I Wanted Better Insights Across My Bank Accounts, So I Built MyVault

Most side projects start with a simple frustration. Mine started with a banking app. One of my banks had a feature I really liked. It automatically categorized transactions and showed spending breakdowns in graphs and charts. For the first time, I could easily see how much I spent on restaurants, groceries, transport, subscriptions, and other categories. The problem was that only one of my banks offered this feature. Like many people, I use multiple bank accounts, credit cards, and savings accounts. Two of my other banks provided little more than a long list of transactions. If I wanted a complete picture of my finances, I had to switch between apps and manually piece everything together. As a software engineer, my first instinct was obvious: "Why don't I just build this myself?" That idea eventually became MyVault . The Original Goal The first version of the project was surprisingly simple. I wanted users to: Upload bank statements Extract transaction data Automatically categorize spending View useful charts and reports The goal wasn't budgeting. It wasn't investment tracking. It wasn't accounting. I simply wanted a single place where I could see spending across all of my bank accounts. Once I started building, however, I realized there was a much more interesting opportunity. If all transaction data was already extracted and structured, why not allow users to ask questions about their finances? Instead of searching through transactions manually, users could simply ask: How much did I spend on restaurants last year? What subscriptions am I paying for? Which categories increased the most this month? How much did I spend while traveling? That's when MyVault started evolving from a reporting tool into an AI-powered financial assistant. Building as a Solo Developer One of the biggest challenges wasn't technology. It was building everything alone. When you're working on a side project, you don't just write code. You become responsible for everything: Product decisions B