We’ve just released a short Product Demo video on our personal finance software. In it, Aaron Patzer (our founder and CEO) takes you on a quick tour of Mint’s major features – from adding your accounts all the way through finding personalized ways to save on lower interest credit cards. He even gives you a sneak peek into our Investment tracking feature, still in private beta.

We hope you’ll grab some popcorn and watch. And that you’ll forward it to those friends and family members who might benefit from using Mint.

If you have feedback for us, please feel free to post it here as a comment. We’ll incorporate your suggestions in the sequel.

Thanks,
The Mint Team

 
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At Mint, one of our sayings is: “Know your money. Grow your money.” In order to “know your money,” Mint links seamlessly to thousands of banks, credit unions, and credit card companies in the US. Combined with a patent-pending spending report, our online budget software lets you see exactly where your money goes, across all your accounts, with one login.

But knowing where you stand is only the beginning. The real question is “How can I do better? How can I have more?” It’s a question that traditional personal finance software “solutions” like Quicken and Money can’t really answer. But Mint can.

That’s where “grow your money” comes in. Not only is Mint free, it can actually help you save thousands of dollars each year.

For example, if you have $20,000 in a bank account that’s earning no interest, Mint’s SmartSave™ system might recommend a high interest rate savings account from E*Trade or HSBC. That would mean $660+ more in your pocket each year. In calculating the best deal for you, Mint even considers minimum balance requirements and monthly fees.

For credit cards, Mint goes even further. Now if you’re like us, you get three credit card offers a week. What’s better, 3% back on gas, 5% cashback on restaurants, or 1.25 miles for every dollar spent? It depends on who you are, and where you spend your money – but it’s basically impossible to calculate by hand.

Mint does the work for you. Based on your personal spending patterns, Mint finds the credit card that will pay you the most money. It even considers those minute little details like maximum rewards, balance transfer fees, and 0% introductory rates that expire six months from now.

Mint only shows offers that are calculated to save you at least fifty dollars. Offers are also prioritized by value – the one calculated to save you the most is shown first.

Mint’s algorithms typically find $500 – $5,000 in annual savings for each user. The average was $1,800 (or $150 per month) We could all probably use an additional $150 in our pockets each month.

In order to “feed” our savings engine, Mint maintains the latest interest rates for hundreds of banks and credit cards. Our patent-pending algorithms then crunch through all these prices to find savings opportunities.

The whole process is entirely anonymous, done in software, and your information never leaves the site. If or when you click through on a savings opportunity, no information is passed except that the click came from Mint.com.

Mint does make a small referral fee from advertisers on some offers. That’s what keeps Mint free. Whether or not we have a relationship with a provider in no way affects our ranking algorithm – we find users the best interest rate or lowest price regardless.

What does all this all mean? Mint only makes money if we can find ways for the user to save money. And we think that’s pretty revolutionary. At heart, we’re consumer advocates. We’d like to see people move away from banks that pay no interest to those that pay 3-4%; away from credit cards offering no rewards to those paying up to 5% cash back on certain categories. We just want people to save.

The national savings rate for people under 40 is negative. At Mint we’re out to change that, and our SmartSave™ savings engine is at the heart of it all.

I’m pleased to announce Mint.com is officially launching today at TechCrunch 40 in San Francisco. Our free online personal finance web-app is now open to everyone!

For those of you who have enjoyed our private beta and financial content, now is the time to tell your friends, family, and anyone who could use:

• A little financial organization.
• Free personal finance software
• Insight into where their money goes, across all accounts.
• Email & SMS bill reminders and alerts.
• Personalized savings suggestions averaging over $1,000 during our beta.

Since Mint is free, and only takes a few minutes to setup, why not pass along a good financial tip?

Private Beta Feedback:

We’ve received nearly 3,000 emails in the past few weeks with product suggestions, bug reports, and requests. We read every single one of them, and I just want to say: Thank you; you’re helping make Mint better in a very real way.

While it may take us some time to add all the banks and credit unions requested, we’re working on it. Here are some user suggested features we will be rolling out in the next few months:

• Transaction-level drill-down from the spending pie graph
• Rename / nick-name an account
• Exclude accounts (e.g. don’t show my business account, just my checking)
• Support for student loans, mortgages, and brokerages.

Keep the suggestions coming!

Bloggers & Journalists:

Thank you for respecting our press embargo. The rules of TechCrunch 40 forbade advanced coverage – any leaks would have meant being kicked out of the conference entirely! You are now free to write what you like about Mint, good and bad, screen shots and all. You can find a company background, logos, and screenshots on our PR & Blogger Resources page.

Again, I want to thank every Mint beta user for taking the time to provide such tremendous feedback. I hope Mint continues to be a product you use in your daily life. On our side, we’ll do our best to help you “do more with your money.”

Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com

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