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Die App kindr. hilft Eltern, Familie, Beruf und Beziehung besser zu vereinbaren – mit Projektmanagement, Paartherapie und viel Alltagstauglichkeit.

With kindr. to more balance between work, everyday life and family

Stress factors and the question of work-life balance

It can be a challenge to keep the balance between work life, couple relationship, everyday life and time for yourself. And more often than not, at least one of these areas tends to be neglected, and in the worst case, all of them suffer. And as soon as children come along, this imbalance can become even worse.

In the “TK Stress Study” published by Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) in 2021, work was the main factor for stress. And one in three respondents, around 29% in total, felt that their job made them neglect their family and friends. Although this figure has fallen slightly compared to previous years (in 2013, around 34% of respondents said that family and friends were neglected due to work commitments, compared to 39% in 2016), this stress factor was once again in first place in 2021. The “Family-friendly employers” attractiveness study from 2024, which was commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), found that “[m]ore than half of the surveyed employees with family responsibilities” feel “somewhat to extremely challenged” when it comes to balancing work and family life.

The results therefore show that, especially for working couples with children, it can be a strain or even a test of endurance to reconcile the different areas of work, everyday life, couple relationship and family. But how can these couples manage not only to organize their everyday work and family life, but also not lose sight of their relationship with each other?

An app to reconcile work with family and a couple’s relationship – equal, fair, ‘childr.

One possible answer to this question is provided by the Berlin start-up kindr – the “kindr app”. The team around the two founders Dr. Johanna Ickert and Susanne Richter has developed an app to help parents tackle the challenges of raising children and everyday working life together.

Dr. Johanna Ickert is a visual anthropologist, director and editor. Susanne Richter has a degree in psychology, is a media educator and has also worked extensively in the field of film production. Together they founded LIBRA Film, a production company for film and digital media, back in 2018.

They had had the idea for kindr. for some time. But when they received an EXIST grant for it in 2023 with the support of the start-up service of the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, things really took off. Back then, however, the app still had a different name.

The founding team is completed by Fatih Girisken, who contributes his expertise as tech lead and developer. In 2024, the team was honored as one of the cultural and creative pilots in Germany. Since October last year, kindr. has been part of the second cohort in the Investment Readiness Program of the MediaTech Hub Accelerator.

As working mothers, Dr. Johanna Ickert and Susanne Richter know all too well what it means to juggle partnership, career and family without forgetting your own autonomy. “We want to encourage parents to think of family as a joint project – with time for themselves, for each other and for the relationship,” says Dr. Johanna Ickert, explaining the reasons behind the development of her app. And Susanne Richter adds: “Our goal is empowerment – so that parents don’t have to fight for free time, but instead make it possible for each other.”

However, the two founders see the kindr app not only as a tool, but also as a kind of “guide to progressive parenthood”, as Dr. Johanna Ickert explains. Essentially, this is based on a political and currently much-discussed question, namely how care work can be distributed equally and fairly.

The two founders are concerned with “more understanding”, meaning more friendliness in their dealings with each other, but also with themselves. In other words, “‘kinder’, to be kinder”. This is also the motto of the app: “‘kinder’ with kinder and children.”

Project management meets impulses from couples therapy

“Families are already incredible project managers!” say Dr. Johanna Ickert and Susanne Richter. This is how the idea of combining “agile project management with impulses from couples therapy” came about. Agile methods from project management, such as Scrum, are used and tailored to families.

At the heart of the app is a weekly plan with a tracking feature. This is designed to help couples “consciously integrate me-time, couple time and family time into their everyday lives”.

The whole thing is combined with insights from couples therapy. The aim is to strengthen the couple’s relationship. Although Dr. Johanna Ickert and Susanne Richter describe their strategy as “couples therapy through the back door”, they also emphasize that they do not see their app as an alternative to traditional couples therapy. Rather, their app is intended to be used beforehand, for example by intercepting existing or emerging conflicts through the use of the app, or as a supplement to couples therapy.

Why an app?

But why an app anyway? Aren’t working couples with children already exposed to mental overload? Isn’t there an additional risk of digital overload due to more screen time? “That’s exactly what was super important to us!” says Dr. Johanna Ickert. “kindr. is not intended to increase screen time – on the contrary. We are shifting the annoying organization to the digital world so that there is more room for real conversations in real life.” And Susanne Richter explains that the team doesn’t want to develop an app that causes parents even more pressure and stress. Her idea is to offer an app that “creates clarity, intercepts conflicts early on – and strengthens couples before things break down.” The digital device in your pocket is therefore more of a companion that supports rather than burdens.

For this to work, the app needs to be adapted to the needs of the couple – individually. What is particularly important to the couple? Where is support needed? Is it about a fairer distribution of care work? Or about reducing stress? Or are there specific conflicts in the partnership that need to be resolved?

The two founders asked themselves all these questions in advance so that, together with their team, they could develop an app that could be tailored to the specific needs of the couples. Extensive onboarding makes it easier to use the app, but couples can also select their individual priorities and set goals.

AI is also used to make use even more personalized and to promote communication between the partners. For example, tracking data can be evaluated by the algorithms in order to generate “small conversation impulses on request” that “can encourage reflection or conversation”.

In addition to the individual application, user-friendliness also plays a major role in the development of the app: “Thanks to strong UX design, the whole thing is very clear and comprehensible and is actually fun,” say the founders.

After the prototype is before further development

However, the path to the current version of the kindr app was long and involved a few detours. For example, the original idea was to record video diaries and carry out photo exercises and emotional challenges. However, during the initial tests with users, it became clear: “It’s more about practical everyday organization,” as Susanne Richter explains. And Dr. Johanna Ickert reports on many conversations with each other, but also with other parents, whereupon they “tested prototypes and iteratively developed them further with the team”.

Another valuable learning was that the development of apps works differently to film production. While in the film industry “you only show something when it’s ‘perfect’”, app development “works the other way around: you go out with raw, imperfect prototypes, test, discard, rebuild. And that was difficult for us,” explains Susanne Richter.

The app is currently in the test phase. Feedback is being collected from users in order to continuously develop the app further. At the same time, discussions are being held with family centers and advice centers, for example, which are also being taken into account when working on the app.

The launch is scheduled for the end of 2025. Until then, the team is also working on strategic partnerships, for example with health insurance companies. In the future, the team can also imagine an international rollout, in the entire DACH region or in the English-speaking market. A B2B version is also conceivable, for example for companies in the corporate health sector. Until then, however, the team does not want to rush things. The first step is to prove the “product market fit” in the next round of testing.

Anyone who wants to stay up to date and find out what happens next with kindr. can sign up for the newsletter here. Interested couples with children can also register for the test phase. Registration for the newsletter and all information about becoming a test user can be found on the kindr. website.

More about the MTH Blog
The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.
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