Famigo

About Famigo

Have you noticed that family time is on the decline and technology time is on the rise?

We have and we wondered “Why do family and technology time have to be two separate things?” We think it’s sad when everyone’s immersed in their own separate, digital worlds. There are so many missed opportunities to have shared experiences that make our families that much more awesome.

This is Famigo’s mission, to bring families together through technology.

In order to help as many families as possible, we’ve started our quest for a better world for families with Android and iOS. Smartphones are everywhere, affordable, and easy to use. But, more importantly, they have a huge potential to bring us together through shared experiences. Whether we’re playing Words with Friends, sending emails, or simply talking to one another, smartphones have the capability to keep us connected like never before.

We started the process of making smartphones better suited for families with Famigo Family App Review. It’s a tool that helps you discover family-friendly apps, making them easy to sort through by categorizing based on age and function, and then reviewing them so families know what to expect before they buy and download.

Now we’re going a step farther by making any Android safe for even the youngest members of families through our Famigo Sandbox. It’s a win-win for parents and kids. The Famigo Sandbox gives kids their own play space within the phone where they only see the apps they already love and want to be playing. It also helps parents by locking down the phone so their child can’t make calls, send emails, click on ads or get out to the web.

By making smartphones work better for families, we’re hoping that parents and kids will have the tools they need to create awesome shared experiences together. Which will, in turn fulfill our mission of bringing families together through technology. (See how we did that? Pretty smooth, we know.)

What’s in store for the future? We’re playing that pretty close to the vest, but just know that whatever we do, it will always be in the best interest of families.

Famigo’s Promises

We have all of the usual legal documents and Terms of Service agreements (you know, all that tiny text you scroll through in order to checkmark the “I’ve read and accept…” at the end). We realize that no one reads those (except lawyers) and generally the only purpose they serve is to keep lawyers happy. (They actually really enjoy reading and writing them!)

But what we’re really interested in is keeping you and your family happy, so we want to make sure you know what to expect from Famigo.

Our Golden Rule: What’s good for families is good for Famigo.

Everything that we do will be in the best interest of families and we’ll treat you like we would our families and friends (and don’t worry, we absolutely love our families and friends!). We’re a great big Famigo family!

Inspired by our Golden Rule, and free of any indecipherable lawyer-speak, here are the promises that the Famigo family makes to your family:

• Famigo will always work to bring families together.

  Too many things (specifically our gadgets) are creating very separate lives for each member of our families. We’re trying to bring families together through, around and within technology, and everything we create is built to serve this specific purpose.

• Famigo will only share the very best content.

  There’s a lot of junk out there that is either terribly made or not made for families. Our function is to bring the great stuff to your attention, not the bad. This is the stuff we share with our own family and friends, and we want you to know how awesome it is too. At the same time, we’ll let you know about the really bad stuff you should avoid. (We’re talking about technology here, not food. We’re huge fans of ice cream and tacos; that will never be bad stuff in our eyes.)

• Famigo will always be relevant.

  We will never create anything without a purpose. From our products to our blog posts, everything will have meaning and be valuable to families and all of their members. Our driving passion is based in making family-friendly content easy for families to find, why would we add to the clutter by creating irrelevant anything?

• Famigo will be entertaining.

  Or, at the very least, try our hardest. We think we’re pretty funny most of the time…

• Famigo will listen to you.

  We want to help families, and even though we all have families, and like to think of ourselves as a family, we know that every family is different. We want to know what makes your family unique, what entertains you and what brings you together. Your opinions and thoughts are absolutely invaluable to us. Nobody knows your family better than you, so tell us about you guys!

• Famigo will never lecture you.

  We’re not your parents. (Unless, for some reason, our children are reading this some day, in which case, yes, we are. Go to bed, or do your homework, or whatever it is that you should be doing!) Our purpose isn’t to tell anyone what to do or how to do it. We’re working to give you the tools to make your family an awesome team. How/when/where/why you use them is up to you. We just promise to make everything we create as useful to your family as possible, the incredible things that you do with these tools are up to you.

• Famigo will be reasonable in our views.

  We will never be the harbingers of doom, there’s no point in that (and doom is really just a sad word, why not harbingers of joy or unicorns maybe…). Everyone knows there are bad things in the world. What it comes down to is how we go about dealing with those things and solving any problems that we find. We’ll never bring up this stuff to scare you, only so we can work together to find a solution.

• Famigo will never, never distribute your information without your direct permission.

