The hardest user research I ever did lived in my house

Taski started the way most honest products do: with a problem I couldn't ignore. Getting kids through a morning routine is a negotiation, and I lose negotiations with people under ten.

Kids are brutal user researchers. They don't churn quietly. They tell you, loudly, that your app is boring, and then they go do something else. Every mechanic in Taski survived that filter: missions instead of chores, streaks that reward showing up, rewards that parents actually control.

The surprising part was how much of my day job transferred. Loyalty for consumers and motivation for kids run on the same physics: clear goals, visible progress, a payoff that arrives on time. The audience changes; the loop doesn't.

If you can design something an eight-year-old returns to voluntarily, enterprise retention starts to look easy.