How two bedtime books became a studio, and what we learned along the way.
I did not set out to write a children's book. This started with sleep deprivation, a crying baby, and the strange realization that becoming a father was not going to happen all at once.
Every children's book begins with a feeling. For Wǒ ài nǐ, Whiny, that feeling was love, but not the easy, polished kind. This story grew out of the messy, beautiful, exhausting reality of learning how to love a baby who cannot yet explain what he needs.
The first two books started the same way most early parenthood stories start: not with inspiration, but with exhaustion. Here's how a bedtime experiment became a product.
Cash was two. He was overtired, couldn't get comfortable, couldn't fall asleep. And then he just… lost it. I've never felt more alone in a crowd.
I built a product from the middle of a journey and expected new users to arrive already halfway through it. That's the founder's blind spot. That's my blind spot.