Nick Pompa, founding father of Lootlock — an app that forestalls children from working up unauthorized gaming payments on their dad and mom’ bank cards — is an avid gamer and software program developer working in fintech.
As a dad of two underneath two, he’s wanting ahead to sharing his ardour for gaming along with his children after they develop sufficiently old to play. He began gaming at age 6, he instructed TechCrunch. Lootlock was chosen for TechCrunch’s 2025 Startup Battlefield 200 and might be exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt, October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
As he gabbed about gaming with different dad and mom, or just learn the information, he stored listening to horror tales of children shackling their dad and mom with shock bank card payments, typically unwittingly working up 1000’s of {dollars}.
The gaming trade has a notoriously slimy facet of utilizing “design methods,” because the Client Monetary Safety Bureau described final yr. They typically goal kids, attractive them into unlocking fee-incurring recreation options. Different businesses, just like the FTC have issued comparable warnings.
“The gaming trade makes use of intelligent design, social engineering, and participant monitoring to encourage children to spend more cash whereas taking part in,” Pompa stated. “I’m an avid gamer, so I’ve seen firsthand the drastic shift to micro-transactions within the trade during the last eight to 9 years.”
Though the FTC did pressure Fortnight earlier this yr to refund $126 million to individuals who filed claims, that’s uncommon. Mother and father typically haven’t any recourse however to pay.
The everyday recommendation is for folks to make use of device-level parental controls that block in-app purchases. However, Pompa stated, lots of his mum or dad pals are effective with letting children spend slightly cash on such purchases, underneath the appropriate situations.
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He instructed the story of the good friend named Joe that impressed Pompa to construct Lootlock. Joe is a dad to 3 children, all avid avid gamers. Joe provides every child an allowance each month, and the children had been utilizing the cash to purchase gaming merchandise, organising a ridiculous system the place he handed them allowance money they usually handed it again to pay the bank card. And he needed to monitor their purchases intently.
Looklock lets dad and mom routinely load a digital, pay as you go bank card, issued by Lootlock’s associate, Transcard, that youngsters add to their gadget’s digital pockets.
Mother and father can automate a set quantity of allowance to be added to the cardboard, say weekly or month-to-month, and might then make any portion of that not instantly accessible. The child can unlock extra as they, as an example, full their chores. Mother and father can approve will increase to the cardboard by a textual content message.
“We’re giving the dad and mom tremendous granular controls on how their children can spend and when their children can spend,” Pompa stated.
Lootlock is gamifying chores, too, with an upcoming function that might be accessible in October referred to as “bounty boards.” Mother and father arrange these boards that are primarily lists of the kid’s chores. As the children full them — cleansing their room, pet care, and so on. — they earn a “bounty.” And after they hit no matter threshold of bounties a mum or dad units, the app will unlock further allowance to spend.
There’s additionally a gamified monetary schooling element. Children select an avatar and as they follow good spending habits, like checking their Lootlock dashboard which tells them their account balances, they earn factors that add as much as tools for his or her avatar: swords and armor, and so on. Their avatar is persistent throughout wherever Lootlock integrates into, like its Discord servers.
“We’re tying the entire monetary ideas right into a online game idea,” Pompa stated.
Lootlock balances are additionally restricted to spending solely on gaming merchandise and might’t be used for different purchases on the web. So dad and mom don’t need to intently monitor what varieties of things the kid is shopping for on-line. The thought, for now, is to deal with educating kids accountable gaming.
The startup presently employs seven folks and is absolutely bootstrapped.
If you wish to study from Lootlock firsthand, and see dozens of further pitches, useful workshops, and make the connections that drive enterprise outcomes, head right here to study extra about this yr’s Disrupt, held October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
