Geezeo

As the online financial management space continues to heat up, two of the major players have announced redesigns of their financial management portals. Boston-based Geezeo was first up launching their redesign last month. Today Mint has announced their redesign which was needed based on the new features the company has added over the past year. Just like our redesign, it's important to consider when it's better to redesign than to just keep adding features on to the current site.

Mint has also started to add more content to the site including how-to guides on reducing credit card debt and paying off student loans. Both Geezeo and Mint have great personal finance blogs. This content is very search engine friendly and should help Mint to drive more visitors to the site and potentially to the Mint service.

Mint currently self-reports over 400,000 customers (no word on active customers).

Geezeo's new design is in beta and here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

Mint's new design is available today to all of their customers:

Check out our coverage of online personal finance management apps: Mint, Geezeo, Quicken and Wesabe.

Boston-based online money management tool Geezeo has taken a $1.2 million investment from TheStreet.com. The investment equals a 13% in Geezeo and the company noted that TheStreet.com has an option to purchase the company over the next year based on an equity value of $12 million. The deal also will match Geezeo with Promotions.com (recently acquired by TheStreet.com). This match will allow Geezeo to run more marketing campaigns to push their signup levels even further.

Geezeo's tagline is, "Educated Financial Decisions." The tools they provide help you to track, monitor and review your finances to keep things in order. With the current state of the economy, Geezeo should be playing up the nature of their tool in helping stretch every dollar. This deal represents more than just an investment by a VC; it will provide significant distribution for Geezeo and increase their membership levels by joining the mainstream and leaving the tech-only market.

The other sites that TheStreet currently operates include: Stockpickr.com, BankingMyWay.com and MainStreet.com. I am curious whether any of the current U.S. online financial tools will expand internationally.

Check out my interview with the Geezeo founders. Other companies in the online money management space include Spendview and Wesabe.

Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) has launched their new online product called Quicken Online. Immediately one starts to think of the "new" players in this area which include: SpendView, Mint, Geezeo and Wesabe. There's certainly room for multiple players in this market, especially as each offers something a bit different. But Intuit can outspend all of them on marketing and will most likely be able to grab the mainstream segment relatively easy.

Quicken Online has a different business model than the competition - free trial then $2.99/month. Most of the competitors are either using some form of advertising or, in Mint's case, savings proposals based on the data you upload.

If you've been reading CenterNetworks for a while, you know that I have issues with all of these sites that require you to give them all of your financial passwords so they can access your system. Wesabe is the only one who offers an upload option so you can decide how much to trust them. Quicken Online faces the same issues as the others as you are required to give them all of your logins and passwords for your financial institutions. Unlike the others, Intuit has a 10 billion dollar market cap and has been creating Quicken for 25 years. Does that change my opinion on it? Perhaps a pinch but still not enough as I'd like. Especially when at the end of the video below they joke that they purchased a verisign security system to make customers feel better. Oh snap, the Verisign logo is gone now - but it's in the video - what does that mean?

Outside of the data security issues, the application looks like a standard Web application. Think of the most basic Quicken version, and you have it. I would have preferred that they separated it from the rest of the Quicken Web site and given it a fresh look and feel. Right now it feels jammed into the old Quicken site. This is an area that the competition will need to capitalize on. Especially because from what I've seen the competition is using "socialness" and most of them are using heavier trending to help you spend less and save more.

To try to hit the early adopter tech set, they created an iPhone app. Actually it's not iPhone specific, it's just a mobile version of the site. They do note that this version is only available on the iPhone and not the Blackberry or other mobile devices.

Intuit has a short video demo of the product which is worth checking out. Also check out Rafe's review from his exclusive access a month ago.

Here are a couple screenshots showing the text functions and the iPhone mobile site:

Online financial tool Geezeo has sent over some updates I thought were worth mentioning. This seems to be online financial services week at CN after our interview with Wesabe yesterday. The first change is their new home page - it incorporates their new pig which stands for piggy bank for savings. Thought it looks more like a pig on a platter. :-P

They have also switched their live chat from Meebo to 37Signals Campfire product. Co-founder Peter Glyman said of the change, "... to allow for group chat and better real time support."

The other addition to the site is budgeting. Glyman notes, "Taking center stage is the ability to set spending targets and measure your progress throughout the month aka "Budgets". Personally I think budgeting is incredibly painful and something I've never been very good at. So...keeping our low tolerance for hard core budgeting (yawn) in mind we set out to create a "better way". We knew that when we built our budgeting features we would have to do it right..do it simple, make it easy and fun. That's the Geezeo way. That's how we roll." Budgeting is critical for proper money management and will be a good addition to the Geezeo feature lineup.

