Parents will pay you a lot to start this business

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter that serves up your favorite scoop of side hustles. Mmmm, is that strawberry? 😋 

It’s Taco Tuesday, let’s boogie:

• 📱 The educational screen time app for kids

• 😂 Meme of the day

Have you always wanted to start investing in real estate, but don't have $100k lying around? Don’t worry you’re not alone…

I recently came across this company called “Arrived” -  they allow you to invest in real estate for a fraction of the cost. (Think $100 and you can own real estate!)

• They do all the work on finding profitable properties 

• They deal with all the maintenance, upkeep, cleaning, etc.

• They take care of all the legal jargon

All you have to do is buy shares of a home… kind of like a stock. And every quarter they’ll pay you on your investment!

It’s a great way to get exposure to real estate without having to put a lot of money down.  

Even if you’re not ready right now at least subscribe to their emails that way you can see potential deals that become available! (It’s completely free)

EDUCATIONAL SCREEN TIME APP FOR KIDS

A couple of months ago, I ran a poll and found that the majority of you are parents. So, I think this idea will resonate.

We all know technology is taking over the younger generation. One survey found that children 11-14 spend about 9 hours of their day in front of a screen playing games or watching YouTube, and it’s frying their brains and affecting their learning capabilities.

Many parents know this and do what they can to keep their kids safe. But kids will be kids, and they’re figuring out how to cheat their Apple screen time limit.

So, now we have a ton of parents who are looking for a better alternative. That’s where you come in. 🫵 

What if you created an app where every time a child opens, say, TikTok or YouTube, they have to answer educational questions correctly to get access? And maybe even annoyingly, if they get it wrong it adds another question.

That way, you’re helping them learn and making it harder to break their screen time limit.

After many hours of research, I found one company already doing this called 1question. 

It does exactly what I said; it asks a question and requires the user get it right before allowing access to the app.

And it's not just any question - these are snappy, curriculum-aligned math quizzes that turn screen time into brain time. 

There's even a dashboard for parents to take a sneak peek at their kids’ progress. 

The company was founded 5 years ago and now has 3 full-time employees and 5 freelancers, proving this is working.

Now just because there’s already a company doing this doesn’t mean you can’t do it too. Uber and Lyft are great examples. They both do the same thing, and both are multibillion-dollar companies. 

If you go through 1question’s IG and TikTok accounts, you can tell they aren’t taking marketing too seriously. And, I don’t see them spending any money on Facebook ads... where all the parents are.

Considering their app only has 32 reviews I think there’s a big opportunity to do something very similar. 95% of teens use YouTube and 67% use TikTok… this market is huge.

Here’s how I’d capitalize off it:

#1 Build the app

The best option is to build the app yourself or hire a tech savvy friend to help (even if it takes longer).

You can hire app developers off Upwork or Fiverr that charge $20-$50/hr but if your app gets big, there’s no way to stop them from reselling the source code to someone else.

If I had to guess, I’d say this would cost a few thousand dollars to create. There are people on Fiverr who claim they can build apps for $200. That may be true but I’d interview them first.. or you could end up like this guy on Reddit.

Some must have features:

1. The parent dashboard
   
   One thing 1Question does that I love is it lets parents track how their kids are doing. They can see what answers they’re getting right and what they need to improve on. Definitely a must-have feature to provide the feedback loop to the parents. 

2. Randomized Questions based on grade level
   
   I think it goes without saying but the same question shouldn’t always pop up every time a user goes to open an app. I’d let the parents choose how many questions they want their kid to answer and how often they want a question to pop up on their screen.

#2 Do marketing the right way

Just by looking at 1question’s marketing, you can tell it’s not top-notch. No Facebook ads, no TikTok ads, and no Google ads.

But besides just doing ads I think your biggest ad spend should be on influencer marketing - specifically parents.

I’d hit up every parent influencer you know on social media to start talking about the new app you’ve built to help kids learn and not fry their brains on socials.

Maybe you don’t even need to pay these parents depending on their follower count. A free year-long subscription for their own kids might do the trick!

And since this app is helping kids, you should get some free word-of-mouth referrals from parents talking to other parents.

How much can you charge?

1question only charges $2.99/mo. I think that’s very underpriced given the benefits they offer parents. I’d charge at least $20/mo for this service. 

You don’t need to compete on price if your product and marketing are that much better. Parents who care about their kid’s education and development will pay for a service like this. You just have to find them.

Children are on these tablets every single day for hours on end. Parents will pay to ensure they’re actually learning in the process.

And just a note about price. I’ve done countless hours of research on this topic.

Wanna know something that probably sounds counterintuitive? The more expensive an item is, the more perceived value it has. Meaning if it’s free or super cheap (like $3 a month), people won’t think it holds any real value. 

And that’s all I had for you today. Have a good one!

MEME OF THE DAY

the Oscars were lit 😂😂 

KEEP MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKET

• 75% of people are in debt. Don’t be a part of this stat. Pay off your debt fast with my personal Debt Paydown Tracker (that helped me pay off $30k in debt). See how it works!

HIT THE INBOX OF 30K+ ENTREPRENEURS

Advertise with Work “After” Work to get your brand in front of business owners and freelancers. Our subscribers are highly motivated to make money and are always looking for their next interesting product or tool that can help in the journey. Get in touch today.

That's a wrap ladies & gents!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.