Aaron Patzer, Founder

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Aaron Patzer, Founder CEO November 30, 2009
Idea to 170m exit in three years Idea, Business
Model, Funding, Hiring Launch!
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Mint.com is the 1 personal finance web
application . . .

Helps users gain control over and do more with
their money
Accessible on the go (iPhone) and across the web
(Yahoo!)

• See all accounts in one place
• Understand categorize spending
• Set budgets
• Track investments
• Find savings (Ways to Save)
• Avoid fees
• Educational blog content

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Background Life before Mint
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Geek at Heart
Duke EE / Comp. Sci.
Princeton PhD Dropout
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Failure is okay...3 businesses before Mint

• 1997 Web development
• 1998 Online marketing? Service doesnt scale
• 2002 DNA Matching Chip
• Small market
• Required deep science
• Tried while in school

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The three phases of a startup

• Phase 1 Garage (lt100k)
• Find an idea
• Create a prototype
• Expenses Hiring
• Phase 2 Seed (lt1m)
• Business goal
• Expenses
• Projecting Revenue

• Phase 3 Funded (gt1m)
• Business goal
• Expenses
• Budgeting growth model

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Becoming Mint

• Original Idea Goal setting software
• Money component resonated...
• Plus I hated using Quicken

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Rule 1 Solve a Real Problem

• Finances are complex
• Where does it all go?
• Do I have the best price?
• Best interest rates?

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Old Products Didn't Cut It

• Quicken was NOT quick
• Tons of manual effort
• Buthuge market80m online banking users
• Rule 2 Find a big market

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First Steps

• Transaction categorization
• Know where people spend precise targeting
• Mint now has 10-20 click-thru on offers
• ? Free!

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Psychology of a Starting a Company

• Rule 3 Quit your job
• Self doubt is okay
• Beginning can be lonely
• Work flat out hard

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Garage Goal Prototype

• Prototypedevelopment
• Idea
• Market Research
• Business Plan

Pre-revenue Valuation
500k / engineer
-250k / business guy
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Raising Funds

• Elevator pitch
• A LARGE market(at least 1b potential)
• Real revenue potential
• Sustainable advantage

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Mint Prototype

• Usable, but not polished or scalable product
• Headcount 5-6
• 3-4 engineers
• 1 product / frontend
• 1 business generalist

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Seed Revenue ProjectionsYou have a revenue
model, right?

• Your absolute revenue projections will be
  bullshit (see below)
• Everyones look like a hockey stick
• Per use / per client revenue is more important
• And a huge market opportunity
• Lets see how Mint did it

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CompetitionQuicken LowerMyBills

• Difficult to use
• Costs money 30-70
• Does not save or make user money
• ? 4 of 5 quit within one month

• Save money, but
• Manually search for deals
• No insight into your finances

Original Mint late 2006 slide
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Lead-Gen CPA Opportunity 30/user/yr
Original Mint 2007 slide
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Business ModelReferrals Lead Generation

• 7 of 16B online ad market
• Fastest growing ad segment
• Up 160 from 2004 to 05(Source IAB)
• 1.0B in mortgage lead-gen, to triple by
  2008(Experian)

Original Mint late 2006 slide
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Funded Launch Lead

• GoalLaunch a real product grow a profitable
  business
• Hidden Expenses
• Legal patents, trademarks, contracts,
  financing, employment, immigration
• Consultants SEO, SEM, design, logos, DB tuning,
  etc.

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Hiring is Everything

• Most hire haphazardly
• Train yourself to hire
• Hire better than youthen let them work

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Questions?