September 23, 2024 • 37 mins
Eben Pingree is the CEO and co-founder of Kinsome, an innovative app designed to connect children and their grandparents, no matter the distance.
Inspired by his own family's struggles with Alzheimer's, Eben reveals how Kinsome facilitates audio interactions to help grandparents get to know their grandchildren - and vice versa.
This episode is ideal for parents of 6 - 11 year old's, who live away from their grandparents, and want them to build a relationship.
About Eben Pingree:
Eben has founded several companies in the Consumer Social space, while also serving in Product leadership roles at several successful tech startups in the Boston area. He lives in downtown Boston with his wife and three young children in the same building as his parents and his younger brother's family. This intergenerational compound serves as a major source of inspiration for his vision for Kinsome.
Find Eben Pingree on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eben-pingree-1711647/
Website http://www.kinsome.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092012386435
https://www.instagram.com/be_kinsome/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/bekinsome/posts/?feedView=all
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I hope our conversation inspires you to rediscover connection in your personal or professional life.
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Love & sparkles,
✨Shelley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I think what people don't forget, because you
think grandparents andgrandkids they're the same blood
.
Of course they love each other.
They still don't know eachother.
If your kids are born on onecontinent and the grandparents
are on another, they mightinherently love each other, but
they haven't built a bond, and Ithink just throwing them on a
(00:22):
FaceTime call once a week oronce a month is not enough to
kind of build the foundation.
You need to really connect inthat way, and so our goal by no
means do we think like thisasynchronous platform is the
answer in and of itself.
We think it's kind of themissing piece, so that over time
they will look forward togetting on the FaceTime call and
(00:44):
they'll have things to talkabout and it won't be this kind
of awkward forced situationwhere you're bribing the kids to
sit still for five minutes andtypically a pretty unfulfilling
experience for the grandparentstoo, because the kids are
running around and want to bedoing something else.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection.
I am Shelley Doyle and I'm heretoday with the founder and CEO
of a revolutionary new app thatis designed to connect
grandchildren with theirgrandparents, near or far.
The app is called Kinsome,which I have been trialing for
(01:25):
the last couple of days with mydaughter, and the co-founder is
Eben Pingree.
I'm super excited to welcomeEben here from Boston today.
Welcome, welcome.
Nice to see you here, eben.
Thank you for making the time.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to chat and thankyou for playing with the product
.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, my pleasure.
I'm actually a prime candidatefor this app, given that we are
living on the Pacific coast, onVancouver Island, with my two
children here, who are five,coming on, six and eight years
old, and all of my children'sgrandparents are based in the UK
.
So of course, there's the oddkind of telephone call and my
(02:04):
son works OK if he has theheadphones on his head.
Then he can kind of go into abit of a natural conversation.
But time zones really impactthe communication that they have
with their grandparents andhonestly, it's like I've been
looking for something that canhelp them to connect more,
(02:26):
whilst also being somewhatnervous about technology, and I
know like some of my daughter'sfriends are already on like a
Facebook messenger for kids,which I don't have any desire to
introduce my daughter to at all.
(02:47):
Um, I haven't read his books yet, but I'm very aware of Jonathan
Haidt.
Um, and just talking about youknow how social media for kids,
like, really changes their,changes the way that they're
thinking, the relationships withfriends and just keeps things
on their mind.
So I'm kind of nervously comingonto this platform and I'm just
(03:12):
a couple of days in, so let'sjust go back a few steps and
maybe talk about your why, likewhy, why did you feel really
passionate about this?
And you say you're a co-founder, so there's obviously something
you've got somebody else onboard with you.
So let's just talk a bitthrough, like your why and and
how you've got to where you areright now absolutely, absolutely
(03:33):
so.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Unfortunately, the the kind of initial inspiration
for Kinsome came, uh, with somesadness.
About 18 months ago my mom wasdiagnosed with Alzheimer's um,
and actually my father-in-lawgot the same diagnosis almost I
think it was the same week andso among the many reactions that
my wife and I had, one of themwas just this huge spike in
(03:58):
urgency around.
You know, how can we be asdeliberate as possible in making
sure our kids built thesestrong bonds with them?
You know, what could we bedoing?
How can we create and captureas many memories as possible?
And we actually have two verydifferent perspectives on it
(04:19):
because, on the one hand, I livein the same building as my
parents here in Boston, so youwouldn't think that I would be
the one starting a companyfocused on this.
But it's actually been a hugeinspiration for our vision to
watch just how closely my kidshave bonded with my parents.
My younger brother actuallylives in the apartment below me.
(04:40):
He has three more kids, sothere's there's six kids between
the two of us under the sameroof as my parents, and I just
think it's incredibly healthy tosee my kids have two additional
adults who are giving them kindof constant love and attention
and then, frankly, from a lessdistracted point in their life
(05:04):
as much as I wish my wife and Iwere not as distracted.
It's a crazy time.
So I think it's amazing for mykids, for my parents, to have
six kids.
Just, you know, keeping them ontheir toes mentally and
physically I think is great forthem they wake up with.
They talk all the time abouthow, when they wake up in the
(05:26):
morning, their grandkids are ahuge, you know, sense of purpose
for them.
And then for my wife and I,we're just trying to survive
each day right now with littlekids and in the middle of our
careers and starting to have totake care of our parents a lot
more, and so having them kind ofhelping each other in their own
(05:47):
ways is a huge relief, and soI've just become a huge believer
in what, how powerful it can be.
But obviously, for mostfamilies, I think your situation
is more the norm than minethese days by a long shot.
So as we thought about how, howcould we bring some of this
(06:09):
magic to my in-laws, who don'tlive as close, we were just
really underwhelmed with thetechnology that was out there
for some of the reasons youmentioned and just didn't see
anything that was really, youknow, tailor made for this use
case.
And it is very different tobuild a bond across people who
are 50 years apart in age andhave totally different social
(06:33):
contexts and all these differentthings.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Um, we saw an opportunity to to build
something that was really laserfocused on that beautiful and,
just through trialing it for thelast couple of days, the kind
of questions that the robots,the AI assistant, asks the child
, maybe the questions thatgrandparents wouldn't
(06:57):
necessarily know to ask becausethey're not necessarily seeing
children.
It's designed for ages like sixto 11.
So very specific, a youngdemographic, so it's really kind
of on their wavelength andasking the kind of questions
that is actually evoking morethan just a yes, no response,
(07:20):
actually finding out a bit moreabout the character of the child
.
Has that been intentional?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Absolutely, and you know, a big part of our thesis
is that you know, parents, ifthey had unlimited time, have
the ability to facilitate thistype of bonding with today's
technology.
But it takes a ton of work andtime zones, like you mentioned.
All these different things makeit so much harder for a parent
(07:47):
not only for the kid to be onthe phone with the grandparent
but for the parent to be thereasking kids more detailed
questions so they don't justgive the one word answers.
And for most people, despitetheir best intentions, for busy
parents, that it's just one ofthe things that can fall by the
wayside.
