Bryan Brunot | Product Designer

Peni shows the reward of staying on budget before it happens. A finance forecasting app that turns bills, spending, and savings goals into a live view of what’s possible.

Peni started as a personal workaround and became a real product: a live web and native iOS app with Plaid automation, manual controls, and a customizable forecasting dashboard.

I designed, built, and shipped it for people who want to budget, but need to see the payoff before the motivation disappears.

ROLE

Founder
Product Design & Engineering

PLATFORM

Native iOS | Web

PLATFORM

Native iOS | Web

THE BEHAVIOR

Money decisions are time-based, not just category-based. users

THE GAP

Most finance tools show where money went, not what a better plan could create three months from now.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Make the payoff of budgeting visible before it happens, so users can see progress, adjust, and stay on track.

Manual System → Forecasting Product

Before there were cards, widgets, or Plaid automation, the core interaction was already there: map the month, project the balance, and adjust before the damage was done.

ORIGNAL SYSTEM

A calendar did what budgeting apps didn’t.

I used a basic monthly calendar to map bills, paydays, expenses, and running balances by hand. It was crude, but it made money time-based, showing what I’d have left before the month had already happened.

AUTOMATED CALENDAR

The workflow became an interface.

v.3

That tool became a system

I brought the automated calendar back into Figma and rebuilt it as a mobile-first product with Claude Code and Codex. The single workflow became a customizable system with dashboard widgets, card patterns, a full-month calendar, and daily forecasting tools.

Outcome

What started as curiosity turned into something much bigger. I took a budgeting tool I never thought much of and pushed it into a fully shipped product.

I built a full user database, integrated Klaviyo for lifecycle and marketing, and connected Stripe for real-time tracking and automation. It’s now privately hosted and being tested with a small group of peers.

More than anything, the process shifted how I think about what I can build. What started as a side project is now something I fully own end-to-end—and something I’m genuinely proud of.

With the product live in testing, my focus has shifted to security, stability, and getting it ready for market.