Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happened to Mint?

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 456 posts

Re: What happened to Mint?

#321

Post by shashank »

iudqnolq wrote: post #310
shashank wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the founder of Buxfer ( https://www.buxfer.com ) Forecasting is one of the strongest aspects of our product. We also provide alerts ahead of time if we can predict your account balance will fall below zero (or whatever threshold you configure). Forecasting can also be used to preview your expenses/income/cashflow for the upcoming months / years. We do have an API, but I admit it's not the best around. Other than…

I like your privacy policy. It's reasonably easy to read, has a nice chart, and makes nice sounding promises. Why don't you link to it from your home page? I had to do a Google site search to find it. (And maybe even put the 'what we share' chart somewhere more prominent)

Added. Was an oversight, thanks for pointing out!

Re: What happened to Mint?

#322

Post by HatchedLake721 »

LegitShady wrote: post #28
awicz wrote: post #13

I switched to https://ynab.com a while back. It's not exactly the same concept as what Mint was intended to be, but I couldn't be happier with the move.

I couldn't handle the forced system in ynab - it's clunky and I want a budget program not a whole new budget system. To me less useful than an excel budget because it tries to force you to do things it's way. I'd rather use Excel than be forced to use their stupid system.

Why is it a new budget system? You just categorize the money you have right now, there you go, that’s your budget.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#323

Post by jjeaff »

sshumaker wrote: post #57
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #29

Co-founder of a (yet to be launched) Mint competitor here [1]. One pattern I think we all see over and over again is when products get bought by a large company, they often lose their "soul" (and the original team). Both those things happened with Mint. Another important pattern I've seen is that products, in the long-term, morph to take the form of their revenue model. Many personal finance products are free, but ma…

This space is really difficult to crack for a few non-obvious reasons. The first is that the total TAM is less than you think; for most people, tracking their spending to manage budgets just doesn’t appeal to them. For many consumers, just seeing all of their finances is incredibly depressing. I suspect the 13mm Mint users are a large portion of the addressable market for this kind of product. So without a strong mon…

Luckily for most founders, a business that tops out at $10mm a year in net income is still considered a lifestyle business for most VCs.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#324

Post by archeantus »

city41 wrote: post #238
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #29

Co-founder of a (yet to be launched) Mint competitor here [1]. One pattern I think we all see over and over again is when products get bought by a large company, they often lose their "soul" (and the original team). Both those things happened with Mint. Another important pattern I've seen is that products, in the long-term, morph to take the form of their revenue model. Many personal finance products are free, but ma…

This is a super packed field. There are many budget apps out there. I was unhappy with all of them so I wrote my own. For a while I had some thoughts of pushing it and turning it into a company, but ultimately I just kept it for myself. Good luck, would love to see a budget app that is truly good.

I did the same thing. Shocked that five years later there still isn’t a great app that really wows. I think the fundamental problem is that the data is broken. Banks don’t get context from the merchants, and the devs only get ugly data from the banks. The only way this situation will improve is if we can somehow get devs better data. I kicked around ideas on how to do that for a year or so before running out of steam.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#325

Post by 0xffff2 »

alistairSH wrote: post #127
0xffff2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are and yes it is, but every other budgeting tool is going to ask for the same.

Yeah, I can't think of another way to do this, but one breach and all my financial accounts are leaked? That's not something I can risk.

I mean, I can think of ways, the banks would have to actually implement them though. Why my bank doesn't let me generate account tokens the same way GitHub does is beyond me.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#326

Post by windthrown »

shaunparker wrote: post #302
windthrown wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Personal Capital to USAA?

I think @Richicoder is right. USAA's tools haven't been updated in a while and are a pain to use. Their tech is still really good for a US bank. Personal Capital has been pretty painless (besides the occasional bank/investment syncing issues). Personal Capital's investment and retirement tools are quite nice. The only downside to Personal Capital is their advisors calling to try and sell their service. I eventually b…

That makes sense and I hope we do see USAA’s tools get a refresh in the future. From a security and privacy perspective, I feel much more comfortable giving USAA access to my accounts/transactions compared to the assortment of budgeting/expense FinTech companies.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#328

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #182
mherdeg wrote: post #86

I don't know whether this is just nostalgia, or maybe my finances used to be less complicated, but nothing beats the experience I had with the Microsoft Money desktop app. It was easy to download transactions from participating banks (I think in OFX format?) and it was easy to see the last successful sync date per account. The UI made it straightforward to categorize my transactions and dead-simple to compare monthly…

Totally agree. Microsoft Money was close to perfect sometime in the 2000s. I am really sad that it got abandoned.

Presumably it still runs, do the integrations with banks no longer work?

Re: What happened to Mint?

#329

Post by zerkten »

bananamerica wrote: post #312
wyclif wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the phrase "lifestyle business." Look: it's a business. No, it's not going to make VCs billionaires. But it's a perfectly respectable business nonetheless. Nothing wrong with that.

So I went to Wikipedia and found this definition: "A lifestyle business is a business set up and run by its founders primarily with the aim of sustaining a particular level of income and no more; or to provide a foundation from which to enjoy a particular lifestyle." Seems like a useful concept. What's wrong with it?

It's a useful concept when used appropriately. There is nuance that you are missing.

When used it's a description that the business owners provide based on how they run their business, then it's OK. When you use it to describe someone else's business it's often considered a slur (unless they've previously shared this with you and you know that fact.)

Many smaller companies are not actually lifestyle businesses although that term is thrown around here. The owners may be part-time because they actually operate a group of companies, grow niche companies to sell outside of the VC world, etc. They are indistinguishable from lifestyle businesses, but the owners are looking to do a lot more than sustain a level of income.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#330

Post by bananamerica »

zerkten wrote: post #329
bananamerica wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I went to Wikipedia and found this definition: "A lifestyle business is a business set up and run by its founders primarily with the aim of sustaining a particular level of income and no more; or to provide a foundation from which to enjoy a particular lifestyle." Seems like a useful concept. What's wrong with it?

It's a useful concept when used appropriately. There is nuance that you are missing. When used it's a description that the business owners provide based on how they run their business, then it's OK. When you use it to describe someone else's business it's often considered a slur (unless they've previously shared this with you and you know that fact.) Many smaller companies are not actually lifestyle businesses althou…

> When you use it to describe someone else's business it's often considered a slur

I see.

I find it a bit unsettling that in some cultures stating that a business has priorities other than profit at all costs is considered a slur.

Post reply on HN