Tansy
Guarantee decisions made today aren't surprises in future
It's been a struggle over the past few months to verbalize why someone should use Tansy, rather than just give them the what Tansy does.
I've been doing some writing on why I created Tansy in the first place to solve my own problem with figuring out how much money I could put towards debt so I could pay it down faster.
A new mentor has been pivotal in pushing me to flush out the root problem I'm trying to solve. As I keep working on figuring out how to convey the problem Tansy helps solve, I think more users will relate to having the same issue and hopefully seek out Tansy to help solve it.
I soft-launched Tansy a few weeks ago just to have it out in the wild while I made additional improvements to the MVP. I've been randomly posting on Reddit and FB personal finance groups to see if it drives any traffic to my website.
Yesterday, I had my first free trial sign-up through posting on Reddit! A little sliver of hope that I can make this work.
After building the web app for the past 6 months on nights and weekends, I have my first 10 users doing alpha testing. They are focused on getting a test account set-up and entering their cash-on-hand balance and budget events. Once their alpha testing is completed, I will move into more in-depth testing on feature value and more onboarding instructions.
My husband and I always felt like we had extra money in our bank account that we could use to pay down debt. We'd make the extra payment and then we'd be short and have to use our buffer to make ends meet through the end of the month.
I developed a spreadsheet that took into consideration the due dates, frequency, and amounts of each of our budgeted items. With this I built a forecast of our daily cash flow that would predict from our current bank account balance. With the forecast, I could now easily see when we had extra money during the month, how much extra money at any point, and the impact of making the extra payment.
This was the start of what is now Tansy.
1 Comment
It's an interesting idea. To clarify the benefit to the customer, focus on the pain points you address. You can get those through your customer profile map. If you haven't done one, it's essentially a list of the pains, gains and jobs your customer has. Ideally, your product solves the critical ones.
Alternatively, interview potential customers about their challenges with personal finance. What words do they use to describe them? Do you address the critical pain points? If so, use their words to explain why they should use the app.
I hope this helps.