Happy New Year!

Dear Tucoola friends, it's been a while since I blogged.

2010 was a great year for us – we had so many challenges and there are still a lot ahead.

These days, our site is on-line and people all over the world enjoy Tucoola's concept.

Soon we will launch the Tucoola's Zone with various partners worldwide and you will be able to enjoy it in your native language and with your local portal.

At this moment we are working on a new product that will help us remember and even manage our life as a family.

We believe that in 2011,Tucoola's users will visit the site on a daily basis and enjoy the various tools.

In addition, as we promised, our site becomes bigger everyday with new games, new videos and a lot of content for you.

We hope you will be part of our big family in 2011 and we hope to be part of yours.

Happy New Year!

Tucoola is now open for business!

That’s it!

Tucoola is now open for business!

It took more over two years of dreaming and a lot of challenges on the way, but now the dream has become reality.

These days you can find games, a paint zone, a video zone, a together zone with cool features and more.

After we collect some data from the games, the information center will be available too.

And we are not going to rest there. you will be able to find more information for parents, content for children and parents and a lot of activities.

Thanks for being part of the process till now and we hope that you will be with us as part of our development just like we hope to be part of your children progress.

Good luck to all of us!

Thanks!

Hi,

These are the last days before the launch of Tucoola and it is time to say thanks!

Those are crazy days that start very early and continue till late, very late.

A lot of people are involved in the process and you can see the passion and the energy in each and every of them.

We haven't finished yet, but I think that it's time for some thanks:

The academic team that helped to build all the concept.

The designers that have built a new language – Tucoola's language.

The lawyer that works hard to complete all the legal issues needed for the site.

The partners that supply various content to the site.

The developers that have been eating a lot of pizza in the last days while fixing bugs.

And my family that have been there for me from the beginning through all the hard times.

They are my fuel, my love and even my testing team :).

Thanks for all!

Get ready for the next post – it will contain the "green light" to start using Tucoola!

Summer Time

It's summer time and for the first time I have 2 kids during summer …

In addition, it's the first time since high school that I have "summer time".

Most of the parents are afraid from the summer vacation and talk about it all the time.

My wife and I had a plan – to try to do whatever we can to enjoy it.

We had three and a half weeks to fill with fun time :)

So what we did spend our summer?

Safari, playgrounds, coloring pages, computer games, books, Lego, Playmobile, beach and 4 days in a hotel with swimming pools and a lot more.

That’s it – today is the last day of the "summer time" and it's time to get back to kindergarten.

Believe it or not, we had a great time as parents and as a family and as my wife said to me: "We didn't have enough time to do all the things I planned".

Next summer, it will be even happier, because our children will be able to enjoy Tucoola as well as part of the summer time activity.

To be or not to be (and where)

We are on still working on our new version – as always, we are adding a lot of new features to the product.

We asks ourselves regarding each feature whether it is the one everyone is waiting for, or not :).

A few weeks ago, my son (2.5 years old) discovered my iPhone.

He can unlock the iPhone, navigate to HIS page and choose an App, he knows how to return to the page again (through home) and then go to pics and watch them.

So, just like we knew 2 years ago, we need to bring Tucoola to all of the platforms.

So where do we start? iPhone, Android, Ovi?

And what about social networks? Facebook, Myspace, Google Me?

And let's talk about the platform – PSP, Wii, Xbox?

Don't worry, Tucoola's strategy and vision is to be in all of these places and platforms.

We will check all the options and get back to you soon with product that will be there for you – at your house, car, flights and all over!

The Big Day

We are getting ready for the big day and we still found time to think about the next stages.

As a start-up company we have a vision.
Our vision, is to grow with you as parents, to grow with our children and to be an on-line home for parents and children.

It's really easy to imagine, what needs to be there:
The children would like to have various content, that fits their age and flavor.
Games, video channel, stories, coloring pages and everything they expect to find in the Web.

Parents will have the confidence that their children are safe and still having fun, learning and progressing, in their development progress.

What about a community? Yes, we believe that today any one of us can help each other to be better: better parents, better children and better persons.

We will bring the technology and all of us will bring the information and the tools to do so.

I find myself smiling when I imagine it – Tucoola's product in a year or two will be all we asked for as a parents and more.

Do you have the patience to wait? I don’t :)

Games, Games & Games

There are so many games in our world!

As you already know, soon Tucoola will launch the first commercial version.

As you can imagine, we are working days and nights on it with the desire to bring you the best service.

As part of it, we are dealing with the information center, improvement of the analyzes engine, content issues and games.

If someone will take a look at what we are doing, he will tell himself that we are playing all day :).

The mission of finding the appropriate game for each development group and to recognize the skills the game is dealing with our academic group, it's challenging.

There so many games that can be great for children but some of them ruined are because they contain some bad characters, others contain violence and some are not simply appropriate for children.

You can count on Tucoola's team to make sure that the games that you will find in our catalog will target your children's taste and will benefit there development progress.

