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- She Built a Bedtime Ritual for Her Daughter. Then Shared It With the World.
She Built a Bedtime Ritual for Her Daughter. Then Shared It With the World.
Needs To Exist
August 02, 2025
In partnership with
Yesterdays idea of the day was about bedtime rituals.
Today, we’re showing you what happens when someone doesn’t just read an idea…
They run with it and make it their own.
Welcome to It Exists, your weekend proof that action beats perfection.
Some builders start with a spark from NTE Pro (our database of 4,500+ startup ideas).
Others skip the overthinking and partner with us through NTE Zero to One to build their MVP with real support.
But Harshitha?
She saw a need, trusted her gut, and brought her own bedtime-inspired idea to life, without waiting for permission.
Here’s what she built. And what you might build next.
Some nights she told a story.
Some nights she sang.
Most nights, she defaulted to whatever was easy.
Until one night, Harshitha put her daughter to bed and realized something:
“I’m missing the most important five minutes of the day.”
That was the moment Stories of Life began.
It’s not just another AI app.
It’s a ritual, one that turns a child’s emotion or curiosity into a personalized bedtime story, in seconds.
She built it for herself.
Then for her daughter.
Then for the parents who also want to show up even when they’re tired, out of words, and stretched thin.
A Parent. A Builder. A Systems Mind with a Poet’s Heart.
Harshitha isn’t a dev.
She started her career building automotive diagnostic systems in MATLAB and Simulink.
Then she pivoted into product.
Led teams in EdTech, FinTech, and AI SaaS.
Laid off recently and instead of sitting still, she built five apps in three months including a recruiter chatbot, a creative learning coach, and Stories of Life.
Because when AI became accessible, something clicked.
“Suddenly, I could validate ideas myself, not just scope them. I could answer the question every PM lies awake thinking about: Is this actually valuable?”
That shift turned her into a solo builder.
But Stories of Life wasn’t just her next build.
It was her most personal one.
Lesson 1: Start With What Haunts You Softly
The best ideas aren’t loud.
They’re gentle. Persistent. Inconveniently emotional.
For Harshitha, it was bedtime.
Her dad used to tell her stories to teach lessons.
No lectures, just narratives. They landed deeper. Stayed longer.
She wanted that same magic for her daughter… but didn’t have the library or energy to pull it off night after night.
Until one night, the question stuck:
“What if I’m not the only parent who believes in storytelling, but just needs help delivering it?”
She opened up Bolt. Skipped the wireframes.
Built the first version in 3 days. Refined it over the next 10.
It worked.
“My daughter sat up as soon as I said, ‘Ready for your story?’ That’s when I knew.”
The Stack That Let It Happen
Harshitha wasn’t optimizing for elegance, she was optimizing for emotion.
She used tools that let her move fast without friction:
This wasn’t hobby hacking.
It was systems thinking, applied to connection.
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Lesson 2: Don’t Ship Features. Ship Feelings.
Most builders worry about features.
Harshitha worried about feelings.
She didn’t just prompt OpenAI to spit out stories, she shaped them. Gently. Obsessively. Like editing poetry at midnight.
“80% of my time went into refining the story prompt, not the UI.”
She tested each story on her daughter. If the characters didn’t feel safe, warm, or wise it was back to the drawing board.
This wasn’t MVP shipping.
It was emotional tuning.
She knew the UX wasn’t polished. The UI wasn’t pixel-perfect.
But the impact was.
“I knew where the rough edges were. But the soul of the app was already landing.”
That’s the real unlock:
You don’t need perfect design.
You need emotional fidelity.
If a 3-year-old lights up and says “again,”
you’ve already won.
Lesson 3: Don’t Chase Signups. Chase the “Aha” Moment.
When Stories of Life was featured in Lenny’s Newsletter, over 100 people signed up.
But most never came back.
Why? Because signups don’t mean anything if users never reach the moment where it clicks.
“I followed up with new users. Most didn’t respond. I don’t think many of them even made it to their first story.”
But the few parents who did?
They lit up.
They told her how their kid asked for the same fox story again.
Or how they, as parents, processed their own emotions while reading.
That’s not traffic.
That’s traction.
The insight?
Real product validation doesn’t happen at sign-up.
It happens at the moment a user says, “I needed this.”
So stop obsessing over launch metrics.
Instead, ask:
What is the emotional “click” in this product?
How do I make sure people get to it fast?
And how do I know when they’ve truly felt it?
“The signal wasn’t in the number. It was in the story they asked for again.”
What You Can Learn From Harshitha
🕯 Start with what haunts you softly
If it keeps coming back at bedtime, during walks, or in your dreams, that’s the one.
✍️ Craft with emotional precision
Your prompt isn’t a tool. It’s the product. Refine it like it matters, because it does.
🎨 Emotional UX > Pixel polish
Don’t wait for perfect. Wait for it to feel right. That’s your launch point.
📶 Signal isn’t always volume. Sometimes it’s a whisper.
If one child feels seen, if one parent shows up more present, that’s not small. That’s sacred.
Where She’s Headed Next
Harshitha’s not done.
She’s exploring how to bring timeless Indian stories, the wit of Tenali Ramakrishna, the wisdom of the Panchatantra, the moral complexity of the Bhagavad Gita into modern emotional rituals for kids.
“Not as textbooks. As experiences. As bedtime stories with real heart.”
The Next Idea That Feels Bigger Than Tech
There’s an idea she keeps circling.
Not a product. Not a feature.
A conversation with someone who’s no longer here.
“What if we could train a model that thinks like someone we’ve lost?”
Not mimic their voice. Not quote their writing.
But reflect their lens. Their pauses. The way they would’ve helped you think something through.
For Harshitha, that person is her father.
She’s not sure it’s even possible.
Or if it should be.
But if someone could build it, ethically, intentionally, it wouldn’t just be another AI use case.
“That wouldn’t be tech. That would be sacred.”
She may build it one day.
Or maybe someone else will.
But for now, it’s a question she holds close.
Not as a pitch.
As a prayer.
Try Stories of Life — or Just Steal the Ritual
👉 Open Stories of Life — the nightly ritual that makes reflection feel sacred
👉 Explore her builds — see what else Harshitha’s creating
👉 Reach out to Harshitha — say hi or collaborate
Harshitha didn’t wait for a greenlight.
She had a daily ritual, a quiet moment, and the urge to turn it into something more.
Now it’s real. And people are using it.
Here’s what we believe:
You don’t need to quit your job.
You don’t need to know how to code.
You just need to build the version you wish existed.
Not sure where to start?
NTE Pro gives you 4,500+ startup ideas you can actually run with — no fluff, just real GTM and monetization
NTE Zero to One pairs you with us to turn that idea into an MVP, fast, hands-on, and zero guesswork
Whether it’s bedtime rituals or bold ideas in your notes app…
This weekend is wide open.
Let’s make it exist.
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