thebeans

The Beans is a financial technology company that provides financial wellness tools and programming aimed at what it calls the "Caring Class" — educators, healthcare workers, government employees and non-profit professionals. Its core consumer product is an iOS app that builds a personalized "Visual Financial Plan": users connect checking, credit card, loan and savings accounts, confirm the bills and financial commitments the app surfaces, and receive an automatically generated plan showing average non-bill spending, amounts free to spend and upcoming bills. Transactions are labeled automatically, plans reset at the start of each month, and users can adjust plans as their finances change while earning achievements over time. The app states it works with close to 10,000 banks and that it does not sell user information or serve advertising.

Alongside the app, The Beans packages an employer-facing offering combining interactive professional development courses on financial stress and financial progress, automated cash flow planning, and community sessions with additional resources from financial advisors and behavioral coaches. The company positions the program as a retention and wellbeing benefit, framing personal finances as employees' leading source of stress. Its founder has described the approach as combining advances in machine intelligence and psychology to change how working Americans relate to their finances.

Founding story

The Beans was founded by Melissa Pancoast, who serves as CEO. Pancoast began her career as a teacher and has said she knows firsthand the financial challenges faced by the company's audience of caring professionals; she founded the company to combine advances in machine intelligence and psychology to change how hardworking Americans relate to their finances.

Business model

The Beans sells its financial wellness program to employers as an employee benefit, packaging a consumer mobile app with professional development courses and facilitated community sessions supported by financial advisors and behavioral coaches. The app itself is free to download for end users and includes in-app purchases.

Revenue is derived from employer and organizational partnerships that make the program available to staff, with the consumer app free to download and offering in-app purchases.

Traction

The iOS app holds a 4.1-star average across 87 ratings. The company reports that 93% of employees rate The Beans 4 or 5 stars, and cites partner testimonials including a Head Start site director reporting turnover falling to 6.6% and 9.5% staffing growth between September 2022 and January 2023.

Latest developments

In December 2022 the company announced that founder and CEO Melissa Pancoast had been named a 2022 Inspiring Fintech Female by NYC FinTech Women, an honor recognizing 50 women in fintech, presented at the New York Stock Exchange.