Quotes by Aaron Patzer - Page 1

Solve a real problem and the world is yours.
Aaron Patzer /
Problem
Real
World
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Recessions are great because they unlock the best people.
Aaron Patzer /
People
Recessions
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It's okay to doubt yourself, it's okay to feel down; just never give up.
Aaron Patzer /
Business
Doubt
Giving Up
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Tell anyone and everyone your idea without fear they're going to steal it.
Aaron Patzer /
Ideas
Stealing
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People do make judgments of trust on appearance - in the real world and online.
Aaron Patzer /
Business
People
Real
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When valuing a startup, add $500k for every engineer, and subtract $250k for every MBA.
Aaron Patzer /
Add
Engineers
Mba
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Observe the world around you everything you do, and especially everything you hate to do.
Aaron Patzer /
Hate
World
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Tell your idea to whomever will listen, and you'll get valuable market feedback before writing a single line of code.
Aaron Patzer /
Code
Feedback
Valuable
Whomever
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In the first three years of Mint, from when it was founded to when it was sold, I can honestly say that in a sustainable way, I couldn't have worked any harder on it.
Aaron Patzer /
Honestly
Mint
Sustainable
Sold
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If you pay your credit card off every month, get a rewards card. One that gives you airline miles or that will give you 1 percent cash back at least on every purchase.
Aaron Patzer /
Airline
Cash
Credit
Credit Card
Miles
Rewards
Month
Card
Purchase
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Be careful not to start a company that really belongs as a feature of another company, like the 25 Twitter URL shortener companies out there. Pick a real problem that's here to stay.
Aaron Patzer /
Be Careful
Belongs
Feature
Real Problem
Url
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Solve a real problem. You don't start a company because you want to be an entrepreneur or the fame and glory that comes along with it. You become an entrepreneur to solve a real problem.
Aaron Patzer /
Entrepreneur
Real
Want
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I wanted a personal-finance tool for people who didn't want to be accountants: something you could set up in ten minutes and spend less than five minutes a week on. Mint is now that tool.
Aaron Patzer /
Accountants
Mint
Ten Minutes
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Because Mint has access to all of your bank accounts and credit cards, we can detect fraud or unusual spending patterns faster than your bank, then send an email or text message alert to users.
Aaron Patzer /
Accounts
Cards
Credit
Faster
Fraud
Mint
Patterns
Unusual
Users
Alert
Bank
Credit Cards
Detect
Send
Text
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I pitch Mint to everyone from investors to engineers, young and old, and I do it pretty much the same way: Here's the problem in the market place, here's how we solve it, and here's how we make money.
Aaron Patzer /
Engineers
Investors
Mint
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I've been spending quite a bit of time in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K. as Mint is expanding globally, and I'm personally doing much of the research and business deals to make them happen.
Aaron Patzer /
Canada
Deals
Expanding
Mint
New Zealand
Research
Spending
Time Business New
Globally
Personally
Quite A Bit
Zealand
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Whenever I see a tree that is climbable, it must be climbed. Sometimes when I'm on a run, I'll just run up a tree, jump on a branch and swing off. My favorite tree, in Saratoga, gets me a good 75 feet up.
Aaron Patzer /
Tree
Good Must Me
Good Me Feet
Branch
Climbed
Jump
Swing
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If you look on Amazon - if you do a search for personal finance, there are literally 20,000 books written on personal finance, and there's no real reason for it. I mean, personal finance is pretty simple.
Aaron Patzer /
Finance
Literally
Real Reason
Search
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If you think about photo sharing sites, the mobile photo sharing and social, there's no competitive advantage, there's no obvious business model, so I never play with anything like that. I avoid it like the plague.
Aaron Patzer /
Advantage
Competitive Advantage
Mobile
Obvious
Plague
Avoid
Business Model
Competitive
Photo
Model
Sharing
Sites
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At 16, I started a web development business and had clients from the Netherlands, Caribbean, and across the country - none of whom knew my age because I could conduct all my business with a phone, scanner, and the Internet.
Aaron Patzer /
Caribbean
Clients
Netherlands
Web
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At Mint, we developed five pending patents on our technology, ranging from categorization to the Ways to Save system that calculates how much a new financial product would save a user given their present financial situation.
Aaron Patzer /
Mint
Patents
Developed
User
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The original idea before Mint was a life and goal planning system I called Carpe Viva. The idea was that all of life's goals, from buying a house, getting an MBA, or learning Spanish could be quantified in both time and money.
