A father-daughter project that got a little out of hand
My daughter Isla collects Calico Critters. I had never heard of these before 2024. Then she started getting some for her birthday, then more, then more for Christmas and then random gifts from me. We took to paper to learn about charts. We listed all the families and the type of family member they were and did some basic math. Then I took it to Excel. She entered all the data and we sat together and visualized the data, bar graphs, pie graphs, playing with colours. It worked, but it was a spreadsheet so the fun and magic never took off.
What started as a father-daughter project to make collection tracking more fun turned into something I thought other collectors might actually want. I figure a lot of people are managing their Sylvanian Families and Calico Critters collections in spreadsheets, notes apps, Pinterest, and their own heads. There wasn't really a proper app for it like how CLZ is to comics .
I think LottaPaws is that app.
A few things mattered to me from the start. No ads, they distract from what you're doing and seeing. No account required. You shouldn't need to hand over your email to track your own belongings if that's all you want to do. No tracking. It happens enough already and your collection is your business. Everything lives on your device.
To me that isn't 'marketing'. These were decisions I made on the couch before I opened up Xcode or PHPStorm.
Isla is the chief tester, the harshest critic, the reason the birthday twins feature exists and really the reason you're reading this.
We hope you love it as much as she does.
— Ish (and Isla) 🐰