John Sun, CEO of San Francisco-based SpringCoin, started the business under the name DebtEye in February 2011. It was one of the start-ups at the notable Y Combinator start-up incubator and funding machine founded by Harj Taggar. SpringCoin helps customers meet financial needs and figure out how to pay off their debts by improving their financial literacy and by creating goals.
“There’s a mentality that this stuff (finance) is above them and that’s just not true,” Sun says.
The integrated features and financial education aspect of SpringCoin is what differentiates it from DebtEye.
SpringCoin features adaptive bill setting and financial budgeting plans that change the more you use it.
“Kind of like how Netflix figures out what type of movies you like to watch, the site will pick up where you spend your money,” Sun explains. “We can actually get extremely targeted and say, ‘Last week you spent $30 at Starbucks. This week we recommend you spend $20.”
This is made possible by significant improvements to the software algorithms, he says.
To create SpringCoin, Sun and his team surveyed consumers to get feedback and find out what parts of the original site worked and what could stand to change. Sun says DebtEye engaged customers, but they wanted the name to focus more on the positive aspects of managing your finances. Rather than watching debt, focus on growing your coin. Probably the most important part of SpringCoin that could make it stand out from other debt management sites is its financial education element.
Financial education is integrated into users’ financial goals — “we really put that part at the heart of SpringCoin,” he says.
Sun and his team gathered content by speaking with financial bloggers, finance experts and using their own internal knowledge — Sun and his team are credit counselors.
SpringCoin also features automated budget alerts and bill reminders that can pull information directly from users’ bank transactions.
“It uses financial forecasting methods — the same methods that Fortune 500 companies use — to project and warn customers about future cash flow problems that could occur,” he says.
When users meet financial goals they are rewarded with points that measure their progress and entered into a weekly raffle to win Amazon gift cards or other prizes.
“If you just want a place to look at all your accounts in one place, we recommend something like Mint or Ready For Zero,” notes the website FAQ’s.
SpringCoin will not be free — but don’t fret, it’s a nominal fee at $8 per month for the basic plan. However, it costs $50-$120 per month for full service plans. Sun has a noble reason for shunning advertising. He didn’t want to create a conflict of interest that might arise if financial or credit companies that Sun didn’t approve of wanted to advertise, so he decided to forgo ads entirely. Some companies he stands behind, Sun says, but rather than going down that potentially precarious path, they went with a paid price model.
Every user gets a one month free trial before the monthly fee kicks-in. As a “limited time” promotion, Sun says, if you submit the email addresses of three friends (Sun promises not to spam them) even if your friends don’t respond, you can get three months free.
Sun says they plan to release an app in the future, but probably not until next year.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kizilkayaphotos
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