We’ve spent the latter half of last year building Tribe App (www.tribeapp.in) for iOS and Android. It is expected to be live on the App Store in early February and later on the Play Store. A weekend of introspection allowed some time to reflect on our journey from idea to execution. When I tell people that I’m working on an app that connects families through shared activities, they are fascinated and intrigued. Intrigued, because they don’t expect the average 20-something to work on solutions for families. Well, it’s true, the average 20-something is reluctantly making peace with the troubles (read: responsibilities) of being a young adult. And when my co-founder, Vikram, first pitched Tribe, I remember benching the idea, instantly. Since then it has been a process of evolution leading up until now, when I’m hopeful that Tribe App will change the World for the better — one family at a time.
The most obvious dichotomy in the digital age is that of being connected and disconnected. For instance, at work you’re expected to be on top of all information regarding your team, company, industry, products (or services); the more, the better. You are also expected to be instantly responsive to calls, emails, trends and whatever else concerns your work. Like any other working professional you use a flood of apps to solve for “productivity”, so you can free up your time from operational necessities and focus on more strategic functions. Life without any of these nifty solutions would be unthinkable! Contrast this with when you get home from the office, you’re expected to stay off’ your devices and yet be the perfect spouse, parent, sibling, friend, and neighbor, among much else. Information is varied and unconnected; stakeholders are diverse and numerous. Adding to it, the consequences are real and in many cases, irreparable. What if we turned the face of productivity towards what is really most important to us - family?
One of my most significant childhood memories is cleaning and repairing my Dad’s Yezdi bike on the weekends. I practiced being an able apprentice, handing tools and observing keenly as my Dad dismantled whatever was possible of the machine and put it together astutely with beautiful, zen-like workmanship. It was enchanting, and I can recount many, many life-lessons from this whimsical activity — hard work, patience and attention to detail, among much else. My Dad, like most others of his generation, worked really, really hard to give his kids a better life. But, I’m most thankful for the time he spent with us on the smaller, seemingly insignificant things, such as our time spent servicing the bike. When we sold the Yezdi, years later, the both of us cried — the closest I have ever related to Dad, thus far.
The children of today will grow up in different circumstances. Most of us in competitive careers don’t have the time and energy to spend a fourth of their our weekends servicing bikes or entire evenings at the neighborhood market with our kids. There are hundreds of things vying for our attention right now, including those smaller errands and chores that eat into possible quality time with our family. How we manage our time and energy to create a positive impact on our families will define not just who we are, but the World around us. We built Tribe App to connect families around shared activities, so you can do precisely that. — create time for meaningful moments with the people you love. My moment of realization came a couple of days after Vikram had pitched the idea. It was magically obvious — family life is the hardest challenge of our lives. Post initial validation, we started building Tribe in August last year. And we remain committed to a product road map that will hopefully help change the World — one family at a time.
- roshan cariappa, Co-founder @ Wolf Labs
PS — If you are intrigued, you can check out — www.tribeapp.in.
