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My (Fabulous) Date with Suze Orman

Aaron Patzer — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:52:16 +0000

I recently had the privilege of meeting Suze Orman (@suzeormanshow on Twitter) for an hour long meeting… that turned into 3 hours. First, the answers to your burning questions:
· Does Suze always wear fabulous jackets in real life? Yes, yes she does.
· Is Suze really tan? Yep. And she has nice white teeth too.
· Does she frequently say “fabulous,” call everyone “hey boyfriend” or use phrases like “girlfriend, you need to get real” in real life? Yes, yes, and yes.
· Is Suze really the nation’s best personal finance guru? Actually, I think she just might be.

I’d like to think I know a thing or two about personal finance. It is, after all, my personal passion, and why I started Mint. But in talking to Suze about my views on investing, emergency funds, bank fees, and the all important human element in personal finance, it is clear that 30 years of daily interactions with real people having real money problems makes her the master.

Suze is a larger-than-life personality. She can suck you in with her irresistible charisma. And she’s using that knowledge and that charisma for good. One example: she negotiated a deal with TD Ameritrade where if you put in $100 for 12 months straight, they’ll give you your $100 back in month 13. That’s an 8.3% guaranteed return on your money – better than you can get in any CD or savings account right now. Over 100,000 people have signed up at: saveyourself.com. That’s how powerful her advice is. Multi-national corporations listen to her…even the head of the FDIC listens to her: myfdicinsurance.gov. Note the picture with the fabulous jacket.

Now, I’m sure there are some of you for whom Suze’s tough love advice, or big personality are not appealing. But Suze has an undeniable appeal to an audience that has been largely underserved: women, and young people (see her “Young, Broke & Fabulous” book). And that’s a good thing.

Traditional personal finance services and tools have been built, well, for middle-aged men. If you look at the demographic of Quicken desktop, for example, its users are 46 and they’re 85% male. One of the things I’m most proud of at Mint is opening up personal finance to a whole new audience: our average user is 30, and new users come in at a 60/40 male/female split. One stat that truly humbles me: 94% of our female users have recommended Mint.com to friends or to their spouse. We’ve created a tool that’s easy enough (and fun enough) for everyone.

And that’s where Suze comes in. Mint.com and Suze are now friends. Yes, we like to announce these things. Fabulous friends? Well, maybe one day. Until then, though, Suze says she’ll answer any Mint.com user’s money questions via Twitter: @suzeormanshow and include #mint. It’s not a team, it’s not her assistant, she answers all of these questions herself. Her only rule is it has to be a 140 character question or less.

Mint Goes to the Webby Awards

Jason Putorti — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:40:56 +0000

Last week I had the honor of representing Mint at the 13th Annual Webby Awards in New York City. I was there to accept two awards for Mint.com, one for Best Financial Services Website, and another, the People’s Voice award. Thanks, Webby people!

Mint is no stranger to the Webbys, having won two awards and an honorable mention last year. So I knew the pressure was on to deliver a killer five word speech. The event kicked off on Sunday evening with cocktails at Above Allen, a rooftop bar on the Lower East Side. I made the Mojito my brand-reinforcing drink of the evening until I ran the bar out of mint leaves. It was great to see faces light up when I mentioned Mint.com. The web crowd genuinely loves the application, though not so much the email reminders about overspending on [insert vice here]. We’re working on it, guys.

The real party commenced Monday night with the Webby gala itself, held at Cipriani on Wall Street – the heart of the financial district. As Seth Meyers noted in his opening speech, the Webbys are for people who wished the Oscars had more awards and less celebrities. Because there are so many winners, very few get to accept their awards on stage, and everyone is limited to five words, even stars like Jimmy Fallon. So my first order of business when arriving was to record my five word acceptance speech. Jimmy Fallon, you need Mint.com. Jimmy, we’re waiting for our seat on the couch. After my speech I was asked to pick a book, Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail style. Unfortunately I chose poorly and wasn’t rewarded with eternal life, or the chance to present on stage.

As the host, Meyers was great and kept the laughs going. On the event’s financial district location, “because nothing says forward thinking and ingenuity quite like Wall Street… were there no rooms available in Detroit?” On the crowd, “Ashton Kutcher is not here, I just wish there was a way to know what he’s doing…” There were also lots of very funny videos put together by the Webby people.

Some of the highlights of the evening that drew the most applause? The five word speech from Animoto, the marriage proposal, and for me, seeing some of the celebrities in attendance like Martha Stewart, Arianna Huffington, and Cameron Diaz.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us, and now it’s time for me to get back to work, recover from three open bars, and make our product even better so I can go back and do this again next year.

Start your day with Mint.com on MyYahoo!

