Comparison of Best USFinancial Apps

With somespare time up my sleeve, and in an effort to redirect the focus fromincompetent directors to the Product Management team I’ve had a look at theperformance of Douugh in comparison to socialised Best Free Finance Apps in theUS for 2021 as ranked by the following websites

		The Balance	Nerd Wallet	Wealthy Gorilla
1	Mint	1	2	1
2	YNAB	2	3	2
3	Personal Capital	3	7	7
4	Clarity Money	4		9
5	Prism	5		4
6	Spendee	6		5
7	Mobils	7		0.1
8	Pocket Guard		1
9	Every Dollar		4	8
10	Good Budget		5
11	Honey Due		6
12	Acorns			6
13	Quicken			3

I compareda number of App user experience criteria from SensorTower, and also had a lookat Google Search Trends for these apps.Because some titles are generic I excluded them from the Google Search.

Three things stood out

Firstly, 24%of Douugh App users give this a the lowest ranking of 1. The average for theother apps is 2.6%, and most are under 3%. THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM.

Secondly,the Google Searches for Douugh are only coming from California.Prior to experiencing the App in any form, it needs to be discovered.While this may be occurring from direct links in other media, the Google Search trend is a good way of measuring “word of mouth” or effectiveness of non-online media hype.

Thirdly, it’sbeen 60 days since SensorTower have observed an advertisement on the Facebooksite (or 5 other networks). I’m not clear how often SensorTower polls for theseevents, but most of the other apps ads are being observed each fortnight.

Recommendation

Includemeaningful Product Marketing KPIs in quarterly reports.

Separate tocash movements, the Operations and Marketing teams should be focussed ondeveloping a robust MVP (minimum viable proposition) to demonstrate an economicalproof of concept. I’m assuming this would be a simple iPhone App that receivesless than 2% negative reviews in a small market.

There has beensome communication to suggest they are working on an Android App, and haverecently introduced new automation features.

Is this resolvingthe complaints that people are making about the app?Eg Inadequate Password Security; No Ability to have Shared Accounts, and issues with Performance.

Prior to movingonto investing in a shiny new feature, the existing customer base should belistened to and addressed. A quarter of your users hating their experience is a problem.

Innovative Models need InnovativeReporting

Becausethis is a new business model, (with an innovative monetisation strategy), andbecause there is a deployment of new technology, and because the reputation ofthe leadership team is in tatters, it would be helpful to view progress towardsKey Performance Indicators, beyond the rear vision mirror of Income, Expenseand Cash Balance. We know you’ve got the money, we gave it to you. It’s now important to identify progress in developing an App people will use.

Thereported KPIs should be related to a roadmap managed by the Product Manager.Customer Reviews seem consistent with other Free Finance apps in this US iPhone market.We need to see reported progress on these.

We also needto understand when the advertising effectiveness will be in a position toextend beyond California.

Aninteresting note. Once the app gets under control, it is useful to see the uptakeof Android downloads in this market is generally 50% of iPhone.Android will be more difficult to get right, but if revenue is going to be an additional 50% it may be useful for driving in cash.

Analysis