My First Five Years

Helping parents to marvel in the moments, not just the milestones.

ProductMy First Five Years app

HQManchester, UK

SectorEdTech

Size2,600 skills and activities

Client since2021

Services

App optimisation and conversion

Discovery

Innovation

Mobile app development

Key achievements

Revolutionary child development app for parents, carers and educators
Recommendations based on child’s individual needs not age
More than 1,000 users in the first month of app launch
Complex content problem solved with tech expertise and intuitive UI
4.9-star app rating and featured in ‘Our Favourites’ in the App Store

What you need to know

My First Five Years is on a mission to change the face of parenting. The start-up business collaborated with Apadmi to create a platform capable of collating thousands of child development insights while delivering an intuitive experience for busy, time-poor parents and carers.

Using scientific research to create individual recommendations, rather than age-related generalisations, the My First Five Years app makes complex knowledge accessible, without dumbing it down. It enables users to self-select a level of detail which is right for them with just their thumb (and potentially a child on one hip).

An MVP was extensively tested and subsequently endorsed by an 1,100 strong test group of parents before launch. The output is scientific information in parents’ hands, distilled in parent-friendly language, helping them to see their children differently and create a better experience as their child develops.

Apadmi has been key to the development of My First Five Years and its people are smart and straight-talking. The team has collaborated with us to deliver on our vision of creating a product which distills 50 years of child development knowledge into an intuitive, easy-to-use app.

Jennie Johnson MBE Co-Founder and CEO, My First Five Years

How we moved the market

The My First Five Years app has had a fantastic response since its release in early 2022, with 1,000 users in the first month and great recognition from Apple who called it a “great tool for parents” when featured in ‘our favourites’ on the App Store.

The app has successfully removed the complexity of guiding parents through the unique small steps of their child’s early years development and has been brilliantly received by the sector. Parents, childminders and early years teachers are all using the app to support them in their interactions and nursery practitioners are even noticing the impact of having parents better informed about child development.

Next steps include ongoing optimisation of functionality and visibility. The integration of AI is being worked on to enable the app to learn from parents’ interactions and be better at predicting a child’s progression, alongside further work to grow the app’s user base across the UK.