GIMBHI‘s Q&A with Moxies' Founder and CEO, Juliette Blake

Juliette Blake is the Founder and CEO of Moxies, a digital platform for girls ages 8–12 designed to support wellbeing, confidence, and healthy habits in a safe online space. She began building for tween girls as a teenager with Miss O and Friends, growing it into a leading global media brand backed by Procter and Gamble, and later created one of the first safe social apps for the demographic. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and a mom of three, Juliette is focused on building technology that protects childhood and puts wellbeing first.

Why did you start Moxies?

I started Moxies because I’ve spent my career thinking about girls and the internet. Today’s platforms are built around the attention economy maximizing engagement, not wellbeing.

As a parent and a founder, I kept asking the same question: what would technology look like if we designed it for healthy development first? What do I want for my own children? How can we set kids up for success and build a healthy relationship with technology?

Moxies is my answer to that. A place where girls can connect with friends, build confidence, and learn healthy digital habits from the start instead of having to unlearn the unhealthy ones later.

What is happening in digital life for girls ages 8 to 12 that made this feel urgent now?

Girls are entering digital life earlier than ever, but the platforms waiting for them weren’t built with their development in mind.

This age is such a critical window for identity, confidence, and friendships. At the same time, girls are especially vulnerable to comparison, social pressure, and online validation loops.

Right now the default path is: kids eventually land on platforms optimized for attention, algorithms, and metrics like likes and followers. Platforms that were built for adults, that bring out insecurities in even the most confident and self-aware adults.

We need a different starting place.

How does Moxies transform screen time into something positive instead of harmful?

We designed Moxies around the idea that not all screen time is the same.

Inside Moxies, girls create avatars, join small private chats with real-life friends, and complete confidence-building quests that connect digital moments to real-world growth.

There are also intentional design choices: no public profiles, no strangers, limited chat hours, and built-in screen time boundaries.

The goal isn’t to keep girls online longer. It’s to make the time they do spend online healthier, more creative, and more meaningful.

What makes Moxies different from other social or wellness apps built for kids?

Most platforms are trying to retrofit safety and wellbeing onto products that were never designed for that in the first place. The core mechanics of those platforms (how they drive engagement and make money) often work against healthy outcomes. Moxies was built safe-by-design from the beginning, informed by years of research and collaboration with youth technology specialists, educators, psychologists, and child development experts.

Everything from the core product design to the content inside the platform was built around wellbeing from day one.The environment is moderated with toxicity filters, girls only connect with people they know, and there are no public profiles, strangers, or social comparison metrics like likes or follower counts. The experience encourages curiosity, creativity, and friendship rather than performance.

We’re also studying the impact. PhD- led research found 79% of users experience positive well-being outcomes, including improvements in confidence, mood and self-regulation.

We’re not trying to recreate social media for kids. We’re building something fundamentally different, a digital space designed from the start to support healthy development.

Why do you think tween girls specifically need a platform built just for them?

There’s no one-size-fits-all for the products we use, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and technology should be no different.

Digital life is now part of everyday life for kids, and girls are entering these spaces younger and younger. At the same time, the tween years are such a pivotal moment socially, emotionally, and developmentally. Friendships become more complex, confidence can rise or fall quickly, and digital environments increasingly shape how girls see themselves and each other.

Yet most tech products lump all kids together or simply shrink down adult social media.

Girls deserve a space designed specifically for how they communicate, build friendships, and grow during these formative years, one that allows them to build independence and autonomy, but with thoughtful safeguards in place.

How do you balance fun, social connection, and safety inside a digital community for young girls?

Fun has to come first. If it isn’t joyful, girls won’t want to be there.

Years of internal research and listening to girls led us to focus on three core things we know they love to do online: connect, create, and play. That’s what shaped Moxies’ core features: avatars, group chats with real-life friends, and confidence-building quests and challenges with earned rewards.

But underneath that playfulness is a lot of thoughtful design. The environment is moderated, connections are private, and there are healthy boundaries around time and interaction.

The goal is a space where girls can have real fun together, while giving parents a platform they can confidently say “yes” to when their daughters ask for digital access.

What role do confidence-building quests and gamification play in supporting wellbeing?

Gamification can be incredibly powerful when it’s used intentionally.

Instead of rewarding endless scrolling, time spent, streaks and other dark-patterned persuasive design features, Moxies uses quests and challenges that encourage girls to try new things, reflect on their strengths, and build confidence. The experience feels playful, but it’s grounded in behavioral science and developmental research.

Our Moxie Quests focus on five key areas that support healthy development: digital literacy, confidence and self-esteem, social-emotional development, skill building, and just-for-fun moments.

Through these challenges, girls might practice navigating online situations, reflect on their strengths, learn ways to support friends, or try new creative skills.

Girls are building resilience, empathy, and self-expression often without even realizing they’re learning at all.

What lessons from your experience building Miss O and Friends shaped how you are building Moxies today?

One of the biggest lessons from building Miss O and Friends was seeing firsthand the impact that thoughtful content, messaging, and representation can have on girls.

We created a series called Hyperlinked, one of the first family-friendly series produced with YouTube Originals and Disney. The show focused on entrepreneurship, positive female friendships, and showcasing girls in non-traditional roles– challenging gender stereotypes while introducing themes around STEM and computer science.

We were incredibly intentional about how it was built, assembling an advisory group that included Kimberly Bryant (CEO of Black Girls Code), Geena Davis and Madeline Di Nonno from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Rosalind Wiseman (author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, which became Mean Girls), and Jess Weiner.

An external research study later found that girls who watched just the first episode, only 22 minutes of content, were 11% more likely to pursue a career in computer science compared to girls who didn’t watch it.

One of the biggest lessons was design matters from the very beginning. When we build with real thought and intention for girls, the outcomes can be incredibly positive. Retrofitting products later isn’t a solution for real change.

That philosophy carries directly into Moxies where the environment, the content, and the product design were all built from the start to support confidence, curiosity, and healthier digital experiences for girls.

What should parents and educators understand right now about raising digitally native girls?

Digital is simply the reality of the world kids are growing up in.

The real question isn’t whether girls will be online, but what kind of digital environments we’re introducing them to first. Digital literacy is quickly becoming just another form of literacy kids need to learn alongside reading, math, and even skills like conflict resolution.

We hear over and over from parents that they don’t want their daughters on the big social platforms, but they also don’t want them to miss out on key social moments with friends. It’s not as simple as saying yes or no, especially when parents don’t have great options.

Parents deserve better choices than simply blocking the internet or handing kids platforms built for adults. We should be creating digital environments that actually help set kids up for success. Moxies is that tool to build a healthy relationship early.

What does the future of technology for kids need to look like if we stop trading wellbeing for engagement?

It starts with a shift in incentives. For years, the tech industry has optimized for engagement and growth at all costs. But if we want a healthier future for kids, we have to start optimizing for wellbeing, trust, and long-term outcomes instead.

Parents are increasingly recognizing that what was once considered “free” has come at a much higher cost: their children’s mental health and wellbeing.

This is a huge generational moment. The future of ethical technology will come from platforms intentionally designed to put kids first, where healthy habits are the default, connection matters more than performance, and success isn’t measured by time spent scrolling.

We also need to prove that wellbeing and trust can scale just as powerfully as any network effect. When families trust a platform and see real positive outcomes, that becomes its own kind of growth.

If we don’t act now, we’ll continue to entrench systems that trade children’s wellbeing for engagement.

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