Show HN: Net Worth Verification
iamhighnetworth.com
iamhighnetworth.com
I dislike the idea that it is of any relevance the net worth of a person to any means. I would rather prefer to live in a world where the worth of a person is determined on the basis of his/her actions, words, and intellectual capabilities.
- What's the business model of this site (how does it make money)?
- Who do you expect will find it useful? Businesses who want to know whether I'm creditworthy will run a conventional credit check on me. Who else needs to know about my net worth?
- I don't see any information on the site about terms of service (privacy, etc.). Why should anyone trust you with sensitive financial information such as their net worth?
Also, many peoples' major positive contributor to their net worth is their real estate, and a major negative contributor to their net worth is debt such as student loans. Someone who has $100K in the bank but $200K in debt has a net worth of -$100K. How can you accurately compute such peoples' net worth by just using the Plaid API?
Business Model/Market: As of today, we monetize by selling QR code hats which when scanned lead to your profile page showing how much money you have. This is because this first version is really a status symbol, b2c product, we want to get traction by connecting with influencers. In other words, what you see now is the "Influencer Tier".
In the future we plan to build a premium tier which enables you to directly show a history of your networth over months and weeks. This is useful for internet ecommerce gurus who need financial credibility in order to sell their product. These additional features which offer more transparency form what will call the "Guru Tier".
TOS/Privacy: Great call out. We need to add more transparency about ourselves as the founders as well. We need an about page. This trust is something we are going to earn over time by being open about who we are, and how this works (including how we plan to make money).
Real Estate/Debt: As of today, we don't support verification of real estate. But if these is a recurring request, then its a feature we could work towards in the future. As for debt, you aren't required to add a financial account, so people could just omit their debt. This is a legitimate gap that I don't know how to solve yet.
Problem is of course a single net worth number says nothing about liquidity or any of the zillion other aspects that you would be required to prove in such a scenario. Unless the app business model diverts and becomes a tool investors can use for exactly that issue. I.e. It isn't a net worth tool anymore but a full investor guarantee/check thing. Not sure how that would work but for sure many investments end up in nightmares because it turns out the investor didn't have the actual money they claimed to have to invest.
Not saying anything about the complexity of building such a tool.
Regarding instagram crowd, you could consider adding tiers without showing the actual net worth in numbers. E-peen of having a golden instagram profile picture or whatever (with link to actual profile to proof you didn't photos op it). Might be interesting to more people who want their actual value to stay hidden.
1.1) You are on a pseudonymous website e.g. hackernews or reddit (or 4chan). You make some claim on the internet of being high net worth. I, a stranger on the internet, do not believe you. You want to win your argument, so you post a link to your net worth page.
1.2) You are an instagram influencer who wants to provide evidence that those fancy cars aren't just a 1-day rental, and that house isn't just an airbnb premium. So you add a post to your instagram story with a link to your net worth page. Heck maybe you even add it to your Tinder/Hinge/League profile.
2) You have complete control over what you put on your profile, you don't have to put your real name or your real picture. The only thing guaranteed to be real on that page is the total net worth.
Our system is built on top of the plaid api, and we don't store any of your financial credentials.
To me, that would be a signal to break off the relationship. If someone is only interested in me if my net worth is above a certain number, I'm not interested in them.