Should I Build It Should I Build It
12 May 2025
Fintech Finance

The startup could develop a comprehensive financial management ...

...platform tailored for couples that allows them to merge their finances seamlessly. Key functionalities would include joint account management, automated expense tracking, customized budgeting tools, and investment tracking across various portfolios. The platform could facilitate transparent communication about expenditures and savings goals, ultimately helping couples coordinate their financial activities more effectively.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a comprehensive financial management platform tailored for couples falls into a crowded space. We've identified 11 similar products, suggesting high competition. The IDEA CATEGORY is 'Swamp' which means that unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money. The average engagement (n_comments=2) across these similar products is low, indicating that users aren't particularly vocal or enthusiastic. There are no explicit signals for positive or negative use or buying trends, but that is expected for such low engagement products. Basically, this suggests a lack of strong demand or differentiation in existing solutions. The fact that similar products lack user engagement and positive feedback suggests that current solutions are not fully meeting the needs of couples managing their finances together. Therefore, before proceeding, deeply investigate the shortcomings of existing platforms and identify a niche or unique selling proposition.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with thorough market research to pinpoint why existing financial management solutions for couples haven't achieved widespread success. Analyze user reviews, identify pain points, and understand unmet needs. This will help you differentiate your platform and avoid replicating existing failures.
  2. Focus on a specific niche within the couples' financial management space. This could be targeting couples with specific income levels, investment strategies, or life stages (e.g., newlyweds, parents, retirees). Tailoring your platform to a particular segment will make it easier to acquire users and demonstrate value.
  3. Consider building tools or integrations for existing financial platforms rather than creating a completely new product. Partnering with established players can provide a faster route to market and access to a larger user base. This reduces the risk of building a platform that nobody uses.
  4. Look into adjacent problems that couples face in their financial lives, such as debt management, estate planning, or insurance optimization. Addressing a broader range of needs could make your platform more appealing and valuable. This could uncover a more promising business opportunity.
  5. Given the competitive landscape and low engagement with existing solutions, seriously evaluate whether this is the best use of your time and resources. There may be other startup ideas with greater potential for success. Reassess your priorities and consider saving your energy for a more promising opportunity.
  6. Given that one similar product 'Tango' was criticized for lacking a 'match' feature, consider if there are some unique features that you can focus on which competing products don't have.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs of couples can your platform address that existing solutions fail to provide, and how will you validate these needs before building the platform?
  2. How will you acquire initial users and generate sustained engagement, given the low engagement observed in similar products?
  3. What is your unique selling proposition that will make your platform stand out in a crowded market, and how defensible is this proposition against potential competitors?

Your are here

Your idea for a comprehensive financial management platform tailored for couples falls into a crowded space. We've identified 11 similar products, suggesting high competition. The IDEA CATEGORY is 'Swamp' which means that unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money. The average engagement (n_comments=2) across these similar products is low, indicating that users aren't particularly vocal or enthusiastic. There are no explicit signals for positive or negative use or buying trends, but that is expected for such low engagement products. Basically, this suggests a lack of strong demand or differentiation in existing solutions. The fact that similar products lack user engagement and positive feedback suggests that current solutions are not fully meeting the needs of couples managing their finances together. Therefore, before proceeding, deeply investigate the shortcomings of existing platforms and identify a niche or unique selling proposition.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with thorough market research to pinpoint why existing financial management solutions for couples haven't achieved widespread success. Analyze user reviews, identify pain points, and understand unmet needs. This will help you differentiate your platform and avoid replicating existing failures.
  2. Focus on a specific niche within the couples' financial management space. This could be targeting couples with specific income levels, investment strategies, or life stages (e.g., newlyweds, parents, retirees). Tailoring your platform to a particular segment will make it easier to acquire users and demonstrate value.
  3. Consider building tools or integrations for existing financial platforms rather than creating a completely new product. Partnering with established players can provide a faster route to market and access to a larger user base. This reduces the risk of building a platform that nobody uses.
  4. Look into adjacent problems that couples face in their financial lives, such as debt management, estate planning, or insurance optimization. Addressing a broader range of needs could make your platform more appealing and valuable. This could uncover a more promising business opportunity.
  5. Given the competitive landscape and low engagement with existing solutions, seriously evaluate whether this is the best use of your time and resources. There may be other startup ideas with greater potential for success. Reassess your priorities and consider saving your energy for a more promising opportunity.
  6. Given that one similar product 'Tango' was criticized for lacking a 'match' feature, consider if there are some unique features that you can focus on which competing products don't have.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs of couples can your platform address that existing solutions fail to provide, and how will you validate these needs before building the platform?
  2. How will you acquire initial users and generate sustained engagement, given the low engagement observed in similar products?
  3. What is your unique selling proposition that will make your platform stand out in a crowded market, and how defensible is this proposition against potential competitors?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 11
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: 16.8%
    • Positive use signal: 16.8%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

UnityPay - Joint Expense Management for Couples

15 Dec 2024 Fintech Money Couples

UnityPay is an iOS and Android app that helps couples with separate accounts manage their shared expenses. More than just a budgeting tool, UnityPay fosters communication by enhancing transparency around finances, ultimately strengthening relationships.

UnityPay fosters communication and transparency; collaboration opportunity suggested.

Avatar
6
1
1
6
Relevance

My side project is helping me manage my finances

27 Dec 2023 Artificial Intelligence Personal Finance Fintech

For years, I have struggled to understand my cash flow and save for the future. In addition to that, my wife has many credit cards and accounts that complicate matters. I am building a tool that connects all our accounts, helps us create a budget, and tracks and adjusts expenses on the fly. I am also sprinkling some AI magic on it for financial suggestions. I am looking for feedback on the implementation. More importantly, I am looking for more beta testers to improve the product.

