Aaron Patzer launched his new startup Mint.com at TechCrunch40 last year. As the top company he received a cash award of $50,000 and a ton of press attention.
Since TechCrunch40 the company has raised over $17 million in venture financing and 10,000 or so new users sign up each week.
We asked Aaron to write about his experience at TechCrunch40 - the good, the bad, and everything else. We’re striving to preserve the magic for our upcoming event, TechCrunch50. And not repeat our rookie errors.
His post is below.
Presenting at TechCrunch 40 last September was probably the most important 7 minutes of my professional life. I’m not exaggerating here. It’s where Mint.com launched.
Rewind a bit. I started Mint in March of 2006 out of frustration. Existing tools like Quicken and MS Money took way too much work, and provided very little real insight on your finances. Like many a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I quit my job, invested half my life savings in the company, and convinced a few friends to join me for very meager pay.
By September 2006, we had enough of a prototype for seed funding. We spent the next year solid building the product, working and re-working the UI, and trying to come up with an elegant way to connect to 6,500 financial institutions. Mint was ready – well, almost ready – to launch. TechCrunch 40 gave us a good line in the sand, an absolute hard date that everyone could rally around. In a startup, that means focus, and focus is everything.
That was nine months ago, and we were at zero. Now Mint.com is up to nearly 300,000 users, we’re leading our all competitors by a factor of at least 5x, and we’ve raised $17m in funding from Benchmark, Shasta, Sherpalo, First Round, and more. Presenting at (and winning) TechCrunch 40 helped us get to where we are today. Here’s how:
1. TechCrunch is a Massive Press Platform
The event is well attended by press. Even prior to winning, we did at least 10 interviews, including Forbes, Fortune, Business 2.0, VentureBeat, and CNET. I even got suckered into a fake-interview (which I didn’t realize was fake until they asked me to explain the difference between a geek and a nerd).
The event is loaded with bloggers. And for startups, the blogosphere probably matters more than traditional media for the first few months. According to Technorati, Mint.com had nearly 1,000 posts during or immediately after TechCrunch.
Expect a spike in traffic – even if you don’t win. If you do win, have some servers on standby. And for all you engineers out there, make sure you increase MySQL’s in memory DB cache to at least a few GB: we got slammed with over 80,000 visits and 15,000 sign-ups in a 12-hour window and our machines started to crawl.
2. $$$ Attracting Investors $$$
Investors of all sizes attended TechCrunch 40. That includes angels like former Google VP Aydin Senkut, seed stage firms like First Round Capital, and plenty of traditional early stage venture firms. Have your 30-second pitch down, and be prepared to recite it a hundred times.
Also, if you’re not selected as one of the on-stage presenters, don’t worry, the demo-pit has its own advantages: you have the time and space to walk investors through your product one on one.
3. Being Challenged by Experts
After Mint’s 7-minute on-stage presentation, we went back up on stage with Xobni, Orgoo, App2You, and KerPoof. Here, Esther Dyson, Roelof Botha, and Guy Kawasaki challenged each of us – in front of a crowd of 1,000 people. It’s nerve racking for sure, but it hones your skill, and all the sudden, VC meetings seem relatively tame by comparison.
Toughest question: Describe your revenue model…in five words or less.
4. Competitive Analysis
Over 700 companies applied to TechCrunch 40 last year. 40 presented, with another 100 in the demo pit. Chances are, you’re going to find out about a new competitor. We did (SpendView), and sizing up the competition is a very good thing.
5. Winning Helps
Winning TechCrunch gave us more than a stratospheric jump in traffic; it gave us outside validation. Mint’s win gave us an “in” to pitch the Mint story to any tech or business publication. TechCrunch, with a few million monthly readers, has that kind of influence now.
Oh, and as a pre-profit startup, the $50,000 check for grand prize is nice too!
—–
Launching at TechCrunch is free, gives you tons of press exposure, lots of feedback from users, and can help pique the interest of the venture community. Not to be a shill, but if you’re a tech company and the timing is about right, why would you launch anywhere else?
“Well begun is half done”. So TechCrunch forum seems to be a great launching pad for great startups. But how much you guys charge for Launching a company at TechCrunch 40?
I am waiting for Mint to launch its services in other countries…If it can do that, then I smell a Google!!
