Yeah, really terrible landing page, I'm afraid. You'll have an extremely low conversion rate which will be a big waste of a Show HN. The announcement post is also hidden quite small in the footer. I would have ignored this as legal if it weren't for the parent comment.
As it is, I'm not going to sign up without some clear value. Hope to see it again with an improved landing page.
The reason the landing page sucks is because Ballistic wasn't really intended to be a product. I created it mainly for two reasons:
1. I made a simpler version of the app before to learn node and found myself using it often. I wanted a version with more features and so I created Ballistic.
2. I wanted to use it as a portfolio item I could reference when applying to jobs which require Node/Angular.
I still think you're right though, so I quickly updated the landing page. Hopefully it's a little more clear now.
I coincidentally found it 2 days ago in your Github repo while looking for an alternative to Toshl & Co. that can do this kind of projections towards FI.
Didn't check it out yet but it looks good from the screenshots and you should absolutely post it on Reddit[1] as requests in this sub constantly pop up. You might "lose" plenty of otherwise interested people though because of the (lack of a proper) landing page.
May be the best tool in the world, but I'm not signing up for anything that has an invalid certificate and no landing page. Even a couple of basic screenshots would be encouraging.
I'm using a free ssl cert from https://www.startssl.com/. I think one of the caveats of it being free is that it's not supported by everything? I'm not sure though. It works for Chrome on Desktop it seems.
I just didn't want to spend money on an SSL cert for a project that's not intended to make a profit. Sorry for the trouble anyway.
This is almost very useful, but it's missing two features:
1. I want to index my passive income to inflation, meaning drawing down from principal if necessary; so you'll need to know my assumption rate for inflation and life expectancy.
2. My investment return rate will change (since I'll have a lower risk tolerance) when I reach my goal.
Fun fact: The term "inflation" usually refers to price inflation. Indexing passive income to price inflation makes sense in the short term.
However in the long term, especially when talking about retirement income, wage inflation (which is usually higher than price inflation) can produce more insightful results. Using wage inflation in an analysis means that you build in the increases in living that can be expected over the decades.
This comment was brought to you by your local HN actuary(ial analyst).
if this app could import the csv file generated from mint, it would be truly useful.
In mint, you cannot export the sub-categories, also the number of tags is limited to 10, I believe.
If this app can take in a mint csv, be able to dedup the records and add additional functionality, it would be the killer app.
25 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 56.0 ms ] thread[0] http://blog.jrmiller.co/ballistic-finance/
As it is, I'm not going to sign up without some clear value. Hope to see it again with an improved landing page.
The reason the landing page sucks is because Ballistic wasn't really intended to be a product. I created it mainly for two reasons:
1. I made a simpler version of the app before to learn node and found myself using it often. I wanted a version with more features and so I created Ballistic.
2. I wanted to use it as a portfolio item I could reference when applying to jobs which require Node/Angular.
I still think you're right though, so I quickly updated the landing page. Hopefully it's a little more clear now.
Didn't check it out yet but it looks good from the screenshots and you should absolutely post it on Reddit[1] as requests in this sub constantly pop up. You might "lose" plenty of otherwise interested people though because of the (lack of a proper) landing page.
[1]http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
I've considered posting on reddit, but most subreddits (including that one) have rules against "self promotion", which they might think I'm doing.
So maybe try it out for yourself sometime and share it if you like it! :)
Perhaps we could get in contact with the developer and offer some feedback that might help?
It's not really intended as a proper product, just something I've been working on for my own use that I've decided to open up to others.
I just didn't want to spend money on an SSL cert for a project that's not intended to make a profit. Sorry for the trouble anyway.
However in the long term, especially when talking about retirement income, wage inflation (which is usually higher than price inflation) can produce more insightful results. Using wage inflation in an analysis means that you build in the increases in living that can be expected over the decades.
This comment was brought to you by your local HN actuary(ial analyst).
Would combo well with this app.
If this app can take in a mint csv, be able to dedup the records and add additional functionality, it would be the killer app.