Mint.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:38:04 +0000

Many Americans start each day on their personalized My Yahoo! homepage. Starting today, they can use our new Yahoo! application to keep an eye on their money and budgets right along with their email, weather reports, sports scores, and news streams. If you’re a My Yahoo user, please try out the app today!

To add the app click here, or from My Yahoo! go to “Add Content” and look for the “Open Apps” category in the My Yahoo! gallery.

Look for the small
Mint leaf logo and click on
“+ Add”.

My Yahoo! users using the Mint.com app will get many of the at-a-glance insights that existing Mint.com users love most — an overview of their financial essentials — net cash, budgets, categorized spending, Mint.com alerts, investment performance, and ways to save – all on their home page.

And because so many Yahoo! users check their home page from their laptop while away from home, the Mint.com Yahoo! app does not display account balances or specific transactions. But all those details are just a click away on the Mint.com website.

We were honored to get the call from Yahoo! asking us to create a version of Mint.com specifically for their new Application Platform. We were one of just a select few companies chosen, we’ve knocked ourselves out getting this to market, and we’re excited to see it launch. At Mint, we believe that managing your personal finances should be an integrated part of your day-to-day life. Please let us know if or how the Mint.com Yahoo! app does that for you.

Helping Military Families With Their Finances

Mint.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:58:45 +0000

IMGCOM

As we head into Memorial Day weekend and look forward to spending time with our friends and families, our thoughts go out to those in military families who are separated from their loved ones. While Mint.com can’t help much in bringing them physically closer, we can bring them financially together and reduce some of the stresses that money management places on them. We spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fenzel about this issue.

Lieutenant Colonel Fenzel has served in Afghanistan and Iraq while his wife and three children remained stateside. He agrees that family members serving overseas face a particularly difficult time staying on top of their money while living apart.

“Leaving home to go to war for a year or more is hard enough, but when you add the complexity of managing finances while taking care of the kids it becomes a significant challenge and, as the months go by, a real burden,” he says. “This is particularly true if you own a home, are paying off school loans, or raising a growing family. When you do finally get on the phone with your spouse, the very last thing you want to talk about is a financial problem. Any tools that will make this easier for military families and lighten this burden would result in thousands of silent ‘thank you’s’ from around the military community.”

Mint.com addresses the needs of military families (and all families) by:

Letting you see the family’s total financial picture on one, secure website…available 7/24.
Making it simpler to track the family’s spending. We consolidate and categorize all debit and credit card charges in a single, searchable database…and provide charts and graphs which show how spending is trending over time.
Making it easier to set and stick to budgets, by automatically calculating and tracking spending in the categories that each family feels are most critical.
Making it clear how the family’s investments are performing vs. “the Market” with easy-to-understand graphs.
Sending email or text alerts on significant expenses and deposits to both spouses simultaneously, wherever they are in the world.
Providing iPhone access to virtually all of the above services, via the free Mint.com iPhone app.

We hope to provide a little peace of mind to anyone serving at home or abroad. Thanks for your service and Happy Memorial Day to all.

Get your Mom on Mint.com for Mother’s Day

Mint.com — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:20:49 +0000

Most Moms already handle all of the household finances. If you use Mint.com, you already know how easy it makes managing your money. Flowers and chocolates don’t last. Give her a gift that will, a little of your time in getting her set up with Mint.com.

With Mint.com, there’s nothing to buy, nothing to install, and no annual upgrades. Mom can sign up in just minutes and immediately see all of her accounts in one place. She’ll get the peace of mind that comes from knowing that Mint.com is secure and private, providing bank-level data security and industry-leading identity protection validated by VeriSign and TRUSTe.

Busy Moms (and what other kind is there?) will like how Mint.com replaces piles of receipts with automatically categorized transactions and an at-a-glance view of her spending. Mom can immediately see where the family is spending and where it needs to cut back.

Mint.com can help your Mom set up a budget and keep her under budget. Budgeting has never been easier, or this much fun.

Mom can get alerts when she’s over budget while on-the-go from any computer or even her mobile phone, at the grocery store, the soccer field, or her kid’s playdate. Mint.com will even alert her to any unusual spending in any of her accounts.

And if your Mom’s the type that clips coupons and likes nothing better than finding a bargain, she’ll appreciate Mint.com’s Ways to Save feature. Mint typically finds users hundreds in savings opportunities on Credit Cards, Savings, Checking, and Brokerage accounts, and CDs in their first session—minutes after registering. And it keeps on working to find new ways for her to save every day.

Mint.com—money management that even a Mom can love.

Give the gift of Mint to your Mom today

Mint.com Nominated for a Webby

Mint.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:00:55 +0000

We’re passionate about good design around here so we’re especially thrilled to have been nominated for The 13th Annual Webby Awards in the Financial Services category. We are one of only five nominees in the category and we’re eligible for both the Webby Award and the Webby People’s Voice Award, where your voice counts. If we’ve made your financial life simpler, we hope you’ll consider voting for us!

