Jul 06 2008

Personal Financial Management Options

July 6, 2008 – 9:20 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, business, investing | Tagged , , , | Comments

I have been actively managing my finances (i.e. budgeting, investing, etc.) for the past 4 or 5 years and have noticed that the process is substantially easier through the deployment of a personal financial management solution.

For the past 2.5 years I have been using the Utah-based start-up mVelopes for my financial management needs. I have really enjoyed the product, finding the user interface intuitive and complementary of my financial management strategy of budgeting first and spending only the allocated capital. Because mVelopes allowed me to support a local company, I truly tried to be an outstanding customer answering every survey sent my way and suggesting the product to numerous friends, a handful of which joined the service. However, in the last couple months the service has become patchy, ridden with connectivity and transaction issues. I am hoping that this is due to an increase in the user base, resulting in business growing pains. Yet, at the same time I can only wait so long for the engineers to resolve these problems as I am a paying customer .

The worst part about the mVelopes issues is the naïve attitude of the customer service. I have had to contact customer service at least 6 times in the past two months, resulting in the customer service agents tip-toe-ing around a real solution to the problem. It seems that they offer a temporary fix, but never offer me an end date for the actual solution nor compensate me for my loss of time and troubles. The connectivity issue is just a pain, but the missing transactions is disconcerting. For instance, once I noticed that I was missing a transaction and so contacted customer support to learn that in reality I was missing 28 transactions over the past 2 months that had hit their servers but weren’t being pushed through to my user interface. No apology, just a simple "we don’t do refunds due to our terms and services."

I would really like to continue using this product; however, I also need a solution that will consistently work.

As I contemplate switching offerings I noticed that the product characteristics that are a necessity for me, include:

  • User Interface – I want an user interface that is intuitive. Sure there is a learning curve with any new tool, but I am hoping for something I can figure out relatively quickly that allows me to slice and dice my data (for example I really like being able to see spending over custom time ranges, not just month-to-month).
  • Bank Access – When I first checked out Mint last year I couldn’t get access to a regional bank I use. That has now changed, but was obviously a major no when I first looked at the company.
  • Security – Many companies in this realm are start-ups, which makes me nervous for two reason. First, have they accurately approached security, encryption and storage? Second, will they still be in business in a year or two and if not, where will my data end up?
  • Reliability – These companies are dealing with my financials and must be reliable. What is the point of using a PFM solution if it doesn’t pull all my transactions?
  • Live-Chat Customer Service – Customer service is a necessity and live chat is just my personal preference. I personally like "on-demand" help, if needed.

Product characteristics I don’t care about:

  • Community – Does the whole web experience need to be social? Many of these companies tout the community aspect and I can see why this might be a draw to some people, but it just isn’t a priority for me to talk to strangers concerning my finances. Aggregation of articles and sites, sure. Random strangers giving me advice, not so important.

Players in this space include the following:
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Company: Mint
Software / Online: Online
User Interface: Very good
Bank Access: 6,500 banks
Budget Capabilities: Yes, but as a goal section rather than priority
Reporting: Yes
Investment Monitoring: Yes, but still in private beta
Community: No
Security: Verisign, HackerSafe, Truste, plus they do not record the user’s actual name, only email address. Mint provides a whole video of their CEO speaking solely to security plus a scroll down page with each point thoroughly discussed.
Reliabilty: Unkown as I have had limited use
Customer Service: Email only.
Comments: This company has been hyped, but for some reason has never quite worked for me the four times I have given it a shot. Today was the first time I could successful add accounts, only having problems with one regional bank that has image verification security. I figured I would try contacting customer support with the issue. No live chat, but an email function that automatically responded back to me with a “help is on the way” kind of thing (nice). The email said they would contact me concerning the issue within 24 – 48 hours, yet over-promised and under-delivered as I have yet to hear back after 72 hours. One interesting feature is the user can input in his/her zipcode and get a benchmark of what others in the area spend in each category.
Price: Free

