User Experience = $5 Million per Employee
On 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.
There are 7 comments on this idea.
35 people, that’s alot - over three soccer teams. “Just 35”.
Mint looks ace - I take it this means that we’re not going to get this service over in the UK.
How many people are on their design/dev team? 5? 9? 15? 20? “35 Employees” is kind of a meaningless data point.
Moot point. Once Intuit gets their hands on Mint, it’s all downhill. $170MM is actually what Mint was willing to accept in exchange for the destruction of their product.
Well, “RP”, that comment wasn’t particularly constructive.
And Jess, “design/dev team” is a remarkably narrow-minded view of how product is done. Much of the point of Aaron’s talk is that *everyone* cares about the user, not just a “design/dev team”. “Design/dev team” thinking is what leads to much of the bad web and software experiences out there.
@peter(6) Spot on! It’s not only that everybody does care at Mint, it’s that they must for something like this to work. The experience a user has with your brand is determined by the weakest link, and even if you have the best marketing team in the world, if the sales team mismanages an order, you get thumbs-down.
That’s also why it’s so incredibly challenging to craft a luxury sports car: The customer doesen’t care about the ingenuity of twin turbo injections, if their Venti Latte Frappucino Matto leBlanco doesen’t fit in the cup holder, the car is a &$X*XX$% piece of §&%-#%$& junk.
Now, $5 Million is amazing. More examples like these please!
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