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#me w that pic of him at some award show where hes posing w his hands on his hips
bugmin · 1 year
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i fear i will never be normal abt miss rudy pankow..... he makes me feel like a deranged chimpanzee like a pic of him popped up on pinterest with no warning and i started chewing on my kitchen counter
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ultsracha · 6 years
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Idol!Changmin (Q) x Model!reader Fluff
Anon:  Yes! We need more the boyz writers! If I may request, could you write a bulletpoint piece model!fem reader and idol!changmin/q meeting and falling in love? ❤️ A/N: Ahhh thank you for the request! changmin is my bias and so i would absolutely love to write for him so im glad this was requested. *disclaimer* this is the first thing ive written in a very long time and im sure it’s not the best, im sorry for that but hopefully i made up for it with adding other members cracky content as well <3 
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being a model was never what you intended to do when you grew up but you started posing for photography students during school and from there more and more people want to take your picture 
now, 3 years later it’s a whole career and you get to work alongside some amazing brands and creators to promote stuff 
one week, you were sent to seoul for a shoot with numerous other people to promote a clothing brand 
usually you didn't mind flying out to new places, in fact it was the best part of the job once you got over the language barrier 
but this time, you were completely alone, your manager couldn't come due to family problems and all of your friends had work
so you were completely alone going to this event
and little did you know it wouldn't just be a small shoot, tons of people were there from all over the world 
they had actors, singers and models from tons of different places and companies 
and most of them were older than you which made things more stressful
so, first day there and everyone’s being told their schedules and what they need to be doing 
when you’re given your schedule you see you’ve been put on the same shoot as a boy group and a handful of other models 
not that you minded because maybe you could make some friends seeing as you’d be there for a while 
luckily your shoot wasn’t for a while as they didn’t choose you as one of the major people involved with the project so you ended up in a backroom with a few other people minding their own business
it was reasonably quiet in the room, people chatting away and on their phones until the door burst open and a group of boys walked in
all of them were, well
very very very very cute
its uwu time
no wonder they’d been picked for this project, who wouldn't want something modelled by them 
They walked in together, one following behind the other. The final boy to walk in looked around at everyone until his eyes met yours
and when i say awkward eye contact, i mean awkward eye contact for about 6 seconds before he accidentally walked into his group member in front of him
followed by some profuse blushing and apologising 
they proceeded to disperse into the room and sit down
the one who made intense awkward eye contact lingered for a second, looking around before settling into a seat opposite you 
Now there were around 18 people all sat together, not really talking very much
and the air was, awkward. 
Until the organiser of the event came in to introduce himself and explain what you were all meant to do
The whole time he was introducing himself you felt someone looking at you, but whenever you searched everyone's faces no one was looking 
everything was going fine and dandy until the guy explaining the concepts and the activities you guys would be doing for the shoot asked everyone to introduce themselves one by one 
it wouldn’t usually be a problem, you’re a confident person and modelling has certain helped that but when surrounded by so many beautiful humans it’s scary as hell 
so, they all introduced themselves. one of the members called Hyunjoon even threw in a cheeky wink at the end of his introduction 
like who ??? let you be so cute 
but then it came to the one who held the awkward eye contact
he seemed dead set on never looking at you ever again after that first moment up until the second he stood
he looked right at you as he introduced himself 
explaining that he didn't mind being called Q or Changmin 
what a freaking cutie pie 
when it was your turn you felt the most amount of butterflies in your stomach since probably your first kiss back in primary school
introducing yourself as calmly as possible, only looking up from the floor briefly to see Changmin staring into your eyes with keen interest 
oof that was enough to set your heart on fire 
Finishing your introduction of where you’re from and how old you are, you sat down quickly feeling the heat in your cheeks increase when you saw two of the boys whispering together 
once the man was gone it was a lot easier for everyone to chat and discuss how they thought the project would turn out, excited to be part of such a unique shoot 
Changmin was glancing your way every few seconds, looking like he was having an internal battle with himself 
You decided to just be a bad bitch and go speak to him yourself 
he was with Hyunjoon anyway and you needed to congratulate him on winning the best introduction of the team award!! 
when you got there they both abruptly stopped talking and looked at you, waiting with wide eyes for what you were going to say 
“so you’re part of a boy group yeah?” you ask
might as well ease in gently yanno
they both looked at each other before Hyunjoon answered and began explaining their roles in the group
he explained in great length that Changmin was the main dancer 
speaking very briefly of the other members in order to explain that Changmin can sing and dance so well and he’s super amazing with fans 
Changmin all the while stood there blushing and trying to disagree with him 
honestly a sweet but strange interaction 
until finally Hyunjoon was called away by another member of the group 
leaving just you and Changmin alone 
you’d moved to a couch nearby by now so for a few moments you sat there admiring him as he watched Hyunjoon walk off 
when he turned back he rushed to say “I’m sorry about him, he loves to hype us all up. I’m not really that cool’ 
“No, I think you’re pretty cool...” You shrug, trying to pass off the compliment slyly which didn’t go unnoticed by him. 
A faint blush was working it’s way up his neck when the organiser walked back in with 3 sheets of paper 
“I can see you’ve all got to know each other more and now, I want you to divide yourself into teams as evenly as possible. I don’t want all the girls put in one team though because there are less of you” 
He then leaves the sheets on a table and walks off again leaving you to find the courage to ask Changmin if he’d want to be in the same team as you
Because I mean you’ve only known him for about 45 minutes but he’s already showed how sweet he is and you can’t help but feel excited at the idea of spending the next few days working with him
“So would yo-” 
“Hey could w-” 
You both tried to ask each other to be on the same team in the exact same second
Both of you burst into laughter and write your names on the paper one under the other still giggling the whole time 
The rest of the morning goes by just like this, giggling together and gradually getting to know one another more and more
by the time the afternoon rolls around he’s basically your best friend
You both love the same movies, same books, enjoy similar music 
Even as hair and makeup is being done you don’t stop talking and giggling
Lets be real here, a crush was growing 
It’s like within the space of 4 hours you’d become inseparable 
When the photos were being taken your teams connection together was so genuine
Working for a brand that’s entire concept is friendship and having fun together it was hardly surprising that the laughter didn’t end there 
The rest of the time you were there your cheeks never stopped hurting from how much you smiled and laughed 
Not just from Changmin but also from all of his groupmates too
Such a wonderful, fun group of people to be around 
You truly felt like one of them by the end of the shoot 
but lets not ignore the lingering glances you and Changmin exchanged, or how he always managed to find an excuse to be stood with you and how whenever he’d walk you to your hotel room door he would try and make the conversation last as long as possible and always, always end the night with a hug 
okay lets be real again, a crush had definitely formed, grown up, moved in and was now decorating the kitchen in your heart 
Like you couldn’t get enough of his happy energy and humour 
At the end of the final shoot when you’re all stood around talking and laughing Changmin grabs your arm and pulls you away
Clearly you don’t resist because like anyone would accept some alone time with Changmin 
Gently he leads you to a couch in the corner of the room and sits down
His cheeks are already rosy when he starts to speak, his hand starting to get clammy against your own
“y/n, will you go on a date with me?” he blurts out quickly and then opening his eyes wide as if he was surprised he said it
and in that moment 
your heart
burst and stopped and did a trip round the globe 
“Of COURSE” you literally scream
His face lights up immediately and he jumps up hugs you quickly and darts off back to the others
you hear them all cheer and see them start hugging and pushing around a very, very blushy Changmin 
Later that evening he arrives at your hotel room door, still wearing that same red hue on his cheeks 
You go to the arcade together and the whole evening is wonderful
it’s no different than how you guys have spent time together the last few days but this time Changmin insists on holding your hand every second 
As well as hugging you from behind when its your turn on the claw machine
Unfortunately you claw machine skills are... 
