Press

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Magazines

“BillMonk.com [lets] social groups track money together. [Sites like this] can be used to set up a budget for a shared summer rental or to remind buddies they still owe you for that dinner out last month.” - Newsweek (July 23, 2007)

“BillMonk expects to cash in… An estimated $103 billion of social money - think split dinner checks and cab fares - is traded every year” - Business 2.0 Magazine (July 2006)

“Tastiest Nuggets of Wisdom…BillMonk.com, a new, free service that enables easy tracking of debts among friends” - Money Magazine (April 2006)

Mainstream News

“You go to dinner with five friends. You pay the bill with your credit card and everyone agrees to settle up later. The next day you go to a movie with two of those same friends and they pay for your ticket and popcorn… at this rate, you’ll need a spreadsheet… or you can use the free, online service BillMonk.” Future Tense, American Public Media (radio, Oct 16, 2006)

BillMonk featured on Cyber Shack, Austrialia’s most successful radio show about gadgets and games (Oct 15, 2006)

“What some are calling the next MySpace online… most of us have probably forgotten to return stuff on occasion, and this of course, can lead to all kinds of tension… with a student or community setting, it’s actually going to make life easier, you are going to do away with the post-it notes, the IOUs, there isn’t going to be one person made to feel like they’re the bill nazi… The community library is a brilliant idea… guerilla [and] ad-hoc… it adds an element of fairness… I think we’re looking at human activities being turned into transactions, because it’s a way of creating social ease.” - BBC World Service Radio, Culture Shock (August 7, 2006)

The Times of India, the largest English daily newspaper in the world, and the Dainik Jagran, India’s largest newspaper with over 20 million readers featured BillMonk in their business sections.

“The ongoing exercise of figuring out who owes what to whom is royal pain in the neck… Our resident college-age intern, Andrew Gruen, said BillMonk is ‘great’” - CNET (July 2006)

“The premise is pretty simple and works fairly well. You sign up for an account online and send text messages to your account after meals, cab rides or other social situations.” - Raleigh North Carolina News 14 (July 2006)

“So how do you get back your money without ruining a relationship?” - amNewYork (May 2006)

“If one person pays the rent, for example, and the other person pays the utility and phone bills, BillMonk takes the information and figures out who owes whom money” - Seattle Times (April 2006, Business and Technology, cover)

Journals, Newsletters

“For busy people, it can be difficult keeping up with debts. But it is a good idea to take care of them before they become an issue with friends and family. BillMonk has the answer.” - Kim Komando’s Cool Site of the Day (July 2006)

“BillMonk is a useful tool for roommates, college students, and other groups of people that split bills. Ensuring fairness, it helps friends avoid having to nag to get their money back, or risk losing their money or stuff.” - Springwise (July 2006)

“Gaurav’s and Chuck’s key take-away: … [Web2.0 has] become a slot machine rather than a fancy roulette table, so the geeks can play and don’t need to hire MBAs any longer.” - MIT Tech Review Deutschland (March 2006)

“BillMonk itself is interesting is that the debts it tracks are all informal, backed only by the trust between/among friends… now, its gone meta-virtual, adding support for virtual currency debt types as well” - TerraNova (March 2006)

Blogs

“The concept is pretty interesting, combining elements of social networking with bill paying” - Seattle PI Venture Blog (January 2006)

“It’s a simple idea and they’ve executed well… I like the way BillMonk keeps track of all of the various transactions a user has with different people, and the current amount owed at any given time.” - TechCrunch (January 2006)

“How do you keep track of situations like that? Billmonk” - Scobleizer (January 2006)

“Very cool” - LifeHacker (January 2006)

Payments News (January 2006)

eHub (January 2006)

Explore all 500+ blog posts about BillMonk on Technorati

Interviews, presentations and podcasts

Rails Podcast (Oct 2006; recorded June 2006)

Minority Rapport Podcast (July 2006)

eHub Interview (July 2006)

Google Tech Talk (video; June 2006)

Stanford RainMakers Talk (video; March 2006)

User Quotes

Wade W. (Frisco, TX)

My girlfriend and I live together and we split most of the bills right down the middle. Even grocery shopping. I used to pay bills then give them over to her to reimburse me. She’d have to calculate up what she owed then transfer the money.

With BillMonk, I just put it in there and the balance is kept track of. Easy as pie! It’s an example of something I didn’t think I needed until I tried it. Awesome. Thank you BillMonk!

Thomas L. (Seattle, WA)

Managing money in social situations has always been tough. I hate it when the check arrives for a big group at a restaurant. Nobody carries enough cash, people can’t agree on how to split the check, and time is wasted as the staff has to run everyone’s card indvidually. I often covered it all and hoped people would get me back, but it’s always an awkward experience to confront friends about money. When BillMonk came along I found an easy way to make sure I didn’t lose track of money I needed to collect or pay back. BillMonk is the first company in recent memory of the Internet to provide a service that actually solved a problem I faced. Now I use BillMonk all the time. I love that I can do it on my cell phone! At a restaurant, I pay, send a text message into BillMonk, and don’t worry about it. Everyone I have ever used the service with agrees that it makes life a lot easier. Now, whenever I hear strangers at the next table squabbling over a bill, I want to start preaching BillMonk to them.

Mike O. (Dallas, TX):

I use BillMonk with my roommate Brian to track rent, utilities, and groceries. Rent and utilities were never a problem between us, but staying even on grocery bills was - especially beer. We used to have a system of taking turns buying beer when it ran out, but this didn’t always work out as planned. Sometimes I would find myself buying beer several times in a row and get annoyed at Brian. But in truth, he meant no harm and was either too busy to go to the store, or simply didn’t realize we had run out of beer. The tension this caused between us was unnecessary, but we had no clear solution.

A few months ago we learned about BillMonk and have been using it to track groceries as well as rent and utilities. Now it doesn’t matter who buys the beer or how often because BillMonk keeps track of it all. Whenever I’m at the store buying a new case, I simply send in a text message to BillMonk to record the purchase. It’s an easy system to use and BillMonk handles the uncomfortable task of reminding Brian so I don’t have to. Today, no one’s beer purchases get taken for granted, and arguing over groceries is a thing of the past.

Press Materials

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Logo (large):

Screen shots (click for full-size):

	Where you stand with your friends.
	Drill down for details with a particular friend
	The ease of use when entering a shared bill
	The community lending library
	Detailed view of item (data from Amazon.com)