Building Segmio: From Personal Spreadsheets to AI-Powered Financial Projections
Most software products start with a problem. Ours started with a spreadsheet, one we built for ourselves in 2018 and couldn’t stop improving. Two years later, that spreadsheet became Segmio. Five years later, Segmio became an AI-powered net worth tracking and financial projection app. This is the story of how we got there, what we learned along the way, and where we’re going.
It Started With a Spreadsheet (2018–2020)
Before Segmio existed, we had a problem most people don’t talk about openly: we didn’t have a clear picture of where we stood financially. I mean the full picture: every asset, every liability, and what the future might look like based on current trajectory.
So we built a spreadsheet. Then another. Then a more complex one that tracked net worth, modeled projections, and helped us make actual financial decisions. We refined it for years and tested it on ourselves. It worked — until it didn’t. Spreadsheets have a ceiling: no history tracking, no way to run multiple scenarios without duplicating the whole thing. Managing duplicates is like hell on Earth, they are hard to update and impossible to maintain. We wanted more.
In 2020, the idea of Segmio was born: take everything we learned from spreadsheets and transform it into a proper web application for ourselves first, then bring it to the world.
Segmio’s First Public Release (July 2022)
Building something for yourself and building something for others are completely different challenges. We spent two years turning our private spreadsheet logic into a web app — designing the data model, rethinking the UX, and making it work for people with very different financial situations.
We also made a decision that would shape everything going forward: we built it privacy-first. No selling user data, no unnecessary data collection, full control for the user. It wasn’t a marketing decision. It was the only way we were willing to build it.
In July 2022, we launched the first public prototype of Segmio. It was rough around the edges, and we were still figuring out what personal finance software meant to people beyond our own use case. But it was out there, and real people were using it and telling us what they needed.
Segmio Second Generation (2023–August 2024)
The feedback from the first generation was clear: people wanted more. More asset types, more visibility into cash flow, better goal-setting, debt tracking, and most importantly — real financial projections based on their actual data.
We spent a year rebuilding Segmio from the ground up. The second generation launched in August 2024 with asset tracking, financial goals, cash flow visibility, debt and credit tracking, and financial projections — using your actual data to model your financial future month by month.
It was a significant step up. Many people were trying it out.
The Spreadsheet Template That Shaped Segmio’s Direction (September 2024)
Shortly after launching the second generation, we made our original financial planning spreadsheet public. We’d always known it was good — it was the foundation everything else was built on. What surprised us was how much people wanted it.
The template became the first product on Segmio.com. Then came a monthly budgeting template, a travel budget planner, and more. Each template taught us something new about how people think about money and what they actually need from a financial planning tool.
Separating Segmio and FinancialAha
It happened sooner than we expected: someone subscribed to the Segmio web app thinking they were purchasing a spreadsheet template. The confusion was understandable — both products were about personal finance, came from the same team, under the same name, and on the same website.
That moment made the decision easy. We were going to use Segmio for the web app, and FinancialAha.com for the spreadsheet template suite. Different audiences, different price points, different use cases. Clean separation.
FinancialAha Grows: 50+ Countries, Real Market Data
FinancialAha has since grown to serve customers in over 50 countries. That wasn’t the plan — it was a consequence of building something genuinely useful and pricing it fairly.
But beyond the growth, those 50+ countries gave us something more valuable than revenue: signal. We could see what people in different financial situations, different tax environments, and different life stages actually needed from a financial planning tool. That data directly shaped what Segmio’s third generation would become. FinancialAha also gave us a way to bootstrap Segmio, it provided funding to rebuild without investment pressure, which means we can build it right.
Segmio Third Generation: AI-Powered Net Worth Tracking and Financial Projections
Everything we’ve built so far: the spreadsheets, two web app generations, a suite of templates, and customers in 50+ countries, has been preparation for this.
Segmio’s third generation is a complete rebuild. The core is still net worth tracking and financial projections, but now on steroids:
AI-native, not AI-added.
Most personal finance apps on the market today were built years ago and bolted AI on top as a feature. Segmio’s third generation is designed with AI at its core from day one. The difference shows. AI-powered scenario discovery isn’t a button in a menu, it’s the engine behind how Segmio works. Instead of filling out endless forms to model a “what if”, you describe it in plain language: “What if I quit my job in 2028, travel for a year spending €3,000/month, then start consulting part-time?” Segmio parses that into a structured financial scenario and models it against your current trajectory. New scenarios are surfaced automatically every time you update your data, so the more you track, the smarter your projections get.
Mobile-first, desktop-powerful.
We’re building Segmio for the way people actually use their phones. The quick update flow is optimized for thumb navigation, logging your net worth, checking a projection, or reviewing a scenario takes seconds on mobile. The full scenario builder and deep financial projections live on desktop, where the screen size makes sense. Both experiences are native to their context, not compromises.
A UI that feels natural, not learned.
We’ve seen too many financial tools that are powerful but punishing to use. We are designing Segmio to feel intuitive from the first session, minimal friction, maximum clarity. No steep learning curve, no manual to read before you can get value. In fact, we are designing the getting started to take two minutes.
Built for how people actually manage money.
Finances aren’t solo. Segmio is built for collaboration: partners can track net worth and projections together, with shared visibility and individual editing rights. Financial advisors can be invited to view or collaborate on a client’s financial picture directly inside Segmio, no exports, no spreadsheet attachments. For advisors managing multiple clients, a white-label option is planned, letting them run Segmio under their own brand.
Privacy-first architecture remains non-negotiable throughout all of this.
We’ve been building this for five years. The Segmio’s third generation is the version we always wanted to make.