because I don't have kids yet. but I have to imagine that, you know, the Minecraft movie or Frozen or whatever, they throw money at every type of merchandise and every branded thing 'cause they just wanna like flood the market and just like have everyone know, you know, everyone just be Minecraft or Frozen or whatever it is, obsessed for a while. You'd have to imagine that those Folks would be willing to pay a good amount of money to create like a really good kind of themed experience in in Kinzu.

And I mean, I don't see the subscription or marketplace like monetization model being able to match that in the long run, obviously assuming you hit a certain amount of scale. So it does seem like like the right decisions are being made, right? It's just I guess a matter for you guys of executing to scale the user base. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

speaker-1: Making those decisions. I I did say you're speaker-0: we love the marketplace. I'd love to give everything for free. I'm I'm not sure about that.

Like I think it's it's a what a forces to consider again how a platform makes money and if we're selling things that are free elsewhere, to kind of have that question. So if buying speaker-1: Bye bye. speaker-0: something in the marketplace, you're you're supporting the mission is kind of how it's positioned. And and I think that's that's important.

the speaker-1: Can we get to the speaker-0: scale and things like that. probably not on that side. I I think just and and we're in a TEF. Tough economic climate, you know, it's we're speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: we're tasked with enough and we all have enough subscriptions and things like that. I I'm a consumer too, and and I think I'd be speaker-1: I think try to speaker-0: very real when it comes to like, do I feel just because of the landscape of social products and and kind of the expectations we have as as consumer, we know that's gonna be a big hurdle to get over and then become casual positive just solely based on that. What I'm really proud of is is like the path infrastructure we built that early days, probably twenty twenty one, I think we released it.

to the future and we made decisions when we were speaker-1: It was built for with an eye made design decision. speaker-0: bringing that feature to the market that still holds true today. And it it again, it's opt-in to craft your experience. I think speaker-1: We made a bet that I don't think speaker-0: parents are adverse to you know, the kids following content or getting, you know, quizzes from the d the dog man movie or Smurfs movie or you know to play a a Smurf themed game.

we're necessarily speaker-1: We don't think that speaker-0: adverse to that. I think where we get uncomfortable is like I just picked up the phone and it was there or I'm trying to do something and this massive ad popped up and I tried to close a lot. speaker-1: And the X proved as I did speaker-0: my kid is on the web and you know it's the kind of stuff that I mean is again speaker-1: it's that's I think there's opportunities there's significant speaker-0: B2B opportunities.

We also We have a lot of other ideas that are kind of w businesses speaker-1: Stanelum. speaker-0: that we can build on top of this infrastructure that are very much aligned with the mission. We're trying to build real world skills that referenced financial literacy earlier and things like that. So there's very that we're looking at that that are also like viable businesses that will sit on top of the infrastructure as well.

It doesn't mean we're going to do them, but I think there's a lot of opportunity there and speaker-1: just really I think our instincts were and this actually goes speaker-0: right in terms of and to the market research point two i is when we first started asking people would you would you pay five bucks a month for this and they all say until speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: you you ask for the five dollars and then speaker-2: Yeah, the only way to test that is to ask for the money.

Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. So I think we were I'm really happy we made that decision early on, even if it kinda created a tougher road ahead on just what we're doing speaker-1: We're trying to do speaker-0: is is requires you know, it's i it it's weighing everything against our values and our mission. It it's coming up with ways of monetization that are kinda non-traditional in these movie studios and trying to get their social teams to speaker-1: flip KPIs on their speaker-0: head and and the way they're probably being bonused and and things but speaker-1: i it's a tough road.

speaker-0: again I think one thing consistent I hope it's a thread that's kinda come out in this conversation is like we are playing the long game and and we we are staying true to the mission. We're we're excited about the notion. We're we're gaining great momentum in that. I think people are really buying in and we're gonna succeed way or we're gonna fail that way.

We're we're not going to like I said, if we if we lose the trust factor, I think we've you know if we've become no better than Facebook, then why would a parent choose us over Facebook? I mean, that's the reality of it. So speaker-2: Yeah, my last thing is about the partnerships because I'm very curious about this because I am not someone who naturally is very good at this kind of hazy like networking, making connections and meeting people in the right places. Like how how did you approach the partnership stuff?

Did you start going to conferences try meet these people? Did you just send a bunch of cold emails? Like what how did you and your team think about setting you know getting these initial partnerships with with the movie studios and whoever else? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it's like yes and yes and game speaker-1: You everything.

speaker-0: cold cold reach on LinkedIn and email and all that kind of stuff. speaker-1: Yeah, it it's been w we even at our our speaker-0: Scale which is speaker-1: It's modest but it's still it. speaker-0: But it's still significant. You know, it's not easy to build a product at our our scale.

