The Co-Parenting App That Filters Conflict | Sol Kennedy Interview #coparenting #parenting

Hey everyone, this is Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper. Uh, really happy to be joined by Sol Kennedy. How are you, Sol?

I'm doing great, Scott. Thanks for having me on today.

Yeah, this is going to be a fun chat, I think. So, uh, you are the founder of Best Interests app, correct?

That's right, that's me.

And you've done some other, uh, kind of tech investing in the past? Is that kind of your background?

Yeah, I would say that I am an entrepreneur first. I love starting businesses. I started my first when I was 14. So I'm always interested in solving the world's problems through software.

Nice. I can't get my car to even open anymore. So software to me is always a little iffy. But But if when it works, it works great, right?

That's right.

On my— I have a new car and it's supposed to open with the phone and I carry the key. And whenever I go to open the door, it doesn't unlock. And I'm like, why?

You know, as things get more complicated software-wise, then our lives do seem to get a little bit more complicated. As much as we try to make it easier, sometimes we get in our own way.

We need to get a degree to figure out how to work this thing. Um, but yeah, uh, tell— I mean, so you, you're about— you came into the— it's a co-parenting communication app, um, and you came into this space due to, you know, personal experience, right? Or can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, I mean, Scott, if, if you had told me 6 years ago that I would be starting an app for co-parents that was changing their lives, I would have laughed at you because I wasn't a co-parent at that time. And, uh, you know, it was It was a foreign world, and and yet having gone through the experience of co-parenting and how really challenging it can be to manage that type of relationship, especially when things are heated or you're going through a family court battle. My gosh, like it can really get off the rails really quickly. And you know, I have if I can tell you a story. I have this. Memory of when it kind of began, this insight. And here I was, maybe about, I don't know, a few months into separation. It was fresh. I was in my new place. I was lying in bed and I got this ding on my phone and I knew immediately it wasn't a text ding. It wasn't an email ding. It was a ding from OurFamilyWizard. And that's a co-parenting app I'm sure you're familiar with. And, and in that moment, I felt my heart race. I felt sweat on my brow. And I knew that there was no way that I was going to be able to fall asleep without checking to see what was behind that. And then I probably wouldn't be able to fall asleep because I knew that the message probably was going to get me in my head about how to respond and what to do. And it was in that moment that I realized that I needed to do something about this because. It just wasn't a good situation to be in for wanting to start the next chapter of my life, wanting to develop a, a good co-parenting relationship, and then also just to be present with my kids, which is so important to me. So I think that was that moment, that spark of inspiration that I knew this was a problem I wanted to solve for people.

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, You know, I haven't litigated cases in like a decade. So, you know, all my work is as a mediator and a consulting attorney these days. And, you know, I don't recommend— I don't— during my mediations, I don't come out with like, hey, there's Talking Parents, there's this app, you know, which one do you use? I kind of assume that we're going to communicate more directly unless There's, you know, a red flag. But for like, in what ways does, does your platform improve the experience that my clients have struggled with, which is why I don't recommend those platforms?

Yeah. So I, when I began Best Interest, it was, as you know, there were many other co-parenting apps out there. I was using one. And, and in that, I would say that there's a difference in these existing co-parenting apps. The legacy co-parenting apps are really designed to, um, to record everything with the intention that you'll have records that you can take back to court. And I'm going to assume, based on the fact that you're a mediator, we kind of want to avoid court. I don't personally I did not enjoy the family court experience. It definitely left me a lot poorer. And so I want to help my clients avoid court. And, and I have the belief that most conflict between co-parents starts in the communication. And so if we can step in and help a parent speak better to one another, to the other parent, before they send that message. Then maybe their point is going to get across better, and maybe the conflict will be reduced before it even begins and evolves into something that requires court intervention. And so we do that by actively moderating the messages. So when you send a message to me, actually, let's just say I'm— we're co-parenting, and I'm maybe feeling a little spicy that day, and I'm frustrated about the past. I have some resentment. Mm-hmm. And so I might shoot you an email saying, Scott, because you're always late, I am reminding you again to be there at 9:00 AM to pick up the kids. Well, from your perspective, you've never been late. So you're going to probably respond defensively and you're going to feel defensive. And then we're going to be 30 messages into an argument about who's right and who's wrong. And that's not helpful for anyone. But what Best Interest is going to do is that it's going to filter the message before you see it. What it's going to say is, Sol would like you to pick up the kids at 9 AM. That's it. There's nothing for you to get defensive about because it's the business of co-parenting that's getting through.

