product designer
Vision · strategy
UX · visual design
Financial educationKids + parentsResponsive web Shaped by parent feedback
Kidlio
Kidlio is an AI-guided platform that helps children turn a personal goal into a small business, building money skills through planning, pitching, selling, and reflection with parent approval and support at key moments.
$$01 / The product, at a glance
From a personal goal to a real-world business.
Kidlio guides a child through starting and running a first small business. The child owns the choices and real-world action; the parent supports the parts that require time, money, preparation, or safety.
product designer
working beta
Designed and built with Codex
Responsive web
family experience
Qualitative feedback
Design iterations
with support
Child agency
Parent oversight
Goal
Choose a wish and amount.
Pick
Choose a business and sourcing path.
Plan
Set price, costs, and estimated profit.
Get ready
Review, present, and practice.
Sell
Record sales and “no thanks.”
Celebrate
See revenue, margin, and reflect.
Target audience
For children ages 7–12 and their parents.
Child
Choose a goal and business, understand the plan, prepare, sell, and reflect without having to assemble the entire workflow alone.
Parent
Understand what the child needs, review requests, approve purchases, and support preparation and safety without taking over every decision.
One family account, two views.
Children get a motivating record of their businesses and milestones. Parents get the visibility, approvals, and family controls needed to support them.
Product strategy + core value
Three choices make the experience work for families.
Keep the goal visible from the first sale to celebration.
Experience the core journey before account creation.
Sales and rejection both become material for reflection.
02 / The problem and the story behind it
The problem to solve
How might a financial education product help children learn through a real business without asking parents to invent and manage the entire experience?
Put choosing, planning, practicing, selling, progress, and reflection in one visible place.
Turn scattered preparation, approvals, tracking, and coaching into a guided flow.
Use AI for setup and calculations while preserving child decisions and parent control.
The story behind it
A child’s first business revealed the hidden work and a design opportunity.
My 7 year old wanted a first-class plane ticket.
He wanted to know how to earn the money himself. That personal goal gave him a reason to start a business.
We sold frozen treats that summer.
We tested recipes, prepared a batch, and took his first business into the real world.
The business ran on parent labor.
I manually planned, sourced, prepared, supported selling, tracked results, and led reflection. It was exhausting, and he had no single place to see progress or what came next.
Other parents wanted a path in.
Parents liked the idea and imagined lemonade, cupcakes, or another first business with their own children.
Kidlio was born
I built the product right away and we used it for two more selling days.
Kidlio helped me prepare my seven-year-old with confidence. He used the pitch deck and guided question prompts before his next two selling days.
Learning from real-world use
Child-led does not mean child-alone.
He could follow the overall workflow with support.
I helped him choose supplies and decide what was worth spending.
Busy selling moments required occasional help recording sales accurately.
The prompts supported conversations about wins, rejection, and what to try next.
Parent involvement shifts from everything, to occasional assistance, to reflection and coaching.
03 / AI efficiency + human control
Designing for young people
AI guides the journey. Children keep the learning.
Kidlio remembers, calculates, recommends, and drafts across the journey. Children still make the choices and take real-world action; parents join where approval, safety, and coaching matter.
AI guides
Recommend · calculate · organize · draft
Child owns
Choose · review · practice · act
Parent supports
Refine · approve · prepare · coach
AI guide
Do the setup and the math
Recommends products or ingredients, quantities, costs, prices, and expected margin.
Make the ask easy to review
Builds an editable shopping list the child can send for parent review and approval.
Create the pitch and practice
Generates a deck covering the goal, purchase ask, spend, pricing, and margin, plus customer-question prompts.
Calculate results and prompt reflection
Tracks revenue, actual margin, and goal progress, then helps the family reflect on what happened.
The trust boundary: AI never sends a request, approves a purchase, or takes real-world action for the family.
04 / Design iterations
Iteration 01 / Family capacity
Expanded the choice from homemade to store-bought.
I started with the experience I knew: making frozen treats from scratch with my son. I assumed the hands-on preparation was part of what made the business meaningful. Parent feedback revealed that the same model could exclude families who wanted the learning experience but did not have the time or capacity to make products.
“I love the idea of helping my child learn to make money, but I may not have time to make products from scratch. Could they buy something and resell it instead?”
Iteration 02 / MVP scope
I explored services, then narrowed the MVP back to three product businesses.
Parent feedback expanded the opportunity beyond products. It matched what I had seen when my own children helped with yard work and car washing, so I added car washing, yard work, and pet sitting. After evaluating the broader experience, I chose to return the MVP to three product ideas and sharpen the shared journey before expanding again.
“It’s great that kids can pick lemonade, cupcakes, or frozen treats. What about kids who want to offer services like yard work or pet sitting?”
Iteration 03 / Automation
Automate the busywork, not the child’s decisions.
The original page made every useful preparation tool available at once, asking young children to manage the sequence. I turned that work into a visible AI-guided flow: Kidlio reads the plan, finds what to buy, recommends launch extras, drafts a pitch, and builds the shopping list. The child still reviews and sends; the parent still approves.
Resulting experience / Review + pitch + practice
Three tools turn preparation into child-led action.
In the revised experience, children review the AI-generated shopping list before sharing it for approval, use the pitch deck to explain their plan, and practice selling with guided prompts.
“Oh, I really like the pitch deck and selling prompts. They give children something concrete to practice before selling, and because AI generates the materials, it’s much less work for parents.”
Complete learning loop
Keep progress visible from the first sale to reflection.
Children can stay organized while selling, see how revenue becomes profit after costs, and reconnect each selling day to the goal that motivated them.
Parents fund startup supplies, while children keep sales revenue toward their goal. Kidlio still shows costs and profit to teach the business economics.
05 / Measuring success
Measure the learning loop, not screen time.
Measurement planKidlio is still in beta, so I would establish a baseline before setting targets. The plan pairs behavioral signals with child and parent feedback.
Completed learning loops per active family
- 01Plan
- 02Prepare
- 03Sell
- 04Reflect
- 05Return
H
Happiness
- Child confidence and progress toward a personal goal
- Parent confidence that children are building financial literacy
- Family satisfaction and likelihood to use Kidlio again
E
Engagement
- Businesses created per family
- Shopping-list review and approval
- Pitch, practice, and certificate use
- Sales logs and reflections completed
A
Adoption
- First plan completed
- First selling day reached
- Account creation conversion
- Additional parent or child profiles created
R
Retention
- Families returning for a second selling day
- Families starting another business
- 30/90-day and seasonal return patterns
T
Task success
- End-to-end learning-loop completion rate
- Time from choosing a business to ready to sell
- Drop-off, retry, or help rate by step
06 / Reflection
What I’d carry forward
Feedback should reveal assumptions instead of becoming a feature checklist. Parents helped me widen family capacity, simplify the work, and preserve the pitch and practice tools they already valued.
I’d test paired child-parent sessions earlier across ages, watching where children need help, whether AI feels understandable, and whether approval handoffs preserve agency before expanding the MVP.