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Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

blog.precipice.org

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Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#121

Post by mikeklaas »

pg wrote: post #104
johnrob wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning can be applied on a micro level also, comparing the name mint to wesabe. The former is unquestionably easier to remember, type, and tell friends. Is it worth spending a lot of money to get a premium domain? The question sounds very similar to asking 'how much effort should I spend making 1% improvements in usability?'. One of my friends spent (from what I heard) over 200K for a very good domain. It see…

Depends on the situation and the name. I can't imagine many situations where it would be worth paying 200k. You can get good enough names for free usually, or at most 10k. It just takes some ingenuity.

Perhaps, but most high-priced domains will retain a significant chunk of their value if not appreciate over time. In the worst case, you resell it.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#122

Post by theBobMcCormick »

hyperbovine wrote: post #108

To me, the larger story is about risk. A lot of people here, if directed to build a personal finance startup, would go about it in much the same way that Wesabe did. Launch early, attempt to build a community of enthusiasts, and grow the site organically (through word of mouth) as opposed to advertising. This is the time-honored way, and a lot of startups have succeeded by it. What did Patser do? He went and dropped…

Is that about risk then? Or is it about the advantage of being the guy with $2million in his pocket to drop on the business before he even starts, and the connections to get the sweetheart deal with Yodlee?

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#123

Post by mikeklaas »

hoop wrote: post #47
city41 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm just ignorant but I never even heard of Wesabe until this HN post. I've been an unhappy Mint user for years though (I still argue Mint is nowhere near as good as Microsoft Money was). So if I'm representative of "average people", then lack of marketing may have been a folly too.

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm a happy Mint user and had never, ever heard of Wesabe.

Yes, this is equivalent to the statement "Mint succeeded and Wesabe failed", and not the reason it did.

Mint reached probably an order-magnitude more people ultimately, so it isn't surprising that most of us haven't heard of wesabe.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#124

Post by sbov »

Aetius wrote: post #54
bmelton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, in that case, I respectfully disagree. To me, the 'visual design' of a site is what it looks like in Photoshop, or Gimp, or what have you, before it is even necessarily sliced into even HTML bits. Once it is sliced into HTML, and the mouseovers, hover elements and all that jazz are added (or not, depending on your workflow), that's when I consider it a 'UI' instead of a 'design'. Before either of those happens, y…

You're wrong. Design is the graphics and user experience taken together. Most companies still have a designer that designs both UI (graphic element style and placement) and UX (dictation of frontend behavior).

You may still have a good UX not because of a designer, but because of business or engineering.

Whether you collect something or not in the first place is a business need. UX is almost always taken into consideration here (will the user give us this information).

Whether or not one automates something factors in UX. However, being able to automate something is often in the hands of engineers.

All these (and more, I'm sure) affect the UX.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#125

Post by fmw »

pg wrote: post #116
fmw wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing to Google is such a non-argument, in my opinion. What does it prove? That you can succeed with a mediocre name, not that picking a good brand doesn't matter. I don't like it when people say "Google does X, so it must be fine". Google is a much better name than Wesabe, anyway. Of course picking a good brand helps. Will it make or break your company? No.

What does it prove? That you can succeed with a mediocre name, not that picking a good brand doesn't matter. That is what I intended it to prove.

I agree that brands are overrated (not with their complete irrelevance), but the Google argument doesn't prove anything. There is a huge difference in people's willingness to try a new search engine, compared to many other applications. Particularly when it comes to sites that deal with your money. That makes people conservative and want something recognizable.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#126

Post by jellicle »

precipice wrote: post #58
lionhearted wrote: post #25

He doesn't give the name element enough credit. It's huge . Mint is one of the two examples I give of best brand names ever. Not kidding. Ever . Silk Soymilk is the other example I use. Mint's a killer brand name, I think it'd be literally impossible to beat Mint on natural branding in personal finance, it's the most perfect name I could imagine. It has double, good meanings - "Mint" as in a place where coins/money a…

(This is Marc, author of the linked post.) I think people attribute success to a name because that fits the mental model people have for success: You just choose the right name! And then you win! That's nonsense. Winning is a long series of decisions that have to go right far more often than not. I pulled out the decisions I thought really were critical and irreparable turning points -- hard decisions that required a…

Frankly, it is enough to win.

I suspect that if Mint had executed poorly, they would still have gotten enough customers hanging around just due to the great name that they could have fixed it, recovered, and gone on to success.

Wesabe. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Wasabi? WI-SAYB? WI-SAY-BEE? WEEZ-A-BEE? What the fuck is that? That is the bottom 10% of possible company names. Bottom 5%. It's awful. No one can pronounce it, no one can spell it, and it bears no relation whatsoever to personal finance.

When one company is being boosted by their name every day, and the other is dragging a giant anchor behind them...

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#127

Post by pragmatic »

lionhearted wrote: post #25

He doesn't give the name element enough credit. It's huge . Mint is one of the two examples I give of best brand names ever. Not kidding. Ever . Silk Soymilk is the other example I use. Mint's a killer brand name, I think it'd be literally impossible to beat Mint on natural branding in personal finance, it's the most perfect name I could imagine. It has double, good meanings - "Mint" as in a place where coins/money a…

Mint always reminded me of those little Andes mints. Who thinks of money in terms of a "mint"? My Grandpa?

Especially because mint is about physical currency/coinage, not about electronic transactions.

It is however short and memorable.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#128

Post by jack910 »

"Mint aggressively acquired users by paying for search engine marketing (reportedly spending over $1 for each user), while Wesabe spent almost nothing on marketing".

Startups need to realize that customer acquisition is an important part of the equation too. Sure technology,UX, and a memorable name is important too but too many people are still thinking if they build a good product, start a blog, twitter everyday is all that is needed to succeed.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#129

Post by zach »

lionhearted wrote: post #64
precipice wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(This is Marc, author of the linked post.) I think people attribute success to a name because that fits the mental model people have for success: You just choose the right name! And then you win! That's nonsense. Winning is a long series of decisions that have to go right far more often than not. I pulled out the decisions I thought really were critical and irreparable turning points -- hard decisions that required a…

> I pulled out the decisions I thought were really, critical and irreperable turning points -- hard decisions that required a lot of analysis and a lot of work to fulfill, both for us and for Mint. Buying mint.com was a hard and critical decision for Mint - they paid $2 million for it in equity during their series A. I think you massively underestimate it as a reason they won. I think if the names are flipped - if yo…

If the most important thing is getting people to start using a site, a weird name (sorry) is a definite barrier.

Imagine a website is behind a locked door, like a 1920s speakeasy. You have to hear, remember, then say (maybe even spell) a secret codeword to a grumpy doorman to enter. This is pretty much the user reality.

A startup could easily test domain name memorability using Mechanical Turk, I think, which would make this a far more objective exercise. Briefly show panel members a short list of websites and descriptions, then quiz them.

If you get your numbers from 30% to 60%, maybe paying a few thousand dollars for a domain name isn't so bad. I know many (myself included) still have a 1990s level of spite about paying for resold domains, but maybe we can get over that if it's quantified.

Finally, I'm not saying mint.com is necessarily worth two million dollars, but I quickly add that if it's worth two million dollars to anyone, it's to a financial-services startup.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#130

Post by hcurtiss »

While Mint is a great name, I totally agree that the difference was execution. Several years ago I tried Wesabe, Mint, Quicken, MS Money (which, IIRC, used yodlee), as well as Yodlee's site itself. I went with Mint because it just worked. It had access to all of the Yodlee banks, with a far more intuitive interface than yodlee. Frankly, at the time, there were no alternatives. I've not bothered to look since.
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