Over the past 12 months or so whilst designing & building the beta version of Jude, an open data platform empowering anyone to access & control their own financial data, I’ve also put considerable time into reading & thinking about what kind of company I’d like to create along the way.

Yesterday I got the keys to our first office! It’s a great little space on the main street in Matakana, approx. 50 minutes north of Auckland, New Zealand.

Next Monday, the second employee (I was recently the first) of Jude starts work. Whilst there are many things to do when you’re a founder of a new startup, traditionally stuff like employee benefits & culture aren’t usually (from what I’ve read & observed) given that much thought & planning from the outset.

As interested as I am in technology & the accelerating movement propelling digital transparency around personal data & privacy, I’m equally fascinated with studying companies, their founders & employees, both successful & not, across all industries.

Why do some succeed & some, not so much? Why is the average tenure of companies listed in the Fortune 500 fallen to about 15 years? What jobs won’t machines replace? What could the workforce look like in 5 & 10 years time? What skills, knowledge & experiences will be valuable to my children & their future employers?

From what I’ve learned so far, success can be broadly attributed to three things; people, timing & luck. The last two are mostly out of anyones control & are usually highly under appreciated, especially without the benefit of hindsight.

So that leaves people as the single most important ingredient to success, especially the long term kind.

Back when I started Jude as a side project whilst working at Xero, I did so because I was interested in learning new technologies & figured I could use these to build a better banking experience for myself than what was currently available. I approached it very simply;

If I built my own banking experience from scratch, what would it look like?

Now I’m in a position to ask a similar question;

If I was to design & build a company from scratch, what would it look like?

I’ve used this as the basis for coming up with the following initial benefits available to all future full time employees of Jude. It’s by no means the finished product, but it’s a start;

Flexible Schedule

• Unlimited paid leave.
• Remote working options.

Lifelong Learning

• Free Kindle Paperwhite with unlimited book purchases.
• Free Coursera unlimited subscription.
• Dedicated weekly “side-project” time.

Health & Wellness

• Free 60 minute nutritional consult in your first month of employment with Mae Nutrition and a 20% discount on any future consults.
• Free Headspace subscription.

Flexibility, Learning & Wellness are of particular interest to me right now & represent three qualities that I believe will be most appreciated & valued not only by todays employees, but increasingly more so, by tomorrows.

It’s a given that a competitive salary & some form of employee share option scheme significantly influence an employees decision making, but hopefully it’s the other stuff like purpose, benefits & location (did I mention we’re based in Matakana?) that are the icing on the cake … just don’t tell our nutritionist.

If you could design a company from scratch, what would it look like?

Let me know.

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder of Jude

What kind of company should we be? was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi. I’m Ben.

A few years ago, I sent a tweet to Rod Drury, the CEO of Xero and landed myself a job.

From memory, I think I was about employee #500. Today, that figure has blown past 2000 and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. That’s a lot of talent, ideas and passion to help the small business community leverage the power of modern technology.

For the past year though, I’ve been the sole founder and only employee at Jude, my startup. I wanted a better banking experience than what any of my banks were offering so I built my own. It’s been a lot of fun, I’ve met loads of interesting people and above all else, I’ve learnt a lot.

The thing with learning though is that the more you learn, the more you begin to realise just how much you don’t know and inevitably, will likely never know.

It’s really hard (and stupid) to try and do everything yourself. Amongst a number of other reasons, you have no one to celebrate the wins and losses and the continual ups and downs when trying to build a company, plus the staff Christmas parties are really lame …

As we approach the end of another year, I’m happy to say that I’ve raised some money. A seed round of a little over $500k from ICE Angels, K1W1 and Bruce Gordon, who I’m really excited to also have joining the board.

That money allows us to find some smart people. People who can help me build some cool stuff on AWS and people that are passionate about delivering amazing experiences on top of data, your data.

So, get in touch, drop me a note or share this with the smartest person you know.

I need your help — What are you doing next year?

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder of Jude

What are you doing next year? was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week saw the launch of Plus by ASB. A cool new app that brings together a bunch of business tools together into one place, “no matter who you bank with”.

As a small business owner, you can connect multiple apps together like Xero, Vend & Shopify. All this data working together can then serve up numbers and metrics that are easy to understand and compare.

