Aaron Patzer - How to Take Your Start-up to the Next Level

Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO [email_address] February 23, 2010 How to take your startup to the next level Idea to $170m exit in three years +

Aaron = Geek … with accounting skills Duke: EE / Comp. Sci. Princeton: PhD Dropout Financial + Managerial Accounting

3 Phases of Startup Life
1. Garage (<$100k)
Validate an idea
Create a prototype
2. Seed (<$1m)
Launch an alpha product
Trial customers
3. Funded (>$1m)
Scale system
Scale users
Scale revenue

Garage: Rapidly Validate an Idea
Original Idea: Goal setting software
Money component resonated...
Talked to 50-80 people (don’t be secretive)

Garage: Goal = Prototype
Prototype development
Idea
Market Research
Business Plan
Pre-revenue Valuation: +$500k / engineer -$250k / business guy

Result: Mint UI in July 2006

Garage  Seed: Raising Funds
Solve a real problem
In a large market
Real revenue potential
Sustainable advantage

Seed: Proving revenue… before you have any
Revenue projections will be bullshit (see below)
Per transaction / per user rev is more important
And a huge market opportunity…
2007 2008 2009 2010 $1m $10m $50m

Mint - Money Intelligence Competition: Quicken & LowerMyBills
Difficult to use
Costs money: $30-70
Does not save or make user money
 4 of 5 quit within one month
Save money, but…
Manually search for deals
No insight into your finances
Original Mint late 2006 slide Consumers

Lead-Gen & CPA Opportunity: $30+/user/yr Original Mint 2007 slide Category Where on Mint CPA Revenue Frequency Of Action User Adoption Rate (%) = Goal Rev User / Year  Credit Score WTS $36 2 yr 20% $3.60  Credit Cards WTS $60 2 yr 10% $3.00  Check/Save WTS $30 2 yr 10% $1.50
IRA
Center $100 3.5 yr 5% $1.40
Brokerage
Inv/WTS $200 Once 5% $2.00  CDs WTS $30 Once 10% $0.60 Daily Savings Txn $1.50 1 mo 20% $3.60 Insurance WTS $15 2 yr 10% $0.75 Comm. Services WTS $50 2 yr 10% $2.50 Mortgage Refi. WTS $200 Once 5% $2.00 Travel Goals $50 2 yr 10% $2.50 Home Improve Goals $200 Once 5% $2.00 Edu & 529 Goals $200 Once 5% $2.00 = $30

Business Model: Referrals & Lead Generation
7% of $16B online ad market
Fastest growing ad segment
Up 160% from 2004 to ’05 (Source: IAB)
$1.0B in mortgage lead-gen, to triple by 2008 (Experian)
Mint - Money Intelligence Original Mint late 2006 slide 20 – 65 M x $30 = $0.6 – 1.8 B User base Rev/user/yr Mint Opportunity Advertisers

Seed Result: Mint Alpha Seed Result: UI in April 2007

Funded: Scaling People
Most hire haphazardly
Train yourself to hire
Hire better than you…then let them work

Funded: Beta  Big Launch
Started blog ecosystem
Private beta builds demand
Use exclusivity
User feedback is key!

Beta Product: Jul – Sep 2007

Funded: The Big Launch!
Venue: TechCrunch 40
Aggressive PR – hire an agency
Have a presence
 Mint wins!

Mint Today

http://www.slideshare.net	15
http://www.twylah.com	9
http://www.mitchellnation.com	8
http://twitter.com	3
http://paper.li	2
http://www.linkedin.com	2
http://a0.twimg.com	1

Aaron Patzer - How to Take Your Start-up to the Next Level

by Carsonified Team

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

7 Embeds 40

Statistics