John Ciocca

In his 2025 speech he said that his family moved from New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry to FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry; Verdict, in a 2021 article, wrote instead that the family moved from Florida to New York.⁠[1][2]

He attended Estero High School in Florida, where he taught himself to code; both brothers were students there at the time.⁠[3][4]

In 2017 he founded youBelong; FinTech Futures describes it as calling itself the first social network for people with special needs, and Verdict calls it a social media community for people with disabilities. A WINK News report of March 28, 2017, presented two of his apps on the iTunes app store: “My Voice,” a digital version of a PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) book that lets nonverbal people communicate by typing sentences or selecting pictures, and “You Belong,” a social network for the special needs community that connects people with disabilities and their families in a safe online space and is aimed at becoming the Facebook of the special needs community.⁠[5][2][6]

He explained to Verdict why he built youBelong: “I wanted to combine my passions for him and for technology to build something for him to connect and meet new friends.” In the WINK News report he said he wanted to keep building on “You Belong” to make it a solid social network like the others.⁠[2][6]

The WINK News report of March 28, 2017, states that he and his older brother, Christian, had formed a local chapter of “Fantastic Friends” the previous November.⁠[6][1]

A WINK News article states that he and his brother, Christian, both then students at Estero High School, had created “Battle Buddies,” a social app that helps veterans connect with each other; the app grew out of a nonprofit of the same name that connects veterans with service dogs. The brothers were also raising Justice, an 8-week-old puppy, for the organization; the dog was to go to a service member once grown. He said: “To give back to veterans who have served our country is just a great feeling.”⁠[4]

WINK News wrote in 2019 that he had created three dozen apps. MyVoice helps students with autism or other speech disabilities communicate: users type their thoughts and the app speaks them aloud. youBelong, a social platform meant to reduce cyberbullying while letting people connect, had more than 1,700 users, was used almost daily by his brother, Christian, and had earned MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry’s sponsorship. Both apps were free on Apple and Android devices. His slogan for his apps was “Write the code. Change the World.” He said: “Growing up with Christian inspired me to build projects that would be able to help him.” The report added that he planned to keep coding at Florida Gulf Coast University.⁠[3]

youBelong later launched “youBelong Cash,” a mobile bank for families of children with special needs, which was then renamed Purple, with a focus on financial literacy and independence for people with disabilities. A FinTech Futures article of August 7, 2020, states that Purple offered a current account with no hidden fees or minimum balance, early direct deposit of disability benefits by up to two days, a spending tracker and money transfers; its bank partner was Bancorp Bank, its debit cards were issued by MastercardMastercardMastercard Incorporated is a technology company in the global payments industry whose principal operating subsidiary was formed in November 1966. It is headquartered in Purchase, New York.Open the full entry, and card processing ran on Galileo Instant, with a planned move to Galileo Pro to allow custom budgeting tools and interfaces; a voice-powered banking service was being developed with Microsoft. He said the start-up had three staff and $58,000 in funding to date; the article adds that it planned to raise a formal round in the coming months and aimed initially for 1,000 users, and that its targets included people with special needs and the roughly 53 million unbanked Americans.⁠[5]

In the FinTech Futures article he said: “While we’re starting with the special needs community,” and “We see a future where we aim to provide a digital banking solution to those who are underserved by the big banks.”⁠[5]

On Purple’s beginnings, Verdict wrote in 2021 that Purple launched in 2019 as a neobank focused on people with disabilities. He recalled that it was first called youBelong Cash and seen as an extension of the youBelong brand, and that the team later decided to spin it out as a separate company; he said: “It wasn’t until last summer that we realised that this could be really big.” Verdict also wrote that Purple is named after Christian’s favourite colour. A Finovate article states that Purple was founded by its CEO, John Ciocca, and that with every card transaction it donates a portion of its revenues to Special Olympics.⁠[2][7]

