The View from the Office.

I met Andi Duro for lunch at Leon’s on the corner of Broadway and 12th street. I had the cacio e pepe and he had the rapini melt with agrodolce onions. We both stuck with New York City tap water.

I picked the restaurant because venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures blogged that he eats there every day. Indeed, the maitre d’ said that Fred had been there for breakfast!

Andi, who graduated from the University of Connecticut three years ago, is the founder of startup Two Cent Software Inc.

The best elevator pitch for the company comes from a Dec 7th tweet Andi wrote. What the post lacks in formality it makes up for with precision and brevity.

It said: “here’s an app i’ve been working on for a while. it’s kind of like anonymous finance twitter but you don’t get to pick your username. your username is just your bank account balance.”

As a Gen Xer, I found the idea of attaching my bank balance to a social media app insane.

Andi said that such a reaction could be “generational.”

He said 600 people signed up to participate the first day.

I realized that I am clearly not the target market.

Andi said he got the idea from the wealth gap he noticed visiting San Francisco. He said it was impossible to tell the tech millionaires from the young founders with empty bank accounts. He thought it would be fun to play around with that idea on social media.

He said Gen Z in particular likes the idea because it allows them to engage in humorous financial flexing while connecting with others through a Stocktwits-like interface.

Andi said he has raised money from one angel investor so far and is looking to raise more to add additional features. He wants to launch the app on the App Store to gather more insights.

The app displays a user’s net worth or account balance alongside their posts. There are some options to customize how much detail you display. Users’ financial information is anonymized.

The app uses Plaid, a third-party service, to securely connect and verify bank accounts. None of that financial data is stored or accessible by two-cents.

He hopes to add features including the ability to track net worth over time.

Andi said he may look to raise a seed round at some point.

I thought it was unfortunate Fred Wilson had already left. Andi could have pitched him.

Then I realized, there’s always tomorrow.

Fred will likely be back for breakfast.

#viewfromoffice