Business idea targeting parents/couples: Please RIP it apart

[LemonKangroo]

Context: I feel there are too many apps/services to get into a relationship, but I haven't seen anything to keep marriages together.

Target market: Millennial career mothers with young kids (Because this is by far one of the busiest period of our lives, and we end up playing the default parent role usually).

Some common struggles for the target market (assumptions/generalising):

1. Guilt (Not enough time with kids - we are choosing to be at work and not home - a wicked choice, or the shame for self-care and leaving kids with babysitters/grandparents).
2. Burnout (Balancing Work-Parenting-Household-Relationship-Others) - Only if there was more time - I'd likely sleep/recharge.
3. Lack of support/mental load - Dealing with in-laws, planning dates, money problems, or having to constantly tell our partner to pull their weight (not always of course)
4. Other - Intimacy, lack of control, commitment, or presence in the marriage, etc.

*Apologies if this is harsh/very gender biased - I know not every relationship or partner is like this.

Solution (All-in-one subscription per month):

1. Easy way to share the house and family admin work (chores, reminders, appointments, bill payments, etc.). I know of existing solutions, but I wanted to implement the card system from the Fair Play book & gamify it.
2. Bonding/Me-time (concierge to plan and do logistics - you or a couple just turns up). Hyper-personalised date night/revisit your past.
3. Support (Connection to vetted businesses to solve legal, financial, couple conflicts, career, etc., issues) - There are issues around recognising we need help then selecting a good service on budget is tougher.

Give me every reason why this won't work, why am I wasting my time on this? E.g. the problems are way off, solutions are too weak/generic, etc.

I really like this idea tbh. I find this thread interesting so scanned a lot of the comments (on mat leave, miss using my work brain!). A lot of them echoed that the ownership of the app felt like it would default to the woman. I know I would have to download it on my DH's phone, and coach / coax him through using it. Unless it has built in games, which he has endless time for. You mentioned gamification before, and if you can gamify active & equal male participation in a marriage - amazing.

I also like what you're trying to achieve with your initial proposition, of helping families connect.

To share what I see as challenges for connection, outside of the obvious women take the mental load:

• connecting emotionally feels like an added chore. I have to think of interesting conversations AND have them?! Let alone intimacy
• small children & no babysitters. I need fun to come to us in the house. If it came on my phone via an app, ideal.
• I already have solutions & systems in place for household work, what I need help with is actually enjoying time with my DH. We're busy, life is busy, and staying interesting to one another is hard. He tries to talk to me about work, I try to talk to him about children's teething, neither of us are particularly enjoying the conversations even if we enjoy each other.

I feel like having a fun time in a marriage is actually really hard, but also an easier sell than sharing tasks via an app. Everyone wants a romantic marriage & can admit that. Some people would see the need for an app to help with household comms as a failure, or that they married someone not pulling their weight, or that their partner wouldn't accept it.

So what I am hearing is:

• Detail the solution (does it matter if there is an existing solution, as in I am not trying to create a unicorn, it just means there is a competitive market to be a dominant player)
• Have a budget in mind for it

Could you please share? How are you finding it?
What problems is it for you - the ones i mentioned or even more?

Why change his behaviour?

• Out of love for the women he married perhaps
• Having some kind of relationship check-in/satisfaction to understand where they are in a moment of time - I didn't mention this but I believe this could be a useful feature
• Because a 'Happy wife = Happy life'
• Gain visibility from the app that the wife has been doing an unreasonable amount of work, outside of 'paid job', the invisible jobs - He may work more hours, but that doesn't mean his responsibility ends there
• If he doesn't change this over time, its likely to create tension

If the husband doesn't engage with the app or the wife - Why are they still together? So, not sure i follow here.

I think it depends on the situation.
Couple A: Communicate well, DH is very understanding and shares all the load - No need for the duty sharing service. But they can't find quality time together, so uses the Bonding/Me-time component.
Couple B: DH wants to do better but forgets, or is reluctant to do the duties (works hard, was raised that way, etc.) but always makes sure that they both go for a walk. In this case duty sharing works better than Bonding/Me-time.

But yes a fine balance

That's my point. If their relationship has got to such a bad place - an app isn't really going to fix it.

I can’t see any reason at all you are bringing the words marriage, husband and wife into it. Why would you limit your market like that? Only straight couples, only married couples? The ideas about relationship roles inherent in this thread are depressing.

I’m a millennial Mum. I have been a millennial Mum for a very long time. I have lots of friends of varying generations and ages of DC ranging from adults to unborn. Some of my millennial friends are grandparents and some are trying for their first babies.