Limited 
But of course, your knight in shining hoodie and jeans swoops in and wins you the stuffed animal you really wanted 
After you’d played every arcade game and taking endless amounts of cringey pics of each other you walk home slowly still hand in hand 
“You know, I’m really glad I met you” he states out of the blue, still looking ahead of him
“Me too, I feel so complete with you around me” you reply back, swinging your joined hands slightly 
From then on, you were never apart
Literally like the brand you did the shoot for hired you permanently for big moneys and a promise of a successful modelling career a few weeks after your first date with Changmin
Which you graciously accepted for only that reason
Not the fact the love of your life happened to live down road from your new apartment 
and all you wanted to was hold his and forever 
plus the rest of the group fully accepted you as one of their own 
like seriously it was hard to find any moments alone with your boyfriend when hanging out at the dorms because hyunjae liked to ask what you’re doing every 3 minutes 
as well as father maknae line demanding your attention every second you were there
not that you complained about any of it 
because who would complain about a family like that 
and a boyfriend like Changmin 
really out here living your best life huh
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sugainmycoffee · 8 years
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{2016} A Year of Yoonmin pt. 2
{2016} A Year of Yoonmin pt. 1
July
the airing of bon voyage!
jimin’s lost bag yoongi teasing jimin again
“rapmonster and suga will plan it”
jimins lost trust jimin teasing yoongi again
when all jimin cares about is beating yoongi
160711 airport pics black and white yoonmin
ot7 for epilogue but still touchinging
jimin casually holding yoongi tight and yoongi casually enjoying it :’)
aesthetic yoonmin fantaken from epilogue
when tae accidently revealed jimin’s soft spot for a certain min yoongi on vlive
“it would be fun with suga” yoonmin bickering in dialect rip me
yoonmin cuddling yet again for summer package in dubai teasers
episode 3 of bon voyage where yoonmin were hella obvious: from this, to this, to all of thissssssss, this, this, and thiss
they make each other laugh and it’s the most beautiful thing :’)))
two cuties posing for star1
a smol hug for encouragement on stage during baepsae (epilogue)
ot7 for youth japanese album but still stuck to one another
August
bon voyage episode 5~
yoonmin reminiscing the good times they shared in sweden
the release of summer package in dubai blessing us with another yoonmin photoshoot!
but also the video
and the gifs
and the amazing solo shots
plus their diary
what jimin wants 
supportinG A TO THE G TO THE U TO THE STD
another bon voyage date why is every bts variety show actually just a yoonmin show?
an old interview that resurfaced because what the fuck?? jimin thinks about his hometown and nuzzles his head on yoongi’s chest???
thAT DAMNED GARTER and couple jeans
some things never change
matching outfits for Arirang arirang~Arariyo~~
Daegu Boys are meant to fall in love with Busan boys
probably holding hands on yET ANOTHER bon voyage date i love this show
tru luv aka when park jimin lost a game and chose to suffer his frozen punishment with yoongi all that hand holding
relaxing in the hot tub together
min yoongi looks out for his boyfriend
agreeing that they dont know shit (well atleast you have each other)
yoongi can’t take his eyes off the gem that is park jimin
when chuseok isac rolled around and we got rly emotional over our fave cupid duo
the touchinG
the side hugs
the media picturessss (x, x, x, x)
the BACK HUG returns
fooling around together :’)
September
“since Jimin is cute, Suga can forgive him for his immature image“
yoonmin + tae for puma
yoonmin for smart making us wanna cry yet again
the airing of isac and more yoonmin content
video of the back hug :’)
mini mini cupid duo
concentration
yoongi wanting jimin’s attention
obvious jiminie
more touching
precious jiminie and yoongi
hmph x x x
behind the scenes with park pd nim
constant bickering
WINGS SHORT FILMS LIE AND FIRST LOVE AND THE BLATANT CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TWO
puma joining in on the yoonmin comeback fun
an undeniable similarity
yoongi embarrassing jiminie...
september 30 2016 - also known as yoonmin day - when yoonmin concept pictures came out and so did their puma bogsock commercial
a parallel
the best concept
October
when we realized from young forever / wings they swapped hair colours but what does it mean and things got a bit difficult
some fantakens from the busan one asia festival
the blood sweat and tears mv teaser which was literally just aesthetics and kinky yoonmin
fantakens from DMC Festival and an onstage hug???
a lil something sweet during the wings preview show before they slayed us with that mv and album drop :’)
and then the bst mv dropped and we all died
but especially us ym stans bc of this this this & this
snow app filters blessed us and yoongi finally asked jimin out
bst mv reaction where yoongi only sees jimin (yet again) and jimin is soooo flustered
we all wished we could be jin for the album shoot behind the scenes
jiminie’s birthday! (ofc yoongi is the first to post a beautiful selfie of jimin making kissy faces whY DOES HE HAVE THAT PICTURE WILL WE EVER KNOW)
yoongi’s suggestive birthday present for jiminie...
smol touches and deep understanding for sbs cultwo show
the disrespect during bst promotions
dispatch glo up
yoongi still teasing us by telling us to wait a bit more for that song he wrote jimin .-. (still waiting min yoongi still waiting)
sitting unnecessarily close
#EXPOSE HIM 2k17
jimin confesses he spent chuseok break at the min’s cooing over yoongi cooing over min holly :’)))
despite all these km
why its relevant
allll the headcannons
161014 soft touches and giggles
161017 fansign moments (expectation vs reality)
161028 fansign where jimin mocked yoongi and also wanted to whisper sweet nothings in his ear
beautiful fantaken
yoongi abt jimin, making him laugh at fansigns, and wanting to name a dog “dooly” (aka jimins previous nickname)
“it just looks like i hit him hard”
ym fooling around behind the scenes for bst  (and holding hands?)
