Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi SuN!

My wife and I launched our site last week. We just came across startupnation.com and saw that we could have some of the members here do a critique for us.

At billbudgets.com we offer our services as a personal budget planning service. To get started, all you need is your income/expenses. You input that information into our easy to use form and submit it to us so we can make up your very own personalized budget plan. We don`t require any personal information (address, phone number, social security numbers, etc.), or any account information for your expenses. Once we have your budget prepared, we post it to your account and it can be viewed in PDF format by month. Simple as that.

My wife and I have understood the value in having a budget for years now, as I`m sure most of the the entreprenuers here will also. Please let us know what you think, as I stated in my blog, sometimes its hard to see the forest from the trees. We need the constructive criticism to make our site and our service even better.

Thanks!

John @ billbudgets.com

I like the site you and your wife have put up. I think its a though business to be in because you are basically competing against banks and financial institutions who offer bill pay services for free but that does not mean you will not succeed or make money doing this.

Thanks for the response! There is definitely a lot of competition out there, but I think with some effective marketing, we can become successful.

I just wanted to address one thing you said. We are not a bill paying service, (at this time) we offer a personalized budget tailored to the needs of the individual requesting our services.

We as entrepreneurs are a different bunch, but in our market study, we found that most people just pay whatever bills are due whenever they receive their paycheck. Without a savings (due in large part to proper budgeting), most people run at financial redline until the house of cards comes crashing down around them when an unexpected bill comes due.

I sincerely appreciate the response and look forward to hearing more.

John

Hi John,
The site seems to work well, and I had no trouble taking a look. What struck me as a bit odd is that I didn`t really see basic categories for:

• Food
• Clothing
• Children
• Incidentals / Miscellaneous
• Health

There are a couple of others, such as cigarettes for people who smoke, gas for the car, and things like haircuts or drycleaning.

I understand that "other" might work, but to me, those would be for unusual categories like "dog supplies," or "boating accessories" that not so many people ordinarily would have.

The other thing that might help in terms of competition, would be to have a "summary" budget that emails to the customer for free, with a more detailed budget accessible for a payment.

I`m thinking you could generate a verbal summary, that references how money might be moved around, and some basic examples. Then in the detail, for-pay version, it would specifically show the exact amounts, and include projected savings per quarter, bi-annually, and over 1 year.

I believe most people will be more excited if they "get something" from a site. It doesn`t have to be the entire product for free, but if someone fills out all the fields they`ve done some work. If they then get an email to a link that shows them a preliminary reward for their work, they`ll be more interested in the next step---paying for details.

A model would be a numerology chart. Fill in the fields and you get a basic summary about your number, important other numbers, and how they work together. But for a fee, you get a detailed chart of the upcoming month or year...whatever.

Craig,

Thanks for the response! We decided to structure our system on the fixed expense side of things. I will take a look at how we could better implement a system for the variable expenses. Thanks!

I do like the idea of getting something for free versus going straight to paying for a service that in a customers eyes isn`t proven. Definitely a good idea. We could in theory, take all of their submitted information and make a "projected savings" chart that would be beneficial in showing them how a budget could work for them.

I will look into that.

Thanks!

I`d argue that one basic point of a budget is to put the family food expenses on a fixed no variable basis. Also that car maintenance and fuel is a fixed expense. With gas going over $4/gal last year, it became a major part of the budget.

I guess what it comes down to is the overall intent of the site. If it`s to teach people how to budget, that`s one thing. If it`s to make a simple budget, I`m thinking you`re preaching to the choir.

And to me, a Web site is all about competition and visibility. Why enter the crowded field of fixed-expense budgets where most people already know how to make a budget in Excel? Wouldn`t it make more sense to offer an online budget system to people who don`t know how to budget?

• The first one is the person that doesn`t have the ability to budget. You mentioned that most people understand how to make a simple budget. I would have to argue that point. We found that less than 20% understood how to lay out an income/expense report. Even less than that understood how to lay out a simple weekly budget.
• The second one is the person that lacks either the time or the ambition to make up a budget. People lead busy live nowadays. In our research, we found that 80% of the people polled, understood how to make up a budget, they just lacked the time to be able to sit down and make one.