I can count on one hand the amount of couples with children I know who are straight, millennial and married, out of hundreds. More babies are born to unmarried parents than married ones. It’s really strange to limit yourself to such a very narrow family type.

You raise good points.

There are three Scenarios here

1. Unwilling/Stubborn - Just like GPT, Google, Mumsnet - there will be some engagement with the app (BUT refining pre-populated fields rather than inputting a lot of info - this should reduce the burden significantly). Then lets say it notifies, but he doesn't do it still! At this juncture, I'd have to talk to many such men, before building, to understand why not (laziness, childhood patterns, traditional mindset, ...), only then can I create a solution. In short, I don't have an answer because I haven't fully understood why.
2. Flexible - Sweet spot and to target
3. Helps with everything/well organised/is the default partner - If a couple that is able to be on top of everything (mental load, dating, parenting, social life etc.) - The app doesn't solve a problem for them, so its not for them. Maybe the support bit if there are issues, but unlikely.

Scenario 1 and 2 - there is additional work for the women, no doubt. But the point is that you are revealing this hidden load, need for connection, requirement for support for tough issues for both on a common platform, and then tackling it together (Scenario is tbc).

You totally get what I am trying to solve for and the solutions (for the most part). Yikes, £20 a year is not what i had in mind but its still good to know the value provided is not must-have but sounds like its a nice-to have for you.

I really messed up the curry example! this is not what the dating service is for.
The concept would be:

1. From your shared data (location, budget, availability, likes from social media, etc.) recommend 3x date night options to select from
2. E.g. You both love food - So a dinner in the dark, food market visit, cooking class, chef at home, etc., experiences
3. Pay to reserve (where required)
4. Logistics (reservations, baby-sitters, transport, etc.) is taken care of so its frictionless and you can focus that time on getting ready, extra time together, and so on.
5. (Still thinking about it) This can contribute to your weekly relationship check-in. Then its visible for both of you how you are getting on and talk about what may need to be improved

I’m younger than your target market but tbh I don’t see the appeal. You mention women in your OP and also saving marriages, but I can’t see where you mention men. I don’t think men would engage with your app if it’s essentially telling them to fix up, complete chores, and contribute more. So if the men don’t buy into it, how are the women going to benefit?

You make an excellent point.
This is just from what I learnt from my time in startup world - It's easier to focus on a very narrow market and do it well than targeting a wide market and not achieve anything.

So part of this thread, I am coming to realise that even with millennial career mums with young kids - I'd want to target DH's who are flexible and motivated. This is probably 10%-30% of the market, but if they really need a solution for it, I think it works.

Then over time, I can scale it to open relationships, LGBTQ+ and other groups.
Please feel to disagree - It was an intentional choice and I didn't intend to ignore minorty groups - Provided I go ahead.

Thanks for your feedback.

• The app is not intended to save marriages - At best it can have preventative measures. Marriages in trouble don't need an app - they need professional help
• I haven't mentioned men exactly for the reasons you mentioned - If they aren't contributing (laziness, lack of awareness, childhold patterns, traditional mindset,..etc.) they wouldn't get an app in the first place. So, I am hoping the wife can encourage DH to sign up, understand the tremendous amount of invisible/mental load that women carry and combined with some incentives from the app - Share this burden in a fun manner
• If the man doesn't still pull his weight - Needs professional support - No app can change this

May I ask if this is a problem you are facing? If not what are your challenges?

Thanks for your honesty.

Few follow-ups if you don't mind engaging

Are you seeing issues in:

1. The entire problem space (relationships management/assistant/...)
2. This specific problem space (achieving balance for career mums with young kids) - You are right the idea is wolly because I am iterating this.
3. The solutions I have shared? Particularly when you say its out of date - Is that just UK specific or globally, since I have solutions in some but not all markets.

Funding:
I haven't gotten to investors, but I can do with connections. This is still quite early, and I am trying to figure out whether I should build a landing page for example. It's likely headed towards a pivot or kill at this stage.

Adoption:
I do believe that marketing is key - It can be perceived as, does this mean my marriage is in trouble? However, there are apps in this space solving similar challenges (can't say how well they are doing though).

AI:
The main message I am getting from you is, I am not using AI, as I think I am, but rather with the development of the LLM's it will be the death nail competition.

• How do you see it developing? I use it extensively personally but not the paid version and I suspect that's the majority of the audience and that locks them out of the scheduled tasks, agents, and lot of the other features.

Tech build:
Any indications on what an MVP budget should look like for such a solution? And i really do mean an MVP that is just functioning.