  This is the most lawyer-y of all our promises, but one that we think is very important. Know that Famigo will never use your or your family’s information in any way that you don’t explicitly approve of. There’s nothing to be gained from this sort of shady business and there’s no way it can be good for families, meaning both the Famigo family and yours. We’re all in this together.

• Famigo actually believes all of the above.

  Honestly, from our family to yours, we promise all of the above.

The Famigo Family

What happens in a mash-up of a former Nickelodeon exec, a neuroscientist and a software maestro? You get Famigo of course!

After almost a decade of making movies for families, our cofounder: Q Beck, moved to Texas to pursue an MBA and connected with Matt Sullivan who was just polishing the digital ink on his PhD dissertation on the pathways in the brain associated with reward related learning. (Can you see the magic of Famigo being born? Almost?) The finishing touch was when Q and Matt found Cody Powell, uber talented software engineer. Clearly there was going to be some super awesome stuff happening, that stuff is Famigo.

These guys needed some help with their super awesome stuff, so they went out and created a team of incredibly dedicated and determined people. We’ve grown from one dude with an idea to a team of six people who have Famigo fever.

Q Beck, Co-Founder (CEO)

Q Beck co-founded Famigo during the 2nd semester of his MBA program. Q teamed up with Matt Sullivan while they were both interning at the Austin Technology Incubator. They pitched the idea of making mobile work for families during 3 Day Startup weekend and one thing led to another.

Prior to business school, he spent 9 years in the film industry as a development and production executive for numerous companies, including Nickelodeon and DreamWorks. He earned a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Q Beck is of average looks and stature.

Matt Sullivan, Co-Founder (Strategy and Operations)

Matt trained as a brain scientist prior to co-founding Famigo, and although he’s made great strides in his recovery from being a lab rat, he still enjoys running experiments a bit too much. Immediately upon earning his PhD in neuroscience, Matt went to work as an associate at the Austin Technology Incubator where he discovered that the skills he learned as a graduate student were easily extensible to an early stage company. Soon after, Matt, Q, and Cody teamed up to launch Famigo with the help of Capital Factory. Matt was recently married, loves stand up paddling, traveling, and claims he will try almost anything once.

Cody Powell, Co-Founder (Software Genius)

Cody Powell is a cyborg sent from the future to save humanity's software. Okay, not quite. At Famigo, Cody writes a wide variety of software (web, mobile, API, whatever), and also keeps the hamsters inside of our servers from overheating. He thinks a lot about the way we build software and companies, and how we can make both processes faster and more fun. In addition to the software thing, Cody is a proud papa to 1 human (August) and doting husband to another, separate human (Laura). He jams on music, movies, wine, reading, cooking, and punning. He accepts all challenges at the ping pong table or the Settlers of Catan board.

Taylor Fausak

Taylor recently entered the world of professional software development after slinging code for the better part of a decade. He's well-versed in most aspects of web-based programming. Recently, he helped Cisco test voice-over-IP phones, and created an iOS application for Famigo Games. Taylor studied Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin.

Shaun Dubuque

Shaun has worked in everything from high energy storage to autonomous systems modeling. His love of cutting edge innovation brought him to the mobile world, which he sees as a giant playground where high speed processors, network access, sensors, and users combine to reshape how humanity interacts with itself and technology at ludicrous speed — yeah, he thinks mobile development is neat. He counts himself lucky to have found the folks at Famigo who share his passion for neat stuff and worthy causes.

Sarah Combs

Sarah is a word magician, of sorts. From 140 character tweets to blog articles (and any other random copy) she spends way too much time figuring out how to get across a lot of information in very little space. She manages, edits and writes for the Famigo blog, is the informative and (hopefully) sometimes humorous voice behind @Famigo, helps with marketing efforts and generally performs any tasks that the Famigo dudes need done. She has played more preschool learning based Android apps than any other 21 year old, and is working on coming to terms with that.

Parent Advisory Board

You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child?

Well, the same can be said for a small family-based company.

Famigo is our kid, but we’ve found a few moms and dads that want to help us raise it to become a well-rounded, family powered and community centric tool that is dependable and super useful for parents and families everywhere.

These dedicated moms and dads make up what we refer to as the Famigo Parent Advisory Board. They’re parents who have decided to take Famigo under their wing and spread the word about the great things that Famigo has in the works.

As members of the P.A.B. these parents advise Famigo as to what products and ideas work and what doesn’t for families and how we can become an invaluable resource that is made by families, for families.

