
Launch HN: Trustle (YC W20) – On-demand child development experts for parents - eba7keb
Hi HN!<p>We’re Elizabeth, Tom and Catalin - the founders of Trustle (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.trustle.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.trustle.com</a>). We give parents of young children access to a dedicated expert in child development. When your kid stops sleeping through the night, starts having meltdowns, or is struggling in preschool, instead of frantically Googling things, we give you personal access to someone with expertise, who you can know and trust.<p>As parents, we know how hard it can be. One of us, Elizabeth, has a 5-year-old and is pregnant while going through YC. (She&#x27;s amazing! And at the same time it&#x27;s a heavy load.)  We know it can feel that work takes up so much energy that there’s none left over for your kids, and paradoxically at the same time it can feel that all your energy is taken up by your kids and there’s none left for work. We’re all trying to create the best environment for our child, but the day to day reality of that can feel really hard.<p>And our support systems have changed dramatically; we’ve often moved away from the close-knit communities and extended families that used to be the norm. And when we go online we see an overwhelming amount of advice that’s often contradictory and just doesn’t feel applicable to our specific situation.<p>As well as being parents, we have a background in child development. Elizabeth is a clinical child psychologist, Tom has worked extensively in EdTech, and Catalin has applied ML to child behavioral health out of Stanford. We came together because of a shared appreciation for how crucial the home environment is for a child’s development, and a shared confusion as to why support for parents is so impersonal. We can’t think of another field that is as complex as child development where outside support and access to expertise isn&#x27;t the norm.<p>So we created Trustle! We want to bridge the gap between parents and expertise. Whether it’s to solve a specific problem like sleep or behavioral challenges, or it’s to proactively prepare the right environment, Trustle gives parents a dedicated coach.<p>When a parent signs up we ask a few questions and match them with a suitable expert who is then available through video chat, phone, and in-app messaging whenever the parent needs them. All our experts have a least a decade of experience working with families and young children, a minimum of a master’s in early childhood development, and go through a fairly rigorous selection process.<p>We deeply appreciate how personal the parenting journey is. Our role is not to push our own beliefs. Instead, our coaches get to know families, and then use this relationship, paired with knowledge about child development and learning, to come up with solutions that work for their children, their goals, and their beliefs.<p>On the experts’ side, we use technology to amplify their ability to work with parents. First, technology can make them more efficient.  We can create an automated ‘assistant’ for the coach that can surface the right information at the right time, and support the coach by preparing repetitive and unambiguous tasks.  Second, we&#x27;ll keep them up to date on the latest in child development research, as well as using the power of the network by giving coaches access to each other&#x27;s learning and experience.<p>There’s no one-sized fits all ‘solution’ in raising children, which is why there is so much impersonal, contradictory information online that leads to parents feeling confused. We want to help parents cut through that, and figure out what works for them.<p>We know there are many parents on HN, including those with young children right now - we’d love to hear about your experiences and needs around this. And of course feedback and ideas!
======
lchengify
I've worked in healthcare in the past (Drug Discovery) and have two parents in
healthcare (Autism Clinical Psychologist and a Non-trauma ER Doctor).

This is really interesting and honestly, rings a bit true to me given what
I've observed from their interactions. Here are some anecdotes I've observed
from parenting information asymmetry:

1\. A lot of young parents (think: less than 20 years old) show up at the ER
with healthy crying babies and little or no information. When I was pre-med
track and shadowed my father in the ER, I would see 3 or 4 of these parents in
a 12 hour shift. Watching my father "bootstrap" each of these parents into
what normal clinical baby behavior is prior to any health diagnosis was
interesting: It was essentially a 30 minute 101 session about babies that are
super important but also non-obvious. It was also obvious that the lessons
really sunk in when it came from a third party clinician. It also wasn't
uncommon to see the baby parents and the parent's parents in the ER, all
taking notes.

2\. For my mother (the clinical psychologist), I've observed that even highly-
educated, well-resourced parents still struggle with everything necessary to
learn when having an autistic child. These sessions would often range from
immediate clinical needs, to year-by-year details of specific education needs
for the rest of childhood, to the region and state-specific financial
resources and saving accounts available for lifetime planning. My mother works
with schools and publishes papers on this stuff, but the parents always came
back because ability to have a very direct Q-and-A session about specific
issues was incredibly valuable.

Anyway, my father is retiring soon but I'll tell my mother about your service.
She can't travel as much but if it works via video chat, she may be up for
taking sessions on it.

~~~
_glass
ad 1) would you mind sharing what kind of advice this was? I don't want to
miss anything, having a baby myself right now.

~~~
lchengify
Unfortunately this was 15 years ago so the details are lost to time. The
memory I have is more about watching him demonstrate in-person how to hold a
baby, how much crying to expect, what fever behavior looks like, etc.

I'm also not a clinician or a parent so I'm going to refrain from giving out
specific advice, even if I witnessed it first hand. I'll ask him next time I
see him and if he has something written I'll update this comment.

~~~
_glass
Thank you. Sorry I couldn't check the comments, but it would be appreciated.

------
jawns
I'm an author of child-development books and spend a lot of time keeping
abreast of research-backed parenting advice, so this is really interesting to
me.

It seems like you need to position this service very carefully, since there is
likely not a bright line between some of the issues parents might come to you
for, versus seeing a pediatrician, behavioral health provider, or other health
care provider.

And indeed, traditionally that's where parents would go with some of these
issues (sleep issues, tantrums, etc.).

But your FAQs emphasize that you're not a health care service -- yet I
wouldn't be surprised if parents rely on you to at least bring up when a
health care provider should be brought into the loop.

Just out of curiosity, what would you say this service is intended to replace?
Are your prospective subscribers people who would otherwise be reading books,
poring through Internet advice, consulting friends and pediatricians, etc.,
and this service just saves them time versus the DIY alternative? Or are you
courting people who have no idea how to do that stuff and their alternative is
just suffering through it as best they can?

