Submitted
Early Childhood Development

Hoop

Team Leader
Daniel Bower
Solution overview
Our Solution
Hoop
Tagline
Helping families discover programmes of activities in their community
Pitch us on your solution

Across the globe there are programmes of activities designed to help a child's development in the early years. Breastfeeding groups, story time, sing and sign, weighing sessions and post natal support groups all contribute positively to a child's life during this crucial moment. Access to information about these programmes is universally poor however. Word of mouth is the primary method of discovery, which, as well as limiting choice, and lacking structure, means that families without sufficient social capital are left with few options.


Hoop is a free smartphone app that lists everything happening for children locally. Hoop utilises technology to provide the user with a comprehensive list of activities, all of which are personalised and age appropriate. In the UK Hoop lists over 100,000 activities each week.


On a global scale Hoop would help the 600M children under the age of five who can benefit from these vitally important programmes.

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What is the problem you are solving?

Across the globe there are early years programmes run by a mixture of local and national government, charities, religious groups and small businesses for the benefit of children.

However, gaining access to information about these activities is a regular problem. A study of Sure Start in the UK found that nearly a quarter of parents weren't aware of their local centre. Similarly changes in funding status, timetable alterations and venue closures mean that information about these programmes is regularly out of date. In the UK cuts to the family information service mean that it is often the case that no central information resource exists for parents and carers.

Information gaps such as this leads to an under-utilisation of these critical services. Word of mouth becomes the most likely means of discovery which advantages those with high levels of social capital or the confidence required to go out and find them. Where someone is isolated within their community these problems are even more pronounced.

Hoop's aim is to solve this problem by providing a free and universally accessible information service that is kept up-to-date using a mixture of technological innovation and human oversight.

Who are you serving?

Hoop is making an impact on the lives of children and their carers throughout the UK. The nature of our product means we reach families across the socio-economic spectrum; recent analysis showed that approximately 19% of Hoop's users are "income deprived" which puts us in line with national averages.

Hoop's origins lie in hundreds of conversations with families about the challenges they faced when trying to find programmes for their children. This insight allowed us to begin beta testing the app and refine it based on the feedback we received.


Hoop is built using the agile framework that demands regular interaction with our customer base. The decision to develop a section of the app devoted to activities for children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) is an example of this.


Similarly regular customer surveys allow us to gain quick feedback on the popularity of recently updates to the app, and unexpected behavioural changes.


Anonymised analytics data is also of vital importance, and is often the catalyst for new avenues of research and exploration.

What is your solution?

Hoop is actually three software services in one:

  • Hula, our proprietary database that manages over 100,000 activities per week.
  • Hoop, a free smartphone application used by parents and carers to discover activity programmes for children.
  • Hoop for Organisers, our platform used by activity organisers to engage with our audience of parents and carers.

Each service works in tandem to allow Hoop to operate successfully.

At its core Hoop is an information service meaning that parents and carers install our app to get access to the data we have stored. Hula is critical to this as it allows us to manage a unique and regularly changing database of children's activities. Hula itself is a Javascript application that sits in front of a series of microservices all of which are hosted by Amazon Web Services. Hula is used by Hoop's in-house operations team, and our remote team, who collectively enable us to monitor the quality of our data throughout the day.

If Hula is the database of children's activity programmes, Hoop is the client by which families access that data. Hoop is a free smartphone application for iOS and Android that gives the user a personalised list of activities to search through. Because all of Hoop's data is structured effectively, families are able to search for an activity based on its recommended age, but also by category, venue, customer rating and time of day. For some activities the family can also book directly through the app, and therefore make use of digital ticketing and payment where necessary. Hoop is built natively for iOS and Android, meaning it's programmed in Java and Swift respectively. For two years running the iPhone app was selected by Apple as an "App of the Year".

Hoop for Organisers is the final piece of our platform. Hoop for Organisers allows anyone running a children's programme to market themselves to our audience of parents and carers. Much like Yelp, or Google Maps, using Hoop for Organisers an organiser can 'Claim their Listing' and begin to populate it with additional content such as photos, team profiles, customer testimonials and more. Hoop for Organisers is also critical to Hoop's commercial success as it is through Hoop for Organisers and our ticketing service that we monetise the product. Hoop for Organisers is currently used by over 13,000 organisations across the UK.

Select only the most relevant.
  • Enable parents and caregivers to support their children’s overall development
  • Prepare children for primary school through exploration and early literacy skills
Where is your solution team headquartered?
London, UK
Our solution's stage of development:
  • Growth
More about your solution
About your team
Your business model & funding
Partnership potential
Solution Team:
Daniel Bower
Daniel Bower
Co-founder and CEO