A new Chicago startup wants to help you get your finances in check by allowing you to compare your fiscal identity to others like you.
Medean, a mobile app launched late last year, is a personal finance management service that helps users closely monitor their cash flow.
Many other apps, such as Acorns or Mint, provide personal finance and budgeting services. But Medean, founded by Erik Skjodt and Matt Karazin, differentiates itself by using what the founders call social comparison theory. The idea is that people evaluate and improve themselves by comparing themselves to others.
Using this theory, Medean provides its users data that allows them to compare their finances with other users like them based on age, income, location and gender. The app shows users how much their comparable counterparts are spending on housing and dining out, and how much money they have saved.
Medean tracks users’ spending and saving habits based on information from their banks. Based on that data, the app uses machine learning algorithms to recommend budgets and shows users how much money they are projected to save by the end of a given month.
The app also has an achievement feature to incentivize users to spend less. For example, users can earn the “Master Chef” achievement if they dine out less than 10 times in a month.
“Our vision is to encourage millennials to take action and be more engaged with their finances,” Skjodt said.
Unlike many other finance apps, Medean gives users a financial score that Skjodt says is calculated based on spending habits, debt and retirement savings.
“It’s our take on a more consumer-facing credit score,” Skjodt said.
Medean, which is currently only available on iOS devices, is downloaded about 100 times a day and has about 1,000 active users, Skjodt said. The app is free to use. But to monetize the product in the future, the company plans to launch a premium version that will cost $4.99 per month. This version will give users access to even more features that incentivize saving, Skjodt said.
The startup has raised nearly $1 million to date from undisclosed private investors, said Skjodt, who is also the co-founder of Clear Scholar, an Indianapolis education startup. Clear Scholar raised $2 million and was acquired by Civitas Learning last year.
Medean’s other founder Karazin has worked at a number of tech companies, including as a software developer at Chicago-based SpotHero.