1. chores. This has some potential if you have a good UI. You have to go across platforms. You also need to include allocation of chores to children via child accounts
2. bonding. If I’m going to take the time to provide detailed information on my preferences, I can plan a date myself. The barrier is babysitting and unknown babysitters, even with credentials are not a solution.
3. links to services. This will inevitably end up being a bunch of sponsored posts from businesses that pay to be listed. We all know this game by now. It’s not a useful feature.

Also people aren’t going to pay for this without being able to try it first. I’m more likely to try a light version. I’ll do a 7 day trial for something that comes very highly recommended, but not something new.

So many apps over promises and under deliver.

A massive thank you for all the engagement, care, and help so far! I wanted to summarise what I heard and understood from you all:

• Real problem: The problem worth solving for the target market is when DH is NOT engaged/motivated. This is something you may pay for because existing solutions (AI, Google,other apps, talking, etc.) fall short. As such, there needs to be some dad component (or the app is designed for them instead).
• What I shouldn't do: Market this as saving marriages (or imply there is trouble).
• Target audience agrees that there is a need for balancing your life without guilt, burnout, or loneliness. But I didn't hear how badly you need this solved. If not, what is it that you need solving badly?
• Proposed solutions: they partially exist, aren't fun, don't provide enough value, or are too broad (costly from a tech point of view). But there is a small select group that would try them as is and would be interested in trying. I need to focus on this (if going ahead).
• AI is a 'competition' and not an enabling tool for the solutions, as I had imagined. GPT is already providing or will provide these benefits, so the solutions would only be a marginal improvement at best.

Would love to get feedback on:

• The real problem - Does it resonate for you? How bad is it?
• Solutions - (I admit) They are crap/half-baked - you'd like more thinking into this
• Any other comments on the summary - Agree, disagree with?

My very blunt advice after the 01:06 post is honestly pick another idea, ideally not app based if you want to do an app, is I’d highly recommend doing some free courses in app and software development, not with the idea of building it but just to understand what you’re asking for and the development time and cost you will need for the initial development and the monthly on going costs you will have to pay vs subscription costs you’d get back, it will be hard to make your money back and your current budget wouldn’t even cover a small section of the app

I cannot emphasise enough how big a scope you’ve detailed, this app idea so far is several apps in one, you’re describing the functionality of several apps/websites and shoving into one, Sweepy, a calendar, Google maps, open table plus all sorts of ml, ai. The scope is huge, the booking on the app, you’d have to use open table api or similar and that isn’t a given and again costs to use.

1. ”From your shared data (location, budget, availability, likes from social media, etc.) recommend 3x date night options to select from

just one step of your app, is going to require
so much work (without even getting into the other aspects of it) you’re going to be using Google maps api to pull this location stuff, which will cost you if your app got popular and won’t be as good or easy as them just doing that themselves for free no subscription cost on google maps.
And you aren’t going to be getting the social media likes of the users.

even if you don’t know the tech details think about the steps your asking about for just this one section of the app, imagine a no computer, just a paper situation to break this down

I dump a yellow pages book on your lap and I’m like find me a date night, so you need to create a system to do this, you need to be able to get a yellow pages everytime, at first they might give it to you for free, but then they’re going to start charging.

then you need to create a rule, of only these priced ones, then, only within this distance and only ones open on Thursday nights. You’re now left with 19 in the town, what rule are you creating to think well these 3 are the ones I will recommend?

and that’s only one tiny part of your vision

1. Agree and i need to ensure it standouts from 100s of other household management apps
2. The first few instances will be a pain but the idea is to automate it with time. My assumption is that you'd rather spend the time on the date itself instead of spending (minutes-hours) researching and then planning the logistics. Re: Babysitter, I'd be the first one to express skepticism with leaving my kids with strangers (even if verified) - However, care.com and other platforms have proven it can be done. I'd go by hierarchy & availability -> grandparents, family friends, close contacts, then verified/certified sitters.
3. You don't have to see any of it though? Ideally, you mediate through an in-built AI and then you'd have to select from say budget, highly recommended or trending (selected by other couples) options. What it solves for is: quick access to experts over spending time researching on google, AI, forums, asking friends etc.

Which problems resonate with you? Why do you believe it doesn't provide sufficient value (there is fair bit of time saving component here to then spend the time as you choose)?

For connecting to experts, I need a plumber to replace a faucet with one I have already purchased. Can your app get me a summary of actual quotes and lists of plumbers who have openings with dates of estimated availability or is it just going to send my contact info to some plumbers and I have to field phone calls?

