Feedback: A monthly email that shows your personal cash flow.
Hey IH,
I am building a web app to help me do my monthly finance audit and wanted to get your feedback.
The problem I'm trying to solve is the time it takes me to review how much money came into my bank account, how much money went out, and how much money is left over. I spend a couple hours a month reviewing finances and I'd like to reduce that time. Because our finances are mostly automated, I try to download statements and review transactions to make sure nothing fishy is going on. This is a pain that I've tried solving with Mint.com, but I created an anxiety for Mint.com over the years and stopped using the service.
This sounds simple (and also sounds like Mint.com) but the core info is central to other insights like MoM percent change and budget. I want this info sent to my wife and I's email inbox, so a way to have multiple folks get the info. And I want something super light weight that doesn't use my data for offers but instead to help me feel on top of my finances.
Questions:
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What do you think is the riskiest part of this idea? product, market, customer?
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How would you mitigate the risk you mention?
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Who do you think my early adopters would be?
Hi,
As a product manager, I like to think about what jobs I am asking my app/site/service to perform for my customer. I think your idea proposes two different jobs, which is certainly not a bad thing over the long term, but you might want to stick with launching with just one job to start.
Here are the 2 jobs I see in your description:
Some example ideas I see your fraud detection being able to help with - detection alerts for cases such as running my card twice for the same purchase (this has happened to me), very small charges like .01 from a fishy someone trying to see if they have hit a live account, charges for subscription services which I cancelled (this has also happened to me.) Apply all those sophisticated fraud detection algorithms to my personal bank account so I'm immediately notified of "anything fishy". I think its a great idea and kind of surprised no one has solved it. (Or if they have, I don't know about it.)
However, you might be able to compete on UI and UX in the form of TIME. Design a new Mint front-end. Sounds weird, but I've seen it done a bunch of times. You may laugh, but when I read other's comments about the problems of connecting to a banking system, my first thought was 'then don't try to connect with a bank'. Hook up to Mint as an MVP. I'm sure they have APIs. Then put a fresh, lightweight UI on top of Mint's anxiety-producing UI which allows you to get done what you need to get done in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours (and without all those annoying ads.) Then sell that. Sell it as ad-free Mint. LOL I'm kind of chuckling as I am writing this, but millions have been made applying this same kind of thinking.
Sorry for the long post, but I really think you have 2 good ideas here. But you'd need to choose one to go forward with, not both. Personally, I'd choose the second idea, get traction, and eventually offer the fraud detection piece as a feature add-on to your fresh, lightweight ad-free Mint!
Anyway, good luck to you!
-Pmox2018
@pmox2018 I like how you framed the problem as a job. The latter job is what I'm attempting to accomplish with my own financial audit every month. Also, your approach to building as a Mint face-lift minus the ads is a good thought.
Mint has an anxiety that I can't really explain, but I know others share my experience. UIX is part of the problem. The other problem is other services are more pull-oriented (i.e., login to a service to see my financial makeup) than pull-push (i.e., email me a personal cash flow every month). I also think data privacy and "don't sell my data" conversation is attractive to a larger audience now. Companies like Mint.com weren't created with the private by design principles in mind.
I'm going to start using the "help me understand my spending patterns over time" verbiage if you don't mind.
As far as being different, one book that has guided how I manage money is by author Ramit Sethi. He basically writes a blueprint that I think can be software that could fullfill a large niche.
Appreciate your feedback.
Hi,
Feel free to use anything I've said here, for better or worse. :)
Good luck!
-Pmox2018
@pmox2018 - I'm wrapping up a protoype that I'll be pushing out soon to http://inoutover.com. Would enjoy walking through a demo and getting your feedback. If interested, ping me at royce@brainjunk.co
Sure, np. I will send you an email.
Hmm i like the idea. Personally I have never used Mint.com before or any other service like that.
I don't know if you can connect your bank account to a service like that (again I never used a service like Mint). But if I were to use one I would want to connect my bank account somehow so when I purchase something It is automatically shown in the Mail that i receive, so I don't have to manually input my income and outcome.
I think the biggest risk in stuff like this is personal data, specially now after the GDPR law. As for the adopters I don't really know this kind of apps target everyone that cares about their finances.
@KlemenAndrasic - Yup, one of the main parts of this idea is connecting your bank account so that the your cash flow is calculated for you monthly.
Hey, I'm working on something in that direction right now :)
I'd like to disagree with @Pmox2018, there is still place if you find your niche. Mine's the european markets for one.
Where we do differ, my app won't pull external data in. It's all up to the user to look into their accounts, summarize, update the data in the webapp (plenty of ways to make the easy enough) and that's what the regular email reminder is for: Get the user to action, not tell them what's happening.
HoneyMoney.io has that same no-automatic-imports approach but it still is missing some secret sauce that I implement in my app.
This is a great line "get the user to action, not tell them what's happening". So true! I've been talking a lot with people lately about this very topic. Thanks for crystallizing it for me!
Cheers!
Heyo! Royce here. Happy to answer any questions you have if I wasn't clear in the description.
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@CJKinni thanks for the feedback. Yea, Plaid will be my goto for handling bank information.
re: basic functionality - The v1 will be super basic, but future iterations will have % change and an opinionated budget feature (model after Ramit Sethi's finance book).
1/ Do you think people would pay in exchange for not sharing their financial information with businesses? Goal here is data privacy and only using it to benefit their financial nirvana.
2/Can you point me to the hacker diet tool you mentioned?
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@CJKinni FYI, I put a splash up and calling the product http://InOutOver.com. A mvp will be out soonish. Appreciate you.
@CJKinni thanks for the link and appreciate the feedback.