The first prototype was a printer, a microphone, and a stapler
We built the ugliest possible version to find out whether the idea survived contact with a four-year-old. It did, mostly.
✦ Founding
Why we started MirthTale: an audience of one
Every children's book on the shelf was written for thousands. The reader who matters most to a child is the one sitting next to them tonight.
The idea for MirthTale came from a very ordinary evening. A child on a lap, a picture book open, and a small voice asking why the fox in the story didn't just go home. There was no answer in the book. The author had never met this child and never would. The book was written for a crowd, and the child wanted a story written for her.
That gap is the whole reason MirthTale exists. Publishing needs thousands of readers to justify a book. A child needs exactly one, sitting beside them, willing to read the same pages again tomorrow. When you design for an audience of one, nearly every decision changes.
What changes when the audience is one
You stop worrying about what a story is "about" and start worrying about who is in it. You stop needing a satisfying ending for everyone and start needing an ending the child can argue with. You stop optimising for a first reading and start optimising for the fortieth, because that is where the words stick.
You also stop needing a screen. A child of three does not need infinite content. She needs a familiar book, a familiar voice, and a lot of back-and-forth about why the fox left. A device that made new books would be pointless if it also became the thing the child stared at. So we decided very early that whatever we built, it would end with paper.
The three inputs
We spent our first weeks listening to children tell stories. Most of them offer the same three things, in roughly the same order: who is in it, what goes wrong, and, sometimes, how it ends. Very few offer all three. Almost none offer a setting. So we drew a line. MirthTale would guide a child through a few creative choices, keep every one of them exactly, and use AI to write and illustrate whatever they left open.
Where we are
This month we registered the company in Berlin. We have a plan, a lot of research, and a prototype that is, honestly, a printer with a microphone taped to it. We will write here as we go, including about the things that don't work. If you have a child and an opinion, we would like to hear from you.