Launchpad Toys YC Application

Summer 2011Acquired

Launchpad Toys went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2011 batch as a Consumer company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Summer 2011
Industry: ConsumerGaming
Team size: 2
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Thushan AmarasiriwardenaFounder
Andy RussellFounder

What Launchpad Toys does

We're creating digital toys and tools that empower kids to create, learn & share their ideas through play. Give a young child a couple of toys or a box of crayons and he or she is likely to play for hours, deeply engrossed in an imaginary world. In both art and dramatic play, children construct settings, create fictional characters, and act out fantastic storylines that would be the envy of many Hollywood scriptwriters. Yet, ask that same child to write out a story in a blank notebook or a word processor and you would be lucky to capture a fraction of the depth and splendor of his or her imagination. Play inspires and scaffolds the creative process from an early age, but there is a persistent gap between the origins of imaginative play (ages 4-5) and kids' adoption of the formal discipline of creative writing (ages 8-10). At Launchpad Toys, we're using mobile devices like the iPad to bridge this gap between informal and formal learning, to harness the power of play to help children capture and share their ideas with other kids around the world. Our first product, Toontastic an app for the iPad, is a creative learning tool that blends constructionist and social development theories to empower young children to create, learn, and share their ideas through play.

Launchpad Toys's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Launchpad Toys, Summer 2011 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Launchpad Toys

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Creativity at play with tablet toys

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We're building Toontastic, an iPad app that lets kids create animated stories by drawing, narrating, and moving characters. It helps kids capture their imagination by turning play into digital storytelling, bridging the gap between early play and formal creative writing.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in San Francisco, CA and the company would be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we live and work, close to tech talent and early users interested in tablet toys for kids.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Launchpad Toys YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Launchpad Toys's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Launchpad Toys would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.