Our Mission
Our mission is to reach kids when they start engaging with games and media, helping them (and their parents) to build great habits, skills, via a safe gamified reward platform connecting what they value (in game currency) to fosters lifelong habits and skills such as Grit, resilience, consistency, collaboration, and much more.
What We Do
We develop technologies that quantifiably build and improve lifelong skills in kids, foster a family friendly, brand safe network that connect young gamers with in-game rewards that seed the learning path, and collaborate with brands that share the same vision as we do.
Our message: Build better kids by gamifying rewards and life skills with where they are already spend their time.
After all, today's kids will have jobs that don't even exist yet. But we do know that the key lifelong behavioral skills will play a critical role in their ongoing success. That's why we're here, now, to help them prepare.Our company has reached millions of girls around the globe over the past decade - while making a profound impact on the landscape of children's toys and media. And we're just getting started.
Meet Our Founder
Mike Wann
Quote:
As children grow, so does our future. Invest in their well-being, cultivate their potential
As a parent to two rambunctious boys, Mike saw the changes in their kids and how much more time they spent with friends online as they grew toward middle school. In-game play now was as much social as it was play time. They were willing to grind through monotonous hours and days in a game for rewards that had zero real-life application. They were willing to look online for tips and tricks on how to earn more in game. But to get them to go offline to go do something else, even when allowances were tied in, they often wouldn't budge.
This led Mike to have a lightbulb moment. To interest his kids to take offline actions, he needs to not change this social/gaming behavior, but reward them in a way that aligns to where they spend their time. Determined, Mike partnered with Ryan to develop the first prototype SideQuest app, rewarding kids with virtual currency in all the games where they spend their time in exchange for doing real-world chores.
It wasn't until after the second prototype leveraging classic gamified reinforcement, Mike saw the change in the kids behaviors. His oldest son, after 30 days of gamified reinforcement, was completing chores (Task Quests) without asking, asking for collaborative activities with his younger brother to earn, at that moment, he knew that he had something.
Ryan Hoffman
Quote:
Children are the architects of tomorrow. Let's provide the tools to build a brighter future.
As a lifelong gamer and avid media entrepreneur, Ryan saw what was happening in the media landscape and youth games and media consumption patterns. When Mike approached Ryan, he saw the same issue raised by Mike in his niece and nephew, and saw it happening across all of their friends. After a large data study conducted with over 700 parents, Ryan started building out a first iteration of the SideQuest App.
It wasn't until the second iteration of the SideQuest app was being tested that Ryan realized that this applies to kids of all ages. So to quantify and validate the gamification and reward experience across all young gamers, Ryan applied the technology and launched a network of IOS and android in-game reward experiences supported under his company Hype Digital Media.
In 2024, Hype Digital Media was acquired by SideQuest and Ryan and Mike joined forces to bring the SideQuest Network officially to the world.
SideQuest today is in closed alpha with over 100 families participating, gathering data and insights for our Al powered gamification and performance engine optimizing rewards and measurable life-long skill building. Our app was awarded the Kidsafe seal of approval as of November of 2023.
SideQuest is partnered with Stanford University Human Perception Lab in this endeavor. Their embodied approach combines the scientific rigor and trust from academic research with the ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and scale of industry. In 2023, Mike and Ryan joined the leadership board.
Contact
For our expert advertising or publisher teams. We'll help find the solutions you need to grow your business.
Email us at: solutions@Sidequestapp.com
For Research, Academic, and Investor partnerships, we would love to share our findings and solutions.
Please email us at: betterkids@sidequestapp.com
