Transcription - Mint.com’s CEO Aaron Patzer on the Fox Business Channel
June 14th, 2008
Mint.com’s CEO Aaron Patzer on the Fox Business Channel
Interviewer – So Mint.com is an organisation, online of course, which brings in all kinds of information on consumer spending patterns and it makes fascinating reading. We’re joined now by Aaron Patzer, he’s the founder of Mint.com and is also the CEO I think Aaron?
AP – I am yes.
Interviewer – Right, so what I want to do, I picked two cities – San Francisco and Chicago and I want to compare changes in consumption patterns between those two very different cities.
AP- Absolutely.
Interviewer – I want to start of with entertainment spending, I think we can get that on the screen because there’s a huge difference, if I’m not right, Chicago up, San Francisco down big time. How do you account for that?
AP – Yeah, well people in cities like San Francisco or Manhattan have, I guess a lot more discretionary income, as the economy slows they spend a lot less of it on things like entertainment and actually restaurants as well.
Interviewer – So that accounts for it, it’s disposable income, more of it in San Francisco, less of it in Chicago – entertainment gets hit.
AP – That’s right.
Interviewer – OK lets move on to groceries – now that is nothing to do with income surely. In Chicago grocery spending is up $29, San Francisco down 60 bucks –account for that young man.
AP – Well there hasn’t been a huge change in food spending in either area, the bigger change has been in actually restaurants, erm, so you see people dining out less and eating in a little bit more, especially in Chicago.
Interviewer – I think we’ve got a full screen for that one, lets move on to restaurants – Chicago less money spent in restaurants and in San Francisco $81 more this is over a, this is the average week or an average month, is this what you are looking at?
AP- This is over a six month period from September to April and we actually have 250,000 people who use the website so we get basically a real time view on the economy.
Interviewer – Really?
AP – As a whole, just every category we can see it coming in, we can see changes in gas, in groceries. I know for example that people spend, at the pump – last September it was about $32 was the average purchase, now its $36. But they are going to the pump less often, so gas spending as whole has only gone up about 2 or 3% in the past 6 months, which really doesn’t account for the price of a barrel of oil.
Interviewer – So with a 250,000 person database you can zero right in on various thin sliver markets, versus ages groups, and what they are spending on, whether its groceries or entertainment or clothing and apparel that’s how slice and dice you can do it.
AP – I can tell you whether people spend more on coffee in Seattle or San Francisco or Manhattan?
Interviewer – So which?
AP – Ironically Seattle
Interviewer – So no surprises. Who do you sell your information to?
AP- We don’t sell it to anyone, at this point, we actually use it to help our users budget better. So you can actually be a little more comparative. You can say do I spend more at Starbucks than the average person in Manhattan or the average person in Chicago or Houston.
Interviewer – So it’s just for comparative purposes?
AP – Yeah, it’s a little bit competitive, it’s a little bit fun.
Interviewer – Isn’t the Mint.com for sale to somebody or other, surely with information like that you’ve gotta be.
AP – Well
Interviewer – Well yeah
AP – It’s not for sale right now, not officially
Interviewer – You wouldn’t turn a billion down now would you?
AP – Well probably not
Interviewer- You’re 27 years old, you’re like the guy who founded Facebook, you’re up for a billion right?
AP – Well if somebody were to offer me that right now I might take it.
Interviewer – Aaron Patzer, I knew you would. (laughs) Founder of Mint.com. Thanks very much Aaron.
AP- Much appreciated.
Interviewer - There you have it from a 27 year old to Dave and Liz.
