[HN Gopher] 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
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6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far
Author : jnfr
Score : 201 points
Date : 2020-03-06 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lunchbag.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (lunchbag.ca)
| stevoski wrote:
| Hey Lunch Money founder, if you are reading these comments, a big
| congratulations on reaching $1K so quickly! I loved reading your
| story so far.
|
| IMO getting to that first $1K is harder than getting from $1K to
| $10K. Most first timers never make it to $1K at all.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| To be clear, 1k to 10k in recurring revenue (SaaS style). I
| sell one time purchase apps, and I'm not sure I'll be able to
| scale from what I make (2k$/month) to even 3k$/month any time
| soon.
| rhizome wrote:
| To be sure, what you have is MR, not MRR.
| hopia wrote:
| Can I ask why you picked this model instead of a subscription
| based model?
| ronyfadel wrote:
| If you check the apps I currently offer (link in my
| profile), I'd have a hard time asking for recurring
| payments. I'm basically implementing missing OS features.
|
| I have other products in the pipeline where I will consider
| a subscription model.
| projektfu wrote:
| Are you on a path to get 5-10x users?
| jazzex wrote:
| I subscribe to this application, and I love it. I was not one of
| the first 100 to experience any of these difficulties, and the
| one bug I did experience was fixed by Jen two days after I
| pointed it out. In the mean time, Mint still has not deleted my
| account two months after I requested it...
| daenz wrote:
| >That is until I realized that it was my own dumb fault because I
| accidentally left my Plaid environment set to development
|
| One of the last things you do before launch is pay money to
| yourself by running a real payment with real money in production.
| An automated test for config is nice, but nothing beats actually
| doing the critical thing yourself before launching to the world.
| darkerside wrote:
| > which only supported 100 connected accounts. My free test
| accounts which I had been diligently rationing up until this
| point had been depleted and Plaid was rightfully denying any
| new connections.
|
| You picked an odd time to stop reading!
| codysc wrote:
| The bit about the lack of a mobile app, and the over-compensating
| for it was a great illustration of guessing at the importance of
| features to users. Something I'm dealing with a lot right now as
| I strip out incomplete features to get to a better MMP. Thanks
| for posting.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I had that revelation last week. Well, actually earlier but it
| took a while to settle.
|
| The plan was to build product until around May / June, simply
| because I wanted a little bit more sophistication than
| spreadsheets ( these would do the job, by the way). A chance
| encounter with a potential customer ended with me sending an
| offer after his most important question was "are your
| transports insured". Pretty much looks like my MVP is much more
| M than I assumed!
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yep! I took over a 3 year old product where we're
| rewriting/refactoring a lot of features that we're poorly
| engineered (and UX designed). For a bunch of them, the
| "rewritten" version is just stripping out the feature, because
| no one is using it or ever has used it.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| Currently use YNAB and it drives me bananas. The way it refuses
| to reconcile budgeted money for a CC against the interest/fees
| for that card as monthly payments often go out BEFORE interest is
| assessed for the month, requiring a convoluted interest bucket
| and juggling. I'll give this a shot.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The way I treat interest/fees is as just another expense. Then
| there's no juggling. But I manually enter all the transactions,
| I don't know how this works if you automatically get
| transactions, as it would depend on how the CC or other
| companies add interest onto the statement (as a regular
| transaction or separately). So once a day (typically, at least
| 3-4 times a week) I go into each account and YNAB and make sure
| everything is present. If interest or fees are present, I add
| those as transactions. YNAB properly accounts for it (if you
| budget money into the interest/fees categories) for the next CC
| payment.
| Guidii wrote:
| WRT the android/ios app question: Why do you want to implement a
| native app? Seems like a significant investment if you're already
| meeting user needs with your PWA offering.
| davidsawyer wrote:
| I'd recommend listening to the Indie Hackers Podcast episode that
| Jen was a guest on. Super enjoyable listen.
|
| https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/150-jen-yip-of-lunch-mo...
| dunky11 wrote:
| I would change the footer of your website. The yellow background
| / white text combination is really hard on the eye. I would
| switch to a lighter shade of yellow for the background and black
| text instead.
| kayson wrote:
| I'm always hesitant to use any of these services because (AFAIK)
| they need to store your banking credentials in order to access
| your account. The one exception I've found to this is Chase,
| which actually has an API. But even with providers like Plaid,
| its not clear whether the API is being used - I don't think it
| is, because the request does not go to Chase.
|
| Is there a better way? Or a service that would let me enter
| credentials if I want to update data? Rather than storing them
| and updating automatically...
| HeavenFox wrote:
| I am building a similar app as a hobby, and have done some
| research on this. I am also very interested in avoiding Plaid,
| mostly because they are very expensive, and require a signed
| contract with them for production use (which I don't want to do
| under my own name, and forming a LLC is also expensive).