You will be— Does the person who sent the message know that it's been moderated like that? Are they given the opportunity to not moderate?

Correct. Yeah. So if, if they are using the app with their co-parents— see, Best Interests is the first co-parenting app that doesn't require both parties to use it. We understand that there are complicated situations where one parent may not even want to reduce the conflict between the two parties. And so in that situation, you can download the app and receive that support, that message shield.

Mm-hmm.

From day one without getting your co-parent to agree. They keep texting you and it's filtered before you see it. So it reduces the tension automatically. Now, if both parents are—

Reading message through it, they can text from their text.

Correct.

And it comes into the app and it just bullet points the facts of what's being—

Correct. Yeah. And then can you see the original message if you want to? Um, so yes, of course. So if you get that message and it's been filtered, we indicate that. And so in the moment, you can just take the correct action that is good to be a good co-parent. But later, when you're not with the kids, you've dropped them off at school, maybe you're with a therapist or a lawyer or something, you can pull up that original message and you can deal with it at that point when you're feeling more resourced.

Absolutely.

But it helps disconnect that trigger from, you know, the response, and it helps you respond very simply. So to that message, you'd just say, okay, to me, and then I wouldn't get that emotional trigger that I may be, you know, looking for, and it would naturally reduce the amount of conflict.

Right.

But to answer your earlier question, so 2 co-parents can of course use it together. And in that scenario, we're reviewing the messages before they go out, and we give you a chance to rewrite your message before you send it. We'll give you context of how your point may come across, and then we will suggest a new message. And if you accept it, that's what's sent. That's what gets in the record.

I mean, really, it takes, it takes the actual co-parents and probably one of them to decide that they're done with the bullshit for, for it to stop. And this is a great tool, it sounds like, to help, but You know, I got texts. My wife got texted yesterday from, uh, one of a friend, like our, you know, one of the kids goes to school with this mom, and she's gone through this horrible divorce for years and, and now is co-parenting. And she shared like some pretty horrific messages and like asked my wife to ask me if she should go to court. And I, you know, my initial response was, um, well, let's see what she sent him too.

Yeah.

So like the, the gotcha nature of the, of the existing apps and, um, you know, I think makes people, um, you know, either they don't respond at all because they're worried about what's going to be on there or, uh, you know, they just don't care and they're just exchanging, you know, awfulness. But, uh, for one, for it, for that cycle to stop, someone has to say, I'm not going to give in I'm not going to take the bait. And by your filtering software, you're essentially enabling someone to do that, whether they actually know that's happening, you know, or whether they want it to happen. But that's exactly what they were. And eventually, if they can do that enough times, the other person will get on board. I mean, typically, unless they're an psychopath.

Yeah, you got it. I mean, really, it's giving the power back to the individual parent to make that decision. And I'll tell you, I— it took me many years to get to a place where I could look at a message from my co-parent and respond with a simple okay. You know, you can read it in a book about gray rock or BIFF, and, you know, these are our communication— Bill Eddy, uh, uh, is, is the BIFF guy. Um, Yeah. These are tools that can help you to respond better, but it takes a while to learn it. In fact, I would say until you've gone through therapy to get to a place where you can be more conscious about your communication, it's really challenging. And so what we're doing is we're stepping in in the very beginning, potentially, of this conflict that's brewing between parents, and we're helping both of them to become better educated about how their points are going to come across and what might reduce conflict, what might increase conflict. And by doing that, we're educating them while they're also healing and growing and learning as communicators. So All you need to do is, like you said, be that parent that says, you know what, I am tired of this BS. I want something to improve here. I can't live like this, like the moment that I had, and download the app and then start experiencing less conflict.

I got a great commercial idea for you.

Great, tell me.

All right, have you ever seen the Key and Peele where like one was Barack Obama and then the Barack Obama's like, Like, you know, true identity. So like Barack would speak and be like, hello, how are you? And then the other person, his true identity, would say like what he actually was thinking.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah. You could say like, hey, how are you doing? That's like, you know, through your app. And then the reality of the message is like the other person says what actually was said.

I love that.

You should look at like Key and Peele.