Aaron Patzer /
Buying
Mint
Planning
Time And Money
Life Time Learning
Life Time Money
Original Idea
Spanish
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I have always thought of myself as an inventor first and foremost. An engineer. An entrepreneur. In that order. I never thought of myself as an employee. But my first jobs as an adult were as an employee: at IBM, and then at my first start-up.
Aaron Patzer /
Employee
Entrepreneur
Ibm
Myself Always Never
Foremost
Start-Up
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You don't start a company because you want to be an entrepreneur or the fame and glory that comes along with it. You become an entrepreneur, and you create a company to solve a real problem. And by real problem, I mean a problem that is going to exist down the line.
Aaron Patzer /
Entrepreneur
Fame
Glory
Problem
Create
Exist
Line
Real Problem
Start
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Mint is designed to put your finances on auto-pilot. Whether you log in or not, it will send you a weekly summary of your balances and biggest purchases, and how your investments and budgets are doing, along with sending you alerts on unusual spending and low balances.
Aaron Patzer /
Budgets
Mint
Summary
Unusual
Your Will Doing
Balances
Designed
Finances
Doing Will Your
Log
Low
Purchases
Send
Weekly
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The way you dress or the car you drive or what you spend is to impress other people with how, I guess, successful and rich you are. But you're not, and you shouldn't, and who gives a damn what other people think anyway. So, that mentality, I think, is very destructive.
Aaron Patzer /
Damn
Destructive
Impress
Mentality
Anyway
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Carefully calculate the potential size of your market to make sure you can grow. Before starting Mint, I knew that there were about 20 million people who had purchased 'Quicken' or 'Microsoft Money' over the years, and 80 million people using online banking in the U.S. alone.
Aaron Patzer /
Banking
Microsoft
Mint
Online
Size
Calculate
Carefully
Million People
Purchased
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Kevin Systrom of Instagram used to work for us as a consultant in the early days of Mint. I knew him a long time ago. Maybe I could have gotten in there. But with photo sharing, I don't know if there's an obvious business model. I don't think there's a competitive, sustainable advantage.
Aaron Patzer /
Advantage
Instagram
Long Time
Long Time Ago
Mint
Obvious
Time Work Business
Days
Business Model
Competitive
Consultant
Photo
Sustainable
Early
Early Days
Work Time Business
Model
Gotten
Maybe
Sharing
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I always knew I wanted to be a technologist, so I went to Duke and got a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Really, I thought my goal in life was to be an inventor, a problem solver, so I thought I needed a Ph.D. to be good at inventions, but it turns out that you don't.
Aaron Patzer /
Science
Computer
Computer Science
Electrical
Engineering
Needed
Problem
Turns
Life Good Always
Life Science Good
Degree
Duke
Inventions
Solver
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Before Mint.com, I was a long-time user of 'Microsoft Money' and Intuit's 'Quicken.' Both were powerful tools, loaded with features and functionality around taxes, investment, budgeting - too feature-laden, in fact. They took hours to set up, forever to learn, and an hour a week to maintain.
Aaron Patzer /
Budgeting
Features
Functionality
Investment
Loaded
Microsoft
Tools
Maintain
User
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I wanted to build a tool for my generation: people 20 to 40 who don't want to spend time balancing a checkbook or checking multiple financial institutions' websites. Mint does just that, giving comprehensive, quick insights into a user's finances from their computer, mobile phone and/or tablet.
Aaron Patzer /
Mint
Mobile
Multiple
My Generation
Balancing
Checking
Finances
Insights
Quick
Tablet
Tool
User
Websites
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I've actually started a number of businesses in my career. So I'm 28 currently, but when I was about 16, I started building Websites, and that's how I put myself through school. I went to Duke with a degree in electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and then to Princeton.
Aaron Patzer /
Computer Science
Electrical
Engineering
Princeton
Currently
Businesses
Duke
Websites
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I think sports and bodybuilding were the only things that saved me from getting beat up. People are not pleased, for whatever reason, when you can answer all the questions in class. If not for the respect I got from track, cross-country, wrestling and bodybuilding, it would have been a disaster.
Aaron Patzer /
Bodybuilding
Disaster
Saved
Track
Pleased
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I know it sounds weird, but the food that I eat, it doesn't make a big difference, and it never has. So, I've saved a ton of money not buying a lot of alcohol, not going out to restaurants too much. So, I think it's part of our culture, and it's part of a social activity more than anything else.
