https://twitter.com/MrDylanCollins/status/1218125000391168000
SuperAwesome is a category-defining company. That makes it both a fascinating and challenging place to be a product manager. Over the next few articles, I want to share some of my thoughts on how we approach product strategy in a category-defining product company.
At SuperAwesome, we build kidtech. Kidtech exists to make the internet safer for kids by ensuring kid-safe digital products deliver privacy and responsibility by design. If you want to know more about the principles that underpin kid-safe online products, check out the Kidtech Standard, and please consider endorsing it.
Kidtech is an emerging category focused on enabling the internet for kids (who are now over 40% of new online users). We are not alone in attempting to solve kidtech problems, but it’s currently a pretty exclusive club. The kidtech space is still early, and because of this, there are so many problems to solve, and so many potential opportunities to pursue. Read More
Our Chief of Staff, Kate Devlin, was recently asked to speak at Start Up Week Dublin, on Scaling Culture in Organisations. As one of SuperAwesome’s early hires back in 2015, Kate’s role throughout her time at SuperAwesome has given her unique insight into how a culture scales from a few desks in the corner of a shared office space to five global offices, and over 150 people. Read More
Today we’re pleased to announce that M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, has taken a stake in SuperAwesome as part of a new round. We typically don’t announce investments but we feel this transaction represents an important milestone. We’re growing quickly and we’re profitable so why did we decide to bring M12… Read More
Last week the internet broke. Or you would have thought so, given the cacophony of voices alleging a government conspiracy to remove kids from YouTube.
Well, not quite. But last week was a key milestone in the enforcement of existing kids’ data privacy laws. And the changes YouTube is making will impact how brands engage with kids, and how kids’ content is funded. Read More
1. A major consumer platform gets fined for kids data privacy breach in Europe under GDPR-K
In September, YouTube was fined $170m by the FTC for allowing kids personal data to be collected in a breach of the US COPPA law. Europe has a similar (but stricter) law called GDPR-K, which has the same protections but defines a child as up to the age of 16 in many countries (e.g. Germany, Ireland). There is currently an active investigation which has the potential to be magnitudinally more consequential than the COPPA decision.
Getting ahead: historically, brands have taken a practical approach to privacy, often rolling out global operating standards ahead of legislation. You should be planning for 16 as the de facto age of digital consent for privacy/contextual. Read More
At SuperAwesome, we’re committed to ensuring that team members grow and up-skill within their team, and the company as a whole. In this Women in Tech series, we’ll be looking at the career paths of various women working in tech within SuperAwesome - from engineers to product managers to everything in between.
Atena studied software engineering at university, and began work as a software engineer after her fourth year. Two years after joining SuperAwesome, she became the Engineering Lead for one of our biggest products, AwesomeAds, the only ad platform built for the global kids industry.
Here, she talks about how her career has evolved within SuperAwesome, and what she does to make the internet safer for kids. Read More
Every year we ask PopJammers (AKA the experts) to predict kids trends for the following year. Here’s what we can look forward to in 2020…
Christmas is a time for tradition, and one of our favourites is asking the kids on PopJam, our moderated content-sharing platform, what they think the big trends will be for the next year. PopJam gives kids a safe digital space to share their thoughts, without sharing their data or personal info.
For 2019, PopJammers predicted big things for Fortnite, TikTok and YouTube, but also squishies, phones (particularly the new iPhone), unicorns, the Nintendo Switch, LOL Surprise!, Stranger Things and money. All of these have been big, although squishies and unicorns have definitely been fading away. But being tangible Christmas gifts (and family members catching on late to some trends) may resurrect them.
PopJam’s top predictions for kids trends for 2020 are: Read More
We’ve had a busy first season on #Kidtech, the SuperAwesome-produced podcast series that goes behind the scenes with the people and companies shaping the digital kids sector. Since launching earlier this year, we’ve featured everyone from toy companies to kids podcasts; from kids SVOD to kids… Read More
In the final episode of #Kidtech Season One, Nick Marsh, Chief Product Officer for Wonderbly, well known for their LostMyName franchise, chats with SuperAwesome CEO Dylan Collins about Wonderbly’s journey and the lessons learned along the way. In light of Wonderbly’s recent partnership with Harry… Read More
We work to create a kind and caring community on PopJam, SuperAwesome’s safe-social content platform, and a huge part of that is supporting events that spread positive messaging to kids.
As part of this, we participate in Anti-Bullying Week, which runs from 11-15 November. The Anti-Bullying Alliance is a coalition of organisations working to tackle bullying. This year’s theme is ‘Change Starts With Us’, and this is being echoed on PopJam. Read More
