"Another personal finance app? The market's saturated." That's the first reaction when I tell people I'm building VantFi. And technically true: there are thousands. But when you ask someone in Bogotá, Medellín, or Cali to show you how they track spending, almost nobody uses an app. Almost everyone uses a notebook, a forgotten spreadsheet, or nothing.
The right question isn't "are there apps?". It's: "why don't the people who need help with money use them?".
The gap between existing apps and Latin reality
The most popular personal finance apps were designed for a world where:
- Every expense flows through a card or traceable transfer.
- There's clean bank integration (Plaid, Tink, Truelayer).
- Default categories make sense: Starbucks, Uber, Amazon, Netflix.
- The user can read an accounting balance.
That world isn't most people's world in Latin America. Here, a chunk of spending is cash, transfers between your own accounts get double-counted, bank integrations are fragile or nonexistent, and "Starbucks, Uber, Netflix" categories are irrelevant for someone paying rent in cash, groceries at the corner store, and sending money to a relative through Nequi.
When you try to use a translated US app in this context, the app feels judgmental. Which is the exact opposite of what someone trying to understand their money needs.
The decisions we're making with VantFi
1. Manual first, integrations later
VantFi is designed so logging a cash expense takes 2 taps: open quick-add, type the amount, done. Date defaults to today, category is suggested from last use, payment method is "cash" unless you say otherwise. If the day's first interaction doesn't feel like opening a WhatsApp message, we lost.
2. Local categories
"Corner-store groceries", "Public transit", "Delivery", "Phone top-ups", "Family money". Default categories are picked to match how people actually spend here, not an imported taxonomy. Users can customize, but the defaults have to feel natural from minute one.
3. Debt as a first-class citizen
If you live with debt (cards, loans, personal credits), the app should help you see it, not hide it. VantFi has a dedicated debt module with installments, terms, and visual progress. It's not an add-on — it's one of the four pillars of the product.
4. No trackers, no ads, no ego
VantFi has no Google Analytics, sends no data to brokers, shows no ads, doesn't push you onto a paid plan in two weeks. There will be a paid plan for advanced features, but the free plan has to be genuinely useful — not a crippled version to force you to upgrade.
What VantFi will NOT have (at least at first)
The temptation, when you build a finance app, is to add everything: budgets, sub-budgets, envelopes, rule engines, Excel export, multi-device sync, advanced charts, AI predictions, crypto integration, savings gamification. All valid ideas. All distracting from version 1's only job: make logging an expense painless and looking at your balance not scary.
Why Flutter, why Laravel
Technical decisions in line with the philosophy: use the tools I know best that let me move fast, without giving in to hype. Flutter because it gives me iOS and Android from a team of one, with solid native performance. Laravel because it has 14 years of polish on the "REST API with auth, queues, and an admin dashboard" use case, which is exactly what I need on the backend.
When you'll be able to use it
VantFi is in sprint 2 of the MVP today. Three more sprints to a product I can hand to friends & family. When that happens, I'll open the waitlist. The rule I gave myself: I don't open TestFlight or Play Store internal until I can use the app myself, every day, for two weeks, without frustration.
If you want to try it when the time comes, write me. And if you have strong opinions on how personal finance should work in Latin America — write me too. Those opinions shape the product.