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Launched. After two years of bootstrap development, we released our fintech app - whatifi

Title says it all.

We didn't really follow all of the startup rules but I am pretty damn proud of what we've built. Amazing how long the journey can be, the setbacks, the things that you didn't know (which sometimes is a good thing).

And now our little idea is out there in the world. I am sure it will have a rough ride as we amble our way to that elusive product/market fit but that is just the next phase of the jourmey.

To everyone who is still sloughing their way through that first phase - carry on. Heads down. And be thankful for what you don't know!

If you are interested in following along - check us out on Product Hunt:

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/whatifi-io

or check out the product itself (DESKTOP ONLY):

app.whatifi.io

  1. 2

    Congrats on the launch! Not the real work begins. Get out there and sell it!

  2. 1

    Been a pretty interesting first day ever on Product Hunt.

    Stumbled out of the gate with a URL boondoggle that I didn't catch until 9 hours later (points a crooked finger at GoDaddy...)

    All in all - with three hours left to go, we have 111 upvotes and sitting solidly in.... 23rd place.

    But we also had 61 new signups to our service, made a few friends on Twitter, and a landing page conversion rate of 22%. Twenty people have visited the app itself so far and created accounts and played around a bit. I'm pretty happy with the media and things we posted.

    What I didn't do was track down someone to be our Product Hunter or prep and prepare a lot of posts or send emails in advance. Was very much on the fly.

    In summary, I would call it a win with a few lessons for our whatifi 2.0 feature launch. Nothing quite beats a deadline and Product Hunt was wonderful for that.

    Now to clean up the blood on the floor, regroup, and chase down all of those unexpected Sentry bug errors that are popping up.

  3. 1

    I think is a great idea! Marketing may be a challenge, how do you plan to reach possible users?

    1. 1

      Thanks! In the early days - we have a B2C version that we are promoting on social media with very targeted, niche question and copy like "whatifi go back to work after my maternity leave?" or "whatifi skip this whole crazy real estate market and just rent?" and then point people to specific templates that help build those scenarios.

      Longer term, we are a B2B play and we're hoping that financial planners, real estate agents, contractors, SMB owners and other kinds of professional will use our platform to build scenarios for their clients and share and collaborate those whatifis with them. This is a harder channel to reach though and the hopes is that some of the B2C traction will migrate/spill over into the B2C product.

      1. 2

        Sounds like a great plan, I wish you much success!

  4. 1

    I also think it's a great idea, but I have a privacy error when I go to https://www.whatifi.io/. So .. chop, chop, no pressure 🤞.

    1. 2

      Thanks batkir - not sure why the https is fried - have a call into godaddy but for now the basic www.whatifi.io works.

      Appreciate you pointing that out!

  5. 1

    Congrats on the launch!

    Had a look but gave up because the graph didn't work for me, it just says "Maximum call stack size exceeded" and the equity and cash flow tabs are difficult to select.

    I can see why this might be useful but without being able to see the graph working I can't begin to understand how to set it up. Hope that's helpful..

    1. 1

      Hmmm.. that's a first. We are desktop only - are you trying this on mobile?

      1. 1

        Nope, desktop Chrome - in the console the error is "RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded" in node_modules/@sentry/utils/esm/instrument.js:139 - the stack below that is from amcharts Type.js:277

        1. 1

          Thanks Jamie! Passing that to the dev team - first time I've seen that but that's exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for. Joys of being beta!

          Really appreciate you passing that along.

          1. 1

            You're welcome! Let me know if you need any more info

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