And so we wanted to kind oftake this off parents' plates.
(08:10):
But we knew there still had tobe this facilitation layer.
Most eight-year-olds aren't justgoing to jump on a Zoom call
like we're on with their80-year-old grandfather and you
know gab for hours.
It's just not the way it works.
So we wanted there to besomething in the middle that
could kind of tease out from thekid what they've been doing and
(08:33):
you know what, whether it'sactivities, who their friends
are, and ask these follow-upquestions so that we can share
more context with thegrandparents.
But over time, as grandparentskind of get more into the
day-to-day loop.
Their questions, theirresponses get more interwoven
into the experience.
(08:53):
So the, the kind ofintermediary, can kind of take a
step back and let the, the bond, build one-to-one beautiful and
that's it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So I have sat with my daughter the last couple of
days to help kind of guide herthrough it.
But the idea would be that, youknow, come home from school and
maybe, rather than watchinghalf an hour of telly, I can
trust her with my phone, knowingthat she's going on to an app
that's like kind of a safe place.
(09:24):
One of the other nice thingsabout it and I I have
experienced in some other games,like we use prodigy for, like
maths and english games there'sa cut off, so it's not just like
netflix.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You can roll through next episode, next episode, it's
like one update a day and youhave that conversation and then
that's that's sealed, and thennext day you have an opportunity
to go into another yeah, we'retrying to kind of build this
routine of of kind of thesequick shares and and the goal is
to to give grandparents thiskind of window into the
(10:00):
day-to-day life, but certainlynot trying to build something
that's addictive in any way forkids or you know, something that
they're going to spend endlesstime on.
But we do think that even kindof in a single player mode, so
to speak, we can kind ofcontinue to kind of interweave a
curriculum so that we'reteaching them about why it's
(10:22):
healthy to kind of reflect ontheir day and, you know, weave
in moments where they can findthings they were grateful for or
learn about their familyhistory and why that's important
and can kind of ground thembetter in this world.
So, yeah, we're trying to kindof strike the balance of making
it fun and engaging andinteresting enough, but we don't
(10:47):
don't want kids kind of staringat this endlessly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
What's coming to me is just the idea of asking
better questions.
Like I have two half brotherswho are 10 years younger, like
eight and 10 years younger thanme, so we used to travel across
to New Zealand from when I wassay 12 and asking questions, um,
asking questions to them likehow was school, and they'd be
(11:12):
like fine oh yeah, and that wasit.
And you're like, oh, you hadsix hours there, was it?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
that's it.
Yeah, what happened nothing?
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Asking the kind of evocative questions like what
surprising thing happened atschool today?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
ask something actually triggers a memory and
it also is is something thatthat gets better over time.
So Kinsey, this, this robotcharacter in the app, is
actually learning from eachconversation and remembering
things that the kid tells them.
So like, for instance, lastweek was my five-year-old
(11:52):
daughter's first day ofkindergarten, and Kinsey
remembered that she'd said acouple days earlier that, you
know, monday was her first day,and so Kinsey's asking very
specific questions that arebased in things that Thayer has
told her, and I think it allowsthem to open up a lot more.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And it's obviously a big introduction to children, to
AI, which again I'm slightlynervous about, which again I'm
slightly nervous about, but sofar it's felt good.
Like, alba said that she hadcreated a story and Kenzie asked
her oh okay, have you named anyof the characters in your story
(12:35):
?
So she had two cats.
She'd named one of them andsaid have you got any ideas for
the other name?
And Alba said no, can you giveme some ideas?
And then she gave her likethree name ideas, of which Alba
said no, can you give me someideas?
And then she gave her likethree name ideas, of which Alba
chose one.
And then this morning she saidum, so how is your new book
going?
Have you have you thought ofany adventures?
(12:56):
For?
And she remembered the namethat Alba had given and then,
and the new and the new name, soit's um, whiskers was a new one
, original one.
Oh, violet was alba's one.
And I was like no, um, couldyou think some ideas for, like
for the story?
So she gave her a couple ofscenarios and I was like oh,
yeah, I like this one.
(13:17):
So I guess after school todayshe might be encouraged to then
start making this.
So yeah, it's it's not onlycommunicating for grandparents,
it is, it's definitely more.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I don't know if you know what you're creating here,
eben, but it's, it's, it'ssomething yeah, it's, you know
we've, I think for kids theydon't, hopefully don't think
about it in terms of of AI, Ithink through TV and video games
for't think about it in termsof AI, I think through TV and
(13:54):
video games, for better or worse, they kind of see this robot
character and don't think aboutwhat's happening behind it.
Obviously, that puts moreresponsibility on our plate to
make sure that we put the rightsafeguards and prompts in place
for Kinsey to kind of steer theconversation, and that's
something that we've invested alot of time and energy into and
will continue to make it a toppriority.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
And so is it.
Your partner is your co-founder.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, my co-founder, mike, comes from a software
engineering background, so he'sbuilt everything, or a lot of
the product to date and and howbig is your team currently?
we are small, small but mighty.
We are just kind of gettinggoing here.
So there's five of us umworking on it, mostly on the
(14:44):
product and engineering side.
Um brianne baker is our head ofdesign.
She's spent about 15 yearsbuilding kids games and kids
media apps, so she really filleda gap in our team's expertise
in terms of designing for thataudience.
And then the other folksbesides myself are on the
(15:06):
engineering side as well.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And then in terms of your customer base, it's very
new right.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Very, very new.
Yeah, we're just coming out ofthe gates here wow, amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Well, I mean, I'm really, I'm really hesitantly
excited about this.
I haven't introduced my son toit yet and maybe I'll just have
my daughter on it for a coupleof weeks and just help her to
get really established, yeah,and then introduce my son.
I said it's his birthday in acouple of weeks, so then he'll
be the target demographic.
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I love it my five-year-old has been.
She's been having fun with it.
When she was a little younger,there was some kind of like
speech recognition.
We should mention this is audiofirst.
So it's you know kids aretalking and Kinsey's talking
back to them and younger kids uh.
There.
There can be some kind ofspeech recognition issues as
(16:04):
their kind of uh voices arestill developing and whatnot but
then the words do also come up.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So so, it's maybe also helping with reading.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's transcribes for them as well,
which is also important on thegrandparent side as well.
They can read along and butthey they also can hear their
grandkids voice, which wethought was was really important
, and that's something that we.
We've gone back and forth a loton what the kind of right
(16:38):
primary medium is, and voicefelt like the right balance
between being a lot morepersonal than than just text,
but not quite as, I guess,invasive as as video, especially
for grandparents.
Sending responses to have totake a video of yourself is a
much bigger step than justrecording a voice message in
(17:01):
return.
So we're starting with audio asthe kind of default, but there
will be plenty of opportunitiesto incorporate video.
We already have differentactivities that kids can do that
incorporate taking pictures,selfie, selfie pictures to send
to grandparents.
