Interactive stories for children
The French startup Lulu & Kroy uses a chatbot to tell interactive stories for children. Parents can read out the stories and the children are able to choose between characters, different endings and other details
Nina arrives at Tortoise Island, which is a beautiful island in the Caribbean islands where the sailors at the inn tell exciting stories about pirates and the Seven Seas.
One day, a sailor with a big grey beard comes in and shows them his scars. She counts them - how many scars are there? Three, four or five?
Stories with options
Lulu & Kroe's magical world of stories allows the children themselves to decide how the stories will continue. They can also choose if the main character should be called Nina or Tom.
Our pirate stories are the most popular. The stories have been read by over a thousand people, says Lucas Miallet, one of the founders of the French startup.
He comes from Paris but is currently on an exchange programme at SDU. Lucas is responsible for the technical part, which involves setting the story parts up in the chatbot so that the children can choose between options.
Many parents use the bot for reading stories to their children. We write and set up 2-3 new stories a month, he says.
From chatbot to physical book
Entrepreneurs would like to nudge children towards reading physical books. This may sound strange seeing as they make digital stories but there is a simple explanation:
-We have discovered that children and parents are more likely to buy the physical book once they have read the story online, says Lucas.
-We would therefore also like to collaborate with publishers, as we see an opportunity for them in this area. They would be able to expand their universes with well-known children's book characters.
The startup has been in place since February and consists of three founders and some freelancers who create graphics and drawings for the stories.
We know have a dozen stories and are working on incorporating even more stories and interactive possibilities within them.
- One of the most important things for us at the moment is to create a payments module so that users can pay for the stories they read, explains Lucas.
- We would like to charge EUR 6 for a story and EUR 35 for a series of stories.
Not just writing and drawing
The idea to make the stories was inspired by a friend who always took the children away for the weekend without having their books with them.
When the books are available on the telephone they will always have them.
Each story contains a little moral so that the parents and children can discuss various topics. What it means to be a good friend for example.