

Smooth Wallet - Personal finance that doesn't suck. - nicksergeant
http://smoothwallet.com/

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gks
Yea. I love seeing new stuff.. But you have nothing to show.

I'm not going to sign up for a site just to see what it does. You really
should show users more before forcing them to sign up. Some sites can get away
with this, but a finance site cannot in my opinion.

Show me why it "doesn't suck" before you make me sign up and spend time
getting it running. For all I know the site is awesome, but you haven't shown
me and when it comes to my money I don't like having to discover the apps that
I want to use to organize it. I want to know what it does before I start
looking at it because for all I know it doesn't do something that absolutely
need. Then you're wasting my time and that is money.

Sorry, more info on the front page like a tour is needed. Otherwise, you lost
me as a potential customer.

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nicksergeant
I'm not asking anyone to sign up. I'm "letting them" get a notification email
for when we launch / have updates.

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bjtitus
I think this is a good time to compete in the finance market but don't forget
your competing with a fairly entrenched opponent in Mint. I would try to focus
on working in agreements/your own mobile app. Maybe take a look at Back to
Black or Saver on iPhone to sync with entries from mobile phones.

If you have auto import from banks then you will need major differentiators
from Mint which could be as simple as being able to easily search/manipulate
transactions in a clean interface.

Without auto import from banks, you need a way to make entry effortless. I
think the idea of entering transactions into a non-mobile facing app will
fade. If people want to keep track of transactions manually themselves, they
will enter them in a mobile app and then analyze them on their computers.

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nicksergeant
Exactly my thinking. I've been doing manual-entry checking account ledgers for
10 years, and I've tried to love Mint several times. The manual entry gives me
confidence that I know exactly where my money comes from / goes.

The phone part is really for checking your "safe to spend" balance on the fly.
I really miss that with desktop-based programs.

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nicksergeant
Another startup of mine - aiming to add yet another solution to the personal
finance conundrum. Personally, I'm sick of iBank, Koku and Quicken getting it
all wrong (for my preference, anyway).

So this is a web-based money management app similar to what Wesabe was doing a
while back.

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nicksergeant
More info: Quicken is slow, crashes. Koku is nice but no phone integration.
iBank is a mess of features that totally broke with the latest version (I'm
still on iBank 3).

Smooth is at-its-core a manual checking account manager. Yes, some people
still actually prefer to manually add transactions, and I'm one of them.

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WadeWilliams
Sounds cool ? I would have signed up for a trial or looked at it a little more
if you didn't make it painfully obvious that after I take the time to set it
up I'll be charged $5 per month in the future. FWIW I spent about 5 seconds on
the website and then left.

Iterate!

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nicksergeant
I've paid hundreds of dollars for personal finance software that each turned
out to be terrible (Quicken, iBank, Koku, in that order).

$5 per month is a reasonable price that will motivate me to continue making
the product kick ass for those who value it as much as I.

If confidence & organization with your personal finance isn't worth $5, then I
suggest you use your bank's built-in online system or Mint.

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Skywing
Just an observation, but the left and the right screen shots appear to show
basically the same thing.

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nicksergeant
They do. Don't have anything else to show at this point :)

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tmcw
Gutsy. But you've already got a sign up page and a precise price tag on a
product that only has one screen-shotable page so far?

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nicksergeant
Yes.

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marcomonteiro
I like gutsy! Good luck. Maybe we can talk about an iOS app to go along with
it.

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nicksergeant
Yes! That's definitely in the plans. Email me nick@nicksergeant.com

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woodall
So, you submitted a site with 2 pictures and a notify me button? No text to
tell us why you are better than Quicken? No "demo"? Add some more information
please.

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nicksergeant
See comment above.

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darklajid
Personal finance that doesn't suck sure starts with a screenshot showing a
$10.000 balance...

But that just as well implies that the guy who creates this app for his own
use (according to other comments here) probably won't be able to help me get
into shape, saving/planning wise..

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nicksergeant
Those numbers are completely random.

I'm building the app for myself, the way _I_ want a checking account app to
actually work. iBank, Quicken, Koku are all missing something. I'm going to
fix the problems that I perceive as roadblocks, and offer it to people who
might also agree with me.

And the people who agree with me on those features probably have ideas for
other good, interesting and innovative features in the personal finance world.

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zacharydanger
How will this stack up to something like GnuCash?

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nicksergeant
GnuCash is downloadable software targeted towards tech-minded folks. Smooth is
a web app + mobile interface aimed at a different audience. Similar
functionality, though.

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Hisoka
I like the name. I've tried Mint and find it lacking. It's automated but at
the same time, it's not because i find myself having to fix account login
issues from time to time. It's become so annoying that I don't check Mint
often because it's so inconsistent. Plus the categorization just leaves a LOT
to be desired.

A better interface would be one where I record the stuff I pay a fee monthly,
such as web hosting, Github, online subscriptions, etc, and see at a glance
all the monthly expenses I have, and the %. Sometimes I just wanna see how
much I'm paying for that MailChimp subscription because i forgot, and Mint.com
is too cumbersome for that.

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nicksergeant
Yes, exactly. iBank works _ok_ for the account register, but there's
absolutely no good way for me to see my "safe to spend" balance which should
deduct those monthly bills / expenses. I've got it rigged up in iBank as
future transactions, but that's far from ideal. That's when I decided to
create something to suit me better.