Hats off to ASB and their partners for bringing it to market. It should prove to be a real time saver for business owners in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, over in Australia, Beem was announced. A new way to pay and get paid with a somewhat familiar tag line; “no matter who you bank with” …

Beem is a partnership (of sorts) between Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and National Australia Bank. Obviously ANZ is still in the naughty corner …

It’s fairly clear who’s leading the “partnership” however. CommBank (who own ASB), have taken the lead and hope to deliver a more frictionless way to be paid and get paid, both from a consumer and a small business perspective, “no matter who you bank with”.

Again, hats off to CBA for taking the lead. I’m sure Australians will enjoy beeming money to each other once the app is launched.

Both consumers & business owners can expect to see a number of new products come to market in the next 12–24 months that connect multiple sources of data together in order to simplify your finances.

That is in fact the basis of my startup called Jude. Connect multiple financial relationships together to give you the consumer greater transparency, choice and control, all from one simple and intuitive experience.

Open banking is the driver behind all of this which in my view, is inevitable. The end result will be more competition which should help deliver better products and services that truly put you in control of your finances.

For example, perhaps you’d like to connect an app like Jude with your Westpac One accounts to an app like ASB’s Plus to an app like Beem. Accounts, insights and payments all in one place. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Kind of like;

One Plus Beem = Jude :)

As both ASB and CBA champion themselves with their respective new products, soon it may no longer matter “who you bank with”.

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder of Jude

One Plus Beem = Jude :) was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi. I’m Ben and I’m the founder of a startup called Jude.

For a number of reasons I think banking and in particular your “Everyday Banking” is about to under-go a radical transformation over the next few years.

Without boring you with the details, your bank accounts & transactional information along with the monopoly a bank has on payments is slowly but surely being opened up to third party providers.

What that will mean for you is access to smarter, more customised products and services that truly suit you and your ever changing financial life. The great unbundling of financial services will give you greater transparency, choice and control, arguably three things missing from the current model.

Inevitably, the current idea we have in our heads of a “bank” is set to change. You might choose to stay with your current bank or perhaps consider switching to someone like Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Google.

You’ll also likely have the option of “banking” with a startup and that’s where my idea for Jude fits in. My point is, you’ll have more options.

Taking the leap of leaving full time, well paid employment and founding a company with a statistical probability of success at near zero is generally not for the faint hearted.

But if it’s something you truly believe in, then my advice to you would be to just do it.

Along the way, many people will tell you you’re crazy, it won’t work or it’s a “fantasy”. They might even call you a “fool”. You’ll need to be prepared for all of that.

This week I got my first real taste of it. I featured in an article about open banking. In general, positive feedback but a couple of people were perhaps having a bad day and decided uninformed comments on Facebook and Twitter were in order.

As it turns out, the basis of their views were derived from me being misquoted in the article. It’s not “Ben vs the banks” as some people clearly took it. It never has been. In fact, I think open banking will likely turn out to be the best thing that happened to the industry in order to ensure it’s long term survival and prosperity.

“Bank bashing” is a national sport in New Zealand, as it is in most places around the world, so it’s an easy and obvious angle for mainstream media to take. It’s a sure-fire way to get them their clicks.

For the record, I think in general, we’re lucky to have the banking system we have here in NZ. As the saying goes, the only thing worse than a bank that makes a billion dollars in profit is a bank that doesn’t. Winston might disagree.

In the short term however, in order to use Jude you’ll need to break your banks terms and conditions by giving Jude access to your online banking. That’s not something I take on lightly. Security is absolutely my top one, two and three priorities. Number four is security. You can probably guess the fifth …

The reason for this is that most banks aren’t yet in a position whereby they can either technically provide access to your data in a secure way or, as is more often the case, haven’t yet reached a consensus at both an executive and a board level around what “opening up” means for their current business models. No doubt, it’s a scary new world they’re about to enter. Competition for the customer will be fierce. Most don’t fancy being reduced to a “utility provider” as could well be the case.

Ultimately, when it all washes out, I think you’ll see collaboration between banks and startups. Each will continue to do what they’re good at and play to their own strengths.

In the mean time, the best thing I can do is focus on my users and continue building a product they love. Somewhat un-usually for a “startup” I personally know all of my users. They trust me and I trust them. We’re in this together.

In the end, finding distribution and achieving scale will be the easy part if you have a product people truly do love. Like I said, your exisiting bank should play a huge part in the coming open banking revolution. Granted some traditional business models will die but many new, potentially more profitable ones will take their place.

But above all else, you the consumer will benefit the most.

As has and will always be the case, if you stick your head out too far, be prepared to be branded a “fool”. But most of what other people know, or think they know isn’t worth knowing anyway. Take it for what it is, have a laugh and get back to work.

