Live data from Hacker News

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

projectionlab.com

231–240 of 294 posts

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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#235
Cool to see Projection Lab on HN! If I recall, I've heard you on the the FI show and read on the MadFientist a while back? I come back to play with it every few months and dropped by just this past Sunday. I haven't dove in yet just because my finances are very simple, but I wouldn't be surprised if I dove in to start planning drawn down strategies in the next few.

I'm constantly amazed by how much detail in each option there are. Really cool work and just wanted you to know you that you've made some really impressive software.

Hopefully I'll be a customer soon when I stop being cheap and need more planning!

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

#236

These finance apps bore the heck out of me. Seems like they all do the same thing. When to retire based on sufficient money. It's not hard to know you shouldn't overspend in life. Then you just need to figure out when you want to stop working. Not about money but about when you're over it.

Many people have complicated finances, or are on uncertain trajectories. This can provide a mental model to help understand and navigate the lumpy bits, and hopefully assist with making sensible and valuable decisions early on.

If it’s boring, change the channel?

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

#237
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

On the other hand, mind where and who those people are. $14 is probably peanuts for a wealthy software engineer living the SV life and a 6 digit salary, so if those are the ones writing, no surprise they might think like that. Nothing wrong with making them your target audience, of course.

But in other places, $6 can already buy you a cocktail :-D

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

#239
post #235

Cool to see Projection Lab on HN! If I recall, I've heard you on the the FI show and read on the MadFientist a while back? I come back to play with it every few months and dropped by just this past Sunday. I haven't dove in yet just because my finances are very simple, but I wouldn't be surprised if I dove in to start planning drawn down strategies in the next few. I'm constantly amazed by how much detail in each opt…

Thanks! It's a real passion project of mine. Hoping someday it can maybe grow into a full-time thing.

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

#240
post #233

It looks very nice. I have used wealthtrace in the past. I see a lot of mentions of various other tools in the thread. You might consider a competition comparison page to distinguish your solution.

That could be a good idea, yeah.

I think on the whole, PL is at the point now where my engineering abilities have definitely outstripped my marketing/outreach abilities. So I guess I should spend some time really thinking about how to get the word out more broadly.

Post reply on HN