Coder. Speaker. Writer.

This is the last installment of the Mint.com Timeline.   As many of you already know Mint was acquired by competitor Intuit in September of 2009.  Mint will continue to live on as a product that helps its users do more with their money.  I myself have enjoyed the experience tremendously,  2009 was indeed an interesting and eventful year.  Today Aaron reviewed the goals and accomplishments from 2009: increase customer acquisition, delivery a quality product, and improve revenue numbers.  I’d say we’ve met those goals, but here’s a more intimate look as to what unfolded at Mint.com in 2009:

January 2009 – On the 14th Mint.com is announced on Yahoo’s homepage resulting in the largest number of registered users in a single day.   An iPhone floor model is released that contains a demo version of Mint.com.  On the 22nd rival QuickenOnline challenges Mint with a legal letter demanding to know how we measure our active and registered user count and user growth rate.

March 2009 – Mint.com adds its millionth user!  The team goes on a wine-tasting trip to Napa to celebrate their success.

May 2009 – The Minter Sprinters begins, an attempt to keep the Minters in shape just in time for bathing suit season

June 2009 – A new summer tradition of burritos in the park and field day begins.

July 2009 – Mint launches MintLife the new and improved Mint blog.

August 2009 – Mint accepts a Series C round of funding from DAG ventures.

September 2009 – On the night of the 13th, after months of a clandestine courtship, Intuit proposes to Mint.com and TechCrunch leaks the story.  On the morning of the 14th, for the first time in Mint history all the employees show up to work before 10am!  The Minters enjoy drinks at Stephen’s Green in down town Mountain View, along the way they are greeted by locals who quietly whisper, “Dude those guys just made bank!”

Mint turns two on the 18th, and the Minters enjoy a night of cruising on the SF bay.

Despite the deepening recession 2009 was a great year for Mint.  Its success should be attributed to every team: engineering, product, marketing, and business development.  And every Minter played their part in contributing to the the product’s success.

This is my last week at Mint, Friday will be my last day.  Mint was my first startup, and I was its first and only femgineer.  I feel blessed to have had such a positive first experience.  In my heart I will always be a Minter, and I hope to continue to “Mint my money.”

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As an entrepreneur one of the biggest challenges is competing against large established corporations, because they possess more resources, capital, and have an established market segment.  However, one way of entering into the marketplace is by identifying non-existing value networks by creating a disruptive technology.  A disruptive technology is a new method or process of handling an existing technology, its birth often creates a new market or value network.

In his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Clayton M. Christensen illustrates how disruptive technologies have emerged primarily via startups, and how large firms despite having good leadership and capable individuals are unable to successfully compete.  He uses several industries as case studies to prove his theory: hard disks, personal computers, and mechanical excavators.

I thought this was a good read for those who are in large companies and trying to compete against start-ups or entrepreneurs who are trying to tackle a well-established product or market.  Here are some takeaways from the book:

Great Firms Fail – failure of great firms in emerging technologies isn’t due to mismanagement, it is because the customer base is very different from its existing one e.g. 3.5 and 2.5 Hard Disk Drives targeted the emerging personal computer market, whereas the existing hard disk market was focused on mainframes.

Value Networks – pursing a new value network requires time and resources to understand the new value network, which established firms cannot do because it takes away from resources of current value network.

Disruptive Technology – new firms enter into markets and understand the value network, position themselves to the usage of this new technology and make it hard for established firms to enter.

Match the size of the Organization to the size of the market – Large companies pursue large opportunities, if the payout isn’t as great, they will not pursue it.  Because emerging markets are small they aren’t as attractive to large firms that are looking for large revenue opportunities.  It is also easier for growing companies to justify investment in new products and technologies than established

First Mover vs. Second: in disruptive technologies first mover has better advantage.  Second mover trades market risk  involved in entering an emerging market because the disruptive techology might not take off, for a competitive risk the risk of entering against established competition.

How Large Companies try to Compete: Large companies could tackle disruptive technologies but not at the cost of taking away resources from existing revenue generating technologies.  Usually they set up independent teams to pursue the new disruptive technology, and keep the management scheme autonomous from the parent company.  Otherwise the thinking of the main company and product permeates and detracts from the innovation of the new technology, which requires a different approach.  Some organizations acquire smaller companies who have proven success in disruptive technologies, but often times the company that is bought doesn’t continue to succeed because of parent company’s influence and mindset.  Large companies should continue to improve upon conventional technologies and be followers in adopting new ones.  The dilemma is in the case of disruptive technologies being a follower is detrimental – but it is hard to allocate resources if the market size is small and returns don’t match organization size.  Being small and independent is more advantageous – market size is small and more capable of understanding needs of the customers.