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Company: mVelopes
Software / Online: Online
User Interface: Very good. The layout structure works really well for me but the company could make it look a little more professional.
Bank Access: 14,459 banks
Budget Capabilities: Yes, with a focus on the user sticking to a budget. The user sets asides the money in envelopes and when it is gone it is gone, unless the user pulls money from other envelopes.
Reporting: Yes, but I wish it had more features.
Investment Monitoring: No
Community: Yes, but quite separate from the main user face, which is nice
Security: Verisign, BBBOnline Reliability Program, Security Metrics Certified. The company provides a whole page discussing SSL, Session Management, Firewall Protection, etc.
Reliability: For the first couple years the product was fantastic. Within the past 3 – 4 months it has been have some issues.
Customer Service: A user can call, email or use live chat.
Comments: The company has been having some technical difficulties, specifically with connectivity (as mentioned earlier in my post). I really like the structure of the user interface as it makes the user think in terms of budgeting and staying within that budget. I wish their reporting capabilities where a little bit better and offered custom time frames. I do like supporting a local team, but their customer service has been hard to work with and would be the breaking point on why I switched services.
Price: ~$5 – 10 depending on the years of commitment.

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Company: Wesabe
Software / Online: Online
User Interface: Ok. A downloadable toolbar or software is necessary to add banks. I have given this company a try on two occasions and this step has temporarily stalled me from continuing to the next phases both times.
Bank Access: Unsure on exact number, but both my regional banks were listed.
Budget Capabilities: Yes, in a goal tab. I wish they had budgeting set up as a priority rather than an afterthought.
Reporting: Yes
Investment Monitoring: No
Community: Yes, but too much. The community is mixed in with the interface and I want my financials to seem private.
Security: The company implements “industry-standard encryption” and strips each user account of personal identifiers.
Reliability: I have not used enough to comment in this area
Customer Service: Email only.
Comments: When adding a bank account it re-directs to the bank page and then back to the Wesabe site. I think I read this had something to do with keeping the passwords straight between the banks and community. I don’t thoroughly understand the technicalities of why they do this, but I don’t like that I feel as if I am leaving the main Wesabe site.
Price: Free

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Company: Buxfer
Software / Online: Online
User Interface: Very Good
Bank Access: Unsure on number of banks, but both my regional banks were listed.
Budget Capabilities: Yes, but once again an after thought, not a priority
Reporting: Yes
Investment Monitoring: No
Security: A little hard to track down on the site. They state that they follow “industry standard encryption techniques and practices”, plus comment that passwords are encrypted prior to storage, transferred through SSL and decrypted only during authentication.
Reliability: I have not used enough to comment.
Customer Service: Email only.
Community: Unsure. It says you can add groups, but it appears that it adds people you know through email.
Comments: None.
Price: Free

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Company: Yodlee Money Center
No demo was available and I didn’t want to just cough up my information. No review.

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Company: Intuit Quiken for Mac (I am a Mac user so this would be the one of interest to me)
Software / Online: Both
User Interface: Very good but perhaps a little too technical that it isn’t completely user friendly
Budget Capabilities: Yes
Reporting: Yes, plus allowing custom date ranges
Investment Monitoring: Yes
Community: Yes
Bank Access: Unsure on actual number, but both my regional banks were listed.
Customer Service: A user can call, request a call back, email, chat, or check out their social media sites of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Comments: This is definitely the most professional option for personal finance that also includes reminders for bills and a tax tracking area. I am unsure if it autosyncs transactions or if the user must actually download into the software.
Price: $69 for software ($53 with very accessible coupons) plus $2.99 for online version

After looking at this breakdown, it seems that many of the web players focus on limited functionality but with a free price tag. When it comes to my finances, I would happily pay if I felt the solution was helping me to save money, assisted in thoroughly tracking my finances and still allowed me access to customer service when needed. Looking at the competitors I still lean towards mVelopes, of which my subscription expires in January and at which time I will re-assess. I am truly hoping that their technical issues are resolved at that point, otherwise, I might have to make the move towards Intuit.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, business, investing | Tagged , , , | Comments
Jun 14 2008

On Vacation: Squamish, BC

June 14, 2008 – 12:27 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in misc. | Comments

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I am on vacation, climbing in Squamish and Whistler. I had high hopes of putting out a couple posts while away… but… it hasn’t happened and most likely won’t. =) I will resume when I get home on the 22nd.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in misc. | Comments
Jun 02 2008

WordPress 2.5.1 is Elegant

June 2, 2008 – 10:31 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in blog, technology | Tagged , | Comments

The latest version of WordPress came out a couple weeks ago but I was stalling on upgrading due to a warning my hosting company posted. After doing two different types of backups, one through the hosting service and one through a shell script Rob wrote, I decided to take the plunge and do the WordPress upgrade. Two painless seconds later, I was good to go.

