Mint.com founder - how he did it (170 mill exit after 3 years)

Check out the video. Great explanation with breakdown of costs etc.

And the 4 stages: Garage, getting seed money, Funding by VCs, Exit

Everything You Wanted To Know About Startup Building But Were Afraid To Ask

Bump for this awesome vid.

I was literally shocked after watching it that no one else posted. I definitely think that this is worth your time if you:

-Are thinking about starting an internet company.
-Would like a general idea of what an internet start-up like mint costs.
-Would like to know what stages an internet start-up goes through.

It is about 25 minutes long and uses a real world example with pretty close $ figures and where that money goes when building a company.

This video is awesome. Thank you.

will watch thanks

Awesome video, a must watch. What struck me was this guy comes across as your average guy ... meaning, what he did is possible for everyone. Notice that funding didn't come until a prototype was in place -- invest in a prototype if you expect investors to look ... until then, you are like everyone else -- an unexecuted idea of worthless value.

I enjoyed the video, but the site also looks very interesting to me. Seem like an easy way to organize finances.

Saw when this was first posted, however, somehow have not yet watched the video, from a quick look at the site, it appears that it meets the following under MJ's guidelines for a successful entrepreneurial premise:

If you can make 1,000,000 people achieve any of the following:

1) Make them feel better
2) Help them solve a problem
3) Educate them
4) Make them look better (health, nutrition, clothing, makeup)
5) Give them security (housing, safety, health)
6) Arise a positive emotion (love, happiness, laughter, self-confidence)
7) Satisfy appetites of all kind, from basic (food) to the risqué (sexual).
8) Make things easier
9) Enhance their dreams and give hope

Will definitely have to watch this, as I know that with my dad's accounting expertise and my youth, drive and ambition that we can do something similar, just can't lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, whatever we do has to fall within the above criteria to be successful

Yeah, a prototype is mandatory...
Not a bad deal, he got ~$51million(he had about 30% equity as sole founder)....

Only 30 percent?? That's why I wouldn't want to raise VC money for my projects in the future...It might change later on thought, but I love freedom too much..

Remember that not only VCs had equity, ALL the guys working there also had a stake and, as usual, if they stick around for X amount of time they can cash out those shares...
They raised $31.8million, that's a lot of cash so it's normal that VCs had a good % of the company...
Mint.com Company Profile

I would love to cash out with $51million and give the other $120millions to my co-workers and the guys who backed me to get there....

I just don't like being controlled too much.. getting VC money adds pressure to profit ASAP and VCs are typically looking for great exit. Not necessary my thing.

i'm definately gonna have to watch this vid after work!!

Awesome video!

I have to say I wonder why he decided to go from entrepreneur to employee though...

I realize he is young, but he sold his company and seems to think its pretty wonderful to have a great job at Intuit now.

I think that one of the reasons is that he has to meet some targets in order to get is full money and other is that he likes what he's doing so....

I see your point and i think it all depends on the situation.
If you feel you can achieve certain goals with your startup with out funding then don't go that road. But if there's a need to scale rapidly then you'll need money and if you don't have any, you'll to turn to someone besides family and friends.
there's lots of guys out there that bootstrapped and are doing fine and also got acquired. Each case is a different one...

Yeah , I'm into bootstrapping now... Maybe I will have ideas in the future that will need VC funding..

amazing video...has a lot of really great points for people trying to start up an internet company.

Great story. I am guessing that mint aggregates your financial record info. It makes sense but I am surprised many people would give up their financial account info to a third party. Bravo to Mint for trying it!

As far as control when growing a company and working w/ angels&VCs. Good luck to anyone keeping a majority ownership. It will rarely ever happen. That is why it is important to pick your partners strategically who have familiarity w/ your segment, instead of taking the first cash available.

Angels/VCs can be tremendously helpful w/ contacts to scale a business rapidly and avoid various pitfalls. Many times these type ideas for online businesses the advantage is to whoever gets to scale marketshare first and establish a brand name rather than best of breed or protecting some proprietary idea. I'm sure there were tens or hundreds of video sites like youtube online but with well known VC partners it can be easier to blow up into something big. Sometimes owning a small part of a huge pie is a whole lot more profitable.

That's a very common mindset mistake. The fact of the matter is if he had not raised his 30 millions in VC money he would have failed miserably. He needed that cash to invest on the site, hire people and be the fastest to become a leader in his space. Remember, it's better to have a fraction of 170 millions than to own 100% of a site nobody cares about.

CommonCents also make an excellent point: VCs don't bring only money (when you work with good ones). They bring their expertise and help you scale. Then they use their network of contacts to help you do a big exit. This is HUGE.

That is just BS. In order to sell the business he had to sign a contract with Intuit promising to stay for a while (a year or three, it depends). Now he leads a team there, so he has to say he loves it. Standard operating procedure. As soon as his contractual obligations are over he will be out of there to start something else.