Entrepreneurs Launch App to Limit Kids’ Scrolling While Educating Them

By David A. F. Sweet While raising two boys, Richard Marra endured the typical battles over when they should receive cellular phones and, perhaps even more headache-inducing, managing their screen time once the product rested in their hands. About a decade ago, while answering questions such as his mother’s maiden name to access his banking app, the longtime Lake Forest resident had a revelation. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I use this technology to let kids get on their apps?’” said Marra over coffee at The Deer Path Inn. “But instead of filling out their mother’s maiden name, they’d have to answer educational questions, like what is the capital of the United States? Then they’d earn their way on their apps. That would not only break up the scrolling and educate kids but also build their self-esteem.”

"There have been zigs and zags, but we’ve never had any ‘oh no’ moments,” says Lake Forest's Richard Marra about Grogo.

Today, along with marketing partner Brad Brinegar – the former CEO of Leo Burnett – his vision is being achieved. The Grogo app aims to create more balanced screen time through “brain-boosting screen breaks.” Grogo is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Targeted to mothers and fathers of second through 12th-graders – with the core group being parents of fifth through eighth graders – Grogo shuts down apps parents select in intervals from 15 to 60 minutes. Then, their children need to answer a handful of multiple-choice questions based on their grade level to earn their way back to Instagram, TikTok or other favored spots. Grogo recently won the National Parenting Product Awards for Best Parental Control App. “In today’s world, the parents take the phone away to control screen time,” Marra said. “That doesn’t do anyone any good. It pits parent against child. Grogo is a non-punitive, set-it-and-forget-it app for the parent. The parent is not constantly battling with the kid.” Though Marra came up with the idea around 2015, he only began acting on it three years ago. Dozens of phone calls led him to figure out what the technology should look like. Then Marra reached out to his friend Brinegar to explain the idea and gauge his interest in helping with the marketing side. “I said the way most innovators fail is they love the product, but they don’t know how to bring it to the world,” Brinegar said. “The first job was naming it – one of the most fun projects I have ever done. We wanted something nonsensical like Yahoo or Google – we wanted it to be something a child could react to. It’s not the security police app; it's meant to be fun and engaging – so Gro (learn) and Go (back to apps).” A survey they shared with 1,000 random mothers yielded eye-opening results. Asked various questions about their children’s devices, 94 percent said they were concerned about screen time, and more than 70 percent didn’t know what to do about it. “Then we said, ‘Here’s the concept. How likely would you be to try Grogo?’ Brinegar said. “I’ve been doing surveys for 40 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Ninety-six percent were extremely interested or very interested in the concept.” Brinegar’s son Mackin, an AI engineer, created a database for the app with 23,000 questions categorized by subject and grade level. “Grogo’s algorithm constantly adjusts the difficulty based on the pattern of correct and incorrect answers,” Brinegar explained. “We want them to get about 80 percent right, so they feel good about their progress but constantly challenged. "Grogo taps into a proven educational concept: microlearning. With repetitive short bursts of learning, they learn much more. This is a way to give them structure and keep them learning. And that’s even more important to mitigate the learning loss during summer.” Sometimes, just the number of Grogo breaks that pop up can change users’ behavior. “One girl said, ‘If at the end of the day I’ve had 10 Grogo breaks, I’m probably spending too much time online,”’ Brinegar noted. So far, mainly by word of mouth, the Grogo app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times in three months. There’s a seven-day free trial before a credit card is required. Introductory pricing is $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year for one child, with all-access family plans also available. The duo is poised to launch its inaugural marketing campaign in the Chicago area this month before hitting other spots in the United States, and a patent for the technology is pending. The only data collected on children is what’s needed within the app to make the experience work; e-mail addresses are not procured. Grogo has no plans to sell any information to third parties. And though the app was built to help children develop more balanced screen time, Marra has discovered a nice surprise. “What we’ve found is adults love it for themselves,” he said. “They find themselves scrolling on Instagram, and all of a sudden it’s an hour later.” Though bringing the app to market has been a long process, Marra says it has been a fulfilling one. “We’ve done a very good job at making sure we thought through every step. Brad introduced me to a book called How Big Things Get Done before we got started. The premise was – think slow, act fast. Sure, there have been zigs and zags, but we’ve never had any ‘oh no’ moments.” Bottom line?

“There is a profit motive here, but it wasn’t born out of it,” Brinegar said. “It was born out of a societal problem. Even if we didn’t make any money, if it’s successful, the world is a slightly better place.”

See more on grogo.com. This story was first published in Classic Chicago magazine.