James Kerr, Founder of Tend

James lives 30 miles outside San Francisco, California with his wife Vanessa and their three children.

After years of entering the amounts for all his fixed expenses in YNAB month after month (and manually dividing annual expenses by 12), he finally thought, "Hey, isn't this what computers are supposed to be good at?"

In 2024, he began working on a prototype that scheduled spending commitments once and could calculate how much money was committed for any given time period. This eventually became Tend, a complete system for managing your household finances using the calendar-based budgeting method.

James has a degree in computer information systems from Chapman University in Orange, California, where he also studied accounting and film production. He's worked as a full-stack engineer and UI designer at two San Francisco-based startups prior to his work on Tend.

When he's not thinking about budgeting apps or personal finance, he enjoys playing soccer, decluttering his house, and drinking coffee outside on brisk mornings.

James has a personal blog where he enjoys sharing his thoughts on web development, entrepreneurship, parenting, and faith.

For the longer story of why James left his job to build a calendar-based budgeting app, read how Tend started.