Naming

MyBetterRates - Business Concept

Background

 I am seriously exploring a new business, MyBetterRates.com.

What and Why

• Higher Savings Rates. Lower Debt Rates. Only notified when the benefits are worth your time and hassle. Wealth acceleration education and analysis tools. “Better” guaranteed.

Summary

Beyond rate comparison sites (like Rates.ca, LowestRates.ca, RateHub.ca), this service provides notifications of when your personal situation can benefit from opportunities to get Better Rates on Savings and Debts.

The Three Tiers & Pricing Model (Some of business model)

• Tier 1 (Free): The Money Minute (Alerts & Education).
• Tier 2 ($10/mo): Guaranteed Benefit (Alerts + The Math of what it’s worth + Links for them to execute themselves).
• Tier 3 (Premium/Performance): 1-Click Transfers / MBR Concierge.
  • Pricing Strategy: Benefit-Based Pricing (e.g., 10% of the real financial benefit generated). Shifts the cost from an “expense” to a “performance fee” (highly valuable for high-earning professionals).

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Services

Free “Better Rates” Notifications (weekly?)

• Get notified when other offerings are better than your current rates, and when bonuses for starting or transferring accounts are attractive.
• The Money Minute: very brief education about ways to increase wealth, decrease debt, increase financial knowledge and confidence.

“No Hassle, Guaranteed Benefit” Subscription 

• You are busy. Time is money.
• Subscibe ($10/mn?) for “No Hassle, Guaranteed Benefit” notifications, where you are ONLY notified when changes result in a net benefit that is worth the trouble and effort. If you don’t use it, you get your subscription refunded (100%?) annually (like Costco rebates?).
• I think this is the killer feature in today’s world of getting too much information and the need to filter for what is truly valuable.

Pain Points

• Financial Gain/Opportunity Loss: Almost all adults want more money and shopping around and benefiting from getting better savings and debt rates is very low hanging fruit, that is simple, fast to implement, and can produce meaningful financial gains, that continue every year. More money is the “how” or path to much of what we want or need in life.
• Awareness: You can’t act on ideas that you are not aware of and understand.
• Opportunities constantly change: Even those who are good at managing money, rarely benefit optimally, as new opportunities are constantly changing.
• Hassle factor: Busy people shouldn’t act on ideas they aren’t confident that the benefits will exceed the required effort and friction. Less ambitious (lazy) people won’t.
• Alert fatigue: We all suffer from information and notification overload. It is difficult to filter what is the valuable signal in sea of noise.
• Regret: Some know they could and should benefit from shopping around for such simple financial products, but don’t and might regret their inaction, which leads to additional financial stress and worry about how to address future shortfalls (funding retirement, etc.).

Phased Development

• Bonuses: Add capacity to notify when bonuses to open accounts or transfer to new institutions is attractive and/or worth the hassle. Similar concept as when opportunities for better rates for deposits or debts arise.
• Benefit Analysis Tools: Add simple analysis tools to answer high-value questions: when breaking your mortgage benefits you,  Gross-Up RRSP Deposits 25-100%, Good uses of HELOCs, Good vs Bad Debt, Smith Manoeuvre, …)
• Start with Canada, where I live. Then expand to US. If goes well, international where the lowest-hanging fruit it.

Development

• Structure tech to handle country/language from start
• Offer tangible incentives/rewards to “Help a Friend” and spread the word, to stimulate viral growth

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Task

• Brainstorm possible “better” business names than MyBetterRates for this service
  • An effective business name is a very valuable asset. My understanding of attributes to be pursued include:
    • clear
    • meaningful
    • benefit focused
    • short
    • is a top level .com domain, that is available and doesn’t require purchasing from domain squatters
  • Why I like the business name MyBetterRates
    • “Better” is clear, and works for both deposits (where the rate goal is higher), and debts (where the rate goal is lower).
    • “Rates” is clear, largely implies a financial domain, and works for both deposits/debts.
    • “My” clarifies a personalized benefit and service. Additionally, this simple prefix often results in (.com) domain names that are not squatted on and would be expensive to acquire.
• Brainstorm better names for the two subscription services
  • Free “Better Rates” Notifications (weekly?)
    • Free version. No barrier (except another notification)
    • Aligns with and reinforces the business name
  • “No Hassle, Guaranteed Benefit” Subscription
• Brainstorm better name for “2-minute Tips” section in free “Better Rates” notification emails
  • The Money Minute — winner
  • **Wealth Wins
  • Net-Worth Nuggets
• Brainstorm very short elevator pitch
  • Higher savings rates. Lower debt rates. Only notified when the benefits are worth your time. “Better” guaranteed.
  • Higher savings rates. Lower debt rates. Only notified when the benefits are worth your time and hassle. “Better” guaranteed.
  • Higher savings rates. Lower debt rates. Only notified when the benefits are worth your time and effort. “Better” guaranteed.
  • “I am finalizing the elevator pitch for my new business. Which of these three versions makes you the most eager to sign up?”