A family calendar that knows you have four adults and three kids on three different schedules — and lets the step-parent see what they need to without seeing what they shouldn't.

Source signals

• **SIG-20260426-us-family-logistics-blended-family-cross-household-orchestra** — "conducting an orchestra where half the musicians are in different buildings"; 16% of US children
• **SIG-20260426-us-family-logistics-custody-state-guidelines-intelligence-gap** — "I'm in Indiana, apply the parenting time guidelines" — state-aware rotation moat
• **SIG-20260426-us-family-logistics-coparent-app-fragmentation** — none of existing tools fit, people cycle through 3-5

What we ship

**Core features (MVP)**

• **Per-child custody schedule** — each kid has own pattern (Alex: 2-2-3 with mom + dad; Jordan: alt weeks with mom + step-dad household)
• **Multi-household model** — household A (bio-mom + step-dad), household B (bio-dad), household C (bio-dad's new partner optionally). Each adult has explicit role (bio / step / new partner).
• **Tiered sharing per event** — bio-parents see custom; step-parents see only their household; new partners read-only view, opt-in
• **State-aware holiday rotation library** — Indiana / Wisconsin / Texas / California parenting-time guidelines pre-built; tap state and Thanksgiving/Christmas auto-alternate
• **Big-glance home**: "This week: Alex with you. Jordan with dad. Maya here."
• **Two-way sync** to Google Calendar (OAuth) and Apple Calendar (ICS feed export)
• **Flyer photo extraction**: snap photo of school flyer → AI extracts events → drops to correct kid's calendar

**Primary user flow**

1. Landing → "Built for blended families" → create household

2. Add kids (one at a time) — for each kid pick custody pattern + which other adults are involved

3. Invite other adults — each gets a scoped link with role-specific permissions

4. Daily home: "This week: Alex w/ you. Jordan w/ dad. Maya here."

5. Subscribe Google/Apple for passive view-fanout

**What it looks like**

• **Landing page**: hero "Built for blended families. Designed for the step-parent doing the logistics." + 4-adult-3-kid mockup
• **Main app screen**: per-kid avatars across top, calendar grid with adult color-coding, header "This week's adults: you, partner, ex". Big block "You have Maya & Alex tonight."
• **Setup wizard**: "Tell us about Alex's other parent → which state? → apply Indiana parenting guidelines?"

**MVP build plan (13 days)**

• Day 1-3: backend (households, kids, custody_schedules, adults, role_perms, events)
• Day 4-6: React UI per-kid view + multi-household map + role-scoped event filter
• Day 7-9: state-guideline rotation library (10 states), holiday auto-alternate logic
• Day 10: Google OAuth two-way sync, Apple ICS export
• Day 11: AI flyer extraction
• Day 12: Stripe Subscriptions, landing
• Day 13: deploy CF Pages + Railway, soft-launch r/Stepparents + r/blendedfamilies

13 days vs 7 because per-child custody + multi-household + tiered sharing IS the moat — needs polish.

Reasoning

5 sources confirm the orchestra-of-3-4-households gap (Family Daily, Homsy, Calendara blended-family guide, Cupla stepfamily docs, Reddit r/Stepparents). **16% of US children** = ~12M kids in blended families = ~3-4M households. None of the existing coparent-apps (OFW, 2houses, Cupla, Coparently, Clearly, Calendara, BlendedFamilies) correctly model:

1. **Per-child custody patterns** within one family (kids from different prev relationships)

2. **Step-parent as first-class user** with scoped view

3. **3-4 adult orchestration** (bio + step + new partner)

Calendara tries ("create separate calendars per kid + share appropriately") but its share-tiering is a stripped-down ICS feed, not tiered permissions per event.

Wedge: **opinionated multi-household + tiered-sharing UX** purpose-built for the blended-family archetype. State-guideline library is an additional moat (from SIG-custody-state-guidelines). Custom UX > horizontal calendar.

13 days extended for moat-building justified. A narrow-audience product can sustain $9/mo (blended families have ~1.5x median household income — both partners work).

Quick competitive read

Verified via Stage-5b investigation (5 CMP files written 2026-04-26). **Market density: medium-to-high in the adjacent space, low in our exact wedge.**

• **Calendara** [CMP-IDEA-056-calendara] — 2026 launch, Free during Early Access (~$3.25/mo planned). Photo-extraction-first Cozi alternative for nuclear families. NO per-kid custody, NO multi-household, NO step-parent role, NO per-event tiered sharing. Co-parenting is one bullet on their hub page. **Threat: weak. Synthesizer flag confirmed — they are not blended-first.**
• **OurFamilyWizard** [CMP-IDEA-056-ourfamilywizard] — 25 years, $110-$300/yr per parent, 1M+ users, court-grade. Two adversarial co-parent data model; step-parents are "third-party" observers. Acquired Cozi 2022. Cost-prohibitive and tonally wrong for cooperative blended families. **Threat: low (different positioning); long-term acquisition risk: high.**
• **Cozi** [CMP-IDEA-056-cozi] — 21 years, $39/yr Gold, 20M users, OFW-owned since 2022. Single-household monolithic shared-list — no roles, no tiering, no custody. Currently the friction-product Calendara mocks publicly. **Threat: low.**
• **2houses** [CMP-IDEA-056-2houses] — 15 years, €99/yr (US iOS $169.99/yr), 370K families. Closest data-model: web supports multiple "families" on one account, plus step-parent invites. But each family stays 2-adult; no unified blended-household graph; francophone-first weakens US position. **Threat: medium — most-likely future pivot candidate.**
• **Notion templates** [CMP-IDEA-056-notion-templates] — 8 years (since 2018 Notion launch), free-mostly. Thousands of co-parenting / custody templates exist; some support multi-child + per-page permissions for step-parent scoping. Validates that **blended families currently build custom because nothing fits**. 4-8h setup, weak mobile UX, no state-aware logic, no AI extraction. **Threat: low; warmest funnel signal.**

**White-space confirmed**: purpose-built blended-family multi-household calendar with explicit step-parent first-class user + per-event tiered sharing + state-aware rotation. No direct competitor — closest structural overlap is 2houses (multi-ex web feature) but they treat each ex as an isolated 2-adult thread, not a unified blended household. Risk vector: OFW acquires us (their proven Cozi-style downmarket play). Defense: structural data model (multi-household graph) is months of refactor for any incumbent.

Initial pricing hypothesis

Free: 1 kid, 2 adults, 30-day trial. **Premium $9/mo or $79/yr per family** (unlimited kids, 4+ adults, multi-household, state-guideline library, AI flyer extraction, Google sync). Premium segment — blended families have ~1.5x median household income (both partners work).

Distribution hypothesis

1. **Reddit organic**: r/Stepparents (160K members), r/blendedfamilies, r/Divorce — strongest single channel.

2. **Stepfamily Foundation + National Stepfamily Resource Center**: they're educational, not revenue-seeking — natural cross-promo.

3. **Family-law mediator referrals**: mediators handle blended-family setups; pamphlet handout.

4. **TikTok stepmom niche** (#stepmomlife 2B views): organic content, real testimonials.

5. **ProductHunt blended-family launch** at the right moment (January — post-holidays when blended-stress peaks).