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

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by bcherry »

oxide wrote: post #55
IanCal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Costs users $3/week. Which is non-trivial, but less than a payday loan company. That does depend how much and how often you need to borrow money. If twice a year I need to borrow $50 but pay it back the next month, that's equivalent to a 13000% APR loan rate (~$150 for the convenience of borrowing $50 for a month twice is equivalent to borrowing $50 and paying back $125 the next month, 150% per month or 13000% per…

fair enough, but almost no one uses payday loans that responsibly, the twice a year payday loan user is closer to a myth than commonplace.

Yeah, in fact the article said someone is more likely to take 17 payday loans in a year than just one.

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

#62

Post by redthrowaway »

mblevin wrote: post #50
qzcx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For once I wished I came to the comments before reading. It was an interesting article, but it is definitely full of fluff

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.

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

#63

Post by finnn »

rjaco31 wrote: post #9

That's a seriously fucked-up webpage without Javascript =/ http://i.imgur.com/Lr53m7u.png

You should see the company's website without 3rd party Javascript: https://i.imgur.com/xfzP26A.png

Note that this is just blocking Javascript from other domains, anything from their domain is allowed

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

#64

Post by ticviking »

thrownaway122 wrote: post #49

What is to stop someone simply opening two bank accounts. Then paying their unsteady income into one and then transferring a steady amount of money into the other. Combined with the old adage about spending less than one earns and the result is happiness.

The service automates that, and adds friction to violating your budget. (or at least that is how I see it).

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

#65

Post by hurin »

zo1 wrote: post #60
hurin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ANYTHING that helps get rid of those scum is a huge improvement. And these guys are truly crusaders for the working-class poor that are going to fix the system? Or they are just going to cash in on updating payday-loans to the 21st century Iphone version. I mean it's a good idea and I'm sure they can be very successful if it's well executed. AND I have no doubts they will be just as scummy-bag as the market & regul…

> "But please excuse my low tolerance for packaging the profit motive of a company as helping the working class poor." They're not mutually exclusive, to be honest. You can make a profit AND help the target group. Additionally I hope you're honest as well, and say that's okay instead of bashing them for "making a profit" while helping the needy. On a curious side note... Where abouts exactly do you place "non-profits…

> They're not mutually exclusive, to be honest. You can make a profit AND help the target group. Additionally I hope you're honest as well,

Exactly - and talking about the app "helping the needy" is especially dishonest. Sure she can pay $3 a week instead of a $35 over-draft on her Bank Account -- and if you think that's help then I assume you've never had to live on minimum wage.

> Additionally I hope you're honest as well, and say that's okay instead of bashing them for "making a profit" while helping the needy.

To be clear, I did not bash the company. They picked a particularly scummy industry that hasn't been disrupted by technology and they are doing their thing -- and the job of their PR department is to sell their technology and part of that is playing up "help the needy".

On the other-hand I have a real problem with this as an article. It doesn't start off talking about an app, instead it introduces a particular person, draws in the reader's sympathy to that person's difficulties and then resolves that into marketing a product - basically making a joke of the actual problems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United...).

No, I don't seriously believe there is any such journalist who interviews someone living on an unpredictable near-minimum-wage and whose honest first impulse and thought is "they need an app to help them". This is a shill if I've ever seen one.

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

#66

Post by thrownaway122 »

toxican wrote: post #28
rjaco31 wrote: post #9

That's a seriously fucked-up webpage without Javascript =/ http://i.imgur.com/Lr53m7u.png

How the fuck? I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid using JS for anything critical (ya know, like SITE STRUCTURE!), and then these people waltz in....

Please continue to do so. I'm sure that there are others like me that seriously appreciate you doing so.

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

#67

Post by zo1 »

hurin wrote: post #65
zo1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But please excuse my low tolerance for packaging the profit motive of a company as helping the working class poor." They're not mutually exclusive, to be honest. You can make a profit AND help the target group. Additionally I hope you're honest as well, and say that's okay instead of bashing them for "making a profit" while helping the needy. On a curious side note... Where abouts exactly do you place "non-profits…

> They're not mutually exclusive, to be honest. You can make a profit AND help the target group. Additionally I hope you're honest as well, Exactly - and talking about the app "helping the needy" is especially dishonest . Sure she can pay $3 a week instead of a $35 over-draft on her Bank Account -- and if you think that's help then I assume you've never had to live on minimum wage. > Additionally I hope you're honest…

"Exactly - and talking about the app "helping the needy" is especially dishonest. Sure she can pay $3 a week instead of a $35 over-draft on her Bank Account -- and if you think that's help then I assume you've never had to live on minimum wage."

It's not up to me to decide, nor does my income-level have anything to do with the validity of my arguments. You simply have to answer "is this person better off with this thing X".

If we go under the assumption that steady-income is better than unpredictable income, then the answer has to be yes because this app satisfies that requirement. Let's not confuse that component with discussion about "real" help for the needy. There may be better ways, but that's a separate talk of "what is the best help for the needy".

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

#68

Post by jklein11 »

jkaunisv1 wrote: post #57
jklein11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you afford a high touch sign up process for a customer who is worth ~$144 a year?

If customer support requirements are high at sign up but low for customer lifetime then it shouldn't matter as long as their retention is good and lifetime is long. I don't know, it's not my business plan. I'm just pointing out they're unlikely to have a signup process that lets people with high levels of income in.

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.

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

#69

Post by hurin »

zo1 wrote: post #67
hurin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not mutually exclusive, to be honest. You can make a profit AND help the target group. Additionally I hope you're honest as well, Exactly - and talking about the app "helping the needy" is especially dishonest . Sure she can pay $3 a week instead of a $35 over-draft on her Bank Account -- and if you think that's help then I assume you've never had to live on minimum wage. > Additionally I hope you're honest…

" Exactly - and talking about the app "helping the needy" is especially dishonest. Sure she can pay $3 a week instead of a $35 over-draft on her Bank Account -- and if you think that's help then I assume you've never had to live on minimum wage. " It's not up to me to decide, nor does my income-level have anything to do with the validity of my arguments. You simply have to answer "is this person better off with this…

> It's not up to me to decide, nor does my income-level have anything to do with the validity of my arguments. You simply have to answer "is this person better off with this thing X".

By your logic of: better off == "helping the needy" == Saving a few $bucks

General Mills cereal coupons are "helping the needy". That's seriously complete bullshit.

If you are going to use strong terms like "helping the needy" I would expect e.g. improved quality of life or another reasonable indicator backed by a well presented position and/or statistics.

> my income-level

I very much doubt any person living on minimum wage would say "Yes, my quality of life would be improved by a budgeting app for my IPhone". But if you had lived on minimum wage at some-point and honestly thought so, I would have considered it relevant.

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

#70

Post by jkaunisv1 »

jklein11 wrote: post #68
jkaunisv1 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If customer support requirements are high at sign up but low for customer lifetime then it shouldn't matter as long as their retention is good and lifetime is long. I don't know, it's not my business plan. I'm just pointing out they're unlikely to have a signup process that lets people with high levels of income in.

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 training
  * Largely ignore the customer unless they go in arrears, make $12/month for your SaaS offering
Note that monthly cost isn't much different from something you'd pay for a Shopify store, say. And they have very high touch onboarding in some cases.
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