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With the start of the school year now under way, 'give your brain a break' is one message from a new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant called Goldee launched by two Melbourne-based entrepreneurs who aim to alleviate parental burnout through technology.
Goldee was developed by Verity Tuck, who co-founded lower and gifting business LVLY which was sold for $35 million almost two years ago, and Mike Fraser, whose venture studio Shadowboxer has taken an equity stake in the startup.
The technology uses AI to summarise child-related emails, group chats and newsletters so parents don’t have to, and automatically creates calendar invites for important events.
Parents can access a single hub to review what’s on for each child – instead of panicked and time-consuming searching of inboxes and messages.
"When running our businesses, we had access to high-quality productivity tools and software and yet when it came to managing our increasingly hectic family lives there was nothing that truly took the load off," Tuck explains.
"Goldee gives parents precious time back in their busy days by letting tech take care of some of the admin.
"Importantly, it means parents don’t miss any of those seemingly smaller events that actually have a big emotional cost – for child and parent. No one wants their kid to be the only one who missed Book Week because their mum or dad missed the memo! Goldee helps prevent that from happening."
Goldee aims to help solve the 'double burden' of work and parenting which is creating overload and time poverty, with associated poorer mental health outcomes and burnout. This particularly affects women who are estimated to carry 70 per cent of the household mental load.
"We've built a talented team of 10 engineers, designers and researchers who have been hard at work building Goldee right alongside parents, using the app day-to-day,” Fraser says.
"Our early users have become reliant on Goldee to automate their schedule and keep them across everything that's going on with their family - that's a hundred less things they have to think about, every week."
Last year LVLY's other co-founder, Hannah Spilva, launched consulting firm Radical Ventures alongside her husband Konrad Spilva to help Australian direct-to-consumer businesses scale from the ground up.
Tuck says she has also invested in a number of startups including Alt. Leather, as well as pro bono work for the Love Me Love You Foundation and consulting and advising in the e-commerce space.
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