Thanks for sharing! I've been using Lunch Money for a couple months and really like it.
Thank you for the support!
6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
101–110 of 169 posts
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#102How close is this to Mint? I'd be interested in paying for a Mint alternative. They've really gone downhill plus they sell my information. But then again I don't trust Plaid and avoid them at all costs.
Here's a quick page on Lunch Money vs Mint: https://lunchmoney.app/compare/mint-alternative
Pasting from an earlier comment:
> Totally understandable that you'd like to avoid using services like Plaid. We have a lot of users who share the same sentiment, and also many international users who cannot use Plaid, so it's a priority to ensure the experience is without Plaid is still an enjoyable/practical one.
> We offer two other ways to bulk insert transactions: 1. we offer a CSV import tool, and 2. we are currently beta-testing our developer API so you could write your own integrations to import data
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#103It would be great if you could add an RSS feed to the blog.
Noted! I know a friend of mine reads my blog via an RSS reader, so they still might be able to automatically parse it?
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#104The part about the lack of an app is a great insight, I think people do have a lot of fatigue around apps right now, and a really well done responsive page will work for most users. Most of the features enabled by making an app are ones users are tired of: push notifications, mic/camera access, etc.
Good point! Also, web apps are definitely making a comeback!
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, exactly. And running a payment through wouldn't have revealed anything since those two systems aren't connected.
Got it. For some reason, I was reading it as you had depleted the accounts before going live, but that makes much more sense. I take back what I said then about the live production test helping here. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Au contraire, I was diligently rationing my free test accounts, haha!
Thanks for reading!
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#106Currently use YNAB and it drives me bananas. The way it refuses to reconcile budgeted money for a CC against the interest/fees for that card as monthly payments often go out BEFORE interest is assessed for the month, requiring a convoluted interest bucket and juggling. I'll give this a shot.
Ah, that sounds complicated.
Feel free to let me know if you run into anything during your trial!
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the "tell the story as if you were telling it over beers at a pub" part but please don't make your page 9Mb like in the first example ;)
Someone at a meeting recently quoted some historical figure about "If you want me to write a speech of 5000 words, that will be a thousand dollars. If you want me to write a speech of 500 words, that will be ten thousand dollars." Writing concisely is a virtue, but getting in all the details often matters more. It's fine if the first draft is wordy. If you can reach a point where it tells the story well and is also c…
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Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Generally speaking, don't most users prefer one-shot payments, even if it is a relatively large amount, rather than monthly subscriptions? So it doesn't require followup mental maintenance... You just pay once and forget.
They probably do prefer that, and also probably want free updates forever.
But as a maker, recurring (read: predictable, continuous) revenue makes a software business easier to sustain and gives incentive to grow.
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#109my wife and I live in Tokyo and I have been using a programmed google sheet for over two years since we moved here to track our expenses and also use currency APIs to fetch rates and convert currencies in my spreadsheet. I am also originally from Canada. Looking at this encouraging post, I realize that maybe there's a big market for this since it was able to reach $1k MRR in 6 months!
I think I will also start working on something like this on the side that encapsulates my budgeting knowledge. Should be a fun project. Thanks for posting and good luck.
Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
#110I use YNAB but I'm compelled to give this a try. I love the simplicity and I enjoy the transparency behind the product's development (not that it makes a difference while budgeting, but I'm a sucker for a personal touch). Really cool, I'm stoked to see how the trial goes. Thanks for sharing Jen. Keep up the great work.
I've tried YNAB and use Mint alongside Lunch Money and I'm super sold. I started using it when she first launched on HN and have been in love with it so far because it's super speedy and not as manual as YNAB. The way she handles recurring expenses is what made it for me. I set a task in my todo app to reconcile my transactions every day (usually only happens every week).
Ahhh this speaks to me! Recurring expenses and the sheer manual labor required for YNAB makes it a chore. I don't expect software to be magic — the stuff I make certainly isn't — but it always feels like too much effort.