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Review my App: Cheque-up

7 points by girasquid ↗ HN
http://cheque-up.com

Once you're signed up, you can text in 'balance' to retrieve your balance, and 'officemax, 42.49' or 'paycheque +10000' to update your budget.

It's still in the really early stages - but I'm looking for feedback and monetization ideas.

13 comments

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vyrotek
As a huge Mint.com fan I'm having a hard time figuring out why I would use this. I also have the Android app which lets me see a whole bunch of info about my budget automatically.

Is your target market people without smart phones? I could see this working with them. My biggest worry would be the fact people are lazy when it comes to budgets. I know I am. I like Mint.com because I can spend like normal without manually tracking it and eventually they send me an SMS saying STOP SPENDING MONEY. :)

girasquid
My target market so far is indeed people without smartphones, as well as couples - that's why I've got the little 'members' tab for keeping track of a budget collaboratively.

When I first set out to build it, I had to consider whether to make it something you hook up to your bank accounts, or something you manage yourself - I went the self managed route, because it lets you track things like cash on hand in addition to money in your bank account.

michaelbuckbee
Smartphones (which I'll define as anything with a keyboard that doesn't require you to do T9 input) are now so cheap that there is close to a 1:1 overlap between "smartphone owners" and "people who do anything with their phone other than talk on it".

I think this goes right to your addressable market: I'm concerned that you might be creating a cool, useful application for a non-web savvy, non-phone savvy market.

erikpukinskis
This seems cool to me... does it let me text in expenses, and then track my balance? Issues tho:

1) It wasn't really clear to me what "initial budget amount" means... monthly? I was expecting to put in my balance I think.

2) I think I was confused about the description too... description of what? My monthy budget? It's my monthly budget! What else is there to describe?

3) It says "Whoops! That password was bad" when I try to log in

erikpukinskis
If you're tracking expenses, you could maybe do a coupon business model? Like, people pay to send coupons to folks who are buying things in their target market.
[dead] girasquid
Sorry - again, it's in the really early stages :)

1) initial budget amount means balance, yes - I'll have to clean that up.

2) There are some underpinnings in place to eventually allow you to work with multiple budgets - so you could have a home budget, an office budget, and so on. I wrote most of the copy with that in mind, but it looks like I'll need to change that until I actually roll out that feature.

3) Try logging in with your phone number in the form "700 700 7000" - I've got some code to strip the non-digits from it, but for some reason it doesn't seem to have stuck.

md81544
You'll want to consider international users. I'm in France and, I'm sure, you're based Stateside. Will it work for a user such as me? I assume not... but if it will, tell the user, and give international dialing numbers.
[dead] girasquid
I'm actually based in Canada, but the company providing my phone numbers (Twilio) only supports SMS on the US numbers. If you try it out you should still be able to use it just fine (at least, I can with Canadian numbers) - but you may have to pay an extra charge.
imp
I don't know anything about your website and you expect me to give you my phone number? No thanks. Is there a link to a demo that I missed, because that would help a lot.
[dead] girasquid
You know, that's really a spot where I've gotten stuck. The whole app works like "text expenses to this phone number, get your balance back", and I have no idea how to demo it other than having people actually use it. Suggestions?
JangoSteve
Seems like a cool idea, and I can definitely see this working for the non-smartphone market, especially with people like my dad, who's company still issues a non-smartphone company phone.

However, by far the biggest red flag for me is that there is no About page or any description of what actually happens. Is there a web interface for me to login to after I've got some expenses logged? Or is it purely a phone-driven interface? Some screenshots, or maybe a diagram of the process would be essential here.

[dead] girasquid
Thanks for the feedback - I'll definitely look into adding an about page and some screenshots. There _is_ a web interface, so it looks like I'll need to add something about that too.