TechCrunch 40 winner: Mint

September 19, 2007 By

Here’s the video of Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint. They won the $50,000 at TechCrunch 40 yesterday. He gives us a demo and shows us how his service can save you thousands of dollars. Also explains why it’s better than Quicken.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/09/PID_012599/Podtech_Mint.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4177/mint-wins-a-mint-at-techcrunch-40&totalTime=756000&breadcrumb=19424628ab5e4489ad15529a3d3c6b4f]

Filed Under: Mint.com, TechCrunch40
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  • http://wheatridgeranter.blogspot.com Ryan Rapp

    I don’t get it. You’re giving your bank account username and passwords to the site. Can’t Joe Shmo behind the scenes capture this information, go into your accounts, and wreak havoc?

    Something seems really iffy about this concept. It scares me.

  • http://wheatridgeranter.blogspot.com/ Ryan Rapp

    I don’t get it. You’re giving your bank account username and passwords to the site. Can’t Joe Shmo behind the scenes capture this information, go into your accounts, and wreak havoc?

    Something seems really iffy about this concept. It scares me.

  • Calvin Crone

    Interesting product, though surely a major barrier in getting people to use it will be convincing them hand over their online banking details? I see there’s a page on mint.com explaining that it’s very secure, but still… online banking something most people are pretty sensitive about.

  • Calvin Crone

    Interesting product, though surely a major barrier in getting people to use it will be convincing them hand over their online banking details? I see there’s a page on mint.com explaining that it’s very secure, but still… online banking something most people are pretty sensitive about.

  • http://sebmos.at/ Sebastian

    Awesome product, awesome business model, awesome success rates (given that they’re correct), awesome video.

  • Sebastian

    Awesome product, awesome business model, awesome success rates (given that they’re correct), awesome video.

  • http://www.yonga.info/ Yonga Sun

    This is really an amazing product! I sincerely hope that Mint will someday be tweaked for use in the Netherlands, where I live.
    Amazing how easy the setup is and how easily understandable the data is presented.
    The “Save Money” feature is worth a lot, literally!
    Thanks for this interesting interview!
    Cheers,
    Yonga

  • http://www.yonga.info Yonga Sun

    This is really an amazing product! I sincerely hope that Mint will someday be tweaked for use in the Netherlands, where I live.
    Amazing how easy the setup is and how easily understandable the data is presented.
    The “Save Money” feature is worth a lot, literally!
    Thanks for this interesting interview!
    Cheers,
    Yonga

  • http://www.schinina.it/ Eugenio

    Yes, the business model is somewhat “easy” to understand (assuming “they” can use all of “your” information to spot saving opportunities). But, the same holds true even for a single bank or financial institute? I mean…what if a bank decides to “buy” Mint? Againg, assuming they cannot buy only the information they need…
    Can they be allowed to do so?

  • http://www.schinina.it/ Eugenio

    Yes, the business model is somewhat “easy” to understand (assuming “they” can use all of “your” information to spot saving opportunities). But, the same holds true even for a single bank or financial institute? I mean…what if a bank decides to “buy” Mint? Againg, assuming they cannot buy only the information they need…
    Can they be allowed to do so?

  • http://sriram-krishnan.com/ sriram

    good going mint! woohooo!

  • http://sriram-krishnan.com sriram

    good going mint! woohooo!

  • http://www.johntrainor.com/ John Trainor

    It’s a great product. It’s really well-done. The only complaint I have is that it is really hard to demo to friends without showing them too much about yourself. :-)

  • http://www.johntrainor.com John Trainor

    It’s a great product. It’s really well-done. The only complaint I have is that it is really hard to demo to friends without showing them too much about yourself. :-)

  • http://www.p0mi.com/ Dan Guy

    I wish it could access my accounts. I’ve been clicking “Try again” since 6pm PST last night. Even at 1am PST I couldn’t get it working.

  • http://www.p0mi.com Dan Guy

    I wish it could access my accounts. I’ve been clicking “Try again” since 6pm PST last night. Even at 1am PST I couldn’t get it working.

  • http://www.campusfish.com/Jeff/ Jeff Putz

    Yes, the product is remarkably incapable of scaling. If it’s awesome, I wouldn’t know because it can’t connect to my bank.

  • http://www.campusfish.com/Jeff/ Jeff Putz

    Yes, the product is remarkably incapable of scaling. If it’s awesome, I wouldn’t know because it can’t connect to my bank.

