What we learned from building a Financial Planning tool in one month

This quarter, we, the Memberstack Team, challenged ourselves to building 3 products in 3 months. If you want a bit more detail on what and why and a formal introduction to our first product then checkout this post.

And if you want to follow a week on week update of our build then checkout this post.

Now month 1, product 1 is over and we are well underway with month 2, product 2 we're sharing some of our learnings!

I asked each team member to share their 2 main takeaways from building Moneystack -

Julian

It's hard to promote something in an industry you don't know much about! Industry knowledge is key.

Setting a launch deadline forces you to make a great MVP without overthinking stuff. Absolutely crucial, in my opinion, for basically any initiative!

Duncan

Communicate in pictures and real-world examples. Words are too abstract and easy to misunderstand.

If you only have 30 days to build something, solve your own problems first. It can take a while to validate the scale of a problem.

Tyler

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Josh

If we were to do this again I think early planning could have helped create some buzz leading up to a launch. Having a landing page that teased something exciting coming soon—no details, just enough to spark curiosity. That would allows us to direct traffic and collect emails.

Execution went really well. Building the marketing side alongside the app itself felt smooth and well-coordinated.

One thing I loved about this project was that we built something we wanted, without stressing too much about what everyone else might think. It sped things up, and honestly, I was surprised by how few changes were needed when we finally released it to the public.

Also, sticking to the simple first principle was definitely the right call.

‍Story: This reminds me of a time I worked with a designer who used to be a rapper—total surprise when I found out! He told me about how he got a record deal by keeping his identity mysterious, which made people curious and drove growth. He’s also the one who taught me a lot about selling on value instead of time, which has really stuck with me.

Molly

Really understanding the people and the problem you're trying to solve for is so important. Especially working on content, writing landing pages and blog posts without truly understanding who you're writing for can be a real difficult task.

You don't have to try and solve every problem and help every person to begin with. Do a really good job of helping just a handful of people and solve just one of their problems and that's a great start!

We say it alllll the time but truly the simpler the better. Keeps you focused and on task when there are so many possibilities and distractions.

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