So there'll be other mediums aswell.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
There's a few things that's coming up for me.
One is kind of the exclusivity.
Like we've all got lots ofWhatsApp groups going on and you
know a lot of the time you'llsend an update from your family
and you'll send it to a wholefamily whatsapp group and I
guess maybe sometimesgrandparents do want to feel um,
(17:45):
nurtured and like they've gotan exclusive insight into their
grandchildren's lives that isn'tbroadcast to the wider family
network.
Has that been a considerationin the development of it?
The exclusivity, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I mean I think you're you're touching on a couple
things that we've thought a loton.
I mean one, it's exclusive butit's also at least across the
grandparent level.
We want to build it in a waythat kids, when they're doing
these initial updates what wecall daily shares that those can
be broadcast to thegrandparents.
Not more broadly than that,when they listen, if they want
(18:37):
to respond to him, those goone-to-one, directly to him and
if the conversation goes fromthere, he's just communicating
directly with that grandparent.
So we wanted to kind of balance.
We didn't think the kid wouldwant to give the same update to
four times in a row, so wewanted to have kind of give him
that podium to share that, thequick update.
But then the conversations, uh,are very private, one-to-one
(19:00):
after that.
And similarly, we're kind ofjust starting to roll out these,
this suite of games andactivities.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
The first one is this factor, factor fibbing game, um
, and those will be playedone-to-one from the the grandkid
to the grandparent and will beanother way to kind of deepen
that one-to-one relationship andwe have pushed the brief a
little bit because I have asister and my partner has a
(19:27):
sister, so we have added auntiesto ours and I've already had
feedback from one of them to sayit's really appreciated and she
has a son a similar age.
So, um, yeah, so I've sent herthe app because she didn't
realize as a recipient, so as arecipient, as a grandparent,
they don't need to download anapp, they will literally just
(19:50):
receive a message, so as thoughthat it's just a text message.
So I haven't seen it on theother side, but she she did say
oh yeah, maybe this could evengo through an app.
So I was like, actually it isan app on the child's side, but
that's not necessarily known onthe other side.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, for the, at least to start.
We wanted to really prioritizesimplicity on the, the
grandparent side, and we didn'twant them to have to download an
app.
Didn't want them to have todownload an app, didn't want
them to have to create andremember a password, while still
keeping it very secure.
So we're using what are calledmagic links, which get either
emailed or texted.
You, as the parent, pick whichchannel is is more familiar for
(20:30):
the grandparent, or you can doit per grandparent and then,
with each update the kid does,they can just click that link
and be brought right into a webexperience where they're hearing
their grandkids voice and canpartake in the activities.
If they want to send a response, there's a pretty quick
web-based flow where they createtheir account, but then from
(20:54):
then on it's all based on theseweb links that we're sending.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And do you think there will be a build later on
where they would have the app onthe other side, or an option to
have the app on the other side?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I think, absolutely the option to have it.
I think we'll build a morefeature experience that for
people who want and can kind ofhandle more, a more complex
product, that they'll be able touse that.
But again, we wanted to startwith simplicity as the primary
(21:28):
goal there and plan to kind ofexpand it over time.
It's nice right now becausethey're really two very separate
products right now and so whenwe're doing user testing and
user research we can reallyseparate those efforts and build
for the best interests of thatpersona group.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, really good.
Something that you said earlyon in our conversation was that
there wasn't a satisfactorysolution out there for this and
maybe, just thinking beyond thegrandparent grandchild
relationship, like in yourpersonal life, do you feel like
(22:13):
there's satisfactorycommunication platforms that
you're using right now, that youactually go on, you spend time
um interacting with friends orfamily, that you feel like
nourished after being on there,rather than the kind of doom
scrolling that we can get intothe habit of on other platforms?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I I think for me, some of these, these platforms
like I love jumping on aFaceTime call, for example, or
it's usually one-to-one for me,and video or phone is great, but
I think the caveat is that it'salways for me, with people that
(22:56):
I've built the relationshipwith, usually in person,
actually almost exclusively inperson, and then video or phone
or text is a great way to kindof maintain that.
And I think what people don'tforget, because you think
grandparents and grandkidsthey're the same blood, like of
(23:16):
course they love each other theystill don't know each other,
like if you, if your kids areborn on one continent and the
grandparents are on another,they might inherently love each
other, but they they haven'tbuilt a bond and and I think
just throwing them on a FaceTimecall uh, you know, once a week
or once a month is is not enoughto kind of build the foundation
(23:39):
.
You need to really kind ofconnect in that way.
And so our goal, by no means dowe think like this asynchronous
platform is the answer in andof itself.
We think it's kind of themissing piece, so that over time
they will look forward togetting on the FaceTime call and
they'll have things to talkabout and it won't be this kind
(24:02):
of awkward forced situationwhere you're bribing the kids to
sit still for five minutes andtypically a pretty unfulfilling
experience for the grandparentstoo, because the kids are
running around and want to bedoing something else yeah, I
love that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I love that I recently filmed a podcast with a
guy named Seth Kaplan, um andhis his word for it was embodied
relationships and he in his um.
His theory was that we can'thave, we can't have real
community in a virtual space ifthey're not embodied
relationships.
(24:39):
My only pushback on this ispodcasting, because I have gone
on to build some reallynourishing connection through
podcasting and sometimes I'llhave met somebody through a
virtual community that I've beenpart of for a few months, so
I've kind of got to know them alittle bit and then we podcast
(25:02):
together and then like all ofthe posts that they I then see
of them, like I just feel thisdeeper sense of connection that
I didn't have previously.
So there does seem to be somekind of magic in this podcasting
format that I haven't put myfinger on what that is yet, but
I guess it's just the.
(25:22):
You have these like deepconversations.
You go maybe just an extralayer that you wouldn't
typically go if we just went andhad like a virtual catch-up
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I think that that makes a lot of sense.
Just the the kind of forcedstructure of it and and the fact
that we are the specificsubjects we're covering, I think
, probably play a role as wellbecause I'm asking you about
questions that you really careabout, you've thought about and
you actually want to be talkingabout too right, yeah, I love.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I love what you were saying then about, um, getting
to know.
Like through the process ofthese little messages, then the
grandparents are actuallygetting to know the child.
So then if they do, then comeon to a live call together.
They've got those, uh, pointsof reference and in my mind,
(26:16):
this is how we should all beusing social media.
So, rather than just like goingon it all the time listening to
the algorithm, it's like if youand I were going to be going
for a catch-up and we haven'tseen each other for a year why
not go back to each other'ssocial media before the call,
see what each other's beenposting about and then, once we
(26:38):
jump on that call, we've gotthose points of reference yeah,
and it leads to a morefulfilling call and conversation
, absolutely that's how we needto be using social media yeah,
that makes makes all the sensein the world and yeah, that
that's, that's how we're we'rethinking about it.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I'd say we take it a step further because of the
especially on the kid side,because, you know, kids are
still developing conversationalskills and so that's another
angle where we're trying to, youknow, teach them a little bit
about.
