Personal finance can be intimidating, and the mere thought of trying to manage one’s finances can be overwhelming. Anastasia Shaura, a young entrepreneur, is helping Gen Z build a healthy relationship with finance with a new app, Oops. By eliminating the need for traditional budgeting and promoting financial mindfulness through daily reflection on spending decisions, Oops has reinvented the interface of personal finance. With over 100,000 downloads (within three months of launch), and a soon-to-be-announced funding round, there is no mistake — Oops is here to stay.

As a solo female founder, Shaura was an outsider attempting to challenge conventional wisdom and shift ingrained product practices within the personal finance landscape. Her background in Mathematics from UCL, where she started studying at the mere age of 16, and a master’s degree in CS from NYU, allowed her to build the first iteration of the solution herself.

Shaura’s goal was to make financial awareness simpler than ignorance. The solution was to focus on spending tracking rather than budgeting. This counterintuitive approach challenged the status quo of personal finance, one that has remained unchanged since the invention of Microsoft Excel almost 40 years ago. Shaura believed that lack of spending awareness—not budgeting—was the first principal problem in personal finance.

To develop Oops, Shaura’s team reinvented the traditional interface of a personal finance app – eliminating graphs, charts, unfriendly icons and technical words. The objective was to bring user’s focus on their transactions and make it a daily habit. This took a lot of iteration. In the early days, this feedback loop with the users was so tight that texts to customer support went directly to Anastasia’s phone.

Oops’ initial userbase was composed of people that historically had little financial discipline. However, by the end of their first month, almost half of the users now use the app as a regular habit. Shaura’s team believes that to make healthy financial decisions everyone should be able to answer the question: how much money have I spent in the past month and on what?

The app’s success skyrocketed after they started talking about Mindless Spending on TikTok. Their videos hit millions of views, which helped them get their first 100,000 downloads in just three months. It wasn’t long before the app gained momentum and caught the attention of investors.

Shaura is optimistic about the future of personal finance, particularly for Gen Z. She believes that her app is inventing financial self-care, similar to the mindfulness revolution. In five years, Shaura envisions that everyone will have a spending awareness app on their phone.

Personal finance may have once been a daunting topic, but Oops has made it more accessible and approachable for people of all ages. By eliminating budgeting and promoting financial mindfulness, Oops has helped people become more aware of their spending habits and develop healthy financial habits.

Shaura’s story is a testament to the power of perseverance and innovation. She has been able to influence an industry that had been stagnant for decades, proving that anyone can challenge conventional wisdom and create change. With Oops, Shaura has made it easier for people to take control of their finances and build a better financial future.

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