another win for the ot7 (but also the otp)
yoongi just wants to take jimin on a honeymoon when will they let him
skt returns with another cf for the love of minimini
the end of a beautiful era
November
one last selfie to wrap up promotions
goodbye stage softness
tony montana collab!!! (aka yoonmin subunit lowkey debuts after all this pining)
yoongi is a supportive bf
but also a jealous one
push push fall in love
jimin teasing yoongi on twitter for the 1392028th time
shookga
ym autumn aesthetics
minimini mc duo
tryna kill us w their aegyo
yoongi flustered af remembering jimins iconic contribution to mama 2014
December
yoongi’s proposal! mama 2016!
soft touches n hugs
shared smiles n explicit flirting
jimin cant contain himself at all after winning the daesang
lovely fantakens of a beautiful night
lost in their own world
when will the teasing end
when we finally got the HD for that isac back hug :’))
the cutest pair
jimin reminding us he knows more about yoongi than we ever will in seasons greetings
“i knew you were good” 
move aside orange mint, a new era of tomato peach is born
wow i love captain of the ym ship, kim namjoon
so soFT
not so single singles
pup jimin knows exactly what he wants
end callout culture 2k17
when yoongi wanted jimin to carry his standee and jimin was being a lil shit
yoongi’s injury :< which led to all this disrespect
“you dont have to hurt yourself”
“namjoon hyung does it better”
yoongi’s tweets....
and a lil something sweet too #neverleavingoutminyoongi
another award = another win for the otp
anddddddddd that’s a wrap. lets hope 2017 is an even more eventful year for our boys ❤️️
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fesahaawit · 7 years
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10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)
What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.
Namely, the handful of new financial companies that were part of our yearly fintech competition I helped judge! It’s always so interesting to see how people use technology to solve our problems out there, and just like last year’s competition this one did not disappoint.
But first, gotta give it up to PT Money for organizing this amazing event each and every year (it was my 7th one attending!), as well as to all the other bloggers who volunteered their time to make it happen. If you’re a $$$ blogger or podcaster or just plain obsessed with personal finance, you NEED to come out to it one year and experience what it’s all about! I promise you will leave incredibly motivated or I will shut down this blog forever ;) (Or at least buy you a beer to cry into – hah)
So what happened at FinCon 2017?
Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)
Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)
Best selling author David Bach (of Automatic Millionaire fame) popped in to share his wild story on getting on Oprah for the first time, and how the Latte Factor is “not about the damn lattes!” Haha… Rebuking the hate he so often gets when people say they will never give up their coffees no matter how sexy compound interest is ;) He may or may not have also dropped a few F bombs on stage showing that he is definitely not one of the more stuffier financial “experts” out there. Super cool to run into him around 1 am on the last night too to talk shop! (Interesting fact: he’s fairly short)
Darren Rowse shared his story of how he became one of the world’s first professional bloggers when one of his camera reviews went viral over night. He’d later go on to start two majorly successful blogs, including the one most bloggers are familiar with and learn from: ProBlogger.com
Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup and The Art of Non-Comformity talked about how it’s perfectly okay to let a side hustle be just that – a side hustle! There’s no rule that you need to turn it into a full-time job if you’re perfectly happy with your current one. Just let it be your creative outlet while you bring home some extra side money! (I agree with this 100%!! Not all of us are born to run companies!!)
Cait Flanders held a presentation on writing Rockstar content that was packed solid which we think/hope went over pretty well! Interweaving the back story of Rockstar Finance and how it’s evolved over the years as well. (Cait curates it with me, and is one of my favorite bloggers on the scene)
A bunch of people from our community created a parody of The Office called The Floor which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise live musical performance by American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)
And lastly – we had one pretty damn fun Halloween party to wrap up the conference! Erik from The Mastermind Within said it best: “it was hilarious to see people with $1 million+ net worth’s singing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back”.” Haha… That’s how we roll! If you can’t live it up, what’s the point of all that money??
As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)
(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)
Other interesting gems pertaining to yours truly: I randomly got interviewed in the bathroom, and I was  presented with the International Blogger of The Year award from UK’s SHOMO awards. Where I then made an acceptance speech that included “Long live the queen!” which I thought was pretty clever? ;)
Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!
As I mentioned, I was one of the two judges for it again this year, where our ratings made up for 50% of the votes with the audiences’ making up the other 50%. We awarded two prizes for the night – $1,000 for first and $500 for 2nd – and below are my honest opinions of each, along with what they do. I’m not getting compensated by anyone listed here, and there are no affiliate links included at all.
Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:
Agreeable (AgreeableApp.com) — Agreeable was one of my favorite apps who presented, and was built to help solve the problem of no shows whenever you go to meet someone off Craigslist or Facebook. Whereas currently you’re just $hit out of both luck and time when the buyer/seller doesn’t show up, with this app you’d actually get *paid* an agreed upon amount if anyone bails, ensuring that it’s in both parties’ interests to make the scheduled time. There were some privacy concerns I first had with this as it tracks both of your locations to confirm that the two sides made it to the meet-up okay, but after talking w/ one of the founders at a party afterwards I was impressed with their patent-pending solution to this. We’ll see if this puppy takes off, but I’m personally rooting for it to! (Also can be used for soooo many other areas in life too – imagine if Comcast or other services were forced to pay you if they never show up when they’re supposed to?? We’d all be rich! ;))
Birch Finance (BirchFinance.com) — This app was another killer idea, which I SWORE already existed but I guess not (a good sign that they’re onto something!). Basically, you tell Birch what credit cards you have and use, and then it’ll analyze them as you’re out shopping and tell you which ones to use to reap the *best* rewards, as well as *how much* you’ll get back by them, rather than you having to guess all the time. It’ll then show you other cards out in the market, and compare what would have happened had you used *those* cards instead of the ones you currently have. And since it’s all based on your specific transactions and spending patterns, you can see first hand exactly what your cards – or future cards – are worth to you. A pretty epic tool for any card hackers/lovers. (I’ll never use it since I’m a minimalist with just my one USAA card, but I’d be allll on it if I were in the rewards game!)
Budgit (BudgitApp.com) — Budgit is an automated budgeting and savings service that organizes your bills and spending so you can save for your goals. I tried real hard to figure out how these guys were different from all the other budgeting apps out there – and even posed the question during Q&A time – but even after doing so I was honestly still just as confused. They actually have this question posed word for word at the bottom of their website (“How is Budgit different?”) but the 3 answers given were “No ads ever”, “Hassle-free”, and “Secure and private.” Which I’m pretty sure most apps are?? All that said, as a budget guy I don’t think you can have *too many* apps out there spreading the good word, so I very much wish them all the luck and success as they can get. (PS: This app is not the same one as BudgIT)
College Backer (CollegeBacker.com) — These guys were pretty cool as they help get people to gift their child 529 contributions instead of more toys and “stuff.” Something I very much try to do every year too and rarely succeed! ;) And while like Budgit I couldn’t pin point how exactly this service is different than the others out there on the scene (there’s quite a few who let families and friends jump in to make this happen), I did like the general purpose of it and hope they take me up on my recommendation to pair these gifts with some sort of physical item too so the kids don’t totally hate opening up the gift of 529 funding, haha…
Honeyfi (Honeyfi.com) — Honeyfi is a new app *for couples* that makes sharing your budget and managing your money much easier together. Which I absolutely love! Honeyfi allows you to collaborate, link accounts, and even message each other at any time through the app so everyone in the relationship can be on the exact same page. There’s not many apps I can think of that focuses mainly on couples (actually, I can’t think of one?), so I’m really hoping this one takes off as I think they’re onto something good here… Budgets are even sexier when TWO people are involved!! ;)
KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others are doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.
