hello, and welcome to vieni
I'm Angel, and I built Vieni because I needed it and it didn't exist. Here's the honest version: why I made it, how I look after your family's safety and privacy, how it might one day pay for itself, and why we're opening one London borough at a time.
why i built it
I moved to London when I was seven months pregnant. A new country and a new city, no family nearby, and a due date coming fast. Then my son arrived after a birth that didn't go the way anyone had planned, and recovering from it took me far longer than I expected.
My borough, to its credit, had so much on offer. Rhyme times, stay-and-plays, health visitors, drop-ins, all of it. I had the leaflets. What I didn't have was the will to walk through the door. Having a baby was hard enough without also trying to be sociable on no sleep, in a body still healing, working out how to put on a brave face for a room full of strangers when I could barely hold myself together. So I stayed home, mostly, and told myself I'd go next week.
It's been over a year now. Most of the mums I might have met are back at work with no time spare, and the window when everyone was home and looking for company has quietly closed. I still can't fully explain why I find it so hard to put myself out there. But I know I missed my chance to build a village, and I know I'm not the only one who has.
Vieni is the thing I wish someone had handed me in those first foggy months. Not another pile of leaflets, but a gentle, low-pressure way to see what's nearby, spot the friendly faces who'll be there too, and reach out before the moment passes. If it helps one parent walk through a door I couldn't, it will have been worth building.
why it's called vieni
Vieni means "come" in Italian. It's the word you'd use to wave someone over: come here, come along, come and join us. The whole invitation in a single word.
I chose it because that's the feeling I wanted the app to carry. When you've just moved somewhere, or you're finding your feet in the first weeks with a baby, what you need most is someone saying come, you're welcome here. The name is a small promise to do exactly that.
how vieni helps you find your people
Walking into a room of strangers is hard. It's harder still when you're new to the country and not sure anyone will share your language or quite get where you're coming from. So Vieni is built to help you find the people you'll click with, not just the events.
If you choose to, you can be matched with parents who speak your language or share your heritage, and whose little ones are close in age to yours. It's all opt-in and private by default, because this is personal, but when you switch it on, the singalong down the road might come with a quiet "two other families here speak Portuguese too." A bit of common ground makes the first hello so much easier.
We also champion welcomers: parents who volunteer to be a friendly, familiar face at an event and say hello so you're not hovering at the edge of the room wondering where to put yourself. We can't promise one at every event, but we encourage it wherever we can, and you can put yourself forward to be a welcomer too. It's the face I wished for in those early months.
And each event has its own group chat, so things don't go quiet the moment you pack up the buggy. You can work out who's going, ask the daft questions, swap the odd tip, and keep in touch with the people you meet.
how i look after safety and privacy
Before Vieni, I spent years building privacy products and working in trust and safety at Google. This is the part of the job I care about most, and the part I'm least willing to cut corners on.
Because Vieni is for families with very young children, I treat trust as the foundation, not a feature I'll get to later. The things that matter most:
- We check the activities we share, rather than letting anyone post anything.
- Report and block tools are built in and easy to reach.
- We store age bands for children, never names or birthdays, and ask for as little as we can.
- Languages and nationality stay private unless you choose to share them.
- Vieni is for grown-ups. It is not designed to be used by children, and it never will be. I will not build features aimed at children, full stop.
There's much more to say here, about how moderation actually works, what we store and why, and the thinking behind keeping Vieni adults-only. I'll write a proper deep dive on safety and privacy as a follow-up post soon. In the meantime you can read our community guidelines and privacy policy in full.
the honest bit about money
Right now Vieni costs you nothing, there are no ads, and I am not selling anyone's data, full stop. I'm one person, and while it's small the costs are coming out of my own pocket, gladly.
That can't last forever, and I'd rather show you my thinking than spring something on you later. These are the options I've weighed for keeping Vieni going, roughly in the order I'd prefer them:
- A small optional subscription, with the core app always free. Extra conveniences for those who want them, never a paywall around the things that matter.
- Featured listings from activity providers I've vetted, always clearly labelled as featured and never dressed up as an ordinary recommendation.
- Advertising, only as a last resort, if the first two can't cover the bills. If it ever comes to that, it will never be targeted at your children and never built on selling your data.
There's something bigger behind all this. I believe technology can be used for good, to actually bring people together, and Vieni is not my ticket to a big IPO one day built off the backs of the very community we're trying to grow. That belief shapes what I will and won't do. I won't gamify your friendships, and I will never add features designed to keep you in the app longer than you need to be. Vieni has done its job the moment you've found something to go to and someone to go with. Then you close it and get on with your day.
Whatever happens, I'll tell you what's changing and why, in plain language, before it does. That's a promise.
why we're opening borough by borough
London is big, and connection is local. The parent you meet at a Tuesday singalong might become the one who texts when you're both up at 3am, and those bonds form when the same faces keep turning up at the same places near home. So rather than switch the whole city on at once, we're launching across thirteen boroughs in central and inner London, the ones inside travel zones 1 to 3, and adding the next one only when I can look after it properly.
Before a borough goes live I map out what's happening, check it's accurate, and make sure there's enough nearby that the app feels alive from your very first visit. No one wants to open a community app to an empty room. It means we grow slowly, but I think the families who join early are worth doing it right for.
come and join us
Vieni is live now across thirteen boroughs in central and inner London, and you can download it from the App Store or Google Play. If your borough isn't live yet, leave your details on the homepage and I'll give you a shout the moment we reach you.
Thank you for being here early. It means a great deal to me.
Angel L.
Founder, Vieni