Wally is a personal finance mobile application in 70 countries that helps people track their net worth, spending, and budgets. By connecting bank accounts to the app, Wally is simplifying personal finance management through easy-to-understand visualizations and notifications. To learn more, Pulse 2.0 interviewed Wally co-founder Saeid Hejazi.
Saeid Hejazi’s Background
Hejazi studied at Valley Forge Military Academy for high school and after graduation, he studied computer science at York University.
“It was there that my first startup idea won a Canadian Business Plan competition. That startup, Nahel, grew to become the first “Amazon of the Middle East” and was later acquired by Aramex.”
“It was during my time as a founder/CEO of Nahel that I realized how difficult it was to track and manage his finances. I also realized I wasn’t alone- many friends and others in my generation that I spoke to were facing the same problems. So I decided to found Wally with my brother, Sami, to build a tool that will simplify the complexities of people’s finances so they can improve their financial well-being.”
“As a founder/CEO of my tech startup, as with most founders, my salary was low and often fluctuated. I was forced to become more financially conservative and savvy, but I found the process of tracking and managing my finances unnecessarily complicated. Further, I never found a tool that was designed or felt like a companion I can use while on the go.”
“Over the years, Wally invested a lot of time and resources in developing its machine-learning capabilities, particularly around natural language processing, regressions, and named entity recognition. As GPT technologies took the world by storm over the last few months, we immediately saw an opportunity to give our users more insights through conversation that went beyond the simple, yet structured format of charts and graphs. With much of the necessary technology in place, we were able to launch the world’s first GPT-powered personal finance app in just a few months.”
“It wasn’t until the product started to come together that we realized we had built something much more powerful and exciting than we had imagined. That became increasingly true as people used WallyGPT in ways we didn’t imagine ourselves.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Hejazi’s favorite memory working at Wally so far? Hejazi reflected.
“There’s nothing like getting emails from users from around the world sharing their stories about how Wally helped them take back control of their finances, get out of debt, increase their savings, or save for their dream wedding or first home. Hearing from people that your hard work helps them is by far the happiest and most rewarding memory.”
Challenges Faced
What are some of the challenges Hejazi faced in building the company? Hejazi acknowledged:
“Building something people want is a very hard thing to do. Across the journey, you’re bound to struggle to build the technology, recruiting top talent, fundraising, and hardest, getting adoption. Luckily, we’ve found that sticking to some basic principles, such as fundamentally putting the user first, can provide enough guidance that everything else seems to fall in place.”
Core Products
What are Wally’s core products? Hejazi explained:
“First and foremost, Wally acts as the primary dashboard for your financial life. It gives you the ability to choose from 15,000 banks from 70 countries so you can connect all your checking, savings, credit cards, loans, and investment accounts in a single place in a way that’s secure and private. Right away, you get insights from two years of your financial history giving you the ability to see trends in your net worth, spending, and debt. On a day-to-day basis, all your spending is updated in real-time and automatically categorized. This gives you the necessary information to set financial goals and to track your progress daily.”
“Since our founding, Wally has always pushed the boundaries of its technology. Some of our most notable innovations include location-based transaction categorization, character recognition for receipt scanning, and Signals and Highlights, two features that provided our users with financial insights in natural language. All those technologies work behind the scenes so users can enjoy a magical experience.”
Significant Milestones
What have been Wally’s most significant milestones? Hejazi cited:
“Providing access to Wally across 70 countries with 15,000 banks was certainly the single largest milestone before the release of WallyGPT. However, our recent launch of WallyGPT is certainly our most exciting milestone as it breaks down any design-related restrictions in enabling people to unlock unprecedented insights. We’ve seen WallyGPT help users choose an investment strategy and ETFs in our current macro environment, research the details of a wedding in Greece with a personalized savings plan, find credit cards that reward travel, improve their financial literacy, and so much more.”
Customer Success Stories
What have been Wally’s most significant milestones? Hejazi highlighted:
– In the US, one user wrote to us saying Wally helped them pay off their student debt
– In the UAE, one user wrote to us saying Wally helped them save up for their first home’s downpayment
– A family in India told us about how Wally helps them manage and budget their household spending
– In Spain, a young man told us about how he and his fiance used Wally to save up for their wedding
Funding
To date, Wally raised $7.4 million in pre-seed funding with plans to raise a seed round in the third quarter.
Total Addressable Market
What is the total addressable market that Wally is pursuing? Hejazi assessed:
“We believe there are 650 million people that would seek and benefit from Wally across our 70 markets with a market opportunity of $14 billion.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Wally from the competition? Hejazi revealed:
“Wally already believed that technology and design would allow it to become the financial tool of choice. This meant ensuring the most reliable bank connections, near-perfect categorization, and ad-free and a ridiculously simple experience with just the necessary features people needed. By extension, this meant building a highly secure environment that protected our user’s privacy.”
Future Company Goals
What are Wally’s future company goals? Hejazi concluded:
“Our mission will always be to help improve their financial well-being. The launch of WallyGPT, allows us to go further than ever before: from helping people better understand their patterns, to researching and planning financial goals, making better and more informed investment decisions, to improving their understanding of financial terms and concepts.”
“Also worth mentioning: If you have a thick skin and are looking for a good laugh, you should ask WallyGPT to roast their finances.”