Squeeze (Squeeze.com) — Squeeze is an app that helps you save by finding the best deals, promo codes, and coupons directly related to your current spending. It sounded a lot like the others in the field so I had a hard time putting them into their own special bucket, but needless to say you can’t have too many coupons in this hyper consumer world of ours… And as for branding, they absolutely NAILED it. Some of the other fintech names were pretty random!
Take Command Health (TakeCommandHealth.com) — These guys won my personal award for the best presentation, if only for the inclusion of photoshopped Trump and Obama pics littered throughout :) But their app was def. no joke. In a nutshell, Take Command helps you easily find the best option for health coverage by using big data to help source the best, and cheapest, health care options for you both on and off the exchange. They also shared the release of their small business feature which helps companies offer better and cheaper plans to their employees as well – something that many places are struggling hard with right now. So while the topic of health insurance typically doesn’t turn heads (at least for good reasons!), these guys had our immediate attention and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if they hit a home run with this.
Qoins (Qoins.io) — Do these guys look familiar?? They should! I featured them here last year the second I came across them because they’re the FIRST to finally apply “rounding up” technology to debt!!! Which is something severely lacking in our industry… And while I had to recuse myself from voting on this one since I was definitely biased (they donated $$$ to our Community Fund over at Rockstar Finance), I was beyond pleased to see them here and thought they gave a great presentation. You can find my review of them here (I was the first ever blogger to share them!) but in a nutshell they round up all your transactions to the nearest dollar, and then uses the spare change to help pay off your debt every month. It won’t clear all of it, but every $30 or $40/mo helps!
WizeFi (Wizefi.com) — WizeFi is a paid app ($8/mo) that helps organize your finances, analyzing everything from your assets and liabilities to your insurance and spending habits. Once hooked up it’ll then estimate your future net worth if you continue spending the way you’re currently spending, and then compare it to your future net worth if you follow your custom WizeFi wealth-building plan. It comes with a super slick interface and the focus on net worth of course turned me on, but at the end of the day not too sure that alone is worth the $8. Especially since it doesn’t physically *move* the money for you like Digit or Acorns does and still requires you to take action (which most people won’t). I was also turned off by the mentions of an affiliate program for customers to make more money, both in the presentation as well as on their website (it’s prominently listed as the #3 reason to sign up?!), even though I’m sure the founder meant well. Overall would have been better if you had the chance to test out a free version, with an option to upgrade later to “pro” or something similar if interested…
Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??
Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:
Birch Finance
Take Command Health
Honestly though, ALL of these guys came out winning as they not only got to pitch in front of tons of $$$ influencers and enthusiasts, but also landed on this illustrious blog here!!! Haha… Surely that’s worth at *least* $10.00 right? ;)
So congrats to everyone who participated. I wish I were smart enough to come up with my own money app! If you want to take a look at last year’s competition and results, you can find that here: Fintech Competition 2016
Next Year’s FinCon Event…
If you can believe it, plans are already in the works for next year’s conference! If you’ve always wanted to visit Orlando, Florida – now’s your chance! We’ll be partying it up with Mickey next year :) Learn more and pick up tickets here: FinconExpo.com/2018
So there we are – another great conference on the books :) THANK YOU thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came out and put up with me over the weekend! It was a blast hanging out with my 2nd family in the flesh, and I wish you all a most successful next year.
Special shout out to the following who really made me smile throughout: Chelsea Norton, Cait Flanders, Steve Adcock, Jim $, Shin, Bobby Lee, Pete McPherson, Latoya Scott, Fritz, Hélène, Hannah Rounds, the Tiller Team, Miss Mazuma, Optimal Finance Daily, John and Sharon Duffy, Shannon Austin, The Dumpster Dog, Miss Thrifty, Maria Nedeva, FIREcracker, and Romeo Jeremiah.
See y’all in another 11 months!
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ
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heliosfinance · 7 years
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10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)
What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.
Namely, the handful of new financial companies that were part of our yearly fintech competition I helped judge! It’s always so interesting to see how people use technology to solve our problems out there, and just like last year’s competition this one did not disappoint.
But first, gotta give it up to PT Money for organizing this amazing event each and every year (it was my 7th one attending!), as well as to all the other bloggers who volunteered their time to make it happen. If you’re a $$$ blogger or podcaster or just plain obsessed with personal finance, you NEED to come out to it one year and experience what it’s all about! I promise you will leave incredibly motivated or I will shut down this blog forever ;) (Or at least buy you a beer to cry into – hah)
So what happened at FinCon 2017?
Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)
Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)
Best selling author David Bach (of Automatic Millionaire fame) popped in to share his wild story on getting on Oprah for the first time, and how the Latte Factor is “not about the damn lattes!” Haha… Rebuking the hate he so often gets when people say they will never give up their coffees no matter how sexy compound interest is ;) He may or may not have also dropped a few F bombs on stage showing that he is definitely not one of the more stuffier financial “experts” out there. Super cool to run into him around 1 am on the last night too to talk shop! (Interesting fact: he’s fairly short)
Darren Rowse shared his story of how he became one of the world’s first professional bloggers when one of his camera reviews went viral over night. He’d later go on to start two majorly successful blogs, including the one most bloggers are familiar with and learn from: ProBlogger.com
Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup and The Art of Non-Comformity talked about how it’s perfectly okay to let a side hustle be just that – a side hustle! There’s no rule that you need to turn it into a full-time job if you’re perfectly happy with your current one. Just let it be your creative outlet while you bring home some extra side money! (I agree with this 100%!! Not all of us are born to run companies!!)
Cait Flanders held a presentation on writing Rockstar content that was packed solid which we think/hope went over pretty well! Interweaving the back story of Rockstar Finance and how it’s evolved over the years as well. (Cait curates it with me, and is one of my favorite bloggers on the scene)
A bunch of people from our community created a parody of “The Office” which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise performance from American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)
And lastly – we had one pretty damn fun Halloween party to wrap up the conference! Erik from The Mastermind Within said it best: “it was hilarious to see people with $1 million+ net worth’s singing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back”.” Haha… That’s how we roll! If you can’t live it up, what’s the point of all that money??