The budgets allow you to track how your spending works in categories along with across categories to make sure your spending makes sense as a whole. They are working on sms alerts as you approach your budget targets. The one thing they can't do is prevent you from overspending!

Lastly, yes, I still have my security concerns with Geezeo. I know they are obsessed with security but it takes time for trust to be built. Check out our extensive coverage of Geezeo.

Yesterday I had a chance to sit down with Wesabe co-founder Marc Hedlund. Marc was in town for today's portfolio summit at Union Square Ventures. Let's dispense with the formalities first: Wesabe was not named after the Japanese root vegetable, that's Wasabi. Marc said the name comes from the spanish language as is a combination of "we" and "you". It's sexy.

I always look forward to meeting startups and developers for our conversations but this one I was really looking forward to. I have written several times about the other two big startups in the financial space: Mint and Geezeo and being a former accountant, the personal financial space has a tremendous amount of room for growth. My biggest issue with the other two is around security. Geezeo has more features than Mint but I have the same security concerns with both. Unfortunately Mint has some interesting corporate goals and has ignored most of my questions but I am still open to a discussion with them as well.

Now let's focus on Wesabe. We began by discussing marketing plans and Marc noted that the majority of traffic to Wesabe comes from Google which is stronger over time than a blog post on a top blog because Googlers actually need his product each time vs. a small handful from a blog post. Wesabe has a very strong community.

The founders spent two years interviewing over 1500 people about their spending habits and what they would be looking for in an online tool. Their goal was to build something robust because, "If it's the same as Quicken, why not just use Quicken?" Wesabe is an online financial management tool. It uses tagging to help organize your charges.

Most of our time together was discussing security. Where Wesabe differs from Mint/Geezeo is that Wesabe allows you to "decide how much to trust Wesabe". What this means is that you have a choice to either plug in your logins or you can upload the exported files from your bank Web site. I like this a lot. Their application for logins also works very differently than the others. It's a desktop app (or Firefox addon) in which you put your logins into it and after logging in, Wesabe exports the files and then it works the same as if you upload the files yourself. All login info is stored on your desktop pc and not on the remote servers. They have a data bill of rights for their customers.

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One of the noted strenghts of Mint, the new online money management tool, is to help you create goals with regards to money. Today, Theron Parlin, CTO of Geezeo believes he found what Mint's corporate goals are. Geezeo and Mint aren't direct competitors as Geezeo offers a wider variety of services including investment tracking.

Theron has posted on his blog displaying the image below and calling it, "douche baggery". He then continues:

"The founder of Mint and one of his developers decided they wanted to show us at Geezeo that not only do they have terrible taste in hats, but that pettiness and foul language towards a competing company is part of the silicon valley way. I don’t blame them for being upset, after all, with a smaller team and less resources we’ve been able to beat them to the punch in every aspect of what we do. Well, let’s be fair, I wouldn’t create a goal on Mint’s site because they don’t have goals. Come to think of it, they don’t have groups either, or support for investment accounts, or mortgages, or auto loans. "

Mint has received a variety of press since their launch and the big win at Techcrunch40, both positive and negative. On the positive side is TechCrunch authoring a bunch of posts about the service. On the negative side, there are posts including, "Mint thinks I am cheating on my wife".

My feeling about these apps remains the same, I am not comfortable sharing my ultra-sensitive logins with a brand new startup. While both apps talk about their superior security, will they be there for me when someone breaks into my account? And how will say WaMu respond when they find out that I have been accessing my WaMu account using a third-party service. Unfortunately Aaron completely ignored my questions on the TC comments thread about the above and about insurance for liability. I have also read a variety of reports that the savings that Mint recommends are not possible for that person either due to implied savings that Mint doesn't recognize, location, etc.

Boston-based Geezeo has announced the launch of the investment products section which allows users to track their investments from almost any brokerage account. Geezeo now aggregates checking and savings accounts, credit cards, student loans, mortgages, car loans and investment data together.

"Automated access to aggregated brokerage accounts has been our most requested feature request from day one," said Geezeo co-founder Shawn Ward. "Geezeo users demand a holistic view of their finances when managing their money, and we are pleased to provide just that."

I have been impressed with the level of visibility Geezeo is receiving from mainstream press and media outlets. Geezeo is in the same category (social finance) with the newly-launched TC40 winner Mint but Geezeo provides the full view on a person's finances.

Another update from Geezeo is around a partnership with the Motley Fool: "Geezeo is partnering with The Motley Fool to integrate that group's innovative CAPS stock rating service, in which investors predict whether stocks will outperform or underperform the S&P 500 and over what time frame this will happen. CAPS ratings currently cover over 5,000 stocks and are generated from more than 1 million individual predictions."

