On another note...Whenever I get into a conversation about a business I wish I'd started, Mint is the first one that comes to mind. It's such a huge market, and Intuit has failed so miserably to make the transition to the web--and if they ever admit that the web is a better way to solve this problem, they'll have to accept dramatically lower per-user revenue, which is something that very few companies have the balls to do. It's why the tech industry has massive churn every 10-20 years--market leaders get eaten from the bottom (mainframes by minis, minis by micros, etc. for example).

Any examples of companies that have done this right? Succeeded at replacing their own obsolete technology with upstart technology?

Also AT&T has made the transition from fixed to cell phones, okay so far.

It's a lot easier when the new business has the same business model but new technology. When the business model changes along with the technology, often the established company doesn't view change as "profitable enough" and decides to fight the future. If you're curious about this "The Innovator's Dilemma" is a really good book.

Actually, no. AT&T Wireless blew themselves up with a epic botched software upgrade, and was sold to Cingular at a heavy discount. (Who has since been rebranded AT&T after a complex series of mergers and acquisitions.)

Steve Jobs is a big advocate of this. In hindsight it seems so obvious, but most companies just don't get it.

1. Crush the new business model

2. Make the new business model your own

You have different parts of the same company working against each other, and that either poisons the environment or everyone ends up favoring one side over the other.

Textbook Innovator's Dilemma.

But, even with the knowledge of the problem, seeing it in your own industry, and recognizing it when you're facing it and before it's too late, seems to be almost impossible. I suspect Intuit are beginning to get a feel for the weight of the problem they face, but I suspect their solution will be ill-conceived. They'll keep chugging away on "integrating" their desktop product with their web product, finding "synergy", and providing "more value" to their existing customer base...all the while that customer base flakes off bit by bit and lands right on Mint's plate. By the time Quicken has a credible web-based version, Mint will already be a more capable product and Intuit will be milking their tiny market share into the grave (there will probably also be a lawsuit or two, which they will lose).

"Yeah, you'd think somebody at Intuit would have read it."

At the last "leadership conference" at Intuit, Brad Smith the CEO and other "leaders" were quoting Christensen every 10 minutes or so. A bunch of managers even got some face time with Christensen and the resulting videos were "cascaded" down to the peons in Bangalore.

fwiw. :-D

Intuit's charade was only seen by a certain demography of users, that by and large does not include Quicken-only users.

Nevertheless, silly move by Intuit, I agree.

I do my banking with a very small local bank -- it has maybe 4 branches total! -- and was amazed to see it listed in Mint. Yay Mint!

Thank you, Intuit.

Buyer != user

Fun fact: A safer way a company can brag in advertising is called "puffing" http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/puffing

I just signed up now, and I was expecting to have to go through a number of loops to get it to grab the data from my multiple bank accounts, but it was a breeze. Just another step in the sign-on procedure - truly great work on minimizing the number of people that default from linking their bank accounts.

And the UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want. I saw my transactions and renamed one of them..... and was about to groan how stupid this going to be, renaming everything else to match, when I saw the "rename all other instances of xxx always" option. I was floored.

Great work, Mint!

"[T]he UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want". Is your site doing the same?

Mint uses only your account login credentials for access to your account information and Mint does not store these credentials.

Clearly that information needs to be stored somewhere, but Mint can make it sound to the users that it is magically not stored (because it's technically not stored by Mint).

I haven't actually used the service. I have a general aversion to services that ask me for my password to a 3rd party account. The import-your-contacts types are bad enough, but bank account access is just too much for me to potentially give up.

But the risk for the back end company is that the user facing company owns the customer relationship. It is probably easier for them to replace the tech than for the tech company to replace the customer relationships.

I would have been tempted to reply something like this:

"At Mint, we have an algorithm to calculate the number of users we have. This function is defined as follows:

mint users = (average logins during the past 7 business days / (registrations - closed accounts)^last business day's S&P 500 closing price - average rainfall of the Amazon basin during the past 6 months[in inches]) * 0 + number of Intuit customers ^ 2

As you can see, here at Mint we may have even underestimated the number of users we have"

Don't you read the charges on your statement before you pay it?

I use auto bill-pay, but the bill wasn't due for two weeks anyway.

I caught it early and corrected it before it was a problem. That kicks ass in my book.

Now that's a novel idea. Nine out of ten doctors agree.

Though I suppose if the competition is determined to make themselves look like assholes, furnishing a polite reply and then leaking the whole thing isn't a bad way to help them out.

That's one way to present the info :)

I don't use Mint for anything really, but technically I'm a user.

Is anyone here able to describe how their interface to your bank account works in more detail? I haven't heard a great explanation of it.

Part of me is still amazed that many people have happily typed in their banking passwords.

Quicken online is really, really bad. They should have acquired Mint at least 12 months ago.

There is, of course, shallow technical discussion about how users are counted; even a comScore chart; but the tone of the article and the ludicrousness of the whole affair felt no less voyeuristic.