Mobile App Success Story: Otsimo

Every Monday we talk about great apps and today we want to present you a very special creation meant to help children with autism. Otsimo provides the necessary ABA education through games designed for kids with attention deficit and speech problems. Let’s discuss a little more about this wonderful solution.

Brilliant Idea

Otsimo is a Turkish startup founded by Hasan Zafer Elcik and Sercan Değirmenci. Because Hasan’s brother was diagnosed with autism, he wanted to help him. Although he couldn’t talk, the 13 – year – old boy showed an interest in Hasan’s phone. After buying him a tablet, Hasan noticed that there weren’t too many apps created for kids with special needs. That was the moment when Hasan and Sercan decided to build Otsimo. As a result, in just three months after using Otsimo, Alper, Hasan’s brother was able to read and write and started the school at the same time as other children without autism. Since then, the app is available for free on Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

How Otsimo Did It

The real goal of Otsimo is not acquiring all types of users but to reach the right audience and to improve the lives of those small ones who really need it. We will see the methods adopted so far for achieving that.

Kids And Parents

For parents, it is very painful to see their children suffering and the frustration is even higher when there aren’t many solutions for helping them. In this case, treatment for autism costs too much and a lot of families can’t afford to pay for obtaining professional support or to integrate autistic kids in schools that can offer them assistance. For this reason, Otsimo was designed for children and parents at the same time. Little users have their section with games that allow them to develop their skills and parents are able to observe their children’s evolution and to change the settings according to their progress. When building education apps it is very important to involve parents and teachers but for Otsimo was crucial to allow parents to access their kids’ program.

Professional Help

It is not enough to realize that an app would help autistic kids. Additionally, to computer science, professional knowledge plays an important role in the whole process. When you want to provide solutions that will help children with autism you need experts in this domain. Before building Otsimo, Hasan received a certification in ADHD from the State University of New York and a certification in autism from the UC Davis Mind Institute. Moreover, Otsimo’s creators collaborated with Tohum Autism Foundation, which is the biggest autism organization in Turkey for creating these special games. We need to mention here that Apple celebrates Autism Acceptance Month every year in April. In a special page, the giant company gathers all the services that can help people with autism and Otsimo was also featured in Autism Education Apps due to its revolutionary way to attract kids diagnosed with this disorder.

Artificial Intelligence

Since we already talked about humans, it is time to pay a little attention to computers. Without innovative technology, it is nearly impossible to find the right solutions when you want to create powerful tools for helping children. Otsimo is based on data mining and machine learning for providing the statistics used by parents for learning about their children’s evolution. It is known the fact that the sooner they start the therapy the better will be for their kids. When the system discovers some struggles in the way little users interact with the app it sends a report to the parents offering a method for optimizing the game. In the same time, the app represents a great solution for distracting autistic kids from repetitive behavior.

Impressive Landing Page

We also need to highlight that Otsimo’s official website has all the required elements for providing the necessary information about the app. The title chosen convinces families with autistic kids that the app is specially created for them and from the start they are able to download the app or to send the link via SMS. On the same page, viewers can find the most important features of Otsimo along with a preview video which explains its utility. Testimonials and statistics about autism are also here. The blog is frequently updated with useful articles about problems associated with autism and it offers various types of solutions for these issues.

Bonus Tip: When You Build Education Apps Find That Special Pricing Model Which Fits Your Business

Now, it is time to discuss a more delicate topic when it comes to build an education app. It is very hard to find the right business model when you create a product for kids, especially an app for children with special needs. And this is also the challenge faced by Otsimo’s creators. Actually, the goal isn’t to increase their revenues but to maintain the app available and to make sure that it will be discovered by their target audience. In fact, Otsimo is one of the three winners of our New Year’s Resolutions Campaign because its owners are constantly searching for solutions to increase the visibility of their app. Otsimo is free for the little ones and it offers premium options for parents who want to enhance the control over their kids’ evolution. In the same time, there is a section on the official site which describes the reasons why parents are asked to pay for subscriptions. We all have to understand that this is a small price to pay for allowing this development team to continue with their mission.

Final Thoughts

Well, who knew that mobile industry can provide these amazing solutions? Not by itself, of course. Extraordinary apps are built by extraordinary people and Otsimo is a good example because its main purpose is to make autism treatment more affordable for everybody. Actually, we just want to say that Otsimo is a well-designed app specially created for a wonderful cause! Great job!