~~~
eba7keb
Lots of great thoughts here, thank you for sharing them. The line between
parent support and parent coaching and behavioral health requires great care
in navigation - I agree with you. Before I started Trustle, I worked both as a
child psychologist in a traditional capacity, and provided video-based parent
coaching. There are a LOT of parent support organizations that don't use
credentialed providers because of the nuances here - and many parent coaches
don't have any credentials in the space. I think instead that the licensed
providers should be in the space of provided remote support, for many reasons,
but also because they know when a referral for more intensive support is
needed. Having licensed professionals helps to ensure that we refer when we
need to. And, we often work with parents who have in-person therapists as an
additional support.

I think the service replaces parents who turn to google searches, facebook
groups, and blogs for advice. This advice isn't always evidence-based, and it
can't be tailored to the family. Zero to three reported from their national
survey that 84% turn to articles specifically aimed at helping parents, but
only 49% find them helpful.Parents do want guidance from child development
professionals. 54% of parents say they would like information from a “special
web site or blog from child development experts.” Additionally, 63% of parents
overall say “I am skeptical of people who give parenting advice and
recommendations if they don’t know my child and my situation specifically.”
And this instinct is right. Trustle aims to fill this need.

Also, as a child psychologist, I spent SO much time speaking to friends and
family who wanted support (and to know which advice was evidence-based), but
the challenge didn't call for a professional (potty training, typical
tantrums, etc).

I would love to hear more about what you think!

~~~
zoomablemind
Would your experts 'diagnoze' a child based solely on parent's presentation of
issue the child/family is experiencing? In simple cases this may be
reasonable, but such common issue as tantrums may be deep and multifaceted.

This brings another aspect of the responsiblity of your experts for giving any
corrective advice to the parent. What is the ethical balance between giving a
wrong advice vs. right advice that didn't work?

~~~
tomsayer
Great questions!

On the first, we're very cautious; we do not do diagnosis. What we do do is
support parents in seeking out a diagnosis if that was the appropriate path.
Our experts have all either done diagnosis or facilitated them in the past so
they're good and knowing when to suggest that. The balance is in making sure
we don't give parents a false confidence, but we find that the pairing of an
expert with the family is much more effective than a parent wondering on their
own.

On the second point, let me know if I misunderstood, but our goal is to give
the right advice. We know that it won't always work and often that will be due
to the unique nature of the specific family. Sometimes we will just get it
wrong; we have a very rigorous selection process for the coaches and strong QA
and ongoing support so we hopefully don't get it wrong very often. But we know
we won't be perfect.

~~~
zoomablemind
A wrong advice may be furnished on insufficient detail of the presented issue,
or a biased assessment as could be the case with parent only observation. Yet
the effect of such advice will be directed at the child.

> ...we have a very rigorous selection process for the coaches and strong
> QA...

What is your QA approach? How do you tell a right expert advice from an
insufficiently right?

~~~
tomsayer
We do lots of things, but one of the most important steps is an in-depth role-
play where we go through numerous scenarios. We're not just looking for the
knowledge (which given their qualifications and experience they should have)
but also for their ability to use that knowledge in the context of a parent's
own goals and philosophy. If someone brought their own philosophy or values,
and not just their experience and expertize, then we wouldn't bring them on.

~~~
zoomablemind
I'm not sure how to interpret your response.

If a parent is a practitioner of "strong-hand" approach. Your experts would
suggest which side of the hand to use or not on which child's body part?

It's absurd, of course, the experts do develop their values and indeed
philosophy based on their experience. Even AI based advisor would be acting
according to programmed balances and checks.

Thus the importance of how you tell a wrong advice from a right one.

~~~
eba7keb
Maybe I can try :). I think there is a distinction between philosophy and
evidence-based advice and information. For example, there is evidence from
research that spanking has negative consequences on development - so we would
lead with that evidence.

As a different example, let's take sleep - lots of different philosophies, and
the research isn't clear on impact on development regarding which sleep
approach is used. So, our professionals can help parents develop a plan based
on the science of sleep, and how children learn to support the parent in
forming a plan based on their philosophy.

This isn't different than what any evidence-based behavioral professional or a
psychologist that a parent would seek out would do. And, it's an iterative
process. We work with families over time to track change, iterate on plans,
discuss snags, etc.

The balance and check is that its' evidence-based advice, not opinion. Does
this help?

~~~
zoomablemind
> The balance and check is that its' evidence-based advice, not opinion.

Is there any particular body of research that supports your evidence-based
advice? I assume this reasearch is public, as to be validated.

~~~
eba7keb
Are you asking if there is a body of research about child
development/sleep/behavior management/learning in children? Yes, there is.
Yes, it is public (and diffuse). And it is often misinterpreted and
over/under-stated in parenting blogs and books (screen time is a great example
of this). There are contradictory studies, but you have to look carefully and
weigh the merits of the study (is it correlational? is it a valid study? what
are the confounding variables? what is the size of the sample? what are the
researchers conclusions?).

Have you ever read Emily Oster? She talks a lot about deciphering the data on
pregnancy and caring for children (she wrote expecting better and crib sheet).
It's messy science, but there is absolutely data. All the more reason a
professional can support a parent to understand how (if) it applies to them
and could inform decisions they make when working through a challenge.

------
todsul
I'm a paying customer of Trustle, for a few months now, and absolutely love
the service. I don't know the founders, I just work with one coach and
couldn't recommend her highly enough. I proselytize to friends and family, but
they never seem to understand and just give me blank stares as I explain how
much she helps. Maybe I do a poor job pitching, but I don't think that's it.

If I had to guess, I think most people prefer to be reactive, not just with
children, but in every facet of life. Whereas other people (especially on HN)
are instinctively proactive and are always looking for new ways to invest in
the future. The reactive people don't seem to understand why I need the help
of a professional when my infant child seems calm and grounded. Proactive
people understand immediately; they get that it's an investment.