An American Banker article of March 5, 2021, states that his brother, Christian, works a handful of hours a week at a Panera Bread, income that lowers his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, so that he and his family had to weigh the social benefits of working against the higher payments of being unemployed. The article states that Purple helps consumers set aside money in a tax-advantaged savings account that does not jeopardize federal benefits tied to income, so that people with disabilities can keep both their jobs and their benefits.⁠[8]

A Verdict article of June 7, 2021, states that Purple was in limited beta with 25 card holders and expected to draw on youBelong’s 3,000 members. He said that while growing youBelong they learned that people with disabilities struggled to open bank accounts and apply for disability benefits: “We realised that there’s a massive opportunity for us to build something that allows them to have an easier way to bank.” Purple planned to use ABLE accounts, created under the ABLE Act of 2014, which let people with disabilities save without exceeding the $2,000 limit on benefit-related bank balances; this required a partnership with a U.S. state to set up the accounts, his main focus at the time, and he called the states “bureaucratic and slow.” If the partnership succeeded, he said, he hoped to reach 10,000 customers by the end of the year.⁠[2]

The article added that Purple had raised $60,000 through start-up competitions at his university and planned to formally raise a pre-seed round within the next few months; he said the goal was to close it by the end of 2021. He said: “Our mission is to enable people with disabilities to achieve financial independence.”⁠[2]

On January 6, 2022, the Thiel Foundation announced its new class of 23 Thiel Fellows, listing him twelfth, aged 21, from Bonita Springs, Florida, and describing his project thus: Purple builds financial products that enable people with disabilities to spend, save and invest. The announcement states that the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry, launched in 2011, gives fellows $100,000 over a two-year program plus mentorship from the foundation’s network, with the sole requirement that they pause college enrollment and focus on their technology or company.⁠[9]

His biography on the Financial Health Network website states that in early 2022 he dropped out of college to become a Thiel Fellow; Florida Gulf Coast University’s profile lists him as class of 2022 (’22).⁠[10][11]

On September 27, 2023, as founder and CEO of Purple, he took part in “Diving Deeper: The Financial Health Needs of People With Disabilities,” a session of the Financial Health Network’s EMERGE Insights 2023 that brought together disability experts and people with lived experience to discuss what it would take to create an equitable system and presented new research by the Financial Health Network and the Principal Foundation; the other speakers were Jo Christine Miles, director of the Principal Foundation, Kimberly Knackstedt, director of the Disability Economic Justice Collaborative at The Century Foundation, and Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute.⁠[12]

On June 6, 2024, as founder and CEO of Purple, he took part in “Innovator Showcase: Building Inclusive Solutions” at the Financial Health Network’s EMERGE Financial Health 2024, a session of rapid-fire fintech presentations on expanding equity and inclusion in financial services followed by commentary from a panel. The other speakers listed on the page are Beatriz Acevedo, chief executive officer and co-founder of SUMA Wealth; Laura Kornhauser, co-founder and chief executive officer of Stratyfy; Rishi Ahuja, co-founder and chief executive officer of Benny; Michael Martino, head of customer growth segments for consumer and small business banking at Wells Fargo & CompanyWells FargoWells Fargo & Company is an American bank whose employees opened millions of unauthorized accounts, leading to regulatory penalties and a $1.95 trillion asset cap from the Federal Reserve that was lifted in June 2025.Open the full entry; Rebecca Cokley, U.S. disability rights program officer at the Ford Foundation; and Sarah Morgenstern, venture partner at Flourish Ventures.⁠[13]

On July 12, 2025, he gave a speech titled “Collective Action through Financial Technology: Utilizing Disability Wisdom to Build Meaningful Innovations” at the 2025 National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB); it was published in the October 2025 issue of the organization’s Braille Monitor. NFB President Riccobono introduced him as the founder and chief executive officer of Purple, appearing on the NFB stage for the first time, and said the NFB had been happy to provide a contribution to help the venture get off the ground; the editor’s note calls him co-founder and CEO.⁠[1]

