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Mint founder on Silicon Valley
- nobody_nowhere 17y agoexcellent timing for the relentless techcrunch self-promotion machine...
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoOh come on... 1. This was written by Mint's founder, not TC 2. This *is* a success story for TC 3. There's nothing wrong with self-promotion :)
- nobody_nowhere 17y agoHey, is there no room for snark about a snarky website? I've got a horse in the TC50 race, so it's great that he bills it as "The Value of TechCrunch", but isn't really about the value of Mint?
- cvg 17y agoI'm with you Ryan, it is a success story for Techcrunch. I'm not a TC fan, but still not gonna let emotions get in the way of the facts.
- mixmax 17y ago"While everyone else was doing social media, music, video or the startup de jour, we tried to ground ourselves in what any business should be doing: solve a real problem for people." This is good advice for all aspiring entrepreneurs.
- zaidf 17y agoWhile I can see where he is coming from(and have myself grown tired of the social media stuff), his tone is kind of condescending. Cool he sold his "real problem" startup; but to suggest YouTube, facebook aren't solving "real problems" is interesting in the least.
- modoc 17y agoIf I woke up tomorrow and one of those sites was down for good, Mint is the one I'd miss the most.
- axod 17y agoYour comment isn't really useful :/ you're obviously an outlier. Most people would go insane if they couldn't access youtube or facebook. Social media, music, video are real problems that people have, and need solutions to. The problem comes when a startup doesn't really solve anything new and just copies existing stuff.
- modoc 17y agoI guess you and I have differing opinions on what "real problems" are. Personal finance, yup. Facebook feed, not so much. Out of people who use Mint and who use YouTube, I'd bet many would pick Mint over YouTube if they had to pick one. Honestly, if youtube or facebook vanished, and in this magical world, no one propped up a replacement. People would moan for a week, and then they'd go back to the same things they did before YouTube existed, with no change to anything practical in their life. People wouldn't go insane, they'd simple find other ways to waste time.
- axod 17y agoPerhaps some of it is the fact that in the US you have to file your own taxes, so there's much greater emphasis on accounting. Maybe that's why it's valued more there :/ (In the UK I'm not sure most people would see the value in it). Facebook+youtube aren't just about wasting time. They're about communication and sharing information, which as social beings, is pretty important to most of us.
- zaidf 17y agoOut of people who use Mint and who use YouTube What if you ask 1000 random people between YouTube and Mint?
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- arohner 17y agoWow, one line out of the whole story mentions TechCrunch, and they run that as the headline. And it's slimy how TC implies that because Mint launched at TC50, it caused Mint to be acquired.
- chaosmachine 17y agoWell, they won $50,000 at TC50, it's hard to get a better launch day than that.
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- physcab 17y agoYeah I got the same weird feeling when I read that headline, but honestly, getting that type of coverage probably helped them considerably. It seems like most successful companies have the right proportion of hard work and luck.
- arohner 17y agoSure, good coverage helps, but with a good product and good execution, they'll get it from anyone. If the formula is good idea + hard work + good execution + coverage from TC, you can easily replace "coverage from TC" with "coverage from NYTimes", and still be successful. TC didn't cause Mint to be acquired, so they shouldn't pretend they helped.
- motoko 17y agoIt's honest for TechCrunch to broadcast their own sincere celebration in Mint's success. It would be suspect if TechCrunch did not emphasize its own participation in Mint's headline success in a TechCrunch headline. TechCrunch doesn't deserve to be called slimy for this.
- javery 17y agoThis story does seem to gloss over the VC piece, to me it read like they started with no money and got to $170 million without investment. Didn't they raise 30+ million?
- axod 17y agoWhat he doesn't mention is how much money Mint was making (If it was making any at all). Plenty of bubble valley hyping up about how it couldn't have happened anywhere else etc etc. Bleugh.
- brown9-2 17y agoI'm ignorant on how the TechCrunch50 conference works. Does TC have any ownership stake in mint?
- aditya 17y agoNo, they just won the $50k prize... but it seems like Arrington got some (advisor?) stock if you see the exchange between him, Calacanis and Aaron.
- antonovka 17y agoAdvisor stock? That's an enormous conflict of interest for a editor at news ("news"?) organization covering the space.
- evgen 17y agoConflict of interest? TechCrunch? Say it ain't so! :)
- jasonmcalacanis 17y agoWe were joking about getting the $50k grand prize back from TechCrunch50 2007. :-)
- aditya 17y agoHere’s to the Mint team, from New Zealand, from France, Tunisia, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Greece, and all over the U.S. Hm. So, they got their start in the valley and then hired people all over the world? It reads like an ode to the valley absolutely till the last paragraph...
- jhancock 17y agoPerhaps the value of the story is that it pays to have your headquarters and founders in the valley. Your programmers, content writers, etc, can be anywhere. For many startups, having your labor outside the valley may be critical. Is this a trend?
- kareemm 17y agoi read it as ppl from those countries are on the Mint team and live in the valley.
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- mace 17y agoAaron Patzer also gave a talk at Duke that has some good advice for startup founders: http://media.fuqua.duke.edu/Content/Groups/EES/2008/Patzer_300K.mov http://media.fuqua.duke.edu/Content/Groups/EES/2008/Patzer_3...
- giardini 17y agoI'm surprised they use Mysql, since IIRC it doesn't have transaction capability.
- daveungerer 17y agoI seem to be banned from TechCrunch and have to go through google cache if I really want to read something linked from HN. Still trying to decide if that's a good thing or not. It says: TechCrunch is currently down for some scheduled maintenance. In the meantime, please check out the other sites on our network of blogs for the latest in tech news: The above is followed by a list of links. Been this way for at least a week now.
- ramoq 17y agosounds like they might have used java on the backend :)
- bkbleikamp 17y agothe backend is indeed java
- caa09hh 17y agoMint is such a great website. Can someone please tell me how they are able to access websites with scripts? What languages do they use to do that?
- madh 17y agoThey get their information from Yodlee.
- ieatpaste 17y ago"We’ve attracted over 1.5 million users, found over $300 million in savings, managed $50 billion in assets, and helped people track nearly $200 billion in purchases." I'm not sure I would sell - $170m seems rather low. Furthermore, they have so much room for expansion, which only will be crippled by working under a tax software company. They might be trying to automagically do your taxes for you, but they don't have enough relevant information without having it to be the same hassle as using the software.