Our story

The Imaginaroo story began on Christmas Day of 2023, although we didn't realize it at the time.

A day spent celebrating the first Christmas with our son, Grayson, gave way to an evening spent playing with our nieces, Madison (7) and Aubrey (2). Madison, who had decided that she wanted to become a dentist when she grew up, was giving everyone "teeth cleanings" with her favorite present of the year, a dentist playset. After already receiving several exams by mid-evening, Dan had an idea.

A senior executive at a prominent technology company, Dan had recently become captivated with emerging technology that enabled the creation of new-to-world images imagined by merely describing the desired output. Within a few minutes, Dan had created a photorealistic image of Madison as a practicing dentist. Her eyes lit up. Next, Aubrey - who "helped" Dan prepare a salad with dinner - saw herself as a chef at a five star restaurant. This went on for the rest of the night.

A few weeks later, we traveled to Seattle to introduce Grayson to Dan's family. One day, Dan's mom brought down a box of Dan's favorite childhood books to take back to LA to read to Grayson in the years to come. Dan remembered every single one of them, including a personalized book Dan received one birthday.

Dan recalled his boyhood wonder about how a book was seemingly written just for him. As we flipped through the book, we thought back to Christmas evening and how much more engaging the book could be with today's technology to personalize not just the child's name as the subject of the book but also to integrate their individually identifiable likeness into the book's imagery.

Could children learn better if they could see themselves interacting with the concepts? Could young girls like Madison and Aubrey be inspired to pursue ambitious careers if they could vividly visualize that future at a young age? The possibilities felt endless.

Later that night, we searched for personalized books that brought this vision to life. We were surprised to find nothing similar available. While personalized books now commonly offered the selection of an avatar - a combination of options typically spanning gender, skin tone, and hair color - this did not bear true resemblance to any individual child.

We started Imaginaroo to build a product that we wanted but did not exist: personalized books that integrate a child's individually identifiable likeness into family-friendly stories emphasizing learning, inspiration, and adventure.

We've spent the months since spending every moment we can to make Imaginaroo a reality, and we are now so excited to share it with the world.

Thanks for taking this journey with us!

From our family to yours,
Dan and Vy