Yes, grandparents typicallywant to hear anything that they
(27:16):
have to say, but we also wantthem to learn about their
grandparents, and so this isactually a feature that is not
live yet but will be in the nextcouple of weeks where we take
what the kid talked about duringa given update and we suggest
questions for them to ask theirgrandparents, based on the
(27:37):
specific subject matter.
So, I don't know, my, my sonwas in a play and he talks about
that in his update.
At the end of that, kinsey willsay you know, here are some
questions that you could askyour grandparents about.
You know, were they in a playwhen they were a kid?
Can you tell that story?
And so we're trying to teachkids that it's not all about you
, like you should be.
You know, were they in a playwhen they were a kid?
(27:58):
Can you tell that story?
And so we're trying to teachkids that it's not all about you
, like you should be, you know,learning more or asking other
people questions, and thebyproduct of that, hopefully, is
that then grandparents arestarting to, you know, get these
great.
Most of them are focused ongrandparents younger lives, so
you're kind of hearing familyhistory and that's all being
captured for the family's sake,which is, I think, a big part of
(28:22):
our future vision for theplatform as well.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Love that.
I love that so much.
I remember a few years ago wefound these books that you could
give to your parents and it wasasking them questions like that
about their, about theirchildhood, about their dreams,
about when we were born.
So my partner and I both gave acopy of those books to our
(28:46):
mothers.
Um, my mother-in-law sincepassed, um, she did, she did
fill out some of that and gaveit to my partner before she
passed.
So, oh, my goodness, thatsounds like such a beautiful
evolution of the app and for me,like I will enjoy listening
back to whatever responses comefrom my mom and the other family
(29:09):
members.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That's what we've seen, so we've been testing this
feature in beta.
I think the kids are generallyinterested superficially, but
it's the parents who are hearingthese amazing stories, um,
about their, their own parentsthat are really, uh, the ones
who cherish them in the moment.
We think kids will grow up tocherish them and they'll have
(29:32):
them recorded in theirgrandparents voices, but in the
moment it's, it's the parentswho love them and and there's
definitely a thing about theaudio.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Um, like my grandfather, bill was an author
um self-published a couple ofbooks about his childhood and he
was such a phenomenalstoryteller and it was only
after he passed, a couple ofyears ago, that I kicked myself
that I never recorded himtelling one of his lengthy
(30:08):
stories.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I mean, if I just go into a quiet space and close my
eyes, I can still hear him youknow, he's still alive in my
life, and thankfully, but what agift to be inviting this to to
start happening now, so they'llbe building up this treasure
trove of audios from from theirgrandparents yeah, and and both
(30:32):
sides, I think there's you'vegot kids telling stories about
their day-to-days and and maybenot every one of them, I mean,
everyone's a treasure in its way, but there's going to be
certain stories that probablykind of bubble up over time and
the idea is that we can becollecting these on both sides.
And then another application ofAI is how we kind of organize
(30:56):
that family treasure memory bankinto a way that it can be
tapped into in the future memorybank, into a way that it can be
tapped into in the future andwe can bring back the right
memories to the family at theright time to kind of re-spark
those conversations yeah, I'mjust thinking about like the old
um photo books that you used tocreate is going into something
(31:19):
like this hey, like it's a kindof highlights.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
But you want something um going from the
digital to the physical, I think.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think the real power in these memories is their
ability to bring people backtogether.
So you know, we don't just wantto send it to individuals, we
want to send them to people in away that they can reconnect.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So it's, you know, you can, in 10 years you'll get
one and reconnect with yoursister or something, and we can
make that not reconnect but likeuse that as a, as an excuse to
to have a connection point umsomething I'm kind of seeing is
if you had something printed out, just brainstorming with you
here, um, some kind of like yearin review, and then augmented
(32:07):
reality could put the photo overthe image and that will turn
into the audio that was shared,something like that yeah, I love
it.
I love it absolutely yeah, well,let me know if you want to
invite me into your nextbrainstorming please, please,
tell your kids to to send theirtheir ideas too.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
We're yeah we want creating everyone's feedback and
and ideas, um, but I do thinkto to your point about kind of
kicking yourself for notrecording this.
I I think that that's the vast,vast majority of people, because
at the end of the day, like, aspowerful as those memories are,
(32:48):
it's a lot of work to sit down,take that time to kind of write
the book or, you know, recordthe, the memories.
But for most of us it's life'sjust so busy that it's one of
(33:10):
the many things we don't get to.
And so our, our hope is that,by making the primary focus of
the platform this connection inthe present between the
generations, but as a byproductof that, using the kids
experiences to spark questionsabout the grandparents earlier
(33:31):
lives, um, it's, it doesn't feellike work.
You're just having aconversation with the person you
know, these little kids youwant to hear from more than
anyone in the world, but as, inthe background, we're collecting
those, uh, for the family andonce you have them, they're
they're invaluable, uh, it'sjust how do you make the, the
(33:51):
work of capturing them, uh, notfeel like work beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Well, I'm hugely excited about how this is going
to go for you guys.
You've obviously put a lot ofwork, blood, sweat and tears, no
doubt, into the creation ofthis.
So well done, congratulationsfor getting it to this stage.
I'm excited to be with you onthis journey, and if there is
there anything that we haven'tcovered today that you think
(34:20):
actually this is a really,really important point that we
mustn't forget to share withparents, grandparents, children
about, about this I don't thinkso.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I think we've covered it.
I I just um, just to kind ofreiterate it.
I think people forget that ittakes many, many moments to to
really really build thefoundation of a strong
relationship.
And even when you're a familyyou have to kind of put in that
work to build up the place forthe relationship to kind of
(34:56):
stand.
And that's what we're trying todo Just give these regular
touch points that on their owneach one doesn't feel like a lot
, but when they add up over timethat's what really kind of
forms this foundation andhopefully can support much
stronger relationships.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And just that word, eben, like relationship.
I think so many people don'thave relationships with extended
family gosh, even pair, evenparents.
They haven't got thoserelationships.
So what a beautiful, beautifulway to spark relationships
(35:39):
forming at a really young agefor the children.
So then they will grow intohaving relationships with their
grandparents as they go go oninto their lives, whether that
is digitally or whether it's inperson, you know when proximity
isn't always that easy, but thencoming together once a year,
like when we go back to the UKnext summer, how beautiful.
(36:02):
They've had this opportunity toreally build and nurture that
relationship between timesabsolutely yeah, and I mean we
did.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I guess we didn't really talk about just the
historical context of, you know,100 years ago so many more
families were, if they weren'tin the same house, they were in
the same town, and those momentshappen without much work,
needing to kind of orchestratethem.
You'd see your grandmotherbecause she lived next door
across the town square and you'dhave so many more points to
(36:31):
build that up.
But for many reasons, people,we've become much more mobile,
and which has its huge positivesthat people are able to, you
know, follow opportunitiesaround the world.
