Purpose Planner: a faith-driven budgeting app Gen Z actually open
Mobile
Personal Finance
Chatbot
Budget Management
Kyle Blackwell, CFP®, AAMS®, wanted to hand high-school and college students a budget app they’d actually open - rooted in faith, not FOMO. We turned that rallying cry into Purpose Planner, a single-codebase mobile app whose Bible-infused money tips and TikTok-slick UI make stewardship feel like second nature.
What We Built
Our team built Purpose Planner on a single React Native codebase and shipped it to both the iOS and Android stores in one swoop—giving Kyle cross-platform speed, zero DevOps headaches, and a foundation of battle-tested fintech integrations.
Bank & Card Sync
Plaid-powered connections pull balances and transactions across checking, savings and investments.
AI Chatbot “Theo”
An in-app guide that explains concepts, walks newbies through features, and translates finance-speak into plain English.
Investment Calculator
Interactive graphs show how today’s $50 grows over five, ten, or twenty years.
10/10/80 Budget Engine
Auto-categorises every dollar into Give / Save / Spend jars; “Left to Spend” updates in real-time.
Cost Cutter
One-tap review that surfaces low-impact expenses users can trim.
Daily Scripture & Money Tips
Rotating verses plus bite-size literacy FAQs keep hearts and wallets aligned.
“From day one, Topflight acted like co-founders—digging deep into our vision and driving it with genuine ownership.”
Kyle Blackwell, Founder of Purpose Planner
Kyle Blackwell,
Founder of Purpose Planner
Challenges We Solved
Hurdle
Why It Mattered
Messy bank / investment account data
If a balance looks wrong once, Gen Z deletes the app.
Why It Mattered
Hurdle
First-time onboarding
Most users had never seen a “budget,” let alone one with faith baked in.
Hurdle
Why It Mattered
App-store red tape
Apple’s paywall police and Google’s permission pop-ups are ruthless on fresh fintech.
Hurdle
Why It Mattered
Keeping users coming back
Finance apps die on page two of the home screen without real-world hooks.
Hurdle
Why It Mattered
Topflight Tactics
Invisible Bank Syncs
Built safeguards so reconnect prompts appear only when essential, not randomly at 6 a.m.
Tap-Once Onboarding
Emoji categories, pre-filled 10/10/80 jars, and zero jargon gates.
Compliance-First Launch
Privacy wording, subscription disclosures and data-handling docs nailed in sprint #1, cutting store reviews from weeks to days.
Habit-Forming Nudges
Cost Cutter reminders and verse-of-the-day push notifications turn “budgeting” into a daily micro-moment.
Clear Roadmap & Weekly Demos
The PM shared a living roadmap and Friday Slack demo videos, so surprises stayed at zero.
Secure Edge Functions
Supabase Edge Functions kept Plaid token handling server-side, shielding secrets from the client app.
Impact
MVP shipped on schedule with every promised feature live.
“Topflight had an ownership mentality.”
— Kyle’s verdict on Clutch (5⭐ across quality, schedule, cost).
Early testers praised the faith-based approach
and Cost Cutter’s “aha” moments; no critical crashes surfaced in pilot sessions.
Tech stack
React Native
D3.js
Supabase
Plaid
OpenAI
RevenueCat
AppsFlyer
PostHog
The codebase is ready for:
Robo-advisor goals
(e.g., auto-rebalancing “Save” jar).
Church-giving APIs
to make tithing friction-free.
Advisor-platform integration
so users can opt-in and let certified mentors review their budgets, track progress, and deliver one-on-one coaching.
Premium Budgeting Packs
In-app paywall is already wired through RevenueCat, ready to flip the switch on subscriptions.
“They guided me every step of the way, and I’d recommend Topflight to any founder ready to turn an idea into reality.”
Kyle Blackwell, Founder of Purpose Planner
Kyle Blackwell,
Founder of Purpose Planner
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