If you have visited tinyjawns.com this year, you may have noticed it did not change much. That was on purpose. For the last six months we put almost all of our time into two things: the newsletter, and Instagram. Here is what we learned, and where it is taking us.
1. A newsletter worth opening
Email is a simple medium. There is no app, no filters, no swiping. You get one message, once a week, and it either helps you plan your weekend or it does not. That constraint was the point. If we could make a short Thursday email genuinely useful, we would understand what actually matters to parents.
So we went deep. We learned how events really work in Philly: which ones repeat, which ones quietly move or get cancelled, and how the city changes from season to season. We figured out our taste, what makes an event a standout and what makes it an easy, reliable plan, and how to choose picks that work for most families, not just ours.
The newsletter grew from 10 subscribers to nearly 1,000 in six months. Thank you. Every reply, every "this was perfect," and every "this one was a miss" taught us something.
That work became the foundation for everything else. It showed us what a personal feed of events would need to get right, and which signals have to be true before a parent can trust a listing: is it really happening, is it really for my kid's age, is it really where it says.
2. Telling the story on Instagram
The second thing was Instagram: how to reach more parents, and how to tell the story of what is happening around the city. That started where it always has, with us going to the events. We learned what makes a good event, what does not, and what parents actually want to see before they decide to go.
We grew from about 800 followers in mid-February to almost 3,200 today, following along for tips and local event coverage.
Where it is taking us
First, it led us to rebuild the calendar and the party finder
Everything we learned from the newsletter went straight back into the website. We rebuilt the two things parents use most from the ground up:
- The new TinyJawns calendar: what is on any day, built around your time, with your kids' ages and your neighborhood set once.
- The new birthday party finder: real package prices, built for both the spreadsheet planner and the parent who wants to browse until something feels right.
Both work like an app on your phone (here is how to add it). Read the posts above for the full story behind each one.
Then, it led us to our first real premium product
A little honesty: for two years, TinyJawns has not made money. We did it because we love it, and because we wanted it to exist for our own families. (We are always looking for sponsors for the newsletter, by the way. If that is you, here is how it works.)
But now we think we are at a point where we have built something really compelling, shaped by everything above: the events we went to, the picks you opened, and the replies you sent us. It is called Yomi, a smart, personal, shared family calendar. Yomi takes what we learned about finding events and adds what we learned about which events matter to your family, thanks to the feedback so many of you shared with us (yes, including the friendly-but-unhappy replies). It is our first real premium product, and we are excited about it. We will share more soon.
And beyond TinyJawns
Along the way we built a local activities engine that finds, checks and keeps track of what is happening around the city. We think it can be useful well beyond TinyJawns, to other businesses that need to know what is going on in a neighborhood, real estate for example. More to come. If that sounds useful to you, email us at hello@tinyjawns.com.
Thank you
Thank you for opening the emails, replying to them, coming to the events, and telling your friends. Six quiet months on the website were six busy ones everywhere else, and we are excited to finally show you what they were for.
If you are not on the newsletter yet, it is free and comes out every Thursday. And you can find us on Instagram at @tiny.jawn.
Made in Philly, for Philly parents.