A letter from the founders

Dear fellow parent,

We started Sayph because we were standing exactly where you might be standing now.

Between us we’re raising five children, aged nine to twelve. So we know the moment that’s coming: the first walk to school alone, the party invites organised on a group chat, the quiet pressure of “but everyone else has one.” And we know how impossible the choice can feel. Hand over a smartphone, and you could potentially hand over the entire adult internet, with all the bad stuff as well as the good. Or hand over a brick phone, and feel frustrated when they leave it at home in the drawer. You shouldn’t feel these are your only options.

We weren’t satisfied with that choice, so we built an alternative.

Let’s be honest about the problem: The companies behind the apps on a typical phone are not neutral, not always on the side of parents, and their apps are not built for children’s developing minds. Many smartphone apps are engineered - deliberately, expertly, by some of the cleverest people alive - to capture your child’s attention and hold it. Endless feeds; notifications designed to draw them in; algorithms deciding what a nine-year-old sees next. That isn’t something you, as a parent, can control or monitor with the right screen-time settings. It’s the business model. And it works like that regardless of whether it’s good for your child.

We think childhood is worth protecting from that. Maybe not forever, but for long enough to allow your child to decide who they want to be, without being influenced by unvetted strangers.

Sayph is a real phone. Calls, messages, maps, music (coming soon), photos with the people you trust - the things a child needs to stay connected, and to grow in independence. What it doesn’t have is social media, an open browser, or addictive apps. Your child communicates only with the contacts you approve. You get a simple, honest summary of their messaging, so you don’t have to keep reading everything they write, but will be alerted if there’s anything you might want to check up on.

If you’re the only parent at the school gate asking these questions, you’re not the awkward one. You’re just a bit earlier than others.

If you’ve agreed with other families to hold the line and wait, Sayph is the phone that lets you keep the promise you made together.

And if your home simply needs to be calmer than most - because of how your child is wired, or how young they still are - we built Sayph for that too. For some families it isn’t a stepping stone. It’s exactly the right place to stay.

We’re not anti-technology. We’re pro-real-life, pro-play, pro-childhood. We’re two parents, who got tired of waiting for someone else to fix this.

You don’t have to choose between keeping your child connected and keeping them safe. That’s the whole reason Sayph exists.

We’re all in this together,