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What's most interesting to me here is that this is a plan for building a user base, not a customer base. Mint's customers (i.e. the people that provided revenue

by pge 16y ago

What's most interesting to me here is that this is a plan for building a user base, not a customer base. Mint's customers (i.e. the people that provided revenue to Mint) were the financial services companies that paid to pitch products to Mint users. Without them, Mint doesn't make any money, and yet they do not appear in this initial plan. I'm curious to know whether Mint had a "get users first and then figure out how to monetize them" or if there was a parallel strategy for getting customers that isn't reflected here.

jfarmer 16y ago
Financial service companies will want to advertise where their customers are. Pitching them before you have traction will just get you the question, "Ok, how many leads can you send us?" But let's say you do and get 20 signed up as advertisers. Who cares? It won't earn you a cent until you get users in the door, you'll get worse terms, and it won't help you improve the underlying product. Your users are the leverage you have to make good deals with advertisers.
zokiboy 16y ago
They had a plan to get users AND customers. Look at these two lines: beta launch: d) Display content of preferred partners who list us as elite partners on their site public launch: f) Consider exclusive partnerships on specific things, ie. Wells Fargo for banking, T-mobile for cell phones. This is very roughly written plan, but it covers almost everything required in early phases. The focus was mostly on creating a user base, but it is important that you work on all and start doing baby steps. Most new startups don't cover all the bases and wonder why it isn't working! :)
datasink 16y ago
What may have been assumed here is that they could easily get a standard payout on finance-oriented offers through most affiliate networks. No special relationship needed. Scaling up traffic on these offers would enable them to bypass the network and negotiate better payouts from the advertisers.

by pge 16y ago

jfarmer 16y ago

Financial service companies will want to advertise where their customers are. Pitching them before you have traction will just get you the question, "Ok, how many leads can you send us?" But let's say you do and get 20 signed up as advertisers. Who cares? It won't earn you a cent until you get users in the door, you'll get worse terms, and it won't help you improve the underlying product. Your users are the leverage you have to make good deals with advertisers.

zokiboy 16y ago

They had a plan to get users AND customers. Look at these two lines: beta launch: d) Display content of preferred partners who list us as elite partners on their site public launch: f) Consider exclusive partnerships on specific things, ie. Wells Fargo for banking, T-mobile for cell phones. This is very roughly written plan, but it covers almost everything required in early phases. The focus was mostly on creating a user base, but it is important that you work on all and start doing baby steps. Most new startups don't cover all the bases and wonder why it isn't working! :)

datasink 16y ago

What may have been assumed here is that they could easily get a standard payout on finance-oriented offers through most affiliate networks. No special relationship needed. Scaling up traffic on these offers would enable them to bypass the network and negotiate better payouts from the advertisers.