One of my hopes for the rise of Generative AI is its ability to bring highly technical skills to a wider audience. I hope that it means the rise of applications, systems and networks that change the lives of people in a more meaningful, personalized way.
But is my hope too overblown and the hype too overwhelming? Will this new world of personalized applications even arrive? And if it does, what does it mean for software as a business?
First though, I have my friend and former colleague Derek Sidebottom on the show talking about his new venture, MyParentCafe.com. An application and a network which is already changing lives.
Dups: And today, I’m very happy to introduce a very good friend and a former colleague, not once, but twice. I want to welcome Derek Sidebottom to the podcast.
Derek: So excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dups: Hey, how did we meet? I think we’re going back to the first company we worked at. What was that small little company?
Derek: Yeah, we were working together at BioWare up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Dups: Yes. And for those that don’t know BioWare, it produced things like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Give me a short, brief history of where you’ve been since then.
Derek: Yeah, we were purchased by Electronic Arts and I moved down to the San Francisco Bay Area in the summer of, wait for it, 2008, right before the financial collapse. It was an exciting time to be in the Bay. And from Electronic Arts, I went on to all sorts of other places. A couple of in-house organizations, and Kabam, Rocket Fuel—we were the number one AI marketing technology company five years running in the world. Forty million to 400 million in kind of two years, we went public, just crazy growth. So I’ve been working in software, in gaming, in AI and marketing technology, fintech, you name it, probably spent a bit of time in it. I just really enjoy growing organizations. And on the HR side, it’s always about how do you make people better, faster, stronger in what they’re doing.
Dups: And that’s an excellent segue into My Parent Cafe, which is what you’re doing today. What is My Parent Cafe?
Derek: My Parent Cafe, it is a parent resource network. We were stunned when we were doing the research—it takes 184,000 hours and about $350,000 right now in the United States to raise a child. They say it takes a village, and the joke is, like, do they just show up? Is there a number to call? And the answer, stunningly, is there isn’t. There’s an app to date, there’s an app to fix your house, there’s an app for your career, and there’s no dedicated network out there for parents. And that just became our focus in terms of, like, well, what would that look like? And how could we make that happen?
Dups: So I mean, there’s parents of all types, right Derek? Who is this actually for? Like, who are you targeting in the beginning?
Derek: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. We talked to parents in France, in Costa Rica, Canada, the United States, you know, everywhere. And we narrowed it down to our real purpose is to connect the people who need to the people who know. And so our quest then became, well, let’s find the people who are most in need, right? This isn’t about sharing what I made for breakfast or my summer vacation. This is people who really need the connection outside of their normal networks. And so we began to focus in on the moments that matter the most… But we also then specialized in some of the harder special needs journeys, right? It would be chronic illness, cancer, kids with cancer, type one diabetes, autism, ADHD, chromosome disorders. These are the journeys no one signed up for. And you became a member of a club you didn’t want to be part of. And then essentially, we give you that club to be part of.
Dups: Let’s actually dig into that a little. Because Facebook groups and Reddit are there already. And there are groups for parents in both those places. What does My Parent Cafe add to the mix of this?
Derek: You can think of it like… we’ll call them social networks or entertainment networks for the generations, through MySpace, through Facebook, and even more Instagram, Quora, Reddit, now into TikTok. What we’ve found is that the parents are everywhere. They’re trying to use each of these different platforms to connect. None of it was purpose-built. We then figured out, like, let’s build it purpose-built for that parent to connect in a way that I don’t have to tell who I am. I can stay anonymous, which is the best-of-breed feature from one platform. I’m able to accumulate, we’ll call it credibility, right? So we have a coffee bean mechanism. The more helpful you are with other people, the more coffee beans you accumulate, that unlocks certain things.
As you go, you are able to post and reply, but it’s not an algorithmic platform trying to sell you things. I will add, we threw an AI co-parent in there as well to play with. So there’s now a 24/7 AI co-parent in every one of our various villages—and villages for us are topic areas—ready to help you. And once you’re done getting what you want out of that discussion with the bot, right? Like, now let me ask humans. And so we’ve linked together questions, answers, support, and solutions specifically around the parent. And that’s just something the other platforms don’t do. If you look at the people who need help the most… their existing social networks probably don’t include people who had any expertise in that area.
