User Experience = $5 Million per Employee
by petermeOn Monday, it was announced that Mint.com was to be acquired by Intuit for $170 million.
On Tuesday, Aaron Forth, the VP of Product at Mint.com, spoke at UX Week. It was an excellent talk, sharing how Mint is structured to deliver rapid, user-focused innovation (in short: everybody cares about UX + nimble development processes allow for swift iterations). Among the things he mentioned was that Mint.com has 35 employees.
I did some quick math, and then tweeted:
Mint.com has 35 employees. Sold for $170MM. That’s $5MM per. That’s the value of UX. #uxweek
It’s proven to be the most re-tweeted thing I’ve ever written.
Mint.com’s success, much like any web pure-play, is largely dependent on the quality of its user experience. Especially in the realm of personal finances, where people are anxious about their performance, security-conscious, and easily confused by all the abstract terms, fees, and numbers.
Mint’s smart user experience orientation also provided immense leverage. A staff of just 35 has been able to build something robust, sizable, and, for many people, important. I’ve argued elsewhere that a secret of quality of user experience is that it enables businesses to get the most value out of existing, and potentially limited, resources. Mint’s case is a proof point.
Entries (RSS)
September 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
35 people, that’s alot – over three soccer teams. “Just 35″.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Mint looks ace – I take it this means that we’re not going to get this service over in the UK.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:41 am
How many people are on their design/dev team? 5? 9? 15? 20? “35 Employees” is kind of a meaningless data point.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Moot point. Once Intuit gets their hands on Mint, it’s all downhill. $170MM is actually what Mint was willing to accept in exchange for the destruction of their product.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Well, “RP”, that comment wasn’t particularly constructive.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am
And Jess, “design/dev team” is a remarkably narrow-minded view of how product is done. Much of the point of Aaron’s talk is that *everyone* cares about the user, not just a “design/dev team”. “Design/dev team” thinking is what leads to much of the bad web and software experiences out there.