Looks nice - really - but I wouldn't touch you till you got external validation of your security practices and shared more about what you do there on your FAQs. Encrypting access tokens is just table stakes. My finances are private and not to be trusted with just anyone. The folks you compare yourself to have that type of certification but it's not listed in the comparison.
Even a SOC type 1 would show you're on the journey.
I would tell you to ignore that and do the exact opposite. You are targeting B2C. Avoid the hacker news crowd they are not worth the trouble for this sort of thing. It's a distraction and if you believe the product advice here companies like Dropbox won't exist because FTP is a thing.
You need to spam growth and marketing. Your landing page is horrible (too boilerplate, too vibe coded, no graphics.
Some pages have horizontal overflows on mobile. https://stoke.money/compare/simplifi). Redo it. Run ads and pay Tiktok influencers and YouTubers.
Standard consumer SaaS security is more than enough for this sort of product. Your users won't know the difference between end-to-end encryption and encryption at rest and while you are nitpicking based on hacker news power user feedback others would eat your lunch already.
If you are a US fintech, monetizing consumer user data is par for the course. Do what you will with that information but just know that your competitors don't simply make money from subscriptions alone.
> The Service is currently published under the brand name VoidHQ as the product Stoke Money. Both names are subject to change.
The governing terms are California's. I checked CA business registry and found no 'VoidHQ' or 'Void HQ'. Not sure who I would be trusting with my data.
Thanks, totally fair to be wary. It's a one-person project right now. I'm registering an LLC, and the terms and privacy policy pages will be updated once that's done.
Very interesting, and I've been looking for something like this. Kudos for building this. But for my information do you think you have a different handle on this vs. say ChatGPT's Plaid connection [1]. What do you think you offer differently?
Thanks. It's an interesting time for sure. Muse also launched with Plaid integration support. I haven't tested either offering (and probably won't ever trust Meta with anything), so take these with a grain of salt:
- Privacy. Stoke is a paid subscription. I’m not selling your data. Caveat: if you connect an agent over MCP, what that agent does with your data is up to you. I can't control that.
- Data. The core product is the projection, and it’s only as good as the data underneath it. Plaid data is imperfect, so there’s always some cleanup to do. ChatGPT and Muse may do a decent job of recategorizing transactions and even remembering those fixes for future ones, but I think direct access to those controls (categories, rules, overrides) is a better experience than asking a chatbot.
- Portability. Everything you’ve modeled lives in Stoke, not in one AI assistant's memory. You can freely switch from ChatGPT to Claude or anything else without losing anything.
- Not mutually exclusive. All the questions you would ask your LLM about your finances, you can still do via the Stoke MCP, so I see it as the best of both worlds.
i looove this. i have been working on something similar. are you using AI to help with balance forecasting? would you be willing to share how it has been working out for you? how much set up is necessary for you to set it and forget it. i am currently using monarch and only ever look at account balances and only sometimes look at transactions.
Looks nice - really - but I wouldn't touch you till you got external validation of your security practices and shared more about what you do there on your FAQs. Encrypting access tokens is just table stakes. My finances are private and not to be trusted with just anyone. The folks you compare yourself to have that type of certification but it's not listed in the comparison.
Even a SOC type 1 would show you're on the journey.
Thanks, that's fair. No SOC 2 yet, but I understand if that's a dealbreaker. I will expand the FAQs/Comparison pages to make that clear.
I would tell you to ignore that and do the exact opposite. You are targeting B2C. Avoid the hacker news crowd they are not worth the trouble for this sort of thing. It's a distraction and if you believe the product advice here companies like Dropbox won't exist because FTP is a thing.
You need to spam growth and marketing. Your landing page is horrible (too boilerplate, too vibe coded, no graphics. Some pages have horizontal overflows on mobile. https://stoke.money/compare/simplifi). Redo it. Run ads and pay Tiktok influencers and YouTubers.
Standard consumer SaaS security is more than enough for this sort of product. Your users won't know the difference between end-to-end encryption and encryption at rest and while you are nitpicking based on hacker news power user feedback others would eat your lunch already.
If you are a US fintech, monetizing consumer user data is par for the course. Do what you will with that information but just know that your competitors don't simply make money from subscriptions alone.
Thanks for the feedback!
> The Service is currently published under the brand name VoidHQ as the product Stoke Money. Both names are subject to change.
The governing terms are California's. I checked CA business registry and found no 'VoidHQ' or 'Void HQ'. Not sure who I would be trusting with my data.
Thanks, totally fair to be wary. It's a one-person project right now. I'm registering an LLC, and the terms and privacy policy pages will be updated once that's done.
Very interesting, and I've been looking for something like this. Kudos for building this. But for my information do you think you have a different handle on this vs. say ChatGPT's Plaid connection [1]. What do you think you offer differently?
[1]: https://openai.com/index/personal-finance-chatgpt/
Thanks. It's an interesting time for sure. Muse also launched with Plaid integration support. I haven't tested either offering (and probably won't ever trust Meta with anything), so take these with a grain of salt:
- Privacy. Stoke is a paid subscription. I’m not selling your data. Caveat: if you connect an agent over MCP, what that agent does with your data is up to you. I can't control that.
- Data. The core product is the projection, and it’s only as good as the data underneath it. Plaid data is imperfect, so there’s always some cleanup to do. ChatGPT and Muse may do a decent job of recategorizing transactions and even remembering those fixes for future ones, but I think direct access to those controls (categories, rules, overrides) is a better experience than asking a chatbot.
- Portability. Everything you’ve modeled lives in Stoke, not in one AI assistant's memory. You can freely switch from ChatGPT to Claude or anything else without losing anything.
- Not mutually exclusive. All the questions you would ask your LLM about your finances, you can still do via the Stoke MCP, so I see it as the best of both worlds.
Yea, all those are fair!
i looove this. i have been working on something similar. are you using AI to help with balance forecasting? would you be willing to share how it has been working out for you? how much set up is necessary for you to set it and forget it. i am currently using monarch and only ever look at account balances and only sometimes look at transactions.
I didn't know the rocket company was getting into personal finance. https://www.stokespace.com/
No affiliation. Didn't know about them (at least not their logo). That's unfortunate...I will make some changes.
FWIW “stoke” in the context of personal finance conjures images of burning piles of cash, for me at least