Mint
A personal finance app that brought bank, card and investment accounts together on one screen
- Founded
- 2006
- Closed
- 2024
- Lifespan
- 18 years
- Total funding
- $31 million
- Peak valuation
- $140 million
- Country
- United States
- City
- Mountain View
- Sector
- Fintech
- Founders
- Aaron Patzer
- Investors
- DAG Ventures, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, Ram Shriram
- At its peak
- More than 20 million users in 2016
- Cause of closure
- Acquired and shut down
What did it do?
Mint was a personal finance website and app that let users track the balances and transactions in their bank, credit card, investment and loan accounts in a single interface, build budgets and set financial goals. It was founded by Aaron Patzer in 2006 and earned its revenue from referral fees on personalised financial products it recommended to users. It was acquired by Intuit in 2009 and served users in the United States and Canada.
Why did it shut down?
Under Intuit, Mint's core features barely changed over the years; Fast Company wrote that the app had been neglected, and its founder, Patzer, said it had long been in maintenance mode. Having reported more than 20 million users in 2016, Mint had 13 million registered users in 2020. Intuit's portfolio also included Credit Karma, which targeted the same audience. In November 2023 Intuit announced that it would shut Mint down and move its users to Credit Karma. The closure date was first set for 31 December 2023 and later pushed back to 23 March 2024.
The story
Years later, Mint's founder, Aaron Patzer, offered Fast Company a bitter verdict on his own product: "As far as I'm concerned, it's been in maintenance mode for the last eight years." Once the emblem of personal finance apps, Mint stood still for a long time after its acquisition and was eventually shut down.
Patzer founded Mint.com in 2006. The app brought bank, credit card, investment and loan accounts together on one screen and let users budget and set goals. The company made its money by recommending personalised financial products to users and collecting referral fees. It raised more than USD 31 million in total from funds including DAG Ventures, Shasta Ventures and First Round Capital, and from Ram Shriram, one of Google's early investors. After a USD 14 million round in August 2009, TechCrunch valued the company at USD 140 million.
A few weeks later, in September 2009, Intuit bought Mint, which had 35 employees, for USD 170 million. Mint replaced Intuit's online Quicken product; in 2010 it said it could connect to more than 16,000 financial institutions, and in 2016 it reached more than 20 million users. The period also brought controversy: in 2010 it was reported that Mint stored users' bank usernames and passwords in a decryptable form, raising security concerns. Patzer left Intuit in December 2012. In 2014 Intuit folded Check, a bill-tracking app it had bought for USD 360 million, into Mint under the name Mint Bills; Mint's bill payment service, however, was shut down in June 2018.
In the years that followed, Mint's core features hardly changed; Fast Company wrote that the app had been neglected. In 2019 Intuit's consumer segment, made up largely of Mint and TurboTax, generated USD 2.775 billion in revenue, yet Mint had 13 million registered users in 2020. In November 2023 Intuit announced that it would shut Mint down and steer its users to Credit Karma, another product in its portfolio. The closure date was first announced as 31 December 2023 and then pushed back to 23 March 2024.
Mint's story shows that a successful sale does not guarantee a product's future. A product that is not a priority in the buyer's strategy fades slowly, even with millions of users, and one day is absorbed into a bigger brand.
Lessons for founders
- When you sell your company, ask where the product fits in the buyer's strategy; if the buyer has a similar product, yours will sooner or later be merged or shut down.
- In a free finance app, a revenue model built on referral fees can clash with user trust; show transparently that recommendations serve the user.
- Use banks' authorisation infrastructure rather than storing account passwords; a security row can quickly damage a finance app's reputation.
Sources
- Intuit Mint (Wikipedia)
- Intuit To Acquire (Former TechCrunch50 Winner) Mint For $170 Million (TechCrunch, 2009-09-13)
- Intuit Is Closing Personal-Finance App Mint, Shifts Users to Credit Karma (Bloomberg News, 2023-11-01)
- Mint is Worth A Mint: $140 Million Valuation (TechCrunch, 2009-09-02)
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