Disqus - Latest Comments for wesabe

Re: Thoughts about my VC life, four years later

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:42:43 -0000

Great post, Bijan.

Re: Looking back at Finovate Start-up 09

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:06:12 -0000

Hey, Mike,

You write, "[Wesabe will] need to become far more aggressive at rolling out innovative new features than they have in the past if they are to win the war." Huh? There are definitely things we need to do, but being more innovative isn't our problem.

- We launched the first of any of the sites in our space in November, 2006. That initial launch included goal planning tools such as those you like in SimpliFi and our own data aggregation tools such as those you like in Green Sherpa.

- We created the only aggregation system that allows people to keep their financial institution credentials on their own machines, which continues to win us users every day.

- We launched the first Firefox extension, Vista sidebar gadget, Mac dashboard widget, and so on.

- We launched the first public web services API, which has allowed us to build a network effect for the value of our service, and has led directly to our Springboard model (announced at Finovate).

- We created our Tips tab, which though I think needs a 2.0 version to really take off, nonetheless created a whole new area of personal finance recommendation systems.

- We launched Wesabe Cutback, which automatically identifies budget expenses people can cut back on, and which American Banker called "brilliant in its simplicity."

And on and on and on. I don't think your criticism is on point. There are certainly other knocks on Wesabe I would have to acknowledge, but we are pretty clearly on record as leading a huge amount of innovation in our space.

By the way, I believe we're one of only six companies to win two Online Banking Report (OBR) awards -- the awards Jim Breune, chair of Finovate, gives out in his newsletter for innovation. (The other five were Bank of America, Citibank, E*Trade, Everbank, and Wells Fargo.) I'm biased, certainly, but I'm not the only one who thinks we're innovative.

Best,
Marc Hedlund, CEO, Wesabe

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:58:05 -0000

Katie,

The redesigned Spending/Earnings Summaries are just down for repairs and will be back very shortly.

I just posted a description of the new tagging system here:

https://www.wesabe.com/grou...

Does that help?

Re: Quite a week!

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:06:35 -0000

Hi, Maureen,

I agree, we should have launched the new tag system with much better debugging. I apologize that we did not. We are working to get it fixed as quickly as we can. I very much apologize for the frustration.

Thanks for letting us know.

Re: Quite a week!

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:24:01 -0000

Hey Brian,

Just for the record, I agree completely on Goals as something that *should* be a great part of Wesabe. Too many people, though, reported going into the existing Goals tab and not getting enough help with what they were trying to do. I'm glad the badges worked the way you describe for you (that was the intention of having them), but I think we need to offer more than that to make something a full tab in the site.

This is another way of saying that the tab is first on my list to reimplement in a better way. We'll sort out bug reports and existing features people are missing more before doing that, but Goals will be back.

Thanks for the comments.

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:45:49 -0000

Hey, Mark,

We definitely didn't redesign based on any other site -- we designed based on what we wanted, and trying to make the site better overall, which the vast majority of the feedback we've gotten says we have.

We won't take either the Yahoo or Facebook approaches. We definitely do care what people say and think about the site, and will definitely be making changes based on what we've heard as complaints and suggestions. I don't think you'll have to choose "ugly but functional" or "pretty but useless" -- you can have a well-designed site that has all the functionality you need.

Also, we definitely did not remove one-time tags or splits. Both are still there. I'll write a separate post talking about tags to better explain how to use the new setup.

Thanks for letting us know what you think -- sorry you're unhappy with the change, but I think you'll be a lot happier once some early bugs are fixed and you have a clearer explanation for how to do all the stuff you were able to do on our site before.

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:12:17 -0000

Hi all,

We know there are some issues outstanding and we're working to get those fixed. Sorry for the trouble, and we'll post here with updates. Thanks again for all the kind words about the new look.

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:07:07 -0000

@jonathan - you're right that bar is similar, but it is similar to a lot of things - when I first saw it, I thought of:

http://www.apple.com

I do think menu bars will wind up looking similar no matter what, and I think Magera and the developers have created a lot of unique work in the process.

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:06:59 -0000

Mark - pie charts will definitely be back very soon.

New transactions in cash accounts is one we're working on right this minute. Should be fixed shortly.

We have changed the tag model to make it simpler, but it requires some explanation -- I'll post about it later.

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:40:34 -0000

Jonathan - I definitely agree on the whole list refresh -- that will be fixed very soon.