But one drawback is familiesare more spread out than they've
ever been, and so thisrelationship building doesn't
happen, incidentally, like itused to.
(36:52):
There are the rare situationslike mine, where my kids
literally can't avoid my parents, but for most people you have
to be more deliberate, and Ithink that's where we're trying
to kind of fill this gap.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Well, I'm wishing you all the luck in the world and,
yeah, really excited for thisIbn.
So thank you for bringing thisto market and I'll be watching
closely the evolution.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate thesupport and keep the feedback
coming.
And I think what people don't forget, because you
think grandparents andgrandkids they're the same blood
.
Of course they love each other.
They still don't know eachother.
If your kids are born on onecontinent and the grandparents
are on another, they mightinherently love each other, but
they haven't built a bond, and Ithink just throwing them on a
(00:22):
FaceTime call once a week oronce a month is not enough to
kind of build the foundation.
You need to really connect inthat way, and so our goal by no
means do we think like thisasynchronous platform is the
answer in and of itself.
We think it's kind of themissing piece, so that over time
they will look forward togetting on the FaceTime call and
(00:44):
they'll have things to talkabout and it won't be this kind
of awkward forced situationwhere you're bribing the kids to
sit still for five minutes andtypically a pretty unfulfilling
experience for the grandparentstoo, because the kids are
running around and want to bedoing something else.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection.
I am Shelley Doyle and I'm heretoday with the founder and CEO
of a revolutionary new app thatis designed to connect
grandchildren with theirgrandparents, near or far.
The app is called Kinsome,which I have been trialing for
(01:25):
the last couple of days with mydaughter, and the co-founder is
Eben Pingree.
I'm super excited to welcomeEben here from Boston today.
Welcome, welcome.
Nice to see you here, eben.
Thank you for making the time.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to chat and thankyou for playing with the product
.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, my pleasure.
I'm actually a prime candidatefor this app, given that we are
living on the Pacific coast, onVancouver Island, with my two
children here, who are five,coming on, six and eight years
old, and all of my children'sgrandparents are based in the UK
.
So of course, there's the oddkind of telephone call and my
(02:04):
son works OK if he has theheadphones on his head.
Then he can kind of go into abit of a natural conversation.
But time zones really impactthe communication that they have
with their grandparents andhonestly, it's like I've been
looking for something that canhelp them to connect more,
(02:26):
whilst also being somewhatnervous about technology, and I
know like some of my daughter'sfriends are already on like a
Facebook messenger for kids,which I don't have any desire to
introduce my daughter to at all.
(02:47):
Um, I haven't read his books yet, but I'm very aware of Jonathan
Haidt.
Um, and just talking about youknow how social media for kids,
like, really changes their,changes the way that they're
thinking, the relationships withfriends and just keeps things
on their mind.
So I'm kind of nervously comingonto this platform and I'm just
(03:12):
a couple of days in, so let'sjust go back a few steps and
maybe talk about your why, likewhy, why did you feel really
passionate about this?
And you say you're a co-founder, so there's obviously something
you've got somebody else onboard with you.
So let's just talk a bitthrough, like your why and and
how you've got to where you areright now absolutely, absolutely
(03:33):
so.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Unfortunately, the the kind of initial inspiration
for Kinsome came, uh, with somesadness.
About 18 months ago my mom wasdiagnosed with Alzheimer's um,
and actually my father-in-lawgot the same diagnosis almost I
think it was the same week andso among the many reactions that
my wife and I had, one of themwas just this huge spike in
(03:58):
urgency around.
You know, how can we be asdeliberate as possible in making
sure our kids built thesestrong bonds with them?
You know, what could we bedoing?
How can we create and captureas many memories as possible?
And we actually have two verydifferent perspectives on it
(04:19):
because, on the one hand, I livein the same building as my
parents here in Boston, so youwouldn't think that I would be
the one starting a companyfocused on this.
But it's actually been a hugeinspiration for our vision to
watch just how closely my kidshave bonded with my parents.
My younger brother actuallylives in the apartment below me.
(04:40):
He has three more kids, sothere's there's six kids between
the two of us under the sameroof as my parents, and I just
think it's incredibly healthy tosee my kids have two additional
adults who are giving them kindof constant love and attention
and then, frankly, from a lessdistracted point in their life
(05:04):
as much as I wish my wife and Iwere not as distracted.
It's a crazy time.
So I think it's amazing for mykids, for my parents, to have
six kids.
Just, you know, keeping them ontheir toes mentally and
physically I think is great forthem they wake up with.
They talk all the time abouthow, when they wake up in the
(05:26):
morning, their grandkids are ahuge, you know, sense of purpose
for them.
And then for my wife and I,we're just trying to survive
each day right now with littlekids and in the middle of our
careers and starting to have totake care of our parents a lot
more, and so having them kind ofhelping each other in their own
(05:47):
ways is a huge relief, and soI've just become a huge believer
in what, how powerful it can be.
But obviously, for mostfamilies, I think your situation
is more the norm than minethese days by a long shot.
So as we thought about how, howcould we bring some of this
(06:09):
magic to my in-laws, who don'tlive as close, we were just
really underwhelmed with thetechnology that was out there
for some of the reasons youmentioned and just didn't see
anything that was really, youknow, tailor made for this use
case.
And it is very different tobuild a bond across people who
are 50 years apart in age andhave totally different social
(06:33):
contexts and all these differentthings.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Um, we saw an opportunity to to build
something that was really laserfocused on that beautiful and,
just through trialing it for thelast couple of days, the kind
of questions that the robots,the AI assistant, asks the child
, maybe the questions thatgrandparents wouldn't
(06:57):
necessarily know to ask becausethey're not necessarily seeing
children.
It's designed for ages like sixto 11.
So very specific, a youngdemographic, so it's really kind
of on their wavelength andasking the kind of questions
that is actually evoking morethan just a yes, no response,
(07:20):
actually finding out a bit moreabout the character of the child
.
Has that been intentional?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Absolutely, and you know, a big part of our thesis
is that you know, parents, ifthey had unlimited time, have
the ability to facilitate thistype of bonding with today's
technology.
But it takes a ton of work andtime zones, like you mentioned.
All these different things makeit so much harder for a parent
(07:47):
not only for the kid to be onthe phone with the grandparent
but for the parent to be thereasking kids more detailed
questions so they don't justgive the one word answers.
And for most people, despitetheir best intentions, for busy
parents, that it's just one ofthe things that can fall by the
wayside.
And so we wanted to kind oftake this off parents' plates.
(08:10):
But we knew there still had tobe this facilitation layer.
Most eight-year-olds aren't justgoing to jump on a Zoom call
like we're on with their80-year-old grandfather and you
know gab for hours.
It's just not the way it works.
So we wanted there to besomething in the middle that
could kind of tease out from thekid what they've been doing and
(08:33):
you know what, whether it'sactivities, who their friends
are, and ask these follow-upquestions so that we can share
more context with thegrandparents.