When I signed up, I didn't even know what Trustle was planning to offer. They
said they do "parent coaching". Huh? I just knew for $x/month if I could
bounce ideas off a professional it would be more than worth it. Fast forward a
few weeks and I quickly learned to trust my coach's advice more than any
pediatrician, day care worker or family member. The reasons are long and
detailed, but suffice to say I'm a serious fan.

I've spoken to my coach a couple of times about tough situations, like sleep
problems (she was impossibly helpful), but mostly I see value in our
discussions about learning, discipline, philosophy, independence, etc. I've
come to love her pragmatic, balanced and evidenced-based approach.

~~~
eba7keb
Thank you for sharing your experience! The most rewarding part of this process
has been seeing the way parents feel supported by our coaches, and they really
are amazing.

------
newfeatureok
It seems that the underlying assumption here is that people who are highly
educated and work in "clinical child development or similar" are superior at
giving advice. Is this actually true? I'm also skeptical of the idea that
support is best given as advice as opposed to something tangible.

If you indeed have a way to give superior advice to parents and result in
presumably superior outcomes for parents and their children compared to the
default, which is a parent who uses their own resources wouldn't it be more
profitable to just open up a daycare?

In any case, I wish the Trustle team good luck, but I'm _very_ skeptical that
this is superior to just talking to people who have kids already. Kids are
unique, but what constitutes a good environment isn't as broad as the landing
page and marketing make it sound. Furthermore, if one does believe kids are
unique that is with odds with the technology aspect of this business. Either
kids are so unique that technology can't really be used to make things more
efficient, or kids can be roughly grouped into categories, in which case -
surely said information about children is already out there?

Finally - if blogs and content out of the web cannot be trusted, why should
your experts' advice be? There are very smart people out there who have
written books and blog posts. What's the value add beyond that? Since you're
only paired with a single person, what if there is contradictory advice
between your experts? Would you not simply be back at square one then?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I too have my reservations (though I want to try this out), but:

> _if blogs and content out of the web cannot be trusted, why should your
> experts ' advice be? There are very smart people out there who have written
> books and blog posts._

The problem is, there are orders of magnitude more articles written by
_content marketers_ \- between papers, lifestyle magazines, presell pages,
social media groups, infographics, YouTube videos, etc. there's _tons_ of it,
and it has much better SEO than legit sources. I've worked next to some
content marketers and seen how this is created - mostly, by mindless copy-
pasting from other content marketers, and occasionally rephrasing things to
avoid accusations of plagiarism.

The hard part of finding sources on-line is filtering out low-quality sources
and misinformation. If Trustle can help with that - if they can develop and
maintain a trustworthy reputation, this will be a service worth paying for.

~~~
tomsayer
I think there are two challenges with content on the web. First, there's all
the marketing stuff you mentioned that could be low quality.

Second, even for the high-quality stuff (and there is some really great stuff
out there), it isn't necessarily right for a specific family. There's no way
for a blog to understand a families specific goals or philosophy, or to take
into account the unique situation of the child or parents. Families are
complex, and we hope our coaches can help a family sort through that
complexity and get the info that's right for them.

------
mattrp
As a privacy-conscious parent with five children, all of whom are gifted in
numerous ways, we do often speak with a psychologist about how to keep them
challenged, how to steer negative behavior into good behavior, etc. I couldn’t
imagine not having such a guide at our side in addition to all the books and
content we consume as inspiration in our quest to nurture our family. However,
I would also caution you - and pardon me for being presumptive about what this
service will do, but please don’t run ML on my kids. I really don’t need their
lives contributing to mass collection of psycho-data and analysis.

~~~
nickswan
What books would you recommend? Parent to 3 young kids and haven’t read any
books on parenting or raising kids yet. As much worries about making a bad
choice as well as a good one (in book choice that is!) that would lead to
teaching the wrong stuff and habits

~~~
eba7keb
I think broadly, the challenge with parenting books is that they sometimes put
forth a particular philosophy or approach (some are more neutral and inclusive
than others). So, I think it really depends what you are looking for, what
your parenting style is, and the ages of your kids.

And if you are looking for advice, context is really important.

To directly answer though - my favorite parenting book is The Gardner and The
Carpenter by Alison Gopnik

~~~
eba7keb
And, the parenting books by Emily Oster (Crib Sheet and Expecting Better - the
latter is about pregnancy and the first early childhood).

------
TeMPOraL
Obligatory surveillance capitalism subthread incoming.

1) uBlock Origin blocked 30 things within a minute of loading your main page.
I understand you're a startup and want to measure things, but given the
extremely sensitive nature of your subject domain, this is _not_ a reassuring
welcome.

2) Privacy Policy - it looks like you've made some headway towards being
compliant with EU regulations, but stopped halfway short. That's
understandable (you want to focus on a smaller market first). However, there
are some mentions about passing data to marketing[0], like:

"We may share the information we collect about you (...) With vendors,
consultants, marketing partners, and other service providers who need access
to such information to carry out work on our behalf;", or:

"To our third-party vendors and service providers so that they may provide
support for our internal and business operations, including for the processing
of payments, handling of data processing, data verification, data storage,
surveys, research, internal marketing, delivery of promotional, marketing and
transaction materials, and our Services maintenance and security. These
companies are authorized to use Your Information only as necessary to provide
these services to us and are contractually obligated to keep Your Information
confidential;"

I hope that in the future you'll go into details about with whom exactly you
share what information, and what for (as will be required if you'll ever want
to do business with EU customers), and also on how exactly you anonymize and
de-identify data. Again, you're dealing with pretty sensitive information
here; as a parent, I need to feel confident that I won't be feeding my kid to
the advertising machine.

On a positive note, I do like the idea of your service, and would happily use
something like this, as long as I can feel safe about the information I
disclose.

\--

[0] - Despite the summary saying, "We would only ever share it with a third
part if it was clear that this was a part of the service you were signing up
for." (also, there's a typo there).

