In July, almost everyone in Product, Design and Tech gathered in London for one glorious, sweaty, idea-crammed day. No PowerPoint marathons. No “align on the roadmap” energy. Just an unconference where the people doing the work got to decide what was worth talking about. And what they came up with was…honestly kind of unhinged. In the best possible way.
The Setup
Our VP of Engineering, Dan Webb, opened the day with a talk about building strong working relationships through the challenges of a startup journey. Relationships that, he suggested, could one day lead to a “Yoto Mafia” of alumni who go on to do extraordinary things. Our co-founder and CEO, Ben Drury, warmly endorsed the idea with one small caveat: “Nothing would make me happier…but please wait at least five more years before considering leaving”. Fair enough.
The format was pure unconference. Our backend engineer, Jaimen Lathia, set up a Miro board weeks in advance where anyone could propose a session, get votes and help shape the agenda. The result: three parallel tracks running all day, across three rooms. The FOMO was real. At any given moment, you were choosing between learning about causal inference, painting tiny fantasy warriors or building your own audiobook. Tough life.
A Taste of the Sessions
There were 18 sessions across the day and every single one was brilliant. What follows is just a small selection to give you a flavour.
“Why Do Great Products Feel Different?” with Viorica Gheorghiță. Vio’s session on shipping more delight was a highlight that people couldn’t stop talking about. She used the Kano model to make a case for why “it works” isn’t enough and that the best products surprise you with joy. High energy, laugh-out-loud funny, deeply interactive, and left half the room feeling like we’d just had a breakthrough on a therapist’s couch. The Slack thread afterwards devolved into people sharing the best products they love that came up during the session and asking for referral codes for a water bottle and an air fryer that were featured. You know a talk worked when the group chat turns into a shopping list.
“Modular Synths 101” with Tom Hazledine. Tom brought actual modular synthesisers into the office and let people make weird noises with voltages and patch cables. No agenda. No OKRs. Just pure, unfiltered joy of poking at sound with your hands. This is the kind of session that could only happen at an unconference and it was perfect.
“Evals: Testing AI Systematically” with Emma Beynon. As we’re looking into how AI can help our coding process, we have to deal with the fact that AI is probabilistic, not deterministic. Multiple people called it one of the standout sessions of the day, and the Slack shoutouts afterwards were glowing.
“Learn How to Paint Fantasy Miniatures Like a True Nerd” with Dan Webb. Yes, our VP of Engineering ran a hands-on miniature painting session. He brought the minis, the paints, the brushes and the tips. You got to keep your painted miniature. If that doesn’t tell you something about the culture here, nothing will.
“Soldering Workshop” with Rob Nokes. Ever wanted to solder components onto a PCB, build a custom Yoto demo board and take it home? Rob made it happen. No experience needed. Just curiosity and steady hands (the steady hands part was optional, judging by the results).
“AI Open Hours” with Tami Effendowicz. An honest, no-pitch-decks conversation about how AI is actually affecting people. Zero judgment, maximum candour. It turns out people have a lot of feelings about AI and giving them a safe space to talk about it openly was exactly what was needed.
The rest of the lineup was just as eclectic: “Ask Better Questions” on writing better research questions, “Why We Love Pull Requests” challenging our assumptions from first principles, “Are you Causal?” on going beyond data-driven to data-informed, “Human Psychology 101” on why your brain lies to you, a blue-sky ideation imagining Yoto in 2030, a World Cafe on website architecture, hands-on coding for Yoto Players and a wonderfully casual end-of-day session called “Things I’ve Built That Nobody Asked For”.
The Fireside Chat
The afternoon featured a fireside chat with our co-founder and CEO, Ben Drury, facilitated by Dan. We heard Ben’s story of growing up as a child of the 80s and 90s, tinkering with computers that most of us have never even heard of. How that early fascination became a full-blown passion, mixed with a love for music and entrepreneurship. How he and co-founder Filip built and packaged the earliest devices by hand, tested them with their own families and their friends’ kids, and slowly realised they’d made something magic.
It was funny. It was down-to-earth. And it reminded everyone why Yoto exists: to bring joy to families.
(Side note: Theresa showed incredible bravery by scheduling her board game session in direct competition with the CEO’s fireside chat. Respect.)
The Vibe
Here’s what the Slack channels looked like the next morning:
“Dan gave an excellent intro talk. It was a rousing pep talk that made me excited to be part of the Yoto team.”
“Every session I attended was really awesome.”
“My heart is full of excitement, hope and so much joy!”
“What a great day!”
This was genuine, effusive, people-ordering-air-fryers-because-a-talk-inspired-them energy. The whole day ran smoothly thanks to Jaimen’s meticulous planning and Ed Price’s behind-the-scenes coordination, and the enthusiasm from every single person who showed up made it something special.
What This Says About Working Here
YotoStack wasn’t a corporate team-building day with awkward icebreakers and mandatory fun. It was a room full of builders (engineers, designers, product managers, data scientists, hardware specialists and content people) who genuinely wanted to share what excites them. Someone ran a session on causal inference. Someone else bought a soldering iron. A third person turned up with a bag full of tiny miniatures and paintbrushes.
That mix of deep technical craft, creative curiosity and cheerful weirdness is what makes Yoto’s Product, Design and Tech team special. We’re building something that matters to families around the world, and we’re doing it with people who put passion into everything they do.
If that sounds like your kind of place, come build something joyful with us!