  • Dean Williams

    If Mint did a little bit of research, they would have known that Yodlee already does the features that Mint claims to do.

    $50K won’t be enough for the litigation fees for infringing on Yodlee’s data aggregation patents.

    DW

  • Dean Williams

    If Mint did a little bit of research, they would have known that Yodlee already does the features that Mint claims to do.

    $50K won’t be enough for the litigation fees for infringing on Yodlee’s data aggregation patents.

    DW

  • http://theaones.com/ michael

    It’s an awesome program

  • http://theaones.com michael

    It’s an awesome program

  • Dean Williams is a dolt

    Mint uses Yodlee on the backend. I doubt there will be any litigation.

  • Dean Williams is a dolt

    Mint uses Yodlee on the backend. I doubt there will be any litigation.

  • http://www.xmlaficionado.com/ A.Falk

    Re DW: turns out that Mint is actually using Yodlee (just like Microsoft Money), they just add a spiffier Web 2.0 UI and a way to target tons of ads at people – all under the pretext of helping them save money.

    Re the video itself: Aaron actually says that unlike Quicken, where adding a few accounts takes one hour, in Mint you can to it in 5 minutes. That’s quite bold and completely untrue. Going to Mint today, this is the message I get for adding an account (that I’ve been trying to add for 3 days now):

    Mint is currently experiencing delays adding accounts.

    Your accounts will continue to process in the background. It may take up to an hour for your transactions and balances to come through.

    Usually linking an account takes 30-90 seconds, but since winning TechCrunch40, and being featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle our volume has gone up over 100x.

    Quicken: 1 hour — Mint: more than 3 days.

    See also this post on my blog about their scalability issue:

    http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-not-ready-to-scale.html

  • http://www.xmlaficionado.com A.Falk

    Re DW: turns out that Mint is actually using Yodlee (just like Microsoft Money), they just add a spiffier Web 2.0 UI and a way to target tons of ads at people – all under the pretext of helping them save money.

    Re the video itself: Aaron actually says that unlike Quicken, where adding a few accounts takes one hour, in Mint you can to it in 5 minutes. That’s quite bold and completely untrue. Going to Mint today, this is the message I get for adding an account (that I’ve been trying to add for 3 days now):

    Mint is currently experiencing delays adding accounts.

    Your accounts will continue to process in the background. It may take up to an hour for your transactions and balances to come through.

    Usually linking an account takes 30-90 seconds, but since winning TechCrunch40, and being featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle our volume has gone up over 100x.

    Quicken: 1 hour — Mint: more than 3 days.

    See also this post on my blog about their scalability issue:

    http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-not-ready-to-scale.html

  • http://www.paraesthesia.com/ Travis Illig

    Looks a lot like Wesabe to me. Except Wesabe offers an API so the features can be used outside the site. http://www.wesabe.com

  • http://www.paraesthesia.com Travis Illig

    Looks a lot like Wesabe to me. Except Wesabe offers an API so the features can be used outside the site. http://www.wesabe.com

  • Dean Williams

    If it’s true that Mint is using Yodlee as its data aggregating engine, where’s the value in that? They become dependent on someone else’s technology w/c is similar to Yahoo licensing Google’s search engine.

    Maybe there is a business in developing pretty UIs…

    DW

  • Dean Williams

    If it’s true that Mint is using Yodlee as its data aggregating engine, where’s the value in that? They become dependent on someone else’s technology w/c is similar to Yahoo licensing Google’s search engine.

    Maybe there is a business in developing pretty UIs…

    DW

  • http://www.mint.com/ Aaron Patzer

    A. Falk,

    Sorry you ran into issues adding your accounts. We’ve deployed a ton of new hardware in the past 24 hours and things are speedy…you should be able to add your account in 30-120 seconds.

    We ran into some scaling issues after we won TechCrunch 40, and were featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle all on the same day. Literally 100,000 people really needed to get their finances organized on Tuesday. Apparently there _is_ a need for an effortless, automatic way to manage your finances.

    Things are running smoothly now :)

    Aaron Patzer
    Founder & CEO, Mint.com

  • http://www.mint.com/ Aaron Patzer

    A. Falk,

    Sorry you ran into issues adding your accounts. We’ve deployed a ton of new hardware in the past 24 hours and things are speedy…you should be able to add your account in 30-120 seconds.