~~~
jamiequint
They load Google Tag Manager, Google Retargeting Pixel, Segment, Facebook
Connect, and SmartLook (which looks like some kind of analytics package).

This should not be controversial as this would be found on pretty much any
website that runs advertising and does user analytics, it's not really
something to get all worked up over.

Also, I would probably recommend that small startups not put much effort into
complying with EU regulations because:

1\. EU regulators have limited time and are very unlikely to go after small
startups.

2\. As a result, the benefits of (costly) compliance aren't worth the costs.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This should not be controversial as this would be found on pretty much any
> website that runs advertising and does user analytics, it 's not really
> something to get all worked up over._

The fact that this is found on so many websites _is_ a controversial thing
already.

FWIW, all I'm doing here is providing a (however small) market signal. They're
free to ignore it; no hard feelings. I am in the target market - a parent of a
small child, interested in using the service and with enough spare income to
afford it. But I don't like the aspects I mentioned.

~~~
jamiequint
> The fact that this is found on so many websites is a controversial thing
> already.

It's controversial to you, it's not controversial to the vast majority of
people. Given that, the downsides of e.g. not being able to retarget
advertising, not being able to understand effectively how users are using the
website (with minimal effort), etc aren't worth the costs.

Say they were to just have those trackers pre-login and post-login there is
nothing, they probably lose more business trying to emphasize this arcane fact
that only extreme privacy-nerds care about on their homepage versus simply
just ignoring them.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Given that, the downsides of e.g. not being able to retarget advertising,
> not being able to understand effectively how users are using the website
> (with minimal effort), etc aren 't worth the costs._

Downsides _to the company_. All upsides to me (you can understand effectively
how users are using the website without doing extensive telemetry; in fact,
this reduces your chances of A/B-testing yourself into full-blown user-
hostility, as is common these days; see also: overfitting, Goodhart's law).

Not to mention: if you need detailed analytics, there are couple of self-
hosted solutions available. Not at all that more complex to use, and at least
they don't leak visitors' data to various shady third parties. Note that this
particular product targets parents of small children and is bordering on
"medical information" territory, so an analytics script from some random third
party[0] which can track what FAQ options piqued your interests is especially
worrisome in this context.

\--

[0] - I noticed from your profile that you have experience in the marketing
industry, and you seem to not recognize Smartlook.

~~~
jamiequint
> at least they don't leak visitors' data to various shady third parties

One would have to be extremely paranoid to think that most mainstream third-
party data analytics providers are "shady", most of these providers (Segment,
Amplitude, etc) all have clauses in the contracts that specify the end-user
(the company in this case) as the owner of the data, and limit their usage of
data to providing the services (meaning they're contractually obligated to NOT
sell or do anything with the data).

In any case, it's a meaningless distinction, as the company could easily
record all this data with native, first-party JS and proxy it to anyone they
want on the backend and you would have no idea and no control over such a
thing. This is already starting to happen, making all of the fuss about third-
party metrics effectively just "privacy theater".

At the end of the day your behavioral data is going to the party whose
software you're using, and if you don't trust them there is nothing that is
going to stop them from doing whatever they want with that information.

------
nathan_compton
Going to be totally honest with you: I read hackernews every day, and that
experience has left me with a strong intuition to keep anyone vaguely
associated with startup culture at least 1000 feet away from my kids.

What data do your venture capital funders hope to collect from my family? How
can I trust you to respect our privacy when the entirety of startup culture,
from top to bottom, seems not just consciously amoral, but apparently unable
to reason morally in a normal, human, way?

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for being honest, and I am sorry you feel that way. You are welcome to
learn more about our privacy policy. I have helped countless families through
my career, and have an incredibly deep respect for parents who seek support. I
also believe that for our service to work, we have to have trust and operate
ethically. I would not risk my professional ethics (or my license) for the
sake of my business. Our vision is truly to make support more accessible and
affordable for families. There is a need, and it's really sad when parents
can't get the support they need or want, and don't always have easy access to
reliable information.

~~~
nathan_compton
I'd like to elaborate a little bit on what I'm suspicious of. Two relevant
ideas are commonly encountered on Hackernews. The first: "Commoditize your
compliment."
([https://www.gwern.net/Complement](https://www.gwern.net/Complement)) and the
second, related, notion of "platforms."

It sounds to me like your startup wants to create a platform which captures
the relationship between a family and their child development expert. In this
business model your compliments are families and child development experts and
by creating a low friction market between them you are naturally inclined to
view them as commodities, as the platform holder. In my experience educated
professionals don't like to be treated as commodities (in fact, I've never met
a person who likes the idea of their labor being commoditized). Furthermore,
my sense is that in the particular case of childhood development, a more
personal touch is required (is perhaps the actual effective thing) in
counseling children and families. In my view, the business model you have
here, the fact that you think of it as a startup and that you debuted it on
Hackernews, suggests that these fundamentally economic ideas form the
substructure of what you are proposing.

The idea of connecting families to expert advice is great. If you really cared
about that, why didn't you form a cooperative of child development experts who
could invest in the appropriate technology? Such a platform, because it would
be under cooperative control by the professionals in question, would resist
commodification of both the families and professionals involved. In fact, a
cooperative arrangement could even extend ownership to the families involved.

When I see a startup I assume the founders have dollar signs in their eyes.
Years of hanging out on Hackernews have only underlined that perception. What
I am getting at is that the very structure and context of this idea suggests
either an ulterior motive or (to be more charitable to you) a misaligned
incentive. I'm suspicious of either.

------
giarc
I like this idea as it seems a quicker way to get help. I live in Canada so I
have access to good quality care. My wife and I are currently dealing with a 5
year old that has regressed in her potty training for some reason (and it's
causing a lot of stress in our household). When I think about getting help, I
suspect we will have to make an appointment with our family physician, who
will then refer us to a child psychologist who will likely be booking a few
weeks (months?) out. Getting on a chat with a trained expert would be a nice
way to start and evalute the problem.

EDIT - I first get a warning about site security given http vs https. I then
get an internal work network warning about the site --> Site name:
www.trustle.com/ Category: Spam URLs

~~~
eba7keb
One of the reasons I started Trustle was because I had a TON of parents
seeking out my support for everyday parenting challenge that would not
normally want to make an appointment. In some cases potty training regressions
are a great fit for therapy, but in other cases, therapy seems too intense.
And, you are right, there is often a LONG wait for care (and in the US, it is
quite expensive). The convenience of being able to access your dedicated
expert whenever you want also helps to make progress on the challenge more
quickly.

