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by robbfitzsimmons
4605 days ago
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I think actually the basic problem with Mint isn't those mentioned in the article (UI is meh, miscategorized transactions, data import customization). It's actually as mentioned in Wesabe's postmortem (http://blog.precipice.org/why-wesabe-lost-to-mint/); for most people Mint doesn't actually get you to change your behavior. It just provides twentysomethings with some feeling that they're managing their finances, in return for getting pitched credit cards. Harder and more worthwhile than UI or functionality fixes are changing twentysomethings' behavior, or doing something interesting for older people with more complicated financial situations. [Mint's useless for my parents, with multiple bank accounts, investments, retirement, education and health savings accounts, etc.] One problem (and barrier to good competitors) are that aggregating finance data sucks. Mint started with Yodlee, which is nothing but a scraper for bank sites, and now runs on something Intuit built internally. It's hard to imagine many startups meaningfully tackling the problem. |
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Bingo! If you're spending more money than you should, it does you no good to see colorful graphs indicating you spent too much. If you get budget alerts but still blow through your budget, it really does you no good. Maybe it even makes you more resolute in your careless spending.