We asked Strabo co-founders, Michael Magdongon and Ben Waterman, about building an app that enables users to have a holistic overview of their bank accounts, investment accounts, cryptocurrencies, pensions, real estate, and alternatives across various countries, and more. Michael and Ben are passionate finance and business people at heart, with career experience spanning wealth management, operations, venture capital, entrepreneurship and sports. They chose Bubble because the no-code platform provides the simplest front and back end environments for them to build a consumer-facing finance platform.
Tell us about your app and what it does.
Strabo is a portfolio tracker for the global citizen. It's clarity in one click: a holistic overview of your bank accounts, investment accounts, cryptocurrency, pensions, real estate and alternatives across different countries, collated into one dashboard with seamless FX and forward-looking portfolio analytics. That means you can see what you have in any country and what it’s worth in real time, and act on that information immediately.
How does your app work?
The platform uses open banking APIs to connect your financial accounts together. A user would log in, connect each of their financial accounts and real-estate with individual pop up windows and be presented with a dashboard, sub divided by country and in any major currency. This can be lightly customised to the user’s preferences, and provides analytics and forecasting based on previous history, allowing users to look forward at where they’re going rather than just back at what they’ve spent.
Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered no-code tools like Bubble.
We’re passionate finance and business people at heart, with career experience spanning wealth management, operations, venture capital, entrepreneurship and sport. Managing asset classes across countries has been a problem we’ve faced for almost a decade, and we spent a long time talking to users before committing to building Strabo. We believe that no-code and low-code solutions are here to stay, and we’re excited about the possibilities of further reducing the barriers to building software. As a result, it was only natural that we looked into the various solutions, and Bubble immediately stood out.
Why did you build your app on Bubble?
In short, it provides the simplest front and back end environment for us to build a consumer facing finance platform. It is the most straightforward platform with which to integrate APIs, which means that we can reach significant scale and cover a whole load of different countries and assets. It’s easy to pick up for non-technical people, and there’s a large community of Bubble developers out there - many have built free plugins for all kinds of features already, which we’ve started using!
What have been your milestones or successes so far?
We’ve already finished building the first version of Strabo, which has been released to a limited set of beta users. Version 2 is currently underway, and is set to be released to the next wave of users this autumn - you can now sign up on our site now for a limited time to join this cohort, and gain access to some exclusive rewards including our user community.
Company wise, we’ve raised some funding already and we’re thrilled to be a part of this year’s F10 fintech accelerator in Zurich. They have a hugely experienced team of advisors and mentors from the industry who are helping us shape the Strabo that you will see over the coming months and years.
What are your next steps or future plans for your app?
Short term, we’re fully committed to providing our users with the best end-to-end experience of any financial platform out there. Comprehensive asset coverage including all real estate, vehicles and alternatives, analytics shaped by the things our users want to see, and customisability to allow everyone to see only the things that they want to. We also have contracts in place for FX transfers that will allow users to transfer money between their accounts at market beating rates.
Long term, we’re working on automated tax filing, account opening, more complex and idiosyncratic analytics and tailored financial education. We want to change the way that our users feel about their finances, and bridge the gap between life and money.
Learn more about Strabo: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
About Bubble
Bubble is a leader in the no-code movement. Bubble offers a powerful point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform that allows users to build fully customizable web applications and workflows, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more. Over 500,000 users are currently building and launching businesses on Bubble - many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raise $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs that are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.
Do you want your app featured by Bubble? Reach out to us and tell us about your app. In addition to this series, we sometimes select our best apps to showcase on our website.