As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)
(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)
Other interesting gems pertaining to yours truly: I randomly got interviewed in the bathroom, and I was  presented with the International Blogger of The Year award from UK’s SHOMO awards. Where I then made an acceptance speech that included “Long live the queen!” which I thought was pretty clever? ;)
Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!
As I mentioned, I was one of the two judges for it again this year, where our ratings made up for 50% of the votes with the audiences’ making up the other 50%. We awarded two prizes for the night – $1,000 for first and $500 for 2nd – and below are my honest opinions of each, along with what they do. I’m not getting compensated by anyone listed here, and there are no affiliate links included at all.
Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:
Agreeable (AgreeableApp.com) — Agreeable was one of my favorite apps who presented, and was built to help solve the problem of no shows whenever you go to meet someone off Craigslist or Facebook. Whereas currently you’re just $hit out of both luck and time when the buyer/seller doesn’t show up, with this app you’d actually get *paid* an agreed upon amount if anyone bails, ensuring that it’s in both parties’ interests to make the scheduled time. There were some privacy concerns I first had with this as it tracks both of your locations to confirm that the two sides made it to the meet-up okay, but after talking w/ one of the founders at a party afterwards I was impressed with their patent-pending solution to this. We’ll see if this puppy takes off, but I’m personally rooting for it to! (Also can be used for soooo many other areas in life too – imagine if Comcast or other services were forced to pay you if they never show up when they’re supposed to?? We’d all be rich! ;))
Birch Finance (BirchFinance.com) — This app was another killer idea, which I SWORE already existed but I guess not (a good sign that they’re onto something!). Basically, you tell Birch what credit cards you have and use, and then it’ll analyze them as you’re out shopping and tell you which ones to use to reap the *best* rewards, as well as *how much* you’ll get back by them, rather than you having to guess all the time. It’ll then show you other cards out in the market, and compare what would have happened had you used *those* cards instead of the ones you currently have. And since it’s all based on your specific transactions and spending patterns, you can see first hand exactly what your cards – or future cards – are worth to you. A pretty epic tool for any card hackers/lovers. (I’ll never use it since I’m a minimalist with just my one USAA card, but I’d be allll on it if I were in the rewards game!)
Budgit (BudgitApp.com) — Budgit is an automated budgeting and savings service that organizes your bills and spending so you can save for your goals. I tried real hard to figure out how these guys were different from all the other budgeting apps out there – and even posed the question during Q&A time – but even after doing so I was honestly still just as confused. They actually have this question posed word for word at the bottom of their website (“How is Budgit different?”) but the 3 answers given were “No ads ever”, “Hassle-free”, and “Secure and private.” Which I’m pretty sure most apps are?? All that said, as a budget guy I don’t think you can have *too many* apps out there spreading the good word, so I very much wish them all the luck and success as they can get. (PS: This app is not the same one as BudgIT)
College Backer (CollegeBacker.com) — These guys were pretty cool as they help get people to gift their child 529 contributions instead of more toys and “stuff.” Something I very much try to do every year too and rarely succeed! ;) And while like Budgit I couldn’t pin point how exactly this service is different than the others out there on the scene (there’s quite a few who let families and friends jump in to make this happen), I did like the general purpose of it and hope they take me up on my recommendation to pair these gifts with some sort of physical item too so the kids don’t totally hate opening up the gift of 529 funding, haha…
Honeyfi (Honeyfi.com) — Honeyfi is a new app *for couples* that makes sharing your budget and managing your money much easier together. Which I absolutely love! Honeyfi allows you to collaborate, link accounts, and even message each other at any time through the app so everyone in the relationship can be on the exact same page. There’s not many apps I can think of that focuses mainly on couples (actually, I can’t think of one?), so I’m really hoping this one takes off as I think they’re onto something good here… Budgets are even sexier with TWO people are involved!! ;)
KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others is doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.
Squeeze (Squeeze.com) — Squeeze is an app that helps you save by finding the best deals, promo codes, and coupons directly related to your current spending. It sounded a lot like the others in the field so I had a hard time putting them into their own special bucket, but needless to say you can’t have too many coupons in this hyper consumer world of ours… And as for branding, they absolutely NAILED it. Some of the other fintech names were pretty random!
Take Command Health (TakeCommandHealth.com) — These guys won my personal award for the best presentation, if only for the inclusion of photoshopped Trump and Obama pics littered throughout :) But their app was def. no joke. In a nutshell, Take Command helps you easily find the best option for health coverage by using big data to help source the best, and cheapest, health care options for you both on and off the exchange. They also shared the release of their small business feature which helps companies offer better and cheaper plans to their employees as well – something that many places are struggling hard with right now. So while the topic of health insurance typically doesn’t turn heads (at least for good reasons!), these guys had our immediate attention and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if they hit a home run with this.
Qoins (Qoins.io) — Do these guys look familiar?? They should! I featured them here last year the second I came across them because they’re the FIRST to finally apply “rounding up” technology to debt!!! Which is something severely lacking in our industry… And while I had to recuse myself from voting on this one since I was definitely biased (they donated $$$ to our Community Fund over at Rockstar Finance), I was beyond pleased to see them here and thought they gave a great presentation. You can find my review of them here (I was the first ever blogger to share them!) but in a nutshell they round up all your transactions to the nearest dollar, and then uses the spare change to help pay off your debt every month. It won’t clear all of it, but every $30 or $40/mo helps!
WizeFi (Wizefi.com) — WizeFi is a paid app ($8/mo) that helps organize your finances, analyzing everything from your assets and liabilities to your insurance and spending habits. Once hooked up it’ll then estimate your future net worth if you continue spending the way you’re currently spending, and then compare it to your future net worth if you follow your custom WizeFi wealth-building plan. It comes with a super slick interface and the focus on net worth of course turned me on, but at the end of the day not too sure that alone is worth the $8. Especially since it doesn’t physically *move* the money for you like Digit or Acorns does and still requires you to take action (which most people won’t). I was also turned off by the mentions of an affiliate program for customers to make more money, both in the presentation as well as on their website (it’s prominently listed as the #3 reason to sign up?!), even though I’m sure the founder meant well. Overall would have been better if you had the chance to test out a free version, with an option to upgrade later to “pro” or something similar if interested…
Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??
Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:
Birch Finance
Take Command Health
Honestly though, ALL of these guys came out winning as they not only got to pitch in front of tons of $$$ influencers and enthusiasts, but also landed on this illustrious blog here!!! Haha… Surely that’s worth at *least* $10.00 right? ;)
So congrats to everyone who participated. I wish I were smart enough to come up with my own money app! If you want to take a look at last year’s competition and results, you can find that here: Fintech Competition 2016
Next Year’s FinCon Event…
If you can believe it, plans are already in the works for next year’s conference! If you’ve always wanted to visit Orlando, Florida – now’s your chance! We’ll be partying it up with Mickey next year :) More details to come…
So there we are – another great conference on the books :) THANK YOU thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came out and put up with me over the weekend! It was a blast hanging out with my 2nd family in the flesh, and I wish you all a most successful next year.
