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Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Let's revolutionize education. One child, one family at a time. Preorder or donate a Starling.

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Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Starling helps parents raise smarter children

Let's revolutionize education. One child, one family at a time. Preorder or donate a Starling.

Let's revolutionize education. One child, one family at a time. Preorder or donate a Starling.

Let's revolutionize education. One child, one family at a time. Preorder or donate a Starling.

Let's revolutionize education. One child, one family at a time. Preorder or donate a Starling.

Nicki Boyd
Nicki Boyd
Nicki Boyd
Nicki Boyd
1 Campaign |
Palo Alto, United States
$100,721 USD 587 backers
335% of $30,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
Choose your Perk
featured

Standard Starling

$149 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
42 out of 500 of claimed

Star Supporter

$10 USD
57 claimed

Rock Star! Donate a Starling

$99 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
109 out of 1000 of claimed

Standard Starling Gift Option

$149 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
12 out of 50 of claimed

Family Pack Starling

$269 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
25 out of 500 of claimed

Classroom Pack Starling

$1,299 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
9 out of 50 of claimed

Super Star! Donate a flock...

$5,000 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
3 out of 10 of claimed
sold out

Early Bird Starling

$129 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2016
Only -1 left

You can still reserve a Starling at

 www.versame.com

Thank you SO much for helping to Launch the Starling!  We're appreciate your support and we will keep you updated as we finish building the Starling.


As seen in...


Say "Hello" to Starling. 

The Starling is a smart little device that tracks the number of words your child says and hears each day. Why is word tracking important? Because research tells us that early vocabulary development can impact your child's trajectory for life.

And the Starling isn't just smart, it’s intuitive. Paired with our smart phone app, the Starling not only gives you personalized information and analytics for your child, but it also suggests activities to help make sure your little one is on track to reach for the stars!

With the Starling you can...

  • Set word goals for your child
  • Track your child's language environment throughout the day
  • Measure your child's development
  • Get age-appropriate info and activities for even more learning opportunities
The Goal: less anxiety, more enjoyment, and a smarter child! 


Why do words matter?

Did you know that the number of words a child hears before age four is one of the biggest predictors of their future cognitive, social, and emotional success? Over 30 years of research has proven that it's critical to talk to children during this period of rapid brain growth and development.


By age four, a child can be 30 million words ahead, or 30 million words behind. This is known as the "Word Gap."

This research, along with our passion for education, inspired us to create the Starling. Put simply, the Starling uses technology to empower parents to become their child’s first (and most important) teacher. With the right exposure to words, you can literally change your child’s trajectory —for life.


As parents and educators, We designed the Starling with every kid in mind.

We believe every child should have the ability to reach their full potential. We also believe that technology has the power to improve lives. How can we fundamentally strengthen the education system? One child at a time.


Hear what Starling beta users have to say!

Yes, we're excited! And we could talk about the Starling all day long. But we thought you might like to see what what our beta testers are saying! We've worked with hundreds of parents who have given us incredible feedback. 

Together, we've built a little star that helps kids shine.

Most of our beta tester parents admit that in today's world, it's easy to become distracted. But they love the Starling because it helps them focus on what's important (their child) rather than the never ending stream of seemingly urgent tasks served up by technology (responding to email, reading text messages, etc). 

Our beta testers routinely say things like, "We're a stronger family because of this experience." We love hearing that kind of feedback!


Cute on the outside, smart on the inside. Just like your baby.

Deceptively cute, we've packed the latest technology into the patent-pending Starling. A lot of thought went into making it easy to use because we know you’re busy juggling everything life throws at you each day. 

  • Size: About the size of a pacifier.
  • Weight: As much as a pack of gum.
  • Battery Life: 5 days. We recommend recharging the Starling while your little one sleeps.
  • Waterproof: You bet. We have kids. Things sometimes "accidentally" end up in the bathtub.
  • Connectivity: Bluetooth Low Energy. Bluetooth LE is safer than watching kitten videos on your phone, but as an added feature, we've built the Starling so it'll transfer data only when you tell it to.
  • Light: Real-time feedback at your fingertips. Tap the button and the Starling will blink every time it hears you say a word. When the light blinks green, it means you've hit your goal for the day. When it blinks red, you've still got some talking to do.


How does it work?

The Starling clips to your little one's clothes first thing in the morning and stays there until bedtime when you can pop it back into its charging dock.  At any time, simply pressing the Starling's button will let you know if you've hit your daily target yet, with a blinking red or green light.  Sync with your phone when you take the Starling off - or set it to do it automatically - and the Starling's companion app will give you the analytics to put your words in context. It also gives you ideas for activities in case you're ever at a loss for words and provides challenges to help push you to spend a few more minutes each day with your child. 

Safety first. And second. And third.

Every aspect of the Starling was designed with safety in mind. After all, our kids use it too. Based on our own experience, we know that babies are probably going to chew on it, drool on it, and occasionally cover it in chocolate cake. The Starling will only sync with your smartphone app when you tell it to. Plus, it's easy to clean, BPA and phthalate free, and exceeds federal safety requirements. We're not saying the Starling is loaded with antioxidants, because it isn't—but it's definitely gluten free.


