Ask Linc

I'm setting up Stripe for subscriptions and payments! This is the first time I'm working with their API. Seems...ok so far? (I know, famous last words.)

I'm hoping to launch to my Early Access (alpha) users next week. I'm excited to put this out in the world and see if it has legs! Either way, I've learned A TON these past few weeks so it's already been well worth the effort.

Now when you ask about rates or market shifts, Ask Linc intelligently searches for the most current, relevant info — like mortgage rates, CD returns, inflation trends, etc.

All results are cited, and tailored to your financial situation.

We’ve implemented a dual-data privacy system:

Your real account and merchant names are tokenized before ever hitting the AI.

Nothing is stored. Nothing used for training. Ask Linc is private by design — and stays that way.

You can now test every feature — no account required.

Just hit demo mode and Ask Linc will simulate realistic accounts with real market context.

Want to see your own runway, spending, or investment performance? Sign up to get early access!

Ask Linc now supports deep macro + market questions, thanks to our new RAG system with Brave Search + FRED + Alpha Vantage.

Ask things like:

• “How will the Fed rate hike affect our retirement plan?”

• “What’s the current yield on 12-month CDs?”

• “Should we move cash into treasuries?”

  All with source citations, in plain English.

I got my Plaid integration working today! It's just to /accounts/balance/get but it completed end-to-end.

Note: if you're working with Plaid API and have "limited production access", you will have to configure your "Data Transparency" settings in your Plaid dashboard before you're able to link a real bank account. FYI I was stuck on that for a while and couldn't figure out what was wrong!

TL;DR:
I built Ask Linc after literally pasting screenshots of my bank accounts into ChatGPT (🫣). It connects to your real accounts via Plaid, uses GPT-4, and answers questions like “Can I afford to take a break from work?” or “Are my CDs earning enough?”
Here's a peek into how it works and what powers it under the hood.

🧨 The Problem

After getting laid off earlier this year, I was trying to figure out:

• How long we could last without my income

• Whether our cash was earning enough

• If we were still on track for retirement

Naturally, I turned to ChatGPT — but it had zero context about our actual finances. So I did what no one wants to admit:

📄 Uploaded statements
🖼️ Pasted screenshots
🤷‍♂️ Hoped no one was watching

The answers were decent, but the process felt sketchy and tedious. So I built the tool I wish I had.

🤖 What Ask Linc Does

Ask Linc is like ChatGPT — but it actually knows your financial situation.

You connect your accounts (via Plaid), and Linc gives thoughtful answers to natural-language questions like:

“How long could we cover expenses if one of us lost income?”
“What’s our monthly burn?”
“Should I refinance right now?”
“Are we sitting on too much idle cash?”

It also pulls in live market and economic data to ground its advice in real-world context — not just AI hunches.

🛠️ Tech Stack Overview

Frontend:
Next.js 15 (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind, deployed on Vercel

Backend:
Node.js + Express, Prisma + PostgreSQL, hosted on Render

Integrations:

• Plaid for account + transaction data

• FRED for Fed economic indicators

• Alpha Vantage for real-time market and yield data

• GPT-4 (OpenAI) as the reasoning engine

Security:

• Token-based access, encrypted end-to-end

• No sensitive data stored

• GDPR compliant + user deletion supported

CI/CD & DX:
GitHub Actions, Vercel + Render auto-deploy, strict TypeScript, Jest + Supertest

🧪 Privacy-First by Design

I'm building this for people like me — privacy-conscious, skeptical of fintech data grabs. So:

• No sensitive data is stored

• No user data is used for model training

• No creepy tracking (we use Plausible, not GA)

• Full delete-on-request capabilities

🧠 Why This Stack?

• TypeScript end-to-end keeps bugs down

• Prisma makes DB ops cleaner + safer

• GPT-4 gives powerful, flexible language understanding

• Render + Vercel keep infra dead simple

• Privacy and performance come first

📈 Where We're At

• Live beta with early testers

• Sub-second response times

• 99.9% uptime

• Scalable architecture ready to grow

🙋‍♂️ Looking for Feedback

If you’ve ever tried to ask ChatGPT about your finances — or thought about combining AI + Plaid — I’d love your feedback.

👉 https://www.asklinc.com

Or just drop a comment and let me know:
What would you want an AI assistant to tell you about your money?

I built Ask Linc after pasting bank statements into ChatGPT and hoping no one would see 🫣

A few months ago, I got laid off.

I turned to ChatGPT (which I use all the time) to help figure out what that meant for our finances:

• How long could we go without touching savings?

• Could we still retire when we planned?

• Are we actually okay — or just hoping for the best?

ChatGPT gave me general tips, but it had no idea how much we had saved, what our monthly burn rate was, or how the layoff might delay retirement. So I spent hours uploading spreadsheets, pasting in screenshots, writing long prompts… and constantly wondering:

“Is this even safe?” (It wasn't.)

That experience was helpful but clunky. Smart, but not private. So I built the thing I wished existed:

🚀 Ask Linc — a privacy-first AI financial assistant

It connects to your financial accounts (via Plaid), pulls in real-time market data, and gives you clear, judgment-free answers based on your actual financial picture — not made-up assumptions.

No dashboards. No spreadsheets. Just answers that make sense.

🔐 How we protect your data:

• Read-only access via Plaid (SOC 2 compliant) — we never see your credentials

• Anonymized data — we strip out names, institutions, and merchant info before anything goes near GPT

• Encryption at rest and in transit (AES-256 + TLS)

• No AI training — your data is never used to train OpenAI models

• One-click data deletion — you have total control, no dark patterns

We're in private beta and bringing in early users. If you've ever asked ChatGPT a money question and wished it actually knew your context — I'd love your feedback.

Ask Linc is what I needed. Maybe it's what you need too.

Happy to answer questions about the stack, onboarding, or what I’m learning as I go.