Jason Calacanis just announced that Mint was chosen as the best presenting company at TechCrunch40. The provider of an impressive personal finance application will receive $50,000 as part of the award.
Mint presented its application this morning during Session 5, which was entitled “Productivity and Web Applications”. See our coverage of that session here.
Mint is a personal finance application that lets users track and monitor their financials in one place without the need of routine maintenance or accounting knowledge. Their application tracks bank, credit union and credit card transactions and alerts users to upcoming bills, low balances or unusual spending. Mint’s patent-pending technology automatically categorizes transactions, so users know with precision where they are spending money, what their bank and credit balances are, and how much interest they have earned.
Their application also helps people find ways to save money by constantly searching for deals on credit cards, bank accounts, etc. Mint’s technology also analyzes your finances and makes suggestions all while using the same security systems as top banks.
I had a beta invite but didn’t ever get around to using it, but maybe that was a mistake.
Best of luck to them!
And the site is down now … Techcrunch40/digg effect I guess
Am I the only one thinking that they are going to have a hard time getting people to give up access to all of their sensitive information. I just don’t see people doing it.
Are you sure they won? Their site is down…….
It is an extremely useful tool. Right off the bat, using it for only 15 minutes this morning after I first read about it on Techcrunch, I had my 4 bank accounts & credit card in the system, everything was categorized, and it had suggested I ditch Comcast to save some money…
This blows MS Money out of the water is ease of use & usability.
Now if only it had built in billpay……
I got a video demo from the CEO while I was at TechCrunch 40. I’ll try to get that up tomorrow on http://www.scobleshow.com. In the meantime, here’s a photo of the winner, CEO Aaron Patzer. You can use this photo on your blog posts as long as you give attribution. Thanks! http://www.flic...zer/1400733726/
agree cero…I know some people compare the security with paypal…but its not even close…paypal only gets your bank account #, with this thing they get your username, passwords…the whole shebang.
The only way I see this working…is if they partner up with all the big banks…and provide a ‘powered by mint’ feature for the banks…that way if you have bank accounts with 2 participating banks you can share your info.
They should have went with MediaTemple. =)
@Wordhugger: i agree
even this morning they were a bit slow… but now, forget about it.
Whoa, maybe they can use that cash to upgrade their servers ASAP!
It seems like a great tool… They’re data better be HARDCORE secure.
They should offer a Pro-level plan and work out a bundled deal w/ LifeLock… it be the perfect financial package for smart people.
wow, this is the best of the techcrunch 40! anyone remember yodlee? cashedge? financial engines?
I posted this question in the coverage of the session but got no answers, so here goes again: how does Mint compete with the upcoming web version of Quicken? Wesabe has the whole community/social angle, but is Mint just a nice front-end to Yodlee? As the VCs like to ask, what is the sustainable unfair advantage of Mint, especially over the 800lb gorilla in the personal finance space?
It’s bad enough already that most links these days are to crunchbase, but stories still typically contain a link (buried somewhere) to the company’s web site itself. This story doesn’t even have that.
I’m sorry it’s just a bit annoying sometimes
I think it would be better if you provided both a link to the company site and a link to crunchbase right next to each other, like:
Blah blah blah Mint ( _website_, _crunchbase_ ) blah blah blah…
Just a suggestion.
This can be done securely the same way Amazon and other online retailers store credit card data securely, through a one way system. Mint should publish details on their architecture.
since mint is down…yall might wanna check out spendview.com..they were at the demo pit in the same space as mint…i heard they are only like 3 person team compare to 5 million dollar mint…i think they have almost all the stuff mint has….wonder what happen to the 5 mills??
my 2 cent
KD
ps. i m hearing the award was an inside job?????
i think the invitation code to join spendview.com for those that are interested is tc20…itz on back of the card they gave out
KD
this is online hemlock. think about it. are you really so ready to monkey around with a web2 site that you are willing to give them the KEYS TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT???
they may or may not be as secure as your existing bank’s site. your bank’s site has been attacked, and improved for years. mint is a web2 beta. in any case you are simply increasing by one the number of people who can basically cause your life to be ruined.
were i the CTO of any of these major banks, i would block mint.com outright, and issue letters to users whose accounts are being queried that if they continue to engage in willfully insecure behavior, the balance of their accounts will be returned to them in the mail by certified check and those accounts closed. with all of the other insane security issues these people have to deal with on the web, the last thing they need is account access sitting on a server of dubious origin. i’ll count quicken in that too, with the exception that quicken can likely afford an insurance policy to actually make good on any losses suffered due to security screwups.
and in any case what the hell does it do? my bank already categozies all my credit card (i buy everything on cc to get miles) purchases into categories. what else do i need? a graph? why?
all of these financial apps are idiotic. no one changes their behavior because of a graph. if you blow money on crap today, you will blow it on crap after you have made pretty graphs.
nice app
rc
trading tennis blog
This should be interesting – I’m going through the process of choosing between MS Money, Quicken, and the free online stuff right now.
