As a dad, why did I build Domistiq

I am a dad of 2 (8/11yo) and I've been living in California for the past 7 years, originally French.
I started thinking about a better way to organize information in the family around summer 2025 and started working on it by then.

The school

The school structure and culture is different here compared to France (by not much though).

The school rhythm is basically

• the bell schedule e.g. when do you need to drop the kids off, and when you need to pick them up
• the school days e.g. when are your kids there vs home
• the school events e.g. when is that parent-teacher conference, when is that art show night, when is that dance night, end of year show, etc
• an email from the principal
• an email from the teacher
• an email from the Parent/Teacher Association
• an email from a business partner
• an email from the school district (e.g. ~the city)
• a text message from the principal/teacher/district
• an app that the district just added

All of these with somewhat useful information. We started off with actually useful information (schedule) and ended up in a sea of information.

Most of it is crap that would make any "this meeting could have been an email" mug proud. By that I mean that “movie day is tomorrow 10am, have your kid bring a blanket if they want to be comfy” is written as a 3-paragraph prose with so much text that you forgot what it started with by the time you reach the end.

There is also way too much information. They tell you about that thing you don't even know exists, you know nobody that will go there and it simply does not cater to you.

There is too frequent communication. They will send you an email. Will text you. Will send a notification in Parent Square. Your wife gets all of this too. And a reminder. And a weekly school newsletter. And a message from the superintendent. You can sustain this for the first 3 weeks of the year, and most likely by fall break you will have given up.

The schedule is not always straightforward. There are regular days 8-2, that's great. Then there are short days. There are early pickup days. There are parent conference short days. So you have to know whether the Moon is aligned with Jupiter and the direction of the wind to tell if your pickup is 1:23pm or if you're late and it was a 12:05pm pickup.

The chores

I suppose it is the same in every family, the distribution of chores is not fair. I am greatly guilty of this, because if I am honest my wife is carrying the whole family on her back.

We need something that will help the kids participate:

• what is there to be done. Sometimes they have 10 minutes ahead and they don't know what to do (and will not make much effort to guess)
• why would they do it. They need some incentive to do stuff, a kid apparently will not clean up their room or vacuum the living room for the fun of it
• who does what. It is easy for everybody to leave in the morning and come back in the evening without realizing that there was meal planning, groceries, cleaning, organizing, mental load and another shitload of stuff that were magically done (did you know that clothes in the hamper magically reappear clean in a laundry basket after a couple of days? (well except that one sock))

There is also the million little things that need to be done in any house. The flag thingy broke and needs to be removed or replaced. There is a faucet dripping over there. The irrigation system schedule did not survive last week's power outage (though I made a tool just to analyze your utility data, by the way) and needs to be reconfigured. The car needs washer fluid. The flashlight is out of batteries.

Also some things need to be done one time, for example trash day is Tuesdays, peroiod. However some stuff have an interval, for example you'd decide to change your bed sheets every two weeks. If you were out of town for a week, you will have everything shifted. With interval instead of regular repeat, you could manage this efficiently. Think of a snooze button. “Bed sheets? snooze for two weeks”.

I thought that it would be nice to have

• chores, as in repeating stuff: change bed sheets, vacuum, clean bathrooms, change cat litter, etc
• tasks, as in once in a while/blue moon: refill car windshield washer fluid, return that order to that store, call the roofers, etc
• gamification: make the chores fun for the kids
• notarized data: kids will see that mom has 195 points when they have 20, and the history will show that she's doing 10x what we are all doing
• smart reminders: every Tueday, or every week is not the same (see bed sheets above)

AI

Of course, AI.

But not the obnoxious chatbot everybody has and everybody hates. Not the thing that feels like you're using ChatGPT with a custom skin. Not that customer assistant on that OEM website that does not really help.

Also not, at least for now, the assistant that does everything. I don't need to say “prepare my week” and have it do a 10-day meal plan, grocery list, event planning, …
First this is not what I'll want, and there's no way I will be able to manage an app that does everything.
At least not for now, because I don't realistically see a good technical solution here.

The AI I want is the AI I don't see. I want the thing to feel more like magic. I don't want to interact with the app, especially not with a chatbot.

Domistiq

So what is Domistiq?

1. A unified calendar. You already have Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Apple Calendar. You want to import your existing data. Obviously.
2. A school information gatherer. You will say your kid is in 2nd grade in Whatever Elementary, and the other one in 6th grade in Godknowswhat Middle. The app will show you the events in your unified calendar, everything will be there. You will have the bell schedule, cafeteria menu, etc (not all features available yet)
3. A family information center. You receive an email from your kid sports club with the next few events? Already in your unified calendar.
4. A chore/tasks center. All your family chores and to-do tasks are there. You can even have routines, shown as check boxes, for your kids. Morning=teeth, make bed, clear floor, dirty clothes in hamper, backpack, lunch box. Check, check, check, done. You can even nudge someone, e.g. pick “windshield wiper fluid”, tap “nudge” and dad receives a notification.
5. A subtle AI integration. You can forward emails to integrate events. You can take a picture of a birthday flyer to add it to your calendar. You can forward the screenshot of a Facebook event this weekend that your wife sent you. And so on. It works for you but it is discreet, not an obnoxious chatbot.

What can you do with AI:

So this is why I made Domistiq. I thought the easiest way to have my kids do their chores and me remembering about the parent conference was to spend 6 months of nights and weekends building an app.