Most family-oriented educational placemats suck.

They look like color photocopies of text books. They encourage kids to memorize arbitrary facts like state capitals, multiplication tables, or words in foreign languages.

Here is an example of a placemat on Amazon that retails for $10.

How many 6 year-olds are interested in learning that Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri while they eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on a Saturday morning?

Parents, on the other hand, just have a job to be done. They want something that keeps food off the table and is easy to wash. Given the choice between a nondescript placemat and one that has a nonzero chance of inspiring the next Ken Jennings, many parents are willing to pay a premium for the latter.

The other issue is that the useful life of the “educational” component of the placemat is much shorter than its useful life as an actual placemat. For kids who are placemat power users, it might only take a few cereal sittings for them to finish memorizing all the facts off a new placemat.

I would assume there are very few families who cycle through placemats every few months because their kids get bored of them. So even the best placemats quickly grow stale and boring for their primary users.

To recap the issues with educational placemats:

1. They look like textbooks

2. They just encourage rote memorization of arbitrary facts

3. Even for kids who like rote memorization, they will quickly get bored of them

What if there were an opportunity to turn placemats into something both kids and parents wanted to collect and trade? What if, in doing so, we could also onboard the next million Ethereum users?

Step 1. Create cool puzzles for kids

The first objective is to make a more engaging placemat for kids.

If we accept that a placemat has a short useful life as an educational device, then let’s create logic puzzles or games that kids will immediately want to play and can repeat a dozen times before they get bored.

Let’s find something that is more engaging to more kids than memorizing facts.

Ideally, kids look forward to getting new placemats. Ideally, kids are excited to choose the placemat they want to eat with. Ideally, kids keep interacting with the placemat after they finish their bowl of cereal.

Step 2. Create art that adults like too

Placemats have two sides. Let’s use both of them.

If the back has logic puzzles or games, then the front could have unique artwork that adults like to stare at too. Perhaps there could be a series with a solarpunk vibe.

Step 3. Drop a QR code on the placemat

Now is where it starts to get interesting.

When you buy the placemat, you scan the QR code and are prompted to “mint” your placemat. Under the hood, you are initializing a custodial wallet and transferring ownership of a placemat token to your wallet address.

You are the owner… for now.

In addition to claiming your token, you can also add metadata about yourself such as your name, photos, where you live, what your favorite foods are, etc.

All metadata fields are optional, but their purpose will hopefully make more sense soon.

Step 4. Encourage a secondary market

A secondary market for placemats? Yes!

As discussed earlier, educational placemats have a short useful life. We want to encourage families to circulate them as quickly as possible.

They circulate when one family sells or trades their placemat with another family.

The placemat is transferred when another user scans the QR code and performs a transaction to purchase it. The secondary price could be fixed, negotiated between the two parties, or follow an exponential decay function. Regardless of the pricing mechanism, the ownership of the placemat should be transferred both physically and on-chain to a new owner.

The previous owner receives 90% of the sale. The remaining 10% flows back as royalties to everyone who has owned the placemat before them.

Let’s assume you purchase a new placemat for $10. Then you sell the placemat to a friend for $8, keeping 90% of the proceeds or $7.20. Your friend sells the placemat for $8 too; they keep the first 90% ($7.20) and you split the remaining 10% ($0.80) in half, netting you an additional $0.40. It gets sold again and now the 10% is split three ways, netting you $0.27. The placemat is now on its fourth owner. Overall, you paid $10 upfront and have received a total of $8.07 ($7.20 + $0.40 + $0.27). Not bad!

The royalty math could be refined. Nonetheless, the goal is to create a modest financial incentive to cycle through placemats quickly -- and for users to promote their favorite placemats.

The new owner is also able to attach their own metadata to the token.

Step 5. Create a UI for owners to explore the life of their placemats

Imagine a timeline of where your placemat has been that’s combined with the ability to explore the placemat collections of other users. This could facilitate trading and secondary sales. You can also track your account balance and how close you are to breaking even on your placemat through royalties / secondary sales.

With an “investment” of $20, an active placemat trader who is able to command good secondary prices should be able to cycle through at least five new placemats -- and perhaps many more if they focus on used placemats.

Step 6. Enable withdrawals and self-custodying

The first “withdrawal” is not really a withdrawal. Users should be able to easily purchase new placemats if they have enough of a balance in their wallets. The financial tokens in their wallet should be redeemable for placemats.

The second use case is letting users export their private key so they can take custody of their wallet address. This is how we onboard a million new users!

A third use case, similar to how CEXs operate, might be to enable users to transfer their balance (of money, not placemat tokens) to another Ethereum address.

There could be a mechanism to incentivize users to take custody of their wallet address. Perhaps their financial tokens go back to the protocol if they aren’t used or transferred within a given period of time. Perhaps they go towards buying a placemat for a family in need! (Think Warby Parker or Tom’s buy-one-give-one)

Step 7. Make it a headless brand

Headless brands refer to community-driven brand dynamics, without a centralized managerial body.

Make it easy for any artist + educator to quickly spin up and distribute their own placemats!

Why stop at placemats?

The same circular economy / game mechanisms could be applied to other items that have a long shelf life but short useful life: books, physical art, coffee mugs, winter hats, etc.

If you like this idea and want to collaborate, collect it and then send me a DM on Twitter or look me up on Telegram.

