Inspiration
All Snacks No Naps started from the struggle to find and curate summer camp options for our twin girls that were in pre-school at the time. There was no single place to find, compare, and contrast all of the different options that were out there. We knew there were lots of options out there, but they were scattered around the web, by word of mouth, and blog/social media posts. We created a rudimentary spreadsheet of different options that compared dates, pricing, activities, hours, etc, which proved to be very useful for ourselves and other parents in the same predicament. So, we thought there had to be a better way to provide this information to everyone.
Our Goals
Setting out, we envisioned a few goals to solve our initial problem:
- Provide a directory service for caregivers in the Chicago area to compare and contrast different summer camp options for their kids.
- Expand the service to include other options outside of summer camps, like birthday parties, after-care activities, drop-in care, and sports.
- Make the service desktop, mobile, and tablet friendly.
Ultimately, we would like to expand our reach beyond Chicago, but our initial launch will target the Windy City.
Where did the name “All Snacks No Naps” come from?
Our son loves to have a snack cup with him at all times. The only time he puts it down is when it is time to eat a meal at his highchair. Then it is ok to put down the snack cup. We had gone to the playground one day and in our son’s wisdom, he thought “I have two hands, why not have two snack cups?”. So, he did just that.
We took a photo of him throwing caution to the wind, barreling down the slide, but holding onto those snacks. You can see his zen-like expression, living his life to the fullest.
So, the idea came in part from this picture and in part from the phrase All Gas, No Breaks meaning to go full throttle without any guardrails. We take it to the pint-sized level. It also helped that our domain name allsnacksnonaps.com was available.
Generative AI
In the age of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and the plethora of other generative AI products out there, why would we create an “old-school” directory service? Well, mostly because we wanted to fill a gap in the information marketplace. But also, we thought it would be a fun project as our backgrounds are in data, aggregation, and cat-herding (er, kid-herding).
Having said that, we do leverage quite a bit of generative AI to help find, aggregate, organize, and generate content. For example, many of the cartoon-like pictures are AI generated. Although we do our best to double-check the output of the genAI tools in order to make this the most trusted source of kid activity information, there may be mistakes and/or outdated information. If you do find a mistake or you have ideas on how to make this site better, please fill out our feedback form.