littleScreen: Parent-Curated Screen Time

Full-stack web app replacing YouTube rabbit holes with algorithm-free, parent-verified playlists organized by real-life moments.

Product Manager & Engineer — Product Design, Full-Stack Development, Auth, Deployment

Next.js

Supabase

TypeScript

Tailwind CSS

Framer Motion

Vercel

Zero

Algorithms

None

Ads or autoplay

Parent-only

Curation model

Full-Stack

Stack

The Problem

Parents struggle with screen time guilt because YouTube and Netflix are algorithm-driven engagement traps. There's no trusted, community-driven alternative — no way to find content that's appropriate, age-matched, and actually works for a specific moment like a long flight, bedtime wind-down, or a sick day at home.

The Solution

Built littleScreen — a full-stack Next.js + Supabase app where parents discover and share content that actually worked. Playlists are organized by moments (bedtime, flights, sick days, calm-down), curated by real parents, with zero ads, zero algorithms, and zero autoplay. Includes a community 'What Worked' feed, personal playlist library, and moment-based content discovery.

Screenshots

Homepage — Moment-based discovery & community feed

Discover — 500+ parent-verified videos by moment & age

Playlists — Community-curated playlist library

Community — What Worked For My Kid feed

Product Artifacts

Live Site

Try it live

Open

GitHub

Source code

View

Case Study

Context

Parents are bombarded with screen time guilt — but the real problem isn't time, it's the lack of trusted, curated alternatives to YouTube and Netflix.
Existing options (YouTube Kids, Common Sense Media) either still have algorithms and ads, or require heavy manual research with no community signal.
The core insight: parents already share 'what worked' in WhatsApp groups and Reddit threads — there was no structured product for that knowledge.
Target moment: a parent with 10 seconds to decide what to put on for their toddler — they need instant, trusted, moment-specific answers.

Decision

Organized content by 'moments' (bedtime, flight, sick day, calm-down) rather than categories — because parents think in situations, not genres.
Built a community 'What Worked' feed instead of star ratings — honest 'worked / didn't work' feedback is more useful than aggregated scores.
Chose Supabase for auth and data — real-time subscriptions enabled live playlist save state with no extra infrastructure.
Scoped MVP to discover → save → share flow and cut creator upload, in-app video hosting, and notification systems from v1.
Used JWT-based session management with an onboarding gate to ensure every user gets age/interest-matched content from day one.

Execution

Designed and built the full product solo: discovery page, playlist library, community feed, profile, auth, and onboarding flow.
Built moment-based content taxonomy with emoji-tagged moment cards (🛏 Bedtime, ✈️ Long Flight, 🤒 Sick Day) for instant visual scanning.
Implemented Supabase auth with custom JWT cookie-based sessions and a Next.js middleware gate for onboarding completion.
Shipped save/unsave playlist with optimistic UI and Supabase real-time sync — state persists across sessions without page reload.
Built the 'What Worked' community feed with parent stories and embedded YouTube resources — no external platform embeds beyond YouTube.
Deployed on Vercel with environment-variable-managed Supabase credentials and middleware proxy for auth routing.

Outcome

Shipped a production-ready, full-stack web app end-to-end as a solo PM + engineer.
Zero-algorithm, zero-ads content model validated through user feedback from parents in target demographic.
Moment-based UX reduces parent decision fatigue compared to genre-based or search-first alternatives.
Auth + onboarding flow successfully gates personalized content delivery from first session.

Learnings

The product IS the curation model — the decision to organize by moments rather than categories was a positioning decision as much as a UX one.
Trust is the core value proposition. Every design decision (no ads, no autoplay, parent-only reviews) had to signal trustworthiness, not just functionality.
Onboarding gates are worth the friction — collecting age and interest data upfront made moment-matching genuinely useful rather than generic.
Building full-stack solo sharpened PM instincts: every trade-off between scope and quality became a first-person decision with real consequences.

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