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The whole layout felt different and amazingly better. Easier to navigate, so far everything just worked, etc. I was so psyched with the fresh version, I figured I might as well look into all the side ideas that I had been meaning to get around to, i.e. google analytics, google webmasters and some SEO. (Thanks Jansen and Rob for your help)

I am really starting to enjoy this blogging / living hooked to my computer lifestyle. =)

By WasatchGirl | Posted in blog, technology | Tagged , | Comments
May 29 2008

Another Way to Help Serenity

May 29, 2008 – 11:39 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, utah, volunteer | Tagged , , , | Comments

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Numerous posts and tweets have been hitting the Utah scene lately concerning Phil Burn’s daughter, Serenity, being diagnosed with Leukemia. I blogged a couple days ago about the new Chip In Widget, created by Jesse Stay, that thankfully has been distributed amongst a handful of bloggers and is seeing a good up-tick in donations.

However, there is another way to help out.

I truly try to volunteer on a weekly basis (often posting about my experiences on the Cragbaby here, here and here), with my very favorite volunteer activity being donating platelets at ARUP. I have been donating platelets since last summer, trying to give every other week, health permitting. I find it to be the easiest form of service because by sitting and watching a movie (albeit with a needle in my arm) I can directly impact a life.

I choose to donate at ARUP because all donations are used at the local hospitals, helping cancer, transplant and traumatic injury patients. Platelets only have a shelf life of a five days resulting in a continual need. To date I have only been at the ARUP lab on one occasion where I was told they were finally catching up with demand, though they expected to be behind within the next couple days.

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The UtahBlood site shows where units of blood are being used. (I am not quite sure if this includes platelet distribution.)

If interested in the Serenity cause or are looking for a fantastic volunteer activity, consider platelet donation. An appointment with ARUP can be made by calling 801-524-5272.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, utah, volunteer | Tagged , , , | Comments
May 28 2008

Women Blogger Research

May 28, 2008 – 9:23 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in research | Tagged , | Comments

I subscribe to the Ken Radio newsletter. He often provides tidbits of information that I find interesting, with this last newsletter being no exception as it was concerning the demographic of the woman blogger. I couldn’t find this content on his site (perhaps it was just in his newsletter?!) so will share here.

The Women Bloggers
36.2 million women write and read blogs every week and approximately half consider blogs a “highly reliable’ or “very reliable” source of information and advice about everything from products to presidential candidates. 15.1 million publishing and 21.1 million reading and commenting. Fully 24% of women surveyed say they now watch less television because they are blogging instead. The new survey by BlogHer shows American women are drawn to participate in the blogosphere primarily because it provides access to the content they want, when they want it. Survey results also indicate that the blogging community’s fundamental trust in one another has contributed to its rapid growth. 68% of the female blogisphere community is concentrated in the 25 to 41 age group (the GenXr’s), compared to 42% for the general blogging population. Together, the Millienials and the Matures account for only about 10% of this community. Two thirds have completed college, and 46% earn over $75,000 compared to only 25% of the general community.

The blogging rates are highest among Millennials and GenX “digital natives” and Online media participation rates decline with increasing age.

Women are so passionate about blogging, that large percentages said they would give something up to keep the blogs they read and/or write:
* 55% would give up alcohol
* 50% would give up their PDAs
* 42% would give up their i-Pod
* 43% would give up reading the newspaper or magazines
* Only 20% would give up chocolate

Time shift from traditional media is accelerating in the general Internet population:
* 24% of women surveyed watch less television because of blogging
* 25% read fewer magazines because they are blogging
* 22% read fewer newspapers because they’re blogging

More than half of women surveyed consider blogs a reliable source of advice and information, half of women surveyed say blogs influence their purchase decisions.

