Investing that feels like opening a pack.

The first version, called Shoal, was a teen money dashboard: balance, spending by category, savings goals, and a privacy model where the teen decides what a parent can see. It tracked money well. But it stopped at the edge of the thing young people are most curious about and most nervous about: investing. It is now Pullz, named for the cards you pull from a pack.

The new version keeps everything that worked, rebuilt from scratch in clean source, and adds a place to start investing that is fun, safe to practice in, and teaches as you go.

Bring investing in. Make it feel like opening a pack of trading cards. Keep it a little gamified, but still clearly a finance app. Teens come first, and it should work just as well for an adult who never learned the basics.

A pack where you pay and get a random stock is a loot box with real money, aimed at minors. Regulators have already pushed back on gamified trading, and several countries restrict loot boxes. That would have made Pullz fun and indefensible.

So the pack keeps everything that makes opening one exciting: the foil, the tear, the flip, the holo shine. It loses the one thing that makes it gambling. Five rules hold the line:

I studied how Pokémon TCG Pocket, EA FC walkouts, Marvel Snap and live breaks on Whatnot and TikTok build suspense, then rebuilt the opening around the moments that make a pull feel earned. Every beat had to work in a finance app too.

What I avoided: paid packs or odds of any kind, foil on every card (Commons stay matte so rarity means something), neon green flooding the screen, and emoji standing in for icons.

Every card carries real anatomy: a set mark, a collector number out of 014, a rarity symbol (circle, diamond, star, double star) and a series line. Each tier has its own finish. Commons are matte with a soft sheen. Uncommons are reverse holo, so the text panel shimmers and the art stays clean. Rares get rainbow holo with glints on the art. Ultra rares are full art in gold cosmos foil.

The art tells you what the card is before you read a word. Each one carries a drawn emblem of what it holds or makes: a city of companies for the whole market, a trophy for the 500 biggest, a chip for tech, a controller for games, a turbine that turns for clean energy, a sneaker for Nike, a coin for Bitcoin. No real logos, just the idea. The line underneath is the card's real simulated price for the last 60 days. Hold a card long enough and it earns a graded slab, with a label, a grade word, days held and a cert number. The grade measures patience, never profit.

The interface follows Apple's dark mode and glass materials: true black, grouped surfaces, blurred glass with a bright rim, and a floating capsule tab bar over a slow green to blue glow. Colour stays between green and blue, with neon saved for glows and the rarest cards. Red appears only when money is down, because a loss should never look like anything else.

Everything moves with intent. Pages settle in, lists cascade, balances count up, charts draw themselves, switches and segmented controls spring, sheets rise like iOS sheets, and every motion falls back to a simple fade when the device asks for reduced motion.

Pick three cards, choose $10, $25 or $50, and slide the split. A risk bar fills with each tier's colour, and plain coaching appears as you build: too much crypto, no steady base fund, or all three cards in one category. Starter packs give first-timers a sensible place to begin.

Spare change from debit card purchases rounds up into a pot. Once it reaches $10 you can build a pack from it, so investing happens without needing a decision every time.

Your portfolio lives in sleeved 3 by 3 binder pages that show the whole Series 1 set. Cards you own sit in their pockets; the rest are numbered ghost slots, so you can see what is missing and tap one to learn what it is before you ever buy it.

A practice time machine skips ahead a week, a month or three, so you can watch crypto swing far harder than a broad fund without risking anything. Sets like Diversified, Around the world and Long haul reward good habits instead of activity.

Seven three to four minute lessons cover budgeting, what a stock is, ETFs and diversification, risk and crypto, compound growth, fees and hype, and first paycheck moves like the 401(k) match and the Roth IRA. Each ends in a quick quiz that explains the answer either way.

The Growth Machine makes compound growth something you can feel: slide the weekly amount and starting age, and see what waiting ten years costs. Turn on Real life and the line gets bumpy, losing years included. Explain mode underlines money words across the app; tap one for a plain definition.

Maya, 16 invests through a custodial account. Her mom approves each pack, and Maya chooses what shows up in her mom's Pullz view: balance and goals on, store names off. Jordan, 24, just started a first real job. No approvals, plus lessons on emergency funds, employer matches and retirement accounts.

The tone is playful but never childish, so an adult who never learned this stuff can use it without feeling talked down to. Every screen works from a 390 pixel phone to a wide desktop: bottom tabs on phones, a sidebar on desktop.

An automated run plays the whole app at phone, tablet and desktop sizes: onboarding, building and approving a pack, tearing it open by drag and by button, flipping every card, selling, skipping time, finishing a lesson, adding goals, sharing switches, both themes and both players. It fails on any console error, sideways scrolling, tap target under 40 pixels or text under 12 pixels.

Next: testing with real teens and parents, a brokerage partner for custodial accounts behind a thin adapter, and a parent side for approvals. A real custodial account gives the adult full statements, so the privacy switches would become a conversation tool rather than a lock.