So when I had the chance to build a personal relationship with Bing Gordon — cofounder of Electronic Arts and a board member of companies like Amazon, Duolingo, and Take-Two Interactive — I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Visiting him at his home and learning from his experience has been a true privilege. Naturally, one of the first questions I asked was:

“How can I become a great CEO?”

His answer was simple, and it has shaped how I’ve operated ever since.

A four-point framework. Clear. Focused. Practical.

Improve Product-Market Fit

At this stage, Nex has found product-market fit (PMF).

But Bing made one thing very clear:
Finding PMF is not enough — we must keep improving it.

Many startups find initial success, then stall. Some miss technology shifts. Some fail to evolve their product. Others see their economics degrade as they try to grow.

Companies with improving product-market fit look very different:

• Word of mouth becomes the primary growth driver

• They earn a leading share of voice in their category

• Network effects begin to take hold

• The product keeps getting better, and the moat keeps widening — often at a compounding rate

I’ve started to see early signs of this at Nex. A growing share of our customers hear about Nex from friends and family first. That’s the product pulling its own weight.

“Improving PMF is the CEO’s #1 responsibility,” Bing emphasized.

Scale the Leadership Team

A CEO is ultimately judged by the quality of their executive team.

Bing shared a simple scoring system:

• Hall of Fame: 5

• Delivers what they set out to do: 4

• Industry average: 3

A great CEO builds an executive team that averages 4.25 or higher.

It’s about recruiting world-class talent and growing leaders from within.

What does “Hall of Fame” mean? Bing shared a few examples:

• A HoF CMO builds a household brand over a decade

• A HoF CRO consistently beats plan by 20%

• A HoF CTO builds enduring, category-defining technology

And one important trait across all of them:

They develop at least two future leaders who can step into their role.

That last point changed how I think about leadership. It’s not just about delivering results. It’s about building the next generation of leaders — so the company can continue to thrive without you.

Scale the Organization

Scaling an organization is not about headcount. It’s about clarity.

Clarity of:

• Why we exist — the mission

• How we operate — the values and culture

• What we build — the product

At Nex, we believe games can do a lot of good for society.

Our mission is to connect friends and families through active play. We do this by building remarkable hardware, software, and content, and by serving a dedicated customer base for the long term.

As we grow, I’ve learned that misalignment rarely comes from bad intent — it comes from a lack of clarity.

Scaling means aligning a growing team around that clarity so decisions compound instead of fragment.

Never Run Out of Money

This one is simple, but non-negotiable.

Stay measured. Stay responsible. Always have enough cash.

We’ve come close before. Those moments leave a mark.

Never run out of money, and you earn the right to keep building.

I’ve been thinking about these four points a lot over the past few months.

But instead of overthinking it, I decided to fully commit — to execute against them, and to regularly share progress with Bing and the team. I shared my first progress update in our last town hall.

I believe that if I can become a great CEO, we can build the foundation for Nex to become a 100-year company.

Building a 100-year company is not a single breakthrough.

It’s a compounding process — improving product-market fit, strengthening the team, aligning the organization, and staying alive so it all has the chance to matter.

Bing has joined our board. In his words, helping improve the success rate of entrepreneurs — and supporting the next generation of CEOs — is what makes him happy.

Learning from him is a privilege. It’s one of the most meaningful parts of the journey.

From this point forward, this is the bar I hold myself to.

At Apple, I walked past the quote below many times. It left an impression. It may have given me the courage to leave Apple, and later, to navigate multiple pivots at Nex.

Later, my friend Frank Barbieri shared how Walmart uses its values internally. Respect. Integrity. Service. Excellence. RISE for short. Easy to remember. Often placed at the top of the agenda in major all-hands meetings. Guiding 2 million employees to make the right decisions every day.

Now, as Nex is on track to exceed 200 employees this year, I realize this is what we’ve been missing.

We need a shared value framework that is unmistakably Nex. Something easy to remember. Something that binds us, and everyone who joins after us.

And so my search began

The Five Es

I’ve been pondering this for weeks: What sits at the core of Nex?

In our logo, the middle “e” is personified. Expressive. Unassuming. But as we reflected on what must guide us for the next 100 years, we realized something simple:

The “e” can represent the principles that power us.

Ethics. Empower. Excellence. Empathy. Endure.

They are not an addition to Nex. They are embedded in it.

If we are fortunate enough to build a 100-year company, values may be the only thing that remains consistent. Technology will change. Products will change. People will change.

Values endure.

Values guide our decisions. Values shape our culture.

We have a clear mission. Our culture is rooted in the definition of fun: autonomy, mastery, and connection. And we aspire to build a 100-year company.

The Five Es are simple and memorable. They guide daily decisions at scale. They are the clarity we seek.

Ethics

Not doing evil is not enough. Nex is here to do good.

We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. Nex exists to serve families, not to exploit them. Trust is our ultimate moat. Trust is non-negotiable.

We are not optimizing for time spent on our games. We are optimizing for the value of time spent.

We have chosen a business model that aligns us with our customers. We put families at the center. We aim to give more than we take.

Profit is society’s reward for serving families well.

Empower

We empower our employees, and through our products, we empower our customers.

Empowerment creates autonomy. It unlocks ownership. It unlocks potential. It allows people to grow and take responsibility.

Our game studios and teams operate with a high degree of autonomy. We invest in values and culture so everyone is equipped to make the right decisions.

We hold our why tightly, then entrust teams with the how and the what.

Excellence

We pursue mastery. We hold a high craft bar. We keep pounding the rock.

Excellence is not perfection. It is the discipline of continuous improvement. It is a commitment to respecting the time and trust of the families we serve.

We review our consumer touchpoint and continuously improve each of them. We aim higher. We push to be better. We want to be remarkable.

Given time and iteration, we believe we can stand among the best in the world. And the team has proven that again and again.

Empathy

Be curious, not judgmental.

We listen. We stay open-minded. We seek to understand our colleagues and our customers more deeply.

Without empathy, connection is shallow.
With empathy, connection is lasting.

We engage with our community every day across Facebook, Reddit, and beyond. We listen, and we build with and for our customers.

Internally, we are still early in building our people function. There is more to do.

Endure

We think long term. 100-year scale long term.

When we optimize for endurance, short- and medium-term trade-offs become clearer. We choose what strengthens Nex for decades, not quarters.

Endurance gives us patience. Patience gives us clarity.

Nex has gone through multiple pivots before arriving at Nex Playground. We listen to customers and do what’s right, even when it’s hard.

The process can be gut-wrenching. We have come close to running out of money multiple times.

We endured.

Technology will change. What matters is understanding the timeless human needs we serve, and continuing to serve them better over time.

Values Drive Culture

The Five Es are a starting point. There are still many pages to fill.

For those who have been with Nex for a long time, this should feel familiar. We are simply writing down what we’ve already lived.

For those joining us, this is how we help them get there faster.

Writing this down is where the work begins.

From today forward, the Five Es serve as a checklist for every decision we make.

This is not just writing on the wall. It is a practical decision-making tool.

If a choice compromises Ethics, weakens Empowerment, lowers Excellence, ignores Empathy, or sacrifices Endurance, we reconsider.

We scale without losing ourselves. That is how we build a 100-year company.

We sold through 670,000 units, sold out in all 5,000+ retail stores we are in, and, for the first time in the last 25 years, entered the top three in console sales as a new brand. The Wall Street Journal wrote about us.

Nex is turning nine this May.

We came close to running out of money multiple times.

Now, for the first time, Nex has reached the default alive state.

Staying alive is a floor. What matters now is how far we can go.

I’ve set my sights on building Nex into a 100-year company.

One that will last beyond my lifetime, and the lifetime of everyone at Nex.

That shift in perspective has been truly rejuvenating.

As we approach our tenth year, it can feel like we’ve already been through a lot. At times, it even feels like we are old. But in the context of building a forever company, this is still day one.

How do you build a 100-year company?

I don’t know.

All I can do is imagine it.

Intention matters. Vision matters. Having a clear picture of what we are trying to build is usually the first step. The vision attracts like-minded people. Then, slowly, the work begins.

A 100-year company serves timeless consumer needs, builds a legendary team, cultivates an enduring culture, and operates with resilience.

