Satchel · A mobile budgeting app, zero to public beta
Designed and shipped a mobile budgeting app that auto-categorizes spending and gives a weekly plain-language summary, built for a two-person fintech team preparing for their public launch.
01/ The challenge
Satchel's founders had a working categorization model but no app around it, a nine-week runway before a planned public beta, and no mobile engineering on the team.
02/ The approach
We shipped a native-feel iOS app end to end: account linking, a spend-breakdown view, budgets per category, and a weekly digest written in plain language instead of raw numbers. We kept the model's categorization logic and built the product layer around it.
03/ The outcome
- Zero to beta
- 9 wks
- Weekly opens per user
- 4.2x
- Mobile hires needed
- 0
Satchel shipped to its public beta on schedule with zero mobile engineering hires. Early beta users check the app a median of 4.2 times a week, well above the founders' target of 2.
“We had a model and a deadline, not a mobile team. They shipped the entire app around our categorization engine and we hit our beta date.”