- Needs To Exist
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- He Just Wanted His Kid to Sleep - So He Gave a Ceramic Frog Superpowers
He Just Wanted His Kid to Sleep - So He Gave a Ceramic Frog Superpowers
Needs To Exist
August 16, 2025
Some ideas start in a coffee-stained notebook.
Others hatch in Slack threads at 1 a.m. or during a walk when your phone’s about to die.
The builders you’ll meet here didn’t wait for a “right moment.” They tried things. Broke things. Sometimes, accidentally made things people actually wanted.
A few found their spark buried in NTE Pro’s giant vault of “this-should-exist” ideas. Others took the first shaky steps through NTE Zero to One and realized they were already further along than they thought. Most just stumbled forward until the thing in their head existed in the world.
It Exists is where we trace those steps, not as a blueprint, but as proof that the leap is survivable.
And maybe contagious.
It was a Thursday night.
You know the kind.
Books read. Lights off.
And somehow... your kid is doing laps like bedtime’s a rumor.
That was Akshan’s evening.
A designer. A dad. A man outnumbered by tiny humans.
Just trying to get through bedtime without losing his mind.
But the usual stories weren’t cutting it.
Then came the request:
“Tell me a story about that,” he said, pointing to a weird ceramic pot on the shelf.
Frog-shaped lid. Stars painted on the side. Full Etsy energy.
Akshan had done this before. Made stuff up.
But tonight, he was cooked. No gas left. No plot twists in the tank.
He didn’t have a new story. But he had a phone. And an idea.
So he snapped a photo of the pot.
Uploaded it to ChatGPT.
Prompted it for a story.
And it worked. Like... really worked.
He read it aloud. His kid lit up.
And in that moment, one broken bedtime, one sleepy dad, one frog-shaped pot, it hit him:
“What if he could cook the stories himself?”
He Vibe-Coded It Into Reality.
The next morning, Akshan sketched what he had in his head:
Emojis, a big pot, and a giant green button.
“The first thing I did was a quick Figma sketch of the story creation UI. That’s what I fed into Replit.”
Friday: Sketch.
Saturday: First lines of code.
Sunday: It was real.
By Tuesday, his son was dragging emojis and demanding more stories.
“I already had something basic after 2 days to get feedback from my son :)”
His son dragged in a rocket, a donut, and a chicken wearing sunglasses, like it was Pixar meets a grocery list.
Storypot “cooked” a fresh, personalized story on the spot.
✅ Engaged
✅ Excited
✅ Asked for more
And just like that, bedtime became fun again.
Storytime, Remixed by AI and a 5-Year-Old
Here’s what he built:
Kids pick 3–6 emojis
Drop them into a digital pot
Hit the button
Storypot generates a custom story they can read, listen to, save, or share
One parent said their kid now mimics a “stirring the pot” motion when they want a new story.
Another said it saved them during a 4-hour road trip.
And one asked if it could be used for older kids “like a storytime prompt engine for mini screenwriters.”
This wasn’t the plan.
“I was just trying to buy myself five minutes of peace.”
But Storypot turned into something bigger.
A tool that didn’t just entertain, it let kids create.
“It’s actually less about the stories and more about the creation of the story.”
Lesson 1: Build Something Your Future Self Will Thank You For
This wasn’t some calculated launch.
It was a dad, a frog-shaped pot, and a busted bedtime.
“If Storypot never got a single user, it still would’ve been worth it. Because it helped in my house.”
That’s what made it stick.
He wasn’t solving bedtime for the world.
He was solving bedtime for one kid, his own.
And ironically, that’s what made it resonate.
Lesson 2: Think Like a Kid
Adults overcomplicate everything.
Kids don’t.
Akshan’s first product tester wore dinosaur pajamas and didn’t care about UX heuristics.
And that made him the best kind of user.
“They don’t lie. They don’t sugarcoat. They either love it or walk away.”
Kids are the best QA team on earth.
They don’t fake enthusiasm.
They just say, “Again.”
So next time you're stuck debating copy or overthinking UX, do what Akshan did:
Build like a parent.
Test like a 5-year-old.
Lesson 3: Use the Tools That Remove Your Excuses
Akshan had a CS degree, but never felt confident in code.
So he chose tools that lowered the friction:
“Vibe coding has been pretty cool that way.”
He didn’t need to be technical. He just needed to move.
Lesson 4: Ship at 80% and Learn Live
The Stripe integration? He tested it by charging himself.
Auth with Clerk? Still glitchy.
AI agents? Helpful, but often confidently wrong.
“Sometimes the coding agent is very confidently wrong. Rolling back to a previous checkpoint and starting a new thread helped.”
But he kept moving.
“I feel like nothing is ever going to be 100%. Once I realized there was going to be some traction, I was motivated to get it out there.”
Only shipped products get feedback. Everything else is fan fiction.
Perfect doesn’t ship.
Storypot did.
Lesson 5: Distribution isn’t a task. It’s a second build.
The MVP took 5 days. Getting it into the right hands? That’s still ongoing.
“Honestly, the building was easier than the promoting. And I have two kids and a full-time job.”
Lenny’s Newsletter helped drive traffic.
Instagram and LinkedIn helped even more.
But parenting communities? That’s still a nut he hasn’t cracked.
“The question becomes how much conviction do you have to push it past the early stages”
One Ceramic Frog Later…
Storypot now has over 250 signups.
60+ families use it regularly.
Some stories have been turned into a podcast.
He’s even gotten offers from old friends to help expand it.
Not because it’s viral.
But because it’s real.
“My goal is not to make Storypot the next big thing. But building with AI is expensive, and I want to bootstrap this and make it self-sustaining.”
He’s not chasing scale.
He’s chasing meaning.
And in a world full of pitch decks and pre-seed hype, that’s refreshing.
Bonus: A Playground for Parent Builders
Akshan thinks a low-code platform just for parents needs to exist.
Not another no-code startup factory but a cozy sandbox for tiny, meaningful tools built at home.
Less unicorn, more goldfish crackers.
“Honestly, there are so many ideas that don’t get built because the tools aren’t made for this use case.”
He’d use it.
And we probably would too.
What You Can Learn From Storypot
🪄 Build for one real moment
A ceramic frog. A bedtime meltdown. That’s where the best ideas live, not in spreadsheets.
🧒 Think like a kid
Kids are the ultimate product testers: no filters, no fake feedback. If they love it, you’ll know.
🛠️ Use tools that lower the friction
Replit removed 10 steps. Figma unlocked speed. Pick tools that unlock you.
🚀 Ship it at 80%
Real usage beats perfect code. Always.
📦 Distribution is part of the product
Shipping is fun. Getting found is hard. Don’t skip the second half.
Try Storypot or Show Some Love
🧸 app.thestorypot.com — Let your kid cook a story
📸 @the.storypot on Instagram
🎧 Spotify: The Storypot Show
✍️ The Politics of Product Design – Akshan’s Substack
f you’ve got a weird little idea sitting in your notes app...
If you’ve ever tried to buy yourself five minutes of peace...
If you want to build something gentle, useful, and just-for-now…
This is your sign.
Just stir the pot.
Let’s make it exist.
And when you’re ready to chase the next one, you know where to look, NTE Pro for sparks, NTE Zero to One for the shove that gets it moving.
If all else fails, give the frog superpowers.