Adolescents can suggest rewards from a "wishlist" section of the app. Parents either approve these ideas or add their own. Bromberg says the most popular rewards used in the beta version were allowance, a special activity or additional phone time and text messages. He rewards his own two children with allowance and the occasional iTunes purchase or video game.
"All of these things would hit my credit card anyway, frankly," he says, "but its fun to have them earn out in a way that isn't too stressful or challenging."
His hope is that more parents will, as he has, shift the money they give their kids in the form of allowance to spending within the ImOK app. According to a study by EPM Communications, the average U.S. 8 to 14-year-old receives about $2,000 in spending money a year from his or her parents -- which makes allowance a $43 billion opportunity annually.
ImOK's business plan taps into this opportunity with an in-app store for redeeming wishlists or even a branded ImOK spending card that can be redeemed at other outlets.
"My belief is that there’s a really interesting use case here [surrounding] stuff that goes on in just your family," Bromberg says. "There's so much transfer of money and information and back-and-forth, and it's a space that I don't see that anybody has really owned."