|
| Without Plaid, you only have three options: connect to bank
| yourself with OFX, let user upload OFX file, or let user upload
| CSV.
|
| OFX stands for Open Financial Exchange, an open standard to
| programmatically access and transmit financial data - which is
| basically Plaid, but provided by the banks themselves, which as
| you can imagine is 1000x worse than Plaid.
|
| Connecting to bank using OFX is really annoying. First, if you
| want to do it without storing the user's credential, you need
| to run the app in the user's computer, so forget about auto
| update in the background. Second, I don't know a single bank
| that publishes their OFX connection parameters, so people rely
| on crowdsourced data, which is iffy at best and totally
| unreliable at worst. Finally, OFX is a disastrous format to
| parse. It uses SGML (!!!) and require DTD to parse correctly
| (!!!!). Furthermore, banks' implementation are, as you can
| imagine, widely inconsistent. For example, each transaction is
| supposed to have a unique identifier. However, HSBC decided to
| reuse them, so you can't completely rely on it to dedupe your
| input.
|
| To be fair, OFX has improved, and the latest revision abandoned
| SGML in favor of XML and introduced OAuth for authentication.
| But few bank support them, and among those that do, the API is
| still not public, so you probably need to talk to the bank's BD
| people to use them. For example, Chase says "Access to the
| Developer Ecosystem is currently by invitation only and limited
| to developers and businesses that have a relationship with
| Chase."
|
| Most banks support downloading OFX file yourself, so you can
| just let user upload them manually. This is obviously a huge
| hassle for the users, and you have the same problem with
| parsing OFX format.
|
| For the rare cases where OFX is not available, you can count on
| CSV. However, since there's no standard, you can't automate the
| import, and must require user input to annotate the columns,
| which further increase user friction.
|
| In conclusion, in today's landscape, Plaid is a necessary evil
| if you want to have a seamless user experience. Anything that
| preserves user privacy will result in a 10x worse UX.
| kayson wrote:
| I reached a pretty similar conclusion investigating OFX to
| add support to Firefly III. I think best case scenario would
| be to setup OFX connections to the institutions that require
| the user to enter credentials and manually refresh data.
| Unfortunately you wouldn't get the benefit of automatic
| budgeting/spending alerts, but in my case, for just tracking
| spending, it would work. Right now I have to export each
| account to csv monthly, and import to Firefly. Fortunately
| the import settings are saved as JSON so as long as the
| format doesnt change it works well enough.
|
| I have read in some places that you can get OFX access as an
| individual if you call the right customer service dept.
| homero wrote:
| How close is this to Mint? I'd be interested in paying for a Mint
| alternative. They've really gone downhill plus they sell my
| information.
|
| But then again I don't trust Plaid and avoid them at all costs.
| roughfalls wrote:
| This looks great and I'm inclined to give it a try. But do you
| have a privacy policy? I try to avoid services that sit between
| me and my financial institutions, as I worry they're building
| analytics off my spending patterns and selling it to third
| parties.
| projproj wrote:
| I felt the same way, and it's part of why I made spendweek.com
| (a privacy-first, easy-to-use competitor to Lunch Money, YNAB
| with a single focus on saving money instead of keeping track of
| all your accounts). I am sort of proud of my privacy policy, so
| it's a link right at the top of the home page.
|
| Here's the basic manifesto of the SpendWeek framework in case
| anyone's interested: https://www.spendweek.com/blog/you-need-a-
| different-budget/
| nikon wrote:
| There are more than 4 weeks in a month, should you not divide
| by 4.33?
| jtbayly wrote:
| "A $5 monthly membership adds up to $72 per year."
|
| Nope. Might want to fix that.
|
| https://lunchmoney.app/features/recurring
| ALLLOWERCASE wrote:
| Comical. A budgeting app that can't get basic math correct.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Compounding!
| viklove wrote:
| I don't even understand how you could get a number not ending
| in 5 or 0 and think it's remotely correct...
| kaishiro wrote:
| Presumably because they used to have $6 in the copy (or in
| their head) and fat fingered it.
| [deleted]
| xutopia wrote:
| Probably because they AB tested multiple prices as the
| article states and settled on the current price and forgot to
| replace one mention of an older price in the copy. No
| biggie... doesn't mean that person is dumb.
| ericmcer wrote:
| The part about the lack of an app is a great insight, I think
| people do have a lot of fatigue around apps right now, and a
| really well done responsive page will work for most users.
|
| Most of the features enabled by making an app are ones users are
| tired of: push notifications, mic/camera access, etc.
| sydney1 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I've been using Lunch Money for a couple
| months and really like it.
| lbj wrote:
| What a trooper. Well written, very interesting journey and very
| forgivable mistakes for a startup. Hope this takes off big time
| blakesterz wrote:
| This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I
| liked this one:
|
| "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your
| product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!"
|
| As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always
| check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't
| free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually
| "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We".
