{"id":43425,"date":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/snapsave-aims-to-be-piggy-bank-for-the-modern-age-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","slug":"snapsave-aims-to-be-piggy-bank-for-the-modern-age-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/snapsave-aims-to-be-piggy-bank-for-the-modern-age-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapsave aims to be piggy bank for the modern age – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sydney startup wants to bring the age-old piggy bank into the 21st<\/sup> century and help people digitally save their spare change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Snapsave is a new service that takes the left-over change from electronic transactions and transfers it into a savings account automatically.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Snapsave co-founder Jins Kaduthodil says the idea came from seeing his friends trying to save money while they were in university.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite working similarly earning jobs, Kaduthodil was saving for a house and going on holidays while his friends were living week-to-week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After helping them manage their finances and save money, he realised it\u2019s all about some simple saving methods.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt all comes down to education and being frugal with how you spend,\u201d Kaduthodil says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disrupting the piggy banks<\/b><\/h2>\n

He combined these ideals with the idea of a piggy bank, after having stored spare change in a jar in his room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it\u2019d be great to automate that in the digital world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a couple of dollars a day and it doesn\u2019t affect you psychologically, you don\u2019t see it go. But those small bits of savings grow over time in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fintech startup was eventually founded in July and is based in the Tyro co-working space in the heart of Sydney.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While it\u2019ll eventually be available as a smartphone and watch app, the MVP will be a website application, linked to text messages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Users link their transaction account with the app and then set a \u201cSnapsave amount\u201d of $2, $3, $5, $10 or $15.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So if you set it at $2, for example, and buy a coffee for $4.20, $1.80 in \u201cspare change\u201d will be transferred into the savings account.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A range of competitors<\/b><\/h2>\n

The fintech startup market is becoming increasingly saturated, and there are many services looking to help users save money or invest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kaduthodil says Snapsave is targeted at a different audience than most of its competitors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re focused at the start of the financial literacy chain \u2013 people who don\u2019t have much money or are just struggling to understand the concept of saving money,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just for my housemates, it\u2019s for people stuck in a rut trying to get out of that. We\u2019re not aiming it at the type of person that has cash lying around and are trying to figure out what to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The use of electronic spare change isn\u2019t a particularly new concept either, with US startup Acorns using these funds to invest, and Aussie company First Step following suit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Kaduthodil says theirs is a very different product.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAcorn is for managing funds, it\u2019s aimed at the person that has money but is lazy and doesn\u2019t know what to do with it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSnapsave is for people with little money or who are in debt and are trying to get out of that situation and become self-sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another American startup Digit offers a very similar service as Snapsave, scanning transactions at the end of the day to find where money can be taken out. It\u2019s currently only available in the US, but \u201chopes to expand internationally in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Plans to monetise and commercialise<\/b><\/h2>\n

The beta phase will be opening in December, with the aim to bring 1,000 early adopters on board.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been entirely bootstrapped by the co-founders so far, and they\u2019ll look to open an investment round after proving the MVP\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what the vision is, so we want to know exactly how we should get there,\u201d Kaduthodil says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After launching properly and bringing customers on board, the plan is to build partnerships and spread across the APAC region.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t expect any deals with the big banks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our values is to be independent of a bank,\u201d Kaduthodil says. \u201cWe want to be as open and diverse as possible to give it to as many people as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Snapsave team want the product to remain free for users, so they\u2019re currently experimenting with other ways to monetise the startup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to run it at a bit of a loss to start off with, knowing it\u2019s helping people,\u201d Kaduthodil says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Raising your<\/i> first round of capital<\/i><\/a>? Starting a<\/i> crowdfunding campaign<\/i><\/a>? Want to grow your business<\/i> with Instagram?<\/i><\/a> StartupSmart School can help.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney startup wants to bring the age-old piggy bank into the 21st century and help people digitally save their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}