Timeless Consumer Needs

In 100 years, technology will have evolved, over and over. But if humanity continues to prevail and prosper, there are fundamental needs that will not change.

A 100-year company serves those needs.

That requires persistence. Listening to customers constantly. Developing a deeper understanding of what they truly need, the roles we play in their lives, and how we can serve them better. Inventing and applying relevant technologies. Then doing it again. And again.

Never settling. Always improving.

Over time, that effort compounds and creates real distance.

The needs Nex serves today are timeless: the need to move, the need to connect, the need to grow, and the need to have fun.

These needs are deep. What we have today is merely scratching the surface.

Legendary Team

I will not be alive to see Nex celebrate its 100-year anniversary.

But if Nex reaches that milestone, it will be because generations of Nex-ers apply great stewardship to a company they are entrusted with.

They will accomplish something that once seemed impossible. They will build remarkable products. They will create new magic, again and again. And they will make decisions that endure long after they are gone.

Those decisions, made with care and conviction, will become the foundation Nex lives by.

To earn the chance to become legendary, we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards and keep pounding the rock.

Enduring Culture

What defines Nex will be the culture we build. Culture is how we work when no one is watching.

Our values will guide how we lead, how we build, and how we grow. They will shape the language we use, the promises we make, and the loops we reinforce over time.

Those loops are what allow trust, excellence, and love to compound.

At Nex, our culture is grounded in fundamental human drivers: autonomy, mastery, and connection.

Only with an enduring culture can excellence persist across generations.

Resilience

Every company that has lasted 100 years has lived through crises.

Recessions. Pandemics. Wars. Shifts that felt existential in the moment.

The companies that made it were not the ones that avoided hardship. They were the ones that survived it.

Resilience is how Nex made it through its first nine years. And resilience must be designed into the business if we want to make it through the next ninety-one.

2025 was a great year. We continue to operate Nex with the same day one discipline that got us here.

That mindset is not pessimism. It’s resilience.

The Work Ahead

A 100-year company doesn’t begin with certainty. It begins with commitment.

Writing this down doesn’t make Nex a 100-year company. But it does make it discussable. Discussed ideas become principles. Principles, practiced consistently, shape decisions. And decisions, repeated over time, are what institutions are built from.

What comes next isn’t a promise of outcomes.

It’s a commitment to stewardship.

To discipline over complacency.

And to leaving Nex better than we found it, for the people who come after us.

I remember this question vividly. It came up when we were pivoting from a basketball training app to building active play experiences. It was an honest question, and a hard one. Answering it forced us to decide what role we wanted to play in families’ lives.

For most of my career, I built tools. For 15 years, we made productivity apps. For the next four, we built a basketball training app. For the last five, we have been making games. Switching from tools to content felt both exciting and unsettling. Games, after all, are supposed to entertain. Tools are supposed to help. We were not sure where we fit.

As we explored, one thing became clear quickly. The games that resonated with our users were not typical mobile games, nor typical console games.

If you want to kill time in transit or during short breaks, we are not relevant.
If you want to escape into a meticulously crafted fictional universe, we are not competitive.

Trying to solve the same problems that well-established games already solve would have been futile. A mobile game veteran once told us, “Mobile games don’t work like that.”

He was right. But we were not trying to make those games.

Learning from Families Who Loved Us First

Every new product has early customers who feel something before others do. We were lucky to find them.

Instead of forcing ourselves into existing categories, we followed these families and asked a different question:

What problems are we hired to solve?

That shift changed everything. It led us to what I now think of as our problem-team fit, and eventually our product-market fit.

Yes, we make games.
Yes, they are fun.
And yes, they are useful.

At Nex, we make the kind of games that tool builders would make. They balance joy and usefulness. They are designed with intention.

If you read reviews anywhere Nex Playground is sold, you will notice a consistent pattern. People do not just talk about fun. They talk about the roles Nex plays in their lives.

Outdoor’s Sidekick

When outdoors is too cold, too hot, too wet, or too dark, Nex Playground steps in.

All of our games get players moving. Families use them to burn off energy. To move their bodies. To stay active when going outside is not an option.

We are not trying to replace outdoor play. We are happy to be its sidekick, sharing the load when the outdoors is taking a break.

A Family Well-Being Hub

Much of modern entertainment is experienced alone. Nex Playground helps bring families together.

More than half of our games support two or more players. Some support up to four. No controllers required. The design invites people to play together, and it lights up both the mood and the room.

We hear this again and again from families. Parties. Game nights. Playdates. Living rooms filled with laughter, rivalry, and teamwork.

Siblings. Parents and kids. Grandparents and grandkids. Families. Friends. Different ages and abilities, playing together.

And when kids are off to school or have gone to bed, we offer an expanding catalog of fitness experiences for parents. When the gym becomes harder to access after kids, Nex helps fill that gap.

A Better Companion

There are moments when parents need time to prepare dinner or get other work done. Our customers tell us that Nex Playground often becomes a much better “babysitter” than an iPad.

We understand why.

We are safe, private, and secure.
Inappropriate content does not find its way in.
The experience is active, not sedentary.
And the activities are intentional.

Many parents already invest heavily in after-school activities: sports, music, arts, and academics. We design games along those same lines.

We think about the roles teachers, coaches, and counselors play in our kids’ lives, and how play can help kids build interests, confidence, and real-world skills. We design challenges to catalyze growth. We think about flow, and how kids practice getting into the zone.

Our goal is to build a platform that helps kids feel proud of themselves, and helps parents feel proud of their kids.

The Lens We Build Through

Nex reached scale because we understand the problems we solve and the roles we play.

We are not here just to entertain. We are here to create the kinds of positive moments families crave. Movement. Connection. Growth. Joy.

That clarity guides what we build, and just as importantly, what we choose not to build.

Our subscription model gives us that freedom. We do not sell ads, so we are not optimizing for attention. We do not rely on in-app purchases, so our focus stays on the experience itself. All we have to do is keep solving real problems and playing our roles well, so families choose to hire us again and again.

Customer-aligned. Simple. Honest.

This is how Nex sets itself apart.

Yes, we make games.
And they are tools, too.

Through this lens, we continue to innovate. To surprise. And to delight.

That’s the role we play.

But how?

Who is actually taking care of the customer?

And how does the business really take care of itself?

I’ve been carrying these questions in the back of my mind for years. Recently, I felt I had reached some clarity. I call this idea The Infinite Loop of Care and Love.

And if someone asked how Nex Playground surprised many people this year, including becoming one of the most talked-about game consoles during Black Friday, this would be my answer.

The loop involves three entities: the company (Nex), the team, and the customers. Nex is not just a legal entity. It is something we intentionally shape and design.

Nex Takes Care of the Team

As much as I take it as my personal mission to take good care of the team, in reality, it’s Nex, the company, that does.

To take good care of the team, Nex must provide both material and spiritual value. Both matter.

Material value comes from compensation. It needs to meet expectations so team members can provide for themselves and their families. Full-time employees also own a piece of the company, which may become valuable over time and contribute to greater financial freedom.

Spiritual value comes from a great company culture. A culture driven by our mission and moral compass, where we shape Nex into a force for good. A culture of autonomy, where transparency and shared context enable the team to make decisions and do the right things. A culture of mastery that relentlessly pursues excellence and growth. And a culture of connection, where we build empathy with each other and with our customers.

We want people at Nex to choose Nex, even if they had all the options in the world. Nex is part of our collective pursuit of fulfillment and happiness.

The Team Takes Care of Our Customers

The team, in turn, takes good care of our customers.

We build something families truly want. The foundation is deeply understanding them.

Our customers are primarily parents and grandparents who want good, positive things for their families. A healthy, active lifestyle. Something that brings the family together. A companion and a catalyst for growth. A coach that helps kids build interest, confidence, and skills in sports. A teacher for music, art, and learning. A trainer that helps you stay fit. Something to play at parties that creates memories. Or an adventure that brings parents, grandparents, kids, and siblings together.

Nex Playground aspires to be all of the above. To keep getting better. And to earn its place in the living room, day in and day out.

Many of us are parents ourselves. We build for parents, and with parents. Our subscription business model allows us to be fully value-aligned with our customers. We also recognize that we aren’t perfect. We will make mistakes. So we listen, fix what’s broken, and keep pushing to surprise and delight.