    We ran into some scaling issues after we won TechCrunch 40, and were featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle all on the same day. Literally 100,000 people really needed to get their finances organized on Tuesday. Apparently there _is_ a need for an effortless, automatic way to manage your finances.

    Things are running smoothly now :)

    Aaron Patzer
    Founder & CEO, Mint.com

  • Kyle

    If this amount of relatively small publicity, how do they expect to
    support the volume of users Quicken and MS Money have? Sounds like they did little to no scalibility testing. But given this is the Web 2.0 space, what else is new?

  • Kyle

    If this amount of relatively small publicity, how do they expect to
    support the volume of users Quicken and MS Money have? Sounds like they did little to no scalibility testing. But given this is the Web 2.0 space, what else is new?

  • http://wheatridgeranter.blogspot.com/ Ryan Rapp

    Still no answer as far as Joe Shmo behind the scenes misusing my banking information.

  • http://wheatridgeranter.blogspot.com Ryan Rapp

    Still no answer as far as Joe Shmo behind the scenes misusing my banking information.

  • http://www.xmlaficionado.com A.Falk

    Dear Aaron Patzer:
    I truly appreciate your response to my comment. And I immediately went back to mint.com tonight to give it another try. I was indeed able to add 1 (one) account – the other three show the same errors.
    Oh, and btw, you now owe me $35,977 which your site just promised I could save by switching to CapitalOne:
    http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomises-to-save-me-35977.html
    Not a joke – I’ve posted actual screenshots and used my own actual credit card account.

  • http://www.xmlaficionado.com/ A.Falk

    Dear Aaron Patzer:
    I truly appreciate your response to my comment. And I immediately went back to mint.com tonight to give it another try. I was indeed able to add 1 (one) account – the other three show the same errors.
    Oh, and btw, you now owe me $35,977 which your site just promised I could save by switching to CapitalOne:
    http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomises-to-save-me-35977.html
    Not a joke – I’ve posted actual screenshots and used my own actual credit card account.

  • http://www.nickperez.org/blog Nick

    Well, I was never able to add an account as a beta tester, and I STILL can’t add any of my 4 banks, or 4 credit cards. I’m getting ready to abandon it all together.

  • http://www.nickperez.org/blog Nick

    Well, I was never able to add an account as a beta tester, and I STILL can’t add any of my 4 banks, or 4 credit cards. I’m getting ready to abandon it all together.

  • yupyup

    I don’t normally think much of the register’s content, but this time they are 150% on the money:
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/reg40_launch/

  • yupyup

    I don’t normally think much of the register’s content, but this time they are 150% on the money:
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/reg40_launch/

  • Pingback: The Week That Was: PR and Technology Review

  • Kyle

    @16 my guess is those 100k are basically tire kickers. Will be interesting to see how stckey they are after a month. I would’t start extrapolating just yet.

  • Kyle

    @16 my guess is those 100k are basically tire kickers. Will be interesting to see how stckey they are after a month. I would’t start extrapolating just yet.

  • mel

    Great idea, but extremely flawed execution. I cannot add major institutions such as citibank, capitol one and American Express. I think that Mint should have stayed under the covers until they had more of these bugs worked out.

  • mel

    Great idea, but extremely flawed execution. I cannot add major institutions such as citibank, capitol one and American Express. I think that Mint should have stayed under the covers until they had more of these bugs worked out.

  • T

    Guys common, dont you know bank of america has similar service on their online website? Its exactly the same data except for the tips that Mint gives you. I would be very wary to hand over my personal data to some startup, instead I would go to my bank and do the same thing.

  • T

    Guys common, dont you know bank of america has similar service on their online website? Its exactly the same data except for the tips that Mint gives you. I would be very wary to hand over my personal data to some startup, instead I would go to my bank and do the same thing.

  • http://blog.travischoma.com/ Travis Choma

    The only reason why this can work, is the low banking security that is used by US banks online. I’m in the Netherlands and this would never work because in order for me to login to my bank account online there is no username/password, rather I have an e-dentifer which is a handheld keypad which I insert my atm card. I then need to enter my atm card pin code in the e-dentifier in order to get into the e-dentifier. Then the website gives me a code to type in and the e-dentifier which responds with another code which I type into the website. So in order to login I need to use my atm card, know my atm pin, and do a security challenge with the e-dentifier.

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