It’s completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder & Chief Fool at Jude

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I recently pitched Jude at the 7th annual Ice Angels Showcase event here in Auckland. 14 companies pitch for 5 minutes each in front of 750+ investors.

The goal being, generate enough interest that investors tick a box beside your company name on the night in order to find out more & then ultimately, invest.

I could easily stand up there & speak for 2 hours on all the things we could do as a company so distilling it down into 5 minutes was challenging but also helped further refine the focus for the product over the next 6–12 months.

Below is my deck & pitch from the night.

How do you be a bank without being a “bank”?

I believe we’ll increasingly think of a bank as the place that stores our data … Money’s just data anyway.

The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil but data.

Data is to this century what oil was for the last; a driver of growth & change.

Given their unquenchable thirst for data, the big four of Apple, Amazon, Facebook & Google are always searching for new wells of information.

Next January, a mandate in the EU effectively opens the door to that information. In short, PSD2 enables bank customers to use third-party services to manage their finances.

A bank’s monopoly on their customers account information & payments services is about to disappear.

Just this week we saw Macquarie lead the big Australian banks by launching their open banking platform.

At Jude, we think you should own, control & ultimately profit from your own data. A trend we see accelerating around the world in the coming years from both a regulatory & societal perspective.

Inevitably, banks in all regions, will no longer compete against just banks, but with everyone else, including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google & ultimately, startups like Jude.

With “Open Banking”, banks will have to decide whether they want to become a utility or truly an Everyday Bank playing a central role in their customers daily lives, selling not just products, but experiences.

I think in the next few years your bank will look something like this …

A bank will become your own, personal data custodian. The trusted source that connects your entire financial graph then delivers smart, customised products & services that truely suit you & your ever changing circumstances.

With Jude, I’ve connected multiple banks & utility providers and wrapped them up into one simple, engaging & intuitive experience.

For all my everyday banking needs, I now use Jude.

But as well as checking my balance, viewing my spending or transferring money around, there’s one feature in particular we’re layering on top of our version of an “Everyday Bank” that we’re really excited about …

Peer to Peer Payments (P2P) — The ability to easily send & request money amongst friends.

The secret to any great consumer product is to reduce as much friction from a process as you possibly can, then deliver it as an order of magnitude better experience than anyone else.

With Jude, you connect your existing bank & associated accounts. No one wants another “wallet”.

And it’s 2017. Why do we still have a 15 digit account number that lock us into a single bank. With Jude, you pay the person, not the number.

As Jude has knowledge of all your transactions, you can use any one of those as the basis for a split payment amongst friends.

For example; splitting the weekly grocery shop evenly with flatmates or having Jude chase up your friends for their fair share of the bill after a night out.

Initially, we’re targeting 18–24 year olds on campus. We think we have a compelling proposition for that demographic.

Similar apps like Venmo have already proven hugely popular with that audience in the US. Interestingly, there’s currently no similar apps like it in either NZ or Australia.

But unlike Venmo & others, we see P2P payments as a feature, not a product.

We’re raising a seed round of $$$ at a pre money valuation of $$$. The majority already committed.

I’m an ex developer at both Xero & EROAD. I’m also a big fan of lean teams. I think smart use of technology partners like AWS will continue the recent trend of huge B2C products being built by very, very small teams.

The team at Jude is so small in fact, it’s still just me …

$$$ gives us enough capital to hire a couple of extra smart people then deliver Jude to students on campus at Orientation Week next February here in Auckland.

Out plan is to drive adoption & engagement with that audience, iterate fast then circle back to some of the institutional investors who have already shown an interest in Jude.

If we win the consumers, we think we’ll have a super compelling proposition for merchants, which is ultimately where we see one of our main revenue streams in the future.

The great unbundling of financial services has begun.

Banks will no longer compete against just banks. It’s inevitable.

That means customer experience soon becomes your best, if not only differentiator.

And what we’ve learned from other recently decentralised industries is this …

Ben hire smart people. P2P payments, students, campus. You tick Jude :)

You tick Jude :) was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a developer, if given half a chance, I’d jump head first when asked to work on a new product from scratch.

A greenfield approach with no regards to prior history or legacy systems. Basically, try anything. With no constraints or pre-conceived ideas, what could you do?

Building my startup, Jude, I get to live this approach everyday. It’s a lot of fun. Sometimes you end up re-inventing the wheel, but more often than not, thanks to AWS & the great democratisation of technology over the last 12–24 months, I get to build some really cool stuff at a fraction of the time & cost it used to take.

