RankPop · family behavior economy

Your kid will hand over the iPad before you ask.

Kids earn Aura for real-world wins, spend it on screen time, and rank up — with a signed family pact and a one-tap adult pass. $4.99/month. Built on Long Island.

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The problem

The most common daily fight in homes with tweens is about a screen.

5½h

daily entertainment screen time, ages 8–12 (Common Sense Media, 2021)

71%

of parents of under-12s worry their child spends too much time on screens (Pew, 2020)

2×

risk of depression/anxiety symptoms above 3 h/day of social media (US Surgeon General, 2023)

Schools banned phones in 2025–26. The fight moved home. Parents are the referee every night.

Why now

Three waves at once.

Cultural: "The Anxious Generation" and state phone bans made screen limits mainstream — and made parents the enforcers.
Language: "aura points" is one of the most-searched slang terms of 2026. Kids already keep score; nobody has given parents the scoreboard.
Technology: a cached LLM, a $25 database and a free CDN run a national app for pennies per family. Solo-founder economics finally work.

The product

Three things no competitor combines.

🎮 The Aura economyTwo taps or one voice line logs a W. 50 age-tuned behaviors, a reward shop the kid designs, ranks that never drop — so nobody quits.

📜 The Family PactA signed, printable contract generated from PBIS, CASEL and AAP guidance, in the kid's own slang. "It's in the pact, Dad."

⚽ Trusted Adult PassA one-tap link from the field. No app, no login. Praise from someone who isn't Mom lands as +300 Aura and a ding.

How it works

Parent · Kid · Coach.

Parent (dark dashboard)Quick-log chips, voice logging, approvals, undo, contracts, adult passes, a ledger with fairness warnings.

Kid (neon HUD, PIN-locked)Animated avatar, XP bar, wallet, streak, reward shop, live dings, read-aloud.

Coach (one page)First name, sport icon, two giant buttons. Works once, then expires.

Live visuals: preview.html · demo: index.html

The science

Every mechanic has a paper behind it.

Design rule	Evidence
Small, immediate, consistent points	Token economies (Kazdin; classroom meta-analyses)
Teach, then acknowledge 5:1	PBIS randomized trials (Bradshaw et al., 2010)
Signed behavior contract	Behavior-contract meta-analysis (Bowman-Perrott et al., 2015)
Pay for self-control, never for grades	Rewards & intrinsic motivation (Deci et al., 1999; Cameron & Pierce, 1994)
Rank never drops; wallet never negative	Learned helplessness (Seligman); response-cost research
Recognition from a coach	Caring non-parent adults (Search Institute)

Business model

$4.99 a month. ~90% gross margin.

Free

7-day trial, then $4.99/mo · $49.99 founding lifetime

$0.03

infrastructure per family per month at 1,000 families (AI is cached; Stripe's $0.44 is the real cost)

revenue lines beyond subscriptions: Team Packs for leagues, school licenses, gift cards, card packs, digest sponsorships, premium AI coach

Competition

Cheaper than Joon, broader than a chore app, kinder than a control app.

Product	Price	Missing vs RankPop
Joon (ADHD quests + virtual pet)	$12.99/mo	Adult pass, signed pact, slang bridge, rank that never drops
BusyKid / Greenlight (chores → debit card)	$3.99–5.99/mo	Behavior economy, contracts, screen-time exchange
OurPact / Qustodio / Screen Time	Free–$10/mo	Motivation — they are the stick; RankPop is the carrot
ClassDojo	Free (schools)	The home; Adult Pass bridges the two

Go to market

Content + coaches + search.

Daily short video of real kids reacting to Aura taxes and rank-ups. The #AuraTax challenge.
Every customer recruits a coach, and every coach sees 15–30 families. Team Packs turn leagues into channels.
Free SEO pages for the slang every parent googles ("what does 6-7 mean") funnel into a free trial.
Long Island first: libraries, PTAs, pediatricians, dojos — then New York, then the US, then Spanish.

The plan

12 months, one routine.

When	Milestone	Paying families
Month 1	20 founding families, first videos, adult passes in 20 teams	—
Month 3	Paid launch, referral loop, trademark filed, 5 partners	~350
Month 6	Daily content engine, editor hired, Spanish version	~2,000
Month 12	League + school channel, leaderboards, native wrapper	4,500–6,000 (base) · 28,000 (viral)

Built and tested in one week with AI coding tools by a Long Island dad — for his own kids. Try it free. rankpop.app