Validating my idea: site that updates your address automatically
In the past whenever I was moving, I had to update my physical address for the bank, credit cards, telecommunication services, online subscription services, and more. I found the whole process to be draining and wanted something that would do this for me automatically.
I was thinking of building a service where you provide your credentials to these websites and for the ones where we could update online, we would update the address on your behalf. Of course, your credentials will be encrypted using bank-level security.
Is this a problem serious enough for you guys to want to pay?
I'd be very wary providing all my financial data to an unknown source. Saying you have bank level security and providing it are very different. Even a small mistake can mean the exposure of data, and since you'd have multiple sets of credentials it makes the end result worse for me and much more lucrative for those cracking it.
From a technical perspective you'd quickly pull your hair out.
From a problem perspective I wouldn't use it because I really value my privacy.
Updater.com has built a very good business here. I believe their model is they give the service away for free to the end user (the person moving), and then sell the user data (and serve relevant ads). I'd say that validates the idea! It looks like they acquire users through partners (moving companies, real estate agencies, etc). So there may be a smaller opportunity (e.g. using SEO) to go direct to the end user. But will be tough to charge for it (given that updater.com has set the price at $0).
I understand the problem but I wouldn't give my credentials to a service like that. I already had problems to trust my password manager.
Maybe you could create a service which saves a list of websites etc where you have to update your address. Users would do that manually but at least wouldn't miss anything. Not sure if anyone would pay for that though
I've had to do this several times in the last few years and it IS a pain in the ass, so there's definitely something here. But, I'd be weary of giving out login info to all of the important institutions in my life and I doubt many (any?) of them have APIs with write access to user addresses.
That being said, there's another solution to this, which is to just make me never need to change my address. Things like Earth Class Mail tackle this problem, but no way I'm paying $69/mo for the service (although at a certain income level, it's definitely worth it).
I've had this frustration and idea before. Technically it's probably feasible, but there will be a lot other factors that will just make this so difficult to implement, both legally, on a compliance level, and also you will need buy in from consumers and businesses who will allow you to act on behalf of the customer. I'm not sure even if that is possible, for example in the UK for change of anything you can't even do it on behalf of your spouse/partner and always need their consent. Then there's the issue of monetisation. Not saying it's impossible, but there will be a lot of hurdles for sure, just my 2p.
Yes! I move once every 18 months or so (averaged over the past 10 years) and I always forget to update one card/service or other.
Yes. But probably not much and not often. A customer willing to pay $30-50 once every 18 months isn't exactly the kind of customer founders dream of.
Maybe there's something there, but I'm not quite seeing it yet.
That said, I do think there is a really interesting bigger problem here (why do we even have to share our addresses with all of these different companies? Surely we could have a unique ID which never changes and is shared with companies/the world, and the postal services can look up this unique ID and know which address to use).
Not that that would be any easier to solve.
I personally would be extremely wary of providing my address and credentials to various financial sites to an unknown service. You'd also be painting a huge target on your back by keeping all of that valuable information, so I'd be doubly skeptical that anyone other than maybe giant tech companies could realistically protect it.