Monarch Money · B2C · personal finance and budgeting app
Show clickable prototypes to the users who voted for a feature before building
Slower up front but fewer release cycles; founder's claim
Workedfeature-development
What they did
Every feature kickoff starts from customer input (interviews, surveys, roadmap comments), written as jobs to be done ('what am I hiring this feature to do?') and stack-ranked by the team. Then specs, designs and clickable prototypes, which are run by the customers who voted for that feature, iterating before code. Example: bill due dates, requested by ex-Mint users, turned out to serve people with ADD wanting one view and people making sure cash covers upcoming bills.
What happened
Takes longer up front but needs fewer post-launch iterations than ship-measure-repeat cycles of ~3 months each.
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Learning and Profiting from Black Swan Events — Val Agostino, Monarch Money“So we typically create clickable prototypes. And then we'll actually run those by the customers that voted on a particular feature.”
“You know, honestly, it takes longer than probably the traditional approach, but we feel like you have to do fewer iterations.”
“But also, another job to be done is ensuring that you have enough cash set aside to cover your upcoming bills, right?”
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More from this episode
- Monarch Money: Charge users a subscription instead of running ads, so users are the customerFounder says it keeps the product improving; no numbers
- Monarch Money: Let users vote on your roadmap from a Feature Requests link in settingsOver 15,000 votes and long comments that guide what gets built
- Monarch Money: Ask 'why' 3-5 times about requests to find the real emotional needFound users want a sense of control; marketing changes still to come
- Monarch Money: Define user types, from students to retirees, and choose which to targetFounder says it helped decide focus and messaging; no numbers
- Monarch Money: Run a year-long private beta with a few hundred power usersPublic beta followed in early 2021; growth took off from there
- Monarch Money: Publish a founder blog post the night a rival's shutdown leaks, with an importer readyDaily signups jumped 20-30x and stayed there (shutdown itself drove most demand)
- Monarch Money: Talk candidly on Reddit to a closing rival's users about your plans and gapsFounder says users found it authentic and trusted them; no separate numbers
- Monarch Money: Pause promised features and re-rank everything when a sudden opportunity hitsNew import extension shipped in ~48 hours vs 6+ weeks for rivals; ~70 minutes downtime
- Monarch Money: Grow the support team from 3 to 20+ people during a signup surgeBacklog of days to weeks at first; now back to 24-hour replies
- Monarch Money: Open Canada in beta after Canadians fake their location to sign upMixed: weaker bank connections frustrated some users, who were offered refunds
- Monarch Money: Build a content team teaching the personal finance basics schools skip
- Monarch Money: Keep the team small and aim for break-even even after raising VCTeam of 13 was ready when demand spiked; no financial numbers
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- Monarch Money: Keep an 'open role' on your jobs page for people who don't fit a listingNearly half the team was hired this way