The Customers Take Care of Nex

The business does not take care of itself. Our customers take care of Nex.

They buy our product. They subscribe and renew. They join our community. They give feedback. They report bugs. They submit feature requests. They leave reviews. They tell their friends. They wear our merch. They spread the word.

Word of mouth is the ultimate form of marketing. It’s not something money can buy. When enough customers truly love what we are building, we create a self-sustaining ecosystem. One that allows us to build a better and better product, and serve more and more families.

The Infinite Loop of Care and Love is how Nex takes care of the team, the team takes care of families, and families take care of Nex. It is the foundation for building a company that lasts beyond our lifetime.

This is our secret.

Easy to say.
Hard to do.
But worth it.

In the Stone Soup story, everyone contributes, and together they create a meal to remember.

That philosophy has shaped how we built Nex and Nex Playground. Nex exists because of long-term, win-win relationships across our entire ecosystem. It is a company built together with employees, partners, and the community we serve.

Last year, I shared how we got started. This year, I’d like to reflect on how we evolved.

We entered 2025 with both excitement and challenges.

The excitement came from selling through every single unit produced. Retailers including Walmart, Target, and Best Buy committed to expanding Nex’s footprint in their stores. Amazon deepened our partnership. Sam’s Club came on board. And we entered Canada with Walmart Canada. Today, Nex Playground is available in more than 5,400 stores.

The challenge was that we sold through the inventory originally reserved for Q1. Our partners were left with empty shelves. Nex Playground was out of stock for an extended period. Global supply chain disruptions and cost increases earlier this year added even more pressure. We were fortunate to have Skyworth Digital working tirelessly to strengthen our supply chain, secure material in advance, and diversify production to build resilience.

It has also been a year of major technology advancements. We rolled out more accurate and performant AI models. We added new sensing features that track hand pose and face pose, used in Mirrorama, Bluey, and more titles to come. We squeezed more features and performance from the hardware our customers already have. And we improved our manufacturing processes to make the product even more robust than last year.

With a growing subscriber base, we significantly increased our content production budget for 2025. We partnered with beloved franchises including BBC Studio’s Bluey, Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, NBC Universal’s Gabby’s Dollhouse and How to Train Your Dragon, the NHL, Paramount’s TMNT, Spin Master’s Unicorn Academy, and Zumba. Alongside them are our original titles Mirrorama, HomeRun Heroes, Copy Cat Deluxe, BoxFlow Fitness, Mingles, and Nex Pets. In total, we are on track to ship 20 new games and experiences this year, plus many updates. I’m also happy to share that we are increasing our production budget again next year to bring more frequent and exciting content to Nex Playground families.

The Nex team has grown to more than 120 people across the US, Canada, Hong Kong, and the UK. We are attracting world-class talent. It is the highest concentration of talent I have ever seen, and we are setting our sights on building a company that will last beyond our lifetime.

Yesterday, we crossed an important milestone together — the 500,000th Nex Playground sold.

And we could not do any of this without you, our user community. The bugs you report, the suggestions you make, the stories you share, the reviews you leave, and the words you spread continue to shape Nex. We share your feedback and experiences across the company as a constant reminder of why we do what we do. In moments of difficulty, your words lift us up.

Many families place Nex Playground in the center of their homes. With that privilege comes responsibility. Our mission is clearer than ever. We want to do good for families. Play that keeps you active and brings families together. A companion and a catalyst for growth. Safe, private, and secure. New content regularly. No ads. No nags. Play that moves you.

At the bottom of the stone soup is the stone itself. For us, that stone is Nex’s resolve to be a force for good — built on a model that gives more than it takes.

The stone soup we are cooking together is only getting better. And we are just getting started.

Thank you for your contribution.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It happened early in the Nex journey, when we were building HomeCourt.

Remarkable, but niche

HomeCourt’s shot tracking was remarkable—an engineering marvel at the time, and it still is. Just months into building it, Steve Nash was advising us. I was invited to demo it to Steph Curry. It was used by some of the biggest names in basketball. Apple put us on stage. The NBA invested in the company.

But shot tracking was niche. Very few people care about their shots so much that they’d want to track them with an app. Using it required having a hoop to yourself and setting your phone on a tripod—most people just wouldn’t do it. For those who did, HomeCourt was a godsend.

At that time, about ten people left Apple to join me—blindly pursuing an idea we all knew wasn’t that big on its own. The trust placed in me, and in each other, was enormous. We believed we’d eventually figure out the bigger idea together.

The fear of breaking that trust kept me up at night.

Mass market, but shallow

But that fear also drove us to explore, to experiment beyond basketball—something that might appeal to a wider audience. We created reaction training games on HomeCourt.

Apple thought it was innovative and gave us the prestigious Apple Design Award. They even demoed it on stage: two players standing six feet away from an iPhone, playing our reaction game on a small screen. I remember watching and feeling… something wasn’t right.

That feature set eventually became Active Arcade. During the pandemic, it went viral—millions of downloads, hundreds of millions of play sessions. But users left as quickly as they came. It didn’t form a deep relationship with most.

The screen was too small. Many people tried it. It was… okay.

To make it truly remarkable, we needed to bring the experience to the big screen and create something deeper, more meaningful. That evolution became Nex Playground—a journey that took years to materialize.

The Work Ahead

As we look ahead and think about how to serve our users better, what lessons can we draw?

Real progress happens when we commit to building something remarkable—the size of the audience matters, but it’s secondary. What matters is creating something that forms a deep relationship with those it touches. We can’t please everyone all the time—but we must please someone, deeply, some of the time.

Committing to being remarkable moves us forward.

This is the question I’ll be asking all our internal and external game studios:

Especially now that our platform is past the phase of “not enough games,” our challenge is no longer quantity—it’s quality with purpose and soul.

In 2026, this is what we’ll commit ourselves to.

• For the games already loved by our players, we’ll work to take them from good to great—from remarkable to legendary. Expect exciting updates to Starri, Mirrorama, HomeRun Heroes, and many others.

• For the new games we’re building, we’ll make sure each one pushes boundaries—offering something new, unique, or unexpected. Some may start small, but they must be minimally magical.

In the next few posts, I’ll share our behind-the-scenes quest for remarkability in some of the games we shipped this year—and what we learned along the way.

Stay tuned.

Nex is growing fast. We’ve nearly doubled in size in the past year. But here’s the thing— We’re not hiring for one archetype. We’re not building a team of clones.

We’re building something much harder—and much more powerful:

A team that can hold the tension and leverage the differences.

The Tension We Hold

• Dreamers and Doers. Most of us are somewhere in between. Some are vision-first, asking where we want to be in 10 years and working backward. Others ground us in reality and ask, “What are we shipping this quarter?” We need both mindsets.

• Doing the Right Things vs. Doing Things Right. Strategy and execution. Intuition and precision. We need people who start with “why,” perfect the “how,” and deliver the “what.”

• Researchers, Developers, Production. Researchers crave breakthroughs. Developers chase progress. Production teams obsess over reliability. These aren’t competing goals—they’re different commitments to excellence.

• First-Principles vs. Established Playbook. First-principle thinking challenges the status quo. An established playbook helps us move fast. We reinvent the wheel when we must, and roll with the best wheels when we can.

• Conviction vs. Data. Past data would advise against building another motion game console—they didn’t last. Nex jumped in with conviction. Now we leverage data to chart the path to sustainability. The best decisions come when conviction and data meet.

• 0-to-1 Chaos vs. 1-to-N Scale. Explorers, hackers, and founders-at-heart thrive in the chaos. Builders of systems and repeaters of magic shine in scale. To win long-term, we need both—reinventing ourselves and scaling what works.

• Pushing Boundaries vs. Pushing Efficiency. One explores what’s never been done and keeps us original. The other refines, streamlines, and scales what works—making us sustainable.

• Specialists vs. Generalists. Specialists push us forward with depth. Generalists connect dots and bring glue. Both are essential.

Which House Are We?

Stephen Saiz, our VP of Publishing, asked me during our last field trip to Orlando’s Epic Universe:

“Which Hogwarts house are you?”

So I asked the one who knows me best—ChatGPT, who has the deepest account of how I think (please don’t tell my wife).

She said I have the mind of a Ravenclaw and the nature of a Gryffindor: fearless, determined, risk-taking… and stubborn.

