Camera scoring for dance exists for adults. Nobody has built it for kids, with teachers, for parents to pay for.

What it is

Practice scoring for youth cheer and dance teams. The coach already posts the routine to the group chat; Mimic imports that video on the phone, plays it with its own sound, tracks the kid through the camera and scores the copy — solo, or 2–3 teammates side by side with a sync score. No account, no upload.

What exists

Working in the browser today: import any coach video → on-device pose extraction → scored session with the clip in a corner; Squad mode (up to 3 dancers, per-dancer score + sync); 12 built-in routines in 3 levels; stars, streaks, unlocks and best scores kept on the phone; share cards. No backend.

What it is not yet

No teacher video pipeline, no accounts, no payments, no music licensing. The scoring is limb-direction similarity, not a trained model. All deliberately deferred until a first teacher and twenty families say the loop is fun.

Why now

Pose tracking runs in a browser on a mid-range phone at 30 fps for free. Music-to-dance models (EDGE, Bailando) exist. Dance is the most-shared category on short video and the least served by learning products for kids.

Who it is for

Youth cheer and dance teams (ages 7–15) and the gyms and studios that run them. Wedge: the coach. One coach onboards 12–30 kids by posting a link with the video. Parents pay ($8–12/month per family) or the gym pays per team. Family-safe by design: no chat, no profiles, no upload.

Competition

Checked Aug–Sep 2026. STEEZY: 1,500+ classes, $9.99/mo, camera is a self-check mirror — no score. Danzu: AI score of your own dancing, $59.99/yr, iPhone only, adults. HILFE AI: skeleton-on-skeleton match scoring for K-pop covers, free, tiny user base, drifting into live-streaming. DanceBetter: browser technique feedback, $9.99–48.99/mo. GoNoodle: free kids videos, ages 4–10, no feedback. Just Dance Now: party game, scores the hand holding the phone.

Where Mimic sits

The scoring mechanic exists (HILFE proves it works and that adults will use it). Nobody has pointed it at children with a teacher behind it: kid-safe by design, no app store, a real teacher and a real studio in the loop, and a parent paying. That is a different customer, a different channel (studios and schools), and a market the incumbents are not shaped to enter.

Founder

Solo, in Louisville, KY, building between long-haul trucking shifts. Two prior products shipped end-to-end: Vaely (financial OS for SMBs) and Vilo (P2P carsharing).

The ask

A pre-seed partner or an early-stage studio to fund: three teachers on contract, a 90-day pilot with two dance studios, and the teacher video pipeline. Or a co-founder with kids-product or dance-industry experience.