You have probably seen a lot of money memes online like this one 👆🏽.
Or this one.
Why are these memes usually funny?
Because they are very relatable.
Just like any good joke has some sad truth behind it, it’s time to address the sad truth behind these money memes and offer a probable solution.
You are not broke because you don’t have money, you’re broke because the little that you have you spend poorly, repeatedly, knowingly or unknowingly, only to regret it later.
So how do you get better at not being broke? By starting to habitually track where that one hundred or two hundred and seventy shillings goes to.
These small spends are usually the ones that compound into your brokenness, the devil is always in the details.
But how really do you get better? Meet CountPesa, an app that will help you track every single cent into and out of your Mpesa.
It will categorize these transactions so that you know how much you spend on veggies, that concert you should never have gone to, “Bae’s monthly allowance”, rent, transportation, snacks or those unhealthy cigarettes you’re trying to quit.
It will give you reports that are pretty easy to digest and understand and show you exactly what happens with your money.
Better yet, you can set up a monthly budget and it will help show you when you are going back to bad money habits, where to cut back and where to improve on depending on your set terms.
CountPesa improves the health of your wallet, bank account and most importantly your mind.
I had a chat up with Dennis the maker of CountPesa to learn why he built this.
You could have built anything else, why CountPesa?
At first, I built it for myself, coz it didn’t exist. I mean, apps like CountPesa exist, but I had issues with them, either the UI wasn’t good or they didn’t capture all transactions as I needed them to.
I started with the web app for tracking my expenses and help reveal my past spending habits.
Then it got cumbersome having to always upload my Mpesa statements, so I did the app. Thought it would be cool and simpler to use.
I also built it to challenge myself. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled with work. Working on CountPesa got me excited about building again. So I went all in on it, making it a full time thing rather than a weekend project.
So yeah, I just wanted to build something cool (I think it’s cool) and if someone uses it, I think it would really help them sort out their finances.
Why did you feel the need to backtrack how you had been spending money?
😅 Because I felt I was wasting money and I wanted to know how much exactly.
It felt like most of my transactions were pretty routine, I bought x from here and y from there and I did this daily, weekly or monthly repeatedly.
If I could see how wasteful I actually was then it would be easier to start putting measures in place to change that.
You have more than 100 users; how did you get the first users to try it out?
Mostly from LinkedIn posts which helped a lot and posts on a few WhatsApp groups.
I also posted on one telegram group focused on personal finance.
Are there any challenges that you faced? Maybe with tech, learning, user acquisition?
I’d say I’m still struggling with user acquisition.
One challenge is the concern that many people have with of privacy, especially being that the app deals with finances.
Some users/potential users still don’t trust/believe that with CountPesa, their data remains private. At first the communication that data remains private wasn’t as prominent. But communicating this consistently has helped, but it’s not enough yet.
Tech-wise, there was a learning curve… I’ve primarily been working as a web dev, so building a mobile app was a total mind shift especially with regards to design decisions. The screen real estate is so limited so I have had to be more thoughtful about what’s presented and what to hide.
Also just the reality that in mobile dev, you don’t just push code then it’s live. There is an approval process that can sometimes take time and a lot of guidelines to be followed before going live.
It’s interesting, what I’m learning by force is to be patient with results.
Are there any mistakes that you’d say you made in the process of building? Things you feel you could have avoided?
I’d say I dragged the launching process on the play store way longer than I should have.
Google Play store requires that an app have at least 20 people using it for 2 weeks continuously before the app can be accepted for review.
I should have started that process before the app was fully done.
This way I would have gotten early users to start testing it out so it gets past the review stage faster.
Then I’d have started learning from users earlier and promoting it earlier. I feel like I lost some momentum there.
But even now there are probably mistakes I’m making that I may not be aware of. But it’s part of the learning curve, I did this to understand what it takes to build a product from scratch as well.
What are your future plans for the app?
The web app is still behind compared to the mobile app.
I’d started with it, then when I realized it was cumbersome always having to upload statements, I switched much of my energy to the mobile app.
Also, I noticed people rarely returned to it when I tried sharing it with my friends.
One can still load categorized transactions to the web app from the mobile app if they want to do in depth analysis, but for day-to-day, it’s easier using the app
On the road map, next I’m looking to go beyond Mpesa.
Have Countpesa be a central place where one can manage all their finances efficiently.
This means tracking some transactions manually (similar to how other expense management apps work), for example with cash transactions.
I also wish to enable tracking of bank transactions using bank statements.
Where can people go to learn more about CountPesa?
Check out the website here.
And download the app here.
You can also follow my LinkedIn for updates.
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