It’s exciting to be recognized for web design that simplifies what is, for too many, a complex process; organizing and managing your personal finances. Our product team spends hours polishing pixels, eliminating clutter and banishing the jargon that plagues other financial services websites.

You have until April 30th, to cast your vote in The Webby People’s Voice Awards.

Winners will be announced on May 5th, 2009 and honored at an awards ceremony in New York City on June 8th hosted by Seth Meyers. Brevity is the rule here as winners are limited to just five words to express their appreciation. Past Webby Award winners – and their speeches – include Al Gore (”Please don’t recount this vote.”), Beastie Boys (”Can anyone fix my computer?”), and Stephen Colbert (”Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.”).

The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 650-person judging academy whose members include Internet co-inventor Vinton Cerf, R/GA’s Chief Bob Greenberg, “Simpson’s” creator Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington, and Harvey Weinstein.

Mint.com is also a finalist in the Productivity category for CNET’s 2009 Webware 100 Awards. Nominations stopped March 6 but there’s still time to cast your vote. Voting ends at noon PST on April 30, 2009 and CNET will announce the winners on April 30, 2009. We’d love it if you could help us repeat last year’s win. As Webware says, “Say no to boxed software.”

Mint.com Takes the Silver, Obama Takes the Gold

Aaron Patzer — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:29:25 +0000

In late February, we learned that Mint.com was up for a 2009 Thomas Edison Award in the category of Lifestyle and Social Change for the work we’ve done helping over 1 million users manage their finances and save money. We were up against some heavy hitters – the iTunes App Store and the Obama Online Team. On the way to the awards ceremony, I joked with the team it was like being up against penicillin and sliced bread – just no way to compete! As it turned out, Mint.com took second place, losing to the Obama Team. He’s the President so I guess I’m okay with that.

Still, what an honor. While I love being CEO of Mint, I consider myself, first and foremost, an inventor. And Edison with his 1,093 patents has always been a hero of mine. He recognized that it wasn’t just enough to invent something – you had to commercialize it. He didn’t just invent the light bulb; he invented the first electrical grid, distribution and measurement system to make light bulbs practical. Edison had a team of thousands, with factories built right next to his labs in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

Fast forward a hundred years to Mountain View, California, in Silicon Valley. We don’t talk about it much, but there’s serious technology behind Mint.com. We have a patent pending categorization system that’s 93% accurate. A patent pending system for matching financial products to people based on their actual spending habits, interest rates, and balances – then quantifying what they’d save. And we have two secret patents pending for a few things that we hope will blow you away when they’re rolled out.

So here’s my salute to all you inventors out there. It took me many years – a failed bioinformatics business built on my first patent (#6983274), hardware patents for IBM/Sony’s Cell microprocessor, patents for Nascentric (which folded last week) – before things really took off (fingers still crossed for Mint). But there’s nothing like the spirit of invention. It’s what moves the world forward.

Meet Our Millionth User

Mint.com — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:13:15 +0000

There are now a million people using Mint.com to better manage their finances and save money. Tami K, a 35-year-old married mother of two young girls, from Gresham, Oregon was looking to do some financial restructuring when her mother-in-law told her about Mint.com.

Tami manages a dental office and is also the financial manager for her family. She says that Mint.com has changed the way she spends money.

“I pay all of the bills in our household and my husband really doesn’t know what’s going in and what’s going out,” says Tami. We’ve never had a true budget and it came to the point where I really needed to educate him on what we were spending each month.”

Tami was already paying her bills online through her bank but she says Mint.com was the one site she found that could pull all of her accounts into a single place. It took Tami awhile to get all of her accounts into Mint.com because she needed to get them all online first but, once she did, she found additional ways to save money.

“Mint.com is a great tool to teach people how to save money,” says Tami. “I don’t think our age group is really educated on how to spend and save money. The website offers all of that, it provides a simple education for people that aren’t educated enough.”

Like many people, Tami was somewhat reluctant to entrust Mint.com with her account information but after reading up on our security practices and doing a quick Google search to learn what others thought of the service, she was comfortable enough to sign up. “I feel more safe with Mint.com than with a lot of my credit cards,” she says, relating an earlier incident of fraud.

Tami will have her credit card debt paid up to $2,000 and we’ll also pay off her mother-in-law’s credit card debt up the same amount to thank her for referring Tami to Mint. Congratulations Tami, thanks to you, we now have our millionth user.

Oops…Better make that one million and one. Tami’s mom-in-law signed up too.

Mint Goes to the White House

Aaron Patzer — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:34:18 +0000

(dcJohn)

Last week, I was invited by the Obama administration to the White House. With me were Evan Williams of Twitter, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, the founders of Method, Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen, Jessica Jackley of Kiva.org, and many more young business leaders.

