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Free service from Mint.com Helps Savers Set Up Budget Objectives and Stick to Them

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Now Mint.com, a website that already offers user-friendly options for studying how one’s money is spent, has introduced an easy way to set budget objectives, link them to accounts and learn specific steps on how to reach those goals. The goals can even be personalized with digital photos, like an image of the car you’re saving up to buy. And this service is FREE!

The Goals feature uses pop-up windows where users can quickly input data, like annual salary, to get estimates on how much they can afford to spend on things like a vacation, as well as how much they need to save for that vacation. Monthly savings estimates can be set to aggressive savings plans or conservative ones with just a mouse click.

Finances in One Place
Mint.com has been around for almost three years and is used by millions of people. Its proprietary algorithms encrypt data so people will feel confident enough to input their usernames and passwords for their online financial accounts, allowing them to see all of their financial activity in one place. These accounts include those tied to credit cards, banks, retirement savings and others. Mint is known for displaying colorful visuals like pie charts and graphs, so it’s easy for people to see where they’re spending their money or how it’s being invested.
Mint Goals is a new tab on the Mint.com site, and clicking on it directs users to a group of eight popular goals and one that can be customized (more will be added over time). The preset list includes goals to get out of debt, buy a home, buy a car, save for college, take a trip or save for retirement. A digital checklist in each goal called “Next Steps” gives people serious, doable tasks to complete, so they can actually make progress toward a goal in ways other than just putting money aside. This instant gratification saved me from doing a lot of calculating.

The Best Account
When you set up a goal for the first time, Mint suggests what type of account would work best for saving toward it. Examples include a 529 savings plan for people who are saving to put their kids through college or a Roth IRA for retirement savings. Mint will also tell you the provider with the best interest rate.
Each goal includes the overall amount of money intended to be saved, today’s balance, planned and projected dates for reaching the goal and how much has been saved this month (like $200 of $750). You’ll like looking at Mint’s colorful thermometers, which quickly showed how you was progressing in a particular goal.

Ads With Context
The Goals feature comes with contextual ads, which help it remain free. One checklist item suggests opening a high-yield savings account and also offers links to the Discover and American Express websites, which offer the accounts. If you’ve started a Mint Goal to save for a trip to Iceland, travel insurance is suggested, along with Web links to sites that sell trip insurance.
While these links might allow people to get started right away on a particular task, they also beg the question of whether these are the best options for users—or just the biggest advertisers on Mint. Goals can be linked to several of your accounts on Mint so they’re updated with real-time data. A long-term retirement goal can link to a 401(k), brokerage account and retirement account. If the stock market takes a dive and money is lost in an account, that loss is automatically reflected in the overall goal’s balance. If you tie a savings account to a goal to save for a house, every dollar added to that account (on the bank’s end) is automatically reflected in the goal.
Mint already gave people a visually engaging way to know more about what their money is doing, but Mint Goals give people a real reason to come back to the site more often.

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Will Your Business Idea Fly?

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Do Your Homework
If you’re financially motivated to launch a business, you may be tempted to simply jump in. But experts strongly recommend first taking the time to do some research to determine if your venture has legs to stand on. Otherwise, you could end up in worse economic shape.
“Once you’ve started a business, you’ve already invested a lot of money and time,” says Andrew Zacharakis, professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. “If you find out afterward that consumers don’t want what you’re selling, it can be very hard to make a midstream adjustment.”
One way to explore a business idea’s feasibility is to solicit the opinions and advice of experienced professionals in your target industry, even prospective competitors. Mr. Zacharakis recommends starting at trade shows, seminars and other business events if you don’t have specific contacts in mind. Ask people what they like and don’t like about your planned venture, if they foresee any obstacles to building it, and what suggestions they might have.
Also go directly to your target market and ask about their interest in your product or service and how much they’d consider paying for it, Mr. Zacharakis says. If you plan to sell a product or service to pet owners, for example, you could canvass dog parks, groomers and veterinarians’ offices.
Low-cost services like SurveyMonkey.com and Zoomerang.com let you compile a survey online. In general, you pose a question and select answer options, such as multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. Then you receive a Web link that you can post to your Facebook page, Twitter feed, personal blog or other website.

Get Real Feedback
Richard Daniels and Seth Burgett implemented this strategy before co-founding Yurbuds, a St. Louis-based maker of custom-fit earbuds, in early 2009. More than 300 survey takers provided insights into the features that matter most to them in portable listening devices and how much they’d pay for the ideal pair.
The duo—who met soon after Mr. Daniels was laid off from an executive job and while Mr. Burgett was in business school—now sell the earbuds in about 200 retail outlets. The firm is on target to be profitable by next year.
“You have to roll up your sleeves and talk to real people to find out if your business idea has value,” says Mr. Daniels. “Hope is not a strategy.”

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East Bay SCORE Seeks Volunteers

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

East Bay SCORE is looking for talented men and women with management background to help with the ever growing need to mentor and guide small business people. We counsel from Fremont to Fairfield, from Livermore to Oakland, from Concord to Antioch and from Walnut Creek to Dublin. Come volunteer to counsel both those who want to start a business and those who are in business and need some guidance and to be presenters in our workshops.

We are particularly interested in those with backgrounds in the restaurant business, human resources, eCommerce, marketing with knowledge of social networking, IT professionals. But don’t feel restricted. Any business professional in any field is welcomed to participate in our endeavors.

You can be retired or currently working. We have need for your services. There is a large personal gratification in guiding small businesses to their success. Check out just a few of our success stories by logging into www.eastbayscore.org. And while on the site, explore. See who we are and what we do.

Please, come join us.

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SBA's participation in this Co-sponsorship is not an endorsement of the views, opinions, products, or services of any Co-sponsors or other entity. All SBA programs or co-sponsored programs are extended to the public on a anondiscriminatory basis. Reasonable arrangements for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance - contact the SCORE Chapter office.