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OK, I'll put something concrete on the table to get away from the hypothetical.

Here's one of my MVP's (yes folks, I am working on more than one idea at a time):

http://www.tommyteaches.com/

Go on, check it out and come back.

This is actually a finished product. There's nothing new to build at this stage except for additional installments of Tommy Teaches apps (additional subjects) and a few that will require slightly different technology. So, it is an MVP only in the sense that it is the first "hook in the water" to be able to start gathering a little bit of an audience and start testing a hypothesis.

Where is it now? It just launched, and, as a paid app, it enjoyed all of three days in the "new in education" list and notched down from there. I probably should have released it as a free app and then convert to paid. It has a built-in recommendation system which --I would hope-- would then serve to gather a larger audience.

The real power is in having Tommy teach additional topics and have more hooks in the water. Then it can leverage into other areas, such as a more elaborate online portal with advertising, affiliate stuff and online games to keep them coming. You have to start somewhere.

And yes, the strategy with new titles will be to release them as free apps and then migrate into paid at certain point.

This app required a lot of heavy lifting in order to creatively utilize a genetic algorithm to optimize teaching. All-in-all, between various experiments and concepts you are looking at about a year's worth of work.

Why take it that far? Because that was part of the initial hypothesis. It came out of helping my own kids with school-work. The realization was that the vast majority of apps out there use mindless (and useless) repetition to "teach". A real human teacher actually observes the student and adjusts teaching style, sequence and content in order to focus on what the kid is having trouble with and optimize/maximize learning. That's what Tommy Teaches attempts to do.

OK, long explanation. Let's get back to the OP's proposal and the potential relevance to this project.

With Tommy's engine (rev 1) and his first app released I am engaged in the following:

    - Planning follow-on titles (as seen on the website)
    - Marketing, building an audience
    - Monitoring usage (analytics) to try to determine if and how to mutate 
      Tommy for better results
    - Looking for additional revenue-generating opportunities for Tommy 
      Amazon affiliate links on the site for kid's books and toys being one example.
In other words, mostly business development.

So, what might inspire me to give up a percentage of my business to someone else? Yes, there's still plenty of development work to do. Nothing is ever finished. As projects go, this is a fairly polished actual product, not a cripple-ware MVP.

In my eyes outside funding would be of use to accelerate the production of additional titles. That, I think, is important. It would also be interesting to consider accelerating the release of these titles for Android and perhaps even consider dipping toes in the Windows 8 Phone landscape.

The other very important element here is the use of outside funding AND know-how/connections to accelerate marketing and audience-building efforts. This could be, by far, the most valuable part of a deal. This is particularly true when the technology is already built and it is basically a product that needs to be sold.

Herein lies the issue, at least for me. The OP hasn't really provided enough information to evaluate the quality of his money (no offense intended). For most projects dumb money is useless. It can even be dangerous. Smart money comes with contacts, methods, audience, perspective, experience, outlook and a whole host of other items that go into making it "smart".

Then there's the idea that $8,000 isn't a lot of money at all. If you are working in tech you should be able to put together $8,000, even if it takes you a year to do so. Equity is sacred and it should not be given-up without great justification. Again, on the premise that a tech worker earns a good living, giving-up 50% of your company for $8,000 (meaning, just money and a nebulous offer to market) simply doesn't make a ton of sense.

I've hired and fired many sales and marketing people in prior business ventures. If there's one thing I can say conclusively is that there really isn't a perfect correlation between the ability of a person selling product A translating into selling product B. I've hired people who were fantastic at selling product A, had a huge client list and came with recommendations. They couldn't sell my product to save their lives. There's something, for lack of a better term, "organic" about the relationship or the fit between the marketeer/sales-person and the product.

This is to say that just because someone says that they are going to market your product it does not mean --not for a second-- that they are actually going to be able to deliver results.

Just to set things straight: I think the OP is doing this community a huge service by opening-up this paradigm for discussion. And, while the proposed structure isn't something I would be inclined to consider, I am sure there are those for whom it could be fantastic and even potentially life-changing.

I am more than willing to consider a partner for Tommy Teaches. However, this partner needs to bring to the table a really convincing value proposition that goes beyond money. By all means, if you are that person and are interested drop me an email (see HN profile).




You have a good start there. I haven't used your app but looking at it the GUI looks kid-friendly.

You might want to look at iOS and iPhone review sites and give them your link for possible reviews. If you get more reviews on it from third parties who are neutral, it will help promote your app. Find target users by posting to K-12 education forums with your Tommy Teaches web site in your signature, find Homeschooling forums and post in them with TT in your tag line as well. Form partnerships with other makers of children's learning apps to link to your web site and your will link back to their web site.

I can think of more titles for Tommy, there is a big market for foreign languages as most schools don't teach foreign languages due to budget cuts (my son's school did that) and the school advises parents to go online and have their children learn there. You could make Spanish, French, German, Latin, Chinese, Japanese learning apps and market them to parents who need to have their child learn a foreign language. I haven't seen many children friendly foreign language apps on the App Store. They are mostly for adults. Tommy Teachers can fill that gap.

Write some eBooks based on the Tommy Teacher graphics and materials. Start out with an Alphabet book, and work on each title. You can publish them with Kindle and Nook as well as Apple iBooks.

Make some pages for Tommy Teaches at Facebook, GPlus, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc to promote new products and have people sign up and refer your pages to friends.

You might want to make some apps as Autism-friendly, I hear there is a big market for that. A Tommy Teaches app that autistic children can use that speaks for them, when they can't speak. They just click on icons and it forms words for them. Use most common words that a child might say and have cartoon pictures of them.

