Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. This week I want to take you on a little bit of a journey. For those of you who ... some of you may know, and I've, I've mentioned it I feel like I've mentioned it a lot but maybe, maybe I haven't yet I've gone down the path of building an app, or a software it is at the moment, 'cause it's, it's still, it's a desktop app for now and then it will become a mobile app as well once I've got this part working. The learning curve has been tremendous. And it made me reflect. I had somebody actually who kind of asked me to reflect on what it was like doing this, coming out in an industry and a space that I know absolutely zero about. I'm not like techie at all. I ... very slow adopter also with a lot of these things. I only recently found out what a Fire Stick was, and everybody seems to know what a Fire Stick is. So, so I, I'm very clueless. Our house is not wired ... like I can't talk to Alexa or to Siri or whomever else you talk to. Our we don't have like touch button things, like screens and things. We ... and the reason we got a Fire Stick was because of the TV that I'd sort of inherited from my dad was a smart TV but we couldn't get it to work properly, and then a friend said, "Oh, just plug in a Fire Stick. It'll work fine." Like, "Okay. Right, I'll, I'll trust you." So I've been on a really steep learning curve. And then someone said, "Well, that is possibly what others, women in particular, are going through when it comes to money." And I thought, "Holy moly." Like, I literally had ... I felt like my head was going to explode yesterday, because I had a very, very like techie, intense day. And I've been lucky enough to have a friend kind of helping me with some of it along the way last year, helping me understand like some of the languaging and, and what I ... like the wire frames and the structure and things that I needed to kind of create. And I got into a, a tech-ready government-funded program last year as well. That one was more about being able to communicate the end product in order to, to gain funding to build and to grow and to scale. And I was like, "Okay, but I'm still, I'm still creating this app." So in a way, it, came a possibly a little bit too soon, but at the same time, it gave me some of that knowledge to kind of be able to communicate that better with the, like whomever was going to build it for me. So I spent a lot of last year just trying to document what it was that I actually wanted to build. I'd been using ... I'd created an Excel version that I'd been using with clients but obviously Excel is very limited in terms of, like I can't pull in banking data and analyze it. And even AI, I noticed, was struggling a lot with banking data, and I thought, "Goodness me. This is ... if anybody's trying to use AI to help them in the money space, it's, it's still very clunky." And, and even in the money ... like there's so much ... there's a a lot of language that goes with money. You know, when people talk about, you know, net worth, what does that mean? You know, when people say wealth, what do they actually really mean? When they say shared trading is different from investing what's the difference? Like, there's this terminology there which I've attempted to try and clarify over, over time, but what I realized and it really hit me probably the most yesterday, 'cause like I said, it was a very techy, intense day where I was confronted with having to understand things that I, I didn't even know that I didn't understand and I didn't know that I even needed to know. So I now get a little bit more about, you know, API keys and secrets, which I didn't realize were a thing. And you know, hosting and regions and all of this sort of thing. So, and I, and I built in some parallels. So, so there were sort of like five areas which I I found like the biggest hurdles, in a way, and I can, I can see how this could parallel into learning about money and how to manage money. So the first one, I'll just, I'll just go through them first and then I'll, I'll go into a bit more detail, but the first one was language. Oh, another language. Knowledge. And so I had a big knowledge gap. Still building on that. The cost of actually figuring it out as well, 'cause sometimes we can't just figure it out on our own. We have to, like, pay to figure it out or pay for softwares and things like that. Then there's the build itself which for money would be like creating the visibility around what it is and like the systems that you're gonna use in order to give you that visibility. And then finally, the actual, like, tech itself. And in the finance space, there is a lot of tech out there. Which one is the right one? How do you, how do you use it? So, so they're, they're like the five things that I found were like the biggest hurdles for me. So I'm gonna talk a bit about my app-building journey and how I can parallel that to, to where what I would see would be issues in learning about money and growing that, that that knowledge and experience too. So the first one was language. So there's things like tech stack, didn't really know what that meant. I was like, "Right, okay. Is it just like the ..." And it turns out it's really just like the different like softwares and systems that, that I've needed. and there's companies that do things that I, I never knew existed and I, to be honest, I don't still understand all of it that that I'm using. And even, even the app itself. So I'm, I'm using an app called Loveable, which does not sound like a tech app at all. It sounds like a dating app. But it's not. It can do incredible things. It's really like ... if you think ChatGPT on ... I don't know. It's gone to MIT and has a degree in neurophysics. Like, that's, that's the level up from, from my base experience with ChatGPT. And even using an agent mode and stuff like that, like this thing is next level. Like it, it anticipates and a-... kind of, it suggests improvements and things that I would never even know to ask. And not just in the tech side of it, in, even in the, like, the data analysis and they're like, "Oh, well, do you want this to do this as well?