Our Story

Another rainy afternoon, and the kids were mooching round indoors, demanding to watch YouTube on the TV....again. All our patient explanations about the reasons for banning YouTube fell on deaf ears. Yet another tearful meltdown and cries of 'But Little Johnnie's allowed to watch it in his house'.

Flat on my back with a bout of sciatica, I was watching YouTube myself on a tablet, ( to aggrieved cries from the kids of 'But Dad's allowed to watch it'!!) when I ran across Greg Isenberg's YouTube channel, 'The Startup Ideas Podcast', where he discusses startup ideas & tutorials on on how to use AI to build & grow your business on line.

As I watched, it got me to thinking: what if I could make an app for them which addressed all the issues we had with YouTube - even Kid's YouTube?

And so Tubara was born. I can't say it was as easy as I thought it was going to be, even leveraging the incredible power of AI coding and research to help me. A software professional would probably be horrified at my lack of knowledge and understanding when I began building Tubara. (Back then, it was just 'Daddy's App').

In two months, I've learned about tech stacks, 'front ends' 'back ends' 'databases' , 'UX' (user experience), 'UI' (user interface), internet security, international Data Protection law - the list goes on and on. And I think it needs to be said that, even with AI assistance, building a SaaS (software as a service) 'full stack' app is nowhere near as easy or simple as the hype might suggest! Even now, Tubara is a project in progress rather than a totally finished product, and further improvements / refinements will be added as more people use it and request features.

When I began thinking about the project, it hadn't crossed my mind to try to make a commercial product out of it - I was just trying to relieve my own 'pain point' by providing our own kids with a means to watch YouTube videos without needing constant parental supervision due to incessant advertising and risks of encountering unsuitable viewing material.

Anyhow, if you're trying Tubara out for the first time, I hope your kids enjoy their access to channels they would otherwise miss out on, and you enjoy the temporary peace it brings.