Work
Fintech / Payments / Edtech

Who gets to control a child’s money?

Earlybean began as a way for children to learn about saving and grew into a family-finance and school-payments product. I co-founded the company and led the product direction and hands-on design across parent, child, school and merchant experiences. The product reached 10,000+ users, and the venture was recognised by Techstars Founder Catalyst and Web Summit Qatar PITCH.

Role
Co-founder & Product Lead
Timeline
Jun 2020 — May 2026
Company
Earlybean · Techstars ’23
One payment, four connected experiences.
01

A child taps. Four parties shape the answer.

At the school till, the payment must make sense immediately. A parent sets the limit, the school determines where the tag works, and the merchant needs a clear outcome.

Earlybean across its four product experiences.
02

The same money looks different to a parent and a child.

Parents control funding, approvals, daily limits and locks. Children see what they can spend, what is saved and what they can request.

Parent controls and child home side by side, showing distinct permissions over one funded account.
Parent and child, one balance.
Parental spending control.
Child request state.
Earlybean limits, approvals and blocking controls shown as a single component strip.
Permissions across the account.
Approved request notification as a close-up, including the reason and amount.
Request and approval detail.
Resolved request micro-interaction.
03

A balance has different jobs.

Savings, card and BeanTag spending, and transfers carry different permissions. A reached savings goal still needs parental release.

Money permissions in context.
Savings-goal lifecycle.
Mobile savings-goal screen at the waiting-for-parent-release stage.
A reached target does not unlock the money automatically.
04

A school needs to see what it can actually govern.

Linked guardians, active tags and exceptions belong together in a usable administration workspace. Oversight is bounded to the school's own environment.

Earlybean eschools full-width student list and linked guardian and tag status.
School administration.
Full-width detail of tag issue handling in a school student roster.
Tag issues at readable scale.
Selection and filtering detail.
05

A decline must explain the rule.

The till handles approved payments, limits, parental approval and blocked tags. A child standing in a queue needs a useful answer, not an error code.

Merchant payment flow. BeanTag concept in the payment flow.
Four transaction outcomes on the merchant till: approved, over-limit, needs parent and blocked.
Four possible outcomes; one consistent response system.
Over-the-limit merchant result names the remaining limit and the next action.
Limit reached.
Merchant result explains that a parent's intervention is required.
Needs parent.
Merchant result explains that a BeanTag is blocked.
BeanTag blocked.
Over-limit micro-interaction.
Parental intervention.
06

The same character across four product surfaces.

The visual system spans consumer finance, school administration and merchant checkout. The wristband render is a design concept, shown beside the original virtual card.

Concept BeanTag wristband and original virtual Spending Card side by side.
BeanTag and Earlybean spending card.
Close-up of conceptual purple Earlybean BeanTag.
BeanTag design.
Virtual Spending Card from the approved Earlybean product render.
Earlybean spending card.
Earlybean visual system, type studies, component patterns, and four product surfaces.
One visual language across parent, child, school and merchant experiences.
07

What we built, and what remained possible.

Parent-controlled child accounts, savings, transfers, school onboarding and merchant operations are the delivered product scope. Advanced messaging and the larger school money operating model remained directional.

Split composition showing Earlybean's shipped features and separately marked later product directions.
From today's product to the next set of possibilities.
08

Inspect the decisions

The original interactive studies remain available to explore, with selectable account rules, goal states and transaction outcomes.

Explore the parent account and its spending controls.
Explore the savings goal and parental approval states.
Explore checkout and the four possible payment outcomes.

Explore the interactive flows:four actors, authority and money, parent controls, child app, money rails, goals, school admin, acceptance, canteen till and shipped scope

09

Recognition

Company and founder recognition across the years.

Selected for the Techstars / Anjal Z Founder Catalyst and named a top-three finalist at Web Summit Qatar PITCH.

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