See the previous post, “Obama Administration Seeks Economic Advice From Young Entrepreneurs” for the recommendations I made to the Obama administration. Here’s some more on what was discussed on Friday.

Contrary to the opinion of those who believed I was invited only to then be coerced into letting the Obama administration win the Edison Award (we’re up against them in the “Lifestyle / Social Change” category), they had a much more constructive task in mind for us: to guide the administration on innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation.

In Washington, we met David Washington, Greg Nelson and Michael Strautmanis of Public Liason; Jason Furman Director of the National Economic Council; Macon Phillips and Katie Stanton of New Media; along with officials on the environment and domestic policy. The team stressed the main purpose of the summit: instead of just talking to big corporations, special interest lobbyists, and political pundits, they were actually interested to hear what 20 and 30-something entrepreneurs of 20 – 200 person companies had to say.

At the end of each introduction, we had the opportunity to ask questions. I took the liberty of breaking the ice with a question to the National Economic Council: “So if the US is a $14 trillion economy, and you run a $1 trillion deficit by printing money [more accurately selling T-bills and T-bonds], doesn’t that mean you’ve diluted the value of every dollar we save by 7% (1/14 = 7.1%)”.

His response was perhaps a little less than satisfying. In essence it was: “A trillion dollars isn’t that much. We have $40-50 trillion in unfunded liabilities for healthcare in social security over the coming decades, and that’s where the real problem is. So long as we can sell this debt off at 2.5% interest, it’s cheap money and maintainable. The real risk is not the inflation that you imply, but deflation. In a deflationary environment, the prices for everything drop, and consumer psychology changes. People think ‘Why buy now when I know the price will be less in 3 months, or 6 months, or a year from now?’ and that causes hoarding of capital and increased deflation.”

The last point is certainly plausible. As to the other point, deficit spending in general, and the stimulus package in particular, I must disagree. Borrowing “cheap money” for housing is part of what got us into the current recession. The Three Principles of Personal Finance apply to governments as much as individuals – and rule #1 says “spend less than you earn” (or take in via tax revenue).

I believe in a laissez faire supply-side economics – minimize or eliminate regulations, no corporate bailouts or subsidies for failing auto manufacturers – and leave people free to create, to innovate, to take risks, and reap the rewards when their work pays off, and lose their investment if it does not.

The good news is we have an administration who will listen. This trip to the White House was just the beginning of what I hope will be an open dialogue with the Obama administration. I’m not yet convinced that the government can operate on different principles than those that govern (or at least should govern) the financial behavior of individuals. My hope is that the philosophy behind Mint.com might just be able to make a difference. Want to help? Post your suggestions below.

Obama Administration Seeks Economic Advice From Young Entrepreneurs

Mint.com — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:11:15 +0000

Mint‘s founder, Aaron Patzer, was at the White House today to consult with top officials in the Obama administration. Patzer joined the founders of innovative Internet startups including CollegeHumor, Daily Candy, Kiva.org, Threadless, Twitter, and Zappos.com on March 6 for the summit.

Patzer went to the White House with a few ideas on how to revitalize the US economy by better supporting the innovation and productivity of small businesses. Mint has learned a lot through its experience as a fast moving startup in a slow moving economy. Here is some of what he shared with Obama’s economic team today.

Emphasize education

“People have not learned the most basic principles of personal finance: spend less than you earn, invest what you save wisely, and be prepared for the unexpected. The solution to changing the national savings rate, and generating more capital for business formation, is education,” says Patzer. “Ultimately, the subjects we learn in school – math, science, history, social studies – are taught such that we might actually use that knowledge to improve our daily lives. Personal finance is a crucial life skill for every adult that is not being taught, that ought to be required for high school graduation nationwide.”

Encourage innovation

“Starting a business is hard, running it is even harder, and finding the right people is the hardest task of all,” Patzer says. “While the downturn in the economy has meant a flood of resumes for sales, marketing, and general business positions, the engineers, scientists, and researchers who actually make the next innovations possible are still in very short supply.”

Patzer’s recommendation for increasing the supply of technically skilled workers included increasing the quotas for H1B visas.

Reward employees

“One common technique startups use to attract top talent is to offer them equity,” says Patzer, “With equity, employees become an owner and investor in the business. Unfortunately, due to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) rules, whenever this equity appears to increase in value, employees must pay the resulting tax on that increase – even though they often cannot sell that stock.” Employees may end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in AMT taxes, only to see their startup ultimately fail before a sale or public offering. Their paper wealth never materialized but their taxes were all too real.

Patzer’s recommendation to the new administration is to eliminate the AMT for full time employees of qualified small businesses. This will allow small businesses to grow more rapidly and lead us out of our current economic crisis more quickly.

Stay tuned for our next Update post covering Aaron Patzer’s recap of the conversations and outcomes of his day at the White House.