I have submited my site three times to Tech Crunch and never heard one peep. Why should I do it again?
This time with the right link….
Hi Leo, Can you post a link to your site and explain a little bit about your business model. Just want to know what interests TechCrunch.
Brilliant story about Mint and Techcrunch40.
I like the fact that these guys work really hard and they are smart enough to leverage on events like TechCrunch40 last year. With the support empowered by TC40, they are now on their way to worldwide success! Not to mention, the aftereffects from winning, it catapult them even further to where they need to go.
This year with TechCrunch50, it will be another history in the making. I wonder what new startups will be attending TC50 but I am sure all of us are excited about it. It also makes me wonder if the next Google-like company will emerge from these events. If it happens, TC50 events could very well be the new standard for launching Web 2.0 companies.
Thanks again TechCrunch!
And good luck to Mint! I am sure they are having the most exciting time (yet) in their life right now. Continue to do great work, stay hungry and keep raising the bar!
Warmest,
Darren Lee
AdExcel.com (in alpha)
A big congratulations to Arrington and co for uncovering gems like mint…question, why don’t you simply charge for it?
Having not been there I thought that Mint shouldn’t of won and the reason it did just seemed to be a case of people scratching other peoples back.
I am not saying its not a great product but that I thought TC 40 when it was conceived was for the little guy to demo their products and make some connections to take them to the next level, Mint seems to go against this.
My question is how is mint going to get around the secure keythobs that generate a number the user has to enter when logging in. Natwest in the uk is starting to use that system and its only a matter of time before the others follow suit.
Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal is with mint - it’s just a pretty version of the significantly more functional yodlee (which IIRC it actually uses as a technological base making the actual value of mint even more obscure).
In short: Yodlee - (multitude of account options) + (credit card spam in the guise of “offers to improve your finacial situation”) + (flashy interface) = mint.
As a TC40 sponsor, I can tell you it was great to meet with great up and coming companies and individuals. A great networking event.
Regards,
George
Aaron - just tried to sign up. Go to the “Click to Add Any of Your Accounts” pop-up and entered my bank in the search box. Nothing happened
Just jumped on firefox 3, could this be the issue?
@ #8 Darren:
Are you bitter for not winning? or just critiquing the process?
FYI, if you presented, you should know that command of the English language can go a long way in presenting. “Shouldn’t of won” ?? Do you mean “shouldn’t have won”? Keythobs? Are you trying to say key fobs?
Not trying to tear you down. Just telling you what it looks like from the outside, so maybe you can improve your presentation style in the future. That can help you communicate better in blog comments, in TC40/TC50 presentations, and in business in general.
to # 3, try changing the default drupal fav icon
let people (attendees) vote this time with chips or something, instead of some behind closed door process that just encourages speculation that it was all just back scratching.
I would like to detail and thank techcrunch for choosing my startup as a semi-finalist for TC40 and allowing me to present in the demopit! I began my startup from my room in MD. Just one guy with a dream to make life easier and more enjoyable for everyone!
TC40 really got the ball rolling! A month or two after I was selected to present alongside big tech names at a large tech conference. From there my start up landed on prominent French tech publications and a few weeks after I woke up to being on a popular tech gadget blog. Now I have financial backing (seed) and I really want to thank TC for helping this guy in his bedroom turn his dream into a career - one that were hopeful will simplify our lives and make life more enjoyable!
Thank you Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis, Heather Harde and the rest of the TC gang! The impact you have made on my life is immeasurable!
@critic i was not there as i have said, i did not present, i just felt the winner was the best funded thing there and they had decent backing already. As for picking me up for my spelling and grammer your mom must be proud for corrcting desyletic people. I am guessing you have something to do with mint for the anom comment.
I am looking forward to mint.com being launched in Canada. From what I see, it blows away the current state of the art in personal finance software.
@britg We’re not officially supporting FF3 until the end of June, so there may be a few glitches there. Drop back to FF2, FF1.5, Safari, or IE and all will be fine.
Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com
wow a pay per post at techcrunch…. for techcrunch 40.
Nice writeup, Aaron. I’ve been following Mint since pre-launch and it is evolving into a truly useful product. As long as your team focuses as much on security as actual feature development, you should have little trouble winning over the masses. I know how cautious people are when access to their entire financial records are at stake, but I have been impressed with the way you guys have handled questions about security so far. My company, DNZoom, faces similar challenges as we aggregate access to one’s domain name portfolio, often worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or more (we have been referred to as Mint or Rubicon for domain names). Best of luck to you!
