5 ms·
Ask HN: Do you hate all personal finance software? Want to make a better one?
I never liked Microsoft Money though I used it. Then Redmond killed off the product and suggested I switch to Quicken. So I did, and I HATE IT. I think it is terrible. It tries to do 4,000 things and does none of them well. My wife asked my today if I had paid the Macy's bill, I pulled it up, found the search and entered 'Macy' - pretty straight forward use case...alas, no luck.
I am thinking of attacking the problem. Creating something that has the best of the desktop world and the value of the internet world while staying ultra-paranoid secure. Something wholly extensible where hackers can embrace and extend and offer their wares to the rest of the community through an extension market as part of the system.
I look at the position of Intuit in the market, their competitors and feel like they are ripe for a 37signals, do less better type of sniper hit.
Anyone interested in helping?
- albertsun 16y agoMint is the new standard to beat.
- keithwarren 16y agoMint was bought by Intuit.
- count 16y agoMint also forces me to give them my account info. I don't even let my Quicken copy talk to the web (disconnected VM), let alone give all my account info to a 3rd party for storage and use. I'm sure I'm just being irrational, but that terrifies me.
- abrandoned 16y agoMint may be considered the standard to beat from the UI perspective, but I would question them as the standard for financial success (budgeting, envelopes, cash flow), "who pays?" http://abrandoned.com http://abrandoned.com, and how to handle acquisition http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/why-mint-doesnt-measure-up http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/why-mint... These are a few of the questions that led to http://myjibe.com http://myjibe.com
- marknutter 16y agoIt's a very crowded space, even for the whole 37signals style apps. I suggest you do more research into all the other startups and smaller, simpler solutions that exist out there and determine if there's really an opportunity.
- tjpick 16y agoXero? http://www.xero.com/ http://www.xero.com/
- clyfe 16y agoI have this same idea for a long time. One thing I thought (to gain market) of was to restrict the clients for the app to a single country (personalized by local laws etc.) but in my country there is already a competitor, and making for other countries seems a bit over my hand.
- gopsig 16y agoSome entrepreneurs at SproutBox are attacking this problem, too. http://blog.sproutbox.com/2010/07/28/sproutbox-announces-next-sprout/ http://blog.sproutbox.com/2010/07/28/sproutbox-announces-nex...