Check out our previous Geezeo coverage and come inside for a sample screenshot of the new investments page »

Geezeo, the financial management application is announcing the launch of their Facebook application, iWant tonight. Check out our previous Geezo coverage.

Here is how Peter Glyman, Geezeo co-founder descibes iWant, "The iWant application also allows you to connect your goals to your bank accounts so you can track your progress in real time. For example, lets say you want to "Save for an iPhone" you can link this goal to your savings account so when your account reaches a certain amount you'll have enough money saved to buy the iPhone. iWant is a fun way to think about saving and setting goals and is a great extension of Geezeo's "Goal" to reach young adults and help them better track and manage their finance."

Come inside for sample screenshots »

Here are some updates from three startups we have covered in the past:

Geezeo

• Bigtime updates to the transactions module - auto-tagging, cleaner interface, etc.
• We’ve added Safari support
• OFX data uploads to get your historical transactions
• Simple analytics with graphs for credit card accounts
• More internal security checks and balances
• Database clustering for more data reliability

Read their blog entry for more details and our previous Geezeo coverage.

down2night

Mark Michael, down2night founder sent over the following quote about their planned expansion, "by end of summer we will be national (with your city, town, college or university) with some international cities including London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Sydney and Frankfurt."

Additional new features include:

• Nightlife based social networking (your friends, messaging)
• Heat-map of the hottest spots
• Nightlife venue based search
• Search for the mood you’re in: after-work, happy-hour, swanky, chill
• See who’s going to a venue that night (i.e. tonight’s rally)
• Able to create a night invite, select the spots (one or multiple) you want to go, and then invite your friends you go out with to join you (evite style)
• Add your house or apartment as "your pad" which only your friends can see. Then you can then add this to your night invites
• Yahoo Maps Mash up (thermal heat map). you can see what spots are going to be hot tonight in your city with a thermal map style overlay
• Upload your pictures going out tag them to a venue's page
• Now in 22 cities
• Over 30,000 events across the US and Canada
• Mobile alerts for your favorite spots

Check the down2night blog for the latest news and our previous down2night coverage.

SaneBull

SaneBull has launched two new plugins for their stock tracking service. It's pretty neat. One is for Wordpress and the other is for everyone else. The Wordpress plugin is very easy as anytime you add a stock quote to your blog entry, it will automatically convert it to a SaneBull optimized quote. You put your mouse over the stock symbol and a small window appears with the latest quote and volume. A click on the quote gets you even more information. It's very cool and almost like intellitxt for stock quotes!

Check out the installation details and screenshots on the SaneBull blog and also check out our previous SaneBull coverage.

Day #27 in the CenterNetworks Startup Tips Month come from Peter Glyman and Shawn Ward from Geezeo.

Geezeo's Tips

Tip #1 - Find a good business partner

We couldn't imagine going through the startup solo. Accomplishments are much more enjoyable when shared with a friend.

Tip #2 - Healthy balance of product focus and flexability

If you keep the blinders on you might miss a bigger opportunity. This doesn't mean chase every offshoot idea but you should evaluate the opportunity associated with modifying your business direction.

Tip #3 - Hire great people

Creativity and passion win over resume pedigree every day. (and that doesn't mean everyone needs to have an MBA)

Tip #4 - Pick the right investor(s)

Don't take money from an investor you wouldn't want to have a beer with. If the investor isn't fun to be around in the courting stage...they're not going to be after they've written you a check.

Tip #5 - Meetings ~ Innovations Kryptonite

Don't schedule meetings to talk about relevant issues. Communicate 24/7 - IM, foonz, text, email, phone call, smoke signals. Just get 'er done!

Tip #6 - Leverage all the free/low-cost resources you can

Some of the products and services we use at Geezeo include: open source technology, gmail, google docs, basecamp, lighthouse, skype, freeconference.com, foonz, bank of america payroll.

Tip #7 - Get your product out and get feedback

Don't assume you know what the world wants, there's no substitute for real feedback. Besides...it's never going to be "done" anyway. If your product is "done"...you just got beat by someone with a better product.

Tip #8 - Stay connected to the entrepreneurial community

Go to meetups and start meeting some other like minded entrepreneurs. build a network of trusted friends you can share ideas with and help each other succeed. We attend as many technology meetups as possible. In the Boston area we hit the Web Innovators Group regularly.

Tip #9 - Listen to tunes at work

Music is good for the spirit and the creative mojo. Better yet…play an instrument at work. Rock On!

The above tips come from Geezeo founders Peter Glyman and Shawn Ward. When I met with them last week to learn about Geezeo, I was impressed with their business knowledge and asked them to participate in Startup Tips Month. I really agree with tip #9 - I find that when I have music on, it pumps me up to work more efficiently.