Thanks for the info on the site - are you accessing it over https or http when
you get the error message? Any chance you can send you a screenshot at
elizabeth@trustle.com. (our web flow should default to https)

~~~
myth_drannon
clicked on the link you posted and Chrome gave me a warning.
NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

~~~
tomsayer
So sorry you're experiencing this error. We use Webflow so everything is taken
care of by them, and it's only happening with a very small subset of users;
we're trying to figure out why! Our certificates are testing correctly from a
3rd party tester.

If you're willing, can you email tom@trustle.com with your browser, location
and URL that you're going to?

~~~
brryant
Weird! Didn't see any issues on our side.

BTW just booked a 45m call to see if an expert can help us get our 6 week old
to sleep through the night!

~~~
eba7keb
Amazing news! Let us know what you think - our infant sleep experts are pretty
amazing! 6 weeks is really tiny, but I am confident our expert will talk you
through a developmentally appropriate plan that takes into account your
infants feeding needs and sets up on the path for sleep organization! :)

------
cjamesd
I have had basically the same idea, after feeling the problem myself as a
parent of young kids. There is so much garbage on Google. Social science is
always going to lack the consensus of a hard science, but we can do better
than content farms that have assembled articles from freelancers who probably
don't have children and are mustering up advice that's barely common sense. I
hope for your success!

~~~
eba7keb
Yes! We absolutely agree! Did you pursue the idea at all or have any thoughts
about doing so? I would love for you to check us out and let us know what you
think!

~~~
cjamesd
I didn't pursue the idea in any meaningful way. My idea was basically expert
advice codified into a flow/tree, available on demand through a mobile app.
E.g., my kid is behaving badly, so I can go to the app, it asks me the
questions my expert would ask me, I easily relay information back to it and
receive helpful suggestions (how to control my own temper, how to interpret
kids behavior, etc). Bite-sized stuff that you can use in the highly
urgent/desperate moments parents find themselves in from time to time.

I bet your company, if successful, would be well positioned to make that at
some point in the future. There are some tricky questions there, both in terms
of effectiveness and ethics, about using an AI-powered chatbot instead of an
actual expert. The experts are still needed but whether we're close to
approximating human expert delivery of this type of advice with technology is
an interesting question! Again, best of luck and I'll check you guys out.

~~~
eba7keb
Interesting ideas - thanks for sharing and for checking us out!

------
2arrs2ells
My wife and I had our first kid almost four months ago. Trustle connected us
with an amazing coach (Alina!) who’s been amazing at fielding our questions
around feeding and sleep. We’re much calmer parents with a happier baby thanks
to Trustle.

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for sharing your experience. Alina is fantastic!

------
switchstance
Any plans to include children with disabilities? This seems like the perfect
service for parents of children with Autism.

My wife is a special education teacher, and she is like an Autism whisperer.
She is amazing. It's incredible to see her understand and communicate with
nonverbal children. What often appears to be a temper tantrum to most, can
actually be a communication effort.

It is a lot of fun to watch her work her magic.

~~~
tomsayer
:) That's the magic we hope to recreate.

We support all families! If there is an additional factor (such as autism) we
take care to make sure parents see us as a support for them, and not a
replacement for whatever supports they have in place for their child. But lots
of parents appreciate having a partner in their support system. Lots of our
coaches have extensive experience with specific diagnoses.

------
jbpnoy6fifty
I would love to help with this. This was one of my team's published ideas when
taking a Mastering Design Thinking class at MIT / Emeritus

Please feel free to link up on LinkedIn. linkedin.com/in/ladorabl

I'm based in the San Francisco Bay Area, if you are free to chat over coffee
or have a phone/skype conversation.

I've also worked with a couple of friends to help design an ML platform to
accelerate learning in the emergent literacy years; starting with Cardinality
(learning how to count).

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for posting - very cool! Send us an email at founders@trustle.com :)

------
pnathan
> And our support systems have changed dramatically; we’ve often moved away
> from the close-knit communities and extended families that used to be the
> norm. And when we go online we see an overwhelming amount of advice that’s
> often contradictory and just doesn’t feel applicable to our specific
> situation.

Definitely that is a thing. My kid is 3 - this is something we've wrestled
with ourselves. A niche business idea, but I think it has validity. Checking
Trustle out!

~~~
eba7keb
Yes - the contradicting advice is very real and overwhelming for parents. It
is myth that there is "one way" to tackle most parenting things - there are
too many factors at play (child temperament, parenting values, etc). Combining
evidence-based advised with individualized support can actually help - but a
blog/passive content can't do that. Thanks for checking us out! Would love to
hear what you think!

~~~
pnathan
There's evidence based works out there, but it's crazy hard to find them. Too
much bloviation. As a resource bundle for members, you could offer book
packages of known good texts. Possibly also a blacklist of "ideas/works
demonstrated to generally be harmful".

I dig the elephant motif, I just like elephants, and it's cute.

Let's see. Working through signup flow.