Most family-oriented educational placemats suck.

They look like color photocopies of text books. They encourage kids to memorize arbitrary facts like state capitals, multiplication tables, or words in foreign languages.

Here is an example of a placemat on Amazon that retails for $10.

How many 6 year-olds are interested in learning that Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri while they eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on a Saturday morning?

Parents, on the other hand, just have a job to be done. They want something that keeps food off the table and is easy to wash. Given the choice between a nondescript placemat and one that has a nonzero chance of inspiring the next Ken Jennings, many parents are willing to pay a premium for the latter.

The other issue is that the useful life of the “educational” component of the placemat is much shorter than its useful life as an actual placemat. For kids who are placemat power users, it might only take a few cereal sittings for them to finish memorizing all the facts off a new placemat.

I would assume there are very few families who cycle through placemats every few months because their kids get bored of them. So even the best placemats quickly grow stale and boring for their primary users.

To recap the issues with educational placemats:

1. They look like textbooks

2. They just encourage rote memorization of arbitrary facts

3. Even for kids who like rote memorization, they will quickly get bored of them

What if there were an opportunity to turn placemats into something both kids and parents wanted to collect and trade? What if, in doing so, we could also onboard the next million Ethereum users?

Step 1. Create cool puzzles for kids

The first objective is to make a more engaging placemat for kids.

If we accept that a placemat has a short useful life as an educational device, then let’s create logic puzzles or games that kids will immediately want to play and can repeat a dozen times before they get bored.

Let’s find something that is more engaging to more kids than memorizing facts.

Ideally, kids look forward to getting new placemats. Ideally, kids are excited to choose the placemat they want to eat with. Ideally, kids keep interacting with the placemat after they finish their bowl of cereal.

Step 2. Create art that adults like too

Placemats have two sides. Let’s use both of them.

If the back has logic puzzles or games, then the front could have unique artwork that adults like to stare at too. Perhaps there could be a series with a solarpunk vibe.

Step 3. Drop a QR code on the placemat

Now is where it starts to get interesting.

When you buy the placemat, you scan the QR code and are prompted to “mint” your placemat. Under the hood, you are initializing a custodial wallet and transferring ownership of a placemat token to your wallet address.

You are the owner… for now.

In addition to claiming your token, you can also add metadata about yourself such as your name, photos, where you live, what your favorite foods are, etc.

All metadata fields are optional, but their purpose will hopefully make more sense soon.

Step 4. Encourage a secondary market

A secondary market for placemats? Yes!

As discussed earlier, educational placemats have a short useful life. We want to encourage families to circulate them as quickly as possible.

They circulate when one family sells or trades their placemat with another family.

The placemat is transferred when another user scans the QR code and performs a transaction to purchase it. The secondary price could be fixed, negotiated between the two parties, or follow an exponential decay function. Regardless of the pricing mechanism, the ownership of the placemat should be transferred both physically and on-chain to a new owner.

The previous owner receives 90% of the sale. The remaining 10% flows back as royalties to everyone who has owned the placemat before them.

Let’s assume you purchase a new placemat for $10. Then you sell the placemat to a friend for $8, keeping 90% of the proceeds or $7.20. Your friend sells the placemat for $8 too; they keep the first 90% ($7.20) and you split the remaining 10% ($0.80) in half, netting you an additional $0.40. It gets sold again and now the 10% is split three ways, netting you $0.27. The placemat is now on its fourth owner. Overall, you paid $10 upfront and have received a total of $8.07 ($7.20 + $0.40 + $0.27). Not bad!

The royalty math could be refined. Nonetheless, the goal is to create a modest financial incentive to cycle through placemats quickly -- and for users to promote their favorite placemats.

The new owner is also able to attach their own metadata to the token.

Step 5. Create a UI for owners to explore the life of their placemats

Imagine a timeline of where your placemat has been that’s combined with the ability to explore the placemat collections of other users. This could facilitate trading and secondary sales. You can also track your account balance and how close you are to breaking even on your placemat through royalties / secondary sales.

With an “investment” of $20, an active placemat trader who is able to command good secondary prices should be able to cycle through at least five new placemats -- and perhaps many more if they focus on used placemats.

Step 6. Enable withdrawals and self-custodying

The first “withdrawal” is not really a withdrawal. Users should be able to easily purchase new placemats if they have enough of a balance in their wallets. The financial tokens in their wallet should be redeemable for placemats.

The second use case is letting users export their private key so they can take custody of their wallet address. This is how we onboard a million new users!

A third use case, similar to how CEXs operate, might be to enable users to transfer their balance (of money, not placemat tokens) to another Ethereum address.

There could be a mechanism to incentivize users to take custody of their wallet address. Perhaps their financial tokens go back to the protocol if they aren’t used or transferred within a given period of time. Perhaps they go towards buying a placemat for a family in need! (Think Warby Parker or Tom’s buy-one-give-one)

Step 7. Make it a headless brand

Headless brands refer to community-driven brand dynamics, without a centralized managerial body.

Make it easy for any artist + educator to quickly spin up and distribute their own placemats!

Why stop at placemats?

The same circular economy / game mechanisms could be applied to other items that have a long shelf life but short useful life: books, physical art, coffee mugs, winter hats, etc.

If you like this idea and want to collaborate, collect it and then send me a DM on Twitter or look me up on Telegram.