OUR STORY
Built by parents. For kids like ours.
Hi, we're Ashley and Jason. We've been married ten years, we have two kids, and we're those parents. The ones who walk into Target and somehow end up in the educational aisle every time. We'd rather hand our kids a puzzle than another plastic thing destined to live under the couch for six months before we throw it away. So it's probably no surprise that Onyx Nine took the shape it did.
But back to the idea.
Our son is eight. He started getting into more serious reading this year at school, and we were excited about it. Until we realized he could only sit with a book for a few pages before he was bored and moving on to the next thing.
“Meanwhile, the LEGO set on his floor? Ninety minutes, no problem.”
It wasn't the reading he didn't like. It was the format. LEGO gave him something to do with his hands and a finish line worth working toward. Books gave him neither.
One night we said it out loud: why can't reading feel like this?
That was the question we couldn't shake. What if a story had a real puzzle inside it? What if every chapter ended with something to figure out? What if there was a locked thing sitting on the desk, and the only way to open it was to actually read the book?
So we built it.
Our son was our first tester. The first time we handed it to him, he sat down and didn't move for almost two hours. He cracked the code, opened the cryptex, pulled out the treasure, and the first thing out of his mouth was “when's the next one?”
That's when we knew.
Onyx Nine is for kids like ours. The ones who want to be in on the mystery, not just along for the ride. The ones who'll sit and focus forever if you give them something worth focusing on. The ones who don't need another plastic toy. They need a reason to slow down.
If your kid is anything like our kid, we think they're going to love this.
Ashley & Jason
The mystery is waiting
Are they ready?