+1 to cero and Andrew
I just entered the comments to say the same thing, unless Mint gets bought by say, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, (or as suggested by Andrew, partner up with all the big banks) there is NO CHANCE that I will put ALL my users and Passwords to all my financial information into some unknown website, Jeff Atwood (codinghorror.com) just posted about this issue a couple of days ago, and I quote :
“…This is a deplorable state of affairs. We’re teaching users that their credentials are of little value and should be freely handed out to any passing website that catches their fancy. It’s an incredibly dangerous habit to inculcate in users; it makes them far more vulnerable to phishing”
Hey Travis…let us know what u decide and why..i myself is looking
KD
sorry for the double post, BUT
does anyone know if mint has a massive insurance policy to cover *any* losses to your account that might be suffered due to their access to your data?
i doubt the banks are going to cover your balance due to mint security blunders. in fact my guess is the person you will beg for leniency will not even know what mint is or what it does. they are just going to tell you your account is empty and its not their fault because you volunteered the data.
read up on some “direct withdrawl” horror stories. once a “black hat” has your account data, the bank will happily process the withdrawls all day long. even if you tell them the withdrawls are fraudulent. they will tell you that you can close the account, sometimes i have heard they will still hold you accountable for direct withdrawl claims.
remember your bank account does not work like your credit card – the bank does not do charge backs so easily. you really should think THRICE before handing account regular checking/banking account info to anyone.
I don’t see what is the paranoia. you see, each time you use your credit card at an establishment, you are more vulnerable than entering a user/password in a SSL form.
Identity theft takes place out there not online.
Mint.com is far more secure than any bank online.
Their business involves in their offerings and partnerships with the promotions of financial instruments.
They don’t need to wire any money out of your bank account, besides, people buy online gaming… and they get paid. I’s no business to do any fraud when you are making so much money the right way. You can bet anything that financial software developers are angry because this almost unconceivable concept will put them out of business and for that reason mint.com will most probably be target to so many attacks as we speak. a user pass won’t give you access to do a wire transfer to send all your money abroad anyway. Credit card alerts occur each time my card gets used, so I don’t see the big deal on the paranoia.
i make about 4000$ a day thanks to a blog i found on the
net do you think i need this?
really only fools need those catgory apps even if mint is
a good one all of them are just a waist of time
it’s not that hard to remmeber how much you earn
and spend less
and also its good to invest some saving
IN ETF like the fxi
and in new risk markets like the future exchange on tennis players
fxi roi is about 94% last year
on tennis trading usually the roi is 200% to 400% per single trade
if you invest you earn
if you try to manage the money you dont have wih mint
you get no where
jeff
Strange, the panel after the mint group was not “all about mint”, in fact I thought mint had a fairly luke warm reception. The demo was well done and the product looked nice, but the winner of the whole thing ? nope, don’t think so.
I had a alpha invite that I used a few months ago. I signed in and figured out that there was no way I was going to trust an unknown with my account info. Nice app though and great idea. I wish them good luck but I’ll stick with my bank.
it’s too bad that the site is down, but all you eager beavers can feel free to send *me* your personal bank account information.
i’ll tell you what you’re spending too much money on, and suggest financial vehicles for you to make and save more money, and i’ll barely transfer anything out of your accounts. promise!
They need to implement some financial forecasting before they become a true online competitor of the MS Money’s and Quickens. There’s great graphs, reports on the way you spend your money.. but most of the time thats too late to do you any good! I need to know where my money is going as well as where its been. Great start! Hope they have those features in their cooker!
It looks really nice but unfortunately I discovered that is was US only once I’d already signed up.
@12: Duncan and Mike are premium members at the latest series a recipient.
They deserve everything they get. Top quality service.
Hmm, interesting name. Looks like instead of trying to break into a number of banks, black hats just need to break into your account here, and then they can literally “mint” money.
I suggest a sort of a web 2.0 version of “The Truman Show” – put your genome data on 23andme (or whatever its called), all your financial data on mint, your whereabouts on twitter, google has the rest of your information anyways..
I have been a beta tester for a little while and although I have mixed feelings. I wasn’t given any suggestions to save money, things were categorized nicely, It was easy to use, sent me important emails, but in the end it really hasn’t changed my life.
In the end I feel like I know what I”m spending and I know where I waste money. I don’t need some frickin web app to tell me this. Will they make some money probably will they be successfull, well, that depends if they are able to leverage sensative data (hard to do, people don’t want to give up their sensitive data) similar to lowermybills.com and have more insite on the users data and spending habits.
Anatoly, if you actually did any research on the company, you’d notice that they hire a third party that specializes in managing online banking information for several other companies, not just Mint.
