Mint Selling to Intuit for $170 Million

Mint.com, the leader in online personal financial management has just signed an agreement to be purchased by Intuit (makers of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax) for an amount disclosed as “approximately $170 Million” in an Intuit press release.

Intuit’s Quicken Online is a competing free service to Mint.com and users of both services may be wondering “will Quicken Online/Mint remain free?”

Josh Smith, of Wallet Pop cleared that up for everyone in a story released today, quoting Scott Gulbransen of Intuit who assures users that both services are expected to remain free.

Mint.com CEO and founder Aaron Patzer will be joining Intuit as the General Manager of the Personal Finance group where he will be responsible for “online, desktop and mobile consumer personal finance offerings” for the company.

Patzer reported on the Mint.com blog that the sale is good news for Mint users who will gain from Intuit’s size and status as a leader in financial software citing that “by joining Intuit, we can accelerate our ability to add more fantastic new product functionality into both Quicken and Mint."

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.

Since launching two years ago, Mint.com has garnered 1.5 million users and is tracking $200 billion in transactions according to an Intuit press release.

Intuit was founded in 1983 and had an annual revenue of $3.2 billion in FY 2009. They have 7,800 employees worldwide according to their press release.

Intuit Press Release

Mint.com blog Post



Jessica Ward is a freelance writer based in Seattle. She also blogs at The Penny-Wi$e Family and DebtKid.com

Makeover at DebtGoal.com

I posted earlier this month about DebtGoal.com, one of the many up-and-coming financial services companies that will be participating in FINOVATE later this month.

I wanted to let Prosper Lending Review readers that the site has gotten a dramatic face-lift today and is far easier to use and navigate. Data-entry is simpler and the results more useful.

The interface has a much better "Web 2.0 feel" and the charts and tables are relevant and well-placed. Overall, it is intuitive and comfortable.

They are not yet aggregating but that is in the works. I've also suggested a couple of ideas that would be helpful--for instance, flagging recurring transactions. I'm really encouraged by how quickly this company is jumping to implementing user recommendations.

If you haven't checked out DebtGoal.com yet, or if you have and didn't like what you saw, I encourage you to give it another try.

Green Sherpa Review: Personal Cash Flow Management

Ok, I admit it, I choose financial companies to profile based on my level of curiosity from the company’s name. Yes, a classic case of judging a book by its cover.

Unfortunately, with the Green Sherpa book, I’ve not had an opportunity to get past the cover, so will have to write this review solely based on the company’s press kit. A less-than-desirable level of transparency for this blogger, but you might want to know what this funny-named company does too, so I'll share what I've learned so far and fill you in later as I learn more.

I reviewed Green Sherpa’s materials and then tried to log in for the 30-day free trial. I was greeted by the following message:

Thank you for your interest in Green Sherpa and for signing up for our private beta!
We have been overwhelmed by the positive response and are slowly letting users in during our beta phase. Watch out for an e-mail with an activation link over the next few weeks as we activate your account.
The Green Sherpa Team

Well, I’m glad they’re overwhelmed, I guess, but considering how overwhelmed they are, you’d think there would be a little more buzz about them. Here’s what I know (again, almost exclusively from their PR efforts).

Green Sherpa is a fee-based personal cash-flow software. Their target is the serious DIY money-manager age 30 to 55 who currently uses software from a box on a shelf. They believe their continuous improvement cloud-computing model will show the consumer how easy it is to work online vs. downloading and installing software you’ve got to update and upgrade all of the time. Their theory is that this pitch will also help users to shell out their $7.95 monthly subscription fee.

Not updating and buying new software all of the time would sell me if I were in the market for such software. When will Microsoft get the hint and start doing this with Office? I digress….

Green Sherpa offers a few novel approaches that you don’t find in the free web apps like Wasabe and Mint. You can develop goals, and Green Sherpa shows you progress toward your goals. It also shows you cash-flow projections—the month’s “where you’re going” versus the “where you’ve been” information that most of us get from our personal finance reports.

The dashboard is spreadsheet based so should keep happy all of the spreadsheet devotees. Another distinct advantage is that you can share your information “real time” with your financial team (CPA, broker or attorney) without burning reports to disk, or emailing/printing cumbersome PDF reports. It seems like it would also be nice for baby-boomers who're managing their elderly parents' finances, especially if from a long distance.

Green Sherpa debuted September of 2008. It is currently in beta-release. As mentioned before, it is based on monthly subscriber fees of less than $10 per month. A 30 day free trial is offered, but they’re not accepting new subscribers at this time. I’m not sure if this is a capacity issue or an indicator of institutional health. Overall, it’s a great idea, and if it’s as good as advertised, I could see the potential that it may pay for itself in terms of subscriber fees to the user. I’d love to give this a test-drive and hope that we’ll hear more from these guys before the Finovate conference next month.

Jessica Ward is a freelance writer and blogger. She blogs on personal finance, real estate and families living frugally.