This week, we moved the VestMatch site from it’s “secret” address for early users to our www.vestmatch.com. If you continue to use the old address, it will be automatically redirected to www.vestmatch.com.
We have been doing some additional work on some new features and fixing a bug or two that users uncovered. In the meantime, please continue to use the site and feel free to send us comments on your ideas, thoughts or concerns.
VestMatch continues to make enhancements to the site so that you can more easily reach your financial goals. Here are a few updates:
* You can now link an account where you save for your goal to your VestMatch plan. This makes it easy to keep everyone updated on how close you are to reaching your goal. We pull data from your financial service company each night. Link your plan either from Create New Plan or Edit Plan links.
* If you don’t have an account where you save for your goal, you can open one right here right now with a leading firm, and then link that account to your VestMatch plan. Open an account either from Create New Plan or Edit Plan links.
* If you don’t wish to link your account, you can manually update your plan with contribution information. For un-linked accounts, see Contribution Activity link on the Plan Info page.
* We’ve added a Forums section so that you can pose questions to or answer questions from other users and VestMatch. You will find this in the Community section.
* We’ve added an FAQ to address the most common questions. You will find this in the Community section, or at the bottom of every page there is an FAQ link.
* We’ve also added a video on how to create a plan on the VestMatch home page as well as on YouTube. If you want to check YouTube.com, just search on VestMatch and you’ll see all our videos. We’ve also linked to the video on an earlier blog posting.
Next developments for VestMatch include, for plans with linked accounts, bringing in account history and positions — which will be editable by the plan champion — so that the VestMatch plan can accurately reflect contribution history and asset allocations. For plans without linked accounts, we will provide a place for the plan champion to input asset allocation and total asset value information.
We hope that you enjoy VestMatch. Be sure to tell others!
You can watch this video to see how easy it is to create a VestMatch plan.
We expect that early users of VestMatch will have many suggestions that will help us enhance the experience and usefulness of the site. There are several ways you can reach us. First, consider posting an item on the “Forums” section (click on Community and then on Forums) for all VestMatch users to see. Alternatively, you can send us a private e-mail using the Support section or just by emailing us as info@vestmatch.com.
We have already received great comments from Bill G., David, Bill M., Shari, Anne, and Tim, and thanks to you all. We look forward to additional comments from them and any users as we go forward.
We have just launched the test site of VestMatch and if you’re reading this you have probably been invited to be part of the test. We know that there are millions of cases in the US where groups of people are saving for a single goal. And we know that saving or investing collaboratively is crucial to achieving many of these goals. But we also know that collaborative saving or investing can be sloppy, paper-intensive and uncomfortable. Enter VestMatch.
VestMatch enables groups to more effectively save or invest together, join together as the goal gets closer, and celebrate together when the goal is reached.
I encourage you to experiment with VestMatch. We want you to set up a Profile, establish a Plan, invite others to be Plan Partners and see where you can go. You can save for something big (like college for your kids) or something smaller (like a family trip), but you and all the others involved in the Plan can use VestMatch to see how the savings are growing and to use VestMatch as a forum to communicate about the goal. You can comment, add photos, audio or video, and even blog about your experience.
Let me give you a real life example. My wife and I are saving for college for two boys. One of them goes off to college in the fall and one in the fall 2012. Their grandparents have been contributing to their college fund. But we live 2,000 miles away. So on VestMatch, I can post pictures of the boys, a movie that one of them made, clippings from the newspaper about track, and an audio clip of their band. Their grandparents can see how close we are to reaching the financial goal, see the pictures and files I added, make comments of their own, add their photos and keep the process going. And when son #1 goes off to college, he can post photos of his first day at school, his dorm room, his roommate, etc., his parents and grandparents to see.
How would you use VestMatch? Send me an email at matt@vestmatch.com or add a comment to this post below and I’ll report back.
