YAKiT

This is super cool. Here's my first, slightly obnoxious YAKiT: http://freakngenius.com/yak/63D4

Big fan of this team. The founder, @kylekesterson, is a stand up dude with a whole lotta hustle. Maybe we can get him in here to answer a few questions.

Thanks for the nice words Andy! Fun to see our little app getting some love in this cool community. Just wanted to quickly introduce myself and am happy to answer any questions - about me personally, our process, why we do what we do, or whatever is on your mind. Prior to becoming Chief Freak, I was a cave-dwelling illustrator and toy developer who serendipitously found my way to a Startup Weekend and into the world of working with software engineers. It's been magical seeing art and science come together and give life and context to the crazy stuff that bubbles up in my brain. It's been a pretty amazing journey which I've learned and grown more in this short time than I have collectively in the many years prior. Cheers!

Oh yay, I already have friends here!

Great question @rrhoover! Started with wanting to create a cartoon about a man and his talking tapeworm. Figured out quickly that even though we had funny people with great scripts, and talent in illustration, that putting them together as animation was extremely technical, time consuming, and expensive. At Startup Weekend were introduced to the Microsoft Kinect, and the short of it is, we created 'performance-based animation' where you move, speak, and create a cartoon in real-time. Sample: We worked on that for a while, went through the Microsoft Kinect Accelerator (TechStars program), turned down a sizable acquisition offer, and kept plugging away. One big thing that kept scratching the back of our brain was where creativity decides to find you, isn't always readily available when you're ready for it. So we changed our thinking from "animation in the living room" to "animation in the pocket", where we can quickly capture the humor, personality, and imagination on the go - AND IT'S FUN. So fun, that creativity just becomes a by-product of the playful experience. Through hundreds of hours of customer development and about 48 product sprints, we arrived at the next stage of YAKiT where people can entertain and inspire each other with their freak'n weird creations. I could go on, but let me hop over to grand master plan. Impact wise, I'm really setting out to capture and unleash creativity in ways that have never before been possible. The BHAG is to help create a generation of MacGuyvers; people who use creative thinking to develop leadership skills, solve problems imaginatively and connect with the world around them in healthy and productive ways. If you're interested in the depths of what helps drive me, feel free to check out the TEDx talk I gave last June, which I believe you link to above. (thanks for that!). I'm also working on sharing the 2nd part of the story that leads directly to Freak'n Genius. High level, it touches on the power of anonymity and the future of storytelling, which was inspired by my experience being the GEICO Gecko mascot at a sporting event. :)

@FrankDenbow @BrianMa - Thanks for the supportive words! @rrhoover - I'll have to check into Mindie! I don't see it as a problem if it's *easy* to create a good good YAK (yak / yakit / yak vid all work). Did you mean it's a bit *difficult*? If so, I totally understand what you mean. I won't lie, YAKiT is weird, and there isn't really a largely understood concept that animation is something very accessible yet, so it's a bunch of people learning to walk for the first time. This is one of our challenges. As people use it for the first time, they learn their way into it, which is why we spent so much time and energy on the real-time feedback of animation, both with reacting to the voice, and with the animated sticker/overlays - to just make it so you light up and have fun, even though you might not know wtf you're doing. We added a well thought-out tutorial around the most complicated part of the app, cutting out the mouth, but other than that, it's play to learn. Without much context, or even *good* examples to follow, it's both new and rudimentary with what people think they can do with it. But as long as they start off by playing with it, that's the most important part. I personally like that there is a level of discovery to what you can do and see how this type of creation can fit around your messages or ideas. It means you can get better. If it were a 1-button press to something super pro and amazing and there was no room to grow, I don't believe that'd be as rewarding, and although we *may* end up with more traction, it wouldn't solve for my BHAG - constantly trying to find that balance. That said, we're always trying to make the creation process simpler, and more fun. We've thrown around lots of ideas about how to "put it on rails" to get a good story out, and let up as the user goes along, but ultimately, I'm pretty satisfied having built 'Play-Doh'. It feels like we nailed the super simple, fun to use, creative tool. And now with the community and Editor Picks, are showing what awesome things you can make with it. It's up to the person and their magical creative process to fill in the gaps. Hope that makes sense, thanks for reading!

Thanks @rrhoover, and thanks for both ProductHunt and the AMA. Was a really fun day and I'm excited to be a part of the community.. you obviously have something really special going on here.