Two things to add about the Mint.com success formula, based on a presentation I heard Aaron Patzer give at the Webby Connect conference about one year before he sold Mint to Quicken:
1) Patzer spent about 20% of his time talking to media or other blogs. He basically would make time for anyone that wanted to interview him, understanding the viral potential in terms of follow-on press coverage and of course, new customers. (Incidentally, Salesforce's Marc Benioff describes a similar approach to press in his bio, but mostly concentrated on major publications and journalists in the early days -- this was before most blogs and viral phenomena)
2) Patzer described spending a lot of time on finding (and paying for) the right name. Easy to understand, spell, and enter into a browser address bar were key. He thought his competitors were crazy for choosing names that were hard to spell or pronounce -- he specifically mentioned Geezeo.com and Wesabe.com .
One other thing: Patzer claimed he didn't spend anything on marketing in the talk that I saw. But from Putori's post, it seems that Mint.com did spend money on a PR agency, which surely wasn't cheap.
I'm actually a little disappointed in that 1.5M number. Mint is held up as such a success story, I had assumed, given things like Dropbox's 4M number, that Mint would be much higher.
For those of us that are in much smaller niches, and with expectations of less press coverage, etc, than Mint, we mentally discount our potential user number as some percentage of Mints (or Dropbox's, or pick your success story)
When doing such mental math, the larger the successes number, the better you like it. Say your niche is only 5% as large (Mint's niche was pretty much "anybody with money and a computer). So, best case, you're looking at 5% of Mint. If Mint is only 1.5M, of which, probably most were non-paid ... You get my drift.
I began with a bank account that I kept for depositing checks locally. And a credit card I rarely use. From there I slowly built up trust and added more accounts. All of that being said, it's safe to say I'm adventurous and a risk taker.
Anyone:
1. with money
2. who owns a computer
3. located in the US
4. willing to give mint.com access to their banking credentials
I don't know if Dropbox or Mint are reporting active users or just sign ups, but I'd think that those that sign-up with Mint put in a great deal more time and thought.
I have another candidate: Licensing the hard software part from another mature company.
Mint is really just a Web 2.0 face on Yodlee (which provides all the bank interfacing parts). And there's nothing wrong with that, but it got them to maturity a lot faster than starting from scratch would have.
This article is very insightful. Thanks for the great read.
Landing pages -- that's one magical knob everyone should definitely turn...
Infographics -- The Oatmeal is another great example of the effectiveness of this
That said I know they have blogs now, largely targeted at developers and early adopters, but in the early days they didn't. However, I'm a big fan of blogs, think every professional/company should have one. Great way to spread ideas, make contacts, etc.
the nature of blogs is that they are essentially miniature social media networks in disguise, when done right. Facebook is a giant "blog", that's why they don't need any blogs.
37 signals and Fog Creek target very sophisticated users, so in their case a well respected blog goes a long way. You could probably make the same argument for Mint, although I think their main target is a rung lower than the other two.
I find these individual blogs more valuable than a company blog.
I want to hear the success story from the designers perspective, another from the technical lead, and another from an engineering point-of-view and so on.
I think that kind of blog is very different. The general purpose blog is for customers (or potential customers). The Tech/Eng/BD blogs are great for startup enthusiasts, but aren't going to be very efficent channels to get customers to sign up. Unless the potential customer fits one of those groups and is interested on a couple levels. I agree with you though, I find the behind the curtain stuff fascinating.
1) Patzer spent about 20% of his time talking to media or other blogs. He basically would make time for anyone that wanted to interview him, understanding the viral potential in terms of follow-on press coverage and of course, new customers. (Incidentally, Salesforce's Marc Benioff describes a similar approach to press in his bio, but mostly concentrated on major publications and journalists in the early days -- this was before most blogs and viral phenomena)
2) Patzer described spending a lot of time on finding (and paying for) the right name. Easy to understand, spell, and enter into a browser address bar were key. He thought his competitors were crazy for choosing names that were hard to spell or pronounce -- he specifically mentioned Geezeo.com and Wesabe.com .
One other thing: Patzer claimed he didn't spend anything on marketing in the talk that I saw. But from Putori's post, it seems that Mint.com did spend money on a PR agency, which surely wasn't cheap.