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Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

projectionlab.com

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Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#201

Post by throwanem »

scubakid wrote: post #190
resonious wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paddle modal says "Total after trial $594.00" in its order summary for me. This is Pro (which OP also mentioned in their comment).

Hmm which OP do you mean? I was referring to karaterobot's original/top-level comment, where afaik they didn't specify. From context though, it sounds to me like maybe they meant to look at the trial for Premium (i.e. personal use) but accidentally started checkout for the Pro version. I wonder if just hopping into the free sandbox might have been a better fit for what they wanted to do. Anyway, if others find Paddle…

> the trial for Premium (i.e. personal use) but accidentally started checkout for the Pro version

It doesn't seem very clear on the pricing page that Pro is for professionals; this is mentioned in the copy, but deemphasized there (smaller, low contrast type between black-on-white title and feature bullets). Until I read the passage I quoted I did not realize there was such a distinction, and it wasn't till I went back and looked hard that I spotted the copy that clarified it.

You already have a "For Advisors" page on the site. If Paddle makes it straightforward, perhaps consider listing the Pro plan there and just Basic and Premium on the main plan page, or something like that, and have some sort of secondary CTA (eg "Looking for personal/advisor plans?") on both, to help redirect folks who end up in the wrong place.

Or something like that, anyway - I think the root cause here is that you're addressing two separate markets that have separate sets of concerns and cost expectations, but aren't always being intentional and specific about which of those markets you're addressing at any one time. Due to this you're inadvertently violating one market's expectations with another market's offer, in a way that isn't deliberately shady but shares enough commonality with a pattern that is shady that it takes care to distinguish what's actually going on.

edit: You might also and more simply consider renaming the "Pro" plan; that word doesn't mean very much these days. If it was called something like "Advisor", I doubt anyone would've turned a hair at the price; a name like that does much more to help me as a potential customer understand whether or not this plan is meant for me.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#202

Post by scubakid »

luke_s wrote: post #197
beret4breakfast wrote: post #125

This is fantastic, smooth and really very polished. It clearly covers a lot of stuff and you’ve really got a lot covered so great work. I’ve not sat down and tried to fill out all my details as I’m worried I’ll lose all my details and have to start again. But this kind of stuff I find really interesting and most online are really bad/basic. Main concerns are around price tbh (I’m a cheap bastard) and I think $14 a mo…

Yeah, I feel the same way about the $14 a month. Perhaps a "one shot access pass" or something that lets you in for a few months while you do financial planning may be useful. It might also be a good opportunity to check back in with people later (say in 12 months time) and get them to sign up again, if you can provide them with valuable insights and help them stick to their plan

Do you feel like it's more the price or the billing frequency options that affect the psychology here? To me, a month of planning for the price of a cocktail sounds about right (esp. when compared with traditional advisory services), but perhaps others think in different terms. Or just disagree? haha.

Interestingly, I still get messages fairly often from new users that (in their opinion) pricing is actually too low... so I wonder if more pricing / feature tiers could eventually be helpful to appeal to the different segments.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#203

Post by scubakid »

throwanem wrote: post #201
scubakid wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm which OP do you mean? I was referring to karaterobot's original/top-level comment, where afaik they didn't specify. From context though, it sounds to me like maybe they meant to look at the trial for Premium (i.e. personal use) but accidentally started checkout for the Pro version. I wonder if just hopping into the free sandbox might have been a better fit for what they wanted to do. Anyway, if others find Paddle…

> the trial for Premium (i.e. personal use) but accidentally started checkout for the Pro version It doesn't seem very clear on the pricing page that Pro is for professionals; this is mentioned in the copy, but deemphasized there (smaller, low contrast type between black-on-white title and feature bullets). Until I read the passage I quoted I did not realize there was such a distinction, and it wasn't till I went bac…

Renaming Pro to Advisor sounds like it could be an efficient way to remove any possibility of confusion. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#204

Post by tills13 »

bobboies wrote: post #152
fishtoaster wrote: post #9

Oh hey, it's you again! I discovered projectionlab (formerly projectfi) on HN a while back and have been loving it. Every other "retirement calculator" I found was a dozen text fields and a simple output graph or two - Projection Lab gave me what I really wanted, which was the ability to do much more involved modeling of various scenarios: - What happens if I buy a house in X years? - What happens if my old company I…

Counting the days to pass before reaching that dangling carrot is a disease. The reality is, for richer or poorer, we all retire when we die.

Alright Debbie.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#205

Post by extr »

ot1138 wrote: post #104

Funny how the same things get done over and over again. I went down this road in 2016. Spent about a year on an incredibly sophisticated retirement planner, with customizable scenarios. It was personally very useful so I started down the commercialization path. I found that a bunch of people had tried this with a direct-to-consumer model and it ended up being small potatoes every time. All of the companies who had ac…

IMO personal financial planning is somewhat of a unique task in that understanding the process to arrive at an "output" is a lot more valuable than the output itself. I've noticed that despite so many apps being available, I nonetheless prefer to track my finances in a hideously complex Excel spreadsheet. I don't just want to plug things in and have it spit out a result, I want to be able to intuit the full space of tradeoffs, which is hard to do unless you "build it yourself". The output of the process is arguably just information that assists me in clicking the right buttons in my brokerage account.

Rarely as an individual are you running into such complex financial modeling where the selling point "This has great UI/UX and allows me to accomplish task XYZ 20% faster" actually matters. It's actually kind of the opposite, where the slicker and more "magical" the tool is, the more I'm suspicious that I'm missing something and would prefer to just do it myself.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#206

Post by gregoryl »

999900000999 wrote: post #184
scubakid wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The checkout experience in PL is just standard Paddle checkout, so I imagine the feedback about charging after the free trial applies to everyone who uses Paddle? I tend to think the Paddle checkout flow is clear enough on how their free trial period works, and I don't recall anyone else taking issue with that in the past. But if the sentiment is shared that Paddle's checkout copy needs improvement, I can certainly p…

Why does this cost so much and why don't you offer a monthly subscription. If you just add a 10$ a month option most people will just shrug it off even if they never touch the site again. But you start at 108 for the year. That's charge back territory. If I just forget about this after the free trial but see a 108$ mystery charge I'm asking questions.

Why not more? Is there another product that does this as well, for less?

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#207

Post by scubakid »

mwerd wrote: post #200

beautiful. congratulations on this, it's really wonderful.

thanks! I sacrificed 2 years of most nights and weekends, with lots of ups and downs, and I'm appreciative of all the feedback from the HN community (both positive and negative) that helped shape the tool into what it is today.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator

#209

Post by scubakid »

gregoryl wrote: post #206
999900000999 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this cost so much and why don't you offer a monthly subscription. If you just add a 10$ a month option most people will just shrug it off even if they never touch the site again. But you start at 108 for the year. That's charge back territory. If I just forget about this after the free trial but see a 108$ mystery charge I'm asking questions.

Why not more? Is there another product that does this as well, for less?

Funny enough, "pricing too low" is still a common piece of feedback I get as well.

I wonder if the fact that there are now voices on both sides could indicate that it's finally in the right territory. Or perhaps that there should be additional tiers. Just not sure how best to carve up the feature set in that latter case.

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