A long time ago in a galaxy far far away Wells Fargo Bank used to have this program where you could pull financial data from all your accounts to one page. They called in “One Look” and it was truly awesome. But in February of 2005 they stopped the service saying that it was not economical to maintain. I was heart broken. This “One Look” service allowed me to log into one interface and get all my financial data.
Well today I saw Mint demoed at the Techcrunch40 conference and I have to say this is kind of like Wells Fargo’s “One Look”…. ON CRACK.
I sat down with the CEO of the company, Aaron Patzer yesterday and he gave me a complete walk through on the product (although I could not write about it until now due to press embargoes). I am putting it on the line here. If someone held a gun to my head and made me choose a company to invest here at the techcrunch40 conference its a no brainier. I would be all in on Mint. I love the product and I think you will also. Its a true godsend for people who have multiple credit cards/back accounts/debit cards/ brokerage accounts.
Mint also can save you money by suggesting alternatives based on your spending habits… say if you travel a lot it will suggest a certain credit card that gives you miles… or maybe it will suggest a higher cash back card if your just using it for general purchases.
Pretty dope huh?
Mint’s funding has so far come from strategic angel investors, including former or current senior executives from: eBay, Intuit, Google, Yahoo, Charles Schwab, Wilson Sonsini, Reuters, Adteractive and Weblogic/BEA and primary funding from First Round Capitol.
They also gave me this sweet Mint shirt. I guess they know the way to my heart =P.
Mint has opened its doors to the public today if you want to get any account.
The Signup button seems to be grayed out… maybe I posted to soon… I will go find them and see.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2472 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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So they make money on the credit card and loan referrals. Pretty ingenious.
This site looks great, but I’m a bit of a skeptic trusting that much of my financial information to one place….Maybe in time as it develops more? Anyone else think this?
That’s an absolutely awesome service, but I don’t think I would use it. Aggregating all your financial data in an online application is just a bad idea. Sure, they do offer encryption, and they also have a well written privacy / security policy, but as a security professional, I’m too paranoid to accept that this could actually be totally secure.
I’m sure lots of people are going to use it though, and it’s going to be a gold mine for investors.
Is it really open to the public yet? The signup button is greyed out. =(
Jack,
It was grayed out for me as well, although, I did find this link to signup:
https://wwws.mint.com/login.event?action=S
If they could offer a two-factor authentication process, now that would be awesome… à la Secure-ID / Paypal security key…
i can’t sign up
Yes, I found that too. Unfortunately, “Only logged in beta invite users can create an account.”
https://www.wesabe.com/ – these guys do something very similar and are obsessive about security. Rob, take a look at this:https://www.wesabe.com/page/security
Not to mention highly profitable!
Can’t see a problem with handing over the info as long as you do it as john/ jane doe, so what if they know a person in their DB is X amount of $ in debt and earns $XXX
Wow lol you must have ALOT of shirts now.
yep. I was doing some reading and that market is definitely profitable, especially when a company of this nature comes out.
I didn’t notice a place to sign up either, but I don’t think I could because this looks like it’s for US residents only? It looks like an awesome service.
A little while ago I heard about this program where you could have all your bills mailed to one location and they would put them all into a system, organize it and make the payments so that you don’t have to manage your bills. That looked really interesting too but also wasn’t available in Canada.
Angela Wills
Currently I use Bank of America’s “My Portfolio” feature to keep up to date with multiple accounts, but this looks awesome! Can’t wait!
The T-shirt might need some ironing…
So how much of a backhander did you get for this writeup?
That was the first thing I thought when I saw the ING lion.
I love the site design, though I am extremely biased by any site that uses ajax as well as they did.
It works now I just signed up.
dude shoe is at the techcrunch40 reporting from the trenches. I also read about this today in the wall street journal although shoe does a much better job of explaining it.
Thanks Shoe! Will try it out tonight!
To bad it’s not available to people outside USA..
At first, I thought this was about http://www.haveamint.com
Woot, it works now.
feels similar to http://www.haveamint.com/
Nice tool, I will give it a try
Sign up worked. Adding accounts…not yet (or not 5 minutes ago). Will try again later, though, because the interface looks awesome.
Damn thing caused a fraud alert for citibank. Citi has locked me out of my online accounts… They also don’t support brokerage accounts at this time.
I’ve been using http://www.yodlee.com for about two years now. They have most of the features you mention and Yodlee is free
Hey Shoe, Check out our product at the pit we’re #20
http://techcrunch20.com/2007/demopit_company.php?demopit=28
Cheers,
Hamlet
Totaly agree, especially with todays company’s thurst for online information
i dunno if i will be able to risk it
Nice minty t-shirt
Signed up. Tired to add accounts. It looks like they’re having some trouble because I can’t seem to add any. I’ll try later though.
Seems useful, Something that I will really use.
I just signed up but when I add accounts it gets stuck at “establishing secure connection” — anyone else experience this?
*raises hand*
I think they’re getting hammered right now and they don’t have the resources to cope with the onslaught.
I would actually be more trusting of Mint. If people I am familiar with know and trust a product, I’d be more willing to use it. I’ve seen how Wells Fargo functions from the inside and I don’t think your information is any more secure there than at any other ‘big’ institution. In fact, a smaller institution would probably be able to control security better than a big bloated company with layers of managers who don’t fully understand computers.
Damnit. Every account I add fails. Too bad. Hopefully they will be back up soon because it looks like an awesome tool
Anyone actually read the TOS to see if they are selling your info about spending habbits, etc?
What do you mean John Doe? They have your name from your account info, how can you stay anonymous?
There was a brief write-up on Techcrunch that I read and it didnt seem interesting but after reading it here I signed up right away. Much better info here.
Fantastic steer here, Jeremy. I’ve been looking for something like ths for along time. I have a whole folder of FF bookmarks just for various bank and credit card log-ins … this cold be really hot … thanks
I would hope a company that just demo’ed at TC40 and has opened its site wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that.
I got a beta invite awhile ago, but haven’t bothered to test it out. Maybe I will get around to it (probably not for awhile though lol).
So what happened to the mint website analytics tracking? Same logo, same name, new program? Strange.
Do you ever though of ironing the shirts before you put them on?
I get past that, then stuck on Checking username and password
My god the site is so slow!
Wow, Mint is looking really nice.
I doubt it lol
It’s pretty much like any other stats program. Of course it’s useful!
Damn … it’s only for USA …. and I got so worked up about this
You’re thinking of http://www.haveamint.com. Same name, similar style but not the same product.
I was looking to try Mint from many days, i will start using it from today.Mint is really good script and for those who make sales or promote affiliates it helps lot.
What about just using Quickbooks instead, that way you have more control of your own passwords and stuff, since it is on your own computer, kind of scary to give one company access to all your financial information.
I do like having everything in one place. It’s a pain if it’s all online but you still have a dozen accounts to keep up with.
Just signed up.
is haveamint or mint same company?
So it finally won the TC40 50000$ award as i guessed. I would be the next one i know
According to their privacy policy they arent selling your info, they will just use it inhouse to create averages.
Well i am considering about signing up to mint, but site loads abit slow.
I just got an account, it looks sweet.
Sounds useful – wish they would bring out something similar for people in the UK.
Wow.. i am liking this – a lot! That is such a quirky way to keep your finances in check.