“Projects make sense to people if they address the needs of important customers, if they positively impact the organization’s needs for profit and growth, and if participating in the project enhances the career opportunities of talented employees.”

“…start-ups which propose to commercialize a breakthrough technology that is essentially sustaining in character have a far lower likelihood of success than start-ups whose vision is to use proven technology to disrupt an established industry with something that is simpler, more reliable, and more convenient.  The established firms in an industry have every incentive to catch up with a supposed sustaining technological breaththrough while they have strong disincentives to pursue disruptive initiatives.”

Capabilities and Disabilities: each organization has processes and values that enable it to succeed.  However, these same processes or capabilities often stand in the way of its success against new markets resulting in disabilities.  It is hard to change these processes once they are established because they will start to hinder the organization’s progress in existing markets ultimately impacting is existing revenue base.  Hence it is often times easier for a start-up or independent entity to advance, because they can setup new processes and an organizational structure that can tackle the new technology.

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Day 4:

After our trip to Salerno we were jonesing for a boat and beach day.  The heat of the coast was too much to bear without air conditioning and escaping to the water would be our only way of cooling ourselves off. So we went to one of the small huts at the Spiagga Grande to figure out, which boat adventure we wanted to take the next day.  I wanted to save Capri for my birthday, and the Australian girl suggested that we go on the Amalfi Coast boat tour.  We’d be on a boat all day swimming through grottos and then stop off for a special lunch.  I was reluctant to fork over more money for lunch, but the sheila said it would be very special and worth it.  We signed up.

The heat of the Positano awoke us the next day, we were eager to start our adventure.  I had no expectations.  I just imagined a day of swimming along the coast, but it would turn out to be one of the best days of our trip!

We boarded a small boat with four others, two men from NYC, and an older couple from Genoa.  Our captain, a native of Positano, James, was a large blonde man, who claimed to be Italian despite his thick English accent.  His father was Italian, and his mother English.  He lived in Positano during the summers, and traveled for the rest of the year around Italy, and often to London.  All in all he was a real character!  I couldn’t wait to meet this man’s father, who would be our captain on our trip to Capri.

James and the six of us set sail for the Amalfi Coast.  Traveling on a small speed boat was wonderful.  The weather was magnificent, and we got a real sense of the cliffs as we road by them in a small speed boat.  Our first stop was a small sea arch where James anchored.  The water was very green and beautiful, I was a little reluctant to dive right in, but as the Amalfitian sun began to beat down on me, I dove right it!  The water was cool and refreshing.  Jason and I, and the others swam around the sea arch, and between several large boulders.  I had never swam through such waters.  The waves were strong and demanded a strong swimmer, thank goodness I had been on swim team all those years in highschool :p

Tired from swimming through the boulders we climbed up a giant rock and rested for awhile.  Only to be splashed by the giant waves.  We swam back to the boat, happy as a clam for our first experience swimming off the coast.

It was around 11am, and James headed toward the ice chest.  He broke out a bottle of Prosecco.  I love Prosecco, but the thought of drinking at 11am was foreign to me.  Jason grabbed a glass, and I joined in, after all we were on vacation!  We sat back and sipped our Prosecco as the boat took off again.  Ahh this is the life I thought.  ”Baller-style!” retorted Putorti.

Our next stop was a giant cave.  James stopped off outside the cave.  This time I was the first one of the boat.  I began swimming as fast as I could with no sense of fear.  I couldn’t wait to see what was in the cave.  The cave was quite large, the water inside as shimmered a pretty green.  There were shallow spots where you could stand on rocks.  Jason and I felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie, and of course he ended up with the scars to prove it!

I sat quietly in the cave taking it all in.  I had never done anything this adventurous before in my life, but I was happy that I had taken the time out to do.

We had one more stop before lunch.  Close to Amalfi Town, there were three large water falls that we could see in the distance.  First swimming through a cave and now swimming under a water fall!  Once again I was the first to disembark.  As I approached the falls I felt the water getting colder.  But it was still refreshing.  The source of the falls were probably about 50 feet high.  Despite the heat, the chilly water started to get to me and I headed back to the boat.