In the speech he recalled that his path into technology began with his older brother, Christian, who has Down syndrome; that his father was a special educator, so that, sitting in his father’s classroom after school, he saw such difficulties over and over again with his father’s students; and that among the families and individuals using youBelong, money came up again and again. He described Purple as building financial products with which people with disabilities and their families manage money, maximize benefits and save for the future while protecting critical benefits: the company was building the first integrated ABLE banking experience, which at the end of each month would automatically move leftover funds into an ABLE account to help members stay under the SSI asset limit; the Purple checking account lets users get their disability benefits earlier, and its debit card offers spending limits, capture of receipts and memos to stay compliant with Social Security Administration (SSA) reporting requirements, and linking of SNAP EBT cards; there is also income monitoring against the SSA’s substantial gainful activity (SGA) limit, secure storage for disability paperwork, and Purple Companion, an AI assistant for money management and benefits questions. Testers from the NFB BUILD program had put the software through real-world scenarios, and the products were available on the Apple App Store, Google PlayGoogle PlayGoogle Play is a digital content distribution service operated by Google, centered on the Google Play Store, the app store for Android devices. Its predecessor, Android Market, launched in October 2008 alongside the first Android phone, and in March 2012 it merged with Google Music and the Google eBookstore and was renamed Google Play. As the main distribution channel for Android apps, its commissions, billing rules, and review practices have drawn controversy, including the Epic Games antitrust lawsuit in the United States and penalties under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.Open the full entry and the web.⁠[1]

He announced that later in 2025 Purple planned to introduce a Mastercard Touch Card with a distinctive tactile notch and to let members set up recurring donations to the NFB, and that future plans included Special Needs Trusts, information on Medicaid waivers and other benefits, credit-building tools and employment connections. He said: “Technology can empower, but only when it’s built with the community, not just for the community.”⁠[1]

As of November 2026, the Financial Health Network website lists him as founder and chief executive officer of Purple and describes Purple as a neobank for people with disabilities.⁠[10]

As of November 2026, Purple’s website shows that the company, Purple Financial, Inc., is a financial technology company, not a bank, with banking services provided by OMB Bank, Member FDIC; the features it lists include spending limits and controls, benefit tracking including SNAP/EBT balances, early access to direct deposits, routing of qualified disability expenses, Auto Save, receipt capture and monitoring of the SGA income limit, while ABLE savings for eligible expenses without affecting benefit eligibility is marked “Coming Soon.” Purple’s newsletter of August 15, 2025, states that the Purple Mastercard debit card is issued by OMB Bank and that government benefits such as SSI or SSDI may arrive up to four days early.⁠[14][15]

An undated BadCredit.org article states that Purple’s partners include Special Olympics, the National Disability Institute and the Financial Health Network, that it focuses on intellectual disabilities such as Down syndrome and autism, and that it plans credit-building, financial planning and investing products. He said in the article: “Trust is very important to the community.”⁠[16]

The WINK News report of March 28, 2017, refers to his father as John Ciocca Sr. and to him as John Ciocca Jr.⁠[6]

In his 2025 speech he said of his older brother, Christian: “He’s been the inspiration behind everything I’ve built.” His father said in the 2017 WINK News report: “It’s neat that he’s taken the field that he wants to really be in.”⁠[1][6]

In his 2025 speech he said that Purple sees its members “not as users, but as co-designers and partners in this work,” and acknowledged that “accessibility is a journey and our software isn’t perfect today.”⁠[1]

Speaking to Verdict in 2021 about large banks and challengers, he said: “We all have the same goal of disrupting the big banks,” and “I think that’s what makes the smaller ones a little more special.”⁠[2]

Florida Gulf Coast University’s profile of him states that he majored in entrepreneurship, that the university’s Runway Program provided seed funding for his business, and that youBelong had thousands of users in more than 25 countries.⁠[11]

Accounts of his first app differ: in a 2025 speech he said he built his first app, MyVoice, in middle school, while WINK News wrote in 2019 that he was 16 when he launched his first app.⁠[1][3]

Purple: Official website: https://withpurple.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

Florida Gulf Coast University: Official website: https://www.fgcu.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]