Picking the Coach - I don't know these people. I'd suggest that the initial
assignment be done on Trustle-side. It seems that the essential differentiator
of the three options I am initially presented with are the times they are
available. Which is _unfair_ to these highly educated professionals IMO. I
would like to understand the key differences between one coach and another
beyond the statements - despite reading a certain amount of child development
works, I don't per se understand clearly the specialist jargon.

The other thing that gives me pause is the cost - I don't have a way to do an
evaluation besides dropping $70. Which isn't that much in the grand scheme of
things, but it's more than, e.g., a typical dinner for two. I can imagine that
there are a wide variety of effective general philosophies and, like talk
therapists, some therapists are more effective for some people than others.
This feeds back to the prior paragraph - it's easier to be confident in
payment if you understand the approach of the coach, that it will work for
your family.

~~~
tomsayer
This is great feedback - thank you. We've tried giving parents the choice, and
us doing the matching (if you want us to match just text 1650 398 4285 and
we'll get you set up!) IF we stick with parents' picking, I think finding a
way to help the decision making process is really important and we can
definitely do a better job of that. Thanks so much for nudging us on this.

On the evaluation - we offer a 30-day no questions asked money-back guarantee.
Do you think a 'free intro call' or similar would feel better?

~~~
pnathan
> we offer a 30-day no questions asked money-back guarantee.

So my perspective on that is "I'll forget", because the cancellation is
something on my shoulders. I'd rather have a free intake/lightweight coach
session, where we feel each other out, and move forward from there, where we
get charged if we continue, or not charged if not. That's a model I've seen
for talk counseling.

I don't know what's the best for you as a company, though. Pricing is ticklish
for consumer services, and I'm sure its even worse for health oriented
services.

~~~
tomsayer
This is helpful feedback. Thank you. We had the counter feedback off a free
call making the service seem low value. Ideally we get the best of both
worlds. Easier said than done of course!

------
austincheney
I wonder how frequently problems with children, particularly older children
like teenagers, are a direct reflection of the parents’ behavior. I have
trouble imagining the monumental challenge of trying to fix a child problem
when the problem is the parent and the parent blaming the child for that
problem.

~~~
eba7keb
Lots of interesting points here! A few things as it relates to Trustle. We
focus on children 0-5. The process with a teenager would require that the
child be MUCH more involved (family therapy would be appropriate). With very
young children, it is an awful lot about the parent - not in a blaming way,
just that little kids don't have control of their emotions, they are
unpredictable, and it's our job to regulate them and teach them how to self-
regulate over time. This is actually exactly why we work with parents directly
(and truthfully, evidence-based behavioral interventions for young children
almost always work with parents too). It's a system, and when kids are really
young, parents are leading that system.

I will say lots of our parents are self-aware. They might be frustrated or
mystified by their child's behavior (and that's completely fair!), but the
fact that they are willing to talk with us means they are open to the idea
that they as the parent can change things environmentally and behaviorally to
help the child. I think the parents on our service are pretty amazing.

------
talolard
This is great! We have a toddler and it’s great to know something like this
exists.

As a suggestion, I’d rather buy a 5 or 10 pack rather than a monthly
subscription. We don’t need this every month but expect to use it more than
once

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for the suggestion! We do have a single call option, and you can
purchase those on an as needed basis without a subscription (but the "pack"
idea is really interesting!).

------
jbob2000
How do I sign up? Where are the prices? Your landing page sent me in loops
when I clicked Get Started.

I'm curious who you're targeting with this product. Wealthier families tend to
have nannies, who will match expertise with implementation. Middle class send
their kids to daycare or after-school programs, who also match expertise and
implementation. Since this service is _just_ expertise, who are the families
that a) can afford this and b) have the time/energy/money to do the
implementation?

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for your comment! It seems some companies have a spam filter on our
site that blocks our sign-up and payment sections. Perhaps try on your phone
(off a work network). There should be a sign-up flow right away (try this,
which might get you all the way to coach match, if it stops, then it's the
filter): [https://www.trustle.com/challenges/general-
support](https://www.trustle.com/challenges/general-support)

We support a range of families on Trustle: While lots of parents feel
incredibly supported by their wonderful nannies, not all do. And while nannies
certainly have expertise in lots of areas, we find that they don't in all
domains (this is why lots of people have nannies and talk to their child's
teachers or another behavioral health provider). I have even done sessions
with parents AND nannies together.

Several of our coaches are educators. And I can strongly say that they are
some of the strongest advocates for Trustle and our service. Our educators
tell us that in their experience, parents are constantly asking for support
during drop-off or parent teacher conferences that relates to challenges at
home (rather than school). While the teachers feel they can help somewhat,
they don't feel that they have the time and space to fully give the parents
the support they need (we hear often from teachers that parents want a
5-minute drop off consult for a challenge that really requires more time).

We are far more affordable than most behavioral health (we are $50 dollars a
month for membership which includes call time and unlimited text) and our
accessibility by phone and the ability to text your coach makes implementation
possible. We support parents to give them back some energy by helping them
with accessible and affordable advice to make some changes and tackles
challenges.

One thing that has been really exciting is how happy our families are on the
service.

~~~
jbob2000
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I am working at my office and your assumption
that the sign up flow is blocked is probably true. You may want to fix that
though, because my company has 75,000+ employees, who would probably sign up
or investigate this service while at work.

~~~
eba7keb
I think we fixed it! Looks like we had a specific block that we had lifted.
Thanks so much for letting us know.

------
SpecieCo
I feel like this is a solution for something that a very specific demographic
would actually use. How many parents are involved enough to download an
app/pay to solve problems with their kids? Is the advise that much better than
what can be found on google?

I believe this limits your use case and the products viability.

