Bloom

Inspiration

Bloom was inspired by the challenge of helping first-year college women make their first smart money moves. Many students are suddenly expected to manage money, independence, career decisions, and future planning, but they are not always taught practical skills like budgeting, investing, building credit, filing taxes, or negotiating a salary. We wanted to create something that made financial education feel less intimidating and more supportive.

We chose the garden idea because growth takes time, consistency, and care, just like financial confidence. Instead of showing users stressful charts or complicated spreadsheets, Bloom turns progress into something visual and motivating. Every lesson completed, subscription removed, smart decision made, or goal reached helps the user’s garden bloom.

What it does

Bloom is an AI-powered financial wellness app that helps users build smart money habits through gamification, microlearning, and personalization. Users start with a Planting Quiz that learns about their goals, spending struggles, learning style, and confidence level. Based on those answers, Bloom personalizes their experience.

The main feature is the Garden Dashboard, where users can see their financial growth as a digital garden. Bloom also includes Bloom or Doom, a swipe-based game that teaches users through real-life financial decisions. The app has a Garden Guide chatbot for personalized help, a Subscription Weed Remover to find recurring spending, a Scholarship and Side Hustle Finder to help users grow income opportunities, and a Portfolio Garden that teaches beginner investing through a mock portfolio.

How we built it

We built Bloom as a React web app using Vite. We started by designing the app in Figma so we could plan the layout, colors, and user experience before coding. Then we converted our Figma designs into React components and connected the pages with React Router, but that did not work so we had to stick to presenting it in the Figma format.

We used mock data for features like subscriptions, financial scenarios, scholarships, side hustles, and the portfolio builder so we could create a realistic demo within the hackathon time limit. We also added AI-powered features, including the Garden Guide chatbot and personalized recommendation tools, to make the app feel more helpful and supportive.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge was narrowing down our idea. We had many possible features, but we had to focus on the ones that best matched the challenge and could be completed during the hackathon. We chose features that made Bloom useful, visual, and different from a normal finance app.

Another challenge was working as a team on different parts of the app at the same time. We had to divide responsibilities, keep the design consistent, and use GitHub carefully so that everyone’s work could come together without conflicts. We also had to learn how to move from a Figma prototype to functional React code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that Bloom feels different from a traditional budgeting app. It makes financial education feel approachable, visual, and rewarding instead of stressful or boring. The garden theme helped us connect all of our features into one clear experience.

We are also proud of how many parts of Bloom work together. The Planting Quiz personalizes the app, the Garden Dashboard shows progress, Bloom or Doom teaches through quick decisions, the Subscription Weed Remover connects spending habits to goals, the Scholarship and Side Hustle Finder helps users find new opportunities, and the Garden Guide chatbot gives support along the way.

What we learned

We learned how to use Figma to design an app and turn that design into real code. We also learned how React apps are structured, how to build reusable components, how to use routing, and how to organize a project so multiple teammates can work on it at once.

We also learned how to use AI in a practical way. Instead of using AI only as a basic chatbot, we used it to support personalized financial guidance, recommendations, and beginner-friendly explanations. This project also taught us how gamification, microlearning, and visual progress can make education more engaging.

In exploring the possibility of the chatbot feature, we came across and learned about the architecture and flow of a simple chatbot. We also learned about what calling an API is and how to do it, as well as how the chatbot is made possible with the technology of a JSON. We decided on a simple pipeline of extracting goals from text input, matching it to a library or habits, and then personalizing and formatting the responses with an LLM.

What's next for Bloom

Next, we would want to add real subscription tracking, stronger AI personalization, verified scholarship databases, and more financial lessons. We would also expand the Portfolio Garden into a stronger beginner investing simulator while keeping it educational and safe.

In the future, Bloom could become a full financial confidence platform for young women. Our goal is to help users build better habits early, so they can grow their confidence, independence, and future financial stability.