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure. That's, yeah, great." And so it's making suggestions for things to preempt what, either what I would ask or adding value. So that was really, really cool. But that, that languaging around what are things called. Like, what's the difference between a hosting and a, like, a server? 'Cause they are both in regions. I had to be very... Because the, the banking integration that I'm looking at has to be hosted in an Australian region. So I then had to, like, delve into the backend to just, like, find that out. Took me about two days to, to find that out. And then it wasn't, so I then had to figure out a way to make it hosted in Australia, and I was like, "How do I get this stuff?" So then there was another, another app that I could integrate with my app that I already had but I was using for something else. And so there's all this stuff, so I was like, "Oh, my goodness, if this languaging is, it's so overwhelming." So how to make it simplified? And to be honest, in the tech space, it's mostly the techies who work in the tech space. The advent of AI has made techy stuff available for the non-techies but it's kind of like finance for non-finance people. And I suppose that's where it's, like, understanding what are the key terms that you need to know? What is, what are the main things you need to make sure that you're doing? And that's where my my app is going to simplify and go, "Okay, you do this, then you do this, then you do this. Here are some insights, and you can get reminders every month. And here's, here is where you get some visibility." You can play around with some of this as well, so you can see some different scenarios of what what's possible. But it creates that, like, do blah, blah, blah in this order. I mean, you can jump around if you want, but it makes more sense if it builds on itself. And then you get the end result information, plus some insights that go with it. Bam, and all of that, once the integration's in there, will have that ready within, like, seconds. There's some manual updates that you need to add in, like for instance, with net worth, you can't pull information about what assets you own and the balances of some of those, so some of that you have to enter manually. But once everything's in there and the setup's done, and the setup shouldn't take you more than maybe 20 minutes to half an hour. You spend that time on there, the rest just flows. It's live. It just, yeah, it's so exciting. I'm so excited about it. And then anything that's jargon is explained. Whereas I found, I found in this bill process, none of the jargon is explained. I've had to go and use AI to help me go, "So what does this mean? And what does it, how, why is that linking to that? What is that linkage doing? What's this integration mean? Which region is AP South East Two? Like, what is that?" Turns out, it's Sydney, in case you wanted to know. So there's all this sort of stuff. So once, once you actually get down that path of language and understanding it, it does make life a lot easier, but that is one of the first hurdles. The second one is just the knowledge itself. And with money, it's very much that, do I do something, like, I do, I pay off debt, and then I do this, and then I do that? That's not the way to bid well, will, build wealth. You're gonna have to do things in parallel. So it's doing this and this and that and that. But is there an order? Yes, there is. Like, if you've got personal debt, or, like, bad debt kind of thing, I don't know, I like the use the word bad, but if you've got debt that's, like, your Afterpays or payday loans or even credit cards, get them, like, get them down, get them gone. once you've done that, and even though, even while you're paying those off, you can still do investing, like, investing, investing, investing. You know when they say if, with property, it's location, location, location? With investing, it's just invest, invest, like, just do it consistently, and it doesn't have to be big. I'm, I'm gonna you know, repeat myself yet again, but micro-investing has changed the game. ETFs have changed the game, that exchange traded funds that you can, you can invest 100 bucks and buy an ETF which gives you access to a company and not just, you don't have to pick one. It'll give you access to a industry. So it's, it's made it a lot more accessible to everyone. So that knowledge is a big thing. So if you don't have that knowledge, that is a really good place to start, and with the knowledge, you'll encounter the language, and so if you don't understand the language, then hopefully it's explained. If it's not, then ask. I've been doing a weekly Money Talk post on socials to try and talk about some of the terminology so that the language becomes a bit clearer. So if you follow me on socials I call it Money Talk. It's, I post it on a Monday, and I'm literally just kind of, like, progressively going through different different sort of terms. If there's a term that I haven't covered yet, then please send it to me and say, what does this mean?" Be like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna answer you so that you get your answer right away." But I'm also gonna probably put it on Money Talk as well just in case others have the same question because You know , where do we learn about this stuff? It's same with the tech stuff. I'm not doing an IT degree, but I'm a, I'm a money person or a finance person building a tech app, so I still need a certain level of knowledge. Also, 'cause