Two years ago I knew exactly what I wanted to build, because the app I wanted didn’t exist.

I’d been managing my own money for years using the Soft Budget Method. I didn’t invent it. It’s out there, it’s just buried. Try searching for it and see how little comes back. For whatever reason it never caught on, which I’ve never understood, because for people who think like me it’s the easiest thing there is.

I couldn’t code. Never built an app. AI back then was nothing like it is now, which is still hard for me to believe looking at how far it moved in two years. So I partnered with a friend who develops, and later another who built the server.

Then we spent two years making every mistake available to us. I didn’t know how to build a product and I was building a product anyway.

Most of that time went into testing. We kept putting early versions in front of real people, posting them here, watching what happened, and rebuilding. Over the last ten months more than 300 people installed those test versions and used them. Most of what I believed at the start turned out to be wrong, and that’s how I found out. Watching where people actually stopped, instead of where I assumed they would, sent me back to rebuild the setup flow more than once.

More than 100 versions later, it’s on the App Store.

I lost one of the partners along the way, which was rough.

Now the part I want to be straight about.

There are hundreds of budgeting apps and I didn’t build another one because the world needed another one.

Plenty of people run zero-based budgeting, giving every dollar a job. Those people are incredible and the method works. I have real respect for anyone who keeps that up.

But most people can’t. And because that’s the method everyone mostly talks about, they assume it’s the only one, try it, fail at it in three weeks, and decide they’re bad with money. They’re not. They picked a system that needs more patience than they have.

The Soft Budget Method is the one I’d put in front of anyone in the middle class who doesn’t want a second job. One number, once a week. Fixed costs out. Savings out before you spend, not after. What’s left divided by the weeks. That’s what you can spend.

Setup takes about four minutes. No categories, no bank login, nothing to reconcile, nothing to maintain. Open it, see the number, close it.

The only job it has is stopping you from overspending.

Here’s what I want to know. What budgeting methods have you tried, and did any of them stick?

Two years, 100+ versions, one lost partner. Grownix is live on the App Store.