It’s not very often however, you get to apply this same approach to building a new company from scratch. As much as I enjoy imagining & building product, for me, the real fun lies in imagining & building a company.

With no constraints or pre-conceived ideas, what could you do?

As I come out of the other side of the Flux Accelerator programme, I’ve started drafting up the all important investment material in preparation for my seed round.

Googling; “startup pitch decks” — you’re quickly bombarded with an endless procession of examples, opinions, formulas & best practises.

Usually you’ll end up with something pretty close to this, perhaps a slight variation if you’re feeling adventurous;

Here’s the problem, here’s our amazing solution, here’s our magic & secret sauce, here’s some figures I pulled out of mid air [INSERT 3 GROWING CIRCLES TO INDICATE ENORMOUS T.A.M], here’s our only competitor, here’s our rockstar team, some more “projections” & made up numbers & then finally … THE ASK.

Both the entrepreneur & potential investors know most of this stuff is made up. The figures & projections are at best, wildly inaccurate, potential competitors are almost guaranteed to be left out & sometimes the problem may not even actually exist.

However, we all play the game. It’s actually a fun game to play no matter which side you’re on. A kind of grown ups make believe similar to how my kids play all the time.

So as I put together my pitch deck I thought I’d mix it up, just a little …

The garden variety pitch deck is basically your prediction for the future. A whole lot of assumptions & guesses. Historically, humans are terrible at predicting anything, let alone what technology & business may look like in 5 & 10 years time. Literally, a monkey throwing darts outperforms most expert stock pickers. No one really knows what’s going to change.

So in my pitch deck, I’m leading, right up the front with what’s not going to change. The product, the market, the numbers, the team. All of those things will change. They’re fluid & that’s a good thing.

What won’t change are the reasons Jude exists today. The values we hold onto. The principles & rules we won’t break. Our ethos.

1) Empower the best people.

Do more with less.

Having the best team is an obvious one. Maybe what’s not so common is actually doing everything you can to keep it as small & as lean as possible, for as long as you possibly can. The best, most diverse, unique & talented people are expensive. The opposite is also true. What am I going to spend the seed round on? That’s an easy one … People. The best ones. Then let them get on with it.

2) Be patient.

Great work takes time.

Everyone wants everything yesterday. Take the time to consider the options, the consequences, the alternatives & the most importantly, the contrarian opinion.

3) Tell a story.

Don’t just make noise.

It’s really easy to just try & shout the loudest. People have amazing bullshit detectors these days.

4) Find the possible in the “impossible”.

Impossible is an opinion, not a fact.

Lots of people will tell you something is impossible. It can’t be done. But if you think about it, and I mean really think, break the problem down using first principles, it’s amazing how many strongly held opinions, assumptions & “facts” are grounded on anything but.

5) Focus on the user.

All else will follow.

It’s not about the technology, it’s not about us, it’s not about the investors & it’s not about our competitors. If our users win, everyone wins. Except that last lot :)

So that will lead my pitch deck. That stuff won’t change. Everything else will. I know that & investors know that. As for the rest of the deck … I’ll make it up. It’s all part of the fun!

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder (& father) of Jude

Who is Jude? was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I joined the Flux accelerator on Feb 20th earlier this year. Next week marks the end of that chapter and the beginning of the next for my startup, Jude.

It’s been a lot of fun & without doubt the best thing I could have done to get me to this point. A point at which I know exactly what I need to do to both create a company & a product that “wins”.

Looking back over the past 5 or so months, for me, there’s clearly two decisions we made, often contrary to popular opinion, that I think put me & Jude in the strongest possible position to tackle the next 12–18 months.

Forget about the banks.

I’m building a company in the fintech space. Essentially, I think I can build a better financial experience than what is currently on offer today. In fact, not just better, an order of magnitude better, smarter & simpler.

Late last year & earlier this year, I generated plenty of interest from inside the banks themselves. I spent a lot of time and energy meeting & talking with various bankers; red ones, yellow ones, blue ones & green ones, each time rather naïvely thinking I was making some progress towards some form of partnership or collaboration which would enable us to work together to deliver a great experience to customers.

Without exception, all of these people were really smart, considerate, friendly & genuinely interested in Jude and indeed me. The reality is however, they all work for huge organisations & each of those organisations operate under one of the most slow moving & risk adverse business environments still in existence today. In many cases, for very good reason.

It soon became very clear that no-ones KPIs or Christmas bonuses were tied to “opening the gates” to some guy from across the bridge with a chatbot.