Have a great summer, before it ends we will be there with news!

Tucoola's team

Our Time

In times likes today, the hardest mission is to manage our time.

We have so many things to do, and it is very difficult.

It is even harder when you try to be part of the family during week days.

Unfortunately, no one has developed a startup that you can gets two more hours a day for $9.95 but there are a lot of tools that can help with time management.

In a time like this, when Tucoola's team is working hard on the first commercial version of our Tucoola's Zone, we found ourselves working days and nights to provide the best service.

One of the things that we are working, on which should be available in the next few months is activities for the parents and the children.

So, sorry! We can't get you two more hours a day for $9.95, but we can help you with 2 hours of fun with your children!

Enjoy!

Retro Games - Do you want to have some?

I have a thing for retro games.

It began a few years ago when I found in Bangkok the Donkey Kong game from my childhood.

It cost a lot and it didn't work – I decided that I'll find a working game and pay whatever needed just to have the ability to give it to my son one day.

So, now I have it, and I also have my old Pac Man from the 80's and even a box of Atari.

So I have a shelf with all the retro games, and it means more to me than most of the things I have – it's my childhood games!

After all the "80's mobile devices", most of us "moved on" to computer such as – Commodore 64, 286, 386, etc.

The games in the computer were the funniest ever – we played and played and played all day and all night.

Now I have the bonus to "play" in the game world – it's a great environment, and we enjoy it a lot.

As a service that will be there for children from the first day in the gaming world, we hope that we will help our children to create great memories, just like we enjoy them today.

PS – these days we are working on our Fan Page in Facebook – "Tucoola" – You can already search for it and "like" it.

Anyway, soon we will give away some retro prizes such as … Donley Kong, Pac Man and more :-)

Congratulations Tucoola X3 times

It's been a while since we started to work on Tucoola's project - actually, two years since the idea came up.

We have made a long and hard way to this point.

Our potential partners – the games developers and the distributors understood the potential, and now they are partners (and not "potential").

Our investors understood the potential, and now they are part of Tucoola.

Our service providers understood the potential, and it seems that they will enjoy the growth of Tucoola one day.

But something new has happened in the last months.

The media discovered Tucoola – it happened without using PR services, without extra marketing, without a big covering of a leading blog – it just happened.

3 valued organization chose Tucoola as one of the most promising in the world!

In the last two months Tucoola was announced as a finalist of "innovate!2010"

Winner of mini "SeedCamp" in Tel Aviv

Finalist of "Red Herring 100" in Europe

So, we didn't launch our commercial version of the Tucoola's Zone, but as you can understand, the professionals out there that review hundreds of companies every year understood that we are here to make a change.

We hope that soon, when all of you will be able to join the Tucoola's Zone, get information about your children's development progress and tools to enhance it, we will walk with the same feeling – we are changing something together in this world – our children's future.

A few more months to go!

These days, we are in the middle of the developing of the new version of the Tucoola's Zone which will be launching in the next few months.

We already have tons of games for children.
We have finished define the up-to-date algorithm.
We finished planning and designing the new information center for parents.

And now, our developers are working hard on encoding it, and soon you will be able to enjoy it.

The days are full of work to verify that you will get the best service ever.
The night is full of thoughts about the things we need to add to our first commercial version.

So soon, you will be able to enjoy the Tucoola's Zone all over the world, and we believe that you will find it a required and helpful service that will be there to help us with our challenges with the children.

I believe that you will hear a lot of news from us in the next posts, and we hope that you will be happy as we are when you will find out who our partners are and where you will be able to enjoy the Tucoola's Zone.

We hope that you are expecting it as like we are :)

Startup Persons

You have probably noticed that we talk a lot about our life as "startup persons".

Well, It's really easy to explain.

We wake up in the morning, press the "power button" of the iPhone and read the new mails.

Then we run to the computer, and while we brush our teeth, we start to answer the mails.

After a few hours or so, we remember that we need to eat something (most of the time it will be Junk-food) – This part happens twice a day … (late noon / after noon and late night …).

Between the late afternoon and the evening we try to play with our children, enjoy the family and from time to time (2 minutes to 5 minutes), we re-checking emails on the iPhone :).

After making bath to the children, we have "only 2 mails" that we need to work on, and then it takes about 5 hours or so :).

In the late night, we go to sleep and wake up to the … mails.

We work like this all week, weekends, holidays, etc., and it's unbelievable – we are enjoying every moment – yes! The start-up passion is deep in our blood.

And it's time to confess – it's all about the partners in our life, that understand, help, support and love.

After all, how many people call their husband/wife and shout at him/her to "stay by the computer so you will clean your calendar from the missions of today"?

How many people can understand the ups and downs (that happen a lot …)? Etc., etc., etc.

So if you asked me for one advice about how to build a start-up, I'll tell you that it starts at home, with your partner for life - this is

the first building block.

So thanks to my dear wife for being there for me!