So it's, you know, are we where we want to be? No, but we never want to discount where we've gotten very few apps even get to this scale. A speaker-1: We serve a speaker-0: audience that's i extremely difficult to reach. and, you know, the alternative for movie studios, et cetera, is, you know, on YouTube and kids aren't supposed to be, you know, watching these, but they know some level of them are, but they'll never get good attribution and things like that anyway.

they don't want to target kids directly. they're doing, you know, experiences speaker-1: exp speaker-0: in Roblox and things like that that are getting cracked down on now. There's a lot of kind of questions around the speaker-1: You know speaker-0: do kids have the ability to distinguish like what's added advertising, what isn't and that so serve speaker-1: we we do speaker-0: an audience that's extremely difficult to reach and we can attest to that too. speaker-1: So I think long as we do a good y I think we have So we've been like really touching speaker-0: Which is really I think just a testament.

I have great people, a great team around me that have been able to create the usually it's been through speaker-1: Item is usually speaker-0: warm outreach. So just, you know, through network, friends of friends and you know, going down that getting a conversation and and then being able to kind of demonstrate and then I've c again punching above our weight. one thing consistently has come back to us. Like we're we're doing things over and over with these same studios because we produce high quality, we're easy to work with, they love the vision and they really enjoyed speaker-1: Have enjoyed.

speaker-0: being able to kind of create these experiences. They can't just speaker-1: The alternative. speaker-0: like run a pre-roll on on YouTube, whereas so we're able to get into gamification and face filters and quizzes and just really different ways of engaging their audience. So it's been really, really fun to To do it's just always getting over that hurdle of yeah, i it's a little more effort.

we don't fit into the, you know, the boxes that they're they're used to. but we've been very successful in A having the conversation and and B convincing them to give us a try and and it's typically gone very well and they keep coming back. So that's great. speaker-2: At least like you kind of know the objections.

Like it's very clear what the objections are gonna be and kind of it's like, okay, we have an answer for all of these basically 'cause we we know the the playbook, we know what you're looking for, and these are how we approach it differently. So yeah, I can see the the conversation maybe not as difficult as it may it may seem. speaker-0: Yeah, I certainly we had to learn the objections as as we went. I think we could anticipate some of them.

You know, at the end of the game we're putting speaker-1: But speaker-0: impressions play. We can't offer a hundred million impressions. Like we just we can't. and speaker-1: That's solely.

speaker-0: you know, what you're after we're we're probably not a fit. for those that really want to engaged speaker-1: Highly. speaker-0: audience, I can't wait to get the con newest content on their path. I mean, there's a lot of value there and I think they're really starting to to understand that and and you know speaker-1: Driving great results.

speaker-0: nobody would do this if we weren't so multiple times, you know, it's been a really great ride. I I think that we've been our challenges are are are again just weighing the long term, what's our promise, what's our mission, staying mission driven, not falling into temptation of of, you know, going the easy route when it comes to this. maintain that long term focus and and delivering a lot of Challenge and yeah, I think that's created we've got a very interesting company in a very non-traditional in every sense.

Everything from our fundraising to our marketing to our, you know, user base and profiles and things like that. It's product speaker-1: We're the only problem speaker-0: designed, you know, for adults and kids to be on at the same time, like Facebook Messenger and Messenger Kids are different products. so everything speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: from from that creates speaker-1: Creates challenges but speaker-0: a lot of opportunities and it's so cool to, you know, engage with our our customers and parents and hear the stories of how they're using Kinzu and how much value it's adding and and when we're delivering on our mission of like we're really break speaker-1: helping.

speaker-0: this screen time conundrum down for them and and make it a little bit easier and make technology a more positive force in the in their lives. Not this thing that speaks all the speaker-1: They just feel icky about all speaker-0: time and and feel anxiety every time their kids on a school that's a problem that we're real ultimately trying to solve. And it's been, yeah, just incredibly rewarding you know, to be through this journey, which is not over yet. Yeah, and this has been a great conversation.

I'm I'm really glad you guys reached out and it's been really enjoyable. speaker-2: Yeah, it's been great to chat. Yeah, awesome. Do you want to just give guys an overview where you can find you?

You mentioned a newsletter and your book as well. Did you wanna shout those out? speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. so Sean Herman, the book is called Screen Captured.

my newsletter is that digital dad on sub dot com is is where you find information on on all of our products. we're on the apps all the app stores. Yeah, check us out. We're Kins of Messenger is the highest rated messenger in the world.

Great product. Check it out. speaker-2: That's a great way to end it, actually. Yeah, that is a quite the stat.

Highest rated messenger in the world. Yeah. Awesome.