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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
