I’m sure as hell lucky to have bet on Mint when Microsoft Money died… but to be honest it was a flip of a coin decision, Wesabe, the other web-based personal finance management program looked just as attractive. Good product, perfect pedigre, strong VC funding. Now Wesabe is in the deadpool while Mint essentially became Quicken Online.
A comparative analysis of the two, and why one died why the other thrives would be a very educational startup story – if somebody close enough to the fire has the facts.
Wesabe users have until July 31st to export their data (a rather short period, if you ask me, given the importance of such data.). I certainly hope Mint (Intuit) will step up the plate and offer streamlined migration.
In the meantime, I’m just lucky having bet on Mint. 🙂
(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)
From a business development perspective, there is little arguing with Mint's success, and I for one would love to hear an insider deliver a post-mortem on Wesabe but I question the value such applications are delivering to their users. I appreciate the fact that this kind of thinking paints me as a bit of a "boy scout" but clearly businesses are attempting to appear as if they're more in tune with their customers needs, especially their financial concerns.
Zoli, I'm aware that looks can be deceiving but given your credentials I'm not sure your experience is typical of the average Mint or Wesabe user. Nonetheless, I would also be very interested to hear what value you derive from being a Mint user. Most of us have been making poorer financial decisions for quite some time and sites like Mint and Wesabe have us focused on past spending, where all our mistakes lie instead of focusing on the future plans where change for the better must eventually take place.
I understand why Mint et al operate as they do. For all their supposed novelty they're really just more of business as usual in my mind. I'm attempting to prove that something larger than small scale success is possible by focusing purely on delivering value to users and very little else. I would love to hear your readers' thoughts especially any cautionary tales about the path I'm pursuing.
Thanks.
I guess I am a less-then-ideal user for Mint. I don't care about social stuff, sharing, stats, any of the analytical stuff. In fact I have not looked at the budgeting features of MS Money or Quicken for a long time.
All I want is a reliable "book-keeping" program that downloads all my spending automatically, does some categorization and helps me use the data at Tax time.