The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2009–2010
Tiny Hearts' Pocket Zoo makes kids love it and parents pay — #1 Education app, 2010
Robleh Jama designed Pocket Zoo to do two jobs — entertain kids and earn a parent's purchase — and Apple's feature made it the #1 Education app.
Tiny Hearts
What it had to solve
In 2009 Robleh Jama, who had sold an earlier startup and worked full-time at a large software company, was about to become a father. He wanted a first iPhone app under a studio name he and his wife had just chosen — Tiny Hearts — and he studied App Store hits obsessively to understand why some apps climbed the charts while others vanished.
How it works
In 2009 Robleh Jama was a developer at a large software company, newly married and expecting his first daughter, and newly obsessed with the App Store. Watching Live Cams Pro — an app that streamed public zoo cameras — briefly become the #1 paid app before Angry Birds, he decided to make the best animal app he could, one his own child would love and use.
His core move was to define two jobs before writing code. For children, Pocket Zoo would entertain and educate; for parents, it would buy five quiet minutes — children would love it, parents would pay for it. The result was a "virtual zoo in the pocket": more than 50 original animal illustrations, curated photos, videos and zoo webcams, a zoogeographic map inspired by the Toronto Zoo, and teacher-reviewed facts for every animal. He hired his previous startup's co-founders on contract, added two illustrators, and used an external deadline — a 45-second App Star Awards demo — to focus the team.
Pocket Zoo launched at the end of May 2010, the month his daughter was born, and after an initial lull Apple featured it in June. It reached the top 50 paid apps and briefly the #1 Education app, was runner-up at the App Star Awards, and later drew The New York Times and Wired ("must-have app"). The momentum let Jama leave his corporate job, and the app became the foundation of the Tiny Hearts studio.
Why it lands
- Two jobs, two audiences: children get delight and learning while parents get five minutes of peace — one product creates both a loyal user and a willing buyer.
- Curation instead of a content factory: Pocket Zoo assembled the best existing animal media — photos, videos, live cams — around original illustrations, keeping a small team's scope realistic.
- Design was treated as the marketing: in the App Store, looks decide whether an app gets featured, so the team spent on illustration, branding and a promo video, not launch promotion.
- An external deadline (the App Star Awards demo) gave a small hired team something concrete to ship for, and the runner-up result seeded press and connections.
What it did
Apple featured Pocket Zoo in June 2010; it reached the top 50 paid apps and briefly the #1 Education app, was runner-up in the App Star Awards, and drew coverage in The New York Times — Wired called it a "must-have" app. The momentum convinced Jama to quit his corporate job and run Tiny Hearts full-time.
What you can take
Before building, write down the job the product does for the user and the different job it does for the buyer — an app children love to use and parents love to buy has its sales pitch built in.
Since then
Pocket Zoo's revenue stayed uneven after launch, so Jama turned Tiny Hearts into a hybrid studio: own apps plus paid client work, whose cash flow made bootstrapping less stressful and reduced reliance on investors. Later products included Wake Alarm (#1 in its App Store category), Quick Fit (featured in an Apple commercial) and NextKeyboard (#2 overall paid app); by late 2015 the studio counted over a dozen staff and contractors. Tiny Hearts was acquired by Shopify in 2016, and Pocket Zoo was eventually retired — "the foundation that we built the rest of our apps and services business on".
Sources
- How I Quit My Job and Built My First App
- How I Quit My Job and Built My First App (Hacker News discussion)
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card