Hunger pangs started…I had come to Italy to eat!  James set sail one more time for our lunch spot.  We stopped in the middle of the water and were greeted by a man on a hydrofoil.  We boarded the hydrofoil and in the distance saw a small restaurant perched on the a beach.  The hydrofoil was a experience, its faster than a speed boat, but pretty bumpy, imagine a really fast raft.

We got to the beach, where people were swimming, sunbathing, and snorkeling.  It was a pretty chill location, we strolled up to the restaurant, which was open air.  We took our seats at a large table and awaited our soon-to-be large Italian feast!

First they brought out wine, and bruschetta.  By this point in our trip we were pretty sedate from the Prosecco, but Jason  insisted I have a glass of the white.  I continued to indulge myself.  Our first course was a pasta course, clams in linguine with a garlic sauce, yup!  The next course was seafood, calamari and octopus.  The final course was dessert, and my favorite Italian dessert: tiramisu!  They brought it out with two liquors.  One of the liquors was the traditional limoncello, which I wasn’t a huge fan of so I took a couple sips.  But next to it was a dark chocolate liquor.  The chocoholic in me couldn’t resist!  As I sipped the cool and smooth liquor I was in heaven!  It had the perfect balance of liquor and chocolate, I highly recommend it.  Buzzing by this point, and still wanting to enjoy the full Italian lunch experience I topped the meal off with a rich cappuccino.

Stuffed from our large mid-day meal we climbed aboard the boat for one last swim before the end of our adventure.  Jason proceeded to take pictures of the coast as I lay back and relaxed.  The older Italian couple and I struck up a conversation.  The husband spoke fluent English, but the wife only spoke Italian so he translated for her.  Apparently, she wanted to know where I was from, and how old I was.  Wow, Italians so inquisitive!  I told them I was 26, vacationing with my boyfriend, and that we were both from California.  What I had wanted to say was that I was a young Indian Princess galavanting through Italy, which is certainly how I felt!

Our final swimming spot was calm water, I suspected James had picked this spot because we were all too stuffed to really swim.  I jumped in and enjoyed one last dip.

We headed back to Positano, our tummies stuffed, and our hearts full of the beauty and thrill of swimming and sailing along the Amalfi Coast!

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Every year I make the usual new year’s  resolutions to be healthier, friendlier, calmer, cheaper, smarter, and so forth.  But, I don’t actually set goals for how I want to become a better developer!  So I decided that I’d put together a list of skills I want to have, and goals I want to accomplish by the end of 2010.

I’m also going to post the best tutorials and troubleshooting tactics I come across while meeting my goals.

1. Learn Ruby on Rails

2. Learn Objective-C and Create an iPhone app

3. Learn Adobe Air

4. Read 3 books on software architecture

5. Attend at least 1 developer conference

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I think this is a must read for anyone who is passionate about having their ideas heard whether they are large or small. It is especially crucial for entrepreneurs who are trying to cultivate a product, motivate employees, and grow a company.

The premise of the book is how the “Curse of Knowledge” can impede a person who has ideas from effectively influencing others. Think back to college, the one class you almost-failed-out-of because you were either bored out of your mind or the professor was sitting so high in his ivory tower that you didn’t learn the essence of the subject. Made to Stick tries to tackle that problem by giving readers the following tips.

“Dont bury the lead”: if you’ve ever read a NYT article or anything sensationalistic you’ll see that the first thing the writer has done is presented the reader with a hook which is often times the headline or the opening sentence. Then they proceed to back it up with details and facts, but presenting this information first causes readers to loose interest or get lost in the myriad of minutiae.

“Follow Succes to test for stickiness”: The first “S” is for simple – the tagline for ideas should be simple and help people understand the direction of the idea. “U” is unexpected – creating curiosity gaps using mystery keeps people hooked, this is highly applicable to presentations and teaching. “C” concrete – people don’t respond well to abstractions, it helps to have a image for them to understand the gist of the idea. “Credible” – credibility is important, i.e. backing up ideas with authority figures and stats, but often time impossible if the person presenting the idea is a newbie to the field. In such cases, he will have to rely on “E’ and the final “S”. “E” emotional – does it touch people, or have a human interest component to it. And the final “S” storytelling – it is more compelling than stats or facts.

Some of the initial case studies used are long, but they help convey how to create a sticky idea. The author also does a good job of reviewing the concepts at the end, which helps them stick!

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