Why Wesabe Lost to Mint • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#171

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 12:34 AM UTC

inthewoods wrote: post #144

StavrosK wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you, choosing "historio.us" as the name was a bad decision (for two reasons). People are surprised by the extension and it takes some explaining to get them to spell it as ".us" (here, something like historious.net would help a lot), and they always spell it "historius". We might just rename it to historius and redirect to historius.com just to get rid of all the hassle... The moral of the story is that y…

You made me laugh as I setup breadandcirc.us and had the same sort of issues you highlights. I also own the name ben.to - which I've been considering for use on a company I'm working on, but I have that same concern. Opinions?

After my experience with historious, I wouldn't do it. People are just not used to it, they can't parse "historio dot us". They expect a ".com" or something, so they might even mangle it as "historiodotus.com".

There also seems to be great resistance in parsing "historio". "ben dot to" might do better in that regard, but "bento.com" would always win because people are just used to it.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#172

Post by kscaldef » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 12:39 AM UTC

saulhoward wrote: post #136

reinhardt wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I'm a native greek speaker and I never made the connection Nike -> Νίκη; they're pronounced completely differently.

I think you mean that _you_ pronounce them differently. I've heard 'Nike' pronounced in more ways than any other brand name; I myself pronounce it in at least two different ways.

Really? I've only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with "mikey". What other variants have you hears?

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#173

Post by kevinpet » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 12:48 AM UTC

Reading the article, it sounds like Marc set out to change people's behavior. I don't think Mint did that. There's a lot more money in giving people what they want rather than what you think they need.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#174

Post by sethwartak » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 12:56 AM UTC

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…

Didn't they spend a huge % of their initial money on the name?

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#175

Post by tapp » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 1:02 AM UTC

jack910 wrote: post #128

"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…

I'd rework that statement slightly. If you're building an actual company, then customer acquisition is not merely "part of the equation," it's the whole ball game.

All other factors you list (tech, UX, naming, etc.) should primarily be evaluated as means to that end.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#176

Post by AmitinLA » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 1:31 AM UTC

precipice wrote: post #79

njharman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marc, I suspect writing an article like that might be kind of hard. Thanks for sharing your inside view.

Thanks. I'm naive - I thought it would mostly be of interest to friends and family. I was wrong, but I'm glad if it's helpful.

This is possibly the single best blog post about entrepreneurship I've read in the last...I can't even remember. Thanks.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#177

Post by petenixey » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 2:06 AM UTC

Marc I remember hearing you speak at a conference in '07 and being very impressed at how exaustively you interviewed potential users before building.

Do you feel in retrospect that there was anything obvious you could have done and monitored post-launch that would have let you out-manoeuvre Mint?

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#178

Post by userk » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 2:44 AM UTC

Found this blog post to very revealing, although not entirely the way others do. Expressing openly and owning these two decisions (to focus on build vs. buy & simplicity vs. user customization) is admirable, but the slippery rhetoric undermines these mightily. There are many shrewdly baked-in messages and denials that are far afield from above: - No has solved the problem that we set out to solve in personal finance. In other words, yeah, I know I said Mint won, but we didn’t really lose to Mint – no one has won! - Circumstances conspired to make me CEO. Er, perhaps another decision was to not have the humility to bring in a more qualified CEO. Since we’re all being so honest. - Our product was just as good as there’s other than these 2 facts. In other words, I created and know how to execute at the level that Mint did. Of course you do – you’re in the job market! I’ve heard this 'falling on the sword' rhetoric from CEOs of a failed company as a public way of engendering praise. It’s politically disingenuous because -of course you’re responsible- – everyone knows that claiming otherwise is horrible PR for yourself. The purpose of the post to bake in all the rationalization of how the decisions were right given in the information, you’re of high character, and get that personal brand out there in a controlled way. And that’s the way to ‘keep the focus on making the user happy’

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#179

Post by cloudkj » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 2:51 AM UTC

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…

I also disagree with his downplaying of the importance of branding and design. I definitely remember stumbling across Wesabe a few years ago when I was starting my first job and looking for a personal finance tool on the web. One look at Wesabe made me hit the back button. First, the name was strange and foreign. I didn't know how to pronounce it. Second, the logo (which is the same today, apparently) uses thick, bold strokes that just made it seem less like a legitimate finance product. I don't think I ever made it past a few pages on the Wesabe site before abandoning it.

Mint, on the other hand, had a very direct value proposition to me. As soon as I hit the landing page, I instantly knew what they were offering. The design was pretty, colors were soothing, and the font made me want to read the copy. It was good enough for me to get through the signup process, even though I eventually balked when they asked for bank account login information.

If my experience is anything like anyone else's, I can imagine Wesabe having lost many, many potential customers simply by virtue of having a less desirable site. Even right now, as I look at their current logo, I feel the same way. It's one case where a log actually significantly turns me off towards a service.

The post talked about product design flaws as the second biggest contributing factor to Wesabe failures. I think aesthetics and branding need to be grouped into that. If the appearance of a product isn't good enough to draw potential customers past the landing page, then the design is the bottleneck and the biggest culprit, bar none.

Re: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint

#180

Post by vincell1 » Sat, Oct 02, 2010, 3:34 AM UTC

I humbly disagree with you guys. I personally don’t think the name played that much of a role. In my opinion Mint won because of 3 reasons.. 1) They won techcrunch disrupt and had people buzzing 2) They gave customer what they wanted. They had the right "easy" approach to the problem. 3) They got higher value users by doing SEM.