So then I asked myself: what about Nex?

Co-founder Tony Sung? Ravenclaw. Curious. Analytical. Rigorous.
Co-founder Reggie Chan? Hufflepuff. Loyal. Hardworking. The heart of the team.
Stephen himself? A Gryffindor who wishes he were a (good) Slytherin. Resourceful. Strategic. Ambitious.

And I realized: one answer isn’t enough.

We’re Building Hogwarts

We’re not building one house. We’re building Hogwarts.

We thrive because of our differences. That’s why Nex works.

Hogwarts stands the test of time. And so will Nex.

Protecting What Makes Us Special

When you grow fast, it’s tempting to simplify— to default to one mindset, one type of hire, one way of working.

But if we do that, we lose what made Nex special.

We’re not here to be just a toy company.
Or just a console company.
Or just a games company.
Or just a consumer subscription company.

We’re building something new— a new category, a new experience, a new kind of play, with purpose.

And to do that, we have to protect and nurture our diversity of minds.

Because that’s what gives us range, builds our resilience, and catalyzes our growth.

Building Together

The best teams don’t all think the same way.

They know how to disagree well.
They know when to step up—and when to step back.
They know how to leverage the differences.

That’s Nex.

And we will keep building—together.

P.S. This almost went out as “The Balance We Strike.” But Tony challenged me—it sounded like compromise, not conviction. He was right. The Differences We Leverage better reflects who we are: intentional about differences, and committed to protecting them.

P.P.S. This is the third post in The Nex Way series. The first two were “The Language We Use” and “The Promises We Made.” All of these started as my opening remarks at Nex’s town hall. This one you just read is from earlier this month—so I’ve finally caught up.

Now we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a company—not just teams, not just technologies, not just products. A company. A vehicle that can carry our vision and values beyond our own lifetimes.

Honestly, it’s exhilarating.

Following “The Language We Use,” another way to express our culture is through the promises we make—to each other, and to the people who bring this company to life.

The promises Nex made to the team:

• Growth.

  • We grow by doing what we haven’t done before, or never thought we could. That means new challenges, new roles, new expectations—sometimes before we’re ready. Nex is a place that sharpens your strengths and helps you reach your fullest potential. Through a commitment to world-class execution, we push each other to level up.

• Impact.

  • When we work on a big idea, we build ourselves a stage. We make sure your work moves the needle—for the customers we serve and the company we’re building. We’re creating a global brand and a household name—with your signature on it.

• Respect.

  • The road is steep. The hours are long. But we respect your time, your commitment, and the life you have outside of work. We encourage everyone to find their rhythm. Not every week should be a sprint. And when something’s not working—we listen, and we adjust.

• Truth.

  • We don’t hide hard things. We tell it like it is. Transparency builds trust—inside our team and with the community we serve. We share information early, often, and with context—because knowing the truth empowers us, and helps all of us make better decisions.

• Safety.

  • Growing to over 100 people in 8 years, we’ve said goodbye to so few people that we could count them on two hands. That’s not because we don’t have high standards. It’s because we take the long view on people. We believe that if your heart is in the right place, you can get there. Sometimes, it takes a village.

• Freedom.

  • We believe in autonomy—decisions made close to the work. But we also believe in something bigger: building Nex into the kind of company people choose to stay at. Even when they have every option in the world, they still choose Nex. We still choose each other.

The promises the team made to Nex:

• Best Work.

  • We’re here to do the best work of our lives. We believe that, given time, we can build things that stand with the best in the world. That’s not ego—it’s belief. In our craft. In each other. In our quest for excellence.

• Empathy.

  • We lead with empathy—for our teammates and our customers. We take time to understand each other’s strengths, struggles, and stories. That understanding fuels appreciation. It shapes how we debate, how we collaborate, and how we build.

• Truth.

  • We don’t just share the truth—we ask for it. If something’s broken, we speak up. If something feels off, we say so. And we don’t just point out problems—we roll up our sleeves and help fix them.

• Culture.

  • Culture is the behaviors we encourage, the tradeoffs we accept, the stories we tell. Culture attracts and repels. If we want to build a company that lasts, culture is the scaffolding. We live it. We protect it. We pass it on.

Most startups are short stints. The truly great ones—the ones that last beyond their founders—are the role models we look up to.

I don’t know if we’ll get there. But I know we won’t get there by accident.

If we want to build something that lasts, we have to be intentional. And it starts with the most fundamental building blocks: the promises we make to each other.

In the beginning, my focus was simple: build and shape the product. Today, my role has shifted to building the organization that builds and delivers the end-to-end experience. That shift feels just as creative—and just as important—as getting into the nitty-gritty.

Part of that work is codifying our values and culture. I’m expected to repeat them until I sound like a broken record. I try to do better than that, so in every Town Hall, I look for a new angle to share the same message. Back in May, I took my first stab at it. I’m sharing that here—for my team at Nex who are already living it, for our community who supports us, and for those who may join us one day.

Values are what we believe in. Culture is how we live it. And when we’re living it, this is the language we use:

• This is why we do what we do. We’re mission-oriented. We focus on our users. We share their stories. We celebrate their success.

• Sorry. Mistakes happen. We take responsibility, diffuse tension, start healing, learn, and move on.

• We can do it. We’re fearless and optimistic. From starting with nothing, we’ve built AI, built games, built hardware, and built distribution. No challenge feels too big now.

• Let’s have fun. Life is a pursuit of happiness. Fun comes from autonomy, mastery, and connection. We have fun building, and our community has fun with what we build.

• Leave it to me. Showing up. Stepping up. Taking ownership.

• I’m counting on you. Delegating with trust.

• We can do better. Reflecting, course-correcting, setting higher bars, and refusing to make the same mistake twice.

• Let’s pound the rock. Progress happens swing by swing. We commit to continuous improvement.

• Thank you & Great job! Giving credit and sharing praise generously.

• What can I do for you? Offering help, always.

• How can I do better? Inviting feedback, openly and humbly.

• Anything else? Staying curious about what we don’t yet know.

This is the language we use at Nex.

It’s how we remind ourselves what we stand for.
It’s how we show up for each other.
And it’s how we keep building, not just a product, but a community, and hopefully, a movement.

Because culture isn’t something we write down once. It’s something we practice every day, in the words we choose and the way we live them.

How can we do better, together?

As both a pediatrician and a mom, this is the time of year when I start thinking about transitions: shifting from flexible, free-flowing summer days into structured school routines.

This year, I’ve been especially mindful of two big things:

• Schedules (especially sleep!)

• Sedentary screen use

And yes, these two are more connected than we sometimes realize.

Sleep: The Cornerstone of Learning and Behavior…and a parenting challenge

During summer, our schedule was looser. Even camp weeks were casual, and bedtime? More like “bed-ish” time. That meant later nights - sometimes a 9 p.m. “bedtime” slipping into 10 p.m. before the 💤 was really happening.

But here’s the problem: school mornings don’t flex. For my elementary-aged kids who need to wake up by 7 a.m., late summer bedtimes - they’re out.

Here’s a quick reminder of the recommended sleep ranges by age (American Academy of Pediatrics & American Academy of Sleep Medicine):

• Toddlers (1-2 years) 11-14 hours including naps

• Preschoolers (3-5 years) 10-13 hours including naps

• Grade schoolers (6-12 years) 9-12 hours

• Teens (13-18 years) 8-10 hours

So, I did the math 🤨:

• 😴 by 10 p.m. → ⏰ at 7 a.m. = 9 hours (the bare minimum 😕).

• 😴 by 8 p.m. → ⏰ at 7 a.m. = 11 hours (right in the sweet spot 🎯).

But oh wow- asleep by 8pm, that’s a challenge. The key? Consistency. A predictable routine helps kids fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.

Ok…What About Screen Use and Sleep?

Screens aren’t inherently “bad,” but timing and type do matter.

Research shows:

• Exciting or interactive content before bed can wind kids up instead of calming them down.

• Passive scrolling or watching displaces healthy routines like reading, family connection, or play.

• Light from screens (especially blue) may delay melatonin release, though the research is actually mixed.

A few practical strategies backed by pediatric recommendations:

• Power down at least an hour before bed. (If that sounds impossible, I like this tip sheet from Children and Screens).

