nhoven

Of course! Gamification (and other extrinsic motivators) are best used sparingly and short-term in order to get over an initial hump before something fun or easy. Think of climbing a hill to get to a playground.

Basically, our goal is to make the kid's progress tangible and visual for them so that they can start enjoying it, and then use our gamification mechanics to reinforce the child's growing intrinsic motivation so that they enjoy and appreciate the feeling of making progress

Hi - Mentava founder here (we make gamified early literacy software). Obviously I believe in the value of gamification, though I think it's difficult to do correctly.

There's certainly a market for "calm" learning, though you've already identified the main challenge: there's a smaller larger market for people who want to be educated than entertained, and the market for "calm education" is going to be an even smaller subset of that education market.

Essentially you're looking for the people who are saying "I want to be educated, but I'm not looking for the most efficient way to do it. I would prefer to move at a slower pace being driven purely by intrinsic motivation, rather than using extrinsic motivators in order to encourage me to move more quickly"

That market certainly exists, but it's a small enough niche that you'll likely have to be compete at a high price point to be viable. As point of comparison, Mentava costs $500/month, so if I were building a calm learning app (for an even smaller market), I would try to figure out a way justify an even higher price point than Mentava's.

Hi, Mentava founder here. Almost all of our investors are in AngelList RUVs so there's zero overhead

Some of our most helpful investors only put in $1000 and the RUV made it easy to accept their money

Great post! At this moment, I'm passionate about childhood education. There are plenty of challenges in education to be tackled, but the one that I feel needs more attention and isn't getting it is seeing high-achieving students bored to death thanks to education policies that hold them back from their potential.

Rather than policies that prioritize equal outcomes, I think we should be encouraging every child to explore their full potential. I've begun working on a startup so I can be part of the solution. It's too early to say if our plan will work, but I'm excited to be trying!