Show Notes
Kate Doerksen, co-founder of Sage Haven, appears on Scrolling 2 Death to share insights from her research on tech challenges families are facing. After witnessing her family member suffer from a mental health crisis caused by bullying and harmful social media interactions, Kate interviewed hundreds of parents, youth, and child psychologists to try to find a solution to the harms of the current digital landscape.
Key themes indicate families struggle with screen addiction and screen-time disputes. A surprising discovery shows that kids are messaging online as early as second grade. Despite not having a phone, they access YouTube and messages from family tablets and smartwatches. These activities may seem harmless, but parental supervision and guidance is key - especially at a young age.
Kate believes parents need help creating a slow, safe onramp to technology for their children. That’s why Kate created Sage Chat, a new app that will give kids a safer way to message and empower parents to take a phased approach to supervising online activity. Tune in to hear more about Kate’s research and resources to help parents.
About Kate Doerksen
Kate Doerksen (pronounced “Dirk-sin”) is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building technology that makes the world a better place. She has her MBA from Stanford ('11) and was a D1 women's basketball standout who played briefly in the WNBA. Her previous business, Ditto, focused on making glasses more affordable by enabling them to be bought online with their augmented reality virtual-try on technology and AI recommendation platform. They had over 70M annual users and the company was bought by 1-800-Contacts in 2021. She feels called back into entrepreneurship to start Sage Haven which helps parents create a slow, safe onramp to technology for their kids and cultivate a strong relationship with them along the way. She cofounded Sage Haven with her sister, Anne Pizzuti. They were inspired by a family who went through a mental health crisis contributed to by bullying and harmful social media content and the desire to ensure their own kids have a different experience online. They published a free guidebook to educate parents on technology best practices and have a weekly parenting podcast called Sage Sisters. In Q2 2025, they are launching the Sage Haven app, which gives kids a safer way to message with trusted friends and family with AI-moderation and nudges toward kindness and empowerment tools for parents including easy supervision from their own phone with alerts and recaps, robust controls and prompts/resources to help them cultivate a stronger relationship with their kids. Kate is also a sought-after Board Member and Advisor. She lives in Danville, CA with her husband, Chris, and their two kids, Grace (8) and Calvin (6). She’s a member of the PTA at her kid’s public elementary school, coaches both of her kids in basketball, and enjoys playing competitive tennis.
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