Hunter Hodnett
@hunterhod
Piggybank calculates daily, weekly, and monthly running budgets that can be recreated with Google Sheets and some no-code services like IFTTT (that’s what I was doing when I was originally solving the problem for myself), but the no-code services can get expensive and manually entering purchases and finance info into Google Sheets can be a pain...still, it’s a possible substitute
One issue I've seen related to monetizing cost-saving services is that they, by design, attract price-sensitive customers.
So that might be tricky and indeed something you should test. Hopefully you can figure it out in a manner of days or at most weeks. You wouldn't want to spend months on something people won't pay for.
Unless you can find an alternative revenue model similar to comparison sites, where you take a commission. Those models are somewhat proven, but require a large enough userbase.
That makes a ton of sense! I'll probably sideline some features and prioritize an earlier launch. Thanks for the help :)
Unknown: Are people willing to pay $5-$10 for a personal finance service when so many free alternatives exist? Selling data is a hard no for any business that I create, and I'm making a bet that people will pay for data privacy.
How to find out: Launch sooner rather than later :) if an MVP fails to gain traction among people who have a vested interest in trying out the things that I make (friends, family, coworkers), I'll have a pretty good idea of whether or not I'm onto something.
When I do know: If people are willing to pay, great! If not, I may launch as a free service and find a data-conscious way to connect people with vetted financial advisors (financial advisors would pay to be seen by users in their locale). This would effectively be a pivot to B2B I guess?
I wonder if you can find out this unknown, without even needing to launch the product.
Do you know what substitutes people are currently using to solve the same problem?
Piggybank calculates daily, weekly, and monthly running budgets that can be recreated with Google Sheets and some no-code services like IFTTT (that’s what I was doing when I was originally solving the problem for myself), but the no-code services can get expensive and manually entering purchases and finance info into Google Sheets can be a pain...still, it’s a possible substitute
One issue I've seen related to monetizing cost-saving services is that they, by design, attract price-sensitive customers.
So that might be tricky and indeed something you should test. Hopefully you can figure it out in a manner of days or at most weeks. You wouldn't want to spend months on something people won't pay for.
Unless you can find an alternative revenue model similar to comparison sites, where you take a commission. Those models are somewhat proven, but require a large enough userbase.
That makes a ton of sense! I'll probably sideline some features and prioritize an earlier launch. Thanks for the help :)
I joined very recently and plan to stay very active and engaged :)
My first impression of WIP was through a post on HackerNews about a year (or two?) ago. A successful startup posted their story, and mentioned that they couldn't have done it without the supportive community on WIP.chat. I'm all about supportive communities, so I immediately bookmarked the site and kind of forgot about it for a while.
Fast forward to life in quarantine. I have a ton of extra free time on my hands, so now I'm finally going after the businesses that I've been wanting to create. I remembered WIP.chat from the HackerNews post and immediately signed up. Isolation has been tough, so having like-minded people talking about entrepreneurship has been really helpful.
Not at the moment, but I'd love to get into it. Having a stream where people can follow my coding process sounds like fun, but I'd have to figure out how to hide sensitive information
Yeah hiding sensitive stuff like API credentials is tricky. The simplest solution is to only work on stuff where the likelihood of exposing such things is low. (i.e. nothing involving API usage, production data, etc)
I use Custom hotkeys to change screens on the fly. So if I am looking at something that shouldn't be shown, I hide my screen temporarily.
And when its about using that sensitive bit in code, put that into a flat file somewhere and just read from it in code while you work on it on-stream. Easy fix! :)
Late to the thread, but wanted to hop in!
This post actually encouraged me to tidy up my working space, so thank you :)
I have a light umbrella and boom-mic at my desk to facilitate online instruction for software engineering courses (I teach application development as my 9-to-5).
Love the light setup. Do you do any Twitch streaming as well?
Not at the moment, but I'd love to get into it. Having a stream where people can follow my coding process sounds like fun, but I'd have to figure out how to hide sensitive information
Yeah hiding sensitive stuff like API credentials is tricky. The simplest solution is to only work on stuff where the likelihood of exposing such things is low. (i.e. nothing involving API usage, production data, etc)
I use Custom hotkeys to change screens on the fly. So if I am looking at something that shouldn't be shown, I hide my screen temporarily.
And when its about using that sensitive bit in code, put that into a flat file somewhere and just read from it in code while you work on it on-stream. Easy fix! :)
I'm a fan of milkshake.app/. It inspires curiousity, which drives exploration of the product site, while still communicating the value proposition in a concise manner.
That makes a ton of sense! I'll probably sideline some features and prioritize an earlier launch. Thanks for the help :)