The household social networking app Life360, which depends on location-sharing to assist customers keep linked, is constructed, partly, to offer mother and father peace of thoughts. So maybe it is no shock that the corporate sees an uptick in registrations and utilization round this time of yr with back-to-school season — and all the anxiousness that comes with it — in full swing.
The corporate reported a roughly 30% registration leap within the weeks of August 15 and August 22 final yr and one other 30% improve in returning month-to-month energetic customers who’d had the app for 30 days or extra.
Life360 co-founder and CEO Chris Hulls deferred his spot at Harvard Enterprise Faculty to launch the corporate again in 2008, initially impressed through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when so many individuals weren’t capable of finding their relations.
“It was proper when Fb was getting huge with the social community, [and] LinkedIn was getting huge with the skilled community, and everybody was making an attempt to determine the way to deliver households on-line. And we realized [that safety could be] the way in which of serving digitally native households,” Hulls tells Entrepreneur.
When Hulls approached enterprise capitalists about Life360, he confronted criticism on two fronts: They did not assume youngsters would ever have smartphones and believed location-sharing was “creepy.” However Hulls did not hand over. Life360 ultimately obtained funding and have become the large is at this time, surpassing 50 million month-to-month energetic customers earlier this yr.
Even now, the corporate is “ignored” relative to its measurement, Hulls says.
However only a few years in the past, again in 2019, a really particular subset was taking a look at Life360 — and at Hulls himself. Youngsters on TikTok weren’t followers of the granular entry Life360 gave their mother and father to their lives, they usually had a bone to select with its founder.
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Hulls recounts the “comic story” that really led to the event of a brand new Life360 characteristic.
“His child mentioned, ‘He is a TikTok man.’ And I used to be like, ‘No, I do not even have TikTok.'”
“The primary time I heard about something happening I used to be at a pal’s home,” Hulls remembers. “He was older than me, had youngsters, and his child mentioned, ‘He is a TikTok man.’ And I used to be like, ‘No, I do not even have TikTok. What are you speaking about?'”
That is when Hulls discovered he was the topic of a meme making the rounds. Youngsters needed to know who began Life360, and as soon as they found it was Hulls, they made his headshot the background of their movies whereas they carried out skits that vilified him set to completely different sounds and music.
Though Life360’s president Alex Haro can also be the corporate’s co-founder, he wasn’t caught up within the TikTok storm.
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At first, Hulls did not assume a lot of the movies, although he hoped nobody would take it too far. All of it simply appeared like a joke. Then the teenagers’ ways shifted. They began leaving Life360 one-star evaluations in Apple’s app retailer, mistakenly believing their efforts may get it eliminated altogether.
A “tidal wave” adopted. It wasn’t simply teenagers having enjoyable anymore — “There was a bandwagon about how evil Life360 is, and it was really spreading to mum or dad influencers, and we have been like, ‘Okay, we have to do one thing right here.'”
“We mentioned, ‘Properly, how can we show that we’re right here for you?'”
Hulls needed to make it clear that Life360 wasn’t about “monitoring,” although he additionally understood that might come off as “company communicate.”
“Critically, we’re not a monitoring app,” Hulls says. “Sure, it is actually maps, however when used correctly, we’re providing you with independence, and it ought to really be a method that your mother and father [can] give [you as a teen] extra freedom.”
Hulls took to TikTok Dwell to set the document straight and shatter the “actually straight-laced” picture individuals had of him. He shared tales from his previous, just like the time he was expelled from Catholic college, describing himself as “the final word free-range child.” He’d by no means thought that over-controlling mother and father would flip what he’d constructed into one thing so damaging.
“Then, as a part of that simply humanizing me and the corporate, we mentioned, ‘Properly, how can we show that we’re right here for you?'” Hulls remembers.
After crowdsourcing among the many teenagers, Hulls got here up with the “Bubbles” characteristic. It is an non-compulsory method to customise location sharing to your “Circle,” or group of customers. With the “Bubble” in place (set for an up-to-25-mile vary), solely an approximate location is viewable. However the “Bubble” will “burst” within the case of a automobile crash or different emergency, and any group member can toggle it off if there is a security concern.
@life360ceo Bubbles demo mode is now reside solely for TikTok customers! Tell us what you assume. #life360 #banlife360 #fyp ♬ Classical Music – Classical Music
“Your mother and father can see you are still inside a given area, however not high quality grain,” Hulls explains. “[And we were] stunned at how effectively it labored. We have been in a position to utterly change the narrative and truly had teenagers advocating for us the place it is like, ‘Hey, do not blame Life360, blame the mother and father who’re going overboard.'”
“It is a method of graduating to the subsequent stage of life.”
Not solely was the dialogue impressed by TikTok in a position to “shift sentiment” towards Life360 in a constructive method, however it additionally served as the corporate’s stepping stone “into the mainstream,” Hulls says.
The truth is, Hulls considers the chain of occasions that led to the brand new characteristic “the most important turnaround” Life360’s ever had. Usership’s been ramping up since then, and the app is on 13% of all iPhones within the nation now, Hulls says, including that “there aren’t many apps larger than us.” And TikTok now “drives important constructive site visitors” for the corporate.
What’s extra, a brand new report from Life360, which surveyed 1,200 adults throughout the U.S., discovered that 89% of People say their life advantages from location-sharing — and 94% of Gen Z respondents agreed. “Protected” is the primary phrase that involves thoughts for 66% of Gen Z when occupied with location-sharing, per the analysis.
Life360 “weirdly” ended up precisely the place Hulls at all times envisioned it’d — “however larger.” After all, it was extra of a day by day “slog” and fewer of an in a single day success (“and it is nonetheless a slog daily,” Hulls quips). However the co-founder’s at all times been fascinated by how issues can transfer “slowly then abruptly,” as was the case with Life360’s trajectory.
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Immediately, as a mum or dad with two daughters of his personal, Hulls understands firsthand how back-to-school season is a “new period” stuffed with change, one that features further obligations and privileges. Hulls is happy to see Life360 proceed to play an essential position in growing independence.
“We have gotten a part of that ceremony of passage,” Hulls says, “the place [kids are going to] get this new set of freedoms, this fancy new telephone. And this can be a method of graduating to the subsequent stage of life. [Life360 is] entrance and heart in that.”
