Dan
Dan is the founder and developer behind Squiggle.
Email Dan Dan
Founder and dad of two
Dan is the founder and developer behind Squiggle.
Dan created Squiggle after watching his two young children trying - but struggling with - the strange new, awkward world of video calls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seeing how much they wanted to be with their grandparents and friends (and vice versa), and how deprived of this important contact they suddenly were, got Dan thinking back to simpler times. The ‘noughts and crosses’ and ‘hangman’ pencil-and-paper games he loved playing as a child with his parents. And how his wife Jo would squiggle on a napkin and challenge their kids to turn it into a picture if they started playing up in a restaurant (a game she used to play with her dad).
As a web developer Dan realised he could recreate the pencil-and-paper experience online and provide a safe, secure space where loved ones can still play with, talk to and entertain the children in their lives, wherever they are in the world.
What Dan didn’t anticipate was how much Squiggle would benefit him and Jo – and in turn their friends and their families! Before they knew it the kids were asking to ‘Squiggle Grandma and Grandad’ and they suddenly found an hour or so a day of “virtual” childcare while they worked from home in lockdown.
Nothing can replace the physical time kids spend with their friends and families, but at a time when connection and hugs are so limited, he hopes Squiggle can help.
