The start of Fikko

I left a comfortable management position at a multinational company to solve a problem that bothered me at home: how do my fiancée and I manage our joint finances? Thus was born FIKKO.

In my 9 years in the electricity industry, I have programmed risk models, worked in data engineering and dashboards. Technically, I solved complex problems every day. But there was no time or energy left to solve the problem in my own home: how much of the divided expenses did I pay, how much did my fiancée pay, who needs to pay back how much to whom?

When I left a very comfortable job, people would look confused: “Why drop it?”

He was a manager in a European multinational with a business culture that few companies have. Great benefits package, recognition, an excellent team and freedom to define our solutions. So why leave?

What no one knew is that during this time, I thought a lot about technology and saw a world out there that I wanted to experience, limited only by imagination and technical ability. There was just one problem missing. One that bothered me enough to want to solve it. And a partner who would complement me.

The problem appeared naturally.

My fiancée and I already lived together, but we weren’t married yet. No joint account, but with many joint expenses: house, dogs, travel. We had partial transparency: I knew the bills I paid, she knew the ones she paid. How to add up the whole? How to balance without friction? And did more people live like this?

We went from an idea to make our lives easier to one that could help thousands of people. What I couldn’t predict was how much I would learn in this process.

The freedom to create something from scratch, your way, comes with an unexpected burden: you have to make all the decisions. For those who take things seriously, this is overwhelming. I’ve always liked having complete context before deciding. In tech, I’ve learned that sometimes you need to go with what you have, or be ready to quickly reverse if you chose wrong.

But I also can’t explain the satisfaction of seeing people wearing something you made. You imagined it, it didn’t exist. Every screen, every experience, every function has a piece of you inside.

I’ve never worked as hard as I have this past year. I’ve never made so many decisions. If you’re thinking about doing the same, know that it’s difficult, and that it’s definitely worth trying.

One certainty remains: in this entire period, nothing has been as difficult as getting the spacing right that my partner did in Figma.