So I made the conscious decision to not chase any more meetings or conversations directly with the banks. Essentially, I felt the banks would love me to death.

When I thought about it, I already have everything I need in order for me to get Jude to the next, most important, milestone without them anyway. A product users actually love. In fact, I think I’ll get to that point faster without them. Arguably to scale I’ll need them, but that’s the easy part.

I strongly believe that the best product wins. It will be much easier for the banks to collaborate & partner if I already have a great product.

That decision made the next one obvious …

No co-founder, don’t hire anyone.

As I said, the banks will love you to death. They are the masters at playing the waiting game. Historically, that’s been a winning formula for them.

Conventional wisdom assumes startups need founders (plural) & team to furiously throw together an MVP & then to try and find your holy grail; “product/market fit”.

Statistically, having a co-founder & a team from day 1 no doubt increases your odds of success. Frustratingly, some people will try to apply that formula to all businesses without ever really deeply considering the context & consequences fully.

For me, there’s two alternative ingredients that are hard to quantify & therefore tend to be dismissed or rarely acknowledged when trying to attribute both success & failure. Maybe they’re just not as sexy as a rock star team & a killer app.

Timing & luck.

The first I feel I have some level of control over. Hiring a team is definitely something I can control. I try to frame decisions, especially critically important decisions like my first hire, against a picture I have in my head of the company in 5 and even 10 years time.

Does this role or potential hire help clarify that picture?

Remember, I’m a startup with very little capital. I’m taking on the most profitable industry on the planet. My pre-seed investment from Flux is not even a rounding error to these guys.

Currently Jude is just me. I literally imagine the product, write the code, test the product, take the meetings, talk to investors, write these posts & do countless number of other things that each & every founder has done throughout history for almost every company in existence today.

I’ve been very fortunate to have the experience & expertise of many smart people who contribute their free time via The Icehouse & Flux, but ultimately, Jude is me.

If I hire someone, I’m effectively putting a big red cross on the calendar in the not to distant future to remind me of the day that I run out of money & time unless I raise more capital. That’s my “runway”, as they say in the game.

And therein lies the balancing act. Obviously, if you’re to see the picture inside my head with your own eyes, it’s ridiculous to expect I’ll be able to do even 1% of what will need to be done.

Impeccable timing is pretty much an impossibility however. When is the right time? I feel like I can at least narrow down the range to increase my odds of picking the best timing by making smart, considered decisions.

But let’s be honest, a lot of this comes down to that other ingredient, luck. Luck’s not something that can’t necessarily be planned, at least to some degree of confidence. There’s a lot I can do which, to others may seem lucky.

As Confucius, the Chinese teacher, politician & philosopher wrote about 2000 years ago;

The more you know, the more luck you will have.

Thanks team Flux,

Ben Lynch — Founder (& father) of Jude

Thanks team Flux. was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Giving authority for an organisation to take variable amounts of money from my bank account whenever they choose to makes me feel about as comfortable as phoning the dentist to book my next root canal.

In fact, I knowingly pay more in late fees when I forget to pay my mobile bill on time. That’s crazy, but I just can’t bring myself to print & fill out the required forms, effectively “authorising until further notice in writing” a telco, or anyone for that matter, to take my money when it pleases them.

Not only is the process of setting up a direct debit a poor one, trying to cancel it is probably one of the most archaic & frustrating experiences still in existence within banking today.

I’m quite happy to pay my bill on its due date, the problem is, if it’s a variable amount, as most often your phone, power & other utility bills are, then there’s not really an alternative to the traditional direct debit. Automatic payments won’t work as I can’t change the amount so really it’s left up to me to remember to pay it via internet banking on the correct date.

Or maybe I could pay with my credit card online …

Say what?

You want me to pay you $160 odd for my monthly bill + another 2% “convenience fee” to accept my $160 + another $17.25 late payment fee if I forget by a day …

Under who’s definition is that to be considered “convenient”?

I Googled “convenience”;

Something conducive to comfort or ease

This method of payment actually makes me feel precisely the opposite; Considerably uncomfortable & uneasy.

However, when you think about it, we already have almost everything we need to fix the problem. I have a bank account, the company I want to pay has a bank account & it costs nothing to do a one-off bank payment between ourselves. The only pieces missing to automate this process is knowing on what date to make a payment & how much.

Turns out that’s actually a really simple problem to solve.

Within Jude, I’ve already connected my bank accounts as well as almost every other entity that I have some sort of financial relationship with.

So Jude knows about my Vodafone account; when & how much is due. I’m happy to let Jude figure out when & how much to pay for me.