But over time, as grandparentskind of get more into the
day-to-day loop.
Their questions, theirresponses get more interwoven
into the experience.
(08:53):
So the, the kind ofintermediary, can kind of take a
step back and let the, the bond, build one-to-one beautiful and
that's it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So I have sat with my daughter the last couple of
days to help kind of guide herthrough it.
But the idea would be that, youknow, come home from school and
maybe, rather than watchinghalf an hour of telly, I can
trust her with my phone, knowingthat she's going on to an app
that's like kind of a safe place.
(09:24):
One of the other nice thingsabout it and I I have
experienced in some other games,like we use prodigy for, like
maths and english games there'sa cut off, so it's not just like
netflix.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You can roll through next episode, next episode, it's
like one update a day and youhave that conversation and then
that's that's sealed, and thennext day you have an opportunity
to go into another yeah, we'retrying to kind of build this
routine of of kind of thesequick shares and and the goal is
to to give grandparents thiskind of window into the
(10:00):
day-to-day life, but certainlynot trying to build something
that's addictive in any way forkids or you know, something that
they're going to spend endlesstime on.
But we do think that even kindof in a single player mode, so
to speak, we can kind ofcontinue to kind of interweave a
curriculum so that we'reteaching them about why it's
(10:22):
healthy to kind of reflect ontheir day and, you know, weave
in moments where they can findthings they were grateful for or
learn about their familyhistory and why that's important
and can kind of ground thembetter in this world.
So, yeah, we're trying to kindof strike the balance of making
it fun and engaging andinteresting enough, but we don't
(10:47):
don't want kids kind of staringat this endlessly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
What's coming to me is just the idea of asking
better questions.
Like I have two half brotherswho are 10 years younger, like
eight and 10 years younger thanme, so we used to travel across
to New Zealand from when I wassay 12 and asking questions, um,
asking questions to them likehow was school, and they'd be
(11:12):
like fine oh yeah, and that wasit.
And you're like, oh, you hadsix hours there, was it?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
that's it.
Yeah, what happened nothing?
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Asking the kind of evocative questions like what
surprising thing happened atschool today?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
ask something actually triggers a memory and
it also is is something thatthat gets better over time.
So Kinsey, this, this robotcharacter in the app, is
actually learning from eachconversation and remembering
things that the kid tells them.
So like, for instance, lastweek was my five-year-old
(11:52):
daughter's first day ofkindergarten, and Kinsey
remembered that she'd said acouple days earlier that, you
know, monday was her first day,and so Kinsey's asking very
specific questions that arebased in things that Thayer has
told her, and I think it allowsthem to open up a lot more.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And it's obviously a big introduction to children, to
AI, which again I'm slightlynervous about, which again I'm
slightly nervous about, but sofar it's felt good.
Like, alba said that she hadcreated a story and Kenzie asked
her oh okay, have you named anyof the characters in your story
(12:35):
?
So she had two cats.
She'd named one of them andsaid have you got any ideas for
the other name?
And Alba said no, can you giveme some ideas?
And then she gave her likethree name ideas, of which Alba
said no, can you give me someideas?
And then she gave her likethree name ideas, of which Alba
chose one.
And then this morning she saidum, so how is your new book
going?
Have you have you thought ofany adventures?
(12:56):
For?
And she remembered the namethat Alba had given and then,
and the new and the new name, soit's um, whiskers was a new one
, original one.
Oh, violet was alba's one.
And I was like no, um, couldyou think some ideas for, like
for the story?
So she gave her a couple ofscenarios and I was like oh,
yeah, I like this one.
(13:17):
So I guess after school todayshe might be encouraged to then
start making this.
So yeah, it's it's not onlycommunicating for grandparents,
it is, it's definitely more.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I don't know if you know what you're creating here,
eben, but it's, it's, it'ssomething yeah, it's, you know
we've, I think for kids theydon't, hopefully don't think
about it in terms of of AI, Ithink through TV and video games
for't think about it in termsof AI, I think through TV and
(13:54):
video games, for better or worse, they kind of see this robot
character and don't think aboutwhat's happening behind it.
Obviously, that puts moreresponsibility on our plate to
make sure that we put the rightsafeguards and prompts in place
for Kinsey to kind of steer theconversation, and that's
something that we've invested alot of time and energy into and
will continue to make it a toppriority.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
And so is it.
Your partner is your co-founder.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, my co-founder, mike, comes from a software
engineering background, so he'sbuilt everything, or a lot of
the product to date and and howbig is your team currently?
we are small, small but mighty.
We are just kind of gettinggoing here.
So there's five of us umworking on it, mostly on the
(14:44):
product and engineering side.
Um brianne baker is our head ofdesign.
She's spent about 15 yearsbuilding kids games and kids
media apps, so she really filleda gap in our team's expertise
in terms of designing for thataudience.
And then the other folksbesides myself are on the
(15:06):
engineering side as well.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And then in terms of your customer base, it's very
new right.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Very, very new.
Yeah, we're just coming out ofthe gates here wow, amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Well, I mean, I'm really, I'm really hesitantly
excited about this.
I haven't introduced my son toit yet and maybe I'll just have
my daughter on it for a coupleof weeks and just help her to
get really established, yeah,and then introduce my son.
I said it's his birthday in acouple of weeks, so then he'll
be the target demographic.
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I love it my five-year-old has been.
She's been having fun with it.
When she was a little younger,there was some kind of like
speech recognition.
We should mention this is audiofirst.
So it's you know kids aretalking and Kinsey's talking
back to them and younger kids uh.
There.
There can be some kind ofspeech recognition issues as
(16:04):
their kind of uh voices arestill developing and whatnot but
then the words do also come up.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So so, it's maybe also helping with reading.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's transcribes for them as well,
which is also important on thegrandparent side as well.
They can read along and butthey they also can hear their
grandkids voice, which wethought was was really important
, and that's something that we.
We've gone back and forth a loton what the kind of right
(16:38):
primary medium is, and voicefelt like the right balance
between being a lot morepersonal than than just text,
but not quite as, I guess,invasive as as video, especially
for grandparents.
Sending responses to have totake a video of yourself is a
much bigger step than justrecording a voice message in
(17:01):
return.
So we're starting with audio asthe kind of default, but there
will be plenty of opportunitiesto incorporate video.
We already have differentactivities that kids can do that
incorporate taking pictures,selfie, selfie pictures to send
to grandparents.
So there'll be other mediums aswell.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
There's a few things that's coming up for me.
One is kind of the exclusivity.
Like we've all got lots ofWhatsApp groups going on and you
know a lot of the time you'llsend an update from your family
and you'll send it to a wholefamily whatsapp group and I
guess maybe sometimesgrandparents do want to feel um,
(17:45):
nurtured and like they've gotan exclusive insight into their
grandchildren's lives that isn'tbroadcast to the wider family
network.
Has that been a considerationin the development of it?
