I started MintyBrain in college with a simple idea: make math fun, visual, and intuitive for kids.

Using Unity, I built a library of visual math activities designed to help students go beyond memorization to truly understand foundational concepts.

Thousands of kids played, and parents wrote in saying they were inspired seeing their children finally enjoy math. We raised $1M, built a small team, and pushed hard to bring the vision to life.

But when ChatGPT launched, it became clear that generative AI would reshape education more profoundly than anything we had built.

We pivoted — reimagining MintyBrain as an AI tutor, building custom agent frameworks, lesson scripting languages, and new interaction models. I wrote a full suite of AI tools from the ground up, hoping to blend the magic of AI with the delight of game-based learning.

Over time, Unity's ecosystem proved limiting. We were reinventing the stack while others leveraged emerging AI libraries to accelerate. We spent too long trying to make the wrong platform do the right thing.

Ultimately, I made the hard decision to wind things down.

The future of education is still incredibly bright. Companies like Synthesis are pushing the boundaries of AI-native tutoring. Schools like Alpha are rethinking what students should do with their time.

A new era is dawning — one where every child can have a personal, intelligent learning companion.

MintyBrain won’t be part of that next chapter. But we’re proud to have been an early signal of what’s possible.

Thanks for everything,
Dan