It started with one very complicated spreadsheet.
Ten years, several currencies and dozens of financial products later, that spreadsheet became a Personal CFO.
A personal problem, long before it became a product.
Hugo started as a spreadsheet about ten years ago. I was earning in euros, living between Ireland and the Czech Republic, owning property in Czech crowns and investing in US dollars. Add pensions, bank accounts and a growing collection of financial products, and a simple question became surprisingly difficult to answer: How am I actually doing?
The spreadsheet gave me an answer. But as my financial life became more complex, the spreadsheet became more bloated. Every monthly update took more work, formulas became harder to trust and the overview I wanted slowly turned into another system I had to maintain.
from the first spreadsheet to Hugo
inside the original financial picture
without even tracking investment contributions
Every app wanted to watch my spending. I wanted to understand my progress.
I tried nearly every budgeting and personal-finance app that appeared. Most were designed around transactions: connect your bank, categorize every purchase, inspect every coffee and find another small pleasure you could remove.
That approach did not give me confidence. It created more noise — and sometimes more anxiety. I did not want to micromanage my daily life. I wanted to see the whole picture, understand what had changed and know whether I was getting closer to my goals.
The problem was never a lack of financial data. It was a lack of financial clarity.
First, I built it for myself.
One day, I decided to turn the spreadsheet into a simple app. The goal was modest: make my monthly financial ritual easier, more reliable and more pleasant.
The original spreadsheet had grown to roughly 120 rows — and I was not even tracking my investment contributions. Then I began adding the calculations it could never explain elegantly: real progress after inflation, portfolio performance separated from contributions, currency exposure, financial health and the distance to long-term goals.
When I showed the app to my investment adviser and a few friends, they immediately wanted access of their own. That was the moment I realized this was not only my problem.
Not everyone wants to log every coffee.
There is a growing group of people with complex financial lives who do not need another budgeting app. They want to enjoy the small pleasures of life without guilt — and still know whether the bigger financial story is moving in the right direction. Hugo is being built for them.
Clarity over activity. Understanding over anxiety.
Hugo is designed around one belief: better financial decisions come from understanding your own story, not from collecting more data.
Reflect monthly. Live daily.
Hugo does not compete for your attention. Fifteen thoughtful minutes each month should be enough to understand what changed and return to your life.
The whole picture matters.
Bank accounts alone are not a financial life. Property, pensions, businesses, investments, cash, collectibles, currencies and debt belong in the same view.
Understanding creates confidence.
A number without context is only a number. Hugo highlights the movements and patterns your data supports, then helps you judge whether the underlying direction is healthy.
Your judgment stays yours.
Hugo does not tell you what to buy and does not promise to make you rich. It gives you the clarity to make better decisions yourself.
Privacy is a principle.
Hugo never asks for bank credentials or tracks daily spending habits. You decide which numbers belong in your financial history.
Build for decades, not dopamine.
We optimize for continuity, calm and long-term understanding — not notifications, streaks or reasons to open the app ten times a day.
For financial lives that cross borders.
Hugo is created by RevOps Labs s.r.o. in Prague, Czech Republic. Stored financial data remains in the EU, and the product is designed for people whose assets, income and ambitions rarely fit neatly inside one bank or one currency.