Okay, we'll work on that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like they would have like Michelle Obama, like, and her, her, you know, actual aura. And they would be like talking like, you know, and then the other 2 would be talking to each other. It was kind of funny. So yeah, I could—

I could take that into a bit of more philosophy if you're open to it, because I think that AI is really a very powerful tool that we can employ to help take the anger that we're feeling and, and reduce it. Because AI doesn't feel emotions, it doesn't get triggered, and you can get as angry as you want at your co-parent, and Best Interest is going to actually take that energy and it's going to, you know, not get it— it's not going to get mad at you, and it's going to just calmly say, this is a better way of putting it. Yeah, AI is truly incredible that way.

Like, you could put— you can put, like, when I write, like, an angry email, I never send it because I know better. I'm 50 now.

Yeah.

When I was 30 and I was litigating, oh, I fired those off all the time. And of course, just my life was that. And, uh, you know, I thank my therapist every day. She was like, you really should just mediate. Like, you'd be so much happier. I'd be like, I'm gonna make so much less money. And she's like, yeah, but you'll be home and you'll be at games and you won't be dragged to court at 8 AM every day. And, uh, I love that. Yeah, that litigators have to deal with. But, uh, You know, so you could put like an angry email through Grammarly and it will be like, oh, this is a better way of saying it, but it's not going to like prevent the anger, right? It's just going to improve the language.

Yeah.

That will like say like, are you sure you want to send this? And there's two different, you know, so it sounds like really, really cool. I haven't— I have to say I haven't downloaded it, but I should.

Yeah, definitely give it a shot. I'd love to hear your feedback. And yeah, this isn't a spellcheck sort of situation. It, it Because AI is so advanced, it literally is an AI or a language processing system. So it understands the context of your relationship. It knows the sorts of things that have triggered you in the past because you can give it feedback. You know, sometimes parents have these, as you know, like these insights about their parent and what might trigger them. And sometimes they might send those things and The AI by default doesn't necessarily know what's going to trigger you. So you can downvote our messages if we filtered it wrong or we missed something. And so then it learns from you and improves over time about how you're receiving the message.

Yeah. I love that. I think that's great. You know, I have an AI phone system that I use because people were so frustrated that they couldn't, like, reach me directly.

Cool.

And, uh, and it's learned, you know, so much. Like, whenever I hear— whenever I listen to the calls, like, it's changed dramatically over the last, like, year or whatever, you know? Like, it's—

it's faster. That's so cool.

It knows what people are about to say. It's almost predicting, like, it's waiting for them to say it, but it knows it's coming. It's kind of crazy. So—

I mean, that's, that's really the future. I'm very hopeful about that future that, you know, we can call up a company and have a better relationship rather than waiting on hold for somebody that barely speaks our language, you know, we can have an AI that actually can pull up our real account and, you know, tell us what appointments and fix things people are calling me for, right?

Yeah. I don't need to talk to someone. They want to book an appointment.

Totally.

Yeah. At least that's what I want them to do. I don't want to have to talk to them randomly.

Right. Right.

Yeah. Well, this is great. So, so, um, so I guess, can you give the website and, uh, like any closing points? But let me just say, like, I'm not a huge tech person, like I said. I mean, I'm, I'm in the, you know, age of tech, but, you know, this is tech that, you know, actually has a direction and an intention about it. And I think it's pretty awesome. Thank you. How can people check it out and where can they find you?

Well, I appreciate the exposure. And, you know, we're a small company and trying to get the word out about the solution for people and We're growing fast and it's very exciting. If you're interested, if you're a co-parent that's listening and want to download the app, you can check it out at bestinterest.app and or you can just search Best Interest on the App Store or the Play Store. We actually have a free version that has some AI in it, and if you want some of the more advanced filtering, there is a trial for that. So check it out and I can be reached at founder@bestinterest.app if you have any questions or insights, I'd love to hear from you and connect with you individually.

Yeah. And just put in your title of your email, if you're emailing Sol from this podcast, just put 1% ownership in the title of the email because he's offering 1% ownership to anyone that emails. So congratulations.

So I just have to get 99 emails and then I can still retain.

Yeah, you'll be diluted right out. Wow.

What a great day.

All right, man, great to talk to you. Appreciate you and everyone. Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper, bringing you another angle on, on the, the world of, uh, dispute resolution. And, uh, thanks again, Sol. Appreciate you.

Thank you, Scott.