A Database for Startups Helps Revolutionize Date Night

How Tended App startup used the RavenDB database to develop the Tended App application.

RavenDB lets me get to the business of writing code, and not mess with schema, migrations, and all the misery that comes with a relational database.

Ryan Rounkles, Tended App

Do you worry that the next time you will be able to enjoy a parent’s night out in peace will be when your kids are in college?

Do you worry about your babysitter so much that you are more exasperated once your night off is done?

Thanks to a brilliant idea by crack developer Ryan Rounkles, and with a little help from RavenDB – one of the best database for startups, your worries are over.

Ryan transformed a personal family challenge into something that makes life better for everyone.

His daughter was born early and ever since, Ryan and his wife have been very sensitive to her specific medical needs. They developed an elaborate checklist to accommodate anything she may need under every possible scenario.

As long as they were the keepers of the routine, everything was fine. But this meant no going out. Babysitters were undoubtedly out of the question.

A seasoned programmer, Ryan developed an application to enable anyone to understand his daughters needs. It took the form of a digital checklist, replete with alerts and notifications that could be shared with anyone watching his daughter.

It could be teachers, grandparents, and babysitters.

Their beta test involved sharing the checklist over a three-phone distributed network consisting of Ryan, his wife, and their babysitter. Then they went out to dinner.

Everything worked. Their first date in 18 months took place at a diner one mile from home. By their third date, they were driving half an hour away to their favorite steakhouse.

Upon hearing about their success, Ryan was bombarded with requests from friends, family, even from the parents of his children’s friends for a copy of his application.

Tended App was born.

Keeping Everyone Concerned in the Loop

Tended App alerts caregivers when to serve dinner, when to dispense medicine, or when to take a temperature reading. It also alerts them to things like, “it’s been an hour since bedtime, is he still asleep?”, “She took her medicine 30 minutes ago, has her fever gone down?”

The checklist doesn’t just go to the caregiver’s phone or device. It is part of a network made up of anyone interested who has permission to monitor events.

Medication alerts are distributed to everyone in the network, the app can be setup to send alerts every 15 minutes and stops alerting once the task has been completed. Parents rest assure that your child has received their medication dose as needed. A parent only needs to call the babysitter in the case of a missed notification.

How many times are you right about to hit the dance floor when you hear, “I am worried. Let me call the babysitter right now, back in a few.”

By the time the call is over and the inevitable “everything is fine,” comes, your favorite song is done. You have to debate whether or not you want to step to the Spice Girls.

Tended App is easy for the babysitter to use, Ryan’s sitter mastered it in minutes. Parents can now go out on the town with the confidence that they do not forget anything.

In the age of quarantines and selected lockdowns, adult children are not able to make physical contact with their aging parents. It’s harder to make sure they are taking care of themselves properly, especially if they have suffered from a stroke or memory impairment. Tended App puts everyone in the room, making sure they are doing exactly what the doctor orders.

The Best Database for Startups Tends to Tended

An app that is responsible for a child’s health must be bug-free at all times. There cannot be a single mistake in this app. RavenDB has a history of working unattended over applications flawlessly for years.

Ryan was able to get straight to the business of writing code, integrating RavenDB on the backend to run on his iPhone. He took the basic document store and put it inside the app, so anyone who uses it has their data store right inside their phone.

Based on RavenDB’s cluster synchronization, he built a layer to synch with any devices and servers. Ryan was able to utilize RavenDB as a distributed database to make his application distributed throughout his users.

This creates a multi-person network where every event, alert, update, notification, and action that one user sees replicates throughout the network of user devices in the group. If the 7 PM chicken soup feeding alert goes off, everyone knows about it. If the alert is not clicked by 7:15, everybody knows to text the babysitter to take action.

RavenDB’s vast toolbox lets Ryan use his database to perform critical functions that he would otherwise have to pay other services to do. Ryan estimated that to accomplish what he achieved with RavenDB, he would have to pay for at least two additional services. This is an example of another important additional value from this database for startups.

He would also have to use a dozen separate services that create multiple points of failure and add complexity to his app.

RavenDB also handles authentication and permissions. Parents might have profiles and checklists for all of their children, parents, and two dogs. They might not want the babysitter to have access to granny’s arthritis or Rovers fleas so when data replicates, RavenDB makes sure that only the information the babysitter has been given access to will appear on the screen.

Using RavenDB, parents worldwide can enjoy date night free of worry and full of excitement.