My Perspective of Being The founder Of BudgetBro, October 2025.

Hello my fellow Bro's!

This is such an exciting time for us. My wife and I are full of excitement, being within fingertips reach of the finished product, whilst launching the crowdfunding, and turning into blog writers overnight (literally)... it feels very surreal. I'm often super confident but I'd be lying if I said I don't have moments of doubt. It's important to clarify that 'doubt' is more of an emotional surge, the realisation of an all-in-or-nothing situation can be a tad worrying. but Rawli's (short for my last name Rawlinson) don't give up. I feel this is one of the main reasons why I have done so many unconventional but super cool things over the past 13 years.

Back in March 2025 when the idea turned into opportunity I never realised how big this could become, and when I realised this, I threw not only myself into it, but all our savings too. It’s been a crazy 9 months: some great moments, some ‘meh’ moments, but, I would relive every second over and over again.

Interestingly, my background significantly lacks app development and no surprise some of the biggest issues we have faced along the way was mainly because of myself. In construction, you could call me the 'Architect' great ideas but how to physically implement these ideas usually means nothing short of a marathon. Now usually with architects, they'll design the house prior to the build, and it very rarely changes afterwards. In our case, 'architect Josh' completely re-engineered the app from the ground up half way through. This was an unconventional move which also negatively impacted our bank balance. That said, this 4 month long mistake felt like 3 years of education in university or equivalent. Therefore I didn't see this as a loss, I see it as paid education which was fast tracked.

This happened in June 2025 and it was without a doubt the most vulnerable I have felt throughout this whole project. There's a great saying and I'm sure you'll recognise it "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." This is exactly what happened to BudgetBro. The realisation that we built something subpar and unworthy for mainstream travel knocked my confidence, it made me feel emotions that I hadn't felt for a long time which ultimately, after some sulking, pushed me into drive mode one more time. Instead of just redesigning the app we went hard into why, what, where, when and how. We studied human behaviour, we studied other successful apps over the past 10 years, and combining all the new information, we didn't need to redesign the app ourselves, the information redesigned it for us.

When V2 was designed in Figma, I realised we wasn't redesigning user interface, we were reshaping user experience and building our own little ecosystem inside the BudgetBro app. this humbled me and put me right back where I needed to be: Realising I had absolutely no clue what I was doing during V1. Not much has changed to be honest. I still don’t fully understand half of it, but that’s ok. I just needed to stop giving orders and start taking advice, that’s when things started to perfect themselves.

Throughout this whole project, me and Samar have self-funded it through savings and stock investments but it wasn't all plain sailing. Just weeks before the BudgetBro project kicking off, Trump introduced his tariffs which drastically reshaped our stock portfolio. What was 20-25% gains turned into -30% unrealised losses overnight, there was nothing we could do apart from ride it out and hope for the best. I was never too concerned about the stocks themselves as they had solid fundamentals, I only ever worried about the timing. How long we could hold on for whilst travelling Vietnam, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and paying for the app without touching our stocks. Thankfully by August 2025 our portfolio had returned to pre-tariff levels and we cashed in to secure the future of BudgetBro.

Since August, we've had to settle down in one country to help slow spending. Although we have been in one place and focused solely on BudgetBro, time has FLOWN. They say "time flies when you're having fun" which feels appropriate as BudgetBro doesn't feel like work, it's not a job, it's part of me, of us. This is a journey I never want to end, this feels like my calling in life and this is exactly why it's important the crowdfunder is seen by as many eyes as possible. Take 5 seconds of your time to share this blog with friends, family, even show it to a random person in a queue when you're waiting for your coffee, taxi, plane, 7/11 toastie... Word of mouth is a powerful tool.

I have much bigger plans for the future of BudgetBro and I'm trying to overcome a trait of mine: having a MASSIVE gob. I don't want to say too much, too soon. Mainly I don't want the ideas being taken before we have chance to implement them. But there will be clues... That's just how I am so it's important you follow our socials too. I'll link them below. Keep yourself up to speed with our progress, whether personal or professional.

Today, the 28th of October 2025 our crowdfunding is now live on our website and we've submitted our kickstarter application. This isn't a 100m sprint, we're running long distance therefore the aim isn't to get to 100% overnight, this can we done over months. We're not ploughing money into marketing, we're starting from the ground up: blogs, videos, LinkedIn, travel groups. We understand our strategy isn't about rushing, it's about making quality connections.

Crowdfunding on our website you have 2 options:
- Option 1
Crowdfunding - This is where users have the pledge a minimum of £75.00 with no limit but you get your money back... PLUS A BONUS! This is nearly unheard of in crowdfunding, but this is our way of appreciating your help. There's no 'I' in team.
- Option 2
Donation - This is minimum £5.00 with no limit and it does what it says on the tin... It's a donation.

Kickstarter theirs reward tiers, whether it's early app access, Wall of Fame. exclusive access to Bro's Build Board, BudgetBro T-shirt... There's more too, just checkout the links below.

Crowdfunding direct click here - BudgetBro
Crowdfunding through Kickstarter, click here - Kickstarter
My Linkedin, click here - LinkedIn
TikTok (content coming soon) click here - TikTok
Instagram (content coming soon) click here - Instagram
Facebook (content coming soon) click here - Facebook