eventually I'm not going to be doing this myself. I'm going to have somebody helping me with it, so I need to know that they know what they're talking about and in order to do that, I need to know a certain amount of what I'm talking about so that I can actually, like, talk to them in language they understand as well. So, yeah, so that knowledge piece is really important. Then the next one is, is the cost factor. So for me, building the app, obviously there was a cost involved, and I literally have had the gambit. I had somebody quote me $100,000 to build it, and I was just like, "Whoa, okay. Not in my budget." Sorry. And then another quote I had was $30,000. Again, I'm like, "Yeah and then, and then I was like, "Oh, maybe seven to 10," I was going, "Okay, we can do that." And then the AI app at the moment, it's cost $1,500. It's just incredible though, the cost kind of like gap. I mean, obviously I'm doing it, so it's my, my time up rather than... But also I then get, like, the results immediately. If I want to change something, I can go, "Can we do this?" And they do it straightaway, and then it's done, rather than me having to write an email, trying to really clearly articulate what it is I want, have another human read that, try and interpret and understand what I'm asking when I'm I'm asking in layman's terms rather than techy terms, and then translate that into techy terms, and then physically do that, and then send it back to me to have a look at. Like, all of that would take... Like, every single prompt in a way would take at least two to three days. Whereas here, I'm getting it instantaneously. So it's just made the build process and the cost, the build process faster and the cost a lot lower and I feel like I'm getting a better product at the end of the day as well. It's super exciting what it's capable of doing. And even still, I just had a conversation with someone, and I've got like five things I want to do to add to the ease of certain things, so that's really, really exciting. But when it comes to learning about money, it does sometimes come at a cost. You know, I haven't always made the best decisions financially. I had gold and sold it, and now I'm like, "Well, I really should have probably held onto that," because it would have literally tripled in price since I had it. But then I was buying a house, so I sold it to put towards the house to the home. So, so there's always a time and place, but there's always that coulda, shoulda, woulda kind of thing going on in your mind. You kind of have to silence that to a certain extent. And then there comes, you know, I've had, I've had clients who've come and done other financial courses, and like, they just haven't really given me the like, the specific things I need to do, or haven't... They've told me what to do, but I still have to go and do the work. And I was like, "Yeah." Whereas even in a one-on-one basis, I'm helping do the work with my clients, and now the app is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in the data space. So then we can really focus on the behaviors, and the, the, the thoughts and the the beliefs and the mindset side around it, and really embed the changes and accelerate things tremendously by doing it alongside a powerful tool Or you can do it completely on your own as well. Like, there's... So it's, there, there's often some cost, whether it's direct cost to become educated or there's the, the sort of more indirect cost of doing something and it not being correct. Plus, there's also still a cost not doing anything. Like, sitting and just, like, contemplating and being too scared to act, there's a cost in that too, because you're costing your future. And again, in the app, what I've got is a future projector, which actually allows you to go in and go, "Okay, well, if I did this and I put this amount of money into ETFs, and it was getting, say, like conservatively an 8% per annum return over 10, 15, 20 years, what is that going to do?" And then you look at it you're like, "Oh my God." this is the cost of me not doing anything, is I'm missing out on all of this money. It could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on how much you put in and what your return ends up being. And then you go, "Okay, well, I have to do this now." So you start to see that cost. At the moment, it's invisible. So it's this invisible cost of not acting. So it's... And I'm not saying that to scare you. I'm just saying it to, to try and provide a little bit of motivation to at least become a bit more curious and a bit more knowledgeable about, and a hopefully less intimidated about being... having the visibility, so wanting to know what that $100 can do. At the moment, you might be like, "I don't want to know, 'cause I don't want to know what I'm losing. I don't know what I could lose." Like, there's, there might just be the general level of denial and procrastination. So the idea of the curiosity and becoming informed helps you sort of overcome that to the point where you're like, "Okay, well, I have some information now that I can do something with, and now I'm clear or clearer, I can do it. So that was the cost. And then the build itself, like I said, it became a lot easier once I found the right tool. Again, it comes down to the tool that you use. Like, that was the game changer for me. Finding this app and being told about this app changed the trajectory completely. I literally sat and built this thing from start to finish in three weeks. It went from spending probably like close to ten months talking, learning, trying to like articulate what it was that I wanted, duh-duh-duh, to build in three weeks, test. It's in testing mode now though. Like, it's literally, like it's, it's, it... Fifth of December was when I started to build this. And the reason I know is because that's when my, like, my