Your data is valuable. Otherwise, Facebook and Twitter would not be free. These social media sites are free because they are harvesting everything about us – our name, age, gender, city, family relationships, things we like and dislike, things we share, and what we click on. But at least we get some value or pleasure from using those services. Companies like 3rd party data brokers are scooping up information about us without our knowledge and then selling that data to the highest bidder. It’s a $15 billion per year business in the US. So why do all of these other companies get to benefit from our data, whereas we cannot? Enter Datacoup. Datacoup is a personal data marketplace, a platform where individuals can aggregate their own data and make it available to marketers and other companies. This way, people can see some personal benefit from their own data, rather than letting big corporations get all the benefit. As online consumers, we create mountains of increasingly valuable data, but we don't benefit from that value – at least not in a transparent, tangible, overt transaction. Data brokers profit when they sell our information, while we get next to nothing. With Datacoup, we make it possible for companies to buy data directly from consumers, passing most of the economic benefit along to those consumers. This sale of data can happen in two ways. First, consumers can contribute anonymous aggregated data to companies that are interested in large swaths of data to do segmentation work. For example, 25 - 35 year old males in Manhattan are doing X. Or people in a physical store have been buying a particular item. Second, we provide for a one-on-one data sale through notifications via our browser extension, In this case, you choose exactly which companies you want to share data with. For example, let’s say you are shopping at Macys.com. On their behalf, we can flash an offer through the browser extension that says: If you're willing to share certain data sets, like your last 10 online purchases, or last 30 days of retail websites you've visited, Macy’s will give you 20% off your order. We want to bring that level of transparency and benefit to our data, and find a way for you to reap its benefits. Enter Envestnet | Yodlee. Datacoup has been a customer of Envestnet | Yodlee since 2012, using the Envestnet | Yodlee Aggregation API, as well as social APIs for social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We also use other APIs for self-tracking and self-quantification, and even implemented a browser extension so the user can leverage their browser history. All of that data is collated with aggregated financial data from Envestnet | Yodlee – what you buy, where you buy it, how much you spend, and how you purchase – providing a holistic view of each person’s financial situation. The more well-rounded your profile is, the more valuable your data becomes. We're also very happy to be part of the 2016 Ynext Incubator class, which includes seven other innovative startups: Hedgeable, Levanto, ModernLend, Simplifier, SnapCheck, Totum, and Track. We're learning a lot of key lessons – like how to build our products, run our company, and pitch to investors – along with developing great connections in the fintech ecosystem. If you'd like to learn about how to leverage the Envestnet | Yodlee Aggregation API, please visit the developer portal: https://developer.yodlee.com/Yodlee_API. To find out more about Ynext Incubator, a 6-month program for developers, innovators, and entrepreneurs to launch disruptive products that leverage transactional financial data, visit: https://ynext.yodlee.com/launchpad.
