Letting a child earn their first money without leaving them alone on the internet

The challenge

A child who makes bracelets, magnets or drawings and wants to sell them finds there is nowhere to do it. Getting paid online as a minor brings together three uncomfortable things at once — payments, public exposure and someone else's legal responsibility — which is why the selling platforms that exist either shut the door or treat the child as an adult and leave them alone with it open.

The solution

A campaign platform: the child tells their story, posts their photos, sets a goal and offers what they will deliver; a backer chooses between that reward or a cash gift towards the goal, and sees the progress, the supporters and the supervision badge before paying. Around it, a resources space with financial literacy guides and stories for parents and children.

Our approach

The architecture came out of a constraint, not a screen: the one who answers for it is the verified adult, not the child. Hence the account belongs to the guardian, the supervision badge sits where the decision to back is made rather than in the fine print, the supporter notice explains that a reward is a child's commitment and not a guaranteed product, and any published image can be reported. Underneath, a serverless backend so the platform does not pay for idle capacity while the catalogue grows, and Strapi so educational content ships without a deployment.