And yes, pie charts and tag graphs will be returning as soon as we're able. We wanted to take out anything we knew wasn't working right before launch to try to pare down to the essentials, then build up again from there.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

Re: Redesigning Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:21:07 -0000

Thanks, Slarioux. We've gotten comments on currency issues, some iPhone trouble, and text readability. If there are other things, let us know!

Re: The end of Geocities

Marc Hedlund — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:56:55 -0000

Great story. Thanks much for sharing it. In my work I hear a lot of people at their wits end about things like groceries; hearing this outcome is a wonderful counterbalance.

Re: A Second Market Is Emerging

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:46:53 -0000

This is a little beside the point, but I have to say that I thought the line from Claire's article, "The exit drought 'is one of the greatest tragedies of our time,' said David Weild IV," was embarrassing even to see in print. I wanted nothing to do with our industry when I saw that.

I do think that getting away from the current model -- where founders are driven to create an exit rather than patiently building the value of their companies -- is a very good thing. (For the record, Wesabe's backers, which include Union Square, are not pushing us in this way.) But let's not overstate the case.

Re: Introducing Wesabe Springboard, our new platform for credit unions and banks

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:55:22 -0000

Scott, You'll see that full UI added to our main site as soon as possible.

Re: Introducing Wesabe Springboard, our new platform for credit unions and banks

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:53:16 -0000

Matt,

I understand the concern. That said, the two downsides you list are both helped by integrating with banks. Nearly all of the people talking with us *do* want to open an API to make the integration closer. Of course they want you to have a better experience on their sites by working with us, but they also want the people on Wesabe to be happy with the service they provide. So, I think you'll get both benefits, provided that your bank(s) or credit card(s) choose to work with us.

Also, a lot of our site improves the more people's data we see (transaction editing and tagging, tips, cutback suggestions, etc.). We think working with bank populations will improve every one of those parts of the site.

Re: Introducing Wesabe Springboard, our new platform for credit unions and banks

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:45:17 -0000

David - it's certainly fair to ask, but for the record, we aren't switching strategies. We were not generating revenue before this launch. We're choosing a revenue strategy based on demand, which is (in my view) the right way to do it.

Re: Why I hate Comcast and love Boxee and Roku

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:01:52 -0000

/dev/null: Speakeasy. The rate has been constant over that time period (except when I made a change explicitly).

Re: The new Wesabe home page (and how you can make it better)

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:35:30 -0000

@nathan - yup, that's the plan.

@Stephen - thanks for the kind words. You're totally right about that photo and the housing market -- good point. We'll change it.

Re: The new Wesabe home page (and how you can make it better)

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:36:25 -0000

@Brinstar, yes, that's true. Sorry about that. We'll make a change.

I would love it if the photos reflected the people on the site, not just a better diversity of stock photos. While it's our responsibility, we'd welcome submissions of goal shots that helped with this.

Thanks.

Re: Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds

Marc Hedlund — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:07:28 -0000

Fantastic post, Andrew.

Re: New Feature: Accounts home page graphs!

Marc Hedlund — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:58:53 -0000

Thanks for the great responses.

Chris and m_s, yup, we've gotten a few reports of this -- looks like the currency conversion got dropped for the pie charts. We'll get that fixed right away. Thanks for letting us know.

Re: Is Kindle a money-saver?

Marc Hedlund — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:25:46 -0000

@David -- definitely, you're right that they offer a browser that seems to provide a lot of functionality. I wonder why they charge for RSS feeds, then? Seems odd.

That said, Tom's review (to which you linked) makes me think that browser would not at all be a replacement for the one I use now (Mobile Safari on an iPhone), nor even the one I used to use (Blazer on Treo). I can see how that answer would be different for other people, but for me, I won't count $20/month of savings based on the current Kindle browser.

But -- thanks much for the correction.

Re: Is Kindle a money-saver?

Marc Hedlund — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:49:59 -0000

@Andrew: sure, but people still buy books. :)

@David: ahh, I see. Hm. I'll take a look.

Re: News about Jason and Wesabe

Marc Hedlund — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:22:23 -0000

Thanks so much to all for the kind and supportive comments, which I know Jason will very much appreciate.

Re: New Feature: the Wesabe Automatic Uploader

Marc Hedlund — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:07:38 -0000

Hi, Matt,

We actually already use something like OAuth (specifically, Google's AuthSub) for our Google Spreadsheet Export feature. You can see a video of how it works here:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

I think that, were banks to support OAuth or something similar, a very similar process would work well.