JuicePitcher, Mint.com's Aaron Patzer

Last night I attended the inaugural Juice Pitcher event, a startup showcase cohosted by TheFunded.com and Vator.tv on Microsoft's Mountain View, CA campus.  The event was a blast, full of founders with great energy and ideas.  Out of ten startups,  local service marketplace Thumbtack won the popular vote (I voted for them!  great concept and convincing presentation, definitely check it out!), although most of the companies that presented had fairly compelling value propositions.

The event's keynote speaker was Aaron Patzer, founder of personal finance website Mint.com, which was recently purchased by Intuit for $170mil.  Aaron's talk contained both very practical information for aspiring software entrepreneurs and a peek into the emotional, transformational effects of growing and selling a world-class business out of nothing.  It always feels good to have your own thoughts and viewpoints repeated by someone so accomplished.  I left feeling a little less crazy and a little more empowered.

Software entrepreneurs should take a look at Mint.com's performance numbers and growth history as a yardstick for developing their own businesses.  Check out all the details at the Vator.tv article on Aaron's talk.

Some of the info that the article left out: Mint originally projected to have revenues of about $30/user/year, and this estimate was pretty close to the actual results today.  Aaron insisted that startups should have a model which shows the basics in a single table/graphic: customer growth, COGS, revenue per sale or per user, and profit.  Mint was able to get legal work done with deferred payment in exchange for about 1/2% equity, through Palo Alto law firm WSGR

Thanks Adeo Ressi & Bambi Francisco for hosting the event and organizing a pretty awesome afterparty :)