• Keep screens out of bedrooms. This is one of the strongest protective factors for sleep (kids and adults).

• Swap pre-bedtime screens for calming rituals: reading, drawing, puzzles, or listening to music.

In our house, the last half-hour before bedtime is sacred: we all head upstairs, dim the lights, and read together. That anchor makes earlier bedtimes possible.

Here’s the secret parenting sauce…

Exercise by Day, Calm by Night

One of the best predictors of good sleep? Movement during the day.

My kids were much more active over the summer, and I worry a lot about the limited movement they get once school starts (did you know that most states only mandate 30 minutes of daily physical activity at school!?). We try to sneak in activity by biking or walking to school, but I know that isn’t possible for every family.

Here’s what pediatricians know: kids who run, climb, bike, or dance (a.k.a. moderate to vigorous activity) more during the day fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply.

After-school is for big play, parents should have plans to maximize after school physical activity even when weather or schedules make outdoor play hard. The other half of the equation: winding down at night with a calm later evening routine.

The Transition from Summer Screens to Back-to-School Screens: A Different Option

This is the first school year where my kids’ routine include almost no sedentary screen time - true, this may not be right for all families - but we are going to give it a try! Their old tablet habits have been replaced almost entirely by active play.

So on school nights, when they ask (on repeat)…

“Can I have screen time?” I plan to reply:
“No… but you can have Nex”

And that feels like a win-win, for their sleep, their learning, and their health.

Quick Recap -

💤 Kids need enough sleep. Aim for 10–12 hours- count from actually asleep to awake.
📱 Screens and bedrooms shouldn’t mix and power down an hour before bed.
🏃 Movement fuels sleep. The more kids move by day, the easier they rest at night.

Small shifts = big payoff: calmer nights, smoother mornings, and kids ready to learn.

👉 What’s worked (or totally flopped 🙃) for screen-time and bedtime in your house? Drop your best hacks in the comments so we can learn from each other.

✨ Keep moving,

Dr. Emily Greenwald

Nex Playground Chief Pediatric Advisor

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Where were we?

While I was “nerding,” the world was taken over by dance games—more than once.

It started in arcades with Dance Dance Revolution in the late ’90s. You stomped on arrows to the beat of music while strangers watched. Eventually, the DDR mat made its way into living rooms. My brother had one.

Then came Just Dance in 2009, turning living rooms into dance floors around the world. It was wildly successful—tens of millions of copies sold, annual releases, and somehow still going. Fun fact: the final game ever launched on the Wii? Just Dance 2020. That’s seven years after Nintendo discontinued the console. Talk about staying power.

Dance Central arrived in 2010, bundled with the Kinect. It had full-body tracking, great music, and was probably the reason most people bought a Kinect in the first place.

And then there was Zumba Fitness, also in 2010. It brought the energy of Zumba classes into the home, sold like crazy, and helped a lot of people justify buying a Wii. It leaned into fitness and found its audience.

Dance games were often the first to show up and the last to leave. They defined the motion gaming era.

Where are we?

After Kinect was discontinued, the untethered dance experience disappeared. Just Dance is still one of Ubisoft’s top franchises, but with dedicated hardware gone, dance is no longer hands-free—a clear downgrade. Fans are just getting more of the same.

Enter Nex, and Active Play. We’re bringing dance games back—the right way.

First, we unlocked next-gen motion tracking: AI that understands video captured by a camera. No controllers. No sensors. No depth cameras.

Second, we built Nex Playground for the audience that loved dance games first—families. A platform designed to make dance games shine.

Third, we have a model that supports continuous innovation and live content drops. Look at what we did with Starri or Barbie Dance Party—updates every quarter. The game stays alive, all year round.

We have the right ingredients to give dance games a second life—one that can stand the test of time.

Introducing Zumba Fitness Party!

With our partnership with Zumba, we’re pushing boundaries. The big idea is to bring the fun of a Zumba class into your living room. Here’s how we’re doing it:

Instructor-led classes. Many dance games cut out the human element. We’re doing the opposite. Zumba classes are instructor-led, and their energy and presence matter. We bring the instructor front and center.

Real-time feedback. Building on the strong foundation of Zumba videos, Nex adds value by layering feedback on top of the instructor’s movements and gamifying how well you synchronize. Scoring encourages deliberate practice. With deliberate practice, there’s improvement. We’re putting players on the road to mastery and confidence.

Feature and content updates. The launch includes a substantial library: 4 intro classes, 4 extended sessions, and 2 full-hour dance workouts—66 songs in total. The exciting part? Zumba and Nex are planning to release a new class every month. And new features are on the way. At Nex, shipping a game isn’t the end—it’s the start.

Getting you ready for a live class. The game also links you to the official class finder. We help you practice the moves at home, so when it’s time to go IRL, you can groove with everyone else—confidently.

The Party Cell

I’ve introduced our other two studios—Music Cell and Metaverse Cell—in other posts. Party Cell was the first studio to ship a game at Nex. They’re based at our HQ in San Jose. It’s a tight-knit team that’s hard to break into (they dance together daily, you know). When they’re in a room, you feel the energy.

Some members are also seriously athletic—Nex Gym’s coach, Arron Mollet, was a professional athlete before Nex. If we ever held a basketball tournament between Nex studios, they’d beat the others hands down. I’d have to join their team just to keep things balanced.

Their first game, Party Fowl, is still going strong on mobile—half a million organic downloads in the past 12 months, mostly from Southeast Asia (we don’t know how). It was already making a name for Nex before Nex Playground even launched there.

On Nex Playground, the Party Cell has shipped, in chronological order:

• Party Fowl

• Nex Gym

• Family Fitness Challenge

• Kung Fu Panda

• Copy Cat Deluxe

• Zumba Fitness Party

See the pattern? They started with a party game, moved into fitness, and they’ve been mixing the two to create experiences across the spectrum. Zumba Fitness Party is their best dish yet—a wonderful mix of social, physical, and fun.

Party Cell will keep at it, with the belief that one day, they’ll discover the secret recipe to make fitness fun for everyone.

P.S. The producer behind Dance Central and Zumba Fitness, Lisa Roth, has recently joined Nex. The Avengers are assembling.

For a while, motion games were hailed as the future.

Then the music stopped.

They disappeared almost as quickly as they came. People remember them fondly, but their absence today leads many to believe they were just a fad.

“Get a Wii! Or a Kinect!”

We’ve seen it more times than we can count. Whenever our community posts videos of their family playing Nex Playground, someone inevitably comments:

“Just get a Wii!” (or Kinect!)

Can you still get one? Sure.
Are they cheaper than Nex Playground? Yep.
Do they have more games? They do.

But let’s be honest: you’re buying discontinued, secondhand devices and games from the internet. No warranty. No support. No updates. No new titles. No future roadmap.

Nostalgia? Absolutely.
A path forward? Not even close.

Why Did Motion Games Disappear?

I don’t pretend to know the internal strategies of companies many times our size. But here’s my honest take: the big three went back to serving their core audience—gamers who prioritize precise control above all else.

Motion games were seen as a novelty. And when the novelty wore off, game sales collapsed—and so did the developer ecosystem. No developers meant no new games. No new games meant no new customers. The hardware was discontinued.

It fizzled out like a fad. But they blazed a trail, leaving behind valuable lessons—and a gap for those who came after.

Why Did Nex Try Again?

Our customers aren’t core gamers. They’re families. And they want movement. They value it. They see it as essential, not a gimmick.

So yes, Nex is diving in again. With both feet.

But this time, we’re doing it differently—in three fundamental ways:

1. Technology that works.

The capabilities once pioneered for Apple’s breakthrough A12 Bionic chipset, originally designed for on-device AI, are now available at a family-friendly price point in Nex Playground. We run on-device AI that analyzes video at 30 frames per second. Its ultra-wide-angle camera sees the whole room. Our neural processing unit tracks body, face, and hand motion with high resolution—for up to four players at once.

No headsets. No sensors. No infrared bars. No depth camera.

Just software and AI models—constantly improving, without needing new hardware.

If there’s such a thing as the ultimate form of motion gaming, this is it.

The lesson? The tech wasn’t good or simple enough before. Now it is.

