Dan Hates Maths, So He Launched An App to Help Young People Manage Money

Here’s how you can live your best financial life.

This post is presented in partnership with WeMoney.

When you get your first job and start making a bit of coin, it can be really exhilarating thinking about all the fun things you can finally buy.

While it’s exciting finally getting your first taste of independence, it’s probably the best time for you to start tracking your finances, so you avoid having to eat two minute noodles at the end of your paycycle, as well as those big scary debts that can follow you into your future.

That’s why entrepreneur Dan Jovevski created WeMoney, an app that allows students and young people to take control of their finances in a smart and sustainable way.

Dan, who is also CEO of WeMoney, tells Student Edge how the financial decisions you make as a young person can follow you later in life and ultimately hold you back from achieving your goals.

"You’re graduating high school, you go to uni or TAFE and it’s a whole new world," he says.

"The flavour of Gen Z at the moment is to have Afterpay but back in my day it was credit cards and getting yourself into potential financial traps.

"When you start to get a little bit older, some of those financial decisions you make in your early 20s can follow you into your early 30s."

Like many students, Dan struggled in high school and had trouble figuring out his passion for finance as a young person.

"I was a bad student, I was a terrible student in high school, I was a terrible student in primary school and I think I had learning difficulties; I couldn’t pay attention I was very flighty and I would have to battle my own internal self to do well," he says.

Graduating with a property and finance degree from Curtin University in 2009, Dan was concentrating on getting a job when he landed a position at Bankwest.

"I think out of uni I was finding how to work for the man; how can I get my job? Learning to climb that sort of early corporate ladder, that was my sort of view on life after uni, so entrepreneurship didn’t happen until about three years into my early career," he says.

"I applied to a whole bunch of different industries and just happened to get a role in banking and that’s where my career started."

Dan discovered his passion for financial management, models and spreadsheets during his studies, despite his aversion for traditional maths.

"I found a passion for numbers towards the end of my university journey, which was not very obvious in high school: I hated maths," he said.

"I hate maths today but there’s something about doing complex financial models on spreadsheets that’s very rewarding and I really found a passion for that towards the end of my finance degree.

"Even if you’re bad at something, you might actually be good at it in a completely different way than you realise."

Dan went on to study an MBA and travelled overseas to further his studies in finances and assets.

"I did an international exchange trip over to Scotland and studied at Heriot-Watt University where I did a few property and finance units for about six months," he says.

"Then in 2012 I started an MBA and did the majority of that MBA at UWA and did part of my MBA over at Harvard University on an exchange trip there, doing some deeper studies into behavioral science and behavioral economics and that was a phenomenal experience."

After working in the finance sector for 12 years, Dan discovered the myriad of problems that exist in financial management and wanted to make a change.

"I think the straw really broke the camel’s back when I was sitting across the living room from people who were getting their first homes or refinancing their mortgages, seeing all the pain and frustration they went through," he says.

"I thought, there’s got to be a better way that people can solve the problem of getting the best possible rate and understanding the ones they’re eligible for.

"That’s the essence of switchmyloan.com.au, which was a company that I founded in mum’s lounge room back in 2012."

Dan went on to develop WeMoney so that he could help young people through the financial balancing act.

"I’ve seen where finances go bad and I saw that in that 12 years and I kept on waking up every single day thinking right, how do we solve this problem in the most sustainable way?" he said.

"It’s not just a budgeting app, it’s not just a credit score managing app, it’s also an app where you can help get support from other people that are navigating the exact same challenges as you are."

Check out the free WeMoney app for the simplest way to manage your money.

Header Image: WeMoney