The exclusivity, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I mean I think you're you're touching on a couple
things that we've thought a loton.
I mean one, it's exclusive butit's also at least across the
grandparent level.
We want to build it in a waythat kids, when they're doing
these initial updates what wecall daily shares that those can
be broadcast to thegrandparents.
Not more broadly than that,when they listen, if they want
(18:37):
to respond to him, those goone-to-one, directly to him and
if the conversation goes fromthere, he's just communicating
directly with that grandparent.
So we wanted to kind of balance.
We didn't think the kid wouldwant to give the same update to
four times in a row, so wewanted to have kind of give him
that podium to share that, thequick update.
But then the conversations, uh,are very private, one-to-one
(19:00):
after that.
And similarly, we're kind ofjust starting to roll out these,
this suite of games andactivities.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
The first one is this factor, factor fibbing game, um
, and those will be playedone-to-one from the the grandkid
to the grandparent and will beanother way to kind of deepen
that one-to-one relationship andwe have pushed the brief a
little bit because I have asister and my partner has a
(19:27):
sister, so we have added auntiesto ours and I've already had
feedback from one of them to sayit's really appreciated and she
has a son a similar age.
So, um, yeah, so I've sent herthe app because she didn't
realize as a recipient, so as arecipient, as a grandparent,
they don't need to download anapp, they will literally just
(19:50):
receive a message, so as thoughthat it's just a text message.
So I haven't seen it on theother side, but she she did say
oh yeah, maybe this could evengo through an app.
So I was like, actually it isan app on the child's side, but
that's not necessarily known onthe other side.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, for the, at least to start.
We wanted to really prioritizesimplicity on the, the
grandparent side, and we didn'twant them to have to download an
app.
Didn't want them to have todownload an app, didn't want
them to have to create andremember a password, while still
keeping it very secure.
So we're using what are calledmagic links, which get either
emailed or texted.
You, as the parent, pick whichchannel is is more familiar for
(20:30):
the grandparent, or you can doit per grandparent and then,
with each update the kid does,they can just click that link
and be brought right into a webexperience where they're hearing
their grandkids voice and canpartake in the activities.
If they want to send a response, there's a pretty quick
web-based flow where they createtheir account, but then from
(20:54):
then on it's all based on theseweb links that we're sending.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And do you think there will be a build later on
where they would have the app onthe other side, or an option to
have the app on the other side?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I think, absolutely the option to have it.
I think we'll build a morefeature experience that for
people who want and can kind ofhandle more, a more complex
product, that they'll be able touse that.
But again, we wanted to startwith simplicity as the primary
(21:28):
goal there and plan to kind ofexpand it over time.
It's nice right now becausethey're really two very separate
products right now and so whenwe're doing user testing and
user research we can reallyseparate those efforts and build
for the best interests of thatpersona group.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, really good.
Something that you said earlyon in our conversation was that
there wasn't a satisfactorysolution out there for this and
maybe, just thinking beyond thegrandparent grandchild
relationship, like in yourpersonal life, do you feel like
(22:13):
there's satisfactorycommunication platforms that
you're using right now, that youactually go on, you spend time
um interacting with friends orfamily, that you feel like
nourished after being on there,rather than the kind of doom
scrolling that we can get intothe habit of on other platforms?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I I think for me, some of these, these platforms
like I love jumping on aFaceTime call, for example, or
it's usually one-to-one for me,and video or phone is great, but
I think the caveat is that it'salways for me, with people that
(22:56):
I've built the relationshipwith, usually in person,
actually almost exclusively inperson, and then video or phone
or text is a great way to kindof maintain that.
And I think what people don'tforget, because you think
grandparents and grandkidsthey're the same blood, like of
(23:16):
course they love each other theystill don't know each other,
like if you, if your kids areborn on one continent and the
grandparents are on another,they might inherently love each
other, but they they haven'tbuilt a bond and and I think
just throwing them on a FaceTimecall uh, you know, once a week
or once a month is is not enoughto kind of build the foundation
(23:39):
.
You need to really kind ofconnect in that way.
And so our goal, by no means dowe think like this asynchronous
platform is the answer in andof itself.
We think it's kind of themissing piece, so that over time
they will look forward togetting on the FaceTime call and
they'll have things to talkabout and it won't be this kind
(24:02):
of awkward forced situationwhere you're bribing the kids to
sit still for five minutes andtypically a pretty unfulfilling
experience for the grandparentstoo, because the kids are
running around and want to bedoing something else yeah, I
love that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I love that I recently filmed a podcast with a
guy named Seth Kaplan, um andhis his word for it was embodied
relationships and he in his um.
His theory was that we can'thave, we can't have real
community in a virtual space ifthey're not embodied
relationships.
(24:39):
My only pushback on this ispodcasting, because I have gone
on to build some reallynourishing connection through
podcasting and sometimes I'llhave met somebody through a
virtual community that I've beenpart of for a few months, so
I've kind of got to know them alittle bit and then we podcast
(25:02):
together and then like all ofthe posts that they I then see
of them, like I just feel thisdeeper sense of connection that
I didn't have previously.
So there does seem to be somekind of magic in this podcasting
format that I haven't put myfinger on what that is yet, but
I guess it's just the.
(25:22):
You have these like deepconversations.
You go maybe just an extralayer that you wouldn't
typically go if we just went andhad like a virtual catch-up
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I think that that makes a lot of sense.
Just the the kind of forcedstructure of it and and the fact
that we are the specificsubjects we're covering, I think
, probably play a role as wellbecause I'm asking you about
questions that you really careabout, you've thought about and
you actually want to be talkingabout too right, yeah, I love.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I love what you were saying then about, um, getting
to know.
Like through the process ofthese little messages, then the
grandparents are actuallygetting to know the child.
So then if they do, then comeon to a live call together.
They've got those, uh, pointsof reference and in my mind,
(26:16):
this is how we should all beusing social media.
So, rather than just like goingon it all the time listening to
the algorithm, it's like if youand I were going to be going
for a catch-up and we haven'tseen each other for a year why
not go back to each other'ssocial media before the call,
see what each other's beenposting about and then, once we
(26:38):
jump on that call, we've gotthose points of reference yeah,
and it leads to a morefulfilling call and conversation
, absolutely that's how we needto be using social media yeah,
that makes makes all the sensein the world and yeah, that
that's, that's how we're we'rethinking about it.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I'd say we take it a step further because of the
especially on the kid side,because, you know, kids are
still developing conversationalskills and so that's another
angle where we're trying to, youknow, teach them a little bit
about.
Yes, grandparents typicallywant to hear anything that they
(27:16):
have to say, but we also wantthem to learn about their
grandparents, and so this isactually a feature that is not
live yet but will be in the nextcouple of weeks where we take
what the kid talked about duringa given update and we suggest
questions for them to ask theirgrandparents, based on the
(27:37):
specific subject matter.
So, I don't know, my, my sonwas in a play and he talks about
that in his update.
At the end of that, kinsey willsay you know, here are some
questions that you could askyour grandparents about.
