Mar 3, 2025 · 28m · the-pitch
#24 unGlue
Alon Schwartz · 11m spoken Josh Muccio · 6m spoken Jillian Manus · 2m spoken Charles Hudson · 1m spoken Daniel Gulati · 1m spoken Phil Nadel · 1m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Entrepreneur Alon Schwartz pitches unGlue, a gamified screen-time management app for families, to a panel of venture capitalists on Gimlet Media's The Pitch. Although the investors unanimously praise Schwartz's entrepreneurial track record and vision, they ultimately decline to fund the $3 million round due to concerns over competitive pricing compression and technical defensibility.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 27.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 3.0 Josh pushing back 4.0
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:14 Alon rejects the investors' small-scale assumption
Alon directly refuses the investors' patronizing framing that a $10M-$20M exit is good enough for him, asserting they are fundamentally misjudging the market size.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 10:49 Daniel questions technical necessity over Wi-Fi routersDaniel directly pushes back on the product's defensibility, arguing that most parental management can simply be executed via home broadband routers.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:13 Alon explains how kids bypass home Wi-Fi restrictionsAlon educates Daniel on child behavior, explaining that kids immediately switch to cellular data the moment home Wi-Fi is shut off, requiring an on-device MDM solution.
Josh holds their own ▶ 18:53 Charles outlines the VPN commoditization threatCharles demonstrates deep sector knowledge by detailing competitor approaches using traffic tunneling and warning of rapid price erosion toward zero.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alon Schwartz Pitches unGlue and Shares Origin Story | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Alon opens the pitch sharing the origin story of unGlue and his frustration dealing with his own children's device addiction. The investors listen supportively without challenging his premises. | |
| Explaining unGlue Mechanics and Chore Incentives | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Jillian challenges the assumption that teenagers would voluntarily buy into a parental control app. Alon counters using his survey of 1,500 parents and kids to show teens recognize screen addiction is harmful. | |
| Retention Metrics and Founder Background | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Phil interrogates unGlue's churn and annual discount structure, which Alon clarifies with detailed subscriber conversion figures. Jillian asks about Alon's background, and he highlights his previous exit with Docstoc. | |
| Technical Defensibility and Market Size Vision | 5 | 5 | 4 | 6 | Daniel suggests parental controls could easily be managed on home Wi-Fi or via simple calendar apps. Alon directly corrects him, explaining that kids easily switch to cellular networks to bypass Wi-Fi restrictions and require persistent enforcement. | |
| Investors Pass on Funding unGlue | 5 | 2 | 5 | 6 | All four investors pass, praising Alon as a founder but declaring the market scale too small or defenseless. Alon firmly pushes back against the suggestion that unGlue is only suited for a small exit. | |
| Investor Debrief and Discussion of Competitors | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | In the follow-up debrief, Josh challenges Alon's explanation of why investors passed, arguing they simply did not view device addiction as a large standalone venture scale business. Alon maintains his conviction and notes the Apple activist investor news. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Schwartz: Kids spend roughly six and a half hours daily on devices
“They're spending about six and a half hours per day on their many devices, and it's not getting any better.”
Schwartz: unGlue is raising $3 million to expand business
“I'm here to raise three million dollars to continue to grow the business, find investors and partners to join us in this important mission that we're on.”
Schwartz: unGlue blocks entertainment apps but leaves utility tools open
“So if they spend it, you know, on anything from Snapchat, Instagram, Flash Royale, whatever the thing, you know, YouTube, Netflix, everything, we count that time. When that time ends, they can still, again, do homework, do everything, listen to music on Spotif…”
Schwartz: unGlue converts 12% to 15% of active users into paid subscribers
“After 14 days, you can subscribe for 10 dollars a month, or 84 dollars a year. What we see is that, on average, 12 to 15% of our users subscribe, or of our active users subscribe.”
Schwartz: unGlue has about 13,000 active users and 800 paying subscribers
“So active users, we have about 13,000 active users right now. So we have about 800 paying subscribers.”
Manus: Teenagers will view unGlue as punitive rather than buying in
“I don't see a teenager buying into this. You know, I see that they're going to be presuming this as punitive.”
Schwartz: unGlue experiences approximately 7.5% month-over-month subscriber churn
“If you're looking at total subscribers, we're seeing about seven and a half percent drop month over month.”
Hudson: Apple's MDM profile access enabled granular third-party screen-time control
“Apple letting third-party developers use the MDM profile is a big part of what made this possible, to be able to get down to that level of control.”
Schwartz predicts screen-time management market will consolidate to one or two players
“Yeah, I think it will be probably one or two players. That's why I see it. And the one or two players will be the ones that the kids will like, or will hate the least. If not, you don't want to look at it. That's how it will play out.”
Phil Nadel passes on unGlue, calling it a feature not a product
“I just see it too much as a feature and not a product. I think ultimately I'm going to pass as well.”
Charles Hudson passes on unGlue over technology commoditization and competitive concerns
“It's a pass for me because I have, I had my biggest issue is the competitive environment. I feel like I don't have a clear enough picture in my head about the end game of what happens because it seems like everyone's seizing on the same set of core technologie…”
Daniel Galati passes on unGlue, citing lack of a venture-scale business model
“I really believe in the product and I really believe in the roadmap. I just, I don't see the business that, that comes out of it, so I'm going to pass as well.”
Phil Nadel predicts unGlue will exit at a scale too small for VCs
“I think you're going to have a successful business, and maybe a successful exit, but I think the scale of that will be relatively small from our perspectives, but maybe a great result for you.”
Hudson: Parental control app prices will fall to 99 cents then free
“And there's two or three others, and I just worry that The market-clearing price for this ends up being 99 cents until it's free.”
Manus: unGlue's product can be replicated quickly by competitors
“See he, it took him, ah, two years to build this, but the fact is, is that he has a small team, and I think this can be replicated pretty fast.”
Schwartz: unGlue will solve device addiction and investors will regret passing
“And actually I think it's fortunate for the world because we will solve this problem for the next generation.
and this will be something that everyone will look back and like, yeah, that was one of the things we should have invested in, and that's fine, rig…”
Schwartz: Apple must collaborate with screen-time startups like unGlue
“Do I believe that Apple will do something about this? Absolutely, and I think that Apple is, you know, not an expert in this space, and they will have to do something in collaboration with other companies that are experts in this space like Unglue.”