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Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

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41–50 of 94 posts

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#41

Hey gang, looks awesome - did you see any meaningful value out of your first Show HN?

Just looked back at my notes.

That first Show HN post sent about 700 unique people to our website, of which about 100 clicked the download button and roughly 40 signed up. That may seem like a small number, but it was huge for us at the time. It gave us a lot of new information about where people would fall off in our funnel, uncovered some edge cases we hadn't accounted for, etc.

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#42

So this appears to play in similar space as Mint, but reduce and automate categories, and provide a chat interface, correct?

Yup, though our emphasis is more on making finances as relatable and friendly as possible. The chat interface isn't just a skin on top of existing data (which some other chat interfaces can feel like), but completely dictates the entire experience. This is super relevant for our goal of coaching people to better financial health—chat is a great medium for coaching, but a traditional UI would probably be more difficult.

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#43
post #28
post #24

U.S. only, so can't try it out. But judging from the animations on the website, I'm really irritated by the chat interface. You say "relatable English", but I personally don't react with "Woohoo!" to the "paycheck came in" message. I don't see what added value the chat interface really brings. I don't even think "predetermined choices" can be called "chat".

Hey, co-founder here: I'll be the first to say that the chat interface isn't for everyone. If you'd prefer to get the facts with minimal extra stuff, Penny might not be for you. What we've found from working on this from so long is that the chat interface goes a long way towards making finances relatable and easy to understand. For most people, the biggest barrier to personal finance literacy isn't education; it's mo…

I can see the chat interface being built out by itself as a stepping stone to adding integration to Google Assistant / Google Home which would be neat.

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#45
For some of us in Bay area, we pay $5000 in rent, utilities, day care etc. I, by and large can't optimize on these things. I can only optimize on groceries, restaurant eating, vacation/weekend outings and few things like that. So, I hope these personal finance apps remove rent, utilities, day care etc from their analysis.

Also, one feature I would pay for is this. When I am entering a Walmart or Target or Whole Foods, it should warn me that I spent 'x' amount on groceries last week and that I should keep my spending below $y to stay within budget. Somehow, I see this feature missing in all apps I see so far.

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#46
post #24

U.S. only, so can't try it out. But judging from the animations on the website, I'm really irritated by the chat interface. You say "relatable English", but I personally don't react with "Woohoo!" to the "paycheck came in" message. I don't see what added value the chat interface really brings. I don't even think "predetermined choices" can be called "chat".

The idea of someone talking about my personal spends would be really annoying. But I can see how useful it could be for other people, it would be like a personal finance consultant giving tips.

Re: Launch HN: Penny (YC W17) – a personal finance coach

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised your friends feel that way, because I was the exact opposite! I was wary of using Mint until I found out it was by Intuit, which I trust far more.

Intuit bought Mint, and the whole thing is built on top of Yodlee. http://yodlee.com/

Was built on top of Yodlee. Mint transitioned to Intuit's own scraper after they were acquired.
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