You need to transcend geography. You need to reach out well beyond your normal networks. The connection to people is still core. We don’t really think AI is ever going to be able to genuinely say, “I understand how you feel.” We’re just not going to believe that. So we’re going to end up still needing to connect the parent who is, in many ways, desperate, scared, nervous, to other folks who have been there, done that. But the people who’ve been there, done that do not really always want to pile on with the 101, 201 answers. And so our AI bot can actually give you the research component, can give you the core information you need, so you’re not taxing the parent network with the same questions over and over again. And we notice that that’s ultimately why a lot of traditional group forums die. People are just kind of tired of seeing the same things again and again. So the AI carries the repetitive, and the parent humans are able to sort of give the extra insight and intel.
Dups: Derek, how do you make money from My Parent Cafe?
Derek: We’re a startup, we’re staying lean. Originally, we thought we were going to be more of a direct-to-consumer play where the parents would pay a couple of dollars per month. We decided to remove the friction on that because as we were talking to organizations that already existed out there that serve the parent market, we heard a lot of these organizations were like, “Well, this sounds great. Could we create a group on this thing?” And we realized we’re actually sitting on a B2B-to-C model. And so how we make money is ultimately we charge organizations who want to essentially have their own private group on our platform. They pay for that.
Dups: Why My Parent Cafe? What is the personal story behind this? Why did you think this was the direction you wanted to go?
Derek: Yeah, thank you for asking. For me, after 25 years of building great workforces, so human resources, it’s not a big jump to do parent resources. It’s very similar. In the HR seat, we would always come across people who desperately needed help in their family life, but we had to stop at some point in time because we were the employer. And on that other side, my own little one, when she was born, ultimately she’s a type one diabetic and she’s on the spectrum. And we’ve moved a number of times. And so this idea of, you know, “find your village” was real. We’re like one of the high-need journeys. This just became part of the fabric of building My Parent Cafe.
After a year of thinking about this with my co-founder, we couldn’t figure out why this shouldn’t exist. Like, why doesn’t it exist? And then we realized, well, we’re going to make it exist. And then, you know, probably the last filter was, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? And what will fuel me over the next 10, 20 years? Helping parents in need is an easy one. And so that became the fuel behind this, for sure.
Dups: That’s one of the wonderful things that I love about startups and founders is that you are solving a passion. So talking of the journey, where are you going next?
Derek: Yeah, so we are very carefully—we’re in what we call our pioneer period. After that, we go gangbusters. We are going to open up another vertical for looking after your own parents. We’ve heard “elder care” again and again. It’s just one of these things where, unfortunately, you get a call sometimes in the middle of the night and boom, you need to become an expert in long-term care or insurance and financial planning and assisted living facilities.
Even more exciting than building our own product, because when you’re building a resource network that helps people run their lives better, is you just keep coming across other innovations and entrepreneurs who are crazy enough to do the same thing. We’ve seen robotics and AI companies helping non-verbal kids speak, which is just unbelievable. We’ve got another organization that runs marathons with cerebral palsy kids in wheelchairs. It’s an ex-Marine who, unfortunately, his child passed away, but as a legacy project continued onward and has literally thousands of people running races every year with these kids who are grinning at the idea of moving in their wheelchair again. All we’re doing as a resource network is connecting people to other real humans who have been there, done that.
Dups: This is fantastic to hear, Derek. Any last parting words about My Parent Cafe and the journey you’re on?
Derek: If you’re listening right now, I encourage you, go to myparentcafe.com, click and join, and just add your wisdom. We keep running into people who are like, “Well, I’m late, I’ve already had my kids and I don’t have any problems right now.” Yeah, but that’s what we’re trying to stitch together. If you do know something, I assure you this is not a spammy platform. Just add your knowledge in your profile to the platform, and you won’t get bothered. But every once in a while, you’ll receive a little notification that, “Hey, a question’s been posted on the forum you might be able to help with. Would you care to add your voice?” If you don’t, that’s fine.
So we want to add the people who know. And obviously, if you’re a person who needs, by all means, please join us. And for organizations who are serving these spaces—you might be an influencer yourself with a community, you may be a financial planner, you might be an insurance organization, you could be a foundation, software company, wheelchair provider—we are looking to add and stitch together, frankly, the entire ecosystem that helps these high-need parents. And wouldn’t it be refreshing to have one place to go to, rather than leave the doctor’s office one day, leave the hospital, and go, “You’re on your own.” And the answer is, you’re not. You can go to My Parent Cafe now.
Dups: Thank you very much for coming on Tales Under the Cat Tree, Derek. It’s been fun watching your ride. It’s been fun being part of the ride. You are obviously a very close friend of mine, and I can’t wait to see where myparentcafe.com goes.
Derek: Thanks for having us. And Dups, you’ve been so supportive of our journey and appreciate helping to get the word out. And it’s been fun being on the podcast. Great to talk to you again.
This episode also features the article “Will personalized apps end software as a business?”
