Keynote at Appsterdam Event: Meet The Makers in A-Lab Amsterdam. 31-01 2014

1. @titatoys
@natasjacorver
@leonievandelaar

2. 1. Introduction
2. Lean journey and the app
3. Launch
4. Questions
www.titatoys.com

3. 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

4. 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

5. Seats to Meet, Utrecht
Seats to Meet, Amsterdam
Dutch Game Garden, Utrecht
De Gruyter Fabriek, Den Bosch

6. Our first goal was:
Validating the needs of children and their parents

7. What should toys bring your preschooler?

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

9. In short: Learn

10. What should toys bring you as a parent?

11. • Happy child
• Free time
• Be a responsible parent

12. 5 Major findings

13. I simply want my child to have fun, so that he
can play and relax, but I as a parent can relax
too
1

14. It would be nice when they learn while playing2

15. With all these devices we have less intimate
contact with our child
3

16. A quality kids app should offer extensive content
and I would pay more than average for it
4

17. Searching for the right app takes too much
time and often I wonder if my child is doing the
right things
5

18. Customer journey
How 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

19. 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

20. 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)

21. • 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

22. 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

23. Gender-neutral characters

24. Gender-neutral characters

25. Gender-neutral characters

26. Typical boy-character

27. Typical girl-character

28. Friendly and clumsy character

29. Compose music

30. Learn words

31. Rewards for play experience

32. Motor skills

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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)

38. AD
De Telegraaf

39. Introducing Tita LITE
Launch Tita LITE in Appstore
on January 30, 2014
• Same game, but less characters
active
• One vocabulary game scene

40. • 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:

41. Best things so far
• The entire lean and agile journey
• The engagement of our customers
• Working in a great team of experts

42. Tita Playground (ENG)Tita Speeltuin (NL)
Thank you!