It’s been a while.

It’s been a while since I’ve written here.
Somewhere along the way, between building, consulting, and life in general, I fell out of the habit of sharing what I was working on.

But I’ve also been building something quietly — something that started from a moment of mild desperation.

One night, I copied and pasted my own financial data into ChatGPT.
Balances, expenses, mortgage numbers, even some investment returns.
I just wanted a simple answer to a not-so-simple question:

“Are we still on track to retire?”

The answer I got was… fine.
But it made me realize two things:

1. ChatGPT is incredibly capable — if it actually knows your data.
2. There’s no safe, private way to give it that context.

That’s when the idea for Ask Linc was born.

What I’ve been building

Ask Linc is a privacy-first personal finance assistant that connects to your real accounts — banks, cards, investments — and layers on live market data like CD rates, Treasury yields, mortgage rates, stocks, and crypto.

So you can finally ask meaningful, context-aware questions like:

• “Am I too concentrated in tech?”
• “Should I tweak my CD ladder if yields move?”
• “What happens to my retirement runway if the market drops 10%?”
• “Is my savings account actually keeping up with inflation?”

It’s not a budgeting app.
And it’s not a “robo-advisor.”
It’s more like having ChatGPT that actually understands your finances — but your data never leaves your control. Everything is anonymized, encrypted, and never used to train AI models.

Why I’m writing again

I’ve realized that sharing the why behind what I’m building — and the how it ties to what’s happening in the economy — is just as important as building the product itself.

So going forward, I’ll be posting again here:

• Updates from building Ask Linc
• Market insights that matter for long-term planning
• Small, high-leverage money moves worth considering

If that sounds useful, stay subscribed.
And if you’re curious to try it yourself, you can now sign up at asklinc.com.

Thanks for sticking around — I’m genuinely excited to start sharing again.

— Ethan