2. A business model that sustains development.

The old platforms crumbled because developers left. And they left because the economics didn’t work. Motion games were sold in boxes. Once the hype faded, the sales dried up. Innovation slowed. The market shrank. And the cycle collapsed.

That’s why Nex is built on a subscription model.

It’s harder—because trust is hard to earn. Consumers are naturally skeptical of subscriptions. And for a new company? We almost gave in. We’re glad we didn’t.

Families who loved us first told their friends. And year after year, we’ve earned the resources to keep building. Our game production budget has grown three years in a row—and it’s only going up.

Subscription isn’t just a pricing model—it’s a promise. A promise to keep showing up. To keep improving. To keep earning our place in your home.

With this model, we’ve created a flywheel that improves the product for every customer—new and existing—every day.

The lesson? The ecosystem died because it couldn’t sustain itself. Ours can.

3. A genuine focus on kids and families.

We didn’t start with core gamers—and that gave us freedom.
Freedom to start fresh.
Freedom to align every decision with the needs of families.

We build for and with the families who loved us first.

From industrial design to onboarding, from our operating system to our game catalog—every decision is made with our community in mind.

We prioritize safety, privacy, and security.
Our business model is simple and honest: no ads, no nags.

The lesson? Motion games for core gamers didn’t last. We’re building this from the ground up for families.

Nex Playground is an Active Play System

Industry veterans advised us to position Nex Playground as a “motion game console.”The category exists, they said. Why not just fill the gap?

But we think differently.

Playing games with motion? That’s a novelty.
Staying active? That’s a need.

Traditional “games” sometimes create tension in families.
But play? Play is essential.

“Console” is a device.
A system feels shared—like something meant to connect us.

We’re not just choosing different words.
We mean what we say.

We’re not console makers focused only on entertainment.
We’re toolmakers creating something useful, and deeply good—for kids, for parents, for families.

Motion gaming had its chance—and history made its call.

We’re building something new.
We call it Active Play.

And this time, we’re building it to stand the test of time.

Before Active Arcade caught fire again, there was a quieter stretch—a period of slower growth. During that time, we started interviewing early users to understand who was finding value in this new form of play. A clear theme quickly emerged.

Many of our earliest adopters were families with kids who experience the world a little differently, whether through ADHD, autism, or simply unique ways of thinking and moving. These families were actively searching for games that got their kids moving, because movement could do wonders for them.

Nex is about Active Play—and we believe everyone benefits from it. But in every new category, there are people who need it first.

For Apple, it was the creative pros. For Nex, it’s families whose kids benefit most from movement.

Learning From the Families Who Found Us First

Following their lead, we dug deeper. No two kids are alike, but patterns started to emerge. We found needs that weren’t fully met by traditional games, classrooms, or sports.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

• Movement helps focus. Studies show that moderate to vigorous physical activity can improve attention span and executive function. Active play channels excess energy in ways that support emotional regulation and task persistence.

• Instant feedback matters. Some kids need real-time responses to stay engaged. Motion games offer direct cause-and-effect, unlike traditional instruction which can feel slow or abstract.

• Short bursts work better. Brains that crave novelty or struggle with long tasks thrive on short, varied challenges that stay fresh and manageable.

• Play builds bridges. Breaking the ice isn’t always easy, but co-play—through movement, mimicry, or parallel play—creates easier entry points for connection with parents, siblings, and friends.

• Controllers are barriers. For kids with fine motor challenges, traditional game controllers get in the way. Nex removes that friction: the body is the controller.

• Structure + rhythm = self-regulation. Games built around patterns, cues, and beats help kids practice starting, stopping, and staying in sync—valuable skills for everyday life.

• Movement is learning. For many kids, embodied, hands-on interaction works far better than verbal or text-based instruction.

• Safe novelty matters. Many kids thrive on routine but benefit from small, predictable variations that feel new without being overwhelming.

• Home is a haven. In a no-judgment space, kids can stim, dance, or move freely, without needing to mask who they are.

• Play without pressure. Not every child thrives in turn-taking or team sports. But many flourish in environments where they can play alongside others, without demands, pressure, or comparison.

When you look at Nex Playground’s games closely, you’ll notice these principles at work. Our early customers have shaped our design more than they may ever know.

“Good for You” Games

Games often get a bad rap. And to be fair, sometimes they’ve earned it. Many are designed to be addictive, to monetize “whales,” or to pull players into escapist loops.

But games can also be deeply good—just like basketball is a game.

At Nex, we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We build games that are fun, social, and physical. Games that contribute positively to your body and mind. Games that are wholesome entertainment. That’s the bar.

Who Loves Nex Playground Today?

As our community grows, so does our understanding of the families who find meaning in what we’ve built. Most share one or more of these qualities, needs, or contexts:

• Families with younger kids who aren’t quite ready for traditional gaming systems

• Households with multiple siblings looking for something they can enjoy together

• Parents who are mindful about content and value curated, family-friendly experiences

• Homeschooling families using Nex for daily movement and PE

• Multi-generational households seeking simple, inclusive ways to play together

• Families with neurodivergent kids using active play to support focus and regulation

• Those living in extreme climates, where outdoor play isn’t always practical

• Families who are sports- and fitness-minded, prioritizing movement over passive screen time

The Big Idea

The families who loved us first saw something in Nex—something they weren’t getting anywhere else. In response, we are committed to understanding them better and serving them better.

That’s our foundation.

That’s the big idea.

That’s why we do what we do.

I had a familiar after school routine:
🎒 Backpack dropped at the door
🍿 Snack in hand
🎮 Video game glowing
🛋️ Hours of stillness until my parents came home

This same combo of mindless snacks, passive screens, and very little movement, still shapes far too many childhoods today. The difference now? Screens are everywhere: in strollers, at dinner tables, even in kid’s bedrooms. Nearly 40% of U.S. two-year-olds own a tablet. By age eight, one in four has a smartphone (Common Sense Census 2025 )

How Much Is Too Much?

Screen time itself isn’t “bad”, but still time, especially time spent alone and sitting, adds up. In pediatrics, we see it daily:

📈 Rising BMIs📱 Thumb tendinitis (yes, really) 🧠 Shorter attention spans 🥴 Poor posture and core weakness 🥱 Sleep issues 😫 Parents desperate for answers

The common thread? Too much sitting. Not enough active play.

That’s part of why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends:

• 0–18 months: No screens (except video chat)

• 2–5 years: No more than 1 hour/day of high-quality content

• 6+ years: Family media plans that protect sleep, physical activity, and face-to-face interaction

But these guidelines were created for passive screen use - just like the kind in my own childhood after school routine where I sat, watched, and zoned out. So what happens when a screen encourages kids to move?

When Screens Get Kids Moving: Active Play

A new category of screen time has emerged—one that flips the script.

Call it what you will: active play, active video games = AVGs in the research world (more on this later!) or exergaming. These experiences don’t involve handheld controllers or passive observation. They engage kids’ full bodies encouraging running, squatting, balancing, reacting, and often laughing with others.

At our house, this is the only screen that doesn’t come with a timer. It self-limits: when the kids are tired, they stop. There’s no passive scrolling, no isolated zoning out. Just active play, in every sense of the words.

The Missing Rulebook

We know a lot about passive screen time. We know it can disrupt sleep, increase sedentary behavior, affect mood, and shape brain development. But we know far less about active screen time, particularly the kind that uses natural movement, encourages shared play, and doesn’t rely on controllers or scripted sequences.

This form of active play is newer, it didn’t exist when I was a child, and because of that, it doesn’t fit neatly into existing guidelines. Trying to apply traditional screen limits to these experiences might be like using dietary advice for 🍭 to judge 🥦. It’s not that unlimited use is automatically okay, but the framework for understanding it needs to evolve.

We’re just starting to explore what this type of screen-fueled movement can offer:

• Improved coordination and strength

• Increases in physical activity and energy expenditure

• Enhanced mood, engagement, and social connection

• Potential benefits for kids with attention or sensory challenges

As pediatricians and child wellness experts, we are learning through observations and through very early data. But even now, it’s clear: not all screen time is created equal. And we shouldn’t treat it like it is.

My Own Off-the-Couch Moment

Nobody handed me a high-tech active play solution when I was little, but in middle school, I got lucky: horses.

