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Simplify Your Finances With Mint! – Techcrunch40 Coverage

Posted September 18th, 2007 by Jeremy Schoemaker

MintA 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.

mint spending

mint spending

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

mint

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.

Disclaimer

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- Comment Likes - Comment Dislikes

75 comments. What say you?

  1. Good Comment?
    oneadvice

    Wow.. i am liking this – a lot! That is such a quirky way to keep your finances in check.

  2. Good Comment?
    CatherineL

    Sounds useful – wish they would bring out something similar for people in the UK.

  3. Good Comment?
    BlogOnExpo

    I just got an account, it looks sweet.

  4. Good Comment?
    Instant Community

    Well i am considering about signing up to mint, but site loads abit slow.

  5. Good Comment?
    King Jacob

    According to their privacy policy they arent selling your info, they will just use it inhouse to create averages.

  6. Good Comment?
    Aditya Kumar Singh

    So it finally won the TC40 50000$ award as i guessed. I would be the next one i know :)

  7. Good Comment?
    stupid 3gp

    is haveamint or mint same company?

  8. Good Comment?
    katurday

    Just signed up.

  9. Good Comment?
    Gecko Tales

    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.

  10. Good Comment?
    Tracy Robinson

    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.

  11. Good Comment?
    Seo Next

    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.

  12. Good Comment?
    Jason

    You’re thinking of http://www.haveamint.com. Same name, similar style but not the same product.

  13. Good Comment?
    lyricsreg

    Damn … it’s only for USA …. and I got so worked up about this

  14. Good Comment?
    Stuart Hannig

    It’s pretty much like any other stats program. Of course it’s useful!

  15. Good Comment?
    Stuart Hannig

    I doubt it lol :)

  16. Good Comment?
    Stuart Hannig

    Wow, Mint is looking really nice.

  17. Good Comment?
    Steve

    My god the site is so slow!

  18. Good Comment?
    Doyle Lewis

    I get past that, then stuck on Checking username and password

  19. Good Comment?
    Bob

    Do you ever though of ironing the shirts before you put them on?

  20. Good Comment?
    Tom

    So what happened to the mint website analytics tracking? Same logo, same name, new program? Strange.

  21. Good Comment?
    Word Hugger

    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).

  22. Good Comment?
    Word Hugger

    I would hope a company that just demo’ed at TC40 and has opened its site wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that.

  23. Good Comment?
    Dave Starr --- ROI Guy

    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

  24. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    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.

  25. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    What do you mean John Doe? They have your name from your account info, how can you stay anonymous?

  26. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    Anyone actually read the TOS to see if they are selling your info about spending habbits, etc?

  27. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    Damnit. Every account I add fails. Too bad. Hopefully they will be back up soon because it looks like an awesome tool

  28. Good Comment?
    Sheff

    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.

  29. Good Comment?
    Specks

    *raises hand*

    I think they’re getting hammered right now and they don’t have the resources to cope with the onslaught.

  30. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    I just signed up but when I add accounts it gets stuck at “establishing secure connection” — anyone else experience this?

  31. Good Comment?
    Travel Notebook

    Seems useful, Something that I will really use.

  32. Good Comment?
    Specks

    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.

  33. Good Comment?
    Theo

    Nice minty t-shirt

  34. Good Comment?
    FAour

    Totaly agree, especially with todays company’s thurst for online information
    i dunno if i will be able to risk it

  35. Good Comment?
    Hamlet Batista

    Hey Shoe, Check out our product at the pit we’re #20
    http://techcrunch20.com/2007/demopit_company.php?demopit=28

    Cheers,
    Hamlet

  36. Good Comment?
    Mike Peters

    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

  37. Good Comment?
    tax settlement

    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.

  38. Good Comment?
    Brian

    Sign up worked. Adding accounts…not yet (or not 5 minutes ago). Will try again later, though, because the interface looks awesome.

  39. Good Comment?
    KiwiPulse

    Nice tool, I will give it a try :D

  40. Good Comment?
    Ken Savage

    feels similar to http://www.haveamint.com/

  41. Good Comment?
    Jack

    Woot, it works now.

  42. Good Comment?
    Modern Worker

    At first, I thought this was about http://www.haveamint.com

  43. Good Comment?
    Kenneth Dreyer

    To bad it’s not available to people outside USA..

  44. Good Comment?
    knupNET

    Thanks Shoe! Will try it out tonight!

  45. Good Comment?
    blue

    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.

  46. Good Comment?
    King Jacob

    It works now I just signed up.

  47. Good Comment?
    King Jacob

    I love the site design, though I am extremely biased by any site that uses ajax as well as they did.

  48. Good Comment?
    King Jacob

    That was the first thing I thought when I saw the ING lion.

  49. Good Comment?
    Georgie

    So how much of a backhander did you get for this writeup? ;-)

  50. Good Comment?
    The Dino

    The T-shirt might need some ironing… :)

  51. Good Comment?
    Jack

    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!

  52. Good Comment?
    Angela

    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

  53. Good Comment?
    Israel

    yep. I was doing some reading and that market is definitely profitable, especially when a company of this nature comes out.

  54. Good Comment?
    Nick Sullivan

    Wow lol you must have ALOT of shirts now.

  55. Good Comment?
    doolally

    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

  56. Good Comment?
    Click Input

    Not to mention highly profitable!

  57. Good Comment?
    james

    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

  58. Good Comment?
    Jack

    Yes, I found that too. Unfortunately, “Only logged in beta invite users can create an account.”

  59. Good Comment?
    Jamaipanese

    i can’t sign up

  60. Good Comment?
    Kiltak

    If they could offer a two-factor authentication process, now that would be awesome… à la Secure-ID / Paypal security key…

  61. Good Comment?
    Jason Rodriguez

    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

  62. Good Comment?
    Jack

    Is it really open to the public yet? The signup button is greyed out. =(

  63. Good Comment?
    Kiltak

    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.

  64. Good Comment?
    Rob Malon - Automating Websites

    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?

  65. Good Comment?
    SonicReducer

    So they make money on the credit card and loan referrals. Pretty ingenious.

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