Melissa Pancoast is the founder and CEO of The Beans, an app helping people manage their finances in stressfree way. Melissa actually started her career as a teacher, but eventually left that behind to study how people think and feel about money at Oxford. Partially as a result of the she ended up starting The Beans, which is aimed to simplify financial management for middle-class Americans.

In our conversation with Melissa we talk about why she decided to name her Startup “The Beans”, and how is her product different from many other fintech products in the personal finance management space.

We also talk about Melissa’s background, her stint as a teacher, working for early-stage digital health startup, founding an AI-focused venture fund Comet Labs and studies at Oxford, where she researched how people interact with money. We talk in depth about reasons why fin-tech still hasn’t quite solved the finance management problem for many people, and how impactful solving number one stressor in America could be.

Melissa takes us through her experiences of looking for a co-founder, finding one, and eventually splitting up. She also talks about her takeaways from the fundraising process and shares valuable tips for founders out there who are at the beginning of their journey.