Tita Toys at Meet the makers, A-Lab Amsterdam. 31-01 2014

@titatoys

@natasjacorver

@leonievandelaar

1. Introduction

2. Lean journey and the app

3. Launch

4. Questions

www.titatoys.com

Sanoma Internal Venture Tita Toys

• Internal Ventures is part of Sanoma's Innovation Lab• We work lean• We started with 2 people, soon our prototyper joined us• When concept was clear, we scaled up to get in production mode• We've produced the app in 3 months, including the birth of the characters and

identity of Tita Toys• The Tita Toys app that is in store now is a High Fidelity MVP

Our scaled up team in full speed (most worked part time)

• Natasja Corver, team lead• Leonie van de Laar, designer, art director• Kristof Luyckx, character designer, animator• Happy Coders, app development• Karim Amrani, prototyper• Hilde ten Thije, marketing, PR, social media

Seats to Meet, Utrecht

Seats to Meet, Amsterdam

Dutch Game Garden, Utrecht

De Gruyter Fabriek, Den Bosch

Our first goal was:

Validating the needs of children and their parents

What should toys bring your preschooler?

• Fun, fun, fun!• And possibility to play experience

In short: Learn

What should toys bring you as a parent?

• Happy child• Free time• Be a responsible parent

5 Major findings

I simply want my child to have fun, so that he can play and relax, but I as a parent can relax too

1

It would be nice when they learn while playing2

With all these devices we have less intimate contact with our child

3

A quality kids app should offer extensive content and I would pay more than average for it

4

Searching for the right app takes too much time and often I wonder if my child is doing the right things

5

Customer journeyHow did we get to this point?

• We talked to over 125 parents in real life and tested with 200 parents through Hettestpanel

• We tested with 200 children

• Build landing pages, build on social communities, solution interviews, usability test and prototyping

• Launched 2 creative apps in the Appstore

Tita Toys the series is:

• Tita Toys is a series of apps• Covering all development areas: vocabulary, early maths, motor skills, world

orientation, socioemotional development, creativity• Connect parent and child through parent page• Offer fun, play and learning• With distinguishable characters• Offer depth and variety, hours of fun

#1 App in series Tita Playground offers• musical skills, motor skills and vocabulary

Design wishes

• We need a style that can grow in age and theme• But still be strongly recognizable as Tita Toys• Explicit character design• Modern style, tablet native• Slick animations• Using 3D influences• Icon is the most important marketing tool in Appstore. • A close up of a character is best recognizable• Humor, humor, humor (for both kids and their parents)

• The box used in the logo refers to shoebox diorama: Every Tita app brings kids into

different worlds. Tita Toys style is a mash up of 2D and 3D, like you see in shoebox

diorama's too

Identity

Structure of the app, what needed to be designed

• 6 characters• 6 play objects• Each character has its own unique music combination with every play object• Each character has its own unique animation with every play object

That's 36 combinations of which: • should sound excellent together• fit in rhythm• sound interesting separately

Gender-neutral characters

Gender-neutral characters

Gender-neutral characters

Typical boy-character

Typical girl-character

Friendly and clumsy character

Compose music

Learn words

Rewards for play experience

Motor skills

Parent page• 20% of the parents don't need it• 60% of the parents think is nice to have• 20% of the parents think it's a must have

Vocabulary game

• 5 character scenes• 20 vocabulary objects each scene • Rewards with sound and animation

Voice recording

• fiverr.com• recorded by teamlead

Self made sound studio

Testing with children

• Warm relation with nursery, we could easy walk in to test newest version of the app

• Spontaneous reactions by children and parents in parcs and playgrounds

• Children of friends and family

Launch in Appstore on january 6, 2014

• Testing paid app model

• No 1 in Appstore category kids and games > education

• Featured by Apple in several European countries

• Good reviews in Appstore

• Bloggers writing positive reviews (The iMums, Juff Jannie, Kleuters digitaal e.o)

• 2 Articles in Dutch National Newspapers (De Telegraaf and AD)

• EAS Certification of 5 Stars (Educational App Store: If your sense of humour looks for something quirky rather than for something cute and sweet, this app is for you)

AD

De Telegraaf

Introducing Tita LITELaunch Tita LITE in Appstoreon January 30, 2014

• Same game, but less characters active

• One vocabulary game scene

• will we scale up by getting more users?

• will in app purchase result to more sales?

• will we get international attention?

• is there enough market potential out there for Tita Toys to get enough downloads without using a big marketing budget

With LITE version we are validating:

Best things so far

• The entire lean and agile journey

• The engagement of our customers

• Working in a great team of experts

Tita Playground (ENG)Tita Speeltuin (NL)

Thank you!