Can This 24-Year-Old Tech Whiz Make Spending Tracking Go Viral With Oops? 

It was a casual Friday evening in early April when I found myself mindlessly browsing TikTok, only to stumble upon a video with over 5 million views on my feed. A ‘finance bro’ was going over their spending from the previous week using an unfamiliar app interface.

The comments section was flooded with questions about the app, which turned out to be called "Oops." My curiosity was piqued, and I decided to download it.

What Is Oops?

Oops is a new personal finance app that removes budgeting from the equation. The brainchild of a 24-year-old entrepreneur Anastasia Shaura, the app promotes spending tracking as the key to financial comfort.

Anastasia’s goal is to make spending tracking go viral - and catalyze a shift toward mainstream financial mindfulness. The app quickly gained popularity on TikTok, leading to 100,000 downloads within just a few months of its launch.

The Development of Oops

Developed by Gen Z for Gen Z, Oops Finance is led by Shaura, whose journey highlights the power of unexplored paths.

Starting as a 16-year-old mathematics undergraduate at University College London, she moved to Singapore to join the startup scene before relocating to New York to study computer science at NYU.

It was in her NYU dorm that she decided to make a TikTok about an app she built that fixed her mindless spending.

Oops's rapid adoption can be attributed to its unconventional approach to personal finance. Historically, budgeting has been the cornerstone of money management.

However, Anastasia recognized that traditional budgeting techniques would never become mainstream due to the discipline and sustained effort required.

So instead, she sought to redefine the problem and develop a solution that demanded far less attention and effort.

This counterintuitive strategy led to eliminating budgeting in favor of financial mindfulness through daily reflection on spending decisions. By shifting the focus from budgeting to spending awareness, Shaura and her team tackled the first principle problem in personal finance.

Their guiding philosophy is that, much like fitness and nutrition, success in personal finance hinges on making tracking as effortless as possible.

Despite facing considerable challenges in developing an app that rejected long-established budgeting practices, Shaura persevered. Early users' engagement with Oops provided strong signals that they were on the right track.

In fact, users even preferred to check their finances on the app versus browsing social media during their daily commute. This positive response solidified Shaura's belief in her approach and encouraged her to continue disrupting the status quo.

Shaura’s vision for the future of personal finance is rooted in optimism. While Gen Z has often been criticized for prioritizing short-term spending over long-term saving or investing, Shaura believes this pattern is a symptom of a deeper generational issue.

Unfortunately, existing financial institutions and older generations have done little to address this problem, leaving young people trapped in a cycle of financial insecurity.

To combat this issue, Shaura and her team are championing the concept of financial self-care, or "fin-care." Drawing parallels with the mindfulness revolution, they foresee a future where everyone will have a spending awareness app on their phone.

By instilling a sense of financial consciousness in young people, Oops is paving the way for a more responsible and financially literate generation.