Afternoons turned into endless motion mucking stalls, carrying water buckets, grooming ponies, and earning every minute in the saddle. It was hard physical work, yes, but disguised as passion. Without realizing it, I rewired my brain: movement > stillness. That shift stuck with me through med school, early parenthood, and now my work helping my own kids and others make that same shift.

I still struggle with the scroll (I’m human), but my kids now have an option I never did: a way to play with screens that sparks sweat, not stillness.

What’s Next? We are in the middle of a shift!

Parents are hungry for screen experiences that don’t pause movement, but inspire it. We need research, yes, but we also need to start updating our assumptions.

When parents ask me for screen time recommendations I often suggest a different approach:

My pediatrician-parenting litmus test is simple:
✅ Are they moving their body?
✅ Are they connecting (with real humans)?
✅ Are they actively thinking?

❌If the answer is no, I take a second look.
👍If it’s yes, that’s screen time worth defending.

Active play screen time is “screen” time. But it’s a kind we’re only beginning to understand, and likely one that deserves its own set of rules.

Invitation: I’d love to hear how you approach screen time in your family.

Have you created different rules for different types of screen use?…like shows vs. video calls vs. tablets vs. active play?

What’s working for your kids? What’s still a challenge?

Drop your thoughts in the comments, share your family’s screen-time strategy, or tell me what’s surprised you most. We’re all figuring this out in real time, and your approach might help someone else navigate their own version of the scroll vs. sweat dilemma.

✨ Keep moving,
Dr. Emily Greenwald
Nex Playground Chief Pediatric Advisor

P.S. If this resonates, hit subscribe so we can keep turning stillness into play—one post (and one burpee) at a time.

Drawings used in this publication were generated using OpenAI’s ChatGPT image capabilities (DALL·E, July 2025) to illustrate conceptual models.

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“What did you learn at Apple?”

I blanked. I didn’t know where to begin. I rambled through whatever came to mind—and left the conversation deeply unsatisfied.

So after the interview, I sat back, relaxed, and began to reflect. Beyond the practical skills honed over those years, two deeper lessons stood out.

The Big Idea

At Apple, there’s always a gravitational force at the center of everything—a big idea so compelling, it pulls everyone toward it. Peel back the layers of the so-called “reality distortion field,” and that big idea is what you’ll find at the core.

The Storytelling

Apple also has a strong demo culture. I lost count of the demos I gave. But behind every one was strong storytelling. That meant walking through the user’s lens: their pain points, their workflows, and how the product solves their problems.

You don’t get away with fluff. The process is rigorous because nonsense gets caught quickly. A successful demo typically meant that a product or feature got stamped with the Apple logo and was shipped to millions of users.

People outside Apple might call it something else: first principles thinking.

The Role Model Question

Years later, as Nex pivoted into active play, my co-founder Tony Sung asked me:

“Who’s your role model?”

He believed that having a role model would make me more predictable, and being predictable would make me a better leader.

My first instinct was to say Steve Jobs. But I hesitated. Steve’s altitude felt so high, it didn’t feel grounded to call him my role model. I admired him deeply, but I can’t really see myself in him.

Around that time, my friend Ian Smith handed me a book: Ask Iwata.

Reading it changed everything.

The Empathy

Satoru Iwata was the President of Nintendo during the Wii era, when the company set out to bring gaming to everyone. What stood out about Iwata wasn’t just his extraordinary technical capabilities, but his humanity.

He cared. He believed that if you treat people well, empower creators, and stay true to your values, magic happens.

He believed in speaking directly to players—through interviews, Nintendo Directs, and especially through Iwata Asks. He made leadership feel personal and human. He led with empathy.

I don’t have Steve Jobs’ taste—that is almost mystical and impossible to replicate. But I can build empathy. And from that, we can shape a company that talented people want to work for—and a product that genuinely cares for its customers.

Iwata and Jobs

I’ve come to find my own path by learning from both Satoru and Steve, borrowing and blending their strengths.

Playground is that big idea. The world needs a wholesome alternative to the isolating, sedentary forms of entertainment that surround us. At its core, Playground is built on a simple principle: the best games in the world can get people moving and bring them together—just like the game of pick-up basketball.

Nex is in the middle of rapid growth. We doubled in size in less than two years. Calling it “growth pains” would be an understatement. There are real challenges—systems being stretched, people adapting under pressure, and our culture being tested.

But Nex will keep doing the right things—staying human, staying focused—and keep moving forward. With time, I hope Nex can stand alongside the giants who shaped our world—creating with heart, reaching with vision, and never losing sight of the people we build for.

That’s the kind of company I want to build.

The kind of leader I’m working to become.

And the answer I hope I’ll be ready to give—next time someone asks.

“Did our younger one play the baseball game on her own?”

She looked a bit puzzled but said, “Yes, she did.”

The next morning, my daughter beamed with pride:

“I’m already Rank C! I hit five critical home runs and scored over 40,000 points in one game!”

Looks like we might have a home run on our hands.

Just a few days earlier, we were testing the game together for the first time. My daughter had never played baseball before. I brought home a foam bat, loaded up the unreleased game on Nex Playground—and we just started hitting.

We played for hours on Saturday, then picked it up again on Sunday. Sometimes we took turns. Sometimes we played together.

We got better. The controls began to click. We started strategizing. We lost track of time. There’s this magic moment in games when you hit “flow”—and we were there. That satisfying swing of the bat, the thrill of launching a ball into the bonus zone—it had us hooked.

Why Sports Games

Sports are one of the genres that Nex Playground excels at. Our system tracks full-body movement using just a front-facing camera. That opens up possibilities no traditional console can match.

Sports are special. They have a low floor and a high ceiling. That means they’re easy to pick up but have nearly endless room to improve. Some of the greatest games in the world are sports—real, physical sports. Anyone can swing a bat, but only a few become Shohei Ohtani.

The problem is, most sports video games today aren’t physical. What should be a deeply coordinated motion is reduced to thumb-taps and button-mashing. Something gets lost.

Nex Playground is built to change that. We’re not interested in disconnected simulations. We want to help players build confidence to actually play—on the field, in the backyard, wherever the moment strikes.

HomeRun Heroes: StarStrikers

This one began with a persistent community member who requested a baseball game at every opportunity—and a quiet conviction on our team that we could build something truly special.

The Fun: Brett, our principal game designer (and Kinect Adventures alum), led the prototyping. That’s where we found the fun.

The Magic: Mole, our lead engineer, tuned every detail of the swing mechanics to perfection. I remember walking into the office one weekend to find Mole fine-tuning motion detection down to the frame. Ray and Kelvin brought the backend to life. That’s where we found the magic.

The Style: Inspired by MLB’s recent anime crossover, we opted for a bold anime style as well. More kids watch anime than sports these days, so why not speak their language? King led concept art. Karl built 3D characters. Stephanie handled environments. Chiaya made the sound and music. Yin lit it all up with effects. Jon, Kenny, Richard, and Susanna crafted the UI. That’s where we found the style.

The result? A game that feels fresh, expressive, and endlessly replayable.

Let’s take a quick tour:

• Customize your character. (I made one that looks like me.)

• The detection and gameplay feel amazing—especially with a foam bat in hand.

• Unlock new gear and avatar options through a collectible reward system.

The Metaverse Cell

I’m just the cheerleader. The real credit goes to the Metaverse Cell—led by Reggie Chan, our co-founder and head of content. I’ve leaned on Reggie more times than I can count. His leadership, trust, and friendship have shaped far more than this game.

The team poured countless late nights and weekends into this release. We knew summer break was coming, and we wanted to launch in early July so kids could jump right in. It meant a tight schedule—but this team rarely compromises. The result? Surprisingly delightful. They bent reality.

Why “Metaverse”? Not because we drank the Zuckerberg Kool-Aid. We almost called it the “Sports Cell.” But we stuck with Metaverse Cell—because we believe in the deeper promise of a connected world where digital active play leads to real movement, real mastery, and real connection.

Not escapism, but empowerment.

Over time, the Metaverse Cell has quietly built one of the strongest sports game libraries anywhere. Their creations include:

• GoKeeper

• Basketball Knockout

• Tennis Smash: Racketville

• Miniacs: Steering Madness

• Brick Buster

• Luminous

• Connect4

• Bowling Strike

• BoxFlow Fitness

• Arrow Party

• Nex Lab: QB Math

• Nex Lab: Hoops

• Nex Lab: Geo Darts

Hype cycles come and go. We stay focused on the mission. Building something truly great takes time. We stay the course.