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually
| "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We".
|
| I tend to assume that a lot of times this is because "We" is a
| lie, it's "Me" and they want to avoid revealing that it's
| someone's side project.
|
| I could be completely wrong. I am a lot.
| rhizome wrote:
| Not to jump on you specifically, but seriously, why does this
| matter? I'm not saying "don't think about this thing I don't
| think people should talk about," I'm saying, "in what way is
| pronoun selection important?"
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _I 'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually
| "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We"._
|
| That's something I often get instructed to use when doing
| freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and
| "corporate speak."
|
| The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes
| intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy
| with a very "foreign" sounding name legally changed his name to
| something normal WASPy sounding because it was a barrier to
| doing business. I have seen at least one article on the front
| page of HN where a woman founder was being sexually harassed
| and generally treated terribly by clients when doing support
| chats. She changed her picture and her name to make it appear
| you were dealing with a man and that largely stopped.
|
| I'm a woman and I've had to deal a lot with awful behavior from
| people, much of which is pretty clearly rooted in misogyny,
| basically. I'm still not sure what the best path forward is for
| me.
|
| One part of me is clear that hiding or downplaying my gender to
| try to be successful just reinforces sexism. Another part of me
| has to wonder if that's a hill I really want to die on or would
| I rather be able to, you know, eat more regularly and what not.
| z3t4 wrote:
| If you get somewhat a big audience you will get weird
| messages anyway, it doesn't matter if you are a man or women.
| For an app that probably have hundred of apps just like it I
| think it helps go get personal, you want to build trust and
| bound.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Damn, I might be guilty as charged! Not long ago, I
| officially launched greenleaves.io, a logistics startup. The
| main issue I have with the about us thing is, that for now it
| is just me. So I use a lot of we and such (the co founder
| will join as soon as there is enough money to sustain a
| second person, we both have family, so...).
|
| Would you to have quick look at
| https://greenleaves.io/about/? Because the last two weeks
| told me that I might be overthinking a couple of things...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Try reading this: https://johnnycupcakes.com/pages/about
|
| Then sit down and "tell your story" in writing as if you
| were telling it over beers at a pub to a few new-ish
| friends who don't all equally well know your backstory. Get
| someone to read through it before publishing it. Good
| feedback is very helpful. Also, grammar check, spell check,
| etc.
|
| You want to be somewhat entertaining, but more importantly
| you want to capture as succinctly and compellingly as
| possible why you are uniquely/especially qualified to offer
| a new and better solution to an old and tired problem
| space, basically.
|
| There's also a movie clip I like and I've written about why
| elsewhere, so let me link you to that write up:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizenPlanners/comments/ecr2vv/ge
| t...
|
| I actually suck at the doing business thing or I would no
| doubt have some brilliant tie-in here to "And if you have
| trouble with that, you can hire me..blah blah blah." This
| is why I still work for a writing service. And I blog.
| clemParis wrote:
| I agree with the "tell the story as if you were telling
| it over beers at a pub" part but please don't make your
| page 9Mb like in the first example ;)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Someone at a meeting recently quoted some historical
| figure about "If you want me to write a speech of 5000
| words, that will be a thousand dollars. If you want me to
| write a speech of 500 words, that will be ten thousand
| dollars."
|
| Writing concisely is a virtue, but getting in all the
| details often matters more. It's fine if the first draft
| is wordy. If you can reach a point where it tells the
| story well and is also concise, you probably have
| something "worth its weight in gold."
|
| It can take a lot of time to get there. Good writing can
| take a lot of time. This is often not at all obvious.
| wolco wrote:
| I would recommend hiding your gender. You'd be surprised at
| how awful women can be to each other. The only people I see
| activity holding back women is other women. I just don't
| understand it.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Women being hit on anywhere they show a picture is pretty
| common. In western culture it's the men that are supposed
| to do the approaching, and if you're attractive and a lot
| of men can see you, well, the same thing always happens.
| This is fine for Victorian parlors or whatever but not
| ideal for business!