When you say “Not to be a shill…”, well, you’re shilling.
“We asked Aaron to write about his experience at TechCrunch40 - the good, the bad….” but there is nothing bad here
I think the best improvements come from the mistakes and making them better.
the article should be re-titled as “what hiring the right PR firm can do for your company.” I remember Allen Stern (hardly a troll) blogging at the time on the selection of Mint as the TC40 winner:
This was an absolute shock and quite disappointing to me and many of the CN readers and other conference attendees. Mint’s demo wasn’t great and they couldn’t answer my questions about security. Mike didn’t even see a demo of Mint, yet they got into the 40? Mint is this year’s silicon valley darling and has received more hype (even though the beta testers couldn’t talk about it) than the iPhone and I am willing to bet that’s why they won.
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....t-thankyou
Mint.com seems like a great site and I understand why users are attracted to it. I am, however, curious how such a site can be monetized and recieve $17 million in VC funding. Does anyone know how all the software as a service (SaaS) companies are monetizing there ideas? Where is the source of their revenues?
Exploring this topic, I found a few companies who offer SaaS monetizing solutions, such as eVapt (eVapt.com). Are there other resources companies can utilize?
Mint won because it is a practical and relevant utility. With our without TC40, Mint would have risen above the noise.
My guess is that mint would be doing well with or without Michael Arrington.
Landon@23: I also thought it curious that the magical “5-word revenue model” was indeed missing from the writeup, as well as the “bad” per comment #22.
10,000 sign-ups a week? Killer!
“Why The First 30 Seconds At Mint.com Is WAY BETTER Than the First 30 Seconds at YOUR Website.”
http://editweapon.com/30-seconds-mint/
aaron
did you rip off the work from yodlee.com
http://corporate.yodlee.com/ymc_home.shtml
best,
mike d
30 Seconds at Mint.com
Congrats to Mint, very nice service, but they had already raised like $5 million by the time they presented at TechCrunch 40, unlike what is said in the post.
All $17 million was not raised SINCE then. So while I am sure TC40 gave them a huge traffic boost and press, they already had the cash to do so as well, unlike most of the presenters, I imagine.
This is pretty inspirational, thanks for sharing it. I love reading about other entrepreneurs, their story, what things contributed to success, and current stats. Of course, the comments here add to the mix, which is fine, balancing the message, but still, it’s inspirational
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com - personal career management
Yes, this is the exception that proves the rule, and it’s kind of sad that TechCrunch is pimping their show this way, never mind the constant boosterism of the russian-roulette web 2.0 world. I’d much rather have there only be 25 companies this year than 50 and watch Arrington and Andreesen have an hour long debate on the upcoming nuclear winter. As for Mint, they could have launched anywhere and gotten the traction they did, and they could have made a few phone calls and got the meetings needed to raise the same amount of money.
Can we use the launch of a new initiative within our company as a legitimate qualification for entry?
#8 - arrington picked whoever would give tc the most exposure - mint
#29 - stop shilling
#19 - they need to sell tickets
Mint already had millions of dollars in funding when they presented their company. I think startup should be more for companies with very little funding. This is better because the guys with big funding can get the necessary resources to do what the guys with little or no funding. I think is not fair for mint to win. They have the money.
Totally agree with Aaron’s sentiments on the experience; it’d certainly be interesting to see a feature on “where are they now” a year afterwards?
@15 Ryan. Thanks for posting, it’s nice to see the underdogs making it. I’d like to request from TC to do a ‘where are they now’ type of article for not just the top 40, but the guys in the demo pit, like Ryan. - Ryan, what’s your URL?
@Mint. When I tried to sign up a year ago or so it said your product doesn’t support image verification log ins, which is what my bank uses for security. I got an email saying you were working on it and would let me know when it would be available ..tic toc tic toc.. still waiting to use your awesome service patiently.
Igor. 1, 2,3 JINX you owe me a coke!
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
I don’t need mint.
I need a basic financial web based app to keep my savings, checking and wallet balanced. FOR FREE!
Without asking my banking passwords!!!
There you have a winner, any takers?