SmoothPay

SmoothPay Logo

Inspiration Unanimously, our parents told us stories about their past upbringings, like working multiple jobs, not only to keep us humble but to inspire us and teach us about the importance of gig workers. Combine this with peoples recent concerns about inflation, sparked even more due to the recent election of Harris and Trump, this triggered us to develop SmoothPay.

What it does SmoothPay is an application for gig workers who want to maximize their income and manage their finances effortlessly. It tracks real-time job market trends and sends personalized alerts—like when weather or local events boost earnings—so you can work smarter. It also predicts your income based on personal imputed data, suggests the best gigs to pick up, and helps you manage savings, and emergency funds in case of a rainy day. With real-time insights and financial tools, SmoothPay turns the unpredictable gig economy into a steady, profitable venture.

How we built it: We built SmoothPay using Finovate, a no-code platform that makes it easier to create financial apps. Finovate helped us quickly design a user-friendly app where gig workers can enter their income and get financial help. The platform made it simple to link everything together without needing to write a lot of code, which sped up our development process and let us focus on the design and features.

Challenges we faced: One of the main challenges we faced was designing a fully interactive app without using any coding. Since we were in the non-coding division, we had to rely on apps like Finovate to build all the features. This limited some of the customization we wanted for things like income predictions and advanced financial features.

Accomplishments: We’re really proud of how we managed to design SmoothPay. We were able to create a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for gig workers to manage their income. We also successfully set up features like income smoothing and automatic savings, which are exactly what gig workers need. Getting the app to work with different gig platforms was a big win.

What we learned: Through building SmoothPay, we learned how important it is to keep things simple and easy to use. Even though the app has a lot of features, we realized that gig workers need something straightforward. We also learned how tricky it can be to predict income with so many different factors, and that keeping the app adaptable is key. Lastly, we saw how much gig workers need financial tools that are flexible and designed specifically for their situation.

Whats next: Next, we plan to expand the features of SmoothPay to make it even more useful for gig workers. We want to add more tools for budgeting and tracking spending, as well as improve the income smoothing process by offering more flexible options. We're also looking to integrate with additional gig platforms to help users from different industries.