Founders Recap, August 2026: The Month the Money Ran Out

Founders Recap: August 2026

I'm going to start this one with a bang. August has been by far our hardest month. Physically, financially, mentally. Normally I'd sugarcoat things to keep morale up, but I'm feeling brutal today. So if you like drama, this one's for you.

What's different this month?

A few things have made this one more intense than the rest.

• Cashflow - is now completely non existent. Anyone who was working on the app now isn't. Apart from Nathan, who's decided to ride the storm out with us, more on that later. It also means no money for marketing, and given that exposure is our single biggest problem right now, that hurts more than I'd like to admit.
• My absence - since my grandad passed away, me and Samar have been full time on his house renovation. That's taken a bigger toll than I'd hoped for. Not having the time to dedicate to the app has come back to bite me, and there's nobody to blame for that but myself.
• Morale - none of us are invincible. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, we're not superhuman. Eighteen months on this app, everything we have poured into it, and growth that hasn't come the way we planned. That wears on you, I'd confidently say morale is at its lowest point yet, I'm speaking on behalf of Samar and Nathan too, as I know the feeling is reciprocated.

Where am I now, and what can change?

This is where it starts to pick up. The renovation is finished, so BudgetBro gets all of my time again, and this time I'm getting fully emerged, by which I mean I'm going to be coding.

Is that a good idea? Probably not. But having a crack at it won't kill me, and as daft as it sounds, I think it's necessary.

Here's why. Nathan has carried this for months and he's still here, but that doesn't get me out of the dog house. Nathan needs to earn, and right now we can't pay him. So he's working three jobs: his own projects, paid work, and BudgetBro. I can't keep asking a man on three jobs to carry the build on his own. So I'm learning to sail the ship myself (with the help of AI obviously).

Coding isn't the only thing I'll be doing, thankfully. Distribution, investment and Day Trips all need me too. But the headline is simple... We need to monetise something soon.

How confident am I in Day Trips?

We had a similar idea months back but put it on hold. Nathan brought it back recently as a funnel into the app, and I think it's one of BudgetBro's best decisions to date.

It isn't even finished and we're already picking up daily searches. I'm not going to dress that up as traction, because it isn't. It's a flicker, on a page that isn't done. But it's the first flicker we've had in a while and it's pointing the right way. Like the app, it'll take time.

What's September's plan?

Distribution, investment, Day Trips, and helping Samar find some work teaching Portuguese to English speakers.

Actually, something just occurred to me while writing this. I'm going to build Samar a simple site with a booking calendar and payments, as a test run before I go anywhere near BudgetBro's code. Small, real, and somebody gets paid at the end of it. Probably the most sensible idea I've had in months.