
Mint’s Original Marketing Plan (circa 2007) - g0atbutt
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/04/08/mints-original-marketing-plan-circa-2007/
======
il
This document should be required reading for anyone doing a startup.

The biggest takeaway for me from this is that marketing isn't just driving
traffic or contacting bloggers. It's a comprehensive process of optimizing
landing pages, tracking and split testing, implementing social proof appeals,
etc. If you're wondering what a nontechnical founder can do before launch,
this is a great start.

------
pge
What's most interesting to me here is that this is a plan for building a
_user_ base, not a _customer_ base. Mint's customers (i.e. the people that
provided revenue to Mint) were the financial services companies that paid to
pitch products to Mint users. Without them, Mint doesn't make any money, and
yet they do not appear in this initial plan. I'm curious to know whether Mint
had a "get users first and then figure out how to monetize them" or if there
was a parallel strategy for getting _customers_ that isn't reflected here.

~~~
jfarmer
Financial service companies will want to advertise where their customers are.
Pitching them before you have traction will just get you the question, "Ok,
how many leads can you send us?"

But let's say you do and get 20 signed up as advertisers. Who cares? It won't
earn you a cent until you get users in the door, you'll get worse terms, and
it won't help you improve the underlying product.

Your users are the leverage you have to make good deals with advertisers.

------
brandnewlow
The bit about showing Patzer's own financials on a publicly viewable,
annotated instance of the Mint dashboard is brilliant. It puts a face on the
founder. It shows off the product in a very real way. It makes an impression.

I don't remember them doing it, so maybe they chickened out, but that's a fun
idea.

------
mattholling
I have been starting to think more about stages of launch for a project I am
working on it. It is awesome to see the initial "how" that got Mint to what it
is today.

------
mrduncan
If you've never seen it, their pitch deck is also pretty interesting:

[http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-pitch-
dec...](http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-pitch-deck)

~~~
samtp
That's actually a pitch deck made by a university class doing a case study on
Mint

~~~
mrduncan
Sorry, I never realized that - it is still interesting in any case.

------
younata
anyone have a pdf of the scribd/have a way to get it without getting a scribd
account?

~~~
g0atbutt
Send me an email: Paul@thestartupfoundry.com and I'll send you a PDF tomorrow.