The Show HN product, FML, is recognized for simplifying financial planning and review. Users have concerns about the association with a well-known initialism potentially being detrimental. There is curiosity about the AI's functionality and questions regarding integration with financial institutions. The product has received positive remarks on its appearance. Some comments are no longer active.

Users suggest rethinking the use of the initialism 'FML' due to its commonly known negative connotation, which contrasts with the intended message.

Avatar
9
7
7
9
Relevance

Tango - Improving couple's finance and communication around money

31 Oct 2023 Android Fintech Messaging

The couples finance app to see all your accounts, communicate about finances, and tackle to-dos together. See all your accounts and balances in one place, communicate with emojis, and tackle to-dos together. Try Tango Money today!

Tango Money's Product Hunt launch received enthusiastic approval and congratulations. Users appreciate its focus on improving financial transparency, especially for couples. The tool is seen as facilitating productive money conversations and harmonious relationships through investment surpluses. Several users expressed interest and intend to try it out, with one user forwarding it to their spouse. A few users specifically congratulated the Tango team on their launch. One user expressed missing a previous match feature.

The primary criticism is the absence of a match feature. Users have specifically noted this missing functionality as a significant drawback.

Avatar
99
13
30.8%
13
99
30.8%
Relevance

UnityPay - Simplify Shared Finances

13 Jun 2024 Android Money Couples

UnityPay helps couples manage shared expenses. Split bills fairly, track spending, and maintain privacy without linking bank accounts. Available now on Google Play and the App Store. Simplify your finances and focus on what matters most--each other.

Inquiry about UnityPay's handling of multiple currencies for international users.

Asks about missing features for handling multiple currencies.

Avatar
5
1
1
5
Relevance

FinWise – The modern way to manage your personal finances

30 Oct 2023 Personal Finance Fintech

Hi everyone, I'd like to share FinWise (https://finwiseapp.io) with you, which my wife and I have been building over the last few months.FinWise is an all-in-one personal finance management tool, including budgeting, net-worth tracking, financial planning & forecasting and a couple of other things which we're still busy working on like couples/family budgeting and being able to set and track goals.It's designed to make managing all your personal finances as simple, easy and painless as possible, and we've put a lot of effort into making the website as simple and intuitive, whilst still being powerful and offering a comprehensive set of personal finance tools.A non-exhaustive list of things you can do with FinWise:- Connect your bank & investments accounts with Plaid & Yodlee (Or manual imports). - Currently US, CA and ZA. EU, NZ, AU and others coming soon!- Track and visualize your net-worth.- Budget and save money.- AI transaction categorization (You almost never have to manually categorize your transactions).- Transaction splitting, tags, notes and attachments.- Import transactions with CSV files from Mint/Empower etc.- Export account, transaction and insights data to CSV.- Plan, project and forecast your future finances (In beta).- Spending, saving and net-worth insights and analytics.- Multi-currency support.- Goals and goal-tracking (Coming soon).- Developer API access (Coming soon).- iOS/Android app (Coming soon).- Privacy-focused. No ads, selling data or anything like that.- Just about SOC2 and ISO compliant (No certificates yet, but I've done a few SOC2 certifications in the past.)We made FinWise because we were not able to find a personal finance tool out there which offered all the features we wanted, and which was simple, intuitive and easy to use. There are lots of personal finances apps around, but we felt most were either too basic, over-complicated or too expensive, or limiting in some way.We're now on a mission to build the best personal finance app out there, and to help as many people as possible to better save, grow and manage their money.If you'd like to learn more and try it out, head over to our website: https://finwiseapp.ioIf you have any feedback or questions, please let me know :)Find us on X/Twitter: Me: https://twitter.com/jasrusable Nicol: https://twitter.com/NicolNvojacek FinWise: https://twitter.com/FinwiseappPS: There are some interesting technical aspects of the project that we are particularly proud of which I am planning to do more in-depth posts on soon, namely:- How we implemented our AI transaction categorization system.- How we built the entire website to use optimistic loading, so no loading states.- How we kept the codebases extremely simple and intuitive, allowing us to move quickly.- Going open source once we hit critical mass.

Avatar
9
9
Relevance

We've built FinWise over the last 7 months

31 Oct 2023 Fintech

Hey HN :)My husband and I have spent the last 7 months building FinWise, and I'm excited to share it with you. FinWise is the modern way to manage your personal finances, including budgeting, net-worth tracking, financial planning and forecasting, reports and insights, and more.Jason and I have a background in software engineering and finance, and FinWise is pretty much all we've been doing over the last few months. So far we have just over 300 sign-ups, and we've been rolling out new features on a daily basis.Our app is built in Next.js, Typescript and PostgreSQL, and we have many more exciting features planned for the next few months. We've been using this as an opportunity to expand on our AI knowledge, and have an AI Assistant feature planned next. We've implemented multi-currency from the get-go, support bank syncing using Plaid in USA, Canada and South Africa, and are planning to expand into Europe soon.Would love to hear your thoughts :)Nicol x

Very cool!

Avatar
2
1
1
2
Relevance

Financial - Manager & Tracker - A better way to manage your income, expenses & debts.

30 Jul 2024 iOS Finance Productivity

Discover Financial, the all-in-one app for managing your finances! With Financial, you can manage all your accounts in one place, set up recurring payments with SmartPay, organize contracts and wish lists, and keep track of your liabilities.

App launch congratulations; feedback given, but difficult to provide initially.

Hard to find on ProductHunt; feedback submission not intuitive.

Avatar
63
1
100.0%
1
63
100.0%
Top