After reading it a third time, I realize I guess it's just an open-source version of Mint?

But the author provides zero evidence that Google bans ads for "privacy-first services". It was probably classified as a crypto scam or similar.

Just write a better ad that's clearer about what it's actually advertising, for goodness' sake. And make the product's website a bit more professional looking too -- it looks like a scam. There's no way I'd trust my finance credentials to anybody who built a site that looks like... a weirdly updated version of a GeoCities page?

> After reading it a third time, I realize I guess it's just an open-source version of Mint?

Well, not a great sigh for us, but at least… you guessed right!

> But the author provides zero evidence that Google bans ads for "privacy-first services". It was probably classified as a crypto scam or similar.

I made this conclusion based on the information provided by my friends working in Google and Microsoft. Again, there's no way I can reliably say the _real_ reason because all Google said was "Unacceptable Business Practice" linking to this page. (https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955?hl=en#36...)

That's actually more or less the point of the article: you get banned for life for no apparent reason. Is that how it's supposed to be?

> it looks like a scam

What is it that you don't like about the design? I just tried not to follow the common guidelines for the design and make the design more… developer friendly?

Claiming they are against "privacy-first services" is just creating a victim narrative where one does not exist. As people keep saying here on this very website, these platforms do not owe you a microphone.

Also, just one bit of advice, most developer types will have adblockers, so you're really not going to have a great time trying to target them with adverts.

Right, but this cannot be the end of the story. We cannot allow people's life chances getting crippled by an all powerful oligopoly for nothing more than clumsy choice of words.

>These companies are trying to protect average people from being scammed on their services, and I would honestly prefer they keep doing this

Really? That's what you wish for? Deplatforming for life without any due process to determine whether the person has actually done anything wrong? I cannot believe that anyone really wants this.

Or that moderation is inconsistent?

Or that you get banned for life?

Make up your mind!

One red flag I did notice was some awkward phrases/english.

"Phones support"

"This is why you need an open community that will point at your lies or convinces newcomers this app is safe."

"...if you’re not a new kid in the block"

This could just be a mobile compatibility issue to be honest, but in my eyes this doesn't look like a website that I would trust with my financial information. Sure, they say all my info is encrypted, but so did Zoom at some point.

If I'm going to throw my financial data at something, I want its website to look professional. This website looks more... whimsical to me. That's a fine choice for a website advertising a text editor or social media client, but money is serious business. That first impression is extra important with such questionable ads and such a questionable domain name.

Could someone please elaborate on the aspects you feel are deeply obvious to the point of not pointing them out? I seem to be missing them as well.

Compared to mint.com, which I guess it's competing with, it looks unprofessional and something I wouldn't want to trust my sensitive data with.

Just imagine if there were a new bank which was decorated like... a head shop, or strip club, or something like that. Would you want to bank there?

Which greets you with a “please close me” popdown, stutters because of a video, which plays below transparent text, jumps around at vertical scroll and couldn’t prevent it on horizontal carousels. That looks unprofessional.

Not to mention nauseous light-light-bleached green colorscheme. (I guess it ought to resemble mint)

(disclaimer: I work for Google, in a division that has nothing to do with ads.)

Bottom line: financial products require an incredibly high degree of trust for most people, and this feels very much like the work of a sincere developer working alone and without a lot of product design experience. All the little issues (copy, design, presentation, unknown solo developer) that would be forgivable in a product of any other kind become red flags and deal breakers when my finances are concerned.

I hope this is helpful feedback! Keep on building!

There is nothing wrong with it, apart from my usual criticism to landing pages like this: I still have no clue what is it for, or who I must be to use it, what exact problem I have that it could solve. But that’s in line with virtually everything. Nobody puts a history like “Tired of manually entering your invoices? Want automatic categorizing of expenses? Your bank formats are illegible crap? …” anymore.

I wonder what critics above think of e.g. curve.fi, which is serious enough to eat $1000 per transaction.

Edit: yeah, the app looks more like “modern” “design” “thing” to me, but it’s just me missing clear UI borders and color-cued sidebars and property sheets.

> Nobody puts a history like

Yeah, a bunch of people here told me we have a huge problem with copy. Will rework it. Storytelling is not my feature, but I'll try my best :)

> it’s just me missing clear UI borders and color-cued sidebars and property sheets

Will think of a better way, thanks!

