shashank

I could have been more clear. The comparison to firearms was more to say it's really hard to stop people from doing things they like and want to do, even if they come at a cost to society. At least cars add to productivity and quality of life, while firearms don't (imo).

I was referring to "... cars aren’t allowed in major cities". In general, I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that some proponents of self-driving cars think human drivers are terrible and need to be taken off the roads.

Many things are possible, but I might not like doing them. It's totally fine for someone to not want cars and not use them. But it's too far to say nobody should be using them, no matter what. Not implying you said that (I know you just commented on the "unrealistic" part), but just referring to the general theme here.

I personally love driving. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to drive cars and even now, I enjoy the feeling of driving a car. One can argue about whether it's the best mode of transport, etc. but for me (and many like me), it's a pleasure of life.

Let's try to stop people from carrying assault weapons before we move to cars?

I see where you are coming from, my dad always said the same to me. However, I personally could never think like that. I could never "sling javascript for 10 years" if I didn't like doing so at some basic level. For others, they might be able to do it and compensate for it with hobbies, or delay gratification until it pays off later.

In either case, whatever you do has to put food on the table and pay the bills. You can't use "I don't like what I do" as an excuse to get out of your responsibilities. As long as you are responsible enough about that, neither path seems like garbage or scam to me. To each his own.

Clearly over time, more people are having the opportunity to marry what they like to do with what puts food on the table, and surely, that is something to be celebrated.

There is a separate (but related) debate on how you define success and how far you decide to keep slinging javascript until you say I've had enough and can devote my life to more intrinsic desires even if they don't make as much money. As a society, we need to make more people realize that is a perfectly fine tradeoff to make as long it's a responsible choice for you and your family.

Yes that’s right. Most of US bank coverage is through Yodlee. We got started with them and have stuck with them so far. Tinkered with Plaid a little but Yodlee’s per-user pricing works better for us than Plaid’s per-account pricing (power users tend to have lots of accounts). Haven’t revisited this in a while so things might have changed but it’s a pain to switch data providers so the benefit has to be very tangible.

For some reason, many of our users find our bank sync to be more reliable even though everyone uses the same providers underneath. I routinely conduct user interviews and this is a common piece of feedback. I like to think it’s a side effect of us building bank sync in-house in the past (which is a royal PITA to build and maintain). But that somehow let us build a more robust system on top of the same (unreliable) bank data aggregators.

Anyhow feels like I’m rambling so I’ll stop now :)

If you dislike Mint's business model and find YNAB limited, you might like Buxfer (https://www.buxfer.com)

We have built Buxfer to cater to power users, so it has lots of powerful functionality - budgeting, forecasting, automated rules, investment tracking and so on.

GP's feature set sounds like its for "superpower users" :) We don't (and will likely never) get too much into things like taxes. But Buxfer is still one of the rare products that has a simple straightforward pricing and caters to a niche that expects powerful features from their financial software.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder.

That's awesome, Navneet! I have heard from big hedge fund managers, and seen first hand working at "cutting edge" 401K fintech companies that spreadsheets are the backoffice workhorse in many many companies doing serious business and handling serious data.

I am curious about one aspect though: Debugging spreadsheets is seriously hard. How do you help customers verify their spreadsheet has the right things they are looking for, avoiding regressions due to a random change by some inexperienced person, etc.?

Also, at what point do you see companies move from spreadsheets to simply hiring developers to do what they want? It seems like beyond a point, spreadsheets can get in the way, and the company has enough resources to hire a team to build custom internal tools.

Good luck with Coefficient!

From the website FAQs:

Will these sessions be recorded?

Not at this time because we often refer to a few pages of the book via screen sharing during the meeting session. I don't know the copyright implications of recording such videos and sharing them with everyone online. If you have expertise in this area, I would like to know if my concern is genuine and if there is a way to resolve it.

Hey! I'm the founder. I have been working full-time on Buxfer for the past several years now and am 100% committed to making it the best-in-class software for the specific market segment we serve.

That said, we are a small team and not VC backed. We are just a profitable, steadily growing business. So while that means we are not doubling our userbase every few months, it also means we are not likely to flip the business or flame out chasing some crazy growth targets.

I am a hacker at heart, and so that reflects in the product (for better or worse). We tend to be not as good at things like marketing, user communities, help videos, etc. (definitely trying to improve upon it, but we won't win awards in this department anytime soon) but we are super good at one thing -- making an ultra-powerful personal finance software for people I like to call "power users". People who want more control (e.g. custom rules) and flexibility (e.g. multiple currencies) and who like to plan for the future, not just look at the past. I myself am one such power user, and building a product that scratches your own itch is always a rewarding experience.

I personally still have a lot of motivation to continue working on this product for several more years. Largely because I feel there is so much more yet to be done for the product to reach its full potential, but also because as I have matured, I have found myself more aligned with the bootstrapped / sustainably growing kind of businesses as opposed to the "go big or go home" ones (big fan of Rob Walling, Microconf, etc.) So I am not looking for a big exit or anything like that, just enjoying the journey I'm on.

Hope that helps clear some things up! Please feel free to email me (first name at buxfer dot com). I'll be happy to share more details and we can even setup a Zoom meeting if you'd like.

We were doing it in-house for a while, but switched to Yodlee and SaltEdge for the past 2 years or so.

True, fixing mobile is slightly more involved due to the current design. But I've made a note and we will get it fixed soon!

Yeah, that's something we have received feedback about several times. The initial reasoning was something like this:

1: We didn't have MFA until we had PRIME. Generally speaking, we only add new features to our higher-end plans.

2: Our business model doesn't allow us to give away stuff for free. No ads, no selling data, simple subscription based pricing. MFA costs us money (SMS, phone calls).

So that's the logic, which I understand might not be very convincing. We are exploring making it part of our free plan, or a lower tier plan.

Added. Was an oversight, thanks for pointing out!

I'm the founder of Buxfer (https://www.buxfer.com)

Forecasting is one of the strongest aspects of our product. We also provide alerts ahead of time if we can predict your account balance will fall below zero (or whatever threshold you configure). Forecasting can also be used to preview your expenses/income/cashflow for the upcoming months / years.

We do have an API, but I admit it's not the best around. Other than that, our product does all the 6 things you point out.

Happy to hear more feedback at shashank@buxfer.com

Founder here.

Our product is very optimized for people who want to see things ahead of time. Entering stuff manually, reminders, budgets, forecasting, all the way up to retirement planning.

About stock options: We do support automatic syncing with investment accounts. Is your institution not supported? Or is there some other issue you are facing?

If you'd like, you can email me at shashank@buxfer.com and I would love to assist you further.

It's always immensely satisfying to hear a personal story of my work benefitting another fellow human being. Thanks for sharing!

Buxfer (https://www.buxfer.com) has almost all of what you mention: import (can be automated via API), automatic pull from banks, multiple currencies, backup to cloud (although it's not a "backup and restore", it's backup so you can have your data with you in a standard format.)

Disclosure: I'm the founder.

The desktop version has more marketing material. The mobile interface is more of a companion to the desktop. I know that's laughable in today's mobile-first world, but (a) our target audience is "power users" who are desktop heavy, and (b) we generally suck at marketing.

We also have a live demo at https://www.buxfer.com/demo (or click "Live demo" on the desktop/mobile website)

Please feel free to contact me at shashank@buxfer.com and I will be happy to assist you with any specific questions, in case the marketing material is not sufficient.

Buxfer (https://www.buxfer.com) lets you do this to a certain extent. Transactions are auto-synced, then you can add/identify your recurring bills and your budget will tell you what's left after taking into account any bills or future-dated transactions you may have entered.

Disclosure: I am the founder.

Founder here.

Yes, Buxfer is still working.

Social media (and marketing efforts in general) are pretty scant.

Support is good though. Product updates are frequent. User feedback is considered precious and incorporated into the product frequently.

Please file a ticket through the website, or email support@ We occasionally review comments on Twitter/FB, but the direct channels will get you a faster response.

Sync with non-US bank: Please email support@ and we will work with you to figure out if that can be fixed.

No, Buxfer is far from dead. Ashwin had to quit for some personal reasons, nothing related to the company.

So don't worry, Buxfer is very much alive and doing well :)