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| That's a fairly obvious problem, but I think the larger
| problem is what I said in my other comment: The lack of
| strong business connections.
|
| It is a self-reinforcing nightmare because it sets women
| up to assume that if a man is taking a strong interest in
| her, there is only one reason he could be talking with
| her. If she then reacts with flirtatious behavior or
| trying to make sure he understands whether or not she is
| romantically interested, etc, this can drive off men who
| would like to make a business connection and don't need
| some woman threatening their marriage, etc.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Part of the reason we're stuck in that nightmare is that
| there are so many workaholics out there that for many
| people, braving the obvious risks and downsides of doing
| relationship stuff "on company time" is their only path
| to not dying alone. It would be so much easier if we
| could all agree to divide the sterile from the personal
| right down the 5pm line, but there are too many people
| that have nothing on the other side of 5pm.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I think it's inherently tricky for reasons I tried to
| explain in an old blog post, recently republished here:
|
| https://witnesstodestruction.blogspot.com/p/the-gray-
| zone.ht...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _You 'd be surprised at how awful women can be to each
| other._
|
| LOL. No, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm well acquainted with
| the phenomenon.
|
| _The only people I see activity holding back women is
| other women._
|
| This framing may be on the mark, but my observation has
| been that the primary way men are a problem is that men
| mostly don't want to engage a woman too much if they aren't
| looking for a sexual relationship and this is a huge
| barrier to networking, getting referrals, etc. I don't
| think most men are intentionally, actively and on purpose
| trying to keep women out, but it's a big, big problem that
| they don't want to talk too much to a woman for fear that
| it might lead to an affair or a really terrible
| misunderstanding or gossip.
|
| For serious business people, a good reputation is worth a
| lot of money, so I think a lot of businessmen don't want to
| take the risk of talking overly much to a woman for fear of
| pointlessly sullying their reputation. In most cases, they
| don't strictly need to network with women to further their
| career, so it's just not worth the risk involved to them
| most of the time.
|
| _I just don 't understand it._
|
| I think I do, at least to some degree, but this is not
| really the time or place for me to natter on about it.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The "royal we" as they say!
| tr352 wrote:
| Related to this: I wonder if the days of founders naming their
| companies after their own (family) names are ever coming back.
| There's something wholesome about it and it inspires
| confidence. Who is more trustworthy: someone attaching their
| name to their business, or someone who hides behind WeeBlee or
| BlooBloo or whatever it is they came up with?
| rcfox wrote:
| I've always dreamt of doing that, but someone else already
| used my name: Fox. Even if there weren't probably some kind
| of trademark issue, there's definitely a negative sentiment
| associated with it.
| tr352 wrote:
| Add your first name or just your initials. That would
| pretty much solve that problem.
| reificator wrote:
| There's a reasonably popular streamer named Michael A. L.
| Fox, his URLs are his full name and in casual conversation
| he's referred to as MALF.
|
| It doesn't seem like there's been any association between
| him and the company Fox. In fact it doesn't even seem like
| there's any association between him and Michael J. Fox.
|
| My personal advice would be to brand around the imagery of
| a remote controlled fox and not bring up other things with
| the same name. The comparisons will happen but if you don't
| call attention to them I'd bet it happens less than you
| imagine.
| stevekemp wrote:
| To be honest I assume 99% of startup-stories about their
| inspiration, their journey, and their motivation are just
| faked.
|
| It is nice to see when it comes from an obvious solo-developer,
| but mostly these things are sanitized and improved over time.
| bluetwo wrote:
| Yep. I get so tired of the "Shark Tank Template" in which
| entrepreneurs must pretend that they stumbled upon the need
| their product fills.
| HorizonXP wrote:
| Wow, great job! I love how you're documenting all of this, it's
| super inspiring. Congratulations on this!
| drastorguev wrote:
| Did you struggle in convincing people to share their account
| details with an unknown startup? What if you are fraudster and
| not a real company?
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I use YNAB but I'm compelled to give this a try. I love the
| simplicity and I enjoy the transparency behind the product's
| development (not that it makes a difference while budgeting, but
| I'm a sucker for a personal touch). Really cool, I'm stoked to
| see how the trial goes. Thanks for sharing Jen. Keep up the great
| work.
| colinloretz wrote:
| I've tried YNAB and use Mint alongside Lunch Money and I'm
| super sold. I started using it when she first launched on HN
| and have been in love with it so far because it's super speedy
| and not as manual as YNAB. The way she handles recurring
| expenses is what made it for me. I set a task in my todo app to
| reconcile my transactions every day (usually only happens every
| week).
| xupybd wrote:
| I like the look of this. I would think about switching but I've
| paid a year of YNAB and I don't have the time to switch budgets
| right now.
|
| But I will probably re-evaluate in 11 months when my YNAB
| expires.
|
| Onboarding with the kind of products may take longer than the
| author realises. People like my self will need reminders that
| this product exists. It took years of YNAB ads for me to switch
| from HLedger and that really only happened because I needed
| something my wife could use after I got married and we merged
| finances.
| MapleWalnut wrote:
| It would be great if you could add an RSS feed to the blog.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2020-03-06 23:00 UTC)