Want a steady income? There's an app for that • Hacker News Board

Re: Want a steady income? There's an app for that

#71

Post by noer » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #62

mblevin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brilliant from a PR perspective though for your average NYT reader. I would kill to get an article like that written - it's lengthy, detailed, has an accurate representation of the actual function of the app with tone a that's not breathless or sycophantic, and just the right level of skepticism thrown in so that readers believe a deep, detailed analysis has been done and that this is the future.

What's the value of that PR? Attracting quality employees or boosting VC interest? Because I highly doubt their target market is reading articles about startups in the NYT.

Attracting quality employees I'd imagine. I think a twitterbot I had been using followed the user researcher in the article because she tweeted today about looking for talent.

Re: Want a steady income? There's an app for that

#72

Post by belorn » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #34

belorn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making automatic loans sound very similar to sms loans, which is a common cause for people falling into incurable debt. It mean less insight and less responsibility, targeted to those who lack financial skills. That could make things better in theory, or things much much worse if the incentives are to get people to take unnecessary and expensive loans.

They say they aren't loans, but credits. It's not clear that you actually become indebted to them.

If its only credit and this work, banks really have something to learn from this. Having customers pay you to restrict withdraws from the bank account is one those ideas that sound crazy, but sure, I can see some direct value from that kind of service. Not one I would personally pay for.

Re: Want a steady income? There's an app for that

#73

Post by jklein11 » Fri, May 01, 2015, 12:59 PM UTC

jkaunisv1 wrote: post #70

jklein11 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point. Sorry I didn't mean to come accross as attacking you I'm just confused by the business model in general.

This is absolutely not my area of expertise, but if I had to guess: * Spend a fairly fixed amount of money developing the app and related infrastructure * Keep a slush fund for covering loans * Potential customer provides their bank account info, run it through a risk analysis program * Have a human approve or deny the customer based on that program's results * If approved, give them some coaching & onboarding traini…

Shopify makes their money on the transactions and their pricing model scales up to $180 per month.

I honestly believe that this is an MVP and the "Pay Boost" might being interest free after they figure out how to conquer the regulator hurdle of loaning money.