Thank you for being here! You are reading the very first post of this blog! This is, in its essence, the origin story of Storgie. Before we delve into the app’s origin, I should probably talk about myself. My name is Felix and I am a husband and a father of 6 children. Our kids range from ages 5 to 17 with roughly 2 to 3 years between each of them. As you can imagine, there’s always something happening at home, and with young kids around, they’re bound to make a mess and leave it to others to clean up. I wasn’t sure how other parents do it, but for the longest time, I couldn’t seem to get my kids to clean up after themselves or do any chores, for that matter. Even getting them to make their beds was a constant struggle.

When not dealing with the rascals, technology has always been a big interest for me. I guess that was why I was drawn to engineering in university. I was trained in Mechanical Engineering and eventually worked as a Systems Designer for a factory automation company in Cambridge, Ontario. There, I designed and programmed a bunch of pretty interesting machines including high-speed laser cutting systems and vision inspection systems. After that job, I progressively got myself into Information Technology, which is what I’m still up to today. Although I can’t consider myself a developer, I do feel very comfortable with technology and am often an early adopter of new technology.

One of the things that I had wanted to do was to develop an application, but as I mentioned above, I did not have the skillset of a developer. This changed this year when AI tools greatly democratized the app development process. Over the years, I have had many ideas but none have really stuck. My main requirement was to solve a problem or a need that I had myself. That would make me an expert on the problem. Moreover, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I am not that unique. As a result, solving my own problem means I would also solve many others’ problem as well. As I pondered this while walking around the house, I was confronted with a ton of laundry waiting to be folded and a kitchen table where one could not see the surface because it was covered by food, computers, tablets, crafts, drawings, and toys. Eureka! This sparked an idea for a chore management app. My kids are good kids and I felt that they wanted to be helpful, but just needed a little push. As well, a frequent saying in management consulting posits that “what gets measured gets done!”

Fast forward a few weeks from that lightbulb moment and we had a working app that the whole family is using. The kids each have a weekly goal and I created chores that were either pre-assigned to them or ones that they could claim. If they go above and beyond their weekly goal (i.e. their responsibility), they would be granted bonus stars with which they can subsequently use to claim rewards.

Since before the creation of the app, the kids have been saving up money for a dog fund. Our plan was to adopt a dog and one of the conditions I set was for them to earn $500 to pay for the adoption fee. Originally, I wouldn’t accept money that they had been gifted; they would actually have to earn the money. They started shoveling snow off neighbors’ driveways and had made a good dent in that $500 goal. However, there was a challenge for the younger ones since, as you can imagine, 5 or 8-year olds making money isn’t the easiest thing in the world. So, I gave them the opportunity to make some money from me by creating some cash rewards in the app, on top of other rewards like “ice cream date with mom or dad” and “invite a friend for a sleepover”. I’m glad to report that they have recently raised enough money to reach their $500 goal. Soon, I will need to start creating chores like “walk the dog” and “feed the dog”!

After some months testing the app just within our family, we felt we were ready to share it with the world. And since you’re reading this post, the Storgie app is live! Now that you have spent the past 5 minutes reading this post, you might as well download the app and give it a try! It is entirely free for you to use! We would love to hear your feedback and the easiest way to do that is to send us a message!

Before we end, we wanted to talk about how we named this app. Since the app was designed to be a fun way to engage the entire family, I wanted the name to be fun. On the other hand, I also wanted this app to help families grow in love for each other through acts of service and self-sacrifice. After some deliberation and searches for free domain names, we landed on “storgie”, which is a play on the Greek word, “storge” meaning “familial love”.

Love, in the family, is not only important, but essential. And so, I leave you with a quote from one of the greatest figures of the 20th century…

“Love begins at home.” — Mother Teresa

..and I wish that Storgie will play a part in realizing that love!