How we select activity centers is broken

We have all been through this, each one of us. Your 4-year-old is very interested in dancing, and you want to get her enrolled in dance classes. So the first thing that you do – you go to the same search engine that you go to for choosing the next Thai restaurant to go visit- Google! You look for Dance Classes for kids near me, and then a whole bunch of classes shows up. You read the reviews, again on the same website that hosts zillions of restaurant ratings. You shortlist a few and then the field trips start.

The Field Trips

You and your significant other will divide it between yourselves. You will call 2-3 centers and then SO will call another 3. Easy peasy. Right? Nope, sorry! That dance studio you want will take calls only between 3 PM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. When you are trying to wrap up your workday, are on your commute back home, trying to pick your child up from daycare, or even thinking of what to make for dinner tonight – calling up an activity center is typically the last thing on your mind. And even if you are able to, it is not humanely possible to call up more than one in a day, for several reasons. And then you want to set up the appointment for you to visit them and then decide on the schedule. So on the scheduled day, you have planned everything well to wrap up your day well in advance, and there’s some unexpected work that creeps up on you. At this point, there is one phone call you can make, and you make that to your SO that you’re running late and you need them to pick up your child from the daycare. So the plan of making a visit to the dance class goes out the window. Something else happens, and voila – you are looking at a project that will take up a good part of a month trying to get every center in your shortlist covered. If life was fair, no one should have had to go through this. One cannot deny how important an activity is for the well being and development of a child. This is where they pick up the most important skills that will see them through most of their life. If this is so important, why is it so broken?

We tried to figure it out, with a little help from friends

We took it upon ourselves to answer this question and started asking the places where our kid was going to. The results that we found, were not surprising. A great customer experience starts with great software. They work with Google sheets. That’s all they use in order to get by through the day. And even if they used something different, that different is so clunky, they have to have a full-time person just navigating that software all day. So when they started this business to convert their own passion for dance into a living, all of that just went out the window and they ended up doing sheets and clunky software. We decided to address that head-on. We know a thing or two about software, and we decided to rebuild the experience. With a little help from friends, we launched Dimsome. Dimsome lets you choose classes based on your preferences. It shows you how many people in your neighborhood go to that class. Then it lets you chat 1:1 with neighbors in the area that go to the same class. Yes, their identity is hidden as long as they choose to, but you know they are bonafide users of the class they are going to. We felt asking 1:1 is the best way to get feedback about something. Once you have done your homework, seen trusted reviews – and you have shortlisted – not 10 but maybe your top 3. Next up, you can chat 1:1 with the center manager, or send them a note. If you want, you can avoid that completely and go straight to booking a trial class. Yes. No calling or setting up appointments required. It is just like booking a hotel room. You just did all the homework, without all that legwork.

Not your restaurant rating service

Restaurant rating services are just that – restaurant rating services. They are very transactional, and seldom give you objective ratings. We realized after So we built our own rating service, that is objective, relevant, and useful. Dimsome is not a rating service. Dimsome is an all integrated app that lets you manage schedules. You do not have to call between 3 PM to 5 PM Monday through Friday to reschedule your child’s classes. Look for an available slot on the calendar and book it yourself. All on your Android or Apple device while snacking. Build trusted circles of friends, neighbors, relatives who go to the same place. Share your kids' schedules with them. We have put trust in the very center of our design – so you can choose who can see your child’s schedules or even your child’s first and last names. Having trouble picking up or dropping your child today? Send a text through the app to another parent in your trusted circle or your Mom, and she can pick up or drop your 8 yr old. Easy. You can return the favor later.

It freaks me out when I have to call and give an unknown person 16 digits of my credit card, expiration date, my mother’s maiden name, ATM PIN, garage passcode, Social Security Number, and everything else in between. So we made this all convenient here. You enter your payment method and you choose which one you’d like to pay with. Just like your favorite shopping app. No more calling anyone on the phone. You can set recurring payments, you can pay for new activities right through the app. We built Twishr, out of love for the community that we love, for all the parents that have gone through the same pains, and all the activity center owners and managers that go through this every single day. If you’re a parent, 15 seconds is all it takes for you to get started. Parenting is hard, we are trying to help with Twishr. Enjoy the journey that is parenting.