41 ms·

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die. I also thin

by dcurtis 17y ago

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die. I also think something must have been going terribly wrong. The exit was tiny considering the huge amount of money that was invested.

JulianMorrison 17y ago
> Mint is now going to die. Doesn't always work that way (NeXT, Apple).
- whopa 17y ago
  Apple is an outlier. Intuit is not.
  - billswift 17y ago
    "Outlier" just means it's a statistical oddity; anything can become an outlier, sometimes very quickly, if things change the right way.
    - whopa 17y ago
      Sure, but citing an outlier as an example as something that could happen isn't really meaningful, since it is so improbable.
fallentimes 17y ago
Just use yodlee.com (they power Mint's backend anyway). I've been a happy user for years. I agree with your second statement: to the uninformed observer (me and everyone else in this thread) something does seem off. Bank and credit card leads pay from $50-$200 per pop let alone the riches that mortgage leads bring in. I was in fits of laughter during the initial Mint acquisition HN thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821615 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821615) when people accused Mint of being unable to make money. To some, advertising and subscription payments are the only way to monetize.
- whopa 17y ago
  Maybe with the current economy the bank and credit card leads don't pay out as well? And the mortgage stuff is still in total downturn. Perhaps between the crappy economy and whatever Yodlee is charging for their data, Mint may not be anywhere near profitable. They may have acquired a lot of users, but they have to pay Yodlee for all those users' data, and cover the costs by the fraction of those users who go for the bank/credit card stuff suggested. During the time I used Mint, none of the financial offers presented were better than my current ones, so I never bit.
- tjogin 17y ago
  Mint's backend isn't the point, it certainly isn't what made Mint popular —— it's the frontend.
  - fallentimes 17y ago
    That's partially true, but what also made them popular is exceptional PR, SEO and marketing. Yodlee has some features Mint does not and vice-versa.
    - dcurtis 17y ago
      No, none of those things made Mint popular. The quality of the product did.
      - fallentimes 17y ago
        That's just not true as the CEO himself admits and as their job postings and SERP rankings reveal. Mint were absolute masters of SEO and PR: http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-3624320565025573542 http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-3624320565025573542 http://www.onecubicle.com/page/jobs/job/4581 http://www.onecubicle.com/page/jobs/job/4581 "We didn’t have money for writers, so most of our original blog content then was guest posts from other personal finance blogs, plus a couple of columns on people’s worst financial disasters. To build demand, we started asking for email addresses for our alpha 9 months in advance of launch. Then when we had too many people sign up, we asked people to put a little badge that said “I want Mint” on their blogs to get priority access. We got free advertising and 600 link backs which raised our SEO juice." Instead, we relied on press. It’s where I spent 20% of my time. I’m spending it right now while writing this." http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch50-mint-acquired-by-intuit-for-170m-two-years-after-winning-tc40/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch... Having an awesome product certainly helped but it was in conjunction with their other efforts.
zaidf 17y ago
I agree with you. My first reaction was "170M? That's it?".
zackattack 17y ago
For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investment, though not as extreme as the earliest investors. A company should always have a sell price. Intuit met Mint's.
- vijayr 17y ago
  pay off close friends' debts I think it would be a better idea to loan them money to pay off their debts. Of course, your loan should be interest free, shouldn't have any strings attached, should give your friends very long time to repay - otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between your loan and the 'other' loans in the first place.
  - hnal943 17y ago
    Loaning people money is the best way to turn your friendship in to a business. The borrower is slave to the lender; why would you want that dynamic in your friendship?
    - vijayr 17y ago
      No, not always. It becomes a business when 1) you charge interest 2) you have some terms and conditions or attach some "strings" 3) you require collateral 4) you make your friend sign papers, and you leave "legal" options open When I loan a friend, all I say is "dude, this is just to help you, I know you are going through tough times. No way this is to insult or patronize you. you can return the money when you can, even if it takes you 5-10 years" That is trust and friendship, one friend helping the other, nothing more nothing less and definitely not a business.
      - doki_pen 17y ago
        It's bullshit. Invariably lending money to a friend leads to resentment. You are putting a dollar amount on the friendship. If they don't pay you back, will you still be friends? if yes, then why not just give them the money?