Carissa Rogers

In a former life, Carissa Rogers was a molecular biologist. In her current life, she is the chief researcher of bloggy karma, parenting dos (and some don'ts), new recipes, and for spice she pretends to be a photographer. She started blogging in February of 2008 and publishes her good & crazy thoughts on GoodNCrazy.com. Also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Andy Robertson

Andy Robertson is a videogame expert who specializes in family gaming. He writes for The Telegraph, The Times, the BBC and runs the GeekDad blog for Wired. He produces the Family Gamer TV show, published on Wired, that offers parents a space to learn and engage with videogames without hype or jargon. He speaks about videogames and culture regularly on Radio 4’s You and Yours program, Greenbelt and at TEDx 2012.

He produces alternative responses to videogames on his Game People website. These take the form of songs, plays, comedies and art that offer a playful and creative way to engage with videogames. The work has appeared nationally in both newspapers and television. Along these lines, his Family Gamer TV show, published on Wired, offers parents a space to learn and engage with videogames without hype or jargon. By featuring real families it uncovers videogames successes and failures as a way to engage parents and children with these experiences.

Mary Heston

Mary is an enthusiastic proponent of using technology to bring families closer together. Blogging for over 15 years, Mary founded StayatHomeMom.com, was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and has spoken to several groups on internet safety, social media and connecting families through technology. Mary has volunteered with Wired Safety, the world's first Internet Safety and Help group for over 10 years. Mary and her husband Tom have 4 amazing kids and have lived in 6 different states and 2 countries. They love travel, video games, reading and staying connected with friends from around the world. Learn more about Mary and keep the conversation going with @maryheston and @wiredmom.

We're Hiring

Art Director

Overview

Famigo currently is a team of hackers and hustlers and we have an opening for a lead designer.

This position is top level. Meaning that you'll be the lead of a growing front-end development team. You'll be first on board and will have the opportunity to build your team as we grow.

More importantly you'll own the design.

You must have previous design experience at a consumer web company — a startup is ideal. You're creative and an artist that uses Photoshop as your primary canvas but enjoys sketching and illustrating as well. When it comes time for a design to go live, you want to be the one to code it so it's done right. Finally, you seek out and implement user feedback to iterate on your designs.

Just to note, this job has nothing to do with game design or iOS.

Responsibilities

• You will own the visual representation of our brand
• Modify / extend / update existing Famigo brand for new product / project
• Begin with mobile website design that will attract early adopters, but can grow into mainstream

Experience

• You've previously worked on design at a consumer web company, but you're ready to bust out and join a startup
• You have a portfolio demonstrating your talent in photoshop, illustration, web design, and user experience design
• You've worn out a pair of Chuck Taylor's — fancy versions ok, but originals preferred
• You can ride a bicycle, clean a fish, or stand up paddle, or pun like a master — preferably all at the same time

Skills

• An artist that can code their own designs in HTML5 / CSS3 / JavaScript
• Understands the constraints of designing for mobile and desktop screens
• Wants to passionately own a brand image and optimize look / feel for conversion goals
• Photoshop / Illustrator

Education

Life has taught you many lessons that you thoughtfully use to guide your design.

Compensation

You will be very well compensated.

If you're interested please email the Famigo team with a link to your portfolio: info@famigo.com.

Front End Web Developer

Overview

Famigo focuses its family lens on choosing, reviewing and rating family friendly apps for the Android and iOS platforms to make browsing and discovering apps a safer and more engaging experience.

You dream in stylesheets, scripts, and markups, but sometimes see the world through Python.

Responsibilities

We push code several times a day, and your responsibility will be to work with our resident metrics master to quickly iterate on everything consumers see on the web

If there's a funnel that needs tracking, an action item that's not feeling the love, or a page that needs SEO juicing — you'll be on top of it

You'll be responsible for what you're best at, but can be part of whatever you're interested in — but whatever you do for Famigo, it'll be done out of your heartfelt desire to add value to a company and a mission that you love

Experience

• Web app development (we're device agonistic — this includes desktop and mobile)
• You've previously worked on design at a consumer web company, but you're ready to bust out and join a startup
• You've worn sandals when you were expected to wear shoes - Birkenstocks count as sandals
• You've played Super Mario Cart for 12 hours straight, jumped off the 10m diving board, biked to work, skied down a hill that was too hard for you, or drank Tabasco straight from the bottle

Skills

• HTML / CSS / JavaScript
• Personal Hygiene
• Smiling
• Python (Django)
• jQuery mobile

Education

• Your favorite categories in Trivial Pursuit are Science & Nature, and either Arts & Literature or Entertainment
• Worldly experience matters more in this case than degree program, school, or hair color.

Compensation

Competitive salary + equity + benefits

If you're interested please get in touch with the Famigo team via email: info@famigo.com.