The gravity of what they’ve built is attracting some of the biggest names in sports. With what we’ve learned—and the doors this effort is opening—the future feels almost surreal.

Looking Ahead

We invest for the long run. We prototype, we test, we learn. And when something works, we double down.

HomeRun Heroes: StarStrikers is just the latest step in our journey—but there’s much more ahead. The future of sports on Nex Playground is bright.

And the Metaverse Cell? They’ll keep swinging big—going for the next home run.

Last week, I suited up in a superhero costume, clipped into two separate rappelling systems, and - with an awkward harness and a deep breath - backed off the edge of a 180 foot tall building.

Why? I was raising money for children’s health.

Why did it feel right? Because this is who I am.

People kept asking, “Weren’t you scared?” and saying “I could never do that.” But here’s the thing: I didn’t hesitate. I would do almost anything to help kids. It’s not just a job - it’s my calling. I’m a pediatrician, double-boarded in pediatric emergency medicine, and I’ve spent my entire career thinking about how to keep children safe, healthy, and thriving - whether that’s with my own stethoscope or through the design of systems that help others care for them better.

In my line of work, you start to see patterns.

Childhood obesity. A pediatric behavioral health crisis. Families struggling to keep kids active and connected. The common thread? Fewer opportunities to move. Fewer chances to just play. Stillness…

Personally, I know how movement affects me - physically and emotionally. I’m a gym regular because I feel it when I don’t move enough. And as a mom of three, I think about these things not just professionally, but personally. I want my kids to be healthy, yes - but also joyful, connected, and resilient.

And like so many parents, I’ve felt that uneasy tug of guilt when it comes to screen time. Even as a pediatrician who understands child development, I’ve had those moments where I hand over a tablet and watch my kids turn into what we jokingly call “happy zombies.” But were they really happy? Deep down, I knew the answer.

Then one day, while scrolling social media (yes, even pediatricians chase dopamine sometimes), I came across a colorful little cube in front of a TV. A family was jumping, laughing, sweating, having fun—together. I paused. “What is this?”

It was Nex Playground.

I ordered one on the spot. Because they were still early in production, it took a few months to arrive. But when it did - on a rainy day, no less - we unboxed it and plugged it in.

Within minutes, we were off the couch, breathless, giggling, moving. I had to turn on the living room fan - we were sweating. And suddenly, something clicked.

This was good for kids. Actually, this was great for kids.

This wasn’t screen time as I knew it. This was movement, connection, play…the exact antidote to the things I’d been seeing in my patients, in the literature, and in my own home. My brain started firing. What if this didn’t just help my kids…but all kids? Including those recovering in hospitals, navigating injuries, or coping with emotional challenges? For my own family, movement is wellness, but for some, movement is healing. What if we could bring more movement and joy into hospital rooms too?

Turning Play into Purpose

That was the moment. I was motivated to do something I’d never done before.

Who dreamed up this game changing platform? I wanted to talk to them. I joined the Nex Playground Facebook community and saw post after post by David Lee. He was clearly the heart behind it all.

So again, without hesitation - this was for children - I pressed “send”. Just a cold message to David Lee from a pediatrician mom who couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities.

And he responded. Within minutes.

Turns out, we shared the same vision - a passion for doing our very best for children - and if you know David, you aren’t surprised. Bringing the joy of real play and movement back into the living room - and maybe, just maybe, into children’s hospital rooms too. Playground for good.

That first message sparked something bigger than either of us expected—and, in many ways, it’s become one of the most meaningful chapters of my career. As a physician, I’m used to helping one child, one family, one moment at a time. But this? This was an opportunity to help many children at once—to shift a narrative, change a system, and bring more movement and joy to kids everywhere.

What began as a simple conversation grew into a journey of learning, collaboration, and a shared commitment to children’s health and happiness.

Next time, I’ll share how that conversation became a mission—and how it led me to my role as Chief Pediatric Advisor for Nex Playground.

Thank you for making it to the end of my first ever blog post (!), I’d love any comments, questions or feedback!

Dr. Emily Greenwald

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I’m 5’5”. I’m not even good at it. Usually, I’m the last one picked for a team.

But I love it—running with friends, making a shot, setting a screen, and wrapping it up with a high-five and a “good game.”

We played regularly at my first startup—there was a basketball court right next to our building. We played throughout my eight years at Apple. People who know me know I never say no to a game. For years, I went out of my way to make sure we had a weekly run.

That love for the game is how Nex got started. Our first product was HomeCourt, a basketball training app. Pick-up games have been part of Nex’s culture from day one—it’s how we want working at Nex to feel.

When we pivoted from HomeCourt to building motion games, we asked ourselves:

What kind of games should Nex make?

Something like pick-up basketball. That’s our north star.

Games that are physical, social, and fun—A wholesome alternative to sedentary, isolating entertainment.

Pick-up basketball became our guiding metaphor because it blends spontaneity, competition, and community—simply and accessibly. Here’s why it’s so powerful:

• No Pressure, Just Play

  It’s casual. No leagues, no coaches. Just fun.

• Inclusive by Nature

  Everyone’s welcome. Skill levels don’t matter—just show up.

• Spontaneous and Dynamic

  Strangers and friends mix. Matchups shift. Every game feels different—and exciting.

• Social at Its Core

  It’s not just about hoops. It’s a place to connect, bond, laugh, and compete.

• Creative Freedom

  No rigid systems. Just space to improvise—flashy moves, trick shots, whatever feels right.

• Fitness Disguised as Fun

  Cardio, agility, strength—it’s my favorite way to work out.

• The Trash Talk

  The playful banter is half the fun. It adds energy and keeps things light.

• Accessible to All

  All you need is a ball and a hoop. Just show up and play.

• Memories That Stick

  Game-winners. Comebacks. That one perfect assist. These are moments that stay with you.

Look closely, and you’ll see these same elements in our games.

The culture of pick-up basketball has shaped our why, how, and what.

And now?

We’re building a company to bring that same pick-up magic—physical, social, fun—into every living room.

We call it Active Play.

So when we built Nex Playground, safety, privacy, and security were the first things we thought about.

We’ve all been there. Handing over a new screen to our kids can feel like opening Pandora’s box—TVs, tablets, phones, even smartwatches. You never know what might sneak in.

Will it show them ads? Lead them to inappropriate content? Pull them into habits we’re not ready for? Will it start the cycle of screen-time arguments?

We don’t want that. So we built something better.

Nex Playground was designed to be parent-aligned from day one—not retrofitted with parental controls after the fact, or reduced to a parental consent that hands off the problem. Compliance is just the baseline. We designed it intentionally for families.

Safety, privacy, and security aren’t afterthoughts. They’re foundational—baked into the hardware, the OS, our games, and every part of the experience.

Here’s how:

1. You’re the customer. Not the product.

We don’t sell ads. We don’t sell your data. And we don’t have a business model that would ever tempt us to.

Nex Playground runs on a simple subscription—Play Pass—that gives you access to everything: all games, all updates, all included. The best of Nex, now and in the future.

If you like what we do, we hope to earn your trust for another year. Simple. Honest. Built to last.

2. Every game is curated—and we take full responsibility.

There’s no open app store. No random third-party content. Everything on Nex is either built or vetted by us.

And if something slips through—a character name that’s off, or a game item that resembles an energy drink—we fix it. Fast.

Parents also have additional content controls. You decide what’s right for your kids.

3. Data stays local. Your privacy stays private.

The camera tracks motion locally on the device in real time. No video ever leaves your home.

The only data we collect is anonymous gameplay stats—to help us improve the experience.

4. A closed system means a safer system.

Nex Playground is built on a secure, modern Android-based operating system.

No browser. No app store. No backdoors. That means fewer ways in—and fewer things to worry about.

We undergo third-party security reviews to make sure it stays secure.

5. KidSAFE+ COPPA Certified.

Nex Playground meets the highest standards for family safety. We’re KidSAFE+ certified and fully compliant with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).

And yes—the camera comes with a physical privacy cover. For your peace of mind.

Why the obsession? Because we’re parents too. We built this for our kids and families.

We hope it earns your trust for yours.

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