
Show HN: Slackbot for founders to track their startup's finances - ashnkumar
https://www.swayfinance.com/
======
rietta
The amount in the bank account is very, very different than the budget. A
startup should not be tracking its money on such a simple basis. Without
categories (or envelopes) the amount of cash is pretty meaningless without
knowing if is clear to spend.

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juecd
Makes sense. We're starting with accessible (and push-based) information to
complement founders' existing systems and then planning to build upon it in
the future. Thanks for the feedback!

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ceejayoz
This is potentially enormously sensitive data that'd be very valuable to
competitors etc. I'd want to see a much more extensive privacy policy than the
current state of
[https://www.swayfinance.com/privacy](https://www.swayfinance.com/privacy),
particularly as it's a free service in need of an eventual business model.

~~~
devnull42
And to add to that the real issue is that Slack stores data unencrypted on
their servers.

This would be handing your financial data over to a third party to old in an
unsecured format. Yikes.

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shostack
Wow--didn't realize that. If that's the case that's a major issue for anyone
considering building a product that transmits sensitive data on top of Slack's
platform.

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omni
Site feedback: the video at the top of your landing page only shows the output
of the bot for 4-5 seconds. Let it linger a bit longer so I can see what
you're offering.

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juecd
Got it - appreciate the feedback!

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flog
Why don't you just wire it up to the Xero API instead of the bank accounts?

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mattei
Agree - Xero, Intuit, MYOB, Saasu etc. Lends itself to more than just banking
data plus becomes an audience to market directly to.

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wmboy
Yep, could calculate things like invoices owing, draft invoices that haven't
been sent yet, as well as calculating average monthly expenses so you know if
everything's looking okay or not.

Also, hooking into Xero immediately makes it usable by companies in countries
outside USA.

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juecd
We made a Slackbot for startups to tell them some simple financial metrics
(how much is in their bank account, and what their latest transactions in
those accounts are). We're connecting to company accounts through Plaid
(plaid.com) and sending them a financial 'digest' through Slack/email each
morning.

As consumers we've been using a couple apps like Digit (digit.co) to track our
personal finances but couldn't find a push-based version for companies.
Logging into our company bank accounts to keep track of transactions has been
pretty painful (online business banking UI is really hard to navigate) so
hopefully this can make the process easier.

We want to eventually incorporate burn-rate to help founders stay on top of
their company's money. Would love any feedback -- thanks!

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jchung
I'm a founder and the guy in charge of the $$$. This sentence doesn't resonate
for me: "Logging into our company bank accounts to keep track of transactions
has been pretty painful (online business banking UI is really hard to
navigate) so hopefully this can make the process easier."

If you've already tested your target customer segment and found that they find
this to be "pretty painful", then you can conclude that I'm an outlier. If you
have not already done customer discovery, I'd encourage you to check whether
this is actually a pain point you can market to. I've found our bank's website
to be pretty quick and easy to navigate.

~~~
tryitnow
I agree with the above. This seems like a "neat to have", but not a huge
productivity enhancer.

I'm seeing more and more apps like this. It's telling me that a lot of the
low-hanging fruit has been picked in this technology cycle and entrepreneurs
are looking desperately for unoccupied niches to fill.

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cj
There are a ton of Slack apps popping up.

Are they typically side projects? Or on the VC / startup path?

(This is not a dig at Slack apps, just curious whether people see a big market
here)

~~~
rohitv
It is probably because of the $80M fund
([http://slackhq.com/post/134878632730/launch-
platform](http://slackhq.com/post/134878632730/launch-platform)) Slack set up
for developing apps on their platform.

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lifeisstillgood
Is this a US thing? Getting programmatic access to my UK bank accounts is
still a nightmare. I must use a manual download process involving two factor
auth each time.

A company exists that scrapes the bank sites of all major banks but obv cannot
defeat two factor auth so for my accounts package I used to give them my
username and then have to enter the two factor each time anyway.

I conclude its too dangerous to give other companies my RW login details

Basically programmatic access to my accounts - forget it. Differentiated
access (RO, RW, fine grained), don't make me laugh.

Is this just UK? Is there a better bank Inshoukd move to?

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fiatjaf
Would this be a useful app without Slack?

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HenryTheHorse
Yes. One would log into their bank website/app and into Quickbooks.

What am I missing?

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psawaya
This is a really cool idea! Especially excited about the daily
updates/reporting

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graeme
Does it support only US banks? I'm in Canada, with US and Canadian accounts.

~~~
juecd
We're only in the US for now (most financial institutions supported). Hoping
to expand access in the future!

