Parents will pay you a lot to start this business

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter that serves up your favorite scoop of side hustles. Mmmm, is that strawberry? 😋 

Happy Friday Eve! Here’s the docket for today:

• 📱 The educational screen time app for kids

• 😂 Meme of the day

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EDUCATIONAL SCREEN TIME APP FOR KIDS

A while ago I ran a poll and found that the majority of you are parents. So, I think this idea will resonate.

We all know technology is taking over the younger generation. One survey found that children 11-14 spend about 9 hours of their day in front of a screen playing games or watching YouTube, and it’s frying their brains and affecting their learning capabilities.

Many parents know this and do what they can to keep their kids safe. But kids will be kids, and they’re figuring out how to cheat their Apple screen time limit.

So, now we have a ton of parents who are looking for a better alternative. That’s where you come in. 🫵 

What if you created an app where every time a child opens, say, TikTok or YouTube, they have to answer educational questions correctly to get access? And maybe even annoyingly, if they get it wrong it adds another question.

That way, you’re helping them learn and making it harder to break their screen time limit.

After many hours of research, I found one company who attempted this called “1question” and by the looks of their website, it went out of business.

Luckily, I was able to download the app and it does exactly what I said; it asks a question and requires the user get it right before allowing access to the app.

And it's not just any question - these are snappy, curriculum-aligned math quizzes that turn screen time into brain time. 

There's even a dashboard for parents to take a sneak peek at their kids’ progress. 

The company was founded 5 years ago and now had 3 full-time employees and 5 freelancers.

Now just because this company didn’t execute doesn’t mean you can’t. It just means the ovens hot! 

If you go through 1question’s IG and TikTok accounts, you can tell they didn’t taking marketing too seriously. And, I don’t see any inactive Facebook ads... where all the parents are.

Considering their app only has 32 reviews I think there’s a big opportunity to do something very similar. 95% of teens use YouTube and 67% use TikTok… this market is huge.

Here’s how I’d capitalize off it:

#1 Build the app

The best option is to build the app yourself or hire a tech savvy friend to help (even if it takes longer).

You can hire app developers off Upwork or Fiverr that charge $20-$50/hr but if your app gets big, there’s no way to stop them from reselling the source code to someone else.

If I had to guess, I’d say this would cost a few thousand dollars to create. There are people on Fiverr who claim they can build apps for $200. That may be true but I’d interview them first.. or you could end up like this guy on Reddit.

Some must have features:

1. The parent dashboard
   
   One thing 1Question did that I love is it lets parents track how their kids are doing. They can see what answers they’re getting right and what they need to improve on. Definitely a must-have feature to provide the feedback loop to the parents. 

2. Randomized Questions based on grade level
   
   I think it goes without saying but the same question shouldn’t always pop up every time a user goes to open an app. I’d let the parents choose how many questions they want their kid to answer and how often they want a question to pop up on their screen.

#2 Do marketing the right way

Just by looking at 1question’s marketing, you can tell it’s not top-notch. No Facebook ads, no TikTok ads, and no Google ads.

But besides just doing ads I think your biggest ad spend should be on influencer marketing - specifically parents.

I’d hit up every parent influencer you know on social media to start talking about the new app you’ve built to help kids learn and not fry their brains on socials.

Maybe you don’t even need to pay these parents depending on their follower count. A free year-long subscription for their own kids might do the trick!

And since this app is helping kids, you should get some free word-of-mouth referrals from parents talking to other parents.

How much can you charge?

1question only charged $2.99/mo. I think that’s very underpriced given the benefits they offer parents. I’d charge at least $20/mo for this service. 

You don’t need to compete on price if your product and marketing are that much better. Parents who care about their kid’s education and development will pay for a service like this. You just have to find them.

Children are on these tablets every single day for hours on end. Parents will pay to ensure they’re actually learning in the process.

And just a note about price. I’ve done countless hours of research on this topic.

Wanna know something that probably sounds counterintuitive? The more expensive an item is, the more perceived value it has. Meaning if it’s free or super cheap (like $3 a month), people won’t think it holds any real value. 

And that’s all I had for you today. Have a good one!

MEME OF THE DAY

😂😂 

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That's a wrap! Enjoy your weekend! :)

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.