You know, were they in a playwhen they were a kid?
Can you tell that story?
And so we're trying to teachkids that it's not all about you
, like you should be.
You know, were they in a playwhen they were a kid?
(27:58):
Can you tell that story?
And so we're trying to teachkids that it's not all about you
, like you should be, you know,learning more or asking other
people questions, and thebyproduct of that, hopefully, is
that then grandparents arestarting to, you know, get these
great.
Most of them are focused ongrandparents younger lives, so
you're kind of hearing familyhistory and that's all being
captured for the family's sake,which is, I think, a big part of
(28:22):
our future vision for theplatform as well.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Love that.
I love that so much.
I remember a few years ago wefound these books that you could
give to your parents and it wasasking them questions like that
about their, about theirchildhood, about their dreams,
about when we were born.
So my partner and I both gave acopy of those books to our
(28:46):
mothers.
Um, my mother-in-law sincepassed, um, she did, she did
fill out some of that and gaveit to my partner before she
passed.
So, oh, my goodness, thatsounds like such a beautiful
evolution of the app and for me,like I will enjoy listening
back to whatever responses comefrom my mom and the other family
(29:09):
members.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That's what we've seen, so we've been testing this
feature in beta.
I think the kids are generallyinterested superficially, but
it's the parents who are hearingthese amazing stories, um,
about their, their own parentsthat are really, uh, the ones
who cherish them in the moment.
We think kids will grow up tocherish them and they'll have
(29:32):
them recorded in theirgrandparents voices, but in the
moment it's, it's the parentswho love them and and there's
definitely a thing about theaudio.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Um, like my grandfather, bill was an author
um self-published a couple ofbooks about his childhood and he
was such a phenomenalstoryteller and it was only
after he passed, a couple ofyears ago, that I kicked myself
that I never recorded himtelling one of his lengthy
(30:08):
stories.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I mean, if I just go into a quiet space and close my
eyes, I can still hear him youknow, he's still alive in my
life, and thankfully, but what agift to be inviting this to to
start happening now, so they'llbe building up this treasure
trove of audios from from theirgrandparents yeah, and and both
(30:32):
sides, I think there's you'vegot kids telling stories about
their day-to-days and and maybenot every one of them, I mean,
everyone's a treasure in its way, but there's going to be
certain stories that probablykind of bubble up over time and
the idea is that we can becollecting these on both sides.
And then another application ofAI is how we kind of organize
(30:56):
that family treasure memory bankinto a way that it can be
tapped into in the future memorybank, into a way that it can be
tapped into in the future andwe can bring back the right
memories to the family at theright time to kind of re-spark
those conversations yeah, I'mjust thinking about like the old
um photo books that you used tocreate is going into something
(31:19):
like this hey, like it's a kindof highlights.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
But you want something um going from the
digital to the physical, I think.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think the real power in these memories is their
ability to bring people backtogether.
So you know, we don't just wantto send it to individuals, we
want to send them to people in away that they can reconnect.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So it's, you know, you can, in 10 years you'll get
one and reconnect with yoursister or something, and we can
make that not reconnect but likeuse that as a, as an excuse to
to have a connection point umsomething I'm kind of seeing is
if you had something printed out, just brainstorming with you
here, um, some kind of like yearin review, and then augmented
(32:07):
reality could put the photo overthe image and that will turn
into the audio that was shared,something like that yeah, I love
it.
I love it absolutely yeah, well,let me know if you want to
invite me into your nextbrainstorming please, please,
tell your kids to to send theirtheir ideas too.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
We're yeah we want creating everyone's feedback and
and ideas, um, but I do thinkto to your point about kind of
kicking yourself for notrecording this.
I I think that that's the vast,vast majority of people, because
at the end of the day, like, aspowerful as those memories are,
(32:48):
it's a lot of work to sit down,take that time to kind of write
the book or, you know, recordthe, the memories.
But for most of us it's life'sjust so busy that it's one of
(33:10):
the many things we don't get to.
And so our, our hope is that,by making the primary focus of
the platform this connection inthe present between the
generations, but as a byproductof that, using the kids
experiences to spark questionsabout the grandparents earlier
(33:31):
lives, um, it's, it doesn't feellike work.
You're just having aconversation with the person you
know, these little kids youwant to hear from more than
anyone in the world, but as, inthe background, we're collecting
those, uh, for the family andonce you have them, they're
they're invaluable, uh, it'sjust how do you make the, the
(33:51):
work of capturing them, uh, notfeel like work beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Well, I'm hugely excited about how this is going
to go for you guys.
You've obviously put a lot ofwork, blood, sweat and tears, no
doubt, into the creation ofthis.
So well done, congratulationsfor getting it to this stage.
I'm excited to be with you onthis journey, and if there is
there anything that we haven'tcovered today that you think
(34:20):
actually this is a really,really important point that we
mustn't forget to share withparents, grandparents, children
about, about this I don't thinkso.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I think we've covered it.
I I just um, just to kind ofreiterate it.
I think people forget that ittakes many, many moments to to
really really build thefoundation of a strong
relationship.
And even when you're a familyyou have to kind of put in that
work to build up the place forthe relationship to kind of
(34:56):
stand.
And that's what we're trying todo Just give these regular
touch points that on their owneach one doesn't feel like a lot
, but when they add up over timethat's what really kind of
forms this foundation andhopefully can support much
stronger relationships.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And just that word, eben, like relationship.
I think so many people don'thave relationships with extended
family gosh, even pair, evenparents.
They haven't got thoserelationships.
So what a beautiful, beautifulway to spark relationships
(35:39):
forming at a really young agefor the children.
So then they will grow intohaving relationships with their
grandparents as they go go oninto their lives, whether that
is digitally or whether it's inperson, you know when proximity
isn't always that easy, but thencoming together once a year,
like when we go back to the UKnext summer, how beautiful.
(36:02):
They've had this opportunity toreally build and nurture that
relationship between timesabsolutely yeah, and I mean we
did.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I guess we didn't really talk about just the
historical context of, you know,100 years ago so many more
families were, if they weren'tin the same house, they were in
the same town, and those momentshappen without much work,
needing to kind of orchestratethem.
You'd see your grandmotherbecause she lived next door
across the town square and you'dhave so many more points to
(36:31):
build that up.
But for many reasons, people,we've become much more mobile,
and which has its huge positivesthat people are able to, you
know, follow opportunitiesaround the world.
But one drawback is familiesare more spread out than they've
ever been, and so thisrelationship building doesn't
happen, incidentally, like itused to.
(36:52):
There are the rare situationslike mine, where my kids
literally can't avoid my parents, but for most people you have
to be more deliberate, and Ithink that's where we're trying
to kind of fill this gap.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Well, I'm wishing you all the luck in the world and,
yeah, really excited for thisIbn.
So thank you for bringing thisto market and I'll be watching
closely the evolution.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate thesupport and keep the feedback
coming.
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