Optivide: Voice Your Money

We support people in solving the climate problem with financial confidence

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Inspiration: Building a startup is not my original purpose

My background is in finance. I studied all the way up and became a CFA charterholder. During the learning process, we learned a lot about market competition, profit maximization, investment valuation, and many things related to the capital market. All these things are great and practical to use right after the university. But 1 thing has bothered me a lot:

”If our capital market design is so great, why are there so many problems in our society that cannot be solved?”

And that’s the moment that led me to take a different path than most business school students. I started participating in many volunteer activities and talking with various stakeholders and beneficiaries to understand the world that the capital market does not cover or solve. It eventually led me to understand social enterprise, impact investment, systems thinking, regenerative finance, and many more.

Among all global problems, climate change is one of my top concerns. My generation will, for sure, face repeated, more serious damage from various climate disasters if we fail to take corrective climate action in time.

When I dive deeper into all the current climate solutions, one systemic problem gap surfaces: Without finance, climate action is unsustainable.

When it comes to climate finance, oftentimes, people overemphasize the importance of investment but ignore the importance of long-term market demand.

Primary market investment is critical; however, investment is not a revenue stream. To accelerate the net-zero transition process, we need long-term market demand. And that’s the problem gap that Optivide aspires to create with systems thinking design and regenerative finance.

App Function: AI-powered finance app for long-term climate action

Optivide is a B2C social enterprise that supports people in solving the climate problem with financial confidence. Since we believe that if everyone, anywhere, could take climate action without worrying about their financial security, we could increase our success rate toward the net-zero goal.

In our mobile app, our users can

  • Prepare Future Goals with Climate Simulation
  • Search Climate Solutions Tailored to Your Needs
  • Discuss Climate Practices with Global Community

We’re replacing irreversible climate losses with early planning and preparation that our users will experience. The solution will help them better realize the positive and negative impacts of climate change on their personal goals(retirement, real estate, college tuition) and learn how they could increase their goal success rate by taking sustainability action with finance in mind.

The solution is built for personal climate resilience and responsible consumption. It is a scalable, personalized climate finance solution with science that our users are able to access anywhere, anytime, with minimal conflicts of interest.

Builder Journey: Self-sustain business operation for impact scalability

In order to self-sustain our business operation, we have concluded 3 layers to make it come true.

  • User and Beneficiaries: The user who pays for the service is at least positively correlated with the beneficiaries who experience the service benefits. If the correlation is zero or negative, it is hard to ensure financial sustainability.

  • Unit of Sales/Unit of Impact: We ensure our unit of sales is positively correlated with the unit of impact, the more revenue Optivide generates, the bigger positive impact(climate resilience x responsible consumption) it creates.

  • Cost-based Pricing: Design the unit economics with reverse engineering based on the cost structure so that the annual revenue could cover our annual expenses.

The 3-layer design ensures that we are able to continue our social enterprise mission after the hackathon and grow our revenue with RevenueCat infrastructure. If we succeed, we will become a B corporation with 100% renewable energy usage that invites over 900 million individuals to join the climate movement with responsible consumption.

Tech Stack: For a better user experience

My background is in climate and finance, where building a mobile app is a new area. Nevertheless, with various attempts and support from interns, we were able to deliver our first playable mobile app. The project was built with privacy, security, and flexibility in mind. It is designed to be as simple as possible for a better user experience. The tech stack breakdown is as follows:

  • Frontend: React Native — enables cross-platform iOS and Android development while delivering a polished, intuitive interface with a native feel across devices.
  • Backend: We use GCP as our main backend infrastructure for enhanced security, flexibility, and scalability.
  • Database/Auth: Firebase + Clerk. Firebase for the backend database and infrastructure layer for securely storing and syncing application data. Clerk for user authentication, account management, and session security.
  • Climate Data: We receive explicit consent from Probable Futures and EN-ROADS to access the best possible climate scientific data for the solution design.
  • AI/ML: We use GCP/AWS and Voiceflow to configure our climate finance service for better user interaction with over 100 mini agents in the process flow design.

Challenges We Overcome

  • Complexity: Personal climate resilience is a new area for most stakeholders. Solution: Design the solution as a conversation flow with a natural touch.
  • Self-Sustain: A solid recurring revenue stream to sustain our business operation. Solution: The 3-layer business operation design mentioned above.
  • Imposter: The overall mobile app quality built as a non-technical founder within the timeline. Solution: Discuss with a mobile app advisor to protect the quality floor with intern supports.

Accomplishments: Align expertise with impact creation

  • Release the first playable mobile app that aligns with SDGs 12, 13, and 17 and does not have gender preferences, age limitations, or any other preferences for people with different cultural backgrounds.
  • Build up the marketing automation system to publish 40+ climate videos with verified information across social media channels, with total organic views surpassing 20K.
  • Create the design system for the mobile app screens portfolio with a better user experience.

Learning: Not because climate change is important, but because our future lives are important.

In July 2025, the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirms that climate Inaction is a legal liability that violates international law.

Under the Universal Human Rights, everyone deserves equal rights to a standard of living adequate for their health(Article 1 and Article 25). And it is our responsibility to protect the rights of others(Article 29). Human rights can never be taken away(Article 30), and the law should protect anyone whose rights have been violated(Article 8).

Climate inaction is not neutral. It’s a decision to allow the foreseeable irreversible climate disasters to negatively affect our future with massive human tragedies. In 2025 alone, 110 million people worldwide were affected by climate-related disasters, with 169 billion USD in losses.

To solve the dynamic, complex climate problem, we need stakeholder engagement with different responsibilities. And when global climate progress is slow due to the huge conflict of interests across different stakeholders and generations, we hope that each individual still has the possibility to plan and prepare for the future climate downside.

Not because climate change is important, but because our future lives are important.

Upcoming Preparation: The success of the startup is co-created with our users

The next phase of Optivide will focus on product marketing and improvement based on our user feedback. It helps us stabilize our business operations with a stable revenue stream. Meanwhile, we will constantly improve every business aspect for the upcoming business scaling preparation with growth loop design.

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