Emily Chang - eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews »»

eHub Interviews NetworthIQ

Thanks to Ryan Williams of NetworthIQ for this email interview posted January 2, 2006.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

NetworthIQ: NetworthIQ is a social personal finance tool. It allows you to track, share, and compare your net worth. It aims to take the Flickr/Del.icio.us/43things model of sharing and apply it to personal finance.  Users can track their progress towards financial goals and see how they’re doing compared to others in their same state, age group, education level, occupation and income range.  It’s a fun experiment designed to create a greater awareness of financial issues like saving, investing and so on.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

NetworthIQ: I have always been a bit of a personal finance nut.  I’m one of those people that enters every transaction, runs reports and looks at charts in their personal finance software.  Naturally, when I started actively reading blogs, I gravitated to the personal finance ones (there were actually people like me out there!).  I noticed that an ever increasing number of bloggers tracked their net worth from month to month and thought it would be cool to have a single place where anybody could do this.  By doing so, if we could grow the site’s community large enough, you could compare your net worth to others across similar categories (education, income level, age range, occupation, geographic location) and see how well you’re doing.  People, by their nature, are curious and competitive.  This site is a great solution for those wondering just how well they are doing.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth?  Do you have a day job?

NetworthIQ: I spend about 2 hours a day developing, handling user inquiries, researching, tracking progress, planning, and blogging.  The rest of the team works on the project as they have time.  We get together and do a push for a specific feature a couple of times a month.  Each member of the team currently has a day job.

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

NetworthIQ: Fourio (our company) is a 3 person team.  All of us have a background in software/web development.  One is primarily a designer, another is primarily a back-end developer, and I cross the boundaries and do a little of everything, as well as lead the project.  We have a great mix of skills.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

NetworthIQ: Simple. Social. Fun.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

NetworthIQ: ASP.NET, SQL Server, NHibernate, RSS, Basecamp, Subversion.

eHub: If your project is live, what are the most requested features from your users/community?

NetworthIQ: - Context (what should I have at my age?).
- Guidelines for calculating net worth.
- More general financial articles, resources, calculators, and tools.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

NetworthIQ: Our user base is pretty evenly distributed across the United States and into Canada.  We’ve also had a number of visitors from countries around the world, including Russia, Israel, Bolivia and Brazil.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

NetworthIQ: In 6 months, we would like to have our initial feature set completed and be out of beta.  I’d like to see the user base grow large enough to have the comparisons and content be highly useful.

In 2 years, we aim to be a top 10 personal finance destination on the web, being a one stop location for sharing and discussing personal finance ideas.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

NetworthIQ: The greatest challenge is finding the time to spend on development.  We have lots of ideas and some great feedback from users.  But, juggling day jobs, families, and life, in addition to working on a side-project, can be incredibly demanding.  Some of the exposure we’ve received lately, such as getting in the New York Times and on eHub have been tremendously motivating though.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

NetworthIQ: Time.

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

NetworthIQ: Our business model is currently advertising based.  We use Adsense right now, but we are looking to start selling our own ads soon and are trying to identify other advertising or affiliate opportunities that make sense for our users.  As we move forward, we will also be developing some premium features and marketing our aggregate data, but the basics (track, share, compare) will always be free.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

NetworthIQ: We don’t currently disclose this information.

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

NetworthIQ: Just doing it.  Coming up with an idea, building it, launching it, and people actually using it.  I know a lot of people have an idea and never see it through.  We were the same way until this project.  Getting the support of some personal finance bloggers and the mention in the New York Times were really nice, too.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

NetworthIQ: To me, the biggest thing is the ability for anyone to carve their own place on the web, and the ability to connect vastly different and separated people and resources to produce a shared product.  It makes the world seem much larger yet more interconnected than ever before.

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

NetworthIQ: Bloglines (most everything I read comes to me), Google (search, mail, adsense), del.icio.us.

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

NetworthIQ: 6

Thanks to Ryan Williams of NetworthIQ for this email interview posted January 2, 2006.

Visit NetworthIQ
Originally added to eHub on Sep 14, 05

» More eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews is a series with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services by Emily Chang, author of eHub, designer, and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes, a strategic web consultancy in San Francisco that she co-founded with Max Kiesler.

Also see eHub Interviews in Japanese at CNET Japan