by dcurtis 17y ago

JulianMorrison 17y ago

> Mint is now going to die. Doesn't always work that way (NeXT, Apple).

whopa 17y ago
Apple is an outlier. Intuit is not.
- billswift 17y ago
  "Outlier" just means it's a statistical oddity; anything can become an outlier, sometimes very quickly, if things change the right way.
  - whopa 17y ago
    Sure, but citing an outlier as an example as something that could happen isn't really meaningful, since it is so improbable.

fallentimes 17y ago

Just use yodlee.com (they power Mint's backend anyway). I've been a happy user for years. I agree with your second statement: to the uninformed observer (me and everyone else in this thread) something does seem off. Bank and credit card leads pay from $50-$200 per pop let alone the riches that mortgage leads bring in. I was in fits of laughter during the initial Mint acquisition HN thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821615 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821615) when people accused Mint of being unable to make money. To some, advertising and subscription payments are the only way to monetize.

whopa 17y ago
Maybe with the current economy the bank and credit card leads don't pay out as well? And the mortgage stuff is still in total downturn. Perhaps between the crappy economy and whatever Yodlee is charging for their data, Mint may not be anywhere near profitable. They may have acquired a lot of users, but they have to pay Yodlee for all those users' data, and cover the costs by the fraction of those users who go for the bank/credit card stuff suggested. During the time I used Mint, none of the financial offers presented were better than my current ones, so I never bit.
tjogin 17y ago
Mint's backend isn't the point, it certainly isn't what made Mint popular —— it's the frontend.
- fallentimes 17y ago
  That's partially true, but what also made them popular is exceptional PR, SEO and marketing. Yodlee has some features Mint does not and vice-versa.
  - dcurtis 17y ago
    No, none of those things made Mint popular. The quality of the product did.
    - fallentimes 17y ago
      That's just not true as the CEO himself admits and as their job postings and SERP rankings reveal. Mint were absolute masters of SEO and PR: http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-3624320565025573542 http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-3624320565025573542 http://www.onecubicle.com/page/jobs/job/4581 http://www.onecubicle.com/page/jobs/job/4581 "We didn’t have money for writers, so most of our original blog content then was guest posts from other personal finance blogs, plus a couple of columns on people’s worst financial disasters. To build demand, we started asking for email addresses for our alpha 9 months in advance of launch. Then when we had too many people sign up, we asked people to put a little badge that said “I want Mint” on their blogs to get priority access. We got free advertising and 600 link backs which raised our SEO juice." Instead, we relied on press. It’s where I spent 20% of my time. I’m spending it right now while writing this." http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch50-mint-acquired-by-intuit-for-170m-two-years-after-winning-tc40/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch... Having an awesome product certainly helped but it was in conjunction with their other efforts.

zaidf 17y ago

I agree with you. My first reaction was "170M? That's it?".

zackattack 17y ago

For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investment, though not as extreme as the earliest investors. A company should always have a sell price. Intuit met Mint's.

vijayr 17y ago
pay off close friends' debts I think it would be a better idea to loan them money to pay off their debts. Of course, your loan should be interest free, shouldn't have any strings attached, should give your friends very long time to repay - otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between your loan and the 'other' loans in the first place.
- hnal943 17y ago
  Loaning people money is the best way to turn your friendship in to a business. The borrower is slave to the lender; why would you want that dynamic in your friendship?
  - vijayr 17y ago
    No, not always. It becomes a business when 1) you charge interest 2) you have some terms and conditions or attach some "strings" 3) you require collateral 4) you make your friend sign papers, and you leave "legal" options open When I loan a friend, all I say is "dude, this is just to help you, I know you are going through tough times. No way this is to insult or patronize you. you can return the money when you can, even if it takes you 5-10 years" That is trust and friendship, one friend helping the other, nothing more nothing less and definitely not a business.
    - doki_pen 17y ago
      It's bullshit. Invariably lending money to a friend leads to resentment. You are putting a dollar amount on the friendship. If they don't pay you back, will you still be friends? if yes, then why not just give them the money?