Tody
As a child, I hated brushing my teeth. As a consequence, I have significant oral health issues, costing me both time and money. To address this common challenge among families, our team developed Tody, a teeth-brushing assistant designed to help children and their frustrated parents.
*This project is associated with my previous startup KidsLoveFun.
A Frustrating Problem
Most parents in the US understand that toothbrushing is important for their kids. However, many children often refuse to do so because teeth brushing is not fun, and they don’t see the benefit. For many families, teeth brushing can quickly turn into a constant battle between parents and kids. This is frustrating!!! 😣
Our Solution Tody
Tody was developed to help children ages 3–6 foster healthy teeth-brushing habits. It has five core value propositions.
- Safety: This is our primary focus. Tody is waterproof and built to withstand wear and tear.
- Easy to use: Tody is designed to be simple for children to use.
- Fun for kids: Children are willing to interact and learn with Tody.
- Guidance: By providing proper guidance, Tody serves as a teeth-brushing guide for kids.
- Engagement: Children can see their progress by collecting rewards.
What are the current solutions on the market?
Currently, most parents address their problem by turning to phone apps (some of which can be synced with smart toothbrushes, like Philips Sonicare, Playbrush, etc.) or using physical timers, such as sand timers and Turtle toothbrush timers.
However, phone apps are relatively cumbersome and inconvenient. Additionally, many parents are reluctant to use smartphones, fearing their kids might get distracted easily. As a result, physical timers are more popular, but they lack the ability to guide and infuse fun into the routine.
Analyzing all these products, I discerned a unique opportunity. I wanted to meld the best of both worlds by creating a tangible teeth-brushing robot that gamifies the experience for kids.
We learned a lot by going through reviews.
Following our competitive analysis, I delved into the reviews of products and apps from our competitors. Here are some key takeaways.
- Product quality is highly valued. The product MUST be safe to use!
- Customers care about product effectiveness: does it address their issues?
- Ensuring kids maintain consistent brushing habits over the long term is crucial. Many products may engage children temporarily, yet they often lack sustained effectiveness.
- Kids may become easily discouraged when things don't work as they imagined.
- Rewards and customization are attractive to children.
There were 2 things we still didn't know.
- What makes teeth-brushing so challenging for kids?
- What can really help families to solve this problem? Are they looking for solutions? What type of solution are they looking for?
So I interviewed 62 people.
Participant Composition
- 10 Kids
- 52 Parents
Goal
- Discover whether and how fostering dental habits is challenging.
- Identify what parents care about when it comes to children's dental health.
- Identify methods parents have used to make their kids more interested/excited about brushing teeth.
Takeaways
- Developing good dental habits is definitely challenging, but the challenges at each age are different.
- Ages 3 to 6 are a critical period for fostering teeth-brushing habits. During this period, children slowly learn how to brush by themselves, instead of relying on their parents.
- Most parents care greatly about children's dental health. More specifically, parents don't want their kids to get cavities, so they pay attention to how well their kids brush their teeth.
- Most parents are open to new tools or resources that can help them.
- In terms of products that make teeth-brushing less painful, most parents have 4 basic needs: 1) easy to use and set up, 2) fun for kids, 3) activity tracking, 4) focus on the long term.
Value Propositions 1.0
Based on research insights, I decided to design specifically for children ages 3–6 and crafted the initial product value propositions.
- Product safety is the highest priority.
- It should be fun, approachable, and simple to use.
- Track children's teeth-brushing activity accurately and provide feedback to refine their techniques.
- Focus on long-term engagement through instant feedback, challenges, rewards, and accomplishments.
We went through many iterations for our functional prototype.
Clay Prototype
Electronic Prototype
First Functional Prototype
Limitation of this Functional Prototype
Although my partner was working on activity tracking, I decided not to include tracking in the first iteration due to time and resource constraints. Incorporating tracking would require machine learning and an extra device attached to the toothbrush for motion detection. I wanted to conduct private beta tests ASAP.
Private Beta Test
I launched a private beta test with 4 families. For this test, there were 3 things I wanted to measure.
- How intuitive is the prototype?
- Do kids enjoy using it?
- How long and how often do they use it? From this, we can assess how effective our prototype is.
To measure these factors, I tracked usage data and surveyed participants. I also conducted follow-up interviews to dig deeper into their experiences.
The results were really positive. The prototype was fairly intuitive; children loved it; all families used our prototype extensively for more than 3 months.
Frankly, something felt wrong.
We initially believed activity tracking would be essential for this product. However, even without this feature, our prototype proved effective, challenging our original assumption. Therefore, when conducting follow-up interviews, I dug into this problem.
From talking to participants, I realized that activity tracking is a nice-to-have feature. Parents valued the teeth-brushing guidance Tody offered their kids. This positioned our product as a teeth-brushing mentor for children.
Tracking is nice to have, but not necessary in this (Tody's) case.
Value Propositions 2.0
Based on testing results, we updated our value propositions. Although the decision to omit activity tracking seemed logical, it was still challenging given the time and effort we'd invested in it. My technical co-founder was particularly resistant, but I was ultimately able to convince him of the change's merits.
- Safety: This is our primary focus. Tody should be able to handle all daily situations.
- Easy to use: Tody should be simple for children to use.
- Fun for kids: We want children to be excited about interacting with Tody.
- Guidance: By providing proper guidance, Tody should be a teeth-brushing mentor for kids.
- Engagement: Help children see their progress by providing rewards.
Updated Prototype (MVP)
Project Outcome
After rolling out the MVP, we initiated a survey to primarily gauge Tody's desirability among our target audience. We collected responses from around 500 participants, all of whom are parents with at least 1 child aged between 3 and 6. Out of these respondents, 410 people expressed significant interest. Many participants even urged us to “bring it to market quickly”.
Later, we launched our prototype on the website and released the public beta test registration form. Within the first hour, there were over 60 sign-ups with half of them expressing willingness to become paying customers.
Additionally, this project was selected for the Purdue Firestarter Accelerator and placed in the top 10 of the Purdue Entrepreneurship Competition.
Looking back...
So many ideas, so little time.
Building a product from scratch comes with constraints and limitations. During our development process, we had many innovative ideas. However, faced with limitations in resources, we often had to set aside promising features. We needed to concentrate on crafting an MVP that balanced feasibility with an exceptional user experience. Although we recognized the importance of activity tracking, we kept it out of the MVP due to this reason.
Bringing a hardware product to market comes with challenges.
Most of the time, launching a software product is fairly simple. Hardware is a different story. To transition Tody from a prototype to a market-ready product, we still need to collaborate with industrial designers, mechanical engineers, industrial engineers, and manufacturers. Additionally, a significant upfront capital investment is required. Therefore, before investing heavily into a hardware product, it's crucial to fully evaluate the idea.
- Am I solving a real problem?
- Are people willing to pay to solve this problem? How much are they willing to pay?
- Is my product able to solve the problem? Why?
- How is my product better than other solutions?
- What are the product and customer-acquisition costs?
