81–90 of 94 posts
/CTRL-F, "Arbitration" .. Match found. No opt-out clause.
/closes tab without signing up for yet another service because mandatory, binding arbitration clauses in business-to-customer services are a cancer that deserve to die and it's a shame that "bootstrapy," "customer-focused," "friendly" start-ups have fallen for this trap.
/opens Terms of Service. /CTRL-F, "Arbitration" .. Match found. No opt-out clause. /closes tab without signing up for yet another service because mandatory, binding arbitration clauses in business-to-customer services are a cancer that deserve to die and it's a shame that "bootstrapy," "customer-focused," "friendly" start-ups have fallen for this trap.
/opens Terms of Service. /CTRL-F, "Arbitration" .. Match found. No opt-out clause. /closes tab without signing up for yet another service because mandatory, binding arbitration clauses in business-to-customer services are a cancer that deserve to die and it's a shame that "bootstrapy," "customer-focused," "friendly" start-ups have fallen for this trap.
Heh, don't blame you. We did fight for and win approval to write a forward to our privacy policy to make it more accessible. Outside of that, we didn't want to innovate in an area we know very little about and instead deferred to what our law firm told us we should be doing.
I get that you're dealing with financial things and financial outlets are inherently risk-averse but if my credit union can manage to not get sued into oblivion while lacking a mandatory, binding arbitration clause, you could, too. SoFi pulled off having an opt-out clause in their agreement; that's the least I expect these days.
This is one reason why I've started doing business more and more with European-based companies. Their local laws don't permit such customer-unfriendliness.
(Edited to add: if I'm trusting you with read/write credentials--since no other kind exist--to my financial accounts, yes, I expect to retain the right to sue if you screw up gloriously. That your lawyers pushed for you to make your users sign away that right is telling.
I'm genuinely sorry if I'm coming across as hostile; this isn't personal at you, specifically. I'm just sick and tired of being told "you get to tell us everything about you in order to use our shiny new service and if we drop the ball or miss a semi-colon and every penny you own is funneled to Moon Base Alpha Seven, well, sorry, hope the arbitrator chosen by us, paid by us, and with a financial incentive to be used by us in the future is willing to award you a few ducats for your trouble." I keep hoping for better from HN-funded startups and so rarely get it.)
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…
Yup, Penny tries to focus on your discretionary spending since that's where you have the most agency. She tells you both your non-bills spending (assuming bills are mandatory) and your total spending, so you can get a sense of your spending that isn't basic needs. We also have spending goals which are curated to be mostly discretionary spending (eating out, department stores, etc).
I suppose feedback / question: I'm a Mint user, and it wasn't clear to me why I should consider switching to this? I'm potentially interested since I do care about this stuff. Here's my reaction reading the faq: // What makes Penny different from other apps? // Penny makes your finances less intimidating and stressful. Many apps have lots of useful features, but they’re often hard to use and time-consuming. Would app…
What do you use on the backend for auth storage? Yodlee?
For people in the U.K. there is Cleo[0]. It is also a chatbot that provides insight into finances primarily via messenger. (Full disclosure: I work for Cleo :) ) [0] https://www.meetcleo.com
It's so great to see Cleo expanding and hiring people. I remember first seeing Cleo way back when it was just the two founders (didn't they meet each other at some startup hackathon type event?) and they were rolling out cleo as a SMS based money assistant. Looks like you guys shifted towards the Messenger platform. We ( http://dispatch.pm/ ) looked in to the messenger platform but found it a bit restrictive for our…
yes, you're right, we still have text features, but we provide users a better experience with messenger so suggest that they use that. About the founders they met at EF (entrepreneurs first) and then started to develop Cleo.
With respect to messenger, we've found it a suitable platform for our current needs. We're always looking for the best channel to reach our users on, but I think we'll keep messenger as a core channel, even if/when we do move to other channels.
Out of interest, what things made you decide against messenger?
EDIT: Also, out of interest, have you got any plans for an android or web-app? (don't use IOS and am interested to check out your service).
(views expressed are mine and not necessarily my employers, e.t.c.)
I suppose feedback / question: I'm a Mint user, and it wasn't clear to me why I should consider switching to this? I'm potentially interested since I do care about this stuff. Here's my reaction reading the faq: // What makes Penny different from other apps? // Penny makes your finances less intimidating and stressful. Many apps have lots of useful features, but they’re often hard to use and time-consuming. Would app…