MonetizeMe

Inspiration

On our way to the airport from Tempe, we met a late-night Uber driver who worked at Burger King by day. He told us he was driving through the night just to buy his son a guitar. That moment stayed with us because he was sacrificing his health for something every parent wants to give: happiness to their child.

It made us wonder if people really have to lose sleep to earn extra income. Could technology help them find smarter and healthier ways to achieve their goals? That is where MonetizeMe began.

What it does

MonetizeMe helps users bridge financial gaps by turning spending insights into income opportunities. It uses Knot TransactionLink to analyze purchase behavior and Capital One Nessie API to assess income and account balances. Together, these reveal when a user might fall short of their financial goals.
When a shortfall is detected, MonetizeMe predicts how much is needed and recommends real-world side gigs to cover that gap, powered by Claude API, which matches spending patterns, skills, and available time to the most relevant opportunities.
It is not just a finance app. It's a personal financial navigator that helps people earn smarter, not harder.

How we built it

We built MonetizeMe as a full-stack AI fintech platform combining Python FastAPI with a Vite-powered JavaScript frontend.
The backend integrates Knot TransactionLink API to retrieve real transaction data and Capital One Nessie API to analyze income, savings, and account trends.
Using these insights, MonetizeMe predicts upcoming financial shortfalls and calls the Claude API to generate personalized gig recommendations that match users’ financial goals, interests, and time availability.
The frontend presents these insights in a clean and motivating dashboard built for clarity and real-world usability.
We used FastAPI, Uvicorn, httpx, and Pydantic for backend performance and schema validation, while Claude, OpenRouteService, and OpenWeather APIs power contextual awareness.
All data is stored in lightweight JSON caches for fast prototyping and easy portability.

Challenges we ran into

A few hours into the hackathon, the Capital One Nessie API (nessieisreal.com) went down completely. That forced us to pause backend testing and rework parts of our data flow until it came back online. Even after it was restored, the limited documentation made integration more time-consuming than expected.
Another big challenge was deciding which AI system to power our recommendations. We tested Claude, Gemini, and OpenAI, each offering different strengths in reasoning and response quality. Finding the right balance between reliability and creativity took a lot of late-night experimenting.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we transformed a simple idea into a working prototype that connects real financial data with meaningful AI insights.
Despite time constraints and API outages, we built a complete system that retrieves transactions through Knot TransactionLink, combines them with Capital One Nessie data, and uses Claude API to recommend personalized side gigs.

What we learned

We came to HackPrinceton as new hackers with this being only our second hackathon.
It was an incredible chance to work closely with real companies and understand how their APIs and systems actually function.
We learned how to stay patient when things went wrong, how to integrate real financial data through Knot TransactionLink and Capital One Nessie API, and how to use Claude API effectively to turn that data into meaningful insights.
Most of all, we learned that the best ideas start with empathy and grow through collaboration.

What's next for MonetizeMe

We want to expand MonetizeMe into a fully functional platform that helps people take control of their finances through intelligent insights and real opportunities.
Our next goal is to connect with more financial institutions and gig platforms to make the recommendations real and actionable.
We also plan to refine our Claude-powered reasoning system to provide personalized coaching that understands each user’s habits, needs, and goals.
Eventually, we hope to turn MonetizeMe into a true financial companion that helps anyone balance earning, saving, and living better.