The launch date for Mint still had not been set, and it had slipped first from March 2007 to tax time, and then again …
The launch date for Mint still had not been set, and it had slipped first from March 2007 to tax time, and then again to the summer. The slip was fortuitous. Prior to launch Mint’s primary concern was security, handling user’s financial data is a sensitive matter, the secondary concern was distribution. Unlike social network startups Mint did not have the built in virality. Spreading it by word of month was the best it could do given the size of the team and its budget. Letting the launch date slip made Mint eligible to demo at TechCrunch 40, the first ever TechCrunch conference where 40 pre-launch startups would demo their product for a grand prize of $50,000. Launching at TechCrunch would help spread the word at least first to the tech community.
July 2007 – At the beginning of the summer, once everyone has settled in Aaron starts to look for a VP of product to help with usability and grow the product team. He’s introduced to Aaron Forth by one of his First Round Capital investors, Josh Kopelman. Josh knows Aaron from half.com. Aaron Forth, aka A4, joins the team and quickly starts cranking out formal specs. He also focuses on the add flow of user accounts, because that is the initial user experience.
August 2007 – The engineering team, always resourceful, still felt shorthanded and started to look around for another seasoned engineer. They came across Daryl Puryear. The team knew he was one of the best candidates they had interviewed, but wanted to invite him back for dinner to see if he would be a culture fit at Mint. They all went out to Pasta? on Castro. A few people ordered chicken parmesan… then Daryl ordered salmon, then a few other engineers ordered chickern parmesan… then Jason Putorti showed up 30 minutes later and ordered chicken parmesan! The team had found another individual who wasn’t afraid of the norm.
Aaron wanted a full fledged marketing campaign with lots of PR to start a buzz going around its private beta and prior to its launch at TechCrunch. He hires Donna Wells, thats the right the CMO from Mint’s rival Intuit. Donna joins and the whole team keeps her identity a secret until post launch.
September 2007 – Weeks before the launch the team is cranking full speed ahead. On the day of the launch the team heads over to hotel it is being held at in SF, and watches the demo. Everyone waits in anticipation as Aaron demo, he incorrectly types his password – gasp! But, after that minor hiccup the demo is a huge success, and there is definitely a buzz floating around about Mint.
The night of September 18th TechCrunch announces that Mint has won TC40. There are 10,817 RU’s the second biggest in Mint.com history. While the team celebrates in the room next door Atish and David work late into the night rewriting the data provider to make it more scalable for the freshly minted users!
