This interview is the third in a series spotlighting the ten finalists of the WeXchange Forum 2024.
In today’s fast-paced, screen-dominated world, parenting comes with unique challenges. Fiorella De La Sotta Rubio, co-founder and CEO of Cuentologia shares how her journey as a mother, combined with her sister’s creative expertise, led to the creation of a platform that helps families navigate these challenges, by offering curated, expert-backed stories providing parents with tools to foster emotional growth in children while reducing screen dependency.
From corporate careers to founders
Cuentología has two founders—my sister Ursula De la Sotta and me. We both come from corporate backgrounds. I spent over 12 years managing marketing for multinational companies, focusing on brands for children. This gave me experience in commercial strategy, branding, and family-oriented marketing—the same audience we target today.
I left the corporate world a few years ago to focus on my children. At that time, I had two; now I have three, including a 10-month-old. Before the pandemic, I worked long hours and realized I was missing key moments in my children’s lives, especially their emotional challenges. My family and I decided I would pause my career to take care of them.
During this time, I asked myself how I could use my professional expertise to address the challenges I saw in my children—this question tied into Ursula’s journey, creating a perfect partnership.
Ursula spent nearly a decade as a creative director in advertising agencies. At one point, we worked together as a client and agency. Writing has always been her passion, and years ago, she dreamed of writing children’s stories for Pixar. She faced visa-related job restrictions when she moved to Chicago for her husband’s studies. She revisited her dream and started crafting stories. We combined my parenting needs with her creativity to build what became Cuentología.
Building Cuentología from personal challenges
As a mother, I needed tools to address specific challenges: self-esteem, nightmares, new siblings, and other emotional topics. Ursula wrote stories tackling these issues, including themes from the pandemic, such as loss and change.
We saw strong demand from other families for respectful parenting approaches, like positive discipline. This inspired us to create customized stories addressing topics like moving to a new country or dealing with family diversity. These stories became a bridge for parents, helping them guide their children through emotional challenges.
Supporting families to have respectful and close parenting
Cuentología addresses two interconnected challenges. First, parents struggle to raise children differently—balancing time constraints with the desire to be better parents. Second, many feel guilty about relying on screens to occupy their children.
Excessive screen use is a leading cause of emotional and mental health issues in children. Research shows that one in six children between two and eight faces such challenges, often linked to overexposure to screens and social media.
Cuentología offers curated, expert-created content as a screen-free alternative. Our stories support emotional growth, helping children prepare for challenges while reducing reliance on harmful media.
We group our stories into three categories:
- Daily routines: Topics like hygiene, tidiness, and responsibility.
- Life challenges: Themes like new siblings, loss, climate change, and divorce.
- Emotional development: Stories promoting empathy, frustration tolerance, self-esteem, and anti-bullying.
These categories ensure our content supports children at every stage of early development.
Cuentología’s business model
We use a subscription-based model. Parents can choose monthly or annual memberships, starting with a free trial. Subscriptions unlock unlimited content, plus guides prepared by psychologists. These guides include activities, questions, and tips for parents to address specific challenges.
Our premium plan adds features like personalized playlists and content recommendations tailored to a child’s needs.
Beyond subscriptions, we collaborate with brands and institutions. We also partner with schools, integrating our content into socio-emotional learning programs. A study with 600 children in Peru demonstrated measurable improvements after five months of using our stories.
The role of technology in emotional development
Technology is here to stay, and its impact depends on how it’s used. Screens can either harm or help, depending on the content. Cuentología provides parents with safe, high-quality content to reduce overstimulation and promote meaningful engagement.
Our goal is not to eliminate screens but to offer a reliable, trusted platform.
We’re shifting from passive listening to co-creation. Many children dream of being YouTubers, so we aim to provide a safe environment where they can create content. Features like customizing stories, voicing characters, and decision-making within stories are part of our roadmap.
We also engage directly with parents through a WhatsApp community of over 100 families. Their feedback helps us refine the platform.
While we’re exploring AI for scalability, content creation remains human-driven and backed by experts. Our commitment to screen-free, imagination-driven content is unwavering. We believe technology should inspire creativity, not replace it.
Cuentologia’s next steps
We are currently in the midst of raising capital. We are looking for angel investors, particularly strategic investors in verticals related to Cuentología, such as mental health, well-being, EdTech, or family tech.
Cuentología sits at the intersection of wellness, mental health, and education, specifically soft skills and emotional education. We are also open to conversations with smaller funds that might be interested in investing at this early stage.
Connecting with Cuentología
For more information, visit https://www.cuentologia.com/ or connect with Fiorella on LinkedIn