Good luck on Rev 2, this is all free advice for you. You don't need that guy's $8000 investment.


Thanks very much for your feedback.

Yes, quite a bit of what you are suggesting is in my game-plan already. I have an excellent relationship with my kid's elementary school. The Principal already presented Tommy Teaches to all the teachers and I got good reviews.

I am also about to get involved with their developmentally disabled classes. I know the teachers who look after those kids (one of them lives across the street from me) and they've already told me about a general lack of tools for their kids. My plan is to spend a week or two with the kids at school observing and interacting with them. I'm sure it will be heart-breaking to some extent but if I can help them in any way it'd be absolutely wonderful.

Ditto for the eBooks and some of the other ideas. I even have a very interesting concept for a Tommy Teaches toy.

At one point you start to run into the limits of a solo founder. I can't do everything. I have so far, including developing the character and doing all of the animation work (and I am not a designer at all). This is where intelligent money (meaning money that comes with vision, contacts, perspective, ideas, etc.) could be valuable.

Another interesting angle on Tommy is adult learning. Tommy's genetically-evolved teaching engine could be applied to teaching various subjects that adults want to learn. That's a very interesting market.

In terms of additional languages, yes, absolutely. I speak a couple of languages myself outside of English and am very aware of the lack of quality apps in those domains. Thinking out loud, Spanish might be the first I'd target.

Thanks again for the pointers.


You are welcome. I paid 99 cents for the alphabet app and left a review for you on the app store.

My wife is half-Thai and I know a lot of Thai people who want to learn English. You might want to consider an ESL aspect of your app for adults who speak a foreign language.

I think this proves that I know what I am talking about in this thread. My plan I wrote for your app is very similar to what you are doing, and you didn't tell me what it was.

Yes at some point you have to hire other people or take on investors and cofounders to help out. Make sure you research them thoroughly before you sign any contract with them. Don't take just anyone, there are a lot of scam artists out there that prey on startups like sharks.


Many thanks for purchasing the app. I'd certainly value your feedback if you have a chance to have small children play with it.

Yes, at one point you have to hire-in help. I am on the camp that an experienced solo founder could be better than inexperienced young co-founders. You can hire-in (and fire) help but if you discover that your co-founders are, shall we say, problematic, it can get ugly fast.

Prior to this I started a tech company in my garage that did pretty well until circumstances around the economic collapse of 2008 imploded it. Basically, most of our business was through leasing and when banks stopped lending our customers (and orders) evaporated nearly overnight. Ugly. Anyhow, I started it solo. Spent two years locked in the garage developing hardware and software. Grew it to twenty employees and a 10,000 square foot manufacturing facility at the peak. It was a fantastic ride. Not without peril, but, putting aside the pain of the loss of a twelve year effort, a wonderful experience.

You comment about scam artists one to heed. Newbie entrepreneurs can be prime targets. I have my share of scars to prove how "real" it can be.


Some feedback: very very very wordy ! I would not explain how it works (GA) but show some examples right away.

Your audience is the parent and they are viewing on behalf of their child. So they want to have an immediate experience of how their child is going to shortly learn and have fun. Need to get them to feel the game right away. Their brain is going to be in "playing with child mode" during the time they are shopping.

So you could use somebody who really gets this kind of communication and sculpting down the landing pages and text (much shorter !) and so on. That's real marketing : not just pestering blogs or magazines. Its communication, an intrinsic part of the product itself.

> I am more than willing to consider a partner for Tommy Teaches. However, this partner needs to bring to the table a really convincing value proposition that goes beyond money.

Totally agree. Would any of us hire a programmer without anything more than "I'm a programmer !" ? A successful product is not just an idea and an implementation.


Thanks for the feedback.

My intent with the wordiness was to try to generate some SEO juice and see if I can bring people to the site organically. This just launched so it is too early to tell.

I am going to shoot a video of the game in action and include it in the site (as well as posting it on YouTube).

I will absolutely consider your input with regards to the wordiness. Maybe split some of it off into a "Tech Talk" div in the page or even a separate page.

One thought I had for using the term and going into a super-short explanation of what using a GA means is simply to try to differentiate the app a little. Admittedly there are a ton and a half apps in the app store that teach all of these subject. The question to answer became: How is yours different? The answer was the GA. That's why I felt I had to make a very lightweight introduction for visitors.

I am also hoping that this might generate some chatter in tech blog circles. I am not sure that there are other apps that use GA's to teach children (or teach anything at all). That's probably not true, but the fact that I might need to go looking for them might mean that they haven't done a good job of getting the word out.

In the next month or so I am going to get out to various local Meetups and try to show this off and network. No particular goal in mind other than simply meeting interesting people and creating some awareness.

What would be a good place to post for feedback on the site content and design? I think I've seen some of that on HN but it isn't all that frequent.


You need a simple narrative. Example:

Sally learns best by doing X, while Sam learns best by doing Y. (Show cartoon Sally doing X and cartoon Sam doing Y). Most apps will try to teach Sally and Sam the same way, but the TommyTeaches app is smarter than that! Tommy will be learning as he teaches. Tommy will learn which techniques are best for Sally and Sam individually, then tailor the lessons to... etc.


Ah, got it. That is a different approach. It's about highlighting benefits rather than talking about features. Thanks.


I like your idea. I've been interested in the use of machine-learning and techniques from AI to improve teaching for a while. It seemed odd to me that no one has been able to effectively apply what we've learned about machine learning to help human learning, despite having computers in the classroom for decades. Creating a system that can learn the optimal strategy to coach a student seems like a pretty well-defined problem. Khan Academy has done some very interesting work in individualized automated teaching methods.


All I can say is that it isn't an easy problem to solve. I still don't have it right.




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