Aaron Patzer /
Alcohol
Buying
Restaurants
Saved
Anything Else
Big Difference
More Than Anything
Ton
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The start-up life kept me busy and surfaced the problem of not being able to stay on top of my personal finances, which led me to invent Mint.com. I was working 80-hour weeks, and had done enough preliminary work and research to know I had a big idea: To make money management effortless and automated.
Aaron Patzer /
Busy
Management
Research
Life Work Money
Automated
Big Idea
Weeks
Finances
Invent
Led
Preliminary
Start-Up
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The typical workday, particularly in startup mode, is from nine to six or nine to seven, then you take a two-hour break to work out and eat dinner. By that time, you're relaxed, and then you work until midnight or one A.M. If there was no break with physical activity, you'd be more tired and less alert.
Aaron Patzer /
Activity
Break
Dinner
Midnight
Nine
Physical Activity
Relaxed
Seven
Six
Tired
Typical
Work Out
Alert
Particularly
Mode
Physical
Startup
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I actually don't invest in anything that is social, mobile, deals or ad networks simply because those are areas where there are so many players and so many other smart people in the space, I feel like I don't have a competitive advantage. So I tend to go after things that are e-commerce, like healthcare.
Aaron Patzer /
Space
Advantage
Competitive Advantage
Deals
Healthcare
Mobile
Smart
Smart People
Social
Space People Feel
Ad
Area
Invest
Competitive
Networks
Simply
Tend
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One of my top tips for aspiring entrepreneurs: Tell everyone you know about your idea. This runs contrary to the instinct that most people have, because they're afraid someone is going to 'steal my ideal.' Ideas alone are worth very little; it's in the execution and market feedback that companies are made.
Aaron Patzer /
Contrary
Execution
Feedback
Instinct
Tips
Aspiring
Entrepreneurs
Ideal
Runs
Steal
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One third of the economy goes through 'QuickBooks' in terms of businesses invoicing other businesses. Each invoice contains a connection between vendors, suppliers, and customers, and also the price of that connection. Representing the payment graph is huge opportunity and something no other company can do.
Aaron Patzer /
Customers
Payment
Representing
Suppliers
Vendors
Businesses
Connection
Contains
Graph
Huge Opportunity
Price
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When I was 8 or 9, I started using bulletin board systems, which was the precursor to the Internet, where you'd dial into... a shared system and shared computers. I've had an email address since the late '80s, when I was 8 or 9 years old, and then I got on the Internet in '93 when it was first starting out.
Aaron Patzer /
Computers
Precursor
Board
Dial
Shared
Systems
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Mint's business model became, 'We'll go for free, and then we'll find these savings opportunities for you.' You know, better interest rate on your credit cards, when should you consolidate your student loans, when does it mathematically make sense to refinance your mortgage, and Mint figures all that stuff out for you.
Aaron Patzer /
Cards
Credit
Figures
Mint
Mortgage
Rate
Business Your Better
Business Model
Business Better Your
Consolidate
Credit Cards
Loans
Mathematically
Student Loans
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After building most of Mint.com's prototype by myself, I talked to anyone and everyone I knew about Mint. It's counter-intuitive, because you might fear someone will steal your idea, but it's the only way to make connections, be sure you're on the right track, and provide a solution for an audience broader than yourself.
Aaron Patzer /
Connections
Mint
Prototype
Right Track
Track
Broader
Provide
Solution
Steal
Talked
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I consider myself an inventor first and an entrepreneur second. In real life, my hero is Thomas Edison. He was a great inventor, but also an outstanding entrepreneur who was able to sell his inventions to the masses. He didn't just develop the light bulb; he invented the entire electric grid and power distribution system.
Aaron Patzer /
Distribution
Electric
Entrepreneur
Hero
Light Bulb
Outstanding
Real Life
Life Power Great
Bulb
Edison
Grid
Inventions
Masses
Thomas
Thomas Edison
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The other big factor in building trust quickly is site design quality. Mint.com has one of the best graphic designers ever (Jason Putorti) - he cares about every pixel, all the fonts, all the transparencies and effects. And that shows instantly. People do make judgments of trust on appearance - in the real world and online.
Aaron Patzer /
Design
People
Real
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I'm typically a 'just drink water' kind of guy. I was a bodybuilder in high school, so I used to - food to me was, 'there are this many grams of carbohydrates and proteins, and I need these micronutrients in order to grow and be fit,' and I ate in order to live and not live in order to eat, and I think most people are the opposite.
Aaron Patzer /
Carbohydrates
Food Water Me
Opposite
Ate
Proteins
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Aaron Patzer Quotes - Page 1

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