Also, the name and domain seem like you're compensating for something, or trying to trick people. If a bank has big signs saying, "No, we won't steal your money, promise" that opens up a whole lot of questions. Why do you need to put "safe" all over the place? Is there some reason I should think it isn't safe?

Lol :) Thanks for your honest feedback! The app looks more traditional, btw. (https://imgur.com/a/KabWkNS) Based on the feedback here I will probably change the landing page to something more traditional.

> Also, the name and domain seem like you're compensating for something, or trying to trick people

Wow, that is the opposite thing we were aiming for. There are a lot of other apps that provide the same value while being completely unsafe to use. We're just emphasizing on the core value. Strange to hear that it causes the opposite reaction.

I'm not sure it's a high converting site because I couldn't understand what you were offering but I'll remember the design.

It's very upsetting that you found us scam-alike. It was never meant to be this way. If anything, we're trying to be the opposite: we open-sourced the whole app, we do not ask for your email during sign up, we wrote a post about our security measures in details (https://safeapps.io/content/security).

We'll work on our marketing to be more… convincing?

On the other hand, I bank online and KNOW my data ends up on the banks server in a readable format and still do it because trust itself is built by what the audience perceives and there are HUGE network factors in play when building trust. There is no trust momentum for you guys considering the sort of information you expect customers to trust you with.

Also, you seem to think that you're selling to customers who routinely develop proofs about what bob can keep safe from alice or whatever, but are those really the folks who will make your product a win? I would almost think those folks would more likely be your competition rather than your customers. Heck, I really can't tell who you are marketing to honestly.

If you were an online battle tank game and asking 60 a year its a completely different story.

The first thing that comes to mind for building a better reputation is probably your branding. Picking "safe" as a software brand gives off a paradoxical feeling of unsafety, in the "[safe] free Windows 12 download [open source][free!!].dll.bat.exe" kind of way. Adding a tag like [safe] or [free] or (recommended) is something spammers and scammers do to try to convince their victims to click. I don't think you can pull something like that off without being a well-known brand first, not with that brand name. Matrix.org, for example, has the [Matrix] brackets as a brand, but the word "matrix" isn't used for anything dubious. Their links also don't use the [brand] marking in their ads.

Because of all this, I think your brand (unintentionally) mimics a lot of scam ads, which is why my first thought would be "this is a scam, report". Your website, "safeapps.io", has a feeling I associate with "securefiles.com" or "freewindowsupdatez.net" for much of the same reasons.

Your TLD, .io, is very popular for modern (web) developers but when I think about my bank details, the British Indian Ocean Territory isn't exactly what comes to mind. Perhaps a minor detail few people will fall over, but it's kind of ironic to have the TLD of a remote island nation for a financial software package :)

Perhaps I'm not your target audience, but I want any service I trust with information about my finances to be professional. Your website seems inspired by popular, modern, energetic branding, the kind I'd expect from a soda brand or a kids' commercial. I'd personally much prefer a boring, run-of-the-mill Bootstrap theme with some added branding over the artsy website you've created. That's just a personal preference, of course; maybe you want to show that you're not one of those stuffy bankers, and maybe I'm just too boring to get that. Modern marketing has shown that this strategy definitely attracts some people.

In the end, I'm just a random voice on the Internet. I'm no marketeer, I've never met any investors, and I don't run paid service of my own. You probably shouldn't base your entire marketing campaign on my ramblings.

I do think you should think about your branding, though, especially the way you present it in ads, and consider picking a brand name that's not as easy to confuse with a link that'll install malware. Besides, you can probably use a more recognisable brand name than "safe money". "[SOTANY]" or many other words from thisworddoesnotexist.com probably work a lot better for a software brand than "[safe]"!

I see that your comment got the most upvotes here, so it IS what I needed to hear.

At least I won't need to change a lot in the product itself as it actually has a rather boring and standard design: https://imgur.com/a/KabWkNS

I think we'll go with your idea of changing the brand and the landing. Might help.

We're freemium. You're not forced to get a subscription right away. You can even use the product without it at all.

> there appears to be no way for you to self-host the service at the moment

We will provide such an option if there will be any demand. For now it would just waste a lot of our time without any real output. Still, you can do this if you want.