Startup Spotlight: Zoodles, the "Kid Mode" for PCs, Smartphones and Tablets

In the winter of 2008, four-year-old Abbie approached her dad about every five minutes with a new problem she encountered using the Internet site for PBS Kids.

Mark Williamson, 33, decided to sit and watch his daughter use the site when he noticed how difficult a computer must be for kids to use. He connected with other parents to see if they had similar experiences and checked out other kid friendly websites available in the market. A few days of research and some brainstorming later, Williamson realized that there was a void and an opportunity.

"Nobody had built software that adapted to kids," said Williamson, who in the midst of a worsening economic crisis created and founded Inquisitve Minds, Inc. in November 2008. The company then soft-launched its first product, Zoodles, in April 2009. "They expected kids to adapt to the software."

Located right across the downtown Mountain View train station on Evelyn Avenue, Zoodles  – a kid friendly, simple to use Internet browser for computers, smartphones and tablets – comes loaded with cool games and activities and instantly adapts to the child's age.

The team of six full-time employees and handful of contractors aggregate games from around the Internet for the littlest members of the family. This means that a two-year-old can explore activities centered around counting, colors or alphabet, an eight-year-old can watch a video on countries of the world or engage in math puzzles and spelling games.

"We are the richest index of kid games and activities online," said Williamson, who serves as chief executive officer. "We aggregate the best of games, activities, puzzles and videos from across the web. With one app every kid gets a personalized experience based their age and skill levels."

The area of online games and activities has made the news recently with the $563 million acquisition of Playdom, another Mountain View-based company, by the Walt Disney Company.

According to Michael Pachter, a financial analyst with Wedbush Securities and an expert in the game industry, this play by Disney marked the first time real attention had been paid to an under 14 audience.

"Everyone's pretty much abandoned kids," said Pachter adding that everyone chased the late teens and early 20-something male. "By accident Apple captured a kids audience with the iPod Touch, they were shocked by how successful the model was."

Pachter referred to the opportunity borne out of the barrier Williamson experienced with his daughter. The interface of an iPod Touch made it kid-friendly and it worked on a wireless network, so no phone plan or data connection was needed.

"It's only a matter of time until Hasbro and Mattell figure out that this audience is there and how to market to them," Pachter said. "The marketing is key. You gotta get the parents to know."

With a name like Zoodles, which Williamson and his team chose by combining the words zoo and doodle together, he hopes peaks the curiosity of parents so that they want to know more about the product.

"Few things transcend cultures when it comes to kids and one is animals," he said. "And you get a lot of them at the Zoo."

Inquisitive Minds secured $2.6 million in seed funding from Harrison Metal Capital in April 2010. In August, Zoodles crossed over a million hours in game play. Williamson, however, did not want to release the current number of users.

Zoodles has free browser for a Mac, PC, an iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and recently launched one for the Android operating system.

"The parents' socio economic standing should not influence their ability to have a safe, fun, educational Internet experience for their kids and that's the reason we've made every single of our apps free," said Williamson. Still, a premium upgrade is available for a small fee of $7.95 per month for parents who want to control time limits or blocking characters.

Against the competition KidZui, Togetherville or Kidoz in the same space, Zoodles differentiates itself by its "a simple interface, the right games, deep commitment to users and a multi-device strategy," Williamson said. "Our biggest competitor is not someone in our space. In the home, it is the TV and on the go, it is the bag of tricks every parent carries around to keep their kids entertained."

In regards to the future, Williamson is excited about the market.

"Parents have the same general concerns and kids have the same general needs," he said. "If you build something right, it should translate globally."

Editor's note: This is the first article in a weekly series where Mountain View Patch will introduce you to a different start-up company in our city.