[dkzlv]

Hi there! I'm the founder of this app.

It's very upsetting that you found us scam-alike. It was never meant to be this way. If anything, we're trying to be the opposite: we open-sourced the whole app, we do not ask for your email during sign up, we wrote a post about our security measures in details (https://safeapps.io/content/security).

We'll work on our marketing to be more… convincing?

[mousepilot]

LOL I gotta say man, whoever "we" is that is in charge of marketing needs to go. Hire someone that actually works in marketing, and same goes for the web developer. Also whoever wrote the copy for the website, fire them also.

On the other hand, I bank online and KNOW my data ends up on the banks server in a readable format and still do it because trust itself is built by what the audience perceives and there are HUGE network factors in play when building trust. There is no trust momentum for you guys considering the sort of information you expect customers to trust you with.

Also, you seem to think that you're selling to customers who routinely develop proofs about what bob can keep safe from alice or whatever, but are those really the folks who will make your product a win? I would almost think those folks would more likely be your competition rather than your customers. Heck, I really can't tell who you are marketing to honestly.

If you were an online battle tank game and asking 60 a year its a completely different story.

[jeroenhd]

I don't believe your app is a scam, I think it's just a combination of unfortunate design and language decisions. Your product seems absolutely fine to me, and I have no doubts about the technical measures you've taken.

The first thing that comes to mind for building a better reputation is probably your branding. Picking "safe" as a software brand gives off a paradoxical feeling of unsafety, in the "[safe] free Windows 12 download [open source][free!!].dll.bat.exe" kind of way. Adding a tag like [safe] or [free] or (recommended) is something spammers and scammers do to try to convince their victims to click. I don't think you can pull something like that off without being a well-known brand first, not with that brand name. Matrix.org, for example, has the [Matrix] brackets as a brand, but the word "matrix" isn't used for anything dubious. Their links also don't use the [brand] marking in their ads.

Because of all this, I think your brand (unintentionally) mimics a lot of scam ads, which is why my first thought would be "this is a scam, report". Your website, "safeapps.io", has a feeling I associate with "securefiles.com" or "freewindowsupdatez.net" for much of the same reasons.

Your TLD, .io, is very popular for modern (web) developers but when I think about my bank details, the British Indian Ocean Territory isn't exactly what comes to mind. Perhaps a minor detail few people will fall over, but it's kind of ironic to have the TLD of a remote island nation for a financial software package :)

Perhaps I'm not your target audience, but I want any service I trust with information about my finances to be professional. Your website seems inspired by popular, modern, energetic branding, the kind I'd expect from a soda brand or a kids' commercial. I'd personally much prefer a boring, run-of-the-mill Bootstrap theme with some added branding over the artsy website you've created. That's just a personal preference, of course; maybe you want to show that you're not one of those stuffy bankers, and maybe I'm just too boring to get that. Modern marketing has shown that this strategy definitely attracts some people.

In the end, I'm just a random voice on the Internet. I'm no marketeer, I've never met any investors, and I don't run paid service of my own. You probably shouldn't base your entire marketing campaign on my ramblings.

I do think you should think about your branding, though, especially the way you present it in ads, and consider picking a brand name that's not as easy to confuse with a link that'll install malware. Besides, you can probably use a more recognisable brand name than "safe money". "[SOTANY]" or many other words from thisworddoesnotexist.com probably work a lot better for a software brand than "[safe]"!

[dkzlv]

Your input is invaluable, thanks. Honestly, I appreciate it

I see that your comment got the most upvotes here, so it IS what I needed to hear.

At least I won't need to change a lot in the product itself as it actually has a rather boring and standard design: https://imgur.com/a/KabWkNS

I think we'll go with your idea of changing the brand and the landing. Might help.

[jeroenhd]

I'm glad I could help. Best of luck to you and your project!