Yesterday, CHUMP should’ve launched, but it didn’t, because this past weekend I found some serious bugs that I need to purge before it goes live.
So, instead of my launch newsletter this week, let me share with you why CHUMP is named CHUMP.
In last week’s newsletter, I shared with you the why behind CHUMP and what CHUMP is. However, I never told you why it's called CHUMP. And, since this is one of the most often asked questions, let me explain why I decided to call the Duolingo of personal finance CHUMP.
For starters, the name only makes sense if you know what I originally set out to build, which is almost nothing like what I’ll soon launch.
The name comes from two ideas I couldn't stop saying out loud. CHUMP change and Don't be a chump with your money.
The original concept for CHUMP wasn't a financial companion or amigo, it was more like a financial ogre or Shrek. And, like Shrek, when you first meet him, he's rude and he'll roast you. Although, the longer you're around him, you realize he's actually the nicest guy in the room and just wants to see you win. That was the whole concept. A financial ogre that lives in your texts, and provides commentary, often a roast, on your daily spending activities. Secretly, he’s completely on your side, and even more so when you improve your money habits.
The original product matched the name. CHUMP was going to react to every single purchase you made. You'd spend $60 at Starbucks on a Wednesday morning and your phone would buzz: "I saw that. What could you possibly buy at Starbucks for $60? Walk me through it." Real-time feedback and friction.
The friction was the entire point. Like I talked about in last week’s newsletter, we've purposefully engineered away every ounce of friction from spending money. A $10 burrito, a $500 TV, an $800 TV, a personal loan for a few thousand dollars all feel identical now. Tap, done, nothing. The ogre was my answer to that. Put the friction back to make you feel the swipe.
Then the rubber met the road (or the Plaid API docs) and I woke up from the original financial ogre dream.
Here's what I didn't know when I first sketched out the financial ogre: to watch your purchases in real time, CHUMP connects to your bank accounts through Plaid — and Plaid charges $0.30 for every live transaction event, which is A LOT for a product that I want to hit the market at $9.99 monthly or $99 annually.
To better understand why $0.30 is a lot, let me walk you through a Friday night at a hypothetical NBA game:
I swipe into the subway. That's one.
I buy a $12 beer at Madison Square Garden. That's two.
Peanuts and another beer at halftime. Three.
A bar after the game. Four.
I swipe back into the subway. Five.
Late-night tacos on the way home. Six.
Six spending events in one night at $0.30 each would be $1.80 in Plaid fees for one user, doing one normal thing like going to see an NBA game.
Now, multiply that across a month and a single active user could easily run me $20, $30, or even more, just in the cost of watching them spend and providing them real-time commentary on said spending via CHUMP. After thinking about the fees for 5 minutes, I knew I needed to pivot the concept to maintain the price in a comfortable and approachable zone, as there was seemingly no version of the real-time ogre where the math worked. I'd be paying $30/month to charge someone $10/month and that math doesn’t math.
Also, the deeper I sat with it, the more I realized the roasting had a shelf life anyway. Getting yelled at by your phone is funny for about three weeks, maybe fewer. Then it's just one more thing you didn't ask for and don't want to pay for. "Why am I subscribed to something that roasts me on my spending?"
So, knowing my real-time Plaid financial limitations, I decided to ask a different question: What's the lowest common denominator here? Strip away the ogre, the roasting, the real-time reactions. What's the one thing I actually need to happen?
The answer was simple: Get people talking about their money. Even if it's just for sixty seconds a day via text with CHUMP.
That's the CHUMP that will launch soon — the Duolingo for personal finance that I discussed in the previous newsletter. One text a day. One minute. A streak you keep alive.
And the name? It stuck for a reason that's almost embarrassingly practical. To wire up Plaid, a payment processor and a couple of other connections, I needed an LLC. To get the LLC, I needed a name. I had one I loved, so I used it and now everything in the backend is built on top of it. CHUMP is on the paperwork, the payments, the bank connections, the website, all of it. Reinventing that to rename a thing nobody's complained about would be its own special kind of chump move.
While the product changed completely, the mission never did:
Help people improve their money clarity and habits via daily texts. No app, no dashboard, no budgeting, just texts.
CHUMP launched on August 8th, 2026 and if you use code NEWSLETTER, you’ll get a month FREE!
As always – nothing replaces action.
See you next Tuesday.