This is one of the very few technical feedback in the thread, so its extremely valuable.

I don't deny for a moment the monumental resources (time, money, learning,..) that would be required to pull this off.

Please let me know what you think about how I'd proceed:

• The solutions need rethinking - innovative, clear, detailed,...(this will impact the cost and then interest in the service).
• I'd size this narrow market (are there enough users and if they'd be willing to pay for it) - If not this is dead - I think this is where you are saying - the tech is so costly and time consuming that I'd need a very large user base to be profitable?
• Start with the service most in demand - to gain traction and actually try to turn a profit
• Add subsequent services (may have to pivot solution as customer discovery continues)
• Scale

While I agree with the task, cost, my lack of experience (I'd be more commercial) amongst several other things. Do you think building it in stages (as above) be more appropriate then thinking of the whole system already? I am also assuming there are multiple ways to do what I am saying.

Also happy to take this offline.

Firstly, working with tradies won't be in scope (unless there is a big demand). Perhaps if you are building a house, but not a priority problem at the start.

What you are describing is a separate app altogether - Getting availabilities from traddies, pre-sharing info etc. is a massive challenge. They are quite analog. Whereas with professional services its easier to integrate (calendar, share info etc.) from a tech point of view anyway.

So, connecting with couples counselors, accountants, solicitors? What is your scope exactly and how is it different than other ways people can find services?

For the expert services - Purpose is to find support as quick as possible on topics that create conflict in the relationship.

Solution 1: Using in-built AI that's specific to you (because its learning about both of you) will help mediate conflicts.

• Against existing solutions: Haven't come across a quality shared AI chat/interface that has emotion, tonality etc. features and the capability to reason such complex topics. It'd take you fair amount of prompting - Whereas, the required input (texts, schedule, calls, etc.) is already present for the AI to work from.

OR

Solution 2: If solution 1 doesn't work, AI recommends professional

• What's the scope: Basically things that create friction (money, intimacy, raising children, the relationship itself, aging parents/health, legal matters, work & career..could be others but limiting to this for now).
• Against existing solutions: You'd have to research, filter, and select. The app would essentially accelerate the research and filter and get you to selection quickly so you have your initial consultation.

Honestly it sounds far more hassle to use than it's worth, a privacy nightmare, gamification would be a total cringe and if the man isn't already engaged with the life admin, housework etc then an app nagging him to hang up his towel is seriously not going to help, he'd just delete it or switch off notifications (as would I if someone tried to impose it on me).

@LemonKangroo

Honestly your idea is way too vague to give a meaningful answer on what the MVP budget would be. It's very muddled with no real core to it.

If you were a techie and could build it yourself then the MVP budget would be reasonable. You'd still need a support team but you would be able to project manage it yourself. Big cost saving there.

As you're not a techie you'd need a lead architect to design the infrastructure and oversee the build. Effectively you'd be paying someone to design the app for you (candidly if they thought it was a good idea and did this they wouldn't need you and could launch alone. The commercial side isn't that hard to do and they could change the code to alter the IP so you'd have very little recourse for legal challenge).

But if you did employ a lead architect probably £150k PA at least just for that one person. Then add in back end and front end devs, UX, service desk support for customer problems, system security specialists (your data security would be a major concern here), you'd be looking at £600-700k PA at a minimum with a staff of >6 for tech support.

Without any tech experience how are you going to oversee the sprints with your dev team? you would literally be flying blind. This in itself is a recipe for disaster because you wouldn't know if the coding was actually any good. A bad architect could lead you down the wrong path whilst making it look all shiny and wonderful on the surface. You wouldn't know.

You could outsource but wouldn't recommend if you're not a techie as you wouldn't be able to QA the code and wouldn't necessarily have full control over the product (mixed experience here on outsourcing).

Then accounting, marketing, insurance for PI/PL and cyber security, ongoing data compliance checks. Depending on which operating framework you're aiming for (Andriod or Apple) you'd need someone to ensure interface compatibility and manage updates.

Very, very, very rough figure £1-£1.2M for launch MVP. And thats assuming EVERYTHING goes well and you launch within one year, which you won't. I caveat that figure entirely with its more a guesstimate as your idea is way too vague to really see where all your data points are.

I get the impression you're super keen, creating lists and summarising points but I don't think you are really listening.

Brutally, this idea is a dud. It has financial sink hole written all over it. Don't waste your time. I wouldn't touch this as an investor.

Look for a new idea that is more relevant to today's market and get a tech business partner to help you develop new, fresher ideas that meet today's demands.