Ask HN: Startup Idea Feedback – Pocket Money for Learning | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Startup Idea Feedback – Pocket Money for Learning

4 pointspratyusharma8 comments

Hey Hackers,

>Observation — What’s the problem?

I observed at a family friend’s house (Tech executives/40s/both parents working) that they maintain a point system with their 12 yo. son to track and incentivise him for completing his homework, which the child can then trade for screentime. I never had such a thing growing up, but found it interesting. My understanding is that the abstraction of points helps in two ways — incentivises child with a tangible short term rewards (opposed to delayed gratification otherwise) & acts as a unit of child’s efforts for busy parents (opposed to making child curious for every new concept)

>Idea — What’s the idea?

Pocket money for learning — Parents can set learning goals (based on efforts required — Eg. [Trig Identities, Beginner, 1 week]) and a $ reward for children, we provide the practice regime for the child, parents track the progress and the child gets rewarded with pocket money upon completion of the goal.

>Ask — What are your thoughts?

1. Where are you from?

2. Do you have any children between the ages 10-16? If yes, then continue

3. How much time does one of the parent spend teaching them per week?

4. When do you teach/help your kid? (Child asks for help OR regularly scheduled teaching time) If you don’t, why not?

5. What are the challenges in teaching your child? (syllabus/time/child’s motivation etc.)

6. How do you reward your child for completing learning goals? Do you have a system? If not, why?

7. If you can set and track learning goals for your child, would you reward them monetarily for completing their goals? (Or in any other tangible form, e.g. screentime/amazon gift cards/takeout food etc.)

8. Anything else you would like to share

Look forward to hearing your feedback! :D

PS — I’m from India, parents are usually involved very much in children’s education here, but the idea of pocket money is still mainly on an as-need basis. Would love to find out what’s the case in other regions.

Before you build this, I'd suggest you read "Punished By Rewards": https://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Twenty-fifth-Anniver...

It makes the case that extrinsic motivations like reward systems harm intrinsic motivation, the natural desire to learn.

That's certainly been my experience. For example I think of all the books people hated reading because they were forced to in high school. I've read many of those books on my own and really appreciated them. Or all the people who got into tech because they loved it but ended up burning out and leaving the field because doing it for money slowly leached the joy out, leaving them only pain and resentment.

And it happens in the short term, too. If people are doing something for an intrinsic reward, those who just want the reward are going to do the absolute minimal job of it. Or just lie entirely. So reward systems that in theory are training kids to do good work instead can train them to slack off or become good liars.

I'm not saying don't do it. But I am saying that if you do, you should make very sure you're not harming children and child-parent relationships in the process.

Thanks, will read it asap.

Regarding external motivation, I agree with what you said. But I also believe that intrinsic motivations are not inherent and can be developed by extrinsic triggers. This can happen under a balanced challenge vs. reward which evolves into a virtuous cycle of learning. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

To make the case for bettering child-parent relationships, after your comment, I thought there's another way of positive reinforcement. Instead of rewarding the children after achieving the goals, the parent can buy access to a portal and the student can earn rewards as and when they progress. In this case, parents provide the agency of exploration to the child. What do you think? What can be other processes that don't harm the relationship?

Good lord if you're going to raise your kids like this please don't have kids. This is pure evil.

I have seen similar ideas before of trying to build a startup around a human interaction. Usually never works out because people don't want another tech startup invading their personal space. I would think hard and long before doing this.

I never thought about that, but it makes sense. Can you share a couple of such startups?

The app exists already - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.roosterban...

How would you differentiate your app/startup?

Yes, something like this but instead of chores, the goals would be related to learning outcomes. What do you think?

Foolish idea for this makes learning as a means to an end(money) rather than an end in itself. I pray for the children who have to go through this .

Reply on news.ycombinator.com