And bonus points for Jude as I’m free to move the payment around any of my accounts across any of my banks.

Now that’s “convenient”.

As I said, I’m happy to pay my bill on time … but I want the control, I want the choice & I want transparency.

If I want to cancel it, I’ll toggle a switch or I’ll ask Jude. I don’t want to phone my bank, then my telco who may or may not take “up to 3 working days” to honour my request. That’s quite simply a poor experience.

And if you’ve followed my journey so far building Jude, you’ll know I hate bad experiences. There’s simply no excuse.

So maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one who feels uncomfortable with direct debits. Or maybe there’s just never been an alternative. Maybe …

Whatever the case, if you want to try Jude for yourself, we’re launching a public beta in the next few months, stay in touch. If you can’t wait that long, we have a few spots left on a private beta starting next month.

Cheers,

Ben Lynch — Founder (& father) of Jude

Goodbye direct debits, hello Jude. was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Good, Bad & (sometimes) Ugly wrap-up of my journey building Jude.

Overview

Continued work on P2P payments & making it as simple as possible to quickly send & request money between friends.

Added in the ability to quickly select a transaction from your timeline & spilt the total amongst friends. Takes the hassle out of chasing your friends for money, especially in a flatting situation. If someone pays for the groceries for the week, simply tap on that transaction, tap on your friends to split the bill with & they’ll receive a notification with the transaction details & the amount being requested. Easy.

Also knocked out the first version of sharing of accounts. I can share access to an account, either read & write or read only, with a friend. For example, I could share read access to certain accounts with my mortgage broker so he can get access to everything he needs without annoying me. This can be time limited also so he can only have access for the next 48 hours or whatever period is appropriate.

Another obvious example would be flatting & the painful process of trying to organise all your new flatmates to meet at a bank to open up a “joint account”. With Jude, someone could just share access to an exisiting account they already have & you can all use that. Everyone has visibility over payments & transactions coming in & out. You could even set it up so Jude automatically requests money weekly from all your flatmates to deposit into your new Jude flat account.

Not that my kids have everyday bank accounts yet, but when they do, I’d like the ability to easily have some visibility over their spending. With Jude, they could simply give me shared access, of course, probably only if I accept their requests for money … :)

Ask

• Make sure your checkout the product roadmap. Follow along, vote for the features you want. Add your ideas, thoughts & comments.
• Keep reaching out if you either; think you can help or would like to be involved in some way, shape or form.

Good

• Have spent some time working out what structure my seed round raise will look like. All going well, looking like starting this process near the end of next month.
• Read All Marketers Are Liars & started Stand Firm.

Bad

• Almost at the official end of the Flux accelerator. Looking forward to seeing all the teams finalise funding & move forward from here.

Ugly

• Nope.

Next Steps

• Product, product & product.

As always, appreciate your thoughts, comments & ideas!

Cheers.

Ben — Founder (& father) of Jude

Good, Bad & Ugly. Week 21. was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Good, Bad & (sometimes) Ugly wrap-up of my journey building Jude.

Overview

Added BNZ to the list of banks I’ve integrated into Jude. Actually quite an easy integration to do now that I have a platform & architecture that sits outside of individual banks.

I’ve also published a public product roadmap for Jude.

Check it our here.

I get lots of feedback, ideas & suggestions from a wide range of people. Hopefully this roadmap can give some greater visibility into what I’m working on & provide a place for people to suggest & vote for features they would love to see.

There’s still some stuff missing but I’ll keep updating it regularly.

Particularly keen to hear of features / ideas to add now that I’ve almost replicated the core functionality of your exisiting mobile banking app; Balance, Transactions, Transfers & Payments.

Now it’s a case of building on top of these things & wrapping them all up in a better experience across multiple channels; FB, Alexa, Google Home etc etc.

Ask

• Make sure your checkout the product roadmap. Follow along, vote for the features you want. Add your ideas, thoughts & comments.
• Keep reaching out if you either; think you can help or would like to be involved in some way, shape or form.

Good

• Published a plan for Jude.
• BNZ integration.
• Finished reading The Knowledge Illusion & Irresistible. Started re-reading Blink.
• All Blacks vs Lions.

Bad

• Jimmy Spithill. Still 4–1 up but …

Ugly

• Nope.

Next Steps

• Product, product & product.

As always, appreciate your thoughts, comments & ideas!

Cheers.

Ben — Founder (& father) of Jude

Good, Bad & Ugly. Week 18. was originally published in meetjude.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.