Hello Product Hunt! I'm the founder of Lemon. I started Lemon because I wanted to teach (Lemon comes from "Learn Money") and because I was tired of other PFMs peddling products and services that weren't a fit for me. You'll never see an advertiser disclosure on Lemon because we don't earn commissions on products.
Let us know what you think of the app and your feed.
There's been a ton of underwhelming products in this space and as someone who worked in consumer finance I'm generally not that big of a fan of most PFMs. Lemon's the first one that's really impressed me and I'm excited to see how the develops it further.
@bglasauer Hey Barrett. Check out my answer to Bill's question.
I like Mint (long time user), but always found it a bit unsettling that Mint can say they have "advice" for you when it's nothing other than a product referral. This is their advertiser disclosure: "The credit card offers that appear on this site are from credit card companies from which Mint.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they appear. Mint.com does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers."
That is wild. And that will never be on the Lemon site!
@robinraszka We do show some offers based on you spending with the hope that it might save you money in the future. The long term vision is to increase financial literacy, which I see as a combination of 1) understanding where your money goes, 2) ways to save, 3) ways to earn more, and 4) ways to educate yourself about your current finances or a product you might be considering.
The first version of Lemon was very much like DuoLingo. It was an interactive, spaced repetition learning tool, but for personal finance instead of a language. I found it to be a bit abstract, so the scope broadened to allow connecting accounts. This allowed for more specific advice and insights.
These are a few more of the types of messages we're considering for the feed: https://lemon.co/l/advice
What makes Lemon unique or better than the current products in the market, besides the lack of paid referrals? I'm a long time Quicken user, would love to switch to something else.
@billhendricksjr Hey Bill. Great question. The lack of paid lead generation is indeed a big difference. It allows us to focus on building a great product and generating *unbiased* insights / advice / suggestions without worrying about trying to convince you to click on a product referral. It also allows us to produce content (and target it to you based on your profile and spending) in the same way. For example, we spent three months determining the best online checking account https://lemon.co/l/boca ... we can't do that if the highest bidder is influencing our content.
Much of what we're working on is forward looking. Summaries of last week and daily wrap ups are great (we have one), but we're also focusing on what tomorrow, next week, and next year look like for you. And it's all delivered in a style we're all used to consuming-- a reverse chron feed.
@jmsuth Thanks, Jon! We use both plaid.com and yodlee.com which are aggregators that most apps like Lemon use. We never store any of your personal credentials (bank logins). We simply pass them along once and then discard them.
Any plans to support UK accounts? Looks like a lovely interface. Conveying this kind of data in a way the average consumer can digest is definitely a challenge!
@jamesdevonport Hey James. I agree! Our challenge is to make checking in on your finances not feel like you're "eating spinach." If all goes well in the US, I would love to add support for European countries and also translate the app + website into Spanish.
I also recommend being a little smarter when sending messages like "there's no reason to pay a $ fee to have an account" when it relates to things like annual fees on premium travel cards. I have them for a reason, because I reap many times in rewards the cost of the annual fee. That generic messaging tends to make me to view a platform as less intelligent.
@orienwu Agreed on the messaging. I wrote that one. It's intended to be for checking/savings. I myself have a hotel card that has a $395 fee that is more than worth it. Thanks for the feedback!
So my first question with all of these kinds of apps is always: What financial institutions do you support? 99% of the time, my bank isn't supported because I choose not to use popular ones like Chase, Wells Fargo, etc.
@unseenvision Hey Patrick. You can search for your bank. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like: The main banks are listed first, but we support almost 20,000 and I suspect yours will be there. Let us know if it's not.
@jbs hey.. I've connected all my accounts and I'm loving the"simpleness" of the app. Kudos to you and the team. But looking at this comment, I realized Aspiration (aspiration.com) wasn't amongst the banks listed. Is it possible to add that? Thank you and keep up the awesome work!
Within about ten minutes of download I got notices on my upcoming recurring charges. A product offering real value that quickly is a huge plus. Loving your work so far.
@charleyma Hey Charley! Great to see you here. There's a lot coming up-- optimizing travel purchases, bill payments, credit scores & reports, budgeting & categorization, peer & geo comparisons, and retirement planning. We recently added a CFP to our team who is helping us create and refine all of the various messages in your feed.
We're also working on better targeting by building more a more complete model of each user. E.g. you've indicated you're getting married soon and you're interested in your first mortgage. You'd receive content, tips, and actionable messages to help you through those life moments. I think every moment in life comes back to money somehow.
Hey @thelemonapp, im already using mint.com (which is kind of buggy and has lots of weird ads) it seems like Lemon is a substitute. if so why should i switch to your product (and have to spend effort relinking my accounts - i am very lazy)? is there at least one thing this does better or is it just better in a marginal sense in lots of areas? it says web and android coming soon? how soon is web coming?
@jbs i actually read both and visited your site. i still don't really have a clear picture i guess. so because of "unpaid lead generation" (whatever that is - i don't really do sales) your product is better? is what you are trying to say that your app promises to annoy me less (i understand that apps need to make money)? how much less? can you give me a metric of how much less annoying your ads/recs are? i'm looking for a reason to switch. how is your product better than the thing i use and am invested in? it definitely has a better art design... it seems like you *will* offer some forecasts? but you didn't really offer details on what you guys are going to forecast? why is your weekly summary better than mint's? i don't feel like those ideas were addressed.
i've outgrown old rickety mint so ill probably try lemon. i guess what i'm trying to communicate here is that it is my suggestion that you figure out - *in plain english* - why your product is superior. you don't have to take this advice; feel free to leave it here. the internet is full of bad advice and this might be bad. my only qualification is that i am a consumer who only speaks plain english. looking forward to giving lemon a try.
Lemon offers some very useful advice on how to manage your finances and find the best money saving / generating deals out there, whether is choosing your 401k plan, maintaining a good credit score or even deciding whether Amazon prime is worth it!! Great stuff!! This app will save me so much time researching all this stuff!!
@narayananh Thanks, Narayanan. I wish I could say yes and tomorrow, but it's more along the lines of eventually and hopefully it's sooner rather than later.
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