account with this, this app started. And so in the, in the last like two months, it has just gone tremendously fast. I've... Yeah. I'm, I'm like, "Why did it take me ten months?" It just took me like three weeks to build it, testing, now I'm doing the banking integration. It'll be all like, you know, like fait accompli, like done within like three months. Okay, rightRather than, one of the quotes I got to, to build it was it was going to take three to six months to build, and then another few months to test. And I was like, "Right. Okay, I've just fast-tracked that." So having the right tool, and that again is why I'm building the app, is to give you the right tool to be able to fast-track things so that you don't have to take years, or months and years wondering what should you do, and what will it, what can the future hold? You know? It's, it's, it ... Just, yeah. So that's the build part and having the right tool. And then the tech, again, for me the tech part was part of the issue because I just didn't know what the tech actually meant. I, I didn't really understand. I'm not an IT person, like I said, at all. So if you're not a finance or money person or numbers person at all, then you don't need to be. That's where, again, finding the right tool helps you overcome that. Still having an understanding, so what you then need to really focus on is yourself, the clarity that you, you need. Like is, what kind of lifestyle do you want? Do you have a lifestyle now? How much do you need to fund it now to be able to enjoy life? What does enjoyment look like for you? What does retirement enjoyment look like for you? So that you can build towards that. 'Cause without that level of clarity, it makes it really hard to then actually punch in the right information, even. I mean, the, what the app will do is it'll pull in your banking data, categorize it so you can see where your money is. You get visibility of where everything is and isn't. Then it'll also ask you to go, okay, once we can, we can work on the optimizing of the cash flow, give your money a purpose, that's the Money Pie Framework, we'll give your money a purpose, then document what all your current net worth is. Then you can start to future project and go, "Okay, well how much income do I need per year in retirement in order to live the kind of life I want?" But you'll also then get to see, based on your current cash flow, how much money do I need to live the life I want right now? If I'm not living the life I want right now, then I need more money. So either I need to earn more, or I need to spend less, or a bit of both, and invest in the things that are gonna give me income or capital growth that will get me where I want to go. So, the decisions then become that simple. And it really clarifies that we don't have all this other noise. You're like, "I just need, I just have all this in one place, and I can see the connections, I can see what I need to do, I'm clarifying and questioning the lifestyle that I want, and now I know what I need to take action on." Like, it just, it just becomes so simple when you have everything correct. And that's, and that's what, that's what this app build has done for me. Once I'd got clear on exactly what I was doing and I had the right tool, the two together became super powerful. And it's super exciting. I mean, there's, there's other things that I've had to encounter. Like I said, there's some compliance stuff and the legals and the privacy and the data and all of that which I needed to make sure were water-tight because it's important to make sure that there's no data leakage for me. I, yeah, that, in this day and age in particular that kind of thing is, it's, it's vital. So the data provider I'm using has all of the right compliance checks and everything, but also I needed to make sure that I was able to hold that in a space that would make it safe So that's what was blowing my mind yesterday, was 'cause I was on my, on my path to try and make sure I could make it safe, and that I understood it as well. So yeah. Different, different brain today. But you'll find, and then it's very empowering as well. So the same thing with money. Once you start to really up-level that knowledge and the actions that you take, you'll be like, "Whoa. I it's, you know, I see clearly now." there a song? I I See Clearly Now? Something like that. I'm not gonna sing for you 'cause I do not have a singing voice. But, I can see clearly now. I'm pretty sure it's maybe Bob Marley? No. Anyway, it's a song. You can look it up and it can be a theme song. Or Here comes the Sun. That's the Beatles. That one I know 'cause my dad used to hum that song all the time. So that was just me wanting to share my journey building this app and the, the steep learning curve I've been on, and try, and acknowledging where you might be on your learning curve to learning about money. And I, I can I can feel the equivalent I mean, I've been on a learning journey as well but I did have a head start. I did have an accounting background and I do like spreadsheets. So, I did have a bit of a head start. But all I'm saying is, you don't have to have, like, in tech I had no head start whatsoever. This has been ground, grassroots up, and I'm getting there. Not there yet, but I am getting there. And that same attitude I'd like you to have with your money. You might not be there yet, but you are getting there. So, with that, I will let you just sit, contemplate, acknowledge where you're at, and start to think about where you want to go. And yeah. If you're interested in knowing more about when the app comes out, I do have a wait list page on my, on my website. So if you go to moneymadesimple.com.au, you will see a wait list page there for when it is absolutely humming and fully operational. So, enjoy your week and I will catch you next week
