ChoreMonster Story
Cofounder Chris Bergman and I began with just an idea, “gamifying” chores and using monsters. With just that idea and a logo we entered a local startup accelerator called The Brandery in 2011. In January of 2012 we got our first seed round of funding and built the platform for the next four years.
ChoreMonster set about to make household tasks fun while bringing harmony and unity to the home through technology. Parents create chores and rewards assign them a point value. When kids complete chores they earn those points that are turned in for rewards they want, like watching TV, playing video games, getting ice cream, or going to a family movie. Each chore completed also earns kids a ticket that can be used to buy one of over hundred monsters or over twenty short cartoons starting our monsters. By incentivizing tasks through a point and ticket system, we activate the reward center of the brain in kids, causing them to more readily and eagerly want to complete their chores. Our slogan was, ”your kids will beg to do chores”.
In the summer of 2014 we were a part of the first Techstars collaboration in the Disney Accelerator program. There we built upon our intellectual property of our unique and entertaining monsters and created more robust content and stories about them. We also developed a brand integration strategy through sponsored chores and rewards. By 2016, kids using our app had completed more than 18,000,000 chores, a combined 900,000 hours or 37,500 years spent helping keep their homes in order.
In the summer of 2014 we were a part of the first Techstars collaboration in the Disney Accelerator program. There we built upon our intellectual property of our unique and entertaining monsters and created more robust content and stories about them. We also developed a brand integration strategy through sponsored chores and rewards. By 2016, kids using our app had completed more than 18,000,000 chores, a combined 900,000 hours or 37,500 years spent helping keep their homes in order.
In May of 2016 I parted ways with ChoreMonster. While I’m sad to leave behind a team that worked hard on creating a quality app that did more than just entertain or distract but actually helped families, I’m very excited for what is next.