\- Also, this product would only be needed/used for a specific amount of time
in a kids life ( think a 1 year term limit for actually getting paid from your
customer during the terrible 2's)

~~~
awillen
This is kind of a baffling response to me... how many parents are involved
enough to download an app or pay for problems with their kids? Really? People
download apps for everything, but you think they'd be too lazy to do it for
their children? And spending money - you think parents wouldn't pay to help
their kids behave better or to solve problems? They already do this - they pay
for all kinds of toys/books/devices to keep their kids occupied and out of
trouble, they pay for pediatrician visits, they pay for babysitting, and the
list goes on.

As for how much better the advice is than what's on Google... getting specific
advice on your specific child from someone who is professionally trained and
with whom your have a relationship is obviously going to be infinitely better
with Google. I can't even understand why that question would be asked.

Love the idea, and I think it's really valuable.

~~~
SpecieCo
Most parents downloading an app to help solve an issue with their children are
parents from a specific demographic, educated, with gainful employment - this
limits the demographic that will use this product.

~~~
tomsayer
We don't really think of ourselves as an app (although we use an app to
facilitate the service right now.) It's direct, personal support that provides
the value; the app is the access mechanism.

We have plans to offer different access mechanisms in future to make this
accessible to more people.

Our hope (and belief) is that all types of parents will appreciate having
access to someone with expertise - how they access them can differ.

(That felt like a very odd way of responding but I hope it makes sense!)

------
avip
This is indeed pretty depressing.

The ongoing disintegration of the normative human society, loss of extended
family structures, and escalating segmentation of what used to be a community
to different age and class groups well separated in spacetime is a world-wide
disaster with far-reaching ripples.

One of the obvious consequences is for-profit organizations entering the
vacuum left by communities. Of course Elizabeth et. al. are not to blame, they
cannot fix reality and nor can I.

And yet... this is just depressing.

~~~
tomsayer
(I'm Tom, Elizabeth's cofounder) - I agree with the societal reflection.
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam really speaks to this so well.

While one of the changes we think about is that, the more positive one is that
we now know SO much about how the young brain develops. We want parents to
have access to that in a meaningful way. I often use the healthcare analogy;
when someone wants support with their health (whether proactive wellness or
reactive treatment) they'll often go to a doctor which is great (and why it's
so bad when people don't have healthcare). Raising a child is of course
different in many ways, but the internet is awash with generic, impersonal
advice whereas we hope to bring back the human connection. We're excited to be
able to bring this growing field of expertize to parents in a way that is
deeply human at it's heart.

But yes... changes in communities are still depressing.

~~~
avip
just to make the obvious explicit - I wish your product and yourself success
and by no means suggest you're doing anything wrong or not well-intended.

btw, normative countries provide plenty of help and support, for free, to
young first-time parents. This is probably the best investment a society could
do, even in terms of purely financial ROI!

~~~
tomsayer
Didn't take it that way but thank you for saying that :)

And agree! The organization Zero to Three does a great job advocating for this
in the US but we're still way behind.

It's not very long term, but kraamverzorgsters in the Netherlands are a great
example!

------
camcaine
Parent of 3 under 5 here. My personal view – This would only add more pressure
to children and parents. Whatever happened to trusting your own instincts?
Perhaps as children all grow and develop in such different ways and rates in
the early years the best solution is not to try and 'fix' children via
experts.

Many parents might be crying out for this kind of service, but I certainly
would not be one of them. Hope that helps.

~~~
eba7keb
I absolutely appreciate this perspective! And, in fact, I agree with you. The
aim isn't to diagnose kids or "fix" anything. And we certainly don't want
parents to feel like this ads pressure. We want to take the pressure off. A
survey from Zero to three shows that nearly half (48%) of parents nationwide
report the they do not have the support they need. This is a serious
challenge, and also an opportunity. We absolutely want parents to trust their
instincts - which is why we don't tell them what to do, we work WITH with them
to provide them access to support to tackle challenges that often arise for
parents. We recognize not all parents need more support of have any
challenges, and that is great too!

~~~
camcaine
Always be challenges.

~~~
eba7keb
I think that's generally true for most parents :). And while some have a great
support network, unfortunately, not all do.

------
codingninjas
Hey.

As a father of 2 I know, it's very frustrating to trust any books, coaches in
child development and especially content online.

We are in the Jewish community, most of the friends had many kids, and we
could turn for advice. If I didn't have this, I don't know what I would do.

The hardest thing for me would be to trust you to connect me with an expert.

Good luck. It's a hard problem and if it works, you will save a lot of lives
and parent's health :)

~~~
tomsayer
Thanks for the kind message!

Trust takes time to build definitely - and honestly, we don't do it - we wish
we could! The trust-building really starts to happen in the first call when
each side gets to know each other (and beyond just the expert's credentials
and bio.)

------
johnmarcus
$50/mo seems quite reasonable for the hours of reading it can save. I think
this is a great idea.

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks - lots of parents say it saves them a ton of time. We have had parents
say 'I don't have time to read 5 contradicting books on sleep and potty
training, all saying their approach is the best one.' We can help parents sort
through the noise, look at their options, and figure out which approach makes
the most sense for them.

------
nihakue
Hi, looks interesting. I'm still figuring out if it's a good idea for us, but
I noticed a typo in the FAQs you probably care about: "By helping you to think
proactively about your goals and the environment you want to create __to
__your family "

~~~
tomsayer
Thank you! Changed. I also see I said three ways in that FAQ and only have
two.

Would love for you to try us! We offer a full 30-day money back guarantee as
we know this is something parents want to be confident in.

------
blue_eyes1978
I hope you guys are recording the mentoring sessions. Developing a bespoke
roadmap for a child will show the efficacy of the development plan when
compared to metrics and complication rates over an entire cohort. (background:
parent and physician scientist)

~~~
eba7keb
We think there is a great opportunity to learn about efficacy in child
development and parenting practices here, and are very excited by the
potential that brings!

~~~
blue_eyes1978
would your team be willing to allow anonymized data to be used for
analysis/research papers? Or do you have that in place for in-house
researchers to publish?

