Simsbury Native Launches App To Help Families Connect

SIMSBURY, CT — For Alex Colket, the idea behind a new family-focused app has roots both in the Farmington Valley and in the challenges his own family encountered while living hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of miles apart.

Colket, who grew up in Simsbury and whose parents now live in Avon, is the founder and CEO of KinClub, a private app designed to encourage family members to interact through games, creative activities, and play rather than simply sharing updates on a social media-style feed.

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He developed the app with his sister and co-founder, Caroline Colket, and drew ideas from his nephews as well.

The siblings' experience growing up in the Farmington Valley stretches back decades.

Alex Colket moved from Bloomfield to Buttonwood Drive in Simsbury when he was 6 and lived there until he was 17. He attended Squadron Line School, Henry James Memorial School, and Simsbury High School.

His memories of growing up in town include delivering newspapers in surrounding neighborhoods, playing baseball at Memorial Park and golf at Simsbury Farms, and biking downtown with friends to buy baseball cards at Leaders and eat at A.C. Petersen Farms.

He also remembers getting after-school bagel sandwiches at Brookside and produce from Rosedale Farms. During high school, he worked at the Carvel on Route 44.

Colket left Connecticut in 1996 to attend Cornell University, graduating in 2001 with a degree in neurobiology and behavior.

He worked as a teacher for several years before moving into game and software development and entrepreneurship.

His sister Caroline remained in Simsbury until 2002 and attended Trinity College and the University of Connecticut's West Hartford campus, according to Alex Colket. She later lived in Bloomfield before moving away from Connecticut.

Their parents moved to Avon about two decades ago and live in the Nod Road area.

Colket said his family's visits to the Farmington Valley now tend to center more on Avon, including trips to local restaurants and farm stands.

Geographic separation within the family eventually helped inspire KinClub.

Colket lives in Ithaca, N.Y., while Caroline lives in California. Another sister lived for a time on a Caribbean island with Colket's nephews, while their parents remained in Connecticut.

The family found that conventional digital communication did not always translate into meaningful interaction, particularly with younger relatives.

"We experienced the frustration of trying to stay meaningfully connected between holiday visits in a digital world where the nephews weren't really included beyond occasional updates and photos," Colket said.

The siblings also noticed another issue: families physically together but focused individually on their own devices.

"We also, of course, noticed all the families out together or sitting in family rooms together each on their own devices, not connecting with each other, and we wanted to change that," Colket said.

KinClub is designed as a private digital space for individual families rather than a public social network.

Users can create their own family group and add relatives, and the app emphasizes games, creativity, and activities intended to encourage conversation and interaction among children, parents, and grandparents.

Colket said the goal is to use technology as a means of creating family interaction rather than having it compete for family members' attention.

For the Colket family, that mission developed from an experience familiar to many families whose relatives no longer live in the same community: figuring out how to preserve relationships between visits.

And while the company is based outside Connecticut, Colket's connection to the Farmington Valley remains personal.

His parents are still in Avon, and family trips back to the area continue to bring him to the communities where he grew up — now with a business inspired in part by keeping that geographically scattered family connected.

For more information on KinClub, click on this link.