Nidhi

Finance for people who deserve it the most

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Inspiration

My main inspiration was the people around me:

  • the people who worked hard for their income
  • the people who are the base of the economy
  • the people who put their blood and sweat into their work
  • the people who truly deserve something built for them Many people like this fall into debt and face financial problems. Nidhi aims to make their lives better by helping them become financially disciplined, providing some form of prescriptive financial literacy, and providing them a potential safety net against the problems and hurdles that come in their life.

What it does

Nidhi is literally the simplest financial app for people who deserve it the most: the kirana shop owners, the farmers, the people who truly put in all their hard work just to make our lives better and are the base of our economy.

Nidhi has mainly these features :

  • Monthly savings goals and locked savings to ensure that money is saved.
  • Emergency fund deposits to ensure that, in case of any emergencies, money is always there and debt isn't required
  • Tracking their loans and other debt to ensure that they know how much money they truly have that they can spend without thinking.
  • A daily log for tracking how much they have spent that day which includes a voice feature for documentation
  • Describing, not prescribing, their spending habits and analyzing their spending trends

Nidhi also includes notifications and multilingual support to ensure everyone is included. My only monetization is ads.I don't want our users to pay a single rupee. They already work hard for their money, and this app should empower them to manage and be mindful of it.

How we built it

I built it using GLM 5.2. I used Gemini and Claude to engineer the prompts, and I manually entered the commands and ensured that the environments and the assets were created. For the assets, I used AI tools such as Gemini for image generation. I ran the prototype on a development build, scanned the QR code, and actively tested and fixed the app. This experience taught me a lot about how code and APIs work and how mobile apps are made and tested. We used mainly two integrations: RevenueCat for ad monitoring and Sarvam for voice API.

Challenges we ran into

I ran into multiple challenges.

  • The first challenge was that the dependencies weren't matching. For this, I had to research the compatibility of the dependencies.
  • The second was the UI; I had to actively ask GLM to fix the UI to ensure that it was built for a phone, not for a website, and make it premium for our users
  • The third was the Expo build. While I was loading my app, I had a Gradle error due to some dependency mismatches and also because of other requirements. I spent a lot of time on this, and it took a lot of time to debug.
  • The Sarvam gateway wasn't working. This was one of the most challenging errors to solve because even GLM couldn't figure it out. I had to research and fix the problem with Claude. Claude recognized the bug immediately and helped rectify it by changing the code. I ran the app's test servers once again and monitored the logs to make sure that all the languages were being parsed and transcribed properly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am happy to say that my app successfully runs without any major issues. Despite the challenges with the APIs and the problems I faced, I am happy that I overcame them and I was able to deliver a properly functioning app with integrations.

I hope that this app can make a real impact in the world by serving the people in need. I spent a whole 2 weeks brainstorming the perfect idea so that I could make an app that makes a real impact in the world, not just another generic app. I feel truly accomplished by shipping this project successfully despite multiple hurdles.

What we learned

I learned that app making requires a lot of patience and a lot of trial and error. You should be really careful and patient even when building with AI. I also learned that when making a product, the execution and the ideation matter equally. I just didn't want to make another generic app. I wanted to make an app that actually serves a purpose and an audience that is actually underserved. Hence, I have the dialogue: serve the underserved. This journey has taught me a lot about being patient and resilient in times of challenges, and it also taught me how to make a mobile app from scratch using AI.

What's next for Nidhi

I hope to take this app beyond India, throughout the world, so everyone can benefit. I want to also add a banking integration where people are actually forced to save their money to ensure that everybody has financial security in their lives. The whole goal of making this app was to make an impact in the world for the people who do the most and work the most behind the scenes, and are basically the foundation of our economy and the modern world. They deserve financial security and a promising future.

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Updates

posted an update —

CHANGES

ReadMe change and package json as well as script/ audit.js have been changed to ensure no errors and a smooth experience for judging

NO CORE APP FUNCTIONALITY, CODE, OR UI HAS BEEN CHANGED. CHANGES ARE MAINLY BUILD CHANGES AND NOT FUNCTIONALITY OR APP. THE APP REMAINS AS IT IS, AS SHOWN IN THE SCREENSHOT

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