A word or two about privacy.

We believe privacy is paramount, especially when it comes to your children. That’s why the Starling doesn’t record anything you say—it simply counts words as they are heard. So rest easy. No one will know if you let a curse word slip in front of your kid. Except maybe Grandma (kids tell grandma everything).


No Wifi? Phone dead? No problem. 

The Starling can count words without any connection to the internet. So feel free to travel to one of those places where you can’t get a cell phone signal, and rest assured that your Starling will still work just fine. 


Help us fund the Starling. Pick your perks!

The Starling's design and engineering are done. The only thing left is manufacturing, and that's where we need your help. The funds from this campaign will pay for final production manufacturing scheduled to kick off in February. Once started, the manufacturing process will take about 6 weeks to finish, and then we'll have Starlings ready to deliver to our backers.

For individuals, we have two kinds of perks:
  1. For parents and caregivers who would like to use the Starling with a child in their life. 
  2. For individuals who want to help revolutionize education by donating a Starling to a family or community in need. We have a $99 perk available to donate a Starling to the Literacy Lab (learn more below) so that they can use it with a deserving family. Generous donations by the families of Vincent Viola and Doug Cifu are offsetting the full cost of each of these Starlings to put this perk within the reach of anyone who visits our page. 


We're on a social mission too.

Our goal is to start a revolution in mindset when it comes to early education. We are starting with parents that already know education starts at birth and that nurturing relationships matter, but ultimately we aim to convince every parent how important their voice is to their child’s future.

To help convince every parent, we have partnered with Literacy Lab to put the Starling in the hands of families in need. We hope this is just the start of helping to get the Starling into the hands of every family. 

We chose to work with Literacy Lab because the Starling can directly benefit the children in their wonderful programs. We also greatly value their team's open-mindedness and appreciation for experimentation. Rather than try to instantly craft a perfect use of the Starling in existing intervention programs, Literacy Lab intends to conduct various testing iterations in pursuit of success and true impact. Once we have a program we're proud to show off to the world, we intend to roll it out to other non-profit organizations nationwide along with the best practices we've learned from the experience.
Will you help us by donating a Starling to Literacy Lab?
We believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life. We came to Indiegogo because we want everyone to join the #WordsMatter cause.

The team behind the Starling.

The Starling was dreamed up while we (brothers Jon and Chris Boggiano along with Nicki Boyd) were Sloan Fellows together at Stanford University. As a trio we have a strong passion for education and originally set out to marry technology with research to improve school performance.


We eventually discovered the work of Dr. Anne Fernald who runs the Language Learning Lab at Stanford's Center for Infant Studies. With Dr. Fernald's guidance, we learned that even kindergarten is simply way too late to try to make a difference because human brain development slows a great deal after age four. When we found out that decades of research showed the connection between the number of words a child hears between ages 0-4 and school performance, the idea for the Starling was conceived. In the last 18 months, we've assembled an amazing team full of people who all share the same passion: revolutionizing education throughout the world.


We  have proven track records of taking challenges head on, living life to the fullest, and earning success: Oxford, West Point, Stanford, Iraq, running across the Sahara, successful startup companies, and experience on IPOs. We are serial entrepreneurs, parents, and educators with a passion for creating mission-driven businesses. Most importantly, we'll never forget our upbringings in working-class homes with loving parents who made endless sacrifices to prioritize our educations. With the Starling, we would love the same for all children everywhere, especially those in less advantaged circumstances the world over.


We believe user-centric design is at the heart of every great product, so we have interviewed hundreds of parents during the course of the Starling's development. There have been several prototypes to optimize both form and functionality. There has been plenty of product testing too. Along with nearly 100 volunteer beta test families, we have five children between us who have given us the feedback and input we needed to make our product safe, convenient and easy-to-use.

Our team now includes multiple PhDs, user experience designers, machine learning experts, iOS developers, and hardware engineers —all of who are passionate about revolutionizing early childhood education.


Testing to production. 

Our production facility is sourced and ready, hardware engineering and design is finished, and the first validation build is just about to start —leaving one more round of revisions before the Starling's final production build, which we will ship to you in the spring!

We are so close, but we need your help to fund our production run. Please join us in revolutionizing education!


Here's why we're not just dreaming.

We think we can deliver on time. Here's why:

  • We could have launched this campaign over a year ago, but we decided to hold off because we wanted to have a much higher degree of certainty of when we would be able to deliver.
  • We've interviewed other startups making hardware to glean lessons learned and to avoid repeating their mistakes.
  • Our team is experienced. Our engineers have done this sort of thing before and know how to prevent problems before they ever appear.
That said, here's some examples of what could go wrong:
  • An unforeseen manufacturing problem. Trust that we lie awake at night trying to think of ways to avoid every oddball scenario possible.
  • A natural disaster that disrupts our supply chain.


Finally! 

Help us cross the finish line. Buy a device that will partner with you to be your child’s first and most important educational tool. Or buy one to support a child born in less fortunate circumstances get off to a better start. 

If you've backed us, or even if you haven't (yet), please spread the word as far and wide as you can.... 




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