Intriguing. In response to some of these questions (not all) concerning where I fit into this research:

  • I live in a household of 4 people, 2 of which are here on a part time basis. This is a new living arrangement though as I previously lived alone for the past 2.5 years.
  • I completed highschool, undergrad and have taken some computer science classes after completion of my business degree
  • I read, write and comment on blogs
  • I would willingly give up magazine and newspapers (as long as I could read the digital edition). In fact, I prefer to read online for environmental reasons.
  • I definitely watch less television and read less magazines and newspapers due to blogging.
  • And yes, blogs can influence my purchase decisions, especially when it comes to products of high interest (climbing gear, computers) or written by people who I trust / admire.

If you are a woman blogger, what are your responses to this survey?

By WasatchGirl | Posted in research | Tagged , | Comments
May 26 2008

Supporting Local Entrepreneurs….. and their Families.

May 26, 2008 – 11:27 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, utah | Tagged , , , | Comments

As many of you local readers and twitter-ers already know, one of the fellow technologist in the area, Phil Burns, learned this past week that his 22-month-old daughter, Serenity, has leukemia. Incredibly heart breaking news, but with the upside that she has immediately started chemotherapy and should be able to survive. His previous business partner, Jesse Stay, has created the Chip In Widget where donations are directly deposited into the Burns’ paypal account. The goal has been increased to raise $1,000 by June 23 and Jeff Barr has committed to donate an extra 15% to the final amount. I have integrated the Chip In Widget on both of my blogs on the right hand column.

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I have gotten to know Phil through a handful of his startups and by following his online presence. He is a good guy willing to take the continual risk of being an entrepreneur in order to provide innovation to many. I would urge you to help him out in this time of need.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, utah | Tagged , , , | Comments
May 26 2008

Super Hero Life. =)

May 26, 2008 – 8:50 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in misc. | Tagged | Comments

The WasatchGirl was once picked up by a SLC blog listing, not Connect Blogs (which I know syndicates my blog.. thanks Jordy) but another one I did not know. The site included a description of me that was along the lines of how I blogged on business, technology and venture capital and then on the weekends transformed from a conservative business woman to a climber. He he he… the description completely cracked me up as I would never describe myself as conservative (for the past two years have worn a nose piercing, even to work as ok’d by my employer) and I loved how it made me sound like some type of super hero that transformed between different identities.

I bring up this story because on occasion I like to post an entry to let new readers know that I do run two distinctly different blogs. The Wasatch Girl is where I track thoughts on tech and venture capital. The other half of my life consists of climbing, running, traveling, etc and is tracked on a site named after my little dog at www.cragbaby.com.

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Screenshot of the Cragbaby. Feel free to come over and read if interested.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in misc. | Tagged | Comments
May 25 2008

Understanding SteepAndCheap Advertising

May 25, 2008 – 9:39 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in business, utah | Comments

I am an active watcher and customer of SteepAndCheap (and the parent company Backcountry.com along with its sibling site Dogfunk.com), repeatedly checking the site for quite a few years. I think their implementation of the “woot” model to sell old inventory is superb, especially now (actually integrated about two years ago) that they have implemented a continual deal model, posting a new item as soon as the previous one is sold out. The company then integrated ads highlighting discount comparison products from Backcountry.com on the left column. Then created consumer “push” features, such as IM messaging and a pop up box, to tell the customer when a new deal was available. And within the last couple weeks have implemented Google Ads on the right column.

This last addition is the only one that stumps me as these Google Ads (of course) point to competitive sites. I have heard that the markup on retail items can often dance to the 100% line, whereas ads bring in variable prices due to the site’s traffic. I would think that it would be more profitable to swap the web real estate of their comparison ads with the google ads, unless of course Steep And Cheap receives enough traffic and click throughs to outweigh their discounted inventory markup.

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Google Adsense on the top right corner of the landing page.

 

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Comparative Backcountry ads are seen when scrolled to the next page.

According to Alexa and Compete, the site sees approximate traffic of about 110k users per month creating visits totaling just over 1m, indicating that the same people are repeatedly visiting the site. (Please note that traffic numbers are extremely hard to quantify through the counting of IP Address visits.)

