Why I Built AdabStars

Our actual board, on our wall at home. That is my sons' surah tracker, mid-memorization: Zakaria, Adam, and Ibrahim.

Where it began

I wanted to raise my kids with accountability.

More than anything, I wanted my children to know what they need to do each day, and to own it. For our family, that meant Qur'an, salah, and school at the center, with chores and good adab built around them. Not me nagging from the kitchen, but each child seeing their day clearly and taking responsibility for it.

So I built a board for the wall of our home. Not a product, not a startup. Just a screen where my kids could see their tasks, check them off, and watch their effort add up. I shaped the idea over the course of a year, and since Ramadan 2026 our family has genuinely run our days on it.

The clearest proof that it was working came from my five-year-old.

Fajr, on his own

Salah is not even obligatory for him yet. But once he could see the prayers waiting on the wall, he wanted to complete every one. He does not wake for fajr, so the first thing he does when he gets up is pray it in his room, just so he can mark it off.

The app has streaks, so the more consistently you keep something up, the more bonus stars you earn, and he took that to heart. He prays on his own now when he hears the athan through the day, and on these long summer nights he asks to stay up just long enough to pray isha before bed. And every single night, the same reminder: "Baba, don't forget to approve my stars from today."

Then we turned it into a little economy.

I wanted my kids thinking about money early, so we built our own home economy on top of the board. They earn stars for their tasks and cash them out for rewards. My wife and I decide what every task is worth and what sits in the rewards shop, so the whole thing runs on our family's values, not someone else's.

A few weeks ago my middle son had saved a mountain of stars, a lot of it from bonuses for memorizing new surahs, and what he wanted was boba. So we sat down and did the math together: what boba for the whole family would cost, and what his stars were worth. In our house we settled on fifteen stars to a dollar; that is just the rate we chose. He decided to spend his own stars to treat everyone, then worked out what he would have left. He was beaming. He had earned it, he knew exactly what it was worth, and he spent it on his family. I could never have taught that with a lecture.

His brother took a different path with his stars. He keeps adding Lego sets to his wish list, where he can see how many stars each goal takes and watch himself get closer to it. Nobody planned that lesson, but it has quietly taught him patience, and the pride of earning something you waited for instead of getting it on demand.

A first lesson in money, at home.

Stars were only half the lesson. Our boys keep their own Eid and gift money in their wallets, and I wanted them to track that real money like a bank account, not just app points. I want them growing up with financial smarts, and in our family that means what you earn splits four ways: some to spend, some to save, some to invest (yes, in real stocks), and some to give.

So the Kids' Bank holds each child's money as On Hand, Savings, and Invested, with Sadaqah right beside them, and a simple ledger shows every dollar in and out so they see it all at a glance. That is our family's way of doing it, not a rule for anyone else. But it led to the moment that made every late night worth it.

The sadaqah box

My kids get excited about a lot of things. But I had never seen my son as excited as the day he took money out of his own wallet to bring to Jummah and drop in the sadaqah box. His own money, given with his whole heart. Alhamdulillah.

Piece by piece, it became something I can only describe as a Muslim home ecosystem: the deen, the day's work, and the money lessons, together in one place our whole family actually looks at.

I never set out to build a product.

This was only ever meant for my own family. What changed my mind were the friends who came over, saw the board on our wall, and asked about it. Some offered to buy one on the spot. That is when it sank in that what we made at home might help other families too.

I am not a software engineer by trade. I am a product manager, and I spent years at Amazon owning the device supply chain for brand-new products. I am also, for better or worse, a perfectionist. If this was going into other people's homes, it had to be right. And if I ever let something slide, my wife, an even bigger perfectionist than me, would not.

Her vision

The tracking system, the heart of how AdabStars works, is my wife's. It grew straight out of how she wanted to raise our kids.

My execution

Sourcing the right hardware, writing software that just works, and making sure the real customers, my kids, genuinely love using it.

I built it in the evenings, testing every feature on my own kids and iterating on their feedback, what they loved and what they ignored. We tried it on small screens, then on iPads, and finally landed on the screen size that turned out to be just right for an always-on family display: prominent enough to live on the wall and be part of the room.

If it brings a little more barakah into your home.

I made AdabStars for Zakaria, Adam, and Ibrahim first. It has changed how our family runs its days, and I would love for what we built at home to benefit other Muslim families too, insha'Allah.

If it brings a little more salah, a little more adab, and a little more barakah into your home, then alhamdulillah. That is the whole point.

YasarFounder, AdabStars · [email protected]

Why I built AdabStars