I was the second engineer, third employee at Mint.com, and lone femgineer. Mint.com is in the midst of being acquired by long time rival …
I was the second engineer, third employee at Mint.com, and lone femgineer. Mint.com is in the midst of being acquired by long time rival Intuit. This was my first startup, and the past three years have been a very unique and fulfilling experience. In the following posts I will chronicle the major events in the life of Mint.com that have led up to last Friday’s Intuit acquisition.
November 2005 – Aaron Patzer, turns 25 and starts thinking of his next big career move. Throughout his life has been an entrepreneur, starting businesses from the precocious age of 16, but his ultimate dream is to start a company that solves problems, which improve life for everyone! He starts looking for inspiration. He researchs ideas and problems in the marketplace that he might try and solve; reading literature on neural and bayesian networks to create a learning machine, then skips to thinking about creating software for setting life goals called Carpe Vive. On one fateful Sunday evening, after becoming increasingly frustrated when trying to balance his personal account with both Microsoft Money and Quicken, he things to himself, “there has got to be a better solution.” There isnt… And in that moment he has found his spark, he begins to think of ways he could make a similar product that saves people time and money.
December 2006 – Aaron and Poornima take a ski trip to Tahoe. The trip is long and I-80 is jammed with snow and cars, they are stuck in the car for 8 hours! In an effort to amuse themselves they start to think of names for Aaron’s company. “How about Money Intelligence?” asks Aaron. Poornima thinks out load, “Money Intelligence… no thats too long… Money Intelligence…Mintel… how about Mint? Mint conveys money like making a Mint.” “Mint…I like it!” replies Aaron. The conversation continues with how difficult it is going to be acquire a 4-letter domain name…
Aaron proceeds to spend his Christmas vacation creating an initial design for the website, and starting to research personal finance.
