Introducing Esse: Kid logistics, out of your head
A calmer way to stay informed, be prepared, and plan ahead—without reading every school email.
Esse began with a school email I missed.
My daughter was supposed to wear a costume to school for Halloween. The school had sent an email about it, but the message was buried in my inbox, and I didn’t see it in time.
At the time, my wife and I were both working full-time and trying to keep up with everything family life required. Sometimes an update was buried in my inbox. Other times, the information had reached me but hadn’t made it into a place where I would remember to act on it.
An upcoming in-service day was one example. My wife had told me about it, but with everything I was juggling, I hadn’t held onto the detail or turned it into a plan. We still found ourselves making arrangements at the last minute.
There were other versions: an early-dismissal notice I missed and a form I overlooked that my daughter needed to participate in a school celebration of Holi. The problem wasn’t a lack of communication, it was too much still depended on someone noticing the information, putting it somewhere useful, and remembering it at the right time.
When I started talking with Janlyk about this, he recognized it immediately. His two boys both play sports, and coordinating their practices, games, transportation, and last-minute changes had become a constant logistical exercise. He had already been piecing together shared calendars and household displays in search of a better system.
My problem often appeared as an important email I hadn’t seen. Janlyk’s appeared as schedules and changes that were difficult to bring together. Both pointed to the same gap between information arriving and information becoming useful.
We didn’t yet know what the right solution would look like. It took shape through conversations with other parents, early experiments, and learning which kinds of help actually fit into family life.
The work starts after the email arrives
A field-trip email might contain a permission form, payment link, deadline, and change to the normal schedule.
The message has been delivered, but the work isn’t done. A parent still has to recognize what matters, sign the form, save the link, update the calendar, and remember the deadline.
That translation—from information arriving to information becoming useful—is the work that quietly accumulates.
We came to believe that parents need help at three levels: staying informed, being prepared, and planning ahead.
Staying informed means knowing what matters without reading every message. Being prepared means having the relevant form, link, deadline, or calendar detail somewhere useful. Planning ahead means seeing upcoming events and changes early enough to make arrangements.
How Esse took shape
As we spoke with parents and put early versions in their hands, we learned that finding information was only part of the answer.
One beta user put it simply:
“I expect Esse to just nudge me when I need to know something.”
That feedback stayed with us. Parents didn’t want another app they had to remember to check every day—especially when the app was supposed to reduce the number of things they had to remember.
That led us to design Esse around routines parents already have. Relevant events can appear in a dedicated calendar within the Google Calendar account they already use. Esse also provides a proactive daily brief and can nudge a parent when it believes a task or deadline needs attention.
We learned something else that now feels fundamental: every family is a little—or a lot—different.
Their schedules are different. The places their information arrives are different. So are their preferences for how much a product like Esse should do automatically.
Some parents want to review every event before it reaches their calendar. Others are comfortable allowing recognized events to appear automatically. There is no single right way for Esse to fit into family life.
Those lessons—meet parents where they already are, nudge proactively, and leave them in control—shaped Esse into the product we’re launching today.
How Esse works
Esse finds kid-related updates in the Gmail accounts and calendars you choose to connect, then organizes them based on what you need to know, do, or plan for.
Home surfaces your daily brief, personal announcements, and updates worth knowing.
Desk brings together tasks, forms, saved links, payments, and deadlines, ready for you to review and act on.
Planning puts upcoming events, schedule conflicts, and pickup or drop-off plans in one place.
When you need more context, you can ask Esse inside the app. But chat isn’t the main experience. Esse is designed to surface what matters proactively, while giving you a place to review, correct, or catch up when useful.
Help requires trust
Wanting help with inbox overload while feeling cautious about connecting an email account is completely reasonable.
You choose which Gmail accounts and calendars Esse can access. Esse does not request Gmail write access and cannot send emails on your behalf. We do not sell personal data or use email and calendar content to train public or general-purpose AI models.
Esse has also completed a CASA Tier 2 security review for sensitive Google API access. You can disconnect your accounts and request deletion of your Esse data.
Learn more about privacy, account access, and an alternative for parents who prefer a separate kid-logistics Gmail account in our FAQ.
Esse is now available
Esse is now available to parents across the United States.
You can sign up, connect the Gmail accounts and calendars you choose, and see what Esse finds before providing a payment method.
After the initial three-day evaluation period, adding a payment method activates a one-month free trial. Families who join during launch receive our Founding Family price of $9.99/month for their first 12 paid months. After that, the subscription renews at Esse’s then-current standard price, with advance notice.
Esse is still early, and Janlyk and I are continuing to improve its reliability with every round of feedback. We’re focused on something narrower and concrete: reducing the inbox detective work required to stay on top of school, daycare, and activity logistics.
If that sounds familiar, we built Esse for you.
Have questions first? Read our FAQ to learn how Esse works, how we approach privacy, and what to expect when you get started.
—Daniel Wu
Co-founder, Esse
