BostInno readers can get a private invite to TouchBase using the code “bostinno” and the first 100 alpha testers to sign up will get the service free for life.

TouchBase, which opens in private beta tonight out of Mobile Startup Weekend, aims to help build trust between teens and parents. The product incentivizes teens to actively participate in answering parents’ reoccurring question, ‘where are my kids and are they safe?’

Parents send a text message request for their child’s location to TouchBase, which then passes a message to the child saying ‘Your parent wants to know your location. Reply to send it to them.’ When the child actively responds, the parent sees the pulled location on a map. The key to the service is that it is not overbearing or embarrassing to teens. And moving forward for its open beta, TouchBase will add rewards to the system – dubbed ‘brownie points.’ Parents will then be able to manage and use these through TouchBase as currency, perhaps pegging it to real money or additional freedoms or rewards.

TouchBase faces competition from location-based services like Foursquare and more so from mobile carriers themselves, who all offer cell phone tracking on family plans for about $10 per month per phone. When BostInno asked TouchBase about the competition they offered, “We actually care what kids think. It’s about more than the location; it’s about trust.” And in further discussion with the team, it is clear they have conducted a good amount of customer development alongside building the base version of TouchBase.

Customer Development Key to Positioning

TouchBase brought an initial web-based version of their product to five hundred families. TouchBase learned that the majority of these families did not know their wireless carriers offered a tracking service like this. More important, in these discussions TouchBase validated that trust was at the core of the service, which led them to develop and bring “brownie points” into the product equation: parents had offered that if their children used the service often, they would provide them more freedoms. Also, almost all of the families TouchBase spoke with reported being willing to pay for the service.

Alongside this customer development and validation, the TouchBase team has been building their current private beta product — which is a mobile web app. Being a web app allows the service to operate on any device with a browser, which they learned is particularly important since the majority of families they spoke with did not provide their children and teens with smartphones or data plans. It has also been a cost-effective way for TouchBase to bring the product to market. The team describes the current product as their minimum viable product, part of the lean startup methodology that many startupers ascribe to in building their products.

TouchBase’s customer development has also helped the team form their planned go-to-market and distribution strategy. This strategy places emphasis on access both on the parent and teen side of the service. On the parent side of the equation, TouchBase plans to focus on three outlets: parenting portals (Café Mom, iVillage); non-profits and parent-teacher groups; and company HR departments, honing in on “road warrior” jobs where parents travel frequently. On the teen side of the equation, TouchBase’s goal is to educate children and get them to suggest the service to their parents by way of the brownie points rewards system. TouchBase also realizes the service needs to be “cool,” and through partnerships with media such as Teen Vogue, TouchBase hopes to achieve this.

The Company Behind TouchBase

TouchBase is a product of Conversation Media, a team of three on a mission to build technology that enables better communication between people and groups. Their initial product in the market, Lessons Learned, the team also describes as an MVP and launched out of BarCamp Boston. It allows users to post advice in short, simple snippets and then crowdsource through voting the best to the top. Conversation Media incorporated last June, and their founder, Robert Sanchez, was one of only five of an initial group of forty to make it through the Founder Institute this year.