I mentioned my confusion to a friend who would be familiar with the details of the site. He told me some interesting facts and tidbits, but didn’t know the revenue comparison of the two ad types. I hear the advertising model pitched on a frequent basis but time and again see that it brings in substantial less revenues than expected, with many companies changing or augmenting their revenue model. If any of you readers have a better understanding of clickthroughs, revenue benchmarks that correlate to traffic (if such a thing actually exists, which I doubt), etc. I would be interested in chatting with you. I realize that the revenues will vary by site and the level of how targeted the ads are that are being used, but would welcome any comments or feedback.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in business, utah | Comments
May 24 2008

Opportunity vs ‘Capturability’

May 24, 2008 – 10:09 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in VC, business, research | Tagged , , , | Comments

With the recent name change of my employing firm I figured I would re-visit many of the basics of my job, one of which being my approach to due diligence.

Last year I posted about the due diligence process and a business plan breakdown, but over time my viewpoints on analysis have slightly shifted. It seems that a good portion of deals I review are past the earliest stage and have added a couple members of management and possibly infused seed capital. For the past couple months I have been experimenting with the approach of looking at each company from the view points of opportunity and the company’s ability to capture this opportunity.

The opportunity of a deal consists of the main pieces of why and how a problem is being solved, i.e. the technology, product, business model and market. Basically the analysis of ‘is this a technology that can be used to create a product that is needed (and wanted) in the marketplace and priced in a range that will attract consumer dollars.’

The opportunity ‘capturability’ (no, this is not really a word but I have yet to find an accurate descriptor) lies in the factors that will push the aforementioned opportunity into fruition, a trickier mix of variables to encounter. The ability to capitalize on an opportunity analyzes the competition and the levels of competitive presence in the market, financial stability, market risks … but mostly the strength of the management team. Basically, ‘does the summation of the competitors in the marketplace plus the known risks equal a market gap that can be seized by this management team and the capital they have received?’

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The overlay of the ability to capture and the opportunity itself will never perfectly align as the alignment discrepancy is the risk of the deal, the risk the investor must decide if they are willing to take to earn the projected reward.

Right now I am using this approach without quantifying each variable, which would be do-able. I have yet to quantify as it seems that an integral part of our investment decision is based on our gut feel towards the management team, something quite hard to explain in numbers. I also use this approach to simply assist me in thinking about the relationship and correlation of all the business elements.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in VC, business, research | Tagged , , , | Comments
May 08 2008

My first episode of WineLibrary.tv

May 8, 2008 – 3:31 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, social media, wine | Tagged , , , , | Comments

I met Gary VanderChuk briefly at SXSW at the Wine Library Cork’d Party. I have been meaning to watch a full episode of his show for awhile now as I am a wine lover and because I am truly impressed with what he has done for an old industry through the implementation of the web and social media. For any of you who have yet to hear of WineLibrary.tv, Gary (who often goes by Garyvee) was raised working in a New Jersey based family liquor store. As a teenager he started reading the wine magazines and training his palette “backwards” by tasting all ingredients (including dirt) that go into a bottle of wine. While in college he re-branded the company liquor store as Wine Library and continued to train himself on all aspects of wine, tasting every bottle that entered the store and creating a reputation as an expert with his customers. Within a five year period he grew their business from $4m to $45m. Gary then introduced social media to Wine Library by creating WineLibrary.tv, a website with video episodes of him tasting new wines, focusing on showing the masses that they should try many different types and bottles of wine, trusting their own palettes rather than the reviews. A new video episode is released five days a week and has garnered a strong community referenced as the “Vaniaks”.

A couple days ago I watched my first full episode and found it highly entertaining. It took me awhile to get used to Garyvee’s enthusiasm and lingo, but grew more and more interested as he started tasting the wines and providing his feedback. Below is today’s episode.



There are two websites, the Wine Library, the e-commerce store, and WineLibrary.tv, the video blog. The WineLibrary.tv shows all his episodes (now on #461), lists his social media presence, includes a downloadable spreadsheet of wines and their ratings, showcases his new book 101 wines that is already within the top 1,000 best selling books though it doesn’t come out until May 13th (currently at 755, but I have seen it in the 300′s) and so much more.

Here’s a cheers for you, Garyvee.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, social media, wine | Tagged , , , , | Comments