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6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

lunchbag.ca

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Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#61

Post by z3t4 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25
blakesterz wrote: post #2

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

If you get somewhat a big audience you will get weird messages anyway, it doesn't matter if you are a man or women. For an app that probably have hundred of apps just like it I think it helps go get personal, you want to build trust and bound.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#62

Post by kayson »

HeavenFox wrote: post #55
kayson wrote: post #52

I'm always hesitant to use any of these services because (AFAIK) they need to store your banking credentials in order to access your account. The one exception I've found to this is Chase, which actually has an API. But even with providers like Plaid, its not clear whether the API is being used - I don't think it is, because the request does not go to Chase. Is there a better way? Or a service that would let me enter…

I am building a similar app as a hobby, and have done some research on this. I am also very interested in avoiding Plaid, mostly because they are very expensive, and require a signed contract with them for production use (which I don't want to do under my own name, and forming a LLC is also expensive). Without Plaid, you only have three options: connect to bank yourself with OFX, let user upload OFX file, or let user…

I reached a pretty similar conclusion investigating OFX to add support to Firefly III. I think best case scenario would be to setup OFX connections to the institutions that require the user to enter credentials and manually refresh data. Unfortunately you wouldn't get the benefit of automatic budgeting/spending alerts, but in my case, for just tracking spending, it would work. Right now I have to export each account to csv monthly, and import to Firefly. Fortunately the import settings are saved as JSON so as long as the format doesnt change it works well enough.

I have read in some places that you can get OFX access as an individual if you call the right customer service dept.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#64

Post by ronyfadel »

hopia wrote: post #59
ronyfadel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, 1k to 10k in recurring revenue (SaaS style). I sell one time purchase apps, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to scale from what I make (2k$/month) to even 3k$/month any time soon.

Can I ask why you picked this model instead of a subscription based model?

If you check the apps I currently offer (link in my profile), I’d have a hard time asking for recurring payments. I’m basically implementing missing OS features.

I have other products in the pipeline where I will consider a subscription model.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#67

Post by Someone1234 »

dunky11 wrote: post #63

I would change the footer of your website. The yellow background / white text combination is really hard on the eye. I would switch to a lighter shade of yellow for the background and black text instead.

The contrast (1.81) is also so low it isn't considered accessible at even the worst tier. And while the legal status of accessibility requirements is a complex topic, in terms of user experience, good accessibility normally means good experience (particularly color contrast, there are a lot of color blind people, or older people with diminished eyesight).

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#68

Post by daenz »

darkerside wrote: post #57
daenz wrote: post #54

>That is until I realized that it was my own dumb fault because I accidentally left my Plaid environment set to development One of the last things you do before launch is pay money to yourself by running a real payment with real money in production. An automated test for config is nice, but nothing beats actually doing the critical thing yourself before launching to the world.

> which only supported 100 connected accounts. My free test accounts which I had been diligently rationing up until this point had been depleted and Plaid was rightfully denying any new connections. You picked an odd time to stop reading!

I don't see how this changes anything? If they had attempted to do a production import of their live bank account, it would have been denied, same as what happened to their customers, and they would have caught it before the mistake affected real users.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#69

Post by DLarsen »

projproj wrote: post #43
roughfalls wrote: post #16

This looks great and I'm inclined to give it a try. But do you have a privacy policy? I try to avoid services that sit between me and my financial institutions, as I worry they're building analytics off my spending patterns and selling it to third parties.

I felt the same way, and it's part of why I made spendweek.com (a privacy-first, easy-to-use competitor to Lunch Money, YNAB with a single focus on saving money instead of keeping track of all your accounts). I am sort of proud of my privacy policy, so it's a link right at the top of the home page. Here's the basic manifesto of the SpendWeek framework in case anyone's interested: https://www.spendweek.com/blog/you-ne…

Nice domain and nice concept. I too am among those with a home-grown approach to managing the budget. Mine is more of a spending journal than it is about planning or reconciling the entire budget, with motivations similar to those who would have a meal journal. I focus on the decision making process and self-evaluate spending according to my budget and my overall values.

My approach won't appeal to a lot of folks, but there are dozens of us who find it super useful: https://www.spendlight.com/#how-it-works

We're on the same page regarding privacy. Except for taking money for the subscription, I keep my hands off bank accounts. And for those wanting a complete air gap, there's always the printable paper version: https://www.spendlight.com/download/paper-spending-journal

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#70

Post by GeneralTspoon »

daenz wrote: post #68
darkerside wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which only supported 100 connected accounts. My free test accounts which I had been diligently rationing up until this point had been depleted and Plaid was rightfully denying any new connections. You picked an odd time to stop reading!

I don't see how this changes anything? If they had attempted to do a production import of their live bank account, it would have been denied, same as what happened to their customers, and they would have caught it before the mistake affected real users.

My understanding was that it would have worked for her because she still would have been under the 100 user limit. So the test env still worked for production data, for the first 100 users.
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