A True Startup & Affiliate Marketing Success Story – Mint.com

Watch the video below to see how Aaron Patzer, the CEO of Mint, took an idea he had, built and funded a profitable business around it, and then sold it for $170M in just over three years! This guy took affiliate marketing to the next level. Mint.com is a free online personal finance management service (which I have been using for over a year). One of the first questions I had when I signed up was “how can this be free?” as it was the best personal finance solution I had come across yet. Then I noticed how affiliate offers were cleverly integrated throughout the site. Being an affiliate myself, I could see right away how this company was making money. However, the way they were doing it was genius. There was really no sales involved. Because Mint imports a user’s banking information, Mint is able to know what rates and services their users are getting and then suggest other services that would save them money. If a user happens to sign up for one of these offers, then Mint gets the affiliate commission. So it is a “win win” for both Mint and the customer. The thing I admire most about Aaron was that he not only had the idea, but really took action to see that it turned into a reality. When I first logged into Mint and saw what he was doing, I kicked myself for not thinking of something like this, but to be honest, even if I had the idea I am not sure that I would have followed it through like Aaron. Check out his story below.

Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.