Congratulations Mint!! Great to see a financial app take home the big one.
A bit of history: The first financial data aggregation site launched in 1999, it was called VerticalOne and was later acquired by Yodlee. Eight years later, the concerns about entering username/passwords into relatively unknown websites are still major stumbling points, along with ease of use.
Mint, Yodlee, Wesabe, Intuit, Jwaala, Geezeo and others are getting the ease of use down. And partnering with banks could reduce the security concerns considerably. We are on record predicting that 10 years out about 30 million U.S. households (25% penetration) will use online personal finance 10 years from now.
Techcrunch 40 is killing me. Please end it and end the posts.
the trading tennis blog is a much better tool than this
I am a beta user of mint and must say I love the service. There are some features that are missing but even so the product is not only helping me to stay in touch with my money, but it is also great looking.
My hope is that mint takes what looks like a great start and listens to their users so I can uninstall the my Sunday morning nemesis, quicken.
Tried to add two accounts, both failed. Not exactly a site you want to hand your credentials too if they can’t safely handle a surge in traffic.
They lose.
@Don Wilson – it doesn’t matter. your bank will be unforgiving regardless of who is handling the transactions, should there be loss. the form entry wigets and display are hosted by mint, so they are taking possession of the data at some point. telling me that they have YET ANOTHER party in the mix makes it even worse – once again, you are incrementing by one (further) the number of companies who can ruin your life.
you cannot tell me their site is secure. no new site is secure. do you know why 3DES is still used? because it is mature, it has been beaten to death. maturity is the NUMBER ONE feature in security. mint cannot use the word “secure” until they go at least a year running their current code. even then, given the small number of users, its unlikely it has been exposed enough to claim security.
at best they can claim that they are “security minded and focused”.
and once again, if they are really sure of their security, they need to offer an insurance policy that covers 100% of any damages due to data loss. your bank won’t. in fact they will gladly process the direct withdrawls from your account even after admitting that they may be dubious. bank accounts are not credit cards. loss coverage works in a totally different way in normal accounts.
This product is useless. You have to be pretty stupid not to know where your money is going. Why would you risk giving up ALL of your personal information, even giving paypal the credit card number is bad enough! And someone said they should partner with the big banks, that won’t happen either, there is no big enough incentive for them to do this!
Are you surprised after seeing the panelists?
You know the bubble is going to burst, when something like Mint is best company among 700 that applied. . The problem with mint is that I will never trust to give anything financial to them, or to anyone for that matter. They only chance they have is if someone like VISA buys them and uses their brand to create trust. Otherwise, forget it. I think it was best if the voting was done by the attendees, I think the collective sense of the crowd would have been better.
isnt this what matt coffin was thinking originally with lowermybills and didnt that get commented on at crunch? they should get that guy and try to acquire customers big time now that mortgage ads are less prevalent
I agree with peter.
Why would you give personal information to startup company that isn’t FDIC approval?
Let say stockmarket crash and Mint went bankruptcy. Mint still have personal information inside database. They take it like Enron guys & shredded insiders information. Seriously what would you do with your account?
Is FDIC going to help you? I don’t think so. Mint didn’t have FDIC. If they have FDIC approval. I would go.
I am a beta user and Mint is mint. Wesabe blows. Mint is going to be the leader of this sector.
I am a Mint Beta Tester. I think it’s a quality product. Great job to the Mint team and congrats. This is a promising company with a well-developed product and an understandable revenue model.
#34 while I agree with your post there is one way to gain traction faster.
Having “legitimate” financial institutions as Partners most definitely validates the model as well helps in user adoption. The problem is that getting one of these institutions to bite will be a task of considerable effort and most importantly time. I know because I was part of a company that faced this challenge back in the dot bomb era.
The ONLY way to get faster credibility is to create a tier 1 advisory board. The board would be made up of people with similar backgrounds as the following: (examples below). Of course make sure you have lots of stock options available too.
* President/Founder of top tier internet brokerage firm (i.e Schwab or eTrade)
* CTO of Sungard type company
* Retired CEO’s of large banks
* EVP Operations of Fiserv
* Retired COO’s of large banks
but, before you go down that road maybe you should let everyone know who is on your current management team (there is no page on your website). Most people when looking to make a decision to use these type of offerings first look at the management team, followed by which people are putting their names(credibility) on the line. The fact that you have some investors that for the most part invest in web2.0 companies doing mash-ups is nice, but, does NOT give one the sense of security needed.
A nice lesson in scaling for them. If you can’t handle the traffic, don’t promote the site.
@33 I’m a techcrunch commenter. Doing any research before commenting is contrary to my entire existence.
Too risky to give out personal information and bank company names.
You know in some countries they won’t allow you start legitimate financial site. What happens if thieves or hackers topple the site and break unsecure http rather than https?
You know hackers could use Linux to roll the whole information out from racket servers.