Special shout out to the following who really made me smile throughout: Chelsea Norton, Cait Flanders, Steve Adcock, Jim $, Shin, Bobby Lee, Pete McPherson, Latoya Scott, Fritz, Hélène, Hannah Rounds, the Tiller Team, Miss Mazuma, Optimal Finance Daily, John and Sharon Duffy, Shannon Austin, The Dumpster Dog, Miss Thrifty, Maria Nedeva, FIREcracker, and Romeo Jeremiah.
See y’all in another 11 months!
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B
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fesahaawit · 7 years
Text
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)
What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.
Namely, the handful of new financial companies that were part of our yearly fintech competition I helped judge! It’s always so interesting to see how people use technology to solve our problems out there, and just like last year’s competition this one did not disappoint.
But first, gotta give it up to PT Money for organizing this amazing event each and every year (it was my 7th one attending!), as well as to all the other bloggers who volunteered their time to make it happen. If you’re a $$$ blogger or podcaster or just plain obsessed with personal finance, you NEED to come out to it one year and experience what it’s all about! I promise you will leave incredibly motivated or I will shut down this blog forever ;) (Or at least buy you a beer to cry into – hah)
So what happened at FinCon 2017?
Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)
Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)
Best selling author David Bach (of Automatic Millionaire fame) popped in to share his wild story on getting on Oprah for the first time, and how the Latte Factor is “not about the damn lattes!” Haha… Rebuking the hate he so often gets when people say they will never give up their coffees no matter how sexy compound interest is ;) He may or may not have also dropped a few F bombs on stage showing that he is definitely not one of the more stuffier financial “experts” out there. Super cool to run into him around 1 am on the last night too to talk shop! (Interesting fact: he’s fairly short)
Darren Rowse shared his story of how he became one of the world’s first professional bloggers when one of his camera reviews went viral over night. He’d later go on to start two majorly successful blogs, including the one most bloggers are familiar with and learn from: ProBlogger.com
Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup and The Art of Non-Comformity talked about how it’s perfectly okay to let a side hustle be just that – a side hustle! There’s no rule that you need to turn it into a full-time job if you’re perfectly happy with your current one. Just let it be your creative outlet while you bring home some extra side money! (I agree with this 100%!! Not all of us are born to run companies!!)
Cait Flanders held a presentation on writing Rockstar content that was packed solid which we think/hope went over pretty well! Interweaving the back story of Rockstar Finance and how it’s evolved over the years as well. (Cait curates it with me, and is one of my favorite bloggers on the scene)
A bunch of people from our community created a parody of The Office called The Floor which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise live musical performance by American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)
And lastly – we had one pretty damn fun Halloween party to wrap up the conference! Erik from The Mastermind Within said it best: “it was hilarious to see people with $1 million+ net worth’s singing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back”.” Haha… That’s how we roll! If you can’t live it up, what’s the point of all that money??
As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)
(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)
Other interesting gems pertaining to yours truly: I randomly got interviewed in the bathroom, and I was  presented with the International Blogger of The Year award from UK’s SHOMO awards. Where I then made an acceptance speech that included “Long live the queen!” which I thought was pretty clever? ;)
Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!
As I mentioned, I was one of the two judges for it again this year, where our ratings made up for 50% of the votes with the audiences’ making up the other 50%. We awarded two prizes for the night – $1,000 for first and $500 for 2nd – and below are my honest opinions of each, along with what they do. I’m not getting compensated by anyone listed here, and there are no affiliate links included at all.
Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:
Agreeable (AgreeableApp.com) — Agreeable was one of my favorite apps who presented, and was built to help solve the problem of no shows whenever you go to meet someone off Craigslist or Facebook. Whereas currently you’re just $hit out of both luck and time when the buyer/seller doesn’t show up, with this app you’d actually get *paid* an agreed upon amount if anyone bails, ensuring that it’s in both parties’ interests to make the scheduled time. There were some privacy concerns I first had with this as it tracks both of your locations to confirm that the two sides made it to the meet-up okay, but after talking w/ one of the founders at a party afterwards I was impressed with their patent-pending solution to this. We’ll see if this puppy takes off, but I’m personally rooting for it to! (Also can be used for soooo many other areas in life too – imagine if Comcast or other services were forced to pay you if they never show up when they’re supposed to?? We’d all be rich! ;))
Birch Finance (BirchFinance.com) — This app was another killer idea, which I SWORE already existed but I guess not (a good sign that they’re onto something!). Basically, you tell Birch what credit cards you have and use, and then it’ll analyze them as you’re out shopping and tell you which ones to use to reap the *best* rewards, as well as *how much* you’ll get back by them, rather than you having to guess all the time. It’ll then show you other cards out in the market, and compare what would have happened had you used *those* cards instead of the ones you currently have. And since it’s all based on your specific transactions and spending patterns, you can see first hand exactly what your cards – or future cards – are worth to you. A pretty epic tool for any card hackers/lovers. (I’ll never use it since I’m a minimalist with just my one USAA card, but I’d be allll on it if I were in the rewards game!)
Budgit (BudgitApp.com) — Budgit is an automated budgeting and savings service that organizes your bills and spending so you can save for your goals. I tried real hard to figure out how these guys were different from all the other budgeting apps out there – and even posed the question during Q&A time – but even after doing so I was honestly still just as confused. They actually have this question posed word for word at the bottom of their website (“How is Budgit different?”) but the 3 answers given were “No ads ever”, “Hassle-free”, and “Secure and private.” Which I’m pretty sure most apps are?? All that said, as a budget guy I don’t think you can have *too many* apps out there spreading the good word, so I very much wish them all the luck and success as they can get. (PS: This app is not the same one as BudgIT)
College Backer (CollegeBacker.com) — These guys were pretty cool as they help get people to gift their child 529 contributions instead of more toys and “stuff.” Something I very much try to do every year too and rarely succeed! ;) And while like Budgit I couldn’t pin point how exactly this service is different than the others out there on the scene (there’s quite a few who let families and friends jump in to make this happen), I did like the general purpose of it and hope they take me up on my recommendation to pair these gifts with some sort of physical item too so the kids don’t totally hate opening up the gift of 529 funding, haha…
Honeyfi (Honeyfi.com) — Honeyfi is a new app *for couples* that makes sharing your budget and managing your money much easier together. Which I absolutely love! Honeyfi allows you to collaborate, link accounts, and even message each other at any time through the app so everyone in the relationship can be on the exact same page. There’s not many apps I can think of that focuses mainly on couples (actually, I can’t think of one?), so I’m really hoping this one takes off as I think they’re onto something good here… Budgets are even sexier when TWO people are involved!! ;)
KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others are doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.
