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Plaid was originally a budgeting app. After realizing how terrible banking APIs are, they pivoted to building a developer-friendly banking API. Now their valuat
by hbrn 4y ago
Plaid was originally a budgeting app. After realizing how terrible banking APIs are, they pivoted to building a developer-friendly banking API. Now their valuation is 10B+.
- bot41 4y agoThat is not that interesting. It's something everyone realizes when they try make a budgeting app. Plaid decided to break the rules to create a product. They collected end users authentication details and pretended to be them to scrape data from financial institutions.
- shepherdjerred 4y agoRisking every penny I own by trusting credentials with Plaid is a worthwhile trade off for having to deal with my bank’s website less.
- robocat 4y agoAhhhh, I didn’t realise the VISA buyout fell through. Plaid then got a 2021 round of $425MM at a $13.4B valuation “according to a person familiar with the matter”. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/plaid-hits-13point4-billion-valuation-in-the-wake-of-scrapped-visa-deal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/plaid-hits-13point4-billion-...
- Scoundreller 4y agoI throw this $1 bill at their direction in exchange for a 1 trillionth share.
- Xcelerate 4y agoSo what goes wrong with budgeting apps? Sounds like there would be a huge market for personal (or small business) finance, targeting traditional CPA/CFP approaches.
- 1270018080 4y agoMy dumb guess: The people financially-conscious enough to budget aren't the ones willing to pay for a budgeting service.
- bombcar 4y agoAnd everyone wants one customized for their exact setup. Excel works and wins.
- kulor 4y agoI can't find sources but having made a budgeting app in the past have first-hand experience from being in the domain. Small businesses are well catered for with tools like Xero, QuickBooks etc. There's a psychological issue of people treating their budgeting app as the bearer of bad news (shooting the messenger effect), which results in churn. There's also a high correlation between people looking for budgeting solutions being in a bad financial standing which makes the justification of paying for the software less likely.