Thrive or Justthrive.com, was a free, web-based personal financial management application offering personalized financial adviceFitzpatrick, J. (2009). "Thrive Analyzes Your Financial Data and Offers Advice", Lifehacker and specifically targeting people in their 20s and 30s.Needleman, R. (2008). "Thrive gives automated financial advice", CNET The service offered online money management and planning, as well as using algorithmic advice to offer personalized guidance, based on transactions pulled from a user's loan, bank, and credit card accounts. It was acquired by LendingTree in 2009, and its original branded website was permanently shut down on June 3, 2011.

History

Founded by Avinash Karnani and Ori Schnaps in 2006 as a startup company, Thrive was conceived when the founders noticed that their twenty and thirty-something peers had little access to credible financial planning.Thrive (2009). "About Us" After entering private beta in early 2008, it was formally launched at Finovate 08 in October 2008Bruene, J. (2008). "Thrive", Netbanker 2008 and reached the "$100 million under management" benchmark in less than two weeks. Thrive was acquired in full by LendingTree in February 2009.Wauters, R. (2009). "Tree.com Acquires Mint Competitor Thrive" TechCrunch Despite the acquisition, however, development remains based in New York City and continues to be staffed by the original team.Karnani, A. (2009). "You, Me, and Tree", Good To Grow

Features

Financial Health Score to help users monitor their credit score and savings to debt ratio.Bruene, J. (2008). "Thrive", Netbanker 2008 Actionable, step-by-step advice to help users improve their finances.Grant, K. (2008). "9 Sites That Help With Everyday Budgeting", SmartMoney Entire site, including advice, presented with minimal technical terminology: in "plain English".Kamenetz, A. (2009). "Investing World Gone Mad", Fast Company Dedicated customer support, including a toll-free phone number (1.888.831.4080) and non-form email response ([email protected]). Enhanced budgeting, termed "behavioral budgeting",PR Newswire Press Release that is based on the concept of "actions". The budget tells users what they can do each week and month, based on their individual spending habits and goals. Brings together checking, savings, credit card, CD, investment, retirement, loans, and other financial accounts into a single, automatically updating interface.Thrillist Nation(2008). "Investing World Gone Mad", Thrillist New features are released on a roughly monthly basis.

Advocacy and expertise

Thrive experts are frequently cited in the media giving commentary on financial issues, including splurge spending,Lanham, R. (2009). "Giving the recession the finger", Salon the psychology behind "Free",Trejos, N. (2009). "A Golden Age for Cheapskates", Washington Post and the interaction between the economy and technology.De Avila, J. (2008). "Putting Your Money Where Your Mouse Is", The Wall Street Journal Key experts include Co-founder Avinash Karnani on economics and Generation X/Generation Y, Co-founder Ori Schnaps on technology and personal finance, Lead Scientist Matt Wallaert on social psychology, behavioral finance and decision making, and Outreach Coordinator Elisa Cundiff on financial literacy and outreach.

Thrive has publicly spoken out against the policies of financial institutions that provide a higher standard of service to the wealthy, citing data from a company survey of 730 people that shows that the rich have access to lower fees, better interest rates, lower closing costs, and more services, including financial guidance, enhanced customer support, and concierge services.Berg, S. Z. (2009). "Your Money", Consumers Digest, 2009 On April 30, 2009, Thrive was on Capitol Hill advocating for increased federal support for financial education as part of the Jump$tart Financial Literacy Day.PR Newswire (2009). "LendingTree and Thrive to Participate in Financial Literacy Day on Capitol Hill on April 30 ", CNBC

Relationship to LendingTree

Thrive was acquired by LendingTree in February 2009Wauters, R. (2009). "Tree.com Acquires Mint Competitor Thrive" TechCrunch but much of the original development team remained in place until May 2010, when the last of the original team members departed from LendingTree. In July 2009, in sync with LendingTree's rebranding effort, Thrive created a white-labeled version of the site called MoneyRight.Parr, B. (2009). "LendingTree Launches MoneyRight to Challenge Mint in Personal Finance", Mashable The sites are functionally identical, with MoneyRight being a version of Thrive skinned as LendingTree's budgeting site.

See also Personal financial management Financial literacy Personal finance

References

External links Thrive

LendingTree LLC To Shut Down Online Money Management Site Thrive