Squeeze (Squeeze.com) — Squeeze is an app that helps you save by finding the best deals, promo codes, and coupons directly related to your current spending. It sounded a lot like the others in the field so I had a hard time putting them into their own special bucket, but needless to say you can’t have too many coupons in this hyper consumer world of ours… And as for branding, they absolutely NAILED it. Some of the other fintech names were pretty random!
Take Command Health (TakeCommandHealth.com) — These guys won my personal award for the best presentation, if only for the inclusion of photoshopped Trump and Obama pics littered throughout :) But their app was def. no joke. In a nutshell, Take Command helps you easily find the best option for health coverage by using big data to help source the best, and cheapest, health care options for you both on and off the exchange. They also shared the release of their small business feature which helps companies offer better and cheaper plans to their employees as well – something that many places are struggling hard with right now. So while the topic of health insurance typically doesn’t turn heads (at least for good reasons!), these guys had our immediate attention and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if they hit a home run with this.
Qoins (Qoins.io) — Do these guys look familiar?? They should! I featured them here last year the second I came across them because they’re the FIRST to finally apply “rounding up” technology to debt!!! Which is something severely lacking in our industry… And while I had to recuse myself from voting on this one since I was definitely biased (they donated $$$ to our Community Fund over at Rockstar Finance), I was beyond pleased to see them here and thought they gave a great presentation. You can find my review of them here (I was the first ever blogger to share them!) but in a nutshell they round up all your transactions to the nearest dollar, and then uses the spare change to help pay off your debt every month. It won’t clear all of it, but every $30 or $40/mo helps!
WizeFi (Wizefi.com) — WizeFi is a paid app ($8/mo) that helps organize your finances, analyzing everything from your assets and liabilities to your insurance and spending habits. Once hooked up it’ll then estimate your future net worth if you continue spending the way you’re currently spending, and then compare it to your future net worth if you follow your custom WizeFi wealth-building plan. It comes with a super slick interface and the focus on net worth of course turned me on, but at the end of the day not too sure that alone is worth the $8. Especially since it doesn’t physically *move* the money for you like Digit or Acorns does and still requires you to take action (which most people won’t). I was also turned off by the mentions of an affiliate program for customers to make more money, both in the presentation as well as on their website (it’s prominently listed as the #3 reason to sign up?!), even though I’m sure the founder meant well. Overall would have been better if you had the chance to test out a free version, with an option to upgrade later to “pro” or something similar if interested…
Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??
Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:
Birch Finance
Take Command Health
Honestly though, ALL of these guys came out winning as they not only got to pitch in front of tons of $$$ influencers and enthusiasts, but also landed on this illustrious blog here!!! Haha… Surely that’s worth at *least* $10.00 right? ;)
So congrats to everyone who participated. I wish I were smart enough to come up with my own money app! If you want to take a look at last year’s competition and results, you can find that here: Fintech Competition 2016
Next Year’s FinCon Event…
If you can believe it, plans are already in the works for next year’s conference! If you’ve always wanted to visit Orlando, Florida – now’s your chance! We’ll be partying it up with Mickey next year :) Learn more and pick up tickets here: FinconExpo.com/2018
So there we are – another great conference on the books :) THANK YOU thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came out and put up with me over the weekend! It was a blast hanging out with my 2nd family in the flesh, and I wish you all a most successful next year.
Special shout out to the following who really made me smile throughout: Chelsea Norton, Cait Flanders, Steve Adcock, Jim $, Shin, Bobby Lee, Pete McPherson, Latoya Scott, Fritz, Hélène, Hannah Rounds, the Tiller Team, Miss Mazuma, Optimal Finance Daily, John and Sharon Duffy, Shannon Austin, The Dumpster Dog, Miss Thrifty, Maria Nedeva, FIREcracker, and Romeo Jeremiah.
See y’all in another 11 months!
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ
0 notes
fesahaawit · 7 years
Text
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)
What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.
Namely, the handful of new financial companies that were part of our yearly fintech competition I helped judge! It’s always so interesting to see how people use technology to solve our problems out there, and just like last year’s competition this one did not disappoint.
But first, gotta give it up to PT Money for organizing this amazing event each and every year (it was my 7th one attending!), as well as to all the other bloggers who volunteered their time to make it happen. If you’re a $$$ blogger or podcaster or just plain obsessed with personal finance, you NEED to come out to it one year and experience what it’s all about! I promise you will leave incredibly motivated or I will shut down this blog forever ;) (Or at least buy you a beer to cry into – hah)
So what happened at FinCon 2017?
Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)
Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)
Best selling author David Bach (of Automatic Millionaire fame) popped in to share his wild story on getting on Oprah for the first time, and how the Latte Factor is “not about the damn lattes!” Haha… Rebuking the hate he so often gets when people say they will never give up their coffees no matter how sexy compound interest is ;) He may or may not have also dropped a few F bombs on stage showing that he is definitely not one of the more stuffier financial “experts” out there. Super cool to run into him around 1 am on the last night too to talk shop! (Interesting fact: he’s fairly short)
Darren Rowse shared his story of how he became one of the world’s first professional bloggers when one of his camera reviews went viral over night. He’d later go on to start two majorly successful blogs, including the one most bloggers are familiar with and learn from: ProBlogger.com
Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup and The Art of Non-Comformity talked about how it’s perfectly okay to let a side hustle be just that – a side hustle! There’s no rule that you need to turn it into a full-time job if you’re perfectly happy with your current one. Just let it be your creative outlet while you bring home some extra side money! (I agree with this 100%!! Not all of us are born to run companies!!)
Cait Flanders held a presentation on writing Rockstar content that was packed solid which we think/hope went over pretty well! Interweaving the back story of Rockstar Finance and how it’s evolved over the years as well. (Cait curates it with me, and is one of my favorite bloggers on the scene)
A bunch of people from our community created a parody of “The Office” which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise performance from American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)
And lastly – we had one pretty damn fun Halloween party to wrap up the conference! Erik from The Mastermind Within said it best: “it was hilarious to see people with $1 million+ net worth’s singing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back”.” Haha… That’s how we roll! If you can’t live it up, what’s the point of all that money??
As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)
(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)
Other interesting gems pertaining to yours truly: I randomly got interviewed in the bathroom, and I was  presented with the International Blogger of The Year award from UK’s SHOMO awards. Where I then made an acceptance speech that included “Long live the queen!” which I thought was pretty clever? ;)
Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!
As I mentioned, I was one of the two judges for it again this year, where our ratings made up for 50% of the votes with the audiences’ making up the other 50%. We awarded two prizes for the night – $1,000 for first and $500 for 2nd – and below are my honest opinions of each, along with what they do. I’m not getting compensated by anyone listed here, and there are no affiliate links included at all.
Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:
Agreeable (AgreeableApp.com) — Agreeable was one of my favorite apps who presented, and was built to help solve the problem of no shows whenever you go to meet someone off Craigslist or Facebook. Whereas currently you’re just $hit out of both luck and time when the buyer/seller doesn’t show up, with this app you’d actually get *paid* an agreed upon amount if anyone bails, ensuring that it’s in both parties’ interests to make the scheduled time. There were some privacy concerns I first had with this as it tracks both of your locations to confirm that the two sides made it to the meet-up okay, but after talking w/ one of the founders at a party afterwards I was impressed with their patent-pending solution to this. We’ll see if this puppy takes off, but I’m personally rooting for it to! (Also can be used for soooo many other areas in life too – imagine if Comcast or other services were forced to pay you if they never show up when they’re supposed to?? We’d all be rich! ;))
Birch Finance (BirchFinance.com) — This app was another killer idea, which I SWORE already existed but I guess not (a good sign that they’re onto something!). Basically, you tell Birch what credit cards you have and use, and then it’ll analyze them as you’re out shopping and tell you which ones to use to reap the *best* rewards, as well as *how much* you’ll get back by them, rather than you having to guess all the time. It’ll then show you other cards out in the market, and compare what would have happened had you used *those* cards instead of the ones you currently have. And since it’s all based on your specific transactions and spending patterns, you can see first hand exactly what your cards – or future cards – are worth to you. A pretty epic tool for any card hackers/lovers. (I’ll never use it since I’m a minimalist with just my one USAA card, but I’d be allll on it if I were in the rewards game!)
Budgit (BudgitApp.com) — Budgit is an automated budgeting and savings service that organizes your bills and spending so you can save for your goals. I tried real hard to figure out how these guys were different from all the other budgeting apps out there – and even posed the question during Q&A time – but even after doing so I was honestly still just as confused. They actually have this question posed word for word at the bottom of their website (“How is Budgit different?”) but the 3 answers given were “No ads ever”, “Hassle-free”, and “Secure and private.” Which I’m pretty sure most apps are?? All that said, as a budget guy I don’t think you can have *too many* apps out there spreading the good word, so I very much wish them all the luck and success as they can get. (PS: This app is not the same one as BudgIT)
College Backer (CollegeBacker.com) — These guys were pretty cool as they help get people to gift their child 529 contributions instead of more toys and “stuff.” Something I very much try to do every year too and rarely succeed! ;) And while like Budgit I couldn’t pin point how exactly this service is different than the others out there on the scene (there’s quite a few who let families and friends jump in to make this happen), I did like the general purpose of it and hope they take me up on my recommendation to pair these gifts with some sort of physical item too so the kids don’t totally hate opening up the gift of 529 funding, haha…
Honeyfi (Honeyfi.com) — Honeyfi is a new app *for couples* that makes sharing your budget and managing your money much easier together. Which I absolutely love! Honeyfi allows you to collaborate, link accounts, and even message each other at any time through the app so everyone in the relationship can be on the exact same page. There’s not many apps I can think of that focuses mainly on couples (actually, I can’t think of one?), so I’m really hoping this one takes off as I think they’re onto something good here… Budgets are even sexier with TWO people are involved!! ;)
KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others is doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.
Squeeze (Squeeze.com) — Squeeze is an app that helps you save by finding the best deals, promo codes, and coupons directly related to your current spending. It sounded a lot like the others in the field so I had a hard time putting them into their own special bucket, but needless to say you can’t have too many coupons in this hyper consumer world of ours… And as for branding, they absolutely NAILED it. Some of the other fintech names were pretty random!
Take Command Health (TakeCommandHealth.com) — These guys won my personal award for the best presentation, if only for the inclusion of photoshopped Trump and Obama pics littered throughout :) But their app was def. no joke. In a nutshell, Take Command helps you easily find the best option for health coverage by using big data to help source the best, and cheapest, health care options for you both on and off the exchange. They also shared the release of their small business feature which helps companies offer better and cheaper plans to their employees as well – something that many places are struggling hard with right now. So while the topic of health insurance typically doesn’t turn heads (at least for good reasons!), these guys had our immediate attention and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if they hit a home run with this.
Qoins (Qoins.io) — Do these guys look familiar?? They should! I featured them here last year the second I came across them because they’re the FIRST to finally apply “rounding up” technology to debt!!! Which is something severely lacking in our industry… And while I had to recuse myself from voting on this one since I was definitely biased (they donated $$$ to our Community Fund over at Rockstar Finance), I was beyond pleased to see them here and thought they gave a great presentation. You can find my review of them here (I was the first ever blogger to share them!) but in a nutshell they round up all your transactions to the nearest dollar, and then uses the spare change to help pay off your debt every month. It won’t clear all of it, but every $30 or $40/mo helps!
WizeFi (Wizefi.com) — WizeFi is a paid app ($8/mo) that helps organize your finances, analyzing everything from your assets and liabilities to your insurance and spending habits. Once hooked up it’ll then estimate your future net worth if you continue spending the way you’re currently spending, and then compare it to your future net worth if you follow your custom WizeFi wealth-building plan. It comes with a super slick interface and the focus on net worth of course turned me on, but at the end of the day not too sure that alone is worth the $8. Especially since it doesn’t physically *move* the money for you like Digit or Acorns does and still requires you to take action (which most people won’t). I was also turned off by the mentions of an affiliate program for customers to make more money, both in the presentation as well as on their website (it’s prominently listed as the #3 reason to sign up?!), even though I’m sure the founder meant well. Overall would have been better if you had the chance to test out a free version, with an option to upgrade later to “pro” or something similar if interested…
Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??
Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:
Birch Finance
Take Command Health
Honestly though, ALL of these guys came out winning as they not only got to pitch in front of tons of $$$ influencers and enthusiasts, but also landed on this illustrious blog here!!! Haha… Surely that’s worth at *least* $10.00 right? ;)
So congrats to everyone who participated. I wish I were smart enough to come up with my own money app! If you want to take a look at last year’s competition and results, you can find that here: Fintech Competition 2016
Next Year’s FinCon Event…
If you can believe it, plans are already in the works for next year’s conference! If you’ve always wanted to visit Orlando, Florida – now’s your chance! We’ll be partying it up with Mickey next year :) More details to come…
So there we are – another great conference on the books :) THANK YOU thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came out and put up with me over the weekend! It was a blast hanging out with my 2nd family in the flesh, and I wish you all a most successful next year.
Special shout out to the following who really made me smile throughout: Chelsea Norton, Cait Flanders, Steve Adcock, Jim $, Shin, Bobby Lee, Pete McPherson, Latoya Scott, Fritz, Hélène, Hannah Rounds, the Tiller Team, Miss Mazuma, Optimal Finance Daily, John and Sharon Duffy, Shannon Austin, The Dumpster Dog, Miss Thrifty, Maria Nedeva, FIREcracker, and Romeo Jeremiah.
See y’all in another 11 months!
10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ
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