~~~
tomsayer
I think we're waayy to early for that but I hope we get to the stage where
this is a question :)

My first reaction is that our goal is to support parents and we'd want to be
very careful before doing anything with their data. BUT if we can support the
field at the same time as being 100% transparent with our families it would be
great (e.g. they'd have to explicitly opt-in.)

But again, a great problem for the future :)

------
throwaway13000
Neat idea. I would definitely use it, if you promise that that experts would
NOT be from low cost countries like India, Romania etc (why? Because as a
person from these countries, I want to learn parenting methods from advanced
countries.)

~~~
eba7keb
All of our experts are in the United States partially because I have a firm
understanding of the various licenses and credentialing they hold, which isn't
consistent across countries. Our team of experts is truly amazing! I would
love for you to check us out and let me know what you think.

------
quickthrower2
I wonder how this scales up to a highly profitable enterprise while
maintaining quality? And how the profit margins will work as I’d guess most or
all of the $50 a month goes to staff to take the call.

------
DanBC
What's your safeguarding policy? When do you refer families to child
protection social services? Do you know the process for doing that in all the
places you operate in?

~~~
eba7keb
Yes - all of our providers are mandated reporters. We also have manuals and
trainings on this process and procedure (but as licensed professionals, they
are very familiar with this process, as it is a required part of being a
licensed provider).

~~~
tropo
This is why only a fool would use the service for real problems.

If you can find a way out of that, for example by avoiding knowledge of
identity, the service could be safe to use. Maybe you could take payment in a
privacy-protecting cryptocurrency (not Bitcoin) and have the users connect
with a tor browser.

~~~
eba7keb
To clarify, a mandated reporter is a person who has to disclose child abuse if
a child is in danger. I think this is an important protection for children.
These are the same standards any psychologist, therapist, school, pediatrician
etc. are held to. All those service providers are mandated reporters.

~~~
tropo
Both "danger" and "abuse" are open for interpretation, and some people take
"better safe than sorry" to an unhealthy extreme. Your response suggests to me
that this is the case with you.

Even if there is a problem, how is it not better to address that? If the
parents don't feel safe, they will avoid all those service providers. The kids
don't get help if using the service providers is too risky for the parents.

~~~
eba7keb
There are actually really clear guidelines on what is reportable and what is
not. CPS generally can't and won't do anything beyond take a call if the
content of the call doesn't suggest a valid safety concern and meet the
guidelines. Any parent talking to any service provider (or educator or doctor)
will be talking to someone who follows these same guidelines.

~~~
tropo
LOL. Maybe.

In any case, there will be no talking if the parent would need to trust you
but doesn't. That doesn't help kids.

You can't change the law, but you can avoid having identity information to
report. Parts of the solution probably involve non-attributable cryptocurrency
and tor browsers.

~~~
eba7keb
Thanks for your input!

------
meristem
Question for the founders: what are your experts’ certifications? How are you
managing state-by-state laws regarding counseling, be that MFTs or PsyDs?

~~~
eba7keb
Our experts have a range of certifications - we have PhD's, mater's level
educators with degrees in child development, PsyDs, BCBAs, LMFTs (to name a
few). While the state by state laws are changing all the time, the
restrictions are around the service provided. Our experts have the background
information on child development, and the experience working with families,
but we are not providing counseling, therapy or diagnoses on our site. We
provide coaching and support for challenges. Professionals are trained to know
when to refer out and when they are crossing the line into this territory.

~~~
tropo
The one legitimate qualification is missing: having had lots of kids. For
example: 4 sons, 4 daughters, and at least 10 grandkids.

Child development industry fads come and go, sometimes drifting away from
sanity and reality.

~~~
eba7keb
Having children is absolutely a valuable experience! We definitely have
coaches who have several children. I think this can cut both ways, though. I
was a child psychologist before I had my own children. I don't think it
dramatically changed the way I support parents. Mostly because I wasn't
working from the framework of my personal experience. What I do with my own
children is irrelevant when helping a parent (this is the difference between
advice and evidence-based information) - and in fact, there is nothing worse
than a therapist saying 'well, with MY kids at every turn (it can be helpful,
but you have to be careful)....' Having a child gives you lots of experience,
but it doesn't make you an expert in child development (it does help when
working with parents, and a LOT of parents appreciate when our coaches have
several kids of their own). Also, there are often many ways to get to a goal,
and it varies by the child, parent and family. Professionals can often speak
to a range of choices (think: sleep) rather than just their own personal
experience.

I should also say that we have parents on our service who have 5 children, and
tell us each is different, and they still appreciate the support and wisdom.

------
AnonC
How do these experts deal with cultural factors? Would the matching take into
account the general culture that the parents are exposed to?

~~~
eba7keb
I appreciate this really important question. I think the same way that
psychologists, therapists, and teachers do. There is absolutely something
powerful about a shared cultural experience with a provider, and we are
keeping diversity on the forefront of our mind when hiring, recruiting, and
onboarding coaches (it's also a reason that we allow parents to choose their
own coach, rather than assigning them). The second is that our professionals,
like all licensed professionals in education and the helping professions, are
trained to be able to work with a variety of people, and cultural competence
is emphasized (it's often a required component of training, education, and
continuing education). We screen for cultural competency and the ability to
work with a diverse range of parents. That being said, we know at the cultural
match is important, and this is a real issue that exists in the helping
professions. We hope that Trustle will actually provide a platform for
increased opportunity and availability of diverse coaches (as opposed to being
confined by who lives in your immediate area).

------
lerie1982
Hamburger menu and drop down menu seems to be broken in Chrome 80.0.3987.132

~~~
trustle
Thx much. Is that on mobile or just a really small desktop? I just tried
desktop on 80.0.3987.132 and mobile on 80.0.3987.95 and can't reproduce. Can
you send a screenshot to catalin@trustle?

------
yarone
Congrats, really interesting!

~~~
tomsayer
Thanks :)

------
chupa-chups
Remove this.

