The original concept for CHUMP wasn't a financial companion or amigo, it was more like a financial ogre, or Shrek. And, like Shrek, when you first meet him, he's rude and he'll roast you. Although, the longer you're around him, you realize he's actually the nicest guy in the room and just wants to see you win.
That was the whole concept. A financial ogre that lives in your texts, and provides commentary, often a roast, on your daily spending activities. Secretly, he's completely on your side, and even more so when you improve your money habits.
The original CHUMP roasted you in real time
The original product matched the name. CHUMP was going to react to every single purchase you made. You'd spend $60 at Starbucks on a Wednesday morning and your phone would buzz: "I saw that. What could you possibly buy at Starbucks for $60? Walk me through it." Real-time feedback and friction.
The friction was the entire point, since we've purposefully engineered away every ounce of friction from spending money. A $10 burrito, an $800 TV, and a personal loan for $2K all feel identical now. Tap, done, nothing. The ogre was the answer to that. Put the friction back to make you feel the swipe and the decision.
Then the Plaid math killed the ogre
Then the rubber met the road (or the Plaid API docs) and the original financial ogre dream was over.
To watch your purchases in real time, CHUMP connects to your bank accounts through Plaid, and then Plaid charges $0.30 for every live transaction event, which is A LOT for a consumer product at $9.99 monthly or $99 annually.
To better understand why $0.30 is a lot, let's walk through a Friday night at a hypothetical NBA game:
- You swipe into the subway. That's one.
- You buy a $12 beer at Madison Square Garden. That's two.
- Peanuts and another beer at halftime. Three.
- A bar after the game. Four.
- You swipe back into the subway. Five.
- Late-night tacos on the way home. Six.
Six spending events in one night at $0.30 each would be $1.80 in Plaid fees for one user, doing one normal thing like going to see an NBA game. Now, multiply that across a month and a single active user could easily run up to $20, $30, or even more, just in the cost of watching them spend and providing real-time commentary on said spending. Paying $30/month in Plaid fees to charge a user $10/month doesn't math.
Also, the roasting, as a gimmick, had a shelf life anyway. Getting yelled at by your phone is funny for about three weeks, maybe fewer. Then it's just one more thing you didn't ask for and don't want to pay for. "Why am I subscribed to something that roasts me on my spending?"
What CHUMP became
So, knowing the real-time Plaid limitations, we asked a different question: What's the lowest common denominator here? Strip away the ogre, the roasting, the real-time reactions. What's the one thing that actually needs to happen?
The answer was simple: get people talking to their money. Even if it's just for sixty seconds a day via text with CHUMP. That's likely 60 more seconds than people normally spend actually engaging with their daily spending habits and monthly money moves. And that's the CHUMP that's live now. One text a day. One minute. A streak you keep alive.
And the name? It stuck. Even while the product evolved completely, the mission never did: