About YOBY

We built YOBY because money should not be a family taboo.

YOBY started with a simple question:

Why is talking about money in families so hard?

For many of us, money was something adults whispered about, argued about or avoided completely. Children were expected to understand it later, somehow, as if financial habits arrived by magic on their eighteenth birthday wearing a little hat.

They do not.

Money habits grow early.
Confidence grows early.
Fear grows early too.

So we built YOBY to make money easier to talk about, easier to see and easier to understand together.

Not with a course.
Not with grades.
Not with a budgeting app wearing a duck costume.

With a living world.

A world where families learn together

YOBY is the digital world where kids and parents explore ponds, meet mentors and build healthy financial habits together, every day.

Each family has its own pond.
Each member has their own duck.
Every choice teaches something.

Children complete quests, collect symbolic rewards, meet mentor characters and discover how saving, waiting, choosing, trading and growing actually feel.

Parents stay involved, not as inspectors, but as guides.

The goal is not to make children think like bankers.
The goal is to help families talk about money before money becomes a locked drawer in the house.

Parents before founders

We are parents before we are founders.

We know the strange discomfort of growing up without a clear language for money. We also know how difficult it can be to pass that language on to children without turning it into a lecture, a warning or a little domestic thunderstorm.

YOBY comes from that place.

From the feeling that financial education should not arrive as a cold PDF.
From the belief that children learn better when they can touch ideas through play.
From the hope that a family can talk about goals, choices and value without everyone suddenly looking at the floor.

That is why YOBY is built around shared experience, not individual dashboards.

A pond, not a spreadsheet.
A conversation, not a sermon.

Who we are

YOBY is built by Ricardo Piana and Stefano Lupicano.

Ricardo Piana brings the technical side of the pond: software architecture, applied AI, product building and the strange discipline of turning complex systems into things people can actually use. His work sits between technology, storytelling, products and imagination: software that works, teams that stay healthy, and ideas that become real instead of remaining beautiful ghosts in a notebook.

Stefano Lupicano brings the product, creative and organisational side: innovation, digital projects, design sensitivity and the ability to connect ideas, people and practical execution. His background crosses fashion, digital creativity, startup work and project leadership, with a strong focus on building experiences that feel alive, useful and human.

Together, we are building YOBY as parents, makers and stubborn believers in a simple idea: children should not discover money alone, late and by accident.

They should discover it safely, playfully and with their family beside them.

A technical duck and a creative duck, basically.
Different feathers. Same pond.

Why play matters

Children do not build habits by memorising definitions.

They build habits by doing small things often.

They choose.
They wait.
They compare.
They save.
They trade.
They try again.

In YOBY, financial ideas become small adventures.

A goal becomes a floating island.
A hidden cost becomes something the Mole can reveal underground.
A shiny temptation becomes a Magpie moment.
A market becomes a place to learn that prices are not magic numbers carved into stone.

Play is not decoration.

Play is how the lesson gets through the door without frightening the furniture.

Meet the pond

YOBY is built around a few simple elements.

The family pond

A private space where the family explores, completes missions and grows together.

Mentor characters

The Frog, the Magpie, the Mole, the Wise Duck and other characters guide children with short quests and choice-based moments.

Symbolic currencies

Shells, seeds and stars help children understand value, habits, progress and goals without turning everything into real money.

Tuesday’s market

Loris arrives by boat, bringing buying, selling, negotiation and the joyful suspicion that every price has a story.

Family progress

The pond changes over time, shaped by choices, goals and shared learning.

Built for children. Guided by parents.

YOBY is designed for children from the beginning.

That means safety, privacy and parental control are not features we add later. They are part of the product architecture.

Children cannot be contacted by strangers.
Family ponds are invite-only.
Parents manage access and settings.
Videochat is not available without adult presence.
There is no advertising inside the child-facing experience.
Family data stays family data.

The pond is playful.
The gates are serious.

Made in Europe

YOBY is a small independent project, made in Europe for European families.

That matters to us.

We care about privacy.
We care about child safety.
We care about responsible design.
We care about building something that families can trust, not just something that keeps children clicking.

We do not want YOBY to become an attention trap with feathers.

We want it to become a useful little world where better conversations can begin.

What we believe

We believe money should be understandable.

We believe children deserve better than silence.

We believe parents should not need to be finance experts to help their children build healthy habits.

We believe financial education works better when it is shared.

We believe safe design is not optional.

We believe privacy is part of trust.

We believe ducks help.

Not scientifically enough for a peer-reviewed journal, maybe.
But enough for a family pond.

What YOBY is not

YOBY is not a bank.

YOBY is not an investment platform.

YOBY is not financial advice.

YOBY is not an open social network for children.

YOBY is not an advertising product.

YOBY is not here to make children grow up faster.

It is here to help them grow up with a little more confidence, a little more patience and a little more language for the choices they will meet.

What we are building

We are building a world where children can learn money habits through small, safe, repeatable experiences.

A world where parents can join the conversation without needing a finance degree.

A world where schools and partners can help financial education feel concrete, age-appropriate and alive.

A world where money stops being invisible.

One quest.
One pond.
One duck-sized step at a time.